#democratic party platform 2024

[somerandomg33k]

"You have to do farming to grow food. Otherwise, how else can you eat." So let's see what the Democrats have to say about Agriculture. Like more Corn subsidies, maybe? Who knows. But I will read the Democratic Party Platform to find out.

[shellem15]

Kamala harris' campaign alienated half their damn voter base by catering to the mythical "moderate republican" and refusing to give anyone any damn reason to vote FOR her. And now liberals are going to blame Arabs and leftists and anti-genocide protestors instead of the democratic party's complete incompetence for Trump's win. Absolutely ridiculous state of things.

[creativemedianews]

Harris to conclude Democratic convention on day four

Harris to conclude Democratic convention on day four #2024election #DemocraticNationalConvention #DNC #Gaza #JoeBiden

[super-ultra-mega-deluxe]

regarding US liberal politics i cannot emphasize enough that a democrat president has not been better for trans rights than the previous republican one. the last four years have seen some of the worst backsliding on trans rights specifically, with access to gender affirming care being explicitly illegalized in a number of states. proclaiming that my rights are stored in the bodies of brown people abroad- a statement democrats will routinely ridicule republicans for- looks especially absurd in the circumstance where the party you are championing isn't even pretending to do that for people like me! there are 8 instances of the word "transgender" in the whole of democrat's 92 page 2024 party platform, half of which are the democrats congratulating themselves for allowing trans women to be drafted and serve the imperialist war machine, with the rest not referencing any specific policy or policy plan at all. at best they're quietly complicit in killing trans people and trans women especially. do not appeal to my existence in your justifications for genocide

[batboyblog]

2024 Senate Elections: You'd Better VOTE!

Yes it's election year yet again in America! but not just for President, almost as important will be the US Senate!

I'm not gonna lie this is a rough map for Democrats, we're playing a lot of defense in some pretty red states with even our best hopes for a pick up being pretty long shots. But even with narrow control of the Senate we've managed the biggest climate bill in American History a huge infrastructure bill thats bring high speed rail to America capped the price of insulin changed the law to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices bring savings to everyone, and put over 160 federal judges on the bench, 2/3rds of whom are women and/or people of color the first time white men haven't been the majority of nominees by a President. So let's keep progress going by voting for, supporting, donating, and volunteering for the following candidates in the races that will decide the US Senate this year.

Arizona

Ruben Gallego (Hold)

After frustrating Democrats by repeatedly voting against major Democratic priorities, supporting the filibuster and putting donors over voters, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic Party to become an independent in 2022. Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego was running to primary Sinema before she left the party and is now the likely Democratic nominee to unseat her and give Arizona the Democratic Senator it deserves. Gallego is a former Marine, combat veteran, Harvard grad, a former state representative, and since 2014 a member of Congress. Gallego is a member of the Progressive Caucus and is known for his blunt and combative style standing up to Republicans. In Congress Gallego has been a strong supporter of native rights advocating for tribes on health care and child welfare issues. Gallego is also the sponsor of a bill to bring about nation wide, free, all-day kindergarten which isn't available in many states. If elected Gallego would be Arizona's first hispanic Senator. Republicans hope that the Democratic vote will split between Sinema and Gallego allowing them to win this important seat. The Republican front runner is conspiracy theorist and Trump super fan, Kari Lake. Lake rose to national fame in 2021 for pushing conspiracy theories about Trump having won the 2020 election, as well as anti-mask and anti-vaccine Covid conspiracies. Lake was the Republican nominee for Arizona governor in 2022. During that campaign she ran on an aggressive anti-LGBT platform, saying she'd ban drag, and was against trans rights. Lake also is against Abortion in all cases. After losing to Democrat Katie Hobbs, Lake refused to concede, and still pushes the conspiracy theory that she's the rightful governor of Arizona. If you live in Arizona please make sure you vote, but more if you have any time between now and November, volunteer to help Gallego! and if you don't live there you can still Donate or buy a pro-choice shirt from his campaign!

Vote Volunteer Donate Shop

Florida

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (Flip)

Florida's current Republican Senator Rick Scott is a right wing extremist pushing dangerous ideas even by the standards of the Modern GOP. During his first term as Senator Scott has pushed to defund the IRS, and the Department of Education. He's sponsored bills to punish schools that allow students to use preferred pronouns, to ban affirmative action, bans teaching critical race theory, and ban trans people from women's sports. Scott is against abortion in all cases. Most alarming Rick Scott proposed a radical plan that would "sun-set" ANY and all federal laws after 5 years, including Social Security and Medicare, Scott would place all federal programs and agencies on the chopping block every 5 years for a radical Republican minority to block their renewal and leave us without Social Security, or the EPA, to name just two examples. The likely Democratic nominee is former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Born in Ecuador, Mucarsel-Powell immigrated to the US when she was 14 and had work to help support her family. When she was elected to Congress in 2018 she became the first South American born immigrant and first person of Ecuadorian heritage to be elected to Congress. In Congress Mucarsel-Powell was a member of the Progressive caucus, she fought to expand medicare, and secured $200 million for Everglades restoration. After a narrow defeat in 2020 Mucarsel-Powell joined the gun control advocacy group Giffords to fight for gun control a personal issue for her after her father was murdered when she was 24. If you're in Florida please make sure you vote, and Volunteer to help remove on of the most extreme Senators, If you're not in Florida you can help Debbie win by donating.

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE

Michigan

Elissa Slotkin (hold)

Long time Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow is retiring this election, so there will be a tough fight for control of this important swing state Senate seat. The likely Democratic nominee is Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. Slotkin is a former CIA analyst, after retiring from the CIA she worked in the State and Defense departments during the Obama administration. Slotkin was first elected to Congress in 2018 winning and being re-elected in a tough swing district. In Congress she's fought for common sense gun control, supported the cap on insulin prices and Medicare drug price negotiation, she helped pass a law on drug price transparency, she championed the CHIP act to bring high tech manufacturing jobs back to America, and was a big supporter of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Slotkin is centering a pro-choice message in her campaign as well as gun control and bring down medical costs. Who the Republicans will pick isn't totally clear, it seems like it's between Former Congressman Mike Rogers and former Detroit Police chief James Craig. Craig ran for Michigan governor in 2022 before he was disqualified for fraudulent signatures on his nominating petition. Craig has listed cutting off US support to Ukraine as one of his top priorities, and endorsed Trump's 3rd run for President early in the primaries. Mike Rogers is also trying to win over Trump voters and has attacked the rights of LGBT students in schools calling it "social engineering". If you live in Michigan make sure to get out and vote, and also volunteer! And for everyone outside the state you can donate or buy some merch.

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE SHOP

Montana

Jon Tester (re-elect)

In most contexts Montana is a deep red state going for Trump in 2020 57% to 40%. This makes the reelection of Montana's only Democratic member of Congress and only statewide elected Democrat, Jon Tester maybe the toughest election for Democrats this year. A Senator since he was first elected in 2006 Tester has won a series of upset wins in Montana over the years. A 3rd generation farmer Tester has been as strong for small farmers and ranchers in Washington. Tester has always been a champion of accountably and transparency in government pushing ethnics and campaign finance reforms. Tester is rated one of the most effective senators and managed to pass more bills last year than any one else in Congress. He's never been afraid to stand up for the Democratic side even if it'd be an unpopular vote in Red Montana. Tester voted to impeach Trump twice, and he voted against all 3 of Trump's nominees to the Supreme Court. He supported President Obama on The Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank, and has supported President Biden on the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Republicans seem likely to nominate right wing influencer and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy. Sheehy promises to get drag queens out of schools and the Lord's Prayer in to the classroom. He also hopes to repeal Obamacare calling for a "total privatization" of health care and made statements against the very idea of health insurance, insisting people should pay full price at point of use. If you're a Montanan make sure to vote to re-elect a champion of the little guy, and also volunteer! if you're not please think of donating what you can, if you can only give to one campaign this cycle this one, or Ohio are the most important!

