The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Sep 13, 2019 11:01 am

an ad where a woman invoked being Cambodian and then equated one of history’s most evil despots to AOC was just so........... vulgar?

Elizabeth Heng is a conservative Republican ran for Congress against Democrat Jim Costa in California’s 16th District and lost


Why on Earth Did an Ad Showing AOC’s Face Burning Air During the Debate?
Sarah Jones11:30 P.M.

Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Midway through Thursday night’s Democratic debate on ABC, the channel aired a startling ad from a Republican political action committee. The ad, purchased by the New Faces PAC, starts out with a with a still of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s official congressional portrait — then sets it on fire:


CPD Action
@CPDAction
The Republican New Faces PAC debuted by burning @AOC's face.
Embedded video

379
8:30 PM - Sep 12, 2019

The next scene shows a heap of skulls, and then cuts to Elizabeth Heng, a failed Republican candidate for California’s 16th congressional district. In ominous tones, Heng, the daughter of a Cambodian dissident, recalls the violence of the Khmer Rouge regime and warns against socialism in the U.S. The implication is clear: Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist, represents a real and serious threat to the U.S., and if she and other leftists grow their power, mass murder is inevitable.

It’s a uniquely odious example of an old conservative habit. But that habit isn’t merely obnoxious — it puts the congresswoman at risk, too. Ocasio-Cortez, along with other members of her left-leaning congressional “squad,” already receives a high number of death threats; by allowing this PAC to air an ad that links her to genocidal violence in Cambodia, ABC grants undeserved legitimacy to ideas that make her a target.

Further complicating matters, the Freedom From Religion Foundation — a legal advocacy group that promotes separation of church and state — claims the channel rejected two of its proposed ads for the same night. And later in its broadcast, ABC aired an ad funded by NumbersUSA, an anti-immigration organization. Political Research Associations has reported that the group’s president, Roy Beck, once spoke to a white nationalist group and formerly edited The Social Contract, a journal that puts out what the Southern Poverty Law Center has called “race-baiting articles penned by white nationalists.”

On Twitter, Ocasio-Cortez has already responded, noting the irony of a Republican PAC doing outreach to minorities by smearing a woman of color:


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

@AOC
Republicans are running TV ads setting pictures of me on fire to convince people they aren’t racist.

Life is weird!


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

@AOC
Know that this wasn’t an ad for young conservatives of color - that was the pretense.

What you just watched was a love letter to the GOP’s white supremacist case. https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1172322668038647814
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

@AOC
Republicans are running TV ads setting pictures of me on fire to convince people they aren’t racist.

Life is weird!

Others expressed shock at the ad, and ABC’s decision to run it:


Mehdi Hasan

@mehdirhasan
Trump officials and GOP senators were asked to leave a few restaurants and we had a whole news cycle about a lack of 'civility' on the part of the left.

The GOP, on the other hand, just set @AOC's face on fire.#bothsides https://twitter.com/CPDAction/status/11 ... 4825787392
CPD Action
@CPDAction
The Republican New Faces PAC debuted by burning @AOC's face.
Embedded video


UltraViolet

@UltraViolet
This ad is abhorrent. Literally burning @AOC and promoting violence against a sitting member of congress. How did you let this on the air @ABCNetwork? #DemDebate https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/11 ... 4469974017
jordan

@JordanUhl
This is the very strange PAC ad featuring a burning pic of @AOC that aired during the #DemDebate:
Embedded video


Bend the Arc: Jewish Action
@jewishaction
This is the ad @ABC allowed to run during tonight's #DemDebate: right-wing propaganda depicting @AOC set on fire, burning into images of skeletons.

This is right out of the white nationalist playbook. No news network should be profiting off such hatred.
Embedded video


The PAC’s ad was ostensibly meant to counter the argument that the GOP is a racist political party. But they’ll need to do more than put Elizabeth Heng in front of camera to make that argument. If they’re truly concerned about the party’s image, they haven’t exactly done their cause any favors.
https://www.thecut.com/2019/09/aoc-repu ... bates.html



Who Is Elizabeth Heng, the Woman Behind the Strange Ad Comparing AOC to the Khmer Rouge?
Joshua KeatingSept 13, 201912:29 AM
Image
Elizabeth Heng.
Screenshot from Newfacespac.com
On the debate stage in Houston, Bernie Sanders frustratedly batted away any comparisons between his brand of “democratic socialism” and that of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. But that was mild stuff compared with the red-baiting going on during the commercial breaks, when viewers were treated to a commercial in which Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s face goes up in flames, replaced by images of skulls from the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.



