The lack of strategy and misguided purity is so beyond unworkable that the average person cannot even relate to the positions the left is taking.... Alessandra Biaggi in response to DSA pulling support for AOC
Ocasio-Cortez, Once an Outsider, Takes Center Stage at Convention
Let's be careful about branding the "left" as monolithic as Biaggi and many others tend to do -- even I do it without thinking. I usually say "certain segments of the left."....Norm
Tuesday, August 20, 2024Just Win Baby, Win! ... Al Davis
I get a high-five by a retired NYC fireman in a hot yoga class over the RA victory in the chapter election. Of course he and his pals all know about the NYC Retirees and the chief organizer Marianne Pizzitola.
I've been getting get-well calls from many people and one of the more interesting ones was from an old oppo war-horse CL and UFT Exec Bd member, a hard-core lifetime leftist who retired a long time ago. He is one of the 300 newly elected delegates in the RA chapter election. And of course he has followed the Medicare story.
He said something so interesting. That Marianne Pizzitola, who came out of nowhere and is far from a leftist, has taught the left a lesson on how to organize a broad base of working class and beyond, uniting left and right in the battle. Knowing the left as I do (and I consider myself part of the left), that will be a lesson unlearned. On much of the left, ideology trumps practicality and often, winning.
Yes, sometimes winning is important. I remember certain segments of the left making the case against trying to win in UFT or NYSUT elections as being a waste of time. With the big retiree win in the UFT, views may be changing with a unique opportunity to be in serious contention for leadership of the UFT for the first time in its history. A key question is how far will some segments on the left go to mess it up by pushing for their particular ideology even if that reduces the chances of winning. I know that in Retiree Advocate, we knew we were trying to build a winning coalition based on the healthcare issue and avoided getting into ideological entanglements. Thus, our 300 elected delegates have a broad range of political views.
Some on the left are beginning to look askance at some of their fellows and dames as the Biaggi (not a hard core lefty) says above.
Shockingly, there are still so-called leftists who often line up on the right who claim Trump is more the peace candidate than Biden --- do they actually believe this guy is not lying about everything? Yes, some claiming to be leftists can also be naive.
I am still a member of DSA because left politics (and accompanying infighting) interests me. You know the old joke -- put 2 of them in a room and get 3 groups. Splitting into sects and factions seems to be endemic.
But all too often some elements in DSA, a conglomeration of just about every left sect with numerous caucuses, seem off the rails. Remember how they cancelled Jamaal Bowman for daring to visit Israel on a fact-finding mission? When it was clear that right winger George Latimer backed by AIPAC was way ahead, DSA reversed itself but too late to make a difference.
Inside the UFT, we saw MORE, a segment of the left, sit out the TRS election because they heard a baseless ideological-based rumor about a candidate. "Better Unity"? In essence, the message. Or we on the left don't really care about winning but about making a point. Despite that the non-Unity candidate still got one third of the vote.
With upcoming UFT elections, will we see an ideological war break out inside oppo forces or will we see a broad front inclusive enough to defeat Unity.
And by the way, AOC made the most dynamic speech last night at the convention. You can see her future as the heir to Bernie while DSA will remain sanctimonious.
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Another segment of the DSA cancelled Adolf Reed, Jr. Reed who focuses on class more than race and that is a big cancel on the left.
A Black Marxist Scholar Wanted to Talk About Race. It Ignited a Fury.
The cancellation of a speech reflects an intense debate on the left: Is racism the primary problem in America today, or the outgrowth of a system that oppresses all poor people?
Adolph Reed is a son of the segregated South, a native of New Orleans who organized poor Black people and antiwar soldiers in the late 1960s and became a leading Socialist scholar at a trio of top universities.
Along the way, he acquired the conviction, controversial today, that the left is too focused on race and not enough on class. Lasting victories were achieved, he believed, when working-class and poor people of all races fought shoulder to shoulder for their rights.
