Daily Archives: September 2, 2022

By Sachi McClendon

The liberal political group No IDC NY was accused of playing with antisemitic tropes following a post from its Twitter account that jeered at the last names of two Jewish politicians Congressional-candidate Dan Goldman and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz.

The jerk buying a House seat with inherited money is Goldman the IDC-adjacent Assembly member is DINOwitz. Who came up with these names, Dickens? the post read.

U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, who is running for the new seat serving greater Riverdale, was the first to call attention to the since-deleted post. A tweet dripping with antisemitism. The normalization of antisemitism is a sign of how poisonous our politics has become, he wrote.

Assemblyman Dinowitz responded to the tweet soon after, writing, Ive been the target of antisemitic attacks from both the far right and the far left. This tweet from an extremist, anonymous account selectively singles out two Jewish politicians and is disgusting. Its a classic display of antisemitism and should be condemned.

Following the swift backlash, the No IDC NY account wrote, It was a joke about the names that certainly would have been better not made, e.g. DINO stands for Dem in name only, and was not supposed to be riffing off their Jewishness, we do not tolerate anti-Semitism.

The next day, the steering committee of the group said it suspended the social media account manager who sent the original tweet.

No IDC NY was initially formed to help take down members of the Independent Democratic Conference, like former Sen. Jeff Klein, who caucused with Republicans in the state senate as a way to maintain the GOPs majority, even when Democrats would have otherwise had control.

The New York City Districting Commission has received more than 8,300 submissions from the public on how to improve upon the first draft of the new city council district lines.

Thats way more than the 1,500 submissions the commission got in the previous round of redistricting. In fact, the New York State Independent Redistricting Commission, responsible for state legislative and congressional districts, last year generated only 3,700 submissions by comparison.

We made a decision early in the process that we were going to throw as wide a net as possible to solicit public opinion for the preliminary plan, said Dennis Walcott, who is the chair of the commission. In order to get as much public input as possible, the commission has been advertising in community and ethnic weeklies, on Twitter and Instagram and providing a wide array of information sessions to community groups across the city.

We had such a tremendous response we had to extend our Queens hearing past midnight and added a morning Zoom hearing because demand to testify was so high, Walcott said.

The commission is expected to submit its second round of drafts to council on Sept. 22.

State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who still represents greater Riverdale, was easily defeated by incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney in the newly drawn congressional district 17 Democratic primary, managing to capture only about a third of the vote.

Common sense won. Democrats want candidates who get results and bring home the win, Maloney said after the race was called in his favor.

Biaggi decided to run an against-the-odds campaign against Maloney shortly after the new congressional maps were finalized back in May. Just minutes after the new maps dropped, fifth-term Maloney went to Twitter to say that he would be running in the new district 17, which is currently represented by first-term progressive Mondaire Jones.

That announcement quickly drew the ire of several lawmakers, and propelled Biaggi to take on Maloney. While she is no stranger to upset victories, Biaggi was no match for Maloney in the end.

Although she already bought a home in the new congressional district 17, Biaggi will continue to serve as state senator until the new lines go into effect next year.

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Liberal group accused of antisemitic post - The Riverdale Press

To the degree possible, without engaging in excessive political correctness, I have believed that its best to allow politically active people to describe their own views. You could go too far with it, of course, if someone is clearly lying about positions he or she has taken or refusing to acknowledge words and labels that apply to their views.

But I long noted that, for obvious and dishonest purposes, actors on the political right have seen an advantage in labeling progressive/liberal players in the U.S. political drama as socialists.

There are some, a very few like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who embrace the s-term. But most Democrats dont. They call themselves liberals or progressives, meaning that they generally favor more, rather than less, government action, especially action to help the needy.

The exact spot on the spectrum where liberalism crosses the line into socialism is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder. But, to the degree possible, and leaving room for discussion over just where the line is, I would say its best to err on the side of allowing people to choose their labels unless they abuse the courtesy.

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The same might be said of the terms conservative and fascist. Conservatives are right of center on the ideological spectrum, and fascists are farther right. But the precise border-line is hard to specify. I suppose fascists are also known for a tendency to admire radical, even violent leaders who are often not respectful of democratic norms. You know: Hitler, Mussolini, Franco.

For what seems like many years, Americans on the right have arrogated to themselves the power to define the line between liberals and socialists or, to put it more bluntly, have started calling liberals socialists and their liberal policy proposals socialism, even though the authors and promoters of those programs do not generally embrace the s-word for themselves or their policies.

Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer was particularly obnoxious in this regard in his role as leader of the National Republican Congressional Committee, referring in the committees communications to dozens and dozens of liberal Democrats, who do not call themselves socialists, as socialists.