“This is the face of socialism and ignorance,” intones narrator Elizabeth Heng. “Does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez know the horror of socialism? My father was minutes from death in Cambodia before a forced marriage saved his life. That’s socialism. Forced obedience. Starvation. Mine is a face of freedom. My skin is not white. I’m not outrageous, racist or socialist. I’m a Republican.”

The ad was produced by New Faces GOP, Heng’s new PAC, which was created in March and touts itself as trying to bring younger voters and people of color into the Republican Party. Who is Heng, you might ask? She’s a former staffer for Rep. Ed Royce, worked on Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, and ran unsuccessfully in the 2018 election against Democratic incumbent Jim Costa in California’s 16th Congressional district. As a young, minority woman, and the daughter of refugees, running as a Trump supporter, Heng attracted some national media attention during the midterms, with the Wall Street Journal even suggesting she could be “an Ocasio-Cortez for the GOP.” There was also some controversy when Facebook blocked one of her campaign ads, which told her parents’ story, because it featured graphic imagery of the Cambodian genocide.

In 2018, Heng ran as a relative moderate, focusing on issues like clean water, education, and supporting a legislative solution to give legal status to young immigrants covered under DACA.

But comparing AOC’s politics, which would be considered center left in many other Western countries, to a genocidal totalitarian regime that killed as many as 2 million people, is not moderate. It’s ludicrous and reprehensible. Perhaps Heng should ask the president she supports why he is so quick to defend the leader of an actual totalitarian, Communist regime.

The Daily Beast reports that “New Faces GOP appears to be purely a Heng-related venture,” with many of its funders and staffers carried over from her congressional campaign. After the ad aired, the GOP’s AOC carried on a brief feud with the original AOC on Twitter:


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

@AOC
Know that this wasn’t an ad for young conservatives of color - that was the pretense.

What you just watched was a love letter to the GOP’s white supremacist case. https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1172322668038647814
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

@AOC
Republicans are running TV ads setting pictures of me on fire to convince people they aren’t racist.

Life is weird!

22.7K
8:37 PM - Sep 12, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy

6,951 people are talking about this


Elizabeth Heng

@ElizabethHeng
Not Republicans. Me. Are you really calling me a racist @aoc? I’m calling all Democrats out for supporting an evil ideology. Or are you just in Congress to hang out with celebrities and tweet out ridiculous ideas like the green new deal? https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1172323323641905165
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

@AOC
Know that this wasn’t an ad for young conservatives of color - that was the pretense.

What you just watched was a love letter to the GOP’s white supremacist case. https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1172322668038647814

12.6K
8:57 PM - Sep 12, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy

7,131 people are talking about this

If the goal of the ad was to get people talking about Elizabeth Heng, it was a rousing success.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... oices.html
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby The Consul » Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:45 pm

Imagine if dem pac ran the following:

Close up image of Trump
Image starts to tear & peel apart
Giving way to

Montage of marching Nazis
Footage of unburied dead at Auschwitz

Voice Over:
President Trump saying
There were fine people on both sides
Repeat (more images)
Cut to:
Tiki Nazis in Charlotte chanting Jews will not replace us
Snip...."very fine people"
CUT TO:
CAR roaring through crowd backwards
Cut back to image of Trump
Black Screen
Blood colored letters appear:

It can happen here
" Morals is the butter for those who have no bread."
— B. Traven
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Oct 04, 2019 7:20 am

Matthew Sweet

It’s that moment when your obscure research subject pops up in the news. Yesterday @AOC was confronted by a woman claiming to be a climate activist at a town hall meeting. Her proposal to solve the climate crisis - “eat the babies”.

