The Labour Party’s unexpectedly strong showing in the UK election shows that stirring idealism need not be sacrificed at the altar of political pragmatism.
Thank you, Jeremy Corbyn.
It is no exaggeration to say that the British Labour Party leader has changed progressive politics in the UK, and perhaps the wider West too, for a generation. The bearded, 68-year-old, self-declared socialist has proved that an unashamedly, unabashedly, unapologetically left-wing offer is not the politics of the impossible but, rather, a politics of the very much possible. Last Thursday’s election result in the UK is a ringing confirmation that stirring idealism need not be sacrificed at the altar of political pragmatism.
In these dark, depressing times of Trump and Brexit, of the fallout from the Great Recession and the rise of the far right, Corbyn has reminded us that a politics of hope can go toe to toe with a politics of fear. Millions of people will turn out to vote for a leader who preaches optimism over pessimism, who offers inspiration instead of enervation.
Corbyn has proved that the much-maligned young can be a force for change. Younger voters are not lazy, indifferent or apathetic, as the conventional wisdom goes, but will in fact come out in their droves for a leader who motivates and excites them; who gives them not just something to vote for — be it a scrapping of tuition fees or a higher minimum wage or a new house-building program — but something to believe in. A common struggle, a better future, a more equal society. Because something always beats nothing.
Corbyn has showed how it is possible for progressives to build a coalition between the young, people of color and cosmopolitan liberals on the one hand and, yes, those dreaded white working class communities on the other. It is a fiction to claim that leaders on the left must choose between them, or play one marginalized group off against another. White ex-UKIP voters in the north of the country returned to Labour last week in their hundreds of thousands.
So socialists and social democrats no longer need be on the defensive. Yes, mainstream center-left parties may have been crushed in recent European elections — think of France or the Netherlands. However, Corbyn — who spent 32 years toiling in obscurity on the backbenches before becoming leader of his party in a shock victory in 2015 — has now a paved a road out of the wilderness.
To be clear: the Labour Party did not win the the UK’s general election. Theresa May’s Conservatives secured more votes and more seats. Yet it is difficult to overstate — as even Corbyn’s biggest critics have now conceded — the sheer size of his electoral achievement. Labour’s 40% share of the national vote is its highest since 1970, with the exception of Tony Blair’s two landslide wins in 1997 and 2001. Last Thursday’s election also saw the the biggest increase in vote share for Labour — nearly 10% — since the party’s post-war blowout in 1945 under iconic leader Clement Attlee.
All of this despite Corbyn having begun the campaign more than 20 percentage points behind the Conservatives; having been written off by politicians and pundits from across the spectrum and relentlessly undermined by members of his own parliamentary party; and having endured an unprecedented campaign of demonization by the right-wing press. Corbyn, lest we forget, was smeared as a terrorist sympathizer; ridiculed for forgetting the details of various policies; dismissed as a crank and an eccentric.
“To take Labour’s prospects seriously under Corbyn was to abandon being taken seriously yourself,” wrote the Guardian’s Gary Younge on the eve of the election. “The political class imparted as much to the media class, and the media class duly printed and broadcast it… The wisdom was distributed to all who mattered. Those who did not receive it did not, by definition, matter.”
On Thursday, they proved once and for all that they mattered. And the quiet, unassuming Corbyn proved that he was indeed a serious and viable candidate for the highest office in the land — one analysis found that a mere 2,227 votes, in seven swing seats, blocked him from becoming prime minister at the head of a “progressive” coalition of Labour and the other smaller parties in parliament.
As former critics of his now help themselves to bigger and bigger slices of humble pie, the Labour leader may want to consider borrowing George W. Bush’s famous malaproprism: “They misunderestimated me.”
To be honest, I “misunderestimated” him as well. Full disclosure: I know Corbyn personally and share many of his political positions. I have never doubted his integrity or his honesty. Yet even I did not expect he would win 40% of the vote or prevent May from winning a majority in parliament. I did not imagine that Labour would win seats such as Canterbury, held by the Conservatives for the past 99 years, or Kensington and Chelsea, the UK’s richest constituency and home of the Daily Mail. I would not let myself believe, as many others on the left did, that a Corbyn premiership was a very real and live possibility, rather than a mad fantasy, a progressive delusion.
I was wrong. Completely, utterly, hopelessly wrong … but never have I been happier to be wrong.
Perhaps I should have paid more attention. The much-mocked Corbyn had a very clear plan from the very beginning. “The politics of hope are not an inevitable reaction when politics fails,” he declared in a speech at the London School of Economics in May 2016. “The politics of hope have to be rebuilt.” Rebuilding, the Labour leader explained, required three things. First, “a vision to inspire people that politics has the power to make a positive difference to their lives.” Second, “trust – that people believe both that we can and that we will change things for the better.” Third, “the involvement and engagement of people to make the first two possible.”
Corbyn, like Bernie Sanders before him, succeeded on all three fronts. He mobilized huge numbers of people to get organized, attend rallies, knock on doors. He upended the old political and economic orthodoxies, refusing to embrace austerity, or demonize immigrants, or push for foreign wars. And guess what? It turns out that you don’t have to triangulate to win 40% of the vote. Nor do you have to kowtow to the reactionary and illiberal agendas of the Mail or the Murdoch-owned press to win marginal seats in Middle England.
Neither Corbyn nor Sanders won their elections. But they came so close. Give them a bit more time. “One more heave” is no longer a political pejorative. With parliament hung, and Theresa May under fire from her own party, the next UK election could be held in a matter of months. The bookies have slashed Corbyn’s odds on becoming the next UK prime minister and a new post-election poll shows the Labour leader is now tied with his Conservative counterpart on the question of who would make the best prime minister. After last week’s shock results, what were once Conservative safe seats are now marginals and what were once Labour marginals are now safe seats.
Here in the United States, meanwhile, the Corbyn-esque Sanders has become the most popular politician in the country and would probably win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination by a landslide if the contest were to be held tomorrow. Some polls also suggest he might have defeated Trump last November, too.
So: President Sanders? Prime Minister Corbyn? What were once progressive fantasies are now potential realities. The left may have finally awoken from its slumber — and, therefore, the attacks from the right will only escalate. But what was it Gandhi is said to have remarked? “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Top photo: Britain’s Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, center, waves after arriving for the declaration at his constituency in London, Friday, June 9, 2017.
Comparisons between Mr Corbyn and Mr Sanders are not inapt, Mehdi, but they tend, like yours above, to gloss over a vital difference between these two figures ; viz, their respective positions with regard to the military-industrial complex and military adventures abroad. Mr Sanders has, alas, shown himself to be far more willing to support such endeavours than has Mr Corbyn, who seems to realise what a danger they represent to us all. Mr Corbyn has furthermore shown that the Labour Party in the UK might just possibly be able to serve as a vehicle not merely for progressive domestic politics, but also for progressive politics in foreign relations ; that the Democratic party in the US, whatever the role Mr Sanders may play in it in the future, will prove to be such a vehicle is, I fear, beyond the realm of possibility. The latter will have to be replaced by another party or constellations of parties, if progressive politics are to have a chance in the US….
Henri
Mehdi, Its not about Left and Right. Its about Establishment and Anti-Establishment.
People in the West are fed up with the Establishment and they are willing to vote for anybody that is sincere over anybody that is Establishment. That is what it comes down to.
Sigh. I am something of a Corbyn fan, to be sure, but the stories here, in the NYTimes and Guardian are all off base, insofar as they advance the thesis that Corbyn’s victory (of sorts) in the UK could serve as a blueprint for reform in the US. Not! My contention is that the real model for political reform in the US comes not from the UK, but from France, where in both the Presidential and Parliamentary elections the voters have rejected the far right and along with that the two corrupt traditional parties that dominated national politics for decades. It is Emmanuel Macron who should be the example we strive to emulate. While I respect Bernie Sanders, his task is hopeless: there is no way to wean the majority of democrat politicians from their corporate funding and consequent obligations. The only way to do it is by making a clean break, something Sanders had the opportunity to do, by running as the Green candidate in the US, but chose not to. Something Macron did, and with stunning success.
In short, it is wrong to compare the UK Labor party with the US democrats. The latter are simply beyond salvation.
Here’s a great video about the election from the U.K., sent to me by a friend there. It’s both totally spot on and hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsGVghRBdKI&feature=youtu.be
That was great news to me as well. Why couldn’t we have had Bernie? Life is so unfair but at least we have this ray of sunshine.
Love ya
?
The Courage Foundation has established an emergency legal defense fund for Reality Winner.
She can have all the legal help she wants, but she’s still going to the slammer for at least a decade.
Her phone calls from jail, that the authorities intercepted, will show judge and jurors what kind of person they’re dealing with:
Manipulative and with a lack of integrity that matches her lack of morals.
There’s no other way to describe someone who not just lies about how she thought her interrogators would make her “disappear” but also tries to drag her parents in to the mess, that her lack of moral fiber and IQ helped create.
“Her phone calls from jail, that the authorities intercepted,…”
Sooo…who intercepts the calls from the authorities?
Once upon a time, some Scandinavians knew how to deal with right-wing scumbags… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n8K06hkJqKI
Since you apparently support this young lady, perhaps a better way to do it, would be to send the money to her inmate account in jail?
She’ll be there for a good decade, considering not just the precedence in Manning’s sentence, but also the current explosion in leaking, which calls for a stiff sentence in the interest of deterring others.*
Personally I have very little sympathy for her, and unlike Manning or Snowden, she deserves whatever sentence the court will give her. Unlike both of the above, she seemed to have planned her crime and joined the NSA specifically to be in a position to pull it off. Her goals weren’t altruistic as in the former cases, it was specifically to harm the current administration. She betrayed her country in order to play politics.
*(And, we’ll likely see more charges, once the prosecution is done thumbing through her journals, which contain all of her vulgar, Marxist fantasies of bombing the White House and joining the Taliban.)
Thank you.
progressive = good
not progressive = bad
tribal thinking on full display. Nothing new, but this author doesn’t even try to dress it up
fascist = bad
anti-fascist = good
tribal thinking on full display.
Labels = bad.
Evaluating actual policies and ideas = good.
When you’re making assessments on anything based solely on its label (the author isn’t doing this, btw), you ignore the content completely.
That isn’t even tribal thinking – it’s not thinking at all. Rethink your group.
Yes that is what they are saying why should we dress up the truth?.
If you think of them as demographics, then of course what you’re describing is tribal. But what if they are taken as ideologies? It’s perfectly fine to think that policies that promote social progress are good, and the opposite are bad.
Brexit has always had a leftwing component
In comments below, a great deal of facile ignorance is on display. Glenn Greenwald provided a great corrective a year ago, to wit: Brexit Is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions
Excerpt:
In the same piece Greenwald addresses a name even more in the news these days, one Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn arose alongside Brexit fever, and there’s a reason for that. Greenwald some more:
Just so.
I agree with that. And it’s worth remembering that Corbyn was against joining the EC back in the days (as Labour was in general). While he argued againts Brexit last year, not all on the left did so. There were these people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOmYvWD4tJs
But overall I would think that the UK exiting the EU is not such a big deal as many believe. The UK wasn’t part of many of the most important integration processes. It is not part of the Schengen-area, it has kept the pound, it did not submit itself fully to the European Court of Justice etc.
Also the UK for the most part did not participate in the joined military actions of the EU (like in Mali) and is one of the reasons up to today there is no formal EU-army.
And most importantly because of the global alliance of the Commonwealth, the “special relationship” with the US and its being an island the country is not part of the transeuropean production chains. In continental Europe the great majority of commodities run through stages of production in several EU-states. In the UK it’s only some 20% of goods (it’s different for Northern Ireland though hence the debate about the border to the Republic).
So I would argue the UK exiting the EU is not such a big deal. And as this election demonstrated the British think the same. Mays prime talking point was “strong leadership” in the face of the negotiation with the EU. But the electorate thought minimum wage, the NHS and housing as to be more important and rejected her because of that. Corbyn did not talk much about Brexit and I believe that is a reason for his success in this election.
Yup, yup and yup. We’re seeing neoliberals start reciting from a ploy they’ve clearly settled on, that Corbyn somehow “went right” on Brexit to get elected; that his message wasn’t a “leftwing” one.
It’s all centrist, hackery bullshit.
Of course there has always been a left opposition to the EU. It’s the kind of honest, pre 1989-Marxism that Corbyn has espoused for decades.
He’s also against NATO which used to be normal for the left.
However, much of the current animus against the EU, and much of the support for Brexit is steeped in concerns about immigration.
Which is why many on the left, especially the British “Clintonite” left are strongly opposed to Brexit and consider it xenophobic.
I have no idea why you seem to resist the thought of Corbyn welcoming back former UKIP voters, and moving to the right on this issue, but those are the facts.
If you believe that either of the Clintons were anywhere close to the political left then your analysis is suspect.
The EU has become a thoroughly ‘neo-liberal’ system, and is over-reaching into areas that member States should be deciding for themselves. A looser confederation with less ‘policing’ from Brussels would make the EU more durable, particularly given the vast gulfs between the old core members (which group the UK is depleting) and the newest States. If the EU changes to be less authoritarian and rigid then the arguments to stay out will weaken and the UK could rejoin.
A key requirement for the job is being able to add up. Alas this rules out Labour’s new Hard, Hard Left. Anyone who enjoyed Diane Abbott’s hilarious interviews(5* – hear them!) in which she repeatedly got Labour’s intended spending figures wrong by 3 orders of magnitude can have no doubt that Bart Simpson would have a more consistent and credible grasp of the economics.
