The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby PufPuf93 » Sun Jan 06, 2019 12:59 am

I hope that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rocks the House. :yay

AOC also some consternation among intrenchment in the Democratic party, so good for her. :thumbsup

Here is a start.

The Economics of Soaking the Rich
What does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez know about tax policy? A lot.


By Paul Krugman

I have no idea how well Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will perform as a member of Congress. But her election is already serving a valuable purpose. You see, the mere thought of having a young, articulate, telegenic nonwhite woman serve is driving many on the right mad — and in their madness they’re inadvertently revealing their true selves.

Some of the revelations are cultural: The hysteria over a video of AOC dancing in college says volumes, not about her, but about the hysterics. But in some ways the more important revelations are intellectual: The right’s denunciation of AOC’s “insane” policy ideas serves as a very good reminder of who is actually insane.

The controversy of the moment involves AOC’s advocacy of a tax rate of 70-80 percent on very high incomes, which is obviously crazy, right? I mean, who thinks that makes sense? Only ignorant people like … um, Peter Diamond, Nobel laureate in economics and arguably the world’s leading expert on public finance (although Republicans blocked him from an appointment to the Federal Reserve Board with claims that he was unqualified. Really.) And it’s a policy nobody has every implemented, aside from … the United States, for 35 years after World War II — including the most successful period of economic growth in our history.

To be more specific, Diamond, in work with Emmanuel Saez — one of our leading experts on inequality — estimated the optimal top tax rate to be 73 percent. Some put it higher: Christina Romer, top macroeconomist and former head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, estimates it at more than 80 percent.

More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/opin ... dance.html
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Jan 06, 2019 7:14 am

Thanks for starting this thread Puf

She is fantastic and really scares old white republican men :bigsmile


Voting matters


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBeuzWWKrew


And we also have the first Native Americans in Congress ...bout time!


979089FC-FF62-49AC-9430-B7A21B0FF06E.jpeg

C45A4DF1-6802-4EE0-B6C1-41E3F6F46A28.jpeg




https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qNf8YpYFR1E
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Cordelia » Mon Jan 07, 2019 8:21 am

She's dynamite. :thumbsup

Image


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-3Or473VPU


Hope the entrenched men and women over The Hill don't defuse her.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby PufPuf93 » Mon Jan 07, 2019 1:57 pm

AOC is dyno-might!

Cordelia, here is a longer clip from th Anderson Cooper interview.

I think any tension between Pelosi and AOC is a figment of media and the entrenched folks imagination.

I am impressed with Pelosi currently. That has not always been the case. Pelosi has an aggressiveness regards Trump that she lacked with GWB.

:lovehearts: to both.

Hope this turns into a long and uplifting thread at RI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ1LAoHVFgA

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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Jan 08, 2019 8:56 am

POLITICS 01/08/2019 02:26 am ET Updated 1 hour ago
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Hits Back At Sean Hannity With A Radically Honest Correction

The newly minted congresswoman takes on the Fox News host.

By Ed Mazza


Sean Hannity tried to slam the “radical platform” of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Monday night. But if the Fox News host was hoping to put her on the defensive, it didn’t work.

The newly minted lawmaker isn’t backing down from her agenda, even as Hannity misconstrued it. Instead, she offered a couple of corrections:


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Verified account

He’s almost got it!

Just a few corrections:
* Single-payer healthcare
* Ending unjust wars
* 70% *marginal* tax rate on multimillion incomes
Image



On Sunday night, Ocasio-Cortez defended the term “radical.”

“I think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country,” she said in a “60 Minutes” interview with Anderson Cooper. “Abraham Lincoln made the radical decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like Social Security.”

Cooper then asked if she considered herself a “radical.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You know, if that’s what radical means, call me a radical.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/al ... 6c11ef3d62
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Cordelia » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:16 am

PufPuf93 » Mon Jan 07, 2019 4:57 pm wrote:AOC is dyno-might!

Cordelia, here is a longer clip from th Anderson Cooper interview.

I think any tension between Pelosi and AOC is a figment of media and the entrenched folks imagination.

I am impressed with Pelosi currently. That has not always been the case. Pelosi has an aggressiveness regards Trump that she lacked with GWB.

