The Nihilistic Purity of the Far Left Will Kill Us All

[ehrnst]

A lot of people have framed it as Booker rejecting Bernie Sanders (I-VT) amendment. Only the amendment was actually the work of Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) — Sanders was only a co-sponsor. Surprise, an old white man is taking all the credit for the work done by a woman. Not to mention that Booker and the other 12 Democratic Senators that voted against Klobuchar’s amendment voted in favor of a very similar amendment proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). Wyden’s amendment covered the same ground as Klobuchar’s, only there were greater safety provisions and fewer strings attached in his amendment than hers, and his amendment was also co-sponsored by Sanders (Wyden’s amendment was not passed either and the 51–47 vote was a direct partisan split). Speaking of Sanders, the man exposes himself as fraud and an absolute hypocrite every time he opens his mouth these days, and his large cult of rabid worshippers are the slimiest and most deceitful pieces of shit on this earth (and the ones most deserving of getting their heads bashed in). Notice that I wrote “cult of rabid worshippers” and NOT “supporters” because his supporters were at least willing to accept that Hillary Clinton won the Dem nomination, support her in the general election, and in many cases did the work necessary to make sure she would be elected.

But the large Bernie Bro/Zealot/Never Hillary cult made it clear that anyone who didn’t worship at the altar of Saint Bernie Sanders wasn’t a “real progressive” and therefore wasn’t worthy of their support unless they cleared an impossibly high bar. And they joined forces with an already established wing of far left purists for whom any Dem politician who rates less than 100% in their purity scale of select issues is a “neoliberal” and therefore justifies them to throw away their votes on crackpot third-party candidates so they can preen to everyone how “radical” or “revolutionary” they supposedly are and to try and shame people who consistently vote Democrat as ignorant and brainwashed sheeple. Yeah, I’m brainwashed for realizing that a system that often requires some level of compromise to move things forward renders 100% ideological purity useless and subsequently voting for whichever candidate in best positioned to effectively advance the issues I care about in a given election is the most prudent option. Yeah, I’m ignorant for realizing that this is a two-party system, no third party is going to magically rise overnight to save us, and the Democratic party is presently the only viable electoral vehicle for effective progressive action in America. Both parties ARE NOT THE SAME. Every politician takes corporate money because that’s the cost of doing business in American politics — even Bernie does — but only ONE Senator stood up to confront his colleague for the rights and safety of all Americans this week, and it WASN’T BERNIE SANDERS, IT WAS COREY BOOKER.

You Bernie Bros aren’t fooling anybody by having one set of standards for Sanders and those who pledge complete allegiance to him (like Tulsi Gabbard and Keith Ellison) and a completely different set of standards for every other Democratic politician — and it’s very clear by now that Sanders himself knows this and loves every bit of it. It’s obvious that it’s just fine for Bernie to have shitty votes on his record (like voting against immigration reform, against closing Gitmo, siding with the Republicans on gun control multiple times, and actively pushed a bill to dump nuclear waste from Vermont and Maine to Sierra Blanca, TX which severely impacted a poor Latinx community) because he’s just “looking out for his constituents in Vermont” but any other Dem who has ONE shitty vote on their record is a “neoliberal corporate shill” who’s “doing the bidding of the 1%”. And I just love how you motherfuckers are happily tearing down Booker for accepting Big Pharma money to fund his 2014 Senate campaign but don’t say jack shit about Sanders taking more than $300,000 from the pharmaceutical industry in 2016 — only two senators accepted more (and neither one was Booker). You don’t say a damn thing about Sanders OWNING STOCK in Pfizer and investing in Novartis. Or the fact that he’s still profiting from the Sierra Blanca toxic waste site and his wife Jane remains part of the commission that oversaw the site. Imagine how much more we would know about Bernie Sanders financial ties if he actually disclosed his personal finances during his 2016 presidential campaign?

https://medium.com/sammystyle77/the-nihilistic-purity-of-the-far-left-will-kill-us-all-54169b25e3a8#.mpn4zjoqf

[Gothmog]

1. K&R

[George II]

2. Thanks for that major dose of reality and exposing hypocrisy.

[JHan]

3. A beautiful piece even tho he used a blunt hammer. Many won't like it but he's on point...

And:

"I realize that the Far Left doesn’t entirely consist of Bernie Zealots, but the remainder of that wing for the most part are just as awful. For every Angela Davis that has put real work into bringing justice and equity for all people they’re at least 100 others afflicted with oral diarrhea who love to repeatedly shout words like “neoliberalism” and “revolution” so much that they lose whatever weight or meaning they have (I’d be shocked if a quarter of the people who use the word “neoliberal” knows what the word even means or how to use it in its proper context). These grandiose motherfuckers LOVE to do nothing but shit on Democrats who aren’t 100% perfect progressives when they’re in office — which is pretty much everybody — and love to go on and on about how “both sides are the same” and how “we’re fucked either way”. And when a right-wing extremist that would inflict pain and suffering to the most marginalized populations inevitably comes to power, suddenly they want to either complain about how fucked we are, revel in the prospect of the “revolution” that will finally be at hand, or try to wash their hands of their complicity and say “don’t blame me, I voted for (fringe minor party candidate)” and use it to advocate the “necessity” of a third party."