Fortunately Labour seem to have mistaken their loss at the polls for a victory, so are still in La La Land for the foreseeable future.
Best Regards from Planet Earth.
Uh-huh.
The odds are very good that next year on this date we will be speaking of Prime Minister Corbyn.
That is a requirement for the job, not a requirement to be elected. Labour can win in a landslide if they tell the people what they want to hear. Ask the ones who support Corbyn how realistic his spending plan is. They will not give you an answer, but they will certainly attack you.
“I’m fully confident that I’m more well informed than you are.”
How To Kill Discourse 101
Congratulations to the youth and working class voters who rallied around a left-wing Labour party. The politically backward U.S. salutes you!
(After all, Britain has always been more progressive than the U.S.)
Informative video on the UK election and the politics of change.
h/t Shenebraskan
Hey Mona,
please provide a connection to the words of
Glenn Greenwald and David Sirota
from the “People’s Summit” from this past weekend.
I want to read how they denounced the democrats at that
“summit” which was loaded with democrap delusionalists.
I am a simple man who isn’t capable of finding where their words
are to be read or heard.
For now, this will have to do. I suggest you consult Sirota’s entire timeline for plenty of great information about attendees, interviews and activities at the People’s Summit.
Hey Mona
When a better link is available (preferably a transcript), will you please share?
Thanks in advance.
I certainly will. As soon as I see a link.
Waiting for article of Mackey on first round parliamentary elections of party of Macron & mamma in the Elysee.
Atrios on Corbyn:
A “big fucking deal,” indeed.
And HOW did he manage to do it, Mona?
The answer isn’t just in socialist freebies for the proletariat.
He also realigned the party with public sentiment: Moved Labor to the right on Brexit, and by embracing Brexit welcomed UKIPers back in the fold.
Codswallop.
Interesting that so few people bring up the fact, that one of the reason that Corbyn and Labor saw some success this election, is that he moved the party to the right.
Not on economic issues, but on the one issue that matter right now: Brexit.
While he was always lukewarm at best concerning the EU, Corbyn invited the Brexiteers from the UKIP into the fold, by not just declaring that Brexit could be good for the UK, he also came out against a soft Brexit, and proclaimed that Labor was open to a Brexit that did away with the guaranteed movement of people, aka EU open borders.
If the Democrats did similar, and re-positioned itself to embrace some populist ideas, it could greatly outdo both Sanders and Hillarys results.
Good point. If The Intercept is any indication the same thing is happening with those who consider themselves on the far left in the US, they are embracing or at least agreeing with the breitbart types as both are convinced Hillary is the devil, and find common ground in making excuses for Putin, Assad and the regime in Iran.
Stop confusing Hilary with the devil the devil has horns hillery does not.. I think. Oh good god. Hillery is about as left as a right turn signal. Real lefties have never bought into the Clinton myth. Police state wanna be’s oh I mean are..ee’s. Where were you as they helped decimate the middle class and empower the rich and threw scads of money at the military crooks. Like that pos Clinton pardoned on his last day. Marc Rich now that’s rich in irony. These were the salad years of Bernie Madoff after all. But it is easier to stuff the jails with the poor and downtrodden than rich fraudsters. Too much like themselves. Hey just for fun did you know Monica cigar sex Lewinsky lived next door to Bob Dole in the Watergate. I was there myself. Dole bought it from L’s family after the scandal. 350 million people in America and these two live next door to each other. Defies all logic except it is true. So who paid her off. Gee I can’t guess. Can you. Of course the media never touched this. The owners of the media are after all the same rich who screw us.
There always were leftwing arguments for, and supporters of, Brexit. Corbyn moved nowhere to “the right” in that regard.
As for populism, Bernie Sanders is a populist. Which is why he appeals to not just minorities, but also to working class, poor whites. There’s a reason he’s the most popular politician in the United States. The Democrats had best be about bringing themselves more in line with Bernie — if they want to win.
http://socialistresistance.org/eu-referendum-for-a-critical-in-vote-against-racism/8127
A am skeptical that socialists or social democrats can win power in the US. The US political system is way more corrupt than the UK’s. The current set of oligarchs will just not allow it, especially in the Democratic Party. They chose most of who runs as Democrats (as well as Republicans) in the general election, at the federal level. Until the billionaires’ influence is purged from politics, which requires a left leaning Supreme Court to remove money from politics, Americans will continue to suffer under increasing inequality until the situation develops into violence.
Britain has strong laws which do not allow money into politics.
Well, the oligarchs and political elite couldn’t prevent Trump from winning the presidency, could they?
(If you seriously think he was their first choice, you’re willfully ignorant.)
And there is nothing to hinder some sort of left wing Trump from doing the same. Though that would require Democrats to realize how out of touch they are, and adjust accordingly.
As for money in politics, the “billionaires influence”, it’s a popular talking point, but clearly doesn’t correlate with what happened in elections the last few years.
And ignores that the same money is also paying for Democrats to be elected.
Money in politics, HobbyLobby etc. couldn’t prevent Obamas election victories. Neither could it prevent Trumps election victory, despite Hillary spending double as much as he did on the campaign.
Bernie could/ would have won, but now a lot of his supporters really dislike the way he caved. How he capitulated to the demands of Hillary’s campaign! That was very disappointing. Unfortunate.
If you have ever watched Richard Wolff speak on the type of social democracy he would be interested in establishing, that’s something America might well go along with. It’s very progressive; it’s not at all like communist socialism. I recommend everyone try to look up some Richard Wolff videos on economics and socialism. But for me, I’d like some other candidate then Bernie Sanders now. Have really turned against him, particularly with his abrasiveness towards Trump, with such contempt and disrespect. Same with Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer, people I greatly admired in the past. Schumer saying he would work with Trump an issues he agreed with. Never!
For me the truism “Blinded by hate” has taken on new and deeper meaning. It’s quite visible.
A progressive social welfare state in the US would never work, at least not in its current state.
It comes down to this: You can’t have a welfare state without severely limiting, or completely stopping immigration.
Denmark closed its borders to immigration in 1973 for example.
The reason Scandinavian countries have a good, comprehensive social system, is because everyone pays into the system, and (for the most part) pay in before they start to become a liability.
Welfare states work because your parents have been paying into the system for decades before you start your free college.
People work and pay into the system for a decade or two, before they get kids and those kids go to school and kindergarten.
It wouldn’t work if it was possible to cross a border, and right away receive the benefits of a welfare state for yourself, your wife and 3 kids.
Progressives need to decide what they want: Welfare state, or open borders with little
check on immigration. You can’t have both.
Thanks, that’s very informative. The type of program Richard Wolff describes is like this: if a company decides to close its factory and ship all the jobs abroad, the people in that company who were employed may decide to continue operating anyway at their own expense. They would purchase or keep the equipment; they would contribute their talents to running the company; they would make decisions all together; and they would have a variety of pay scales but the highest CEO would only earn some small amount more, like 3 times the amount, of the lowest paid worker. That type of thing certainly could work in the US. Couldn’t it?
“They would purchase or keep the equipment; they would contribute their talents to running the company…”
Do they have enough capital to acquire the equipment?
1) Yes. But now they will compete against the other company that can provide the same products at a better price because its costs are lower overseas. Basically the other company can chase them away with its low prices.
2) No. They can get a loan. The creditors will ask them how they gonna compete with the other company that sells at a better price thanks to its lower costs overseas.
You see. It is not as simple as people try to illustrate it. Even if the CEO works for free labor costs will still be high. Companies have to rely on technology to lower those costs.
That type of thing works while everyone involved is in the throughs of ideological fever. However before long the guy at the top gets an offer to work somewhere else for much more money and leaves and the guys at the bottom look at the guys goofing off as much as possible getting paid the same as them and they start to do less. Before long the whole thing collapses like it did in the USSR. Small homogeneous countries are able to to a better job of this because people respond better to the social pressures in these small societies that pressure people to do their best, and they don’t mind working for the greater good if the population that benefits are cousins. While we certainly needs more controls on corporate greed and ways to greatly diminish the the gap between the rich and the poor in the US , I don’t think Mr Wolff’s theories would work here.
“You can’t have a welfare state without severely limiting, or completely stopping immigration.”
That is not true. You can have a welfare state if the value of your natural resources can support the cost of immigration. Example: countries in the gulf ( Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain..) are welfare states whose immigrant population is higher than nationals. But these are exceptional cases.
Another way is to have the nationals pay for the cost of immigration through high taxes. Americans are allergic to taxes and most of them do not know or do not understand how the taxes are spent. A commenter here believes the US can finance a single payer healthcare by reducing US troops aboard. He is completely unaware that foreign countries directly and indirectly finance most of the cost of having troops on their soil.
At the end you are correct. The US in is current state cannot have a welfare state. Sanders followers have wishful thinking. They will call you neo liberal if you tell them the truth: the US is not Denmark.
800 pound gorilla around our necks, the military. Your analysis while good is ignoring the trillions of dollars stolen by the worthless corrupt US military not to mention the banks. There is plenty of money to pay for a just society. The evil people who run this crap of a country are to blame for the lack of spending on social issues. I remember reading a Natl. Geo article (very conservative mag.) in 1960 about the launching of yet another Aircraft Carrier. They stated that the cost of it was equal to 40,000 college degrees. 40,000 lost opportunities to cure cancer etc. Get f’ing real here people that is only one of 100’s of ships in the navy. Then there are the planes, the bases, the nukes, the payroll, the operating costs, the complete list would take the whole page. Why do you think that the country is trillions in debt. Gosh Banks make money on debt. Military spending drives up the cost of raw resources like oil etc another burden on the people. Dead soldiers cost us all the money their parents spent on them plus their lost productivity. I lost two brothers to Nam. The pain and cost to my family is impossible to calculate. 60,000 dead in Nam alone. The Seal Family is not alone in this. No discussion of our country is valid unless you discuss this truth. Right left are words used to divide us. Did you lose any family to war? Have you ever heard how the military throws away billions in supplies every budget cycle to keep their appropriations up. One brother of mine worked at bath ship yards . they dug a hole and put everything in it trucks machines everything at the end of each cycle. A friend was a cook on a military ship they would throw all the remaining food in the water as they came into port to save their appropriation. This is not patriotism this is evil of the worst sort. We will never get it together until the people are free of the military masters. The same people who hired ten thousand nazi scientists after the war to keep up the good work the Nazi’s did. The same people who lied about WW2. The US secretly supported Hitler, see Hitler’s Willing Bankers. pub 1980. The US lied about the end of WW2 and cheated the Russians who killed 90% of the German soldiers who died. That and the bankers fear of Stalin started the Cold War. Maybe you get the point. Maybe not. Hey the head of planning for the pentagon is 95 according to the Wash post article on him last year. Some killers never quit. Did you know that the US used Hitlers personal excutioneer at Nuremburg. The same guy who cut the heads off of those hundreds of German children who tried to protest. He got an attaboy and a fat pension from us. Of course the German bankers were the ones freed at Nuremburg. Goring was allowed to kill himself and the truth of the US dragging the war out on purpose died with him.
The military is essentially an entitlement program. Most of its budget goes to the operations and management of domestic bases and to the management of personnel. You have to understand that thousands of people will lose their jobs when you cut the defense budget. So, which part are you willing to cut and how many jobs are you willing to lose?
Thanks. I like feedback. So um I might be wrong but if the same money is spent elsewhere it will create just as many jobs as are lost, maybe more if the ruling class’s take is eliminated. Simple economics there. As to what to cut, defense is a overused word with no meaning. Danger in the world is best dealt with by doing things differently then creating enemies. As I pointed out in my comment the two worst threats we have faced Hitler and the Soviets after WW2 were both ginned up by the actions of our leaders. It’s all in the public record. Kind of like those soldiers the US, Britian and France sent into Russia in 1919 to fight the Reds. They were abandoned there and left to die. Just more ugly truth about the ruling class. Don’t trust me read it for yourself. And while you are at it check out The Manchurian Candidate to understand what is happening right now.
“Simple economics there.”
No. It is not. This base costs 1bn to run. There are 100 thousands people who rely on it directly (military personnel) and indirectly (small businesses in the area). You close that base because you need 1bn to finance healthcare. You will end up with 100,000 jobless people who have no salaries and no healthcare. What are you going to do with them? Re train them? Relocate them? That will cost more billions. Where are you going to find that cash?
Thanks for the feed back. Maybe right and so that is a good reason to take taxpayers money and funnel it down a hole? No it is unbalancing the hidden hand of economics by artificially creating winners and losers. Uh ones who obviously are beholden to the system. Maybe better to try letting people keep the money you know all those small business owners and poorly paid workers. Recent study says a fully employed minimum wage earner can not afford rent in any state. I’m thinking 320 dollars a week is 40 times 8 say. !280 a month = 30×42 assuming a five day week for the worker. Not even the cost of a flop house room. Forget anything else. Like the little old lady in line in front of me the other day who sadly said as her food bill was rung up, I guess I will have to eat less. Good day sir.
You have to provide pragmatic and realistic solutions.
Oh. It’s you. I’m gonna generally ignore you no matter what moniker you use.
“So socialists and social democrats no longer need be on the defensive. Yes, mainstream center-left parties may have been crushed in recent European elections — think of France or the Netherlands. However, Corbyn — who spent 32 years toiling in obscurity on the backbenches before becoming leader of his party in a shock victory in 2015 — has now a paved a road out of the wilderness.”
