Friday, November 20, 2020

Team Biden's Left Derangement Syndrome

 If you persist in bugging him about climate change and social justice and health care, Joe Biden won't just stop at covering his ears and rescinding that gracious invite to the kiddie table. He'll have one of his lackeys publicly accuse you of being a terrorist.

Not even Donald Trump, refusing to concede the election while willfully ignoring 200,000 daily new cases of Covid-19, has rated that epithet from Team Biden. That is just how much the corporate Democratic Party despises the left.

 From the article "Is the Left Wing Overplaying Its Hand?" in Politico:

"They can  either continue to just beat the drums on the streets or they can start to leverage the relationship they have. It's up to them what strategy they adopt."

The left wing's publicly aggressive tactics could lead Biden to just tune them out altogether. "If all you do is escalate, then people eventually think that you're enemies and not friends and they're like, 'We don't negotiate with terrorists,'" said Jess Morales Rocketto, a Democratic strategist who supports many of the left wing's goals. 

Morales Rocketto was referring to criticism of Biden by the Sunrise Movement for his selection of Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), a recipient of oil industry largesse, for his administration, along with the Justice Democrats and other progressive groups slamming Biden's stuffing the White House with various cronies and lobbyists. Biden has also named his pal Bruce Reed, the architect of the infamous austerian Bowles Simpson "Catfood" Commission, to his staff - an ominous signal that cuts to social programs in the middle of a pandemic are very much on the grownups' table.

By mouthing her assurances that she shares progressive goals with the same groups that she also obliquely accuses of terrorism, Morales Rocketto is of course engaging in nothing but good old fashioned gaslighting.

You might be tempted to buy into her sincerity and working class bona fides, given her leadership position in the National Domestic Workers Alliance. She certainly sounds like she might be a former housekeeper, nanny or caregiver who rose through the ranks to organize, doesn't she? And her group certainly sounds like a labor union.

She's not, and it isn't. The Alliance is a Democratic Party-linked advocacy organization whose objective is putting a working class and community organizing gloss on the corporate party while herding real domestic workers to the polls. It also purports to help low-paid servants to "improve their skills" in such areas as preparing nutritious meals for the children of their wealthy employers. For $5 a month, anyone can join this club and be part of the "movement" and even sign up for medical and dental discounts and special deals on theme park tickets. 

Before embarking on her current dual roles of bashing progressives as domestic terrorists while purporting to champion domestic workers, Morales Rocketto was employed by Obama For America, Hillary For America, and the Democratic National Committee. She won a coveted spot on Time Magazine's "Next 100"" roster in 2019, even scoring a written tribute from Hillary Rodham Clinton herself.

And since she's friends with George Clooney and in her "most badass" accomplishment ever, once confronted Ted Cruz in an elevator while she works tirelessly raising millions of dollars to reunite parents and children at the border, could Team Biden have possibly picked a better surrogate with which to attack the left and tamp down all that rude talk of climate justice, health justice and social justice?

One thing they aren't considering: that the critics and the protesters and the agitators might not even want a seat at Biden's precious table. Maybe getting Hillary Clinton to write nice things about us is not on everybody's bucket list. And who but the most craven careerist would ever want to be to carved up and eaten alive by a gang of criminal goons?

12 comments:

Grand Pa Joe said...

Aloha Karen, mahalo for putting a light on these punks and thugs servings the oligarchy. True working class folks are to busy laboring to put food on our family table to keep up with these “common” thieves. What the masses are saying in the streets is true “ f—- Trump, f—- Biden to they don’t give a f—k about you. If anyone of them call working class people terrorists, they should remember Karma is a bitch! Stay safe.

Mark Thomason said...

Of course. Biden was chosen for the express purpose of stopping the leftists. It is why he is there, the only reason.

Jay–Ottawa said...


Should progressives stop self-identifying as “left”? The Left I see offers itself up as a target without purpose, mouthy but passive, opposing everything but organizing nothing, all talk and no action, another easy target for the slings and arrows of neolibs and neocons, as well as from half the country of low-information poor and near poor who opt out or go rogue once they realize no paladin fights for them at the state or national levels.

A People’s Party cannot be a collection of “lefties” only; it had better be a big tent for people from all segments of the geopolitical map with overlapping demands for justice and equity. An anti-capitalist, socialist party might best meet the needs of all. Until then, our so-called lefties, real and fake, will continue to fade away within the folds of the Duopoly and semi-private mini-parties like the Greens.

If ever an American Lenin steps up to pull together the unhappy pieces of justified resentment into a People’s Party, call me. Until then, the rest is chatter, often entertaining, rarely motivating.

