Thank You for having Kshama Sawant on today. She is probably the only honest, sincere and respectful politician we have working in America today and her words match her actions unlike our so-called progressives like "the squad" and Bernie Sanders. I wish we had 1000 more like her. I am now an annual paid subscriber to The Chris Hedges Report.
Kshama is one of the vanishingly small number of politicians who refuse to be bought and/or neutered by the political establishment. The very fact that they try, repeatedly, to get rid of her is the surest sign that she is an effective champion of the people against corporate America. Furthermore, she also really, *really* gets up the nose of conservatives, as seen in the bitter and resentful comments being posted here. Lmao
I am a liberal that lives in Seattle. I take it you don’t live in Seattle and just arm chair clap at what she does here because she is pushing back on the establishment. She was part of the establishment that had full control of our city and their policies have put Seattle in the place it is. Lisa Herbold is another that has been with her pushing idiotic policies like no oversight on non-profits getting money from the city or getting rid of drug diversion programs. She was also the main person pushing to get rid of police Chief Carmen Best, who had done more in her short time to diversify the police force and bring more accountability to them. Sawant got all the new officers fired with budget cuts.
Good. That money can be spent where it’s needed more, rather than on Cops who are there just to keep rich folk feeling safe and separated from the (mostly brown) “mob”.
OMG! I had to pay $6 just to subscribe so I could comment. And then I'll delete this substack permanently. Sawant is a HORRIBLE hypocrite and I don't know a single sane person in the Seattle area who wants her in office. If you like hypocritical Marxism then sure, she's your gal. But get your facts straight! It wasn't the business community who tried to run her out of office. It was a grassroots campaign and her own constituents. A total controlling and disgusting nut job. I grew up in Seattle and she is a STAIN on it's existence. I can't support anyone who likes her.
I am sure Mrs Sawant is a very inconvenient and troubling person because she uses methods that are not in the playbook. I doubt she is hypocritical, but Marxism or Communism are certainly a RED flag for most people in this country (not even real poor people understand that this would be the way to go, they prefer voting for a populist like Mr Trump, well as far as one can tell, the next president will be Mr Trump or someone similar, let us see ...)
I’m surprised you’re over 30. Do you live in Seattle? Do you know all of the stunts Sawant has pulled? And since you want Marxism in this country who is the leader you’d like to follow? I understand our 2 party system is in the toilet but that doesn’t mean a Marxist society is the answer if one has looked at history.
I am a non voter which means I am not a citizen ... as I wrote in another Post, I only listened to the interview and looked at the wikipedia page (i.e. I do not live in Seattle). I do not really care what political system the US has (my worries are with the US foreign policy which is 'overwhelming' or whatever you might call this) and am also appalled how poor people are simply 'forgotten' (I was raised in a socialist society which would be considered over here as communist - as one newspaper a few years said: Bernie Sanders would be regarded to the right of the middle of the political spectrum in Europe, here he is an almost communist ...)
I am not a defund the cops supporter, I am for ending police brutality as happened to George Floyd and many others, so that means police reform. We have to have police. And black and brown people are often treated worse by police and legal system and I am opposed to that. If they had fairer treatment like people with my skin color that would be enough. They just want fairness, Frank Lee, like you and I do.
If you (or anyone else) is for ending police brutality, then you should advocate for an end to qualified immunity for police officers (or, again, anyone for that matter.) I don't accept the notion that some people are more equal than others. Never have, never will. The law should be the law; not two sets operating simultaneously. If you break the law, you should suffer the same consequences as anyone else. If you don't like the law, then you simply advocate for your legislative representatives to change it. That has happened throughout history without issue. Why citizens accept this state of executive & judicial apartheid in the U.S. is beyond belief. In my opinion, it is one of the main reasons for our current and rapid degradation of society (the other is allowing government to operate, perpetually and astronomically, beyond its financial means).
Further, if BLM was a legitimate movement, then they would have pushed for this, unrelentingly, from day one. The fact that they abandoned that initial demand illustrates what a farce and distraction from the real issue the BLM movement really is.
