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On The ‘Soft Progressive-liberal Block’
by Noirette
picked from a comment
re Ort @ 14 who wrote:
The “soft” progressive-liberal bloc in the US, individuals and organizations alike, have become so pathologically consumed with the conviction that Donald Trump is the Great Orange Satan who must be removed from office forthwith, and by any means necessary, that they hysterically embrace any public figure who opposes (opposed) Trump.
The ‘soft progressive liberal set’ – just as ‘Dems’ and ‘Reps’ – don’t really present a political ideology, framework, view-point, or even low-level adherence and/or claims. They are cover for an underlying hidden structure: informal tribes/circuits and sections in an oligarchic corporatist régime, or even something different, which I won’t go into now.
Obama ran on a non-interventionist stance and a ‘re-set’ with Russia-relations platform, for which he was awarded the Peace Prize (which is not a recommendation). Trump did the same in a more loudmouthed vulgar pointed way and was vilified and is despised ‘to the death’ for it. While impeachment and a nasty accident seem out of reach, as wildly imprudent, he is prevented from acting. By the way, Bush junior did the same which garnered him the Muslim vote which probably won him the election. Yes, study the numbers. (Setting aside hanging chads and the Supreme Court, Bush still needed a pile of votes.)
The question is, what is the aim of the resurgent hate-Russia meme, now boiling-over and turned crazed hysterical? Is it at heart contra-Trump or contra-Russia? Of course one could answer ‘both’ but that doesn’t explain ‘russiagate’ and the self-harm the U.S. is trapped in.
Another sign that the political divisions are ‘pretend’ is that the ‘Dems’, the ostensive losers re. Trump, have not behaved like a political party who loses. These generally disband, retire, fold, or make efforts at reform, re-orientation etc. Renewal may be tough but they often try. (As did the Repubs after Obama’s election, though the effort was incredibly weak.) Nothing like that is going on, because the fight is not political. It is based on tribal desperate angst at the ‘surprise’ election of an outsider who holds cards in his hands nobody can speak about.
re Ort @ 24 who wrote:
To 'True Believers', if [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] seems equivocal, or even confused, about the nature of (Democratic) socialism or expresses anodyne, conformist, safe positions, they will justify this as sensible reticence. AOC has to appeal to the elusive "center", and charm skeptical voters by not appearing unduly extreme or, God forbid, radical.
As with Obama and others similarly situated, they pretend that once the ostensible Third Way newcomer is accepted and established, they can and will gradually disclose their true political selves, and act accordingly. Regardless of how often this scenario fails to work as hoped, they remain convinced that it's both unavoidable and prudent.
Ocasio-Cortez is merely a willing actress poster-babe (she will earn a LOT). The role is not different from prancing about in lovely swish skirts on some MSM-TV series. She was selected for her looks / background (not the best re. the background, but there aren’t many candidates, which is very hopeful imho), her naiveté, ignorance, and submissive stance. Some ‘fake’ younger figures -only women and male gays, girls are more acceptable to the general public- have to be pictured as up-n-coming Dems, in a kind of sketchy and unconvincing parade of ‘diversity’ and so on.
It is a mistake to worry much about the personalities or even the connections of candidates for election. If there were reason for concern it would not be over the likes of Ocasio Cortez but over the dozens of former spooks, warriors and political prostitutes running for the Democrats.
More important are the platforms on which they run but most important is the overall situation.
The USA is descending into a massive crisis. About 40% of the population are in poverty and half of that number are hungry. How many fear consulting a doctor it is hard to guess but the answer is that large numbers fear the expense of medical treatment for themselves and their dependents. The US was never a welfare state but it has never previously been as bad as it is now: the old networks of neighbourhood and community are fading away, Unions have virtually disappeared, there are no ‘ward healers’ in the cities any more. And medical care and drugs are appallingly expensive. Not since the thirties and the Depression has there been such widespread insecurity and fear of what the future will bring.
