The Clash of Capitalisms The Real Fight for the Global Economy’s Future - Foreign Affairs

Capitalism has no rival, but its two variants offer significantly different ways of structuring political and economic power.... politicians come from various social classes and backgrounds, and many of them share sociologically very little, if anything, with the rich. ...

Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in the United States and Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major in the United Kingdom all came from modest backgrounds but quite effectively supported the interests of the one percent.

Foreign Affairs 

A very interesting article.
Chinese political capitalism vs American liberal capitalism? Can our current capitalism be reformed?

Some interesting thoughts to mull over. Ownership of the means of production is a key issue as to what is socialism and what is capitalism. He claims in China 95% are privately owned. I have to consult with Marxists for a better read on this article. One thing I've noticed about revolutionary socialists -  reforms make them sad because they delay the decay and revolution. So they cheer strikes and wage raises but view these "wins" as a means of raising the consciousness of the working class - though I would seek a better vision of a working class that sits at a computer all day.

The author touches on the contradictions within capitalism as predicted by Marx with this comment:

Often in human history, the triumph of one system or religion is soon followed by a schism between different variants of the same credo.

So Marx thinks one side will not win but capitalism will come crashing down and lead to socialism of some type. Even the Scandinavian models. Oh well, I'm not moving yet. Marx says eventually the contradictions get to a point where a revolution takes place. And it can happen so fast over somethings that seem small at the time.

I am in the process of listening to Mike Duncan's fabulous series of podcasts on revolutions. Ultimately I want to compare and contrast the two great revolutions - French and Russian.

The Clash of Capitalisms

The Real Fight for the Global Economy’s Future

By Branko Milanovic January/February 2020

Capitalism rules the world. With only the most minor exceptions, the entire globe now organizes economic production the same way: labor is voluntary, capital is mostly in private hands, and production is coordinated in a decentralized way and motivated by profit.

There is no historical precedent for this triumph. In the past, capitalism—whether in Mesopotamia in the sixth century BC, the Roman Empire, Italian city-states in the Middle Ages, or the Low Countries in the early modern era—had to coexist with other ways of organizing production. These alternatives included hunting and gathering, small-scale farming by free peasants, serfdom, and slavery. Even as recently as 100 years ago, when the first form of globalized capitalism appeared with the advent of large-scale industrial production and global trade, many of these other modes of production still existed. Then, following the Russian Revolution in 1917, capitalism shared the world with communism, which reigned in countries that together contained about one-third of the human population. Now, however, capitalism is the sole remaining mode of production.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2019-12-10/clash-capitalisms? 

Buttigieg and the Charter School Lobby - Not a Pretty Picture

While his education plan was enthusiastically endorsed by American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, who has praised all the leading candidates' education platforms, Buttigieg's financial ties with the charter school community raise questions about what policy positions he might adopt if ultimately elected president.... Vice

Doesn't this say it all about our union leader's typical response to ed deform? I want to hear Randi hammer Pete for being backed by vicious anti-union - especially teacher unions people like Netflix' Reed Hastings.

Inside the Financial Relationship Between Pete Buttigieg and Charter School Backers

The money from pro-charter donors raises questions about the surging candidate's recently-released education plan.

https://www.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/5dmmmz/inside-the-financial-relationship-between-pete-buttigieg-and-charter-school-backers?fbclid=IwAR1mxn8fu8tUdNn_FXIJeYrbMK-v2qx-1JlPjyYdfWWS9gLa9nPsxGLNKdQ

Dec. 10: On Saturday, surging Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released his plan for K-12 education, a wide-ranging 20-page document that offers just one paragraph on charter schools.

Up to this point, Buttigieg's comments on charters, the publicly-funded, privately-managed schools that educate about 7 percent of public school students, have been minimal. He didn't respond to the Washington Post's candidate questionnaire on the topic, and he missed an NEA-sponsored public education forum that ten candidates participated in in July. In April, at a Northeastern University event in Boston, he reportedly dodged a charter school question, but then responded to a follow-up by saying they "have a place" as "a laboratory for techniques that can be replicated." In May, he said on the trail that he supported Sen. Bernie Sanders' call to ban for-profit charters.

The problem is that charter schools have become something of a flashpoint in the 2020 primary, as many candidates have criticized them for things like taking resources away from traditional public schools and privatizing education. In doing so, these candidates have been largely distancing themselves from the pro-charter school policies embraced by the Obama administration. The media has not pressed Buttigieg much on charters, or even on public education, perhaps because he was polling relatively low for much of the race.

But Buttigieg, who is now leading in some Iowa caucus surveys, has been holding private fundraisers with a number of prominent charter school supporters, according to invitations reviewed by VICE. While his education plan was enthusiastically endorsed by American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, who has praised all the leading candidates' education platforms, Buttigieg's financial ties with the charter school community raise questions about what policy positions he might adopt if ultimately elected president.

A Threat to the Democratic Party: Alliance of Working Family Party and Democratic Socialists

“W.F.P. had the strategy and the know-how and we combined that with what D.S.A. does best, which is boots-on-the-ground organizing,” Ms. Cabán said.

