Carl,
It's a compliment in that there are times when I wish I had your capability for
doing it. But it's also an observation that I've made over the years. There
were times when I thought that you were not saying what you really thought
because you didn't want to displease the person with whom you were having a
particular discussion. Sometimes, it's wiser to take that path. Sometimes it's
important to state what one thinks, even if what one thinks might displease the
other person.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2020 5:35 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Why Is It Always the Wrong Time to Criticize
Democrats From the Left?
Well thanks Miriam. I'm taking that as a compliment rather than a mere
statement.
I've been known to be a bit abrasive, but I try hard to make my remarks as my
opinions. I'd like to believe that when we exchange
opinions we are apt to actually learn something from others.
It's finally warmed up to 70 degrees at 2:30 PM. Guess I'll get down the
clippers and work on trimming our hedge along the garage.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/25/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I notice that you are very gentle and supportive of people on this
list. You seldom are sharp with them, nor do you get into outright
disagreements. So I'm always surprised when you talk about the
differences you have with people on the ACB Chat list. I suspect that it is
they who argue with you.
You just gently say what you think.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2020 5:17 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Why Is It Always the Wrong Time to
Criticize Democrats From the Left?
Much of my life was spent trying to please folks. I often did what I
did in order to be liked.
In later years I seem to do what I do in order to satisfy myself.
Of course one particular action is to please my wife. Making her
happy brings me the greatest satisfaction. Two satisfactions for the
price of one!
Carl Jarvis
On 8/25/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
What I think is that the Democratic Party has had its positive
moments from FDR's administration through that of LBJ. And I
appreciate the good. But even the positives were mixed with
negatives. The more I ponder, the more clear it seems to me that
although certainly, some political and economic systems serve the
people better than others, the truth is that we're dealing with human
nature and human beings can be creative and generous, as well as
being capable of doing tremendous harm. They can be altruistic or greedy.
For most of us, the most important thing is to survive, and for those
who are closest to us to survive. And there is also our sense of our
own importance. Sometimes, people do things because they want to be
liked or admired by others, certain others. I doubt that the
intellectual rationalizations that people provide for their actions
are their true motivations.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2020 11:37 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Why Is It Always the Wrong Time to
Criticize Democrats From the Left?
Why Is It Always the Wrong Time to Criticize Democrats From the Left?
The real question should be, When did the Democratic Party sell out
the Working Class?
Many people think that the sellout began with Bill Clinton, sucking
up to Wall Street's CEO's for support. But while that was
significant, we could more easily go back to the Party selection of
Harry Truman as the vice presidential candidate in replacement of the
progressive Henry Wallace. It was under old "Give 'em Hell" Harry
that two A bombs were dropped on an already defeated Japan. It was
during Harry's reign that Senator Joe McCarthy conducted our nation's
biggest Witch Hunt, under the guise of, There's a Commie under every rock".
True, Harry did fire General Douglas MacArthur, which did assist in
preventing WW III. But Harry did little to unify a nation whose
darker skinned citizens continued to live in danger of their lives.
Harry Truman could have stood up in an effort to protect the rights
of Black Americans, but he caved in to the forces of a Capitalistic
Economy whose profits depended upon a surplus of cheap labor. Many
Black voters, those who were able to vote, turned away from the
Party and began voting for the local Republicans.
But the real death blow came years later to a Party still coasting on
LBJ's Great Society, when Ronald Reagan began crunching up the
remaining labor unions.
Lots of room to disagree or to add, but as I see it, the seeds of
destruction were sown early and often, admits the constant
reinforcement of the Media.
While I understand why those in power find the Progressives a great
dumping ground for all of their failures, for the life of me I can't
understand why otherwise rational minded people believe and repeat
the BS being dumped on them.
Carl Jaravis
On 8/24/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Why Is It Always the Wrong Time to Criticize Democrats From the Left?
By David Sirota, Jacobin
24 August 20
Progressives are being told by the Democratic Party to shut up until
after the election. Meanwhile, corporate Democrats are trumpeting
how far right they are — a message that could demoralize Democratic
voters and depress turnout.
No doubt, you have been told to keep quiet. Just put on your big boy
pants, they say, and find the impulse control to at least muzzle
yourself for the next seventy-one days until the election happens.
After that, fine — then and only then will you maybe be permitted to
speak your mind and politely ask the Democratic Party to match its
rhetoric with its policy agenda.
