Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): The biggest problem with the western left is that it doesn't exist. To look at a lot of leftist discourse today you might think the left's biggest problem is that some leftists have the wrong beliefs about this or that issue, or that the left pays too much or not enough attention to identity politics, or places too much or not enough emphasis on electoral politics, or is too sympathetic toward enemies of the US empire or not sympathetic enough, or that this or that faction gets it all wrong — but it's not. The biggest problem is that there aren't anywhere remotely close to enough leftists to get anything done in the west today.
Never ceases to amaze me that Bernie and the squad voted to fund the Ukraine proxy war. The left is now a corporate virtue signaling operation through ESG and DIE. I launched a satirical startup called the current thing company to serve these consoomers - here is the shark tank pitch: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/current-thing-company-yuri-sharktank
“..,, Never ceases to amaze me that Bernie and the squad voted to fund the Ukraine proxy war….”
That’s because you took them for face value at the name - and didn’t look at their actions. Which include they they had been voting for ever increasing military aggression budgets for years, naked into which is the use of Israel as a war-waging proxy, along with U.S. own military forces active in war in 100 countries.
Because that’s what you do when you join the “Democratic Party” or even the GOP: you become a fully committed member of the military industrial complex. Or you get booted out.
Of course Bernie and the Squad voted to fund the proxy war! They're good members of the status quo and do as they're told. You weren't fooled by their early rhetoric into actually thinking they were socialists or pro-socialist, did you?
Another one that hurts to read, because it's so right on. Especially given that I'm already agonized by this morning's news: that the horrible debt limit bill has passed through Congress, probably been signed by Biden by now. Among other horrors, it mandates all agencies and courts get out of the way of completing the Mountain Valley Pipeline. I live in WV, which it passes through, but what's most important is the precedent--what future project is going to bother with the regulatory process when they can just bribe a few Congresspeople to attach a free pass for it to the next piece of must-pass legislation? This comes on top of all the other Biden betrayals on environment and climate. Trying to preserve some habitable places on Earth requires desperate, direct action--we cannot ever get responsible legislation passed through any of our governments, all owned by the big corporations. As are the media, which makes organizing very hard. The other news is that three more activists have been arrested in Atlanta, for the crime of fund-raising for those arrested in the Cop City protests. Since arrestees have laughably been charged with terrorism (and denied bail), therefore fundraising for them is aiding terrorism and money laundering. Clearly ANY visible opposition to Cop City is grounds for arrest. Not just the cops, the city leaders are going along with this. Atlanta is thus the first but surely not the last city to go full police city (as in police state, but on a city level). Which brings us back to the pipeline, and climate/environmental activism in general--preserving habitable places requires direct action, but the oil companies have already gotten bills passed in many state legislatures--in the US, and we just saw with Caitlin's post of a few days ago, it's happening in Australia too. And UK...
We are young, old, queer, straight, Indigenous, hillbillies, hippies, artists, farmers, teachers, and engineers. We will be here when the pipeline fails, which it certainly will, to clean up the mess and support our communities. The empire can buy cops to extract our Yellow Finch treesitters, but they can't make us work their crappy jobs and they can't stop us from feeding each other. There are more of us than you'd think. Please take good care and don't lose heart. We need you.
It's utterly disgusting how they find every excuse imaginable to forget about their campaign promises (lies) and then sign an open page to just rape every bit of the environment they laughingly say they are so concerned about! There is only one spot on the planet where a particular form of Wild Rice grows (which is my favorite!) and it's in Minnesota and of course because it happens to be on an Indian reservation under attack to have the crap from Canada pumped right through it! Because the politicians are whores and purchased just like a 2 dollar one guess what the outcome will be?!
debt ceiling is just another pork barrel opportunity....last minute, top level, with only a few heads consulting.....manna from heaven for the Ho's in congress!
Not necessarily. Some of the proposed pipelines are to carry carbon dioxide from ethanol or power plants to "deep underground storage"--mostly in depleted oil wells, where it's used for Enhanced Oil Recovery. Read about what happened when one of these ruptured in Satartia, Mississippi, in HuffPost. The pipeline given a special pass, MVP, goes over very steep karst terrain above streams, and has already racked up hundreds of water violations. Karst is ground like Swiss cheese, full of holes. It also is not needed for domestic use--it's for export, to reduce the gas glut here in Appalachia so the price can go up. And it's a new fossil fuel project, estimated to contribute the equivalent of 26 coal plants' emissions, at a time when we desperately need to AT LAST start phasing out fossil fuels to rescue climate and ecosystems. No, running volatile things by train is not better. Nor is a pipeline better, especially a new one.
Don't fret: Leach Xpress, Revolution (& ACP) were all welded AC/DC by neophyte & new-hires at the same Dickensian mill. The remaining sections are hilly & when it too blows right-the-fuck-up after the first rains; PHMSA will invoke their "subsidence" euphemism for, "ain't nobody in here, but us hens!"
The town of Newport, Virginia has signs denoting the blast zones for the MVP. We have shrink/swell soils, karst, and earthquakes, and the water has already been ruined even with the rusty pipes sitting above the ground. There is no way a rural county like Giles could mount a rescue effort to carry out the survivors or fight the resulting forest fires. If the pipeline does not explode within a few months, the company will declare bankruptcy and move on. There is no demand for gas at the price they will have to get to push two billion cubic feet a day at high pressure, and then convert it to LNG to sell to our "allies" in Europe. By then EQT will have made their money and will leave their leaching toxic pipes over their 303 mile path of destruction.
It's WHY Biden was installed (aside from crushing M4A!) To force Russia to do exactly what Putin said in 2007; enable us to blow up Gulf Stream & cut off cheaper, "cleaner," Rooski gas to EU's AGW-mitigating equities & rescue "our" party's planet-destroying FRACKING, ethane cracking & bitumen refining Ponzi schemes. By 2016 you'd be kicked off of most Correct the Record blog aggregators comments for citing ANY of this would be worse under Albright & Hills' oilgarch dopplegangster duopoly (but, we'd stopped ACP, Constitution & three lines from NEPA & slowed Mariner East) but from MSNBC's Ed Rendell, Wolfe & now Fetterman... well, I'm noticing fracked LNG export to Europe STILL makes NO sense financially; enables insane shit, like converting NYC's scores-of-thousands of boilers to NEPA fracked gas (to flip MORE old/ poor folks' apartments) & yet the ROI is mysteriously propped-up by US, until we figure-out we've long ago set off run-away methane spewing AGW?
Most of what passes for "left" in the West is just Team R with a different idpol.
Things that the Empire cares about such as bailing out the billionaires at the casino again or putting another war of aggression on the national credit card get near-unanimous support.
In the last half of the 20th century the US purged anything that smelled of socialism from their capitalist- warfare state. The McCarthy hearings of the 1950's were a big part of this. In the West socialism has been vilified out of existence until it makes a comeback there is little hope for real change. Liberalism is also dead and Western governments, are all neoliberal which is actually economic fascism. Political parties on both sides of the Can/US border have had their identities and integrity utterly destroyed by neoliberalism as the ideology that has been around for half a century and nobody wants to discuss how it has destroyed the collective West and made war perpetual.
There is a steadfast refusal to recognize that China and Russia are not the problem . The problem is that we have chosen ruinous ideologies, democracy has collapsed and governments are riven with corruption.
As Chalmers Johnson said, you can have empire, or democracy; but you can't have both. His trilogy demonstrated how empire is driving the US and the West to wreck and ruin.
Warfare is merely gas thrown on the fire, accelerating decline. As has been noted change ultimately must start in the streets.
"As Chalmers Johnson said, you can have empire, or democracy; but you can't have both. His trilogy demonstrated how empire is driving the US and the West to wreck and ruin."
Pat Buchanan, of all people, said something much the same. This is because an empire cannot allow itself to be constrained by any kind of law or morality, or surely it will soon fall.
That’s cos no one has a clue what to do. It depresses and demotivates. As Mark Fisher said “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism.” He killed himself. And Western Neoliberalism has done a fine job in atomising and disenchanting us all. In the light of all this I think an organised radical left is unlikely and the best we might hope for is the coming inevitable collapse. Open to ideas.
IMAGINE Idiocracy, enforced with 5,800 old thermonuclear warheads pointed @ China & Russia by senile criminals, ever deeper into dementia (ignoring cascading PASC brain & executive decision-making/ cognition damage) in ALL sectors of our actively disintegrating, sneeringly counter-meritocratic empire.
There’s a lot of irony in your complaining about people on the Left complaining about their own.
I perceive the bigger issue is that a lot of people have been convinced that alleged Left political parties like the Democrats are “far Left Socialists”. The fact that anyone could believe this, including a lot of people who would self identify as being a Lefty, shows just how desperate the situation is.
This is an area where labels are used instrumentally. When the socialist or communist label is deployed, there is nobody to stand up and defend the truth that ad hominem labeling is intended to obscure. Virtually everyone is mum when the charge of communist is leveled. That is the power of propaganda.
"Millions tend to die"? How about billions from capitalism! Nuclear Armageddon anyone? I think these millions you refer to were killed by capitalism or the insanity of a dictator. I'm not for communism by any means but I don't remember hearing about millions of people getting killed from it in history lessons.
The period under Stalin had its very serious moments of political control. But some of the legislation in play at the moment in the US is becoming frightening as well. De Santis and the like, feeble-minded Biden and his grovelling antisemitism plans (yes, an election on its way; the motivations of media owners; big spending sponsors; the big three investment houses, and on). The total acceptance across both parties and well publicised support for the disgraceful apartheid in Palestine, a further indication of the real control of the US political climate is now being seen clearly as similar to the conditions that existed during the Stalin and Hitler eras and which could be on their way. That's the way it all started before WWII.
Personal freedoms are the first casualty and no one seems to be concerned as so many police operations become almost an arm of the military, weapon based crime now a daily occurrence and state wide legislators are able to pass restrictive laws on their people like never before. Covid laws, the most recent example.
Internationally, one more large country has joined BRICS. Saudi Arabla, once a close associate of the US in the dirty and cruel war against Yemen. A very big trader.
The US dollar as the international trading currency is losing its supporters, a factor that will change life in the US like nothing else can. Never see it mentioned, anywhere.
So, for the often sanctioned and bullied countries, it is clearly the start of "payback"
Projecting military power to every corner of the earth and using American capital and markets and sanctions to force global economic integration on its own terms, is the theme of Chalmers Johnson's book, "Blowback".
It is on its way and with the US political climate and the so very obvious Israeli controlled US government, it will now be at a much faster pace.
Billions dying from nuclear Armageddon is of course a hypothetical.
As to ascribing it all to "the insanity of a dictator," you might ask what kind of system enables a dictator to kill millions of people over the course of many, many years?
You mean, for example, the US privatized health care system we have now, that is the #1 reason why Americans go bankrupt in the country? Whereas, every other advanced country in the world has a form of universal health care for their citizens, unlike the US - where the obscenely wealthy want to privatize everything in sight for corporate profits? And extort as much money from ordinary Americans as they can with pharmaceutical price gouging?
Yeah, Capitalism is just great ... for the 1% obscenely rich, who can pay to see a doctor in the US and not go bankrupt.
Yes, capitalism has killed more people with its lack of caring for them being housed, fed, and taken care of when they were sick. Capitalism has enslaved human beings because of the color of their skin, stolen the land of indigenous people everywhere and enslaved or killed them as well. Capitalism is okay with children working (such as the 10 year-olds working in a McDonald's in Iowa that they found out about recently) and about the elderly working until they're in their 90s because they can't afford to "retire" (whatever that means). I'll bet you that communism or any other "ism" hasn't killed nearly as many human beings as the great Capitalists and their corrupt system of making profits before the welfare of the people and the planet.
This is the reason I have come to the conclusion that the USA needs to break up. It will have to happen from inside the country because no other nation can do it from outside, attempting it would trigger WWIII.
Not necessarily. A few years ago I read an alternate history in which the Confederacy won the American Civil War, with British help. But subsequently the remnant Union allied itself with Germany, which changed the preponderance of forces when World War I came around. Germany destroyed the British Empire. The Union knocked off much of the Confederacy and took over Canada and Russian America (i.e. Alaska). The geography of North America, a sort of walled island continent with a large central river system, tends to favor a large single state.
I would like to see a greater number of people on the traditional “left,” but I don’t think the biggest problem is too few on the left. The biggest problem is too few in the opposition.
I no longer care whether a person is on the right or left (whatever that even means anymore), I only want to know if a person is an imperialist (neoliberal), or an anti-imperialist.
There has never been a Socialist movement less interested in recruiting workers and educating workers in Socialism than the current Left in the USA. In their heyday, a Communist party building would always include a Workers School. The Party school in NYC alone had more than 5,000 students. Another major problem with the American Left is the refusal to recognize the extent to which Federal informants have infiltrated and in some cases (e.g., unfortunately, the CPUSA) control organizations.
Socialism has been defined to me as "the ownership and control of the means of production by the workers, or by the community generally." In other words, self-management. There is plenty of that sort of thing around, in the form of personal ownership, parterships, and cooperatives. However, it seems that only a minority of people are interested (at present) in doing the work. It will be difficult for socialism to succeed if only a small minority want to actually do it.
Small mom and pop businesses have been dwindling in the US for decades. What we're seeing is massive billion dollar corporations that straddle the market place and have considerable economic monopolies (such as cable companies, or massive food market chains, or meat producers.) These same massive billion dollar corporations, who never stop pursuing less regulations in the market place, also spend massive amounts of money in Washington DC to deregulate the market even further - with constant huge billion dollar mergers approved by lawmakers - such as the recent Krogers/Albertson merge.
I think many people would like to live in a more equitable society, that some forms of socialism appear to be able to achieve - if we look at other more socialist countries in the world - some of which adapt a hybrid of socialism/capitalism. But it is difficult to move toward change when so much power concentrated in a relatively few - and they are doing all they can to hold on to power, at the expense of the welfare of everyone else in a society.
Look at how the VERY libertarian Whole Foods, ate up food, dairy & CSA coops in every big city, as a small portion of hippys morphed into cocaine & wine swilling, BMW driving yuppies telling us to move to Russia, Cuba & China (since mama & poppa didn't offer us junior partnership so we too could fully participate in simultaneously killing "Capitalism" & 'Murika by inebriate grandiosity, NPD/BPD, substance abuse & sneeringly brain-washed Chicago School Idiocracy.
Except that the massive corporations are begging for more regulation to save face, keep their necks out of the nooses, and be closer to the REAL power source, the government. It's why Zuckerberg is willing to cave to any and all demands made by the White House.
Yep! If Shell, ETGT, EM or Williams EVER seem to have sought regulatory or oversight from ANY government agency, it was before I got into it & likely, a scam to CRUSH wild-catters or foreign competition (they've ALL been multinational conglomerates, since way before API 5L & 1104!)
How does that relate in ANY way to what I said? I see you're taking the "snide comeback" approach to convince other sheep as all the anti-intellectual Left now constantly does. They think "clapbacks" are politically compelling 😂. Did you go to the AOC school of Debate?? I know this is becuase you don't actually have anything to say, so you try to have the last word and/or bury what I said in the comments. Typical pathetic commie tactics..."No one can ever see the other side. They might be convinced that it makes more sense."
Maybe it doesn't exist in terms of the old left like 1960's and 1970's communism. But the democrats sure are the best leftist clones I have ever seen. It doesn't matter what we call it really, it's all the same...humanity under the yoke of government and tyrants unnamed.
In theory the cardinal principles of the Left are supposed to be peace, freedom, equality, and autonomy (as opposed to the cardinal principles of the Right, to wit, authority, order, security, social status, private wealth, the military virtues, etc.) It's very odd to repeatedly see one taken for the other, and I am curious as to how that happens.
Ask yourself, which characterizes which more closely...?
The Left is OBSESSED with so-called "wit", security (censorship), authority (moral), SOCIAL STATUS (the psychologists have figured this out and profiled their personalities...it's not good), wealth (party of dark money, insider trading), military values (war in Ukraine).
I gave a description of the classical Left. Most contemporary usage of the term is incoherent. Incoherent language can't be used in rational discussions, although they may be fun for Surrealists and Dadaists.
Reminds me of how organizations like Code Pink refused to participate in the "Rage Against the Machine" protest in DC in 2022. Because, I believe Ron Paul spoke at the event, and Jackson Hinkle,etc. Even though the event had many well known Left/Indie - intellectuals speaking, such as Chris Hedges, Jimmy Dore, Jill Stein, Roger Waters, Tara Reade, Max Blumenthal, etc.
Decisions like this is one of the reasons why the Left barely exists. You're not going to create a strong movement if you insist only certain qualified people who pass your defined Left litmus test can be invited to your rallies. Although, this is not a new problem for the Left. MLK had all sorts of difficulties keeping the civil rights movement he led focused and there was quite a bit of acrimony with civil rights leaders at the time, including with Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X.
Organizing requires shared values. Very difficult to form coalitions and common cause with folks who not only don't share many fundamental values (e.g. equality, justice, tolerance, diversity, peace, anti-empire, anti-capitalism, anti-corporate, pro-ecology, respect for human dignity, compassion, solidarity, etc), but actively oppose them and manifest many Fascist cultural and political tendencies.
Frankly,right now, I'm less concerned about the lack of a powerful Left, than the rising fascist culture and politics in US.
Yes, but sometimes it is necessary to get anything done. As Jimmy Dore often points out on his show, when Dore talks about Chris Smalls successful attempts to unionize against Amazon's pitiful exploitative treatment of their workers - Smalls didn't require people joining his efforts to agree to an ideological litmus test. Many of the workers that joined Small's protest/unionization efforts were Trumpers or Ron Paul believers.
Yes, but unions are inclusive institutions driven by class interests. That tends to ameliorate the identity issues that are used to divide us.
Jimmy Dore uses that issue and medicare for all (Force the Vote) as examples - but if you watch his show regularly, you will see that he often spouts disgusting ignorance and appeals to dangerous cultural tendencies - and his sidekick comedian (can't recall his name right now) is an embarrassment. On balance, Dore's counter-productive.
I still enjoy and watch the Jimmy Dore show. Mostly because he is constantly sticking up for the little guy, has always been vocally anti-war. Has always been a front-runner in exposing propaganda coming from the Establishment - such as the Neo-McCarthyism of the Russia Disinformation campaign - or the lies about Syria gas attacks or WMD's in Iraq. I've been following Jimmy for almost a decade now, since he first appeared on TYT. I enjoy it when his co-host Aaron Mate substitutes for him. Buzzsaw Aaron Mate - whom I've followed and liked ever since he was on Democracy Now.
There are some views Dore holds that I dislike and he does seem biased. His views on the covid19 pandemic I find particularly lopsided, and feel like he has a bit of a complex over the issue, because of the divide Covid19 caused on the left (and I believe, his own personal life.) I feel his views on police (which are necessary for any civilization) are a bit extreme i.e. I don't look at a policeman and view that policeman immediately as a corrupt violent person who is going to do me in as soon as he can. I do think there are some policemen who are trying to do their job - and are necessary in order to keep a free society from devolving into criminal anarchy. I do agree police reform is needed - but wouldn't vilify police as much as Jimmy does.
So yeah, like anyone, with a big megaphone on a political platform there is good and bad. So for you, as you say, on balance Dore is counter-productive. But for me - "on balance" I still feel Dore does more good than harm- the majority of his shows really do stick up for ordinary Americans while Jimmy is always punching upward especially toward corrupt politicians and obscenely wealthy tax avoiders.
Agreed. Dore is at best a mild Social Democrat. Never heard him ever talk full Socialism or Communism. But I believe Dore can be a good gateway drug for a lot of right leaning people to edge them in a more Left direction.
It's called solidarity. The IWW and the US Communist Party both welcomed immigrants of diverse cultural backgrounds and black people and women, based on class interests. This happened 100 years before the current "intersectionality" theory. The membership shared common interests and fought together to advance those interests. That solidarity "ameliorated" what are currently conceived racial and gender and cultural divisions. It was the capitalists who sought to stoke and exploit those issues in order to divide and weaken labor power. Later, the unions mostly abandoned this emphasis on inclusion.
You need a reading comprehension course. I said How can you ameliorate class issues? Issues is Newspeak for Problems, & problems must be solved, not "ameliorated." I'm talking about incomprehensible use of language, not union history.
Such a typical leftist complaining that other leftists don't pass the litmus test. Maybe cause Dore rants against Big Pharma's covid lies? Same with RFK. Too many snooty leftists who are abandoning him cause he's too pro Israel... so go vote for Andrew Yang!!
and anyone who brings an automatic weapon to a political or governmental event is disqualified. JD welcomes these violence prone folks with open arms and rarely, if ever, criticizes them or related cultural fascists.
When you grow up as a US citizen and you are taught about politics is school. You are being taught by the empire itself. So you not only have the information they want you to have, they teach you that it is the right information. You have two options, Democrats or Republicans, might as well be one party like the Democractic-Republican party of the past. Humor aside.
The empire doesn't want real leftists. Why would it want to create significant opposition? If you listen to Democrats or progressives(who ironically aren't progressive) is that they can't do anything because they don't have enough leftists-ever! They tell you to keep voting for them in a never ending cycle of failure, election after election. If they fail, it is our fault because not enough of us voted for them. That's the thing, there never will be enough.
That's b\y design. Year after year they impliment the same failing strategy with the same predictible results. It doesn't matter who we vote for. The people we vote for are empire servants, not public servants.
After this leftists also have a hard time creating more leftists because not many know what one is. That we are taught that being on the left is being a Democrat. After this, we are inudated with that we are such a small number that we need to submit to the Democrats to have any hope of success. Why would we join the opposition who supports the empire? I am still learning about being left...It will be a long journey but I am never going to be a main stream supporter again.
Lastly, we need to be able to communicate with each other and do so to the best of our ability. You have written about influence of thought being more powerful than censorship. This is just one example.
Well, what is your argument genius? I'll give you an argument: communism wasn't responsible for the first and second world wars that killed 150 millions, and that figure is reliable, unlike your likely source: The Black Book of Communism, a tome NO accredited university on the planet would stock, except maybe in the psychology dept. as exhibit #1, testament to the gullibility of human beings in the West. The West and liberalism are also responsible for every subsequent war, with perhaps another 100 millions dead, many more wounded and/or impoverished. The US interfered negatively in almost half the countries in the world, wreaking destruction and impoverishment, unimpeded or interrupted. On the other hand Mao, dogged by Western backed pitbulls, was single-handedly responsible for killing a million people, as he fled for his life? A little idiotic on its surface, I would say. And if you are looking for personal insults, you came to the right place.
Never ceases to amaze me that Bernie and the squad voted to fund the Ukraine proxy war. The left is now a corporate virtue signaling operation through ESG and DIE. I launched a satirical startup called the current thing company to serve these consoomers - here is the shark tank pitch: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/current-thing-company-yuri-sharktank
“..,, Never ceases to amaze me that Bernie and the squad voted to fund the Ukraine proxy war….”
That’s because you took them for face value at the name - and didn’t look at their actions. Which include they they had been voting for ever increasing military aggression budgets for years, naked into which is the use of Israel as a war-waging proxy, along with U.S. own military forces active in war in 100 countries.
Because that’s what you do when you join the “Democratic Party” or even the GOP: you become a fully committed member of the military industrial complex. Or you get booted out.
Doesn't surprise me in the least.
He'd make a few clucking noises if Team R were in the White House, but since it's Team D, he's all in.
Of course Bernie and the Squad voted to fund the proxy war! They're good members of the status quo and do as they're told. You weren't fooled by their early rhetoric into actually thinking they were socialists or pro-socialist, did you?
Another one that hurts to read, because it's so right on. Especially given that I'm already agonized by this morning's news: that the horrible debt limit bill has passed through Congress, probably been signed by Biden by now. Among other horrors, it mandates all agencies and courts get out of the way of completing the Mountain Valley Pipeline. I live in WV, which it passes through, but what's most important is the precedent--what future project is going to bother with the regulatory process when they can just bribe a few Congresspeople to attach a free pass for it to the next piece of must-pass legislation? This comes on top of all the other Biden betrayals on environment and climate. Trying to preserve some habitable places on Earth requires desperate, direct action--we cannot ever get responsible legislation passed through any of our governments, all owned by the big corporations. As are the media, which makes organizing very hard. The other news is that three more activists have been arrested in Atlanta, for the crime of fund-raising for those arrested in the Cop City protests. Since arrestees have laughably been charged with terrorism (and denied bail), therefore fundraising for them is aiding terrorism and money laundering. Clearly ANY visible opposition to Cop City is grounds for arrest. Not just the cops, the city leaders are going along with this. Atlanta is thus the first but surely not the last city to go full police city (as in police state, but on a city level). Which brings us back to the pipeline, and climate/environmental activism in general--preserving habitable places requires direct action, but the oil companies have already gotten bills passed in many state legislatures--in the US, and we just saw with Caitlin's post of a few days ago, it's happening in Australia too. And UK...
Dear Mary,
If there is any redemption in this, the finest people I have ever met are fighting this pipeline. Maury Johnson from West Virginia gave an excellent interview on DemocracyNow: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/5/31/debt_ceiling_deal_mountain_valley_pipeline
We are young, old, queer, straight, Indigenous, hillbillies, hippies, artists, farmers, teachers, and engineers. We will be here when the pipeline fails, which it certainly will, to clean up the mess and support our communities. The empire can buy cops to extract our Yellow Finch treesitters, but they can't make us work their crappy jobs and they can't stop us from feeding each other. There are more of us than you'd think. Please take good care and don't lose heart. We need you.
It's utterly disgusting how they find every excuse imaginable to forget about their campaign promises (lies) and then sign an open page to just rape every bit of the environment they laughingly say they are so concerned about! There is only one spot on the planet where a particular form of Wild Rice grows (which is my favorite!) and it's in Minnesota and of course because it happens to be on an Indian reservation under attack to have the crap from Canada pumped right through it! Because the politicians are whores and purchased just like a 2 dollar one guess what the outcome will be?!
I'll be in ATL for upcoming protests
debt ceiling is just another pork barrel opportunity....last minute, top level, with only a few heads consulting.....manna from heaven for the Ho's in congress!
At least pipeline is safer than by train wreck.
Not necessarily. Some of the proposed pipelines are to carry carbon dioxide from ethanol or power plants to "deep underground storage"--mostly in depleted oil wells, where it's used for Enhanced Oil Recovery. Read about what happened when one of these ruptured in Satartia, Mississippi, in HuffPost. The pipeline given a special pass, MVP, goes over very steep karst terrain above streams, and has already racked up hundreds of water violations. Karst is ground like Swiss cheese, full of holes. It also is not needed for domestic use--it's for export, to reduce the gas glut here in Appalachia so the price can go up. And it's a new fossil fuel project, estimated to contribute the equivalent of 26 coal plants' emissions, at a time when we desperately need to AT LAST start phasing out fossil fuels to rescue climate and ecosystems. No, running volatile things by train is not better. Nor is a pipeline better, especially a new one.
Thanks for the information. It is helpful to have all the facts.
Don't fret: Leach Xpress, Revolution (& ACP) were all welded AC/DC by neophyte & new-hires at the same Dickensian mill. The remaining sections are hilly & when it too blows right-the-fuck-up after the first rains; PHMSA will invoke their "subsidence" euphemism for, "ain't nobody in here, but us hens!"
The town of Newport, Virginia has signs denoting the blast zones for the MVP. We have shrink/swell soils, karst, and earthquakes, and the water has already been ruined even with the rusty pipes sitting above the ground. There is no way a rural county like Giles could mount a rescue effort to carry out the survivors or fight the resulting forest fires. If the pipeline does not explode within a few months, the company will declare bankruptcy and move on. There is no demand for gas at the price they will have to get to push two billion cubic feet a day at high pressure, and then convert it to LNG to sell to our "allies" in Europe. By then EQT will have made their money and will leave their leaching toxic pipes over their 303 mile path of destruction.
It's WHY Biden was installed (aside from crushing M4A!) To force Russia to do exactly what Putin said in 2007; enable us to blow up Gulf Stream & cut off cheaper, "cleaner," Rooski gas to EU's AGW-mitigating equities & rescue "our" party's planet-destroying FRACKING, ethane cracking & bitumen refining Ponzi schemes. By 2016 you'd be kicked off of most Correct the Record blog aggregators comments for citing ANY of this would be worse under Albright & Hills' oilgarch dopplegangster duopoly (but, we'd stopped ACP, Constitution & three lines from NEPA & slowed Mariner East) but from MSNBC's Ed Rendell, Wolfe & now Fetterman... well, I'm noticing fracked LNG export to Europe STILL makes NO sense financially; enables insane shit, like converting NYC's scores-of-thousands of boilers to NEPA fracked gas (to flip MORE old/ poor folks' apartments) & yet the ROI is mysteriously propped-up by US, until we figure-out we've long ago set off run-away methane spewing AGW?
Most of what passes for "left" in the West is just Team R with a different idpol.
Things that the Empire cares about such as bailing out the billionaires at the casino again or putting another war of aggression on the national credit card get near-unanimous support.
In the last half of the 20th century the US purged anything that smelled of socialism from their capitalist- warfare state. The McCarthy hearings of the 1950's were a big part of this. In the West socialism has been vilified out of existence until it makes a comeback there is little hope for real change. Liberalism is also dead and Western governments, are all neoliberal which is actually economic fascism. Political parties on both sides of the Can/US border have had their identities and integrity utterly destroyed by neoliberalism as the ideology that has been around for half a century and nobody wants to discuss how it has destroyed the collective West and made war perpetual.