The new leader of the Working Families Party in New York hopes to remake the progressive group to attract the energized left.

“Damaging the W.F.P. is small potatoes when you consider the much broader movement being built,” said Jonathan Westin, director of New York Communities for Change, a grass-roots organizing group. “There is a growing anger on the left about where we need to be going and that the Democratic Party has not gone there.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/nyregion/aoc-working-families-party-ny.html

There are signs that the Democratic Party is heading for a crisis and possibly a split or the emergence of a new party to the left. The key is the ability to have deep grassroots (the Dem Party has an organized machine at the neighborhood levels). Imagine the scenario where the progressive wing feels denied in the 2020 election process. There is such hatred of Trump that people will bite their tongues - other than the far left which doesn't want any entanglement in electoral politics -- but that is the fringe, so ignore them for now. But it can't be top down and must have roots at the community level.

The on the ground work of DSA and other groups in challenging Democrats that are not viewed as left enough has created a lot of tension in the party -- why the AOC victory of Crowley who was/is a typical Dem boss, was so  huge. There's more to come, with a lot more challenges to long-time Dem politicians coming. The question is can the left actually take control of the party - and at this point I can't see that happening - which can only lead to some kind of formation of a new party - but it can't be a fringe but a coalition of sorts of the left wing of the current Dem Party which is clearly growing.

Remember the Green Party? They run for president and NY Governor and have a splattering of candidates in local races. But they have been far outstripped by the DSA in many places. I believe the current political crisis will force various segments of the left to come together - even if they have to grin and bear it.

That is why the article I cite here is so interesting: A working relationship between the Working Families Party, which was just screwed over royally by the Cuomo vendetta against them which will probably cost them their place on the ballot -and also the abandonment of union support - with the UFT as prime deserter -- and the DSA is intriguing and a first step in the consolidation. But one thing has to be clear. DSA is anti-capitalist and as I pointed out in yesterday's post (How the Cool Kids of the Left Turned on Elizabeth Warren - POLITICO), there is much synergy between DSA and Jacobin, groups clearly out to end capitalism and establish some version of socialism - and there's the rub there as that wing has engaged in ideological warfare for the past 150 years.

The article points out the mine field in the potential for cooperation:

The W.F.P. and the D.S.A. may not agree on everything. The W.F.P., for example, has endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic presidential primary; the Democratic Socialists have endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders.

What the reported is missing is the level of vituperation directed at the WFP by the Jacobin crowd for endorsing Warren as that Politico article I cited. This alliance won't be an easy one. But if it worked it could have an impact on the Dem party here in the city.

I've written in the past about the potential of the Democratic Socialists (DSA) which has grown tenfold since 2016, in challenging the Dem Party machine at the neighborhood level in gentrified areas. There are eight NYC branches geographically located throughout the city with a 9th citywide Labor Branch rooted in union members from around the city  - a group where the current MORE leadership has rooted itself. (But more on that angle in the future.) I've attended a few south Brooklyn DSA branch meetings and was impressed with the level of activity in so many areas (housing, health to name a few - though ironically not much on education) on a grass roots level. If the other branches are doing the same, these are deep roots that in certain neighborhoods can compete with the Democratic Party machine. The real problem for DSA is that it is rooted in the gentrified areas and dominated by fairly young whites, a majority male but increasingly female.

The work of DSA is so antithetical to the usual Dem Party machine politics and DSA has aligned with other left wing groups to challenge the machine in areas where it can build alliances. As pointed out in the article that I almost missed in Saturday's NYT, the Tiffany Caban challenge for the Queens DA race was an example. The left points out how she lost by only 50 votes to the machine candidate, Melinda Katz (who was forced to lean left by the campaign). But I also point out that there were 7 candidates running who were not really left and if it were Caban/Katz head to head it wouldn't have been close. And that is the essential weakness of the DSA/left - their strength is in the white progressive gentrified areas - like northwest Queens. Most of the rest of Queens - and I include the black areas in southeastern Queens - is nowhere close to where DSA stands. One of the reasons I have begun to distribute the leftist monthly, The Independent, in Rockaway libraries is to expand that point of view.

Nnaemeka’s background as a black woman who is the daughter of immigrants was a signal that groups like the W.F.P. and D.S.A. were listening to the criticism. “The progressive left is a multiracial coalition,” Ms. Nnaemeka said. “Blacks are progressive. I’m a black person who considers herself part of a strong progressive left who wants to expand possibilities for working-class people.”

The weakness of DSA has been in its inability to attract people of color - nothing new - just look at a group like MORE in the UFT. At almost every meeting for 6 years we heard complaints about how white the group is- and still is - and white male dominated. But The Squad is a sign of change. And locally, there is hope that an alliance between DSA and WFP can remedy that.