Emmers motives were obvious. Swing voters, and Americans in general, are leery of the s-word and will tend to balk at any policy proposal that can be successfully labeled as socialism.

As a lifelong liberal myself, the motives behind this rhetorical strategy were obvious, and obnoxious. Instead of arguing the merits of a proposal, just label it with a politically toxic term, specifically the s-word.

It has long occurred to me that if liberals adopted the same strategy, they would start labeling conservative policy ideas as fascist and our public policy argument could devolve into an insipid youre-a-socialist; yeah-well-youre-a-fascist idiocy, roughly the opposite of a constructive discussion of policy differences across left-right lines.

But, strangely, I suppose, at least pre-Trump and even in the early days of Trump, the name-calling came mostly from one side.

Republicans and conservatives have taken to labeling as socialists many liberal political figures who do not call themselves by that term. And Republicans have done so with ever-increasing frequency over recent years. But, for whatever reason (feel free to speculate on the reason), left-leaning American political figures have not replied to the repetition of socialist-socialist-socialist with chants against right-leaning political figures as fascists-fascists-fascists.

Maybe, after the long grotesque incivility of the Trump era, thats changing. I still dont want to go there, but since the dawn of the Trump period I certainly felt the impulse.

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I would gladly argue that Trump and his enablers were closer to being fascists than many liberals were to being socialists.

So I perked up when longtime liberal (and former Secretary of Labor) Robert Reich decided that, turnabout being fair play and all, he would drop an f-bomb (the f-word in this case being the word fascist) on a leading Republican and see what happened.

Reich, referring to some recent far-right rhetoric coming from Floridas Republican Gov. (and likely 2024 presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis, put out a tweet that read:

I dont mean to condone Reichs little experiment in turnabout-equals-fair-play play. But it resonated with that old thought of mine that if Republicans could decide which Democrats could be labeled with the s-word, maybe Democrats will decide which Republicans can be labeled with the f-word. (Fascist, that is, not the other f-word.)

Reich got, I suppose, the reaction he expected from conservative publications like The Washington Examiner,for example, which huffed:

Ultra left-wing elitist and former secretary of labor during the Clinton administration Robert Reichtweetedearlier this week, Just wondering if DeSantis is now officially a synonym for fascist. This insulting slur has no basis, of course.

This is just what left-wing ideologues do when they discuss Republican politicians who pose any threat to the existence of their political ideology.

Its not grounded in any reality and is a sham. Yet, it never stops any of them from repeating the lie. Anyone the Democrats dont like or disagree with is a fascist. Any person using such hyperbolic, unhinged name-calling is not a serious person, and anything they say should not be deemed credible.

Reich noted that Fox Newss digital outlet took umbrageas did manyothers, with rightwing rage at my tweet ricocheting through the echo-chambers of Republican social media.

Maybe I hang out in the wrong circles, but the idea that liberals are constantly calling conservative fascists did not resonate with my experience.

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And I dont really want to see liberals start throwing around the f-word (fascist) too loosely when talking about conservatives. Mostly, I was just amused at the outrage of the right, which uses the s-word to describe liberal policies roughly a million times (or do I mean a billion, who cares when youre having fun) more often than liberals call them by the f-word.

Id be interested to know if Fox has ever taken any right-wing journal or personality to task for overusing the s-word (socialism) when denouncing any liberal Democrat who advocated policies that would tax rich people a bit more so the government could help poor people a bit more and other Bolshevik ideas like that.

The full Reich piece is here.

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A liberals experiment in calling DeSantis a fascist and what it says about labels - MinnPost

Is a progressive in the United States just a more extreme version of a liberal? New research suggests that is not the case. Self-described progressives and self-described liberals have significantly different views on a number of issues related to free speech, equality, diversity, and identity, according to a series of studies published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

The rise of progressivism is an era-defining shift within the Western left-wing, said study author Travis Proulx, a senior lecturer at the Cardiff University School of Psychology. Rivalries with traditional liberals play out across social media, academics and electoral politics. While progressivism has been deemed the successor ideology by some on the Left, no prior psychological measure has assessed the attitudes and behaviors that characterize this distinct worldview. We set out to devise a measure that could examine this split: the Progressive Values Scale (PVS).

To develop the scale, Proulx and his colleagues used the Prolific research platform to recruit 182 U.S. participants who identified as either progressive or liberal. The participants indicated the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with 78 statements regarding persuasion, equality, identity, free speech, historical determinism, activism, and cultural appropriation.

