BJG: What you're really saying is they are choosing not to fall on the sword, they are choosing their careers. They actually do very directly have the power to prevent Nancy Pelosi from being Speaker of the House.
Hedges: That's a good point, they could choose political suicide.
Lmao owned
Thats as much of an own to these politicians and the "socdem entryism to the dems while calling it socialism" movement and people and orgs that still see it as a priority or as a viable alternative to believe in and coalesce around as it is an own to BJG for asking this question with an obvious answer while basicaly being99.9% aligned with them
“socdem entryism to the dems while calling it socialism”
Well I don't think this is a big a problem as some people want to make it seem like. I haven't heard anyone saying anything like this in years.
Its a description of the "institutional left" and politicians this question reffered to whose electoral and rhetorical fights is what a non insignificant part of the focus ,time, money and energy of even the post Bernie eating shit in the dem primaries left was spend on. Not rejecting it as an approach still and not having a coherent idea or movement of what to do beyond it is a big problem
Anytime they talk about US politics it's one of the worst "left" shows I've ever listened to. It's the epitome of the "dum dum left" that Michael Brooks was dunking on prior to his passing.
It's really improved (especially on Black issues) in the recent episodes
(i.e. since Virgil vanished). She's had Pascal Robert from This is Revolution (my favorite small leftist podcast) on a couple of times (and been on that show in return). I still stay away from her Bernie/electoralism videos because I'm not really interested in those topics. But if its race issues, or she has good guests or the topic itself is engaging to you, then definitely check it out.I only listened to a few episodes when it started, but I found it to be incredibly boring and lib
It was lib/boring early on but
since Virgil vanishedit's really improved. Check out her recent videos on Black issues.
When you're promoting Glenn Greenwald (TERF who now goes on Tucker Carlson to shill for the far right) and Jimmy Dore (currently pushing horse dewormer as a COVID cure) as people who "haven't sold out", I think you've forfeited the right to be taken seriously as a political analyst. Sad to see BJG and Hedges fall so far.
There are criticisms of Bernie/Squad/Institutional Left that are valid and need to be elevated, but it's coming from actual communists not the "dum dum left" (not referring to Wolff here).
that and BJG doesnt even organize, just a professional leftist media person with clout. she isnt in the movement enough to have an opinion most of the time
but ill be listening to this during this morning's routine because hearing political chatter always gets me in the work mood ://
Wellll... the Bernie campaign was organizing, and she was a big part of that. That said, she's had a lot of rough takes since then, and doesn't seem to be doing much in the way of organizing right now.
It's a pretty key part of a campaign, which itself is political organizing, so I'd say so. We can talk about the shortcomings of electoralism all day, but putting together the furthest-left presidential campaign in maybe a century is hard to write off as not organizing at all.
the institutional left
Lmao who? The only institutions we have (that she could be referring to here) are podcasts and a
pair ofmagazines. And she's part of it! Hell, she was Bernie's press secretary! Explain how that's not institutional lmaoIt's a way to refer to leftists who refer to other leftists as the Dumdum Left.
What institutions are they a part of?
@DetroitLolcat they calling you out lol
It was interesting. I think all the signs of successful capture have appeared really strongly on the left. Any break from the the democrats is heavily discouraged, same with breaks from the already captured labor organizations. The attempts to reform anything internally after Bernie's failures have been killed off too. The thing that has settled in is a horizon where the entirety of the American left's world is street protesting and charity, but even the street protesting has been curtailed to a large extent because now people counter-protest each other while the authorities sit by and watch and anyone with actual power goes unthreatened.
I don't know if I'd frame it as the institutional left failing us, but I would say the whole thing is an increasingly obvious paper tiger and the reason the Hasan stuff hits a nerve is because there isn't actually much of a serious left underlying the "Boutique left" as hedges describes it. The activism industry is as fraudulent as anything else.
The collection of nonprofits and other NGOs that are home to career activist.
That's liberals not the left.
Alternatively, name names, instead of doing this vagueposting thing
It's the same thing effectively. This sphere is part of the explosion of NGOs that happened in the US over the last 60 years to the point there are now over 1.5 million NGOs. These are the same people Bernie pissed off when he called planned parenthood part of the establishment and even if you don't identify as a liberal this industry has massive influence on "left" politics.
You're still describing liberals.
The only purpose to labeling obvious liberals as "left" is some kind of nefarious confusion.
:cia:
I'm describing liberals because that is the fundamental basis of American left politics. When America has another marxist movement I'll describe it as such.
The institutional left is Human Rights Watch. The institutional left is Times Up. The institutional left is the Clinton Foundation.
appreciate the explanation for anyone else unaware, but i'm doing a "where's Virgil" bit until he comes back into the public light. :fidel-salute:
me too comrade. /u/happybadger got me good a couple months ago on some dumb "china invests in weed" bit.
Were they rape accusations? I thought it was a lot vaguer, and closer to "inappropriate messages with a minor"
They were never going to be the whole solution, but they could have moved the ball forward and/or made other efforts easier.
Also they talk about Hasan and his house.
Once again: people do care.
