@dkmich

but as pro-politician. If they are Democrats, their insanity is pro-Democratic politicians, not pro-Democrat. If they are Republicans, their insanity is pro-Republican politician, not pro-Republicans. Neither Democratic politicians nor Republican politicians are pro-anyone but themselves. It's about votes for them, donations for them and feathering their own nests.

#2.1

They are glommed on to the two-party system. As long as they either stay stuck on one or bounce between them, we can't change anything.

@Cassiodorus that the Democratic Party did not suffer this collapse over the 2009-2016 period because of any great strength of the Republican Party. The Republicans were about to disappear (outside of the South, the Plains states, and Appalachia) in 2009 when the Democrats revived them in 2010.

#2.1 I don't know which of these claims you want to back, but they're all nonsense:

claiming that the left in the US is small or not politically powerful or not well-organized, or whatever else one cares to say about it, for whatever reason.

Five people in a room is not a "small Left," it's a cultural gathering. The "Left" is in fact politically powerful and well-organized in America -- so to say that it's not politically powerful or well-organized is false -- but toward ultimately right-wing ends, all managed by the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party periodically spit out "Left" political candidates and platforms in the primary seasons of the past four decades to maintain the cultural charade, because y'all needed to pretend. Omigod Rainbow Coalition! Omigod Howard Dean Fifty-State Strategy! Omigod OfA! Omigod Justice Democrats!

The fact that all of this organization and political power has been continually disposable points to another reality: a portion of the Democratic Party needs cultural branding, and when it's safe for the elites, when it doesn't count for anything, it doesn't have to be merged with the neoliberal mainstream and is allowed to prolong the advertised promise of some evanescent "something" to you in exchange for your tax dollars, which is promptly retracted once the nice Democrats assume power. When it really counts, however, the "leftists" who want to continue to sound like leftists are ordered to shut up. And, demographically and statistically speaking, they do.

If we are to judge from behavior, and not from advertising pitch, we must therefore call this entity a pseudo-Left, a cultural Left that is in fact a political Right. The psuedo-Left is currently organizing to give us President Pence -- and if this were to happen, in the words of Doug Henwood, the "entire Republican dream agenda would sail through Congress in like three weeks." But that's what the pseudo-Left does. In the same sense, the loyal pseudo-Left just spent eight years supporting a President whose party lost more than 900 legislative seats to the Republicans, in a partisan collapse unprecedented in American history. Phoniness depressed voter turnout, and the pseudo-Left doubled down on it.

People, like me, who say there is a left in America are not being egotistical. We're simply stating a fact, to counter an unqualified statement that the left in the US does not exist at all, which is demonstrably a factually false statement.

If you weren't being egotistical, you wouldn't have used forty-three words to say what eight words would say. Here, let me shorten it up for you: "there is a Left because I say so."

@Cassiodorus

That you think disagreeing with you = egotistical seems ironic, as does your claim that using 43 instead of 8 words = egotistical (but I won't count up the words you've used on that subject since you wrote the essay).

#2.1 I don't know which of these claims you want to back, but they're all nonsense:

claiming that the left in the US is small or not politically powerful or not well-organized, or whatever else one cares to say about it, for whatever reason.

Five people in a room is not a "small Left," it's a cultural gathering. The "Left" is in fact politically powerful and well-organized in America -- so to say that it's not politically powerful or well-organized is false -- but toward ultimately right-wing ends, all managed by the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party periodically spit out "Left" political candidates and platforms in the primary seasons of the past four decades to maintain the cultural charade, because y'all needed to pretend. Omigod Rainbow Coalition! Omigod Howard Dean Fifty-State Strategy! Omigod OfA! Omigod Justice Democrats!

