RT and JJ do not understand that the Democratic Party has two left wings. One of them consists of smart politicians like AOC, Bernie, and Pramila Jayapal. The other consists of the America Worsters, reeking with intellectual acne and extreme self-righteousness. Conservative Dems should be embracing the first bunch of lefties, and ignoring the second. The smart left Democrats pose no threat to conservative Democrats. The full AOC/Bernie agenda is way in the future (if ever.) The realizable parts of the AOC/Bernie agenda are not far from the conservative D's agenda and are a damned sight more popular.
But the conservative Ds stupidly conflate AOC/Bernie with the zit crowd. Worse yet, they sometimes try to placate the zit crowd with awkward "woke" rhetoric, of the Nurse Ratched HR variety.
I have known John and Ruy for over 50 years. At one point we were all members of NAM together. John was always on the social democratic side of that formation, a bit too far right for my tastes then but I always respected him. His rightward drift, for example, does not extend to viewing Bibi Netanyahu favorably or giving Israel a free pass. He has some integrity though why he’s still hanging around with Ruy baffles me.
Ruy is another story. At one point in the late seventies we were best buds. When first I met him, he was a crazed Maoist. He was a great rabble rouser. I can still remember him on the steps of the University of Michigan booming support for the great victory of the Vietnamese people over US Imperialism on the day the US pulled out of Vietnam. He then moved right rather dramatically over the years, first to NAM, then rather quickly to mainstream Democratic Party stuff. Then his Emerging Democratic Majority BS co-written with Judis and now to this liberal patriot nonsense which started when Joe Biden didn’t kick Bernie Sanders to the curb but instead embraced some of his ideas. What particularly rubs me the wrong way is his doing all this in “Marxist” accents that never acknowledge that the working class is not just a bunch of blue collar white guys. I suppose I learned this lesson by working in a factory for a dozen years that was half nonwhite. They missed out on that formative experience. I was always sad to see some Bernie Bros buying into Ruy’s crap after 2020.
I myself, like you, have moved to the right somewhat over the years, but not for the sake of my own career which I acknowledge is over. The old reds (probably younger than I am now) I used to hang out with when I was young in my union days used to say they no longer “expected to see socialism in their lifetime”. I feel a bit that way myself only that I can’t quite envision a route to a viable and competitive Democratic Party at this point, other than through GOP overreach somehow and I am resigned to that being the case. I am content to “await developments”.
This summer I visited the reading room of the British Museum where no less a revolutionary than Karl Marx himself holed up on a daily basis figuring out Kapital after the revolution of his youth failed. Regardless of what we think about his work product now (I, like you, have doubts) that general attitude exhibits an integrity that Ruy in particular lacks.
RT and JJ do not understand that the Democratic Party has two left wings. One of them consists of smart politicians like AOC, Bernie, and Pramila Jayapal. The other consists of the America Worsters, reeking with intellectual acne and extreme self-righteousness. Conservative Dems should be embracing the first bunch of lefties, and ignoring the second. The smart left Democrats pose no threat to conservative Democrats. The full AOC/Bernie agenda is way in the future (if ever.) The realizable parts of the AOC/Bernie agenda are not far from the conservative D's agenda and are a damned sight more popular.
But the conservative Ds stupidly conflate AOC/Bernie with the zit crowd. Worse yet, they sometimes try to placate the zit crowd with awkward "woke" rhetoric, of the Nurse Ratched HR variety.
Oy vey!
I have known John and Ruy for over 50 years. At one point we were all members of NAM together. John was always on the social democratic side of that formation, a bit too far right for my tastes then but I always respected him. His rightward drift, for example, does not extend to viewing Bibi Netanyahu favorably or giving Israel a free pass. He has some integrity though why he’s still hanging around with Ruy baffles me.
Ruy is another story. At one point in the late seventies we were best buds. When first I met him, he was a crazed Maoist. He was a great rabble rouser. I can still remember him on the steps of the University of Michigan booming support for the great victory of the Vietnamese people over US Imperialism on the day the US pulled out of Vietnam. He then moved right rather dramatically over the years, first to NAM, then rather quickly to mainstream Democratic Party stuff. Then his Emerging Democratic Majority BS co-written with Judis and now to this liberal patriot nonsense which started when Joe Biden didn’t kick Bernie Sanders to the curb but instead embraced some of his ideas. What particularly rubs me the wrong way is his doing all this in “Marxist” accents that never acknowledge that the working class is not just a bunch of blue collar white guys. I suppose I learned this lesson by working in a factory for a dozen years that was half nonwhite. They missed out on that formative experience. I was always sad to see some Bernie Bros buying into Ruy’s crap after 2020.
I myself, like you, have moved to the right somewhat over the years, but not for the sake of my own career which I acknowledge is over. The old reds (probably younger than I am now) I used to hang out with when I was young in my union days used to say they no longer “expected to see socialism in their lifetime”. I feel a bit that way myself only that I can’t quite envision a route to a viable and competitive Democratic Party at this point, other than through GOP overreach somehow and I am resigned to that being the case. I am content to “await developments”.
This summer I visited the reading room of the British Museum where no less a revolutionary than Karl Marx himself holed up on a daily basis figuring out Kapital after the revolution of his youth failed. Regardless of what we think about his work product now (I, like you, have doubts) that general attitude exhibits an integrity that Ruy in particular lacks.