An Hispanic Amity Shlaes

I was out of town when AOC did her latest IdPol damage, saying the New Deal was "extremely racist". But, even though its late, I felt compelled to speak to it. Here's the pertinent quote from an interview at SXSW:

'The New Deal was an extremely economically racist policy that drew little red lines around black and brown communities and it invested in white America,' the Democratic socialist said during her interview on Saturday evening. 

'It allowed white Americans access to home loans that black Americans didn't have access to, giving them access to the greatest source of intergenerational wealth.' 
 
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6793601/Conservatives-outrage-A...

AOC said this in a discussion of her version of the Green New Deal. To drag in racism deliberately mixes economics, environmentalism, and Identity Politics, thereby making scientific discussion of the environment more difficult and detrimentally entangling climate change, which is a scientific reality, with unreconcilable social problems.

There has already been some c99p reaction to this latest damaging stunt - a move that sets progressives fighting among themselves while simultaneously validating a reactionary trope about FDR.

As k9disc said:

I know the New Deal was designed and implemented with preferential treatment for white people, but what wasn't in America? The New Deal was no more racist than America at the time, the American Military, Local and State Governments.

To call it a "racist deal" is to completely miss the point and to sully the idea of government doing New Deal type things for ALL Americans... And there it is... the dog whistle, amirite or what?

As a leftist, you don't shit on the New Deal as racist. It's a class/race short circuit argument. I find that to be rather troubling coming from "the left". I'm sensing lots of market based solutions coming out of AOC. And don't forget the public private partnerships...

https://caucus99percent.com/comment/405505#comment-405505

If anything, FDR (and Eleanor) advanced the cause of black civil rights during a very dark period in American racial history when Southern racists had veto power in the Democratic Party. To denounce FDR with a common epithet (racism) is a hypocritical cheapshot - a cheapshot that reactionary politicians (racists themselves) have been using for decades.

Critics of the New Deal, eager to use any method they can to discredit the idea of a government that helps the people (ultimately, in an effort to keep tax rates low on their millionaire & billionaire donors), sometimes argue that Roosevelt and the New Deal were racist. See, for example, "Why Did FDR's New Deal Harm Blacks?," by Jim Powell of the right-wing CATO Institute (an organization founded by one of the Koch brothers...of course), December 3, 2003.

I don't think it can be disputed that Roosevelt and the New Deal had some racial aspects. But is that really surprising, considering that our entire country has been immersed in racism--from the time the first English colonist set foot in the New World, until today when, for example, a Republican U.S. Senator says, "My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes"? Indeed, if Roosevelt had said, during his 1932 campaign, "If I am elected president, I will ensure that all races are treated equally, and I will, by law if necessary, ensure that segregation between the races is ended; the South will be put in it's place, once and for all," he would never have been elected president. And if he had said something like that during his presidency (and followed up with the necessary actions) he would never have been re-elected.

The fact of the matter is, FDR and the New Deal had to tread softly because much of America was not ready for racial integration and harmony. Indeed, communist and socialist parties in the United States, during the early twentieth century, pushed for racial equality...and you see how far that got them. Our nation has been so steeped in racism for so long that it is unreasonable to expect that FDR and the New Deal could have ended it in just a few years. Heck, even one of our national icons, John Wayne, a man who was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 1979, said in 1971, "I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility" ("John Wayne vs. John Wayne," The Dallas Morning News, May 23, 2014, citing a Playboy interview).

http://nddaily.blogspot.com/2015/01/fdr-new-deal-and-racism.html

Objectively, AOC's words support the rightwing trashing of the New Deal. Full stop. To bring up the New Deal in such a negative IdPol manner when this may be the first time that today's 20 somethings have ever heard of the New Deal is disgusting. It is scoring IdPol points by smearing FDR for being caged within the political boundaries of 1930s America and ignoring his efforts cited in the New Deal blog.

