Why isn’t OPEC imposing sanctions on Israel, refusing to export oil to them, like the US did with Japan in 1941.

I think Piers Morgan is a self-aggrandizing, amoralist (slipping into unethical in a lot of his “journalism”) twat. But he’s also this. And your cynical view is the right answer and consistent with everything Piers Morgan has ever done. It’s all about the views, but this time it actually created something productive and worth watching and sharing.

Nah, man. If they cited all those things, or more importantly the complete stifling of Gazans’ ability to prosper or flourish today, that would be one thing. What did they cite instead? The desecration of the Al-Aqsa mosque. That is more important to them than the apartheid. Fuck Hamas. They’re accomplishing nothing more than the death of Palestinians and more suffering. And they just empowered the most right wing, unpopular government that Israel’s ever had, one that Israelis were divided against. Hamas and the Iranian regime need to be eradicated. They are hurting any chance at Palestinian freedom and equality and right to prosperity. And they’re just causing more and more every day normal Israeli/Jewish and Palestinian suffering. This Iranian regime supports the tyranny of the Syrian government over the Sunnis (and its use of chemical weapons against them), Russia’s terrorist attacks on civilians in Ukraine and the invasion of that country in general, the complete undermining of the Lebanese government by Hezbollah, and the complete overthrow of the Yemeni government by a similarly tyrannical group in Yemen. And it uses of rape and sexual violence and murder against men and women protesting the death of a woman caused by the morality police and the oppression of women by the regime.

I think the only way to accomplish either a true one state democratic nation that honors Israel-Palestine as the home of Judaism or a two state solution, is boycott and divestment (because there is no way to peacefully protest and engage in civil obedience to achieve freedom and equality (they murdered a journalist and nothing came of it) and there’s no way to win militarily). It worked with the apartheid government in South Africa, and hopefully it will work with Israel.

That Bill of Rights isn’t for humans. It’s for corporations.

That’s what I’m saying. If we only have a majority that depends on Manchin and Sinema, how are we supposed to pass the public option? How do you get a majority without them?

And the reality is that passing the public option isn’t simple. Look at the institutional holders of three of the top insurance companies (United Health, Cigna, and Humana):

https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=UNH&subView=institutional

https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=CI&subView=institutional

https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=HUM&subView=institutional

All those mutual funds hold a lot of people’s pensions/retirement. So if you pass medicare for all, what do you do with those investors. It’s not just rich fat cats, but also folks looking to retire.

I wish we’d have a real discussion beyond medicare is more comprehensive, cheaper (I don’t think a lot of people realize that you still owe 20% of part A bills and have to pay a premium every month for part B, and still have to deal with paying for drugs as part of Part D, and that medicare gap is only available through private companies (forget medicare advantage), and patient friendly. We have to figure out how to handle the consequences of essentially nationalizing an entire industry.

And it’s not just the insurance companies their investors that you have to battle here. You have to deal with big pharma who are doing everything possible to block medicare from using their market power to negotiate lower drug costs. And this whole private system leads to such ridiculous allocation of spending. You usually see big Pharma spending more money on SGA (https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-reports/top-10-pharma-drug-brand-ad-spenders-2022) than R&D. Yet they’ll argue that getting drugs through the three stages of clinical trials is really expensive and justifies the prices they place on these drugs.

Of course if you get rid of that inefficiency, it’s a whole bunch of advertisers and executives out of the job, and they ostensibly spend less money in the economy or find jobs in a different field. It’s all a giant, interconnected web, and we’re just trying to redistribute the composition of it.

I often point to the Kaiser Permanente poll on the popularity of Medicare for all. Sure people are for it. But then when you tell them that their private insurance would go away, favoribility drops to 30%. Can you imagine if you told them their pension funds or retirement is invested in health insurance companies or big pharma? See figure 9: https://www.kff.org/slideshow/public-opinion-on-single-payer-national-health-plans-and-expanding-access-to-medicare-coverage/

And I agree with you about feeling the coalition’s one sided. But I think Biden is trying with his executive and judicial appointments which only have to go through the Senate. And you really have to walk that fine line between negotiating a better deal/agenda reflective of your needs/wants and not being taken for granted (something the progressive caucus in the House did a terrible job at in negotiating with Manchin) and letting the right extreme coalition run everything. And one of the ways to do that is to run your candidate in the primary (we focus too much on the presidential, when we should be looking at more local representatives too), working for them or volunteering for them, and engage in dialogue that reaches their ears about your demands if they want you to be part of that coalition.

Yeah, but that Obama super majority in the Senate lasted one year and it was a different time, when Democratic voters and the Democratic party was less liberal than it is now. Hell, compare Biden in his 2008 presidential campaign to his 2020 one. And just look at how much filibuster rules have changed since then.

Anyways, my main point is that you have to remind Biden and Manchin that they need you and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the coalition too and that they’re not going to get much done (like immigration reform) with the two “moderate” Republican senators left in the Senate (Collins and Murkowski).

And yeah, sure Biden and Pelosi and all of them (the Democratic Party apparatus) weighed against the progressive candidates in the primaries and still are. It’s your job to beat them and show that the bulk of our 50%+1 coalition is behind the progressive rather than the moderate. It means fundraising to fight the corporate donors and volunteering for these campaigns, going from door to door to get people to turn out and vote for the progressive candidate in the primary.

And the reality is that without Manchin, we’d have never gotten KBJ, judicial and executive appointments, the provisions in the infrastructure bill and the inflation reduction act. Did Manchin-Sinema fuck us? Yeah, they did. We could have prevented the rise in childhood poverty we’re seeing now if it weren’t for those two. People would be a lot more excited for Biden and the Democrats. But it’s our job to get a majority that doesn’t need those two or those of their ilk in the system we have (and yes, change the system along the way, so that we can have things like popular referendum, etc.).

It’s about getting 50%+1 in a democracy, right (or at least it should be)? So at some point the choices should come down to a binary to guarantee a 50%+1 outcome. However, the right candidate in a representative democracy and building of that 50%+1 should be done either with rank choiced voting or 2 round elections (either with a primary as we do it now or with multiple parties in the first round, that winnows everything down to 2 candidates). And an important role of the primaries is to get the resulting candidate to negotiate and build a coalition unifying the the 50%+1 coalition. So that deal that Biden and Sanders struck after Biden won the primary was huge. In the case of the left, the primary helps move the winning candidate left of where they might otherwise be. It’s why I was ecstatic to have Bernie run in 2016 and 2020 (It puled Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden to the left). And I think it’s bullshit that the Democratic party puts its thumb on the scale.

So if you have a left-right linear spectrum constituting 100% of the electorate, there are obviously different 50%+1 coalitions that can be made. Joe Manchin or Conor Lamb wants to be at the center of that 50%+1 coalition. Progressives obviously have an anathema to that and want that 50%+1 coalition to include everyone from the left end of the spectrum to the right of that up to 50%+1. Unfortunately, with institutions like the Senate and electoral college and whatnot, getting that 50%+1 coalition requires building it with Joe Manchin or Conor Lamb. Otherwise, there is no majority.

So while we fixate on Biden and whatnot, Biden and us need to focus on local elections, local referendums, and creating a Manchin-Sinema-Conor Lamb (or his equivalent) proof majority in the House and Senate. It’s obvious to me with several of Biden’s moves, he’s highly responsive to popular will and the votes available, regardless of what his own or his donors’ proclivities are. So if we want paid family leave and assistance with early child care and a pathway to medicare for all and expanded child tax credit, we need to be focused on winning all of these more local elections. Yes, having a popular candidate at the top of the ballot would help, but if you look at Biden’s polling, it’s the left end of the spectrum that’s keeping him from being closer to 50% popularity. Instead of getting angry that we didn’t get all this stuff when Manchin scuttled everything, we should be focused on building majorities that don’t need him.