:lovehearts: to both.

Hope this turns into a long and uplifting thread at RI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ1LAoHVFgA



I'm bogged down w/end of year customer tax forms (no IRS customer service to call); have no t.v. and am not keeping up w/news so thanks PufPuf for the video and heads-up on reports of potential animosity within the party. Fact is, I wasn't reading any background stories, so my bad. I recognize I’m prejudiced and jaded due to my own Washington experiences, but still in the frame of mind that Government and media continue working hand in hand to create tensions and the public is manipulated w/agendas planned well in advance. I’m not optimistic about Pelosi and don't trust the plays being staged in Washington right now, so in the spirit of the thread, I’ll bow out...

:praybow

Peace
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:52 am

Cordelia » Tue Jan 08, 2019 8:16 am wrote:
I recognize I’m prejudiced and jaded due to my own Washington experiences, but still in the frame of mind that Government and media continue working hand in hand to create tensions and the public is manipulated w/agendas planned well in advance. I’m not optimistic about Pelosi and don't trust the plays being staged in Washington right now, so in the spirit of the thread, I’ll bow out...

:praybow

Peace


While I admire the idealism on the part of Puf and others (though in full disclosure, I remain in awe that RI members remain so optimistic about the machinations of our pernicious and overtly hostile 'system' -- and I don't mean that as an insult, by any means), I must co-sign Cordelia's quoted bit above.

In a different reality, there should rightly be optimism. In this reality, within this system, I'm afraid this is yet another lure.

It'd be wonderful to be proven wrong, however.

Let's see how this unfolds with the passage of time.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:57 am

My great grandmother widowed and the mother of 8 children....ran a business ...who did not have the right to vote sued the Northwestern Railroad after they stole her land in 1890 and won the first case of defining personal property value in the state of Illinois. I am glad she did not listen to men telling her to just give up...women will never have the power over their own lives

did I mention she saved her family from the Great Chicago Fire by gathering them and standing in the river? Did I mention she survived the Irish "famine"?

passage of time



and it is so nice that this woman did not give up either

Image
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.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:19 am

.

If the above is directed at me, not sure what you're attempting to imply. I'm echoing, and adding to, Cordelia's sentiment (my understanding is that Cordelia is a woman).

I would NEVER suggest anyone -- male or female -- simply 'give up'. In no way was any of my prior commentary a suggestion along these lines.

Let's please keep this thread on topic.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby PufPuf93 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:20 am

"Cordelia wrote:

I recognize I’m prejudiced and jaded due to my own Washington experiences, but still in the frame of mind that Government and media continue working hand in hand to create tensions and the public is manipulated w/agendas planned well in advance. I’m not optimistic about Pelosi and don't trust the plays being staged in Washington right now, so in the spirit of the thread, I’ll bow out...
"

"Belligerent Savant wrote:

While I admire the idealism on the part of Puf and others (though in full disclosure, I remain in awe that RI members remain so optimistic about the machinations of our pernicious and overtly hostile 'system' -- and I don't mean that as an insult, by any means), I must co-sign Cordelia's quoted bit above.

In a different reality, there should rightly be optimism. In this reality, within this system, I'm afraid this is yet another lure.

It'd be wonderful to be proven wrong, however.

Let's see how this unfolds with the passage of time."


AOC is posed as an outsider that says something different and that I find refreshing. I support all the items in the graphic in SLAD's last post but am realistic in that most if any have a snowballs chance in hell in the immdiate but at least the proposed policies are mentioned. I am equally cynical about how folks are messed with and deluded and anthesitized by policians and media, to a degree far past anything my youth (during the Vietnam War era). AOC has been criticized by other Democrats and was said to be against Pelosi as Speaker but that turned out not to be the case. Yeah AOC is the current "bright and shiny" object in the sorry political sphere. AOC said that she might end up being a 2 year Rep and then out, but she would be outspoken during her time. Maybe that is all one can expect? We live is frankly scary and uncertain times. So much has gone wrong and could so easily grow disasterous. I have been down on Pelosi since "impeachment is off the table" regards Bush the Lesser.