AOC is already a "reverse ace" for the progressive movement.

1. In an unforced error, she praised John Warmonger McCain
2. She instantly signed on to the Russiagate delusion.
3. She has waffled several times about the US assault on Venezuela, instead of telling the truth.
4. Her Green New Deal (GND), a half-baked pile of grandstanding, validated the rightwing trope that progressives want the government to dictate to the economy - even as the GND proposed to hand unprecedented power over to private corporations.
5. Now, she has the chutzpah to throw shade at FDR, a Democrat who singlehandedly saved this country.

That's really impressive. From nobody in June, 2018 to reverse ace just 9 months later.

This (scripted?) behavior is why she is never really assaulted at by the corporate media, except in a guaranteed-to-miss way. They don't want to shut her up, the way they want to shut up Ilhan Omar, who is actually telling the unvarnished truth about Israel and about Obama.

In fact, AOC has a lot in common with Amity Shlaes.

Amity Shlaes is a journalist who writes for far, far too many respected publications...Shlaes is hailed as an "expert" in history and economics, although she holds only a BA in English.

She is also a minor darling of conservative media, and a professional Panglossian. She...rocketed to lesser stardom with her 2007 book, The Forgotten Man, a revisionist history of the Great Depression that made her the queen of New Deal denialism. ..

Shlaes is responsible for elevating the myth that "FDR made the Depression worse" from fringe, libertarian circles to Republican dogma in the past few years. Incidentally, back in the 50s, Dwight Eisenhower actually referred to those who opposed the New Deal as "stupid."

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Amity_Shlaes

The commonalities: they both shoot their mouths off about stuff they are unqualified to pronounce upon. They both are media darlings, despite their lack of experience or credientials. They both shat upon FDR and the New Deal.

----

I have long since made my mind up about AOC. She is a corporate psyop. This latest assault on the legacy of economic progressivism is completely consistent with her M.O. The media supports her by publicizing her damaging IdPol statements - thereby crowding out class based analysis - and never really going to the mat with her, the way they have done with Omar or Bernie or Tulsi. They use her to discredit progressives. The dupes who fall for this act are hammering nails into the coffin of the left in this country.

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wendy davis's picture

@bobswern

her wiki entry: "Ocasio-Cortez majored in international relations and economics at Boston University, graduating cum laude in 2011.

she’d also mentioned that she’d interned for ted kennedy when she tweeted her glowing tribute to john mccain after he died (as had bernie sanders) .

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wendy davis's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger

and hooray! and all in a nutshell; thank you, amigo. i doff my cap to you.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@wendy davis

Think I need a new sig.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

wendy davis's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger

i don't have one, but yours i'll honor. and ooof, my favorite tankies on twitter finally got wind of ocasio et.al.'s 'letter to mob boss pompeo', bashing the shite out of maduro, then asking him not to intervene militarily unless congress or the UN mandates it. gawd's blood. when she burst upon the scene, it was shouted from the rootops: "And she has a peace plan!" then swiftly voted aye on the defense of nato law. jeebus, frauds abound.

g'night, amigo.

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arendt's picture

@wendy davis

It is another piece of evidence for my claim.

Thanks for finding it. I don't use social media (unless c99p counts as such).

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wendy davis's picture

@arendt

followed by potemkin virtue signaling;

https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-khanna-leads-progr...

scroll down for the actual factual text of the letter to sec state pompeo, including these bits criminalizing maduro:

"According to the United Nations, at least 3 million Venezuelans have fled the country because of the ongoing economic crisis. We strongly condemn the Maduro government's actions, including repression of Venezuelan civil society, failed economic policy, the killing of unarmed protestors, disregard for the rule of law, the holding of unfair elections, and blocking humanitarian aid from entering the country.

"According to the United Nations, at least 3 million Venezuelans have fled the country because of the ongoing economic crisis."

