Wait until you see the dance video....
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - new model Sheepdog
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - new model Sheepdog
I want to scream
Wait until you see the dance video....
Wait until you see the dance video....
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - new model Sheepdog
THE BRANDING OF ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ – BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY [ADDENDUM]
Wrong Kind of Green Feb 15, 2019 Neo-Liberalism and the Defanging of Feminism, Social Engineering
February 15, 2019
By Cory Morningstar
[ADDENDUM to ACT V: The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The New Green Deal is the Trojan Horse for the Financialization of Nature]
[An investigative series in six acts: The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The Political Economy of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex: ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V • ACT VI]
Marketing to a key “femographic”, the Green New Deal is both literally and figuratively in Vogue.
The following Teen Vogue makeup tutorial slash Ocasio-Cortez promotional video can only be understood through the lens of today’s incredible infatuation with superficial self-improvement. The makeup tutorial, now a new industry in itself, has been made popular (bordering on obsessive) with teenagers/youth by mainstream pop idols and celebrities, such as Western culture icons Kylie Jenner and music artist Rihanna.
The tutorials further enrich the multi-billion dollar cosmetic industry. [Fortune, July 11, 2018: “How 20-Year-Old Kylie Jenner Built A $900 Million Fortune In Less Than 3 Years”] Rihanna’s net worth in 2018 was a reported 210 million USD having launched her cosmetic line Fenty Beauty with Kendo in 2017. Kendo is a subsidiary of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group. The unprecedented covetousness for cosmetics lauded by celebrity, is also a reflection of unobtainable beauty expectations being marketed to young women.
“According to the report, global cosmetic products market was valued at around USD 532 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach approximately USD 863 billion in 2024, growing at a CAGR of slightly above 7% between 2018 and 2024… In the U.S, growing Hispanic population is propelling demand for luxurious personal care brands and will escalate during the forecast years.” — Zion Market Research, June 22, 2018
The following statistic taken from the Ocasio-Cortez campaign team (written by Data for Progress, author of “The Future of the Party” policy report commissioned by the Justice Democrats) reveals how segments of the Ocasio-Cortez Latinx volunteer base could be effectively exploited to further her popularity with the aforementioned constituency:
“In particular, Latinx voters are especially concerned about global warming compared to non-Latinx voters—78 percent to 56 percent—and think it should be a priority of Congress–70 percent compared to 52 percent. 45 Across the board, Latinx voters appear to take the issue and the response to global warming more seriously.” — Data for Progress, A Green New Deal policy report, September, 2018 [p. 24]
Although media is quick to hype Rihanna’s vast combined fortune, few references are made to the fact she is a minority shareholder in her company. Hence, the astronomical profits (the brand grossed $72 million USD in its first month) go to those who own the majority of her company. By marketing black power and feminism, those that garner the vast amount of wealth garnered by Rihanna are Anglo billionaire men at the top of the pyramid.
Further, although Ocasio-Cortez is presented as the celebrity Latina superstar in the political domain, she too, is placed there, only to serve capital belonging to the power elite. With a documentary film that recounts Ocasio-Cortez’s meteoric rise to stardom having just been purchased by Netflix for a cool ten million, we can expect cosmetic endorsements and cosmetic lines in the not-so-distant future. [February 7, 2019: ” Netflix just bought a film about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It might be the most ever paid for a Sundance documentary.”] In this day and age becoming a brand for corporate merchandise is no longer the death of cool – rather, it is the epitome of cool. It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that in the near future one’s bid for presidency may have more to do with who has the best makeover tutorials on social media than anything to do with housing, healthcare, education or the environment.
+++
MSN, February 7, 2019: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shared her skincare routine on social media. Sit with four young Latinx campaign volunteers from her congressional district in the Bronx and Queens as they try her detailed instructions and talk about AOC’s impact in their lives.” [Teen Vogue]
Video: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Campaign Volunteers Try Her Skincare and Beauty Routine | Teen Vogue [5m:48s]:
[Further reading: Barclays: Gen Z: Step aside Millennials, November 8, 2018]
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/02 ... -addendum/
And wtf is this crap about Teen Vogue being some kinda 'leftist' outlet?
Wrong Kind of Green Feb 15, 2019 Neo-Liberalism and the Defanging of Feminism, Social Engineering
February 15, 2019
By Cory Morningstar
[ADDENDUM to ACT V: The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The New Green Deal is the Trojan Horse for the Financialization of Nature]
[An investigative series in six acts: The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The Political Economy of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex: ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V • ACT VI]
Marketing to a key “femographic”, the Green New Deal is both literally and figuratively in Vogue.
The following Teen Vogue makeup tutorial slash Ocasio-Cortez promotional video can only be understood through the lens of today’s incredible infatuation with superficial self-improvement. The makeup tutorial, now a new industry in itself, has been made popular (bordering on obsessive) with teenagers/youth by mainstream pop idols and celebrities, such as Western culture icons Kylie Jenner and music artist Rihanna.
The tutorials further enrich the multi-billion dollar cosmetic industry. [Fortune, July 11, 2018: “How 20-Year-Old Kylie Jenner Built A $900 Million Fortune In Less Than 3 Years”] Rihanna’s net worth in 2018 was a reported 210 million USD having launched her cosmetic line Fenty Beauty with Kendo in 2017. Kendo is a subsidiary of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group. The unprecedented covetousness for cosmetics lauded by celebrity, is also a reflection of unobtainable beauty expectations being marketed to young women.
“According to the report, global cosmetic products market was valued at around USD 532 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach approximately USD 863 billion in 2024, growing at a CAGR of slightly above 7% between 2018 and 2024… In the U.S, growing Hispanic population is propelling demand for luxurious personal care brands and will escalate during the forecast years.” — Zion Market Research, June 22, 2018
The following statistic taken from the Ocasio-Cortez campaign team (written by Data for Progress, author of “The Future of the Party” policy report commissioned by the Justice Democrats) reveals how segments of the Ocasio-Cortez Latinx volunteer base could be effectively exploited to further her popularity with the aforementioned constituency:
“In particular, Latinx voters are especially concerned about global warming compared to non-Latinx voters—78 percent to 56 percent—and think it should be a priority of Congress–70 percent compared to 52 percent. 45 Across the board, Latinx voters appear to take the issue and the response to global warming more seriously.” — Data for Progress, A Green New Deal policy report, September, 2018 [p. 24]
Although media is quick to hype Rihanna’s vast combined fortune, few references are made to the fact she is a minority shareholder in her company. Hence, the astronomical profits (the brand grossed $72 million USD in its first month) go to those who own the majority of her company. By marketing black power and feminism, those that garner the vast amount of wealth garnered by Rihanna are Anglo billionaire men at the top of the pyramid.
Further, although Ocasio-Cortez is presented as the celebrity Latina superstar in the political domain, she too, is placed there, only to serve capital belonging to the power elite. With a documentary film that recounts Ocasio-Cortez’s meteoric rise to stardom having just been purchased by Netflix for a cool ten million, we can expect cosmetic endorsements and cosmetic lines in the not-so-distant future. [February 7, 2019: ” Netflix just bought a film about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It might be the most ever paid for a Sundance documentary.”] In this day and age becoming a brand for corporate merchandise is no longer the death of cool – rather, it is the epitome of cool. It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that in the near future one’s bid for presidency may have more to do with who has the best makeover tutorials on social media than anything to do with housing, healthcare, education or the environment.
+++
MSN, February 7, 2019: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shared her skincare routine on social media. Sit with four young Latinx campaign volunteers from her congressional district in the Bronx and Queens as they try her detailed instructions and talk about AOC’s impact in their lives.” [Teen Vogue]
Video: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Campaign Volunteers Try Her Skincare and Beauty Routine | Teen Vogue [5m:48s]:
[Further reading: Barclays: Gen Z: Step aside Millennials, November 8, 2018]
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/02 ... -addendum/
And wtf is this crap about Teen Vogue being some kinda 'leftist' outlet?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - new model Sheepdog
Criticizing the Democratic Party is not “Privileged”, It is the Duty of a Revolutionary
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor 07 Apr 2021
Neither AOC nor the rest of the Squad has mounted any significant challenge to the party’s corporate leadership, despite being elected for this exact purpose.
‘Black Americans are the lifeblood of the Democratic Party’s legitimacy, thereby making it necessary for the DNC to drape its loyalty to corporate power in the language of anti-racism.”
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, popularly known as AOC, was interviewed by the Democratic Socialists of America for their online journal Democratic Left this past January. The interview was published two months later and went viral on social media after observers pointed out AOC’s direct attacks on left critics of the Democratic Party. AOC’s disdain for the left was made clear in her answer to the question of whether Biden’s political history and current antipathy to the Bernie Sanders-aligned section of the party ensures that no “progress” will come under his administration. Her response is published in full:
“AOC’s disdain for the left was made clear.”
These conditions would suggest that there is no better time than now for the Democratic Party to push through a left-wing political agenda. Yet the exact opposite is happening. The latest COVID-19 stimulus package did not include a $15 minimum wage clause in large part because Democrats such as Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin voted against it . More troubling is that neither AOC nor the rest of the Squad has mounted any significant challenge to the party’s corporate leadership during a violent global pandemic and economic depression, despite being elected for this exact purpose.
While AOC decries “privileged” critiques of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party has been busy waging class war on all fronts. Contrary to AOC’s argument that undocumented immigrants suffer less under Democrats, the Biden administration has deported more than 100,000 people in his first few months in office . Biden and the Democrats have also bombed Syria , refused to engage in good faith negotiations with Iran , and propped up a brutal neocolonial regime in Haiti while deporting more Haitian immigrants in a matter of weeks than Donald Trump in his full four years in office. The Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network is organizing a Day of Action on April 8th to demand that Joe Biden withdraw fully from the U.S.’s murderous forever war in Afghanistan before the deadline of the U.S.-Taliban agreement passes on May Day.
“Contrary to AOC’s argument that undocumented immigrants suffer less under Democrats, the Biden administration has deported more than 100,000 people in his first few months in office.”
Furthermore, Biden has maintained his opposition to Medicare for All and given health insurance companies a boost by subsidizing COBRA and ACA marketplace plans . Temporary unemployment and one-time stimulus checks have done little to soften the blow for workers navigating a low-wage capitalist economy in a yearlong state of contraction. Worse yet, the Democratic Party has paid lip service to racism in the United States yet has ignored their systemic roots entirely. Mass incarceration, the decimation of Black wealth, and racist police violence are far from priorities under the current administration. One must ask AOC: what message does this sends to Black and brown members of our communities?
AOC’s comments promote the tired trope that the Democratic Party’s mere presence in the White House represents “progress” for the people. This is not a “left” or a “progressive” argument; it is Democratic Party elite propaganda. AOC hints subtly that the victory of “diversity” over the Trump-led GOP this past election cycle has already led to concrete material change for the people. Harm has been reduced. Black and brown communities have tasted victory and anyone who claims otherwise must be “privileged” and operating in “bad faith.”
“Mass incarceration, the decimation of Black wealth, and racist police violence are far from priorities under the current administration.”
Of course, words such as “privilege” and “bad faith” are never defined and thus easily weaponized to legitimize the dominant system of U.S. imperialism. We’ve seen this before. During the Obama administration’s two terms, the U.S.’s corporate machinery invested heavily in the concepts of “diversity” and “inclusion.” Black and brown faces in high places were celebrated non-stop at the expense of pesky topics such as policy and power. Left critics of Obama were “haters” or “racist” and deemed no better than the GOP.
Now, as then, it is critical to highlight just who is and isn’t included in the “solidarity” that AOC speaks of or the “diversity” achieved during the Obama period. Not included are the millions of Syrians, Libyans, and people across the Middle East and North Africa who have been killed or displaced by U.S. wars . Also not included are the 1.4 billion Chinese who are currently surrounded by hundreds of U.S. military installations and hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel. The tens of thousands of mostly Black people languishing in solitary confinement or the dozens of political prisoners such as Mumia Abu-Jamal being tortured behind prison walls also don’t make the cut. If they did, AOC and the Democrats would be having an entirely different conversation.
“During the Obama administration Black and brown faces in high places were celebrated non-stop at the expense of pesky topics such as policy and power.”
The duty of a revolutionary is to take any action, including criticism, that advances the cause of transforming U.S. imperialism into its opposite—a socialist system capable of truly meeting the needs of the oppressed and exploited classes. AOC makes clear that the duty of Democratic Party politicians is to preserve the system of imperialism by framing their substance-free crusade against the GOP as genuine “resistance” or “solidarity.” Unlike the GOP, the DNC is not bound to the ideological limitations imposed upon corporate rule by overt white supremacy. Democratic Party politicians must respond to an increasingly youthful base that finds itself living in worse economic conditions than prior generations. Black Americans are the lifeblood of the Democratic Party’s legitimacy, thereby making it necessary for the DNC to drape its loyalty to corporate power in the language of anti-racism.
Less than two weeks after her Democratic Left interview went viral, AOC took to social media and explained in more detail her thoughts on immigration policy. According to AOC, the “border crisis” is really an “imperialism crisis,” a “climate crisis,” and a “carceral crisis.” She goes on to directly name the U.S.’s “interventionist history” as a source of destabilization and laments having raised these points “in this term” and during “this president.”
‘AOC makes clear that the duty of Democratic Party politicians is to preserve the system of imperialism by framing their substance-free crusade against the GOP as genuine “resistance” or “solidarity.”
The “woke” politics of the Democratic Party render words meaningless since they are never tied to concrete action which places the interests of workers and oppressed people at the forefront of politics. Imperialism can be named for likes and views on social media but criticism of Biden’s direct role in placing starvation sanctions on Venezuela and Syria or leading disastrous interventions in Honduras (2009) or Libya (2011) is akin to operating in “bad faith.” We are told to express solidarity with undocumented immigrants by praising Biden’s leadership as progressive while ignoring the fact that thousands are currently incarcerated in deplorable conditions in just one “detention center” in Texas.
AOC and the “Squad” offer an important lesson to aspiring revolutionaries, socialists, and militants on the left. It is a lesson that was never fully learned during Obama’s immensely destructive tenure as president. That is, the Democratic Party exists not to nurture and develop social movements but rather to send them to their early grave. In this period of intense crisis, a potentially more formidable foe is emerging onto the political scene—one that openly espouses “socialism” yet remains fully committed to a thoroughly capitalist and imperialist Democratic Party anyway. If you criticize this foe, then you may end up being labeled “privileged” or a “bad faith actor” in the movement.
Still, the criticism must go on. Criticism of the Democratic Party is the bare minimum duty of a revolutionary. Anything less is a betrayal of the people, intentional or not.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/criti ... olutionary
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor 07 Apr 2021
Neither AOC nor the rest of the Squad has mounted any significant challenge to the party’s corporate leadership, despite being elected for this exact purpose.
‘Black Americans are the lifeblood of the Democratic Party’s legitimacy, thereby making it necessary for the DNC to drape its loyalty to corporate power in the language of anti-racism.”
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, popularly known as AOC, was interviewed by the Democratic Socialists of America for their online journal Democratic Left this past January. The interview was published two months later and went viral on social media after observers pointed out AOC’s direct attacks on left critics of the Democratic Party. AOC’s disdain for the left was made clear in her answer to the question of whether Biden’s political history and current antipathy to the Bernie Sanders-aligned section of the party ensures that no “progress” will come under his administration. Her response is published in full:
AOC and the left-leaning Democratic Party members of Congress otherwise known as “the Squad” have come under scrutiny of late for their unwillingness to force a Congressional vote on Medicare for All or a $15 minimum wage. Over this period, the Democratic Party has won slight majorities in both chambers of Congress and succeeded in pushing Joe Biden over the presidential hump presented by Donald Trump last November.“Well, I think it’s a really privileged critique. We’re gonna have to focus on solidarity with one another, developing our senses for good faith critique and bad faith critique. Because bad faith critique can destroy everything that we have built so swiftly. And we know this because it has in the past, and it’s taken us so many decades to get to this point. We do not have the time or the luxury to entertain bad faith actors in our movement. But also we have to value our solidarity with one another. For anyone who brings that up, we really have to ask ourselves, what is the message that you are sending to your Black and brown and undocumented members of your community, to your friends, when you say nothing has changed? Perhaps not enough has changed. And this is not a semantic argument. Just the other night, we in collective struggle were able to stop the deportations of critical members of our community. And that would not have happened in a Trump administration.”
“AOC’s disdain for the left was made clear.”
These conditions would suggest that there is no better time than now for the Democratic Party to push through a left-wing political agenda. Yet the exact opposite is happening. The latest COVID-19 stimulus package did not include a $15 minimum wage clause in large part because Democrats such as Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin voted against it . More troubling is that neither AOC nor the rest of the Squad has mounted any significant challenge to the party’s corporate leadership during a violent global pandemic and economic depression, despite being elected for this exact purpose.
While AOC decries “privileged” critiques of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party has been busy waging class war on all fronts. Contrary to AOC’s argument that undocumented immigrants suffer less under Democrats, the Biden administration has deported more than 100,000 people in his first few months in office . Biden and the Democrats have also bombed Syria , refused to engage in good faith negotiations with Iran , and propped up a brutal neocolonial regime in Haiti while deporting more Haitian immigrants in a matter of weeks than Donald Trump in his full four years in office. The Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network is organizing a Day of Action on April 8th to demand that Joe Biden withdraw fully from the U.S.’s murderous forever war in Afghanistan before the deadline of the U.S.-Taliban agreement passes on May Day.
“Contrary to AOC’s argument that undocumented immigrants suffer less under Democrats, the Biden administration has deported more than 100,000 people in his first few months in office.”
Furthermore, Biden has maintained his opposition to Medicare for All and given health insurance companies a boost by subsidizing COBRA and ACA marketplace plans . Temporary unemployment and one-time stimulus checks have done little to soften the blow for workers navigating a low-wage capitalist economy in a yearlong state of contraction. Worse yet, the Democratic Party has paid lip service to racism in the United States yet has ignored their systemic roots entirely. Mass incarceration, the decimation of Black wealth, and racist police violence are far from priorities under the current administration. One must ask AOC: what message does this sends to Black and brown members of our communities?
AOC’s comments promote the tired trope that the Democratic Party’s mere presence in the White House represents “progress” for the people. This is not a “left” or a “progressive” argument; it is Democratic Party elite propaganda. AOC hints subtly that the victory of “diversity” over the Trump-led GOP this past election cycle has already led to concrete material change for the people. Harm has been reduced. Black and brown communities have tasted victory and anyone who claims otherwise must be “privileged” and operating in “bad faith.”
“Mass incarceration, the decimation of Black wealth, and racist police violence are far from priorities under the current administration.”
Of course, words such as “privilege” and “bad faith” are never defined and thus easily weaponized to legitimize the dominant system of U.S. imperialism. We’ve seen this before. During the Obama administration’s two terms, the U.S.’s corporate machinery invested heavily in the concepts of “diversity” and “inclusion.” Black and brown faces in high places were celebrated non-stop at the expense of pesky topics such as policy and power. Left critics of Obama were “haters” or “racist” and deemed no better than the GOP.
Now, as then, it is critical to highlight just who is and isn’t included in the “solidarity” that AOC speaks of or the “diversity” achieved during the Obama period. Not included are the millions of Syrians, Libyans, and people across the Middle East and North Africa who have been killed or displaced by U.S. wars . Also not included are the 1.4 billion Chinese who are currently surrounded by hundreds of U.S. military installations and hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel. The tens of thousands of mostly Black people languishing in solitary confinement or the dozens of political prisoners such as Mumia Abu-Jamal being tortured behind prison walls also don’t make the cut. If they did, AOC and the Democrats would be having an entirely different conversation.
“During the Obama administration Black and brown faces in high places were celebrated non-stop at the expense of pesky topics such as policy and power.”
The duty of a revolutionary is to take any action, including criticism, that advances the cause of transforming U.S. imperialism into its opposite—a socialist system capable of truly meeting the needs of the oppressed and exploited classes. AOC makes clear that the duty of Democratic Party politicians is to preserve the system of imperialism by framing their substance-free crusade against the GOP as genuine “resistance” or “solidarity.” Unlike the GOP, the DNC is not bound to the ideological limitations imposed upon corporate rule by overt white supremacy. Democratic Party politicians must respond to an increasingly youthful base that finds itself living in worse economic conditions than prior generations. Black Americans are the lifeblood of the Democratic Party’s legitimacy, thereby making it necessary for the DNC to drape its loyalty to corporate power in the language of anti-racism.
Less than two weeks after her Democratic Left interview went viral, AOC took to social media and explained in more detail her thoughts on immigration policy. According to AOC, the “border crisis” is really an “imperialism crisis,” a “climate crisis,” and a “carceral crisis.” She goes on to directly name the U.S.’s “interventionist history” as a source of destabilization and laments having raised these points “in this term” and during “this president.”
‘AOC makes clear that the duty of Democratic Party politicians is to preserve the system of imperialism by framing their substance-free crusade against the GOP as genuine “resistance” or “solidarity.”
The “woke” politics of the Democratic Party render words meaningless since they are never tied to concrete action which places the interests of workers and oppressed people at the forefront of politics. Imperialism can be named for likes and views on social media but criticism of Biden’s direct role in placing starvation sanctions on Venezuela and Syria or leading disastrous interventions in Honduras (2009) or Libya (2011) is akin to operating in “bad faith.” We are told to express solidarity with undocumented immigrants by praising Biden’s leadership as progressive while ignoring the fact that thousands are currently incarcerated in deplorable conditions in just one “detention center” in Texas.
AOC and the “Squad” offer an important lesson to aspiring revolutionaries, socialists, and militants on the left. It is a lesson that was never fully learned during Obama’s immensely destructive tenure as president. That is, the Democratic Party exists not to nurture and develop social movements but rather to send them to their early grave. In this period of intense crisis, a potentially more formidable foe is emerging onto the political scene—one that openly espouses “socialism” yet remains fully committed to a thoroughly capitalist and imperialist Democratic Party anyway. If you criticize this foe, then you may end up being labeled “privileged” or a “bad faith actor” in the movement.
Still, the criticism must go on. Criticism of the Democratic Party is the bare minimum duty of a revolutionary. Anything less is a betrayal of the people, intentional or not.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/criti ... olutionary
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - new model Sheepdog
AOC Panders to Israel Lobby
April 13, 2021
By Ali Abunimah – Apr 9, 2021
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won an upset primary victory in June 2018, it came as a breath of fresh air for supporters of Palestinian rights.
The month before she unseated a senior member of the Democratic Party, she had expressed her solidarity with unarmed Palestinians being gunned down by Israeli snipers as they protested in the besieged Gaza Strip.
“This is a massacre,” she tweeted on the day Israeli soldiers killed some 60 Palestinians. “I hope my peers have the moral courage to call it such.”
“No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification,” she asserted. “Democrats can’t be silent about this anymore.”
What a difference three years and two elections to Congress make.On 1 April, Ocasio-Cortez did an online event with the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, her first meeting with the Israel lobby group.
The event might have gone unnoticed, but for a tweet on Wednesday from left-wing activist and journalist Ryan Wentz, gently criticizing her “incredibly underwhelming” response to a question about “peace both between Israelis and Palestinians.”
[youtube]http://twitter.com/i/status/1379879392642408448[/youtube]
Ocasio-Cortez’s vacuous word salad of an answer – which completely failed to address Israel’s violence against Palestinians or call for accountability – went viral, with thousands of responses and retweets mocking it.
In a deeply disturbing development, Wentz was tracked down at his Los Angeles home on Thursday by California state police after he posted the video. They were acting at the behest of the US Capitol Police.
Wentz told the publication The Grayzone, “The officers said, ‘We got a warning about a sitting member of Congress. And it was because of your tweet, which tagged them in it.’ And then they just wouldn’t back down from this accusation that I threatened to kill her.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s office has denied reporting Wentz’s tweet to the Capitol Police, though the episode is raising alarms about increasing police-state style censorship of US online discourse. Ocasio-Cortez has been in the forefront of calls for online speech-policing and censorship.
AOC praises Israel
While the segment of Ocasio-Cortez’s comments shared by Wentz attracted widespread derision, there are other troubling parts of her discussion with JCRC-NY that have escaped attention.
JCRC-NY CEO Michael S. Miller used the interview with Ocasio-Cortez to advance the claim that “Israel is a leader in environmental sustainability, especially in water conservation, reforesting and solar power.”
Miller spoke about seeing an Israeli aid project in Ocasio-Cortez’s ancestral homeland Puerto Rico, a country she calls “colonized” by the United States and whose self-determination she champions.
“Might there be components of the Green New Deal in New York or around the world where Israeli ecological expertise could be employed to upscale real solutions and address the climate crisis?” Miller asked the Congress member.
Ocasio-Cortez, the author of the Green New Deal, ought to have seized this opportunity to point out the striking parallelsbetween Puerto Rico’s colonization by the United States and Palestine’s US-backed colonization by Israel.
She could also have denounced Israel’s greenwashing propaganda, which aims to falsely paint it as an exemplary environmental steward, often as a cover for ethnic cleansing and theft of even more Palestinian land.
Instead, she answered, “Absolutely,” before going on to praise “Israel’s technology around wastewater circulation.”
Those technological marvels will come as news to two million Palestinians caged by Israel in Gaza, where due to Israel’s wars and blockade, 97 percent of water is undrinkable and conditions are like living in a septic tank.
While Ocasio-Cortez’s dismal performance during the JCRC-NY event sparked widespread ridicule, a basic question is why a self-proclaimed champion of human rights and racial justice agreed to participate at all.
Justifying Gaza massacre
JCRC-NY is an Israel lobby group whose activities include organizing junkets to Israel for politicians and community leaders.
It uses these junkets to build support and influence to advance its agenda, which includes justifying Israel’s brutal violence against Palestinians.
It disseminates propaganda attacking the Palestine solidarity movement, including recommendations from Israel’s Reut Institute think tank on how to smear and sabotage the nonviolent boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
In Ocasio-Cortez’s defense, she appears never actually to have endorsed the BDS movement, unlike her fellow Squad members Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
JCRC-NY promotes a host of far-right anti-Palestinian organizations, including CAMERA, HonestReporting, Palestinian Media Watch and Our Soldiers Speak, a propaganda organization for the Israeli military.
It also promotes the Israel on Campus Coalition, a group shown to collude secretly with the Israeli government to surveil and smear American college students and educators who organize in support of Palestinian rights.
The CEO of JCRC-NY – the same Michael S. Miller who interviewed Ocasio-Cortez – has attacked the New York chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, of which Ocasio-Cortez is a “superstar” member.
According to Miller, the group was anti-Semitic because it asked candidates seeking its endorsement to pledge not to go on the kind of propaganda junkets to Israel that lobby groups like JCRC-NY organize.
(Notably, even NYC-DSA had to distance itself from Ocasio-Cortez following her 2018 endorsement of now fullydiscredited New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.)
The depravity of JCRC-NY’s anti-Palestinian racism can be gauged by an action alert it issued in support of Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza.
During 51 days of merciless bombardment, Israel killed more than 2,200 Palestinians including 550 children – an average of 11 children per day.
Entire families were obliterated in their homes.
The lobby group’s efforts to justify the massacre in real-time included hosting briefings with senior Israeli military officers and officials.
“Not the expert”
Ocasio-Cortez’s path into the arms of the JCRC-NY – and who knows which Israel lobby group might be next – has been discernible from the start, even if it has had a few detours on the way.
Within weeks of her stunning June 2018 primary win, she already showed signs of buckling under pro-Israel pressure.
When challenged on PBS about her description of Israel’s mass killings of unarmed Palestinians as a “massacre,” she replied defensively: “Well, I believe absolutely in Israel’s right to exist. I am a proponent of the two-state solution.”
That represented a quick reversion to accepted Democratic Party orthodoxy. She also said apologetically that she was “not the expert on geopolitics on this issue.”
She was given the chance to address the stumble less than two weeks later in an interview with outlet Mic, but Ocasio-Cortez dodged the question and did not mention Palestine at all.
Ocasio-Cortez appears to have taken the lesson to heart: Since her May 2018 “massacre” tweet, she has rarely tweeted to her 12 million followers about Palestinians or about Israel’s abuses at all.
She never again tweeted about Gaza.
Last year, Ocasio-Cortez delivered another shock to supporters of Palestinian rights, when she agreed to participate in an Israel lobby event honoring Yitzhak Rabin, the late Israeli prime minister responsible for decades of expulsions and war crimes against Palestinians.
Amid strong criticism from Palestinians and supporters, Ocasio-Cortez backed out of the Rabin event.
But in hindsight, given her recent embrace of JCRC-NY, it appears her initial acceptance of the Rabin event was not a hapless mistake, but a calculated effort to curry favor with the Israel lobby.
True, Ocasio-Cortez has still occasionally taken positions that go beyond those of mainstream Democrats.
Last summer, she angered the lobby group AIPAC by spearheading a congressional letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that called for putting conditions on US funding for Israel if it proceeded with formal annexation of land in the occupied West Bank.
This letter appears to be the only item on her official website that refers to Palestinians.
And while she has not endorsed BDS, Ocasio-Cortez did co-sponsor a 2019 resolution introduced by Ilhan Omar supporting the right to engage in boycotts as a matter of principle – though that resolution did not explicitly mention Israel.
Path to the center
Ocasio-Cortez’s embrace of an Israel lobby group like JCRC-NY is of a piece with her widely noted shift towards the center of the Democratic Party.
The backlash over her response to the question on Palestinians recalls the outpouring of disgust earlier this month when she deflected criticism from the Biden administration’s continuation of cruel Trump-era policies of detaining migrant and refugee children at the US-Mexico border.
Under Trump, she had called the detention practices “concentration camps” – language that has now disappeared from her vocabulary.
It also follows the backlash in December over the refusal by Ocasio-Cortez and every other member of her allegedly progressive Squad to withhold their support from Speaker Nancy Pelosi to force a vote on Medicare for All.
At the time, Ocasio-Cortez justified falling into line behind Pelosi on the basis that it would preserve progressives’ “leverage” to win a $15 minimum wage.
But then when Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad had the opportunity to hold up the Biden administration’s must-pass COVID-19 relief package unless it included the overwhelmingly popular minimum wage hike, they refused to do that too.
During an interview with DSA last month, Ocasio-Cortez slammed leftists skeptical that progressive policy could come out of the Biden administration as espousing “a really privileged critique” and suggested they were “bad-faith actors.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s shift to the right, including her embrace of the Israel lobby and echoing of its propaganda, could be linkedto reports that she may mount a primary challenge against Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Or it may be motivated by the mundane and routine personal interests of almost every politician who seeks to stay in office and advance through the ranks of their party.
None of that would make Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez remarkable, but no one should mistake her for a courageous champion of human rights, especially those of Palestinians.
Featured image: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at a rally for Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, in Venice Beach, California, December 2019. (NSPA & ACP)
(The Electronic Intifada)
https://orinocotribune.com/aoc-panders-to-israel-lobby/
Grasshopper has learned her lessons from Sensei Sheepdog well.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - new model Sheepdog
Misleadership in the Bronx: AOC, the Fraud Squad, Military Recruiters and U.S. Imperialism
Richie Merino, Danny Shaw 12 Apr 2023
Bronx residents protest military recruitment event sponsored by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Photo: Twitter @brx_greens)
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the best known of the so-called progressives. Her leftist image is a pose which intentionally creates political confusion.
On Monday March 20th 2023, U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Adriano Espaillat co-hosted a “Student Services Fair” at Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and the Arts in the Bronx. As the official flier indicates, there was a large military presence . Alarmed that the two U.S. politicians, especially one who is a self-described “democratic socialist” and affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), were hosting this career fair, the Bronx Anti-War Coalition organized a counter-recruitment protest.
‘The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today’
The official flier for the event listed seven representatives that would headline the fair. Six of them represented branches of the military. Protestors observed dozens of uniformed military personnel walk into the fair through the main entrance, while AOC snuck in and out through back doors. She refused to address her constituents’ questions and instead sent a U.S. Marine colonel outside to address us. The military officer bragged about his time training Saudi troops and the countries he and his government have invaded.
The “duck test” is a form of abductive reasoning, usually expressed as "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck." The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject’s habitual characteristics. It is used to counter abstruse arguments that something is not what it appears to be. This same reasoning can be applied here to deduce that this “student services fair” was in fact a military recruitment fair. Yet somehow, AOC continues to deny that the military played a major role at this event.
Dr. Martin Luther King was crystal clear on this question in 1967 , exactly a year before the U.S government assassinated him: “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.” AOC herself has been on record speaking out against predatory military recruitment tactics targeting our youth. Why then did she decide to host a fair giving these predators access to disenfranchised high school students? The Bronx Anti-War Coalition understands that anytime and anywhere we see military enlistment officers or representatives of the U.S. service academies near our youth, we must confront them and chase them out of our communities.
After her security detail briskly whisked her through a backdoor clear of our protest, she decided to respond to us via instagram . Like other U.S. politicians who practice duplicity, she has a true gift for evasion. She smeared and lied about us in a nine minutes and thirty second video while doubling down on why she has a “responsibility” to inform Bronx youth about U.S. military enlistment “opportunities.” Did it not occur to AOC and her inner-circle to denounce the genocidaires in her monologue? Too busy victimizing herself, at no point did the Congresswoman address the reasons we were outside protesting: 1) to defend the multinational, working-class youth being used as cannon fodder to fight imperialist wars, 2) to stand for the Black, Indigenous and Latinx soldiers murdered on U.S. military bases, such as Abdul Latifu, Vanessa Guillén, Elder Fernandes, and Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz, among hundreds of others, and 3) to give voice to the millions of victims in the Global South targeted and murdered by U.S. sanctions, drone attacks and unprovoked invasions.
This article explores why the anti-war movement has a responsibility to continue to confront AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Bernie Sanders and any faux leftist professional politician and sheepdog who go along with the bipartisan pro-imperialist and pro-war status quo.
Military Recruiters not Welcome at Renaissance High School[1]
A central part of AOC’s attack on our rally was that we were “outside agitators” who traveled from far away because we heard false rumors about her.
The reality is that the Bronx Antiwar Coalition is comprised of parents, teachers, students, activists, and community organizers from the Bronx and many are AOC’s constituents. Richie is a Special Education teacher at a public high school in the Bronx. Danny knows Renaissance High School well because it is part of the Lehman campus where he coached basketball for 3 years. Danny’s son Ernesto teaches fashion and modeling there for an afterschool program. We are not outsiders nor a threat to our children, as Ocasio-Cortez alleged ; the politicians rubbing elbows with the NYPD and U.S. military recruiters are the true predators.
Hearing her gaslight us like a typical U.S. politician, we felt it was more important to expose this clever politician who provides a “leftist” façade for the Democratic Party. She is this generation’s Obama , another example of POC misleadership promoted by corporate media and treated like celebrities, used to give the same white supremacist, capitalist system a more diverse and modern look. While this comparison is not perfect, both politicians are very popular figures who have invited millions of the most dispossessed and disenfranchised to reinvest their hopes into an undemocratic and broken system.
It is important to move beyond liberal identity politics (i.e. one based on “representation” and “being seen” promoted by corporate “DEI” initiatives) and judge AOC and other so-called “progressives” on their actual voting record on vital issues for principled anti-imperialists. The “democratic socialists” in Congress and their affiliate association, the DSA,[2] play a specific role in muddying the waters on what socialism is and what it means to be a socialist. They portray themselves as “socialists” but lack theoretical grounding in Marxism-Leninism, serving the establishment by smearing anti-war demands, like “abolish NATO” and “lift the sanctions,” as “pro-Putin. ” We must study how truly transformative, socialist revolutions were successfully organized and led by the most oppressed in society. Study shows us that we cannot wait for a U.S. politician to serve the interests of the people, because the people’s interests are diametrically opposed to the careerist aspirations of politicians like AOC. Dr. Ernesto Che Guevara taught us that only an independent, mass movement of poor and working class people can take down the class enemy when he said, “I am not a liberator. The people liberate themselves.” Anti-colonial and revolutionary movements succeeded in 1917, 1949, 1979 and beyond. What other alternative to capitalism and white supremacy can boast of such a historical record?
AOC’s Record on U.S. Foreign Policy: The Truth is Always Concrete
True socialists are asking themselves: Why would the “progressive” Congresswoman from the Bronx vote for a $40 billion-dollar military aid package , among dozens of others, for a murderous proxy war against Russia with Ukrainian workers trapped in the middle? At this juncture of the internationalized proxy war, the U.S. government and NATO have undemocratically pumped over $150 billion of our money into this war. When was the last time she advocated for the nearly $1 Trillion Pentagon budget to be invested in our communities? Alongside her Republican colleagues in Congress, AOC proudly adorned the Ukrainian flag during Biden’s State of the Union Address. This was a symbolic moment because Republicans and Democrats claim to be at each other's throats but in actuality subscribe to the same unwavering american-dreaming and express the same loyalty to American Exceptionalism. Why hasn’t AOC ever mentioned the 2014 U.S.-backed fascist coup that installed a U.S. imperialist puppet in Kiev? What is Russia supposed to do as NATO – the U.S. and Europe’s attack dog – encircles them and attempts to revert them to the humiliating Yeltsin-years as a neocolon y of the West? The U.S. and NATO sabotaged the Minsk I and II Accords which laid out a path towards peace in the region. AOC voted “Yes ” in favor of the highly propagandistic April 2022 “Countering Malign Russian Influence Activities in Africa.” Is Russia to blame for political instability and underdevelopment in Africa? How many African nations are colonies and vassal states of Russia? Mouthpieces of U.S. imperialism constantly warn of the Chinese and Russian threat as they continue to be the number one labor exploiter, natural resource thief, military occupier and murderer in the world.
After the 2019 coup in Bolivia, the Congresswoman tweeted : “What’s happening right now in Bolivia isn’t democracy, it’s a coup. The people of Bolivia deserve free, fair and peaceful elections – not violent seizures of power.” That was correct, but then she backtracked, expressing, “The people of Bolivia deserve free, fair, and peaceful elections,” after Evo Morales had just won a democratic election. She then met with coup supporters.
AOC has never raised her voice against the CIA-orchestrated hybrid dirty war against Syria. Syria and Libya, similar to El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980’s, have been subjected to the most far-reaching U.S., Saudi and Gulf Kingdom intelligence efforts to overthrow regimes with interests opposed to the Pentagon. She and the rest of the Fraud Squad just voted to maintain imperial sanctions on Syria, even after well over 50,000 people died in the 7.8 magnitude, February 6th earthquake.
AOC has failed to speak out in defense of Venezuela’s world-inspiring Bolivarian Revolution? Why hasn’t she vocally opposed the deadly sanctions on the 30 million people of this nation? When asked who was the true leader of Venezuela, AOC said she "deferred to party leadership" in order to avoid taking a stance . This was a de facto endorsement of U.S. puppet Juan Guaido. She even participated in a standing ovation for the U.S.’ poster boy for regime change during Trump’s 2020 State of the Union.
How could a “socialist'' promote further U.S. aggression against China and support CIA-backed “independence movements'' in Hong Kong , Taiwan and Tibet ? Ted Cruz authored yet another declaration of war against China and guess who signed it ? AOC stood shoulder to shoulder with every imperialist U.S. congress member when she voted in favor of the anti-China and anti-development bill, “PRC Is Not a Developing Country Act."
Has she stood up for Palestine? No. Did she defend Ilhan Omar during the AIPAC-Israeli lobby debate when Omar was under the gun by Zionist propagandists? No . Did she cave before “If Not Now,” a well-funded J-Street lobby? Yes. She “welcomed [Omar’s] apology” when Zionism owes millions of Palestinians much more than apologies, they owe them reparations and their land back. Where were the demands for an end to the Zionist’s apartheid state? AOC largely deferred to Pelosi, who she called “Mama Bear ”, on important international issues .
The Knife that has yet to Be Removed: AOC within U.S. Politics
Malcolm X succinctly explained the role of liberals in the U.S.: “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there.”
“The Squad” plays a necessary role in this era of woke capitalism and intersectional imperialism . They work to co-opt left movement language and shore up support for the establishment from the most oppressed layers of society, Black, Latino, Indigenous and poor white youth. The misdirection, illusions and confusion they cause are harmful to the anti-imperialist movement. The dictatorship of capital attempts to hide behind the youthfulness, perceived dynamism and non-traditional outsider aesthetics of “the squad.” The corporate media paints them as the ultimate “rags to riches” examples of the "American Dream" and represent the utopian notion that any Black, Arab or Latin@ child can become president of this country. No socialist would want to join much less rule over the sickest system the world has ever known. Puerto Rican political prisoner and mentor Rafael Cancel Miranda wrote: “Not even the devil himself could dream of an empire as diabolical as this yankee one.”
The Republicans, no strangers to performance politics themselves, characterize AOC and her ilk as the “far left,” focusing on her supposed socialist bonafides. When the cameras are rolling, AOC pretends to stand up to the white supremacists and misogynists but only when they disrespect her and her colleagues and only if they are Republican. But why won’t she stand up for the masses of oppressed nationalities and against U.S. imperialism and sanctions? Does her theatrical advocacy for crumbs truly represent a threat to the U.S. ruling class? Overall, Marx’s words from 1859, when he was engaged in similar debates with the liberals of his time continue to ring true, “The liberal outcry that follows an age of reaction is all the louder the greater the cowardice displayed by liberals in putting up with the reaction for years on end without protest.” While it's easy and fashionable to critique right-wing Republicans, AOC has been virtually silent on the role of Biden and the Democrats. Lacking a class-conscious program to improve the lives of workers in the U.S, the Democrats laid the foundation for a fascist Trump victory in 2016. Having learned nothing from being humiliatingly defeated by Trump once, are they going to make the same mistakes again, opening the road to another Trump victory in 2024?
AOC’s stance on the NYPD has been soft. She did “community outreach ” with the NYPD who thanked her for “bringing community and police together.” Following the example of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the original Rainbow Coalition, we need to mobilize our own people, alongside social workers and educators, to do this important community work. The NYPD is the domestic arm of the U.S. military in NYC, harassing, humiliating, brutalizing and murdering oppressed communities on a daily basis. The 1033 program gifts military grade weapons to local police departments, while military veterans have preferential hiring. Violence committed by the U.S. military against oppressed nationalities abroad is replicated domestically through local police departments.
Consistent with AOC’s histrionics, liberal apologists for AOC’s record have accused leftist critics of carrying out a “Cointelpro 2.0” against her. But doing ads for vogue , posing for the cover of Rolling Stone and Time magazine, and wearing a multi-thousand dollar evening gown with a tepid message to “Tax the Rich,” is performative. AOC is not a revolutionary. There is speculation she has presidential ambitions . What concrete demands and movements has she truly fought for and defended?
Sheepdogging Yet Again: No Liberal Illusions
Many of AOC’s cheerleaders celebrate that she has inspired a generation . Inspired them to do what exactly? To rise up against an oppressive capitalist system and fight imperialism? No. She’s inspired youth to engage in a certain type of celebrity-worship which gives the same exploitative system a polished facelift.
Intersectional imperialism is still imperialism. Women, the LGBTQ+ community and people of color rising up in the ranks of the U.S. government, the NYPD, the military and the CIA is not progress; it only further buttresses a system deadset against combating revolutionary organization. Largely ignoring meetings with working-class organizers in the Bronx, AOC prioritizes meetings with celebrities and now military recruiters.
As socialists and anti-imperialists, our orientation is rooted not in what bigots say in the beltway or gusanos in Miami. Our struggle goes way beyond exposing AOC and the Fraud Squad. Dead Prez’s song “Politricks ” remains instructive: “Even if Obama wins, Uncle Sam ain’t my friend.”
Can anyone sincerely argue that AOC is our comrade? Her track record shows she is not an ally of the billions of workers and fighters around the world struggling against the antiquated U.S. unipolar model of hegemonic world domination, and fighting against the billionaires and fascists at home. She has proven herself to be just another bourgeois politician: a top sheepdog, high-level Democratic Party operative, careerist, and sell-out of this generation. Despite what she proclaims, actions speak louder than tweets.
[1] Renaissance High School for Musical Theater, Lehman High School, Pelham Lab High School, Schuylerville Prep, Bronx River High School, and Westchester Square Academy are the 6 schools that make up Lehman High School Campus.
[2] Some leadership within the DSA’s International Committee has done solid work the past few years to undo the horrible pro-imperialist record of this organization.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/misle ... mperialism
Damn straight: Know them by their acts.
Richie Merino, Danny Shaw 12 Apr 2023
Bronx residents protest military recruitment event sponsored by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Photo: Twitter @brx_greens)
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the best known of the so-called progressives. Her leftist image is a pose which intentionally creates political confusion.
On Monday March 20th 2023, U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Adriano Espaillat co-hosted a “Student Services Fair” at Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and the Arts in the Bronx. As the official flier indicates, there was a large military presence . Alarmed that the two U.S. politicians, especially one who is a self-described “democratic socialist” and affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), were hosting this career fair, the Bronx Anti-War Coalition organized a counter-recruitment protest.
‘The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today’
The official flier for the event listed seven representatives that would headline the fair. Six of them represented branches of the military. Protestors observed dozens of uniformed military personnel walk into the fair through the main entrance, while AOC snuck in and out through back doors. She refused to address her constituents’ questions and instead sent a U.S. Marine colonel outside to address us. The military officer bragged about his time training Saudi troops and the countries he and his government have invaded.
The “duck test” is a form of abductive reasoning, usually expressed as "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck." The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject’s habitual characteristics. It is used to counter abstruse arguments that something is not what it appears to be. This same reasoning can be applied here to deduce that this “student services fair” was in fact a military recruitment fair. Yet somehow, AOC continues to deny that the military played a major role at this event.
Dr. Martin Luther King was crystal clear on this question in 1967 , exactly a year before the U.S government assassinated him: “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.” AOC herself has been on record speaking out against predatory military recruitment tactics targeting our youth. Why then did she decide to host a fair giving these predators access to disenfranchised high school students? The Bronx Anti-War Coalition understands that anytime and anywhere we see military enlistment officers or representatives of the U.S. service academies near our youth, we must confront them and chase them out of our communities.
After her security detail briskly whisked her through a backdoor clear of our protest, she decided to respond to us via instagram . Like other U.S. politicians who practice duplicity, she has a true gift for evasion. She smeared and lied about us in a nine minutes and thirty second video while doubling down on why she has a “responsibility” to inform Bronx youth about U.S. military enlistment “opportunities.” Did it not occur to AOC and her inner-circle to denounce the genocidaires in her monologue? Too busy victimizing herself, at no point did the Congresswoman address the reasons we were outside protesting: 1) to defend the multinational, working-class youth being used as cannon fodder to fight imperialist wars, 2) to stand for the Black, Indigenous and Latinx soldiers murdered on U.S. military bases, such as Abdul Latifu, Vanessa Guillén, Elder Fernandes, and Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz, among hundreds of others, and 3) to give voice to the millions of victims in the Global South targeted and murdered by U.S. sanctions, drone attacks and unprovoked invasions.
This article explores why the anti-war movement has a responsibility to continue to confront AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Bernie Sanders and any faux leftist professional politician and sheepdog who go along with the bipartisan pro-imperialist and pro-war status quo.
Military Recruiters not Welcome at Renaissance High School[1]
A central part of AOC’s attack on our rally was that we were “outside agitators” who traveled from far away because we heard false rumors about her.
The reality is that the Bronx Antiwar Coalition is comprised of parents, teachers, students, activists, and community organizers from the Bronx and many are AOC’s constituents. Richie is a Special Education teacher at a public high school in the Bronx. Danny knows Renaissance High School well because it is part of the Lehman campus where he coached basketball for 3 years. Danny’s son Ernesto teaches fashion and modeling there for an afterschool program. We are not outsiders nor a threat to our children, as Ocasio-Cortez alleged ; the politicians rubbing elbows with the NYPD and U.S. military recruiters are the true predators.
Hearing her gaslight us like a typical U.S. politician, we felt it was more important to expose this clever politician who provides a “leftist” façade for the Democratic Party. She is this generation’s Obama , another example of POC misleadership promoted by corporate media and treated like celebrities, used to give the same white supremacist, capitalist system a more diverse and modern look. While this comparison is not perfect, both politicians are very popular figures who have invited millions of the most dispossessed and disenfranchised to reinvest their hopes into an undemocratic and broken system.
It is important to move beyond liberal identity politics (i.e. one based on “representation” and “being seen” promoted by corporate “DEI” initiatives) and judge AOC and other so-called “progressives” on their actual voting record on vital issues for principled anti-imperialists. The “democratic socialists” in Congress and their affiliate association, the DSA,[2] play a specific role in muddying the waters on what socialism is and what it means to be a socialist. They portray themselves as “socialists” but lack theoretical grounding in Marxism-Leninism, serving the establishment by smearing anti-war demands, like “abolish NATO” and “lift the sanctions,” as “pro-Putin. ” We must study how truly transformative, socialist revolutions were successfully organized and led by the most oppressed in society. Study shows us that we cannot wait for a U.S. politician to serve the interests of the people, because the people’s interests are diametrically opposed to the careerist aspirations of politicians like AOC. Dr. Ernesto Che Guevara taught us that only an independent, mass movement of poor and working class people can take down the class enemy when he said, “I am not a liberator. The people liberate themselves.” Anti-colonial and revolutionary movements succeeded in 1917, 1949, 1979 and beyond. What other alternative to capitalism and white supremacy can boast of such a historical record?
AOC’s Record on U.S. Foreign Policy: The Truth is Always Concrete
True socialists are asking themselves: Why would the “progressive” Congresswoman from the Bronx vote for a $40 billion-dollar military aid package , among dozens of others, for a murderous proxy war against Russia with Ukrainian workers trapped in the middle? At this juncture of the internationalized proxy war, the U.S. government and NATO have undemocratically pumped over $150 billion of our money into this war. When was the last time she advocated for the nearly $1 Trillion Pentagon budget to be invested in our communities? Alongside her Republican colleagues in Congress, AOC proudly adorned the Ukrainian flag during Biden’s State of the Union Address. This was a symbolic moment because Republicans and Democrats claim to be at each other's throats but in actuality subscribe to the same unwavering american-dreaming and express the same loyalty to American Exceptionalism. Why hasn’t AOC ever mentioned the 2014 U.S.-backed fascist coup that installed a U.S. imperialist puppet in Kiev? What is Russia supposed to do as NATO – the U.S. and Europe’s attack dog – encircles them and attempts to revert them to the humiliating Yeltsin-years as a neocolon y of the West? The U.S. and NATO sabotaged the Minsk I and II Accords which laid out a path towards peace in the region. AOC voted “Yes ” in favor of the highly propagandistic April 2022 “Countering Malign Russian Influence Activities in Africa.” Is Russia to blame for political instability and underdevelopment in Africa? How many African nations are colonies and vassal states of Russia? Mouthpieces of U.S. imperialism constantly warn of the Chinese and Russian threat as they continue to be the number one labor exploiter, natural resource thief, military occupier and murderer in the world.
After the 2019 coup in Bolivia, the Congresswoman tweeted : “What’s happening right now in Bolivia isn’t democracy, it’s a coup. The people of Bolivia deserve free, fair and peaceful elections – not violent seizures of power.” That was correct, but then she backtracked, expressing, “The people of Bolivia deserve free, fair, and peaceful elections,” after Evo Morales had just won a democratic election. She then met with coup supporters.
AOC has never raised her voice against the CIA-orchestrated hybrid dirty war against Syria. Syria and Libya, similar to El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980’s, have been subjected to the most far-reaching U.S., Saudi and Gulf Kingdom intelligence efforts to overthrow regimes with interests opposed to the Pentagon. She and the rest of the Fraud Squad just voted to maintain imperial sanctions on Syria, even after well over 50,000 people died in the 7.8 magnitude, February 6th earthquake.
AOC has failed to speak out in defense of Venezuela’s world-inspiring Bolivarian Revolution? Why hasn’t she vocally opposed the deadly sanctions on the 30 million people of this nation? When asked who was the true leader of Venezuela, AOC said she "deferred to party leadership" in order to avoid taking a stance . This was a de facto endorsement of U.S. puppet Juan Guaido. She even participated in a standing ovation for the U.S.’ poster boy for regime change during Trump’s 2020 State of the Union.
How could a “socialist'' promote further U.S. aggression against China and support CIA-backed “independence movements'' in Hong Kong , Taiwan and Tibet ? Ted Cruz authored yet another declaration of war against China and guess who signed it ? AOC stood shoulder to shoulder with every imperialist U.S. congress member when she voted in favor of the anti-China and anti-development bill, “PRC Is Not a Developing Country Act."
Has she stood up for Palestine? No. Did she defend Ilhan Omar during the AIPAC-Israeli lobby debate when Omar was under the gun by Zionist propagandists? No . Did she cave before “If Not Now,” a well-funded J-Street lobby? Yes. She “welcomed [Omar’s] apology” when Zionism owes millions of Palestinians much more than apologies, they owe them reparations and their land back. Where were the demands for an end to the Zionist’s apartheid state? AOC largely deferred to Pelosi, who she called “Mama Bear ”, on important international issues .
The Knife that has yet to Be Removed: AOC within U.S. Politics
Malcolm X succinctly explained the role of liberals in the U.S.: “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there.”
“The Squad” plays a necessary role in this era of woke capitalism and intersectional imperialism . They work to co-opt left movement language and shore up support for the establishment from the most oppressed layers of society, Black, Latino, Indigenous and poor white youth. The misdirection, illusions and confusion they cause are harmful to the anti-imperialist movement. The dictatorship of capital attempts to hide behind the youthfulness, perceived dynamism and non-traditional outsider aesthetics of “the squad.” The corporate media paints them as the ultimate “rags to riches” examples of the "American Dream" and represent the utopian notion that any Black, Arab or Latin@ child can become president of this country. No socialist would want to join much less rule over the sickest system the world has ever known. Puerto Rican political prisoner and mentor Rafael Cancel Miranda wrote: “Not even the devil himself could dream of an empire as diabolical as this yankee one.”
The Republicans, no strangers to performance politics themselves, characterize AOC and her ilk as the “far left,” focusing on her supposed socialist bonafides. When the cameras are rolling, AOC pretends to stand up to the white supremacists and misogynists but only when they disrespect her and her colleagues and only if they are Republican. But why won’t she stand up for the masses of oppressed nationalities and against U.S. imperialism and sanctions? Does her theatrical advocacy for crumbs truly represent a threat to the U.S. ruling class? Overall, Marx’s words from 1859, when he was engaged in similar debates with the liberals of his time continue to ring true, “The liberal outcry that follows an age of reaction is all the louder the greater the cowardice displayed by liberals in putting up with the reaction for years on end without protest.” While it's easy and fashionable to critique right-wing Republicans, AOC has been virtually silent on the role of Biden and the Democrats. Lacking a class-conscious program to improve the lives of workers in the U.S, the Democrats laid the foundation for a fascist Trump victory in 2016. Having learned nothing from being humiliatingly defeated by Trump once, are they going to make the same mistakes again, opening the road to another Trump victory in 2024?
AOC’s stance on the NYPD has been soft. She did “community outreach ” with the NYPD who thanked her for “bringing community and police together.” Following the example of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the original Rainbow Coalition, we need to mobilize our own people, alongside social workers and educators, to do this important community work. The NYPD is the domestic arm of the U.S. military in NYC, harassing, humiliating, brutalizing and murdering oppressed communities on a daily basis. The 1033 program gifts military grade weapons to local police departments, while military veterans have preferential hiring. Violence committed by the U.S. military against oppressed nationalities abroad is replicated domestically through local police departments.
Consistent with AOC’s histrionics, liberal apologists for AOC’s record have accused leftist critics of carrying out a “Cointelpro 2.0” against her. But doing ads for vogue , posing for the cover of Rolling Stone and Time magazine, and wearing a multi-thousand dollar evening gown with a tepid message to “Tax the Rich,” is performative. AOC is not a revolutionary. There is speculation she has presidential ambitions . What concrete demands and movements has she truly fought for and defended?
Sheepdogging Yet Again: No Liberal Illusions
Many of AOC’s cheerleaders celebrate that she has inspired a generation . Inspired them to do what exactly? To rise up against an oppressive capitalist system and fight imperialism? No. She’s inspired youth to engage in a certain type of celebrity-worship which gives the same exploitative system a polished facelift.
Intersectional imperialism is still imperialism. Women, the LGBTQ+ community and people of color rising up in the ranks of the U.S. government, the NYPD, the military and the CIA is not progress; it only further buttresses a system deadset against combating revolutionary organization. Largely ignoring meetings with working-class organizers in the Bronx, AOC prioritizes meetings with celebrities and now military recruiters.
As socialists and anti-imperialists, our orientation is rooted not in what bigots say in the beltway or gusanos in Miami. Our struggle goes way beyond exposing AOC and the Fraud Squad. Dead Prez’s song “Politricks ” remains instructive: “Even if Obama wins, Uncle Sam ain’t my friend.”
Can anyone sincerely argue that AOC is our comrade? Her track record shows she is not an ally of the billions of workers and fighters around the world struggling against the antiquated U.S. unipolar model of hegemonic world domination, and fighting against the billionaires and fascists at home. She has proven herself to be just another bourgeois politician: a top sheepdog, high-level Democratic Party operative, careerist, and sell-out of this generation. Despite what she proclaims, actions speak louder than tweets.
[1] Renaissance High School for Musical Theater, Lehman High School, Pelham Lab High School, Schuylerville Prep, Bronx River High School, and Westchester Square Academy are the 6 schools that make up Lehman High School Campus.
[2] Some leadership within the DSA’s International Committee has done solid work the past few years to undo the horrible pro-imperialist record of this organization.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/misle ... mperialism
Damn straight: Know them by their acts.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - new model Sheepdog
It's like we always knew, AOC is garbage.
Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald
AOC -- who ran her 2018 primary campaign based on a vow to wage war against the Democratic Party DC establishment -- announces her support for Joe Biden's re-election in the Democratic Party primary, on the day he announced cluster bombs for Ukraine:
thehill.com
Ocasio-Cortez backs Biden for reelection
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), one of the most vocal progressives on Capitol Hill, has backed President Biden’s reelection bid. Ocasio-Cortez told the “Pod Save America” podcas…
:
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - new model Sheepdog
AOC votes to back Israel lobby’s bogus “anti-Semitism” definition
Tamara Nassar and Ali Abunimah The Electronic Intifada 21 November 2024
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez votes for bill embracing IHRA anti-Semitism definition. Ståle GrutNRKbeta
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voted for a resolution on Wednesday which endorses a bogus Israel lobby definition of anti-Semitism.
In backing the measure, she broke with several other members of the so-called Squad, the dwindling group of progressive Democrats in Congress, and sided with the Anti-Defamation League, a powerful Israel lobby group that welcomed the resolution’s passage.
Representatives Cori Bush of Missouri, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan were the only Democrats to vote no on the resolution.
“I opposed this resolution because it embraces the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which dangerously conflates criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism,” Tlaib said.
Tlaib expressed concern that the resolution “will be used to stifle dissent and chill free speech, especially Palestinian human rights advocacy.”
Omar said that “this resolution does nothing to combat anti-Semitism.”
She vowed to “continue to stand against any attempt to silence genuine concerns [about] the Israeli government as anti-Semitism.”
By contrast, Ocasio-Cortez’s vote for the Israel lobby-backed resolution sent her staff into damage control mode amid fierce criticism.
Ocasio-Cortez voted for House Resolution 1449, which calls for “endorsing and embracing” the so-called Global Guidelines for Countering Anti-Semitism.
However, these guidelines are anything but “global.”
They are an initiative of the United States government and Katharina von Schnurbein, the EU’s anti-Semitism coordinator who has a history of lying about nonexistent anti-Semitic incidents to push her pro-Israel agenda.
The guidelines were launched at a US-led conference in Buenos Aires in July with the enthusiastic backing of Israel lobby groups.
But nearly all of the 33 countries signing on to the guidelines are Israel’s closest European and North American allies or arms suppliers. They can now boast of Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement too.
The guidelines urge states, international bodies and civil society to adopt a set of so-called best practices to combat anti-Semitism.
The guidelines endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism as “an important internationally recognized instrument used by over 40 UN member states since its adoption in 2016.”
But despite this effort to market the IHRA definition as universally accepted and uncontroversial, there has been growing and successful pushback to efforts to institutionalize it.
The IHRA, an organization made up of Israel and several dozen of its closest allies, uses the cover of Holocaust remembrance to legitimize and institutionalize its definition of anti-Semitism which has primarily been weaponized to smear and censor supporters of Palestinian rights.
The definition comes with 11 illustrative “examples” of anti-Semitism, the majority of which actually concern criticism of Israel and its official state ideology, Zionism.
Damage control
The House resolution passed with an overwhelming majority, with 388 representatives voting for it, including Ocasio-Cortez, and only 21 voting against.
Even as a symbolic gesture, Ocasio-Cortez did not join her three fellow Squad members who opposed it.
Mike Casca, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, took to X, also known as Twitter, on Wednesday evening to do some damage control after her vote sparked criticism from supporters of Palestinian rights.
“She opposes codification of IHRA. This non-binding resolution didn’t do that,” Casca wrote in response to this writer’s criticism of Ocasio-Cortez’s vote.
But this is dishonest and disingenuous spin.
Although it is true that the bill does not codify the IHRA definition in law, it gives a stamp of approval from Congress to a McCarthyite, anti-Palestinian tool that is being widely used to stifle criticism of Israel as it carries out a genocidal slaughter of Palestinians.
The IHRA definition is often marketed as “non-legally binding,” perhaps to allay fears about its use for repression.
In the United States, where the First Amendment protects free speech, criticism of Israel cannot be outlawed outright.
But the EU has called for the IHRA definition to be used by law enforcement agencies as a tool to “better recognize anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic crimes” and to “assess security threats.”
Israel and its lobby have also pushed for the IHRA definition to be adopted by private institutions, including schools and universities in the United States, where it has become increasingly common to use the pretext of combating anti-Semitism to crush student protest against institutional complicity in Israel’s genocide.
A number of college campuses across the US have already adopted the IHRA definition. Its further normalization and embrace by public officials, especially self-identified progressives such as Ocasio-Cortez, lends it further credence.
Even without it being codified as the law of the land, the IHRA definition is already a danger to free speech and advocacy for Palestinian rights, which is why Casca’s assurance that Ocasio-Cortez opposes its “codification” is a deflection.
If Ocasio-Cortez indeed opposes the IHRA definition’s codification, why would she vote for a resolution that promotes it as a best practice, or offer support for it in any way?
Earlier this week, Ocasio-Cortez complained about powerful Israel lobby group AIPAC’s influence on her colleagues in Congress.
“If people want to talk about members of Congress being overly influenced by a special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular agenda that pushes voters away from Democrats then they should be discussing AIPAC,” she wrote on X.
Amy Spitalnick, who Ocasio-Cortez invited on a livestream earlier this year to speak about anti-Semitism, accused the congresswoman of playing “into dangerous tropes,” a not so subtle accusation of anti-Semitism.
Spitalnick heads the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a pro-Israel advocacy group. Ocasio-Cortez had described Spitalnick as one of “the foremost experts in the country in fighting anti-Semitism in America.”
Clearly, Ocasio-Cortez got back in line with her Wednesday vote.
Ocasio-Cortez fervently endorsed Joe Biden in his abortive re-election bid, despite her acknowledging his administration’s participation in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
After the ailing and deeply unpopular Democratic president dropped out, the congresswoman then immediately endorsed Kamala Harris for president as well, claiming on the stage of the Democratic National Convention that the vice president was “working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.”
On Wednesday, the Democratic Party-run US administration vetoed for the fourth time over the course of Israel’s genocide in Gaza a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.
Ocasio-Cortez is correct that many of her colleagues in Congress do the bidding of the Israel lobby, but perhaps she should take a look in the mirror.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/ ... tion/50066
Like so many other things the bosses have appropriated the term 'progressive' can be tossed on the ash heap of history. Ain't nothin' but a fashion statement.
Tamara Nassar and Ali Abunimah The Electronic Intifada 21 November 2024
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez votes for bill embracing IHRA anti-Semitism definition. Ståle GrutNRKbeta
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voted for a resolution on Wednesday which endorses a bogus Israel lobby definition of anti-Semitism.
In backing the measure, she broke with several other members of the so-called Squad, the dwindling group of progressive Democrats in Congress, and sided with the Anti-Defamation League, a powerful Israel lobby group that welcomed the resolution’s passage.
Representatives Cori Bush of Missouri, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan were the only Democrats to vote no on the resolution.
“I opposed this resolution because it embraces the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which dangerously conflates criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism,” Tlaib said.
Tlaib expressed concern that the resolution “will be used to stifle dissent and chill free speech, especially Palestinian human rights advocacy.”
Omar said that “this resolution does nothing to combat anti-Semitism.”
She vowed to “continue to stand against any attempt to silence genuine concerns [about] the Israeli government as anti-Semitism.”
By contrast, Ocasio-Cortez’s vote for the Israel lobby-backed resolution sent her staff into damage control mode amid fierce criticism.
Ocasio-Cortez voted for House Resolution 1449, which calls for “endorsing and embracing” the so-called Global Guidelines for Countering Anti-Semitism.
However, these guidelines are anything but “global.”
They are an initiative of the United States government and Katharina von Schnurbein, the EU’s anti-Semitism coordinator who has a history of lying about nonexistent anti-Semitic incidents to push her pro-Israel agenda.
The guidelines were launched at a US-led conference in Buenos Aires in July with the enthusiastic backing of Israel lobby groups.
But nearly all of the 33 countries signing on to the guidelines are Israel’s closest European and North American allies or arms suppliers. They can now boast of Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement too.
The guidelines urge states, international bodies and civil society to adopt a set of so-called best practices to combat anti-Semitism.
The guidelines endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism as “an important internationally recognized instrument used by over 40 UN member states since its adoption in 2016.”
But despite this effort to market the IHRA definition as universally accepted and uncontroversial, there has been growing and successful pushback to efforts to institutionalize it.
The IHRA, an organization made up of Israel and several dozen of its closest allies, uses the cover of Holocaust remembrance to legitimize and institutionalize its definition of anti-Semitism which has primarily been weaponized to smear and censor supporters of Palestinian rights.
The definition comes with 11 illustrative “examples” of anti-Semitism, the majority of which actually concern criticism of Israel and its official state ideology, Zionism.
Damage control
The House resolution passed with an overwhelming majority, with 388 representatives voting for it, including Ocasio-Cortez, and only 21 voting against.
Even as a symbolic gesture, Ocasio-Cortez did not join her three fellow Squad members who opposed it.
Mike Casca, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, took to X, also known as Twitter, on Wednesday evening to do some damage control after her vote sparked criticism from supporters of Palestinian rights.
“She opposes codification of IHRA. This non-binding resolution didn’t do that,” Casca wrote in response to this writer’s criticism of Ocasio-Cortez’s vote.
But this is dishonest and disingenuous spin.
Although it is true that the bill does not codify the IHRA definition in law, it gives a stamp of approval from Congress to a McCarthyite, anti-Palestinian tool that is being widely used to stifle criticism of Israel as it carries out a genocidal slaughter of Palestinians.
The IHRA definition is often marketed as “non-legally binding,” perhaps to allay fears about its use for repression.
In the United States, where the First Amendment protects free speech, criticism of Israel cannot be outlawed outright.
But the EU has called for the IHRA definition to be used by law enforcement agencies as a tool to “better recognize anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic crimes” and to “assess security threats.”
Israel and its lobby have also pushed for the IHRA definition to be adopted by private institutions, including schools and universities in the United States, where it has become increasingly common to use the pretext of combating anti-Semitism to crush student protest against institutional complicity in Israel’s genocide.
A number of college campuses across the US have already adopted the IHRA definition. Its further normalization and embrace by public officials, especially self-identified progressives such as Ocasio-Cortez, lends it further credence.
Even without it being codified as the law of the land, the IHRA definition is already a danger to free speech and advocacy for Palestinian rights, which is why Casca’s assurance that Ocasio-Cortez opposes its “codification” is a deflection.
If Ocasio-Cortez indeed opposes the IHRA definition’s codification, why would she vote for a resolution that promotes it as a best practice, or offer support for it in any way?
Earlier this week, Ocasio-Cortez complained about powerful Israel lobby group AIPAC’s influence on her colleagues in Congress.
“If people want to talk about members of Congress being overly influenced by a special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular agenda that pushes voters away from Democrats then they should be discussing AIPAC,” she wrote on X.
Amy Spitalnick, who Ocasio-Cortez invited on a livestream earlier this year to speak about anti-Semitism, accused the congresswoman of playing “into dangerous tropes,” a not so subtle accusation of anti-Semitism.
Spitalnick heads the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a pro-Israel advocacy group. Ocasio-Cortez had described Spitalnick as one of “the foremost experts in the country in fighting anti-Semitism in America.”
Clearly, Ocasio-Cortez got back in line with her Wednesday vote.
Ocasio-Cortez fervently endorsed Joe Biden in his abortive re-election bid, despite her acknowledging his administration’s participation in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
After the ailing and deeply unpopular Democratic president dropped out, the congresswoman then immediately endorsed Kamala Harris for president as well, claiming on the stage of the Democratic National Convention that the vice president was “working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.”
On Wednesday, the Democratic Party-run US administration vetoed for the fourth time over the course of Israel’s genocide in Gaza a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.
Ocasio-Cortez is correct that many of her colleagues in Congress do the bidding of the Israel lobby, but perhaps she should take a look in the mirror.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/ ... tion/50066
Like so many other things the bosses have appropriated the term 'progressive' can be tossed on the ash heap of history. Ain't nothin' but a fashion statement.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - new model Sheepdog
AOC: The Next Pelosi? The Next President?
In Full Service of the US Oligarchy
Roger Boyd
Jun 27, 2025
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) was born in 1989 in New York to an ethnic Puerto Rican father who was an architect and a Puerto Rican mother who was a house cleaner and school bus driver. When she was five, the family moved from an apartment in the Bronx to a house in Yorktown Heights; which is two thirds non-hispanic white and one third hispanic (minimal Black population), with a median household income in 2022 of US$138,750 and with only 4.52% of the residents being foreign born. It also has a large, and vibrant, Jewish population. This is the house in which she lived from the age of 5, in the very nice Yorktown Heights area, not exactly palatial but certainly not poverty in the Bronx.
After attending Yorktown High School in 2007, she studied international relations and economics at the prestigious Boston University where she graduated from in 2011. While there she interned for US Senator Ted Kennedy. Her father died whilst she was in college and she moved to the Bronx(?) to help her mother out, working as a bar tender and waitress as well as an educational director at the National Hispanic Institute. The AOC mythology very much mentions the first two jobs, but much less the latter one. Where she lived after university is a bit blurry, as wikipedia and many articles say “she returned to the Bronx”, but she also fought the foreclosure of the family home - which was in Yorktown Heights. So, she may have in fact returned to Yorktown Heights. Such blurring is notable in her own accounts of her life, where she refers to her childhood in the Bronx, when in fact the vast majority of her childhood was in Yorktown Heights.
In 2016, she worked as an organizer for the Bernie Sanders organization and then afterwards she visited Flint, Michigan (home to the water crisis that President Obama did not fix) and Standing Rock. She was then contacted by Brand New Congress (BNC), a political action community (PAC) formed by ex-Bernie Sanders campaign staffers, to stand as candidate. BNC joined up with the Justice Democrats, formed by two leaders of Sander’s campaign in 2017 (Saikat Chakrabarty an ex investment banker and Silicon Valley entrepreneur who for a while became AOC’s chief of staff, and Zack Exley a political operative who worked for the John Kerry, and Tony Blair campaigns) together with Kyle Kulinski and Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks. Connecting AOC with the bourgeois progressive fake “left”, including the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) which she joined.
In 2018 she won the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th congressional district, and then won the general election for the district in late 2018, standing on a highly progressive “socialist” electoral platform. She was re-elected in 2020 and 2022 while building a large social media following. In 2024, the DSA debated whether to support her given how much she had become a Democratic Party careerist (see below), but in the end decided to endorse her. That position was reversed after AOC’s participation in a panel that conflated anti-Zionism with anti-semitism, her support for a resolution that conflated opposition to the existence of the state of Israel with anti-semitism, and her co-signing of a press release in support of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system. She had made the surrender to the Zionist lobby and US foreign policy establishment required for advancement in US politics; one surrender of many to facilitate her career advancement. She was successfully re-elected in 2024, opposed by an investment banker in the Democratic primary.
At the beginning of her career as a US House Representative, AOC made a lot of noise about being against the Democratic National Convention (DNC) establishment but this was quite quickly turned into performative-only acts as she came to understand what was required for career advancement. After being an “enemy” of Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Speaker of the House, she made her peace with one of the central leaders of the oligarch-serving DNC, and could now be considered to be following a path to one day be a “Nancy Pelosi”. Comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore noted AOC’s early disciplining by the DNC and then her surrender to the DNC establishment.
From this AOC:
To this AOC:
As with Bernie Sanders, she carries out a performance about being progressive (the fake “socialist” part became non-tenable long ago) while fully supporting the DNC establishment and disciplining any progressive voices. As Jimmy Dore so well states, they are a “pretend opposition”, fulfilling the sheep dog role of gathering all those wanting real change and nullifying their influence. In no way will she “fight oligarchy”, she has become a willing servant of that oligarchy. That is what it takes to advance within the Democratic Party and why “change from within” will always be a losing strategy. One commentator quite correctly stated that the “fight oligarchy” tour should be renamed as the “How Stupid Are You?” tour, yet another Democratic Party attempt to hoodwink the US people in the service of the US oligarchy.
All of this careerist surrendering has worked well for AOC, who is now even considered as a possibility for the presidential candidacy in 2028! Perhaps a female “hopey changey” Obama “progressive” to help consolidate the oligarch-serving policies of Trump, while making some performative changes in the cultural arena. Since the Clinton administration that spent eight years embedding neoliberalism within the US, the role of the Democratic presidents (Obama, Biden) has been to both consolidate and extend the changes made by the Republicans while covering this reality with a performance of being progressive. Could the US oligarchy pull off this con one more time, eschewing the need for an explicit move toward fascism? Perhaps a gay Pete Buttigieg instead of a female AOC; the Democrats love to play such identitarian games.
Or perhaps an Indian-American Muslim with a Syrian-American wife who may become New York Mayor later this year? As I put forward in a note, a quick research of Zohran Mamdani’s background points to the son of a very upper middle class / lower upper class family that attended private school and a very expensive elite liberal college who put in a short time as a local activist (a la Obama) before getting elected to the New York State Assembly only 5.5 years out of university. Perhaps a run for the US Senate in 2028 before the presidency in 2032? And Jimmy Dore may once again have his early optimism crushed, as with AOC. The Democratic Party will keep playing the same game until it doesn’t work anymore. Like good liberals, if manufactured consent stops working they will easily move on to greater authoritarianism and even fascism if that is what is required to maintain economic liberalism (as against political liberalism). Let’s remember that it was a Democratic president, Wilson, who brought fascism to the US to drag the US population into a war that they did not want to fight.
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/aoc-th ... -president
In Full Service of the US Oligarchy
Roger Boyd
Jun 27, 2025
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) was born in 1989 in New York to an ethnic Puerto Rican father who was an architect and a Puerto Rican mother who was a house cleaner and school bus driver. When she was five, the family moved from an apartment in the Bronx to a house in Yorktown Heights; which is two thirds non-hispanic white and one third hispanic (minimal Black population), with a median household income in 2022 of US$138,750 and with only 4.52% of the residents being foreign born. It also has a large, and vibrant, Jewish population. This is the house in which she lived from the age of 5, in the very nice Yorktown Heights area, not exactly palatial but certainly not poverty in the Bronx.
After attending Yorktown High School in 2007, she studied international relations and economics at the prestigious Boston University where she graduated from in 2011. While there she interned for US Senator Ted Kennedy. Her father died whilst she was in college and she moved to the Bronx(?) to help her mother out, working as a bar tender and waitress as well as an educational director at the National Hispanic Institute. The AOC mythology very much mentions the first two jobs, but much less the latter one. Where she lived after university is a bit blurry, as wikipedia and many articles say “she returned to the Bronx”, but she also fought the foreclosure of the family home - which was in Yorktown Heights. So, she may have in fact returned to Yorktown Heights. Such blurring is notable in her own accounts of her life, where she refers to her childhood in the Bronx, when in fact the vast majority of her childhood was in Yorktown Heights.
In 2016, she worked as an organizer for the Bernie Sanders organization and then afterwards she visited Flint, Michigan (home to the water crisis that President Obama did not fix) and Standing Rock. She was then contacted by Brand New Congress (BNC), a political action community (PAC) formed by ex-Bernie Sanders campaign staffers, to stand as candidate. BNC joined up with the Justice Democrats, formed by two leaders of Sander’s campaign in 2017 (Saikat Chakrabarty an ex investment banker and Silicon Valley entrepreneur who for a while became AOC’s chief of staff, and Zack Exley a political operative who worked for the John Kerry, and Tony Blair campaigns) together with Kyle Kulinski and Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks. Connecting AOC with the bourgeois progressive fake “left”, including the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) which she joined.
In 2018 she won the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th congressional district, and then won the general election for the district in late 2018, standing on a highly progressive “socialist” electoral platform. She was re-elected in 2020 and 2022 while building a large social media following. In 2024, the DSA debated whether to support her given how much she had become a Democratic Party careerist (see below), but in the end decided to endorse her. That position was reversed after AOC’s participation in a panel that conflated anti-Zionism with anti-semitism, her support for a resolution that conflated opposition to the existence of the state of Israel with anti-semitism, and her co-signing of a press release in support of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system. She had made the surrender to the Zionist lobby and US foreign policy establishment required for advancement in US politics; one surrender of many to facilitate her career advancement. She was successfully re-elected in 2024, opposed by an investment banker in the Democratic primary.
At the beginning of her career as a US House Representative, AOC made a lot of noise about being against the Democratic National Convention (DNC) establishment but this was quite quickly turned into performative-only acts as she came to understand what was required for career advancement. After being an “enemy” of Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Speaker of the House, she made her peace with one of the central leaders of the oligarch-serving DNC, and could now be considered to be following a path to one day be a “Nancy Pelosi”. Comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore noted AOC’s early disciplining by the DNC and then her surrender to the DNC establishment.
From this AOC:
To this AOC:
As with Bernie Sanders, she carries out a performance about being progressive (the fake “socialist” part became non-tenable long ago) while fully supporting the DNC establishment and disciplining any progressive voices. As Jimmy Dore so well states, they are a “pretend opposition”, fulfilling the sheep dog role of gathering all those wanting real change and nullifying their influence. In no way will she “fight oligarchy”, she has become a willing servant of that oligarchy. That is what it takes to advance within the Democratic Party and why “change from within” will always be a losing strategy. One commentator quite correctly stated that the “fight oligarchy” tour should be renamed as the “How Stupid Are You?” tour, yet another Democratic Party attempt to hoodwink the US people in the service of the US oligarchy.
All of this careerist surrendering has worked well for AOC, who is now even considered as a possibility for the presidential candidacy in 2028! Perhaps a female “hopey changey” Obama “progressive” to help consolidate the oligarch-serving policies of Trump, while making some performative changes in the cultural arena. Since the Clinton administration that spent eight years embedding neoliberalism within the US, the role of the Democratic presidents (Obama, Biden) has been to both consolidate and extend the changes made by the Republicans while covering this reality with a performance of being progressive. Could the US oligarchy pull off this con one more time, eschewing the need for an explicit move toward fascism? Perhaps a gay Pete Buttigieg instead of a female AOC; the Democrats love to play such identitarian games.
Or perhaps an Indian-American Muslim with a Syrian-American wife who may become New York Mayor later this year? As I put forward in a note, a quick research of Zohran Mamdani’s background points to the son of a very upper middle class / lower upper class family that attended private school and a very expensive elite liberal college who put in a short time as a local activist (a la Obama) before getting elected to the New York State Assembly only 5.5 years out of university. Perhaps a run for the US Senate in 2028 before the presidency in 2032? And Jimmy Dore may once again have his early optimism crushed, as with AOC. The Democratic Party will keep playing the same game until it doesn’t work anymore. Like good liberals, if manufactured consent stops working they will easily move on to greater authoritarianism and even fascism if that is what is required to maintain economic liberalism (as against political liberalism). Let’s remember that it was a Democratic president, Wilson, who brought fascism to the US to drag the US population into a war that they did not want to fight.
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/aoc-th ... -president
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - new model Sheepdog
AOC Is A Genocidal Con Artist
She’s actively stopping American politics from moving any further left than the nightmare we see before us.
Caitlin Johnstone
July 20, 2025
The Democratic Party’s Instagram-friendly progressive darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has voted with the overwhelming majority of House representatives against withholding $500 million in missile funding for Israel, despite previously saying that Israel is committing “a genocide of Palestinians” in Gaza with US support.
The only lawmakers voting to withhold the military aid were Democrats Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Summer Lee and Al Green, and Republicans Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Coming under fire from the left for the glaring contradiction of providing military assistance to a state that is perpetrating an active genocide, AOC issued a statement claiming her vote was about protecting civilians.
The statement reads as follows:
“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s amendment does nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza. Of course I voted against it.
“What it does do is cut off defensive Iron Dome capacities while allowing the actual bombs killing Palestinians to continue.
“I have long stated that I do not believe that adding to the death count of innocent victims to this war is constructive to its end. That is a simple and clear difference of opinion that has long been established.
“I remain focused on cutting the flow of US munitions that are being used to perpetuate the genocide in Gaza.”
AOC’s statement is absolute crap. The Iron Dome is not used for defending, it’s used to facilitate constant attacks.
In an article for Jewish Currents titled “Iron Dome Is Not a Defensive System,” Dylan Saba explains:
“By almost entirely negating the ability of militant groups in Gaza to respond to Israel’s incursions, the purportedly defensive Iron Dome allows Israel to strike without fear of repercussion. And because the cost is so low when measured in Israeli casualties, Israel can wage perpetual war without suffering domestic political consequences, and is under negligible pressure to pursue diplomacy with the Palestinians. ‘In theory, a weapon like Iron Dome could be used only defensively. But in practice it doesn’t work that way,’ analyst Nathan Thrall told Jewish Currents. ‘Iron Dome facilitates greater Israeli offensive measures, because it lowers the perceived cost to Israel of escalating or extending or initiating attacks.’ In other words, while the Iron Dome may prevent the deaths of Israeli non-combatants, it has made it easier for Israel to engage in deadly operations that take Palestinian lives.”
The Iron Dome isn’t for protecting civilians, it’s for protecting the Israeli regime from deterrence. We see this in the comfort the regime displays in waging constant military violence on its neighbors knowing they can’t retaliate. That’s why Israel cut a ceasefire deal with Iran so fast.
Iran’s advanced missiles can’t be reliably stopped by the Iron Dome, so Iran was able to smash Israel and force it to cease its unprovoked aggressions. If Israel had had a missile defense system which could casually swat those missiles out of the sky at a high rate of success, Israel would still be bombing Iran today, and would continue doing so until Tehran looked like Gaza. Israel’s war-horny population would have supported this, because they’d have no skin in the game.
Saying you support funding Israel’s “defensive weapons” while opposing sending it “offensive weapons” is as nonsensical as saying you would never give a mass shooter guns and ammunition, but you would give him body armor to keep him safe from the police. You’re helping him commit mass murder just as much as you would be if you gave him guns and ammo. Kings didn’t arm their knights with shields and armor so that they could live long and fulfilling lives, they did it so the knights would live long enough to kill the people the kings wanted killed.
If you believe a state is committing genocide, there is no justifiable reason for you to support enhancing that state’s military capabilities and helping it defend itself from those who try to stop it. As others have pointed out, this is exactly the same as opposing Hitler’s Holocaust but supporting giving anti-aircraft flak cannons to Nazi Germany.
It’s a self-evidently ridiculous, warmongering, and ultimately genocidal position, disguised as progressive humanitarianism. It’s all the ugliest things about western liberals.
People who say you should criticize AOC less because there are way worse members of congress act like she’s just passively sitting there being a mediocre lawmaker. She’s not. She’s actively anchoring the leftmost edge of the Overton window of US politics to militarism, capitalism, colonialism, and genocide. She’s actively stopping American politics from moving any further left than the nightmare we see before us.
Leftists shouldn’t hate AOC less than the politicians to her right, they should hate her much more. It isn’t Mike Johnson’s responsibility to move the US government to the left, and it’s not Nancy Pelosi’s job. It’s hers. That’s what she was elected to do. That’s what she framed the goals of her entire political career as being. And she’s taking her stand firmly bracing against any leftward movement from America’s genocidal, warmongering, unjust, exploitative, tyrannical status quo.
And that’s what she was actually put there to do. Her real job is to say “thus far and no further” to the leftmost end of the political spectrum of the world’s most powerful and destructive government. That’s the Democratic Party’s job in general, and it’s the job of media-savvy progressive Democrats in particular. They are there to provide as little resistance as possible when US politics are shoved toward more genocidal, militaristic, oligarchic, capitalist, imperialist abuses, and to provide as much inertia as possible to any movement in the opposite direction.
That’s why people who seek leftward movement in the US political machine see AOC as one of their main enemies. It’s for the exact same reason you’d see someone actively blocking the fire exit as your enemy when trying to escape from a burning building.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/07 ... on-artist/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."