RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 355 Tom Gallagher DSA, Mamdani, and Us
Episode 355 of RevolutionZ has as guest DSA activist and former Massachusetts state representative Tom Gallagher to discuss how leftists too often "do the billionaires' work for them" by attacking allies over ideological purity.
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders face vicious criticism from fellow progressives with headlines like "AOC is a genocidal con artist" or "Bernie is a ghoulish Zionist," something has gone terribly wrong with movement politics. Gallagher dissects this suicidal tendency with the perspective of someone who's witnessed decades of progressive movements building and fracturing.
He describes how the Sanders campaigns temporarily broke through this cycle by demonstrating mass support for progressive policies and bringing people together around concrete goals. He contrasts this practical engagement with the sectarian tendencies that flourish especially in online spaces, where discourse lacks nuance and rewards extremism.
The episode examine the challenges facing organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America as they navigate questions of electoral strategy, ideological consistency, and practical governance. The example of Zohran Mamdani's mayoral campaign in New York serves as a test case. How can a socialist be an effective mayor while maintaining progressive principles.
Drawing on historical examples from Milwaukee's "sewer socialists" to the fragmentation of previous left movements, this discussion offers essential insights for anyone committed to building effective progressive power. Rather than treating disagreement as betrayal, Gallagher advocates recognizing common ground and directing our energy toward the actual systems of power and inequality that progressive movements exist to challenge.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 352nd episode and my guest this time is an old friend, tom Gallagher. Tom was an anti-war activist while attending Boston College, subsequently represented the Austin-Brighton section of Boston in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and later shared the Boston chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Currently living in Oakland, california, he has served as a Democratic National Presidential Nominating Convention delegate for both George McGovern and Bernie Sanders, as well as a United Nations election officer in the 1999 East Timor plebiscite, a voter registration and election supervisor in Bosnia and an election observer in Kyrgyzstan I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Macedonia, russia and Ukraine Tom gets around. He was a member of the United Educators of San Francisco, afl-cio.
Speaker 1:He has written articles very widely, is the author of Sub my Years Underground in America's Schools and the Primary Route how the 99% Take on the Military-Industrial Complex. Tom is currently trying to generate interest in promoting the idea of a plebiscite for the border regions of Russia-Ukraine, and you can reach him at Tom Gallagher writes. That's all as one word. Tom Gallagher G-A-L-L-A-G-H-E-R writes W-R-I-T-E-S dot com. So, tom, welcome to Revolution Z. Thank you, glad to be here, your recent article, which grabbed my attention and, I hope, many other people's as well. Thank you, glad to be here. What is the billionaire's work that you were warning against our doing for them and what caused you to feel that our doing their work for them was a possibility?
Speaker 2:Well, the billionaire's work is destroying the left, destroying people who want to make the billionaires unbillionaires billionaires. And the article came from seeing a posting on Facebook from an old friend of mine of yours too, I think, I'm not going to mention his name that reprinted an article or gave a link to an article called AOC is a genocidal con artist, and I thought that was just spectacularly bizarre. To be charitable, I would simply refuse. I never read the article. I would simply refuse to read anything like that because that person's sense of reality is obviously so removed from mine. It would be like reading an article that said AOC was a lying child murdering communist. I wouldn't read that either.
Speaker 2:And I was surprised that somebody whose work I highly regarded the person whose Facebook post it was would run something like that, but, more importantly, that things like that would be written and that somebody who is obviously a major positive figure in politics, a major positive figure in the left today, would be treated like that and that this could be taken at all seriously. I mean, no two people ever agree on everything that should be understood and given in life. I know identical twins and they don't. It just doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:And what got me is. This was extreme, but not an isolated thing where people wind up having a disagreement over something relatively small and they throw out much larger areas of agreement and you can't build anything like that, and I thought this was a prime example. This is a prime figure. You will get it with Bernie Sanders as well. Example this is a prime figure. You will get it with Bernie Sanders as well, and in a certain sense, I think it's an internet phenomenon. Everyone is like an individual political party. If they don't think, they don't step back and think about it a while, and if you're not with me on this thing, you're off the camp.
Speaker 1:I wonder do you have a feeling for why it happens? Because it happens a lot. It's not as if this is, as you said, it's not isolated. But it isn't just that it isn't isolated, it's that it's quite frequent, it's quite prevalent. And the question becomes or at least to my mind, the question becomes well, what do we do in our movements, in our activities, in our writing across the board to reduce the likelihood of this kind of thing happening or even cause it to stop happening? But you can't really do that unless you have some idea of why it happens. So I wonder if you have't really do that, unless you have some idea of why it happens. So I wonder if you have a feel for that In your experience? I'm sure you've seen it over and over. You saw it with Bernie Hell. I remember seeing it close up with Noam when he said vote the lesser evil and all of a sudden he was the devil for people who almost worshipped him prior. You know, you know this gigantic shift. Do you have a feeling for why that happens?
Speaker 2:uh, I'd love to have a good answer to that. I'm not sure that I do. Um, you know, as a mused before it, I want to say it's internet-related, but then, of course, if there were not the internet we wouldn't know about this. Anyhow, I don't know that I have wisdom to shed on that. I mean, the greatest cure for sectarianism, if that's how we want to characterize it, is actual political activity, trying to reach other people, and a lot of this sort of thing I think is caused by isolation, just people propounding their theories. I mean, what was the greatest movement builder that we've seen in our lifetimes? Almost I would say, uh, it was the sanders campaigns, right, all of a sudden, and it swept away a lot of the bs. Uh, not all of it, no, but you know the people that he's a sheepdog, you know it's just the structural importance and I don't know, people may even think it was his conscious intent. They get that wildly off.
Speaker 2:I think the structural importance was to bring people into the Democratic Party and to divert them from something better than that. Most of that, much of that, was swept away by the fact that all of a sudden, an amazing number of people discovered they thought the same things. I still can't get over, in a sense, the 2016 Sanders campaign. I thought it was. I hoped let me put it this way that it would be a little more successful than the Dennis Kucinich campaigns which I was involved in. It was wildly more successful and people really couldn't believe it and that shut a lot of people up. You know, this obviously worked and people were able to understand that agreements on a broad range of things were there and the other stuff became less important.
Speaker 2:I think we're having a resurgence of this because of the 2024 campaign. You know, sanders ran again in 20, and the same phenomenon basically happened in 2024. You know, as we know, we had a straight from Biden to Harris candidacy. There was never any discussion. I mean, I suppose even if that hadn't happened, we would have had the same phenomenon, a similar phenomenon, in that Biden would have been unopposed, sanders would not have run against him, no other major figure would have and no other ideas would have been out there. But whatever is true in regard to that, it certainly didn't happen with Harris and we never had a from that and I don't know. Steer me here.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not that I would have anything to refute or to say what are you saying?
Speaker 1:But I don't think it answers the question at the personal level, and I have a feeling that that's where you have to answer it. That is, you encounter somebody with whom you agree a lot on all sorts of stuff and who is, let's say, highly critical of the Democratic Party me, who favors a completely different system, and so on and so forth, a remotely nuanced view of people who are in some sense to their, you know, not as radical as they are, not as revolutionary as they are, whatever it might be right, and sometimes it isn't even that they aren't it's that they disagree about one thing, or they make one statement, you know, which is disturbing, or et cetera. Um, I'm currently worried that we might see DSA blow itself up over AOC. Now maybe that I mean I'm outside, and so this is a lot of intuition and I want to ask you about that. I'm afraid that that might happen and that would be a horrible outcome for no good reason, and I don't think what's driving it is. It seems like it's more tribal than it is rational.
Speaker 1:The person who dismissed Sanders could have agreed with what you just said. Sanders could have agreed with what you just said, right, they could have agreed that Sanders campaign was mind boggling, that Sanders put things on the map which our efforts, that is, movement efforts outside, hadn't been able to do, not just for a few years but for decades. And why did that make him somebody who you wanted to divorce yourself from and even attack?
Speaker 2:in a sense, pleasantly surprised that dsa hasn't blown up already, because what you know, the great irony not surprising is that sanders, um, the sanders campaign now sanders is, you know, the stranger never been a member of dsa. He's not a joiner it. It's quite an odd thing, but probably wise, for better or worse, not to, because if he were, there would be questions about whether he was under. He had to be in agreement with DSA, etc. Etc. And so his campaign, despite the fact that he wasn't a member, made DSA in the sense of it grew to be 10 times the size it was beforehand. But who is attracted to this, among others, is every little group that has its own theory about how they're going to make a revolution in the United States. And they all joined I mean not officially, but the organization is full of such things.
Speaker 2:I have not had a comfortable place in DSA in the Bay Area in a couple of years now for that reason. New York City, on the other hand, has maintained Mamdami is running out of there. They've maintained a relationship with AOC. I mean that obviously is to their credit. How long this will last, I don't know. You've got a, you know what you've got. Obviously in there is a touch of Leninism. You've got groups who think that things have to just be this way because otherwise you're off the trail of the right thing, you become a movement misleader to go back to phrases from the days when we knew each other, and also this belief that what's going to happen in the future is that you are going, we are somehow going to change the society root and branch, like that, I guess.
Speaker 1:I find it hard to believe that people with a lot of experience, people with considerable knowledge of related issues, actually believe and are driven by those beliefs, some of this stuff. It often feels to me more and tell me what you think about this it often feels to me more like I'm a revolutionary. I don't really think about winning, I don't really think about a process that's going to lead to what I favor. But I get up each morning and I look in the mirror and I like myself because I'm a revolutionary and I'm on a certain team let's call it team revolution and if you deviate from that team you're dangerous. You might attract people away from my team. And anyway, to prove my bona fides as team revolution, I have to attack you, otherwise I'm evidencing the likelihood that I will be sucked in by you. So that's Sanders or Chomsky when he says vote for the lesser evil, or when he said vote for the lesser evil. Something like that seems to be fueling the level of anger that is sometimes voiced, often voiced, you know, toward Sanders, toward Chomsky, toward AOC, toward whoever, toward. I'm sure I could arouse it in people. You take certain stances. For a while everybody was upset because of what was the AOC vote on the Iron Dome. But this particular amendment to you know is irrelevant and I'm not going to vote for it because it implies you know, or I am going to vote for it because it to vote against. It says they don't have the right to defend themselves or something, but but it's genocide.
Speaker 1:Sanders doesn't use the word genocide, so he gets wrecked by some for not using the word genocide, even though he says it's a god-awful, horrific obliteration of humanity. But he doesn't use the word genocide. So therefore he must be evidencing the fact. She uses the word, but they find something else to complain about. You see what I'm saying. There's something going on here that is not about the policies per se. I don't know how to put it, but I thought your article was very good and I did not see it published all over the place, which I think is indicative. People are afraid, venues are probably afraid. Oh well, we lose some readers if we publish that. It's incredibly unhealthy, but I think it's the case.
Speaker 2:That could be my faulty distribution, but that's another matter.
Speaker 1:Maybe I don't, you know.
Speaker 2:There's two different parts to this, I think. I think you have some people when I was speaking of DSA specifically, you have people who, in an organized fashion, have a theory that really eliminates that regards many of the other people and many public figures as incorrect. And then you have lots of people on the internet who just go off. I mean, I don't know what they think they are exactly. I suppose they might be right, characterizing them as thinking themselves as revolutionaries but probably do not belong to any particular group or that is all about that. They belong to political groups but don't have a defining view like that.
Speaker 2:And I'll say, in terms of that personal tendency, I think you know the best cure for it is involvement right, which you don't have to have with other people at all to opine on the internet. And I'm not saying it's the be all and end all. People don't all have to. But I certainly know for myself that whenever I would enter into some effort to do something, much of my sectarian feelings would fade away because I realize I'm trying to do something with other people and I got to let that other stuff slide. So, as I say, you know I referred to the Sanders campaigns and that really only a presidential campaign unfortunately has that kind of capacity because it's universal in terms of its issues. You work for a city council candidate. You know it's much more specific to lesser things.
Speaker 1:I even think that a certain number of leftists are probably threatened and sort of upset and don't want to face the reality of what he accomplished compared to what we were accomplishing, et cetera, et cetera, and still think he's wrong. I mean, I don't have any problem wrong about certain things. You know, sanders doesn't have my view of remotely my view of what we're fighting for in the short run, yeah, but not in the long run. That doesn't stop me from seeing the reality of his impact and the reality of his courage and his effort. I don't know many leftists who, at the age of God knows what, are trauma, trampling around the country giving speeches. It's exhausting, so he's impressive. It's the inability to see the obvious that, regrettably, sometimes becomes something large. And while I agree with you that activity and interaction is a factor working against that, it's not a factor working against that. It's not a factor working against that if you're doing it with like-minded people in a sect, it aggravates it.
Speaker 1:And this is not a small problem. I mean, your article made the. I can't remember whether it was implicitly or explicitly, but it certainly made the point. Look, this is not irrelevant, this is consequential. This kind of behavior matters and we pay a price for it. See, if you agree with this, one really strange phenomenon is MAGA seems to me to be less prone to this than we are In some sense. You know they're that way toward us, right, but internally they seem to have more mutual respect in some sense. This is not based on much, I'm not in there, but it does seem that way.
Speaker 2:I mean, they've gotten over the Epstein hurdle, you know Thing, that people thought would break them up. Well, again, there's the organizational angle to this, and then there's the personal one. You're talking about sects. I mentioned Leninism in the past and I've been mulling on this a lot. There's two aspects to this that are problematic. One is the idea of the line, and you've got to be on it. The other is the idea that the slate will be wiped and there will be a new society, somehow just appears. We have to smash the state right. Does that mean there's no social security office the next day? What are you talking about? They're not talking about anything.
