Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounces socialists and praises Biden administration- WSWS

[Milos Uzelac]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/26/aoc-m26.html

25 March 2021

Very interesting and informative article by WSWS about the history of the ideology and political strategy of DSA within the Democratic Party and a critique of Ocasio-Cortez's position on "class essentialism deprioritizing human rights" and "bad faith actors" . 

Conclusion of the article:

And what does the DSA have to show for a half century of working within the Democratic Party? The party has abandoned any pretense to social reform, it has waged permanent war and overseen a massive growth in social inequality. The “realignment” strategy paved the way for the Democratic Party’s rapid movement ever further to the right. It succeeded in facilitating the Democrats’ adoption of identity politics, based on doling out privileged positions to corrupt representatives of various racial groups, and a more open acceptance of human rights imperialism.

Ocasio-Cortez and the DSA are carrying forward their pro-imperialist, anti-communist traditions into the 21st century. Their main role, as expressed in the interview, is to serve as gatekeepers of the bourgeois political left, channeling social opposition into the Democratic Party and placing its left opponents beyond the pale. Those who fight to mobilize the working class (“class essentialism”) for a break with the Democratic Party are “cynical bad faith actors” who want to “destroy.”

Edited March 28, 2021 by Milos Uzelac

[Opo]

She didn't denounce all socialists just the ones who pretend that Trump and Biden are the same. 

Here is the original article. 

https://www.dsausa.org/democratic-left/aoc/

It's nice to see that she's maturing. 

 

1 hour ago, Milos Uzelac said:

Those who fight to mobilize the working class (“class essentialism”) for a break with the Democratic Party are “cynical bad faith actors” who want to “destroy.”

You're twisting her words. 

Read the original article. 

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by Opo

[Forestluv]

@Milos Uzelac The title of the article is misleading. Most likely to be provocative and drive up clicks.

AOC is democratic socialist to the left of Bien and to the right of socialists. She has criticized and praised both sides. 

This article is obviously to the left of DS because it is conflating DS Dems with corporate Dems. This is a common pattern for them far left. They have a point, yet are too hyperbolic.

[Milos Uzelac]

13 hours ago, Opo said:

 

https://www.dsausa.org/democratic-left/aoc/

You're twisting her words. 

Read the original article. 

 

I have read it. For example this is a statement from the interview posted online in the magazine Democratic Left a couple of weeks ago that she gave to the editorial board member of that magazine Dan McIntosh and that the World Socialist Web Site columnist Eric London used excerpts from for his article analysing claims and statements she made in this interview. 

The statement Ocasio-Cortez made in the interview from the original article:

"And so when I would see DSA showing up providing real structural support at BLM rallies, or support for abolishing ICE, where we felt like there wasn’t this class essentialism, but that this really was a multiracial class struggle that didn’t de-prioritize human rights, frankly, I was really impressed. And I felt like it was something worth being part of."

WSWS article interpretation of that statement:

Ocasio-Cortez saves the most vituperative comments for the genuine socialist opponents of Biden. When asked, “What was your path to joining DSA?” Ocasio-Cortez responds by repeatedly stressing what makes the DSA “distinctive” from other socialist groups: “We felt like there wasn’t this class essentialism, but that this really was a multiracial class struggle that didn’t de-prioritize human rights, frankly, I was really impressed.”

The reference to “class essentialists deprioritizing human rights” shows Ocasio-Cortez and the DSA are working in line with a definite political tradition: American anti-communism. Nothing socially progressive can emerge from this morass.

Ocasio-Cortez answer to the interviewers question in the original article:

Question: Some on the Left have looked at Biden’s record and his differences with the Bernie wing of the party, and they conclude that no progress is going to come out of the Biden administration. What’s your view?

"Well, I think it’s a really privileged critique. We’re gonna have to focus on solidarity with one another, developing our senses for good faith critique and bad faith critique. Because bad faith critique can destroy everything that we have built so swiftly. And we know this because it has in the past, and it’s taken us so many decades to get to this point. We do not have the time or the luxury to entertain bad faith actors in our movement. But also we have to value our solidarity with one another. For anyone who brings that up, we really have to ask ourselves, what is the message that you are sending to your Black and brown and undocumented members of your community, to your friends, when you say nothing has changed? Perhaps not enough has changed. And this is not a semantic argument. Just the other night, we in collective struggle were able to stop the deportations of critical members of our community. And that would not have happened in a Trump administration."