Prosecutors, mainly DAs, have too much control over who gets prosecuted, for what, and to what degree. They’ve en masse done an end run around the precedent of trial by jury. Threatening defendants with onerous charges and requisite jail terms, which would be too costly for them to fight, is a tactic used to coerce people into pleading down, as it is termed. Violations of due process have also become the norm, so those who can’t make cash bail languish indefinitely, unless they plea bargain. This artificially boosts conviction numbers, as the innocence project can attest, which they use to get reelected. Justice is not served as often as corruption.
The like does not work, so I post it: absolutely true, just read it in Judge Jed S Rakoff's book: Why the innocent plead guilty and the guilty go free.
There is no need to end qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known".
Qualified immunity balances two important interests—the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably.
You create more problems than benefits ending qualified immunity.
In my opinion, a "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known" is too high of a legal bar that makes most public officials (most importantly law enforcement) and their actions effectively shielded from any accountability whatsoever. That legal precedent was designed as such. The only cases that are allowed to move forward toward accountability appear to be the ones so egregious and well documented that a donkey could easily make the call (Derek Chauvin's murderous actions come to mind). Even when they do move forward and reach conviction, the penalties imposed (and terms for eventual release) prove laughable (Amber Guyger's penalty comes to mind).
I compare the legal bar for qualified immunity comparable to the same judicious impossibility as defending oneself against a charge of violating the U.S. espionage Act of 1917. Under this charge, the defendant is denied the right to present a motive to a jury. Effectively the defendant is found guilty before having the burden of proving him or herself innocent. The only question before a possible jury is whether it was you that committed the crime or not (in other words an alibi for a case of mistaken identity by the government appears to be your only recourse to avoid conviction); the question of "why" is never even allowed to enter the legal equation. IMO, motive should ALWAYS be allowed for consideration before a jury of your peers within an equitable and just Republic.
Too one-sided. You are not including the consequences. It becomes just fanciful thinking. Qualified immunity is imperfect... it is just better than the alternative.
It is similar to soldiers. They have a unique job that puts them in life or death situations, and more importantly life and death of others situations.
If it was not for all the criminals behaving badly, we would not have a need for cops. Blame the criminals.
The problem with your analogy is that it involves blatant logical fallacies. For one, soldiering is not a "job". Soldiering involves no production in capitalistic society. It is a government apparatus to a society (usually indoctrinated by manufactured fear) that always involves a cost. It is nothing more than a glorified policing operation revolving around the notion of 'war' than rarely (particularly in modern society) involves the doctrine of self defense. Second, soldiering has no unique claim to human activity involving life or death "situations". There are plenty of real jobs that involve the same (professional tree climbing, mining, fire-fighting, etc. come to mind). Lastly, your statement that "if it was not for all the criminals behaving badly" is just plan ludicrous. As opposed to what? All the criminals behaving saintly? Boy, if we could just those criminals to become choir boys, we just wouldn't need those dang cops.
Bottom line is that I am saying police (or soldiers) serve a necessary (and always costly) function in society. However that function does not relieve them from the responsibility of practicing by the same set of morality and ethics every else lives by. If anything, they should be held to the highest of those legal standards (called laws) because of their unique position of being given legal power (executive authority) over others.
One is irrational as in a complex large country with thousands of jurisdictions and millions of interactions... and differences of opinion for what is brutal or justified, that is just utopian stuff.
The other is subjective as all hell. Black and brown people are generally not treated unfairly by police when controlled for black and brown people involvement in crime within the territory of the the crime and encounter statistics. If cops were just inherently racist then Asians would also be over-represented. Many of the police departments liberals want to claim are racist are over-represented in black and brown cops relative to the population they serve.
The only material bias we have today is class. Cops are biased against people in low economic class as people in low economic class tend to be more prone to crime... and violent crime in many areas.
But defunding the cops has been a disaster. It has resulted in more black and brown victims of crime. The voters in most places know this. Apparently not in one Seattle district.
I have no patience for people that conflate single sensationalist symbolic events with some overlay of society in general. It is frankly a sign of low critical thinking skills. That cop is in prison. Story over. There will be other single incidents because cops are people and people are imperfect. Try the cop and move on.
The question... is there statistical evidence of police being more brutal to black and brown people? Actually no. The statistical evidence is the opposite. Cops are more apt to target whites.
Great Socialist Alternative Strategy, Chris and Kshama, in your podcast regarding the "Quiet American" duopoly Empire regarding the need for a second workers' American "Revolution Against Empire" [Justin duRivage].
