Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[Keith&Co.]

So you can't explain then. Good to know.

You forgot to put on your 'surprised' face.

 

[KeepTalking]

It would help if you actually knew what BDS was and what it entails. I'm not holding my breath.

If I had to guess based on what Loren and Angelo have to say, it must mean "Bomb, Destory, Suffocate", right?

I mean, it certainly can't stand for "Boycott, Divest, Sanction", as those are perfectly normal, internationally recognized peaceful means of exerting pressure on nation-states that may be involved in bad things like occupying neighboring populations.

 

[lpetrich]

After getting reconciled with AOC, Nancy Pelosi is getting reconciled with another Squad member.
Ilhan Omar on Twitter: "They said “send her back” but Speaker @SpeakerPelosi didn’t just make arrangements to send me back, she went back with me
So grateful for the honor to return to Mother Africa with the @TheBlackCaucus and commemorate The Year of Return!
#Doorofreturn #Ghana https://t.co/0yVBLcAEs5" / Twitter
for

“So grateful for the honor to return to Mother Africa with the @TheBlackCaucus and commemorate The Year of Return! #Doorofreturn #Ghana,” continued Omar, a US citizen who came here as a child-refugee from Somalia.

The pair were photographed smiling in front of the “Door of No Return” at the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, according to Pelosi’s office.

AOC has talked about having Jewish heritage a number of times, and she notes what a big Jewish city New York City is.

Then this one from early 2018, early in her running for her House seat.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "A few years ago, I was moved to study the Bhagavad Gita after meeting a formerly incarcerated NYer.
He was arrested when he was 17 for marijuana in his car. Didn’t get out of prison until he was 21.
His two main hobbies in prison were studying the Gita and playing chess." / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I was a waitress at the time. He worked delivery.
In restaurants I’ve worked with several folks released from prison - they’ve picked up jobs as line cooks, delivery workers, etc.
That first-hand knowledge is just one advantage of being a working person running for Congress." / Twitter

AOC is joined there by Tulsi Gabbard.

 

[lpetrich]

A no-nonsense conversation between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kerry Washington

WASHINGTON: I remember reading an interview where you said you believe in working hard and leaving the rest up to the universe, that you didn’t even watch the polls as they were trickling in on election night. What is your connection to God and the universe?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I really connect with Martin Luther King Jr.’s concept of a moral universe—the idea that we can operate within a moral framework and tap into something powerful. Growing up in a community that’s so diverse, I felt really blessed to see all the different ways that our community taps into that same idea. Among all of these faiths, there’s a shared faith that’s very powerful.

??? That seems like a liberal-religion sort of notion. She earlier stated that MLK's notion of the arc of history bending toward justice was a "law of the universe".

So I didn’t watch the polls, because I knew that the best thing we could do is work as hard as we can for what is right and what is good. Something I mentioned at one of our rallies—and maybe it’s weird to mention this at a rally—is that we’re not entitled to the fruits of our labor. We’re entitled to the labor itself, but we are not entitled to say, “Well, I did this, so I deserve that.”

Was she trying to convince herself that her efforts would be worthwhile even if she got defeated?

WASHINGTON: What is your response to people who say that your approach isn’t pragmatic?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I’m very idealistic about my ends and my vision, but I’m very pragmatic in how I get there. I am first and foremost a consensus builder. I’m not a top-down person, and I got elected bottom-up. We can’t accomplish anything until we get community buy-in.

Good that she recognizes that it's necessary to have a whole movement, and not just one person -- even herself. Elsewhere, she says that Obama's presidency's failure was not as much as a failure of him but a failure of her and like-minded people. She also stated “It’s not enough to say, ‘I’m a good person.’ The question is, ‘Am I doing good work?'”

I’ve been knocking on doors and talking to people for two years, so I’ve talked to a lot of constituents who disagree with me on some policies. But I actually rarely find people, even Republicans, who disagree with me entirely.

She then talks about the importance of seeking common ground. She also thinks that we ought to be rewarding good behavior more instead of being angry and outraged at bad behavior. However that can be difficult to avoid, with an administration that has distinguished itself in moral ugliness on a massive scale, an administration that is very willingly enabled by Congressional Republicans.

The interview ended with more on New York State's awful voter-registration laws. "I would go into entire buildings that are six, seven, eight stories high, and there would only be two or three registered Democrats inside." After describing how easy it is to get unregistered there, she continued with "That’s why I think we need automatic voter registration as well as same-day registration. We also need early voting and mail-in ballots. All of those things can help solve these problems."

 

[laughing dog]

AOC does not merit the vitriol she seems to inspire. However, I do believe she might be more persuasive and less divisive if she did not feel the need to talk so much.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC’s Message From the Future: An Analysis - YouTube - someone who didn't like her video. At 0:26, it contains a snippet of why AOC took an airplane. "Oh, yeah, because I needed to go to work." What's the difference between an airplane and a train? "A couple hours of my constituents' time." The video's author snickered about that.