Let us see how this unfolds with the passage of time. AOC promises to be outspoken and unjaded. There are few politicians out there that seem to actually care. Please do follow.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:24 am

.

Indeed, Puf: as a former long-time resident of Queens, NY -- and as a father of daughters -- I certainly support her and her ideals, and hope (jaded as I may be) she may indeed spark lasting change.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:26 am

PufPuf93 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:20 am wrote:"I support all the items in the graphic in SLAD's last post


THANK YOU .....as the author of this OP your opinion is the only one that matters to me

Nancy Pelosi doesn't rule out impeaching Trump
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... mp-n954116
Last edited by seemslikeadream on Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:03 am, edited 2 times in total.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
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But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:34 am

The New Right-Wing Horror Show: Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a Smarter, More Beautiful, Charismatic (Woker, Socialist) Trump?

Even when they try to ignore her, they lose. Is there anything conservatives can do to overcome the socialist-leaning, social-media-savvy freshman congresswoman from New York?

Tina NguyenJanuary 7, 2019 6:28 pm
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with Ilhan Omar on Capitol Hill, January 4, 2019.
By Andrew Harnik/AP/REX/Shutterstock.
Last week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offered a master class in the aggressive yet disarming use of social media that has defined her early political career. An anonymous account tweeted a video of a cheerful, college-aged Ocasio-Cortez dancing on a rooftop, intended to depict her as a “clueless nitwit.” The recently inaugurated congresswoman, recognizing an opportunity, responded by politicizing the social-media skirmish, accusing her sternest critics in the Republican Party of believing that “having fun should be disqualifying or illegal.” She later went a step further: “I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous,” she tweeted, along with a video of her grooving outside her new office on Capitol Hill.

Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet immediately went viral, thanks to the potent combination of shameless dancing, millennial nostalgia-bait “Lisztomania,” and a throng of friendly digital-media companies that promptly agreed that conservatives had, indeed, “lost it.” Multiple Web sites declared that Ocasio-Cortez was the target of a “smear campaign.”

The charge spread rapidly online, despite Republicans’ insistence that nobody really cared. “No one thinks this is scandalous,” tweeted Rep. Dan Crenshaw, himself a burgeoning conservative media darling, adding that the Breakfast Club-inspired dancing “was actually pretty good.” Non-politicians went further, claiming that the mainstream media was trying to distract voters from Ocasio-Cortez’s more radical policies (a 70 percent marginal income tax on the wealthy, for instance) by ginning up imaginary right-wing haters. “There is literally no evidence that any human Republican shamed AOC over her dancing video,” wrote the Daily Caller’s Benny Johnson, in response to an article bashing conservatives for obsessing over the video. Fox News media reporter Brian Flood lamented the “slew of misleading stories claiming conservatives were outraged over it, despite virtually no supporting evidence.”

It appears Republicans have finally learned, after nearly seven months of lobbing relentless attacks at the 29-year-old for largely superficial reasons—like whether she went to a fancy high school, or if she was just some Instant Pot liberal who wears designer clothes—that criticizing Ocasio-Cortez only makes her stronger. Republicans first recognized the obsession with A.O.C. had backfired in November, after a conservative journalist commented on the clothes she wore in Congress. “I personally think that stuff is wrong, and you shouldn’t do it—because it negates your argument, and it only kind of solidifies her status,” media critic Stephen L. Miller told me at the time. But even then, it was too late—the newly minted congresswoman had already been elevated to a position of Trump-like power within the Democratic Party, capable of resetting the political agenda with a tweet, or triggering her own media spin cycle. No wonder, then, that conservatives pulled their punches on the dancing video, and protested so forcefully when they were accused of taking the bait. If earlier tussles with Ocasio-Cortez had been counterproductive, the prospect of attacking her for an innocent homage to a classic 80s movie would have been catastrophic.