Proulx and his colleagues narrowed down the issues to four general tendencies that distinguished progressives and liberals. First, progressives supported imposing immediate changes to increase diversity, such as maintaining diversity quotas. Second, progressives were opposed to cultural appropriation. Liberals, in contrast, were more likely to agree with statements such as People should be permitted to adopt whatever cultural characteristics that appeal to them [music, fashion], regardless of status inequalities.

Thirdly, progressives supported publicly censuring those perceived to hold discriminatory views. In other words, progressives tended to agree with statements such as Those who express bigoted views should be exposed and deserve the backlash that follows. Finally, progressives were less likely than liberals to express a desire to incrementally promote equality for the long-term and tended to disagree with statements such as Most progress has been made by ignoring social identity and appealing to our shared experiences.

Relative to traditional liberals within the U.S. left-wing, it appears that progressives are more likely to 1) advocate for Mandated Diversity within institutional settings, 2) show Cultural Appropriation Concerns regarding creative expression, 3) apply Public Censure of divergent views, and 4) are less likely to pursue a Recourse to Existing Institutions to bring about political change, Proulx told PsyPost.

In three subsequent studies, which included more than 1,200 participants in total, the researchers confirmed the four factor structure of the Progressive Values Scale. We also find that holding certain progressive values is associated with personality traits, Proulx said. For example, supporting Mandated Diversity is associated with heightened empathy, Cultural Appropriation Concerns are associated with anxious tendencies, and advocating for Public Censure is associated with negative views of oneself.

Importantly, the researchers tested the Progressive Values Scale against the Left-Wing Authoritarianism Index, which assesses a persons support for anti-hierarchical aggression, top-down censorship, and anti-conventionalism. There was not substantial overlap between the two measures, indicating that the Progressive Values Scale was measuring a distinct construct.

In spite of common characterizations of this distinction (e.g., progressive vs. moderate liberals), progressives appear to differ from traditional liberals more as a matter of kind (i.e., holding different beliefs) than degree (i.e., being extreme left-wingers), Proulx said. It remains to be determined whether these same differences in kind manifest within non-U.S. left-wing cultural contexts.

We hope that greater acknowledgment and understanding of these divergent values might be the first step in resolving or at least accommodating these perspectives within a broader left-wing worldview.

The study, The Progressive Values Scale: Assessing the Ideological Schism on the Left, was authored by Travis Proulx, Vlad Costin, Elena Magazin, Natalia Zarzeczna, and Geoffrey Haddock.

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New study helps pinpoint the key differences between liberals and progressives in the United States - PsyPost

(September 1, 2022 / JNS) Though the majority of American Jews identify ideas about social justice as the essence of Judaism and vote accordingly, they nonetheless support policies that are both unjust and penalize the poor to help the better-off.

JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin said that by backing both open borders and especially President Joe Bidens student loan bailout, Jews are prioritizing partisanship and personal interest over social justice.

According to Tobin, No one should confuse a policy that will benefit some of the most privileged and ultimately wealthy people at the expense of the hard-earned taxpayer dollars paid to Washington by truck drivers, food servers and manual laborers with justice.

Tobin is then joined by columnist and author David Harsanyi, who discussed the dishonest way democracy is being discussed by Biden and the Democrats.

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Well, I think most of the time when you hear someone say that democracy is being threatened, its just a euphemism for whatever policies they want, he said.

Harsanyi agreed that the student loan bailout was deeply wrong, saying, I think there are two aspects to it that bother me. One is that it is Robin Hood in reverse. Thats just unjust and an unfair policy that seems like vote-buying to me. But the other side of it is that its unconstitutional. Joe Biden does not have the right to do it.

He was also scornful of the way liberal Jewish groups were backing such proposals.

Its gotten to a point where Jewish organizations are the same as the Democratic Party, and thats terrible, said Harsanyi. A lot of Jews are now just anti-Zionist. And that was something you didnt see on the left when I was growing up.

The two also discussed the rise of anti-Semitism on the left. It is functionally anti-Semitic to say that the Jews should not have their own nation. There are some right-wing anti-Semites, and they should be called out. But theyre not embraced by the Republican establishment in the way that Ilhan Omar is or AOC is or other members of the squad.

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Liberal Jewish groups are the same as the Democratic Party - JNS.org

In the first ever intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity survey taken at Floridas 12 public universities, 61% of students agreed that their campuses provided an environment for free expression of ideas, opinions and beliefs.

Asked to share their political leanings, the 36% of employees who identified as moderates made up the largest single group. And a plurality of students 45% said they did not feel intimidated about sharing opinions in front of their professors, compared to 28% who said they did.

The results were discussed at Fridays meeting of the Board of Governors, which oversees the State University System. The survey, circulated in April, was mandated as part of a 2021 state law pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and advanced by Republican lawmakers who asserted that the states public colleges and universities are indoctrinating students with liberal ideas.

At a Board of Governors meeting in St. Petersburg that year, Senate President Wilton Simpson said some state universities had become socialism factories.

Of the 368,000 students who received the voluntary survey, 8,835 about 2% completed it, according to a 55-page report. The largest number of responses came from students at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida.

The survey attracted a lawsuit from a group of professors and the states faculty union, which also called on students and employees to boycott it.

About 25% of the students who participated agreed that professors or instructors use class time to express their own social or political beliefs without objectively discussing opposing social or political beliefs, but more than 50% disagreed with that statement.

Students were more split on whether they felt comfortable speaking up about controversial topics. About 44% said they were comfortable and 35% said they werent. Similarly, 41% agreed that their campuses did a good job of promoting differing viewpoints, while 27% disagreed.

In addition to the 36% of employees who identified as moderates, 21% said they were conservatives and 17% said they were liberal.

Of the 98,000 employees who received the survey, 9,238 participated, for a 9.8% response rate that was slightly better than that for students. Most were not faculty, instructors or administrators.

Forty-six percent agreed that their campus was tolerant of differing viewpoints, but 33% did not. And of those who disagreed, more felt the dominating viewpoint was liberal.

Most employees disagreed that tenure was tied to a political viewpoint or that they injected their beliefs into classrooms.

Board of Governors member Deanna Michael, representing faculty senates around the state, expressed concerns about the integrity of the survey, which also were raised in the lawsuit.

This was a first time, it was a big haul and it was very impressive, Michael said. But the faculty are interested in student experiences and atmosphere on campuses so we have some suggested directions to go in. For one thing, were concerned about the security of the survey because we really, really want statistical relevance of the data.

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Board chairperson Brian Lamb said the report was an important first step. Im sure theres a lot for us to think about and learn, he said.

Andrew Gothard, president of United Faculty of Florida, said in an interview that the results are completely invalid, not statistically reliable and represent nothing of value about the nature of higher education in Florida. The union is a plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging the law.

If the board were to create a survey that protected anonymity and sought to seek a more statistically significant representation on campuses, he said the union would likely support it. While survey participants were not asked to share their names, union officials contend some questions could reveal identifying information.

Divya Kumar covers higher education for the Tampa Bay Times, in partnership with Open Campus.

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Are Floridas universities too liberal? Heres what new state survey said. - Tampa Bay Times

President Barack Obama took greater steps towards normalizing relations with Iran and Cuba than any U.S. president in decades. Obama supporters had promised that greater links with the United States would help liberalize both Iranian and Cuban societies.

Hawks fought tooth and nail to stop those connections from forming, arguing that regime change is the only solution. After the hawkish Trump administration took office, it worked to put Iran and Cuba under greater U.S. pressure than ever before. While the Biden administration has tried reducing tensions, it has shown little appetite for a major diplomatic opening.

Now a cohort of liberal hawks advertises itself as the middle path. Both naive diplomacy and aggressive isolation campaigns failed, they argue, leaving world-weary moderates to forge a more practical path. Economic sanctions will stay, but with humanitarian exemptions. The military pressure will continue, but in the form of precision defensive strikes. Regime change is still the goal, but it will come as a result of playing the long game.

None of these camps are willing to deal with Iran and Cuba as they are. Diplomacy cannot simply be a means to secure U.S. interests but has to bring the triumph of the American way of life. The hawkish liberal center, which prides itself on moderation and pragmatism, is often the most obsessed with ideological victory.

Tehran and Havana have given up their dreams of permanent global revolution. Washington has not.

One of the most articulate liberal hawks is Karim Sadjadpour, analyst at the Carnegie Endowment and expert on U.S.-Iranian relations. In a series of essays, he has argued that normalization with Iran is impossible because the Islamic Republic needs anti-Americanism to survive. Sadjadpour proposes a permanent cold war aimed at throwing the Iranian leadership off balance, which would open space for a liberal democratic revolution inside Iran.

In a recent New York Times article, Sadjadpour compared Irans Ali Khamenei to Cubas Castro brothers, as both sets of leaders wanted to rule their states sequestered from international capitalism and civil society.

For Mr. Khamenei, the ideal position is just the right amount of isolation. Mr. Khamenei wants to be neither North Korea nor Dubai, Sadjadpour writes. He wants to be able to sell Irans oil on the global market without sanctions, but he doesnt want Iran to be fully integrated in the global system.