My two following comments to Nicholas Kristof's same excellent column, are as follows:
"These Gun Reforms Could Save 15,000 Lives. We Can Achieve Them", could actually and cogently be employed to focus not only on guns, but also on the seminal factor of exposing what, Ron Suskind hectored Karl Rove into admitting in the 'Times' in 2004, that "We're an Empire Now".
My First Comment to Nick in the NYT:
Nicholas, I would take another chance at describing how the gun industry has the unique power of having been given a waiver on product liability — however, after a decade as a subscriber, and very frequent commenter on “these ‘Times’ they are not a-changing” fast enough to remedy “our failure to communicate” [Cool Hand Luke].
I have to take “the road less traveled”, as Chris Hedges, did, to leave these Times because of the ‘Times’ following ‘the long arc of history toward’, rather than away from, Empire with this the NYT's too often non-reply to my comments which the 'Times' invites and says it "needs our voice", but then says:
“The comment you are looking for is currently unavailable” — because of censorship.
My second comment today to Nick was that:
Nicholas, I would strongly suspect that if the NYT’s extreme excellence in investigative reporting (visual, or otherwise) in targeting the likelihood that the ‘orders of magnitude greater’ profits of the insanely named ‘Defense Industry’ [aka, “Merchants of Death” Nye Report] might well be discovered to be funding the NRA through a “Quiet American” Empire of wealth, deceit, power, and ‘Divide and Conquer’ social-media propaganda, far more likely than the puny, and at times, almost bankrupt, small arms industry.
She has no respect for rules or laws. I’m fine with pushing against the system for change but she is an anarchist that only will listen to her own opinion. She does not have conversations with the city or lawmakers. Seattle is a covered in homeless camps and drug addicts and her response is to give them free housing so they can do drugs openly in taxpayer funded housing. Like marching on the Mayor’s house with protestors even though Durkin was under a protection order and her address was supposed to be secret. She had no problem with big corporations when her husband worked at Microsoft and made them $$$. Once she got money then she can rail against the same people that made her rich. How noble.
The USA has so many homeless (although it is such a rich country) because there are almost no funds for psychiatric treatment or drug treatment options. Most of these people get in conflict with the law and end up in regular prisons, where they just get hardened and when they get out they are on the street again and again and again. So nothing gets better in their miserable lives. Rules and laws are mainly to protect us from those that could not make it and there is nothing wrong with trying to give them a helping hand (one of the main things is certainly fighting for good wages and I doubt that most cities and companies care at all about giving you a living wage ...). I would say the main problem you have with her is that she is a Marxist, which is intolerable in this country. She is not asking for money for herself (and the money she earned before is well earned I am sure) but trying to improve other peoples lives, which is a very hard thing to achieve in this rigged society, where nobody is talking for the 'simple people' (it was an amazing victory that this Amazon worker in Staten Island could succeed - but I am sure it is not over, the corporation will try everything to get rid of the union).
I have no issues with people’s politics. I have problems when it is her way or she yells people down. Just like the business tax that got overturned. She could have had a conversation with the businesses it effected. It wasn’t just Amazon. At the very least there would have been a chance. Instead we have a moral victory. You should read up on her promise not to take a salary which she funnels back into a nonprofit to cover her expenses. She defunded drug treatment. She defunded drug intervention so people could get clean instead of going to prison. She defunded our police chief that was doing a great job diversifying our police force. You read a headline and think she is a savior. Elect her mayor of your town then.
Well I cannot vote here and if she did what you say I would like to hear how she justifies it ... otherwise I just listened to the interview and looked at the wikipedia page ...
Which is also disappointing that Chris didn’t push back on the many issues she is central too instead of just petting her ego. She had done real damage in Seattle. For God’s sake she really tried to decriminalize CRIME if they did it for a reason she thought was ok.
You would need to know the actual case circumstances, but there is certainly a heavy link between poverty, broken families, young testosterone driven males and crime. I wished that the justice system would be as prepared to go after white collar crime as for stealing a candy bar!
Hah! I find it insane that the elite funded campaign to oppose Ms Sawant even found its way here, given that Chris' substack doesn't make the headlines. Still they had to pay & sign up to push their poisonous tosh, so there are silver linings.
