The Lady in the Green Astroturf Dress

Its alarming to watch the astrorturf (massive free media) celebrity, AOC, steal the clothes of the 50 year old environmental movement and its ten year old Green New Deal. Naive environmentalists are surprised and delighted that the corporate media is actually reporting on the topic, and do not ask the vital questions of why publicity is given and where AOC is taking the discussion.

The media exposure of AOC continues to escalate, approaching Hollywood celebrity levels of obsession.

Netflix has bid $10 M for a documentary that includes AOC.

(Netflix) said it has snapped up ‘Knock Down the House,’ a Sundance award-winning documentary profiling the campaigns of four female progressive candidates, including Ocasio-Cortez, in the 2018 midterm election.

Netflix reportedly paid $10M for campaign documentary featuring Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Remember when Netflix snapped up A Future To Believe In, the documentary about Bernie Sanders? Oh, wait, they didn't. In fact, you can't even find that documentary on Netflix.

There are articles about her facial expression at the SOTU (who cares?). Articles about her IdPol white dress,

The Democratic women were wearing white as a reminder that there are now 102 women in the House,

AOC is not apologizing for her SOTU reaction

and there are articles about her "controversial" green dress:

'democratic socialist' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been dubbed a hypocrite by conservative critics after wearing a designer suit for a photo shoot with construction workers.

'Democratic socialist' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is slammed for being a 'hypocrite' after wearing a $3,500 outfit to pose for a magazine shoot with New York construction workers

Of course, the green dress as an issue is total nonsense - the clothes were props for a photoshoot. However, the fact that a newly seated Congressperson is having a fashion magazine shoot is part of the celebrity madness that surrounds AOC. The only reason I mention her green dress is to bring up the "red dress" scene from the Matrix.

Dialogue:

Morpheus: Were you listening to me Neo? Or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?
Neo: I was…
Morpheus: Look again. Freeze it.
Neo: This…this isn’t the Matrix?
Morpheus: No. It’s another training program designed to teach you one thing. If you are not one of us, you are one of them.

(Here is a longer clip that begins at the important explanation Morpheus gives about "the system" just before the red dress shows up.)

My point is that AOC is a gigantic distraction from the mission of what little is left of the left in the US. She has been manufactured and shoved to the front of the left by the corporate media; and, like a Judas Goat, she is leading any leftists dumb enough to follow her into a kill zone with her completely unrealistic statements and demands - like 100% renewable by 2030 - coupled with her poisonous admixture of identity politics into what used to be a scientific policy debate. She is setting the left up for the Agent Smith gunshot in the clip.

But, wait, there's more.

In addition to being a savant on environmental policy, she has also been given the copyright on explaining how rich people game the system. Wow! No one on the left ever explained this before! She must be so smart. Well, actually, tons of people on the left did; but they weren't given a gigantic microphone by the corporate media. (Note the fake left website origins of the following clips. She is also being treated like royalty at the housebroken socialist website, Jacobin.)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Exposes The Dark Side Of Politics In 5 Incredible Minutes
The freshman lawmaker reveals how easy it is for pols to get rich at your expense.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-campaign-f...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “lightning round” on money in politics goes viral

AOC made a confusing topic easy to understand

The NowThis video, published on Thursday, has been seen more than 13 million times. It is yet another example of Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most high-profile new members of Congress, making headlines and generating buzz.

She’s drawing attention to a topic — campaign finance laws in the US — that many Americans care about but don’t know the specific ins and outs of.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/8/18216884/alexandria-oca...

And, why was she able to give what was clearly a well-rehearsed set piece - complete with the catchy "lightning round" moniker? Because she, as a freshman Congressperson, was awarded a coveted seat on the Banking Subcommittee. Meanwhile, run of the mill leftists have been stiff-armed for that assignment for decades. Nothing to see here, move along.

On the basis of this five minute clip, the media madness has now anointed her as a "threat to Wall St.

Financial Lobbyists Are Scared Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Star Power Will Push Her Ideas into the Mainstream

Isn't it amazing what free publicity can do. You would never know that literally hundreds of qualified economists have been screaming about the bankster takeover of the government since well before the 2008 debacle.