But until then, you are told to “shut the hell up and grow up,” as
former Barack Obama and Mike Bloomberg pollster Cornell Belcher put
it during an emblematic MSNBC segment berating progressives.
This kind of hectoring has become a defining part of the Democratic
Party’s culture. As the late great journalist Bill Greider lamented
in this must-watch clip: “The way the Democratic Party is run now
for quite a number of presidential cycles is they pick a nominee in
a kind of half-assed process that doesn’t really represent much of
anybody, and then they tell everybody to just shut up — don’t bring
up anything that will complicate life for your nominee . . . shut
up, turn off your brains.”
There’s a superficial logic to this call for omertà — after all,
Donald Trump is destroying everything and he must be defeated. But
here’s the
problem: the demand to shut up is only being aimed at the
progressive base of the party, while the corporate wing floods the
zone with rhetoric that could de-motivate voters.
Indeed, at the very moment many good progressives are blunting their
criticism and making clear that defeating Trump is of utmost
importance, corporate Democrats aren’t being asked to wait or hold
their tongues. In fact, they are doing the opposite: Rahm Emanuel —
who has been advising Joe Biden — just went on television to show
that the corporate wing of the party is intent on using the stretch
run of the Most Important Election of Our Lifetime™ not to doggedly
focus on actually winning the election, but to instead try to
predetermine postelection policy outcomes.
Emanuel and his ilk depict themselves as evincing a nonideological
“just win, baby” attitude. But they are most decidedly pushing a
very clear corporate ideology — and they are doing so in dangerously
divisive ways that could depress the big turnout that’s desperately
needed to defeat Trump.
“There’s No New Green Deal, There’s No Medicare For All”
The larger dynamic at play was exemplified by Emanuel’s television
appearance on a CNBC segment dubbed “Democrats’ 2020 Agenda: What’s
at stake for business?” As progressives are being told to keep quiet
and not even so much as tweet their concerns, Emanuel used the
platform to demand that during this health care and climate
emergency, a prospective Biden administration must reject the two
major initiatives that polls show are popular.
“Two things I would say if I was advising an administration,” said
Emanuel, who left the Chicago mayoralty in disgrace after his city
officials suppressed a video of the police murder of a teenager.
“One is there’s no new Green Deal, there’s no Medicare For All,
probably the single two topics that were discussed the most. That’s
not even in the platform.”
Emanuel is hardly a disinterested observer here. As Obama’s chief of
staff, Emanuel helped kill the idea of a public health insurance
option. Now, he works for a Wall Street firm that advises big health
care and fossil fuel companies on mergers, acquisitions, and
bankruptcy restructuring. Earlier this year, Emanuel was set to be
part of the featured entertainment at an oil lobbying group’s annual
meeting, during a $125-per-plate luncheon with GOP strategist Karl
Rove, before the event was canceled due to COVID-19.
Emanuel also isn’t just some random blowhard pundit spewing a
corporate line. The Chicago Tribune in May reported that “Emanuel is
having regular conversations with presumptive Democratic
presidential nominee Joe Biden and his top advisers about economic policy.”
So when Emanuel is refusing to self-censor in the name of “unity”
and making these kinds of divisive declarations that stomp on
progressive voters, he’s speaking from a position of real power. And
he’s not just tweeting these comments, which could depress voter enthusiasm.
He’s making them to a giant national television audience.
Corporate Democrats Are Not Holding Their Tongues
Now sure, you could try to write off Emanuel’s rhetoric as just the
anomalous bloviations of a notorious super-villain who pushed NAFTA
and anti-immigration policies and who famously called progressives
“F–ing retarded.” But sorry, this isn’t a one-off — this is part of
a larger pattern over the last few weeks and months.
As progressives are told to keep quiet, Democratic Party officials
engineered a convention light on policy proposals, but one that gave
prime convention speaking slots to the anti-climate-science,
anti-union former Republican governor John Kasich of Ohio and to
Colin Powell, who lied America into a war that killed hundreds of
thousands of people. In his CNBC interview, Emanuel said, “This will
be the year of the Biden Republican” — and he noted that promoting
these figures was designed to help Biden deliberately send an
anti-progressive message to voters because “John Kasich and Colin
Powell don’t exactly endorse (or) support big-P progressive policies.”