As a lifelong socialist who represented co-workers at state and national level during my working life I'm familiar with the dodges these types get up to.
Some of our biggest hassles came from the paid employees of our union who rarely if ever had experience in our industry and regarded their job solely as a stepping stone to a political career representing a party which sold workers down the river at first opportunity whilst promising to "look after them".
I decided long time ago that as I'm opposed to top down centralised government in any form, the only way to even attempt to live one's ideals is to get stuck in to grass roots community based efforts. That way one gets to spend less time in pointless conflict with arseholes and can actually get things done whilst simultaneously demonstrating to fellow humans what socialism is & what it can do.
The only issue Ms. Sawant appears to support that makes any sense whatsoever is the living min. wage. I'm all for businesses agreeing, in principle, to honer the necessity of paying a minimal living wage. However employees are ffree to demand for this themselves; they don't need government to mandate it for them.
My advice is to work hard and make yourself as valuable a commodity as possible. Then you can demand your fee accordingly. You will never subvert the principle of supply and demand in a capitalistic economy. While I don't care one whit if somebody wants to join a commune (your free to do it --and there's been plenty of failed precedent for that in the U.S. ---and I imagine China or Russia will allow you to emigrate if you want a real good taste of it-- I don't want a communist government forced upon me. I was born into a Republic with constitutional rights. I intend to do whatever I can to keep them--all of them. That means Ms. Sawant would fail to get my vote.
I have yet to hear a reasonable argument for relieving student debt or deferring rent due to the pandemic. I didn't here it at all from the radical socialist Chris hosted. My arguments against:
STUDENT LOAN DEBT FORGIVENESS:
1.These folks knew what they were getting into when they signed the loan agreement. If they didn't than what we are really being asked to forgive is individual foolishness. What is the precedent and legal basis for compensating that? I was brought up to understand the principle that a fool and his/her money are soon parted.
2. How about those that actually paid for there student debt in the past. Do they get a refund? With the current lack of logic coming from those advocating for this measure, why stop at student loans? Why not apply loan forgiveness to all mortgages and vehicle loans? Who is going to pay for all of this? We are already $30T in federal net operation debt costing the taxpayer nearly $350B a year? On what basis does anyone think any of these debt forgiveness notions are rational..let alone feasible?
2.What about those that chose not to take on the debt burden of higher education and limited their educational opportunity accordingly. There is actually a price paid by those that didn't choose the path of higher education and the cost involved. How does one propose compensating them?
RENT DEFERMENT
1. Why should a landlord forgo rent payment during any state of emergency; let alone one that is seemingly without end? Who or Where does that lack of logic emanate from?; by those that still believe in and live in the land of the tooth fairy? How should the property owner be expected to pay a possible mortgage payment (I don't see all those being perpetually deferred) or real estate tax (those haven't been deferred at all--at least in my State and County at all). In fact, most all of these real costs have increased during the pandemic...and aren't being forgiven in the least.
I love this content. Who wouldn't want Kshama in their corner?!? I DO wish it could be made available in print so that I can print+read or just read-on-screen. The sound quality can be very challenging.
Excellent article from Socialist Alternative, the party of Kshama Sawant, “We need a new party! One that fights tooth and nail to defend reproductive rights, workers rights, LGBTQ rights and against racism!”
‘Thousands Flood the Streets for Abortion Rights - What Next?’
I don't consider it free money at all. They are not valueless when they're drafted. But what are supreme court judges, Senators and Congress people paid to do? Nothing? No, They are paid to vote! The middle class don't won't want poor people to vote!
Thank You for having Kshama Sawant on today. She is probably the only honest, sincere and respectful politician we have working in America today and her words match her actions unlike our so-called progressives like "the squad" and Bernie Sanders. I wish we had 1000 more like her. I am now an annual paid subscriber to The Chris Hedges Report.
