The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby PufPuf93 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 3:11 pm

Belligerent Savant » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:35 am wrote:.

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.



Agree with you both. :thumbsup

Like others at RI, I watch (and still occasionally post) at DU. DU is anything but "Underground" but rather a place for gauging what are the "bought" policies of the Democratic Party "leadership". I consider DU the realm where neoliberal has been discussed out of existence because folks don't want to consider what there are. There are many Democrats that are political of long standing that still don't buy the bullshit. I remain a Democrat as I have always been my entire voting life. The busiest / most popular thread now on DU (soon to be 400 posts) is, "Whoopi Goldberg Advises AOC To 'Sit Still,' 'Learn The Job' Before 'Pooping On People'". It is easy to see the posters that serve the agenda of DNC or whatever one calls the Democratic Party establishment as to message control and those that still have a modicum of thought. There have been anti-OAC threads nearly every day and in every positive post about AOC. Go figure.

Jack mentioned Nancy Pelosi's support of "PayGo", matching federal expenditures with federal income. What a pile of GOP, neoliberal, and regressive policy. :mad2 Bad economic "theory" too. Pelosi may be in OK now regards Trump but we are better off as soon as someone is ready to assume her role. Pelosi is part of the "entrenched" problem in the Democratic Party. If AOC turns out to be a momentary flash of bright, the reason will not be the Democratic Party rank and file, especially OAC's constituents, but the Democratic Party leadership. The GOP and conservatives are ants at the picnic.
User avatar
PufPuf93
 
Posts: 1884
Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:29 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Jan 09, 2019 3:02 pm


ANTONIO GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ01.09.19 8:00 AM

HOW ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ SHAPES A NEW POLITICAL REALITY
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez smiles, pulling a number out of box.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned her Instagram account into a visual diary of her early days in Washington.
AL DRAGO/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
I’ll just say it: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a social media marketing genius, and very likely a harbinger of a new American political reality.

A summary for those living in a Twitter cave: Last week, a video emerged of a college-age AOC doing a dance routine, mockingly tweeted by what appeared to be a QAnon conspiracy account (since deleted), and later retweeted by Gateway Pundit and memed by The Daily Caller. There was an immediate counter-reaction on the left to the supposed (though possibly overstated) reaction on the right, which sparked a counter-counter-reaction. It was a spectacle all the way down.



Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) is an Ideas contributor for WIRED. Previously he worked on Facebook’s early monetization team, where he headed its targeting efforts. His 2016 memoir, Chaos Monkeys, was a New York Times best seller and NPR Best Book of the Year.

Amid the media swirl, AOC dropped a very concrete policy proposal on Anderson Cooper: increase the top marginal income tax rate to 70 percent, effectively rewinding history to before the 1980s Reagan-era tax cuts. In an instant, Paul Krugman, economics Nobelist and New York Times columnist, chimed in with his support, and suddenly the Overton Window of acceptable discourse on taxes blew open.

Of course, for weeks before the dance kerfuffle, AOC had regaled her growing list of followers---which last week surpassed that of the newly installed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi---with candid looks at DC politico life, including the party leadership election process, the office lottery, the joy at getting official congressperson business cards, and even doing laundry. Her Instagram feed is a master class in political brand building, and I’d not be surprised if canny civics teachers are assigning it as homework. In a world awash in irony and preening phoniness, she possesses the unique and valuable currency of authenticity: She is who she ran as, she’ll be that same person in office, and it drives her political opponents crazy.

AOC isn’t alone here. Rumored presidential candidate Kamala Harris was quick to defend AOC, and posted some dancing herself. Caught up in the zeitgeist, Elizabeth Warren did her own Instagram livestream on New Year’s Eve. The grainy video climaxed with her announcing “I’m going to get me a beer” before cracking open a Michelob Ultra and taking an awkward swig. Are we to seriously believe that a 69-year-old Harvard Law professor routinely utters such an elocution before pounding a beer? Yeah, me neither. But start the countdown to Bernie attempting a keg stand while rapping.


This all sounds like so much gossipy piffle, but I submit it’s not. The great politicians of any media age, particularly the disruptive upstarts, are masterful adopters of new media. The 1858 debates between a then-unknown Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were a media sensation in their day, widely reported, and paved the way for Lincoln’s sudden rise to the White House two years later. The Kennedy/Nixon televised debate of 1960, where a youthful and beaming Kennedy easily out-charisma-ed a dour and unshaven Nixon, is a case study in the political impact of TV. Trump is quite literally a reality-TV star who dominates cable news while keeping the world in suspended anxiety via Twitter. As a counter-example, the fact we’ve never had another president like the 340-pound William Howard Taft highlights what happens (or doesn’t) when the moving image reigns.