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE SHOP

Nevada

Jacky Rosen (re-elect)

First elected to Congress in 2016 Jacky Rosen moved up to the Senate in 2018. In her first term as a Senator Rosen has championed green energy for Nevada. Together with fellow Democratic Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Rosen has gotten millions for solar manufacturing in Nevada as well as millions to replace the state's school buses with electric, and programs to study new groundbreaking green technology. Senator Rosen has been a supporter of gun control, is in favor of banning assault weapons. She sponsored a bill, the Background Check Expansion Act, that would require background checks for all gun sales closing loopholes for on-line sales and gun shows. Rosen is pro-choice and has sponsored a bill to protect doctors from being prosecuted across state lines for providing reproductive care, and is a co-sponsor of a bill to codify Roe V. Wade into federal law. Rosen will likely face Republican celebrity and army veteran Sam Brown. Brown ran and lost a race for the Texas State House in 2014 and ran and lost for Nevada's other Senate seat in 2022. Brown stated he was in favor of getting rid of the Departments of Education, Transportation, and Energy. Brown is against Red Flag gun laws that allow police to temporarily remove fire arms from the home of someone deemed a danger to themselves or others. Brown also has refused to say if he supports a national abortion ban, but does say he's pro-life and wouldn't support any judges that weren't. If you live in Nevada make sure to get out to vote and volunteer to protect the state's green future and the right to reproductive care. If you're not in Nevada consider donating or buying some merch.

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE SHOP

Ohio

Sherrod Brown (re-elect)

Ohio together with Montana represents the toughest re-elect for Democrats this year. The state went for Trump twice, elected a right wing radical, JD Vaince, to the Senate in 2022 and has had a Republican governor since 2010. To complicate thing more Democrat Sherrod Brown is one of the most progressive members of the Senate, regularly scoring along side Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for the most left wing in the Senate. From the time he was first elected to Congress in 1992 Brown refused to take the Congressional Health Insurance until all Americans could be covered. Brown first supported a Medicare for all bill in 2006 and has supported different efforts to expand Medicare and health coverage. He was a key supporter of the Children Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Brown is a strong supporter of unions and has struggled his whole career to protect unionized manufacturing jobs in Ohio. He was one of the first Senators out on the picket line during the UAW strike of 2023. Brown's hard work has help make Ohio the center of a new booming lithium battery manufacturing in America, a green manufacturing future for the state. Republicans look likely to nominate former used car dealer and father-in-law of Republican Congressman Max Miller, Bernie Moreno. Moreno's main qualification seems to be having been endorsed by Donald Trump. He lists among his priorities "End Socialism in America" and "End Wokeness and Cancel Culture". If you're in Ohio make sure to vote to re-elect a progressive giant and volunteer too! If you live out of Ohio donate, if you're looking for the race where your dollar will matter the most, this one or Montana guys.

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE

Pennsylvania

Bob Casey Jr. (re-elect)

First elected in 2006 Bob Casey famously beat incumbent Republican homophobe Rick Santorum by 17 points. Since first entering the Senate Casey has moved leftward on a number of issues. First elected as a pro-Gun Democrat since 2012 Casey has sponsored a number of bills to expand background checks, ban assault weapons, ban extended magazines, and well as supporting mental health funds for victims of gun violence. For a number of years Casey was called the last pro-life Democrat in the Senate, however in 2022 he came out in support of Roe V Wade and voted twice on bills that would have codified the right to an abortion into federal law. Casey voted against all 3 of Trump's Supreme Court picks and has long supported Planned Parenthood's contraception efforts with federal funds, seeing easily available birth control as key to reducing the number of abortions. In 2021 Casey published a plan he called "The Five Freedoms for America's Children" modeled after FDR's famous speech. He proposed automatically enrolling all kids in Medicaid, an expanded child tax cut, a federally supported college fund for all kids who's parents make under $100,000, expanded free school meals, more funds for head start and abuse prevention programs. Republicans are rallying behind Mitch McConnell's hand picked candidate, hedge fund CEO David McCormick. McCormick worked for the Bush administration during Bush's second term. McCormick's wife Dina Powell also worked for the George W. Bush administration and was a senior aid to Trump as well. If you're in Pennsylvania make sure to get out and vote for a solid Democrat out to solve child poverty in America and keep the Hedge Fund guy from Connecticut out, and Volunteer if you can. Remember you can donate where ever you are.

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE SHOP

Texas

Colin Allred (flip)

Texas is currently represented by likely the most hated man in Washington, Ted Cruz. Republicans hate him, Democrats hate him more, he has a very punchable face, he might be the zodiac killer (thats a joke and meme). From shutting down the government in 2013 to try to overturn Obamacare, to leading the charge in Congress to overturn the 2020 election on January 6th Ted Cruz is a greatest hits of the worst parts of the Republican Party of the last 10 years. When Texas lost power in the middle of a historic ice storm in 2021 Ted Cruz and family ditched the state to go on vacation in Mexico, classy. Cruz in the Biden years has cast himself as a culture warrior fighting against "woke" publishing a book "Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America" in 2023 to kick off his re-election campaign. Texas is a traditionally red state but things are starting to shift and in 2018 Cruz narrowly won re-election over Beto O'Rourke. Democrats hope with the right candidate they can turn Texas blue and beat the most hated Senator in America. Democrats think Congressman Colin Allred is the man for the job. Allred is a former NFL Linebacker for the Titans. After the NFL he went on to get his law degree from UC Berkeley, and work in the Obama administration. Allred was first elected to Congress in 2018, unseating a Republican who'd been in office since 1997 and becoming the first Democrat to represent the area in Congress since 1968. In Congress Allred has supported bills to expand voting right and protect abortion rights, as well as gun control. In the Senate he promises to address Texas' shaky power grid and make sure Texas is never left in the dark again with its leaders missing. Lets do this Texas, make blue Texas a reality if you live in Texas remember to vote and volunteer, if you're an American who hates Ted Cruz you can donate to make in unemployed.

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE SHOP

Wisconsin

Tammy Baldwin (re-elect)

When Tammy Baldwin first ran for Congress in 1998 she was the first openly gay person elected to the US House and the first open Lesbian to serve in Congress. In 2012 she became the first openly gay person elected to the US Senate and the first Lesbian to be a Senator, she is still the only openly gay Senator. Through out her time in office Baldwin has been a tireless voice for LGBT rights, in 2022 she helped spear head the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act to help protect gay marriage, she's also a sponsor of the Equality Act to protect all LGBT people from discrimination. Baldwin is a progressive who was a member of the House Progressive caucus, opposed the Iraq War and supported impeaching Dick Cheney. In the House she introduced bills for a single payer healthcare system in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2005. In the Senate Baldwin is regularly listed as one of the most progressive members, voting against tax cuts for the rich, supporting a bill to require companies to have workers on their boards, she sponsored a bill to create a public option in Health Care, and has supported gun control efforts. The Republican field to challenge Senator Baldwin is uncertain, but former Milwaukee sheriff David Clarke dominates the polls if he decides to run. Clarke's sheriff's department is accused a number of human rights violations from his time as sheriff, including allowing a prisoner to die of dehydration after 6 days without water in the Milwaukee County Jail. Clarke is a Trump super fan who has pushed conspiracy theories about mass shootings being fake, attacked Black Lives Matter, called Planned Parenthood "Planned Genocide", and called for the mass detention without trial of Americans because he believed there were a million ISIS supporters in America. If you're in Wisconsin make sure to get out and vote for a trailblazing icon and also volunteer if you can, all Americans can donate and support Baldwin wherever they are.