Unsurprisingly there is enormous popular support for socialised medicine, even though there is no support for it from the media, party leaders and pundits and very little in Congress. Still, it is coming and it is coming soon.
Neo-liberalism has outreached itself, its partisans began to feel that they could do anything and get away with it-hence the Trump tax cuts, icing on the cake of almost half a century of robbing from the poor to pay the rich. And now their time is up, that is why there is a turn in the direction of Sanders and his acolytes.
In the latest Black Agenda Report Glen Ford reports that black voters are now rallying to the left, feeling confident that the Clintonite-DLC strategy is a busted flush and that reform is now possible.
As the social crisis deepens the slow collapse of the Empire becomes a critical factor. The dollar’s reserve currency monopoly has already ended, the US is going to have to learn how to deal with trade and budget deficits- that trillion dollar Defense boondoggle is going to start looking mighty tempting as politicians look around for quick ways to pay for the things that their constituents demand. Demands including a reversal of the mass incarceration programme which has seen an eightfold increase in the number imprisoned since Clinton brought the Jim Crow politics of Hope Arkansas to the White House.
As to NAFTA it would be a mistake not to recognise that, as of December, the Mexican President will be much harder to deal with than the current incumbent, the last in a long line of crooked compradors for whom Free Trade was a quick way of cashing in by selling out. AMLO is much more likely than Trump to tear up the pact which is as unpopular in Mexico’s villages as in the Mid West.
In the international arena one marvels at the thickheadedness of the neo-cons dominating both parties: there is only one way out for those still dreaming of hegemony. And that is nuclear war an unthinkable option. As b has become famous for proving over the past seven years, the SAA is going to win in Syria. The only people who could stop them are the Turks who the Pentagon are wooing by collapsing the lira and threatening to cut off from over priced, second rate military materiel.
As the alliance between China, (said to be sending troops to Syria), Russia and Iran solidifies, (with thanks to Washington for driving them into each others arms) and Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and Lebanon shift their bets to the winning side, Israel begins to look isolated, at least to the extent that it can no longer act with impunity in the region. If it attacks Syria it may find that it has bitten off more than it can chew: an opponent, unlike Hamas, with an army and an array of allies unwilling to sit by as it is defeated and the sacrifices and gains of tough campaigning are put at risk.
It is true that the ‘left’ Democrats are very soggy on foreign policy and committed to zionism but it matters very little- in practical terms Israel’s expansion is at an end. Which is why it is so frenetically tearing up the West Bank and hammering Gaza. Its dreams of expanding into Lebanon, Jordan and Syria are no longer viable: Hezbollah taught them that, at the same time that it taught the Arab world that dignity and resistance were an option.
In short: don’t worry about the pretty faces running for election, they are nothing more than surfers on the wave and the wave, which has been gathering strength for the past ten years, is energised by working people who have no option but to call for change. They saw it in Obama, and they were disillusioned, then they thought that it lay in the Tea Party, or Trump. The mass desertion of Democratic voters since 2010, the loss of State Houses, of Congress and the Presidency have been misinterpreted as indicating shifts to the right, in fact they have shown how unpopular the right wing Democrats have proved to be.
As the 2016 Democratic Primaries showed the reform message of the neo-New Dealers is what the masses want. Until 1980 nobody doubted it either. It would not be hard to show that, for a variety of reasons, the Reagan phenomenon and the associated Blue Dog (Reagan) Democrats who have dominated the US since 1980 are an anomaly and that Sanders represents a return to political normality.
In other words the current crop of ‘socialist’ Democrats is nothing more than the re-incarnation of the Kennedy, Truman, Roosevelt party, minus the Cold War. Because they are new-all the previous generation’s politicos having committed themselves to Clintonism- they tend to be good looking and and young. That’ll change. What won’t is the disillusionment in America with neo-liberalism and continual, draining wars.
Posted by: bevin | Aug 31 2018 19:43 utc | 106
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