Thus when a 29-year-old child of Puerto Rican migrants and former bartender beats a senior Democratic leader of the House, and then proceeds to set the political agenda during her first week in office, it’s more than a cute social media story. AOC is one answer to the bigger question of how social media impact not just the portrayal of political power, but its seizure and exercise.


To date, the role of social media in political and social upheavals has been as a polarizing spark and impromptu organizing platform, usually though not always for ill. The Arab Spring, Gilets Jaunes, and more sinister examples in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, demonstrated how you could muster real-world militancy or even violence out of Facebook groups. More positively, some movements actually achieved political ends: the Gilets Jaunes got their fuel tax repealed, striking teachers in Oklahoma got promised pay raises.

In Spain, an online insurgency that followed the 2008 economic crash ultimately coalesced into a real political party, Podemos, that broke the country’s cozy two-party system. Unlike other insurgent movements, the indignados (“outraged”) issued a semi-coherent manifesto signed by mainstream academics, and began fielding candidates in elections. Within two years, they were a national force. It was nothing short of an earthquake. The key lesson is that the social media mob, once roused, was channeled into the conventional political process rather than standing outside it, much like AOC.

So, is Spain an exception to a more general rule that social media destroys rather than creates?

In a recent book The Revolt of the Public by Stripe Press (yes, that Stripe), Martin Gurri proposes that the ultimately corrosive effect of social media is undermining collective credulity around public institutions like government or the press. Humans are flawed creatures, and their institutions necessarily more so. When those institutions, whether the federal government, the NYPD, or The New York Times, lost the ability to shape and distribute the narrative, societal faith disappeared as well. Some of that democratization of storytelling yielded just fruits, like the backlash against police shootings. But belief in such collective delusions like capital ‘T’ Truth makes our societies possible. Yes, there’s a willful naïveté to it, but sometimes ingenuousness is the greater wisdom than worldliness. Did anyone truly think Cronkite was studiously correct when he closed each newscast with “And that’s the way it is?” Of course not. But that was the ground-truth narrative that allowed a discussion, however flawed, of the world common to all of us. Instead, the polity now fields dueling narratives and hostile chants of “fake news!”


But what if social media could create rather than destroy? What if we come to our senses and the same narcissistic livestreaming that gave us “brand influencers” also gives us a new generation of political talent, along with the tools for them to challenge the gerontocracy in power? What if AOC is a taste of that future?

For all her virtual charisma, AOC still needs to pass (or help pass) actual legislation. She’ll still need to navigate the congressional old guard she’s upstaging online. To update the famous Mao quote, does political power really grow out of the screen of a smartphone?

To see how effective tweets alone are, consider her media analog (but political opposite) President Trump. The federal government has been shut for more than two weeks. The uncollected human waste at national parks is accumulating and creating a health hazard (among other unpleasantness). Tweeting is apparently one thing, and governing another.

But the present and future AOCs of the world can afford to play the long game; even if Twitter likes don’t translate into legislation now, the media shift they’re causing will be long-lasting. Andrew Breitbart, another canny user of new media, once famously said, “Politics is downstream from culture.” I’d venture that both politics and culture are downstream from technology, and we’re about to see a rejiggering of the aesthetics of aspiring political leadership. The same way florid, hours-long public oratory (echoed by the new-fangled telegraph and newspapers) was the route to power for Lincoln in 1860, the preeningly candid self-display of streaming social media will be the route to power in 2020 and beyond. From just the first week of 2019, it’s very clear which demographic will best exploit it.
https://www.wired.com/story/how-alexand ... ssion=true
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.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Grizzly » Wed Jan 09, 2019 3:39 pm

Whose the chick that said, Trump was a motherfucker? I like her...lol
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
User avatar
Grizzly
 
Posts: 4722
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:15 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:40 pm

That would be Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) who along with Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) became the first Muslim women to be sworn in as members of Congress.


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.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Laodicean » Wed Jan 09, 2019 7:09 pm

User avatar
Laodicean
 
Posts: 3334
Joined: Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:39 pm
Blog: View Blog (16)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Grizzly » Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:55 pm

^^^
I want to like AOC, but she just sounds like the bland rhetoric that we hear from most young upstarts politicians. I just don't see any moxy. Heated talk, but not much strategy. It's the whole system, and one or two/four "progressives"/democrats* arn't going to change that... Is it possible that Maddow, could ask the same question in 8 different ways? God she's turned annoying...

*what do these terms even mean, anymore?
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
User avatar
Grizzly
 
Posts: 4722
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:15 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Belligerent Savant » Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:57 pm

^^^^
Had the same reaction you did to that clip, Grizz.