Kshama is one of the vanishingly small number of politicians who refuse to be bought and/or neutered by the political establishment. The very fact that they try, repeatedly, to get rid of her is the surest sign that she is an effective champion of the people against corporate America. Furthermore, she also really, *really* gets up the nose of conservatives, as seen in the bitter and resentful comments being posted here. Lmao
I am a liberal that lives in Seattle. I take it you don’t live in Seattle and just arm chair clap at what she does here because she is pushing back on the establishment. She was part of the establishment that had full control of our city and their policies have put Seattle in the place it is. Lisa Herbold is another that has been with her pushing idiotic policies like no oversight on non-profits getting money from the city or getting rid of drug diversion programs. She was also the main person pushing to get rid of police Chief Carmen Best, who had done more in her short time to diversify the police force and bring more accountability to them. Sawant got all the new officers fired with budget cuts.
Good. That money can be spent where it’s needed more, rather than on Cops who are there just to keep rich folk feeling safe and separated from the (mostly brown) “mob”.
OMG! I had to pay $6 just to subscribe so I could comment. And then I'll delete this substack permanently. Sawant is a HORRIBLE hypocrite and I don't know a single sane person in the Seattle area who wants her in office. If you like hypocritical Marxism then sure, she's your gal. But get your facts straight! It wasn't the business community who tried to run her out of office. It was a grassroots campaign and her own constituents. A total controlling and disgusting nut job. I grew up in Seattle and she is a STAIN on it's existence. I can't support anyone who likes her.
I am sure Mrs Sawant is a very inconvenient and troubling person because she uses methods that are not in the playbook. I doubt she is hypocritical, but Marxism or Communism are certainly a RED flag for most people in this country (not even real poor people understand that this would be the way to go, they prefer voting for a populist like Mr Trump, well as far as one can tell, the next president will be Mr Trump or someone similar, let us see ...)
Hmm…and how old are you may I ask?
I am 65...
I’m surprised you’re over 30. Do you live in Seattle? Do you know all of the stunts Sawant has pulled? And since you want Marxism in this country who is the leader you’d like to follow? I understand our 2 party system is in the toilet but that doesn’t mean a Marxist society is the answer if one has looked at history.
I am a non voter which means I am not a citizen ... as I wrote in another Post, I only listened to the interview and looked at the wikipedia page (i.e. I do not live in Seattle). I do not really care what political system the US has (my worries are with the US foreign policy which is 'overwhelming' or whatever you might call this) and am also appalled how poor people are simply 'forgotten' (I was raised in a socialist society which would be considered over here as communist - as one newspaper a few years said: Bernie Sanders would be regarded to the right of the middle of the political spectrum in Europe, here he is an almost communist ...)
Thank you. I honestly appreciate learning different viewpoints. I’m sure our foreign policy is abhorrent.
Yet Republicans are always commenting disparagingly about Biden’s socialist agenda! No sign of it that I can see!!
She defeated it by 300 votes. Now much to crow about. So I am sure she will now go forward as if she has a radical mandate.
She was/is a BLM defund the cops advocate.
My guess that today, given the news about the BLM organization and leaders, she would go down to defeat. Sometimes elections are just timing issues.
But generally, voters get the politicians they deserve.
Frank - you are now a stalker.
I am not a defund the cops supporter, I am for ending police brutality as happened to George Floyd and many others, so that means police reform. We have to have police. And black and brown people are often treated worse by police and legal system and I am opposed to that. If they had fairer treatment like people with my skin color that would be enough. They just want fairness, Frank Lee, like you and I do.
If you (or anyone else) is for ending police brutality, then you should advocate for an end to qualified immunity for police officers (or, again, anyone for that matter.) I don't accept the notion that some people are more equal than others. Never have, never will. The law should be the law; not two sets operating simultaneously. If you break the law, you should suffer the same consequences as anyone else. If you don't like the law, then you simply advocate for your legislative representatives to change it. That has happened throughout history without issue. Why citizens accept this state of executive & judicial apartheid in the U.S. is beyond belief. In my opinion, it is one of the main reasons for our current and rapid degradation of society (the other is allowing government to operate, perpetually and astronomically, beyond its financial means).
Further, if BLM was a legitimate movement, then they would have pushed for this, unrelentingly, from day one. The fact that they abandoned that initial demand illustrates what a farce and distraction from the real issue the BLM movement really is.
Prosecutors, mainly DAs, have too much control over who gets prosecuted, for what, and to what degree. They’ve en masse done an end run around the precedent of trial by jury. Threatening defendants with onerous charges and requisite jail terms, which would be too costly for them to fight, is a tactic used to coerce people into pleading down, as it is termed. Violations of due process have also become the norm, so those who can’t make cash bail languish indefinitely, unless they plea bargain. This artificially boosts conviction numbers, as the innocence project can attest, which they use to get reelected. Justice is not served as often as corruption.