There is a much shorter phrase for what Sadjadpour describes: national sovereignty. Iran and Cubas leaders would like to deal with the world on a pragmatic basis, while maintaining their own systems of government. Nation-states are supposed to work this way.

Modern international relations are based on the Peace of Westphalia. Europe had suffered decades of religious warfare after the Protestant Reformation, so in 1648, major European powers agreed to a treaty based on the principle of cuius regio, eius religio. To each kingdom, its own religion.

States may be disgusted and horrified by each others values, but they can put aside those differences for the sake of peace and pragmatism. Catholic princes believed that Protestant kings were buying their people a one-way ticket to Hell; capitalist parties believe that communist parties are suffocating their peoples self-expression. All of them can conduct trade and diplomacy based on the principle of respecting each others borders.

U.S. special envoy Brian Hook was fond of claiming that Iran is not a Westphalian state but a corrupt religious Mafia. On the contrary, it is American leaders who have forgotten Westphalian principles. Washington does not really know how to accommodate countries who want to do business without importing a whole suite of American-style institutions or accepting a state of U.S. vassalage.

Iran and Cuba may once dreamed of spreading Islamism or Communism around the world in the same way. Three decades of U.S. superpower statusas well as isolation from neighboring stateshave ended that vision.

Cuba now has normal relations with almost all capitalist states in the world, and some of the Islamic Republics closest allies are Islamophobic regimes. For that matter, theocratic Iran and secular Cuba are willing to cooperate with each other because of the common threats they face. Some may call this hypocrisy or ideological bankruptcy, but Americans could benefit from a little more flexibility in the way they deal with different societies.

Nationalism is the new name of the game. Iranian politicians try to blend Islamic symbols with references to pre-Islamic empires. A visitor to Havana is more likely to see portraits of the national poet Jos Mart than Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin; the late Fidel Castro, who once tried to stamp out religion, eventually learned to embrace Afro-Cuban saints. Regime hardliners in Tehran and Havana speak in terms of independence and security, rather than spreading the banner of Islam and Marxism.

Of course, anti-Americanism is part of both states ideologies. That is because of the material threat that the United States poses to their sovereignty. One does not have to believe in Islamist morality or Marxist economic theory to wave the flag in the face of an outside enemy. In fact, those who oppose state ideology may still be swayed by the language of patriotic struggle and sacrifice.

If god forbid a war begins, then I a man who assumes no adjective but godless, will return to Iran to defend my motherland, wrote the exiled Iranian musician Mohsen Namjoo in 2019.

When push came to shove, Tehran and Havana accepted Obamas outreach. Iran traded away much of its nuclear program for sanctions relief, while Cuba welcomed American diplomats, businessmen, and tourists in droves. Although diplomacy did not resolve everything at once, Tehran and Havana opened up channels to talk about a variety of issues.

U.S. engagement also coincided with a period of reform in Cuba and Iran. However, diplomacy need not rely on that selling point. Diplomats job is to resolve international conflicts and pursue national interests without war. Whatever breathing room they open up for foreign reformers is just a pleasant side-effect.

America paid very little material cost for either opening. (Indeed, American business stood to profit from lifting sanctions and restoring trade relations.) But giving up on regime change was too high of an ideological price for many. Washingtons political class rallied against engagement, arguing the pace of reform in Iran and Cuba was too slow, or that diplomacy itself was a gift to dictators.

Obamas successors clung to the hope that the Iranian and Cuban systems were on the verge of collapse, and that the people of both nations were just waiting on an American push to overthrow their rulers.

The actual results of maximum pressure have been mixed. While opposition to the state has grown in both Iran and Cuba, there is no immediate path to counter-revolution, and even Sadjadpour admits regime collapse in Iran is likely to take years.

Normalization ended up being one of the greatest missed opportunities of the twenty-first century. The United States could have begun patching things up with two bitter enemies from a position of relative strength. Instead, it has chosen to push Iran and Cuba deep into Russia and Chinas orbit, just as those two superpowers begin to mount a real challenge to U.S. power.

However wasteful the conflict with Cuba is, Washington can probably afford to keep it going for a long time without feeling real pain. A state of permanent hostility with Iran is a much bigger problem. The Islamic Republic has projected military power across the Middle East, and may even become a global power by obtaining atomic weapons.

After all, a credible nuclear deterrent allows Moscow and Beijing to have their relationship with Washington. Everyone understands the insanity of trying to push regime changethat is, a civil war or leadership crisisin a country with hydrogen bombs. And so, U.S. leaders have been able to accept Russia and China for what they are, and to deal with those states transactionally, even when there are deep disagreements.