VOTE VOLUNTEER DONATE SHOP

If you're an American citizen and will be 18 years old (or older) by November 5th 2024, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! make sure you're registered to VOTE please check Vote.Org to find out what you need to do, what deadlines there are and act NOW

If you're an American living outside the US, YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE. Please checkout Vote From Aboard they have literally all the information you need to get registered and get your ballot wherever in the world you are, and Check out Democrats Abroad to take part in the global primary

Where ever you live in the US, there is an important life changing election happening! Get off your phone or computer and get involved, There are Events happening all around you right now Volunteer

Finally if you're a US citizen of any age any where on earth you can donate, donate to elect Biden/Harris donate to elect Democrats to the Senate, To the House, to Governorships, to local office

and the smallest thing you can do is reblog this very long post, thank you!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

MIT libraries are thriving without Elsevier

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you start seeing it everywhere. Democrats – including elected officials – all wanted Biden to step down, but none of them wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.

Patent trolls use bullshit patents to shake down small businesses, demanding "license fees" that are high, but much lower than the cost of challenging the patent and getting it revoked. Collectively, it would be much cheaper for all the victims to band together and hire a fancy law firm to invalidate the patent, but individually, it makes sense for them all to pay. A collective action problem:

https://locusmag.com/2013/11/cory-doctorow-collective-action/

Musicians get royally screwed by Spotify. Collectively, it would make sense for all of them to boycott the platform, which would bring it to its knees and either make it pay more or put it out of business. Individually, any musician who pulls out of Spotify disappears from the horizon of most music fans, so they all hang in – a collective action problem:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/21/off-the-menu/#universally-loathed

Same goes for the businesses that get fucked out of 30% of their app revenues by Apple and Google's mobile business. Without all those apps, Apple and Google wouldn't have a business, but any single app that pulls out commits commercial suicide, so they all hang in there, paying a 30% vig:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

That's also the case with Amazon sellers, who get rooked for 45-51 cents out of every dollar in platform junk fees, and whose prize for succeeding despite this is to have their product cloned by Amazon, which underprices them because it doesn't have to pay a 51% rake on every sale. Without third-party sellers there'd be no Amazon, but it's impossible to get millions of sellers to all pull out at once, so the Bezos crime family scoops up half of the ecommerce economy in bullshit fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

This is why one definition of "corruption" is a system with "concentrated gains and diffuse losses." The company that dumps toxic waste in your water supply reaps all the profits of externalizing its waste disposal costs. The people it poisons each bear a fraction of the cost of being poisoned. The environmental criminal has a fat warchest of ill-gotten gains to use to bribe officials and pay fancy lawyers to defend it in court. Its victims are each struggling with the health effects of the crimes, and even without that, they can't possibly match the polluter's resources. Eventually, the polluter spends enough money to convince the Supreme Court to overturn "Chevron deference" and makes it effectively impossible to win the right to clean water and air (or a planet that's not on fire):

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/us-supreme-courts-chevron-deference-ruling-will-disrupt-climate-policy

Any time you encounter a shitty, outrageous racket that's stable over long timescales, chances are you're looking at a collective action problem. Certainly, that's the underlying pathology that preserves the scholarly publishing scam, which is one of the most grotesque, wasteful, disgusting frauds in our modern world (and that's saying something, because the field is crowded with many contenders).

Here's how the scholarly publishing scam works: academics do original scholarly research, funded by a mix of private grants, public funding, funding from their universities and other institutions, and private funds. These academics write up their funding and send it to a scholarly journal, usually one that's owned by a small number of firms that formed a scholarly publishing cartel by buying all the smaller publishers in a string of anticompetitive acquisitions. Then, other scholars review the submission, for free. More unpaid scholars do the work of editing the paper. The paper's author is sent a non-negotiable contract that requires them to permanently assign their copyright to the journal, again, for free. Finally, the paper is published, and the institution that paid the researcher to do the original research has to pay again – sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per year! – for the journal in which it appears.

The academic publishing cartel insists that the millions it extracts from academic institutions and the billions it reaps in profit are all in service to serving as neutral, rigorous gatekeepers who ensure that only the best scholarship makes it into print. This is flatly untrue. The "editorial process" the academic publishers take credit for is virtually nonexistent: almost everything they publish is virtually unchanged from the final submission format. They're not even typesetting the paper:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00799-018-0234-1

The vetting process for peer-review is a joke. Literally: an Australian academic managed to get his dog appointed to the editorial boards of seven journals:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/olivia-doll-predatory-journals

Far from guarding scientific publishing from scams and nonsense, the major journal publishers have stood up entire divisions devoted to pay-to-publish junk science. Elsevier – the largest scholarly publisher – operated a business unit that offered to publish fake journals full of unreveiwed "advertorial" papers written by pharma companies, packaged to look like a real journal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090504075453/http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/

Naturally, academics and their institutions hate this system. Not only is it purely parasitic on their labor, it also serves as a massive brake on scholarly progress, by excluding independent researchers, academics at small institutions, and scholars living in the global south from accessing the work of their peers. The publishers enforce this exclusion without mercy or proportion. Take Diego Gomez, a Colombian Masters candidate who faced eight years in prison for accessing a single paywalled academic paper:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/colombian-student-faces-prison-charges-sharing-academic-article-online

And of course, there's Aaron Swartz, the young activist and Harvard-affiliated computer scientist who was hounded to death after he accessed – but did not publish – papers from MIT's JSTOR library. Aaron had permission to access these papers, but JSTOR, MIT, and the prosecutors Stephen Heymann and Carmen Ortiz argued that because he used a small computer program to access the papers (rather than clicking on each link by hand) he had committed 13 felonies. They threatened him with more than 30 years in prison, and drew out the proceedings until Aaron was out of funds. Aaron hanged himself in 2013:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Academics know all this terrible stuff is going on, but they are trapped in a collective action problem. For an academic to advance in their field, they have to publish, and they have to get their work cited. Academics all try to publish in the big prestige journals – which also come with the highest price-tag for their institutions – because those are the journals other academics read, which means that getting published is top journal increases the likelihood that another academic will find and cite your work.

If academics could all agree to prioritize other journals for reading, then they could also prioritize other journals for submissions. If they could all prioritize other journals for submissions, they could all prioritize other journals for reading. Instead, they all hold one another hostage, through a wicked collective action problem that holds back science, starves their institutions of funding, and puts their colleagues at risk of imprisonment.

Despite this structural barrier, academics have fought tirelessly to escape the event horizon of scholarly publishing's monopoly black hole. They avidly supported "open access" publishers (most notably PLoS), and while these publishers carved out pockets for free-to-access, high quality work, the scholarly publishing cartel struck back with package deals that bundled their predatory "open access" journals in with their traditional journals. Academics had to pay twice for these journals: first, their institutions paid for the package that included them, then the scholars had to pay open access submission fees meant to cover the costs of editing, formatting, etc – all that stuff that basically doesn't exist.

Academics started putting "preprints" of their work on the web, and for a while, it looked like the big preprint archive sites could mount a credible challenge to the scholarly publishing cartel. So the cartel members bought the preprint sites, as when Elsevier bought out SSRN:

https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/17/disappointing-elsevier-buys-open-access-academic-pre-publisher-ssrn/

Academics were elated in 2011, when Alexandra Elbakyan founded Sci-Hub, a shadow library that aims to make the entire corpus of scholarly work available without barrier, fear or favor:

https://sci-hub.ru/alexandra

Sci-Hub neutralized much of the collective action trap: once an article was available on Sci-Hub, it became much easier for other scholars to locate and cite, which reduced the case for paying for, or publishing in, the cartel's journals:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.14979

The scholarly publishing cartel fought back viciously, suing Elbakyan and Sci-Hub for tens of millions of dollars. Elsevier targeted prepress sites like academia.edu with copyright threats, ordering them to remove scholarly papers that linked to Sci-Hub:

https://svpow.com/2013/12/06/elsevier-is-taking-down-papers-from-academia-edu/

This was extremely (if darkly) funny, because Elsevier's own publications are full of citations to Sci-Hub:

https://eve.gd/2019/08/03/elsevier-threatens-others-for-linking-to-sci-hub-but-does-it-itself/

Meanwhile, scholars kept the pressure up. Tens of thousands of scholars pledged to stop submitting their work to Elsevier:

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

Academics at the very tops of their fields publicly resigned from the editorial board of leading Elsevier journals, and published editorials calling the Elsevier model unethical:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/may/16/system-profit-access-research

And the New Scientist called the racket "indefensible," decrying the it as an industry that made restricting access to knowledge "more profitable than oil":

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032052-900-time-to-break-academic-publishings-stranglehold-on-research/

But the real progress came when academics convinced their institutions, rather than one another, to do something about these predator publishers. First came funders, private and public, who announced that they would only fund open access work:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7

Winning over major funders cleared the way for open access advocates worked both the supply-side and the buy-side. In 2019, the entire University of California system announced it would be cutting all of its Elsevier subscriptions:

https://www.science.org/content/article/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open

Emboldened by the UC system's principled action, MIT followed suit in 2020, announcing that it would no longer send $2m every year to Elsevier:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#nerdfight

It's been four years since MIT's decision to boycott Elsevier, and things are going great. The open access consortium SPARC just published a stocktaking of MIT libraries without Elsevier:

https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base/unbundling-profiles/mit-libraries/

How are MIT's academics getting by without Elsevier in the stacks? Just fine. If someone at MIT needs access to an Elsevier paper, they can usually access it by asking the researchers to email it to them, or by downloading it from the researcher's site or a prepress archive. When that fails, there's interlibrary loan, whereby other libraries will send articles to MIT's libraries within a day or two. For more pressing needs, the library buys access to individual papers through an on-demand service.

This is how things were predicted to go. The libraries used their own circulation data and the webservice Unsub to figure out what they were likely to lose by dropping Elsevier – it wasn't much!

https://unsub.org/

The MIT story shows how to break a collective action problem – through collective action! Individual scholarly boycotts did little to hurt Elsevier. Large-scale organized boycotts raised awareness, but Elsevier trundled on. Sci-Hub scared the shit out of Elsevier and raised awareness even further, but Elsevier had untold millions to spend on a campaign of legal terror against Sci-Hub and Elbakyan. But all of that, combined with high-profile defections, made it impossible for the big institutions to ignore the issue, and the funders joined the fight. Once the funders were on-side, the academic institutions could be dragged into the fight, too.

Now, Elsevier – and the cartel – is in serious danger. Automated tools – like the Authors Alliance termination of transfer tool – lets academics get the copyright to their papers back from the big journals so they can make them open access:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

Unimaginably vast indices of all scholarly publishing serve as important adjuncts to direct access shadow libraries like Sci-Hub:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#cornucopia-concordance

Collective action problems are never easy to solve, but they're impossible to address through atomized, individual action. It's only when we act as a collective that we can defeat the corruption – the concentrated gains and diffuse losses – that allow greedy, unscrupulous corporations to steal from us, wreck our lives and even imprison us.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier

[somerandomg33k]

Do you know that you need money for Gas and Groceries? Well, yea, you do. And the Democrats isn't going to change that. Maybe they will help you if you need help. But only if you past the "means testing." That is usually the Democrats plan.

[black-fist-order]

This gentleman was a college professor in political science. He gives some intriguing insights here...

"Friends,

A political disaster such as what occurred Tuesday gains significance not simply by virtue of who won or lost, but through how the election is interpreted.

This is known as The Lesson of the election.

The Lesson explains what happened and why. It deciphers the public’s mood, values, and thoughts. It attributes credit and blame.

And therein lies its power. When The Lesson of the election becomes accepted wisdom — when most of the politicians, pundits, and politicians come to believe it — it shapes the future. It determines how parties, candidates, political operatives, and journalists approach future elections.

There are many reasons for what occurred on Tuesday and for what the outcome should teach America — about where the nation is and about what Democrats should do in the future.

Yet inevitably, one Lesson predominates.

Today, I want to share with you six conventional “lessons” you will hear for Tuesday’s outcome. None is or should be considered The Lesson of the 2024 election.

Then I’ll give you what I consider the real Lesson of the election.

None of these are The Lesson of the 2024 election:

1. "It was a total repudiation of the Democratic Party, a major realignment."

Rubbish. Harris would have won had there been a small, less than 1 percent vote shift in the three main battleground states. The biggest shift from 2020 and 2016 was among Latino men. We don’t know yet whether Latino men will return to the Democrats; if they don’t, they will contribute to a small realignment.

But the fact is America elected Trump in 2016, almost reelected him in 2020, and elected him again in 2024. We haven't changed much, at least in terms of whom we vote for.

2. "If the Dems want to win in the future, they have to move to the right. They should stop talking about 'democracy,' forget 'multiculturalism,' and end their focus on women’s rights, transgender rights, immigrants’ rights, voting rights, civil rights, and America’s shameful history of racism and genocide. Instead, push to strengthen families, cut taxes, allow school choice and prayer in public schools, reduce immigration, minimize our obligations abroad, and put America and Americans first."

Wrong. Democrats shouldn’t move to the right if that means giving up on democracy, social justice, civil rights, and equal voting rights. While Democrats might reconsider their use of “identity” politics (in which people are viewed primarily through the lenses of race, ethnicity, or gender), Democrats must not lose the moral ideals at the heart of the Party and at the core of America.

3. "Republicans won because of misinformation and right-wing propaganda. They won over young men because of a vicious alliance between Trump and a vast network of online influencers and podcasts appealing to them. The answer is for Democrats to cultivate an equivalent media ecosystem that rivals what the right has built."

Partly true. Misinformation and right-wing propaganda did play a role, particularly in reaching young men. But this hardly means progressives and Democrats should fill the information ecosystem with misinformation or left-wing propaganda. Better messaging, yes. Lies and bigotry, no.

We should use our power as consumers to boycott X and all advertisers on X and on Fox News, mount defamation and other lawsuits against platforms that foment hate, and push for regulations (at least at the state level for now) requiring that all platforms achieve minimum standards of moderation and decency.

4. "Republicans cheated. Trump, Putin, and election deniers at county and precinct levels engaged in a vast conspiracy to suppress votes."

I doubt it. Putin tried, but so far there’s no sign that the Kremlin affected any voting process. There is little or no evidence of widespread cheating by Republicans. Dems should not feed further conspiracy theories about fraudulent voting or tallying. For the most part, the system worked smoothly, and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to election workers and state officials in charge of the process.

5. "Harris ran a lousy campaign. She wasn’t a good communicator. She fudged and shifted her positions on issues. She was weighed down by Biden and didn’t sufficiently separate herself from him."

Untrue. Harris ran a good campaign, but she had only a little over three months to do it. She had to introduce herself to the nation (typically a vice president is almost invisible within an administration) at the same time Trump’s antics sucked most of the oxygen out of the political air. She could have been clearer about her proposals and policies and embraced economic populism (see below on the real lesson), but her debate with Trump was the best debate performance I’ve ever witnessed, and her speeches were pitch perfect. Biden may have weighed her down a bit, but his decision to step down was gracious and selfless.

6. "Racism and misogyny. Voters were simply not prepared to elect a Black female president."

Partly true. Surely racism and misogyny played a role, but bigotry can’t offer a full explanation.

--

Here’s the real Lesson of the 2024 election:

On Tuesday, according to exit polls, Americans voted mainly on the economy — and their votes reflected their class and level of education.

While the economy has improved over the last two years according to standard economic measures, most Americans without college degrees — that’s the majority — have not felt it.

In fact, most Americans without college degrees have not felt much economic improvement for four decades, and their jobs have grown less secure. The real median wage of the bottom 90 percent is stuck nearly where it was in the early 1990s, even though the economy is more than twice as large.

Most of the economy’s gains have gone to the top.

This has caused many Americans to feel frustrated and angry. Trump gave voice to that anger. Harris did not.

The real lesson of the 2024 election is that Democrats must not just give voice to the anger but also explain how record inequality has corrupted our system, and pledge to limit the political power of big corporations and the super-rich.

The basic bargain used to be that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you’d do better and your children would do even better than you.

But since 1980, that bargain has become a sham. The middle class has shrunk.

