Bill Maher’s back after his summer vacation, and his latest “new rule” bit starts in with some hard criticism of the “far far Left”—the progressives—for being close to Communists, and the Democratic Socialists of America for using Communist jargon. I’ve talked before about the DSA’s platform, which includes abolishing the Senate and ditching the President and Supreme Court. as well as getting rid of the police and jails. But some of them go further, advocating seizing private property and “seizing the means of production”—straight out of Marx.
As for the pathetically small sample of 13 Democrats (10 in Congress) who signed the “Promise to America” (text at the link), the Dallas Express gives the list:
- Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) — Co-leading the initiative
- Rep. Adam Gray (D-CA) — Co-leading the initiative
- Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ)
- Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV)
- Rep. Don Davis (D-NC)
- Rep. Vicente Gonzalez Jr. (D-TX)
- Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY)
- Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-OR)
- Rep. Kristin McDonald Rivet (D-MI)
- Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH)
- Jessica Killin (candidate)
- Marlene Galán Woods (candidate)
- Bobby Pulido (candidate)
The pledge is not some kind of right-wing manifesto, but a reasonable centrist Democratic view. I’m appalled that more Democrats in Congress wouldn’t sign it.
Oh, and my favorite Democratic curmudgeon, James Carville, appears with a quote about the “progressives”:
“There’s just some shit that I can’t be in the same tent with. . I”m done. I’m not in that fucking political party.”
The guests are Erin Brokovitch, Scott Galloway, and Peter Hamby, with the last two shown in this bit.
Oh, and I think the DSA members aren’t wearing masks to ward off covid; I believe they’re doing it to hide their identities.
Re “… getting rid of the police and jails”
Really? Seems like a bit a fear mongering here.
“Demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor. Treat drug addiction and mental illness as health issues, not crimes. End qualified immunity and empower civilian oversight bodies with real authority over the police.” (From DSA’s website)
No, because what you posted shows that the goal of the DSA is eventually to fully abolish “police and the prison system.” Since they said that, why are you saying they didn’t. “Civilian oversight bodies” have been mentioned by others before, but of course that’s completely stupid.
There’s a quote – I THINK – from Sam Harris – that applies here – paraphrased :
They really believe it. Believe them when they tell you.
… this accounts for the difference between the example Bill shows – in which the politician Francesca Hong says some gobbledygook which would get an “eye roll” if it was in the context of a beauty pageant — but on the political stage, …
It “hits different” (as the kids say).
… this book comes to mind :
Politics as Religion
Emilio Gentile
Translated by George Staunton
Princeton University Press
2020
ISBN 1400827213, 9781400827213
200 pages
They do?
I must be older than I remember.
The concept of a big tent has usually implied that there is some commonality of fundamental goals or principles, even if there is disagreement about peripheral matters. All the Dems are doing is letting the wolf into the tent.
All this reminds me of The Militant Tendency infiltrating the Labour Party here in the UK back in the last century. The Democrats will have to do what Labour did and force them out into their own separate party. Let’s see how many votes they get when they have to stand on their own.
Sounds obvious but I am worried that in the age of social media, this obvious remedy may not be easy to apply. Politicians seem to be terrified of backlash from the social media whenever they do anything that’s wise but can be construed as unpopular.
It is worth recalling that in 2022 DSA blamed the Russian invasion of Ukraine on “NATO expansionism” (see:
https://international.dsausa.org/ukraine/ ). This outlook descends from pop-Left apologetics of two generations ago, which “explained” the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia as responses to the terrible threat NATO wrongthink posed to the peace-loving but unfortunately nervous USSR.
Like the terrifying threat Poland represented to Nazi Germany, justifying invasion. Hitler was so very nervous, you see.
Abolish the police? Read about the crimes committed during The Murray-Hill riot, also known as Montreal’s night of terror. This occurred during 16 hours of unrest in Montreal, Quebec when the city’s police went on strike on 10/7/1969. This occurred when Canadians where much nicer than they are today. The idea that we don’t need police and prisons is insanity contradicted by experience! I begin to wonder if liberals are too weak to stand up, and prevent their own loss of influence in politics.
Calling for abolition of police, prisons, borders, etc. etc. is another symptom of the utopia NOW malady that periodically afflicts the Left. A notorious examplar was George Lansbury, briefly leader of the Labour Party in the early 1930s. Lansbury insisted that unilateral disarmament by Britain would convert Hitler to Christian pacifism, and in 1934 he wrote: “I would close every recruiting station, disband the Army and disarm the Air Force. I would abolish the whole dreadful equipment of war and say to the world: ‘Do your worst’.” Fortunately, Labour had a strong trade union faction with experience of the real world, and rejected Lansbury’s delusions in 1935. When the world, in the form of the Third Reich, did its worst a few years later, Britain had fortunately not disbanded the RAF.
Why now? That’s what I can’t figure out.
Canada has a leftist party, the NDP, started in the 1930s, in the Great Depression.
They didn’t used to be crazy but I haven’t followed them lately.
They were wiped out in the last federal election when fear of Trump 2 caused their usual voters to vote for Liberal Party (like the US Dems).
If there is a real concern about excessive police violence, there is a real solution—which, of course, will never be adopted. the solution is increased police training as an ongoing process, coupled with community policing. Both parts of this solution are extremely expensive, and both require increasing the police ranks. Very unpopular these days.
Cutting police budgets, and especially reducing the number of police on the streets, will accomplish precisely the opposite effects of what is intended: law-abiding police forces responsive to community needs. When police ranks and budgets are reduced, the first areas that suffer are the neighborhoods of the poor and middle class. Those calling for such reductions fall into two groups: either ivory tower dreamers that imagine that crime is reduced and safety increased when the law is not visibly enforced, or those for whom this is a feature and not a bug: people who wish to see a breakdown in democratize society—with the result being anarchy and/or the replacement of that democratic society with a far more authoritarian one.
Which group do you think that the DSA leadership fall into? Read their manifesto, and see. Read their praises of the People’s Republic of China and Chairman Mao, and their glorifications of life in Cuba. (Many of the latter are made after extensive research, based on trips to Cuba in which they stayed in hotels provided with all the good things in life, while Cubans a few blocks away could not cook food because of electrical blackouts.)
Police authority can indeed be misused at the individual level. That is why ongoing training is so important. And police authority can be abused by policy (have another look at China for example). That is why community policing as a policy is important: by embedding police into the communities that they serve make them more understanding of the needs of the community. And communities are not served by enabling “petty” crime such as shoplifting and immediate release of criminals.
The DSA manifesto realized would destroy the U.S. in all but name. Assuming no one is truly evil in their own mind, those advocating the DSA manifesto either
1) hate the U.S. (as being evil or guilty of some other irredeemable transgression) and think it should go away or
2) want power and don’t think anything they do will really harm the U.S.
I believe the squad falls in the former and Mamdami in the latter category.
My goal is to recognize and categorize, I am open to criticism and invite it.
I have no solutions.
Identifying and describing a problem is the first step.
If others are ahead of me on this (and I assume they are) please direct me.
I have trouble trusting sites on the right and left leaning ones seem to avoid the topic.