American hawks can sometimes be mistaken for realists, because they are willing to deal with dictators in the name of containing Iran and Cuba. In fact, U.S. relationships with countries like Saudi Arabia are very ideological. Its just that symbolic submissionaccepting the supremacy of the American way of lifeis more important than the practical application of democracy and human rights.

Earlier this year, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg and columnist Graeme Wood traveled to write about Saudi Arabias recent transformations. The crown prince was ruthlessly suppressing opposition to his personal, modernist interpretation of Islam. Saudi youth could show skin at American concerts, new cinemas played American movies, and prison re-education turned religious militants into American-style business consultants.

Goldberg and Wood spent little time discussing material questions about oil production, weapons sales, or regional security. Instead, they focused on how U.S. power can ensure the changes in Saudi culture become irreversible.

Cuius regio, eius religio, indeed.

Matthew Petti is a 2022-2023 Fulbright fellow. He was previously a reporter for Responsible Statecraft and research assistant for the Quincy Institute. The views expressed here do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

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What Liberal Hawks Get Wrong About Iran (and Cuba) - The National Interest Online

Neither of my parents had college degrees, but they worked their entire adult lives to ensure my brothers and I did. It was important to my parents, and it was part of their American Dream, and they achieved it without a single dime from the government.

My parents paid for one of my degrees, and I paid for the other. I paid for it while attending school at night and working a full-time job during the day also without a single dime from the government. It was all accomplished on a salary starting at only $13,000 a year. Im not complaining. That job and that degree was a portion of my American Dream too.

My husband, not quite as fortunate, acquired a student loan to attend college.

I watched him pay that debt for years, and when we were married, I contributed to paying that debt as well. Again, we didnt take a cent from the government in fact, it never occurred to us that anyone else was responsible for his debt. It was an obligation he signed up for an investment. He paid his debt, and he prospered from his investment. So can everyone else.

While attending undergraduate school, I had numerous friends who had heart-breaking stories of growing up in poverty. They had great financial needs. One friend worked three jobs to put herself through school. Like my husband, she saw college as an investment in her future.

Many of my former classmates discussed their student loans. They knew the price of their education, and they knew the debt they would owe after graduation. Obviously, they thought it was worth it.

Several questions arise from these various scenarios that focused on post-secondary education.

One, where is my 90-year-old mothers money for sending me and my two brothers to school?

Where is my allotment for paying for my second college degree?

Where is my money for sending my son to college?

How about my friend who worked three jobs to put herself through college?

Where is her compensation? How is her work to pay for her own education suddenly less valuable than the debt relief.

President Biden is proposing to give to thousands of students today? And additionally, how about the young people who didnt go to college because they didnt have the money and didnt commit to a debt the knew they couldnt pay?

Maybe all the people in favor of using government money to pay off student loans should volunteer their stimulus checks to help settle all those debts.

How much money can America afford to hand out to these former students? Its not like were buying them food to eat.

Were now paying for something they signed up for and agreed to pay back.

What message are we sending to them and to future students? Dont worry about your debts, the government will bail you out.

Show me the money, is no longer the famous line from a movie. Its the battle cry of many American people under the reign of a very liberal administration and youre paying for it.

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Beth Chapman is Alabamas former State Auditor and 51st Secretary of State.

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Column: Liberal battle cry: 'Show me the money' - Cullman Times Online

Leadership, Policy and Metaphor for a Collapsing Empire

When the redacted search warrant, for the National Defense (and other) Information (NDI) top secret documents the Rump Klan stole from the white house in January 2021, identified the Former President of the United States as FPOTUS, I thought we had a new political label for dead meat for the ages.

Within a couple days the long New York Times Magazine feature piece on the Jones Day law firm identified Jones Day partner and former Detroit Emergency Manager Fascist (EMF) Kevyn Orr as a rare liberal in their rightwing dog pen.

Why bother to commentate when the clichd metaphors[i] stand up and spew their own garbage 24/7?

Answer: FPOTUS skipped out on his coup-in-progress with a plan Schedule F to purge hundreds of thousands of government civil service employees, replacing the federal governments nonpartisan official corps with MAGA death cultists.

News flash: Theres at least an even chance POTUS47, whether its Ivanka, Ron DeathSantis, or perhaps a corporate Dem reaching out to their supporters, may implement some kind of linguistically deodorized Schedule F and worse within 3 years. I respectfully conclude thats good enough cause to speak up!

Jones Days token Negro Rare Liberal reportedly drew the ethical line with his own bloodied hands in 2021 on Jones Days lucrative Gleichschaltung practice, transforming the federal government into FPOTUSs weaponized neo-nazi criminal enterprise. Kevyn-the-former-EMF-and-now-RL (QAmok Revolutionary Leader?) supposedly drew this red line at the bright line issue of voter suppression, which he declares is a bridge too far for Jones Days noble throat slitters to take on for billable hours!