Its impossible to determine what part of AOC's performance art was her own ideas, and what part was spoonfed to her. The only fact available are that one of her economic policy advisors is a well-connected heavyweight from Cornell University, one Robert Hockett. He's so left(sic) that he is Senior Counsel at Westwood Capital, LLC (offices on 5th Avenue, NYC). He also works for The Century Foundation. The Century Foundation has liberal credentials from before WW2, but lately its been captured like a lot of other old left organizations. According to Wikipedia,

The Century Foundation also has supported two task forces that examined homeland security issues after the events of September 11, 2001. The first, chaired by Richard A. Clarke, produced a report, "Defeating the Jihadists: A Blueprint for Action", in 2005. The report assessed the nation's successes and failures on homeland security and, building on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, offered a detailed action plan for neutralizing the international movement at the core of worldwide terrorism.[9] The second task force, co-chaired by Richard Clarke and Randy Beers, produced the report "The Forgotten Homeland" in 2006, in which leading homeland security experts analyze the nation's most significant vulnerabilities and propose strategies to reduce them.[10]

- Wikipedia

Yes, that Richard Clarke

Clarke worked for the State Department during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.[2] In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to chair the Counter-terrorism Security Group and to a seat on the United States National Security Council. President Bill Clinton retained Clarke and in 1998 promoted him to be the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism, the chief counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council. Under President George W. Bush, Clarke initially continued in the same position, but no longer had cabinet-level access. He later was appointed as the Special Advisor to the President on cybersecurity. Clarke left the Bush administration in 2003.

- Wikipedia, Richard Clarke

Well, that's about it for my latest diary on all the blatant "tells" for this fraudulent corporate creation. I've got my fire alarm volume on "11", but most of the populace snoozes on. Better wake up before the fire burns down your house.

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Perhaps she just resonates with a different crowd of thinkers. Maybe people don't want to dive too deeply in to stuff, because a simple life is a happy life. If you can live one, why not. says a devil's advocate

This is a good essay, I like it because I agree with almost every word. But I don't want other people to end up like me, sad lonely granny spinster who can't stop talking about the complexity of systems, disappointed when people can't see what I see. see me feel me touch me heal me

Meet the new fake reality, same as the old fake reality. GOTV

Have a nice day.

up
0 users have voted.
arendt's picture

@eyo

Perhaps she just resonates with a different crowd of thinkers. Maybe people don't want to dive too deeply in to stuff, because a simple life is a happy life. If you can live one, why not. says a devil's advocate.

She has been hand-crafted to appeal to Millenials as part of the Boomer vs Millenial divide- and-conquer war they have been pushing for a decade. In order to sell this war, they have disappeared GenX - people between 45 and 60. Because those folks were present at the destruction of the middle class, and might not fall for this simpleminded (as you say) war of the generations meme.

She is ethnic and urban. She does pouty photoshoots like a rock star. If she does something right, even if many before her have done the same, she is a genius. If she does something wrong, it is put down to her "lack of experience". Hell, this woman is a poster child for lack of experience.

I shall go to my grave fighting for the obvious truth that the world is complicated. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a sucker. I don't think the Millenials are suckers; but they may be cowed by the economic devastation they have lived in their entire lives. Some of them may want the "misery loves company" solution of seeing their grandparents live on cat food in a trailer. That's the "different crowd of thinkers" they are trying to energize.

I hear you about being old and lonely. I am pretty much that, but I would need a lobotomy to swallow the nonsense that passes for the conventional wisdom.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

It's a bit like the corporate media is giving us AOC to adulate over until the big boys decide who will actually win the nomination. Reminds me of those heady days when pictures of our beloved Barack, bare chested and wet from a swim in the ocean, surfaced all over the media while the hearts of Democrats swooned in unison.

For now it's the Marvelous AOC who plays the role of the young and exciting mistress while Kamala Harris plays the role of pragmatically experienced wife we must go home to in the end so we can beat Trump.

Ah, good times...

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

arendt's picture

@Anja Geitz

But, she is more than just someone to swoon over. She is someone who is splintering the left on climate change and what is a viable response to it.