As i've mentioned here before, if it's on TV, and particularly a cable news channel, the intent is to entertain/'captivate'.

Hence, the 'captive audience'.

The revolution -- if ever there'll be one -- will not be televised; and if it is, it'll be filtered/watered down/distorted. Pasteurized.

The only hope is organizing away from the f'ing TV, away from the f'ing networks and their talking heads spewing artificial provocations.
User avatar
Belligerent Savant
 
Posts: 5215
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2009 11:58 pm
Location: North Atlantic.
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Grizzly » Thu Jan 10, 2019 12:52 pm

Having said, that ... (above). I'll take anyone who talks about, Class and Class systems.But most these ideas, get extinguished pretty quickly, after they enter the theatre. I'm done with hope and change ... I think the reason so many people are out of their minds over Trump is because he reveals the game; to close for comfort. Where smooth talkers like Obomber hide the truth behind silky smooth talk... and give shade or cover so people can continue to live with themselves.Thus continuing the unconscious denial.Coke and Pepsi will continue.You have no other choice.
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
User avatar
Grizzly
 
Posts: 4722
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:15 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby PufPuf93 » Tue Jan 15, 2019 2:49 am

Observe (read the comments at the DU link) this thread at DU regards AOC.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Rockets Into Social Media Stardom

The youngest woman to ever serve in Congress, 29-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has zoomed into the social media stratosphere. She accounted for more Twitter interactions in a month than the top five media companies combined, according to CrowdTangle data, reports Axios.

More:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oc ... 93e00b0a42

The DU link: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211670242

Make your own conclusions. One of mine is just how compromised DU is to vested interest (not a new conclusion).
User avatar
PufPuf93
 
Posts: 1884
Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:29 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Jan 16, 2019 6:04 pm

Fox News Debuts Premium Channel For 24-Hour Coverage Of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Today 2:38pm
SEE MORE: FOX NEWS
Image
NEW YORK—As part of its effort to provide the most comprehensive reporting possible on the freshman congresswoman, Fox News announced Wednesday the debut of a new premium television channel that will offer continuous, around-the-clock updates on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). “For an extra $8.99 per month, you’ll have an all-access pass to the AOC Zone, which features wall-to-wall coverage of every word Ocasio-Cortez utters, as well as in-depth analysis of her wardrobe and any videos we’re able to dig up from her college days,” said Fox spokesperson Avery Mattison, adding that the new channel will include uninterrupted live footage of the 29-year-old representative every time she appears in public, along with nonstop commentary from a 12-person panel of experts. “We know our viewers will come to depend on this outlet for 24-hour coverage of AOC, which is why her tweets, Instagram posts, and her latest wacky policy proposals will appear in a ticker at the bottom of the screen. We’re particularly excited for the premiere of the channel’s flagship program, AOC Tonight With Tucker Carlson.” Minutes after AOC Zone began broadcasting, sources confirmed its ratings had already surpassed those of Fox News.
https://www.theonion.com/fox-news-debut ... 1831814505
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.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby Elvis » Wed Jan 16, 2019 7:07 pm

Fox News Debuts Premium Channel For 24-Hour Coverage Of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


:rofl:

I could believe this. She's obviously a real threat to the goons. :P
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
User avatar
Elvis
 
Posts: 7413
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:24 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby liminalOyster » Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:02 am

The funny thing about her is how ultimately milquetoast she is for her demographic. I like her and am not complaining but she's not much of a radical, just a millennial's pragmatist. Really reveals Fox for its base anachronism.
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:03 am

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC
Perks of being in the Democratic Caucus: I will be teaching a Twitter class tomorrow morning open to all members
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.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Jan 23, 2019 6:53 am

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wins seat on powerful House Oversight committee

Updated on: January 22, 2019 / 9:02 PM
By Stefan Becket

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has been named to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, giving the freshman Democrat a coveted spot on the high-profile committee with broad authority to investigate the executive branch.

Ocasio-Cortez's assignment to the committee was first reported by Politico late Tuesday. A senior Democratic congressional aide confirmed the move to CBS News.

The move signifies a major victory for Ocasio-Cortez and the freshman class of progressive lawmakers now in the Democratic majority. Since becoming the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, Ocasio-Cortez — increasingly known by her initials, AOC — has been a ubiquitous presence on social media, sparring with Republicans and sharply criticizing the president. She has also taken aim at fellow Democrats while advocating for a series of ambitious progressive policies, including a "Green New Deal" to combat climate change and higher taxes on the wealthy.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The rookie congresswoman challenging the Democratic establishment
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the new chairman of the Oversight Committee, told "60 Minutes" earlier this month he plans to wield his subpoena power to demand documents and testimony from the Trump administration on a wide range of issues, after being stymied for two years in the minority.