The fact that all of this organization and political power has been continually disposable points to another reality: a portion of the Democratic Party needs cultural branding, and when it's safe for the elites, when it doesn't count for anything, it doesn't have to be merged with the neoliberal mainstream and is allowed to prolong the advertised promise of some evanescent "something" to you in exchange for your tax dollars, which is promptly retracted once the nice Democrats assume power. When it really counts, however, the "leftists" who want to continue to sound like leftists are ordered to shut up. And, demographically and statistically speaking, they do.

If we are to judge from behavior, and not from advertising pitch, we must therefore call this entity a pseudo-Left, a cultural Left that is in fact a political Right. The psuedo-Left is currently organizing to give us President Pence -- and if this were to happen, in the words of Doug Henwood, the "entire Republican dream agenda would sail through Congress in like three weeks." But that's what the pseudo-Left does. In the same sense, the loyal pseudo-Left just spent eight years supporting a President whose party lost more than 900 legislative seats to the Republicans, in a partisan collapse unprecedented in American history. Phoniness depressed voter turnout, and the pseudo-Left doubled down on it.

People, like me, who say there is a left in America are not being egotistical. We're simply stating a fact, to counter an unqualified statement that the left in the US does not exist at all, which is demonstrably a factually false statement.

If you weren't being egotistical, you wouldn't have used forty-three words to say what eight words would say. Here, let me shorten it up for you: "there is a Left because I say so."

@Cassiodorus

are examples of things one MIGHT say that would be factually correct, as opposed to saying there is no left at all in America, which is factually incorrect. There is is no reason to "take back" any example.

#2.1 I don't know which of these claims you want to back, but they're all nonsense:

claiming that the left in the US is small or not politically powerful or not well-organized, or whatever else one cares to say about it, for whatever reason.

Five people in a room is not a "small Left," it's a cultural gathering. The "Left" is in fact politically powerful and well-organized in America -- so to say that it's not politically powerful or well-organized is false -- but toward ultimately right-wing ends, all managed by the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party periodically spit out "Left" political candidates and platforms in the primary seasons of the past four decades to maintain the cultural charade, because y'all needed to pretend. Omigod Rainbow Coalition! Omigod Howard Dean Fifty-State Strategy! Omigod OfA! Omigod Justice Democrats!

The fact that all of this organization and political power has been continually disposable points to another reality: a portion of the Democratic Party needs cultural branding, and when it's safe for the elites, when it doesn't count for anything, it doesn't have to be merged with the neoliberal mainstream and is allowed to prolong the advertised promise of some evanescent "something" to you in exchange for your tax dollars, which is promptly retracted once the nice Democrats assume power. When it really counts, however, the "leftists" who want to continue to sound like leftists are ordered to shut up. And, demographically and statistically speaking, they do.

If we are to judge from behavior, and not from advertising pitch, we must therefore call this entity a pseudo-Left, a cultural Left that is in fact a political Right. The psuedo-Left is currently organizing to give us President Pence -- and if this were to happen, in the words of Doug Henwood, the "entire Republican dream agenda would sail through Congress in like three weeks." But that's what the pseudo-Left does. In the same sense, the loyal pseudo-Left just spent eight years supporting a President whose party lost more than 900 legislative seats to the Republicans, in a partisan collapse unprecedented in American history. Phoniness depressed voter turnout, and the pseudo-Left doubled down on it.

People, like me, who say there is a left in America are not being egotistical. We're simply stating a fact, to counter an unqualified statement that the left in the US does not exist at all, which is demonstrably a factually false statement.

If you weren't being egotistical, you wouldn't have used forty-three words to say what eight words would say. Here, let me shorten it up for you: "there is a Left because I say so."

@eyo

different kinds of things.

For example, I don't know how long the first surgery took, but the follow up surgery was something like 5 hours. That's a long time to be standing and focusing intently on someone's innards.

#7.1 who is there all night and day before your doctor pops in to "check" on you? Nurses. They deserve good wages and bennies, so do doctors, so does everyone. Maybe the banks shouldn't charge so much to get an M.D.? Start there why not.