First off, the Labor party, who has been out of power only since 2010, is not socialist, and its social democratic record is lacking (contrary to what some would like you to believe, Tony Blair was not a labor fluke). Second, while Corbyn seem progressive enough, being in power tends to do strange things to the left political spectrum. Which brings me to another problem, if not a fallacy, in the quoted paragraph above. The idea the labor party’s surprising achievement represent a breakthrough out of political oblivion for the left is, intentionally or not, a gross exaggeration, or what we, of less refined narratives, call a lie. The right-wing-extremist trend that generated Brexit and Trump was already on the decline. In both France and Holland similar political strains were rejected. As to the “wilderness” nonsense, both in Spain – podemos – and in Greece – Syriza – the left made historical gains, and at least in Greece’s case, it resulted in a major setback: in a conversation I had last night with a Greek anarchist, he claimed that Syriza’s fumbling of the mandate it received would inevitably result in a resurgent in right-wing-extremist sentiments and power.
The necessity of progressives to describe the world in extremes should not be allowed to fester. The Democrat losses in the 2016 was not a defeat, but a recurring Dem-Rep power pendulum swing (e.g., the progressive “proof” of 1000 lost Democrat seats is put into perspective when one considers that there are 511,000 elected officials, so 1000 is a little less than 0.2%). Corbyn’s victory marks an important victory, and great hope for progressive politics, but a grain of salt is advisable.
This:
“Second, while Corbyn seem progressive enough, being in power tends to do strange things to the left political spectrum.”
And this:
“least in Greece’s case, it resulted in a major setback: in a conversation I had last night with a Greek anarchist, he claimed that Syriza’s fumbling of the mandate it received…”
Be careful Mr. Snow, you might be called an imperialist, neo liberal hack, or European Clintonite (whatever that means) because you stated the truth.
I hope Corbyn becomes prime minister tomorrow. That is the only way those who refuse reality, might I say again, might see the light.
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. No less a man of impeccable of neoliberal, Democratic commitment than Matt Yglesias writes: The whole Democratic Party is now a smoking pile of rubble
Some other matters in a separate reply.
“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
Couldn’t have said better, or more succinctly.
“a man of impeccable of neoliberal, Democratic commitment ”
I stand corrected. Pompous journalistic doomsday narrative are not progressive by nature.
Matt Yglesias writes against self-interest in that piece; he’s confronting a very unpleasant reality (if one is, as he is, an establishment Democrat), with many supporting facts. He and the facts he marshals are not wrong, quite regardless of how one characterizes proper “narratives.”
While he is factual for the most part, his self flagellating title, and his closing statements, are not.
Whether he’s “self-flagellating” or not his facts are correct and his assessment totally well-supported. Poisoning the well, as you do here, doesn’t change that.
I believe a kool-aid reference here would be appropriate.
Neoliberal Europe destroyed Syriza. I highly recommend Field of Visions four-part documentary series, This is a coup, (originally hosted at this site). Corbynism, Sandersism etc. are entirely related to the neoliberal-imposed policies that were so toxic for Greece.
It can be viewed here.
“Neoliberal Europe destroyed Syriza”
Lol lol lol. Incapable of taking responsibility for your actions!
Is that how you get away from promises you cannot keep? Blame someone else.
785
Syriza LET themselves be destroyed. Blaming the “Neoliberal Europe” is like being angry the wolf from eating a lamb.
Of course, Greece aren’t without blame in the situation. Socialists (and to a lesser extent Conservatives) milked the budgets for years to keep their patronage system going.
But the fundamental problem, is that the EU for political reasons created a currency that would work to the benefit of northern EU countries, to the detriment of southern countries.
This is a coup Watch it.
” Of course, Greece aren’t without blame in the situation. Socialists (and to a lesser extent Conservatives) milked the budgets for years to keep their patronage system going.”
Dude, you are about to be called a neoliberal hack or an European Clintonite. That is what you get for telling the truth. I even think Mona believes you and I are the same person using different names.
I do not disagree that Syriza’s failures are not entirely its own.
Its electoral success, as that of Podemos, does, however, question the validity of the “wilderness” fallacy, as well as the overly joyous and euphoric tone of the article.
Corbyn’s is an important landmark victory, but the article, like the one you quoted in your other comment, is a spin, if not a falsification altogether, of its meaning and implications.
That simply makes no sense, Mr. Snow. (And if you are the John Snow, I’m used to your being sensible). Matt Yglesias was “spinning” nothing. He’s an out-and-out Clinton Democrat at that bastion of neoliberal “thought,” Vox.
His piece was an admission against interest.
Well, yes, given that the the European Union and its institutions made very sure of failure; all of that political and financial power was brought to bear to ensure it. How they did that is well-documented in the series.
Vox is not my journalistic cup of tea, so I cannot really respond to that. If Yglesias is a Clinton democrat, shouldn’t you take his words with a big chunk of salt?
The issue I tried to raise is the questionable value of hyping an event, which while important, or even exceedingly so, benefit little, as an understatement, from mischaracterizing its context and implications?
Are perhaps familiar with Duncan “Atrios Black? Today he wrote (and I agree), my emphasis:
“How they did that is well-documented in the series.”
Lol lol lol lol lol…what a comedy!!
What documents? Did you even watch the one sided film you have been promoting? It has been available for almost two years!!
The EU made its position clear before Syriza got elected: austerity or you don’t get a penny. Tsipras made promises he could not keep. That’s set. Maybe you should watch the film again. He even admitted he should not have made those promises. Improve your basic understanding of economics. Creditors do not have to accommodate the needs of a country asking for help. Specially when those creditors are using taxpayers money.
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your use of numerical codes to communicate with swisscheese is interesting
Let’s be honest, Corbyn did this by meeting the UKIPers on Brexit. The political equivalant in the US would be morally reprehensible.
Actually, the equivalents in the US could be getting out of NAFTA, FTAA, TPP, and perhaps NATO. All this can be done without compromising principles.
Who is going to leave Nafta and NATO? Sanders?
If I run, I certainly plan to leave the latter. After all, look at their response to the numerous IS attacks. Is NATO attacking IS with the support of all its members? Or, instead, are we building up forces to threaten one of the nations that helped turn back IS?
Sanders may not, but Tulsi Gabbard just may. (Perhaps Corbyn will. Perhaps the NDP in Canada and SNP in Scotland may reverse their opposition to NATO as well.)
You’re certainly correct.
Correct in the sense, that if we try to “copy” Corbyns politics (and electoral success) to an American politician, we can’t forget about Corbyn being deeply opposed to NATO.
I suspect an American politician could get elected despite being against NATO. Trump pulled it off.
The problem is, that if a progressive opposed to NATO manages to reach the White House, he’ll quickly face an establishment/deep state rebellion even worse than what they threw at Trump.
I don’t think neither Sanders , Gabbard or even Corbyn will leave NATO. But I do hope Corbyn leaves it if he gets elected and other Western countries follow him. Russia will be in the Baltic States in a heartbeat. I will be vindicated again.
england, denmark, blah blah blah ..
what about china? it’s the big one but no news is good news? really??
Er, what does you post have to do with the price of tea in China? [batting lashes]
Mona, enjoying your climax ?
Ms. May discovered that hard Brexit was going to be a disaster and cleverly called an election to remove herself from the picture. Mr. Corbyn, whether through innocence or arrogance, seems to believe he can find a solution. The other parties, if they have any sense, will allow him to drink from the poisoned chalice. He seems like a fine person and certainly did not deserve this, but as William Munny said in the movie, “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it”.
Lol lol lol And many of your points are true!
You are in the wrong place. Try at least to get a spot at SNL.
It’s true, Corbyn shall have to be deft — but he’s had a fine tutorial by one Theresa May on what not to do. We’d all better hope he’s agile and able, because the alternative is the Trumps, Le Pens and fascists all over the West.
The status quo is increasingly seen for what is and rejected; the replacement can be good, or very, very bad.
You go, Jeremy! Corbyn vows to force May to resign ‘within a matter of days’
Yessirree!
So much like Hillary !
Yes, it’s all over Twitter how much Theresa May and Hillary — and their supporters, opponents of Corbyn and Sanders — are alike.
Mona , I admire your ability to stick to your dreams. Stay positive , the world must seem very menacing to you. Try to show a little bit of respect for others who have different opinions. We’re only human after all.
I would love a Corbyn in Downing Street, but I think the Mirror is not a reliable source- though more reliable than the Daily Mail (with a few exceptions) and certainly more reliable than the Sun.
The article is from The Hill. They are not known for publishing non-fact-based material.
Bernie Sanders lambasts ‘absolute failure’ of Democratic party’s strategy
This is a strong, strong movement. It’s happening all over the West and is winning.
To paraphrase the Sanders snake oil-
The democrats are corrupt and your support for them is necessary
to suck away your energy and
to keep your hopes from ever becoming reality.
For Sanders to be “rapturously received” is an indicator of a
delusional desperation which is not that far removed from the
delusional desperation which elected Trump and almost elected
Dick Cheney-in-drag Clinton.
We will do it without you. Virtually every ideological movement has fringies who are extreme in their paranoid purity. But there’s sufficient critical mass that they/you won’t get in the way.
Sanders’ supporters are, in the main, more leftwing than he is, certainly on foreign policy. The movement he leads is the important thing. Just stay out of our way.
I have looked at the speakers list from the bogus
“People’s Summit” and it is blatantly obvious that it
was a democrat-driven-performance and while the words
of the speakers were no doubt full of inspirations, they were
being spoken by loads of democrap supporting agents.
You need to call me a “purist” because I will not support
notorious fakers and history has shown that the democrats
like Sanders are how they keep avoiding progress for “the party.”
Yeah.
He was on a journalism panel with that well-know Democratic hack, David Sirota. pffft
I did NOT say everyone who speaks there is a democrap hack, but that
the speakers listed included “LOADS” of those delusionalists.
It does not reflect well on anyone who is willing to participate
in what is clearly a scam program.
Also,
Only by attending AND by denouncing the both the republicans
and the democrats as the predators they are, will any
of the speakers insure their credibility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8kkPgnC9S0&feature=youtu.be
You might find this video informative. You’re right; Sanders is leading those who call themselves progressives, socdems, or socialists down the wrong path. I hope most aren’t fooled.
this is probably the most one-sided article I’ve EVER read on this site.
Corbyn could not be trusted to be prime minister for a simple reason: he’s a nobody with no real credibility, a socialist that still believes in Labour policy from the 1950’s. The world has moved on and he hasn’t. He’d run the country into the ground by focusing on irrelevant, anti-capitalist, socialist policy. A dinosaur with a bead.
What this article is poorly hiding are two simple facts:
Balance of arguments? NO.
Shut up and vote Labour? YES.
I expected better from an Intercept journalist.
Watch this brief, damning slide show: The ‘left liberal’ Guardian’s campaign against @JeremyCorbyn was as relentless as the right-wing Daily Mail & The Sun. Here’s the proof.
It’s all theoretical unless Sanders wins, but with the New York Times running another hatchet job on him, there must be some concern among the Democratic establishment that it could become reality.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/democrats-midterm-elections.html
ascendant militant wing?
The fools that pushing the myth the party needs to reconcile and come together must believe that rose is a mix of chablis and merlot. And they are under the impression that the evil in the mix of DNC, CIA, WAPO and the MURDER OF SETH RICH is reconcilable.
Figures, the POS NYT did their “damndest” to sell America on WMD.
the WMD pushers have it in for Bernie.
MT took them apart last year.
worth reread
How the ‘New York Times’ Sandbagged Bernie Sanders
https://192.95.4.125/servlet/redirect.srv/sruj/snxzffucycdhl/sstu/p1/politics/news/how-the-new-york-times-sandbagged-bernie-sanders-20160315
Yes. And although it’s morbid self-comfort at the moment, I suspect it is true that the worst thing that could have happened for social democracy in the US was a Clinton win because it would have further associated the left with the DNC establishment’s fascism-lite. Many folks voted for Trump specifically to avoid this, and now Trump is doing Bernie the favor of demonstrating that Bernie really is the only alternative on offer.
I have a feeling that Dems will go after Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard like they went after Alan Grayson, Cynthia McKinney, and Dennis Kucinich- forcing them out, and leaving in either spineless establishmentarians, or candidates who are likely to lose.
Corbyn and Sanders need to be elected for their followers to be enlighted. Trump followers still believe Mexico will pay for the wall! Sanders followers believe they can have a single payer system without a massive tax hike. Corbyn believe he can collect 120 billion pounds in tax with new collectors.
Of course Corbyn/Sanders will call you a neo liberal, imperialists, pro Clinton…if you expose their wishful thinking. We have cheap schools, cheap universities, impeccable healthcare. But the US is not Switzerland. The US is not Denmark. I told Venezuelans in 2003 Venezuela is not Norway. They called me an imperialist.
Does anybosy believe the “American dream is more apt to be realized in Venezuela”? That was Sanders a few years ago.
Do not call me names. Go the polls and vote for them. I will be vindicated in a few years.
You told Venezuelans in 2003 Venezuela is not Norway. You naughty boy !
120,000,000,000 pounds? BULLCRACK. The thieving globalists are scamming populations with their global corporat crap by making rules to FRONT RUN trades in favor of the crooked market makers and middle men.
The globalist trade criminals did the same thing to the US in the 1860’s with their fony frontrunning of cotton trading that precipitated the civil war. This whole market making stuff is crap to front run B2B.
IT’S A TOTAL CON JOB.
TIME FOR A BANKRUPTCY.
That one is a European Clintonite, right down to her verbatim talking points. A total troll. He never “told” anyone jack shit about Venezuela; he issues points from the script when and as the script is made available.