If John Fetterman hadn’t had the stroke and the resulting depression, I’d be ecstatic about having him run for the presidency. Hopefully, he’ll recover by and be in good shape by 2028. We need a blue collar - union friendly presidential candidate to unify and build that 50%+1 coalition. I was hoping it was Sherrod Brown in Ohio in 2016 and 2020, but he voted against the Rail Worker strike and I think it’s taking its toll on his Senate election chances in Ohio.

And before people say that it didn’t need to be shut down, they ignore that the hospitals were overwhelmed and could have been even more overwhelmed if we didn’t have mask mandates and/or lock downs. People were being denied health care because the hospitals had no space.

The clip said that that this is the best economic intervention since the New Deal. I’d argue with the trillions we’ve spent, it’s probably greater. We prevented a Great economic collapse.

What? The New Deal was hardly successful at getting us out of the Depression? It took World War II. Most of FDR’s presidency was over the Great Depression (he didn’t cause it). That’s hardly a successful economy.

The best Economic years of America were Eisenhower-Kennedy-LBJ followed by 6 or so years of Clinton. We might be finally getting back to Clinton good, but we’ll see.

Ok, just saw the clip. The blurb is misquoting the guy. He’s saying Biden’s had the best economic intervention since the New Deal. I’d argue that Biden’s covid relief and infrastructure and climate bills are the best Economic intervention by the elected Federal government since WWII and better than the New Deal.

The Democratic Majority for Israel has been killing progressive primary candidates with attack ads who might even challenge US support for Israel while it continues to expand settlements and oppress Palestinians. These attack ads never speak about the candidate’s policy on Israel. And it’s a Super Pac, so it doesn’t have to reveal its donors or how much they donated although the PAC version showcases that the PAC at least is being largely funded by a person who donates to Republican senators. Yay for Citizens United! </sarcasm>

Mellmann, the creator of the Super PAC and PAC doesn’t believe that the US and US politicians should ever be critical of Israel, Israeli policies, or Israeli treatment of Palestinians, should ever make the $3.8B sent there annually have any sort of strings attached, and that there should be any sort of movement against Israel’s illegal occupation and refusal of Palestinian refugees right to return (ethnic cleansing 101) akin to the movement against South African apartheid.

Look, Israel is the birthplace of Judaism (and Christianity). It is and always will be the home of Judaism and its followers. I think whatever happens in the future, that should be a cardinal rule. But a theocratic democracy is not possible, especially one where you’re freaking out about becoming a minority and seem to think people of a certain religion or ancestry are more privileged in law and the courts.

But do you know who else has been in Israel-Palestine and the rest of the Canaanite region since the Bronze Age (the same as the Ancient Israelites)? Palestinians. Israel-Palestine is just as much their home as it is for any descendant of the Ancient Israelites (and so this should be another cardinal rule whatever happens in the future). Just because their religion today is Islam and their language is Arabic instead of some sort of Canaanite religion doesn’t mean they deserve their home any less.

https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/2015-10-20/ty-article/palestinians-and-jews-share-genetic-roots/0000017f-dc0e-df9c-a17f-fe1e57730000

Like people didn’t stay there and change religions and languages after Rome took out the Jewish government in AD 70 and people warred over the region over the next couple of millennia.

And even if they weren’t descendants of Canaanites, they would have been living there for nearly 2000 years, longer than Israelites can traced as a distinct people before AD 70. And even if it wasn’t 2000 years, but just 200 years, you don’t get to displace or oppress people whatever their ancestor’s relationship to the land is. The reality is that they’re there and that’s all they’ve ever known. And that’s enough whether Palestinian, Uyghur, Rohingya, or Jewish in Europe and America and Middle East over the millennia.