A Political Party Aligns Itself With Ocasio-Cortez

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/nyregion/aoc-working-families-party-ny.html

How to go from voting Communist to Right Wing - NYT

The country's [Italy's] new politics are often attributed to anger over migrants. But the story begins decades ago, when China first targeted small textile.... It is a story with parallels to the American industrial Midwest. As China rapidly ascended as an export power, joblessness and despair grew in the manufacturing heartland of the United States. Anger over decades of trade liberalization played a key role in putting Donald J. Trump in the White House.... NY Times, The Chinese Roots of Italy's Far-Right Rage - The New York Times...

So how to so many former voters for the communist party in Italy go far right populist. Some people can't understand former Obama voters voting for Trump. All too Trump haters put the sole blame on race issues. Here is a fascinating article in last Sunday's NYT business section that digs deep. The problem is globalism as capitalism run amuck and I will be doing follow-up articles addressing the World Trade Organization role in this mess and how Trump meets Bernie on this issue - Bernie opposed WTO 20 years ago and Trump tariffs have undermined it.

The opening pretty much says it all if you don't have time to dive in:

PRATO, Italy —During her childhood, her father brought her to boisterous Communist Party rallies full of music, dancing and fiery speeches championing workers. When she turned 18, she took a job at a textile mill and voted for the party herself.

But that was before everything changed — before China emerged as a textile powerhouse, undercutting local businesses; before she and her co-workers lost their jobs; before she found herself, a mother of two grown boys, living off her retired parents; before Chinese immigrants arrived in Prato, leasing shuttered textile mills and stitching up clothing during all hours of the night.

In last year’s national elections, Ms. Travaglini, 61, cast her vote for the League, an extreme right-wing party whose bombastic leader, Matteo Salvini, offered a rudimentary solution to Italy’s travails: Close the gates.

Read it all below the break:

How the Cool Kids of the Left Turned on Elizabeth Warren - POLITICO

The socialists of Jacobin magazine used to treat her like a promising alternative to Bernie Sanders. Now they write as if she’s almost as bad as Joe Biden. What gives?... Politico
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/12/08/elizabeth-warren-jacobin-socialist-left-072693

Jacobin current issue

Even though I am a Bernie supporter I still find myself being annoyed at the levels of vehemence I've seen directed at Warren, who would still be the most leftist president in history. So as the article says - what gives.

I subscribe to Jacobin and am a member of DSA, I found this a fascinating article. The reporter asks if the former is merely a mouth piece for the latter, both of which have had 10 times growth in recent years.

Here is a simple answer - Warren is not a socialist and Bernie, even if he claims he is a modest socialist ala New Deal FDR, Bernie really comes from the historical left and Warren doesn't have those traditional left politics, which means she is way more subject to being driven off her agenda than Bernie is.

I posted a piece from NYT rightward columnist Ross Douthat the other day -- Shocking: Ross Douthat makes The Case for Bernie - NYT
And this week he is back it again, actually making a case for Bernie or Biden as a revolt against the Obama/Clinton technocrats -- I don't agree - it's neo-liberalism. But worth reading:

Opinion: Exhausted With the Experts

How Bernie and Biden both channel the current distrust of technocrats.

The Politico piece below. Thanks to Harry for sharing:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/12/08/elizabeth-warren-jacobin-socialist-left-072693

Almost Two Thirds of Americans back Elizabeth Warren's proposed tax on wealthy including over 57% of Republicans

57% of Republicans support the Warren wealth tax? Holy crap. Note in the chart below that her tax favorability rose 2% with Republicans from July to November while falling 4% with Dems in that time frame from 81 to 77%, due to the attacks from center Dems and billionaires. Even independents favor the wealth tax. Who doesn't favor it? Republican men with college degrees. I spotted the story below in Monday's NYT in the business section. It should have made the front page. ....https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/29/business/economy/economy-politics-survey.html

So the idea that the left is pulling the Dem Party away from victory is interesting. Even on medicare for all there is wide-spread favorability.

And here's a link to another article:

While many of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s aggressive plans have come under fire from prominent billionaires, Republicans and fellow Democrats vying for the presidential nomination, her proposal to tax the ultra-rich resonates with most Americans regardless of age, gender or party.
 https://www.masslive.com/politics/2019/11/6-in-10-americans-back-elizabeth-warrens-proposed-tax-on-ultra-wealthy-according-to-new-poll.html
 

A few of the charts from the NYT piece:
Share saying they approve of a 2 percent tax on households with a net worth over $50 million

November

July

Total

Democrats

Independents

Republicans

63%

77%

55%

57%

66%

81%

66%

55%

Share saying they approve of a wealth tax

Democrats

Independents

Republicans

Men without a degree

Men with a degree

Women without a degree

Women with a degree

81.4%

85.6

67.8

80.5

Men without a degree

Men with a degree

Women without a degree

Women with a degree

54.2%

65.5

52.7

55.1

Men without a degree

Men with a degree

Women without a degree

Women with a degree

59.3%

41.5

60.0

61.4

Note: Partisan categories include people who say they lean toward either party. | Source: SurveyMonkey

Read full NYT piece below:

Shocking: Ross Douthat makes The Case for Bernie - NYT

Bernie depends intensely on the young. But his polling also shows an interesting better-than-you-expect pattern, given stereotypes about his support. He does better-than-you-expect with minorities despite having struggled with them in 2016, with moderate voters and $100K-plus earners despite being famously left-wing, and with young women despite all the BernieBro business.