The rich far right in Venezuala and their neoliberal allies have been terrorizing Venezualans for years, and this asshat seems right in line with them. Right-Wing Terrorism in Venezuela
It’s disgusting how neoliberals are exploiting legitimate dissent movements regarding civil rights for their own corrupt purposes, and allying with the depraved, wealthy, terrorist Venezualan right. I spit on them all, including their Queen, HRC.
“That one is a European Clintonite”
Based on what? Anyway read my comment again:
“Do not call me names. Go the polls and vote for them.”
Them = Sanders and Corbyn
“He never “told” anyone jack shit about Venezuela”
You can believe whatever you want to believe. This is a free world. You also believe you are “intelligent”. I believe you are not. Sanders believes you can realize the American dream in Venezuela. I believe he is wrong. Corbyn believes Venezuela should be praised for great achievements in jobs. I believe he is wrong.
You can blame neoliberals, Great Satan, and soon you will probably blame Israel and Zionists for Venezuela’s problems. If you cannot see how Chavez’s policies failed, then as expected you have absolutely no basic understanding of basic economics.
You have proven so many times you have name calling skills, but no debating skills. You should attack the argument presented not the commenter. Or you can just ignore the commenter.
Is it that hard to ignore Swisscheese?
328
Jeremy’s labour party. Is tony Blair still a member ?
Only because the previous labour elite decided to opportunistically shut up during the campaign , Jeremy has saved the furniture. Next session in parliament you will see how divided the Labour Party is.
Until he is actually elected and tries to implement his policies, this is nothing more than meaningless word salad. Success in the ballot boxes and success as an actual head of state are two very different things.
Indeed. Winning the ballot in the UK doesn’t make one head of state. Coronation does.
“Success in the ballot boxes and success as an actual head of state are two very different things.”
Indeed. That’s why I hope he becomes prime minister soon. Most the policies he presented will not work. So, he will either break his promises (Tsipras in Greece) or drag the UK into a mess ( Venezuela). He will probably break most of his promises when elected.
1. Matt Taibbi “Insane Clown President” describes in the chapter ‘The Case for Bernie Sanders’ why commentators like Hasan got reality so horribly wrong. Hasan neglected to widen his network and report on what was actually happening rather than deciding, describing and shaping a narrative that reflected and represented what he thought should happen (be happening) rather than what was actually happening on the ground in real time. Zoe Daniels (Australian B/cst Corp) was another who totally missed what was happening right in front of her eyes. Daniels and Hasan ran a fantasy narrative that alienated their audience, who by then realised if any understanding of what was actually happening was to be explored, then obviously Hasan had to be ignored, marginalised and not consulted. The Sanders campaign had no choice but to find different ways/platforms to communicate directly with an audience who were cut loose, ridiculed, silenced, ignored, lectured to and finally insulted for their lack of political knowledge and judgement by MSM commentators like Hasan. Incredibly….
2. Hasan, refusing to reflect on why he missed, as in like totally missed, the US campaign went into covering the UK campaign flexing the same discredited strategies and mindset. Narrowed, inflexible and refusing to engage with changed on-ground conditions he again alienated, lectured and insulted those who would not see what he could see. The problem was the hallucinations of the political commentaries, based and shaped by political mainstreamed knowledge which had been rejected and replaced before the campaign had even begun, were describing and predicting projected fantasy.
3.Sanders and Corbyn has seen the link between politics, the media and people remade. Commentators like Hasan are being replaced, marginalised by a more independent mode of reporting that people trust and engage with around a collegiate model that is transactional and active (Taibbi, Dore, Figueredo and on and on) rather than static consumption (Hasan, Murdoch). An important driver is the co-operative and levelling nature of the relationship between the reported on and the reporter. Mark de Stefano captured this changed relationship in his “What A Time to Be Alive . That and other Lies of the 2016 Campaign” about the Australian campaign. That Hasan is merely beginning to reflect on his inability to understand a fast paced constantly changing landscape means I will keep him at the deludedly amusing and entertaining rather than a site of serious political commentary – for the time being at least.
Bernie Sanders is a democrat who blames Russia for
Hillary Clinton’s loss AND
Sanders shares the same opposition to the BDS movement
as Alan Dershowitz.
I sincerely hope Corbyn has more sense than a hypocrite like Sanders.
Speaking as a Bernie supporter, even though I don’t agree with the positions he’s taken of recent in regards to Israel and Russia, I have to say that I’m fine with him giving the establishment what they want in those areas in the hopes that he may obtain more platform and less negative press.
It’s not only Bernie, but also literally ever other progressive in this country that teeters between being establishment and subversive. I don’t see an alternative really. Taking a moral stance on Israel and Russia would just get them blacklisted and where would we all be then?
Corbyn supports the BDS movement and has not shown any degree of interest in the fortunes of Hillary Clinton.
Ok no comment on the leaker all edged. Winner. Smelled like a fish before I even read intercept on it. False flag
Great writing Mehdi.
I started realizing how special Jeremy Corbyn when the one & only Cristina Kirchner called him a ‘great friend of Latin America.’ Cristina rarely praises leaders, let alone a western leader, so it was then that I knew this guy was something special. I also remembered him meeting with Mexican leftist Lopez Obrador in Mexico earlier this year, and this filled me with even more hope. If there is ever a day that Latin America becomes a united political block, it’s with sincere belief that men like Melenchon, Corbyn, Yanis Varoufakis & Pablo Iglesias will get Europe to respect & politically back such great integration. If only those four could get European democracy whole again as well!!
Melenchon…Today’s results from France are as bad as could be. The authoritarian Macron will get 2/3 of seats and practically the only “opposition” is the party of the Prime Minister. That is a total control of two branches of government and they plan to change the constitution in a way that will kill the third branch. It’s worse than in Turkey.
(Only as a side note here, the developments in Britain are great. May will fall within the next months maybe even weeks and then the second post 2008 left wing government will take power in Europe and I have great hopes that they will be more successful than Syriza)
France has slid far thanks to Sarko the American. Back in 2003, all the major parties opposed going into Iraq. Sarkozy (who got his start in a CIA funded group) changed that.
Macron favors EU-imposed austerity (on fellow EU states and aspirants, like Ukraine). He favors a war on Syria, but has yet to call for an Article 5 declaration on IS, despite them being behind several bloody attacks on France and beyond. He is already targeting France’s unIons. And the media are ignoring the recent leaks, despite the claims of Russian origin being disproved. (Had they leaked earlier, the calls for “Baise le people” would have been met by “Baise Macron!”)
I don’t like the phrasing of the title, saying Corbyn is leading the left “to power”. The struggle of the left is a struggle for empowerment, not for power. There is a distinct difference. Empowerment is about control over one’s own existence. Power is about control over other people. Phrasing it as the left coming “to power” is only going to incite even more reactionary responses from the far right.
WaPo: Inspired by Sanders, activists push Democrats to the left — or out of the way
Written by cretinous David Weigel, so of course the bit I emphasize:
I suggest Sanders followers look to the US religious right. They took control by organizing from the grassroots up. Failing that, they can run in as many races as possible. With Democrats often refusing to fight, they hand victory to opponents.
Weigle: “…some debate…” sounds like “some say…” right out of Fox News.
And…purity? NOBODY practiced purity as much as beltway Democrats…”pragmatic”, and “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”, and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QRimyfmz0MA…open misandry.
everyone (who is human) loves Jeremy Corbyn
Corbyn catches up with May in opinion poll asking who would make best prime minister
The Independent – 11 hours ago
The Book of Jeremy Corbyn
The New Yorker – 2 days ago
Anthony Lane on Jeremy Corbyn and the results of the U.K. general election this
week—with the story told as if it were a Biblical one.
Jeremy Corbyn is having the best night ever
CNN – 3 days ago
24 things that Jeremy Corbyn believes
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34209478
Doug writes
“……Also, if you don’t think the US/Western Allies/NATO (in association with a bunch of Ukrainian oligarchs and battalions of real, live, no-shit Nazis) were (and are) responsible for the coup and subsequent war in Ukraine, I’ll have additional reading assignments for you when you get up to speed on the basic history of the region……..”
Go ahead Doug. Fire away. It’s always interesting to see things from the Putin-bot point of view…..
Tell us, did you go?
OK, Craig, here’s some Putinbot (we generally forego the hyphen) reading material for you:
Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call
And here’s some of the Putinbot video we watch:
Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine: NEWSNIGHT
Even you have to impressed by the way we’ve cleverly turned the Beeb.
This is the kind of reading that you boast that support your views about the history of the region? BBC pieces?
Man, you’re quite boastful for such light weight sources!
If you are truly concerned about Nazis and far-right politocs, you are on ths wrong of this political fight. Russia is now a potent global far right power, spreading ultra-conservative, nationalistic and chauvinistic far and broadly.
Yes, there are far-right elements in Ukraine, but they pale in number and in comparison with Russia and its allies accross Europe and Central Asia.
And, no, the US is not running the show in Ukraine, far from that. Just because it did pick a side in the conflict it doesn’t mean it is that influential. The US didn’t evem sell arms to Ukraine.
(But, predictably, you think it is all about the US…)
“If you are truly concerned about Nazis and far-right politocs, you are on ths wrong of this political fight.”
Doug is not concerned about Nazis and far-right politics. He is searching for anything to blame the West and absolve Russia. Tell him MH17 and he will repeat pro Kremlin narratives, call you names and run away.
Ah…another desperate “yes…but” argument, which was heard often from the right to justify last decade’s Iraq War.
So… First the guy, in true McCarthyite fashion gets slandered as a “Putin-bot” (whatever that is…)
And after he posts a link to Western news sources backing his assertions, you handwave it away, because “Putin is the real Nazi” or something like that.
You’re floundering here, it’s transparent and predictable.
No, the US doesn’t “run Ukraine”. But it did run the good ol’ “Washington consensus” train on the country, and handed it over to our preferred kleptocratic oligarchs to run, instead of the former kleptocratic oligarchs.
I’m not sure whether you’re merely uninformed about Europe and its neighbors to the east, or whether you have chosen to get swept along with the river of McCarthyite flotsam that’s washing over political debates lately.
You are however, fundamentally and unambiguously wrong when you equivocate the European far right with Nazis.
The “far right” parties you’re talking about, that in Europe can count on the support of 20-50% of the electorate, have two things in common: A deep scepticism or antipathy to the European Union, and a wish to either close the borders to immigration, or deeply cut the number received.
Aside from that, “the far right” is all over the map in terms of social or economic policy. Some swing right or even fat right on economic policy, others are centrist or beer left. The same goes for social policy. Some have a traditionalist standpoint on issues like gay marriage, other openly Court homosexuals.
If that doesn’t sound like Nazis, that’s cause they’re not. And comparing them with the kind of honest to God, Jew hating Nazis that have seen a renaissance in Ukraine and now have armed militias, is not just dumb and uninformed, but also disingenuous.
I’m fully confident that I’m more well informed than you are. For decades, I’ve been a student of Eastern European history and politics, Ukraine in particular.
First – the nuance that you highlight about the right in other European countires also exist in Ukraine. There is a spectrum from sanitized to extremism in all these countries. The only difference is that in Ukraine there is a war so militias are armed, but the far right is fat more influential in other countries, including the neo-Nazis.
Don’t believe me? Go read directly from the academics that track far-right extremism in Europe. One expert I recommend is Anton Shekhovtsov.
You are mistankenly downplaying the racism and radicalism of thr European far-right.
Do some research about the anti-semitism of the National Front in France (a country, btw, that has a history of Nazi collaboration that dwarf anything that ever happened in Ukraine, a country which fought against Nazis at a level that far, far surpasses the war against Nazis by the West. More Ukrainians fought and died against the Nazis in WWII than the Americans, British and French combined!! And yet, Americans pretend they are the one that defeated the Nazis! The anti-Ukrainianan estereotypes in the West is nothing other than age old prejudice and bigotry towards Eastern Europeans).
Go research about the origin and development of Austria’s Freedom Party.
Or Hungary’s Jobbik. Or Russia’s Eurasianism movement, Alexander Dugin and National-Bolshevism. Tell me again how they are not that bad as Ukraine’s right.
It seems like you are falling for the PR tactics of the European right. Maybe next will tell us Richard Spencer in the US is not that bad either…
That’s fine and dandy Doug, but really old news. Don’t forget the role of the NGOs in bringing down the Russian puppet, Yanukovych. But I thought you might help me get up to speed on the basic history of the region. Remember I did say, Russia has dominated the affairs of Ukraine for the last 100 years – like during the rein (of terror) of Stalin, WWII and under Soviet rule.
You’re still talking about 100 years after I told you to start Googling with Kievan Rus?
And neither you nor Diogo the Dense have responded to the content of the linked pieces, which I cited in response to a claim that NATO/US/Western Allies were not responsible for the war in Ukraine.
Do try to pay closer attention, both of you.
Oh lookee! Diogo and Craig together! What a booteeful far right tableau.
Mona, you’re nothing but an internet troll. Everyone can see that.
The only way you can make US/NATO responsible for what’s taking place in Ukraine is by denying the agency of the Ukrainian people. No amount of NGO money can make a people mobilize in mass to face danger defending the future they want for their country, which is what happen when Yanukovich undemocratically canceled the process of signing the association agreement witn the EU in favor of the “Eurasian Union”. Or when Yanukovich suspended civil rights and tried to consolidate dictatorial powers on his hands to crush organized civil society.
The European far-right was making its move and it was unified in its anti-Ukrainian stance, with the propaganda help of so-called leftists useful idiots in the West like yourself.