Speaker 2:It's nonsense. It's all noise. It comes from, I think, when you think back on it, it comes from the conditions of the Russian Revolution, which is still treated as a model by an unfortunate number of people. It's ridiculous, but because no one would wish to have a situation starting from the devastation of World War I, and that's where they started from right, and that is a great part of the reason why you could think about constructing things so radically new, because the past had been, you know, demolished, but I, you know that is. That, I think, explains a lot of what goes on in something like DSA, right, you've got people trying to. In our discussion beforehand we were talking about back in student days and you're trying to figure out everything about politics and these people come along who have this line and you've got. You know it's wrong, you know in your heart it's wrong, but you can articulate it, it's got an answer for everything Exactly.
Speaker 2:And that is something that is going on. There's several of them at this point in DSA, but that's something going on. They've got an answer for everything are not necessarily I think, not for the most part motivated by being a member of such an organization. It's more. I mean, you're talking about it, I think, sort of as a personal problem, which is right, but you know, personal problems. I don't have much by the way of suggestions on a political level. Right, yeah, we should all be more mindful of our greater agreements, and really that's all I could say in that article. It wasn't really particularly aimed at political sex, it was more aimed at this. You know, as I say, myopia.
Speaker 1:But okay, suppose something comes along that has the same effect that Sanders had again on DSA, and it goes from 80,000 to 800,000. What would have to be the case for that massive organization with gargantuan potential to not suffer from internal divisions that were destructive and had no constructive effect at all and from just generalized sectarianism. It may be a personal manifestation, but it repeats over and over again among lots of people, so maybe there's some kind of structural approach, attitude, method, something to corral it, you know, to prevent it from doing the damage that it does.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, in terms of DSA specifically, what would have to be dealt with to go from 80,000 to 800,000 is the question of party, of the Democratic Party or a third party, as I say, impressed that the organization is held together thus far at uh, which I've only started to lately. Uh, if you look at the, uh, the language that the various caucuses, which have become a major thing, pretty much a necessity, I think, um, they're, they're try and straddle that question and it, um push is going to come to shove on that they were going to. There would be people who are going to declare that there's a new third party and people are going to declare that that's not a practical road to travel. That split would happen before there would be 800,000 people.
Speaker 1:Considering DSA's future, I wonder what you think of a relatively simple solution to the become an electoral party or retain a grassroots organizing choice for DSA, or really for any organizational effort. Suppose we acknowledge that to become an electoral-focused party would inexorably lead to very heavy and even exclusive immersion in electoral dynamics and processes. In that light, why not decide that no, dsa will not itself as an organization participate in elections, nor even organizationally endorse candidates, but its members can certainly do so in whatever capacities and degrees they choose. They can run or they can opt to aid candidates or whatever. Since electoral work is, of course, essential and valuable. Is that a worthy solution?
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, I think it is. And actually thinking it over some, I think it may be more likely than I first thought. I think it may be more likely than I first thought. Somebody wrote a very interesting.
Speaker 2:A guy by the name of David Duhalde wrote a very interesting comparison recently of the early Socialist Party, deb Zerrer I think I've got his shirt on actually at the moment coincidentally with DSA since 2016, since the Sanders race, and you know it's great growth. And one of the things pointed out in it is that a lot of people say of our generation, look at things going on internally and think, oh, this reminds me of SDS, the Progressive Labor Party. Oh no. And among other things, the article points out that the new DSA has lasted now already almost as long as there was at SDS, and some of us are perhaps inappropriately fixated on that experience, so it has lasted this long.
Speaker 2:In that sort of situation, there are people who clearly want to turn it into a party, because the working class needs a party, et cetera, et cetera, and people sort of tap their toe yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To a certain extent the ones who don't have a hardcore agreement with it and the point of view of a lot of it is that the Democratic Party is the vehicle that you're going to wind up mostly doing elections in, except in venues where they have nonpartisan elections. And you know the great anomaly of Bernie Sanders himself, who started it all by not being a Democrat and achieved what he did by being a Democrat, although he's not contradictorily and so it may in fact go on that way. I mean, I think there will be a desire to endorse candidates, which you know is problematic, is quite different than a lot of the national organization at this point.
Speaker 2:The national organization did not opt to endorse Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for reelection. New York City did. Mamdami is running for mayor and that's if he is elected, as it looks, reasonably likely.
Speaker 1:I'm about to ask you explicitly about him. So let's, let me do that, assuming and hoping that Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race. Two questions Do you think Democrats in the electorate and in office will in large numbers act on the lessons of his election, or will they just ignore its lessons? And second, as Mamdani tries to do good, even while hamstrung by budget restrictions and other obstacles that he will face, so that he will have to make at least some compromises, how do you think DSA will react?
Speaker 2:Well, on the first one, yes and no, of course, A lot of people will wise up to it. I mean, you know a lot of the base. I mean, there's a number of polls recently that showed the same thing for years. Really, On the economic issues that Bernie Sanders ran on, most people are supportive of it and even a large number of Republicans are supportive.
Speaker 2:I think this race has been the Mamdani race has been clarifying, in the sense that it is so clear as time goes on that Schumer and Jeffries are concerned about the donors. That's more important to them than the district they represent. They view themselves as having larger constituency and responsibility, and the donors they're talking about are billionaires in some cases, right, Literal billionaires who have lined up against Mamdami, who has had past, said that there shouldn't be such a thing as billionaire because people go hard. But you know what it simply means is no one should have that much money, Right, we should do something about that. Though those people, the ones who are worried about the billionaires, they're not going to break, they will not change. They will look for another Harris, Biden, Clinton to run next time. Regardless, you know, maybe we can eke out a win one more time, but we're not as bad as Trump, which has been fundamentally the you know the campaign they've been running on, but I think there will be progress, you know, in terms of the grassroots and certain numbers of elected officials.
Speaker 1:I wonder do you think that the sole, the preponderant factor in causing these guys to reject Mamdani on behalf of billionaire donors? Do you think that's the factor? It's certainly a factor, but what about another possible factor, which is that they really do understand something? They understand that it's a slippery slope. Slippery slope that Mamdani, if he wins hopefully when he wins if he then breaks that barrier and gets substantial support, it's a slippery slope toward the electorate becoming far, far more left, and they don't want that. It's not just that the billionaires don't want that, they don't want that and it's another reason why they would be replaced. They would be replaced because the public would all of a sudden have the power to have somebody they want instead of somebody who's paid. So it's sort of self-interest, not just because of the donation they would get, but because of their beliefs. You think that's true or it's just pure opportunism?
Speaker 2:their beliefs. You think that's true or it's just pure opportunism? No, no, I think it is true. I mean, if none of the I mean anytime you talk about the billionaires, et cetera, you run the risk of, you know, being too cut and dried and simplistic. No, I think this is a continuum. I don't. I don't think Schumer and Jeffries just say to each other when they meet oh no, the billionaires will go on us. They have a life of believing that and, yes, they want an electorate that believes as they do. They'd rather not change. So, yeah, I think that's true. Now on Mamdani, in terms of his being in office again, I was reading that piece I mentioned, part of which was on the early history of the Socialist Party, and it just brought a couple of things to mind. Be doing presumably, if it is in his office, was characterized as sewer socialism in the early 1920s. Milwaukee was really the center of this and Milwaukee had socialist mayors for 50 years. Little realized fact, way past they outlived the Socialist Party's relevance by decades.
Speaker 1:Yeah, little realized, including I didn't realize it. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ziegler was the name of one of them, and they did it by being a good government party, by being a clean administration and so on and so forth. And you know people. Often in Canada, for instance, it's a way of life to vote on a different way in the federal and the local level and people are willing to do it here as well. And anyhow, the sewer socialism. He was the Milwaukee people. Victor Berger was the most famous exemplar of that, but he was in Congress primarily.
Speaker 2:They were derided by the figure in those point who was considered the centrist in the party, morris Hillquit, not a household name anymore, but he ran for mayor of New York a couple of times with some success, but nothing like what Mondami's had, even thus far. You know, what does opening a grocery store have to do with the fate of the working class? You know, etc. But that is what you're going to deal with when you, when you do that sort of stuff. So it will get. It'll get a lot of people bent out of shape. Hopefully, particularly the people nearby with it will, you know, recognize that this is the sort of thing you've got to do If you're waiting for the Russian Revolution to transform the state you know, keep waiting for another millennium, and let's hope it doesn't happen then either.
Speaker 1:If it does it the same way, I think maybe one distinction might be that it looks to me like and who knows, you know, who really knows.
Speaker 1:I mean, I say that about everything at this point, but it feels like he will not be silent about national issues and international issues, right, and that's going to that's still more of a controversial kind of dynamic which is going to go one way or the other, I guess. All right. So taking that back to DSA, okay, what do you make of the inclination, to the extent it exists and I don't know the extent it exists to expel people from DSA or again from any organization, because they express a view of or views that DSA doesn't, as an organization yet hold or is even on balance critical of, or even because they just say something that could be interpreted by some as contrary to DSA views, though the person who spoke feels the words weren't contrary at all. Put differently, what kind of difference is too great to retain in an organization? For this type difference, a member should be expelled. In contrast, what kind of difference is not only good to retain but is part of favoring diversity and exploring options rather than summarily rejecting them. Not an easy question.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no. Simple answer to that one, and I don't know what light I can shed on it. Really, I do think the recent decision to be able to expel people, I think if they don't support the BDS movement for one thing, is unfortunate. For example, just to focus in on that and I believe I'll correct that specific thing you're not supposed to oppose and you can be thrown out for it, can be thrown out for it For one thing. One could have the absolute same politics in terms of how one feels about Israel and Palestine, and I suspect and many people who don't support BDS have the same feeling because they don't think it's a useful tactic or they think it impacts people in the wrong way of sanctions, things always run into that issue right? No way, to my view, should be something that you can expel people from a group for, and it gets broader than that.
Speaker 2:It's hard to come up with a defining line. You're a socialist organization. To me, for example, what is socialism? It's a democratically controlled economy. That's it for me. You can have all sorts of different ways of thinking about that, but if, at the end, that's what you think, then I think you're considering yourself a socialist. You can have also all sorts of variant views otherwise, some of which can be dreadful, right.
Speaker 2:But when you are an entity they know this much better in European countries where they really have socialist parties the socialist point of view becomes whatever the party is saying at that moment. For instance, we used to have years ago in DSA, in the smaller version, a Catholic socialist who was, you know, prominent to an older guy you know our age at that point, years ago Now he, I don't believe, would have been pro-choice. You can obviously be a socialist and not be pro-choice. If you're a socialist party and you take that position right, then you got to stick with the position to not necessarily be in the party but to vote in a legislative body that you might be elected to. So I am rambling around this to try and give a sense of what I think the complexities are. It's impossible. I can't say what should be expellable. If you thought, in fact, the Civil Rights Act should never have happened and in fact not everybody should have equal rights, I would think that's clearly expellable. Beyond that, I'm not sure what else to say. Let me ask it slightly differently.
Speaker 1:Beyond that, I'm not sure what else to say. Let me ask it slightly differently. Mamdani wins, so he's the mayor and he starts to embark on various policies and he runs into not just negative words and not just consternation by all sorts of people or the New York Times or whatever, but budget constraints and he's trying to get around them. But he can't, at least not entirely, and so he has to make some compromises. He can't if he says I want my whole program, well, the budget's not there. He gets nothing. If he says, well, I want this, this and this and I'll keep trying for that and that, do you think that the ESA will be I don't know what word to use able to wise enough to understand and support what's going on? Being able to say simultaneously well, we should get that whole program and more, but right now we can get this.
Speaker 2:Hard to say. Hard to say, hard to say. I mean the dynamic you will get into I think it's something like that is a version of what we have right now. You know we have barbara lee now for for mayor of oakland and you can imagine the things, and you know she's a serious figure on the left, she's not a socialist but well regarded for maybe only only vote against the war, the eternal war on terror, and she's going to have no solutions.
Speaker 2:The dynamic you will run into is that even if the funding is not there, the need is still there. So people who are interested in these concerns still have the obligation in their minds and in reality to protest against the government that is failing to provide for this necessary service, even if they want all the money in the world but they can't get it. But they are the place you go to protest. At the same time, you're going to have an administration with a socialist at the top and presumably many people considering that themselves that as well, and then city workers impacted by that, who go either way on issues like this, but they're sympathetic to what's going on. These are going to be at odds with each other. That's going to be the real tough, thing, I think, and you, know making it-.
Speaker 1:You remember Mel King? Of course you remember Mel King, yeah, when he was running for mayor of Boston. I asked him at one point why are you doing this? Of course there's a strange phenomenon in Boston I hope I remember this correctly, it's decades right. There's a strange phenomenon in Boston that the mayor has a lot of power over land and so there are things I can do as mayor without any broader governmental support or rich people support regarding land that will have a significant impact on people's lives. But that was actually what he saw as what he could do. I'm sort of I wonder. I mean, if you can answer this, go ahead. But I wonder what Mamdami thinks. I think that he probably has in mind changing the party, changing the national discussion, but he says what he has in mind is policies in New York City.
