The Real Revolution
In the fight between left and right, don't lose sight of the goal
I’d love to be covering other subjects, but the dark matter world has plans. We’ve passed the event horizon for election drama and won’t be escaping soon.
Does it matter, for example, that a credible new paper in the prestigious journal Nature puts climate sensitivity (ECS) at more than double its assumed value?
[G]lobal average ECS is 7.2 °C per doubling of CO2, much higher than the most recent IPCC estimates of 2.3 to 4.5 °C and consistent with some of the latest state-of-the-art models which suggest ca. 5.2 °C[.]
I’ll explain what that means in a bit (preview here and here), though I sometimes think “Why bother?” if no one will act.
And of course there’s Gaza, but hey, that’s not going away.
So we’re left staring at this: Biden has dropped out, leaving many questions unanswered. For example:
Why announce in a tweet? Is he really that sick … or pissed?
If he’s frail as he looks these days, is someone else running the show?
What was the actual timing of this decision?
Did close aides like Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Jen O’Malley Dillon hide accurate polling data for some time to bolster Biden’s determination to stay in?
And now it looks like Harris has been given a chance, but she has to sew it up. As of this writing, Kalorama hasn’t weighed in, and I think she still needs to prove to the donor class she can better herself.
All this on top of the crazy assassination try, the pick of the maybe-real populist Vance for veep, and the endless swirl of leaks and posturing. We’ve reached a gravity well, a political dark hole. Space-time is stretching.
The Real Revolution
Yet amidst it all, I don’t want this truth to be lost: The real revolution is not between Ds and Rs, but the Rich and the Rest.
As Chris Hedges writes, the “orchestrated … deindustrialization of the United States, [ensured] that 30 million workers lost their jobs in mass layoffs. … [T]his assault on the working class created a crisis that forced the ruling elites to devise a new political paradigm. Trumpeted by a compliant media, this paradigm shifted its focus from the common good to race, crime and law and order.”
Our captured government sent manufacturing abroad to make our rich more rich. They immiserated workers, let predatory domestic companies pick cash from their bones, and trumpet on cable news the only fight that won’t hurt their bottom line. As a result, we watch our parties battle each other while the real perps, the not-yet-rich-enough rich, rake in the dough.
Look at the cartoon at the top, then note this:
The area under the curve is actual money, billions and billions, transferred from workers to owners — pure profit for a CEO class that enriches itself at the expense of their companies.
And how did their workers get by? They went into debt — new profit for lenders and banks.
No wonder people are angry. No wonder they want to strike back. And it’s going to get worse. The rich still aren’t rich enough yet.
The real revolution is to try to make this all stop. That shouldn’t be lost.
Sanders and Trump
It’s likely that Sanders would have wiped the floor with Trump, both in 2020 and 2016, but the Party didn’t want that. So here we are. The choices, again, are between what we have now and the fakest of fake revolutions.
Me, I would love for Trump not to be president. I don’t think he wants to govern. He’ll likely hand his cabinet, as he did before, to whoever has his ear.
Last time we got creeps like Mike “Kill Assange” Pompeo; John Bolton, the mustache of freedom and one of the worst of Bush’s Iraq War fiends; torture queen Gina Haspel running CIA; public school privatist Betsy DeVos at Education; and too many more.
I don’t count on friend-of-the-worker J.D. Vance, even if he is sincere, to win many anti-wealth fights in a pro-wealth world. Plus abortion, the Court, and knives out for a livable climate. You get the point.
So I wish the Democrats luck. I’d rather have them than the rip-off on skis we may get. They did themselves in, they shouldn’t have cock-blocked Sanders, but that’s in the misty past. And here we are.
There are some very good substacks out there but, by far, this one is the best, Thomas. Thank you for taking the time to write.
Excellent article. Back before the primaries in 1992, friends of mine from Arkansas warned me about the Clintons and said nothing good would come from their presence on the national stage. They were right. Bill Clinton cemented Reaganism into place and did so much damage by signing NAFTA, the Crime Bill, Bankruptcy Bill, and more ... and the Democrats were almost all on board. Will the neoliberals ever quit? The stripping of industrial America and selling it off for parts has ruined opportunity for millions.
And Clyburn, who rescued Biden from oblivion in 2020, is on record as receiving more money from Big Pharma than any other member of Congress. Can't stand the guy. He gets rich betraying his constituents. Best democracy money can buy.
The corruption runs deep and the fact is that other than Bernie & Warren, we don't get any reform out of The Democrats unless we get really threatening. Can't get any more blunt than that in these times. The fact is that the current crop of Dems would have fought FDR tooth and nail.
Yes, I would have supported Biden - he has done a lot of good things, and some that are pretty horrible - but Reagan moved the Overton Window so far to the right that the "middle" is really conservative. But at least with Biden we would have lived to fight another day. With Trump? No way.
My mind is open toward Kamala and I hope she will build on the good parts of Biden. It's not like we have a choice this fall. Third parties almost always make things worse. I will work hard to help her win and hope that, unlike Obama, she is not a disappointment.
Now the question will be whether Kamala Harris separates herself from Biden's policies, prticularly his militaristic non-negotiating stance on foreign policy. If she keeps Sullivan and Blinken, we're cooked. The bad sign is that I heard she is keeping Biden's disastrous campaign team.
Domestically I'm not thrilled by Biden --a president serious about climate change would not slap tariffs on solar panels and electric cars, and his inflation reduction act is largely a gift to corporations. That Scanrton Joe is a shtick --he's really delaware corporate Joe. Kamal's father was a very leftist progressive pro-equality economist, so I hope she picked up somethihng from him.