Kievan Rus?! You drop a random reference like that thinking this shows knowledge of history? What a joke!! That’s behaviour of someone who knows so little that doesn’t even get it that the little reference he has is totally superficial.
Did you only hear about Ukraine 2 years ago and then read some wikipedia pages? That’s what it seems like.
Kievan Rus?! You drop a random reference like that. . .
Nothing could be less random wrt a question about the relationship between Russian and Ukraine that the knowledge that one needs to begin with Kievan Rus and follow a very long history from that place and time.
As for the Western-supported and -guided coup that overthrew the legitimately-elected Yanukovich, the evidence speaks for itself. I have lots of it availalble.
If you have evidence and citations, rather than merely bloviating and insults, let us know. If we find your argument interesting and compelling, we may respond. However, we are on the verge of consigning you to the bucket where we keep nasty jerks without meaningful contributions to make, so don’t be surprised if you’re frequently ignored, as is true of your new BFF, the Cheesy One.
You want sources and citations. Ok.
Here’s one, on the fascist element of the anti-Ukrainian campaign:
http://anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.com/2016/01/how-alexander-dugins-neo-eurasianists.html?m=1
Even wild-eyed fascists can occasionally be correct. Ukraine is exactly that.
Wow, now I see it! You are one of those bigots that denies the existence of Ukrainian people and culture, just like the imperialists, nazis and genocide perpretators. That is aweful.
Ukraine is not an unnatural state. The pluralism and diversity of its people does not make it “unnatural”, no more than the US and Russia are “unnatural”.
Now I see what your reference to Kievan Rus is supposed to mean. I’m well acquainted by that line of propaganda from Russian imperialists. If you truly believe in that innocently, I suggest you studt history way more, beyound the superficial ackowledgement that Kievan Rus existed. (Hint, Moscow was never part of it and there were centuries separating the downfall of Kievan Rus and the colonization of Ukrainians by Russian Empire).
“for the Western-supported and -guided coup that overthrew the legitimately-elected Yanukovich, the evidence speaks for itself. I have lots of it available.”
No, you do not have any evidence. Since in your own universe everything has to be blamed on the US and the West, then you interpret everything you read as evidence that the West toppled Yanukovich.
Here’s the great historian Tymothy Snyder’s take on the fascist threat on Ukraine.
(Btw, his “Bloodlands” is mandatory reading for anyone interested on Eastern and Central European history).
https://newrepublic.com/article/117692/fascism-returns-ukraine
However important (albeit flawed) Snyder’s seminal work may be, the fact remains that he is a committed neoliberal with Russphobic tendencies.
And the cited article is ridiculous from the lede onwards. Anyone asserting that the fascism “returning to Ukraine” has come from the east rather than the west is either an ignoramus, a fantasist, or a lying propagandist. T. CFR Snyder is the latter.
Yes, the credible fascist threat comes crom the East! Russia is building an international neo-fascist movement. And you’re a victim of their powerful propaganda.
http://anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.com/2015/09/russian-politicians-building.html?m=1
http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/06/24/spectre-of-ukrainian-fascism-information-wars-political-manipulation-and-reality/
Here are views of Ukrainian and Russian leftists:
https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2015/04/21/kagarlitsky-the-war-and-political-corruption/
“If you have evidence and citations, rather than merely bloviating and insults…”
Lol lol Doug complaining about insults!
“don’t be surprised if you’re frequently ignored, as is true of your new BFF, the Cheesy One.”
1) Can you tell your pal, Mona to ignore me? She seems incapable of doing so.
2) why do you guys have that weird thinking that you hurt my feelings by ignoring my comments? This is a public forum. You should go straight to the next comment without even stopping at my name. I just don’t have to ignore any of you.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/03/20/fascism-russia-and-ukraine/
strange how you criticise good thinking people and fail to condemn the murder of palestinians and the consequential theft of their land, and the criminals running the government in the otherwise good country of Israel.
Here’s a nice article from Bloomberg on how Poland is upset at Ukraine’s glorification of Bandera and his ilk.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-13/world-war-ii-isn-t-quite-over-for-poland-and-ukraine
Off-topic in this thread, but relevant because of Naomi’s piece, an interview/book review at the Graun:
Naomi Klein: ‘Trump is an idiot, but don’t underestimate how good he is at that’
Bernie and Jeremy have been tweeting to each other for some time.
LOL Attn: Doug
This 3-year-old tweet is making the rounds and it’s hilarious:
Spencer Ackerman?Verified account
@attackerman
So Ta-Nehisi Coates has created a roach motel for trolls.
How could we not have lost Craig to that?
Perfect. Brilliant. Is Craig still. . .?
For pointing that out, I forgive Spencer and apologize for every snarky thing I’ve written about (most of them, anyway).
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/lobby-episode-1-young-friends-israel-170115035405450.html
So much for the zion loving piece of shit that is murdoch and his attempts at political interference using his toilet papers.
Our elites have been running a scam on the productive working class since farmers were able to produce more food than they consumed. Elites rose up all over, kings, the priest class and their military as a first or last resort to lay claim to the wealth they did not produce. There have been a few short periods when the workers have rose up against the scam. Martin Luther turned them loose by exposing the catholic scam but once he saw the elites threatened he, being one of them quickly turned against the people as the priest class does. Soviet Communism although it turned into a monstrosity at home became ideologically and militarily strong enough to present a viable alternative to the masses so the elites threw us a few bones for a while until it came down , destroyed by internal greed…not Regan. More oligarchs in Moscow than new york city. The power of mythology over the human mind, uniquely human..(you could never convince a Monkey to give you his Bananas todaay for the promise of unlimited Bananas in Monkey heaven, they are not that stupid) allows our parasitic elites to convince the workers that someone who “trades” is more valuable than someone who produces. That money created from nothing is more valuable than food, clothing or shelter. That someone who sells a house is more valuable than someone who builds it. That someone who trades in derivatives is more valuable than millions of her fellows who produce real wealth. Such is the power of T I N A, there is no alternative to the exploitative capitalist system that most people have been convinced to believe in it. Trump never built a building, no general ever won a war, the priest class lives high on the hog in homes and churches built by the workers they exploit with their elite system supporting mythology. Now, of course; the only way to build giant societies of millions is a common belief in unreal things..the nation state, god/religion, law, accounting, money etc. Gravity and Granite are real things not dependent on belief; money like god is faith based. Basically, almost everything we “believe in” is “fake news” and very good at supporting the status quo with you, the productive worker at the bottom and the parasitic elites producing nothing pulling the strings. Short of genetic engineering I don’t see much hope for real change; even revolutions and killing them all wind up replacing the old elites and their system with new elites exploiting the same old workers.
Unfortunately, what you say is true. Fortunately, we have a solution. We will replace all the 10x5x200 workers with 24x7x365 robots, and then we all can be elites without any discrimination. Maybe then we won’t need so many elites, so might as well keep eliminating some as it develops.
Well done.
The UK Labor Party was a very good and faithful party when Tony Blair was heading the pack. I am not too sure if their loyalty then was honest or dishonest, but it was unequivocal, and they just closed their eyes and joined us in Iraq. David Cameron was not so effective though at the time of the defeated motion to join us in Syria we had the worst president in US history. This fellow Corbyn doesn’t appear to me to be an honest fellow, so I am not banking on him too much. Brits will soon find out and trash him once Putin gets to deal with him.
“Faithful” and “pack” are very appropriate terms, when used in a description of T. Poodle Bliar’s Labour reign.
BTW, the above is not satire, folks. The general means it.
Thanks for your agreement. Appreciated as always. Did you notice that the Blair bloke had far fewer Pakis in his pack? The situation has changed somewhat. I love good Pakis, but these days a lot of them are addicted to ali-akbars, and then they reflexively perform all kinds of mischief.
When faced with a choice between two known lies, the one that seems less threatening when the inevitable breaking occurs wins out. And between ‘the cuts won’t affect you’ and ‘there won’t be any tax increases’, it is the breaking of the second that seems more threatening.
But the choice between a known lie and a truth flips the script. The known tax increase can be measured and seen to be a small price for the possibility of better government services, but the unknown cuts mean you cannot measure the penny or two less in taxes and feel certain you’re going to come close to breaking even.
And even if the neoliberal/neoconservative types try and respond by telling the truth, leveling with the voters about what they’re going to lose, what is left to cut is so vital, so emotionally resonate, that the truth serves the left, not the right.
But what is more interesting is how the truth strategy plays with the rich and powerful. The smart, connected ones know that even if they get taxed much harder than they are being, they’re still going to enjoy a substantial advantage, and almost certainly remain rich and powerful, but revolutions and social upheavals often take down many of the rich and powerful.
Jon Stone?Verified account @joncstone 23h23 hours ago
Not only is a there a poll showing the Tories behind Labour, there’s also one showing every replacement for May would make them less popular
There are senior Labourites speaking seriously of the possibility of forming a government.
Failing that, there is an active movement to seriously modify and amend the Queen’s Speech (should T. May, “the squatter” get that far).
And the “deal with the DUP” doesn’t seem to be a done deal, at all.
Asked if he were prepared to lead for the long haul, Jeremy said, “Look at me. I’ve got youth on my side.”
Yup, apparently Theresa “misspoke” when she announced a done deal with the DUP. And Jeremy is having an enormous amount of fun with his victory. It’s lovely to behold.
Davis might be more popular with the public and Labour (Old Labour) than the Tories. He’s the guy who resigned his seat to protest CAMERON’s ID bill. He also called George W. Bush a war criminal. (I’d love to see a UK with Davis on one side and Corbyn on the other! It would be like France under Chirac- a united front from all major parties against American interventionism.)
The CONServative thieving party whores that represent the rich selfish horders are LOSING. The CONS figure that bringing in the DUPes, who are zionistic murderous wackjobs of a different species, will help them keep their power over other people so they can keep pillaging society.
New Law proposal – persons of elected positions who accept money or favours from persons or entities of wealth or power and who act to assist to the benefit of their favours at the expense of any public person are guilty of ____________ and shall be improsoned for a period of ___________ years.
“and having endured an unprecedented campaign of demonization by the right-wing press”
Not just the right-wing press.
Mr. Hasan
Corbyn is farther to the left than Trump is to the right. You cannot hide his record of support for the anti-western Stop the War Coalition, the anti-Semitism under his leadership at Labour or his anti-NATO stance. He served as chair to the STWC until 2015 which refused to actively protest the war crimes of the Syrian government. He blamed the war in Ukraine on NATO while ignoring a 100 year history of Russian domination of Ukraine. The socialist Corbyn also supports elements of the BDS campaign which has a singular goal of ending the Jewish majority state. And you refer to Corbyn as progressive? Being a card carrying member of the radical left is not the same as being a progressive. Far from it.
So yeah, as craigsummers makes clear, Corbyn is AWESOME.
Yeah, you know, when I want to know who is a real progressive, I go and ask an authoritarian, pro-torture (if Israel or the U.S. are doing it), Trump-voting, hardcore Zionist who refuses to state one thing he likes about the Fourth Amendment. Or wait — maybe, if that guy, Craig Summers, talks shit about a politician, the odds are extremely high that that politician is actually a great, morally enlightened person?
Hmmmm.
shiver me timbers.
the public shall own the means of production for life support systems and currency production and management.
Public sevices shall be publicly owned.
Persons attempting or supporting the orivitisation of public services are guilty of _________ and shall be imprisoned for a period of ___________ years.
The con game privateers play is the responsibility boomerang. Details later.
Meanwhile BDS should work to
1. stop the murder of Palestinians to steal land.
2. establish a 2-state solution originally mandated by the 1967 resolution
3. ascribe punitive damages for the murder of 34 Americans aboard the USS Liberty
4. remove organised crime from power in the country of Israel.
You just never cease to amaze me, Craig. Please go read the history of Ukraine before making additional dumb and out-of-context comments. You should start by Googling Kievan Rus, but do keep reading (it will take some time).
Also, if you don’t think the US/Western Allies/NATO (in association with a bunch of Ukrainian oligarchs and battalions of real, live, no-shit Nazis) were (and are) responsible for the coup and subsequent war in Ukraine, I’ll have additional reading assignments for you when you get up to speed on the basic history of the region.
Unfortunately Doug, the facts will never have the same emotional grip on Craig as the lies he needs to believe to hold his expressed opinions.
Do you mean Corbyn supports some “element” of the official BDS campaign platform, and that such “element” has the stated singular goal of “ending the Jewish majority state”?
If so that’s a flat out lie. No part of the official BDS campaign has the stated goal, much less the singular goal, of ending the Jewish majority state.
https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds
Or are you arguing Corbyn supported some “element” (i.e. groups or individuals) among those ostensibly aligned with the BDS movement or campaign, that have as their personal individual goal to end the Jewish majority state?
If so prove it with names and links of those individuals an proof that Corbyn supports them and their goal rather than the official goals of the BDS campaign. And then prove that the official BDS campaign lets those individuals speak for the BDS movement in an official representative capacity.
Bet you can’t do either, which also would make your statement read that way a lie.
Why are you such a degenerate liar?
“Why are you such a degenerate liar?”
Because all zionist scum is. That’s all they can do.
For most Zionists, it’s “necessary.” The truth is too hard of a sell.
So, Craig (mis)characterizes this BDS goal:
Zionism of the political variety on which Israel was founded is an ethno-religious, supremacist ideology that is wholly dependent on maintaining a Jewish super-majority through ongoing and barbaric force.
The Palestinians’ right of return would threaten this pillar of the ethno-religious supremacist state, hence Craig’s Zionist-speak.
