- cross-posted to:
- politics
- cross-posted to:
- politics
There's some dumb stuff in this piece, but I'm glad SOMEONE in Washington with influence is speaking out against the emerging consensus. Hooray for Succdem Grampa
:bernie:
You must log in or register to comment.
This piece just reminds me of how depressing it is that Bernie was/is the best we've got in the US as far as elected officials go. You can't even advocate for tepid anti-imperialism lite without paragraphs devoted to how "the Big Official Bad Guy is actually Very Bad" as caveats. And some of what he seems to advocate here (pressuring China to be less aUtHoRiTaRiAn through nebulous diplomacy?) is still a hugely problematic application of soft power that is only made possible by way of the US being a hegemonic empire. Not even really a knock on Bernie's personal morality or anything lib like that - just a sad fact of who you have to become in order to participate in bourg imperial core electoralism.
It's also frustrating because no State is above criticism (China very much included) and all of them do some level of harmful shit. But you can't even have that conversation when almost all of the populace at large's "criticisms" (more like comical demonizations) are just them regurgitating bogus State Dept propaganda - at least, you can't really have that conversation outside of dedicated socialist/communist spaces like this one.
the only real thing i saw in there that was decent was calling for smaller defense budgets, a global living wage, and de-escalation.
the rest was just "china bad, and we must recognize that china is bad" while also saying he doesn't want a new cold war. it's like he doesn't get that he's helping to spread anti-china propaganda, while also shouting about all the negative shit about china all the while ignoring the hypocrisy of the US government when it comes to things like income inequality, authoritarianism, and racism.
saying China bad but not wanting war just makes him sound weak af
He has to understand. There is no way he doesn't realize this is just manufacturing consent
I think he knows what he is doing in that perpetuation of the narrative, but he's too much of a fucking coward to depart from the status quo on imperialist policy. although I am not exactly a fan of his, Bookchin of all people actually called Bernie out on this type of cowardice in like the 80s
Dumb shit I found there:
The global challenges that the United States faces today: climate change, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, massive economic inequality, terrorism, corruption, authoritarianism
Sure, those highlighted things surely are a treat to the US and not caused by it, sure.
China has moved in a more authoritarian direction, and China has become increasingly aggressive on the global stage
Fuck you Bern, there's nothing more authoritarian or aggressive than the great satan, and I'm glad all you scums are shitting your pants in awe of a counterpower
The Chinese government is surely guilty of many policies and practices that I oppose and that all Americans should oppose: the theft of technology, the suppression of workers’ rights and the press, the repression taking place in Tibet and Hong Kong, Beijing’s threatening behavior toward Taiwan, and the Chinese government’s atrocious policies toward the Uyghur people. The United States should also be concerned about China’s aggressive global ambitions
GO FUCKYOURSELF FASTER.
GOD THIS SHIT IS SO RICH FOR ME TO GET MAD AT
if democracy is going to win out, it will do so not on a traditional battlefield but by demonstrating that democracy can actually deliver a better quality of life for people than authoritarianism can
Well, yes, Chinese democracy is clearly delivering far better than 'murica's authoritarianism.
Although the primary concern of the U.S. government is the security and prosperity of the American people
X - Doubt
..., our security and prosperity are connected to people everywhere.
Yeah, inversely proportional thanks to imperialism
...To that end, it is in our interest to work with other wealthy nations to raise living standards around the world and diminish the grotesque economic inequality that authoritarian forces exploit to build their own political power and undermine democracy.
...sigh....
Americans must not be naive about China’s repression, disregard for human rights, and global ambitions.
"Well intentioned libs must not be naive about Murica's repression, disregard for human rights and global ambitions." FTFY.
What are these 'global ambitions' you fear so much? Worst case scenario, another player doing imperialism but without crumbling internally? If you like murica so much why would it be bad for another country to do the same shit they do?