This is the kind of move that is potentially disillusioning for
Democratic voters who were previously told that a Democratic victory
isn’t just a return to the status quo — but a step forward in
strengthening the movements for climate action, workers’ rights, and
a more sane foreign policy.
Similarly, as progressives are told to shut the hell up, Democratic
aides on Capitol Hill leaked word that the party’s lawmakers may
immediately replay the 2009 debacle and block a public health
insurance option after the election — a move that is potentially
de-motivating for millions of Americans currently losing their
private health insurance.
As progressives are told to mute themselves, Team Biden last week
publicly signaled that a new Democratic president might prioritize
deficit reduction and budget austerity in the middle of an economic
crisis — a move that is potentially deflating for millions of voters
who have previously been told that President Biden’s agenda makes
him the next FDR.
As progressives are told to keep quiet, Biden’s campaign leaks to
Politico that the transition team building Biden’s prospective
administration is being advised by Wall Street pal Larry Summers and
former corporate super-lobbyist Steve Ricchetti.
And as progressives are told to muzzle themselves, corporate
Democrats went scorched earth and spent $15 million to intervene in
primaries, stymie progressive Democratic candidates, and tilt
intraparty contests to business-friendly candidates. Meanwhile,
House speaker Nancy Pelosi works to unseat Democratic senator Ed
Markey, one of the Senate’s few progressive lawmakers, and to crush
a spirited primary challenge to Rep. Richard Neal, who has used his
committee chairmanship to block even modest health care reforms.
“Hold the Line. Win. Lead.”
Clearly, this is a coordinated campaign by the right wing of the
Democratic Party to prioritize its policy goals above everything —
even motivating core Democratic voters to turn out in record numbers
during the general election.
The best response to such an onslaught isn’t to ignore it or succumb
to dishonest unity-themed demands for silence and fealty. After all,
the folks making those demands don’t actually want unity — they are
aiming for corporate victory at all costs, even if waging a war for
that intraparty win could depress enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket.
The smarter response is to follow the lead of Democratic Rep.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who last week pushed back against the
corporate Democrats’
attempt to resurrect GOP-style austerity politics. Rather than just
sitting there and staying silent, she declared that if the party
wins in November, it must make “massive investment in our country or
it will fall apart. This is not a joke. To adopt GOP deficit-hawking
now, when millions of lives are at stake, is utterly irresponsible.
Hold the line. Win. Lead.”
The brilliance of this kind of response is that it accomplishes two
objectives: it stands up for real change, and it reassures
Democratic voters that there are at least some people who are
serious about going to Washington and fighting for what the party
purports to believe in.
Put another way, it fortifies the progressive agenda, and it helps
energize Democratic voters to turn out, because it casts the
election not just as a meaningless charade that won’t matter after
November because everyone will sell out anyway. It instead depicts
the election as an event with high stakes beyond Trump — a turning
point that can create new policies that will actually matter in
people’s lived experiences.
This is how you avoid the 1988 Dukakis collapse debacle and motivate
the big turnout that can defeat Trump.
You don’t tell voters that “nothing would fundamentally change.”
You don’t blast out a story about how the Democratic presidential
nominee told his Wall Street donors that he isn’t proposing new
legislation to change corporate behavior.
You don’t turn your party convention into a pageant for Republican
icons.
You don’t have the disgraced-mayor-turned-Wall-Street-guy advise
your presidential candidate — or have him go on corporate America’s
favorite television station during a health care emergency and a
climate crisis to effectively laugh at progressives who are pushing
Medicare for All and a Green New Deal.
To paraphrase one of the best tweets in history, you don’t try to
turn the election into a centrist rally for the idea that better
things aren’t possible — and you sure as hell don’t ask progressives
to shut up.
You instead focus intently on telling your party’s voters how the
election will materially improve their lives.
Of course, the Democratic Party machine and the Biden campaign
aren’t really interested in doing that right now. They want to run
an anti-Trump campaign, and nothing else.
In light of that, progressives shouldn’t unilaterally disarm and
stay silent when corporate Democrats are getting bolder and more
brazen about using this preelection period to push their depressing,
better-things-aren’t-possible policy agenda.
Staying quiet in the face of that pablum doesn’t help. The real way
to help boost turnout and energize voters is for progressives to
push back against the corporate propaganda and make clear that,
whether the establishment likes it or not, this election can and
will offer the opportunity to achieve something even bigger than
just getting rid of Trump.