This pattern explains why, in early-state polling, Sanders shows the most strength in very different environments — leading Warren everywhere in the latest FiveThirtyEight average, beating Biden in Iowa and challenging him in more-diverse Nevada, matching Pete Buttigieg in New Hampshire and leading him easily in South Carolina and California.... ... Ross Douthat, NY Times, The Case for Bernie.

I rarely agree with NY Times right wing columnist Ross Douthat, but this is a remarkably honest article which compared to the liberal media, actually delves into the Bernie demographic support and points out the irony of his least level of support coming from people over 65. Let me hazzard two theories as to why: First, the already have medicare but more importantly, baby boomers lived through the anti-communist cold war with all the propaganda and distortions about socialists.

If you are a wavering Democrat concerned about both party unity and ultimate electability, about exciting all the diverse factions of your base while also competing for the disaffected, both the relative breadth of Bernie’s primary coalition and his decent polling among non-voters and Obama-Trump voters are reasons to give him another look. That decent polling, I suspect, reflects a sense among voters drawn to populism that Bernie is different from not only the more centrist candidates — latecomers Michael Bloomberg and Deval Patrick especially, but Buttigieg as well — but also from his fellow left-winger, Warren, who has fully embraced the culture-war breadth of the new progressivism while Sanders remains, fundamentally, an economic-policy monomaniac.

The latter point is crucial - Bernie puts things in economic terms and downplays identity politics, which was a reason he struggled with Black people but seems to have found a better formula as he plays cross-race class politics - consistent working class identity unites people if done right. But he also gets support from the over 100G crowd. Interesting. And Douthat doesn't mention union support from certain quarters. He also doesn't get into a vast grassroots army out there that no other candidate can match.

In my personal discussions with people, even with right wing Trumpists on Thanksgiving, I find Bernie gets the least scorn and some kudos for fighting the system so consistently over decades. And note how he is second to Biden in getting black support.

Of course there is the hatred the Obama/Clinton wing along with the Dem Party pros seems to have for Bernie, the major obstacle to his nomination. Many of us think they'd rather see Trump than Bernie. And there are so many ideologues on the left, I can't see them going for a centrist even if Trump would win. So there is a standoff of sorts which really helps Trump. But then again, I think that no matter which Dem would win, the Republicans will still have enough power to wreck and blame any one of them - and if they regain control of the House - say in 2022, they will impeach whomever for wearing the wrong color suit.

Here is the article.

The Case for Bernie
The Democrats need a unifier. It could be the Vermont Socialist.

By Ross Douthat
Opinion Columnist

The Democratic Party needs a nominee, but right now it has a train wreck instead. The front-runner seems too old for the job and is poised to lose the first two primary season contests. The woman who was supposed to become the front-runner on the basis of her policy chops is sliding in the polls after thoroughly botching her health care strategy. The candidate rising in her place is a 37-year-old mayor of a tiny, not-obviously-thriving city.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/opinion/sunday/bernie-sanders.html

NY Times Pulls Race Card in Report on Charters While The Guardian Exposes Sham Astroturf Protests

Recently a crowd of protesters disrupted a speech by Elizabeth Warren. The activists might have seemed grassroots, but they weren’t... The Guardian, Billionaire-funded protest is rearing its head in America
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/27/billionare-funded-protests-america

But the NY Times (intentionally) fell for it as evidenced by this biased front page article in the Nov. 27, 2019 edition of the Times: Minority Voters Chafe as Democratic Candidates Abandon Charter Schools. 
The NYT doesn't raise the issue: Why is there a charter school industrial complex designed to make a lot of money for a lot of people using kids as a device.

[Addendum since publication - Ravitch on the same subject: Robert Kuttner (and I) Challenge the New York Times Slant on Charter Schools By dianeravitch November 29, 2019]

Contrast the reports from the Times and the Guardian:

NYT:

Outside the Atlanta studio where the candidates were assembling for Wednesday’s debate, more than 300 people chanted “Our children, our choice” to the drumbeats of a marching band from a KIPP school. The next day, black and Latino charter school parents shouted the same refrain at Ms. Warren as she tried to start a speech about race in Atlanta. .... Since 2016, public polling has shown a widening divide on charter schools between white Democrats and their black and Latino peers. White Democrats’ approval of charter schools dropped to 27 percent from 43 percent between 2016 and 2018, according to a poll conducted by Education Next, a journal based at Harvard that is generally supportive of charters. Black and Latino approval for the schools remained basically steady at about 47 percent for each group.

Hmmmm - does this mean the majority of parents of color do not approve and why is that downplayed - note how misleading the NYT headline is: Minority Voters Chafe as Democratic Candidates Abandon Charter Schools

I don't expect anything less from NYT reporter Eliza Shapiro who shows bias in her reporting since she was at Politico - When she moderated a debate on charters I attended with Carol Burris as one of the participants challenging charters, I saw clear evidence of bias so I never trust her ed reporting --- at times Trump is right about NYT fake news -- NYC education activists have known that for decades.

