"Scratching your head"?

Charles Murray literally thinks black people are genetically intellectually inferior to white people. And you're shocked that people are protesting?

So many "progressives" don't give a shit about racism and sexism because it doesn't affect them. But then again, Andrew Sullivan is still considered "liberal" so that doesn't surprise me.

You are exactly the kind of person that needs to get their "progressive" card revoked.

If you are not intersectional, you are not a progressive. Period. End of discussion. Card revoked.

I don't care if you enact a 100% tax on incomes over a million and bust up every Wall Street bank and enact a 30k a year guaranteed income. If you do not vociferously support civil rights for the marginalized, the literal fucking damnes de la terre, you are not a progressive, socialist, leftist, liberal, or anything but a welfare chauvinist.

You want a purity test? Here's your fucking purity test.

When it comes to winning elections in certain districts, it's okay to not be a progressive. But if you do not fight for the marginalized on every issue, don't fucking call yourself a progressive.

If anyone asks whats in it for white people to fight racism, here it is:

Racism in this country prevented white workers from seeing black workers as workers.
They saw them a
s black, not as workers. Who does this help out? Rulers at the top that
says, "Oh these suckers are giving me the hammer I need to beat them over the head with."

I think the problem is that progressives are starting from an entirely wrong framework

The Democrats didn't start appealing to corporates and technocrats because they wanted to per se, they did because they used to have a white working class base but once the party expanded to include black, Hispanic, LGBT and immigrant working class voters, the white working class bolted en masse, starting with the South. Thus, the Dems had to soften on economics and other issues because left wing economics got associated with "welfare queens" and shit like that and occasionally pandering to "LAW AND ORDER" (ie cryptoracism) is better than actually BEING racist.

Basically, as always in America, we can't have nice things because of racism.

The problem is that a lot of progressives misdiagnosed it - they thought the Dems went corporate because "well duh, that's where the money is", except the money was ALWAYS in going corporate, it's not like the malefactors of great wealth went away after the New Deal. But as long as you have a strong working class base, built up by organized labor, you have a counterweight, both in funding an organizing. But if a lot of that base bolts because they didn't want to have solidarity with """"""""those""""""" """""""people"""""""", then it leaves you in the lurch. It also would have helped if the Cold War union leaders didn't get rid of all the Communists, who were the most dedicated and devoted members of the labor movement, as well as being one of the primary forces for racial inclusion among the working class.

Basically if you want a more left leaning, or hell, a social democratic Democratic Party, let alone a Democratic Socialist party, one needs to, instead of refusing to vote for the leftmost person on the ballot:

- Put lots of organizing work into fighting racism, sexism and other bigotry, especially within the movement
- Fight hard for your ideas in the primary, but vote for the winning Democrat while lobbying for them to support your ideals (1 and 3 happened, 2 kinda did but not enough) (Lenin called this democratic centralism)
- Similarly, support mainstream Democrats when they're right, criticize them respectfully when you're wrong, basically engage in good old fashioned engagement with politicians.
- Organize locally to implement what you want to the farthest available point, so that you create working models for leftwing ideas, create more experienced activists and potential politicians, and creates good will among the people you're trying to uplift (your socialist city councilperson or state Rep in 2016 could very well be President, or at least a congresspereson in 2032)
-

Pop leftism is a form of disaster capitalism.

And ironically, Naomi Klein is one of the disaster capitalists.

People like Sarandon, Nader, Stein, Greenwald, Moore, etc etc, as well as the people who undermined Gore and Humphrey, and who tried to argue that they'd come to power by "resisting" Hitler after sabotaging the German Social Democrats, who try to market themselves as "dissident, anti-establishment, etc etc" and try to undermine electable, mainstream people on the left no matter what they do or how left they move, calling them some variant of "neoliberal", are actively causing disasters (the elections of far right authoritarians) so that they can profit from said disasters by trying to position themselves as "leaders of the resistance", which they can translate into book deals, popular influence, etc etc. That's how Greenwald got big in the Bush years, despite being a right-wing libertarian, for example. However a key similarity between them all is that they seem more interested into parlaying their coverage of social issues into celebrity, rather than actually doing anything on the ground about it, largely because "doing something" generally is not sexy or brings the headlines (a similar principle is at work in warfare, in which amateurs study tactics, which are sexy, and professionals study logistics, which are not)

Another pattern of this type is that once a left candidate DOES win, nothing said candidate is good enough. Even though there are obvious legitimate criticisms of the political and policy constraints put upon all candidates in this system, and of the socio political economic system itself, none of that is explored, it's usually simplified and distilled into "TRAITOR" "NEOLIBERAL" "SHILL". This of course does nothing to actually change the system, but it does sell books to low information voters who don't want to hear that they're the ones who need to organize, not wait for "The Revolution" to fix everything (revolutions are hard, need massive popular support, STRONG civil institutions, and a good plan after the old order is swept away). Of course, this dampens support for the left and gives initative to the right, but this plays into the narrative and gets them more attention and book/merchandise sales.