Image

. @AOC did not denounce this woman. She thought that she was suffering from some kind of mental illness, and treated her kindly. But all kinds of figures on the right and the alt-right have pounced on the story. Including the President.
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So who was this woman? Not a climate activist. Not even, perhaps, someone with a mental illness. She is a representative of the bizarre political cult once led by Lyndon LaRouche. Previous targets for this kind of stunt include @Janefonda Olof Palme & Michael Dukakis. Now @AOC.

Image
The LaRouchies are pretty exotic. They believe that the Queen controls the drugs trade. They think Prince Philip wants to start WW3. They think Bertrand Russell used the Beatles as part of a secret British psy war against the USA. They are, to use a technical term, nuts.

Image
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The LaRouchies have been enemies of the green movement for decades. They used to carry signs that read “Feed Jane Fonda to the whales”. It’s linked with their conspiracy theory about the Queen’s “green fascism”. Piers Corbyn, by the way, was a member of their Facebook group.

The LaRouche group was once a fairly ordinary revolutionary Marxist group. In the early days Bernie Sanders subscribed to their literature. Then came the great Brainwashing Affair of 1974, when members were convinced they had been programmed to kill by the CIA.

Commercial message - all this is in my book, Operation Chaos, told through the courageous testimony of those who survived this madness. (And some who still insist on the Queen’s super villain status.) @picadorbooks @HenryHolt https://www.amazon.co.uk/Operation-Chao ... 1627794638

Image
point here is that a small, weird, politically unclassifiable - once Marxist, now more often described as neo-fascist and antisemitic - has spent nearly five decades pulling these stunts. Democrat Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was a notable victim.

Image
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The LaRouchies are now firm Trump supporters - though Putin is their first love.

Image
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And here they are, making headlines again. And still crazy after all these years.

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https://twitter.com/DrMatthewSweet/stat ... 2707024897

It also shows, I suppose, the residual intellectualism of their little movement - the whole stunt is a call back to Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Thomas Malthus - along with Bertrand Russell and the Queen - is one of their gallery of villains.
https://twitter.com/DrMatthewSweet/stat ... 2904020996
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:52 am

.

The cynics among us may not be surprised. It appears, along with glossy photo spreads and Netflix 'documentaries', a grooming is in progress.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/14 ... drop-dead/


FEBRUARY 14, 2020

Ocasio-Cortez to Constituents on Bolivian Coup: Drop Dead

BY JACOB LEVICH


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the celebrity who moonlights as my Congressional representative, has repeatedly claimed to speak for “ordinary people,” but she refuses listen to them, even if they are constituents.

In late November, shortly after the US-backed military coup that unseated the legitimate president of Bolivia, I together with my life companion requested a meeting with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, whose local offices are located just a short walk from our Jackson Heights apartment building. Working on behalf of a group of anti-imperialists opposing the fascist junta, we hoped to persuade her of the need to act quickly to thwart the coup and defend the lives and rights of the Bolivian people.

Although we never got past the reception desk, we were permitted to present a petition signed by leading academics and anti-imperialist organizers on behalf of the people of Bolivia. We provided all personal data and contact info requested by the office. We were promised that we would be contacted promptly to discuss scheduling a meeting.

We were not contacted. For weeks. After pressing the issue, always taking care to remain courteous and respectful of process, we were subjected to a galling and contemptuous bureaucratic runaround that sometimes felt like applying to – and being rejected by – an exclusive private school.

This three-month process involved repeated visits to her office, where our reception ranged from chilly to downright intimidating, endless emails and telephone calls, bureaucratic excuses and dissimulations, and eventually, after much persistence on our part, a half-hour vetting via conference call by a Washington staffer.

The result? As we say in Queens, bubkes.

By contrast, a group of imperialist sympathizers who had been promoting the coup for months were granted instant access. On November 16, four days after the military coup that destroyed Bolivian democracy, Ocasio-Cortez met with a group of pro-Áñez, pro-Camacho activists led by one Ana Carola Traverso. Traverso’s connections to the Bolivian coup plotters have been extensively documented online.

It's almost as if these fascists have a war room in Brooklyn https://t.co/E6CwIkGjoI pic.twitter.com/LkVjgUQB4i

— bak (@measure7x) November 17, 2019

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez symbolically embraced the coup by posing for a photo with this group as they brandished the tricolor Bolivian flag, which during that period had become a signal of support for the golpistas (as opposed to the Wiphala flag, which symbolized popular resistance to the takeover). She told them that she supports their “democratic grassroots movement” and offered them “direct lines of communication.”