Fuck you Bernie, go to sleep,
Bernie Sanders is a social-imperialist. I wish for the murican empire to crumble and balkanize. By the way, "balkanize" is a very rich word isn't, Bernie?
I did say there was dumb stuff in there. He's a succdem who's been in the US congress for like eight hundred years whadayagonnado?
Anybody who says that America should be concerned with another country's "global ambitions" can be ignored.
God damn it there’s no time for this shit anymore. He simply doesn’t recognize the stakes or the victims
i n c r e m e n t a l i s mBeing a pillar of the status quo since the beginning of times
Imagine Bernie copy/pasted some Parenti and sent that in to Foreign Affairs. He's a senator, he could get that opinion out there. Which would be the more likely response:
- People would read something diametrically opposed to everything they've ever heard about China and consider it.
- People would read something diametrically opposed to everything they've ever heard about China and reject it.
If you challenge too much propaganda at once, most people will write you off as a crank. You accomplish nothing and maybe even hurt your cause. When you're working with entrenched beliefs, "forget everything you think you know" rarely works. You have to pick a vulnerable spot, move them on that one thing, then repeat.
Compounding that difficulty, foreign policy is something most Americans don't know or care about. It's extremely easy for them to backslide even if you make some headway on an entrenched piece of propaganda like Tibet. And because they don't really care, whatever you might gain from that bit of headway has no immediate use. If you hand most people that Parenti piece they're going to (1) think "wow, this is some crazy commie shit," (2) forget nearly everything but that impression a few months later, and (3) take no meaningful political action as a result.
I don't know what people are expecting of Bernie here, but I don't see a lot of consideration of how people actually change their minds, or of the position foreign policy has in American politics in the first place.
Imagine Bernie copy/pasted some Parenti and sent that in to Foreign Affairs. He’s a senator, he could get that opinion out there
:doubt:
If a sitting U.S. senator who is also a recent presidential candidate and one of the most popular politicians in the country comes to Foreign Affairs and says "I want to submit an article that is going to drive a shitload of clicks to your magazine," they're going to print it. And while the editors in charge of the decision would be hostile to a Parenti-esque article on China, they're also hostile to Sanders, and would think that him publishing viewpoints that "extreme" would only hurt him.
The media won't even let Chomsky get 30 seconds on TV yet somehow Bernie will wake up enlightened one day and get a Parenti piece published. How is it lost on you that Parenti has written books about just this type of thing never being allowed to happen
I'm not saying this is going to happen. It's a counterfactual to show how saying "you're wrong about absolutely everything on this topic" wouldn't work. And if it wouldn't work, how much is there to criticize?
You may need to re-read those Parenti books, too. The emphasis is on ordinary journalists and editors -- people whose careers are threatened if they don't fit into a certain ideological mold. An incumbent senator is the definition of someone insulated from that type of threat. There's a reason the big push for Medicare for All came from Bernie, not from some talking head at MSNBC: it's easier to draw attention to issues outside of media orthodoxy if you have a position of state power.
It's not going to happen, it's a counterfactual
it’s easier to draw attention to issues outside of media orthodoxy if you have a position of state power.
This is just incoherent
It's not a counterfactual because you've basically admitted that Bernie is able to operate outside of the parameters set by media orthodoxy, which clearly isn't the case, and which is what you were arguing against to begin with
OK, so you really don't understand what a counterfactual is.
A counterfactual isn't a scenario that's impossible -- it's a thought experiment along the lines of "what if we had made some other choice?" It's a vehicle for thinking through the implications of that other choice and assessing whether it would have been a good one. If someone started working right after high school, they might think about the counterfactual of "what if I had gone to college?" That's a choice they could have made, but didn't. They think through what might have happened had they gone to college and assess whether they made a good choice.
Bernie could have sent Foreign Affairs some Parenti-esque article, but he didn't. My original comment was thinking through what would have happened had he sent in that type of article. It's not a question of whether he could have got that message out there or not -- he obviously could have -- it's a question of whether doing so would have been more effective than his actual article.