(I know you know all this rr, but it was useful to state it anyway.)
Craig summers, Everything you say about Jeremy Corbyn makes him sound wonderful.! Tell us more.
Odd that you mention Gandhi in connection with Sanders. Corbyn is somewhat more understandable in this context, but Sanders is very different (I would say far less progressive) than Corbyn regarding violence and militarism.
The Guardian (UK)
This is not to diminish Sanders’ laudable democratic socialism in the domestic sphere.
Overall, Sanders’ record and statements on war, warmongering and saber-rattling are a deal-breaker for me.
There is no combination of social policies that can be adequate to make up for long-standing support for wars of choice and for brutal dictatorships, armies of occupation and ethnic cleansing.
And pretending he hasn’t done exactly that, no matter how successful the pretense may be with Sanders’ supporters who think he’s a peacenik, simply layers dishonesty on top of the warmongering.
It’s a deal-breaker for me, as well, and not all of his domestic policies go remotely far enough – something which also distinguishes him from the more unapologetically revolutionary Corbyn. When Jill Stein offered Sanders a place in the Green Party’s leadership after his (and his supporters’) appalling treatment by the Democrats, she qualified this offer sensibly by saying:
Thanks for the response, Doug. We will be thought of by some readers as ‘purists’ for this, but I prefer to think of it as ‘principled.’
If refusing to countenance or compromise with blowing brown babies, far away, to bloody bits, for no reason other than to serve the interests of greed and power-mad oligarchs, makes one a “purist”. . . well, we should all try to be at least that pure, IMHO.
Everyone has to draw the line somewhere. Bernie is not Jeremy Corbyn, and no one rational tries to argue otherwise. But he is, far and away, the best, most moral politician with any power on the American national stage.
For me, that merits support. Including as means to building the movement that is, preponderantly, far less militaristic than Bernie himself is.
I don’t think ANY candidate could win if they said they were unwilling to go to war. They would be CRUSHED because there isn’t another nation on earth as ruled by the military industrial complex as the USA. Ironically, the people who would never vote for someone who wasn’t willing to go to war are the same people who would never vote for a candidate who was an atheist. SMH
it may be that in the US in order for people to DIVEST themselves of the military industrial spy complex that some states may need to rewrite their constitution in such fashion that the globalist warmongers may see it as secession, and that includes a prescription for an INDEPENDENT PUBLICLY OWNED STATE CURRENCY.
Well, there’s going to war and then there’s defending oneself and one’s community/country, if attacked.
Bring Them Home (If You Love Your Uncle Sam)
For many decades, now, America has been pretending that its attacks are defensive rather than offensive. It’s a big lie.
I am all for defending our country against attacks. I am not for waging wars of aggression- and CERTAINLY not for waging wars of aggression against those who are fighting our foes. Those who want to do that and break our laws to boot? ADMAX Florence or FMC Carswell or The Hague for them*.
Based on that, anyone who backed Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector/Harmattan/Ellamy/Mobile is not suited for office, and those in the US who violated the War Powers Act are high criminals and deserve prosecution to the fullest extent of the law. Further, as we have troops on the ground in Syria, as we have attacked forces of the Government of Syria, as said action is targeting those who are fighting our enemies (AQ and IS), and as the AUMF has nothing to do with Syria, the clock is ticking until Donald Trump and his administration fall into that last, worst category too.
* There is also a prison where they could wind up in the USA, but mentioning it would get me in trouble. The prison is not secret, but there is only one federal prison utilizing the ultimate sanction against crime, and it could be considered a threat against current or former officials if I invoked that.
In fact, if Sanders really wanted to implement the domestic social programs, and counter the staggering economic and political inequality as he claims to want to, there would be absolutely no way of doing so while still maintaining the stance of total imperialist interventionist war everywhere, and the ginning up of new wars, that the regimes on “either side” have promoted interminably, along with the face hugger strangulation grip that the blood-sucking parasitic “defense/intelligence” industry has on this country’s resources. This is not difficult to understand, but Sanders seems to have purposely avoided making this connection, both in public communication, and in his actions and votes.
Exactly.
Part of the difference on the willingness to use violence to ‘deal’ with a problem between Corbyn and Saunders should be laid at the foot of the different stages of evolution in the two countries.
Britain went through the painful process of admitting it was an oppressive power (see India and Ghandi’s revolution not being crushed in a hail of gunfire, mass arrests, disappearances etc) while the US still refuses to even contemplate that notion. In many ways, it’s like the difference between May (who, despite keeping power, admits this was a sort of defeat) and Trump (who is adamant that his win was total and overwhelming, even in the popular vote).
Indeed. The Brits have had to own up to Jallianwala Bagh, while the Americans don’t have the faintest idea about, e.g., our war crimes in the Philippines.
Those big oceans and compliant neighbors have fostered a comfortable, and massively destructive, ignorance.
To get anything done, Bernard Sanders needs a lot of progressive colleagues. Now, I know that some people are working on that, but voters will be disappointed if they rely on Sanders to fix politics on his own.
The good news is that some states and cities are introducing progressive policies on health care and the minimum wage.
It’s too little, too late.
Given a choice to establish a true liberal policy — to bring forward lessons from the Single Taxers and to dispute a world where all the bounty of nature is the inheritance of a few — Obama signed THIS: http://www.planetaryresources.com/2015/11/president-obama-signs-bill-recognizing-asteroid-resource-property-rights-into-law/
Liberals have failed to dispute that the Earth is property, space is property, that our knowledge is property, that even fresh ideas about how to do something can be property if they compete with a registered and ever-extended patent and exclusivity. Liberals have even watched as colleges during the recession experimented in new models of indentured servitude, and we know where that leads.
The Dark Age is coming, because the alternative is to be reduced to something less than human, less than an animal, less than a thing. In fifteen years the U.S. is broken apart, its democracy a rump vestige, its leadership controlled by the rival cartels, its most important seaport is Churchill, Manitoba. I mean, we had all this stuff, all these advantages, and we thought somebody was going to put it all together right. And now it’s just a dreary path downward to a grim future, but at least one where the few survivors start to matter.
Excellent post!
Your comment should have been posted under the apocalyptic Naomi article.
Don’t worry , be happy !
I would put the word ‘liberal’ in quotes while discussing the policies of people like Obama and the Clintons. I’m old enough to remember when the U.S. House of Representatives easily passed a guaranteed annual income for all Americans during the early 1970s.
Sorry, Kensington and Chelsea, although one [Royal, becauses it has a palace in it] Borough are 2 separate constituencies. Chelsea is still Conservative.
Nevertheless, winning Kensington, if by only 20 votes, is a fantastic achievement.
@Diogo
Who asks “And?” in response to Bernie’s having said this weekend:
“And” is that Bernie’s right, as conceded by neoliberal Democrat par excellence, Matt Yglesias: The whole Democratic Party is now a smoking pile of rubble
Yes, he is right. And he is right also in his approach to rebuild the democratic coalition.
Hasan thinks that Sanders and Corbyn are the same? No they’re not. Sanders thinks that the illegal and immoral Israeli Gaza Blockade (and murdering Palestinians) is perfectly okay. Has Sanders ever been to Gaza without bodyguards? No he hasn’t. Corbyn has. Has Sanders ever talked to Hamas? No. Corbyn has.
But what do the Corbyn trolls do? Every time they see that they’re losing an argument, they instantly use the “HAMAS IS YOUR FRIEND! THAT’S WHAT YOU SAID!” as an insult. Which only makes them look and sound even more stupid than they already are.
All Sanders cares about now is acting like he has real power in Washington. Unfortunately he doesn’t.
Sanders said nothing about foreign policy. The only good thing he did was not meeting with AIPAC.
Corbyn has a foreign policy. He relates the wars in the Middle East with the terrorist attacks in Britain. It would seem obvious to me, but only the Middle East ‘gets’ it. And Corbyn.
Sanders on Palestinians and AIPAC: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UPGUkg1z184
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YtMnbRWwD0k
Bill de Blasio, the great white hope of NYC Democrats:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PUH-Z97rD_o
Hi everyone else in an early in to the.
The year of the other hand
Excellent article. But Sanders will only win if he dumps the democratic party and runs as an independent. Two party is done, and good riddance.
Calm down Mehdi Hasan. .. before you blow a gasket.
It’s a start. A small step for Jeremy and a giant leap mankind. That’s all.
*don’t forget, the great Covfefe that still lurks in the heart of darkness.
failure is the new success
May now has to rely on fascists
swell
May and Le Pen should form their own party of fear and loathing. They both were aligned with Trump and the conservative and corrupted republican party in America. We are still investigating the Russian/Putin connection. Le Pen’s campaign was hacked by the Russians as well. I am so glad that Brits didn’t succumb to all the paranoia that May put out.
:D
Yes, the great Covfefe that still lurks in the heart of darkness can never be “misunderestimated” (W.) or it would go “nucelar” (W.) and stand in the way of “Peach”…..or was it Peace?? Never mind……
Here’s hoping that Corbyn will be successful in leading the left out of the wilderness.
It should be noted that Mr. Hasan has undermined the efforts of true leftists such as Sanders by aggressively pushing the political dispute back towards identity-cultural politics, which Sanders seeks to overcome.
This was clear in Mr. Hasan’ post-US election analysis/propaganda.
So when Mr. Hasan speaks of “those dreaded white working class communities” one must ask: dreaded by whom? Certainly not by Sanders and Corbyn, hence their success in winning their votes. Dreaded by the likes of Mr. Hasan. And that is precisely the problem for the left today.
The success of the Sanders’ Left depends on waning the influence of the ideologies that people like Mr. Hasan represent.
Diogo the Desperate…
Read what Hasan wrote in the past about Sander’s attitude towards the white working class:
https://theintercept.com/2017/04/06/top-democrats-are-wrong-trump-supporters-were-more-motivated-by-racism-than-economic-issues/
I think Hasan was partly correct – some white working class voters really were motivated to vote for Trump by racism more than economic issues. However, other white working class voters were more motivated by economic issues after observing the decline of their communities as a result of the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries and the decline of jobs from automation. Sometimes a decline in economic opportunities causes the scapegoating of other people and racism.
there was an antisemitic smell hanging round Jeremy’s labour party but I don’ t think Hasan would know that ?
You wanna elucidate on that accusation?
Or do you want me to start sniffing for anti-Islam vapors coming from your post?
Sniff what you want.
But if you sniff the way Hasan does , you will find anti-muslim, racism and white supremacism everywhere ?
That is not a way to an inclusive society but maybe that is not your ideal either ?
You just playing that fake antisemitism card. Nobody gives a shit about fake antisemitism. Point us to some real antisemitism, cause fake antisemitism has gotten fucking boring.
Didn’t the NYT and the Guardian have articles on this fake antisemistism within labour ?
But as I said this is not Hasan’s motive to support Jeremy….
Hmmm…. As I, recall Ken Livingstone was tossed out of the Labour Party for a mischaracterized statement thought to be antisemitic.
Not enough to wipe that smell away forya? Or is this just another swipe at Hasan.
Correction: as I recall,
Blast, I must need glasses.
If you say Ken was the only one I happily believe you.
With regards to Hasan it is true that I do not appreciate his way of searching for divisive political arguments to make a point.
Didn’t Hillary call the White working class, the basket of deplorables??? Wasn’t she going for the suburban educated Whites, and Romney voters.
Keep your outrage in your pants.
He’s hellbent on getting this “identity politics” nonsense to take off, and keeps starting new sub-threads in vain attempts. He’s so wholly ignorant, he must have slept through the primaries when women like me were repeatedly advised we had a solemn *duty* to vote for Her because she is a She.
And if we resisted, and insisted that on myriad issues Bernie was infinitely preferable, well, that could only be because we were trying to please our boyfriends — because “No True Feminist.”
Identity politics has almost completely become the sick domain of neoliberals. Only the braindead don’t know that.
HAHAHAH! That was a good laugh. I remember that one. That came out of the mouth of Ms. Steinem herself.
Sometimes I wonder, how it’s possible that these are the people in charge. The smarter people must have been doing something else. The entire world is full of crap leadership.
No, Hillary called Trump supporters a basket of deplorables, although that comment could be interpreted as an attack against the white working class, I suppose. In fact, Trump’s supporters come from a wider economic base than is commonly assumed.
Yes, she was. And she was completely wrong and misguided. But I suppose that is the reflection of her politics.
One of the main criticisms made against Corbyn was anti-Semitism. Given Al Jezeera’s expose of the Israeli embassy’s interference in British politics it comes as no surprise that the Labour party became a target under Corbyn because of his support for Palestinian rights. While Corbyn rightly opposed the accusation, he never qualified it by defending his support for Palestinian rights.
Mehdi, perhaps when and if Corbyn appears on Head to Head, you could ask him.
the question is whether the left is offering a true solution to concentrated power, or just a more equitable distribution of the hygge
ie we may get universal health care, gender equality, a sustainable education system, affordable housing etc but under the hood it still all runs on conflict metals and cheap labor someplace
sweden is about the same size as california but only has 1/3 the population .. so does social democracy “scale”?
i would say no .. and so we’re destined to be a slave ship run by elites like trump. of course i might be wrong but everything points toward more wealth disparities not less, unless there is a more seismic shift it attitudes
English translation? “It wasn’t invented here, so it won’t work. Now, lemmie sell yah…”
the right solves the crisis of capitalism by creating slaves, the left solves it by creating fantasies
So Hillary should have said not that the U.S. isn’t Denmark; she should have claimed that Denmark is a “fantasy.”
sure why not
Minneapolis is trying to be Denmark and they might succeed … the only fly in the ointment is their obsession wih building pro sports venues
maybe after the super bowl in 2018 they’ll turn US Bank Stadium into a hashish commune
Umm, maybe because it’s undeniably real?
this minor sub-discussion concerns “denmark” as an abstract representation of authentic and functional social democracy .. or not
i’m well aware the denmark the country exists, in fact i have actually been there
Ah, well, then, you should be well aware that authentic and functional social democracy is achievable. So, now, it’s just a question of context and detail.
anything is achievable with enough killer bud
Excellent idea! We give the greedy oligarchs large quantities of the best sinsemilla and they learn that “dope will get you through days of no money better than. . .”
