Let's see if we can get a thousand comments of just the word no.
And Biden just endorsed the Green New Deal.
Let's see if we can get him to Medicare4All
Sidetracked by what U.N.I.T.Y. stands for. Unnecessary Nonsense Interdicted, Thank You. Unpleasant Nuisance In Toilet Yet?
(Incidentally does everyone know that Emily's List wasn't set up by a woman called Emily - or even a man called Emily - but is derived for the acronym for Early Money Is Like Yeast?)
4.last I had known that but had forgotten it and now I know it again.
Is the Green New Deal a meaningful or executable policy? Real question, because lazy.
I think it all depends on how we do in November. I think that if this country weren't hijacked by political-terrorists, it would be a practical and meaningful proposal.
7 I don't have details, and I've read that there are better policies pushed by other Democratic candidates who've dropped out (Inslee maybe, Warren?) but it's a big step in the right direction.
Details, motherfuckers! You may be lazy too, but it's your goddamn country.
Yeah, but the details are moot when your country is run by psychopaths, and if we can wrest control back, then the details can be discussed by sensible politicians who listen to each other.
Details are where the Democrats will have to fight among themselves. Going too much into detail is not helpful.
10 I'm on hiatus from my country. Though I'm still crazily obsessed with what's going on. Now if you'd asked me that say three or four months ago I'd have remembered some news stories I could point to.
1. Yes. Any actual president, including Bernie, was going to be a disappointment to certain Bernie-philes. But Biden appears to be doing real outreach here -- giving up more without a fight than Bernie was able to extort from Hillary last time around.
7. Maybe. But it doesn't matter. The old political wisdom is correct: It's not what you say about your issues, it's what your issues say about you.
Basically, I just assume anything called [THING] New Deal is bullshit.
What's worse: tacking on "New Deal" to a proposal, or tacking on "gate" to a scandal?
4.2- I think that was a big plot point in a West Wing episode.
The real reason to be upbeat is that the Intercept printed something positive about Biden. I was beginning to wonder if they weren't going to go all in on accelerationism and endorse Trump.
I think "Green New Deal" is a very good way to say "generate jobs through environmental efforts."
It's a good thing Republicans actually do hate worries or the there would be a very direct subsidy for mining coal right now.
I'm feeling "New Deal", like "fascist", has been inflated into meaninglessness.
Stupid phone. Worries should be workers.
I would like to join the Wobblies, myself.
22: I think you're overstating the dilution of the term. It hasn't been hijacked by the right AFAIK to describe the exact opposite of itself.
To me it still refers to a specific set of programs, and the only set of programs that were both popular and substantially improved life for the poor and lower middle class as opposed to the other people.
Though my dad would say "This isn't the WPA" when he thought I was working too slowly.
I don't think either "new deal" or fascist has been inflated into meaninglessness!
19 - I think this, too.
28 - I think this, too.
It's too much work to try to add value.
4, 5: followed by the explanatory note "it makes the dough rise."
31: they rejected "you need it if you want beer".
There have been a couple of stories, clearly put out by the Biden campaign, that he's going to govern as a New Deal president -- revolutionary, expansive government action in response to the current health and economic emergency.
The natural response is cynical hostility, and I completely understand how justified that is: this is Joe Biden, the senator from MBNA. On the other hand, cynical hostility doesn't get us anything I can figure out: I think the most productive reaction from the left is delighted support and amplification, in the hopes that a Biden administration can be stampeded into going further left than they'd meant to. If they're spontaneously pandering to left voters, they're in a bad position to push back against attempts to make them live up to their rhetoric.
The downside is that if it works imperfectly, anyone on the left who got enthusiastic looks like a naive sucker. But that's a pretty harmless personal cost to pay, if there's any possibility of doing some practical good.
"It's itchy if it gets to the wrong place"
"It's hard to find during a pandemic."
"My mom used to put it on cat food to keep their coat glossy."
Can't you just use conditioner when you give the cats a bath?
On the one hand I have been rolling my eyes continually at the cohort of Kucinich voters saying they can't vote for Biden for whatever BS "lesser of two evils is still an evil" reason (The Supreme Court is already lost, so who cares! Biden allowed Clarence Thomas to get to the Supreme Court! Without Biden, no Clinton crime bill!) - they are the same people who say that about every candidate except possibly Obama 2008 (but definitely Obama 2012).
On the other hand, regarding the "revolutionary, expansive government action" part.... Biden is going to change his spots after almost 50 years in Washington? He needs to make as many Warren / Bernie people part of his team as possible to make that believable. Including Warren herself. And maybe get his savvy Wall Street friends to stop going to the media saying things like Charles Myers here being not worried about the prospect of non-Wall Street people having any influence.