It’s not a counterfactual because you’ve basically admitted that Bernie is able to operate outside of the parameters set by media orthodoxy
You're not understanding the core concept here. Counterfactuals are something you could have done, but did not do. Bernie could have published some Parenti-style article, but did not.
Back to square one. Bernie couldn't have published a Parenti-style article because there is an Overton window that exists within the current media landscape that would never allow such a thing. On top of that it isn't at all apparent that Bernie would've done such a thing even if it were allowed
Bernie couldn’t have published a Parenti-style article
I pointed out why this is wrong, and you never responded to that besides arguing about the use of the term "counterfactual."
it isn’t at all apparent that Bernie would’ve done such a thing
I never said that it was. The point is that even if he wanted to write that type of article, he'd probably recognize that "everything you know about this is wrong" is a bad communication strategy and write something closer to what he actually did.
I pointed out why this is wrong, and you never responded to that besides arguing about the use of the term “counterfactual.”
And I pointed out why your assumption is wrong because there's a century long history of any radical thought being suppressed by the media. Why would I trust some assumption you're making over real historical reality?
I never said that it was. The point is that even if he wanted to write that type of article, he’d probably recognize that “everything you know about this is wrong” is a bad communication strategy and write something closer to what he actually did.
And my point is that there is no conceivable hypothetical within the current media landscape where Bernie would be even allowed to write that article, so your counterfactual was completely irrelevant. You then went on to basically state that Bernie somehow had some hierarchical advantage where he could've basically had something of the sort published. It's ok if you want to keep propping up Bernie but you're just arguing in bad faith at this point
And I pointed out why your assumption is wrong because there’s a century long history of any radical thought being suppressed by the media.
Again:
You may need to re-read those Parenti books, too. The emphasis is on ordinary journalists and editors – people whose careers are threatened if they don’t fit into a certain ideological mold. An incumbent senator is the definition of someone insulated from that type of threat. There’s a reason the big push for Medicare for All came from Bernie, not from some talking head at MSNBC: it’s easier to draw attention to issues outside of media orthodoxy if you have a position of state power.
There’s a reason the big push for Medicare for All came from Bernie, not from some talking head at MSNBC: it’s easier to draw attention to issues outside of media orthodoxy if you have a position of state power.
Again, historical record shows this to not be the case. Bernie Sanders isn't exempt from the propaganda landscape because he himself traffics in it. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. If your biggest example is M4A, I'd suggest you look up the history of M4A and how many politicians, including sitting presidents, advocated for it. To suggest that it's outside of "media orthodoxy" is ridiculous.
When Bernie started his 2016 run M4A was absolutely outside of media orthodoxy. It had been for most of a decade at that point, since Democrats abandoned the public option in the Obamacare negotiations circa 2008-09. Bernie ran in 2016 precisely because it wasn't part of the mainstream debate, and the media tried its best to treat him as a distracting sideshow, not someone making a serious policy demand. One big narrative about Bernie since then is "well this would be nice, but it's pie-in-the-sky stuff, not something realistic."
But the larger point is that high-ranking politicians can get a media platform whenever they want, and the only constraint on what they can say is their future political prospects. Politicians are much less constrained by the media's ideological filter than almost anyone else.
When Bernie started his 2016 run M4A was absolutely outside of media orthodoxy. It had been for most of a decade at that point, since Democrats abandoned the public option in the Obamacare negotiations circa 2008-09. Bernie ran in 2016 precisely because it wasn’t part of the mainstream debate, and the media tried its best to treat him as a distracting sideshow, not someone making a serious policy demand. One big narrative about Bernie since then is “well this would be nice, but it’s pie-in-the-sky stuff, not something realistic.”
But the larger point is that high-ranking politicians can get a media platform whenever they want, and the only constraint on what they can say is their future political prospects. Politicians are much less constrained by the media’s ideological filter than almost anyone else.