Her message here was predictable. The climate change deniers have spent 30 years saying there is no problem. Even they realize that doesn't pass the smell test anymore. So, they trot out this lightning rod to propose a non-viable solution. Then they trash her and her "solution" and go with all the geo-engineering crap that they have lined up. You know, something like

Well, gee, we fucked up, but don't blame us or fine us. Its too late to do anything about it now. Learn to live with the shitty enviornment. We can sell you, for an obscene, government subsidized profit, all these technological fixes. Its really your only choice.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

@arendt

But, she is more than just someone to swoon over. She is someone who is splintering the left on climate change and what is a viable response to it.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

SnappleBC's picture

I'm afraid I don't go in for hero worship. I didn't for Bernie and I don't for AOC and Tulsi. Because I don't, you're entire article means absolutely nothing to me... nothing at all.

I just read Caitlin's piece from last night which expressed my thoughts on this topic quite well.

Every day in my article comments and social media I get people warning me that this or that journalist, activist or politician is “controlled opposition”, meaning someone who pretends to oppose the establishment while covertly serving it. These warnings usually come after I’ve shared or written about something a dissident figure has said or done, and are usually accompanied by an admonishment not to ever do so again lest I spread their malign influence. If you’ve been involved in any kind of anti-establishment activism for any length of time, you’ve probably encountered this yourself.

Paranoia pervades dissident circles of all sorts, and it’s not entirely without merit, since establishment infiltration of political movements is the norm, not the exception. This article by Truthout documents multiple instances in which movements like the 1968 Chicago DNC protest and Peter Camejo’s 1976 anti-establishment presidential campaign were so heavily infiltrated by opaque government agencies that one out of every six people involved in them were secretly working for the feds. This trend of infiltration is known to have continued into the current day with movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, and we’d be ignorant not to assume that this has been at least as rampant in online circles where people organize and disseminate ideas and information.

So it’s understandable that people are extremely vigilant about prominent figures in dissident circles, and it’s understandable that people feel paranoid. Over and over again we see shining anti-establishment movements fizzle or rendered impotent, often seemingly with the help of people we once trusted, and it’s hard not to get frustrated and become suspicious of anyone who starts shining bright in antiwar, leftist, or other dissident circles.

The trouble with this paranoia and suspicion is that it doesn’t seem to function with any kind of intelligence. I have received such “controlled opposition” warnings about pretty much every prominent dissident figure in the English-speaking world at one time or another, and if I believed them all there’d be no one in the world whose words I could share or write about, including my own. I myself have been accused at different times of being a “plant” for the CIA, the Russians, Assad, the Chinese Communist Party, the Iranian mullahs, the alt-right, Trump, Pyongyang, and the Palestinians, which if all true would make me a very busy girl indeed. Since I know I’m not a plant for anybody, I know for myself that such accusations don’t come from a place of insight with any degree of reliability, and I’ve therefore had to find my own way to navigate this confusing landscape.

So since I know that infiltration and manipulation happens, but I don’t find other people’s whisperings about “controlled opposition” useful, how do I figure out who’s trustworthy and who isn’t? How do I figure out who it’s safe to cite in my work and who to avoid? How do I separate the fool’s gold from the genuine article? The shit from the Shinola?

Here is my answer: I don’t.
How to tell if someone is controlled opposition - Caitlin Johnstone

My concern with your path is that it automatically shoots down anyone who successfully fights on my side. Which, I suppose, leads to my obvious question to you...

What, exactly, would someone working on our side look like? How would you know that they were uncorrupted and would remain so indefinitely?

I like Caitlin's soluution. I don't have enough faith to have faith in anyone in the political sphere. I am, however, willing to take their statements and actions one at a time and decide if those statements and actions support or thwart the establishment narrative. Both Tulsi and AOC are actively thwarting the narrative right now and I am vastly supportive of that. They are, other than Jill Stein, the only games in town and Jill has very little exposure or power.

up
0 users have voted.

A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

arendt's picture

@SnappleBC @SnappleBC @SnappleBC

My concern with your path is that it automatically shoots down anyone who successfully fights on my side. Which, I suppose, leads to my obvious question to you...

What, exactly, would someone working on our side look like? How would you know that they were uncorrupted and would remain so indefinitely?

No. Not "anyone who successfully fights", only anyone who fights with massive favorable media coverage and lots of Establishment advisors.

When Bernie started running, the media ignored him, then trashed him. His advisors were outsiders like Stephanie Kelton, the MMT economist. That's what TPTB reaction to genuine disruption looks like: surprise, denial, anger, smearjobs. (Compare that to AOC's media coverage from day one.) I only stopped supporting Bernie when he caved in.

uncorrupted and would remain so indefinitely?

Again, I just spoke to that. I can't predict the future. I support them until they screw me. But I am selective about whom I support in the first place.

And, I agree, that there is so much money in play from TPTB that its impossible to believe in the integrity of the political system. However, even the facade of a political system is of some value. As long as there is some kind of pushback to the corporate narrative, we are not living in a complete Stalinist dystopia. Of course, this assumes one is aware of the FAANG and their surveilance and censorship.

I don't know what the solution is. I only know that AOC is the opposite of a solution and I'm saying so. I think this is what Caitlin says below what you quoted:

Have no heroes. Trust nobody but your own inner sense-maker. If someone says something that disrupts establishment narratives based on what you understand those narratives to be, go ahead and help throw what they’re saying into the gears of the machine. Don’t make a religion out of it, don’t get attached to it, just use it as a weapon to attack the narrative matrix.

My inner sense tells me that AOC's arguments disrupt the left without damaging TPTB at all. She's too new to have done anything at all. She just gives speeches and gets free publicity. And all those speeches are starting fights between lefties. Meanwhile, her designed- to-be- loathsome-to-the-right "legend" unites the right in opposition to her. Furthermore, her legend and actions validate every rightwing meme about even socialist government dictatorship and entitled illegal aliens. Gee thanks for the disruption. Not.

So, call me when she actually accomplishes something concrete that isn't "chickenfeed" (i.e., harmless or inevitable things that her handlers give her to say to prove her bona fides). Until then, my inner sense screams that she is a complete fraud; and every corporate puff piece about her solidifies that sensation.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

@arendt

Reminds me very much of the free media attention Trump got. In his case, it was HRC and the DNC who wanted the media to "elevate" his campaign so she could run against the worst candidate ever.

In the Marvelous AOC's case, I also smell a concerted manufactured effort on the media's part to elevate her as a candidate too. For what end, I can only speculate. But it isn't for the benefit of the people.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

divineorder's picture

@arendt answering SnappleBC's question rather than angrily reiterating your points.

"What, exactly, would someone working on our side look like? How would you know that they were uncorrupted and would remain so indefinitely? "

up
0 users have voted.

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

arendt's picture

@divineorder

How would you know that they were uncorrupted and would remain so indefinitely?

I've already explained that the highlighted part is bogus. No one can predict the indefinite future. How to tell if someone is "Uncorrupted" has the same meaning as the other part of the question, "on our side".

So your somewhat aggravated question boils down to:

"What, exactly, would someone working on our side look like?

They would have a track record of accomplishments in a non-duopoly, non-Establishment organization. Of course, those organizations get harder to find as TPTB buy their way into every organization out there. For example, the Nature Conservancy:

Nearness to big business

The Nature Conservancy has ties to many large companies, including those in the oil, gas, mining, chemical and agricultural industries.[54] Its board of directors currently includes the retired chairman of Duke Energy, and executives from Merck, HP, Google and several financial industry groups.[55] It also has a Business Council which it describes as a consultative forum that includes Bank of America, BP America, Cargill, Chevron, The Coca-Cola Company, The Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy, General Mills, Royal Dutch Shell, and Starbucks Coffee Company.[56] The organization faced criticism in 2010 from supporters for its refusal to cut ties with BP after the Gulf oil spill.[57][58]

Writer and activist Naomi Klein has strongly criticized The Nature Conservancy for earning money from an oil well on land it controls in Texas.[59] Klein has also criticized The Nature Conservancy and other large environmental NGOs in an article by The Nation for their continued engagement with fossil fuel companies.[60]

- Wikipedia

There are people whom I think are genuine and have something important to say: Namoi Klein, the MMT crowd and Michael Hudson, Cathy O'Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction), Michael Mann (the ecology scientist), Chris Hedges, even the slightly deeply obsessed Paul Craig Roberts. But none of them are running for political office.