Ayam Cemania said...

A huge problem with publicly using any terminology such as "liberal" or "progressive" or "left-wing" is these terms don't mean anything specific. Most often, these are hurled as epithets which mean nothing more concrete to the speaker than "Those People I Don't Like."

Because everything in our American politics is understood through the lense of identity politics, the formula for ensuring comformity to our system is simple:

Identify others in the way you want to identify them - and through the illusory truth effect - simply repeat a derogatory message over and over and associate it with this identity using a specific word. The word "liberal" is the classic example of our time.

For example, everyone in American political discourse agrees the term "left-wing" is the most terrible thing one can be poltically speaking. Why?

http://factmyth.com/the-origin-of-the-political-terms-left-and-right/

Because the term left-wing means you support the people instead of the aristocracy. Therefore, "People's Party" and "Left-Wing" mean exactly the same thing. At the time of the French Revolution, the people who sat on the left side of the king supported the people, and the people who sat on the right side of the king supported the aristocracy.

Therefore, all right-wing politicians by definition are agents of the aristocracy.

Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are right-wing politicians... and if you read the newspapers, there is no alternative to being a member of the right-wing Democratic or Republican parties. Because American politics is intentionally framed in such a false dichtomy, anyone who mentions the glaring economic problems caused by the agents of the aristocracy is to be ridiculed, shamed, and called "left-wing" "Communist" or worse.

In this way, the rule of the rich can never really be threatened in our minds because We the People can't first conceive of the words to use as proper threats.Thus the system isn't broken; it works exactly as designed.

Tomonthebeach said...

You have to play the cards on the table. The choices voters had was to raise the stakes and risk life in a fascist state led by a psycho, or let Biden win because poverty and civil war were far less likely.

A leopard can change its spots. However, Biden is a chameleon; not a cat. He has shown for decades that he will change color to survive - he is still a political lizard. The only thing that might make Biden start acting like a progressive is his legacy. Being another FDR would be sweet. However, the one thing that mitigates against that is his unwillingness to abandon national-debt-austerity dogma in favor of modern monetary theory (MMT). Chairman Powell has already started MMT, and continuing it could keep prosperity viable. But Biden has let his "advisors" push him into territory beyond the capacity of his economic intellect. I am not holding my breath for a new deal because all the cards in the DNC's deck are marked.

Ayam Cemania said...

Umm... Joe Biden is 78 years old. No 80-year-old man turns into some kind of leopard chameleon chimera and suddenly reinvents himself for fame and cash and prizes. Joe Biden is not Madonna or David Bowie. We know exactly what Joe Biden is because he's always been a Republican conservative Catholic credit card rep.

Joe Biden is literally the textbook definition of a DINO (Democrat in Name Only):

"Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, who in the Senate wrote the infamous Crime Bill. He also voted for NAFTA, DOMA, the 1996 mass welfare cuts, the Glass-Steagall repeal, the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, the REAL ID Act, the Secure Fence Act, and the Wall Street bailout. In his early Senate career, he teamed up with several white supremacist Senators to end school integration via busing. He also opposes single-payer healthcare, has endorsed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, has been iffy on net neutrality, and supported the Hyde Amendment up until 2019."

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/DINO





Erik Roth said...

“One of the mistakes we make when we try to talk about politics in this country is we keep pretending that the political spectrum runs from right to left. It doesn’t. It runs from top to bottom. We live in a country where the richest 1% of the people in this nation control 40% of the total wealth, and those numbers get worse every year.”
~ Molly Ivins

Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins, DVD, 2019.
https://www.mollyivinsfilm.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/movies/raise-hell-the-life-and-times-of-molly-ivins-review.html

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/raise-hell-the-life-and-times-of-molly-ivins-2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/the-late-political-columnist-molly-ivins-is-the-subject-of-a-lively-and-timely-documentary/2019/09/10/0d831f4a-d35b-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/15/760632698/a-portrait-of-molly-ivins-maverick-texas-journalist-in-raise-hell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Ivins

Jay–Ottawa said...


One thing about this left-winger: despite my pessimism I have yet to succumb to give-up-itis. If, as some argue, for one trite (or disingenuous) reason after another, we are forever limited to the either/or of Democrats and Republicans, then I suppose we might as well give up and settle in as best we can with the corrupt flow through more dishonest decades.

Millions of dissatisfied citizens from all classes––red states and blue states, rebellious because of forced poverty or resentful because of their sense of justice––have it within their power to create new options beyond the Duopoly.

Why are people so reluctant to say ‘Third Party’? Because there’s a chance that Biden might develop into an FDR-lite? Please.