Yeah, a thriving black mkt, a crime wave, skyrocketing rent/RE prices, a vulnerable blk mkt workforce, a burgeoning rightwing coalition of pot pigs and whores effing up my town and woods. But, only fools pay for KB.
Sounds like you might have a Prohibition problem where you live.
Do you know that within your power lies every step you ever dreamed of stepping, and within your power lies every joy you have dreamed of seeing? Within yourself lies everything you ever dreamed of being. Because everything that God wants you to be. It is within your reach. Dare to grow your dreams and claim this as your motto: Let it be me. – Mary Kay Ash.
Some among us believed on the power of positivism, believed on themselves and acted upon it, and become who we do look up on. I think you got it John, carry on.
ok i’m not going to say anything snarky
The always awesome Atrios (aka, Duncan Black) on Twitter captures neoliberal hacks before the snap election:
Neoliberal pundits after the snap election, per Atrios:
There’s @chrisdeerin on twitter, petulantly whining away, competing, evidently, for Monty Python’s “Upper Class Twit of the Year”.
deepstate will use all the tools in the toolbox to ensure that the “long tail” of american empire is guided by the right kind of custodial plutocrat
Bernie Sanders could have won. That’s the Corbyn lesson for America
Just so.
A socialist newspaper trying to convince people how great a socialist politician might have done? I’m shocked.
See, here’s your problem. The under-35s don’t shrink from the word “socialist” as the proverbial vampire does from the crucifix. They also do not conflate Scandinavia and social democrats with Stalinist hellholes.
You’re gonna have to come up with a much better, different boogeyman.
I’m not using it as a dirty word. I’m just pointing out my shock that they’d write articles telling people how the loss to such an unpopular politician is a huge win. It’s like being surprised that people in Australia would cheer an Australian in the Olympics. It’s cheerleaders for the home team.
There is a two part truth which should be noted every time. Bernie would have defeated Trump. The democratic party establishment cheated Bernie out of the nomination. Out right cheated.
There will never be a politically powerful viable left within the democratic party regardless of its numbers. With the last DNC elections, Bernie has no allies in any position of power. Many think that a tea-party type of revolt can happen in the democratic party–wishful thinking–establishment democrats hold the levers of the voting machines.
On a somewhat related point. Atrios had some hesitation in believing Bernie could win the general because he thought the democratic party establishment and allied groups would attempt to undermine Sanders. (Which is what happened to McGovern. )
Oh, I absolutely think some establishment Democrats would have revolted rather than vote for Bernie. They quite possibly would have supported Michael Bloomberg in a third party bid.
All that ranting we heard about “Bernie Bros” and the dire need to STFU and say nice things about Hillary and get her elected, and how evil Jill Stein is? None of that would have gone on about third parties had Bernie been the nominee. Not from a swathe of establishment Democrats.
Still, I think Bernie likely would have won. We know Hillary didn’t, and in the event establishment Democrats could be observed to deliver the country to Trump over Bernie, that would only be good for the future.
Atrios was right in that some powerful democrats would have turned on Bernie, but not enough to stop Bernie. Bernie Bros was a political fiction and a club to beat Bernie supporters. In saying nice things about Hillary, one had to first violently punch themselves in the face–it was amazing how so many democrats re-invented Hillary.
I just read a blog that noted the one difference between Corbyn and Sanders: paper ballots.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the execrable fascist Bloomberg takes it upon himself to enter the 2020 elections, now with the power-mad, billionaire president precedent set. Billionaires everywhere want their hands on the throttle, not just pulling strings in the back. Bloomberg has a brand and empire to flog, as well
They cheated him, outright, as you say, and he accepted it. Not only did he accept it after the fact, he accepted it going into the election, when he acquiesced to all of the demands that the DNC and Hillary made of him in allowing him to run as a “Democrat”. He told us he would support the ‘Democratic” candidate no matter what.
There is still hope. There’s a nice lawsuit against the DNC, that has some lawyers making statements that sound very…offensive.
https://www.scribd.com/embeds/347071625/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-3Kgat0uLyxu2EHL58S3x&show_recommendations=true
Please. He couldn’t even beat a widely disliked opponent. You mine as well try to convince me that Hillary really won the election in the States.
He couldn’t get media coverage, ‘cuz they’re SO honest. Now, look what Fox, the Clinton News Network and MSNBC did to him while he was making a speech… http://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-gets-three-major-networks-to-broadcast-image-of-empty-podium-for-30-minutes/
“…would probably win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination by a landslide if the contest were to be held tomorrow. ..”
Unfortunately, the 2020 elections will not be held tomorrow, and in the meantime, the monumentally criminal “Democrats” will collude with the sublimely criminal “Republicans” to assure themselves that anyone remotely of Sanders’ ilk will not be allowed within miles of the presidency. One major way of accomplishing this would be to start a hot war with Russia, or Iran, or even a hot proxy war with Russia or Iran in Syria, perhaps with a bit of Korea thrown in. Both of these prospects seem very appealing to the leaders, military and civilian, in “both” of the despicable reigning parties.
Unfortunately, Sanders’ record on military spending and use of US military force does him no service whatsoever here. He has been a strong supporter of both wildly increased military spending, and interventionist use of the military.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/16/blood-traces-bernies-iraq-war-hypocrisy/
and
“Sanders has Afghan blood on his hands too, having voted for the invasion of the now-endless Afghan war that triggered the beginning of the flurry of Middle East wars. And while Sanders brags about voting “no” for the 2003 Iraq war, his vote soon morphed into a “yes,” by his several votes for the ongoing funding of the war/occupation.
Sanders also voted “yes” for the U.S.-led NATO destruction of Yugoslavia, and supports the brutal Israeli military regime that uses U.S. weapons to slaughter Palestinians.
When it was announced that Obama was choosing sides and funneling guns to the Syrian rebels — thus exacerbating and artificially extending the conflict — Bernie was completely silent; a silence that helped destroy Syria and lead to the biggest refugee crisis since World War II.”
from:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/05/does-bernie-sanders-imperialism-matter/
Corbyn , to his credit, is probably quite a bit more of an actual socialist, in maintaining a coherent anti-imperialist and anti-interventionist stance throughout. Would that Sanders would adopt such policies, and not ally and ingratiate himself with the despicable war criminals who head the “Democratic” party, as he seems to have done.
No, the 2020 nomination ‘race’ isn’t happening this year. But remember, a big reason why Bernie could be cheated out of winning the 2016 nomination race is because the process was, is, and almost certainly still will be (in 2020) set up to allow the establishment to bake in a ‘win’ years in advance. And those votes, registration lists, committee formations, rule settings ARE happening this year (and the next).
Fact number 1- Trump won US elections and next US presidentials in 2020.
Fact number 2- May won UK elections and with DUP has a majority for the next 5 years.
All the rest is wishfull thinking.
I already debunked that nonsense below, where you posted essentially the same bullshit, almost verbatim.
As you like to say , Mona : facts are facts !
It should be noted that both Sanders and Corbyn are old school lefties, focused on class issues.
Their (relative) success and the diverse “coalition” of voter groups will never materialize with the “newer” “left”, which is primarily focused on identity and cultural politics.
And there lies the problem: the likelihood tbat, besides these old men, remnants of a different era, the left will remain mired in left and cultural politics and will not advance a trully progressive and successful political movement.
Wishful thinking:
Nah. The neoliberals have almost completely co-opted and abused so-called “identity politics.” All the cool (and smart) kids are totally into some permutation of intersectionality. (I long have been, before there was a term for it, or at least before it was that term.)
Intersectionality is a sub-trend of identity politics, not an alternative to it. It’s value is for cultural criticism literature, but it has no political value for the left, IMO.
It is the left flank of neo-liberalism.
The best analysis about this state of affairs was offered by the great Adolph Reed Jr. in an essay called “Nothing Left: The long, slow surrender of American liberals”
https://harpers.org/archive/2014/03/nothing-left-2/
From your cited article written in 2014:
This describes accurately what was happening, not what is now happening. Progressives are abandoning the incrementalism of centrist as failed – because reality proves it has.
Both Sanders and Corbyn are proving this right now. Get with the times.
Yes, but the identity-cultural politics camp – the left neoliberals – remain a force undermining the true progressive.
Here’s the updated, recent analysis from the great Adolph Reed (just read everything/anything he writes, really):
“Adolph Reed: There is no American Left, but after Bernie, there is potential”
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/higher_education/adolph-reed-there-is-no-american-left-but-after-bernie/article_fd485dca-9c8f-11e6-8fa9-dbe121e4a759.html
Well, you are virtually always wrong, so there’s that. Intersectionality is not anything as you describe it. (Among other things, there are different versions; a variety of iterations.)
It is not all about class. But it is about class. A whole lot of us non-neoliberals get that. We’ve helped make Bernie Sanders the most popular politician in the United States, and put Jeremy Corbyn a hair’s breadth away from Prime Minister.
Your comments show that you’re not very sophisticated in your knowledge of political ideologies.
Yes, many people enamored by identity politics like yourself ended up supporting Sanders (after undermining him in the primaries). But the fact remains that Sanders was not a identity politics guy and that is the reason for his relative success.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
God, you are freakin’ hilarious. Do continue.
Are you ok? Maybe you need to log off for a bit and go outside. Your behavior is strange.
Oh, very ok. I’ve been upset by some things at this site lately, and you provided some very welcome humor. My pal Doug is on earlier time than I am, but I can’t wait for him to see this. That *I* am enamored of identity politics. It’s just the best.
Well, you made comments about how the cool kids are all into intersectionality… this is very typical of identity politics, but you seem unaware. Intersectionality is identity politics.
I am very sorry to inform you of this, but you are a moron. [shrug]
I’m here, now. I just had some “housecleaning” to do in the thread under Naomi’s piece.
Diogo, if you think Mona is a fan of identity politics and also unsophisticated with WRT political ideologies, you’ve done a very poor job of reading and understanding her posts here.
And, when you assert, “Intersectionality is identity politics,” you demonstrate that you also don’t understand intersectionality.
I just keep coming back to this, and literally laughing out loud. *I* am “enamored by identity politics.”
Oh my god. That, that, I mean, you truly have no idea. LOLOLOLOL
“Their (relative) success and the diverse “coalition” of voter groups will never materialize with the “newer” “left”, which is primarily focused on identity and cultural politics.”
I think that assessment, too, will fall by the wayside and be proven wrong, because, as with Corbyn’s win, Sanders didn’t rely on class issues per se, but rather more on speaking about over-arching issues such as income inequality and heathcare reform; issues that transcend class, identity, and culture in both their obscene negative effect right now on most constituents lives and the positive results that will be obtained by addressing them head-on.
In other words, they both start with the idea that we’re all humans and deserve certain things from our shared society: universal healthcare, living wages, and protection from the vagaries that capitalism and neoliberalism foist upon us.
That’s the message that will finally defeat the Trump’s, Hillary’s and La Pens of the world.
Huh? Income inequalitu and health care reform are the ultimate class issues. Sanders was doing 100% class politics and openly rejecting identity politics.
Identity politoxs was used to attack Sanders: early on by Clinton supporters (“sexist bernie bros”), including with help of anti-racist groups and black congressuional leaders who emphasize that his class issues did not attend to the interests of black people.
“Income inequalitu [sic] and health care reform are the ultimate class issues. Sanders was doing 100% class politics and openly rejecting identity politics.”
Sure, that theory works, but only if you consider the human race as a distinct “class,” which is how I describe it – and how Corbyn and Sanders do, too.
When politics addresses issues because they affect humans broadly it becomes a unifying form of relief, and the ancillary issues that people use to try to put “others” into pigeonholes and little boxes that have been dividing us no longer do so, or at least as much.
Actually, Sanders was quite outspoken in his condemnation of the ruling class, the 1% and the billionaires. So, no, there is no “human class” – humanity is divided into classes with conflicting interests and a true leftist should no shy away from that fact, should stand strong in the defense of the interests of the working class AGAINST the interests of the rich/ruling class. That is what Sanders did.
That is the kind of division that should be embraced. The kind of division that should be overcomed and undermined is the one based in culture and identity. We continue to see the growing influence of identity politics – in fact, Trump surfed a wave of white identity politics. The liberal wing has a lot of blame for promoting this kind of politics and are part of the problem that the likes of Sandera must overcome.
Byw – Mr. Hasan is clearly part of that camp, with his aggressive efforts to bring the political debate back to identity amd cultural issues, which was evident in his election analysis/propaganda.
Those who think labeling humans and putting them into pigeonholes = better solutions are simply wrong.
Of course all sorts of differences do exist among humans once more than one get together, but despite being in any group (self-identified or pigeonholed) there are simply universal basic human needs regardless of those delineations.
Again, you (and folks like CraigSummers) equate speaking about issues that pertain to any particular identity or culture somehow necessarily makes whatever policies they espouse or denounce as somehow being meaningless, harmful, or divisive.