At bottom, after 2016, I don't think there is space left in the Democratic Party for genuine leftwing people. Therefore, someone "working for our side" would stand aside from the completely corrupt duopoly political system and say what they had to say with no expectation of personal financial gain or public praise. Anyone telling the truth is going to be roundly crucified, as we saw with OWS, with the pre-sellout Bernie.

I think that Bernie taught TPTB a lesson. Namely, that you can't allow an honest discussion about economics to happen in this country. They want the discussion to be about IdPol, which just gets victims fighting over their pathetic shares of the pie. That's why AOC is the perfect person to derail yet another economics or ecology discussion - because she is going to insert IdPol into it, whether by her words or by people writing about how the brave IdPol lass is fighting for the IdPol victims instead of how she is fighting for all of us.

Sorry, I can't seem to separate the way AOC is being used to manipulate "our side" from defining who is on our side.

up
0 users have voted.
CS in AZ's picture

@divineorder

In the comment you replied to:

When Bernie started running, the media ignored him, then trashed him. His advisors were outsiders like Stephanie Kelton, the MMT economist. That's what TPTB reaction to genuine disruption looks like: surprise, denial, anger, smearjobs. (Compare that to AOC's media coverage from day one.) I only stopped supporting Bernie when he caved in.

uncorrupted and would remain so indefinitely?

Again, I just spoke to that. I can't predict the future. I support them until they screw me. But I am selective about whom I support in the first place.

Again, I just spoke to that. I can't predict the future. I support them until they screw me. But I am selective about whom I support in the first place.

I don’t necessarily agree with everything arendt says here, but he did answer the questions, i.e., at least part of what it would look like is the mass media not elevating that person to instant celebrity status and obsessing over their every move and utterance like they are Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. And you don’t know they won’t change later, no matter what. Support lasts only as long as it continues to be earned and deserved.

That’s my take on what arendt is saying, I hope he’ll correct any misconceptions in my reading.

Personally, I don’t share the crush or excitement that some have for Ocasio-Cortez, but I don’t share the anguish about her that some do. I’ve tuned out most mass media about politicians and political game playing. I take it in small amounts, very selectively. I expect this kind of play from them, so it doesn’t surprise me or really interest me very much.

I’m of the opinion now that all politics is a classic pyramid scheme, designed to fleece people and steal their money. I’m also thinking a lot lately about the metaphor of storm drains, which someone here (I think it was CStMS) posted the other day. The idea that politics and politicians act as storm drains to contain and channel any building up energy among the riff raff, like protests or anger or frustration toward the system.

Channeling that into harmless runnoffs, like working for this party or that person to win an election, or hell, even just make a speech. Say some things that sound good, and many people are happy again. For those who want more, get them excited about and involved in a political campaign. The storm drains channel it all so runs off without doing any harm (to the system).

So AOC is another storm drain, whatever her true beliefs or intentions. IMO.

up
0 users have voted.
arendt's picture

@CS in AZ

at least part of what it would look like is the mass media not elevating that person to instant celebrity status and obsessing over their every move and utterance like they are Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. And you don’t know they won’t change later, no matter what. Support lasts only as long as it continues to be earned and deserved.

That’s my take on what arendt is saying, I hope he’ll correct any misconceptions in my reading.

I don't see any misconceptions.

Storm drains is an interesting metaphor that's new to me. A slightly different angle than "veal pen".

up
0 users have voted.
SnappleBC's picture

@arendt

I just don't find the need to wonder if I "support" her or not. I'm more in support of individual actions. I loved watching her speech on the floor where she read out the corruption scam directly on a mic and camera. Two thumbs up from me for that. Her support of Pelosi I don't make much of. She was never going to get that slot (or any of the things she wants). I saw it as a part of the kabuki theater rather than anything significant. Knowing when to fold 'em seemed credible to me in an imaginary game. I'm very disappointed that she can't seem to find it in herself to say, "We really shouldn't overthrow the government of Venezuela and the official story is so full of holes that it wouldn't even make Swiss cheese."

