In 1980, my first wife and I moved with our sons from Northampton
to Belmont, Massachusetts so that she could take up a professorship at
MIT. For the next seven years, I
commuted back to Amherst to teach at UMass, making the drive three times a week. In the Fall of 1982, the New School in New
York sought me for the chairmanship of their Philosophy Department, and for a
semester I commuted down to New York every Tuesday to teach a course there
while I negotiated with them. So that
semester on Sundays, Thursdays, and Saturdays I was in Belmont, on Mondays, Wednesdays,
and Fridays I was in Amherst, and on Tuesdays I was in New York. It got so that I had to check my watch to
tell where I was. I feel a little like that
this week, what with going to Columbia on Tuesday, running a Building 5
Precinct meeting on Thursday, and trying to keep up with this blog, all the
while checking my IPhone or the TV every few minutes for the latest news about
the impeachment investigation.
Well, the House will vote to impeach Trump, apparently
before Thanksgiving. Some sort of trial
will then take place in the Senate, and at least now it seems all but certain
that fewer than 67 senators will vote to convict. Trump will grow more frantic, desperately and
unsuccessfully trying to control the news cycle. Will the process hurt Trump’s reelection
chances? I believe so, but Lord knows I
am not a seer or even a pundit, so your guess is as good as mine.
Meanwhile, the Democratic nomination contest grinds on. Biden’s decision to take PAC money suggests
his campaign is on the ropes, regardless of the polls. Bernie is back, Elizabeth continues her slow,
steady rise, Tim Ryan has finally thrown in the towel and Tulsi Gabbard is
apparently contemplating a third party run.
No doubt someone reading this blog will conclude that she is the true
hope of real radicals, and will explain to us why Sanders and Warren are really
tools of the ruling elite and are actually greater dangers than Trump, so that
a protest vote for Gabbard risks nothing.
Ho hum. I have seen this movie
before.
Meanwhile the Yankees have for the first time in a century gone
for an entire decade without making it to the World Series, so I can die happy.
8 comments:
The real question regarding Gabbard is whether she’ll run as a spoiler if Biden wins the nomination. (He’s still well ahead in most national polls.) I doubt she’d mount a third-party campaign to tamp down Bernie’s turnout, though she might against Warren, who will inevitably be smeared by misguided radicals as a corporate shill who can’t be trusted.
And what is it with Gabbard anyway? I just read that she was on Hannity last night parroting Republican talking points about how the House impeachment process is unfair to the current occupant of the White House. She’s not stupid, so what’s going on? Although I highly doubt she’s a Russian secret agent who actually *wants* the current occupant to win a second term, all the Russia stuff surrounding her is weird. She’s weird. Someone on Reddit hilariously compared her to the shape-shifting T100 in “Terminator 2” when he takes on the form of John Connor’s foster mother in order to lure him home. And I say that as someone who agrees with much of her politics. She’s just like Jill Stein.
Please, Prof. Wolff, to many of us you are both seer and pundit, by turns and simultaneously (as the saying is). As a marvel of stamina, however, well, let's just say that you've found your true vocation (no irony intended).
Indeed, what IS going on with Gabbard? Fivethirtyeight speculates she could be vying for a job at Fox News...
Gabbard is an opportunist. She's a religious nationalist in background, and consistently ranks in the most conservative 3rd of Democrats in the House, despite being from a heavily Democratic district and state. She'd be more at home in the Republican party, but a Republican can't win in Hawaii, so she's a Democrat. She latched on the Sanders' "our revolution" group as an opportunistic move after 2016, but has no real "revolutionary" history or actions. Now, she'll try to get wingnut welfare positions on Fox or elsewhere. She's a classic example of what Lenin referred to as a "useful idiot". The sooner she's gone and forgotten, the better.
I don't know what people mean by the recent refrain, "Bernie is back" unless it's an expression of hope. His poll numbers are holding steady but not improving according to https://projects.economist.com/democratic-primaries-2020/
This is not meant to reflect on Sanders himself of course.
Whatever Gabbard is, she is not a Russian agent, nor is Stein. The real whacko in all of this is HRC who seems to be trying, with yet another book tour and off the wall accusations, to position herself for another run - encouraged by those establishment Dems (owned by a sector of the ruling class otherwise known as the DNC) who are frantically seeking someone, not Biden, to stop the growing left movement within the Democratic Pary stimulated by the candidacies of Warren and Biden.
"No doubt someone reading this blog will conclude that she is the true hope of real radicals, and will explain to us why Sanders and Warren are really tools of the ruling elite and are actually greater dangers than Trump, so that a protest vote for Gabbard risks nothing."
Boy, that's a good one. I haven't heard anyone adopting that line of reasoning. However, I do think it probable that people like Debbie Waserman-Schultz, Neera Tanden, David Brock and other members of the HRC cult do believe that Sanders for sure and possibly Warren pose a threat equal to that of Trump.
Jerry's comments on the DNC are right on the mark. In my experience, the DNC (the national Democratic party organization) since McGovern's loss has been representing the conservative faction in the party. It was party "reforms" that created the super-delegate system to prevent "insurgent candidates" from being nominated. The DNC is still in the hands of the DLC/Clinton group. HRC's motives in trashing Gabbard are to reinforce her belief that the Russians cost her the win and not her own incompetence.
I moved to Vermont a few months after Bernie won a race for mayor of Burlington by 2 votes. Bernie is a "sewer socialist" which means he would be a member of the left faction of the party of FDR. (sewer socialists ran on platforms of extending the sanitary sewer lines, and other city services, to the less affluent sections of town.) One of the big issues at the time Bernie was elected was that the cable system did not extend at all areas of the city. Bernie threatened to create a city owned system (Burlington still has a city owned electric company) and used that to force cable companies as part of their license renewal to completely cover the city.
As far as Republicans are concerned, FDR, and any democrat who advocates redistribution of wealth regardless of the a reason, is a socialist. Lindsey Graham claimed that without the repeal of Obamacare the U.S will be a socialist country. The DNC thinks the worst thing that can happen is a Sanders or Warren presidency. Warren is hated just as much as Sanders, i.e., they are both seen as threats to capital. There have been newspaper reports that big democratic donors are telling the party that they will shift their donations to Trump if either Sanders or Warren are nominated.
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