Speaker 2:And that is what he will be answerable for, not his views elsewhere. They'll be quite second. Well, they'll matter to a lot of people, but they'll be ultimately secondary. Most people do, as we know, do not pay attention to these matters of ideological concern on a daily basis, much as we might wish it were otherwise. And you know, when you speak back about Mel King in Boston, it brings to mind the phrase linkage. I hadn't thought about that one in a while. Right, that if you want to build something it's got to be linked with some policy, right, and every city's probably got that to a certain extent. You know, clearly, if you want to build something and New York's got lots of things that people want to build, that's you know. For some people it's you know it's money incarnate New York City, right. So you do have great impact in that. The whole affordable housing thing is that issue?
Speaker 2:right. The fact that they have to say these units are affordable as opposed to everything else, which is not, makes me laugh all the time, but that's big certainly.
Speaker 1:It's all so crazy. If you actually sort of think about it. There are probably I'd be willing to bet three, four, maybe five times as many empty livable rooms in New York at any given moment as there are homeless people, and it's probably more like 10 or 20 times. And that's not even counting high that are business high rises that could use half the rooms that they use. I mean all right.
Speaker 1:Well, we've covered a lot and for those who are watching, you may have noticed that there was a shift in the video, maybe even in the audio. It's because when Tom was first recorded, we did good up to a point and then everything crashed and then getting back together was a little difficult. So this half, this latter part, is about. I think it's almost two weeks from when we did the former part. So, that being the case, tom, there may be some things that you want to that have happened. Maybe there's something you want to talk about, and we can certainly continue, but I'm not privy to what they are. So if there's something that you'd like to, that you'd like to pursue, let me know. I mean go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, directly related to the article that I wrote about. Let's not do the billionaires work for them. Addressed to people on the left, another article has appeared of the same ilk. The article I talked about was a critique or criticism. What have you of Ocasio-Cortez called? What was it exactly? Well for you?
Speaker 1:it was two weeks ago, but for the people who are watching us or listening to us right now, it was 20 minutes ago. So they actually remember. Oh yeah, Okay Right.
Speaker 2:Very good, very good. Aoc is a genocidal con artist was the article that set me off into writing this piece, which you picked up. And here we are, and I focused on the critique of AOC, but also the criticism of Bernie Sanders for not using the word genocide, which I you know. My argument was look, it's not the most important thing. He is the most important opponent of the war in the US Congress and you should keep this all in mind. So lo and behold what has happened yesterday. We have an op-ed from Bernie Sanders declaring the war to be genocide, and what do we get in response to that? But an article from that same unnamed writer whose work I refuse to read when she heads it off with ridiculous headings Oops, I've given away that it was a she and the response to Bernie Sanders was Bernie Sanders is a ghoulish Zionist.
Speaker 2:So this brings to mind to me a hearing in Congress a while ago, which Oregon Senator, ron Wyden, had a representative in the Trump administration in front of him and he said to him so, mr, whatever his name was, what do you say to the accusation that Donald Trump is a Russian asset? And the guy said what? And I would have to if I had a similar situation. Ask this writer what do you say to the acquisition? That you are a Trump asset or that you are a Netanyahu asset? Now, I don't think Biden really believed it and I don't really believe it, but they might as well be be.
Speaker 2:If what you're doing is essentially sowing dissension in the anti-war movement with an outrageous headline, presumed so that you get readers, I got to ask whose benefit you think you're acting in. Do you think you're broadening the anti-war sentiment in this country? I mean, I got a sobering little thing, just in a small thing in the newspaper today. A poll shows that almost half the country is now opposing what Israel is doing. It's still not half the country. In our little world, it's everybody, and people are all over people for not having the perfect position. Wake up. If that's your focus, you're misguided Anyhow. I could go on, but I won't.
Speaker 1:I'll help you go on just a little bit.
Speaker 1:Okay. So one possible interpretation of this kind of writing, sanders, is a what is it? A ghoulish Zionist. Coming from a leftist, coming from somebody who's written many things that are good and that are, you know, well-motivated and well-informed, et cetera, et cetera. The question really does arrive why? What possible explanation is there for somebody doing that? Because if you're going to address it and you're going to sort of get people to not behave in such a fashion, you've got to know why they do behave in such a fashion. So why do you think they do? Or why do you think she did?
Speaker 2:I think a factor in this is frustration that nothing we do seems to have any impact, any right. We've not prevented a thing. And this goes back right. I mean going back to the Iraq war, when we had the largest pre-war anti-war demonstrations in the history of the all. But there are people who will listen to me, so let me straighten them out on this point.
Speaker 2:And I just think it becomes ingrown because we, you know, if I ask myself today, if I were to write something, is this going to get to anybody who now supports the Trump policy or the Netanyahu policy and impact them? Pretty damn unlikely. So you know. I mean, what I wrote was a critique of something within the left, the anti-war movement itself. You know, we don't know how to get beyond it in itself, you know, we don't know how to get beyond it, and I don't think it's, you know, because we don't try or we're stupid, we're just, you know, if someone as always people spend all their time trying to figure out how we get beyond it and we are unable to, generally, we are now waiting what? In general, we are waiting for the congressional elections next year.