There is a steadfast refusal to recognize that China and Russia are not the problem . The problem is that we have chosen ruinous ideologies, democracy has collapsed and governments are riven with corruption.
As Chalmers Johnson said, you can have empire, or democracy; but you can't have both. His trilogy demonstrated how empire is driving the US and the West to wreck and ruin.
Warfare is merely gas thrown on the fire, accelerating decline. As has been noted change ultimately must start in the streets.
"As Chalmers Johnson said, you can have empire, or democracy; but you can't have both. His trilogy demonstrated how empire is driving the US and the West to wreck and ruin."
Pat Buchanan, of all people, said something much the same. This is because an empire cannot allow itself to be constrained by any kind of law or morality, or surely it will soon fall.
Johnson. Now there was a man worth reading. Should be mandatory study for anyone over the age of 12.
That’s cos no one has a clue what to do. It depresses and demotivates. As Mark Fisher said “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism.” He killed himself. And Western Neoliberalism has done a fine job in atomising and disenchanting us all. In the light of all this I think an organised radical left is unlikely and the best we might hope for is the coming inevitable collapse. Open to ideas.
IMAGINE Idiocracy, enforced with 5,800 old thermonuclear warheads pointed @ China & Russia by senile criminals, ever deeper into dementia (ignoring cascading PASC brain & executive decision-making/ cognition damage) in ALL sectors of our actively disintegrating, sneeringly counter-meritocratic empire.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/06/the-loss-of-executive-function-in-the-west.html
There’s a lot of irony in your complaining about people on the Left complaining about their own.
I perceive the bigger issue is that a lot of people have been convinced that alleged Left political parties like the Democrats are “far Left Socialists”. The fact that anyone could believe this, including a lot of people who would self identify as being a Lefty, shows just how desperate the situation is.
This is an area where labels are used instrumentally. When the socialist or communist label is deployed, there is nobody to stand up and defend the truth that ad hominem labeling is intended to obscure. Virtually everyone is mum when the charge of communist is leveled. That is the power of propaganda.
As an avowed capitalist (shocker) I'm not onboard with the communist train. Millions tend to die when we walk that path, and I'd prefer to avoid it.
Nonetheless I think I have a great way to convince people that the West is morally bankrupt, just read Confessions of an Economic Hitman.
It's nearly impossible to read this book and not lose all faith that we're the good guys.
https://theunhedgedcapitalist.substack.com/p/book-review-confessions-of-an-economic
"Millions tend to die"? How about billions from capitalism! Nuclear Armageddon anyone? I think these millions you refer to were killed by capitalism or the insanity of a dictator. I'm not for communism by any means but I don't remember hearing about millions of people getting killed from it in history lessons.
The period under Stalin had its very serious moments of political control. But some of the legislation in play at the moment in the US is becoming frightening as well. De Santis and the like, feeble-minded Biden and his grovelling antisemitism plans (yes, an election on its way; the motivations of media owners; big spending sponsors; the big three investment houses, and on). The total acceptance across both parties and well publicised support for the disgraceful apartheid in Palestine, a further indication of the real control of the US political climate is now being seen clearly as similar to the conditions that existed during the Stalin and Hitler eras and which could be on their way. That's the way it all started before WWII.
Personal freedoms are the first casualty and no one seems to be concerned as so many police operations become almost an arm of the military, weapon based crime now a daily occurrence and state wide legislators are able to pass restrictive laws on their people like never before. Covid laws, the most recent example.
Internationally, one more large country has joined BRICS. Saudi Arabla, once a close associate of the US in the dirty and cruel war against Yemen. A very big trader.
The US dollar as the international trading currency is losing its supporters, a factor that will change life in the US like nothing else can. Never see it mentioned, anywhere.
So, for the often sanctioned and bullied countries, it is clearly the start of "payback"
Projecting military power to every corner of the earth and using American capital and markets and sanctions to force global economic integration on its own terms, is the theme of Chalmers Johnson's book, "Blowback".
It is on its way and with the US political climate and the so very obvious Israeli controlled US government, it will now be at a much faster pace.
https://news.stanford.edu/2010/09/23/naimark-stalin-genocide-092310/
Billions dying from nuclear Armageddon is of course a hypothetical.
As to ascribing it all to "the insanity of a dictator," you might ask what kind of system enables a dictator to kill millions of people over the course of many, many years?
You mean, for example, the US privatized health care system we have now, that is the #1 reason why Americans go bankrupt in the country? Whereas, every other advanced country in the world has a form of universal health care for their citizens, unlike the US - where the obscenely wealthy want to privatize everything in sight for corporate profits? And extort as much money from ordinary Americans as they can with pharmaceutical price gouging?
Yeah, Capitalism is just great ... for the 1% obscenely rich, who can pay to see a doctor in the US and not go bankrupt.
Yes, capitalism has killed more people with its lack of caring for them being housed, fed, and taken care of when they were sick. Capitalism has enslaved human beings because of the color of their skin, stolen the land of indigenous people everywhere and enslaved or killed them as well. Capitalism is okay with children working (such as the 10 year-olds working in a McDonald's in Iowa that they found out about recently) and about the elderly working until they're in their 90s because they can't afford to "retire" (whatever that means). I'll bet you that communism or any other "ism" hasn't killed nearly as many human beings as the great Capitalists and their corrupt system of making profits before the welfare of the people and the planet.
This is the reason I have come to the conclusion that the USA needs to break up. It will have to happen from inside the country because no other nation can do it from outside, attempting it would trigger WWIII.
Why would that help?
The resulting countries could concentrate their energies upon making war on one another.
Not necessarily. A few years ago I read an alternate history in which the Confederacy won the American Civil War, with British help. But subsequently the remnant Union allied itself with Germany, which changed the preponderance of forces when World War I came around. Germany destroyed the British Empire. The Union knocked off much of the Confederacy and took over Canada and Russian America (i.e. Alaska). The geography of North America, a sort of walled island continent with a large central river system, tends to favor a large single state.