Follow up reporting should note voter turnout rates in Detroit before that very same rare liberal EMFd us: voter turnout rates that plummeted almost down to single digits after he turned the restructured urban debt machine over to Mike Thuggin Duggan. Theres more than one scam to do purges, and call attention to the stench repackaged as roses, in their corporatized, racial capitalist world. Jones Day knows how, and is paid very well, to run them all. Every lucrative one.

My point is the Rare Liberals FPOTUS Resistance story in the Burn Pit of climate catastrophe, proxy war in Ukraine & the other ten thousand things in this falling debris is about as credible as the QAmok shaman. People dont vote in Detroit any more because they know the game is rigged. Not an excuse, a reality. Jones Day, FPOTUS & their erstwhile mainstream competitors leading the corporate wing of the Dems out of and back into the political wilderness according to election cycles, are only fooling themselves. Rearrange their faces and give them all another name. (Thanks, Bob) This is a collapsing empire, world, and ecology. They are responsible for this Burn Pit Society. Our responsibility to somehow turn away and lead others toward something better is manifest, literally a matter of survival.

To recap things said and occasionally heard in the last decade or so: All this FPOTUS death cult & Rare Liberal nonsense is just apologia for their failing Burn Pit system. Thats it. The sum and substance underlying all National Defense (& other relevant) Information today. All of it. Their empire is collapsing and theyre trying to cover it up and take out as much loot as possible, before the water & blood rise too high. What should we do?

If nothing else, because it hurts when I laugh and to calm my own severely traumatized nerves let me seek & offer the reader relief in the words of the poet:

The Buddhas Parable of the Burning Building

Guatama the Buddha taughtThe doctrine of greeds wheel to which we are bound, and advisedThat we shed all craving and thusUndesiring enter the nothingness that he called Nirvana.Then one day his pupils asked him:What is it like, this nothingness, Master? Every one of us wouldShed all craving, as you advise, but tell usWhether this nothingness which then we shall enterIs perhaps like being at one with all creation,When you lie in water, your body weightless, at noon,Unthinking almost, lazily lie in the water, or drowseHardly knowing now that you straighten the blanket,Going down fast whether this nothingness, then,Is a happy one of this kind, a pleasant nothingness, orWhether this nothingness of yours is more nothing, cold, senseless and void.Long the Buddha was silent, then said nonchalantly:There is no answer to your question.But in the evening, when they had gone,The Buddha still sat under the bread-fruit tree and to the others,To those who had not asked, addressed this parable:Lately I saw a house. It was burning. The flameLicked at its roof. I went up close and observedThat there were people still inside. I entered the doorway and calledOut to them that the roof was ablaze, so exhorting themTo leave at once. But those peopleSeemed in no hurry. One of them,While the heat was already scorching his eyebrows,Asked me what it was like outside, whether there wasAnother house for them, and more of this kind. Without answeringI went out again. These people here, I thought,Must burn to death before they stop asking questions.And truly friends,Whoever does not yet feel such heat in the floor that hell gladly

Exchange it for any other, rather than stay, to that manI have nothing to say. So Gautama the Buddha.But we too, no longer concerned with the art of submission,Rather with that of non-submission, and offeringVarious proposals of an earthly nature, and beseeching menTo shake off their human tormentors, we too believe that to thoseWho in face of the rising bomber squadrons of Capital go on asking too longHow we propose to do this, and how we envisage that,And what will become of theirsavings and Sunday trousers after a revolutionWe have nothing much to say.

Bertolt Brecht

Notes.

[i] To-wit & e.g., those that lie down with dogs and get fleas; impunity for throat-slitting; power from immense gaseous explosions; useful idiots; evil tools; big lies; alt civil wars; do your research; the storm; & etc.. If Merrick Garland, an old line GOP Independent Counsel, Kirkland & Ellis & however many other giant law firms are needed produce, file & serve a consolidated omnibus federal indictment of FPOTUS on a timely basis to follow up on the Mar-a-Lago NDI search & seizure, Ill report further from the conceptually restructured, upsized & evidence-based neighborhood of Nirvana. Until then, other legal entanglements of FPOTUS seem like what Lao Tzu called straw dogs, whatever that means! Rare liberals?

Read the rest here:

FPOTUS and Rare Liberals Stoking the Schedule F Burn Pit - CounterPunch

Josie Pagani is a commentator on current affairs and a regular contributor to Stuff. She works in geopolitics, aid and development, and governance. She stood once for Labour.

