The RI thread about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[Karmamatterz]

It doesn't take much mental energy to see the how various actors and parties will attack those who wear symbols representing something they don't like. I guarantee you if a right winger was wearing a shirt or any accessory that represented something fascist there would be an uproar. A fairly appropriate example is the Gorka clown that was an advisor to Drumpf.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04 ... verso=true



As people are loving AOC (she's so hip!) they make excuses or downplay the image of the fascist Bose on AOC's chief of staff shirt.

Perhaps it's just the irony I see in RI being an anti-fascist board but then finding roundabout or direct excuses for a character that was an open supporter of both fascism and the Nazis.

Bose was clever enough to blend anti-imperialism into his rhetoric to get plenty of support and create the mythos surrounding his face on postage stamps and airports.
https://www.globalhistories.com/index.p ... oad/180/89

You know, one can still find postcards at Verdun memorials of French WW I hero Philippe Pétain. In case anyone forgot Pétain was quite the Nazi collaborator in Vichy France.


Have at it folks, wear'em if you got'em.

[RocketMan]

Just to be clear, this is still about a shirt the guy once wore, amirite?

I mean, what's the play here? AOC (who seems pretty sharp, but looks can be deceiving I guess) is being covertly manipulated by an Indian nationalist with Hitlerite tendencies?

Shouldn't we be seeing some authoritarian bent at least here? Some indication? Instead, she appears to be forming a renegade block within her party to oppose the traditional party elite, witness for instance her incitement to primary old party apparatchiks in defiance of the DNC's threat to blackball any consultants who do business with those who primary incumbents. Etc. etc. etc.

[Cordelia]

I don’t find much on Chakrabarti’s background except what’s been spoon-fed to the media; he grew up in Fort Worth, went to Harvard, spent a short stint on Wall Street before eight years working in Silicon Valley (talk about the belly of the beast!) grew disillusioned and then, I guess, saw the light, embraced the Bernie Sanders ticket, etc, etc... and has fast-tracked his talents and radical visions to a bigger (maybe) beast's belly and spotlighted on Politico's 'Power List' of 2019 (a chief-of-staff; isn't that an adjunct position?) .


https://www.politico.com/interactives/2 ... akrabarti/



They’re both savvy media players only four months into Washington's long and deeply entrenched hyper-competitive, cut-throat seat of power but have been garnering mega-attention from the coveted media from day one. Deserving of scrutiny and a strong dose of skepticism. But that’s just my own cynical opinion that it's too Frank Capra-ish and if there are going to be shifts in economics and other social powers, it’ll be according to plans and contingencies already in place. Guess we'll find out with 2020 looming.

Edit to add, fwiw (and to answer some of my own question)...

What Does a Chief of Staff to a Congressman Do?
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/gover ... an-3573655

[stickdog99]

I would be more suspicious about AOC (Minority Girl Sanders Goes to Washington) had the DNC not closed ranks around primary challengers to Democratic incumbents in response to AOC's victory. Of course, maybe that was the signal that "We already have our chosen one, so your horse cannot compete."

https://theintercept.com/2019/03/22/hou ... ncumbents/

However, this move so screams DNC power broker elite in its predictable hamhandedness that I cannot help but interpret it as a sincere response to AOC's sincerely surprising victory. Of course, connecting AOC with a hand selected chief of staff "handler" would have been another predictable move.

My cursory glance at how the right wing echo chamber press is portraying Saikat Chakrabarti as a Satanic puppetmaster controlling AOC to enrich himself and enact his ghastly plans to enslave all white people also tends to lessen my suspicions about the guy's true motives.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/20 ... d_for.html

Ocasio-Cortez and her puppet-master Chakrabarti Scandal #2: A million bucks is unaccounted for

The complaint is total bullshit, as is all of the "journalism" surrounding the complaint, none of which include any direct responses for the accused parties for some "strange" reason.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/44230/oc ... n-saavedra

Ocasio-Cortez also enacted a "living wage" rule in her office recently, in which no one can make over $80,000 a year, which allows "her chief of staff and senior employees avoid public transparency laws that would require them to reveal outside income, gifts, and stock trading activity."

Tom Anderson, the director of the National Legal and Policy Center, said: "Purposefully underpaying staffers in order to avoid transparency is an old trick some of the most corrupt members of Congress have used time and again."

LOL. I wonder how much Tom Anderson, the director of the right wing National Legal and Policy Center, is getting paid to level such charges.

[stickdog99]

Well, if Saikat Chakrabarti is an indeed an intelligence asset, he's more audacious about it than even his choice of t-shirts might indicate.

