I agree with the article and appreciate it. However, the comments do reflect a ubiquitous trap where the discussion can devolve into arguing about labels instead of content. Labels are a necessary short-hand communication, but I don't think it is productive spending so much energy around constructing these iron-clad boxes around what they mean. I do think that it is really important to re-educate, re-frame the popular interpretation of politicians and party agendas: e.g. Obama's surveillance/intrusive policies and his military aggressiveness, Biden's entire career of war-mongering, Walz's pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian bias....etc. (just read an article of CAIR MN being refused a meeting w Walz - after a year of trying they finally arrived for a meeting with him but it was canceled on-the-spot when he learned that they wanted to talk about solutions/actions e.g. state divestment). Many of my friends are all excited about Harris, and I can see that they are green-screening. They just want to believe because she isn't Trump that she is some hero that will be his opposite. They can't accept the cognizant dissonance of their manufactured hero supporting genocide and forever wars, that she has absolutely no inkling of an intent to challenge the Empire policies and paradigm. And most people don't understand the Empire paradigm either or how it drives concrete impacts like cost/availability of EVs or tax rates. Most still buy the "Putin wants to conquer Europe" nonsense. Not many still buy the "Israel is the Beleaguered Good Guy" lie - you have to be a brain-washed morally-deficient idiot (of which there are plenty) to deny/justify/excuse the torrents of sheer evil Israel delivers every day. BUT they will accept that (ignore it) for Harris's stated domestic policies that are, legitimately, less threatening than Trumps. I think that we don't have to insist on strict label definitions in order to promote information dissemination, education, challenge, visibility, organizing...somehow expand and reframe.
Obama who is running the show, pulled Biden out, put Kamala Harris in and is playing the game of pretending like she may not support the genocide of Palestinians, but it is just a trap to get your vote and once she has it, she will send bombs, money, & support to Israel with a smile on her face. Don't fall for it & don't vote for it. I'm voting for Jill Stein, who really wants to end the genocide.
I agree with you. But, I don't even want to reveal my origin from the left anymore, because the left in common parlance has come to represent something I do not believe in. If we need to constantly clarify what we stand for, because the word has come to mean something alien to us, then I think we should drop the word entirely.
It's interesting, since I've stopped wasting my time on the left, how many tolerant, open people I find in other spaces. Some are supposedly "right wing" because of their religion. But it gives me pause to talk with conservatives who have a "live and let live" ethos. Because that's what I thought the left was about. Yet I know leftists who will fistfight you if you question transgender ideology, or the sexualization of our culture. They have no self awareness of how far they have strayed from a tolerant, liberal mindset.
We need a government of action that fights for working families, and I'll work with anybody else who wants the same thing.
If man chooses oblivion, he can go right on leaving his fate to his political leaders. If he chooses Utopia, he must initiate an enormous education program - immediately, if not sooner.
Nobody who supports DemocRATS in any way can be seen as on the "left". DemocRATS-Now! has morphed into a weird hybrid media outlet with a soft spot in their brain-boxes after many years of good solid anti-war reporting.. they still do some, but their bullshit coverage of Syria and the fact they fell for some of the Russia-gate crap was straight out the establishment's propaganda mill. TDS, no doubt. Glenn Greenwald, like this author (who are you?) thinks people like the sheepdog Sanders are on the left. Preposterous horseshit. This is a lame attempt to smear and erase the actual left by false conflation with the execrable DemocRATS. The actul left is anti-war, anti-fascist, and does not overlook the fascist surveillance state being built up by Obama. The left holds both parties responsible for the massive poverty and homelessness in America. The left does not cosy up to goose-stepping cops and support TRILLIONS for war crimes in multiple countries. The left holds Biden responsible for genocide in Gaza. The left dos not fall for word out of DemocRAT's pie-hole. The right wing propaganda that, for instance, makes Biden a Marxist (!) has infected a few who should know better with this stupid and fallacious idiocy. Do better.
Of course there is a real left that opposes war and the democratic party etc. but in America it is unfortunately a tiny, politically insignificant movement. The more mainstream "left" i.e. Bernie/AOC and their supporters fully support the democratic party and are willing to ignore war and empire. You could say they are not "the real left" and that would be understandable but they are unfortunately what is viewed as the "Left" in American politics.
As a journalist, you could do your part in stopping this false conflation and attempted erasure of the left, by calling them the fake left. I have been after Greenwald about this for years. He told me if I didn't thing AOC was left, I was out of touch or some such garbage. In what world is AOC even remotely left? This is the laziest form of journalism practiced by an otherwise brilliant journalist. It is journalists who know better, and who must do better.. to stop this ubiquitous right wing propaganda from further infecting our already polluted discourse. It is the right wing pigs of both parties who benefit from erasing the left.