As Ocasio-Cortez has become a social-media force, garnering awkward imitators among her progressive colleagues, the right has constantly worried that she may be demonstrating some of the no-fucks-to-give political sangfroid displayed by Donald Trump: ill-informed but aggressively charismatic, adept at overcoming traditional political gatekeepers through social media, impervious to the dissonance between political promises and fiscal realities, and, most importantly, an avatar of our populist moment. Trump himself was able to use that relentless outreach to pitch once-controversial ideas to the public: build a border wall, renege on international trade deals, and unilaterally withdraw America from its foreign wars. On a recent 60 Minutes segment, Ocasio-Cortez clamored for universal health care, free public-college tuition, and an ambitious plan to transition America to green energy that simultaneously addressed the country’s mounting income-equality gap. Like Trump, Ocasio-Cortez didn’t appear overly bothered with the details or the reality of such a platform. She was just the messenger. “It only has ever been radicals that have changed this country,” she told Anderson Cooper, adding that she was happy to be called “radical” herself.

But perhaps Ocasio-Cortez’s most Trumpian political skill is her ability to deflect. Trump was able to portray his left-wing critics as cogs in an elitist, anti-working-class machine. Similarly, Ocasio-Cortez has (often appropriately) characterized criticism of her politics as personal attacks driven by an obsession with her age, race, and gender. (Republicans themselves continue to walk straight into these blunders, as demonstrated when a G.O.P. strategist called her a “little girl” on Fox News last weekend.) She has used her popularity and charisma to effectively grant herself immunity from inaccuracies, big and small. “If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they’re missing the forest for the trees,” she told Cooper. “I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.” Shortly after the interview aired, she took to Instagram to tell her followers that if she’d made any flubs on television, it was because the format was difficult for a novice like herself to master.

This had been evident to a growing section of the right-wing commentariat for the past several weeks, particularly as Ocasio-Cortez began using Instagram in a novel way to reach out to constituents. What should terrify them more, however, is that her talents are encouraging fellow Democrats to embrace her increasingly progressive views. “There was a time in this country where the top marginal tax rate was over 90 percent; even during Reagan’s era in the 1980s it was around 50 percent,” former Housing and Urban Development secretary Julián Castro told George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. (“And woosh goes the Overton Window,” as Washington Post political reporter Dave Weigel wrote on Twitter.)

For now, those visions have run up against political reality: when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the formation of a select committee on climate change, for instance, many of Ocasio-Cortez’s activist-driven demands were not included. The committee would not focus on enacting the Green New Deal, which called for the country to run solely on renewables, nor would it have subpoena powers or “the authority to vote on legislation and send it directly to the House floor for a vote.” But outsiders’ demands, it appeared, were slowly trickling in. “There’s some fabulous proposals in the Green New Deal, and I’m excited about all that. You may see some similar language. Clearly, the focuses are going to be the same,” said committee chairwoman Kathy Castor.

The immediate changes that Ocasio-Cortez and her democratic-socialist allies are demanding may not take place at the pace they envision. But if anything could fuel their momentum in this charged partisan climate, it would be the increasingly desperate, consistently lame attacks coming from the far right. As the “Lisztomania” clip reached peak virality, the Daily Caller posted a widely mocked video of Ocasio-Cortez dancing to the Soviet national anthem (“That feeling when you’re first in line for bread,” read the caption), and on Sunday, the popular fringe Web site the Gateway Pundit published an article accusing the congresswoman of embroidering her past by lying about her nickname (“Yorktown Elitist and Bronx Hoaxer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Went by ‘Sandy’ Well into College at Boston U”). The base, after all, cares little for optics, and even less for restraint as a political strategy. When conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson tweeted a version of the video that was uploaded in November, modified to depict Ocasio-Cortez dancing to lyrics calling her such a fucking ho, his followers ate it up. If the right truly fears that Ocasio-Cortez will turn America into Venezuela, where even more sunny socialist proposals led the formerly wealthy country down the path to complete economic collapse, they might want to stop helping her look so cool.


https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/01 ... cans-react


“Call me a radical”: Ocasio-Cortez reveals how much the Democratic Party has changed

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is more in line with the party’s base than establishment Democrats might think.

Zack BeauchampJan 7, 2019, 3:23pm EST

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on election night 2018.
Rick Loomis/Getty Images
In January 1996, the centerpiece of President Bill Clinton’s State of the Union address was a declaration that “the era of big government is over.” 23 years later, the brightest young star in the Democratic Party is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who wants to nationalize the health insurance industry and pass a Green New Deal that would zero-out US carbon emissions in the next 12 years.