Why? While Republicans steadily cut taxes on the wealthy, Democrats abandoned the working class.

Democrats embraced NAFTA and lowered tariffs on Chinese goods. They deregulated finance and allowed Wall Street to become a high-stakes gambling casino. They let big corporations gain enough market power to keep prices (and profit margins) high.

They let corporations bust unions (with negligible penalties) and slash payrolls. They bailed out Wall Street when its gambling addiction threatened to blow up the entire economy but never bailed out homeowners who lost everything.

They welcomed big money into their campaigns — and delivered quid pro quos that rigged the market in favor of big corporations and the wealthy.

Joe Biden redirected the Democratic Party back toward its working-class roots, but many of the changes he catalyzed — more vigorous antitrust enforcement, stronger enforcement of labor laws, and major investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, semiconductors, and non-fossil fuels — wouldn’t be evident for years, and he could not communicate effectively about them.

The Republican Party says it’s on the side of working people, but its policies will hurt ordinary workers even more. Trump’s tariffs will drive up prices. His expected retreat from vigorous antitrust enforcement will allow giant corporations to drive up prices further.

If Republicans gain control over the House as well as the Senate, as looks likely, they will extend Trump’s 2017 tax law and add additional tax cuts. As in 2017, these lower taxes will benefit mainly the wealthy and enlarge the national debt, which will give Republicans an excuse to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — their objectives for decades.

Democrats must no longer do the bidding of big corporations and the wealthy. They must instead focus on winning back the working class.

They should demand paid family leave, Medicare for all, free public higher education, stronger unions, higher taxes on great wealth, and housing credits that will generate the biggest boom in residential home construction since World War II.

They should also demand that corporations share their profits with their workers. They should call for limits on CEO pay, eliminate all stock buybacks (as was the SEC rule before 1982), and reject corporate welfare (subsidies and tax credit to particular companies and industries unrelated to the common good).

Democrats need to tell Americans why their pay has been lousy for decades and their jobs less secure: not because of immigrants, liberals, people of color, the “deep state,” or any other Trump Republican bogeyman, but because of the power of large corporations and the rich to rig the market and siphon off most of the economy’s gains.

In doing this, Democrats need not turn their backs on democracy. Democracy goes hand-in-hand with a fair economy. Only by reducing the power of big money in our politics can America grow the middle class, reward hard work, and reaffirm the basic bargain at the heart of our system.

If the Trump Republicans gain control of the House, as seems likely, they will have complete control of the federal government. That means they will own whatever happens to the economy and will be responsible for whatever happens to America. Notwithstanding all their anti-establishment populist rhetoric, they will become the establishment.

The Democratic Party should use this inflection point to shift ground — from being the party of well-off college graduates, big corporations, “never-Tumpers” like Dick Cheney, and vacuous “centrism” — to an anti-establishment party ready to shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of Americans.

This is and should be The Lesson of the 2024 election.

What do you think...?"

Robert Reich...

[probablyasocialecologist]

In the last four years, mainstream Democrats have: nominated a former prosecutor for president; elected an ex-NYPD officer to run New York City; campaigned on deporting more people; funneled money and weapons to regimes committing war crimes; overseen the beatings and arrests of people demanding police reform; sent more police officers to wallop students protesting for Palestinian rights; ratcheted up the War on Drugs; worked with major corporate retailers to arrest more shoplifters; filed racketeering and conspiracy charges against police-reform protesters in Atlanta; made it easier to arrest New Yorkers and Californians with mental illness; defended the use of solitary confinement; supported a landmark Supreme Court case to let cops arrest unhoused people; tried to imprison one of the world’s most famous rappers; promised to build Donald Trump’s border wall; ran endless ads about Trump’s criminal record; and applauded as the president chanted “Fund the Police!” during his most-watched yearly address.  And yet, after an election last week in which voters all but screamed that the Democratic Party is moving in the wrong direction, centrist and conservative pundits have drawn the opposite conclusion: The Democrats are, somehow, still too soft on crime.  The belief persists against all logic: Four years of proudly Backing The Blue, at a minimum, failed to help Democratic voter turnout—and likely depressed votes from progressives. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s mythical moderate Republican voters, whom the party molded its entire platform to pursue, did not arrive to carry the party to the finish line. Instead, the pro-cop platform seems to have done nothing but legitimize Republican grievances and hand Trump a bolstered police and surveillance state. Despite this, many of the Democratic Party’s staunchest defenders seem to think the only way forward is to become even more like Republicans—rather than offer voters anything different at all.

[...]

The party’s love-fest with police and prosecutors appears to have done less than nothing to gin up votes or change the party’s overall perception. But mainstream Democrats are now arrogantly digging in their heels instead of learning any lessons.

13 November 2024

[creativemedianews]

Why do the US political parties hold presidential conventions?

Why do the US political parties hold presidential conventions? #2024election #Chicagoconvention #conventionhistory

[genderkoolaid]

Aug 19, 2024

The Democratic Party released on Sunday its official platform for the 2024 presidential election, omitting language from the 2020 platform that stated a commitment to “protect the lives of sex workers. Both the 2020 and the 2024 platforms contain sections titled "Ending Violence Against Women," in which Democrats commit to "ending sexual assault, domestic abuse and other violence against women." The 2020 platform voted by the convention that nominated President Joe Biden, however, included the following passage: “We recognize that sex workers, who are disproportionately women of color and transgender women, face especially high rates of sexual assault and violence, and we will work with states and localities to protect the lives of sex workers.” The 2024 version released over the weekend, expected to be approved at the Democratic National Convention currently taking place in Chicago, omits the statement recognizing the existence of sex workers and stating a commitment to protect their lives. As XBIZ reported, Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, has been widely criticized by both sex worker and adult industry activists and organizations for her vocal support of, and prosecution of cases under, the controversial FOSTA-SESTA legislation. In a 2019 interview, Harris claimed to support decriminalization of sex work, but described her approach in terms that contradict that claim and instead closely match the criminalizing Nordic Model. Harris said that as San Francisco district attorney, she advocated “to stop arresting these prostitutes and instead go after the johns, and the pimps.” Harris’ conflation of “the johns” — a tellingly outdated word for those who pay for sexual services — and “the pimps” — which in practice includes anyone who helps a sex worker in any way, regardless of coercion — is a common strategy of both outright prohibitionists and the supporters of the “Nordic Model” of sex work. The Nordic Model technically decriminalizes the selling of sexual services by sex workers, it ramps up penalties and enforcement focus for any third party profiting off of the sex worker (categorized as pimping) and for buyers of sexual services. Its goal is to end sex work in all forms and “rescue” sex workers, whom it considers as invariably exploited. In practice, the Nordic Model drives sex work underground, forcing sex workers to operate in a shadowy, hazardous environment.

[mariacallous]

Democrats are charging out of their national convention with enthusiasm and determination ― and in far better shape than seemed possible just a few weeks ago, when then-presumptive nominee President Joe Biden was headed for likely defeat.

Vice President Kamala Harris has wiped out Biden’s deficit in the polls, and now holds small but discernible leads over Donald Trump in both national and swing state surveys. She’s also expanded the electoral map, putting in play states such as North Carolina that seemed lost to Democrats when Biden was leading the ticket. As of this writing, Nate Silver’s predictive model suggests Harris is a 52.8% favorite to win.

It will take a few days for pollsters to figure out whether Harris got the traditional convention bounce, pushing her support even higher, or whether she got a version of it beforehand via the burst of activity and favorable press coverage around her campaign launch.

Either way, it’s hard to look back on the week in Chicago and deem it anything but a smashing political success, from the (still reverberating) call to arms by former first lady Michelle Obama to the (still circulating) sight of Gus Walz, son of vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim, tearfully telling the crowd “that’s my dad!”

Harris, for her part, gave what my colleague Jen Bendery’s story called the “speech of her life.” Plenty of other analysts rendered similar judgments.

With a passionate, near-flawless delivery, Harris introduced herself as the daughter of immigrants who valued virtue and hard work, promising to fight for the middle class and vowing to protect democracy. She wrapped herself metaphorically in the flag and what she thinks it represents to the nation’s non-MAGA majority. The laser focus on trying to win over swing voters was impossible to miss, in part because it was such an overriding theme all week ― whether through cultural symbolism (like having the aging veterans of Walz’s championship high school football team appear on stage) or more overt outreach (like having former House Republican Adam Kinzinger give a prime-time address).

But the appeal to the political middle had some telling substantive elements too.

Insofar as Harris and Democrats talked about policy, they focused on causes such as bringing down prescription drug prices, providing paid leave or helping families to pay for child care ― ambitions considerably more modest than the loftier, more progressive “Medicare for All” calls that dominated the last Democratic presidential campaign and to which Harris herself once pledged fealty. Harris also went out of her way to back a bipartisan immigration bill that would tighten security without creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already here, which is a provision progressives have frequently called essential.

The platform evolved, with party leaders scrubbing a call to end the death penalty ― quietly, until my colleague Jessica Schulberg found out about it. They also refused requests to feature a Palestinian speaker on the conflict in Gaza. That part wasn’t so quiet, or unanticipated. In fact, the prospect of protests and disruptions over Biden’s support for Israel had fueled speculation that Chicago 2024 was going to end up as tumultuous as Chicago 1968. But as HuffPost’s Daniel Marans and Jonathan Nicholson observed, the fissures never blew up into 1968-style conflicts ― not over Gaza, or any other issues for that matter. On the contrary, the Democrats seemed improbably and almost impossibly unified, with would-be progressive dissidents like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) sounding downright giddy about the Harris-Walz ticket.

What explains this unified enthusiasm? Three likely reasons come to mind. One in particular has a lot to do with how the party has changed in recent years ― and what it might be able to do if Harris manages to win.

Democrats In Array

One of these likely reasons is the threat Trump poses to individual liberties, the rule of law and democracy — threats progressives feel every bit as keenly as the more moderates in the party. These threats almost certainly seem even more menacing now after so many months watching Biden struggle.

Staring into the political abyss this way has been known to focus the mind.

Another possible factor is Harris’ identity. Electing the first woman president, not to mention the first Black woman and the first Asian woman, would have obvious symbolic value. But it would also have more practical effects — namely, bringing a new perspective to the presidency and making it easier for other women, and other nonwhite politicians, to make their own way to the Oval Office.

Progressives almost by definition care about these things, enough that it can help counterbalance appeal for politicians who see the ticket as less progressive than they might like. Barack Obama in 2008 benefited from just such a dynamic, as The New York Times’ David Leonhardt pointed out on Friday: “He was more moderate than some other Democratic candidates that year, yet he still excited many progressives.”

Harris notably hasn’t talked about herself as groundbreaker, and the campaign hasn’t made that possibility a focus in the way that, say, Hillary Clinton’s did in 2016. But that’s of a piece with Harris’ broader strategy since appeals tied to race or class can alienate some of the swing voters she’s trying to win. The voters who feel otherwise, meanwhile, don’t need reminders.

This brings us to the third, and potentially most important, theory for progressive enthusiasm: Democrats have gotten an awful lot done since Biden took office. An awful lot of it consisted of initiatives or reforms progressives have long championed. And most importantly, it all happened with progressives having a big seat at the table.

The most significant and visible of these accomplishments was the clean green energy investments of the Inflation Reduction Act, which add up (arguably) to the most important climate change legislation in history, plus the law’s health care provisions, which for the first time gave the federal government leverage over the prices of some high-priced drugs in Medicare.

But the list goes beyond that, to the appointment of aggressively pro-consumer and pro-labor officials at key federal agencies, and the burst of spending during the pandemic that (whatever its real or theorized effects on inflation) drove both unemployment and child poverty down to near-record levels.

All of these feel well short of the kinds of transformations progressives would prefer with, say, enactment of “Medicare for All.” But they had, are having or will have tangible, measurable effects on people’s lives — and are examples of the kind of achievements that might be possible if Harris wins and Democrats have control of both congressional houses again.

It so happens that these are also the kinds of achievements that animate up-and-coming party leaders, even if they are not members of the progressive wing — figures like Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, or Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia. Not coincidentally, all gave Harris rousing endorsements in prime- time speeches.

But that too is part of the story about unity: The party’s “moderate” wing today feels pretty strongly about using the federal government to make people’s lives better, just as it does about protecting the freedoms Trump threatens. They may emphasize it differently — focusing more exclusively on the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy manufacturing jobs, for example, and a bit less on its environmental impact. They still land in the same place on policy.

Whether these good feelings would carry through enough to enact a legislative agenda is obviously a separate question and one that is very secondary to the question of whether Democrats even get that opportunity.

The presidential race is still a toss-up, or maybe even a bit worse than that for Harris if the polling now is missing Trump votes the way it did in 2016 and again in 2020. Republicans remain by most accounts a slight favorite to hold at least one house of Congress.

But Harris is coming out of Chicago on a roll, with a party behind her as she reaches out to the swing voters she needs to win. That’s a pretty good place to be.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Talking (U.S.) Politics

I'm frustrated by the Mainstream Press following Trump's lead and complaining that Kamala Harris hasn't held a press conference, yet, to talk about specifics of her policy positions, or campaign party platform.

For all the presidential campaigns I remember, from my lifetime (starting in 1976), presidential candidates never finalized their campaign platforms or policy positions until after their national conventions (figuring out what the campaign platforms should be is the main reason for holding a convention, in the first place -- that's where the party delegates, who were voted for in the primaries, meet to reach consensus on the platform in the first place).

And the Democratic National Convention doesn't even start until August 19, 2024 (it's August 17 as I type this).

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Conservatives are fringe outliers - and leftists could learn from them

The Republican Party, a coalition between Big Business farmers and turkeys who’ll vote for Christmas (Red Scare obsessed cowards, apocalyptic white nationalists, religious fanatics, etc) has fallen to its bizarre, violent, noisy radical wing, who are obsessed with policies that are completely irrelevant to the majority of Americans.

As Oliver Willis writes, the views of the radical right — which are also the policies of the GOP — are wildly out of step with the US political view:

https://www.oliverexplains.com/p/conservatives-arent-like-normal-americans

The press likes to frame American politics as “narrowly divided,” but the reality is that Republicans’ electoral victories are due to voter suppression and antimajoritarian institutions (the Senate and Electoral College, etc), not popularity. Democrats consistently outperform the GOP in national races. Dems won majorities in 1992/6, and beat the GOP in 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020. The only presidential race the GOP won on popular votes since 1988 was 2004, when GW Bush eked out a plurality (not a majority).

But, as Willis says, Dems “act like it is 1984 and that they are outliers in a nation of Reagan voters,” echoing a stilted media narrative. The GOP’s platform just isn’t popular. Take the groomer panic: 71% of Americans approve of same-sex marriage. The people losing their shit about queer people are a strange, tiny minority.

Every one of the GOP’s tentpole issues is wildly unpopular: expanding access to assault rifles, banning immigration, lowering taxes on the rich, cutting social programs, forcing pregnant people to bear unwanted children, etc. This is true all the way up to the GOP’s coalescing support for Trump as their 2024 candidate. Trump has lost every popular vote he’s ever stood for, and owes his term in the Oval Office to the antimajoritarian Electoral College system, gerrymandering, and massive voter suppression.

Willis correctly points out that Dem leaders are basically “normal” center-right politicians, not radicals. And, unlike their GOP counterparts, politicians like Clinton, Obama and Biden don’t hide their disdain for the radical wing of their party. Even never-Trumper Republicans are afraid of their base. Romney declared himself “severely conservative” and McCain “put scare quotes around ‘health of the mother’ provisions for abortion rights.”

The GOP fringe imposes incredible discipline on their leaders. Take all the nonsense about “woke capitalism”: on the one hand, it’s absurd to call union-busting, tax-dodging, worker-screwing companies “woke” (even if they sell Pride flags for a couple of weeks every year).

