Also from that guide:
HELP, MY MOCS ARE ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD!
Congratulations! Your Senators and Representative are doing what they should to fight racism, authoritarianism, and corruption. They’re making the right public statements, co-sponsoring the right bills, and voting the right way. So how does this change your strategy? Two key things to keep in mind:
Do NOT switch to targeting other MoCs who don’t represent you. They don’t represent you, and they don’t care what you have to say. Stick with your own local MoCs.
DO use this guide to engage with your MoCs locally. Instead of pressuring them to do the right thing, praise them for doing the right thing. This is important because it will help ensure that they continue to do the right thing. Congressional staff are rarely contacted when the MoC does something good — your efforts locally will provide highly valuable positive reinforcement.
DO use this guide to engage with your MoCs locally. Instead of pressuring them to do the right thing, praise them for doing the right thing. This is important because it will help ensure that they continue to do the right thing. Congressional staff are rarely contacted when the MoC does something good — your efforts locally will provide highly valuable positive reinforcement.
How anti-democratic, a guide telling you to praise your representative when they do something you like, and hold them accountable when they don’t!
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The split was 54% for Perez and 46% for Ellison, but you are right the actual left should pack it in and go stay home forever on Election Day. It has worked so well for the past half a century.
Greenwald also has only ever criticized Democrats since forever. Even in the “anti-Trump” articles he links to (to prove he has ever been critical of Trump) he spends at least a third of the text dedicated to criticizing the Democrats. He didn’t even come out with reasons for supporting Bernie Sanders, just feeding into pretty lazy attacks on Hillary Clinton.
To say he called it right is to say a broken clock is right twice a day - especially when his article is almost identical to the articles that inspired it.
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To say that about him is to say that most of what he says isn’t right – that it’s false. What are all these big lies you’re saying he keeps telling?
“Right by chance” =/= “tells lies all the time”
Greenwald isn’t mostly wrong, he’s mostly accurate when he is references facts even if he does parse things to his advantage. However, he is nearly 100% dedicated to attacking Democrats no matter what so for him to reiterate Clio Chang’s article with the only addition being his tying together of multiple pro-Israel Jewish individuals being against Ellison to a single pro-Israel Jewish source and pushing the Islamiphobic angle to pro-Israel Jews pushing against Ellison… well it’s not surprising.
EDIT
That’s not to say there isn’t a push from the establishment against progressives - there is. But to say they are choosing appeasement of the money over the majority of the people isn’t accurate either.
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Didn’t Sanders run as a Democrat? I don’t recall him attacking Sanders. Oh, right, that’s because he’s not attacking “Democrats no matter what.” He’s against the takeover of the Democratic establishment by corporations. Which is fine with me, because I am too. Why NOT attack a putative opposition party that keeps playing along with a system that favors rightwing policies, becoming ever more rightwing itself in the process, and representing most people’s interests less and less in the process? OF COURSE Trump and the republicans are monstrous. What’s also a problem, though, is that their only effective opposition has become so much like them. They ARE “choosing appeasement of the money over the majority of the people.” They’re also choosing the collecting of the money.
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Sanders did run as a Democrat, and he did run into the establishment - he also chose the path of fighting the establishment he knew was there productively. He is literally collecting money on behalf of the progressive half of the Democrats to use opposing he establishment Democrats.
Clio Chang is correct that Perez is he establishment candidate running against Ellison to be the “establishment Ellison.” She acknowledges that Perez is a progressive push, but the fact he is there at all to oppose Ellison is a problem. She reiterates this on Twitter talking about how the worst things mellienials could do is think the Democrats cannot push left.
Greenwald is pushing “Ellison or bust” combined with pushing an angle that pro-Israel Jews are wrong to have misgivings about Ellison - which he also backs up on his twitter feed. Like I said, he is mostly right but his primary concern isn’t to foster progressive ideals with his writing; it is to talk about how the left is getting their teeth kicked in by the establishment again.
I will support the Justice Democrats, and I will continue to like the media Greenwald reads much better than the media he presents.
Huh? Exposing how the progressive left is getting its teeth kicked in again does foster progressive ideals. It’s reporting, done by a reporter who helps people understand how the system that smashes budding effective forms of progressive ideals works.
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There is a reason Greenwald and Trump are taking that same angle from Perez’s victory. And no, I’m not saying their motivations are the same.
Who said anything about staying home? Gotta come out to the primaries if you wanna drive the corrupt corporate right out of the party.
And if they rig the primaries again, burn the house down.
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TIL there’s Pai Mei memes.
Makes this whole recycle bin a smidge less painful to read.
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This is the critically important message. The Republican establishment is a strong as ever even under Trump because they don’t care how they get their way, but the Democratic establishment is in a tailspin even if they hold a slight majority right now. This is a once-in-a political generation opportunity for progressives to take one of the two well-funded name-brand parties in the USA, and it will require a sustained effort and it will require some compromise on both sides.
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The permanent disenfranchisement of America does not require the suppression of every vote. It just requires that they suppress enough votes in enough states to retain a legislative and electoral college majority.
Which they are comfortably achieving.
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What I don’t get is that this is such a softball target for the Democratic platform to adopt and push not for the popular vote but for increased “fair” voter participation. It’s a virtual lock for them and a very easy to defend stance that requires no nuance.
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The Democratic party doesn’t represent the people any more than the GOP does. They represent the conservative wing of the plutocracy, in opposition to the GOP’s loony radicals.
Until recently, they were quite happy with the established situation of two small but evenly matched partisan electorates and a great mass of disenfranchised. Cheaper to market to, easier to manipulate.
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[quote=“Wanderfound, post:1168, topic:91600”]
The Democratic party doesn’t represent the people any more than the GOP does. They represent the conservative wing of the plutocracy, in opposition to the GOP’s loony radicals.
Until recently, they were quite happy with the established situation of two small but evenly matched partisan electorates and a great mass of disenfranchised. Cheaper to market to, easier to manipulate.
[/quote]I agree with the first half, but vehemently disagree with the second. Democrats court conservative votes, because conservative voters show the fuck up. It’s why the true Democratic establishment went from having 1 4 year term in 25 years to having 2 8 year terms in the past 25. Period. The establishment gained full control because it was literally the only thing that got people to vote for Democrats in a majority.
It’s also important to note that the GOP hates any corporate establishment besides their own, and has engineered the US electoral map to squeeze out any possible independant while the Democrats can barely scrape enough people to compete against the 80% of evangelicals that fund the GOP establishment and turn out in just bonkers numbers.
The progressive left needs to actually join sides with the corporate left to win elections. Neither side is large enough to win on their own, and it’s been proven multiple times. The problem is that the progressive left backed Obama and reviles all the Clintons which I won’t ever understand.
EDIT
And that’s what I mean by a softball target - “independants”, progressive Democrats, and corporate Democrats all want broader voter protections (real ones not just ID scams). It would easily gain a ton of support.
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… Because of course he was.
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