When Anderson Cooper labeled this a “radical” agenda in a Sunday night interview with the Congress member, she proudly embraced the label.

“I think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country. Abraham Lincoln made the radical decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like Social Security,” she said. “If that’s what radical means, call me a radical.”

Much of the interview is a tap-dance on the grave of Clinton-era liberalism. The Clinton administration was deeply concerned with budget deficits; Ocasio-Cortez told Cooper she didn’t need a plan to pay for her proposals. Clinton passed welfare reform to end black Americans’ alleged “dependence” on the welfare state; Ocasio-Cortez called President Donald Trump a racist, condemning deployment of the “historic dog whistles of white supremacy.”

Ocasio-Cortez is, of course, not the president, or even the Democratic Party’s leader. If anything, though, that makes the contrast more striking: Here is a first-term member of Congress who doesn’t yet have the power to set her party’s agenda, and yet has captured the imagination of the party rank-and-file and the national media.

The contrast between Ocasio-Cortez and Bill Clinton points to a very interesting, and largely misunderstood, division in the Democratic Party. For some time now, the Democratic voting base has been much more aligned with the Congress member than the former president, embracing more progressive positions on everything from taxes to immigration to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the party’s elected ranks, and especially its leadership, hasn’t moved nearly as much.

This gap, between a more progressive party base and the more cautious establishment, is part of what makes candidates like Ocasio-Cortez so popular. They are giving Democratic voters what they want, which is an unapologetic and aggressively progressive party.

It’s not always clear what being “more progressive” actually means. Many of the plausible Democratic 2020 presidential candidates, ranging from Sens. Cory Booker to Elizabeth Warren to Bernie Sanders, have different visions for the party’s future. The fight between so-called “liberals” and “leftists,” which rages on my Twitter feed daily, is a fight to define just exactly what it means to be “progressive” in a post-Clinton era.

But regardless of which factions win this fight, it’s clear that Clinton-style centrism is dead in the water. Its advocates in the party are older and out of step with the party’s base. Elected Democrats may not fully realize it yet, but the era of small-government liberalism is over.

The voters have shifted, the elected officials haven’t (as much)

The progressive shift in the Democratic voting base in the past 20 years is clear and profound. The Atlantic’s David Graham laid out some of the most striking data in a November summary:

On economics, three-quarters of Democrats say that the government doesn’t do enough to help poor people, up from half in 1994. Two-thirds say that government should regulate business more, again up from half in 1994. Conversely, in 1994, two-thirds of Democrats believed that people could get ahead if they were willing to work hard. Now only half do. The percentage of Democrats who believe that corporations make too much money is up 12 points. But the movement is not uniform. While the portion of Democrats who say that the government should do more to help the poor, even if it requires taking on debt, rose from 58 percent in 1994 to 71 percent in 2017, it is still below the peak of 77 percent, in 2007.

There’s also dramatic movement on race, which may more than anything reflect the exodus of conservative whites as the Democratic Party becomes more minority-heavy. The percentage of Democrats who say that the government needs to do more to fight racism has risen from 57 to 81 since 2009. In 1994, four in 10 Democrats said that racial discrimination was the main reason black people couldn’t get ahead; in 2017, more than six in 10 did. White voters have moved especially dramatically, as Thomas Edsall notes: On both of these indicators, white Democrats are actually further left than black ones.

The party’s elected officials, though, don’t wholly reflect that shift. The following chart, from VoteView, charts the two parties’ DW-NOMINATE scores (a political science metric of officials’ ideology based on voting record) from the 19th century to 2015. The Democratic Party’s average, in dark red, shows relatively limited movement between the mid-’90s and mid-2010s:

VoteView
The contrast with the Republican line in the chart couldn’t be clearer. Both Republican voters and elected officials have become increasingly conservative, even reactionary and nativist, in the past several decades. The Democratic base is not a mirror image of the Republican base — it’s not nearly so radical — but it has clearly tilted to the left over the same time. The difference is that the party’s elected officials haven’t really followed suit.