The like does not work, so I post it: absolutely true, just read it in Judge Jed S Rakoff's book: Why the innocent plead guilty and the guilty go free.
There is no need to end qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known".
Qualified immunity balances two important interests—the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably.
You create more problems than benefits ending qualified immunity.
I agree with everything else.
I totally disagree with you.
In my opinion, a "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known" is too high of a legal bar that makes most public officials (most importantly law enforcement) and their actions effectively shielded from any accountability whatsoever. That legal precedent was designed as such. The only cases that are allowed to move forward toward accountability appear to be the ones so egregious and well documented that a donkey could easily make the call (Derek Chauvin's murderous actions come to mind). Even when they do move forward and reach conviction, the penalties imposed (and terms for eventual release) prove laughable (Amber Guyger's penalty comes to mind).
I compare the legal bar for qualified immunity comparable to the same judicious impossibility as defending oneself against a charge of violating the U.S. espionage Act of 1917. Under this charge, the defendant is denied the right to present a motive to a jury. Effectively the defendant is found guilty before having the burden of proving him or herself innocent. The only question before a possible jury is whether it was you that committed the crime or not (in other words an alibi for a case of mistaken identity by the government appears to be your only recourse to avoid conviction); the question of "why" is never even allowed to enter the legal equation. IMO, motive should ALWAYS be allowed for consideration before a jury of your peers within an equitable and just Republic.
Too one-sided. You are not including the consequences. It becomes just fanciful thinking. Qualified immunity is imperfect... it is just better than the alternative.
It is similar to soldiers. They have a unique job that puts them in life or death situations, and more importantly life and death of others situations.
If it was not for all the criminals behaving badly, we would not have a need for cops. Blame the criminals.
The problem with your analogy is that it involves blatant logical fallacies. For one, soldiering is not a "job". Soldiering involves no production in capitalistic society. It is a government apparatus to a society (usually indoctrinated by manufactured fear) that always involves a cost. It is nothing more than a glorified policing operation revolving around the notion of 'war' than rarely (particularly in modern society) involves the doctrine of self defense. Second, soldiering has no unique claim to human activity involving life or death "situations". There are plenty of real jobs that involve the same (professional tree climbing, mining, fire-fighting, etc. come to mind). Lastly, your statement that "if it was not for all the criminals behaving badly" is just plan ludicrous. As opposed to what? All the criminals behaving saintly? Boy, if we could just those criminals to become choir boys, we just wouldn't need those dang cops.
Bottom line is that I am saying police (or soldiers) serve a necessary (and always costly) function in society. However that function does not relieve them from the responsibility of practicing by the same set of morality and ethics every else lives by. If anything, they should be held to the highest of those legal standards (called laws) because of their unique position of being given legal power (executive authority) over others.
Ending. Fairness.
One is irrational as in a complex large country with thousands of jurisdictions and millions of interactions... and differences of opinion for what is brutal or justified, that is just utopian stuff.
The other is subjective as all hell. Black and brown people are generally not treated unfairly by police when controlled for black and brown people involvement in crime within the territory of the the crime and encounter statistics. If cops were just inherently racist then Asians would also be over-represented. Many of the police departments liberals want to claim are racist are over-represented in black and brown cops relative to the population they serve.
The only material bias we have today is class. Cops are biased against people in low economic class as people in low economic class tend to be more prone to crime... and violent crime in many areas.
But defunding the cops has been a disaster. It has resulted in more black and brown victims of crime. The voters in most places know this. Apparently not in one Seattle district.
I have no patience for people that conflate single sensationalist symbolic events with some overlay of society in general. It is frankly a sign of low critical thinking skills. That cop is in prison. Story over. There will be other single incidents because cops are people and people are imperfect. Try the cop and move on.
The question... is there statistical evidence of police being more brutal to black and brown people? Actually no. The statistical evidence is the opposite. Cops are more apt to target whites.
Great Socialist Alternative Strategy, Chris and Kshama, in your podcast regarding the "Quiet American" duopoly Empire regarding the need for a second workers' American "Revolution Against Empire" [Justin duRivage].