Guardian:

Last week, Elizabeth Warren went to Atlanta to give a major speech about issues of concern to black women. Her speech touched on knotty, existential topics such as the legacy of slavery, institutional racism, voter suppression, mass incarceration and reparations. But the next day’s headlines overwhelmingly focused on the fact that the speech was interrupted by a loud group of pro-charter school protesters.
We were supposed to be talking about challenging centuries of institutional racism, but now we’re talking about charter schools. How did that happen? If you suspect that some sort of nefarious action that can be traced back to plutocratic billionaires is involved – well, of course.

The protesters themselves were, by all accounts and appearances, a group of concerned people who passionately oppose Warren’s plan to bolster public education and crack down on the charter school industry. But they did not all materialize in the crowd together in matching shirts by chance. Their existence was orchestrated by pro-charter school groups that are funded by an array of billionaires, including Netflix founder Reed Hastings, art and philanthropy titan Eli Broad and, most prominently, the Walton Foundation, controlled by the staggeringly wealthy family that owns Walmart. Thus we are all forced to deal with the spectacle of classic tactics of grassroots protest being coopted and fueled by a tiny group of the very sort of people that such tactics were developed to target in the first place.

NYT: their [charters] waiting lists swelling into the hundreds of thousands. ​
What bullshit about waiting lists - charter propaganda. The reporters should ask to see these lists. We know there are empty charter seats in Eva schools here in NY.

And are there also massive waiting lists for some public schools?

Why White Parents Were at the Front of the Line for the School ...

https://www.nytimes.com › nyregion › beacon-high-school-admissions-nyc

Nov 15, 2019 - 

One more bit from the Guardian to highlight how easy the charter lobby can distract from real issues:

One of the emotional backbones of Warren’s speech was the story of the 1881 Atlanta washerwomen strike – a relatively little known incident in labor history that she was no doubt inspired to cite by the union leader Sara Nelson’s recent speech on the same topic in front of the Democratic Socialists of America convention. Yet what should be a shining example of radical ideas rising to mainstream prominence in a presidential campaign has been pushed to the bottom of most news stories in favor of the charter school ruckus. This points to the fact that astroturf campaigns don’t have to be very sophisticated, or even very secret; they just need to make enough noise to weasel their way into a 30-second TV hit to get the job done.

 Oh, and Howard Fuller is one of the biggest pieces of crap and indicative of the slime the charter industry attracts.

Read both articles in full below.

======

Billionaire-funded protest is rearing its head in America

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/27/billionare-funded-protests-america

Daily Howler on Democratic Misleadership With Fiorillo Comment

Rep. Nunes will, on occasion, make an accurate statement! ---
In theory, two different nations could monkey around in the same U.S. election! That said, did Ukraine "meddle" or "interfere" with the 2016 election? Within our current tribal wars, this question has been bouncing around in the past two weeks, almost always being discussed in a muddled, incoherent manner.

Daily Howler

I loved Fiona Hill's testimony and had to keep reminding myself she worked for Dr. Strangelove - er - John Bolton who would attach himself to a missile aimed at Iran or Russia. So I take her sure bet assumption Ukraine had zero to do with the 2016 election with a grain of salt.

And let me ask this very dangerous question -- How do I know for sure that all Hunter Biden did was collect his 50K a year? Or that he never slipped a few words to his dad to earn that 50K? Sorry, but I've always viewed Joe Biden as suspect from way back when as a senator for banking and credit card companies. Obama saved him from himself by making him VP, though Obama is certainly not showing Joe much love lately. Actually I think that the Trump attacks to weaken and already weakened Biden have helped other candidates who in the long run may have a better chance than Biden of beating him.

I'm looking at all sides of the issues as a way to read through the muck. There are minority voices on the left/liberal wings that are pushing back against the Democratic narrative. Michael Fiorillo has been a left skeptic of Russiagate from the earliest days. Blogger Daily Howler advertises himself as a member of the liberal tribe though I'm not so sure at times since he seems to aim most of his darts at the so-called liberal press, with particular focus on MSNBC, the NY Times and Washington Post. I posted his comments on the ICE-Mail listserve and here Michael comments - followed by the DH post.

Fiorillo: 

Wow, it's shocking to observe some sanity and critical thinking in an American journalist concerning Son of Russiagate.

The "Manafort Ledger" was released to the US media by members of the Ukrainian government, with the explicit purpose of harming Trump's campaign - and it did, resulting in Manafort leaving the campaign - as reported contemporaneously by the Financial Times. The Ukrainians had obvious reasons to prefer Clinton, given Trump's statements about Russia and Putin over the years, yet somehow that doesn't rise to the Pearl Harbor/911-level of interference the #McResistance TM insists we feel about childish, semi-literate Facebook posts, supposedly sent by the Russian government  (although unable to provide evidence of such, Mueller and the DOJ have in fact been prohibited from making that claim in court, not that Rachel Maddow would ever consider that news).