He called the initial 2009 tech start-up that he co-founded Mockingbird.

[RocketMan]

Well, if Saikat Chakrabarti is an indeed an intelligence asset, he's more audacious about it than even his choice of t-shirts might indicate.

He called the initial 2009 tech start-up that he co-founded Mockingbird.

Wow. Thanks for the digging, Cordelia and stickdog99!

I will put Chakrabarti in the "suspected technocrat mole" column for now.

I too believe AOC actually managed an upset. So the play would be now to undermine and co-opt her. Failing that... the McKinney option?

[stickdog99]

https://www.inquisitr.com/3924035/tyt-j ... interview/

Distinguishing Justice Democrats from other progressive groups, Cenk Uygur pointed out that they are planning on running “hundreds” of congressional candidates and taking no corporate dollars.

“We’re going to primary all the establishment Democrats,” Uygur stated.

“Everyone else is afraid of going that far and it’s not a time to be afraid of that,” Chakrabarti agreed.

At the time the interview was conducted, Justice Democrats had already received over 400 nominations, in just its first day. Saikat Chakrabarti explained that the group was looking for people who are “strong leaders in their community.” He described the typical path of establishment Democrats who attend Ivy League schools, make connections with donors, and then make a career for themselves in politics and how Justice Democrats is looking to break that mold. When evaluating the nominees the group already has, Chakrabarti stated “they’re so impressive.”

He explained that Justice Democrats are looking for people with a “life record” rather than a “political record.”

Turning to President Trump, and describing him as a “goofball and a monster,” Uygur underlined the fact that U.S. voters do not want career politicians.

“In the Justice Democrats, we allow humans,” the TYT host noted with a smile.

Turning to the finances of Justice Democrats and when the group can reach its goal of running hundreds of congressional and presidential candidates, Uygur asked Chakrabarti if 2020 was a reasonable time frame.

“We go as big as we can, as soon as we can,” the director responded.

I am starting to get a bit suspicious that the DNC is one flank and Justice Democrats are the other. By warning the career consultants that none of them can work for primary challengers, the DNC is effectively pushing any viable challenger into Chakrabarti's waiting arms.

However, my gut instinct is to welcome even channeled dissent over no dissent because I think ideas themselves are most important, and the idea that positive change is actually possible after Obama's administration did everything possible to condition us otherwise is perhaps the most important idea of all. We regular people have no chance of changing anything for the better whatsoever if we cannot envision any possibility of changing anything for the better. Because of this, I would much rather run Sanders and lose to Trump than run Biden and beat Trump, simply to give Sanders' ideas a chance to permeate minds of people who have been brainwashed into thinking the only choice that can ever exist is choosing Tweedle Dumb over Tweedle Dumber, and thus they need to self-triangulate their own sense of "possibilism."

How about your instinct on this, Cordelia? You have a great nose for this sort of stuff.

Of course, hoping for anything at this point is sort of like hoping that Lucy will let Charlie Brown kick the football. But maybe the times are finally changing, just a tiny bit? After the corporate media's Trump and Russigate orgy of nonsense, will "Muskie's tears", "computers count votes better than people do", "Iraq attacked us on 9/11", and "Dean's scream" narratives still work to control the populace? Of course, if slightly better comes to best, there is always the Wellstone plane gambit.

[stickdog99]

I am also not sure what to make of the rightwing's bizarre obsession with bringing AOC to her knees. Is this equivalent to the CNN's and MSNBC's obsession with Trump's campaign (in which all publicity was good publicity)? Is one of the near endgame of Empire strategies to bring someone like AOC to power so that the wealth of almost every member of the 99.9% can be looted in a supposed "economically natural" reaction to a socialist savior's authoritarian overreach in response to being threatened by all oligarchs from all sides (as in Venezuela)?

Perhaps. But right now the political mentality of most Americans is so far removed from even accepting the possibility of enacting any federal policies that would promote economic justice, universal healthcare, and renewable energy that I am more than willing to roll out the red carpet for our supposed impending Socialist Satanist at this point.

[RocketMan]

After the corporate media's Trump and Russigate orgy of nonsense, will "Muskie's tears", "computers count votes better than people do", "Iraq attacked us on 9/11", and "Dean's scream" narratives still work to control the populace?

I feel like laughing and crying at the same time about that reverie...

I don't know, their hysteric attacks on Bernie even at this early stage (did you hear about the kerfuffle about his canvassing database, people were already making him out to be some sort of devious Bond villain over that one) come so fast & furious, I wouldn't count out some sort of extreme outrage event later on...