Honestly, I sincerely doubt there is an answer to be had within the system. I think the empire needs to just go ahead and self-destruct as empires do. I just hope it doesn't take too much of the rest of the world with it. But if there IS any hope within the system it's going to be incrementalism just like this. Sanders brought up some significant counter-narrative points. So has AOC. So has Tulsi Gabbard. The idea that the official narrative is bullshit is getting out there.

I doubt it'll be enough but what else is there to do within the system? I can only push on the highest points I can find and hope for the best. We all know elections are utter bullshit as is our legal system, our regulatory system, and pretty much everything else including our scientific institutions and schools. That's what systemic corruption looks like and it's typically terminal. In our case, it very much looks like both Russia and China have had enough of us and both appear to be substantially more competent. They are both actively engineering a new global economic system that will remove America's ability to do stuff like freeze the assets of another nation.

up
0 users have voted.

A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

https://caucus99percent.com/comment/399067#comment-399067

Look, I don't carry water for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I think you minimize the perceived threat she represents to Capitalist Neo Liberalism as evidenced by the push back she has received, but that's an argument about "perception" not reality.

The reason I talk about her a lot is because that in the universe of contemporary political figures with a Corporatist Media Platform she comes closest to the Economic policies I sympathize with. Not that I think her position is perfect, it leaves a lot to be desired frankly, but I think her goals achievable (indeed necessary) and I'm happy she has legitimized the debate about post Neo Liberal social organization and driven it in a leftward direction. She's not responsible for that of course, however I feel that from Bernie to Liz to AOC we are seeing the beginnings of what could be a change in political and policy direction.

up
0 users have voted.
arendt's picture

@ek hornbeck

There are very many people here who have just walked away from the media-approved duopoly political system. Many of us think the whole thing is nothing but a vast, diverting entertainment to keep us proles occupied while Wall St. continues to loot and the MIC completes its build out of a high tech police state.

Utterly conventional people like Elizabeth Warren are not going to break through what we are up against. Sorry to be repetitive, but AOC is just another distracting and divisive-to-the-left narrative. Gabbard is a loose cannon. She's interesting, but, again, hardly likely to break thru the duopoly narrative.

Me, I'm going to vote anybody but the duopoly just to say I voted; then I'm going to try to simplify my life to the point where I can survive the coming financial collapse. Its only after the deliberate demolition of America as a First World country that there might be a chance for genuine politics as opposed to today's manipulation. Its only when there is "bipartisan" Yellow Vest movement in America that isn't instantly shot to pieces by the militarized police that there will be real politics in this country.

As far as I'm concerned Thelma (GOP) and Louise (corpo Dems) have driven America over the cliff, and were just waiting for the smash at the bottom.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

@arendt

Face the brutal reality as you've succinctly outlined? Nah. Much easier to tip windmills over, or imagine oneself preparing for a David and Goliath battle. Which is why I suspect so many people continue to saddle up to the veal pen again and again. The other option, ironically, just seems too bleak.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

arendt's picture

@Anja Geitz

but I will have had a few years to get used to the idea of the US as a has-been nation, a nation that was looted, polluted, and abandoned while all the suckers kept falling for the lies that we are "exceptional" even as the 99% was pushed over the edge financially. The suckers are in for a rude awakening, and I want to be positioned some place safe to ride out the madness.

There's an old Buddhist trope that I misremember. Something like how enlightenment resembles being at the top of a high mountain pass and looking back at where you came from for the last time, knowing that once you start down the other side your old life is over.

I've been standing at that pass since 2016, looking back at America as a democracy, New Deal America, Great Society America. I really need to get started down the other side of the pass, enlightened or not.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

@arendt

I "fight" the battle locally, in my neighborhood, creating value through a food coop and a community garden. I also hold "mindfulness" get togethers with my neighbors where we chant and meditate and do activities to enliven the spirit in togetherness. The responses I get are very positive. It helps combat the evil that is going on in the world around me. My sanctuary, if you will.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

divineorder's picture

Hide' . Old song just came to mind reading about heading down from the pass. Sorry.

