[Peace-discuss] Fwd: The Intercept and AOC at South by Southwest 2019: Waste of opportunity, waste of time

[C G Estabrook]

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: "J.B. Nicholson" <jbn at forestfield.org>
> Subject: The Intercept and AOC at South by Southwest 2019: Waste of opportunity, waste of time
> Date: March 12, 2019 at 9:46:14 PM CDT
> To: "C. G. Estabrook" <cgestabrook at gmail.com>
> 
> I just watched The Intercept's Senior Politics Editor Briahna Gray interviewed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) for 1h17 on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU-SE5eNt04 and it was a complete waste of my time. Maybe there will be a transcript at https://theintercept.com/2019/03/09/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-sxsw/ someday. I'm losing more interest in The Intercept as there are so few people there now who write or give indications of thinking with appropriate priorities, particularly when speaking about or to people in power.
> 
> Here's the highlight of the interview:
> 
>> AOC: Wages have stayed flat for 30 years, our nation is being more
>> productive and more healthy as a whole than ever before but that wealth
>> is being enjoyed by a very small amount of people. And the reason for it
>> is not systemic inequality, or runaway hyper-capitalism, or the fact
>> that we've taken away all the guardrails of a responsible society, the
>> reason is Mexicans. You know? And that's the reason.
> But that comes early and that's it. This entire hour+ talk doesn't get better than that, it gets considerably worse.
> 
> There was very little followup to this in the form of specific policy recommendations -- instead of Gray asking AOC about specific Medicare for All bills she supports and why, instead of Gray asking AOC about a national jobs program bill, instead of challenging AOC promise to support anything in particular we get identity politics that eats up most of the remaining time.
> 
> Here are some of the lowlights, as it were:
> 
> - Zero mention of war. The Intercept should be ashamed to let the single largest ethical and budgetary issue go unmentioned when discussing anything with a Congressmember. This alone makes this entire interview a non-starter. I suspect that this is no accident like how Sanders' foreign policy is either non-existent or poor (see his and AOC's reaction to US-AID in Venezuela, for example).
> 
> - "intersectionalism" gets mentioned but never defined or explained how distracting it is when we could be having discussions about class.
> 
> - no examination of how class politics does a better job than race does in explaining where most Americans are economically (poorer than they were with an ever-widening gap between rich and poor). Plenty of affirming (sans evidence) that what Americans face today is "inextricably linked" to race with no clarification on what that meant.
> 
>  - 2m30s: AOC: "Women like me aren't supposed to run for office"..."let alone win": AOC won in part because the Congressman who represented her district didn't try to keep his seat. That's fortunate for her but is hard to discern for her district. AOC's voting record has yet to be established. She hasn't had a chance to vote on a number of issues of significance yet. So we don't know if what she's claiming here is true: we don't know that her being a woman is at all significant (except in the Democratic Party where identity politics is apparently a campaign plank in itself), we don't know that she will challenge the establishment on issues of importance.
> 
>  - 5m50s: AOC said:
> 
>> AOC: It's been very interesting to see how subtle these [pro-oil/corporate] influences make their way and that is what makes them powerful...
> That's quite a claim but AOC gives no examples of what she's talking about and Gray asks no followup questions to clarify or get AOC to be specific.
> 
> - a number of rambles eventually leading to a question and unsourced claims including:
> 
>> Briahna Joy Gray: There was a lot of conversation in 2016 about how
>> irresponsible or naive it was to pursue some of these big ticket items
>> [such as climate change] and not a lot of conversation about the
>> privilege that it takes to say "Well, we'll deal with this in the next
>> generation". I do want to connect this back a little bit more to the
>> issues involving race. Because while I think that there is a great deal
>> of popularity, these programs are -- poll after poll shows
>> overwhelmingly popular -- there is this emergent narrative that says
>> that these kinds of New Deal-style universal programs are not for
>> diverse communities and there's a lot of skepticism that I think is
>> understandable among certain non-white communities that says "Well,
>> these programs were floated before and they did a lot to fix a lot of
>> people in America but they systematically cut out us". We weren't able
>> to take advantage of them in the same way and they had the effect of
>> widening the wealth gap and other kinds of gaps. So how do we connect
>> the utility of these kinds of New Deal programs to communities that feel
>> that they have been insufficiently served by them in the past?
> The central claim is vague (which "universal programs"? What are the claims specifically?) so it's hard to respond in a specific way. There's also no source given for the alleged skepticism. Besides the Americans that run HMOs, which Americans object to a proper Medicare for All rollout? Which Americans object after learning that we're already paying more for health care delivery than a proper Medicare for All system would cost? Which Americans look at how health care delivery is arranged in other wealthy countries and conclude that the US system is the right way to go?
> 
> Redlining is brought up, but nothing in the discussion gives the impression that either Gray or AOC have a point to make with, say, Medicare for All eliminating co-pays or helping the nation collectively negotiate for lower drug prices -- both practical issues that can help the poor regardless of race.
> 
> -J

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