I agree with you that what gets called the left in mainstream American politics is not the real left in a historical context or compared to the left in other countries. I was just using the word "left" in the context it is used in mainstream American discourse but I take your point. `
How does the US and its allies get away with supporting genocide? How can so many ignore such blatant criminality? I have chosen to examine this question by looking at US history. A recent example, one that particularly looks at how the US and its allies reacted to charges of genocide made against it during the Korean War, is linked below.
Great Substack here. I've only just come across it, and am enjoying exploring your work!
Perfectly said, thank you! I exited Dems after Obama, it’s like watching the same movie over and over again with the same exact ending. We the voters get false promises and the middle finger. How ironic we never hear from the Dems until election comes. I am inundated with text and emails 24-7 begging for donations and worst they claim it will me match donations 800 times. I say by who? Their billionaire donors! At the end of the day, Politicians will obey their donors and ignore the voters cries and demands.
I’m voting 3rd party again. I cannot vote in favor of slaughtering innocent women and children. Palestinians people deserve life and a voice. The DNC refused to allow a Palestinians voice on the convention stage, people why are the democrats giving their full allegiance to Israel???
And for the ridiculous ignorant blue maga folks who continue to accuse 3rd party for dems losing. Ask yourselves, if dems listen and cater to their voters perhaps this would not be an issue. Democrats and republican party are severely corrupt and their loyalty to Aipac is insane and until this ends there will be 3rd parties in the run.
I don’t exactly know that he “implemented” free lunch and breakfast in Minnesota. I grew up there in the 70s. We had free breakfast and lunch even then. It’s a pretty popular program, esp as kids get up at 5 am to feed the pigs.
In the uniparty of globalist sock puppets, the specific party labels mean nothing - they are demonstrably interchangeable as demonstrated by both Trump and Biden administration's support for the Zionist genocide by the nation state calling itself Israel (Nakba II - c or d by now -- something waged since 1947 or so to displace and eliminate altogether an ethnic group of well-entrenched middle eastern peoples who much more resemble real "Jews" than the 90% Khazarian/European imposters following the Babylonian Talmud and manipulating the U.S. to vilify & wage wars and conduct CIA-orchestrated regime changes in the countries that they wish to dominate in their endless quest to claim more and more land and resources from neighboring nation states).
They're all working towards the same goal - the collapse of the once-upon-a-time hundreds of years ago now Constitutional Republic - a grand experiment in "representative government" that has been hijacked and transformed into a fascist precursor to the soon to be unveiled (in its totality - it exists now and acts through its agents and provocateurs) one world dictatorships replete with the technological, psychological, kinetic and biological tools to terrorize en masse anyone opposing or resisting their authoritarian rule. The intentional, purposeful sabotage of this nation (and all of the major power structures of the world) by treasonous placeholders too numerous to name (although 80+% of congress persons and Senators claim dual citizenship with the nation state calling itself Israel and are funded by AIPAC and are assigned an "advisor" to govern their talk tracks for all things related to the middle east) is but one plank in a multi-faceted, well orchestrated, well-advanced plan to consolidate the resources and power in one place and to cull the herd of resistance, leaving the remainder for management under the electronic panopticon already in motion. The political process is theater for the bored masses -- a distraction from the finalization of the other components of the emerging world system that will strip every human being who survives the coming biological, technological, psychological, kinetic and electromagnetic contagion abut to be unleashed in full -- replete with grid down, cyber crippling war -- infrastructure and human casualties form the recently imported mercenaries (20 - 40 million or so from 150+ countries in the U.S. alone) who will gladly replace the established citizens of each country (see the UK situation -- that's just the beginning) and to excise the excess and to render inhospitable countries where complacent statist who for centuries have abdicated their agency to the "selected" oligarchies who have seized the opportunity over time to transfer the wealth and power and perceptions of reasonableness into divided camps of completely brainwashed citizens who cannot see or hear the truth because their rabid fears prevent them from understanding that they are already in the trap and it is rapidly closing about them. Individual agency must be reclaimed and the bureaucratic, presumptuous, out of control politicians (mobsters in the giant cartel with culturally correct titles and just as much thuggery and unchecked power) ousted and tried for treason. Voluntary, contractual and mutually beneficial communities of free citizens working together to navigate a future without the masters exercising complete dominance over the slave class is on the table. This is a battle to the death - at least of liberty, freedom and choice...
Zei Squirrel and I have both written about stuff like this in the past
https://benmedia.substack.com/p/liberals-democrats-and-the-synthetic
https://zeisquirrel.substack.com/p/on-social-imperialism-on-the-american
https://zeisquirrel.substack.com/p/aoc-is-a-social-imperialist-masquerading
If you call yourself a "Leftist" but support American Imperialism, you're not on the Left.
As Richard Medhurst said:
“And then they call themselves “progressive”…what the fuck does that mean? You’re an Imperialist who wants Healthcare.”