[Cordelia]

However, my gut instinct is to welcome even channeled dissent over no dissent because I think ideas themselves are most important, and the idea that positive change is actually possible after Obama's administration did everything possible to condition us otherwise is perhaps the most important idea of all. We regular people have no chance of changing anything for the better whatsoever if we cannot envision any possibility of changing anything for the better. Because of this, I would much rather run Sanders and lose to Trump than run Biden and beat Trump, simply to give Sanders' ideas a chance to permeate minds of people who have been brainwashed into thinking the only choice that can ever exist is choosing Tweedle Dumb over Tweedle Dumber, and thus they need to self-triangulate their own sense of "possibilism."

How about your instinct on this, Cordelia? You have a great nose for this sort of stuff.

Nah...not really; whatever 'nose' I have was learned during early, formative years spent around more ‘old fashioned’, rough-and-tumble type newspapermen & politicians in a small pond; then moving to the big pond. Washington changed a lot when the Reagan/Bush regime took charge and I doubt the environment has gotten any friendlier during any of the administrations in the years since—maybe just high-stake tactics and chess moves changing through speed-generated technology. For personal sanity I read/watch very little media news now so I have few informed opinions to offer, though I mostly agree with what you expressed succinctly in your post above--it gives better aim and purpose to our descendants.

[Belligerent Savant]

However, my gut instinct is to welcome even channeled dissent over no dissent because I think ideas themselves are most important, and the idea that positive change is actually possible after Obama's administration did everything possible to condition us otherwise is perhaps the most important idea of all. We regular people have no chance of changing anything for the better whatsoever if we cannot envision any possibility of changing anything for the better. Because of this, I would much rather run Sanders and lose to Trump than run Biden and beat Trump, simply to give Sanders' ideas a chance to permeate minds of people who have been brainwashed into thinking the only choice that can ever exist is choosing Tweedle Dumb over Tweedle Dumber, and thus they need to self-triangulate their own sense of "possibilism."

How about your instinct on this, Cordelia? You have a great nose for this sort of stuff.

Nah...not really; whatever 'nose' I have was learned during early, formative years spent around more ‘old fashioned’, rough-and-tumble type newspapermen & politicians in a small pond; then moving to the big pond. Washington changed a lot when the Reagan/Bush regime took charge and I doubt the environment has gotten any friendlier during any of the administrations in the years since—maybe just high-stake tactics and chess moves changing through speed-generated technology. For personal sanity I read/watch very little media news now so I have few informed opinions to offer, though I mostly agree with what you expressed succinctly in your post above--it gives better aim and purpose to our descendants.

Well-stated, both of you.

[stickdog99]

https://twitter.com/saikatc/status/1118528773132046337

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Facile fairy tale pandering to youthful idealists (who should be insulted by it). Hopefully much of the target audience will get to the point of realization -- that both Establishment parties are criminal -- sooner than the earlier generations, or rather, those among us that are 'woke'* and no longer clinging to the false narratives shoveled by Establishment.


*to appropriate the parlance of our times.

[Karmamatterz]

Facile fairy tale pandering to youthful idealists (who should be insulted by it). Hopefully much of the target audience will get to the point of realization -- that both Establishment parties are criminal -- sooner than the earlier generations, or rather, those among us that are 'woke'* and no longer clinging to the false narratives shoveled by Establishment.

Thanks BS. I like that bit about the facile fairy tale. It is easy for some to get caught up in the hype of a fresh new face that speaks all the "right things." Add a bit of hipster to the whole thing with some cute animations and shazaam! A new savior! Anybody that rises that fast in the mainstream media should be suspect. It's not hard to see past Chakrabarti pandering to the more hipster militants who see Bose as a the new Che. Those Che t-shirts were popular for the more militant "progressives" to wear when I was in college back in the 80s. New face, same meme and slightly different crowd to pander to. But they are soooo cool.

I wonder if the person who painted this in my locale knew Che was very opposed to gays? Nah, nevermind. If it's cool and swanky the facts don't matter.

[RocketMan]

I think it's dangerous to get stuck on heroes. It enables shitty non-arguments like "ASSANGE IS NO HERO". Who cares what Assange "is". See what he DID.

The same goes for public figures more generally. It's good and well to be suspicious, but do you really think the US party system will simply fold and disappear? AOC is a historical trend worth tracking and from what I see, her proposals have generally been in the right direction. Pelosi's contempt for her is a good sign as well.

Seeing as the Republican party is indeed, as Chomsky (yeah yeah I know, gatekeeper etc.) said, as a whole the most dangerous organization on the planet, any nuanced discussion of their politics, such as they are, can be safely discarded... What's happening in the Democratic party is still at least a somewhat dynamic situation.