When I chat with rank-and-file Democrats, the kind of people who tend to reliably turn out in party primaries, they seem quite aware of this discrepancy. You frequently hear a hunger for politicians who are unapologetically progressive, who counter Republican radicalism with boldness, rather than the more cautious approach you get from a lot of elected Democrats.

This effect appears to have opened up space for more forthrightly progressive candidates to win primaries. In July 2018, YouGov asked self-identified Democrats whether they wanted candidates for the midterm elections to be “more or less like Bernie Sanders.” Fifty-seven percent said they wanted more Sanders-esque candidates; a scant 16 percent said less.

The actual makeup of party primaries is starting to reflect the base’s interest in more aggressive candidates. An October Brookings report sorted the Democratic primary field into three categories: Moderate, Establishment, and Progressive. It found that the percentage of “Moderate” candidates fell in half between 2014 and 2018, while the percentage of “Progressives” went up by around 60 percent.

This doesn’t mean a Sanders/socialist takeover of the party is imminent. It is very far from clear that Democratic voters are more interested in Ocasio-Cortez’s democratic socialism then, say, Elizabeth Warren’s welfare-state capitalism. The fight to define “progressivism” is still ongoing.

But the reason this battle between progressive factions is happening in the first place is because there’s been a rupture with the past. The official party is somewhat out of step with its voters, still more Clintonite than many voters would like. This has opened up space for a shift in a progressive direction, making some kind of change inevitable. The only question is where the party ends up.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... atic-party
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 JackRiddler » Tue Jan 08, 2019 12:20 pm

.

A child of this age who knows it better than almost any of her elders, joyful and playful above all, almost unerring in her timing and nose for opportunity, fully aware of what great powers she has in a few ways and just as mindful (presumably from earned experience) of all the million hills on which she has no power at all and need not die, fearless and smart and seemingly born with a 144-dan black belt in media jiujitsu, skilled in the working-class arts of drink-mixing and crafting fabulous thrift store ensembles, Alexandria Ocasio does not care what you think of her, shreds the sexist culture war with untrained poise and ease, lets every dumb right-wing attack on her person add to her momentum and her shine, has had almost no missteps, keeps doubling down, almost single-handedly introduced the ideas and details of the Green New Deal to its widest audience until now, has helped in the ongoing covert breakthrough of MMT, and somehow just effected the miracle of reviving the long-rotten corpse of progressive taxation in America. She has defined an agenda for the Democrats that everyone in the world now remembers a lot better than the soggy milquetoast buttered with perpetual war and exploitation that still remains as their actual program. I know how bad it's been and how bad it all still is going to get -- or how much worse probably it's going to be than I can guess -- and how the world is still run by the same 40,000 horrible people, insofar as it is run at all in any way other than towards more irreversible destruction, exploitation, mayhem, and suffering (all somehow made worse by the presence of Steven Pinker still smugly assuring us it's all for the best, still unswallowed by the Lisbon earthquake that at least gave us relief from Dr. Pangloss). But what complaint could any of us really have against the Ocasio phenomenon? That, besides discovering and exploiting on a shoestring the vulnerability of Perpetual Queens Machine Man Crowley, she didn't simultaneously also defeat or convert Paygo Pelosi and 430 other Congressional miscreants and put the Republicans' heads on pikes? That she has to do her thing in their chamber, as a mortal individual, with only her wits and the backing of an outsider movement, surging though it may be? That she didn't run as a Green with zero name recognition and get 701 votes? None of this may change the world, none of this may matter, but people, even if you're no more than enjoying her minimum not 15 but 15,000-minute performance within the Spectacle, you don't have to apologize! It's not obligating you to anything! Your ironic character armor and your mastery of Superior Theory remain unquestioned. It's okay, you can like her! Support the same things as her! Fight for these things as though they mattered!

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Last edited by JackRiddler on Tue Jan 08, 2019 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Jan 08, 2019 12:35 pm

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Oh, we like her!

The trepidation is a result of the lecherous mutants she must surmount. She's acquitted herself quite well to date.

JackRiddler » Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:20 am wrote:Support the same things as her! Fight for these things as though they mattered!


Sound recommendation. Participation.
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