Two or three separate nations would each be less powerful. They'd cancel each other out a bit, like France, Germany and England.
I think the left is an obsolete concept as is the right and centre for politics. Try awareness of what colonialism truly is , I that see happening .
Thinking about it as the MSM refuses to.
One sees the ever increasing escalation with lies by MSM about the Ukraine War fooling many compassionate people which I find abhorrent.
This escalation brings what the colonial mind does to a whole new level in its use of violent destruction of people and economies .
To look for the truth is more important than seeking a political label to describe who you are.
Why play the divide and conquer game used by the Hegemon with your friends sticking a political label on them?
I would like to see a greater number of people on the traditional “left,” but I don’t think the biggest problem is too few on the left. The biggest problem is too few in the opposition.
I no longer care whether a person is on the right or left (whatever that even means anymore), I only want to know if a person is an imperialist (neoliberal), or an anti-imperialist.
There has never been a Socialist movement less interested in recruiting workers and educating workers in Socialism than the current Left in the USA. In their heyday, a Communist party building would always include a Workers School. The Party school in NYC alone had more than 5,000 students. Another major problem with the American Left is the refusal to recognize the extent to which Federal informants have infiltrated and in some cases (e.g., unfortunately, the CPUSA) control organizations.
Socialism has been defined to me as "the ownership and control of the means of production by the workers, or by the community generally." In other words, self-management. There is plenty of that sort of thing around, in the form of personal ownership, parterships, and cooperatives. However, it seems that only a minority of people are interested (at present) in doing the work. It will be difficult for socialism to succeed if only a small minority want to actually do it.
Small mom and pop businesses have been dwindling in the US for decades. What we're seeing is massive billion dollar corporations that straddle the market place and have considerable economic monopolies (such as cable companies, or massive food market chains, or meat producers.) These same massive billion dollar corporations, who never stop pursuing less regulations in the market place, also spend massive amounts of money in Washington DC to deregulate the market even further - with constant huge billion dollar mergers approved by lawmakers - such as the recent Krogers/Albertson merge.
I think many people would like to live in a more equitable society, that some forms of socialism appear to be able to achieve - if we look at other more socialist countries in the world - some of which adapt a hybrid of socialism/capitalism. But it is difficult to move toward change when so much power concentrated in a relatively few - and they are doing all they can to hold on to power, at the expense of the welfare of everyone else in a society.
If we all (or mostly) _wanted_ to have socialism as I defined it above, we could have it tomorrow.
Look at how the VERY libertarian Whole Foods, ate up food, dairy & CSA coops in every big city, as a small portion of hippys morphed into cocaine & wine swilling, BMW driving yuppies telling us to move to Russia, Cuba & China (since mama & poppa didn't offer us junior partnership so we too could fully participate in simultaneously killing "Capitalism" & 'Murika by inebriate grandiosity, NPD/BPD, substance abuse & sneeringly brain-washed Chicago School Idiocracy.
Except that the massive corporations are begging for more regulation to save face, keep their necks out of the nooses, and be closer to the REAL power source, the government. It's why Zuckerberg is willing to cave to any and all demands made by the White House.
More Libertarian fantasy talk. Ayn Rand was a nut.
Yep! If Shell, ETGT, EM or Williams EVER seem to have sought regulatory or oversight from ANY government agency, it was before I got into it & likely, a scam to CRUSH wild-catters or foreign competition (they've ALL been multinational conglomerates, since way before API 5L & 1104!)
How does that relate in ANY way to what I said? I see you're taking the "snide comeback" approach to convince other sheep as all the anti-intellectual Left now constantly does. They think "clapbacks" are politically compelling 😂. Did you go to the AOC school of Debate?? I know this is becuase you don't actually have anything to say, so you try to have the last word and/or bury what I said in the comments. Typical pathetic commie tactics..."No one can ever see the other side. They might be convinced that it makes more sense."
Here's some data for you. Empirical data:
https://news.yahoo.com/irs-data-prove-trump-tax-130007569.html
"commie tactics" lol
I've suddenly time traveled back to the 1950s.
Maybe it doesn't exist in terms of the old left like 1960's and 1970's communism. But the democrats sure are the best leftist clones I have ever seen. It doesn't matter what we call it really, it's all the same...humanity under the yoke of government and tyrants unnamed.
In theory the cardinal principles of the Left are supposed to be peace, freedom, equality, and autonomy (as opposed to the cardinal principles of the Right, to wit, authority, order, security, social status, private wealth, the military virtues, etc.) It's very odd to repeatedly see one taken for the other, and I am curious as to how that happens.
Ask yourself, which characterizes which more closely...?
The Left is OBSESSED with so-called "wit", security (censorship), authority (moral), SOCIAL STATUS (the psychologists have figured this out and profiled their personalities...it's not good), wealth (party of dark money, insider trading), military values (war in Ukraine).
I gave a description of the classical Left. Most contemporary usage of the term is incoherent. Incoherent language can't be used in rational discussions, although they may be fun for Surrealists and Dadaists.
And Newspeakers.
Reminds me of how organizations like Code Pink refused to participate in the "Rage Against the Machine" protest in DC in 2022. Because, I believe Ron Paul spoke at the event, and Jackson Hinkle,etc. Even though the event had many well known Left/Indie - intellectuals speaking, such as Chris Hedges, Jimmy Dore, Jill Stein, Roger Waters, Tara Reade, Max Blumenthal, etc.
Decisions like this is one of the reasons why the Left barely exists. You're not going to create a strong movement if you insist only certain qualified people who pass your defined Left litmus test can be invited to your rallies. Although, this is not a new problem for the Left. MLK had all sorts of difficulties keeping the civil rights movement he led focused and there was quite a bit of acrimony with civil rights leaders at the time, including with Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X.
Organizing requires shared values. Very difficult to form coalitions and common cause with folks who not only don't share many fundamental values (e.g. equality, justice, tolerance, diversity, peace, anti-empire, anti-capitalism, anti-corporate, pro-ecology, respect for human dignity, compassion, solidarity, etc), but actively oppose them and manifest many Fascist cultural and political tendencies.