My two following comments to Nicholas Kristof's same excellent column, are as follows:
"These Gun Reforms Could Save 15,000 Lives. We Can Achieve Them", could actually and cogently be employed to focus not only on guns, but also on the seminal factor of exposing what, Ron Suskind hectored Karl Rove into admitting in the 'Times' in 2004, that "We're an Empire Now".
My First Comment to Nick in the NYT:
Nicholas, I would take another chance at describing how the gun industry has the unique power of having been given a waiver on product liability — however, after a decade as a subscriber, and very frequent commenter on “these ‘Times’ they are not a-changing” fast enough to remedy “our failure to communicate” [Cool Hand Luke].
I have to take “the road less traveled”, as Chris Hedges, did, to leave these Times because of the ‘Times’ following ‘the long arc of history toward’, rather than away from, Empire with this the NYT's too often non-reply to my comments which the 'Times' invites and says it "needs our voice", but then says:
“The comment you are looking for is currently unavailable” — because of censorship.
My second comment today to Nick was that:
Nicholas, I would strongly suspect that if the NYT’s extreme excellence in investigative reporting (visual, or otherwise) in targeting the likelihood that the ‘orders of magnitude greater’ profits of the insanely named ‘Defense Industry’ [aka, “Merchants of Death” Nye Report] might well be discovered to be funding the NRA through a “Quiet American” Empire of wealth, deceit, power, and ‘Divide and Conquer’ social-media propaganda, far more likely than the puny, and at times, almost bankrupt, small arms industry.
This potentiality escaped me, but I think upon hearing it, that it sounds quite plausible.
She has no respect for rules or laws. I’m fine with pushing against the system for change but she is an anarchist that only will listen to her own opinion. She does not have conversations with the city or lawmakers. Seattle is a covered in homeless camps and drug addicts and her response is to give them free housing so they can do drugs openly in taxpayer funded housing. Like marching on the Mayor’s house with protestors even though Durkin was under a protection order and her address was supposed to be secret. She had no problem with big corporations when her husband worked at Microsoft and made them $$$. Once she got money then she can rail against the same people that made her rich. How noble.
The USA has so many homeless (although it is such a rich country) because there are almost no funds for psychiatric treatment or drug treatment options. Most of these people get in conflict with the law and end up in regular prisons, where they just get hardened and when they get out they are on the street again and again and again. So nothing gets better in their miserable lives. Rules and laws are mainly to protect us from those that could not make it and there is nothing wrong with trying to give them a helping hand (one of the main things is certainly fighting for good wages and I doubt that most cities and companies care at all about giving you a living wage ...). I would say the main problem you have with her is that she is a Marxist, which is intolerable in this country. She is not asking for money for herself (and the money she earned before is well earned I am sure) but trying to improve other peoples lives, which is a very hard thing to achieve in this rigged society, where nobody is talking for the 'simple people' (it was an amazing victory that this Amazon worker in Staten Island could succeed - but I am sure it is not over, the corporation will try everything to get rid of the union).
I have no issues with people’s politics. I have problems when it is her way or she yells people down. Just like the business tax that got overturned. She could have had a conversation with the businesses it effected. It wasn’t just Amazon. At the very least there would have been a chance. Instead we have a moral victory. You should read up on her promise not to take a salary which she funnels back into a nonprofit to cover her expenses. She defunded drug treatment. She defunded drug intervention so people could get clean instead of going to prison. She defunded our police chief that was doing a great job diversifying our police force. You read a headline and think she is a savior. Elect her mayor of your town then.
Well I cannot vote here and if she did what you say I would like to hear how she justifies it ... otherwise I just listened to the interview and looked at the wikipedia page ...
Which is also disappointing that Chris didn’t push back on the many issues she is central too instead of just petting her ego. She had done real damage in Seattle. For God’s sake she really tried to decriminalize CRIME if they did it for a reason she thought was ok.
You would need to know the actual case circumstances, but there is certainly a heavy link between poverty, broken families, young testosterone driven males and crime. I wished that the justice system would be as prepared to go after white collar crime as for stealing a candy bar!
Hah! I find it insane that the elite funded campaign to oppose Ms Sawant even found its way here, given that Chris' substack doesn't make the headlines. Still they had to pay & sign up to push their poisonous tosh, so there are silver linings.
