The important thing here is not the candidate- although the 'image' of a muslim, pro Palestinian with Social Democratic policy proposals is relevant- but the way in which the victory was won.
The mobilisation of canvassers and the building of a large network of small donors to finance the campaign is what enthused Hudson and Woolf.
The DNC model of politics is built on the basis of large donors, PACs with unlimited resources and keeping on the right side of the capitalist media and culture.
The trick for AOC and any other sell outs involves dumping the people and the organisation which elected them in such a way as to ensure it does not elect their successors.
It is mistaken to believe that campaigns such as Zohran's are routine, they are not.
As to where they will lead, that will depend upon whether they become democratic organisations built not upon candidates but principled policies. As to which all that we know is that it is possible if we, and people like us, having learned from history, commit ourselves to activity - the bases of the status quo are very unstable, the ruling class is weakening, morally, intellectually and materially and this is quite evident. We live on the eve of one of humanity's great crises: a 1789 or a 1917 is coming, because it must.
Roger brings us the pessimism ofa sharp intellect, what we need is the optimism of the militant's will. We make history. Here we are. It is immanent.
Can anyone, or perhaps bevin, explain what bevin means with this "The trick for AOC and any other sell outs involves dumping the people and the organisation which elected them in such a way as to ensure it does not elect their successors." ?
And I agree with this "As to where they will lead, that will depend upon whether they become democratic organisations built not upon candidates but principled policies."
I remember the Jacobin story that marked AOC's debut.
I was intrigued with her as a seemingly new and genuine political figure while also sensing that the article, and accompanying photo, had a canned quality.
Candidates who sell out after winning elections can only do so where those who elected them are demobilised- if the voters want socialist policies they will insist that their candidates promote them.
In the current political conditions the tide is running against politicians who claim that their hands are tied and that they cannot fight for the ideas that they have told the voters they believe in. One reason for this is that most people realise that if public budgets can stretch to vast investments in useless armaments and subsidies to fascists around the world there should be no problem in ensuring that everyone's basic needs are met- that there is no homelessness, no famine, no untreated disease etc.
The point is that if New York can elect this guy it can make sure that he does what they want him to do, they just have to keep him under control and, more importantly, take practical steps to implement the programme- rent strikes, fare strikes, squatting in public buildings, union organising for example.
Recently, an article by the Washington Examiner questioned her campaign contributions (given that her X account [https://x.com/AOC] says that she’s “People-Funded, takes no lobbyist money”), and a spokesperson from her campaign replied that “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress is a people-powered campaign that has received over 2.5 million individual donations since 2017, with an average of around $16 per contribution”, once again painting the picture of a grassroots candidate.
Averages however can be a funny thing, and if you go to the official Federal Election Commission page and look her up (pick up an election year, and then select “Browse Receipts”), you’ll see that while she does get many really small donations (82,000 out of 238,000, for 2023-2024, in the $1-$10 range, if my search under “Receipt details” on the left was correct), she also receives quite a few contributions in the $160-$20,000 range; I picked $160 as cut-off value as it’s 10x the average amount indicated by her campaign (so it seemed sort of significant) and the search function returned almost 7,000 such contributions from this page: https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00639591&two_year_transaction_period=2024&data_type=processed. Nothing wrong with that, per se. Yet one more proof that she likes to put a spin on the picture she paints of herself.
As a mere peasant from across the big pond, I'm trying to think of a member of Congress who has made a difference in bettering the condition of the American working class ....
.... thinking ... contemplating .... someone who has not been bought and paid for ...
... still thinking ...
It is already fascism in all but name - a veneer of theatrical democracy ... look at present cabinet where the main qualification is ultra high wealth and subservience to Zionism ...
Thank you Roger. I don't know how many times liberals/dems will do a charley brown when lucy yanks away the football - evidently the number is infinite.
yes there's hella racism/sexism, but calling anyone who won't vote in favor of genocide and everything else that is against their own self interests is the same as calling opposition to genocide anti-semitic.
ok, off my soapbox.
excellent assemblage of facts, sir. Much appreciated.
I love their work, especially Hudson's. If the US liberal wing of the oligarchy decide that so openly supporting Israel is a liability they will let Zohran rise. It does not change the fact that Zohran is a bourgeois progressive not a socialist.
We all want to believe in such figures, I did for a long while. But when you pull apart how the system actually works in detail you start to understand that a truly socialist individual would never have been allowed to get even this far in the Democratic Party.