Thank you.

"They were just on the belt ready to go. And you just cannot say that nothing will change. We can make the argument that not enough is changing fast enough. And these really are not nitpicking questions of semantics, because this is how the language that we use communicates to individuals who is included and who do you consider a person. When you say “nothing has changed,” you are calling the people who are now protected from deportation “no one.” And we cannot allow for that in our movement. That’s not a movement that I want to be a part of. And I know that’s not the movement that we are a part of. We’re so susceptible to cynicism. And that cynicism, that weaponization of cynicism, is what has and what continues to threaten to tear down everything that we have spent so much time building up. We’re allowed to win too, by the way. [LAUGHS.]

I prefer winning, actually."

WSWS article analysis and interpretation of Ocasio-Cortez's following answer an statement:

McIntosh asks, “Some on the Left have looked at Biden’s record and his difference with the Bernie wing of the party, and they conclude that no progress is going to come out of the Biden administration. What’s your view?”

She replies:

"Well, I think it’s a really privileged critique. We’re gonna have to focus on solidarity with one another, developing our senses for good faith critique and bad faith critique. Because bad faith critique can destroy everything that we have built so swiftly. And we know this because it has in the past, and it’s taken us so many decades to get to this point. We do not have the time or the luxury to entertain bad faith actors in our movement."

Such “bad faith actors,” Ocasio-Cortez says, only betray their disdain for the poor and oppressed by criticizing the president. Ocasio-Cortez adds a noxious dose of identity politics to the old Democratic trick of presenting left-wing opponents as aiding the right:

"For anyone who brings that up [i.e., opposition to the Biden administration], we really have to ask ourselves, what is the message that you are sending to your Black and brown and undocumented members of your community, to your friends, when you say nothing has changed?... When you say ‘nothing has changed,’ you are calling the people who are now protected from deportation ‘no one.’ And we cannot allow for that in our movement."

The example of protecting immigrants from deportation is an unfortunate selection on Ocasio-Cortez’s part. In the weeks since the interview, Biden has suspended the right to asylum and deported tens of thousands of Central American refugees, denying them as much as a court hearing. Perhaps Ocasio-Cortez considers that the 15,000 children presently detained in immigration jails are “privileged bad faith actors” for opposing their own incarceration.

Ocasio-Cortez saves the most vituperative comments for the genuine socialist opponents of Biden. 

So @OpoI think nobody is twisting her words here (especially not me since I haven't wrote that article analysing and interpretating the interview that Ocasio-Cortez gave to a DSA affiliate magazine about her politics and vision of what left-wing movements and parties ought to be in America and the conclusion that it got from her statements made on that very subject, it is just that I thought that what it was saying and concluding about the current nature and role of Cortez, DSA and Democrats under this administration in America and the conclusion that it came about them did have a point and a factual backing to it), it à conclusion that the author of the article Eric London posted on World Socialist Web Site made about the history and nature of the DSA political strategy within the Democratic Party and his own interpretation of Ocasio-Cortez's statements and opposition to the character and nature of left-wing socialist criticisms of the Biden Administration and of goalscope and achieviements of the DSA progressives in the U.S. Congress up until this point. 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Milos Uzelac

[Milos Uzelac]

9 hours ago, Forestluv said:

@Milos Uzelac The title of the article is misleading. Most likely to be provocative and drive up clicks.

Yes somewhat I agree for the aim perhaps of targeting and trying to get some of the people who were the traditional voter base or voted for the Democrats or even Republicans who have become disaffected with the parties over the years to persuade them away from both parties and towards some Third party option for the workers or small business in America. 

[Milos Uzelac]

9 hours ago, Forestluv said:

@Milos Uzelac

This article is obviously to the left of DS because it is conflating DS Dems with corporate Dems. This is a common pattern for them far left. They have a point, yet are too hyperbolic.

Yes I agree but it is also at the same time a possible avenue for the traditional white and other dominant ethnicities workers who mostly voted for Trump now or Bernie out of their own perceived class interests to find avenue out of this soft language of identity politics that Democratic party leadership and candidates espouse in their campaigns as tactic in order to get votes for the Democratic Party from minority and marginalised ethnic working class groups in America and into candidates and political parties that would speak in a more concrete and much more adversirial and critical language of class, class exploitation, class oppression and class domination against the actual groups who carry it out in society. 

[DocWatts]

Whenever I see naive Leftists criticizing the handful of successful Social Democrats who are actually advocating for thier professed Values:

[DocWatts]

Fact is that Bernie or AOC are about as far Left as you can go under a Two Party System while staying Electable.

And they've proved more successful in shifting the Overton window Left towards Social Democracy than any Third Party or Socialist Advocacy group in America.

Try running a Socialist candidate (not a Social Democrat like AOC or Bernie, but an actual Socialist) and see how far that gets you. Even Green Party candidates like Ralph Nader are much closer to being Social Democrats than Socialists.

[Milos Uzelac]

56 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

Fact is that Bernie or AOC are about as far Left as you can go under a Two Party System while staying Electable.

And they've proved more successful in shifting the Overton window Left towards Social Democracy than any Third Party or Socialist Advocacy group in America.

Try running a Socialist candidate (not a Social Democrat like AOC or Bernie, but an actual Socialist) and see how far that gets you. Even Green Party candidates like Ralph Nader are much closer to being Social Democrats than Socialists.

Even though so why not at least try to work on building a strong Third Party base in the Imperial Core of Capitalism to have when times become even grimmer if you think most people would be just satisfied with a simple advocacy for some réformism here and there conducted via the Democratic Party. Do you think it would become radical enough over the years to actually address the mounting grotesque social inequality and possible state repression in order to keep the status quo over the next upcoming years? Who is going to stand up and adress the Big Tech Monopoliies and Multinational Corporations based in the U. S.  that affect the whole world within the constraints of U. S. national electoral politics as if it is an isolationist wealth and company problem only under the administrative area of the U. S. government?

Edited March 29, 2021 by Milos Uzelac

[DocWatts]

@Milos Uzelac A few things:

(1) Socialism is going to have an easier time operating and pushing for things like workplace Democracy and Decommodification within a Social Democracy than it would within the more Capitalist system that qe have today. Once people see that 'Leftist' policy positions work and 'Socialist' is no longer used a pejorative, people won't as afraid of experimenting with reforms that empower workers.

(2) Third Parties are great in concept and something I wish that our system made room for, but until major Electoral reforms are enacted (such as Ranked Choice Voting), Third Parties unfortunately don't stand much of a chance. Changing the Two Major Parties from within has proven to be how you actually successfully advocate for Reforms our system. For the record, I'd probably vote for the Green Party if Third Parties were viable in our system; but as things stand, getting more Progressives and Social Democrats elected to the Democratic Party is the most realistic avenue for change.

(3) Just my personal opinion, but I think Leftists would be better off dropping this language of 'radicalizing' people. It's on us to convince people that policies we advocate for are the more Reasonable position. Treating Health Care as a Human Right in the richest country in the world, or giving workers a voice in how thier workplaces are run, aren't far fetched utopian ideals and shouldn't be treated as such. Using the language of Radicalization only serves to make these ideas seem scary to people who might otherwise support said reforms.

Edited March 29, 2021 by DocWatts

[Milos Uzelac]

1 hour ago, DocWatts said:

@Milos Uzelac A few things:

(1) Socialism is going to have an easier time operating and pushing for things like workplace Democracy and Decommodification within a Social Democracy than it would within the more Capitalist system that qe have today. Once people see that 'Leftist' policy positions work and 'Socialist' is no longer used a pejorative, people won't as afraid of experimenting with reforms that empower workers.

(2) Third Parties are great in concept and something I wish that our system made room for, but until major Electoral reforms are enacted (such as Ranked Choice Voting), Third Parties unfortunately don't stand much of a chance. Changing the Two Major Parties from within has proven to be how you actually successfully advocate for Reforms our system. For the record, I'd probably vote for the Green Party if Third Parties were viable in our system; but as things stand, getting more Progressives and Social Democrats elected to the Democratic Party is the most realistic avenue for change.

You make some valid points, criticisms and observations (on some of the existing proposed options within electoral politics in the U. S. that I didnt have an idea about existing until you mentioned it here - apart from the much talked proposed reform about the filibuster and the electoral college) from a reformist point of view, prediction and perspective on the pathway and trajectory of change within U. S. politics and economy. 