Speaker 1:I'd be a little less pessimistic about that. But there's one clearer way, because some people do get beyond it. Aoc gets beyond it, mamdani gets beyond it. These are people whose bullhorn reaches more widely than mine or yours. To alienate them is mind-boggling to me. That doesn't mean you have to say everything they do is correct, but you run the risk of their being not as good a people as they appear to be and taking your attack and attacking back and becoming alienated from the left.
Speaker 1:We've seen it happen. I mean, I've seen it happen over David Horowitz. That's what happened with him. I mean you remember ramparts and then he became a right-wing lunatic, largely because he was attacked by the left and angered by it. Um, I mean Todd Gitlin, I mean you, and I know that these things have happened to.
Speaker 1:To charge at and attack these people leaves them sort of in a position where the odds go up that they will stop doing good things and start doing bad things. That seems just utterly crazy. If she or any of us is going to reach that big audience, it's going to be because we reach people who reach people who reach that big audience until if you get invited on Joe Rogan, okay, but it's not that likely right, and I don't know. I find a hard time understanding the motivation other than being we can't win, being we can't win, we're not going to win. But I can preen, I can shine by attacking this star, bernie, or AOC. Or I've seen it with Nome, where people will attack Nome and it bolsters them up because I stood up to Noam Chomsky by calling him a whatever running dog liberal. I don't know what other motivation there is. I mean, you gave it a better shine. I think these times are very difficult in many dimensions. You know the behaviors that are being displayed are hard to fathom at many points.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, the internet, you know, is a two-edged sword, like anything right. We're here doing this because of the internet. We're writing things that we don't need. You know publishers for, et cetera. They can get whatever limited distribution they do. But you know, as is widely commented on, it's an echo chamber, but also more than that. I think it's brittle, stepping back from just the articles, a lot of the discourse that goes on. I've made a resolution.
Speaker 1:That's even worse, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a resolution that anything gets me hot under the collar. I'm sleeping on it Now. I already broke it last night, but I'm going to stick with it today. You know, I mean it reminds me of the lack of nuance that a car horn has. It's only ah.
Speaker 1:Or nothing yeah.
Speaker 2:And now the internet is more nuanced than that. But people just respond yeah, respond with stuff instantly, and even the articles right that are written, like the ones that are making me crazy. There's no editorial process to this for most people, they just put it out. It doesn't have to go through a reader which might slow it down and tamp it down in some way. So you know there's all of that, which I think is a factor.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that you bring that up. Two things. One is clickbait, which has become I don't know how much you're online to realize just how pervasive it is Almost everywhere. Just how pervasive it is almost everywhere. I click on things that are by well-known leftists the title and the article. They don't have anything in common. The title is to get you to read the article and it's just a lie.
Speaker 2:I worry that maybe this person had that title on that article as clickbait and didn't really meet who knows right and you do have the phenomenon now with people trying to make a living out of this, which is a great opportunity, you know, without having to go through a publication. But on the other hand, as you say, like all of this stuff, it's not necessarily that people plan exactly this, but these are all influences.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. The other thing that in my own experience I think it was the case way back when that to ask somebody to read what you have done and give you feedback was a natural thing to do and to do it, in other words, to say okay, sure, and provide feedback was a natural thing to do, and I don't think it is anymore. I think it's gotten to the point where it's an intrusion, right, rather than a compliment. So if I ask you, you know, would you read this? Once upon a time that was a compliment. It meant I, you know, I respect and I admire you. Now it's like an intrusion. I think that's the case. I can't document that, but it's my experience.
Speaker 2:We are surrounded with things to read, and then that is part of the problem with the internet. I mean, sometimes when people will, sometimes people will give me a free month for so and I can't get to the thing they gave me, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, well, time is certainly one factor, but I don't think it's the only factor. I really don't. Oh no, absolutely not. Anyway, because we did this in two installments and now I have to fuse them together. I have no idea how long we've gone, but I think we've gone over an hour in some total. So one last shot Is there something else that you know you feel we missed, either about your article, or you know what's been going on that you want to talk about, or are we okay?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're okay, okay, all right. So thanks for being on, all right. So, uh, thanks for being on, thank you. Do it again down the road, when, uh, when, who knows what's happening, um good to see you after all this time. Yeah, Uh, uh. Okay, Then all that said this is Mike Albert signing off until next time for revolution Z.