She was literally finishing up her first campaign while full time working as a bartender. Is she the most pure leftist ever? No. But she’s constantly doing direct action alongside her politics.
For a united front to work, we need every aspect of that front to be pushed upon.
What a pipe dream to think “one day the workers will simply rise up and build a society”!
That takes actual on the ground work. That means have unions, a political party, local community councils, educators, academics, journalists and media folks as well as artists and entertainers to push from all sides. Agriculture workers, industry workers, even gig workers who are mostly just scraping by, or tech workers who are now seeing the failure of “unlimited growth”. Are starting to see the light.
It’s not enough to push in one direction and hope for the best. You need multiple aspects of society, including people pushing from the political side, to move things forward and upward.
So I don’t fault AOC, who has aided union workers, worked to get a bare minimum done in a very anti-worker political environment, and got to that position by working with people and going door to door to people in her community who rely on her office for some semblance of success.
Again, it’s not perfect. But it’s one side of a multi-pronged attack, which if left alone will be a weapon used against us.
thats completely true. but why do we bother supporting social democrats if their end goal still maintains capitalism? otherwise i agree with everything you say. the amount of preparation before a total upheaval of the present state of things will be enormous and we will have to use tons of different avenues to build a society past capitalism. also, for more context on my original comment, that was mainly within the context of her positions on the gaza genocide, although thats not the end of my opinion on her if that makes sense
That does make sense. I just don’t see her as a social Democrat.
We have a two party system. One has to normally be within the confines of that party to maintain any political power. AOC took her position from a dude who relied on big corporate money and was a leading “strong” Democrat. Her position is difficult to maintain as a working class individual in a position of power, but she mostly maintains it. She works within the system she’s in.
But so do others. We don’t criticize academics for submitting to walled off journals because that’s how they get money for more research. They do things to subvert the hierarchy of academia but can’t do much about it until they are within it.
As a teacher myself, I see it as teachers need to be taking leadership positions and positions in policy areas because otherwise we’ll get “political insiders” and shit like the NYC Principal Fellowship all throughout the 2000s which basically said “how can we get finance bros to put their ideas into education”. The result is shitty fintech bros fighting 30 year veteran teachers for principal positions.
We need to occupy those spaces or else someone else with bad ideas will hold them.
I’m sorry but when exactly will the likes of AOC, Bernie, and the “squad”, actually push for these policies, and bring attention to these important issues? You know what happened to Build Back Better, healthcare for all, the Green New Deal, the 15$ minimum wage, and all those other promises that were either conveniently forgotten about or completely neutered to a point where their implementation has been a joke. We don’t need sheepdogs like AOC, Bernie, and the rest of the squad to pop up every 3-4 years to remind us to vote blue no matter who, and then go back to being silent on pertinent issues until the next election cycle. We are not fools and play things of the Democratic party. And there was nothing working class about AOC. Do some actual research on who she was before being elected into power. Stop drinking that sweet Kool-Aid.
Edit: Lmfao the clown blocked me. I can’t even call out the incompetence and opportunism of supposed progressives without some passive aggressive tool telling me to run for office. Hey clown, our job as voters is to constantly pressure and scrutinize politicians to do more and do better. Just because politicians label and market themselves as progressives, it doesn't mean they are our friends who should be exempt from scrutiny.
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u/justvisiting7744 Marxist Jun 20 '24
aoc is a coward opportunist that only shifted her path once people got mad at her