OPINION: Why did Liz Truss cross the road? Because she said she wouldn't. The Tory candidate likely to be British prime minister next week has made more u-turns than a wobbly shopping trolley.

She's a Liberal Democrat who joined the Tories.

A passionate Remainer who mutated into a hardline Brexiteer. After 10 years in Cabinet, she is pitching herself as a fresh face.

READ MORE:* The Queen to swear in new British PM at Balmoral - rather than asking Prince Charles* Diversity in British politics as candidates launch campaign to be next PM* Boris Johnson to remain PM until September, here's how the UK's next leader will be chosen

It would be amusing if liberal democracy weren't under siege, and we didn't need leaders with backbone to meet the moment.

0.3% of the British population paid-up Tory members will choose between Truss and Rishi Sunak. We're retired now, but in our spare time we like to choose the next prime minister, quipped Private Eye magazine of those elderly Tory stalwarts. They've chosen the UK prime minister three consecutive times now.

Note to self allowing party members to pick doesn't seem to produce better or longer-lasting leaders. It does, however, appear to produce leaders who struggle in the job. Anyway, back to the UK.

A minority of voters support Truss. The public prefers Sunak, or Labour leader Keir Starmer. Truss is not even the first choice of Tory MPs or even most of those who will fill her Cabinet. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, she may not have enemies, but she is intensely disliked by her friends.

Frank Augstein/AP

Liz Truss will be the latest new leader not up to the job of defending fundamental ideas of liberal democracy, says Josie Pagani.

Truss will be the latest new leader not up to the job of defending fundamental ideas of liberal democracy equality before the law, and the rules that bind us. It is under attack in the battlefields of Ukraine, where Putin was triggered not by the expansion of Nato, but the expansion of democracy.

It is under attack from Donald Trumps claims that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen, and from Boris Johnson threatening to rip up the Northern Ireland Protocol, a legally binding agreement he negotiated and signed.

Those who break the rules when it suits them are as culpable as those who never believed in them in the first place.

If leaders dont defend democratic institutions, we end up with leaders who are more weather vane than signpost. Politicians who change their views to suit public opinion end up as insipid alternatives to the strong man autocrats who promise to blow the whole system up.

Thirty per cent of British voters equivalent to 14 million people agree that Britain needs a strong leader who can take and implement big decisions quickly without having to consult parliament.

If that doesnt worry you, last year, the world experienced the lowest levels of democracy seen in 30 years.

You and I might have just lived through the end of a brief interlude of liberal democracy. If the rise of democracy and the rejection of colonialism defined the second half of the 20th century, its collapse could be the defining trend of the 21st. Unless we fight back.

Defeating autocracy and cynicism requires us to defeat identity politics, because its the tool through which highly polarised extremes force voters to choose between bad and awful.

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Liz Truss, right, and Rishi Sunak on stage after a Conservative leadership election hustings at Wembley Arena in London. Polls suggest that voters prefer Sunak as the next British prime minister, but Truss seems likely to be her partys choice.

The appeal of populism is the identity it gives people who feel left behind, or sneered at by the elites in universities, media or parliament. Identity pitches people against one another by creating a shared understanding of victimisation. Dehumanising the bad people is a prerequisite.

The Hidden Tribes study, by the UK-based group More in Common, identifies a group on the right, Devoted Conservatives, who see themselves as defenders of traditional values and institutions. On the left it found Progressive Activists who blame power structures and institutions for causing inequality against minorities.

Those groups together make up about 14% of the population, but wield huge influence on political discourse. Its no surprise the Devoted Conservatives were the whitest of all seven groups identified in the study (88% white), but you may be surprised to learn the second whitest were the Progressive Activists (80% white).

The two groups were also the most highly educated and reported the highest annual income. More in common than they think.

Stuff

Josie Pagani: To survive, liberal democracy must own the optimism that things should and will be better.

Part of the appeal of populism and activism is they promote transformative change, and provide optimism that things should and will be better.

Liberal democracy used to own that optimism. To survive, it must do so again.

Liz Truss will not be one of those leaders who can make a passionate defence of liberal values or understand the seriousness of this moment. She will feint in the direction of right-wing identity and bait the left. They will respond in kind. Polarisation will increase.

But courage to resist can emerge in unlikely places. Republican Liz Cheney, with an unmatched right-wing pedigree, chose to blow up her political future to try to stop Trump re-entering the White House.

Why did Liz Cheney cross the road? Because she decided that defending liberal democracy was more important than her own career.

We need more of these signpost politicians.

Read this article:

Josie Pagani: Liz Truss isn't the leader the world needs right now - Stuff