It’s only those things when it ignores the over-arching issues such as income inequality and heathcare reform; issues that transcend class, identity, and culture in both their obscene negative effect right now on most constituents lives and the positive results that will be obtained by addressing them head-on.
In other words, we’re all humans and deserve certain things from our shared society: universal healthcare, living wages, and protection from the vagaries that capitalism and neoliberalism foist upon us.
“universal healthcare, living wages, and protection from the vagaries that capitalism and neoliberalism foist upon us.”
You will not beat an expert demagogue like Trump with that message. The US does not have the money to pay for a single payer healthcare system unless you start raising taxes on everybody. Americans are allergic to taxes.
A progressive would’ve beaten Trump handily with that message, but you Democratic motherfuckers insisted on foisting Hillary on us as the pragmatic choice.
How did that work out for you? How did campaigning with the neoliberal, status quo platform you endorse work out?
That one isn’t American; he’s apparently Swiss. But he is extremely pro-Clinton and a thorough neoliberal, down to reciting her verbatim talking points, e.g., “The U.S. isn’t Denmark.”
denmark really isn’ t even denmark .. although iceland may be denmark
Lol a comment that reflects desperation! You are just incapable of ignoring Swisscheese, aren’t you?
Tell us, neither Trump/Clinton/ Stein …policies would affect me? So why would I be “extremely pro Clinton “? Ohh I got it. You usually resort to lies and distortion when desperate.
Follow your own advice.
Sorry, not a democrat. We are not scared of taxes here. Cheap public schools, cheap universities, top healthcare. But the US is not Switzerland.
We can pay without raising taxes- if we cut out the Cold War and Cold War 2 military (and returned a big chunk of forces home), we could save several hundred billion. Cutting corporate subsidies could free up billions more.
1)The current US military is not similar to the cold war era. Bases were closed, thousands of troops returned home years ago
2) Your defense spending is indeed a subsidy to big corporations. Most of that spending goes to the operations of DOMESTIC bases and the management of personnel
3) You cut that subsidy then thousands of people will lose their jobs. No American president, Democrats, Republicains, Indepedents, Greens…will pass policies that result in so many job loss.
4) You guys keep talking about “returning US troops home would save money” for healthcare. Really? Most troops in Iraq and Afghanistan left years ago. Japan, South Korea, Germany directly and indirectly pay for troops located on their soil
Corbyn’s Labour is now polling 6% higher than the Tories
Dang, he’s such a sure-fire loser!
Neoliberal hacks all over the Internet react to the Corbyn success by declaring democracy bad. It’s the cornerstone of civilization (which we must bring to the unenlightened “savages”)until…it’s not, because Bernie/Jeremy.
Thank you, wonderfully written!
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
This applies more to Trump voters than to Sanders or Corbyn’s. You guys are doing the same thing again: underestimating Trump. He is an expert in demagoguery. His voters do not care about facts. They don’t believe anybody but Trump.
I just want Sanders to win to see people’s reaction when there is no single payer healthcare in the US. I also want to see Hasan’s reaction when Sanders keeps using drones.
No one serious cares.
Those who don’t ignore the comment. They do not answer it.
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TI Policy:
“Please respect our reporters and fellow commenters by keeping the conversation on topic.”
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I don’t know man. If this story is true, then, we are in for a much harder ride than anyone expects.
I don’t trust much of Huffington Post’s reporting, they’re too bias but this seems like something Trump would do, making the Census Bureau operate badly. Remember, demographics are changing and the Census uses much of that information to allocate monies. Bad information or made up info is always good for demagogues.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-census-bureau_us_593aefcae4b0b13f2c6a2dbc?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Trump’s strategy is not that sophisticated. He finds out what they want to hear and he tells them. That’s it. A demagogue does not have to understand anything about economics, foreign policy, healthcare…He only has to tell the voters what they want to hear and he will easily beat a scholar in economics or a career diplomat. He will easily get re elected if politicians underestimate him again.
OTHER than the bots of the Democratic Party, who underestimates Trump?
In 2016, the Dems were the centrist, status-quo party, and are even more so now. There’s nowhere on any ballot that I’ve ever seen with ‘Not Trump’, or ‘Not Them’, or ‘Not Male’.
I guess everyone has forgotten or wish to continue the delusion there there is any such thing as a “liberal” much less a “progressive” in US politics. Vietnam – Johnson – a liberal – end of Glass Steigal and bombing Eastern Europe – Clinton a liberal, Obama a drone “liberal” all slaughtering millions of people to serve the power of oligarchy.
Bernie Sanders CAPITULATED TO CLINTON AND CAMPAIGNED FOR HER! Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillery Clinton and her warmongering pro Wall Street policies (so did Elizabeth Warren) in the end – which is exactly what he is likely to have done if elected.
The reality of US “liberalism” is that it is the reflection of extreme christian (Calvinist) ideology.
Not only did Sanders campaign for Clinton after the DNC sabotaged him on her behalf, he’s been on a ‘unity’ tour with Tom Perez to coax progressives back into the Democratic fold. Just what is the Democratic Party offering progressives for renewed loyalty?
The Democrats have to earn respect and support, not be given it out of hope that maybe someday they’ll be less awful. The Democratic Party’s response after every election over the last four decades, win or lose, has been to lurch rightward. They’ve clearly learned no lessons after their latest fiasco. The sooner liberals set up shop elsewhere, the better.
Sanders is a true progressive and that’s why he worked to elect Clinton over Trump and is on tour with Tom Perez to grow the coalition.
Not like you fake-ass internet “liberals” who think politics is for expressing your values and identities to the world and are the reason why there is no real left in this country.
This weekend, in Chicago: “The current model of the Democratic Party is failing. This isn’t my opinion. This is the facts.” – @SenSanders
But Sanders rolled over and played dead to “the current model of the Democratic Party”, allowing them to outright sabotage his campaign, and ultimately supporting their heinous candidate.
Sanders made the same calculation many reasonable people whom I respect made: That publicly supporting Hillary Clinton was the moral imperative in the face of President Trump. He was and is anti-Trump; not pro-Hillary.
Bernie would have won. We sure as hell know that Hillary didn’t, and that virtually all polls had Sanders beating Trump far more strongly than Clinton — not to mention the yuge enthusiasm factor he has which she decidedly lacked.
left twitter, which granted is an amorphous designation (I think of it as about 100 essential accounts with hundreds more basically making it something of a community), got over the “but Bernie campaigned for Hillary!” issue ages ago. left twitter is just way more interesting than what passes for discussion on TI comments, which is why I mostly don’t tune in anymore. (well the amazingly shit content TI keeps putting up is a big factor….this article for example is correct, if not exactly startling, but good lord what if an editor marked every cliche this guy writes, what would be left is a skeleton)
So once more for the Intercept’s little cadre of tankies:
Bernie’s influence would have been spent badly had he run 3rd party last year and we’d all be worse off for it. The vote would have been split. Trump would still be president, and the Hillary people would be even more insufferable than they are anyway. On the plus side, they’d be attacking all of us 24/7 instead of Russia. Wait is that a plus side. I don’t think it is, no.
Hillary’s loss – earned all by her stupid self, organization, and dumb followers – was a great thing. I’m very happy not to have voted for her, less happy that I voted for Jill Stein who I would like to go to the back of the line now please. In any case she was a placeholder for my indication to the Ds that I will not support your candidates until you move way left.
Anyway. Had Bernie split that difference with her, too much of the left would still be in apology mode. It was anonymous, quiet withdrawals of support from mostly not politically officially active would-be-supporters that made the difference, not direct 3rd party votes such as mine.
The most important reason for Bernie to go out and campaign for her is that he said he would support the nominee whoever it was. Following through with that was incredibly important, the kind of basic integrity ideologues of all stripes forget. His tour for Hillary was the most thankless task I’ve seen a politician go through in a long time – I certainly wasn’t gonna go watch that. Hell he went to the states that were too low class for Hillary to show up in.
I am not suggesting he calculated the result — few saw it coming — but after Hillary blows it, they can’t credibly blame Bernie, and now we have a whole new ballgame.
He had the backing of a sufficient number of people, and sufficient monetary backing, to kick Clinton in her filthy face, but he did not. He couldn’t be bothered to fight her’s and her DNC’s complete sabotage of his candidacy. He just rolled over and played mouthpiece for a dangerous despicable loser. Thats not anti-Trump. It fed right into Trump’s win. Kow-towing to an utterly failed strategy in the face of a monster, does not prevent the occurrence of the monster, especially when it was that strategy that was used to defeat one’s own, far more positive and initially effective attempts at heading off the monster directly. He is a better person and certainly a better candidate than Al Gore, but he, just like Gore, rolled over and played dead in the face of blatant criminality. Also, I would take a good deal of issue with his support of, and acquiescence to, war and the powers that make war.
Corbyn seems to be an actual socialist, down to maintaining the absolutely necessary fight against imperialism and interventionism. Sanders, to the contrary, supported horrific wars, the funding of wars, and the US imperial war machine, in general.
I’m sure you are familiar with all of this, but Sanders’ actual history on militarism and empire bears multiple repetitions.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/21/bernie-out-of-the-closet-sanders-longstanding-deal-with-the-democrats/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/27/bernie-sanders-savior-or-seducer-of-the-anti-war-left/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/16/blood-traces-bernies-iraq-war-hypocrisy/
I still wonder: (woulda/shoulda/coulda) if Sanders had known that Wikileaks was going to dump the Podesta emails around the time that the Dems unearthed Joe McCarthy’s fetid remains (and are looking for a glass coffin in which to display them), whether he would have hung in?
The last two weeks of the 2016 campaign saw the Democrats loose the bubble…and they are still looking for it.
Unfortunately, I think he still would have rolled over, and played the “gentleman”, as he had appallingly promised at the outset of his “Democratic” campaign, just as the vile Al Gore did.
And?
Most of Corbyn’s critic were actually right. Their real fear is that progressives and reformers would wrest away control of Labour from the Blairites and neoliberals. They had a stranglehold for decades, and to have it slip away is, in their minds, the destruction of the party.
This mirrors the situation in U.S., with the Democratic establishment actively undermining progressives from gaining a foothold. The difference is that the Democratic Party is structured in such a way that big money’s grip on it is unbreakable. It’s an unsalvageable institution, and the sooner progressives abandon it to establish a coalition elsewhere, the sooner and more effectively they’ll be able to influence the American political landscape.
While I wish groups like the Justice Democrats luck, their venture is in vain. Their efforts would be better put to organizing grassroots efforts to elect people outside of the unreformable Democratic establishment.
Well done, Mehdi Hasan. You are not remotely alone in having been so wrong. You are, however, in the minority of pundits who have had the guts to publicly say it.
Of course, one has reason to believe that you are also not one of the pundits who actively wanted Corbyn to be the loser they insisted he was. Must suck now to be them. Too bad, so sad.
I am glad that I am not a Harry Potter fan, after JK Rowlings’s attacks on Corbyn.
And, I am disappointed in David Tennant criticizing Corbyn back in February, and think someone from 7:84 should have known better. (Of course, he favors independence for Scotland now, which is good…)
Integrity and honesty in support of people-centric democracy as opposed to deceit and manipulation by the mainstream, neoliberal political parties, both conservative and liberal alike.
Why deceit and manipulation? Because people tend to reject the idea of a feudal-style society when they have been relegated by the powers-that-be to the position of serf, forever. People are funny like that…
Both Jeremy Corby and Bernie Sanders battling the, in this case, two “noble ladies” of the neoliberal court. Defeated only by a tilted playing field and the inertia of the status quo. In both cases, winning the youth, the future, while the hopefuls of the new feudal order rend their hair. Good….
Sanders would win if 2020 election were held now. Unrealistic BS.
Corbyn prime minister……if you believe in fairy tale promises. Everything for free !
LOL. Your glib assertions do not undermine the fact-based arguments in Hasan’s fine piece.
Fact number 1- Trump won US presidential election.
Fact number 2- May with DUP has a majority and will be prime minister.
All the rest is Hasan wet dream.
Oh yes, the Democrats nominated a grossly unpopular, neoliberal to run against one of the most unpopular candidates in U.S. history, and thereby caused his election. Incompetent, stupid, Democrats did that. They could have and should have nominated the most popular politician in the United States.
Theresa May’s days are numbered. And didja know DUP is adamant they have reached no deal at all with 10 Downing — that this announcement is bullshit?
But I think it’s fucking swell that people like you are running to the (Orange) Irish version of Timothy McVeigh — you know, terrorists with no just cause — to shout victory. Do carry on!
Your billionaire heroes being made to pay their fair share for the sustenance of society isn’t the same as having everything for free.
No more free rides for corporate parasites.
I agree, Donald B.! Why is it that self-proclaimed socialist millionaires like Sanders don’t pay their fair share?
And, to be clear, how do you define “fair share”? The same percentage of their overall income is taxed? Like, say, 20% is taken from everyone regardless of income, thereby everyone pays an equal–“fair”–share?
WTF you smokin? Bernie Sanders is not millionaire, self-proclaimed or otherwise. He’s estimated to be worth about $800k. How’d he get there? Like this:
You anti-Sanders, anti-Corbyn fuckwits are a total hoot.
àd you are the one who will decide what tha fair share is ? More equal than the next man…
Sure, I’ll volunteer to set the tax brackets.
Don’t worry, you’re far from being among the ultra rich whom you deify, so your rates will stay low. You can thank me now or thank me later.
How about “Everything at the disposal of those who produce it”?
That is how it is now…except for the corrupt politicians.
And the Queen…