Is the West Experiencing a Left-Wing Drift? (the international left politics activism, news, and strategy thread)

It’ll be interesting to see how this is handled by the Sanders-aligned wing of the Democrats in the US and by left-wing elements of parties in other countries if it spreads. A lot of the defund / abolish positions I see are either far too radical for traditional electoral politics to encompass (abolish all police and prisons, remove the ability of the state / capital to enforce its will over the people, let new grass-roots organisations take their place, Sawant getting shouted down in Seattle for proposing a 50% budget cut, etc) or they’re not really that left-wing at all (if you defund the police and redistribute the money, you can set up new organs of the state to ensure that everyone’s material needs are met - like there’s one weird trick to achieving the outcomes of socialism, or more accurately ameliorating the effects of capitalism, without actually needing to have socialism).

idk, lets see what they do with it. Police budget cuts and redeployment of funds can obviously sit alongside a broader raft of reformist policies on education, labour relations, etc but there’s also a risk, as with Sanders’ own position, that this is simultaneously seen as not enough and way too much by different elements of the potential base.

basically the entire problem with the "Sanders-aligned wing" in the first paragraph there

A Sanders diehard wrestling with this:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/06/bernie-sanders-defund-police-uprising

In short, he implicitly said the police should be partially defunded and resources spent elsewhere but didn't say so explicitly, or go further and call for abolition - so by simply clarifying his call for something his supporters assume he already believes, he can capture the spirit of the time and successfully plot a course between people who want too much change and want no change at all.

idk who's going to find that enormously compelling.

I assume he needs this sort of "read it how you want" ambiguity to keep the more & less radical elements of his support however united they still are, he would have relied on it even more if nominated. like an angrier leftier obama

the generosity extended to him by this writer, and by jacobin in general, is not really merited on this issue. corbyn was similarly appalling on the subject, and similarly more or less given a pass for it by jacobin's uk equivalents. i hope we can move on

sorry for Sh*r*l S8ndb*rg-referencing content but

In May, the Harris Poll and Just Capital, an independent research firm founded by the billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, surveyed 1,000 people on their thoughts about capitalism amid the pandemic. Only 25% of respondents said they believed our current form of capitalism ensures the greater good of society.

For many this doesn’t come as a surprise. Prominent voices ranging from a top Harvard economist to the billionaire hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio have warned that capitalism would soon face a crisis because of the massive inequality exposed by the pandemic.

Temporary hazard pay has shown how little grocery employees, food-delivery workers, and other essential workers are being paid (not to mention that many don’t get health insurance). The national closure of childcare centers also laid bare the unpaid work women do in the household. Black people, specifically Black women, were most at risk of layoffs and furloughs, and were less likely to survive (pay for groceries or rent) without work, according to research from Lean In, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s nonprofit.

https://www.businessinsider.nl/capitalism-in-crisis-how-to-fix-capitalism-for-workers-2020-6?international=true&r=US

anyway, nothing radical in there, but at least there's /some/ movement.

I think it's fair to say Sanders' statement on that issue was just bad, and also that Sanders is going to fade out of relevance fairly soon because he's old and no longer running for anything (presumably won't even seek another senate term is my guess).

anyway, nothing radical in there, but at least there's /some/ movement.

Sanders is going to fade out of relevance fairly soon because he's old and no longer running for anything (presumably won't even seek another senate term is my guess).

Even if he doesn't run again, he'd still be in the senate for another four years. And he could stay in the senate...there are three 86-year old senators right now. His voice will remain relevant because there are millions of people who trust him and do not have much affection for the Democratic party.

enh I think he'll lose prominence over time as people become more desperate to cut ties with this whole awful period and find new figureheads to focus on

Holy shit. @KatyTurNBC just told everyone to read Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States."

— Zach D Roberts (@zdroberts) June 11, 2020

lmao

I can't believe vacuous lump of misshaped ham actor Matt Damon lied to us all about Howard Zinn!

