Neera Tanden: haughty centrist extremism, typical of all corporatist liberals.
The narrative, devoid of any policy discussion, weaponized identity politics to frame Bernie Sanders and his supporters as a movement being propped up by sexist white males, erasing the women and people of color who supported the movement and continue serving as leaders within it. The narrative also served to arrogantly reaffirm the sense of entitlement Clinton, Democratic Party centrists, and the establishment had to voters in marginalized communities while they actively ignored and abandoned them.
Centrists have traditionally denigrated and attacked protests, if not ignored them completely, from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the water protectors standing up to the Dakota Access pipeline, to the anti-fascists standing up against rallies and organizing of Nazi white supremacists, and the nurses and activists fighting for single-payer healthcare in California and across the country, the same purveyors of the Bernie Bros and alt-left myth were nowhere to be found. ShareBlue, a centrist propaganda outlet, didn’t run a single story on the NoDAPL protests, and Neera Tanden, Markos Moulitsas, several former Clinton staffers,and DNC Chair Tom Perez have never tweeted or otherwise mentioned the protests at all, while a militarized police and security force terrorized Native Americans and the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
Moulitsas: Created Daily Kos, a huge insidious appendage to imperialist Democrats.
Instead of embracing movements like Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, anti-fa, or similar organizing against racism, social injustice, and oppression, centrists have often reverted to covering for the establishment forces doing the oppressing and pushing false narratives against these movements.
The “Alt-left” is a term developed to try to portray the activist left as comparable to the alt-right of neo-nazis and white supremacists, when what is defined as the “alt-left” is generally providing the strongest and most assertive opposition to the alt-right, while centrists virtue signal over civility and embrace neo-conservatives who align with alt-right policies. The alt-right, neo-cons, and centrist establishment voices are invested in disempowering and discouraging activism and protests that stand up to the status quo.
“This is not a time for cowardice or careerism in the face of rising fascism and overt violence against a wide range of minorities. This is not a time to mince words or fret over tenure and promotion. And this is certainly not a time to remain silent. For, as Audre Lorde warned us: ‘Your silence will not protect you.‘” “Many of the same citizens, scholars and everyday people who can clearly see white supremacy in the Trump era did not see it in the Obama era and would not have seen it under Clinton’s regime, either,” wrote Stony Brook University Professor of Sociology Dr. Crystal Fleming in Black Perspectives. “And this is the double tragedy of this moment: obscene celebration from Nazis and white nationalists who correctly view Trump as their advocate and crocodile tears from liberals who could not see the Democrats’ collusion with white supremacy, systematic racism, corruption and state violence here and abroad.”
This isn’t to say that progressives, leftists, and Bernie Sanders supporters have all the answers, but that’s the point of progressive policies and the grassroots attitude toward politics. It’s not about an absolutism based on one person, it’s about people coming together out of an impending restlessness to continuously progress toward racial, social, and economic justice.
The narrative also served to arrogantly reaffirm the sense of entitlement Clinton, Democratic Party centrists, and the establishment had to voters in marginalized communities while they actively ignored and abandoned them.
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We all know that Amazon is an uber-capitalist octopus swallowing ever more industries and openly collaborating with the CIA. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, probably the #2 richest man on earth, is no friend of radicals, or socialist revolution, that's for sure. But this app, ironically, promises to donate some money to whoever uses it to search and make a purchase on Amazon. Since many people will go on using Amazon due to habit or convenience, make it kick back a few dollars our way to continue our pro-peace and anti-imperialist work. Our financial situation leaves us no choice at this point. So consider it. A boycott of Amazon by lefties at this point is hardly going to register on their radar. But any funding we get, at our puny level, will keep us going. Simple as that.
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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
It’s still strange to hear middle classers refer to the Clinton wing as “centrists” when their agenda (esp. on socioeconomic policies) has actually been well to the right of former Republican presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, even Reagan. Consider that Bill Clinton alone wiped out most of the Great Society and took the first steps to similarly “reform” the New Deal.