I agree with that, but as the OP says, he is putting Sanders people on his team. I'm sure it's a cynical attempt to pay lip service to what left voters want, but I think the smart reaction (for anyone with any influence on public opinion, obviously we don't matter) is to take yes for an answer, be extravagantly pleased, and keep pushing for more.
39 is correct. Listening to us? Not completely ignoring us? Knowing what we're talking about? This is the important part.
Biden is going to change his spots after almost 50 years in Washington?
The optimistic take is that he's just a spineless opportunist who doesn't have any spots, and smells which way the wind is blowing.
41 is the argument I've heard- historically he's always put himself in the middle of the caucus, so if he's convinced the middle now is where the left was in the 90s he'd be happy to take that position.
39 I've said before and will say again that even if individual people aren't individually broadly persuasive, the act of participating in a narrative has impacts on herd behavior in our species.
You'll have to bring that one down to earth for me, prof.
I believe he meant that even if we have no individual impact on public opinion, there's some value in behaving as if we did. I'm not sure that's true, but I am sure it's harmless at least.
38 What's truly charming about the 'the Supreme Court is lost' brigade is that in 2000 and 2016 when we were selecting whether or not we would lose the Supreme Court, the same folks (or their cohorts) were putting their fingers in their ears and saying la-la-la-la whenever the Supreme Court was mentioned. In the post Civil Rights era there has never been, and in the Trump and foreseeable post-Trump era will never be, any excuse whatsoever that is sufficient to justify letting Republicans have national power.
I'll try an analogy, because I have some work I'm avoiding, and a ban will help. LB does not have the coronavirus. Her wearing a mask as she goes about her daily (diminished) business outside her home isn't actually going to directly protect anyone from getting it -- because she doesn't have it. Even the act of wearing the mask, and being seen to be wearing it, is unlikely to have any individual impact: there's no one who does have the virus saying 'well, I wasn't planning to wear a mask, but now that I see LB wearing one, knowing of her careful study of the epidemiology, well, I'm convinced.' And yet we can readily understand that LB's participation in a culture of mask wearing makes her part of a critical mass that helps establish the wearing of the mask as the norm in her community, and beyond. To help protect the most vulnerable in her community, she wears the mask even though she does not have the virus.
OK, I'll be back tonight after dinner.
||
Moderately promising news.
|>
I just assume anything called [THING] New Deal is bullshit.
How about Green Moon Shot?
Green Manhattan Project?
I mean we just had armed private citizens invade a state capitol and prevent the legislature from meeting.
I guess you could hit them with a Fat Man on a Saturn V, but I'm not sure that's the optimal response.
Green Operation Overlord.
Green Operation Bagration.
Green Manchurian Strategic Counteroffensive.
On the one hand I have been rolling my eyes continually at the cohort of Kucinich voters ...
I always feel compelled to point out, probably unnecessarily, that while some vocal dopes who vote for Kucinich or Bernie might have dopey views, Kucinich and Bernie themselves are solid.
On the other hand, regarding the "revolutionary, expansive government action" part.... Biden is going to change his spots after almost 50 years in Washington?
He already has changed, in that he feels the need to pander to the lefties. Truth is, politicians are reasonably faithful to their promises. Trump -- has there ever been a more dishonest national politician? -- hasn't backed away from any significant commitment that he made.* Obama really did run as a guy who was going to try to cut deals wherever he could with the Republicans. We just hoped he was better than that.
If Joe is running as a turn-out-the-base politician, that's a new development. He has changed.
*That requires more justification than I'll provide here. I mean, sure, superficially he made promises like replacing Obamacare with something better, but that wasn't meant to be taken seriously, and nobody did.
I shall once more BSAILBA about the disappearance of surnames. And then, hopefully, to bed.
Jamie Dimon says crisis must be used to 'rebuild an economy that creates and sustains opportunity for dramatically more people'.
chris y say 'OK, you start.'
But there comes a tide in the affairs of men when shit gets so bad that even the financial elite recognise that concessions have to be made or they'll start losing money.
Hence they tolerated FDR; hence they tolerated Attlee; and they didn't start trying to roll it all back for thirty years. Maybe some people in the Dem party leadership are beginning to get the idea that this is one of those times.
57: I don't share that reading of history. I think they just got beat. It was always straightforwardly obvious that Trump is an enormous risk to the well-being of the economy -- and indeed, some rich folks certainly acted against Trump out of self-interest. But on the whole, the US oligarchs love the guy, and are willing to take the financial hit if doing so will immiserate the masses and the rich folks' suffering is merely of the trickle-up kind.
Basically, I just assume anything called [THING] New Deal is bullshit.
The New Deal was the most popular, successful initiative ever to come out of the American left. It seems like exactly the kind of thing we should be reminding people of and discussing how we can apply the ideas of the New Deal to our current situation. Discarding that legacy as bullshit seems wasteful and foolish.
Hence they tolerated FDR
That's a rather expansive definition of tolerated.