"The Venezuelan government's own economic mismanagement and misguided economic policies are in large part to blame for the horrific economic crisis that has unfolded in the country. Yet today Venezuelan government officials can claim that the U.S. is waging an economic war and laying groundwork for direct confrontation, which threatens chaos and mass migration from Venezuela that will be felt throughout the region. The sanctions are already hurting ordinary people and contributing to the ongoing outbound migration of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, which could also result in a dramatic increase in refugees to the U.S."

fuck all the signatories, but this was the icing on the cake, as far as i'm concerned:

"Further, threats and involvement in Venezuela's domestic affairs by the U.S. are counterproductive as they play into the Venezuelan government's narrative that the opposition is a proxy for the U.S. These actions help shore up Maduro's support base and take attention away from urgent domestic issues."

well, of course, asshat; the evil troika is a proxy for the US: bolton, rubio, and eliott abrams. (if we add guaido, what's a foursome? tee-offf time?)

i'd seen the 'dear colleagues' letter online trying to drum up signatories, but it wasn't clear if all the names on the sidebar had alread signed on or not; seems so.

how 'socialst and progressive, no? (please hear me growl and gnash my teeth...)

really it amounts to: 'we don't so much mind an r2p intervention, but congress or the UN must dictate it".

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Wink's picture

"carefully crafted image??"
@Not Henry Kissinger

She praised John McCain, and spanked FDR's New Deal,
so that automatically puts her on the "Real Progressives" $h!t list.

whatevs...

Give me 130 more AOCs.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@Wink

Give me 130 more AOCs.

Come on, Wink.

I would have thought eight years of Obama would have taught you how they play this game.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

arendt's picture

@wokkamile

Some interesting comments by arendt, but AOC is young, has only been out there a few months

Nobody is whining for 0.56% purity. More like they are hurting from one anti-progressive stunt/gaffe/stance after another. Her "purity is more like 20% than 99%.

The disconnect that bothers many here is how the corporate media broadcast her everyword, despite her youth and inexperience. You might argue she is publicized without slander because she draws eyeballs. But that didn't work for Bernie in early 2016 (total blackout, followed by the Bernie Bros slams) and its not working for Tulsi today (constant slams on her visit to Syria). AOC is publicized because TPTB want her to be.

This is the fifth essay I have written about AOC since last June. The trail of evidence is there for anyone not in total denial. She is a corporate creature. Her mission is to hijack the progressive movement and turn it into yet another failed IdPol whinefest.

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@arendt If she really is just a front for the Corporate Powers, wouldn't they have gone all out for her in the local NY mainstream media during her race? It's my understanding (not a NYite, didn't follow her race) that the NY print media largely ignored her. Odd that the media wouldn't have primed the pump a bit.

Another possible reason for her comments occurs to me: She was playing that old game that Dem pols especially like to play, allowing themselves to play from a defensive mode, showing how reasonable and fair-minded and non-party hack and tough they can be by criticizing one of their sainted own. With her harsh comments about St Ronnie's Welfare Queenery, maybe she felt they were a little strong and needed to be balanced with some St Frank bashing.

Hey, it's my speculation, but it still strikes me as a little more likely than the deceptive frontwoman argument. I plan to be in touch with the AOC office in the next few days and will run a few things up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. Cheers.

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arendt's picture

@wokkamile

If she really is just a front for the Corporate Powers, wouldn't they have gone all out for her in the local NY mainstream media during her race?

How would they spin that? "I'm a socialist with a tiny income, and these corporations have generously decided to fund my campaign with free advertising."

OTOH, name me one other no-name candidate who got to be on Stephen Colbert's show the night before the primary election. That was about as blatant as they dared to get.

They keep trying to pretend that she is independent and feisty when she gets all this free media. Corporations do not give free media to their enemies.

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@arendt as usual. They would just promote her by pushing the angles of under-30 lefty political neophyte bartender w/shoestring budget trying to unseat a powerful 10-term congressman. Several compelling stories right there.

Agree that the Colbert appearance tends to cut against my argument, but I did specify local print media non-coverage. Would be interesting to see any polling which showed a huge boost for her following that show. But in any case, I doubt if TPTB would want to wait for a last-minute appearance late-night to turn the tide. They would have arranged well ahead of that to help create a tidal wave of goodwill for her, all hands on deck, using all media means at their substantial disposal.

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@arendt

...are Fox, Time Warner/CNN, etc., etc. She IS a creature of the media, just like so many others. But, make no mistake about it, AOC's getting the shit kicked out of her--to some extent, to her face, but mostly behind her back--when the cameras aren't around. It's "the way things (in D.C.) work!"

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

snoopydawg's picture

@arendt

heard about even though they have been in congress for more than a few years. They certainly didn't get the media attention that AOC got and continues to get. Then there's how she was introduced to us. A bartender who ran for congress to beat one of the most powerful members who had been in there for decades. Then I find out that she previously used to intern for some bigwig democrat and some other history. Not the little bartender that came out of nowhere.

So yeah she is someone to watch carefully. I like some of the things she says, but Tulsi and Omar are saying things that take the blinders of what's happening.

Here's Tulsi saying that the CIA armed Al Qaida to overthrow Assad. How many people just learned that last night?

She missed one thing, but I understand why she didn't push it.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Deja's picture

@snoopydawg
. . . to say that Assad "gassed his people". He said it at least twice. She skipped over it, but he pressed her. She caved. She also referred to him as a dictator, so she kept to the dem warlord script, but of course got applause for other things. I learned she works with DHS. Yuck.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Deja

She missed one thing, but I understand why she didn't push it.

I saw that she skipped over the Assad gasses his people, but I think if she had said that then people would think that she was an Assad apologists. She will have to choose which battles she wants to win. I have no horses in the race, but anyone who exposes our sins gets a brownie point from me.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Wink's picture

All one and the same.

@snoopydawg

Have known for some time now,
not that big a secret.

If the MIC needs a conflict, and they Always
need a conflict, they also need an enemy.
What to do??
Create one!! simple as that.

Venezuela a great example of "how it's done."

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

As a politician, there really is not much she can accomplish except through agitation. So long as Schumer and Pelosi are in charge (along with senior party leadership), there is no way any of of the "social democratic" policies will be implemented.

I saw clips of AOC on Colbert and The View and she did an great job in explaining social democratic policies. I saw a clip of her on The Daily Show, and Noah tried to slam her with right wing talking points, but did not seem particularly effective. (I don't have a TV so only see clips.)

AOC is what I would call more an "ideological warrior" than an effective lawmaker.

That being said, her bringing in identity politics is not going to be helpful. Her claim about FDR makes it seem that the New Deal was born in a cradle of racism is extremely stupid politics. In fact, just a simple search reveals interpretations that is more class based (without realizing it). There was not a total ban on black people when social security first started--it was more based on job types, and those jobs could from one angle representing the lumpen proletariat. And by the early 1950's all those restrictions were gone. So for some 65 years now , black people have been covered by social security.

A second look at Social Security’s racist origins

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Shahryar's picture

so I'll wait until I read it or see it somewhere else. I don't find Sebastian Gorka's opinion worthwhile. But he's outraged! outraged! that Ocasio-Cortez would slam the New Deal!

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Wally's picture

@Shahryar Are you telling me that Gorka and arendt are in agreement?

Or is the right picking up on the critique of some leftists(?) and facetiously applying it to deride her?

Wow! Politics is getting weirder and weirder:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM]

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arendt's picture

@Wally

IOW, Just because people agree about one thing does not mean we agree about all, or even many things.

I appreciate the point you are making; but this kind of associative reasoning is the road to perdition, if not McCarthyism. Most US people are reasoning challenged enough without playing these kinds of high school debating games.

