That was posted even as some political commentators were noting the Trump campaign, Wikileaks and the Putin regime which runs them are trying to whip up resentment among those who supported Bernie Sanders in the nomination. Well, it's clear that the Democratic Socialists and In These Times are doing exactly the same thing. I am not suggesting that Putin is driving those two tiny, toy clown cars - why would he when he's got the cabloid fleet of Cadillacs getting more attention and influence than the entire pathetic lefty effort doing his bidding. But it's notable that they're encouraging exactly the same thing which could possibly have exactly the same result in the election. That In These Times and the Democratic Socialists are going for the same effect has to make you question their motives. The friggin' intentions of the two factions of Hillary Haters, officially supporting Trump and might-as-well-be supporting him are entirely less real in every way than the horrifically real consequences that their success would be.
While the Democratic Socialists in their whole, massive ten-thousand claimed membership (which I am skeptical of) and In These Times in it puny readership will unlikely have more than marginal effect on actual votes, in a state where the race is close, it risks that effect being magnified by the electoral college system. As we all should have learned in 2000, that makes any such effort potentially catastrophic.
I can tell you what this kind of stuff means for the left's influence in real politics instead of the play politics that so much of the play-left engages in, it makes anyone with the possibility of winning an election and actually doing something realize that there is no reason to try to work with such irresponsible and unreliable people. The whine of those groups that they are ignored is just a part of their decision to never grow up, to never take any real responsibility in real life. That is something that the professional class of scribblers who largely comprise the leadership of such organizations can indulge in. Their primary goal is to get people to read what they write and to support their careers, not to make real change in real laws to make life really better for real people.
The website of the Democratic Socialists claims its the heir of such people as Eugene Debs, Mother Jones and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, I know that because one of the co-founders, Barbara Ehrenreich says so. Well, saying it doesn't make it so. I would guess that none of them would want to be associated with this kind of effort, this year. The Democratic Socialists are essentially the same kind of thing as the silly Left Forum, a hobby and, perhaps, source of publicity or money for a few rather marginal members of the scribbling and academic class. I would like to know how many of them ever actually got a single law passed in any congress or state legislature. That is what distinguishes a real left from a play left.
I am entirely done being a sucker for the kind of scribbling class politics that can go on for decades without any prospect of ever doing anything real.
Dylan Roof was mentioned in the news recently, because he's going to court next week. He went to a church, sat down among decent people, talked to them for over an hour, and then pulled out a gun and cold-bloodedly shot every one of them. Why? Because he thought he was starting a "race war" that would cleanse the body politic and set all things aright.
ReplyDeleteJust like the "terrorists" who have killed people in various incidents in the U.S. in the past few years (although when it's a white guy, he's a "troubled loner," never a terrorist or representative of the danger posed by Muslims or blacks. Funny, that.). Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in OKC for the same reason: he thought he'd trigger the civil insurrection to set all things right. Ammon Bundy thought so to, when he took over a wildlife refuge in Oregon.
What's the difference between that motivation and refusing to vote for Hillary Clinton because you have "principles"? Vote as you please, act as you are motivated; but don't try to stand apart from the consequences. Don't pretend your actions are outside the realm of responsibility and you are superior by doing what you do.
That really does make you no different than McVeigh or Roof or Bundy. They thought their actions justified criminal violence; denouncing Hillary in the name of ideological purity is justifying the disaster of a Trump presidency because you think it will make a difference in the long run; or you just too "pure" to sully the "sacrament" of your vote.
They are entirely irresponsible.
DeleteI look at these guys in groups like the Democratic Socialists and at the history of such groups in the United States and realize that, as compared to the boring old Democratic Party, they've done absolutely nothing but give scribblers and academics a platform to strike poses on. They are worse than useless because they encourage people to waste their times, their lives and their votes on nonsense.
In These Times is just one of a number of play-left entities I think the left would be better off if they just ended. I am thinking of writing a serious proposal for Democrats to swamp the Green Party and end it in the next four years. That is if the idiots don't do that, themselves by accident.
I think I despise the play left almost as much as the part of the Republican party that enables the worst among them, they pretty much do the same thing.
I wonder if Barbara Ehrenreich really ever made anyone's life better, I wonder if she's ever had any role in ever passing a better law. I strongly doubt the Democratic Socialists of American have or In These Times.