Bernie Wants You to Own More of the Means of Production by Matt Bruenig
Negative Outlook?
anything to help advance the cause
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Wednesday, October 09, 2019
working class whisperers
Chris Arnade, Maximillian Alvarez, Sarah Smarsh, Hillbilly Elegy guy, New York Times reporters/ media people after Trump's election.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
more Warren versus Bernie
Still lefties call for unity while the media goes banana over the news that Warren has pulled into first in Iowa. Meanwhile they ignore how Bernie is still doing well in other states.
It is complicated I agree. What is motivating Warren voters? Just as there is the idea that many Biden supporters are backing him out of fear over Trump - they feel he is the most electable and just want to beat Trump, the same could be said of some Warren voters. Bernie goes to far. Warren's "big structural change" is less ambitious than class war. Warren can get the anybody-but-Bernie voters.
Warren is better able to compromise. But is that a good thing. As Bernie repeatedly says, we need a political revolution in order to change things and beat the one percent.
The well-to-do big donors wanted Hillary who wouldn't change things but would defeat Trump. Turns out the votes wouldn't go for that. So the big donors back Biden who has moved a little to the left, and Warren who promises a little more. Wealth taxes, etc.
But Bernie promises "democratic socialism." This might require more confrontation, which the Warren voters don't want.
And yet despite her good plans, there keeps dribbling out news about how Warren is compromised. A charter school advocate on her staff? Knocking Bernie's housing plan. And now the anti-Bernie people coalesce around impeachment. Can't say that isn't ambitious and even divisive with Pelosi fearing it will fire up the Republican base.
It is complicated I agree. What is motivating Warren voters? Just as there is the idea that many Biden supporters are backing him out of fear over Trump - they feel he is the most electable and just want to beat Trump, the same could be said of some Warren voters. Bernie goes to far. Warren's "big structural change" is less ambitious than class war. Warren can get the anybody-but-Bernie voters.
Warren is better able to compromise. But is that a good thing. As Bernie repeatedly says, we need a political revolution in order to change things and beat the one percent.
The well-to-do big donors wanted Hillary who wouldn't change things but would defeat Trump. Turns out the votes wouldn't go for that. So the big donors back Biden who has moved a little to the left, and Warren who promises a little more. Wealth taxes, etc.
But Bernie promises "democratic socialism." This might require more confrontation, which the Warren voters don't want.
And yet despite her good plans, there keeps dribbling out news about how Warren is compromised. A charter school advocate on her staff? Knocking Bernie's housing plan. And now the anti-Bernie people coalesce around impeachment. Can't say that isn't ambitious and even divisive with Pelosi fearing it will fire up the Republican base.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Sanders vs. Warren
It's weird, over the past couple days there's a growing sense among both Warren and Bernie supporters that Warren might win the primary. The proximate cause is probably Biden dropping in the polls with Warren rising. But in some polls Sanders is still doing well. I guess I don't full understand the cause.
What could happen is that enough people want to block Bernie that they outnumber his organizing and name recognition advantages. I wouldn't say it's a given.
If this was 2008, 2012 or 2016 (minus Bernie) I'd be thrilled. But in 2020 it would just signal to me that the working class is still too much in disarray and the professional managerial class really suck shit.They believe the world can stay roughly the same as it has been and they can maintain their privilege b/c the common people can't be trusted to have their own movement.
Big structural change won't be big enough and maybe people become demobilized like after Obama. Or maybe not, who knows.
I guess it's possible that the DSA keeps growing and putting representatives in power. It's possible that Warren gets through a large wealth tax and public worker wage increases, etc. Maybe even workers on corporate boards. Packs the court. Ends the filibuster. That would all be great.
But what we really need for revolutionary reforms to stick is a broad base worker movement. Maybe one would develop under Warren, but her victory would mean we were so close but not quite there yet. And I would be more confident in the success of Sanders administration than a Warren one, but again who knows I could be very wrong.
(maybe the thinking is that currently Bernie is a little ahead of Warren, but if Biden drops out, a majority goes to Bernie. However enough goes to Warren that combined with the centrist supporters of the rest of the field, Warren edges Bernie out. Maybe YangGang decides the winner?)
Update: I forgot. This started when people started looking at the betting sites. PredictIt has Warren wining (but also has Trump winning in the general.) Could be their supporters have money to waste betting and tip the scales.
Update: As Biden sinks and Warren appears to gain momentum (is it real?) the corporate media has decided to give her a push with anti-Bernie outlets pushing a poll which finds that Warren has the most "broad-based metric" which sounds like a new metric they invented to block Bernie. Warren is being talked about as the "compromise" candidate.
