The final end to the left in America
Based on the progressive caucus' retreat from anything even approaching an antiwar position, or less war approach, it's safe to say that there is no actual left in our elected officials today. Which is really depressing because we are six years into the Progressive Insurgency following Bernie's 2016 presidential run.
What's more we've been at war for 21 years and there hasn't been a significant antiwar protest movement for 19 of those years. So based on that there isn't any real antiwar left at all in this country. Which leaves anyone who is antiwar nowhere to go but to the right, which is never going to be antiwar, but might at least be isolationist. Or not.
Lately there's been an uptick in the labor union movement, but almost all that has been outside of traditional labor unions and has come from the grassroots.
It makes one wonder what is actually remains of the left in this country?
I don't blame labor unions or peace activists. They've been beaten down by a highly coordinated, well-funded, right-wing infrastructure that is gone to war with everything of the left for 50 years now.
This is why you see the right wing redefining things of the moderate center and even right-wing things as stuff of "the far left". Sometimes they simply invent things out of thin air, or more often, take minor, isolated incidents and blow them completely out of proportion.
They simply have a lack of targets.
So what we've got is a corrupt far-right party portraying a corrupt center-right party as far-left extremists. The corrupt center-right party is about to lose the coming election because they don't stand for anything, and hate their own voters probably more than the far-right party does. The Dems certainly spend a lot of time punching left.
Thus the leaders of the center-right party are already planning on blaming the "left-wing" of the party, which doesn't actually exist for the loss, and if it did it wouldn't have any power in the party.
The center-right media is sure to repeat the baseless claim, and everyone will agree that the center-right party needs to move much further to the right. The far-right party will itself move even further to the right, and both parties will sound increasingly unhinged as they describe a world that doesn't exist when they campaign for office.
Comments
2016
As of the spring of 2016, it became clear to everybody, including the donor class, that the brand names of party politics, Bush and Clinton were kaput. "Populists" of the left and right were swarming to the primaries, and the political world was out of control. Between the mild version of "socialism" that Sanders was advocating and the Wrestling villain version of populism spouting out of the yap of Trump, there was a crying need for the end of even the pretense of democracy. The ultimate result is seen in the migration of the neo-conservatives into the Biden camp. We have Nobody as President in our Post democracy regime.
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I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
what do you mean by "brand names"?
ultimately these dynastic crime lord controllers of their "parties" aged out, but those tentacles held fast. "brand name" and "deep state", to me, are labels that obfuscate the significant realities.
racist war criminals. election thieves. drug runners. significant historical facts.
I meant from the perspective of the donor class
Going into the 2016 media circus of the Presidential election, the punditocracy's consensus was that Jeb Bush would waltz through the primaries to meet his opposite personage, Hillary Clinton, in the final contest between the two iconic brand names of traditional politics. Since neither one of them had so much as a smidgen of appeal to most Americans who still took politics seriously, "outsider" candidates caught fire, forcing The Dems to rig their primary and the GOP to ride it out with Trump, who is a member of the World Wrestling Federation Hall of Fame, effectively bringing politics down to the level of a carny act, effectively ending even the pretense of Democracy.
Edited to add, after re-reading your post, I see that you insist on condemnation of Bush or Clinton whenever either name comes up. I agree with you. Both "families" are criminal bands, but I figure that goes without saying.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
agreed
certainly in these parts nobody needs to be told. On the larger scale of stilted discussion, cover is provided, and not by accident, through these completely murky labels. For all of the horrors we would like to ascribe and prosecute for, the things we already know as fact should be enough.
I probably wouldnt be so frightened (or even aware) of their real power and status if it were not for something GW and Jeb said on Larry King Live in 1992, right before they answered my phone call.
They said GHWB wasnt the pope of politics.
pretty straightforward message from liars. as close as anyone has come to absolute power for decades until the Democrats incorporated with the media and intelligence arms of the war industry. banishing truth or honesty from playing a role, to their utmost ability. Hand in hand, those two crime familias brought us here. these clowns that followed had their paths paved, and they wont make the mistake of letting a nobody outsider like Trump get near the office again.