As a lifelong socialist who represented co-workers at state and national level during my working life I'm familiar with the dodges these types get up to.
Some of our biggest hassles came from the paid employees of our union who rarely if ever had experience in our industry and regarded their job solely as a stepping stone to a political career representing a party which sold workers down the river at first opportunity whilst promising to "look after them".
I decided long time ago that as I'm opposed to top down centralised government in any form, the only way to even attempt to live one's ideals is to get stuck in to grass roots community based efforts. That way one gets to spend less time in pointless conflict with arseholes and can actually get things done whilst simultaneously demonstrating to fellow humans what socialism is & what it can do.
The only issue Ms. Sawant appears to support that makes any sense whatsoever is the living min. wage. I'm all for businesses agreeing, in principle, to honer the necessity of paying a minimal living wage. However employees are ffree to demand for this themselves; they don't need government to mandate it for them.
My advice is to work hard and make yourself as valuable a commodity as possible. Then you can demand your fee accordingly. You will never subvert the principle of supply and demand in a capitalistic economy. While I don't care one whit if somebody wants to join a commune (your free to do it --and there's been plenty of failed precedent for that in the U.S. ---and I imagine China or Russia will allow you to emigrate if you want a real good taste of it-- I don't want a communist government forced upon me. I was born into a Republic with constitutional rights. I intend to do whatever I can to keep them--all of them. That means Ms. Sawant would fail to get my vote.
I have yet to hear a reasonable argument for relieving student debt or deferring rent due to the pandemic. I didn't here it at all from the radical socialist Chris hosted. My arguments against:
STUDENT LOAN DEBT FORGIVENESS:
1.These folks knew what they were getting into when they signed the loan agreement. If they didn't than what we are really being asked to forgive is individual foolishness. What is the precedent and legal basis for compensating that? I was brought up to understand the principle that a fool and his/her money are soon parted.
2. How about those that actually paid for there student debt in the past. Do they get a refund? With the current lack of logic coming from those advocating for this measure, why stop at student loans? Why not apply loan forgiveness to all mortgages and vehicle loans? Who is going to pay for all of this? We are already $30T in federal net operation debt costing the taxpayer nearly $350B a year? On what basis does anyone think any of these debt forgiveness notions are rational..let alone feasible?
2.What about those that chose not to take on the debt burden of higher education and limited their educational opportunity accordingly. There is actually a price paid by those that didn't choose the path of higher education and the cost involved. How does one propose compensating them?
RENT DEFERMENT
1. Why should a landlord forgo rent payment during any state of emergency; let alone one that is seemingly without end? Who or Where does that lack of logic emanate from?; by those that still believe in and live in the land of the tooth fairy? How should the property owner be expected to pay a possible mortgage payment (I don't see all those being perpetually deferred) or real estate tax (those haven't been deferred at all--at least in my State and County at all). In fact, most all of these real costs have increased during the pandemic...and aren't being forgiven in the least.
I love this content. Who wouldn't want Kshama in their corner?!? I DO wish it could be made available in print so that I can print+read or just read-on-screen. The sound quality can be very challenging.
Excellent article from Socialist Alternative, the party of Kshama Sawant, “We need a new party! One that fights tooth and nail to defend reproductive rights, workers rights, LGBTQ rights and against racism!”
‘Thousands Flood the Streets for Abortion Rights - What Next?’
https://www.socialistalternative.org/2022/05/04/thousands-flood-streets-for-abortion-rights-what-next/
https://peoplesparty.org/
Your intro song should be dark was the night, cold was the ground by blind willie Johnson. All I’m sayin
I wonder if people were paid $100 or so, to vote? Would voting increase?
Send everybody you can think of $100 and let's see.
I mean from Jeff Bezos's taxes. not me personally. I'm on SSI. And you're not answering my question. Would voting increase?
I would think yes, If you get something for free you get crowds, if there is free money people flock ...
I don't consider it free money at all. They are not valueless when they're drafted. But what are supreme court judges, Senators and Congress people paid to do? Nothing? No, They are paid to vote! The middle class don't won't want poor people to vote!
Probably I misunderstood ... I certainly agree, upper class does not want poor people to vote ...