That is the question that will vex us for a while, I am guessing. At the moment, I am going to share a few links that at least offer some tentative answers. More below the fold:
First and foremost, let’s forget about waiting for the next Obama to come and save us. He was a gifted orator and politician, and he led us through a difficult time. I wished he would been more willing to break out of the economic status quo a bit more than he did, but that was always going to be an ongoing complaint with me. The takeaway message from Eugene Robinson’s column is that we need to build from the ground up, grassroots and all, and basically do this the good old-fashioned hard way. Win local elections. Rebuild our infrastructure at the local and state level. Some good folks I know in my community are starting to do just that. Time to act on that should have been long ago, but now is better than never.
Robert Reich advocates turning the DNC from a fundraising machine to a movement. Like most voters, I rarely hear from Democratic organizations until there is an election. We need more presence, physical presence – especially in the red portions of the US. But really, don’t take the blue portions for granted. That is a fool’s errand.
I am sympathetic to arguments for ditching neoliberal capitalism as a meta-theoretical approach for policy. The transfer of wealth from those of us who are workers (and that includes the middle-class) to the wealthiest of the wealthiest has been a constant in my lifetime. And it is hurting many of us, globally. Not just here. I’ve certainly been frustrated, and so have plenty of others – both voters and those who have given up altogether. Figuring out how to be a party that promotes both social justice and equity along with economic justice and equity is a challenge, but one I have always thought was doable. You don’t have to be a Marxist to get that what we call intersectionality is all about understanding that various forms of oppression – including economic – are connected. Anyway, Cornell West has his say on the matter, although I would argue that Trump is just a neoliberal by a different name – the transfer of wealth from us to the uber rich will continue. I’d give Thomas Piketty’s essay a read on the matter as well. I used to use terms like internationalism when I was younger, but globalism has been the nomenclature for a while. The concept of global cooperation and respect is more important now than ever. As Naomi Klein has noted for a long time, the climate change crisis alone will require global cooperation and trust. We can’t do that if we’re all hiding behind walls and trade wars.
Just a few things I’ve run into recently.
As a side, note, given the way what passes for conversation seems to go in the pond these days, I am increasingly inclined to fade away for a while. I’ll still put up a midweek cafe as time permits, and participate in boran2’s painting cafe. But unless or until it looks like we’re back to constructive discussions within our rather big tent, I don’t see much point of engaging. Life’s too short to spend screaming at people over the internet, and there are some folks locally who need me more, and I can use my time more constructively there. In fact these past few months I have done a bit to help influence in a positive direction a local election and will be going more in that direction I think. Maybe I’ll weigh in on something if it looks interesting to me and I think something helpful might come of it. Otherwise, the pond is now little more than videos, photos, and paintings as far as I am concerned. So this is not a good bye cruel world thing – more I just need some time to chill and take care of business. For those who care, make sure to take care of yourselves and each other.