In sum, a gang of coup supporters, not constituents, were granted instant access, a photo op and promises of ongoing support. Actual constituents, opposing the coup, were shown the door.

Our reception by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was radically different from that I received from her predecessor, Joe Crowley. When, in 2004, I requested a meeting on behalf of the Queens Antiwar Coalition, we were granted prompt and respectful access to the Congressman. We did not have high hopes of changing his vote on the Iraq, but we felt it was important that he hear from his constituents.

So, apparently, did he. We were greeted warmly in his rather funky local office – a striking contrast with AOC’s soulless corporate-style digs, where underlings refer to her as “the Boss” – and were encouraged to speak our piece. Crowley never pretended to be an opponent of US imperialism, but he gave us a respectful hearing, stated his position, and engaged in what felt like meaningful discussion of the war. At a minimum, as Twitter’s bluecheck pundits would say, we felt “seen.”

AOC, by contrast, has no time for people who cannot help her to burnish her brand as she prepares to run for higher office. As a local staffer (who declined to introduce himself) proudly informed us: “She refuses 99 percent of meeting requests from constituents.”

Meanwhile, she happily clears her schedule for interviews about her makeup routine, canned videos in which she postures as a fearless progressive, and closed-door meetings with regime-change sympathizers.

But she will not make time for residents of her district. So much for “ordinary people.”


Jacob Levich is a university administrator who has lived in New York’s 14th Congressional District for more than 20 years.

Jacob Levich is a university administrator and independent researcher who tweets as @cordeliers.


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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby DrEvil » Mon Nov 02, 2020 6:44 am

^^That's a little weird, as she was one of the first US politicians to condemn the coup:

What’s happening right now in Bolivia isn’t democracy, it’s a coup.

The people of Bolivia deserve free, fair, and peaceful elections - not violent seizures of power.

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1193973410793238528
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Mon Nov 02, 2020 9:44 am

.

This article addresses the above tweet, and corroborates the story of the Counterpunch piece.

Managing optics, one of the first principles of politics:

https://orinocotribune.com/alexandria-o ... rganizers/


On November 16th, a figure named Ana Carola Traverso tweeted a photograph of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez standing next to her and several other people while holding the Bolivian flag, with the photo’s description going as follows: “We met @AOC to discuss Bolivia and expressed concerns over her earlier tweet. Also chatted about current violence & democracy. She strongly supports our democratic grassroots movement and urges the interim president to stick to their mandate and call for new elections!”

Traverso is an obscure, semi-public figure who’s been described as a “sociologist.” Little can be found online about her other political activities, other than that she opened the 2016 Southeast Alaska Catholic Conference and was recognized by one newspaper for having done “work to improve the quality of the environment in her community” in 2017. However, the content of her recent tweet reveals much about what her agenda is. And it shows what kind of agenda Ocasio-Cortez just endorsed.

The “earlier tweet” that Traverso referred to is no doubt one that Ocasio-Cortez made on November 11th, which said: “What’s happening right now in Bolivia isn’t democracy, it’s a coup. The people of Bolivia deserve free, fair, and peaceful elections – not violent seizures of power.” None of what Ocasio-Cortez said in this tweet was untrue. Morales’ right-wing opponents had just falsely claimed electoral fraud so that they could justify a campaign of violent political terrorism against the family and supporters of Morales, and so that they could threaten Bolivia’s democratically elected president into resigning. This coup, which was carried out with U.S. support by fascist Christian paramilitary leader Luis Fernando Camacho, has resulted in the installment of an unelected regime that’s headed by the far-right Catholic politician Jeanine Áñez Chávez.

Traverso‘s group is called Standing Rivers, which doesn’t seem to be directly affiliated with Camacho. And since Ocasio-Cortez herself hasn’t publicly mentioned her meeting with the group, it’s hard to tell exactly which motivations went into her deciding to meet with them. But since they got Ocasio-Cortez to go back on her factual observation about Bolivia and embrace the U.S. empire’s false narrative about Morales having been a “dictator,” they evidently play a part in Bolivia’s reactionary movement to suppress indigenous people and install a capitalist government.