Both parties crave war profits.
I agree with the article and appreciate it. However, the comments do reflect a ubiquitous trap where the discussion can devolve into arguing about labels instead of content. Labels are a necessary short-hand communication, but I don't think it is productive spending so much energy around constructing these iron-clad boxes around what they mean. I do think that it is really important to re-educate, re-frame the popular interpretation of politicians and party agendas: e.g. Obama's surveillance/intrusive policies and his military aggressiveness, Biden's entire career of war-mongering, Walz's pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian bias....etc. (just read an article of CAIR MN being refused a meeting w Walz - after a year of trying they finally arrived for a meeting with him but it was canceled on-the-spot when he learned that they wanted to talk about solutions/actions e.g. state divestment). Many of my friends are all excited about Harris, and I can see that they are green-screening. They just want to believe because she isn't Trump that she is some hero that will be his opposite. They can't accept the cognizant dissonance of their manufactured hero supporting genocide and forever wars, that she has absolutely no inkling of an intent to challenge the Empire policies and paradigm. And most people don't understand the Empire paradigm either or how it drives concrete impacts like cost/availability of EVs or tax rates. Most still buy the "Putin wants to conquer Europe" nonsense. Not many still buy the "Israel is the Beleaguered Good Guy" lie - you have to be a brain-washed morally-deficient idiot (of which there are plenty) to deny/justify/excuse the torrents of sheer evil Israel delivers every day. BUT they will accept that (ignore it) for Harris's stated domestic policies that are, legitimately, less threatening than Trumps. I think that we don't have to insist on strict label definitions in order to promote information dissemination, education, challenge, visibility, organizing...somehow expand and reframe.
Obama who is running the show, pulled Biden out, put Kamala Harris in and is playing the game of pretending like she may not support the genocide of Palestinians, but it is just a trap to get your vote and once she has it, she will send bombs, money, & support to Israel with a smile on her face. Don't fall for it & don't vote for it. I'm voting for Jill Stein, who really wants to end the genocide.
I agree with you. But, I don't even want to reveal my origin from the left anymore, because the left in common parlance has come to represent something I do not believe in. If we need to constantly clarify what we stand for, because the word has come to mean something alien to us, then I think we should drop the word entirely.
It's interesting, since I've stopped wasting my time on the left, how many tolerant, open people I find in other spaces. Some are supposedly "right wing" because of their religion. But it gives me pause to talk with conservatives who have a "live and let live" ethos. Because that's what I thought the left was about. Yet I know leftists who will fistfight you if you question transgender ideology, or the sexualization of our culture. They have no self awareness of how far they have strayed from a tolerant, liberal mindset.
We need a government of action that fights for working families, and I'll work with anybody else who wants the same thing.
Revolutionary Poem #1
if true, Harris is another antiDem scum
America has no choice in elections
Democracy dumped down the drain
Do Americans feel the pain?
Jill Stein and the GP ,hope rises again
Her site:http://jillstein2024.com
Rise up ! Take the bull by the horns
Follow what Bucky stated :
If man chooses oblivion, he can go right on leaving his fate to his political leaders. If he chooses Utopia, he must initiate an enormous education program - immediately, if not sooner.
R. Buckminster
Nobody who supports DemocRATS in any way can be seen as on the "left". DemocRATS-Now! has morphed into a weird hybrid media outlet with a soft spot in their brain-boxes after many years of good solid anti-war reporting.. they still do some, but their bullshit coverage of Syria and the fact they fell for some of the Russia-gate crap was straight out the establishment's propaganda mill. TDS, no doubt. Glenn Greenwald, like this author (who are you?) thinks people like the sheepdog Sanders are on the left. Preposterous horseshit. This is a lame attempt to smear and erase the actual left by false conflation with the execrable DemocRATS. The actul left is anti-war, anti-fascist, and does not overlook the fascist surveillance state being built up by Obama. The left holds both parties responsible for the massive poverty and homelessness in America. The left does not cosy up to goose-stepping cops and support TRILLIONS for war crimes in multiple countries. The left holds Biden responsible for genocide in Gaza. The left dos not fall for word out of DemocRAT's pie-hole. The right wing propaganda that, for instance, makes Biden a Marxist (!) has infected a few who should know better with this stupid and fallacious idiocy. Do better.
Of course there is a real left that opposes war and the democratic party etc. but in America it is unfortunately a tiny, politically insignificant movement. The more mainstream "left" i.e. Bernie/AOC and their supporters fully support the democratic party and are willing to ignore war and empire. You could say they are not "the real left" and that would be understandable but they are unfortunately what is viewed as the "Left" in American politics.