There's a specific bill that is unlikely to ever become law, but in practice "Green New Deal" is mostly a branding exercise to associate moderately unpopular climate policy measures (and some popular ones) with very popular progressive economic policy ideas. A lot of climate change policy people hate it because they've been trying for years and years to get big business on board with climate change mitigation by distancing it from progressive economic policy, but we can all see how well that's worked.
I've been trying to help the Resistance, and got in with a small group of highly connected local women, pushing women's issues (I'm gathering, presenting data for them.). They have a very tight focus on women's issues in City of Sac, and tight connections to the city administration. I cannot believe how they push a friendly administration.
I guess I thought lobbying and fighting was for when your enemies are in power. OH MAN. They are relentless about pushing their friendly administration. They get what they want once? It should be annual. It should be codified. They sit on hiring committees. They comment on RFPs and get them changed. They schedule meetings with electeds to review their performance on our issues (and also offer to help). They text city staff at the drop of a hat.
Without seeing it, I would never have understood this power. First that they have it, and second that they use, and mostly that they are doing this to friends and an ideologically friendly administration.
Even if Biden isn't there, having seen this approach, I just want an administration that would be receptive to it.
Green Somme Offensive. Because it will take far more time and resources and effort than anyone imagined, and will succeed, and will be condemned as a failure for decades afterwards.
63 is really interesting.
I'm not surprised that sort of power is part of the system, but I also don't have a good feel for how that power is built and nurtured.
I've never seen the like.
Far as I can tell, it pulls from long-standing relationships and decades of work. They're mostly in their mid-late sixties? I would say.
Most powerful to least powerful:
One has been facilitator on developments all over town and campaigned hard for some of the electeds. Has consulting company. Texts city and councilperson staff throughout, whenever we don't know something.
One ran a non-profit, regularly writes op-eds, and is an incredibly focused and good reader of boring shit.
One goes to ALL the Dem events, holds fundraisers, got elected to a fairly important board.
One goes to an amazing number of topical things, still has a day job. Is our current pres, super impressive interpersonal, weaker in tech. Showed up to the meeting with the mayor in this incredible royal blue blouse and then green slacks and then royal blue pumps and then the purse matched and she's tall and I am still reeling from how great she looked in royal blue and vibrant green cause I could never.
Younger (I think they're using/training us).
One ran for office, is a member of race-specific organizations, has made really good unique points to me a couple times (like, about how zip codes are broken out, that no one else caught).
Maybe me, next. I've no personal network like they do, but I am in a deep personal relationship with Excel in ways that impress them (and electeds).
My partner, who got into a leadership program and leads/is attending race-specific organizations and meetings.
An increasingly flaky woman who attends all the Dem things and has plans to run for office but is starting to get the hard eyes from the senior ladies as she keeps offering excuses and not what she promised.
That's it. They talk about partnership and recruiting all the time, but my partner and I were the last ones recruited.
It has been pretty staggering for me. I still don't quite understand how they know things. How do they know what seats are coming open and what RFP is going out and what is on what agenda?
65: the mud-coloured Somme offensive was a success?
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
67: I love the phrase "deep personal relationship with Excel."
We've been together for decades and there is always more to discover.
It's true. Just last year I learned how to make the little warning triangle in the corner go away.
Until recently in Virginia it was illegal to make a pivot table out-of-wedlock.
You don't lobby when your enemies are in power, that's a complete waste of time. You only lobby your friends.
I'm sure I told the story 4 years ago about being the lead for our county delegate selection convention, and how much effort it took to get someone from the Sanders campaign to work with. For the pre-convention walk through, I had the Clinton rep -- former state senate majority leader, wife of 9 term congressman, had attended every national convention since 1968, knows shit and speaks her mind -- and, finally, for the Sanders campaign I got 4 people, none of whom had any authority at all. It all worked out! So, this time, I'm doing it again. Since it'll be a zoom meeting, with break-out rooms for each campaign to run the delegate selection process, you'd think it would be important that the people doing that (a) know what buttons they are supposed to push to make it work and (b) maybe identify themselves ahead of time, if not take part in the training, or even the process of designing the thing. (Example: let's say the Sanders side is supposed to select 18 delegates and 18 alternates from our county for the state convention. Let's say 60 people show up, and 45 put themselves into nomination. Everyone gets to make a nomination speech, and then every participant gets to cast 18 votes. Not everyone has good internet. So, how do you do it?) We won't know if Warren wins any delegates in our county, or any others, until the wee hours of Wednesday. Some counties are doing their conventions on Wednesday -- mine is Thursday evening. If Warren makes the 15% threshold in the county, that's 4 or 5 delegates at least, so there need to be people and processes in place. Fun!
27: I haven't heard that in 50 years and it was from my 60+ year old first employer. I love reading these comments because stuff like that pops up from time to time and reminds me of a time I have mostly forgotten