Ocasio-Cortez was likely persuaded to meet with this group because they presented themselves as a moderate organization, one that has “progressive” credentials because of its affiliation with a sociologist who’s helped the environment. (Traverso’s Facebook posts that attack Morales from an environmental angle give this theory more credence.) But its affiliation with the racist and imperialist strains of the Bolivian opposition are undeniable, and Traverso’s past promotions of Catholicism are notable in a context where Bolivia is being taken over by a fascist Catholic government. Traverso may like that her religious agenda is now receiving favor over the indigenous culture that Chávez’ regime has been violently desecrating.

Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t so far used her platform to promote Bolivia’s fascist movement, but her somewhat secretive meeting with this group of Bolivian fascism associates served a purpose that greatly benefits Chávez’ regime: it establishes ties between the Bolivian capitalist class and the leadership of the “progressive” movement within the United States. It assures the coup perpetrators that no significant part of the American political class seriously opposes them, despite the objections to the coup that some “progressive” U.S. politicians initially voiced.

It’s not like this should come as any surprise. The statements against the coup that were put out on Twitter by Illan Omar, Bernie Sanders, and Ocasio-Cortez all included a notable caveat: the suggestion that Bolivians are in need of fair elections. For Ocasio-Cortez it was “The people of Bolivia deserve free, fair, and peaceful elections,” for Omar it was “Bolivians deserve free and fair elections,” and for Sanders it was “The U.S. must call for an end to violence and support Bolivia’s democratic institutions.”

Since these analyses don’t specify who is responsible for having recently made Bolivia’s democratic institutions unreliable, they give credence to the standard narrative that Morales rigged the election.

This rhetorical concession to the regime change engineers shows that America’s major “progressive” politicians aren’t truly willing to oppose the U.S. empire, that they’ll treat a U.S. regime change project as legitimate if it’s politically convenient for them to do so. Sanders has demonstrated this by repeatedly pushing the line that Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro is a “tyrant” who needs to be removed some way or another.

This endorsement of regime change narratives under the guise of “nuance” has become the standard way that American liberals have portrayed the Bolivia coup. And it’s likely how Ocasio-Cortez has been able to rationalize meeting with Bolivian coup supporters; supposedly these people offer a “nuanced” perspective that deserves to be listened to.


For the poor and indigenous people who’ve been rounded up into pogroms by the Bolivian pro-coup forces, and for the lower class Bolivians whose livelihoods are being threatened by the coming of a far-right neoliberal government, Traverso and others like her are unambiguously the enemy.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Elvis » Tue Nov 03, 2020 12:06 am

We all get bad information, we all get fooled from time to time. It should be no surprise that Congressional representatives often get no better information than us regular folks (or, probably worse, since they get briefed by the 'pros').

Vigilance is good, but what's the take here? That AOC is a 'long con' secretly helping to usher in the new dictatorship of neoliberal feudalism? I'm not buying that. (I do hear that in places.) And I would take a close look at who is attacking the tiny handful of leftists in Congress. Beware the 'shiraz socialists' and all that.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Nov 03, 2020 10:59 am

.

Is it possible this is a case of simply obtaining "bad information"? Sure. I'm not in a position to know one way or another.

(though the carefully worded text in her tweet Re: Bolivia's election process -- per a passage in the article above -- suggests a certain mgmt of content; this goes beyond "bad information")

There's a trend line beginning to form in her arc thus far. It starts with the acknowledgement that she's a member of one of the 2 (utterly compromised, and frankly criminal) Establishment Parties. However authentic her start as a public servant may have been, the potential for compromise and complicity in Party Line tactics increases in probability with time.

I simply do not, and can not, believe for a moment that any member of either Establishment Party can enact "change from within" once dealing with national concerns that go beyond the confines/interests of local constituents.

Locally? Sure. There's opportunity for local change.

But it's clear her sights are set higher than that, and such 'higher sights' may not be fully of her own agency at this point; there may well be others involved in helping to manage her image/trajectory. There's been quite a bit of investment in the management of her brand.

