Dear Citizens and Elected Officials:
We are now heading into crunch time, make or break with the Biden agenda, especially phase two, after the infrastructure “bi-partisan” compromise is completed, if that actually comes to pass.
What is discussed in this “diner” interview with NY Times’ columnist Maureen Down covers the more difficult legislation to follow, both content and tactics. Most of the readers of the Daily Kos will be familiar with the outlines touched on here, if not the details.
Here is the NY Times’ article from today, Saturday, July 10, 2021: www.nytimes.com/… It’s entitled “The Ascension of Bernie Sanders.”
I felt Dowd got a bit carried away with the Biden-Sanders cooperation theme, even as she rode along with Sanders’ parrying her attempts to go cultural, not ideological. I decided to weigh in with an initial comment, and then one to a reader who attacked my mention of AOC. I urged Ms. Dowd to hold more interviews in places like this, and made my nominations on whom to talk to.
Here’s my comment and “rebuttal” on AOC:
“Thanks for this Maureen, your most incongruous interview for some time. It remains to be seen, in the next few months, how President Biden reacts to the full Sanders agenda, call it what you want, it's based on the Green New Deal and inspired, at its basics, by FDR's Second Bill of Rights from 1944. The core question is whether corporate America will be subject to any other values beyond short run pursuit of the highest dollar. And whether any other forces in society can be given a seat in the design and implementation of public policy. I don't see how economic inequality or environmental inequality (global warming) are addressed without a different mix of power. Along those lines, how about you go to another diner with Thomas Piketty and talk to him about his latest book, "Capital and Ideology." An AOC one at a Taco Bell would be great too; come to think of it, she's probably got a better idea for good food in her home district. And then there's George Packer on his "Last Best Hope" book, one of the better diagnoses of American troubles out there. And finally, how about interviewing another sister, Stephanie Kelton, in the New York area, about the state of the economy and what Modern Monetary Theory might deliver - that it's close to being practiced by the Fed and Treasury - even by those who would deny it and say it is the work of economic imposters? The Right's ideas have dominated since 1980 - and here we are. Time for a closer look at the left.”
2 REPLIES
Tom Falvo commented 44 minutes ago
T
Tom Falvo
Douglas, Massachusetts44m ago
@ No serious person that I know takes AOC the least bit seriously. She serves only to give the right wing media a "flaming socialist" to hold up to their rubes.
commented 17 minutes ago
@Tom Falvo I strongly disagree. They attack her because she is a serious threat to all they hold dear, and they recognize political "charisma" in her, as I think was openly acknowledged by Steve Bannon early on in her career. It's a fair question, in one so young and in keeping with our "traditions," to wonder about her depth of knowledge about the history of democratic socialism, social democracy, of American Utopian communities of the Antebellum days, Debs, Day, Thomas, Harrington, Randolph, Reuther...on that, I don't expect Pres. Biden or Majority Leader James Clyburn to fill her in...but she has what the American labor movement lacks: risk taking, daring, to protest out side Pelosi's office before being sworn in, and launching the Green New Deal Resolution...maybe we can give Trumka and Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO an injection of it...”