Obama was so obviously an establishment created candidate. AOC was rapidly "tamed" showing her lack of real commitment to change. Zohran may have a bit more commitment, but he has lead a very soft and privileged life that orients him toward accommodation with the elites not opposition; all incremental change that does not fundamentally challenge the system while creating a sheen of progressiveness that helps cover up and gain consent for the ugliness beneath.
Raised by two parents provided with grants to be indoctrinated in the "American Way" at US universities, including Harvard. His father was part of the Kennedy Airlift. This is how foreign nationals become advocates for America, with some surface level criticism allowed of course to maintain legitimacy.
I am as convinced as you that the real leaders must have classconciousnesss , but I think the slogan Norman Finkelstein used "If you think New York City belongs to the billionaires on the Upper East Side, vote for Cuomo. If you think New York City belongs to all New Yorkers, vote for Zohran Mamdani." as he was canvassing for Mamdani might made the New Yorkers a little bit more conscious. And what if Mamdani's politicy paves the way for Bric 's view of countries caring for their people and not their oligarchs..
Are all the oligarchs supporting the Democrats united? Aren't there any oligarchs supporting the politicians like Zohran Mamdani, those who realize that an unipolar world is dying, and to stay alive with your business you have to join a multipolar world?
And as you write in your excellent article “Why Iran? The Context & The Consequences”
“The majority of US Jews under the age of 50 are already not Zionist, with the core of US Zionism funded by a small group of the aging Jewish Zionist rich.” And I remember I read an article about people under 40 who were socialists as young, didn't change their view as older.
I might have illusions.
The Maga movement is backed up by huge amount of money.. can Magavoters be attracted to Democratic socialists? Will the struggle be between the workers against anti-racists and climateactivists? As they are in Sweden?
The Democratic "Socialists" are not socialists, and the Democratic Party will throttle and/or co-opt anyone that wants real change. If by some massive mistake a real change agent got to be the leader of the party the establishment would finish them quickly, as was done to Corbyn in the UK.
Just because someone is anti-Zionist does not make them anti-oligarch. The Republican and Democratic parties are owned by the oligarchs as their tools, and to some respect reflect disagreements within the oligarchy. Some want to maintain US dominance that supports their profiteering and some want to consolidate; but all of them want to keep exploiting the working class.
Change will be forced from without not from within.
Roger, take a look at Wikipedia what sort of parents Zohran Mamdani has. Both of his parents seem to have been fighting for justice in their professional roles.
Its called a performance, its classic bourgeois progressive incrementalism which supports their professional careers. If they actually started to really push for more fundamental changes their professional positions would very quickly become challenged. Its how liberal bourgeois society keeps the "progressives" in line, while appearing to care. The academy and the arts are replete with such individuals.
This is what Rockhill so well covers with respect to the academy and "critical" theory, and father Mamdani's work is replete with cultural explanations devoid of political economy. The mother's work is full of the cultural focus with no attack upon the underlying system that the liberal bourgeois so love.
What is "fighting for justice" if it only addresses the surface phenomena looking for surface fixes, fully supportive of the exploitative system that produces the injustices? Bourgeois progressivism. It supports and legitimizes the system rather than challenging it.
One of Rockhill's lectures, about the global theory industry and "left" anti-communism.
I think itś important not go the events in advance, how conscious are the New York residents really? It is great, that here comes a young man with all his activists and he calls himself a socialist, and give the the ordinary people visions about a better life, “Where hard work is repaid with a stable life, where eight hours on the factory floor or behind a cab is enough to pay the mortgage” …
In some way he reminds me of Martin Luther King who said “I have a dream”...as far as I know King wasn´t a socialist, but he ended up talking about not only black people, supporting black and white sanitation workers when they went on strike. He matured during his struggle…
Well, what do you think the New Yorkers should have done instead of voting for Zohran?
Perhaps I misunderstand you, you think it’s okay that they voted for him, but that we shall not have illusions, that it will not change anything.
I think it’s good enough if people’s consciousness is growing, and at least it will do it among all the young people and others who were supporting him by actively participating in spreading an politic that is directly opposite to both the Democrats and the Republicans.
The important thing here is not the candidate- although the 'image' of a muslim, pro Palestinian with Social Democratic policy proposals is relevant- but the way in which the victory was won.
The mobilisation of canvassers and the building of a large network of small donors to finance the campaign is what enthused Hudson and Woolf.
The DNC model of politics is built on the basis of large donors, PACs with unlimited resources and keeping on the right side of the capitalist media and culture.