It should also be pointed out that, while Russian government hacking of the DNC and Podesta is certainly plausible (unlike the "collusion" narrative, which was preposterous and riven with inconsistencies from the start), in fact it has not been "proven" that they did so.

Recall that the DNC to this day has not turned over its servers to the FBI for forensic analysis, which was  instead done by Crowdstrike, a DNC vendor (which probably relates to Trump's incoherant/confused reference to it in the Zelensky phone call). 

Additionally, Bill Binney, a mathematician who was a rock star at the NSA (and later a whistleblower revealing NSA spying on ths US populace) and is now a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, claims that, based on the information made publicly available, it would not have been possible for the DNC/Podesta data to have been hacked remotely; he claims instead it must have been downloaded on to a thumb drive. He claims it was a whistleblower, not a hacker, who revealed the info.

The point is, the "proof" about Russian Interference In Our Democracy is less certain than is claimed and which the #McResistance TM would have us think.

Enjoy Son of Russiagate Theater while you can, since it's likely to help re-elect Hair Furor.

But the #McResistance TM is actually fine with that, just as long as they control the narrative and keep Bernie from the nomination...

Did Ukraine "interfere in our election?"

Posted: 23 Nov 2019 09:41 AM PST

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2019

Why we can't have nice things: Trigger warning! We start today with a statement so vile that it may rock your world.

The statement in question goes like this:

Even a tribalized player like Devin Nunes will make the occasional accurate statement.

Bloomberg Strategy: A Brokered Democratic Convention, Super Delegates (Randi is one) - I bet on Klobuchar being the brokered choice

The 700 super delegates benefit if no one wins in the first ballot....  maybe this is only about Bloomberg getting enough delegates to team up with the super delegates to deny Warren or Bernie the nomination. After all, Bloomberg has more to lose in wealth from them and is investing his money now in an effort to stop them. Imagine the centrist candidates putting their delegates together to team up. This article covers some of this ground:

Nomination chaos? Democrats fear primaries won't produce a clear winner. - That could leave matters in the hands of hundreds of unelected super delegates to pick the party's candidate to take on Trump..... The last time Democrats went into their convention without a presumptive nominee already having a majority of delegates was 1984. And you have to go all the way back to 1952 to find the last time it took multiple rounds of ballots to pick the standardbearer.

An Ed Notes correspondent from Newark is a horrified-at-Bloomberg-for- president fellow traveler has been feeding me stories. Remember the charges by Bernie people in 2016 that the super delegates - un-elected and appointed by party powers - played a role in guaranteeing the nomination for Hillary - (she did win more delegates in the primary but the supers put her over the top.)

I republished an article from New Republic the other day (A Brokered Convention Opening for Bloomberg, Obama People Hate Warren, Clinton People Hate Bernie - Analysis from New Republic) pointing to the Bloomberg candidacy as relying on a broken convention where the 700 super delegates pick the candidate. When we went to see Randi at the CUNY Labor Institute on Nov. 15 she talked about her playing a big role in establishing "fairer" rules for super delegates (of which she is one) where they don't get to vote on the first ballot. Thus the super dels interest is also in a non-win for anyone on the first ballot so they get to choose.

This ties into her "freeing" locals for endorsing their own candidate - and I reported on the LA and NYC differing approaches by Labor for Bernie people - I handed this out at the UFT Del Ass: Labor for Bernie UFT members call for a democratic presidential endorsement process.

In her memo to AFT members Randi said she hoped all groups would unite behind the candidate chosen. Do we think that would happen in LA? Maybe, but if it is Bloomberg, chaos will break out and I bet a third party candidate somewhere. I would still bet on a Klobuchar as being a choice for the super delegates and give the anti-union Bloomberg zero chance for the nomination --- maybe this is only about him getting enough delegates to team up with the super delegates to deny Warren or Bernie the nomination. After all, Bloomberg has more to lose in wealth from a Bernie/Warren win and is investing his money now in an effort to stop them. Imagine the centrist candidates putting their delegates together to team up.

My correspondent sent me this article published Nov. 25 on

Who has more to fear from Bloomberg: The Democrats or Trump?

While rival campaigns in the 2020 race dismissed Tom Steyer's money and Deval Patrick's late entry, they're not as quick to write off Bloomberg's billions.
"The businessman has also taken the unusual strategy of skipping the early states, like Iowa and New Hampshire, to run a national campaign focused on winning delegates to next year’s Democratic National Convention. That has some wondering if he’s hoping to win at a potential contested convention when superdelegates— insiders presumably more amenable to his message— would get to vote."

 I followed a link in that article to an Aug. 25 article by the same author that is worth checking out. Since the convention is in the summer, that leaves a lot in the air just months before the election and gives Trump a real advantage since no matter the Dem choice, a whole bunch of people won't be very happy.

(Is there a split of sorts coming to the Dem party post election if Trump wins? And even if the Dems win there will still be political chaos with the new president and by 2024 who knows?)

Nomination chaos? Democrats fear primaries won't produce a clear winner.

That could leave matters in the hands of hundreds of unelected super delegates to pick the party's candidate to take on Trump.

Aug. 25, 2019, 8:01 AM EDT

By Alex Seitz-Wald

 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/speed-dating-candidates-connect-early-super-delegates-amid-fear-convention-n1046016

Impeachment Crisis and American Imperialism -- World Socialist

It's the economics, stupid.

Do we think Bolton (don't forget who Fiona Hill worked for and with), who is the classic case for being Dr. Strangelove, is now our friend? Or the FBI, CIA, NSA are suddenly the good guys?

I've been trying to listen to all sides and of course the Republicans are a joke -- admit Trump did a quid quo pro and then fight on the grounds it is not impeachable. Actually, why didn't Trump just announce there should be an investigation of Biden - why seek phony cover from Ukrainians? You actually don't need to do an investigation - you cast the shade on Biden.

There are historians who believe that economics has been the driving force in all historical movements. While I haven't studied Marx very much, he seems to be a leading proponent and many even right wing economists give him some kudos for his analysis of historical movements and the economic basis of capitalism, which includes imperialism - but of course so do the so-called socialist states which have their own version -- see China with its fingers in every pie.

While I signed on to the fundamental narrative from the Democrats on the Trump impeachment, I always am open to alternate interpretations, especially when they come from the left which has been skeptical for 100 years of the FBI, CIA, NSA and general anti-Soviet, not Russia views.

[Read the other side - Stevens is a conservative: The United States Is Starting to Look Like Ukraine

Why the president must be impeached and removed.

By Bret Stephens]

The left was under attack for most of the history by these same forces and that the right is feeling attacked now makes for delicious irony. But many areas of the left (as opposed to the liberals) are still skeptical and in another irony are buying into some of the Trump defense narrative. In the next few posts I am going to share some of those views - not because I buy all of them but to show that we should not jump automatically because we hate Trump. For Bernie people if you listen carefully you will find some elements of careful disagreement by him on the attacks on Trump for wanting to talk to the enemies list put forth by the Democratic Party which the Republicans used to be aligned with. (Trump people rarely attack Bernie because he is considered a maverick and possibly because he is a missile ultimately aimed at the Democratic Party.)

Articles have been floating in from some of the leftists associated with the ICEUFT caucus over the years that throw some shade on the Dem narrative. Some big name skeptics are out there like Matt Taibbi and Glen Greenwald.

Below is an article from the World Socialist web site which I don't always trust - so read through the lines here to filter out what makes sense and what doesn't - a lot of this makes sense to me because when the fall of the Soviet Union occurred, supposedly Bush 1 assured Yeltsin that we would not try to bring Ukraine into NATO which would allow it even as an independent to be a buffer for Russia. But the old cold warriors wanted to align Ukraine with the US and Europe and the crisis began in 2014 with the overthrow of the Russian vassal president. Not we viewed that as a good thing but remember that imperialist battles are always over resources and Ukraine has major resources which this article points out.

Note on Bolivia -- a big resource is lithium for all those batteries - and Morales wasn't going to allow major corps to get control of that resource. And Venezuela- oil, oil, oil. And socialist-type governments no matter how bad maintain control of their resources if they can while your standard dictator will allow multinationals to bribe them to get control. That is one reason that any state that even touches on socialism with its major tenet of state control of resources is viewed as such a danger to the economic interests of the few.

Opinion -The impeachment crisis and American imperialism

informationclearinghouse.info/52591.htm

By Patrick Martin

Memo from the RTC: A Weekend of Mirth and Merriment

The WAVE - Nov. 22, 2019

Memo from the RTC: A Weekend of Mirth and Merriment
By Norm Scott

Are you having trouble finding reasons to laugh in today’s troubled world? Then get yourself down to the Rockaway Theatre Company this weekend for the final performances of the hysterical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” I hadn’t intended to write about the show due to the superb weekly coverage, Backstage With the RTC, by Fionnuala O’Leary which has given us so many insights into the performers and other movers and shakers at the theater.

As one of the videographers, I taped opening night. But looking through a camera and not having the best location to hear everything well I don’t always get the nuances and subtleties of a show. So I always go back as a regular audience member and I did so last Saturday night, accompanied by my wife and four friends. We joined the rest of the audience in laughing our heads off. With the cold and dark days we have entered, being able to laugh so freely for a couple of hours put me in a great mood for the entire weekend.

Actually, the weekend began early Saturday morning on a great note with a yoga class with Barry at Burn Fitness followed by a group of us going out for great breakfast at The Last Stop. So I was very relaxed and ready to laugh Saturday night when we hit the theater after dinner at Tiberios. I was still smiling Sunday morning for a 7:30 hot yoga class with Missy at Hot Yoga Rockaway Beach. And the smiles turned to wild laughter later that afternoon when we went to Symphony Space in the city to see the political review and hilarious song parodies of The Capitol Steps. We especially love the enormously talented leader of the group, Mike Thornton, who is a friend of a family member. (We got to meet him last summer when he emceed a memorial tribute to a family member who died). He and his troop wowed us for an hour and a half with songs such as “Oops I Tweeted Again”, “Fiscal Shades of Gray” and “Impeachable You.” Following a seafood dinner on Amsterdam Avenue I returned to Rockaway as a very happy fella and feeling I had to share some of the joy.