I just realized I don't really have any sense of how Zinn's rep has held up over the years, I barely see him referenced any more unless people are discussing Baby's First Radical Text or whatever

I think Sanders will lose prominence for the quite natural reasons that due to his age he will not be a viable presidential candidate in the future, due to the success his ideas are having nationally many younger leaders will emerge into prominence to carry the banner and consolidate national organizing, and due to the reluctance of the media and the Democratic leadership to give him the use of their platforms his major influence will be channeled through quieter back channels, as it has been for most of his career.

I'm hoping Sen. Jeff Merkley (D- OR) will be one of the leaders to emerge in the next several years, but it's pretty clear to me the House of Representatives is going to be the hotbed for emerging progressive talent, not the Senate.

"Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. The current crisis proved the opposite. Capitalism was remarkably easy to stop—or at least to interrupt." The great @MacaesBruno. https://t.co/16lFHvaPU8

— David Wallace-Wells (@dwallacewells) June 23, 2020

The first student presentation of the semester began with, “I’m not gonna explain the anti-capitalist part of the reading — we’re all Gen Z here, we hate capitalism.”

Most of the students nodded vociferously.

— Zachary Levenson (@grundrza) September 3, 2020

h-how... how do you... how do you nod vociferously

“hundreds of neck vertebrae popped and cracked, while jaws flapped up and down, making wet slapping noises, and mucus loosened from nasal passages was flung to the floor tiles, causing a cascade of splats”

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhBAquKWkAAa7c1?format=png&name=large

Tombot’s post for new board description

this might fit here, felt like the description of the present was well-done and convincing, not so sure about how it tries to think it's way out of that present

https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/accumulation/337991/anthropocene-hubris/

its

caek that’s a perfect description of Hacker News

it's from max, offtopic for this thread i guess but very good!
https://www.bookforum.com/print/2703/a-psychoanalytic-reading-of-social-media-and-the-death-drive-24171

broadly moderate tech journalist, now columnist, calling for a general strike in the paper of record

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/09/opinion/general-strike.html

good, bring it on

I bought that book (on sale at Verso!) from Max’s review

Something big happened this morning. David Attenborough, speaking on BBC radio, pointed to capitalism as the main driver of ecological breakdown. The debate is beginning to shift. https://t.co/C2PX7k5y33

— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) October 8, 2020

Makes a change from boring on about population I guess.

Taro Yamamoto is a politician and former actor who has been called Japan's Bernie Sanders. Recently his party Reiwa Shinsengumi have put out posters supporting universal basic income. Poster's translation is "Print fat stacks of money, hand that shit out to everyone" pic.twitter.com/fqe7IWGqbu

— Populism Updates (@PopulismUpdates) June 9, 2020

The Biden Child Tax Credit boost is only for a year. They should make it permanent. The political hill wouldn’t be much higher and the benefits would be immense.

— David Brooks (@nytdavidbrooks) January 15, 2021

how many Americans have a Biden Child to claim credit for though??

hunter needs to get to work

milf hunter biden

Well it’s not like he didn’t _try_, from all reports

In Oval just now. pic.twitter.com/UY9yuE2HaX

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) February 3, 2021

what will the twitter and op-ed freaks find to complain about since he left the mittens at home

This page has a trigger warning for capitalism https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Hustlewave

stimmy

— New New York Times (@NYT_first_said) March 19, 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/24/racist-and-reprehensible-jewish-power-set-to-enter-israels-parliament

Bibi is quite possibly the worst person on earth

this doesn't seem like an example of left wing drift

it took them 4 elections in 2 years to elect a workable far-right coalition at least

Meir Kahane's vision of Israel has really won out

I don't know that they have elected a workable far-right coalition this time either. That phrase would accurately describe most of Bibi's governments in the last ten years, however.

this doesn't seem like an example of left wing drift

Indeed, I forgot the two threads had almost the same title, thought the right-wing one had come up recently and searched for 'west'. Doh!

this is supposed to be the good news thread!

There hasn’t been good news out of Israel since 1997