Finally, a major key element is the audience. In general, these writers tend to appeal to privileged groups who have limited experience in actually navigating oppression and tyranny, but are looking for a way to feel like they're making a difference. This of course, creates conflicts with either experienced organizers who understand that shit doesn't work, or with people of color who question the narrative, the strategy, the emphasis on purity, or all of the above. In short, a lot of pop leftist figures try to sell a glamorous revolutionary narrative to middle class college kids and hippies, this gets challenged by people who have faced real oppression, and the former lose their shit because they'd rather have their narrative than engage with the reality of how to make change (basically through persistent, long term organizing, oftentimes facing intense resistance from the establishment, building from the ground up until it goes national)

The key to all this is that these figures aren't really interested in changing society in a more progressive direction. They're more interested in making money by pretending to be interested in changing society in a more progressive direction. Michael Moore is shilling all over the place saying every Democrat is "establishment". Susan Sarandon is openly shilling for Trump. Jill Stein made a few million off heartbroken Democrats after actively helping Trump win. So on and so forth. The fact is, it's hard to sell "incremental politics" in a book or movie, and it's hard to sell "I'm farther to the left than the leftmost American party that can win but I support them because that's the pragmatic way to achieve progress". This doesn't even get into people like Greenwald and Assange who push the "America is the Great Satan" narrative and glosses over the failings of American adversaries.

All in all, Democrats and others on the left need to avoid these kinds of pied pipers because they are at best a distraction for progress, and at worst are actively working to impede it.

Unfortunately it's hard NOT to remove it from the metanarrative.

If the top guys on the Pats weren't such Trump fans it wouldn't matter, especially since New England is deep blue except for New Hampshire (only light blue), but cest la vie.

It doesn't help that Richard "Punchable Face" Spencer openly rooted for the Pats because of how "white' they were.

With that said, Brady is not only the greatest player to ever play American football, he's in the conversation for the greatest American athlete to ever play any American sport (and in the grand scheme of things, while there was probably cheating involved in his accomplishments, it's not as egregious as say, Lance Armstrong). He has more SB rings than any QB in history, and is literally a David Tyree miracle catch (or a dropped Asante Samuel pick 6) and a Wes Welker dropped pass from being 7-0 in the Super Bowl, with a 19-0 season to boot.

I think the conversation is Brady, Jordan, Tiger, Ali, Aaron, Gretzky (if we use "North American" as our definition). Lance would be in it if not for the steroids.

Back from DC!

Was a hell of an experience. I came early to beat the rush (believe it or not, I actually GOT on a train right away), and it paid off. It was a major logistical stretch (good luck getting a bathroom) and given my friend came down by car from NJ to march with me, we had to go a bit earlyish, but it was an amazing atmosphere, and the solidarity was amazing.

I wish I had stayed for the crowd meeting up with the Orange One's motorcade. Would have been tempted to chuck my shoe.

This was honestly my first really BIG protest and it was an adjustment, but it was amazing though. Not just marching, but chatting with organizers, talking about plans after protests, talking strategy, and all that.

Had a little fun making up creative new chants though don't think they caught on such as "Hey Hey Donald J, how many whatevers did you grab today?"

But we gotta keep in mind that this is the first step in a long, long journey of resistance. Call your reps, call your Senators, and vote for the most left candidate in every election.

For an analogy, you're gonna go into a fight against a bully.

Hand to hand, one on one. Oh right, the guy you're fighting takes roids.

Right before the fight, you take a gun and put a bullet in your left elbow and left kneecap.

What are your chances of winning? I'd say, not much, because one side of your body is more concerned about crippling the other half than about beating up the big muscly steroid guy beating your ass every day.

Why do working class whites vote for policies that actively screw them?

You have Trump voters right this minute tearing their hair out because Trump and Ryan are going to try and kill Obamacare. But they *voted* for that. Why? Because they have been trained to see everything, including economics and class relations, through a racist lens. Class solidarity is impossible when one segment of the working class sees the other as "THOSE PEOPLE" who are inferior in whatever manner.

This is what I am trying to say.

There's actually 2 bases in American society - race is the base, then class above it, then superstructure.