I don’t really care if he talks shit about socialist or socialist-ish countries (maybe unless he bashes Cuba), overwhelmingly more important is what he does in office because it will make a huge impact on the reputation of socialism to Americans no matter how often Z disavows Marx.
Edit: If he does anything but criticize attacking Venezuela or any other country that an American politician might support attacking, that’s something different and I agree it would be a grievous error, but you can simultaneously hate Maduro, etc. and nonetheless strongly assert that murdering fishermen is wrong and invading VZ would be a catastrophe.
but you can simultaneously hate Maduro, etc. and nonetheless strongly assert that murdering fishermen is wrong and invading VZ would be a catastrophe.
True technically, but functionally all it does is manufacture consent for murdering the fishermen anyway. He’s a politician with a public platform, it’s a different standard than a private conversation or debate/discussion. All he’s done by taking the gusano line on this is make it likely that it will be used as an example that even “the left” thinks Maduro is bad and has to go.
It’s also part of the long tradition of American leftists talking down to more radical leftists in the rest of the world. It’s the same chauvinism that led some DSA delegated to snub the Cuban government and visit opposition groups that one time.
I think his past statements were bad, but I think his overall line on Hamas would be tolerable if not for things like knowingly and openly hiring Zionists, and I think it’s like that. He’s good at pivoting, and I don’t think whatever kowtowing to orthodoxy is hugely concerning (even if we should condemn it) so long as he is using it as a means to pivot to condemning the military aggression of the US toward VZ and threats to others.
It would be bad, it’s just not something to put as your top concern.
That’s fair, I just don’t think the condemning he did of military intervention was strong or effective enough to counterbalance the damage he did by accepting the gusano premise in the first place. And the fact that he was talked around by gusanos to a worse position after the fact makes me not confident in his commitment to even bare-minimum anti-imperialism. Only time will tell, I suppose.
he really didn’t have to phrase it the way he did but it’s probably impossible not to be hiring zionists considering every liberal in the country is a zionist.
Now that you mention it I think I vaguely remember it. Yeah, he’s a fucking chauvinist and that bothers me and I condemn it. I still think it’s a very low-priority issue coming from a mayor.
I still think it’s a very low-priority issue coming from a mayor.
This I agree with, but it also means he shouldn’t have answered the question. He can just deflect, he’s running for mayor. He does it for a lot of other questions.
He usually does answer questions at all and when he doesn’t, people tend to grill him on it. I haven’t watched every interview, but I’ve watched a bunch of them (10?) and I’ve watched all the debates and I think it’s rare for him to simply not give an answer on the basis that the NYC mayor doesn’t interact with the issue.
I also think he probably couldn’t afford to not give an answer because that would be a much stronger vector of attack on him than what I described before of simply saying “Whatever valid grievances we might have with Maduro, this opioid stuff is blatant lies and lobbing missiles at fishermen is abominable and an invasion of this country would be absurd and demonstrably only make things worse.” As you said in the other comment, I guess we’ll see.
“Whatever valid grievances we might have with Maduro, this opioid stuff is blatant lies and lobbing missiles at fishermen is abominable and an invasion of this country would be absurd and demonstrably only make things worse.”
Agreed, this would have been better than what he did say (which IIRC put much more emphasis on criticism of Maduro). Still not good, but better.
In the chapo interview to didn’t ave an answer about which ballot initiatives he supports… That seemed weird to me. Given they are totally relevant to his job.
Two of his core materialist promises are to decrease food costs and housing costs. Both of them being expensive are actually due to the rentier class, the owner class that makes money through leveraged shenanigans and not production. That class depends almost entirely on imperialism to function and when that engine slows down, it facilitates greater and more explicit fascistic heights domestically. As a mayor, he similarly has little power over that class’s actions. He cannot do upstate land reform. He will have a very hard time directly fighting real estate interests to either expropriate property, controlling rents more than they already are, or building sufficient new low income housing. Not that he will automatically lose the latter fight, but it is very likely he will fall short because of the scale of his enemies. And all of this assumes he gives it a real go.
So, how well will he fare against those interests if he doesn’t understand how they function? When they do some capital striking will he be surprised? When there is a substantial influx of Venezuelan immigrants will he go, “well how did that happen!?” When gas prices jump, will he go on TV and say, “hold the course, Venezuela has our oil and we are liberating it as we speak”?
A person so willing to talk that shit also likely doesn’t understand capitalism or the forces they will go up against, or they are actually farther to the right / cynically self-interested than they let on. These things are not actually unrelated. Imperialism is actually a dinner table issue, but a lack of consciousness means it goes undiscussed and instead folks try and fail to understand why everything is so expensive (or not) and why they have to go into work on their day off and why their new neighbors are refugees.
The supposed dichotomy of domestic and “overseas” is a myth in the imperial core that relies on chauvinism for it’s mask.