Ridicule? Aren’t there plenty of winning retorts to the catcalls from duopolists?

Apathy? Is the task of building a party from scratch too much trouble, despite the disasters sure to come if nothing comparable is attempted?

Here’s a test of opinion about the Duopoly: is the person interrogated incapable of thinking or saying “Third Party”? If yes, they just might be stealth supporters of the duopoly or victims of terminal delusion.

Those voters––however we label them––who are unhappy with just about everything inside the DC beltway far outnumber the current elite. Yet no one dares advance the idea of a big third party ready to mob the elite.

Bernie Sanders brought in great crowds with his class-conscious economic message. We need a replacement for Dear Bernie, someone who will also talk about pulling back troops from the forever wars. There’s no room in the DNC for the anti-billionaire, anti-war message today or any hopeful tomorrow. Biden never was and never will be for the people. Therefore, Third Party or bust. Anything less daring is capitulation.

Third Party. By 2024.

Procopius said...

Tomonthebeach: I have to disagree with you, although I can't provide links. The guy who wrote the Violent Crimes Act of 1994 does not want to be another FDR. The guy who wrote the provisions of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 that makes student debt undischargeable in bankruptcy does not want to be another FDR. A guy who appoints Michelle Flournoy to Secretary of Defense or Bruce Reed to OMB does not want to be another FDR. I do not know what Biden will be, but he will not be on the side of the people. I expect to see a huge increase in homelessness and poverty, not Biden's fault at first, but I don't think he's going to do anything to help people. Banks, yes. Big pharma, yes. People? "Where's the money going to come from."

Jay–Ottawa said...


Speaking of Derangement Syndromes ....

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8909537/Joe-Biden-starts-election-day-attending-morning-mass-visiting-son-Beaus-grave-Delaware.html

Reports about Biden’s confusing the names of his relatives, among other things, reminds me of a scary old joke. Sorry if you already heard it.

Well, before the days of Covid-19, which now grounds us all, one old couple visits another for a Saturday night dinner. After warm greetings at the door the ladies go to the kitchen, and the guys settle down in the living room.

John begins to tell his host Bill about the great movie he and his wife saw the night before. But John can’t remember the title.

“Gee, what was the name of that movie? Hey Bill, what’s the word for, you know, the flower that has pink petals and thorns along the stem?”

“You mean a ‘rose’? ventures Bill.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s it,” says John as he turns towards the kitchen. “Hey, Rose, what was the name of that picture we saw last night?”

Ayam Cemania said...

Unfortunately there are poor people who are actually gullible enough to believe a self-described "billionaire" named Trump was going to do something to fix the wallets of normal people. Trump doesn't know any regular people, much less represent any of them in his economic decisions. Text book narcissist can't intentionally benefit anyone but himself because by definition he's always in competion against everybody else in a zero sum game. He can only win when you lose -duh!

Same goes for Joe Biden and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Why on earth would anyone believe these right-wing politicians represent the interests of anyone other than their own aristocrat constituency? Rich people want to win the game by competing in perpetuity, ending up with more than everybody else combined. It's what they do.

Trump is a mean rich bastard, sure, we all know he's a monster whose mommy and daddy didn't love him. Yet the false "Hope & Change" Obama and Biden sell the average American is every bit as disingenuous as Trump, albeit in a more classy well-spoken way. Joe Biden is going to be FDR just like Trump is king of the bullies simultaneousl fighting for the little man, ummm... the lack of logic hurts my head.

What really happened in 2020 is Bernie Sanders acted as a sheepdog for the Democratic party, conjuring up images of FDR and MLK and JFK and LBJ and anyone else dead with 3 initials from days gone past who tried to make authentic changes to the neoliberal economic and neoconservative foriegn policy from which America so rarely deviates for the purpose of pulling the good ole bait'n'switch scam.

Don't buy Uncle Bernie's sheepdog act. Bernie's job was to herd the so-called "Progressive" voters back in line to vote for the party's right-wing candidate. We know exactly who Joe Biden is because he is who we think he is. It isn't a secret.

Joe comes right out and tells us who he is. We should believe him.

“We do not want to demonize anybody who has made money. If I’m elected president, no one’s standard of living will change, nothing fundamentally would change.”
~ Joe Biden, Carlyle Hotel, June 2019


https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/08/joe-biden-fdr-comparisons-wall-street

Kat said...

Veal Pen? Well, you might as well call most real labor unions a veal pen as they engage in get out the vote activity too. And maybe it is time to stop lionizing the New Deal as the end and be all as it did not secure the labor rights of domestic workers: https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/453397-activist-exclusion-of-domestic-workers-from-federal-labor-laws-a-legacy-of