Update: Warren supporters don't seem to want to argue about her differences with Bernie. I note that very anti-Bernie people from 2016 are now okay with Warren even though she is similar to Bernie policy-wise. Smells funny to me, but Warren supporters apparently genuinely believe that she is making "big structural change" more palatable to moderates and centrist by somehow "misleading" them. She's downplaying the radical nature of her plans. (sounds like what was said of Hillary and Obama. Sounds like wishful thinking. ) But if you want to motivate voters and energize the base you need to be ambitious. And granted some of Warren's plan are ambitious. That's why I don't think she's fooling anybody.
Update: there's a new poll which shows that Bernie is doing poorly among the elderly. Part of it is that working class and poor people die before they get old.
The Trouble with Capitalism by Chris Dillow
Do either Warren or Sanders need to drop out to defeat Biden? Not so fast. by Ryan Cooper
Update: Warren fans keep coming at me with the betting sites odds, but betting sights have proven to be useless.
What could happen is that enough people want to block Bernie that they outnumber his organizing and name recognition advantages. I wouldn't say it's a given.
If this was 2008, 2012 or 2016 (minus Bernie) I'd be thrilled. But in 2020 it would just signal to me that the working class is still too much in disarray and the professional managerial class really suck shit.They believe the world can stay roughly the same as it has been and they can maintain their privilege b/c the common people can't be trusted to have their own movement.
Big structural change won't be big enough and maybe people become demobilized like after Obama. Or maybe not, who knows.
I guess it's possible that the DSA keeps growing and putting representatives in power. It's possible that Warren gets through a large wealth tax and public worker wage increases, etc. Maybe even workers on corporate boards. Packs the court. Ends the filibuster. That would all be great.
But what we really need for revolutionary reforms to stick is a broad base worker movement. Maybe one would develop under Warren, but her victory would mean we were so close but not quite there yet. And I would be more confident in the success of Sanders administration than a Warren one, but again who knows I could be very wrong.
(maybe the thinking is that currently Bernie is a little ahead of Warren, but if Biden drops out, a majority goes to Bernie. However enough goes to Warren that combined with the centrist supporters of the rest of the field, Warren edges Bernie out. Maybe YangGang decides the winner?)
Update: I forgot. This started when people started looking at the betting sites. PredictIt has Warren wining (but also has Trump winning in the general.) Could be their supporters have money to waste betting and tip the scales.
Update: As Biden sinks and Warren appears to gain momentum (is it real?) the corporate media has decided to give her a push with anti-Bernie outlets pushing a poll which finds that Warren has the most "broad-based metric" which sounds like a new metric they invented to block Bernie. Warren is being talked about as the "compromise" candidate.
Update: Warren supporters don't seem to want to argue about her differences with Bernie. I note that very anti-Bernie people from 2016 are now okay with Warren even though she is similar to Bernie policy-wise. Smells funny to me, but Warren supporters apparently genuinely believe that she is making "big structural change" more palatable to moderates and centrist by somehow "misleading" them. She's downplaying the radical nature of her plans. (sounds like what was said of Hillary and Obama. Sounds like wishful thinking. ) But if you want to motivate voters and energize the base you need to be ambitious. And granted some of Warren's plan are ambitious. That's why I don't think she's fooling anybody.
Update: there's a new poll which shows that Bernie is doing poorly among the elderly. Part of it is that working class and poor people die before they get old.
The Trouble with Capitalism by Chris Dillow
Do either Warren or Sanders need to drop out to defeat Biden? Not so fast. by Ryan Cooper
Update: Warren fans keep coming at me with the betting sites odds, but betting sights have proven to be useless.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Sunday, June 09, 2019
Saturday, June 01, 2019
interview with Tim Heidecker
interview with Tim Heidecker
BLVR: What’s a movie you’ve loved recently?
TH: They’re all the kids’ movies, because I have a five-year-old. I’m not kidding when I say that Paddington 2 is the best movie I’ve seen in a long time. It’s so clever and funny. I’m not kidding. Watch it. First of all, everyone in the movie is a great, accomplished actor. It looks like Wes Anderson, but without being so heavy-handed. I liked this way more than I liked Isle of Dogs, which I feel is so in on its own joke. Paddington 2 has great British humor; it’s unpretentious, genuinely funny. Emotional. Very emotional. And [the first] Paddington is also good, but this one is better. And I wept.
Monday, April 22, 2019
Friday, March 29, 2019
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Andrew Yang
538 piece on Yang
Some on the left HATE him. Why? b/c of the UBI? They pin everything on his alt right following.
Yang is the only 2020 candidate thus far to put a universal income front and center, and his campaign says it’s been key to attracting support. But it’s probably not a strong enough issue to propel Yang to victory on its own. A Gallup poll from 2017 found the concept to be divisive — 48 percent supported a universal basic income, while 52 percent opposed it. Support was higher (65 percent) among Democrats, but not overwhelmingly so. That said, if Yang does indeed make the debate stage, he could succeed in making the issue a part of the national conversation.
We’d expect Yang to get a good deal of support from The Left; most Americans think providing a universal income is a socialist position (though it has conservative adherents as well), and Yang has taken progressive viewson a host of other issues...
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