As a journalist, you could do your part in stopping this false conflation and attempted erasure of the left, by calling them the fake left. I have been after Greenwald about this for years. He told me if I didn't thing AOC was left, I was out of touch or some such garbage. In what world is AOC even remotely left? This is the laziest form of journalism practiced by an otherwise brilliant journalist. It is journalists who know better, and who must do better.. to stop this ubiquitous right wing propaganda from further infecting our already polluted discourse. It is the right wing pigs of both parties who benefit from erasing the left.
I agree with you that what gets called the left in mainstream American politics is not the real left in a historical context or compared to the left in other countries. I was just using the word "left" in the context it is used in mainstream American discourse but I take your point. `
Thank you.
How does the US and its allies get away with supporting genocide? How can so many ignore such blatant criminality? I have chosen to examine this question by looking at US history. A recent example, one that particularly looks at how the US and its allies reacted to charges of genocide made against it during the Korean War, is linked below.
Great Substack here. I've only just come across it, and am enjoying exploring your work!
https://open.substack.com/pub/kayej/p/canada-released-document-accusing?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Perfectly said, thank you! I exited Dems after Obama, it’s like watching the same movie over and over again with the same exact ending. We the voters get false promises and the middle finger. How ironic we never hear from the Dems until election comes. I am inundated with text and emails 24-7 begging for donations and worst they claim it will me match donations 800 times. I say by who? Their billionaire donors! At the end of the day, Politicians will obey their donors and ignore the voters cries and demands.
I’m voting 3rd party again. I cannot vote in favor of slaughtering innocent women and children. Palestinians people deserve life and a voice. The DNC refused to allow a Palestinians voice on the convention stage, people why are the democrats giving their full allegiance to Israel???
And for the ridiculous ignorant blue maga folks who continue to accuse 3rd party for dems losing. Ask yourselves, if dems listen and cater to their voters perhaps this would not be an issue. Democrats and republican party are severely corrupt and their loyalty to Aipac is insane and until this ends there will be 3rd parties in the run.
What “Left”????
I don’t exactly know that he “implemented” free lunch and breakfast in Minnesota. I grew up there in the 70s. We had free breakfast and lunch even then. It’s a pretty popular program, esp as kids get up at 5 am to feed the pigs.
In the uniparty of globalist sock puppets, the specific party labels mean nothing - they are demonstrably interchangeable as demonstrated by both Trump and Biden administration's support for the Zionist genocide by the nation state calling itself Israel (Nakba II - c or d by now -- something waged since 1947 or so to displace and eliminate altogether an ethnic group of well-entrenched middle eastern peoples who much more resemble real "Jews" than the 90% Khazarian/European imposters following the Babylonian Talmud and manipulating the U.S. to vilify & wage wars and conduct CIA-orchestrated regime changes in the countries that they wish to dominate in their endless quest to claim more and more land and resources from neighboring nation states).
They're all working towards the same goal - the collapse of the once-upon-a-time hundreds of years ago now Constitutional Republic - a grand experiment in "representative government" that has been hijacked and transformed into a fascist precursor to the soon to be unveiled (in its totality - it exists now and acts through its agents and provocateurs) one world dictatorships replete with the technological, psychological, kinetic and biological tools to terrorize en masse anyone opposing or resisting their authoritarian rule. The intentional, purposeful sabotage of this nation (and all of the major power structures of the world) by treasonous placeholders too numerous to name (although 80+% of congress persons and Senators claim dual citizenship with the nation state calling itself Israel and are funded by AIPAC and are assigned an "advisor" to govern their talk tracks for all things related to the middle east) is but one plank in a multi-faceted, well orchestrated, well-advanced plan to consolidate the resources and power in one place and to cull the herd of resistance, leaving the remainder for management under the electronic panopticon already in motion. The political process is theater for the bored masses -- a distraction from the finalization of the other components of the emerging world system that will strip every human being who survives the coming biological, technological, psychological, kinetic and electromagnetic contagion abut to be unleashed in full -- replete with grid down, cyber crippling war -- infrastructure and human casualties form the recently imported mercenaries (20 - 40 million or so from 150+ countries in the U.S. alone) who will gladly replace the established citizens of each country (see the UK situation -- that's just the beginning) and to excise the excess and to render inhospitable countries where complacent statist who for centuries have abdicated their agency to the "selected" oligarchies who have seized the opportunity over time to transfer the wealth and power and perceptions of reasonableness into divided camps of completely brainwashed citizens who cannot see or hear the truth because their rabid fears prevent them from understanding that they are already in the trap and it is rapidly closing about them. Individual agency must be reclaimed and the bureaucratic, presumptuous, out of control politicians (mobsters in the giant cartel with culturally correct titles and just as much thuggery and unchecked power) ousted and tried for treason. Voluntary, contractual and mutually beneficial communities of free citizens working together to navigate a future without the masters exercising complete dominance over the slave class is on the table. This is a battle to the death - at least of liberty, freedom and choice...