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Wally's picture

@arendt

I feel much the same way about you comparing AOC at the age of 29 and three months into office
to Amity Shlaes.

So what's your game plan? Short game, long game? Ya really think there's the possibility of a long game at this point?

Just watch the empire crumble and do what you can to expedite it?

I very personally experienced the end of the Soviet empire. I really don't think anything similar is going to happen to the US. If anything, I'm anticipating and dreading the exact opposite. Or alternatively, the destruction of the human race and the planet.

So rather than wallow or relish in cynicism, I'm gonna opt to hope and work so that Bernie might at least throw a monkey wrench into the madness.

Otherwise, I'm just gonna:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M&t=2s]

But hey, have a nice evening!

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arendt's picture

@Wally

I have several scientist friends who told me about living on sausage and beer, selling their posessions, etc. It was a very rough time.

I very personally experienced the end of the Soviet empire. I really don't think anything similar is going to happen to the US. If anything, I'm anticipating and dreading the exact opposite. Or alternatively, the destruction of the human race and the planet.

If you're Russian, you must be familiar with Dmitri Orlov and his collapse blog. He argues that our crash will be much worse because Russians were much closer to reality, whereas most Americans can't boil water without a microwave. They don't know how to fix things, they don't know how to grow their own food. In case of a mere economic collapse, Orlov predicts absolute chaos. Of course our PTB would rather nuke the planet than admit their economics is nothing but looting.

So what's your game plan? Short game, long game? Ya really think there's the possibility of a long game at this point?

Just watch the empire crumble and do what you can to expedite it?

At this point, all one can do is wait. The political system is a corrupt duopoly. The media is rolling out censorship. Anyone who gets out of line is met with militarized police and jungles that pass for prisons. If you've got an alternative to that, please clue me in.

From where I sit, the US looks like the 1980s Soviet Union. Gerontocratic leadership that won't let go. A "they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work." attitude that is an understandable response to the corporate precarity. An economy that is about to hit the skids (again), only this time there are no buffers, like their were in 2008. This time the crash will have teeth; and the elites will simply let the country burn. They don't care. They've already cashed out.

Its only at that point that there is a chance to act politically. So, until then, I try to educate others about the sneaky way we are currently managed. (We aren't governed. We are managed, like a bunch of chickens in a chicken farm.) Part of that education is to explain to people that TPTB have immense propaganda resources. And creating a fake leader out of thin air is easy to do. Look at all the examples where the US has created a puppet leader in the third world over the last fifty years. They know how to do it. And now they need to do it in the US, because the proles are getting unmanagable. (Bernie really spooked them.)

So, yes, I intend to wait for the empire to collapse, because I do not want to end up in one of our hellhole jails or have my pitiful life savings confiscated for some bullshit charge. But its not passive waiting.

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Wally's picture

@arendt @arendt My connection with the Soviet Union was not within it but rather in and vis-a-vis relatives remaining in a satellite then independent state. But rather than dwell on that, my point was primarily to point out that I really can't imagine that kind of econimc crash happening in the US nor even in terms of US economic and political hegemony being effectively challenged beyond our borders. The US will continue to suck the world dry unless there is some political success in monkey wrenching all that greed and corruption. I'm not optimistic that Bernie can pull it off this time around but if he doesn't, I don't see much hope. I just don;t see another window of opportunity within the span of the 2o20's and in that time span or soon thereafter I'll be dead (if we all aren't killed off sooner). My sense is that we should all try to pull together even if it's for the last time in the face of almost certain defeat. Given the dire circumstances confronting us, it just doesn't make sense to me to just wait or even cheer and egg on collapse of the US empire. We're living in a world menaced by nuclear weapons and escalating tensions compounded by the short window we have to avoid the certainty of catastrophic climate change down the road. So it bothers me when I come across quite a few folks on this forum ranking on the very few class conscious representatives who have managed to get elected despite tremendous odds against them including AOC. Only 16 congressmen and women signed on against military action in Venezuela, where our embassy officials have today been withdrawn. AOC was one of those 16, so no matter what she said that maligned the New Deal, I still think there's much decency in her and a lot more than in the 200 plus other reps who seem intent on war or destructive sabotage. It's late, I'm tired but I figured I owed you some kind of response even though at this point it seems I'm just repeating myself and rambling.