Do you have good link for me to see evidence Acasio-Cortez is breaking up the climate change left? Thanks.

up
0 users have voted.

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

divineorder's picture

@divineorder to put in that comment.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-02-01/lets-say-i-wanted-to-escap...

up
0 users have voted.

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

arendt's picture

@divineorder

I had seen it, but others should too.

up
0 users have voted.
arendt's picture

@divineorder

Do you have good link for me to see evidence Acasio-Cortez is breaking up the climate change left? Thanks.

The only coverage I found that was vaguely impartial was here:

How the Green New Deal Almost Went Nuclear on Its First Day

Of course, Bloomberg is no friend of the left, and a hardcore neolib. But, this is the spin that even the "neutral" (non-Fox/CNN) media are putting on this. Any article that heavily quotes Obama's energy secretary is a joke to me anyway.

I just haven't had time to track the entire universe of ecologically aware websites. All I got was that she basically presented her chin to the rightwing with a pile of socialist and IdPol tropes (not to mention a glaring typo that should have been caught: "all people unwilling to work".) Tropes that she didn't clear with people she claims to be in sympathy with.

up
0 users have voted.
divineorder's picture

@arendt spintering the left. Sorry to persist on this but have seen no evidence of thus, thought for sure you must have.

up
0 users have voted.

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

arendt's picture

@divineorder

display strong message discipline. There is no hierarchical leadership. Just a bunch of organizations with their own goals. This is apparent from the Bloomberg article:

Opposition on the left emerged over the plan’s failure to eventually ban fossil fuels, the leading source of the carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming.

Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica praised the resolution as “a good first step,” but said it was incomplete. “By failing to expressly call for an end of the fossil fuel era, the resolution misses an opportunity to define the scope of the challenge,” Pica said.
Fact Sheet

The Green Party faulted the omission: “We cannot begin from a position of compromise.”

After the dust-up on nuclear power, Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, said a new fact sheet was being prepared.

So, it seems that the environmentalists already being cacophanous makes it hard to prove that AOC's proposal has divided them further. On the other hand, it also makes it hard to prove she hasn't.

Still, I am willing to acknowledge there is no single smoking gun here, just the normal about of spitballs flying about.

up
0 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

The right person at right place at the right time.

That's all it is.

In the Matrix, they were waiting for the One. Perhaps it is as simple as that.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

'Greenwashing the Climate Catastrophe':

“Modern business must have its finger continuously on the public pulse. It must understand the changes in the public mind and be prepared to interpret itself fairly and eloquently to changing opinion.”

― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda, 1928

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

i'll agree that she's No Threat to the Lords of Capital if we read the fine print. i'll add one fun tweet that i'm not going to use in my next diary on her and her Green Capitalism Aglow diary.

but nope, with her and her rocket-sproket cornell dude at the wheel, van jones lovin' her to bits...she actually is a gift to the ruling class. where i do partially disagree with you is that there's any meaningful 'left' environmental movement save true 'ecosocialists', and those in amerika are much like ocasio, and are praising the Deal. but i'll keep digging. even greenpeace and earth firsters seem to have small quibbles, dagnabbit.

nope, you can't get away from photos and articles about her, even on flipping sputnik! i'm thinking more 'Spellbound' than 'on lsd', though. acid caused one to see the inter-connectedness of all beings on the planet, yanno, including rocks, trees, and water. or at least for most of us who'd been searching for...what do i call it? Oneness with the Universe? i dunno, maybe that.

anyhoo, good job.

on later edit: ooops, sorry; i hadn't known you're an amigo, not an amiga.

up
0 users have voted.
Big Al's picture

much, some of us here should be allowed to not like her. If not, think of the implications. Although I do realize that some of us not liking her, and showing that with criticism, is greatly inhibiting her and the duopoly from moving forward to solve the country's and world's problems. Such is our power.

Relative to the primary problem, same as it was/is with Bernie, the democratic/republican party.

up
0 users have voted.
divineorder's picture

@Big Al

"some of us here should be allowed to not like her. "

up
0 users have voted.

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Big Al's picture

@divineorder
Never mind.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

@Big Al

Isn't a red flag, I can't imagine what is.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier