RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 298 Biden's Withdrawal, Foreign Policy, Left Dynamics, and What's Next with Max Elbaum
Ep 298 of RevolutionZ, welcomes Max Elbaum to discuss prospects and priorities following Biden's withdrawa, in light of Harris's momentum, with Trump's authoritarianism, and continued genocidal Israeli policies. What's with U.S. foreign policy? How can we Stop Trump, address MAGA's rise, win a cease fire, and then continue forward? But, as well, how can we address ideological intolerance and class prejudice even inside the left? With cautious optimism for peaceful protests in Chicago, how do we enhance peace and social prospects until November and then beyond?
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 298th consecutive episode and our second this week, and our guest this time for a return visit, is Max Elbaum. Max is a member of the Convergence Magazine editorial board and is the author of Revolution in the Air 60s, radicals Turned to Lenin, mao and Che a history of the 1970s to 80s New Communist Movement, it was called, in which he was an active participant. He is also a co-editor with Linda Burnham and Maria Pable I'm not sure how you pronounce her last name of Power Concedes Nothing. How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections. I think it is also fair to say that, like myself, he has been writing intermittently about the upcoming election and related issues, which will likely be a good part of our focus today. So, max welcome.
Speaker 2:Thanks, michael, I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1:I just wrote something in which I likened the past few weeks to a kind of topsy-turvy, risky, scary magic carpet ride of sorts, asking folks how they are navigating it, what they are thinking about it and what they think we ought to be doing. So perhaps that is a good way to start. How did you explain to yourself if you did is a good way to start. How did you explain to yourself if you did the immediate surge in energy and excitement when Biden backed out and Harris became the candidate?
Speaker 2:Interesting question. Well, like you said, you and I have both been writing about the election and I think my take before, in the weeks and months before Biden withdrew, was that there was an incredible amount of discontent and frustration within the people who were opposed to Trump and Trumpism, because it wasn't. The level of fightback was just not there compared to what people felt was necessary. Certainly, that was true in one way for those of us on the left end of the political spectrum in terms of having a broad progressive program and all our discontents with the policies of the Biden administration and so on, especially around Gaza, around immigration. But it was true much more broadly of just people feeling centrist Democrats, ordinary Democrats, young people feeling that MAGA was an existential threat and we were just walking it like deer in the headlights into disaster. So there was a tremendous amount of pent-up blocked energy to fight MAGA and the speed with which people rallied behind Kamala when she essentially got the mantle, when Biden withdrawing and it becoming very clear that there wasn't going to be some internal fight among the Democratic Party heavyweights.
Speaker 2:I think what it meant is that people were itching for a fight and Kamala came out with her swinging whatever else. People layered onto her all their own ideas. They could believe she was going to be progressive. They could believe she was going to be a centrist. They could believe she was going to change the line in Gaza. They could believe this, they could believe that. But the main thing is she was going to fight, she was going to take it to the other guy and all of a sudden the dam burst. All that pent up energy and fear that had existed, that we weren't even going to put up a fight, just exploded across the political spectrum, from the center right, those even who are somewhat conservative, who are conservative but they're opposed to authoritarianism you know, the Liz Cheney's of the world all the way over to many in the far left certainly not all. There was this sense we're going to be in a fight and people wanted to fight. So that's how I thought about it and that started to infuse my writing since then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I agree with you completely. That was my reaction also, although I was taken a little bit by surprise at the scale of it. I mean, you know, I knew there'd be something, but it was large, okay. So I wonder, at that point, where you know Biden is withdrawn, harris is just in, but not further than that, what were you thinking was your personal priority? How you thought you might have a worthwhile impact on the election, given its importance? Worthwhile impact on the election, given its importance, all the rest of it? You know what, given your position and who you are and your history and your desires what did you think you might best be doing?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm in the part of the left that, since October, has been trying to thread that needle in October 2023 about shifting US policy on Israel, palestine and foreign policy in general, and figuring out how to make that fight an integral part of the fight against the American version of fascism, authoritarianism, back up whichever terminology someone feels comfortable with to describe Trump's attempt to impose white Christian nationalist rule on the country, implement Project 2025 and all of that. That and that's a layer of the left that's had to cope with some real tensions, politically difficult choices and a lot of emotional strain. You know you and I are people who come out of the radicalization of the 1960s, which was mainly driven by war and racism, especially the racist war in Vietnam, the repression of the civil rights movement, the whole question of the role of Black people in US society. That stays with us. You get imprinted by that. So, the Palestinian movement you know that's been the third rail for decades. You know decades and decades. You know, and I remember, when you know, to go for a demonstration around Palestine. You know there'd be 30 people there or something like that. It was hardly on the radar screen and you know we can go through the whole long history and all that, but there too, a dam burst in late 2023. At the level of dissent among young people of all backgrounds, young Jews, just the degree to which the Israeli carnage in Gaza had awakened a movement that was, you know, peace and internationalism had not been high on the progressive agenda over the last six or eight years. It was the weakest spot in our fight back against right-wing authoritarianism and all the confusions of the current world order and so on. Than that, and at the same time we can see what a danger MAGA is to people in the United States and people all across the globe, including Palestinians. So that slice of the left had some very difficult terrain to navigate over since October.
Speaker 2:Bill Fletcher and I wrote a piece in the Nation in January about trying to find a candidate to challenge Biden on an anti-war platform. That didn't work out in terms of finding a candidate, but the strategy that got developed by the uncommitted movement was in the same vein, which is registry and electoral politics, that opposition to US complicity with Israeli genocide in Gaza, and that issue was, first and foremost, what came to, I think, the section of the left I was in in mind with Kamala replacing Biden, which is where is Kamala going to go on that issue? And that led to efforts to affect the choice of vice president, pressure to try to, which is going on even as we speak right now. The negotiations are underway of what's going to be given to uncommitted in terms of what's going to happen at the convention. All of that. Everybody's trying to read the tea leaves about where Kamala actually stands. People understand that she's still vice president. Biden is president.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're living in you mentioned before when we were talking. It's like Alice in Wonderland world. Out here, the US press spokesman is saying you know, we need a ceasefire. We're going to knock heads, we're going to make Hamas in Israel. You know, do a ceasefire.
Speaker 2:And then the US is sending aircraft carriers over to the Middle East to defend Israel against Iran, at least to defend Israel against Iran, to drag the US into the regional war that the only person who wants is Netanyahu and his bunch of right-wing extremists. Blow against the MAGA Republicans and see if we can push those people a bit back from the verge of taking, all you know, political power. They already control the Supreme Court in almost half the states. So, you know, like you said, michael, it's a very wild time, and so the first thing I did, you know, start to try to figure out how to do both those things at the same time, how to walk and chew gum at the same time. Build the energy against MAGA and pressure the administration as much as possible to get a change in US foreign policy, especially in regard to Israel-Palestine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, again, we agree.
Speaker 1:But when I looked at it, thinking okay, so what should I do, right?
Speaker 1:What should somebody like me, like you, people who write, people who speak in various venues or even people who talk to other people do, who are quite left, who are radical, revolutionary, whatever the case may be?
Speaker 1:And I started to think and thought and then started to write, with in mind exactly that issue of Palestine and the election, because so many people who became so aroused by Palestine and by not by Palestine, you know by Israeli barbarism, so many people got into a never Biden mindset and retained that feeling. Totally understandably, how can I possibly vote for people who are funding, cheerleading, alibying and providing weapons for genocide? How can I do that? And so I began to feel that maybe our task was to answer that question, to provide room for young people who were so justifiably angry at the Democrats to nonetheless try to seek the election of Democrats, in this case Harris. I wonder what you think about that. I'm not saying that's the only thing to do, because certainly it isn't, but it did seem like it was a high priority thing for people who might be able to talk to that audience to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a very well put, michael, and a good way to talk about it. I think the route to doing that is to make it clear that the election is not fundamentally about the two candidates. The election is about two social forces clashing and there is a wing of the anti-MAGA coalition that is is not fundamentally a vote for that individual endorsing or, much less, praising what they do. It's a vote for that long range power path. Vote for that long range power path.
Speaker 2:The particular group in that constellation that I'm the closest to, I was one of the people who helped. I wasn't one of the main people, but I helped launch the See the Vote project in 2019, 2020. See the Vote deploys people to canvas with grassroots local power building organizations in battleground states and in 2024, they also deployed people to canvas in defense of the squat Jamal Bowman, summer Lee, ilhan Omar, who just won Cori Bush like that. And the See the Vote Project is made up of people who have a long-term strategy for political power. They're allied with other groups the Movement for Black Lives Electoral Justice Project, showing Up for Racial Justice, working Families Party, some of the national community organizing networks, the left wing, the labor movement, uaw and the other groups that have sent letters to Biden demanding an arms embargo on Israel.
Speaker 2:So there is a political tendency in US life that has a transformative agenda, but it also has an actual path about how to accumulate enough power to make that agenda work operative, not just to plant the flag and say this is our position, but to actually bring that position into a measure of governing power. To me, that's the location that people who, like you said, totally understandably and righteously, have no patience for the kind of moral cowardice and political bankruptcy that's being displayed by the Biden administration when it comes to Palestine. Their home is in a section of the left that embraces Palestinian rights and has an actual strategy that could succeed in actually changing US foreign policy, in actually ending US complicity with the Israeli genocide and the Israeli apartheid state in general. So that's the location and we need to expand that section. We need to have that section of the left be welcoming and open. It needs to demonstrate as well as not just issue statements about Palestinian rights. But people have been showing up at demonstrations, building the uncommitted vote pressure. You know that whole arena.
Speaker 2:To me that's the sweet spot and it's also the sweet spot where we have to convince some number of people who are dedicated anti-fascists but who have bought into some elements of the Israeli narrative there's certainly plenty of those in US life and win some of them over to the cause of Palestinian rights. And you know, this is like in our day in Vietnam kids talking to their parents about you know what was going on. That was a big factor in convincing some mainstream politicians to take an anti-war stance was their own kids. And that has to go on too. Where young people who are in the encampments and so on, we talk to their parents and convince their families and move the needle from that direction.
Speaker 1:Maybe we have a slight disagreement coming along. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:That makes things more interesting.
Speaker 1:I'm trying so, back before Walls was nominated or was proclaimed as the vice presidential candidate, I thought all the things that you're saying wanted those outcomes, but I felt that Harris winning not Harris winning, trump losing, to be explicit about it, trump losing was essential, that that had to happen, that it was still close. And so when I found, you know, some of my friends were signing up to do phone calls in Pennsylvania or other activities of that sort, and I didn't think it made sense for me, I thought what made sense for me is what I said trying to get many, many more radicals and revolutionaries than otherwise would do so to not only vote in swing states but to urge others to vote and to not attack people for not voting, which was another phenomenon. Last time around, okay, but then Walls got denomination. Last time around, okay, but then Wall's got denomination. And then again there was this surge, and the surge now makes it look like it's for Harris to lose, to use the sports terminology, like they've got it won unless they fuck up.
Speaker 1:And under those circumstances, I wonder what you think about a slight shift in our priority from increase the vote for the Democrats to decrease, instead decrease, the vote for Trump and, in particular, to try to defuse, weaken and maybe even attract from MAGA to that constellation of forces that you've been talking about. That now seems to me suddenly to be maybe the bigger priority. So, partly eyes on stopping Trump, but partly eyes on the aftermath. And in the aftermath you can't have 50% of the working class and more than that in lots of places on the other side. That's not going to lead to massive progressive change, much less a new system.
Speaker 1:So maybe it's time to start what people have been loathe to do, which is actually communicating with people in MAGA and actually trying to understand where they're at and actually trying to address where they're at and move that needle. It's a little like what you described in the sense of reaching people who are on the wrong side on Palestine but are good people. Well, when you look at MAGA, a lot of the things they're against, it's totally appropriate to be against. You know they don't like the government, neither do I. They don't like mainstream media, neither do I. They don't like feeling powerless, neither do I. I mean even sometimes they don't like science. Well, by that they mean pharmaceutical companies, and I don't either.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of simpatico if you can get past the polarization and I'm wondering what you think about that becoming a larger part of our agenda. Well, with the Lone Star, defeating MAGA and building progressive change, I don't think we should write off anybody, and I do think the left has been too quick at times to have its version of Hillary Clinton's deplorable thesis. You know some people are just there's no point. So I agree with that, and I think there are elements within the left that have been working that lane for some time, including some of the people who are pro-Palestine and so on. This group has a number of projects going on in the South, one in eastern Kentucky, a couple others in Tennessee and other places, organizing poor white people in poor communities you know who are quote stereoty to penetrate those rural areas and not fall into what the Democratic Party and parts of the left did for many years, which is abandon the so-called factory towns, abandon the rural areas, abandon those areas that are primarily white and flee to the blue states, blue cities on the coasts and even cities within the Midwest and so on. So I think we have to work that lane. I think we should agree wherever we can with those conservatives who are anti-MAGA and try to build on their contributions to the anti-MAGA front and I think that that can be done without giving up anything in terms of our principles and what we regard as our core values, and so on. I mean, if you're a revolutionary, you have to believe people can change. What's the point If you don't think people can change?
Speaker 2:When I was in SDS in the late 60s, there were kids in my chapter who voted for Wallace in 64, or whose parents voted for Wallace in 64, for some of the same logic that you just laid out about MAGA. They were pissed at the elites. They were pissed at that. They bought into the Wallace rhetoric and at a certain point between 1964 and 1968, they changed their minds and we needed people like that. I mean, nobody's born with this. You know, each of us went through our own personal transformation. I mean there were people who are red diaper babies and so on, but that's not the majority.
Speaker 2:So yes, and then, once you get into that, then you get into all the debates about allocation of resources. You know, and there's you know there's fights over that within people who have the same goals. You know there's a fight in the pages of the Nation for the last few months about, you know, steve Phillips, and you know too much money is going in chasing white votes. That aren't going to change. What we should really be building is building turnout in communities of color. There's a lot of people who are unregistered. We should reach those people. That's the majority.
Speaker 2:Then there's other people who say, well, you know, that's not a winning strategy. Those people are so alienated from the political system. We need to win over more of those people who are on the fence, or even MAGA voters, but who are persuadable. We should put more energy into that. Then there's if you did achieve, if we do win in 2028, you have to use the power of what you decide to change, not just in terms of what benefits the majority and so on that's the main consideration but also politically.
Speaker 2:How do you neutralize certain forces? You know where do you? You know Biden has done some very good things for the working class and the labor movement and has failed in terms of using them politically to win over sections who got those benefits. I mean, you know the big example Sean O'Brien speaks at the Republican Convention and doesn't mention that the Teamsters pension fund is basically rescued by the Obama, by the Biden administration, whereas under the Trump administration in Project 2025, would be slashed. But somehow the Biden administration was unable to do the kind of thing with that politically that they translated it not just into a win for workers and for people. Not just into a win for workers and for people, but into a political game for convincing people they should rethink where their political loyalties are. And then you know. So.
Speaker 2:There's all these debates, there's empirical evidence. People argue back and forth which sector, where should you put your money, arguments about what works, tv ads canvassing, all those kinds of fights. Some of them have deep political significance, especially when there are people who take extreme positions and write off whole sectors, and some of which are just tactical differences that you have to sort through and you have to live with, like the differences between people, country. I mean, there's the potential to win a big victory, but nothing changed Trump's approval rating, trump's this and that. That didn't go away because everybody left the center got excited about Kamala because there was a fight of Senator got excited about Kamala because there was a fight. This is still a total nail-biter. And then the cold question of election protection, the upcoming coup, whether Trump's he's virtually said you know, everything Kamala does is a lie. Her crowds are a lie and her votes are going to be a lie, so this isn't over till January 21st 2025.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually think. I mean, obviously, of course it's not over and of course it can swing again. Look at how it swung but at the moment, I actually do think the momentum is really quite strong for the vote. But there's another issue. It isn't necessarily just the vote. I even get the feeling that the Trump side of the coin is no longer focused on the vote. That is their strategy.
Speaker 1:I think maybe, I don't know there's a lot of conjecture going on because we don't know enough for having lost the vote, winning the election by decertifying various counties and thereby decertifying lots of votes and winning. So it seems to me that that has to be attended to too. And one of the things that has given me some optimism is that it does look like the Democrats are starting to pay attention to stuff like that. Instead of just playing checkers, they're starting to play chess and they're starting to look at the board, and they're starting to do that. But I want to ask you, unless you really want to go with that, a somewhat different question, which is forget for a minute tactical issues, even forget for a minute strategic issues one can choose among.
Speaker 1:Is there something on the left, and I don't mean just in the Democratic Party, but also in the Democratic Party, but on the left as well about how we look at the world and think about things that has caused the disjuncture, let's call it, or the dismissiveness toward the doubts about the calling of them names, toward working people. Is there something not all of the left, of course, but is there something lurking on the left all the way back to the 60s to now, that has diminished our ability to do what people say we're trying to do, which is build a movement that is led by, is full of working class participants? I mean, to my mind, there has to be some explanation for that, because it has happened and I don't think it's inevitable. So I'm wondering if there's something about.
Speaker 1:Even Hillary Clinton's famous formulation was not strategically wise from her point of view. I think it was an honest expression of her attitudes, and the question is, where do those attitudes come from, not only in her, but on the left. I don't know whether I'm being clear enough. I can't tell from looking at you whether or not I'm communicating.
Speaker 2:You're communicating just fine.
Speaker 1:It's a more amorphous issue.
Speaker 2:It is an amorphous issue, but it's a real issue. I think you're onto something, michael. I don't think. I think there is. Let's put it this way. I think there's more than one thing. I'm not sure there is one factor in that. So there's a few factors, one factor in that, so, more than a political phenomenon, and what I mean by that is people adopt a certain view of the world, of what's right, what's the way it should be, how to think, and there's a lot of intolerance for people who think differently.
Speaker 2:You enter the realm of politics. It's a different calculation. Your calculation politics is about addition. Politics is about finding where you agree with people. Politics is about making certain changes. It includes where you stand on key issues and how you look at the world. But it can't be just limited to that.
Speaker 2:But there's, you know, not an original observation a certain kind of religious type thinking within the left. You know, we know the truth and we will set the world free. So there's a lot of ideological intolerance for differences of opinion, and that's not necessarily class-related. Or, you know, look down on workers, you look down on everybody who doesn't agree with you, and you find that reflected in the nature of internal left disputes which move very quickly from I disagree with your ideas to you're a bad person which supposedly that distinction is part of the left. Like I, can disagree with your ideas, but you know, we're both human beings, we're both for the same goals and so on, but that's not the way it works. So I think there's a lot of intolerance for difference on the left and a lot of discomfort with it. I think there is some class prejudice.
Speaker 2:I think that the left in the US over the last few decades there's a critique of the nonprofit industrial complex and the shift. When you're in my generation, when we became revolutionaries, the model left is in our minds. What was the ideal? Somebody who got a factory job, lived in a working class neighborhood and organized their co-workers. That was sort of our vision and thousands of us went and got jobs in the factories, hospitals, offices, you know, to organize the working class, or went and lived in working class neighborhoods and maybe, you know, maybe didn't get a certain kind of job. But that was the thing For a lot of people growing up since the 90s.
Speaker 2:Their image of a radical is you're a paid organizer for some organization or union perhaps, but organization organization Well, there's a certain bias in that, and then that starts to affect people, and some might not be crude, but at a certain point, you know, if you're working in an organization where a college kid starts and starts at $45,000, $50,000 a year and working for the you know some advocacy group or something, well, what do you think of people who work three jobs and minimum wage and all this? So yes, I think there is some class bias that seeps in. I think there's also on the flip side. There's plenty of people who really have been mistreated by your stereotypical white male worker women, trans people, people of color, who are really mad about it and are not interested in taking it anymore and they don't have a lot of patience for that in today's world.
Speaker 2:So some of those folks you know get pissed off and it's a lot easier for you and me to say well, we should take the high road. And, you know, still look at the big picture of where those people are and where they're coming from. It's not that easy. So that creeps in and so you have a whole confluence of things where the ability you know I remember reading I think it was in this may seem unrelated, but in Peggy Dennis's book about her.
Speaker 2:She was the activist in the Communist Party and also married to the general secretary of the Communist Party. Activist in the Communist Party and also married to the general secretary of the Communist Party, who was the leader of the party in the late 40s and into the 50s. She toured Eastern Europe and one of her observations at a certain point one of the Eastern European communist regimes said you know, we used to take the line everyone who's not with us is against us, and we switched to everyone who's not against us is with us. They tried to get out of the bunker mentality and start to see the broader like okay, unless you're actually actively organizing against us, you're on our team.
Speaker 2:They never made it you know that didn't work in Eastern Europe, pretty obviously. But that kind of bunker mentality is very common within the left. If you're not on our team, you're on the other team, as opposed to. Well, if you're not out there organizing for MAGA, maybe you're on our team. It's hard to sustain that. It takes a mature political leadership. It has to become dominant in the culture, it has to show some results and the US left you know, hasn't really got there. I mean the civil rights movement.
Speaker 2:Again, we agree Look at how much work it took to take that moral high ground and what sacrifices had to be made by the people to put up with beatings, murders, killings and still take that high ground attitude. And at the time, you know there were sections of the left that you know almost nobody condemned the civil rights protest but there were plenty of people who said, well, screw that, I'm not sitting there while people beat me up, I'm getting my, you know peace and shooting back.
Speaker 1:And there was a lot of sympathy on the left for that. The only way I would differ perhaps but I don't think it's for now to talk about is that I do think it goes. When you said the left is ideological, I think there's a lot of truth to that and, regrettably, down in the underpinnings of the ideologies there are problems that sort of are consistent with, maybe even breed some of these kinds of problems that you're describing, which I agree. These kinds of problems that you're describing, you know they most certainly exist.
Speaker 2:Say a little more about that.
Speaker 1:What do you think? Well, I think there's an assumption deep in the left that there are sort of two teams, because there's two classes, the owning class and the working class. And then you can switch over to some other dimensions of life and there's the racist and the anti-racist and you know, etc. But looking at the economy for a minute, I don't think that's right. I think there's the owning class and there's the working class, meaning the sector of employees who are disempowered. But then there's another sector of employees who are empowered. We can give them another name, call them the coordinator class, for example. And so those employees, how are they empowered? Well, their work, their activity, each day gives them information, skills, connections to other people, confidence very important connections to other people, confidence, very important. Energy to be able to make decisions and to participate in making decisions. But then there's about 80% whose circumstances do the exact opposite and disempower them and create a situation in which they're neither ready to nor inclined to, by virtue of exhaustion and suspicion and all the rest, participate in decisions. And if there are those classes so there's a class between labor and capital, now coordinator class then when you look at the left, you have to ask yourself is it sufficient to be against capital? Well, it's necessary to be against capital. Well, it's necessary. It's certainly the case that a left to be a left to be for people, for human well-being, blah, blah, blah, is going to have to be against private ownership of the means of production, it's going to have to be against profit-seeking, and so on and so forth. But you can be those things and still be in that group between labor and capital. Or you can be in the working class group, and you described back in the 60s how a lot of people, sort of to be fully in that working class group, would go into working class communities or would get working class jobs, indeed, but without understanding that that other class, that coordinator class, that empowered set of employees existed and a whole lot of the left wanted to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1:And uh, you know, when you look at clinton and her persona, and when you look at why trump appeals to lots of working class people, there's a totally different persona. You know, the one persona is professional, it's coordinatorish. The other persona is more worker-ish, and the left is not very good at understanding this kind of thing. I don't think. And so sometimes it gets into the dismissiveness of those who are in a sense, below in class structure, real working class people I mean.
Speaker 1:Even watching Walls and the way he engages, it's not only strikingly different from Clinton and from Biden, but also from Kamala. It's strikingly different there also, and he's not the epitome of a working class you know hero to quote, but he's much closer to it in being able to talk to that constituency. And I guess the thing I would ask is if you want to win and I know you do if you want to win, how can this stuff not come to the fore? And you're thinking I don't I mean you now, I mean in the left how can questions about how could we go for 50 years and have the results that we've had? There must be something about the way we're thinking about things or the way we're categorizing things that's contributing to that, not the sole cause, but contributing to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know, I'm not sure whether we would disagree or not I suspect over time we would probably agree. Does any of that ring sensible to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's quite sensible. I mean, I think what's tricky? You know, there's a critique out there of the so-called PMC professional managerial class which I'm not sure that people using's.
Speaker 2:Use the empowered workers or workers whose situation in life leans toward the so-called professionalism that has become more dominant within the US left than it was, say, in the 1930s, or probably even into the 50s and through the mid-60s. It's a product of the 60s and after, when that particular layer expanded by quite you know, by leaps and bounds. I think that you know, and it's the main reflection of the critique of that, these days I think there is a whole new generation that wants to you staff heavy relative to the grassroots self-owned membership organizations. So I think there are sections of the left that are trying to grapple with this issue. They may not view it in exactly the same theoretical terms, but I think, that I think it is a real issue.
Speaker 2:They may not view it in exactly the same theoretical terms, and I think it is a real issue. The only thing that I would take a little issue with in what you said is the Wall's Trump comparison is interesting. I mean, this is the fight that's underway over what is working class American masculinity and what is the model of that. You're absolutely right that the sort of polished professional this, that the other, the Gavin- Newsom look is not it I know that's not it, but there's a big fight underway right now about exactly that.
Speaker 2:And what does culturally? Where does that culture go? I mean, bruce Springsteen's been going on there as the society becomes more diverse racially, and as all these changes take place in gender roles and in class and employment situations and what's available for different people. I do think that a left that's going to seriously contend for power has got to grapple with all those contradictions and there can't. There's no, you know, there's no. I mean, the best minds and dedicated people for 150 years now have tried to change capitalism to socialism. It hasn't worked out very well, so obviously we're doing something wrong. It doesn't mean it's always because you know, there's also the you know Walter Mosley thing.
Speaker 2:You know we're outnumbered and outgunned, so sometimes you just get beat even if you do things right. But we need some changes in our approach, including in how we think about people and how we think about change. It's not going to come just through. You know, this is the key sector and this is the key tactic and if we win this election, those are important, but there's no magic bullet here.
Speaker 1:It's funny you mentioned the boss Bad name but Springsteen and back when he was getting going, I must admit I felt like there was real potential there and it's too bad it didn't get grasped, because he did know what he was doing in terms of communicating.
Speaker 1:Anyway, let me ask you a practical question now, which is that in I don't know, I guess now it's only a week or so, and very soon there is the Democratic Convention and there will be some number of people demonstrating in Chicago. I mean, it's a remarkable replay of 1968. You have the candidates stepping aside, you have a new candidate coming in, you have a war around which there is opposition. I mean the number of parallels are quite striking and you know there's the possibility for one more parallel, which is that the demonstrations ignite a very difficult battle in the streets of Chicago and it has an impact beyond Chicago which contributes to the outcome of the subsequent election. Or perhaps it can do the and in an adverse way, electing Trump, say, like it elected Nixon. Or perhaps the more hopeful side would be, it adds a dimension of pressure on the election policies of the Democrats and it gets a really strong, and a really strong would be an effective how to have it have a positive rather than a not so positive implication.
Speaker 2:Well, a large peaceful showing in defense of Palestinian rights outside the convention that amplifies the voices of those who, inside the convention, are going to be pressing that. I think that's the best possible outcome. I think it's not. That in itself is tricky electorally. Some people who are pro-Israel might decide to not vote for a Republican if not vote for a Democrat, if they think the Democrat is going to be, in their view, too harsh on Israel. And obviously, to the extent that it moves some people who have been critical, it would add votes of people who want to see a stronger stance opposed to the Israeli carnage and gossip.
Speaker 2:Chicago wild in the streets, malay, partly because the administration in Chicago was so different from what it was in 68. There's a long interview with Brandon Johnson I think it's in the most recent issue of the Nation I'm not positive where he talks explicitly about what's going to happen in Chicago and the preparations that the Chicago administration has made their commitment to free speech, their commitment to the right to protest, his own vote to break the tie in the Chicago City Council to win the ceasefire resolution and, at the same time, his support for the ticket and his hoping that things go well for the fall from a point of view of defeating the echo. And then I think that the Democratic administration, no one was in charge. I mean Mayor Daley was in charge in 68.
Speaker 1:There were national.
Speaker 2:Democrats, but they weren't running the show. There were national Democrats, but they weren't running the show. But in this case I think the coordination between the people writing the convention and the mayor of Chicago is pretty close. So I'm guardedly optimistic that we're more worried about what Netanyahu's going to do in the next week or two or month or two.
Speaker 1:Who's going to do Sorry?
Speaker 2:Netanyahu.
Speaker 1:Wait more worried about what it got a little blurry what Netanyahu's going to do. Oh right, yeah, yeah. So that's the next question.
Speaker 2:There's no indication. It's pretty mind-boggling. I mean, this opens up a whole other can of worms, michael, but you know the way Netanyahu is playing Biden. It's like a violin concerto or something like this. I mean, have you ever seen In 1963, when the US government realized that the regime in Vietnam was going to lose the war, from the US point of view and ruin their counterinsurgency plans, they did what any sensible imperial power would do they launched a coup. They okayed a coup against Diem, they ousted him and they put in people that would do what the Americans said. They lost in the end because that was an unwinnable war, but they gave it their imperial shot. Where was the coup against Netanyahu over the last decade? What kind of imperialists do we have running this country? What a bunch of patsies.
Speaker 1:I mean, this is absurd.
Speaker 2:You know he's spitting in their eye, even the Brits. With what's his name? Smith. You know, when Northern Rhodesia declared its independence, even the Brits finally had it enough and said okay, we're cutting you loose. Now what the hell is wrong with these people?
Speaker 1:I mean it's.
Speaker 2:I have found that if the Iranians do whatever they're going to do do and the Israelis hit back and this and that one missile's, all that's got to do is hit a US Army base and the US can be in a war with Iran On the side of Israel that it has been trying to avoid. It's been using all its diplomatic effort it won't do. The one thing that it could do, which is insist on a ceasefire, cut off the arms to Israel. That's going to be the most dangerous source of an October surprise between now and then, which is whether the United States is going to be enmeshed. The complicity with genocide is bad enough. It's hard to get much worse than that. But getting dragged into a regional war that destroys Lebanon, the whole area in conflagration, just because of the fascist ambitions of this right-wing clique running Israel right now.
Speaker 2:Jesus. Sorry for the rant I find it hard even to understand.
Speaker 1:No, the rant's totally appropriate. I find it hard to understand the Israeli agenda, much less the US agenda, about which you made clear that it wasn't obvious what could possibly be driving US policy to be so supine in the face of Netanyahu. But the Israeli agenda is also difficult to comprehend.
Speaker 1:that this could be the I don't know, most disruptive, most dangerous phenomenon to emerge in the late stages of the election and to drive it in one direction or another, as well as to drive the Mideast in one direction or another. I agree. The only thing I worry about with respect to Chicago, because I agree with what you've described I don't know enough enough. I don't even know much of anything about Chicago per se and, in particular, the Chicago police force. I don't know what happens if the Chicago police force decides to crack down, despite the attitudes of Chicago elected officials, and I'm not sure that the demonstrators are in a position to, like you said about the civil rights movement, maintain discipline, take the high road and deal with that kind of activity. I don't know. I'm guardedly optimistic about what will happen in Chicago. Also, I'm very worried about what will happen in the Mideast and, just for the sake of what we're talking about, I'm also worried about, in the month of October, a gigantic wave, tsunami of truly false news. Ie AI generated videos of candidates saying all sorts of insane things, causing people to sort of throw up their hands and including people like us basically saying what the fuck is going on. And then Trump's minions, um, managed to move the election. So there are a lot of dangers. I guess we all have to do what we can without having our conjectures become so certain that we treat everybody who doesn't do what we think you should do as an idiot and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:But it certainly is tumultuous times and, you know, difficult. It is striking that, you know we're worried about fascism at the door, understandably so. And yet polls in the United States show that the population is, on issue after issue after issue, 65 to 75 to 80% liberal. It's pretty striking. And again it's their side grabs power and uses it. Our side and this goes back all the way to the 60s influences hearts and minds and leaves the institutions alone, so that over time the institutions, you know, sort of win back. We've got to do better and I agree with you that a lot of people are starting to try to figure these things out. Anyway, we've done a lot. Is there something more that you would? You know something we haven't covered that you want to address or bring up, or you know?
Speaker 2:close on or whatever.
Speaker 2:What you said at the end is an appropriate close. You know the left as it has matured since 2016,. Since the election of Trump as a wake up call and Bernie's campaign, which unleashed a lot of energy and showed that you could do something in the electoral arena has started to tackle almost every issue that we've discussed here today. We haven't resolved them all Not everybody's in agreement all kinds of problems but compared to where we were seven or eight years ago, we're in better shape and in many respects, the point of this election is to buy us four more years, buy us some time to keep maturing, to keep developing the more positive and healthier things that have developed over the last while, and there's no guarantee that we're going to get that time.
Speaker 2:You're absolutely right about that, michael. I mean, the good guys don't always win and any American exceptionalism it can't happen here kind of thing we need to dispense with it. It has happened here before and it can happen here again. So we might not win, but we might get those four years and if we get four more years, there's a lot of prospects between 2024 and 2028. A lot of reasons to think that the kind of things that we've been talking about some of the things that you've pointed out as deeper problems that we can make some headway in moving them.
Speaker 1:So let's hope we're having this conversation a year or two from now in a better place.
Speaker 2:We're going to give it all we've got and hope for the best.
Speaker 1:You know it was the worst of times, but it's also the best of times. Not enough people see that the latter is the case also, and now it's a face-off. Well, okay, all that said, thank you for coming on, max.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 1:This is Mike Albert signing off. Until next time for Revolution Z.