Even worse
Whatever sides there are, whatever they're called, they will agree on 95% of everything to do with policy and governance. What we're seeing is theatre, and a fight to the death to see how many table scraps they'll allow us.
You're much too polite
"Far right"??? Well, that's only because there is no word for it in American English. Even the true Ukranian) Nazis call themselves "Ultranationalists" now, like Al Quaeda had to change its name to Al Nusra at the request of the CIA. And "center right"??? my ass! You're among friends here, you can call fascists fascists. Authoritarians maybe. Ultra crony capitalists if you think it makes you sound more accurate, but I'll stick to Mussolini's word.
On to Biden since 1973
Progressive lawmakers can't agree with majority of Americans
For heaven's sakes, this poll from last month.
New poll signals Americans are growing tired of support for Ukraine without diplomacy as the war against Russia drags on
Just incredible. If the GOP go peacenik they will win 2024 easily.
Your conclusion stands up to reality:
Do you recall any Political Party, over the course of US history, that stood for and represented the ideology and values of Left? With only two traditional parties that serve as bookends to the very narrow spectrum of permitted political thought in the US, there has been no room for modern political philosophy or new consensus-based solutions. The US' increasingly self-destructive mistakes — repeated over and over again — has established our doctrine of permitted solutions.And shut down other choices.
This is not an opinion. It's a fact check. But really 'seeing' it can cause a psychological crisis in the minds of people of a certain age. They dig in even harder and double down on the delusions and denial. I think this may solve the mystery of why DC is filled with ancient calcified fossils in powerful positions, who push the tired old policies that invariably transfer the small wealth of the People to the Top .01%. Most legislation and investigation is lie-based, in these latter days. All of it can be reduced to the establishment of wage-theft, tax-theft, and the habitat-theft of the corporate/financial Elite.
It's all out there in the open, now. But no one looks at it.
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I think that abusive authorities always end up hating the people they deceive and betray. But they never feel guilty about it. What they have done never haunts them. Sociopathy of this type is often situationally induced, over time.
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Who can blame them? The Left is the awful albatross that permanently hangs around the necks of the Democratic Party bosses. On the other hand, the Republicans wouldn't recognize someone from the authentic Left if they were seated next to one on a five-hour flight.
Cheer up
1) We're still here; I DO NOT get why people (especially, it seems, of the "political Left" variety) are so quick to assume themselves to be non-entities; reminds me of a silly children's book my dad read to me when I was little about two cowboys who kept thinking they were missing a member of their herd because each kept forgetting to count the head he himself was riding.
2) The Peace Movement's where it was always supposed to be...all over the world: https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/ygoc52/antony_blinken_con...
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
It's been this way for quite some time now.
One thinks especially of those glory days of George W.'s 95% approval rating, or of America from '94 to '99 or '10-'15, days of explicitly Republican triumph. Such periods of American politics embolden politicians to describe as "far left" other politicians who might, say, want to give the public something for its hard-earned tax dollars. In such a world, nobody can imagine anything beyond a future of more capitalism, or of politics as more voting. Social thought has become ridiculously passe. "Dream of a past you can't have," everyone wants to say.
Generally speaking, however, people really do want a better world than the one they've got, unless they're rich and self-satisfied, in which case they've focused their life's work on winning economic races. Understanding this was the genius of Ernst Bloch, whom few people read anymore.
What we observe in mainstream politics, then, are various strategies for smothering or co-opting that common desire for a better world. In short, mainstream politics, like mainstream economics, is class warfare. Note that the bland acceptance of socially progressive policies is strongest in the US in places where real estate prices are out of control, like California. If they can't get you with politics, they'll get you with economics.
Nowadays, the pushback against class warfare shows up: in the US it's union drives, Starbucks and so on. In China, it's young people who do as little as possible to stay alive. In Russia, now, it's draft-dodging. The owning class cannot sacrifice the whole of the working class simply to keep said class in poverty. So the trend won't last forever. Nonetheless the collective imagination necessary to overcome the current situation is not (yet) enough.
Have you read Cornelius Castoriadis' essay "Postmodernism as Generalized Conformism"? It explains a lot.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon