Common Dreams | The Long Game For Progressives Common Dreams "Progressive values include fairness, equity, a level-playing field, compassion, justice, reverence for our planet and environment, and a genuine pursuit of peace, not war all things which play extremely well in the hearts of Americans, not to ... |
View original post here:
The Long Game For Progressives - Common Dreams
Tuesday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders (DVt.) and Rep. John Conyers (DMich.) met with a crowd of 2,000 at the Fellowship Chapel in Detroit to discuss their new bill on universal healthcare. The event also became a rally for progressive values as cheers of Bernie 2020 came from the audience along with multiple standing ovations.
Conyers said his Medicare for All bill now has 117 cosponsors. He emphasized the government needs to combat high youth unemployment rates as well.
"There are two fundamental human rights in our great democracy: everyone should have health care from the minute they're born, and then of course, after you get born, you got to get a job," he said.
Conyers also discussed water activism, referencing instances when Detroits water has been shut off, stating it was a U.N. human rights violation.
Sanders touched upon the Charlottesville violence, as he criticized President Donald Trumps both sides argument. What was scary to U.S. citizens, he said, is that the United States has seen Nazis and white supremacists before, but have never seen a president Democrat or Republican who could not condemn them.
There are no nice Nazis, he said.
Sanders moved on to echo Conyers speech on universal healthcare. He also added the government should invest in education to combat youth unemployment and automatically register 18 year olds to vote, arguing his ideals are not radical if other countries do them as well.
During the Q&A session, an audience member asked if progressives should make their own party, leaving behind the Democrats and Republicans. Sanders, who is the longest running Independent senator in the United States, said while he welcome critiques of the Democrat party, it would not be accurate to equate them to the Republicans.
Dont lump Democrats and Republicans together, he said, explaining he made the choice to work with Democrats so the conservative party does not have another four years. He also emphasized the wish for the Democrats to open to the working class.
Vibha Venkatesha, a Wayne State University 2015 alum, said she came to the townhall interested in hearing about Sanders and Conyers healthcare policies. She wanted to see more about the Medicare for All push.
A lot of Democrats rally about keeping the Affordable Care Actwhich I agree with and I am on the Affordable Care ActI really wanted to see if there is any push to go beyond that, she said.
The rest is here:
Progressives rally in Detroit at Bernie Sanders, John Conyers townhall - The Michigan Daily
Paul Waldman, a senior writer for the American Prospect and a contributor to the Washington Posts Plum Line column, is out with a melodramatic performance piece tied to excerpts from Hillary Clintons forthcoming book. It was headlined: Has Hillary Clinton abased herself sufficiently to satisfy her critics?
The column instantly received praise from Democratic strategists and commentators for its unsubtle attack on people, whom Neera Tanden, Joan Walsh, or Mark Moulitsas might have labeled alt-left (except now that President Donald Trump used it to draw a false equivalency with white supremacists in Charlottesville, theyre a bit more careful when it comes to deploying it).
The central argument is that Clinton is repeatedly asked to apologize for failing to defeat Trump because she is a woman. Presidential candidates Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Kerry, or Al Gore never had to get down on their knees and beg forgiveness for their failures every time they appeared in public after losing their presidential elections.
He also argues Clinton has taken responsibility for her failure, and yet, it is not good enough for reporters. Much of the piece is spent on the mainstream media and how cable news spent time on a book by Peter Schweitzer called Clinton Cash, which made Clinton look corrupt. And of course, there were the damn emailsan orgy of coverage of Clintons emails.
Waldmans performance piece is undermined by the fact that he is not specific at all when claiming that there are people demanding a ritual begging of forgiveness from Hillary Clinton.
One can gather that people who share Waldmans perspective are upset about the media and how they covered Clinton, and they believe this played a significant role in the outcome of the 2016 Election. But then the column should be headlined: Has Hillary Clinton abased herself sufficiently to satisfy the media? Instead, it is abstractly aimed at critics.
Are these Trump supporters? Progressives or Democratic socialists who still fervently back Senator Bernie Sanders? Communists or full-blooded socialists? Is this a left-wing problem or a right-wing problem or both?
Maybe, Waldman and others are convinced the problem is so pervasive that it does not matter who is doing it. However, there are next to no critics named, and the only example offered is Clinton Cash, which the New York Times and Washington Post struck a deal to cover, even though it contained several falsehoods about the extent of the Bill and Hillary Clintons corruption.
This would not be a topic of discussion currently if Clinton was not in the early stages of hyping her book, What Happened, on her election campaign. She wants the public to see her campaign from her perspective, but consequently, that is going to result in critics questioning her assertions because that is what people do with politicians.