Regardless, at this point there remains the prospect -- incrementally diminishing -- of plausible deniability. We can only speculate right now (though some have already staked firm claims one way or the other on the extent of her authenticity as a voice of the people).

The possibility remains she -- and the other 'up and comers' -- help mold the Party to minimally enact policies beneficial to the majority. Or, she becomes one of the prominent new 'faces' of a new form of dystopia currently being introduced and disseminated as I type. Jury's still out.

Note: I'm not simply referring to the "compromise" needed to get deals done. I'm no purist. I'm talking about becoming a member of The Club. A club that none of us will ever be asked to join.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Elvis » Thu Nov 05, 2020 2:10 am

Want change?—change the law.
AOC is there to change the law.
It's all about changing the law.
Congress makes law.
She has to work within the existing game.
If the alternative is doing nothing, I'm glad she's at least trying.

Two more years!!
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby mentalgongfu2 » Thu Nov 05, 2020 4:51 am

There's a trend line beginning to form in her arc thus far. It starts with the acknowledgement that she's a member of one of the 2 (utterly compromised, and frankly criminal) Establishment Parties. However authentic her start as a public servant may have been, the potential for compromise and complicity in Party Line tactics increases in probability with time.


Wait - so your starting point is that anyone who runs and is elected as Democrat or Republican is likely compromised/criminal? I would think such a view is quite limiting, especially having known people in real life who have become state and federal senators/representatives. I think you're making a wildly generalized assumption, having known people in real life who have run for and in some cases been elected to important office.

Sure, there can be pressure from the Party, and toeing the party line can make a difference in one's advancement. I don't think AOC has exactly toed the party line or shown herself to be particularly open to such tactics. I could be wrong -- but I don't think anyone in the D party has been a bigger advocate in the last year for the regular person, both in rhetoric and votes. I can't fathom why people hate her so much, except that pro-corporate Republican leaders constantly beat the drum against her
I simply do not, and can not, believe for a moment that any member of either Establishment Party can enact "change from within" once dealing with national concerns that go beyond the confines/interests of local constituents.

Locally? Sure. There's opportunity for local change.

But it's clear her sights are set higher than that, and such 'higher sights' may not be fully of her own agency at this point; there may well be others involved in helping to manage her image/trajectory. There's been quite a bit of investment in the management of her brand.


Seems to me you're saying that anyone who ever rises to the place where they could potentially change things beyond the local environment simply can't be trusted, by virtue of them having enough support to where they actually might be able to try. Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but I find that self-defeating and personally do not share this view of how government works. While our system is fucked on many levels, it is not fucked on all of them, and the basics of voting and supporting/opposing our reps and their policies do matter. If one can't buy into that at least on a theoretical level, then we might as well get the next civil war over with, and frankly, the fascists are going to win because they are much more well prepared.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:09 am

.

Valid points raised, and without getting into an exposition of my (evolving) views on this, I'll simply clarify your initial statement here:

so your starting point is that anyone who runs and is elected as Democrat or Republican is likely compromised/criminal?


No, that's not it. I've alluded to this previously, but particularly at the local level, the probability is the majority of public servants that embark in their career in politics start off with a set of ideals/objectives. But as one ascends to ranks that address 'cross-border'/interstate interests, the potential for corruption increases.

As I typed in my prior response:
However authentic [one's] start as a public servant may have been, the potential for compromise and complicity in Party Line tactics increases in probability with time.


I also stated:
I simply do not, and can not, believe for a moment that any member of either Establishment Party can enact "change from within" once dealing with national concerns that go beyond the confines/interests of local constituents.

Locally? Sure. There's opportunity for local change.


(the potential for corruption also increases in time at the local level as well, of course. Such is the nature of politics).

That said, I imagine there are a number of politicians across both parties, even with respect to issues of National concern, that maintain an 'ethical core', albeit in revised form. There will always be compromise in politics. Compromise can help push through needed change. Again, I'm not referring to "compromise" to help push through policy/legislation.

I'm referring to the core M.O. of our govt -- and how the primary drivers, the primary donors, the primary spheres of influence are often in sharp contrast with the interests of The People.

In my view, YES: it cannot be fixed 'within the system'. The system is set up -- since its inception -- as a tool for subjugation and control, despite the ideals of perhaps many that may step into their political careers with other conditioned views.

