It seems to be a feature of the kewl and bitchen pundits (though Thom Hartmann is a long-term vote Blue no matter who) during the early stages of Presidential election run-ups to put out lengthy criticisms of the "left wing." The "criticize the Left" phenomenon is reminiscent of an earlier criticism -- that of Markos Moulitsas, who told everyone participating on his blog on the Ides of March of 2016 that only "constructive criticism" of Hillary Clinton would be permitted at DailyKos.com .

Now, I'm not really committed to opposing all organized criticism of "the left," and so for instance one can read David Rovics with his criticisms and agree that much if not all of what he says is quite reasonable. But Branko Marcetic, who has done good work on Joe Biden, has put out a piece titled "AOC and the Squad’s List of Left-Wing Accomplishments Is Quite Long," a piece which, though it is correct to note that the individual members of the Squad have resumes, fails to acknowledge their obtuseness to the present political moment. Instead, we are treated to arguments such as this:

Left-wing scrutiny of the Squad and particularly Representative Ocasio-Cortez has steadily veered from constructive criticism and needed pressure to a kind of caricaturish vitriol — one that magnifies the ways they’ve fallen short, while saying nothing about their accomplishments nor their usefulness to activist and workers’ movements. Sometimes, you suspect the most unfair critics have taken their anger and frustration at the conservative, corporate-controlled political system in which they have to operate, and simply redirected it at the congresswoman herself.

So Marcetic is criticizing left-wing critics of the Squad, for being overly critical. The point at which Marcetic joins the Squad (and a fair number of other people, mostly Democrats) in the general sense of obtuseness to reality is here:

Critics have pointed to Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the Squad’s support for continual military aid to Ukraine to charge they’re counterfeit anti-imperialists or even war hawks. But important as it is, the Ukraine war is not the only pressing foreign policy issue.

The problem with such thinking is that Ukraine is the issue that unites all of the others in the one big screw-up that counts today as American foreign policy. Or, as Simplicius says:

One day when the West falls, it will be from being crushed under the weight of its own shameless immorality.

Ukraine is the Big Lie du jour, of the sort that will make McCarthyism look really small when the whole scam is over and done and written into whatever is left of books at that future time. It's the One Last Great Screw of the Planet and the People, in which the Shock Doctrine is applied to throw away the male population of Ukraine in pointless "counter-offensives" with no air support, to impoverish the people of Europe (now) and of the US (later) so that the weapons corporations can suck down an ever increasing share of the Federal budgets of the US and of Europe (before, that is, all of the international banks start dumping dollars and dollar-denominated assets). Note how they're already anticipating the Shock Doctrine with respect to Lahaina in Maui (here's another link, and here's Naomi Klein herself weighing in) while Joe Biden reserves the real budget plums for Ukraine.

Ukraine is the opening salvo in an attempt by a slice of the elites to grab whatever portion of the world they can grab so that it can be destroyed and rebuilt into their hands. The Squad's failure to see any of this is the most visible example of "liberals" and "the Left" who have been suckered into the Ukraine scam. The Ukraine scam will change the world. Russia and China will grow modestly; the US and Europe will slide into further decline; Ukraine will be wiped off the map. The Squad, meanwhile, appears to behave as if nothing of importance is happening.

As regards the rest of Marcetic's defense of AOC and of the Squad, it's all a collection of very small potatoes. I'm sure they're nice people who exhibit good intentions from time to time. I don't really care. Remember that the main point of the books of Ibram X. Kendi, woke darling of the World Economic Forum, is that it really really matters if you are or aren't a genuine "antiracist." Outcomes don't matter for such people -- what matters to personality-obsessives is that you feel good about yourself because you know in your heart that you are a good person. It would be sad if Marcetic were to become one of them.