j4remi wrote:Clyde_Style wrote:Yes, it is what I said to everyone here to stop wasting time lamenting Biden's leapfrog ahead of Bernie and to instead push the DNC hard. Which is what happenened at the higher levels as Bernie and Warren used their leverage to push the platform left. They get it. You get it. Now Wingo gets it. But geezus it was a pain in the butt to get the message across so it is good to see an eminence grise like Chomsky dropping that knowledge because I believe it is a really important lesson.
Also within his message is the basic truth that being an activist is an activity, not a moment. If you really want to do political change you don't stop when a benchmark is or isn't reached. You just keep going because that's who you are and it is what you do. I think you've signed up for that so you know you'll be doing this for years to come and it doesn't begin and end with whom you vote for each time.
Sometimes circumstances require you to do politics with the mainstream in order to advance your cause. Surely, this election is the greatest example of this during our lifetimes. There was too much insulting of pragmatism going on earlier, but I know what's at stake and I took plenty of crap for it, but who can really be in the game of change for the long haul and still look me in the eye and say I was wrong? You cannot let the fascists consolidate power. I think everybody who has any sense got the message finally, but it was a real pain in the butt.
There are still whiners and lefty snowflakes who complain about every damn thing, but I think that's the era we live in. At a certain point IDGAF about all that as long as the major objective of averting total disaster is achieved. I still think the American body politic is pretty much depleted of the proper marriage of long-term vision and pragmatism, so if you can stick it out and rally the left fringes to work in harmony then all the power to you. I'm not up to that task. I'm older and I don't think I want to play in this sandbox much longer. Just get me through the next few months and the baton is yours man.
The thing about appealing to lefties is that you do better being critical about Biden than you do only calling out exaggerations in the critique while avoiding the material concerns. I think fear of complacency from center-left and centrist voters sets it in for people who witnessed OWS or the first round of BLM protests or Standing Rock. That treatment was never acceptable and it jaded a lot of people (Greenwald and Taibbi stand out most to me, both still do outstanding work a lot of the time but their views have some clear frames you need to be aware of). For those people, all the hyperbole about Trump in the world can come across phony if they believe you'll look the other way as long as Biden's the one leading instead. I'm not saying that's what you or anyone will do; but that's the concern.
Chomsky frames his appeal from a systemic change mindset. It's not pragmatic language versus radical. It's strategic language toward a long term goal. That's a pretty important difference. "After Biden wins, I'll still march with you because our work isn't done" has a hell of a lot more of an appeal than "stop whining, this is the best you're gonna get."
Greenwald is sort of fascinating. He seems to be openly rooting for Biden to lose. There's no way to really justify that. Democracy is a compromise, that much is not going to change really. When the demographics change and attitudes change (or some combo), then you can go more left. Or maybe there's a reasonable deal to be made with the Lincoln Project folks, as much as he reviles them.
He doesn't own goodwill or ideas. Trump is a fire that you have to put out. And he didn't come about because the left wasn't far enough left ... I know some think that but I just think that's not the right lesson to learn from 2016.
I realize many may not agree with this. I'm not even moderate really. But I don't think you can lose sight of some indicators or realism, and if that makes me moderate, okay.
