Im skeptical a fair bit of time about those congressional 'lefties' but this is true, for the most part they're doing what they can. What I do like most about them is when they show up outside of a legislative capacity, like showing up at strikes or going to meet unions. I think many people discount how important that boots on the ground work is. Imagine being a franchise owner of something trying to snuff out union efforts knowing you're gonna have US Lawmakers who agree with your workers physically there with the workers. You better come correctly in that situation.
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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Just want to point out that they only showed up in support of the current labor movement after immense pressure was put on them after failing to support the historic Amazon JFK8 union drive. AOC and politicians like her still have to pushed, sometimes hard, to do the right thing.
Oh I agree with you and am biting my tongue to not talk about how disappointed people like them made me when it came to the railroad unions and strike in this thread simply because at the end of the day through mistake or other means nymag got it right that they do indeed do thing that have an impact.
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Good. I hope they achieve far more in the future, it would be a net benefit for everyone, even those who dislike them and their politics
The greatest threat to conservatives is other conservatives. Unfortunately, they’re just too stupid to understand why.
Their own party treats them with more disdain than their supposed "opposition party."
AOC and the other actual left-wing minority making waves in a sea of right-wing neoliberals and righter-wing fascists are amazing. They can't win, the game is fully rigged and the institutions are fully captured by monied interests with political bribery legalized, but it's like watching Cap get up to face Thanos' army alone, it's inspiring.
Too bad no one, including most Americans, are on their left.
Because were too far into the sunk cost fallacy to reject ~~"free market"~~ rigged crony capitalism.
"We can't re-examine our core economic beliefs! We already gave the owners all the money, and they promised for half a century to whip their dicks out and urinate prosperity over all of us!... any day now..."
The article makes an argument exactly against this mentality.
Did you read the article?
I read the article, and I agree with Freddie deBoer. This is just liberal apologetics. This is just the same arguments of things are getting better, just wait, blah, blah, blah. I’m old. It’s tired. Give me healthcare and change my mind.
So until we get single payer healthcare, you won't be happy with any other policy wins and you'd rather burn all your political capital fighting us instead of uniting against the literal fascists? Please tell me how that makes sense.
The left, the real socialist left doesn’t have political capital. So there’s nothing to burn. Incremental policy is great to alleviate suffering, but ultimately is masturbatory. Fascism will eventually overcome America. This explains why. Waiting for real, substantial policy changes with climate change happening is denialism. We’re waiting for enough people to realize this so we can organize and fight for the future.
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They probably mean something of that scale. Working people have only been losing protections, rights, and safetynets for 50 years, not gaining them, all, to lower the taxes of the sliver of the population that already wanted for nothing and got rich thanks to the system they then wanted to avoid paying back into.
The person you're replying to is spot on. As our roads and other commons cumble, as our public education system, that provides a pre-literate workforce that profits the oligarchs btw, sits in utter ruin due to lack of funding, as we have more prisoners per capita in the world to enrich the for profit prison industry, as the world burns from companies polluting with abandon for private profit, this rigged system has proven on no uncertain terms that it works against those who lack significant capital to further enrich those who do not. After so long, yeah, it would reasonably take a massive policy change that helps the people in significant way on the backs of against the desires of the owner to get anyone paying attention's good will back.
Don't worry though, it won't happen.
If you want people to have faith in a system that works against them every day and has for their entire lives on the promise of "maybe you'll kick the ball on try 10,006 Charlie Brown," you don't make any sense.
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This article said basically nothing about what the “AOC left” has actually accomplished. It’s just a pro-Dem puff piece. Also, the author clearly doesn’t understand who leftists are.
How far did you get in this article?
The article sites examples such as the left dragging the party into supporting:
- a much bigger social safety net during the pandemic
- debt forgiveness
- investing a shitload in transitioning to green tech
I could go on. Read the article.
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This article is about progressives changing the Democratic parties objectives/policies and does give examples.
Between 2009 and 2020, many left-wing Democrats agitated for their party to embrace a “full employment” macroeconomic policy. AOC was among them. Then, when the COVID crisis hit, Democrats did as these progressives advised.
...
In 2020, congressional Democrats insisted on increasing unemployment benefits to a level that left many laid-off workers with more income than they’d previously earned at their jobs. Under Biden, meanwhile, Democrats enacted a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill on a party-line vote. The party’s decision to pursue stimulus on this scale — after Congress had already appropriated trillions of dollars in relief spending — was explicitly motivated by the left’s critique of Obama. As New York Times reported in 2021:
...
Since Occupy Wall Street, the American left has made student debt forgiveness one of its core policy demands. The Biden administration has taken extraordinary measures to answer that call. The president has successfully canceled a record $116.6 billion in forgiveness for 3.4 million borrowers. He has also attempted to unilaterally cancel at least $10,000 of student debt for virtually every U.S. borrower.
TLDR; The Democratic party is becoming more progressive despite some people on the left thinking it's not happening fast enough is a betrayal of progressive ideals.
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Jesus I couldn't even finish the article. It was a long winded "but the Democrats are good actually!" Sheepdog bullshit piece.
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Just as subservience breeds subjugation, so choosing between differing forms of exploitation can only result in continued exploitation. Being asked to choose between capitalism and fascism does not change the direction we are travelling in, it only marginally changes the route we are taking to get there.
subservience breeds subjugation
I like that phrasing, goes well with 'civility breeds cowardice'.
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She's the Obama of millennials, and will probably achieve the same political success. (Once the boomers preventing her ascension all die off.)
...Don't.
...Don't give me hope.
👍
It’s not the generation, it’s capitalism.
Isn't that just the progressive left? As far as I know we don't worship figureheads like the fascist right with their orange demigod.
America’s “left” is pretty middle of the road if you compare the US to other first world nations.
Things like free affordable / free university education, universal healthcare, consumer protection, and decent unemployment insurance are not controversial elsewhere. But in this US the right wing claims these boring ass ideas, that the rest of the modern world has embraced, are radical.
If left wing idea were hot sauces, the GOP would think mayo was the Last Dab on Hot Ones.
You can still respect and admire a figurehead without worshipping them. The difference is whether you bend definitions and rules to make exceptions of them when they deviate from expectations.
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so most of this article was excuses as to why progressives supposedly cant achieve anything.
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