But on the other hand? The GOP leadership have actually declared war on the biggest corporations in America, to the point that the WSJ says that “Republicans and Big Business broke up”:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-corporations-donations-pacs-9b5b202b

But America is a two-party system and there are plenty of people who’ll pull the lever for any Republican. This means that when the GOP comes under the control of its swivel-eyed loon wing, the swivel-eyed loons wield power far beyond the number of people who agree with them.

There’s an important lesson there for Dems, whose establishment is volubly proud of its independence from its voters. The Biden administration is a weirdly perfect illustration of this “independence.” The Biden admin is a kind of referee, doling out policies and appointments to its competing wings, without any coherence or consistency.

That’s how you get incredible appointments like Lina Khan at the FTC and Jonathan Kanter at the DoJ Antitrust Division and Rohit Chopra at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureat — the progressive wing of the party bargained for these key appointments and then played their cards very well, getting incredible, hard-charging, hyper-competent fighters in those roles.

Likewise, Jared Bernstein, finally confirmed as Council of Economic Advisers chair after an interminable wrangle:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-06-16-team-biden/

And Julie Su, acting labor secretary, who just delivered a six-year contract to west coast dockworkers with 8–10% raises in the first year, paid retroactively for the year they worked without a contract:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/06/14/statement-from-president-biden-on-labor-agreement-at-west-coast-ports/

But the Biden admin’s unwillingness to side with one wing of the party also produces catastrophic failures, like the martyrdom of Gigi Sohn, who was subjected to years of vicious personal attacks while awaiting confirmation to the FCC, undefended by the Biden admin, left to twist in the wind until she gave it up as a bad job:

https://doctorow.medium.com/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband-4ce1ffb16dc5

It’s how we get key roles filled by do-nothing seatwarmers like Pete Buttigieg, who has the same sweeping powers that Lina Khan is wielding so deftly at the FTC, but who lacks either the will or the skill to wield those same powers at the Department of Transport:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

By refusing to stand for anything except a fair division of powers among different Democratic Party blocs, the Biden admin ends up undercutting itself. Take right to repair, a centerpiece of the administration’s agenda, subject of a historic executive order and FTC regulation:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

Right to Repair fights have been carried out at the state level for years, with the biggest victory coming in Massachusetts, where an automotive R2R ballot initiative won overwhelming support in 2020:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/13/said-no-one-ever/#r2r

But despite the massive support for automotive right to repair in the Bay State, Big Car has managed to delay the implementation of the new law for years, tying up the state in expensive, time-consuming litigation:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/26/nixing-the-fix/#r2r

But eventually, even the most expensive delaying tactic fails. Car manufacturers were set to come under the state right to repair rule this month, but they got a last minute reprieve, from Biden’s own National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who sent urgent letters to every major car manufacturer, telling them to ignore the Massachusetts repair law:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7bbkv/biden-administration-tells-car-companies-to-ignore-right-to-repair-law-people-overwhelmingly-voted-for

The NHTSA repeats the car lobby’s own scare stories about “cybersecurity” that they blitzed to Massachusetts voters in the runup to the ballot initiative:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms

The idea that cybersecurity is best maintained by letting powerful corporations gouge you on service and parts is belied by independent experts, like SecuRepairs, who do important work countering the FUD thrown off by the industry (and parroted by Biden’s NHTSA):

https://securepairs.org/

Independent security experts are clear that letting owners of high-tech devices decide who fixes them, what software they run, etc, makes us safer:

https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2022/01/letter-to-the-us-senate-judiciary-committee-on-app-stores.html

But here we are: the Biden admin is sabotaging the Biden admin, because the Biden admin isn’t an administration, it’s a system for ensuring proportional representation of different parts of the Democratic Party coalition.

This isn’t just bad for policy, it’s bad politics, too. It presumes that if some Democratic voters want pizza, and others want hamburgers, that you can please everyone by serving up pizzaburgers. No one wants a pizzaburger:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/23/narrative-warfare/#giridharadas

The failure to deliver a coherent, muscular vision for a climate-ready, anti-Gilded Age America has left the Democrats vulnerable. Because while the radical proposals of the GOP fringe may not enjoy much support, there are large majorities of Americans who have lost faith in the status quo and are totally uninterested in the Pizzaburger Party.

Nowhere is this better explained than in Naomi Klein’s superb long-form article on RFK Jr’s presidential bid in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/14/ignoring-robert-f-kennedy-jr-not-an-option

Don’t get me wrong, RFK Jr is a Very Bad Politician, for all the reasons that Klein lays out. He’s an anti-vaxxer, a conspiracist, and his support for ending American military aggression, defending human rights, and addressing the climate emergency is laughably thin.

But as Klein points out, RFK Jr is not peddling pizzaburgers. He is tapping into a legitimate rage:

a great many voters are hurting and rightfully angry: about powerful corporations controlling their democracy and profiting off disease and poverty. About endless wars draining national coffers and maiming their kids. About stagnating wages and soaring costs. This is the world — inflamed on every level — that the two-party duopoly has knowingly created.

RFK Jr is campaigning against “the corrupt merger between state and corporate power,” against drug monopolies setting our national health agenda, and polluters capturing environmental regulators.

As Klein says, despite RFK Jr’s willing to say the unsayable, and tap into the yearning among the majority of American voters for something different, he’s not running a campaign rooted in finally telling the American public “the truth.” Rather, “public discourse filled with unsayable and unspeakable subjects is fertile territory for all manner of hucksters positioning themselves as uniquely courageous truth tellers.”

We’ve been here before. Remember Trump campaigning against a “rigged system” and promising to “make America great again?” Remember Clinton’s rejoinder that “America was already great?” It’s hard to imagine a worse response to legitimate outrage — over corporate capture, declining wages and living conditions; and spiraling health, education and shelter costs.

Sure, it was obvious that Trump was a beneficiary of the rigged system, and that he would rig it further, but at least he admitted it was rigged, not “already great.”

The Democratic Party is not in thrall to labor unions, or racial equality activists, or people who care about gender justice or the climate emergency. Unlike the GOP, the Dem establishment has figured out how to keep a grip on power within their own party — at the expense of exercising power in America, even when they hold office.

But unlike culture war nonsense, shared prosperity, fairness, care, and sound environmental policies are very popular in America. Some people have been poisoned against politics altogether and sunk into nihilism, while others have been duped into thinking that America can’t afford to look after its people.

In this regard, winning the American electorate is a macrocosm for the way labor activists win union majorities in the workplaces they organize. In her memoir A Collective Bargain, Jane McAlevey describes how union organizers contend with everything that progressive politicians must overcome. A union drive takes place in the teeth of unfair laws, on a tilted playing field that allows bosses to gerrymander some workers’ votes and suppress others’ altogether. These bosses have far more resources than the workers, and they spend millions on disinformation campaigns, forcing workers to attend long propaganda sessions on pain of dismissal.

https://doctorow.medium.com/a-collective-bargain-a48925f944fe

But despite all this, labor organizers win union elections and strike votes, and they do so with stupendous majorities — 95% or higher. This is how the most important labor victories of our day were won: the 2019 LA teachers’ strike won everything. Not just higher wages, but consellors in schools, mandatory greenspace for every school in LA, an end to ICE shakedowns of immigrant parents at the school-gate, and immigration law help for students and their families. What’s more, the teachers used their unity, their connection to the community, and their numbers to get out the vote in the next election, winning the marginal seats that delivered 2020’s Democratic Congressional majority.

As I wrote in my review of MacAlevey’s book:

For McAlevey, saving America is just a scaled up version of the union organizer’s day-job. First, we fix the corrupt union, firing its sellout leaders and replacing them with fighters. Then, we organize supermajorities, person-to-person, in a methodical, organized fashion. Then we win votes, using those supermajorities to overpower the dirty tricks that rig the elections against us. Then we stay activated, because winning the vote is just the start of the fight.