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@Wally indeed and they deserve our support. I managed to watch most of her SXSW interview and I saw an intelligent, thoughtful and well-spoken young woman who handled a number of questions well, often in depth, with a minimum of weasely pol-speak. I didn't detect her being "scripted" nor insincere, putting on a fraudulent front, nor was this open forum one of those heavily produced CNN Town Hall affairs where the questions are carefully selected and many politically involved questioners are not identified as such. From what I saw, it was a wide-open Q&A with the public and she handled it like a pro.

Her pointed and well-deserved remarks about Reagan riling up racial tensions in this country for political gain -- which I don't believe have been noted so far in the many posts here -- were remarkable. How many timid Dem pols in recent times have gone after St Ronnie so directly? They are afraid to go there. Major points to AOC for her candor and courage.

We need more of her. The deep dark conspiracy theory being offered in this thread is way off the deep end.

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@wokkamile

I've been following AOC for a number of months and I think the sh!tstorm she raised in the establishment is a wonder to behold. In her short tenure she has us talking about things that were unheard of in this century. She has the audacity to question so many of the sacred cows... Reagan, Obama, Pelosi, the DNC.

Perhaps her motives might be suspect but the result is worth pursuing. The GND has gone nowhere in the last 10 years, M4A was dying on the altar of the ACA, much of it because of the tepid support from the Pelosi crowd. And even now her insistence that no progress can be made unless it has her support.

As long as she is pushing in a very progressive direction I'm all for her. And along the way we might invest in some fainting couches for the conservative crowd (and the DNC struggling to maintain the status quo).

In any case I found an article in the Yahoo snooze by Andrew Romano that painted a much different picture from the one in the Mail. https://news.yahoo.com/ronald-reagan-racist-ocasio-cortez-didnt-say-that...

...before the latest episode in America’s ongoing AOC melodrama concludes, it’s worth pausing to consider what it says about a larger problem in our politics. More than anything else — an example of how an emboldened Ocasio-Cortez is willing to criticize a Republican hero whose legacy even Barack Obama was reluctant to challenge; a case study in how conservative media outlets are gleefully demonizing the freshman congresswoman in order to drive traffic — the Reagan flap reveals how the left and the right talk about race today, and why they always seem to be talking past each other.

The difference between the two sides is simple but stark. The left believes policies — and the tactics used to promote them — can be racist. In contrast, the right seems to believe, or to choose to believe, that only people can be racist.

IOW, a progressive who cares about what is going on things of many things in terms of adjectives while the other side thinks more in terms of nouns. My wife has a hard time dealing with the fact that I am a "what" person, not a "who" person. I see the actions first and the actor second.

whenever Democrats use “racist” as an adjective — to describe a policy or a tactic — Republicans choose to hear it as a noun. This miscommunication has big implications for race in America. For AOC, and for the left generally, the whole point is that politicians being literal racists is not the only way race can affect politics. Instead, they say, policies themselves can perpetuate systemic racial inequality regardless of how their proponents feel about people of color. Race can also play into how those policies are promoted....
As if to prove this point, Ocasio-Cortez spoke at SXSW about how, even though “we act as if the New Deal wasn’t racist,” it was in fact “an extremely economically racist policy that drew literal red lines around black and brown communities” and “allowed white Americans to have access to home loans that black and brown Americans did not have access to, giving them the largest form of intergenerational wealth, which is real estate.”...
In the end, acting as if only people can be racist serves to shut down a conversation about racial progress before it’s even begun. Arguing about who is or isn’t a bigot inevitably — perhaps even deliberately — leads nowhere; it’s an easy excuse to mount your high horse, stir anger among supporters who resent being called racists by proxy, and preserve the polarized status quo. Arguing about which policies are racist, on the other hand, is a much more challenging proposition. It also happens to be the only path that can lead to real change.