I don’t really care if he talks shit about socialist or socialist-ish countries (maybe unless he bashes Cuba), overwhelmingly more important is what he does in office because it will make a huge impact on the reputation of socialism to Americans no matter how often Z disavows Marx.
Edit: If he does anything but criticize attacking Venezuela or any other country that an American politician might support attacking, that’s something different and I agree it would be a grievous error, but you can simultaneously hate Maduro, etc. and nonetheless strongly assert that murdering fishermen is wrong and invading VZ would be a catastrophe.
True technically, but functionally all it does is manufacture consent for murdering the fishermen anyway. He’s a politician with a public platform, it’s a different standard than a private conversation or debate/discussion. All he’s done by taking the gusano line on this is make it likely that it will be used as an example that even “the left” thinks Maduro is bad and has to go.
It’s also part of the long tradition of American leftists talking down to more radical leftists in the rest of the world. It’s the same chauvinism that led some DSA delegated to snub the Cuban government and visit opposition groups that one time.
I think his past statements were bad, but I think his overall line on Hamas would be tolerable if not for things like knowingly and openly hiring Zionists, and I think it’s like that. He’s good at pivoting, and I don’t think whatever kowtowing to orthodoxy is hugely concerning (even if we should condemn it) so long as he is using it as a means to pivot to condemning the military aggression of the US toward VZ and threats to others.
It would be bad, it’s just not something to put as your top concern.
That’s fair, I just don’t think the condemning he did of military intervention was strong or effective enough to counterbalance the damage he did by accepting the gusano premise in the first place. And the fact that he was talked around by gusanos to a worse position after the fact makes me not confident in his commitment to even bare-minimum anti-imperialism. Only time will tell, I suppose.
he really didn’t have to phrase it the way he did but it’s probably impossible not to be hiring zionists considering every liberal in the country is a zionist.
True, I’d say him playing nice with arch Zionist tisch is more worrisome
I heard someone saying it’s kind of a glass cliff for her.
If there is some sort of big police dissatisfaction he can blame it on her.
OTOH she can direct police to do things he couldn’t per his base, he is separated from the decisions.
He specifically did bash Cuba alongside VZ as “dictatorship”
Now that you mention it I think I vaguely remember it. Yeah, he’s a fucking chauvinist and that bothers me and I condemn it. I still think it’s a very low-priority issue coming from a mayor.
This I agree with, but it also means he shouldn’t have answered the question. He can just deflect, he’s running for mayor. He does it for a lot of other questions.
He usually does answer questions at all and when he doesn’t, people tend to grill him on it. I haven’t watched every interview, but I’ve watched a bunch of them (10?) and I’ve watched all the debates and I think it’s rare for him to simply not give an answer on the basis that the NYC mayor doesn’t interact with the issue.
I also think he probably couldn’t afford to not give an answer because that would be a much stronger vector of attack on him than what I described before of simply saying “Whatever valid grievances we might have with Maduro, this opioid stuff is blatant lies and lobbing missiles at fishermen is abominable and an invasion of this country would be absurd and demonstrably only make things worse.” As you said in the other comment, I guess we’ll see.
Agreed, this would have been better than what he did say (which IIRC put much more emphasis on criticism of Maduro). Still not good, but better.
In the chapo interview to didn’t ave an answer about which ballot initiatives he supports… That seemed weird to me. Given they are totally relevant to his job.
That came up in the debates too, and I agree that it’s weird.
Two of his core materialist promises are to decrease food costs and housing costs. Both of them being expensive are actually due to the rentier class, the owner class that makes money through leveraged shenanigans and not production. That class depends almost entirely on imperialism to function and when that engine slows down, it facilitates greater and more explicit fascistic heights domestically. As a mayor, he similarly has little power over that class’s actions. He cannot do upstate land reform. He will have a very hard time directly fighting real estate interests to either expropriate property, controlling rents more than they already are, or building sufficient new low income housing. Not that he will automatically lose the latter fight, but it is very likely he will fall short because of the scale of his enemies. And all of this assumes he gives it a real go.
So, how well will he fare against those interests if he doesn’t understand how they function? When they do some capital striking will he be surprised? When there is a substantial influx of Venezuelan immigrants will he go, “well how did that happen!?” When gas prices jump, will he go on TV and say, “hold the course, Venezuela has our oil and we are liberating it as we speak”?
A person so willing to talk that shit also likely doesn’t understand capitalism or the forces they will go up against, or they are actually farther to the right / cynically self-interested than they let on. These things are not actually unrelated. Imperialism is actually a dinner table issue, but a lack of consciousness means it goes undiscussed and instead folks try and fail to understand why everything is so expensive (or not) and why they have to go into work on their day off and why their new neighbors are refugees.
The supposed dichotomy of domestic and “overseas” is a myth in the imperial core that relies on chauvinism for it’s mask.