It’s a far cry from the Democratic Party consultant’s “data-driven” microtargeting strategy based on eking out tiny, fragile majorities with Facebook ads. That’s a strategy that fails in the face of even a small and disorganized voter-suppression campaign — it it’s doomed in today’s all-out assault on fair elections.

What’s more, the consultants’ microtargeting strategy treats people as if the only thing they have to contribute is casting a ballot every couple years. A sleeping electorate will never win the fights that matter — the fight to save our planet, and to abolish billionaires.

If only the Democratic Party was as scared of its base as the Republicans are of their own.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

[Image ID: The title page of Richard Hofstadter's 'Paranoid Style in American Politics' from the November, 1964 issue of Harper's Magazine. A John Birch Society pin reading 'This is REPUBLIC not a DEMOCRACY: let's keep it that way' sits atop the page, obscuring the introductory paragraph.]

[walks-the-ages]

If I didn't mention it, I'll be voting for Jasmine Sherman (they/them) in November, Because they already have Ballot Access in 48 states , as opposed to Jill Stein who currently only has ~23 states with Ballot Access.

EDIT:

Someone has commented to point out that while Jasmine Sherman's website lists out 48 states that they're on the Ballot for, there's no sources given for this information, and right now, while its only wikipedia articles, neither of us can find any ballot access map or list not on their website that confirms that information independantly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_access_in_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Green_Party_presidential_primaries#Declared_candidates

Jasmine Sherman's own "how to vote for us" section of their website encourages people to use Ballotpedia, they're only listed as being on the ballot for one state , while the Presidential Election 2024 page does not list them at all and neither does their ballot-access tracker at politico:

Jasmine Sherman's website also lists them as being on the ballot under the Unicorn Party.... but I have not seen any list anywhere that list where the Unicorn Party is on the ballot except for their website.

There's also the fact that their website's policy on the Death Penalty not only supports it, but wants it to be either by Morphine Overdose or fucking Firing Squad with only 1 year of appeals??? There's a footnote above it that says their position has changed and they're leaving the original policy up for preservation but like...

.. you can't run for President saying you want the Death Penalty to be done by Firing Squad of all fucking things when people almost universally hate the death penalty (not least of which because it kills so many innocents) and then just leave a note that you changed your mind but not what your new official stance is????

https://jasminesherman.com/death-penalty-policy/ [note at top of Policy page] *Jasmine wishes to inform the readers that this post is being preserved to uphold transparency. While the death penalty contradicts the Green Party’s platform, it would be disingenuous to ignore the evolution of Jasmine’s stance on this matter. Their transition from previous support to a different standpoint is noteworthy, highlighting that a candidate’s position is not solely driven by personal preferences but also reflects the desires of their constituents. [Policy] Purpose: Institute a federal standard for capital punishment. Scope: Encourage states to be more efficient with resources surrounding the enforcement of “Capital Punishment.” Our policy: Capital Punishment – is to be reserved for those convicted of mass killing and serial killer events only. Due process is to take no more than one calendar year. There should be two options available for the execution; morphine overdose or firing squad. All other capital punishment cases will remain as they are or will be subject to incorporation into the Unicorn Party’s “Restorative Justice Treatment Program”. Definitions: Mass Killing Event: A multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered by any means, within one event, and in one or more locations in close proximity. Serial Killing: The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.

So, uhhhhh, yeah. If you want to kill people who are Officially Criminals by Firing Squad I don't really think you can be trusted to be thinking in terms of humane death or punishment. Note how the website does not include what their official new position is at all, when that's literally what the Policy page is for!

If you believe in Restorative Justice and universal healthcare because everyone deserves the right to life .... if you truely believe in that how can you support the Death Penalty at all, let alone by such barbaric methods?

There's also the "Policy" about "Rights of Sentient Beings" that says

"The majority of research does suggest that primarily plant based consumption for humans is ideal. This doesn’t include those with disabilities or health phenomenons we do not understand.

which.... from almost everything I've read out there published by actual medical professionals, unless you're going out of your way to eat very specific things each and every day, you're going to run into nutritional deficiencies and need to take supplements if you're going vegetarian or vegan! In fact, you have to as much as double your iron intake on a plant-based diet because the iron we get from plants isn't as digestible as the one we get from meat. Because. You know. we're literally omnivores for a reason.

SO! After doing some more deep dives into their actual policies (such as they are), and looking deeper into the supposed-ballot access, Jasmine Sherman is not a candidate I will be voting for.

You can advocate for the humane treatment of animals without insisting that all humans except disabled people are perfectly capable of healthily living on a vegan diet, because that's simply not true without supplaments or a vastly increased access to a variety of foods, and if you truly believe in abolishing the criminal-justice system, there's no way in fucking hell you would support the Death Penalty.

Like I said in my longer version of this post (which is still relevant, check out the reblogs), voting third partym eans being adaptable and doing research in pursuit of a Free Palestine , which means, until we can get some independant verification of Jasmine Sherman having ballot access in 48 states, (and an actual proven change on that horrific stance on Capital Punishment!!!!), it is back to Jill Stein for me.

Unlike Jasmine Sherman, Jill Stein actually wants to abolish the Death Pentalty entirely, and has a long list of changes she plans to implement for restorative justice if elected:

[thebreakfastgenie]

It’s dangerous because you should be voting for people who have polices that you like. Under Biden this country has gone to shit. Kamala was in charge of the boarder and it was horrendously run. She is an ag who locked up the most black people for minor offenses in ca history. you supported blm now you’re gonna vote for someone that locked up a ton of them for minor offenses. she’s not good at her job and if she wasn’t a democrat black women id guarantee you would not vote for her you’d trash her. Look up who you vote for on neutral websites before casting your vote. And most don’t like that they bypassed a primary and the rich and powerful got to hand pick your candidate for you. So much for defending democracy am I right?

I’m not happy about bypassing a primary either, but what’s done is done. There is no path forward now that gives the primary voters a say. I voted for Kamala Harris for Vice-President in 2020. I voted for President Biden in the 2024 primary and he endorsed Vice-President Harris. Democratic voters are rallying behind her by choice because we don’t want to waste time fighting each other or open ourselves up to Republican attack. We want to beat Trump. You're underestimating how callously partisan I am this year. I want to beat Trump. Everything else comes after.

But let's talk about you. This message isn't just badly type, it seems reads like a response to a post, but none of my popular political posts are that post. I haven't really talked about Kamala Harris being a Black woman, because although it is significant because the base of the Democratic Party is Black women they've already begun incredible organizing for Harris, the most relevant point to me and the point I have chosen to focus on is that Harris is the candidate endorsed by the president, with access to the president's campaign funds, and has quickly secured united support, averting chaos. I was against Biden leaving the reason because I was terrified of chaos. I do support BLM and I'm sure I reblogged posts about it at the peak of that movement's mainstream attention, but most of the content on my blog is not BLM posts. A lot of my posts about racism and antiracism take a more academic stance. This ask feels like a copypasta, something you just sent to any Democrats you saw supporting VP Harris. I wonder why you'd want to undermine support for VP Harris. Could it be that chaos I'm so afraid of? Could it be because you want Trump to win? I mean, you didn't say anything about Trump in this ask. Not even a cursory "of course Trump is bad but." You do go in on "defending democracy," which is a big priority for a lot of Democratic voters. It's almost like you're trying to dissuade people who care about that from supporting/voting for VP Harris. I wonder why?

But this is what really sticks out to me:

Look up who you vote for on neutral websites before you cast your vote.

"Neutral websites?" What exactly are these neutral websites, pray tell? You certainly didn't provide any examples. There's just something about this phrasing that's incredibly strange. This is not, in my experience, the way leftists with left criticisms of Democratic candidates approach this issue.

All this is giving me the gut feeling that this anon is a troll designed to suppress support for VP Harris and the Democratic Party. Maybe a human troll, maybe a bot, but the goal is the same. If I get more asks like this I might just delete them so as not to platform them, but I wanted to post this one so everyone could see what I'm talking about.