I disagree on some of the stuff regarding the imagined people's perception of political radicalization and being radicalized in the dominant culture of the U. S. regarding politics since I think the term is prone for use in black propaganda by whatever the establishment of a state and is also used to politically and morally smear policy advocacy solutions that explained correctly should sound reasonable to most common people. So for that reason I think term radical and radicalization should be worked on being reinvented so it does not sound "bad" and "evil" and is not as stereotypically associated with for example terrorism in the mainstream discourse or popular imagination but as something that is a need and requirement at this pont in time. 

For example one could say: "We in the name of the people demand radical change of the current system that is no longer sustainable and has long abandoned the needs and wants of ordinary industrious and hard-working people in our country. We demand the radicalization of policies  being proposed and carried out to address these systemic issues that have long been plaguing our country and pushing the majority of country further into impoverishment, debt and a mediocre standard of living. We are therefore radical in our advocacy and intent of adressing these systemic issues that others ignore or won't mention for the sole reason that we want radical change and reform for the benefit of majority of our people in our country and for the betterment of their lives, livelihoods and those es of their children and future generations. "

For example one could say while using the word radical and radicalization in the sense I mentioned above in a bland, vanilla speech calling for radical change in the way things are in America. 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Milos Uzelac

[DocWatts]

@Milos Uzelac Thanks.  So I do think you make some very valid observations about the fact that Bad Actors have intentionally worked to make 'radicalization' a pejorative, for the purposes of discrediting a number of very reasonable and pragmatic policy platforms (including everything from the Green New Deal to a Living Wage Legislation in the US).

That said, in order to get anything passed using democratic methods requires a majority (or in some systems a plurality) of people within a country to support a given piece of Legislation; or if not supporting it, at least not being strongly opposed to it. And for most ordinary people most of the time, saying that someone has become 'Radicalized' has strong negative connotations to it.

For a typical person in America,  mentions of 'Radicalization' may bring to mind:

• QAnon Conspiracists
• Islamic Terrorists
• Neo Nazis / White Supremacists
• Marxist Revolutionaries
• Domestic Terrorists

In other words, not the sorts of things you probably want associated with a movement that at its heart wants to expand democracy, reduce economic exploitation, and promote sustainable development. Sure I suppose you could work very, very hard and spend a ton of time trying to reclaim that Label from these negative connotations, but why bother? Assuming the end results are what you care about, why not take the less difficult path to get there?

Edited March 30, 2021 by DocWatts

[DocWatts]

@Husseinisdoingfine For sure. It's all about how your frame the discussion around these issues. 'Radicalizing' people is always going to be context dependent; and for someone tied to the sinking ship of Late Stage Industrial Capitalism, ideas like workplace Democracy may seem 'Radical' if the person making that judgement call earns a living from running a business with highly exploitative labor practices.

For most ordinary people, the idea of giving workers a say in how their business is run can come across as very reasonable, depending on how its pitched. If the person making the argument uses highly combative language and emphasizes that this is part of a larger push to change everything about society, it's likely to scare people off who might otherwise be sympathetic to your aims.

On the other hand, if it's framed as an extension of values that person already believes (Democracy, fairness, autonomy, financially rewarding hard work), you'll have a much easier time of it. Ideally, for these sorts of idea to gain any traction at all in the wider population, workplace Democracy should be seen as American as Apple Pie, and an extension of the ideals of this country. 

If you look to previous efforts to move society forward (be it the New Deal or Civil Rights advances), that's exactly how they were able to gain enough traction to become successful. It should be easy to speak about it in non-abstract, concrete terms that your grandparents could understand.

I also think it's worth emphasizing that it doesn't have to be an all or nothing affair, there are various gradients of Socialism and Social Democracy. I think of myself as someone who's highly sympathetic to the motivations and intentions behind (Libertarian) Socialism, and see it largely as an empirical question as to where things like decomodification and extensions of Democracy make sense, and what some pragmatic approaches for implementing these ideas might look like.

Edited March 30, 2021 by DocWatts

[Milos Uzelac]

4 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

@Milos Uzelac P.S. World Socialist Wide Web looks like a good news site, thanks for helping me discover it.

I am glad you found it useful and that I helped you in that regard. Didn't as well know about it all until yesterday when a friend of mine linked it to me with the featured article via Facebook.