Frankly,right now, I'm less concerned about the lack of a powerful Left, than the rising fascist culture and politics in US.
Yes, but sometimes it is necessary to get anything done. As Jimmy Dore often points out on his show, when Dore talks about Chris Smalls successful attempts to unionize against Amazon's pitiful exploitative treatment of their workers - Smalls didn't require people joining his efforts to agree to an ideological litmus test. Many of the workers that joined Small's protest/unionization efforts were Trumpers or Ron Paul believers.
There is power in common cause.
Yes, but unions are inclusive institutions driven by class interests. That tends to ameliorate the identity issues that are used to divide us.
Jimmy Dore uses that issue and medicare for all (Force the Vote) as examples - but if you watch his show regularly, you will see that he often spouts disgusting ignorance and appeals to dangerous cultural tendencies - and his sidekick comedian (can't recall his name right now) is an embarrassment. On balance, Dore's counter-productive.
I still enjoy and watch the Jimmy Dore show. Mostly because he is constantly sticking up for the little guy, has always been vocally anti-war. Has always been a front-runner in exposing propaganda coming from the Establishment - such as the Neo-McCarthyism of the Russia Disinformation campaign - or the lies about Syria gas attacks or WMD's in Iraq. I've been following Jimmy for almost a decade now, since he first appeared on TYT. I enjoy it when his co-host Aaron Mate substitutes for him. Buzzsaw Aaron Mate - whom I've followed and liked ever since he was on Democracy Now.
There are some views Dore holds that I dislike and he does seem biased. His views on the covid19 pandemic I find particularly lopsided, and feel like he has a bit of a complex over the issue, because of the divide Covid19 caused on the left (and I believe, his own personal life.) I feel his views on police (which are necessary for any civilization) are a bit extreme i.e. I don't look at a policeman and view that policeman immediately as a corrupt violent person who is going to do me in as soon as he can. I do think there are some policemen who are trying to do their job - and are necessary in order to keep a free society from devolving into criminal anarchy. I do agree police reform is needed - but wouldn't vilify police as much as Jimmy does.
So yeah, like anyone, with a big megaphone on a political platform there is good and bad. So for you, as you say, on balance Dore is counter-productive. But for me - "on balance" I still feel Dore does more good than harm- the majority of his shows really do stick up for ordinary Americans while Jimmy is always punching upward especially toward corrupt politicians and obscenely wealthy tax avoiders.
Agreed. Dore is at best a mild Social Democrat. Never heard him ever talk full Socialism or Communism. But I believe Dore can be a good gateway drug for a lot of right leaning people to edge them in a more Left direction.
"ameliorate the identity issues that are used to divide us" ??? You want to make them "better"? How can you make them "better"?
It's called solidarity. The IWW and the US Communist Party both welcomed immigrants of diverse cultural backgrounds and black people and women, based on class interests. This happened 100 years before the current "intersectionality" theory. The membership shared common interests and fought together to advance those interests. That solidarity "ameliorated" what are currently conceived racial and gender and cultural divisions. It was the capitalists who sought to stoke and exploit those issues in order to divide and weaken labor power. Later, the unions mostly abandoned this emphasis on inclusion.
Do some reading.
You need a reading comprehension course. I said How can you ameliorate class issues? Issues is Newspeak for Problems, & problems must be solved, not "ameliorated." I'm talking about incomprehensible use of language, not union history.
Such a typical leftist complaining that other leftists don't pass the litmus test. Maybe cause Dore rants against Big Pharma's covid lies? Same with RFK. Too many snooty leftists who are abandoning him cause he's too pro Israel... so go vote for Andrew Yang!!
and anyone who brings an automatic weapon to a political or governmental event is disqualified. JD welcomes these violence prone folks with open arms and rarely, if ever, criticizes them or related cultural fascists.
and please don'r reply with the Black Panther Party's California experience.
Wah Wah Wah... fuken crazy shitlib!!
I dont think you would find mice atttending a rally event held by eagles complaining about being oppresed by predatory wolves.
At least not the smarter mice….
When you grow up as a US citizen and you are taught about politics is school. You are being taught by the empire itself. So you not only have the information they want you to have, they teach you that it is the right information. You have two options, Democrats or Republicans, might as well be one party like the Democractic-Republican party of the past. Humor aside.
The empire doesn't want real leftists. Why would it want to create significant opposition? If you listen to Democrats or progressives(who ironically aren't progressive) is that they can't do anything because they don't have enough leftists-ever! They tell you to keep voting for them in a never ending cycle of failure, election after election. If they fail, it is our fault because not enough of us voted for them. That's the thing, there never will be enough.
That's b\y design. Year after year they impliment the same failing strategy with the same predictible results. It doesn't matter who we vote for. The people we vote for are empire servants, not public servants.
After this leftists also have a hard time creating more leftists because not many know what one is. That we are taught that being on the left is being a Democrat. After this, we are inudated with that we are such a small number that we need to submit to the Democrats to have any hope of success. Why would we join the opposition who supports the empire? I am still learning about being left...It will be a long journey but I am never going to be a main stream supporter again.
Lastly, we need to be able to communicate with each other and do so to the best of our ability. You have written about influence of thought being more powerful than censorship. This is just one example.
Well, what is your argument genius? I'll give you an argument: communism wasn't responsible for the first and second world wars that killed 150 millions, and that figure is reliable, unlike your likely source: The Black Book of Communism, a tome NO accredited university on the planet would stock, except maybe in the psychology dept. as exhibit #1, testament to the gullibility of human beings in the West. The West and liberalism are also responsible for every subsequent war, with perhaps another 100 millions dead, many more wounded and/or impoverished. The US interfered negatively in almost half the countries in the world, wreaking destruction and impoverishment, unimpeded or interrupted. On the other hand Mao, dogged by Western backed pitbulls, was single-handedly responsible for killing a million people, as he fled for his life? A little idiotic on its surface, I would say. And if you are looking for personal insults, you came to the right place.