"The American people and the Congress [are] insisting that [President Trump] allows us to do our job," Cummings said. "Basically what the president has done and the Republicans have done, they've joined hands. And the Republicans have been, basically, not only blocking, but [have] become the defense counsel for the president."

The Oversight Committee's first major hearing is set for Feb. 7, when Mr. Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen is scheduled to testify publicly, just weeks before he is due to begin a three-year federal prison sentence.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alexandria ... d=62692217
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.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Jan 28, 2019 9:44 am

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Crashes Sundance

aoc.tiff

Marlow Stern

PARK CITY, Utah—The two most hotly anticipated documentary films at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival were undoubtedly Leaving Neverland, a four-hour exposé on pop star Michael Jackson’s alleged sexual abuse of children, and Knock Down the House, chronicling the congressional campaigns of four upstart women taking on the Democratic establishment—and centered on New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who pulled off perhaps the biggest primary upset in congressional history.

But fest attendees were left crestfallen when the news broke that, due to the lingering effects of President Trump’s government shutdown, Ocasio-Cortez would not be attending her film’s premiere.

So, the packed house at the MARC Theater was pleasantly surprised when, following the debut screening of Rachel Lears’ Knock Down the House, Ocasio-Cortez appeared on the screen via Skype—and was, naturally, met with a lengthy standing ovation (as was the film).

A beaming Ocasio-Cortez told the audience that it was her first time seeing the finished film. “I’m still like, kind of recovering from the tears myself, but I’m just so glad that this moment, for all four of us, was captured and documented—not just for the personal meaning of it, but for really everyday people to see that, yes, this is incredibly challenging, yes, the odds are long, but also yes, that it’s worth it, and each and every single person who submits themselves to run for office is doing a great service to this country, including Amy, Paula and Cori,” she said.

The women Ocasio-Cortez referred to are Amy Vilela, who ran for Congress in Nevada’s 4th District; Paula Jean Swearengin, who took on incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin; and Cori Bush, who battled for a House seat in Missouri’s 1st District. All four candidates were selected by Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress, a pair of political action committees backing lefty Dems who represent—and will fight for the needs of—working-class people.

Lears’ thrilling film captures the emotional toll that the campaigns take on all four determined women, each of whom has a very personal reason for running for public office.

“One of the things that doesn’t get discussed enough is the immense personal cost, the spiritual cost, the material cost, and the future cost, because when you lose—or if you lose—there’s a huge risk in the aftermath of that as well. And even when you win, there’s a huge cost as well spiritually, too,” explained Ocasio-Cortez.

“One of the things that all four of us faced in our run was this idea that we had to combat very early on that a lot of other candidates don’t have to combat, which is this idea of viability,” she continued. “From day one, people did not give us the chance that they sometimes give to other candidates on day one, and a lot of that has to do with our preconceived notions of who looks like a person that can win a congressional race or where that person comes from. And so I think overall, we need to realize that our democracy does belong to us, and when we don’t participate in it, when we don’t invest in it, when we don’t put our own energy into it, what we are doing is we are giving it away to somebody else, and we give it away usually to a very small group of people.”

Of the four women, Ocasio-Cortez, 29, is the only one who emerged victorious—but it was some victory, with the former bartender from the Bronx unseating Joe Crowley, a 19-year incumbent, Democratic Caucus chair and Speaker of the House candidate. He was the fourth most powerful Democrat in Congress.

All of the women featured in Lears’ film, Ocasio-Cortez explained, “has this very core personal story where us running did not feel voluntary, and it was really of spiritual significance. That’s really the only place where that kind of endurance can come from, because for a lot of us it’s double-duty, it’s multiple jobs, it’s humiliation, to be frank, and I think that we have opened a door, and what I’ve talked about in my term is, what I would like to do in the next two years is hold the door open so a lot more people can walk through.”

The House Representative of New York's 14th District left the crowd on a promising note.

“I hope everyone walks away knowing that we are still in a mode where it’s all hands on deck for our democracy,” she offered. “This is not just about the president of the United States. He could be gone tomorrow and that will not change the systemic injustices that led to his election, so it’s important that we continue to be all hands on deck in this fight. We are so early on. We can do 2018 again better in 2020, so when someone tells you that they’re going to run for office, believe in them early, don’t dismiss them, and know that when we all participate, and when we all know what we have to give, and when we choose to give it, our nation will be better. We have no other choice.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/alexandri ... itter_page
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
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.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 42 guests