But the linchpin of the weekend was Spelling Bee (wish I could share some of the funny lines but I don’t want to ruin it for you) and I had to come back to this space to rave about the show, especially the nine performers and the enormously talented Catherine Leib in her first time directing and multiple time choreographing. Catherine has delighted us on stage for thirteen years, so seeing the outcome of her work behind the scenes is wonderful.

Now I don’t have room here to talk about the nine cast members and Fionnuala has been giving them space in her weekly profiles but I do want to make a general point about how the actors playing children manage to pull it off to an extraordinary extent. And of course the three adults in the room are also extraordinary. Having seen most of these performers in other roles that are so different from these only emphasizes what great actors they are.

One more point that I gather every week from Fionnoula’s reporting is how these actors emphasize the supportive environment the RTC provides. Seeing them look so confident on stage you might not realize that actors are often insecure and need a cocoon of sorts to make them brave enough to take on greater challenges than they might have thought they were capable of. This comes through time and again. So the real star of the RTC is the RTC itself.

This show ends the RTC season and Monday Tony Homsey and crew will take down the fabulous set that mimics a real school gym and start building sets for the upcoming children’s shows in January and February. See you next year unless there is some new RTC news to report.

Norm posts writes on politics, education and whatever pops into his head on his blog https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/

A Brokered Convention Opening for Bloomberg, Obama People Hate Warren, Clinton People Hate Bernie - Analysis from New Republic

Democratic Party elders are making plans.

I loved this insight from Alex Pareene at New Republic. Hillary people can live with Warren but never Sanders. Obama people will do what they can to stop Warren - which he doesn't explain the reasons for but the bad blood from Obama abandoning her and her response still stings. And both camps have given up on Biden. (That there are even competing center camps and competing leftist camps in the Party bodes well for Trump.)

He explains why the Deval Patrick entry - combined with the Obama attack on the left -  makes sense only in a certain context. He theorizes they want to hurt Warren in the New England states and also offer another Black alternative in Nevada and South Carolina to drain from Warren who is making some inroads now. Obama people aren't worried about Bernie because they don't take him seriously. Then he explains the Bloomberg entry too.

Both candidates have a hope in a brokered convention where no one can win on the first ballot. Last week I was at an event where Randi spoke and she said she played a major role in the rule that super delegates can't vote on the first round but then can -- so there is a strategy here --- aim for no one on first round and then broker who they want in round two or three.
Should be fun.

There’s Only One Way the Patrick and Bloomberg Campaigns Make Sense:  Democratic Party elders are making plans.
By Alex Pareene
November 20, 2019

https://newrepublic.com/article/155789/theres-one-way-patrick-bloomberg-campaigns-make-sense

I’m going to write something annoying. I’m going to write some horse-race campaign analysis. I’m going to write very broadly and subjectively about trends in the race without using hard data or discussing policy. I’m doing so because I think what I am describing has a possibility of happening, and I think people who are invested in this presidential election should be prepared for it.

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To be very overly broad (I am, I am aware, describing the beliefs and motives of a large and diverse set of individuals), “Clinton World” detests Bernie Sanders, is largely on board with Kamala Harris, but has no real problem with Elizabeth Warren and would greet her nomination without much rancor.

“Obama World” doesn’t share this perspective. It doesn’t take Sanders seriously, and thinks of him—even with some affection—as a harmless crank. It, however, strongly dislikes Warren. I don’t want to say it would stop at nothing to prevent her from winning the nomination, but there are a lot of ancient tensions between the two camps that are far from settled.

If it is the growing consensus among many top Democrats in those two worlds that Joe Biden does not have it in him to win the nomination (or the general election), there are a couple of obvious paths forward: Boost the prospects of the “mainstream” candidate most likely to win if Biden fades or Option B, which we will get to in a minute.

In Clinton World, it seems obvious to continue to offer support to Kamala Harris, or to hope for Amy Klobuchar to surge, or perhaps get behind Warren. It would be smarter for anyone in the anybody-but-Sanders camp to throw in with Warren now, given the fact that the Harris and Klobuchar campaigns have entered a decaying orbit. But for many, those two senators still “make sense on paper,” so seemingly smart people are still convinced something might come of them.

But what should Obama World do if it sees Harris (or Cory Booker, or Julián Castro, both of whom are viewed with favor by this camp) struggling to gain traction? Many of this cohort seem to like Mayor Pete Buttigieg and would find his nomination acceptable. Nevertheless, they surely originally envisioned him as, perhaps, a future Senate candidate, or a running mate at best. It can’t be lost on them that the primary calendar after New Hampshire and Iowa becomes rough sledding for a candidate whose entire base of support is white. Still, they can’t back Warren; Sanders is an unserious option; Biden has perhaps lost it.

So: Enter Deval Patrick. But not to actually win the nomination in the primary process. No, this is Option B.