Chris Lehmann at The Baffler writes—Don’t Troll, Organize:
HOW BEST TO SUM UP the peculiar derangement of the American experiment, circa 2017? The self-dealing, insanely corrupt Trump cabinet and campaign organization—with the latter, at least, now poised for an apparent moment of reckoning with special prosecutor Robert Mueller? The open-air auctioning off of the regulatory state, piece by compromised piece? The creeping normalization of fascist rhetoric, from the Oval Office on down? The pursuit of lavish tax cuts for the one percent at every possible civic and material cost one can imagine?
All of these dismal threats—and others yet untold—may yet pitch the remains of the American experiment into the dustbin of history. Yet precisely because of the urgency of the moment, it’s also extremely exasperating to behold the reliably aghast online liberal set’s recent campaign to commemorate the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s election with a scream-in. The event, originally scheduled for November 8 at Boston Common, has gone somewhat viral, attracting interest in a handful of other cities, even as the original Facebook posting for the Boston gathering has gone missing. That founding Facebook appeal—which had drawn several thousand confirmed RSVPs, together with more than 30,000 shows of interest—ran under the coy slogan “Scream helplessly at the sky on the anniversary of the election.”
“You can influence the latest thing he says on Twitter” is a far cry from “We shall overcome,” or “Workers of the world, unite!”
Yes, the conceit of these gatherings is funny, in the same throwaway fashion that similar finals-week escapades on college campuses can be cathartic. But that’s just the thing: these scream-ins, like their university analog, aren’t aimed at persuading anyone, or cobbling together majority coalitions. They’re not interested in advancing our politics in any meaningful sense at all. They are, rather, an all-too-familiar example of the aggrieved liberal superego simply advertising itself as aggrieved. Under this grand insular dispensation, stressed-out, privileged college students and disenchanted liberals alike can retreat to their own preferred sanctums of privilege to vent, as the rest of the world continues going to hell.
Not that they’d put things exactly that way, mind you. “This administration has attacked everything about what it means to be American,” Boston event organizer Joanna Schulman told Newsweek on Friday. “Who wouldn’t feel helpless every day? Coming together reminds us that we are not alone, that we are part of an enormous community of activists who are motivated and angry, whose actions can make a difference.”
Come again? Screaming helplessly is a symbolic validation of political agency and a renewal of an enormous community’s sense of shared purpose? Wouldn’t that make, say, Gilbert Gottfried the most powerful leader of the anti-Trump resistance—with Keith Olbermann as its all-too-eager minister of propaganda? [...]
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QUOTATION
“I am weary seeing our laboring classes so wretchedly housed, fed, and clothed, while thousands of dollars are wasted every year over unsightly statues. If these great men must have outdoor memorials, let them be in the form of handsome blocks of buildings for the poor...”
~Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1886
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
At this date at Daily Kos in 2011—Poverty threshold rises, but more people are poor, in new Census measure:
In response to longstanding criticism of how the poverty level is calculated, the Census has produced a new, unofficial supplemental poverty measure (PDF). The new measure raises the poverty threshold, yet finds more Americans living in poverty: Under the official poverty threshold, 46.2 million people are poor, while under the supplemental measure, the number is 49.1 million.
The Census Bureau's alternative measure includes many more factors in calculating poverty. The official measure is a set dollar amount for a given family size, and doesn't take into account regional variations in cost of living, government programs to help the poor, medical expenses and more—things that may make it easier or harder to make ends meet on the $22,113 that was the 2010 official poverty threshold.
These changes have different effects for different demographic groups.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Election Day! Local resistance, with a twist. Wilbur Ross is a liar. There’s no penalty for that, so whatevs. Carter Page loses his damn mind. Saudish Arabia lights everything on fire. Post-shooting discourse overflows with teh dum. Was the shooter in “uniform?”
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