Pseudo Revolutionaries talk a good game about "revolution" and have no clue about governance. They are the thorn in the side of people who actually do the hard work of reform. I've no time for them.

[forjusticethunders]

8. This piece makes me gnash my fucking teeth.

For every Angela Davis that has put real work into bringing justice and equity for all people they’re at least 100 others afflicted with oral diarrhea who love to repeatedly shout words like “neoliberalism” and “revolution” so much that they lose whatever weight or meaning they have (I’d be shocked if a quarter of the people who use the word “neoliberal” knows what the word even means or how to use it in its proper context).

The Infantile Disorder Ultra-left that Lenin warned us about fucked us AGAIN (Stalin was one of these types too). Dealing with these types I think has to be the #1 issue for the socialist movement, before we can even begin to move forward. It's been close to 100 years of this shit.

[JHan]

9. I dunno how to address it..

I'm despondent.

I said elsewhere in a thread created by bainsbane, that the problem is a lack of objectivity but maybe it's more than that... Perhaps the problem has been that we have no telos anymore - purpose or meaning. So now there's this need to be perpetually angry about something, so you've got your pseudo revolutionaries and rebels who will fuck things up as soon as we make progress. These types have no time for reformers who actually do the hard work in small and big ways - not just in washington, but in communities as well. I'll put some civic-aware activists under the umbrella of "reformers" we well. If said reformers or activists don't step in line with what the pseudo revolutionaries want, their efforts are disparaged creating a fracture and making coalition building almost impossible. Lesson in all this is we won't get anywhere if we don't understand power.

[forjusticethunders]

10. It's just bad political praxis.

They tend to think a "revolution" looks like thousands of people storming the streets, or something like that, when it could just be legislation to give millions of people health care or raise the wage for millions of people to a living wage. The thing is that you're supposed to base your strategy on objective conditions, and what the actual marginalized people are doing, not ideological purity or what you WISH you want the revolution to look like. Even if you're really really far left personally, you objectively look at the sociopolitical situation and align with people who aren't as far to your left but have the people power to get shit done. You're supposed to look at all the axes of oppression, and all the factors that prevent working class unity.

That's why you have "leftists" thinking you can replicate 1917 Petrograd (Whatever you think of communism/Leninism, Tsarist Russia was on a level of shitholery that only North Korea today could match)

I mean, if Angela fucking Davis and Noam fucking Chomsky can do it, I'm sure some pasty Berniebro can too.

Unfortunately, a lot of the "BernieBro" types aren't really socialists in a constructive sense, or have a real passion for social change. H.A Goodman is the classic example, he was a Ron and Rand Paul fanboy before he jumped onto Bernie. They just want to burn shit down because they feel that they deserve something more than what they're getting. That's why the idea of "privilege" offends them so much, because it directly counters their internal narrative.

[JHan]

11. And we all watched these same fauxgressives rake Booker over the coals...

Falling for stupid shit and it's not even 2020 yet.. and at this point I really fucking dread 2020 because they haven't learned.

I don't agree with Booker on everything, but I am not going to persecute him over a stupid amendment.

Good call mentioning H.A. Goodman, because the extreme libertarian mindset is to destroy everything, damn the consequences, and they never take responsibility for the outcomes. They live in a world of imagined alternatives and so many fall for it and sabotage any progress made.

These same nutcases couldn't bring themselves to vote for Hillary whose platform was mainly progressive ( after incorporating some of the issues raised during the primaries which were issues before Bernie talked about them) And they'll still blame the DNC and Democrats for their stupidity. So much could have been done with a Democratic president this time around, it would be okay if the damage these clowns didn't affect us all, but they're sticking around, messing up the place.

[Cha]

4. Sponsor: Sen. Klobuchar, Amy

Amends Bill: S.Con.Res.3 — A concurrent resolution setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2017 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2018 through 2026.
Sponsor: Sen. Klobuchar, Amy (Submitted 01/11/2017, Proposed 01/11/2017)
Cosponsors: 1
Latest Action: 01/11/2017 Amendment SA 178 not agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 46 - 52. Record Vote Number: 20.

Cosponsor Date Cosponsored
Sen. Sanders, Bernard * 01/11/2017

https://www.congress.gov/amendment/115th-congress/senate-amendment/178/cosponsors

[JustAnotherGen]

7. Yep

She sure did didn't she?

[sheshe2]

12. Yup!

Sponsor: Sen. Klobuchar, Amy

Sponsor: Sen. Klobuchar, Amy

Sponsor: Sen. Klobuchar, Amy

Sponsor: Sen. Klobuchar, Amy

Sponsor: Sen. Klobuchar, Amy

Sponsor: Sen. Klobuchar, Amy

Sponsor: Sen. Klobuchar, Amy

Sponsor: Sen. Klobuchar, Amy

Thanks Cha!

[Cha]

13. Thank you, she!

[brer cat]

5. Well done.

The hypocrisy would be astounding except we been seeing it all along, as well as the tone deafness in singling out Senator Booker for the attack.

K&R

[kjones]

6. They like to harp on ideologues, but they're blind to their own uncompromising, purity idealism bull

Seems like almost to a person, they are either unwilling to take part in,
or ignorant of, the the hard work and incremental triumphs it takes to
bring real change.

Seriously, when exactly did "progressive" become a dirty word to
"progressives?"