The trick for AOC and any other sell outs involves dumping the people and the organisation which elected them in such a way as to ensure it does not elect their successors.
It is mistaken to believe that campaigns such as Zohran's are routine, they are not.
As to where they will lead, that will depend upon whether they become democratic organisations built not upon candidates but principled policies. As to which all that we know is that it is possible if we, and people like us, having learned from history, commit ourselves to activity - the bases of the status quo are very unstable, the ruling class is weakening, morally, intellectually and materially and this is quite evident. We live on the eve of one of humanity's great crises: a 1789 or a 1917 is coming, because it must.
Roger brings us the pessimism ofa sharp intellect, what we need is the optimism of the militant's will. We make history. Here we are. It is immanent.
Can anyone, or perhaps bevin, explain what bevin means with this "The trick for AOC and any other sell outs involves dumping the people and the organisation which elected them in such a way as to ensure it does not elect their successors." ?
And I agree with this "As to where they will lead, that will depend upon whether they become democratic organisations built not upon candidates but principled policies."
The possibly future NYC mayor and his wife look like socialites, not socialists.
They'd fit right in at the Met gala.
I so remember AOC's utterly performative BS at the Met Gala!
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/aoc-met-gala-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-dress
I remember the Jacobin story that marked AOC's debut.
I was intrigued with her as a seemingly new and genuine political figure while also sensing that the article, and accompanying photo, had a canned quality.
In the UK they would call them "champagne socialists"
Great line.
In Mexico they'd be "fresas."
thumbs up! here we would call her "sangrona".
Aka, phony.
yep.
I apologise for my sloppy writing.
Candidates who sell out after winning elections can only do so where those who elected them are demobilised- if the voters want socialist policies they will insist that their candidates promote them.
In the current political conditions the tide is running against politicians who claim that their hands are tied and that they cannot fight for the ideas that they have told the voters they believe in. One reason for this is that most people realise that if public budgets can stretch to vast investments in useless armaments and subsidies to fascists around the world there should be no problem in ensuring that everyone's basic needs are met- that there is no homelessness, no famine, no untreated disease etc.
The point is that if New York can elect this guy it can make sure that he does what they want him to do, they just have to keep him under control and, more importantly, take practical steps to implement the programme- rent strikes, fare strikes, squatting in public buildings, union organising for example.
Recently, an article by the Washington Examiner questioned her campaign contributions (given that her X account [https://x.com/AOC] says that she’s “People-Funded, takes no lobbyist money”), and a spokesperson from her campaign replied that “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress is a people-powered campaign that has received over 2.5 million individual donations since 2017, with an average of around $16 per contribution”, once again painting the picture of a grassroots candidate.
Averages however can be a funny thing, and if you go to the official Federal Election Commission page and look her up (pick up an election year, and then select “Browse Receipts”), you’ll see that while she does get many really small donations (82,000 out of 238,000, for 2023-2024, in the $1-$10 range, if my search under “Receipt details” on the left was correct), she also receives quite a few contributions in the $160-$20,000 range; I picked $160 as cut-off value as it’s 10x the average amount indicated by her campaign (so it seemed sort of significant) and the search function returned almost 7,000 such contributions from this page: https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00639591&two_year_transaction_period=2024&data_type=processed. Nothing wrong with that, per se. Yet one more proof that she likes to put a spin on the picture she paints of herself.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/investigations/3242797/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-lobbyist-cash-records/
As a mere peasant from across the big pond, I'm trying to think of a member of Congress who has made a difference in bettering the condition of the American working class ....
.... thinking ... contemplating .... someone who has not been bought and paid for ...
... still thinking ...
It is already fascism in all but name - a veneer of theatrical democracy ... look at present cabinet where the main qualification is ultra high wealth and subservience to Zionism ...
Thank you Roger. I don't know how many times liberals/dems will do a charley brown when lucy yanks away the football - evidently the number is infinite.
yes there's hella racism/sexism, but calling anyone who won't vote in favor of genocide and everything else that is against their own self interests is the same as calling opposition to genocide anti-semitic.
ok, off my soapbox.
excellent assemblage of facts, sir. Much appreciated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fCOefH-Fnw
Michael Hudson and Richard Wolf are pleased that Zohran won the election, and so is Norman Finkelstein too.. but not AIPAC.
I love their work, especially Hudson's. If the US liberal wing of the oligarchy decide that so openly supporting Israel is a liability they will let Zohran rise. It does not change the fact that Zohran is a bourgeois progressive not a socialist.