Waldman would have Sanders progressives and others with valid critiques silence themselves because apparently there is some need to guard Clinton from being perpetually vulnerable. Waldmans framing implies she is not a strong enough woman to stand up for herself, even though she was one of the most powerful Democratic politicians in the recent United States history.
This argument is born from the same detestable and intellectually dishonest place that birthed the Bernie Bro label used to smear those who challenged Clinton from the left during the election. In fact, Waldman wrote a piece for the American Prospect on June 27, 2016, called The Last Bernie Bro?
Waldman invoked the reports of Sanders supporters willing to vote for Trump. He also added, How many Sanders supporters are there who wont decide to vote for Clinton until Bernie says its OK to do so? The number gets smaller every day. And if he waits long enough, he could find that almost none of them are still waiting with him.
He ostentatiously quotes an excerpt (that is new) from her forthcoming book: Every day that I was a candidate for president, I knew that millions of people were counting on me, and I couldnt bear the idea of letting them down but I did. I couldnt get the job done, and Ill have to live with that for the rest of my life.
Waldman jibes, Is that abject enough for you?
It is as if all the statements people made that Waldman and other Democrats despise must be apologized for retroactively because the public now has a truly clear-cut statement from Clinton that she had a job to do and did not succeed.
On top of that, Waldman neglects to include statements like, I take responsibility for every decision I made, but thats not why I lost, which she uttered at the Code Conference in June. She blamed the Russian government, WikiLeaks, and Trump for weaponizing information, and concocted a kooky unsubstantiated theory about voters in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania doing Google searches for WikiLeaks to find fake news on the released emails.
Clinton contended the Democratic National Committees data operation was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, [and] wrong. She maintained she had to fund the operation to keep it from dying.
Andrew Therriault, the former DNC director of data science, reacted, Irony of her bashing DNC data: our models never had MI/WI/PA looking even close to safe. Her team thought they knew better.
He added, Also, thats pretty precious when she couldnt have raised all [her money for campaigning] without the DNCs higher limits as a laundering vehicle.
Why must anyone engage in a crass form of paternalism, this pseudo-feminist thinking that cheapens feminism, and ignore this aspect of Clintons responses to critics?
Every candidate, even those who win, makes lots of mistakes. There are no perfect campaigns, Waldman rationalizes. He concludes with a sentence that suggests the last thing we should care about is whether Clinton apologizes sufficiently for losing.
This really is not about Clinton. She can write a book, go on tour, and tell all the world about why she thinks she lost. She has nothing meaningful to offer anyone struggling to resist Trump nor does she have a meaningful alternative to his insidious agenda.
Clinton has crawled out from her cabin in the woods every couple of months to collect a hefty check for a speaking engagement and rekindle another round of arguments over the 2016 Election. That does not help anyone, but certainly, there are people like Waldman, who are far more comfortable debating the past than imagining and contemplating what to do for the future.
Democrats may think Waldman is performing some kind of meaningful service by fending off villainous critics. But what Waldman is doing is ensuring a comments thread at Plum Line remains populated with liberal Democrats, who bicker with Trump supporters and Sanders progressives so the Washington Post can keep up clicks and ad revenue. What he is really doing is ensuring that people squabble on social media and generate interest in his piece so the Post can justify keeping Waldman employed as a regular contributor.
And the effect is that the spectrum of permissible debate about the Democratic Partys neoliberal politics, and the politicians it promotes, remains narrow so that pundits who cheer this piece are not forced out of their establishment comfort zone.
Visit link:
Have Hillary Clinton Supporters Tormented Progressives Enough To Satisfy Themselves? - Shadowproof (blog)
Well, if you want to lose faith in humanity and see the stupidity of hipster liberals in New York City, this is the video for you. Ami Horowitz took to the streets to talk about income inequality with some of the most insufferable people on the planet: progressives. Of course, they all felt it was a critical issue. One man was a member of the Working Families Party in the state. So, which country can we look to for guidance in solving this issue? How about socialist hellhole Venezuela? Its the nation with rolling blackouts, inadequate medical supplies, no toilet paper, no food, and rampant crime. Venezuelans are looting to survive, where people are eating pets and eating out of trashcans. With food supplies running low, government-run committees have been set up to assisted with distribution, but for those who have criticized the government, no food for you. Thats 21st Century Socialism.
Horowitz then asks the interviewees, all of whom no doubt are "still feeling the Bern," if they think that we should model ourselves on another country that promises "income equality": Venezuela, which, he explains, is in the midst of an economic death spiral to the point where it is experiencing dire food shortages and frequent violence between citizens and police forces. Despite the hellish reality of Venezuelas failed socialist state, all of his interviewees still thought Venezuelas day-long food lines would be preferable to the United States selfish, "undignified" capitalistic system.
