The Elizabeth Warren Thread
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Bernie Sanders is to run for president again.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/19/bernie-sanders-announces-2020-run-presidency
Will the US media ignore and misrepresent him again? Depends, I think , on who will be the Wall St candidate still to declare.
Washington State’s Democratic Governor Jay Inslee has announced his 2020 bid for the US presidential nomination, joining a lengthy list of contenders.
Mr Inslee, 68, will make climate change his number one issue, calling it “the most urgent challenge of our time” in his first campaign video.
He is the first governor to throw his hat into the ring, joining 12 other Democrats, including six senators.Inslee said his national mission would focus on powering the economy with 100% clean energy, creating jobs, and focusing on “justice and inclusion…so no group is left to bear the cost of transition”.
“We are going to build electric cars in Michigan, we are going to build and install wind turbines in Iowa, we are going to install solar right here in Washington State,” Inslee said.The 2020 Democratic presidential primary became even more crowded on Monday, when former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper announced he was entering the race.
The Clinton Camp Vs “Royal Majesty King” Bernie Sanders
Stabs in the back
Warren has pledged that, if elected president next year, she will aim to break up the big tech companies Amazon, Facebook and Google because they have too much control over Americans’ lives.
“Today’s big tech companies have too much power – too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy,” the Massachusetts senator said in a blogpost. “They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else.”
Something else on that story I came across when looking for something else. I suppose it has some marginal relevance for us as even some of our Party’s members seem to have been affected by the view that the “big tech” companies are worse than other capitalist companies. According to a motion down for this year’s Conference, the EC has twice turned down a proposition to sell our books via Amazon Advantage, apparently on the grounds that this means associating with them. There doesn’t seem to a similar objection to us using Facebook. Anyway, the membership is going to get a chance to decide on this.
“the EC has twice turned down a proposition to sell our books via Amazon Advantage, apparently on the grounds that this means associating with them”
My first thought on this is that as we are living in capitalism, like it or not, we should use it to our ‘advantage’ whenever we can.
My second thought is we could at least discover if it would move more books/pamphlets than the means we have currently to do so.
“the EC has twice turned down a proposition to sell our books via Amazon Advantage, apparently on the grounds that this means associating with them”
But it’s not just the EC that was unenthusiastic about using Amazon; opinions expressed at ADM 2018 endorsed the EC’s stance.
Extract from the minutes: “Amazon being one of the worst offenders, [when it comes to the exploitation and appalling treatment of its workers] it would be unethical to use them to sell party literature; the Party must maintain solidarity with workers by not using Amazon.”
It seems that Manchester Branch is dissatisfied with the prevailing view in the Party and wants another bite of the same cherry at Conference 2019.
I think you should have published the whole extract:
Item 26 Manchester Branch “The party is against capitalism, not individual particular capitalists”
In response to a promotional suggestion, one forum post commented ‘Amazon is the last company in the world we should contemplate having any truck with’. This seems to imply there are particular capitalists who we treat differently, some with more rancour than others. Perhaps some members think the party view is that surplus value can be extracted from workers more ethically by some capitalists than others? Perhaps some members think our case against capitalism is that some capitalists are extracting surplus value from workers not as ethically as they could be.
Aside from the practicalities of agreeing what an ethical extraction of surplus value under capitalism looks like, this has the potential to be a serious impediment to the party doing necessary business (or business judged beneficial for us) with capitalists for goods and services, to carry out the party’s job of making socialists. This isn’t an objection to singling out individual capitalists for propaganda purposes (in the Standard etc.). But in using it as an objection to doing necessary or beneficial party business with individual capitalists, this puts a non-systemic case against capitalism that is not Marxian and more akin to the Green Party.“I think you should have published the whole extract”
Why’s that? Manchester Branch is quite capable of publishing its own Items for Discussion. But their members evidently can’t be arsed to visit this place, particularly the one whose hobby-horse it is.
The other arguments put forward against their item 26 weren’t published either – in the minutes of the ADM proceedings. But undoubtedly they’ll be reprised at Conference.
In the meantime, both you and Janet are off-topic… 😆
Off topic? This whole topic is off topic. Just a list of more or less obscure American professional politicians who have thrown their hat into the ring to become 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate. So I looked for something to liven it up and introduce a bit of a socialist element. It worked.
The thread began when Warren was the very first to announce her presidential bid hence the title. When more candidates entered the Democrat race, somewhere in the posts was my acknowledgement that the title should be changed to reflect the discussion now being upon all the new presidential candidates.
Obama was an obscurity when he entered. Sanders was an obscurity when he entered. Trump also was an outsider.
It is more than a list and has endeavoured to raise policy positions…the Warren statement the very opening you took an opportunity of taking.
And Dave is right…too many members can’t be arsed to contribute to this forum and if the trend continues, there will be a very good case to shut it down entirely before it becomes an embarrassment of posters talking to themselves….as it sometimes already appears. …echo of an empty room….
Oh good, we can discuss the policies too of this bunch of reformists. I thought this about Amazon being “anarcho-capitalists” which you posted on libcom was amusing (incidentally libcom’s forum seems as alive as ours, must be a sign of the times):
In particular:
Capitalism is failing in America, and Amazon is both the cause and beneficiary of much of the breakdown … In the most extreme form of capitalism taxes do not exist. This is called “anarcho-capitalism.” Among all corporations, Amazon may be the leading advocate of this philosophy. They haven’t paid federal income tax for the past two years.
So, Amazon was must be singled out and dealt with because it has helped make American capitalism fail and pays no taxes. Bash Amazon to save American capitalism. There could be some vote-catching mileage there.
There is also something there about the wages and conditions of its workers (which I can see Dave reading out at Conference), though the word “exploit” here is used in its popular sense of being treated worse than most other workers (in the Marxian sense all workers are exploited, whatever their pay or however good their conditions).
And Dave is right…too many members can’t be arsed to contribute to this forum and if the trend continues, there will be a very good case to shut it down entirely before it becomes an embarrassment of posters talking to themselves….as it sometimes already appears. …echo of an empty room….
Alan, nooooooooo!
Please dont think like that. There are far more people that follow this forum than you apparently imagine. There are a great many visitors here just lurking. Some who only occasionally contribute, like myself, still read and enjoy the posts. This should be reassuring to posters. They are being read despite appearances
The forum is a great asset. Yes it could do with more people contributing but dont underestimate its reach….
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