Conservatives are very literal. Nuance escapes them. And so often the establishment status quo paints these important issues in a way that plays to the literalness. We must be careful not to play into that caricature and start debating the who rather than the what.

It isn't as if the future of the planet and our democracy is at stake.

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Wink's picture

@exindy

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Wink's picture

@wokkamile

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

arendt's picture

@Wally

It's late, I'm tired but I figured I owed you some kind of response even though at this point it seems I'm just repeating myself and rambling.

Thanks for your lengthy response. I did not find it rambling or repetitive. I appreciate that you stayed up late to make it.

my point was primarily to point out that I really can't imagine that kind of econimc crash happening in the US nor even in terms of US economic and political hegemony being effectively challenged beyond our borders. The US will continue to suck the world dry unless there is some political success in monkey wrenching all that greed and corruption.

I think that Trump's blatant use of secondary economic sanctions (you, Germany, can't do business with Iran because we, the US, say so.) is driving the world to abandon the dollar. The Chinese petro-yuan is heavily cutting into dollar-denominated oil sales. The US posturing and moving troops onto Russian/Chinese borders is incentivizing those countries to cut ties to the dollar.

Bottom line: US economic hegemony is being challenged more each day. The US economy is a hollow shell papered over with financial games. Real work is increasingly viewed as a mugs game. Boeing is a great example. It was merged with McDonnell Douglas, and a Wall St. friendly board was installed. They instantly changed the culture from making planes to making bucks. The result is the 737 MAX8 debacle.

I'm not optimistic that Bernie can pull it off this time around but if he doesn't, I don't see much hope. I just don;t see another window of opportunity within the span of the 2o20's and in that time span or soon thereafter I'll be dead (if we all aren't killed off sooner).

If I thought politics still functioned, I would help Bernie out - volunteer or something. I mean, his message that he can't do it alone, that people need to act directly, is absolutely essential. Of course, TPTB want him offstage. They are pushing the hideous, corrupt Joe Biden. I may throw him $27 just for the discomfort he causes TPTB.

Like you, I will be out of lifespan by 2030; and it is so sad to go out watching a great country being burned to the ground by a pack of sociopathic grifters.

My sense is that we should all try to pull together even if it's for the last time in the face of almost certain defeat. Given the dire circumstances confronting us, it just doesn't make sense to me to just wait or even cheer and egg on collapse of the US empire. We're living in a world menaced by nuclear weapons and escalating tensions compounded by the short window we have to avoid the certainty of catastrophic climate change down the road.

I think its naive to think TPTB will allow us to "pull together". They are masters of sabotage. Think COINTELPRO. They put their agents into organizations, and those agents wreck the solidarity with proposals that divide the organization. Pulling together requires some counter-intelligence. That's what I'm doing with my AOC monitoring.

So it bothers me when I come across quite a few folks on this forum ranking on the very few class conscious representatives who have managed to get elected despite tremendous odds against them including AOC.

I do not get that AOC is "class conscious". My whole point is that she is using IdPol to undermine class consciousness, and to entangle a scientific debate about climate change in a centuries old societal conflict.

Only 16 congressmen and women signed on against military action in Venezuela, where our embassy officials have today been withdrawn. AOC was one of those 16, so no matter what she said that maligned the New Deal, I still think there's much decency in her and a lot more than in the 200 plus other reps who seem intent on war or destructive sabotage.

I haven't validated the following yet, and the source is kindy iffy; but it is consistent with her pattern:

my favorite tankies on twitter finally got wind of ocasio et.al.'s 'letter to mob boss pompeo', bashing the shite out of maduro, then asking him not to intervene militarily unless congress or the UN mandates it. gawd's blood. when she burst upon the scene, it was shouted from the rootops: "And she has a peace plan!" then swiftly voted aye on the defense of nato law. jeebus, frauds abound.

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Wally's picture

@arendt

Yea, I read that Pompeo letter and there were major problems with it but still . . . we're talking only 16 congressfolk who have even that much chutzpah to say no to unilateral US military intervention. And even Omar signed off on those problematic provisos, too.

Otherwise, I still think the US will manage to suck the world dry before it allows it's hegemony to be effectively threatened, just as you think there's no way imaginable that Bernie can pull it off. And I'm glad that you're at least thinking of throwing $27 towards Bernie for whatever rationale. I hope other like-minded people will do the same. There's something still in me (and there really ain't much left although what's left is left) that still makes me do whatever that will allow me to say at least I tried. Hang in there fellow old kid.

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arendt's picture

@Wally

I feel much the same way about you comparing AOC at the age of 29 and three months into office
to Amity Shlaes.

Shlaes first book, "Germany: The Empire Within", was published in 1991, when she was 31. She got plenty of exposure among the hard right reactionary crowd, right away. But, she wasn't a Congressperson or a media superstar.

So, if anything, AOC is more famous than Shlaes at the same age; and you could tell from the beginning who Shlaes was. I still say you can tell exactly who AOC is:

The commonalities: they both shoot their mouths off about stuff they are unqualified to pronounce upon. They both are media darlings, despite their lack of experience or credientials. They both shat upon FDR and the New Deal.

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@arendt

...subjects are built-up to be brought down. "It's the way things work." (i.e.: one of the main reasons why our government's so f*cked up these days.) Our media is more sensationalist than ever. When there's no story, they simply make it up! Haven't you folks learned anything?

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

Shahryar's picture

I know the New Deal was designed and implemented with preferential treatment for white people, but what wasn't in America? The New Deal was no more racist than America at the time, the American Military, Local and State Governments.

that doesn't mean that overall it was bad. AOC is actually right when she says home ownership in the hands of a selected group makes that group wealthier, that it makes the children who inherit that property richer than those who were excluded.

If her point is that any "new deal" should benefit everybody then who's disagreeing?

Or should we ignore any flaws in the New Deal because that would look bad?

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Wink's picture

@Shahryar

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

arendt's picture

I know the New Deal was designed and implemented with preferential treatment for white people, but what wasn't in America? The New Deal was no more racist than America at the time, the American Military, Local and State Governments.

To call it a "racist deal" is to completely miss the point and to sully the idea of government doing New Deal type things for ALL Americans... And there it is... the dog whistle, amirite or what?

As a leftist, you don't shit on the New Deal as racist. It's a class/race short circuit argument. I find that to be rather troubling coming from "the left". I'm sensing lots of market based solutions coming out of AOC. And don't forget the public private partnerships...

https://caucus99percent.com/comment/405505#comment-405505

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I guess you want us blue collar whites to vote republican like a majority did in 2016.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

mimi's picture

with my guts feelings the first time I see and listen to them. Most of the time the first impressions remain truthful for years to come. I think after Obama, I do not make misjudgements anymore.
I agree much with what arendt wrote. And please keep Gabbard out of the comparison games. Gabbard has not been so far in the club of the 'AOC league of bad actresses using racism to make noise'.

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@mimi that after seeing more of her SXSW interview, if she's faking it, just a front for the big corp boys, she is putting on an Academy Award-worthy performance.

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Wink's picture

but I see none.

@wokkamile

She certainly knows more than most 30 year olds
and, if anything, I'm more impressed with her now than I was Election Night!
She might be a fauxgressive, like so many of them are, or just not as progressive as many would like. But for my money I'll take 130 more just like her! To replace the 130 "Democrats" that won't support BernieCare.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

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