Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket (Again)

 I think I'm noticing a pattern here. 

In my role as public commentator, I'm always making these arguments that sound like they are in favor of the "Establishment" or "centrist" part of the Democratic coalition. 

I appeal to electability. I say things like: look, people, regardless whether you prefer Medicare for All, or a public option, or just increasing subsidies under the ACA—none of it will make the least difference if Democrats lose every election and the government is run entirely by Republicans who proceed to cut Medicaid and axe even those few other health care benefits we currently have. So our first priority needs to be to win, then we can iron out differences between us later on. 

Directional Socialism

 In Walter Greenwood's classic proletarian novel Love on the Dole, the heroic martyred socialist Larry Meath—when pressed to justify his political views—never gets much further than explaining the principle of surplus value. The laborers are the ones who did all the work to produce wealth, he argues—so why should they get to keep so little of the proceeds? 

This is why Robert Tressell called his own working class protagonists "ragged-trousered philanthropists"—they were charitably supporting a class of owners and capitalists in a state of idleness—and received only contempt for their pains. ("Is it not enough that you eat the bread of others' labor, but you must despise them as well?" as Ernest Crosby once asked of the bourgeoisie). 

AfD

 The disturbingly strong showing for the far-right AfD party in Germany's state elections in Saxony-Anhalt over the weekend fortunately does not immediately change anything about the policies of the German central government. Nor does it presage some inexorable global tide of the extreme right (the AfD is strongest only in historically depressed ex-Communist areas of the country, not nationwide). 

Still, I do think these results underscore that electoral politics across the West are no longer a contest between the center-right and the center-left as we once knew them. Rather, the struggle is between a loose coalition of anti-fascist parties, and a resurgent populist far-right that is deeply xenophobic, wears its historical ties to European fascism on its sleeves, talks about mass expulsion of nonwhite immigrants, and displays a weird affinity for Vladimir Putin. 

Snubbing Africa

 A couple days ago, the UN General Assembly voted to replace the Mercator projection on global maps with a new visualization of the world that depicts the relative sizes of the various continents more accurately. 

The United States was the only government on earth to vote against the new map. 

Why? Because Trump is wedded to the delusion that Greenland is bigger than it is, because of his colonial designs on the Danish territory? 

An Eagle in His Nest

 John Ganz in his newsletter today quotes from a new essay about the controversy that has ensued, following revelations of the extent of the personal acquaintance between Noam Chomsky and Jeffrey Epstein. For everyone who at one point admired Chomsky when they were a budding leftist, this news was indeed a blow; and many on the Left have apparently been arguing for months over whether we now have to reevaluate his entire career. 

My own view is that Chomsky always had certain annoying and disingenuous intellectual foibles; but at the same time, he became a hero to the anti-war left for a reason. I found myself reflexively quoting him—without the thought of Jeffrey Epstein even entering my brain—just two days ago, on the subject of the dehumanizing way we treat war in this country. Many of Chomsky's best lines and moral observations retain their emotional power. 

Centrist or Liberal?

 A couple days ago, the center-left prime minister of Spain suggested that the Moroccan government may have deliberately refused to prevent migrants and asylum-seekers from crossing the border into Ceuta earlier this summer. 

This is a rather odd thing to charge any government with, though, since the last time I checked, it's not the responsibility of any state to hold their own population prisoner within their borders and prevent them from exiting. 

Just a Game?

 Yesterday evening, the Trump administration's comms team apparently rolled out a set of retro flash games on the official White House website. 

One of them is called "Rio Run." God help me, I clicked on it. 

You play in the game as an old white man who wanders around the screen intercepting "border crossers."