We all want to believe in such figures, I did for a long while. But when you pull apart how the system actually works in detail you start to understand that a truly socialist individual would never have been allowed to get even this far in the Democratic Party.
Obama was so obviously an establishment created candidate. AOC was rapidly "tamed" showing her lack of real commitment to change. Zohran may have a bit more commitment, but he has lead a very soft and privileged life that orients him toward accommodation with the elites not opposition; all incremental change that does not fundamentally challenge the system while creating a sheen of progressiveness that helps cover up and gain consent for the ugliness beneath.
Raised by two parents provided with grants to be indoctrinated in the "American Way" at US universities, including Harvard. His father was part of the Kennedy Airlift. This is how foreign nationals become advocates for America, with some surface level criticism allowed of course to maintain legitimacy.
I am as convinced as you that the real leaders must have classconciousnesss , but I think the slogan Norman Finkelstein used "If you think New York City belongs to the billionaires on the Upper East Side, vote for Cuomo. If you think New York City belongs to all New Yorkers, vote for Zohran Mamdani." as he was canvassing for Mamdani might made the New Yorkers a little bit more conscious. And what if Mamdani's politicy paves the way for Bric 's view of countries caring for their people and not their oligarchs..
Are all the oligarchs supporting the Democrats united? Aren't there any oligarchs supporting the politicians like Zohran Mamdani, those who realize that an unipolar world is dying, and to stay alive with your business you have to join a multipolar world?
And as you write in your excellent article “Why Iran? The Context & The Consequences”
“The majority of US Jews under the age of 50 are already not Zionist, with the core of US Zionism funded by a small group of the aging Jewish Zionist rich.” And I remember I read an article about people under 40 who were socialists as young, didn't change their view as older.
I might have illusions.
The Maga movement is backed up by huge amount of money.. can Magavoters be attracted to Democratic socialists? Will the struggle be between the workers against anti-racists and climateactivists? As they are in Sweden?
The Democratic "Socialists" are not socialists, and the Democratic Party will throttle and/or co-opt anyone that wants real change. If by some massive mistake a real change agent got to be the leader of the party the establishment would finish them quickly, as was done to Corbyn in the UK.
Just because someone is anti-Zionist does not make them anti-oligarch. The Republican and Democratic parties are owned by the oligarchs as their tools, and to some respect reflect disagreements within the oligarchy. Some want to maintain US dominance that supports their profiteering and some want to consolidate; but all of them want to keep exploiting the working class.
Change will be forced from without not from within.
Roger, take a look at Wikipedia what sort of parents Zohran Mamdani has. Both of his parents seem to have been fighting for justice in their professional roles.
Its called a performance, its classic bourgeois progressive incrementalism which supports their professional careers. If they actually started to really push for more fundamental changes their professional positions would very quickly become challenged. Its how liberal bourgeois society keeps the "progressives" in line, while appearing to care. The academy and the arts are replete with such individuals.
This is what Rockhill so well covers with respect to the academy and "critical" theory, and father Mamdani's work is replete with cultural explanations devoid of political economy. The mother's work is full of the cultural focus with no attack upon the underlying system that the liberal bourgeois so love.
What is "fighting for justice" if it only addresses the surface phenomena looking for surface fixes, fully supportive of the exploitative system that produces the injustices? Bourgeois progressivism. It supports and legitimizes the system rather than challenging it.
One of Rockhill's lectures, about the global theory industry and "left" anti-communism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH2TfECsEsw&t=1270s
I think itś important not go the events in advance, how conscious are the New York residents really? It is great, that here comes a young man with all his activists and he calls himself a socialist, and give the the ordinary people visions about a better life, “Where hard work is repaid with a stable life, where eight hours on the factory floor or behind a cab is enough to pay the mortgage” …
In some way he reminds me of Martin Luther King who said “I have a dream”...as far as I know King wasn´t a socialist, but he ended up talking about not only black people, supporting black and white sanitation workers when they went on strike. He matured during his struggle…
Well, what do you think the New Yorkers should have done instead of voting for Zohran?
Perhaps I misunderstand you, you think it’s okay that they voted for him, but that we shall not have illusions, that it will not change anything.
I think it’s good enough if people’s consciousness is growing, and at least it will do it among all the young people and others who were supporting him by actively participating in spreading an politic that is directly opposite to both the Democrats and the Republicans.
great overview roger... thanks...