So M4A was outside of "media orthodoxy" until it wasn't, then it was, until it wasn't again with Bernie. Alright chief. How Bernie was perceived is irrelevant to the Overton window. You keep repeatedly missing the point and refuse to contend with historical fact, and this idea that Bernie isn't beholden to the propaganda machine is both absurd and naive.
lol did you just quote my entire post?
M4A was outside of “media orthodoxy” until it wasn’t
Yes, the window of acceptable discourse changes over time.
Yes, the window of acceptable discourse changes over time.
M4A has been part of the discourse dating back to at least FDR
You keep asserting things out of thin air and ignoring any counterpoints.
You asserted that something like M4A has long been part of mainstream media coverage of healthcare. I pointed out how M4A was shut out of the healthcare debate from maybe 2009-15, which was the whole reason Bernie ran in 2016 in the first place. Rather than responding to this, you just re-asserted what you said initially. You've done this a few times now -- I'm out.
You keep asserting things out of thin air and ignoring any counterpoints.
Yeah I'm the one completely refusing to understand how the media apparatus only allows a specitic range of opinion and rhetoric so as not to shake any underlying foundations of neoliberal interests, something which has been historically apparent over the decades. M4A is included in that, and the fact that M4A has been in and out of media consciousness several times over the past century just further proves the point.
I don't know if you're just being wilfully obtuse or what. If you want to defend a dead end like Bernie, that's fine, just don't try and rationalize it into some "hiding power levels" bullshit.
Fighting propaganda the incrementalist way: agreeing with 99% of it, and waiting
That's not remotely what I'm describing and you know it. You wrote a page-long screed about this elsewhere in this thread; put a fraction of that effort into considering another opinion.
C'mon really, what's more useful to open people's eyes?
- Saying everything they think they know it's true
- Saying they have been lied to, exactly like all the other times the WhiteHouse+CorporateMedia did
No matter who you are, repeating propaganda isn't helping.
Take, idk, Roger Waters, he is a very famous person who has nothing to lose and he just tells the people a lot of cool real things that goes against all the shit the US say [idk what did he say about China tho] and that's way more helpful than saying "oh yes, all the shit the TV say is true, but I disagree in a tiny detail".
Do I viscerally hate Bernie? No. Do I think he could be way more helpful than right now? Yes.
C'mon just look at this:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/727012094674731008/855828848145858580/x0q5ahrhl3671.png
Fucking WaPo rando has more balls than Bernie
The main point is that there's a difference between being right and being persuasive. If you're right but not persuasive, nothing changes. Roger Waters can be right on all sorts of issues, but he's not persuading anyone of anything, so what has he really done? The goal isn't to simply be right; the goal is to change how the world works.
When people are dug in on an idea -- and most people are dug in on China due to the pervasiveness of anticommunist propaganda -- telling them they're wrong on all counts isn't persuasive. Think of a topic where you're really confident that you have the right take. If I tell you that everything you think you know about that topic is wrong, are you going to take that under serious consideration? Or are you going to hear two or three or four points that you strongly disagree with and write the whole thing off? Look at how you responded to my original comment.
Now think again about that topic where you're really confident you have the right take. If instead I tell you that I agree on X, Y, and Z, but that there's one point I think you have wrong, are you more likely to take that seriously? And if I manage to change your mind on that one point, would you be willing to listen to me about another?
So all he really did was continue the American tradition of progressives being great on domestic policy and horrible on foreign policy.
What’s that one parenti quote that all authors who note the good Stalin/USSR/Mao did have to layer condemnations of the system in between?
20 years ago, there was a Dangerous Consensus that we should work with china. Now, we realize that China is why American workers have no rights, and free trade has not stopped China's AUTHORITARIANISM, they are now performing crimes against humanity in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Now, the Dangerous Consensus is that we shouldn't work with China, but we totally should. China is committing untold crimes but we should be nice to china about it, only using anti-authoriarian diplomatic channels
Bernie... I used to like you :transshork-sad:
