What “left“ the dynamic in the United States is so far right nut job you’re almost at the end of the bell curve and three steps to the right of center right. There are a dozen through progressive and almost 50 more in the progressive caucus. The only thing that will Afford the United States an opportunity to leave its current Third World shit hole status is, progressive policy. I hate these names because he’s using that word “progressive“ is going to make at least half of the electorate that participate brain go to instant a.m. static. But we need to change almost everything. The framers were progressive. It means progress. We need progress worse than any industrialized country on earth.
What we need is best practice policy. No matter it’s label. Not some Rara team building cheerleader. Crap. We need good governance, which starts with quality policy.
Unbelievable neither party has bothered to understand, the first one of the two to offer it, implement it when it can, will never lose another election.
I repeat. If we don’t remove big and dark money, the barriers to accessing the ballot, there is no path to restoring the Republic.
As I said 10 or 12 true progressive are there, but oppressed and ignored by the party leadership. No doubt half of the members of the progressive caucus are charlatans.
In a similar light, something I’ve noticed is how our “freedom of speech” (or, freedom of critique) seems to become a trap: it ends up being the only way (a “safe” way) we know how to express our agency, rather than creating a praxis between our beliefs and our actions through organizing.
We read/watch the news, complain, and (calmly) carry on; until the overwhelming weight of it all and lack of meaningful resolution begins to corrode our sanity. Then we buy more to ease the pain.. yada yada. Tangent aside, seems like more and more people are realizing their and, through that process, our collective ability to enact change.
That’s a bit nebulous. What needs to happen is to be having the same conversation in the street. Not on social media. Let the people that work for us see our power. We have the power of good government and a higher quality of life society. We either don’t understand that or if known, fail to exercise it. Neither one excusable.
People often assume that awareness of an issue is all that's needed to bring about change, but we now have a world of instant awareness of so many issues and all that means is people are unsure what to do about anything. It's very true that we need a positive vision for change, and we should start from an assumption that those who want to keep things the same must justify the harms caused by their choice.
I think in the US the left is still on its path to recovery from the McCarthy trials and the removal of most left-wing voices from churches, schools, unions, government, and almost all aspects of public life. The position of critique may have been a defensive measure in light of the historical reality, but it seems many have forgotten the historical reasons for their self-censorship and are finding it hard to take the next step to concrete action.
I'm sure with enough movement building and enough examples of the possible being made reality, more people will find the courage to step up. To add to your examples, Montgomery County recently passed rent stabilization thanks to tenant organizing and a Rockville city council member wrote publicly that he was wrong to have opposed it and realizes now that landlords won't voluntarily stick to small rent increases - https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/08/01/rockville-councilman-i-was-wrong-about-rent-stabilization-guest-commentary/
As you suggest, mere mass of public awareness or will isn't enough to move anything, as suggested by the very high numbers of support for policies (detailed in the article) that nevertheless fail to become Policy.
A mistaken theme we often encounter:
"IF ONLY we could convince enough more people of the need to act (say, to reduce CO2), things would change."
But no. Plenty are aware. Countless millions, embodying "vast reservoirs of untapped power," are inactive, frustrated.
Self-censorship? You obviously don’t live in America. Our most cherished freedom is to say and do extremely stupid shit. You have given us far too much credit. The average Americans are not even knowledgeable of the topics you speak with literally, as politically ignorant as the gravel in my driveway.
And that’s just not the one to stay home. 95% of the ones who participate have that same level of political acumen. It’s embarrassing. Most other professions receive some respect. I mean who hires the electrician with no eyebrows? Who has the mechanic that can get you in today? But will take a political science advice from an MMA color commentator and my cousin brother’s wife plumber on Facebook. ……..
I love the reminder that our ideas are popular. We should spend more time addressing why the popular will is being thwarted than on scolding potential allies on every substantive issue.
I've been reading Aziz Rana's book, the Constitutional Bind, and it's stunning how deliberately our form government is set up to undermine democratic will, from the Electoral College to the Senate being elected by state rather than by population. There's also gerrymandering, lack of statehood for DC, corrupt campaign finance, a rogue Supreme Court...
Just a few weeks ago the chances of winning the elections for the democrats were very slim. All we saw on the horizon was a very gloomy world (and I am in Spain...). Miraculously things have changed and we can start imagining how the world could be a better place. It is our time. Let's go for it! And thanks for the endless inspiration, Joshua.
Better than Trump is not a quality world. It is all in relevant. That’s the worst thing about Trump and his ilk. The “at least it’s not” mindset has lowered the bar even lower. Hell before we started, a snake couldn’t limbo under it.
Not to perpetuate the tired, lazy, "leftists are only negative/critique" trope, but, the use of such trope suggests to other leftists that you've not understood the left project? The most energetic (and ambitious) left project of this generation has been the massive uprising in North America and movement centering *abolition.*
Abolition *is* a world-building project. Abolition *is* about imagining, designing, and iterating new ways of being and relationship with people and planet. Abolition *is* fundamentally about creativity and a pragmatic philosophy of "positively" remaking society, the planet, and ourselves.
So, I'm not sure what or who you are actually critiquing other than a Boogeyman of the "left" that only exists in reactionary, right-wing, centrist, and liberal fantasies? Like, have you read Ruth Wilson Gilmore? 😶 "Abolition is about presence," and life affirming institutions budding in the crevices where the state has failed or dispossessed people.
The "left" is not Democrats and most Americans are not Democrats, nor conservatives, nor partisans, nor even voters, tbh--half the country declines and we trail behind other nations. So let's not romanticize the efficacy of partisan centrism politics in a corrupt system where the preferences of the average person amount to nil, do days Harvard.
This, unfortunately, serves as more left bashing of a "left" that barely exists in the US, which promotes the very point you were attempting to warn against?
I agree with a lot of what you said here. I think a problem most “democratic socialists” and “leftists” have is they obsess over the concept of power and what power means to them. To a lot of them, it seems to me that power is who is in the White House. This isn’t power to me. Power is the idea of building strong movements OUTSIDE of the existing power structures. To build a structure that is reliant on our “democratic institutions” in our capitalist society is doomed to repeat the same failures over and over again. The system isn’t going to reward us with what we want, we have to take it or make it ourselves.
Exactly. Incremental change will not save us. We need abolition and resources for food and shelter for our community- not empty promises and bombs. We are all being exploited. The machine will continue to function as intended until we tear it down and demand a new way of existing. True progress towards a just society requires dismantling the hierarchies that enable those in power (and those in proximity to power still playing the game of respectability politics) to exploit and dehumanize marginalized folk for free labor and capital. As a visibly marginalized person we(I) do not have the luxury of waiting for incremental change. We are dying, our friends are dying. We do not have time to argue semantics with comfortable people waxing philosophic in their houses. We are dying on the street and all the shelters are full. Our body is dying. Our community is dying. Our earth is dying. When will it be enough?
I've had "enough" of unfounded left bashing. Liberals will drive us deeper into despair.
I don't get how not going far left would ever break the current political impasse. Our US politics has deteriorated so far to the right we don't even recognize it, then think piecemeal liberal reforms will revert course.
I for one dont think you resist fascism with incrementalism. I'll leave that to people whose lives aren't on the line.
This is exactly how both FDR and Ronald Reagan built their coalitions. By presenting a positive, unifying vision - yes, even Reagan, though his was a gaslight for oligarchy. Even so, the method of which he did it should absolutely be studied.
["But our center remains the people, the millions and millions of us. *The fact that we are largely unorganized means there is a vast, vast reservoir of untapped power.* And in shifting our focus we enable a more constructive and positive vision to emerge on the left."]
That "vast reservoir of untapped power" is rarely recognized, despite being punch-in-the-face obvious, showing itself whenever someone expresses frustration over not being able to DO something/more.
So?
The obvious challenge is to devise a way to *activate* ready-now resources—not randomly or haphazardly, but efficiently: toward "attractor" values that may be often violated in practice, but which virtually nobody argues against (like stabilizing the systemic foundations of human civilization & life, or not being a greedy, destructive asshole).
The technical means of such activation already exist (the Internet). What's missing?
1) The organization. The platform. An integrated system fostering organically self-building structures in which all can participate, in any ways imaginable, as long as they're consistent with ...
2) An internally-consistent set of values which is inhospitable to existential tribal divisions, and embodies tribal unity: we are, quite literally, all in this together. (This precludes traditional & familiar language of tribal/class division such as left-right, etc. As a "leftist" movement, it would remain frozen in archaic conflict structures, and will forever remain stuck there.)
If we start with the challenge of how to liberate & activate the "vast reservoirs" in ways consistent with inarguable, foundational human values...
The way to motivate the possible 80, million registered non-voters to participate is offered and implement when possible good governance. Change their life for the better. Pill for a few of those $8000. Each American is labeled forging corporations, and then you will basis and increase the $37 of liability to our fellow citizens on that same annual basis. There’s a reason they don’t bother. It makes no difference.
Some variation upon a simple platform like that one, that one can build a party put of.
Various left factions can join or coalition with or break off from when their integrity requires, but anyone who can agree with those three precepts can belong.
Kick a few bucks in for the light bill, etc., + soon we'll have a movement.
Yes, it happens in almost every country. Most of the times it's a choice between shock or death. For me the most painful thing is Biden's (and therefore Kamala's) support for the genocide in Gaza. Every day we wake up to an even greater horror and in many cases with American weapons.
But my comment was about the liberation of the imagination that the new nomination has brought. If we are no longer going to have to fight for battles already won, such as abortion or women's rights; if there is no longer going to be regression in many areas we can begin to dream of progress towards a better world.
disagree about critique. “w/out critique, society, democracy doesn’t progress. critique unearths liberal/fascist contradictions, and shows the numerous alternative pathways we have to our existing conditions”
Good observations to help the left to become successful. Thanks, Joshua.
Appreciate that Diana!
What “left“ the dynamic in the United States is so far right nut job you’re almost at the end of the bell curve and three steps to the right of center right. There are a dozen through progressive and almost 50 more in the progressive caucus. The only thing that will Afford the United States an opportunity to leave its current Third World shit hole status is, progressive policy. I hate these names because he’s using that word “progressive“ is going to make at least half of the electorate that participate brain go to instant a.m. static. But we need to change almost everything. The framers were progressive. It means progress. We need progress worse than any industrialized country on earth.
What we need is best practice policy. No matter it’s label. Not some Rara team building cheerleader. Crap. We need good governance, which starts with quality policy.
Unbelievable neither party has bothered to understand, the first one of the two to offer it, implement it when it can, will never lose another election.
I repeat. If we don’t remove big and dark money, the barriers to accessing the ballot, there is no path to restoring the Republic.
The USA doesn't have a left.
It does, it's just unorganized.
Left of Pol Pot, is not left in the real world
As I said 10 or 12 true progressive are there, but oppressed and ignored by the party leadership. No doubt half of the members of the progressive caucus are charlatans.
That!!!
Beautifully reflected and written.
In a similar light, something I’ve noticed is how our “freedom of speech” (or, freedom of critique) seems to become a trap: it ends up being the only way (a “safe” way) we know how to express our agency, rather than creating a praxis between our beliefs and our actions through organizing.
We read/watch the news, complain, and (calmly) carry on; until the overwhelming weight of it all and lack of meaningful resolution begins to corrode our sanity. Then we buy more to ease the pain.. yada yada. Tangent aside, seems like more and more people are realizing their and, through that process, our collective ability to enact change.
Thank you for sharing!
That’s a bit nebulous. What needs to happen is to be having the same conversation in the street. Not on social media. Let the people that work for us see our power. We have the power of good government and a higher quality of life society. We either don’t understand that or if known, fail to exercise it. Neither one excusable.
Facts on facts, Brother. Keep speaking truth to power!
People often assume that awareness of an issue is all that's needed to bring about change, but we now have a world of instant awareness of so many issues and all that means is people are unsure what to do about anything. It's very true that we need a positive vision for change, and we should start from an assumption that those who want to keep things the same must justify the harms caused by their choice.
I think in the US the left is still on its path to recovery from the McCarthy trials and the removal of most left-wing voices from churches, schools, unions, government, and almost all aspects of public life. The position of critique may have been a defensive measure in light of the historical reality, but it seems many have forgotten the historical reasons for their self-censorship and are finding it hard to take the next step to concrete action.
I'm sure with enough movement building and enough examples of the possible being made reality, more people will find the courage to step up. To add to your examples, Montgomery County recently passed rent stabilization thanks to tenant organizing and a Rockville city council member wrote publicly that he was wrong to have opposed it and realizes now that landlords won't voluntarily stick to small rent increases - https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/08/01/rockville-councilman-i-was-wrong-about-rent-stabilization-guest-commentary/
As you suggest, mere mass of public awareness or will isn't enough to move anything, as suggested by the very high numbers of support for policies (detailed in the article) that nevertheless fail to become Policy.
A mistaken theme we often encounter:
"IF ONLY we could convince enough more people of the need to act (say, to reduce CO2), things would change."
But no. Plenty are aware. Countless millions, embodying "vast reservoirs of untapped power," are inactive, frustrated.
Self-censorship? You obviously don’t live in America. Our most cherished freedom is to say and do extremely stupid shit. You have given us far too much credit. The average Americans are not even knowledgeable of the topics you speak with literally, as politically ignorant as the gravel in my driveway.
And that’s just not the one to stay home. 95% of the ones who participate have that same level of political acumen. It’s embarrassing. Most other professions receive some respect. I mean who hires the electrician with no eyebrows? Who has the mechanic that can get you in today? But will take a political science advice from an MMA color commentator and my cousin brother’s wife plumber on Facebook. ……..
This is just what I needed this morning! Thank you!
I love the reminder that our ideas are popular. We should spend more time addressing why the popular will is being thwarted than on scolding potential allies on every substantive issue.
I've been reading Aziz Rana's book, the Constitutional Bind, and it's stunning how deliberately our form government is set up to undermine democratic will, from the Electoral College to the Senate being elected by state rather than by population. There's also gerrymandering, lack of statehood for DC, corrupt campaign finance, a rogue Supreme Court...
The anti -popular will platform is well organized. We, on the other hand, are not?
This essay is the cure for activism/compassion fatigue *and* apathy.
Just a few weeks ago the chances of winning the elections for the democrats were very slim. All we saw on the horizon was a very gloomy world (and I am in Spain...). Miraculously things have changed and we can start imagining how the world could be a better place. It is our time. Let's go for it! And thanks for the endless inspiration, Joshua.
Better than Trump is not a quality world. It is all in relevant. That’s the worst thing about Trump and his ilk. The “at least it’s not” mindset has lowered the bar even lower. Hell before we started, a snake couldn’t limbo under it.
Not to perpetuate the tired, lazy, "leftists are only negative/critique" trope, but, the use of such trope suggests to other leftists that you've not understood the left project? The most energetic (and ambitious) left project of this generation has been the massive uprising in North America and movement centering *abolition.*
Abolition *is* a world-building project. Abolition *is* about imagining, designing, and iterating new ways of being and relationship with people and planet. Abolition *is* fundamentally about creativity and a pragmatic philosophy of "positively" remaking society, the planet, and ourselves.
So, I'm not sure what or who you are actually critiquing other than a Boogeyman of the "left" that only exists in reactionary, right-wing, centrist, and liberal fantasies? Like, have you read Ruth Wilson Gilmore? 😶 "Abolition is about presence," and life affirming institutions budding in the crevices where the state has failed or dispossessed people.
The "left" is not Democrats and most Americans are not Democrats, nor conservatives, nor partisans, nor even voters, tbh--half the country declines and we trail behind other nations. So let's not romanticize the efficacy of partisan centrism politics in a corrupt system where the preferences of the average person amount to nil, do days Harvard.
This, unfortunately, serves as more left bashing of a "left" that barely exists in the US, which promotes the very point you were attempting to warn against?
I agree with a lot of what you said here. I think a problem most “democratic socialists” and “leftists” have is they obsess over the concept of power and what power means to them. To a lot of them, it seems to me that power is who is in the White House. This isn’t power to me. Power is the idea of building strong movements OUTSIDE of the existing power structures. To build a structure that is reliant on our “democratic institutions” in our capitalist society is doomed to repeat the same failures over and over again. The system isn’t going to reward us with what we want, we have to take it or make it ourselves.
Given the existing structure of our body politic, that takes policy.
Exactly. Incremental change will not save us. We need abolition and resources for food and shelter for our community- not empty promises and bombs. We are all being exploited. The machine will continue to function as intended until we tear it down and demand a new way of existing. True progress towards a just society requires dismantling the hierarchies that enable those in power (and those in proximity to power still playing the game of respectability politics) to exploit and dehumanize marginalized folk for free labor and capital. As a visibly marginalized person we(I) do not have the luxury of waiting for incremental change. We are dying, our friends are dying. We do not have time to argue semantics with comfortable people waxing philosophic in their houses. We are dying on the street and all the shelters are full. Our body is dying. Our community is dying. Our earth is dying. When will it be enough?
I appreciate your comment.
I've had "enough" of unfounded left bashing. Liberals will drive us deeper into despair.
I don't get how not going far left would ever break the current political impasse. Our US politics has deteriorated so far to the right we don't even recognize it, then think piecemeal liberal reforms will revert course.
I for one dont think you resist fascism with incrementalism. I'll leave that to people whose lives aren't on the line.
As Richard Rohr puts it: "The best criticism of the bad, is the practice of the good."
This is exactly how both FDR and Ronald Reagan built their coalitions. By presenting a positive, unifying vision - yes, even Reagan, though his was a gaslight for oligarchy. Even so, the method of which he did it should absolutely be studied.
["But our center remains the people, the millions and millions of us. *The fact that we are largely unorganized means there is a vast, vast reservoir of untapped power.* And in shifting our focus we enable a more constructive and positive vision to emerge on the left."]
That "vast reservoir of untapped power" is rarely recognized, despite being punch-in-the-face obvious, showing itself whenever someone expresses frustration over not being able to DO something/more.
So?
The obvious challenge is to devise a way to *activate* ready-now resources—not randomly or haphazardly, but efficiently: toward "attractor" values that may be often violated in practice, but which virtually nobody argues against (like stabilizing the systemic foundations of human civilization & life, or not being a greedy, destructive asshole).
The technical means of such activation already exist (the Internet). What's missing?
1) The organization. The platform. An integrated system fostering organically self-building structures in which all can participate, in any ways imaginable, as long as they're consistent with ...
2) An internally-consistent set of values which is inhospitable to existential tribal divisions, and embodies tribal unity: we are, quite literally, all in this together. (This precludes traditional & familiar language of tribal/class division such as left-right, etc. As a "leftist" movement, it would remain frozen in archaic conflict structures, and will forever remain stuck there.)
If we start with the challenge of how to liberate & activate the "vast reservoirs" in ways consistent with inarguable, foundational human values...
I think solutions fairly easily come into view.
Am I wrong?
The way to motivate the possible 80, million registered non-voters to participate is offered and implement when possible good governance. Change their life for the better. Pill for a few of those $8000. Each American is labeled forging corporations, and then you will basis and increase the $37 of liability to our fellow citizens on that same annual basis. There’s a reason they don’t bother. It makes no difference.
Pete Townshend was right. FFS
1. Healthcare For All
2. Housing For All
3. Dignity For All.
Some variation upon a simple platform like that one, that one can build a party put of.
Various left factions can join or coalition with or break off from when their integrity requires, but anyone who can agree with those three precepts can belong.
Kick a few bucks in for the light bill, etc., + soon we'll have a movement.
By definition, #UniversalHealthcare
Change the tenant model of HUD housing to rent to own.
Prioritize investments with the treasury, not expenses, and provide work worth doing. Purpose.
Yes, it happens in almost every country. Most of the times it's a choice between shock or death. For me the most painful thing is Biden's (and therefore Kamala's) support for the genocide in Gaza. Every day we wake up to an even greater horror and in many cases with American weapons.
But my comment was about the liberation of the imagination that the new nomination has brought. If we are no longer going to have to fight for battles already won, such as abortion or women's rights; if there is no longer going to be regression in many areas we can begin to dream of progress towards a better world.
disagree about critique. “w/out critique, society, democracy doesn’t progress. critique unearths liberal/fascist contradictions, and shows the numerous alternative pathways we have to our existing conditions”
Great work recently. Really appreciate your work