*This is merely my current opinion, typed anonymously in this obscure forum. It's of minimal consequence.*

"Change" is an interesting prospect. Substantive change will require collective agreement en masse. We're simply too fractured right now as citizens. Even here, in this minor RI garden we've curated, there's ongoing disagreement*. Too much white noise and fear mongering out there keeping signals mixed.

The tactics employed -- historically, and always evolving -- are practically insurmountable and very well-funded. But perhaps we'll reach an inflection point where opportunity may arise. Unfortunately, things will likely need to get far worse for that to happen. Not enough large-scale discomfort quite yet.


*disagreement is expected, and part of the human condition; I'm referring here to agreement necessary to enact and carry out a movement for substantive change. I can barely type those last few words without the temptation to place them in air quotes. Cynicism too formidable.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Elvis » Thu Nov 05, 2020 3:41 pm

I should amend my earlier comment: it's not all about the law; it's also about some individual's action that in one way or another changes people's minds.

Popular agreement is too often achieved through limiting thought ("look at this!—don't look at that!"). I imagine a sort of "Enlightenment v.2" to achieve popular agreement through expanded thought. How do we social-engineer that?
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Sat Nov 07, 2020 1:10 pm

.

I received this link from a 'fan' of the NY Post.

Yes, it's the NY Post (though lately the NY Post has been arguably more willing to report on certain topics, however slanted, than many other 'news sources' out there).

Yes, they're throwing in vapid/misinformed references to 'communism' to help stir their misinformed demo.

And perhaps this news item is sensationalizing a bit.

BUT: I do not appreciate this rhetoric from AOC, or even any hinting of such rhetoric from ANY public servant.
Period.

https://nypost.com/2020/11/06/aoc-facin ... ycophants/


AOC facing heat for wanting to archive online posts by ‘Trump sycophants’


By Kenneth Garger

November 6, 2020 | 9:45pm

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is facing heat for urging her supporters to create an archive of online postings by “Trump sycophants” who may later regret their affiliation with the president.

“Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future?” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Friday.

“I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future,” the lawmaker wrote.

...

Ocasio-Cortez received a since-deleted response from an ex-staffer of former President Barack Obama, Michael Simon, who shared a link to a site called The Trump Accountability Project.

The site says it aims to embarrass and hold accountable people complicit in the worst behaviors of Trump’s presidency, including his campaign staff, White House staff, donors and even lawyers.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Elvis » Sat Nov 07, 2020 8:21 pm

Belligerent Savant wrote:And perhaps this news item is sensationalizing a bit.

BUT: I do not appreciate this rhetoric from AOC, or even any hinting of such rhetoric from ANY public servant.
Period.

https://nypost.com/2020/11/06/aoc-facin ... ycophants/


AOC facing heat for wanting to archive online posts by ‘Trump sycophants’

By Kenneth Garger

November 6, 2020 | 9:45pm

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is facing heat for urging her supporters to create an archive of online postings by “Trump sycophants” who may later regret their affiliation with the president.

“Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future?” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Friday.

“I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future,” the lawmaker wrote.


I think it's a great idea! We complain about "the memory hole," right? Trump's "campaign staff, White House staff, donors and even lawyers"—all of them should be archived as public historical record.

And sure, why not, to embarass them—if it's embarassing, let's see it! They were once proud to post it.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Sat Nov 07, 2020 10:34 pm

.

The issue I had with it is the allusion to 'listing' average people, not the part about White House staff.

But then again: what makes Trump's staff any different than past and future WH staff? Was Obama and his cabinet not responsible for ending lives overseas unnecessarily, for example? Will not Biden's staff carry out similar (or perhaps even worse -- we shall see) criminal acts on behalf of Empire?

It's the height of absurdity to proclaim only one party's 'staff' is complicit while the other party representatives can gloat with clean hands.

Come on, now.

Any rhetoric involving gathering 'lists' of those openly expressing an opinion is not in any way a 'good' idea.

And it's naive to believe this idea, if carried out, would only be limited to Trump supporters. Eventually it would expand.

(Letter agencies are indexing and aggregating contributions online daily in any event, so much of this is little more than theatrics)
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