Even though theres some downside, theres some violence there and some food lines," Horowitz says to bandana guy, "but still everyone has to do the same thing they wait in line equally."
Though the young man appears to be quite knowledgeable about Venezuela, nodding and agreeing with Horowitz' description of its crisis situation, he still agrees with Horowitz that its better to "wait in line equally."
"That is, I think, a fair system," says Horowitz.
"I agree," says bandana guy emphatically.
Interviewee after interviewee agrees that modeling ourselves after Venezuela is a great idea because America is just too unfair and "undignified."
"If you gotta wait in line for stuff, we should all wait in line together," says Horowitz.
Either these people dont read, dont care, or dont know. Regardless, slamming America while idolizing a left wing nation thats an economic nightmare; thats progressivism for you.
Continue reading here:
Progressives On Socialist Hellhole Venezuela: Hey, It's Better Than The US - Townhall
Much of the country has demanded the elimination of references to, and images of, people of the past from Christopher Columbus to Robert E. Lee who do not meet our evolving standards of probity.
In some cases, such damnation may be understandable if done calmly and peacefully and democratically, by a majority vote of elected representatives.
Few probably wish to see a statue in a public park honoring Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the founding members of the Ku Klux Klan, or Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the majority opinion in the racist Dred Scott decision that set the stage for the Civil War four years later.
But cleansing the past is a dangerous business. The wide liberal search for more enemies of the past may soon take progressives down hypocritical pathways they would prefer not to walk.
In the present climate of auditing the past, it is inevitable that Margaret Sangers Planned Parenthood will have to be disassociated from its founder. Sanger was an unapologetic racist and eugenicist who pushed abortion to reduce the nonwhite population
Should we ask that Ruth Bader Ginsburg resign from the Supreme Court? Even with the benefit of 21st-century moral sensitivity, Ginsburg still managed to echo Sanger in a racist reference to abortion (growth in populations that we dont want to have too many of).
Why did we ever mint a Susan B. Anthony dollar? The progressive suffragist once said, I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.
Liberal icon and Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren pushed for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II while he was Californias attorney general.
President Woodrow Wilson ensured that the Armed Forces were not integrated. He also segregated civil-service agencies. Why, then, does Princeton University still cling to its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs? To honor a progressive who did a great deal of harm to African-American causes?
Wilsons progressive racism, dressed up in pseudoscientific theories, was perhaps more pernicious than that of the old tribal racists of the South, given that it was not regionally centered and was professed to be fact-based and ecumenical, with the power of the presidency behind it.
In the current logic, Klan membership certainly should be a disqualifier of public commemoration. Why are there public buildings and roads still dedicated to the late Democratic senator Robert Byrd, former exalted cyclops of his local Klan affiliate, who reportedly never shook his disgusting lifelong habit of using the N-word?
Why is Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, once a Klansman, in the 20thcentury, still honored as a progressive hero?
So, what are the proper rules of exemption for progressives when waging war against the dead?
Do they tally up the deads good and bad behaviors to see if someone makes the 51 percent good progressive cutoff that exempts him? Or do some reactionary sins cancel out all the progressive good at least in the eyes of self-styled moral superiors to those hapless Neanderthals who came before us?
Are the supposedly oppressed exempt from charges of oppression?
Farm-labor icon Cesar Chavez once sent union thugs to the border to physically bar U.S. entry to undocumented Mexican immigrants, whom he derided as wetbacks in a fashion that would today surely earn Chavez ostracism by progressivesas a xenophobe.
Kendrick Lamar, one of the favorite rappers of former president Barack Obama, had an album cover featuring a presumably dead white judge with both of his eyes Xd out, surrounded by black men celebrating on the White House lawn. Should such a divisive racialist have been honored with a White House invitation?
What is the ultimate purpose of progressives condemning the past?
Does toppling the statue of a Confederate general without a referendum or a majority vote of an elected council improve racial relations? Does renaming a bridge or building reduce unemployment in the inner city?
Do progressives have their own logical set of selective rules and extenuating circumstances that damn or exempt particular historical figures? If so, what are they?
Does selectively warring against the illiberal past make us feel better about doing something symbolic when we cannot do something substantive? Or is it a sign of raw power and ego when activists force authorities to cave to their threats and remove images and names in the dead of night?
Does damning the dead send a flashy signal of our superior virtue?
And will toppling statues and erasing names only cease when modern progressives are forced to blot out the memories of racist progressive heroes?
READ MORE: Our War Against Memory Destroying Symbols: Where Does It End? The Left Opens Fire on Columbus Statues
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, to appear in October from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing [emailprotected]. 2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Read the original here:
The Double Standard in the Progressive War against the Dead - National Review