My father Dennis Boardman born 3rd July 1924 - 100 years today. He loved a full life in a tumultuous century. According to the Vikram Samvat, a Hindu calendar, the year would be 1980 (the year I was born).
#100years
Mike Huckabee, after being named Ambassador to Israel by Trump, declares "there is no occupation" of Palestinian territory by Israel. Rather, Israel has had the "rightful deed" to the territory since the days of Abraham. He says he'll be using Biblical terms like "Promised Land"
@carolecadwalla And re. water fluoridation - why does the @guardian imply that its potential negative health impacts are a debunked conspiracy theory when linking it to RFK jr but separately report actual studies to confirm the suspicion and possible ban?
https://t.co/jzaPqiDNRf
@carolecadwalla It was already an oligarchy, which has been emerging in plain sight for decades. Musk, Thiel etc already have huge gov contacts and influence.
@simon_schama Harris’ problem was that she was ‘unburdened by what has been’ - a vacuous, hollow candidate. liberals are incapable of having a real vision for the future and in reflecting on the mess they leave in their wake
All the takes are correct and yet they also miss the point.
Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it. It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this.
But these are all just symptoms. The deeper reality is that liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly. It is a defunct ideology that cannot offer any meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and it must be abandoned.
Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even *basic* steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee - things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes. And they cannot accept a public finance strategy that would steer production away from fossil fuels and toward green transition to give us a shot at a liveable future.
Why? Because these things run against the objectives of capital accumulation. And for liberals capital is sacrosanct. They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation, it is their only consistent commitment. At home, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies. Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices in the global South and prevent any possibility of sovereign economic development.
The Democrats have done all this purposefully and knowingly, for my whole life, not as some kind of "mistake" but in full consciousness that it is in the interests of capital.
And because liberalism cannot address our crises, and because it crushes socialist alternatives, it inevitably paves the way for right-wing populism. They know this pattern, and yet they risk it every time - this election being only the most recent example. They did it in 2016, when they actively crushed the Sanders campaign and sent Trump to the White House. They do it because ultimately they (and I mean the liberal ruling class here) don't really mind if fascists take power, so long as the latter too ensure the conditions for capital accumulation. They 100% prefer this to the possibility of a socialist alternative.
So, progressives have to face reality. The dream of "converting" the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.
NEW: ‘A Cartography of Genocide’. Since October 2023, we have collected and analysed data related to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Our findings indicate that Israel has systematically targeted all aspects of civilian life. https://t.co/UUxYqpTF72
@simon_schama Are we returning to our historical origin? I think not. Perhaps just a minority who are radical enough to think that history legitimises brutality. If we all took this approach, we would return humanity to the stone age.
My take on Sally Rooney is that she’s used her fame to publicly condemn apartheid & genocide while her peers in bestseller-to-TV-adaptation megastardom (Maine horror guy & Canadian dystopia woman) have tweeted about US politics every single day without once mentioning Israel/Gaza