The author also snickered about AOC departing from her House seat by 2028. Would she go into the Senate? The Presidency? I think that that's taking that video way too seriously.

Though toward the end, the author conceded that synfuels are a good way of continuing to use cars and airplanes. I actually agree with him there. Power-to-gas and power-to-liquids synfuels are being worked on.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC does not merit the vitriol she seems to inspire. However, I do believe she might be more persuasive and less divisive if she did not feel the need to talk so much.

How is she talking too much? How much is she supposed to do?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Skyped Into a Sundance Screening

“This is my first time seeing it in its final form,” Ocasio-Cortez said of the documentary. “I mean, I’m still recovering from the tears myself, but I’m just so glad that this moment for all four of us was captured and documented. Not just for the personal meaning of it, but really for everyday people to see that yes, this is incredibly challenging, yes the odds are long, but also yes that it’s worth it and that each and every person who submits themselves to run for office is doing a great service to this country — including Amy, Paula, and Cori.”

...
Though she was the only candidate to beat her opponent, Ocasio-Cortez said each of her three co-stars, “has this very core personal story where us running did not feel voluntary, and it was really of spiritual significance. That’s really the only place where that kind of endurance can come from, because for a lot of us it’s double-duty, it’s multiple jobs, it’s humiliation, to be frank. And I think that we have opened a door… What I would like to do in the next two years is hold the door open so a lot more people can walk through.”

AOC's Five Simple Rules for Salvaging a Nightmare State of the Union

1. HEED THE POWER OF A COLLECTIVE LOOK - wearing white in honor of the suffragette activists who got women to have the vote
2. ALWAYS FILL YOUR PLUS ONE WISELY - with someone who confronted Jeff Flake during the Kavanaugh hearings
3. USE YOUR LAPELS FOR SOMETHING BESIDES FLAG-PINS - a portrait of someone who died in the custody of the US Border Patrol
4. NEVER JOIN THE “USA” CHANT - AOC looked glum for the whole event
5. MAKE THEM SHOUT OUT YOUR POLICIES IN A FEARFUL PANIC - pResident tRump's denunciations of "socialism"

In an appearance on MSNBC shortly after the address, Ocasio-Cortez responded to the shout-out, saying Trump is “losing on the issues,” and that he feels the need to “grasp at an ad hominem attack.” “Every single policy proposal that we have adopted and presented to the American public has been overwhelmingly popular, even some with a majority of Republican voters supporting what we’re talking about,” she said. “What we need to realize is happening is this is an issue of authoritarian regime versus democracy. In order for him to try to dissuade or throw people off the scent of the trail, he has to really make and confuse the public. And I think that that’s exactly what he’s trying to do.”

 

[lpetrich]

Filmmaker Rachel Lears on Capturing AOC the Night She Changed Politics Forever

NECHAMKIN: How personal did it become for you in the process of filming?

LEARS: There was a lot of negotiation with each one of them: What do you feel safe letting me film? What are you comfortable with? If this doesn’t work, what’s the alternative? There are a lot of conversations to build trust that happened before the camera actually turned on.

A remarkable job on her part.

NECHAMKIN: There were so many moments of transparency — seeing Ocasio-Cortez sitting in her apartment with her boyfriend having these moments of self-doubt, practicing affirmations.

LEARS: That was a huge part, I think, of why she agreed to do the film in the first place. All four of them saw the value in that transparency. They’re campaigning on the idea of transparency and authenticity, anyway. It’s a natural step to say, “Sure, let’s have a document of this process.”

I've seen some right-wingers dismiss AOC as an actress. Her being recruited by the Justice Democrats they consider a casting call.

Knock Down The House | Netflix Official Site
Knock Down the House (2019) - IMDb

 

[laughing dog]

How is she talking too much? How much is she supposed to do?

Not every thought is worth uttering or interesting. For example, there is nothing really edifying or interesting about anything in your post 2635 that she said.

Or the 4 myths about economics - most of that as written is bilge. One can make good arguments about any alleged tradeoffs between unemployment and inflation or that free trade/globalization is not necessarily a good thing for everyone without making blatantly false or stupid statements.

In the end, politicians ought to be judged by their actions not their words, because talk is cheap. Perhaps I am misinformed, but has she actually had any bills passed and signed into law? Do we have a record for how her office has helped her constituents? From what I can tell (and I can be very wrong about this) but she appears very long on talk and very short on actual accomplishments.

 

[Derec]

Though toward the end, the author conceded that synfuels are a good way of continuing to use cars and airplanes. I actually agree with him there. Power-to-gas and power-to-liquids synfuels are being worked on.

Airplanes maybe, because they can't be easily electrified.
But synfuels are not efficient to make, and coupled with the inherent inefficiency of heat engines, the overall efficiency is abysmal.

So for cars pushing electric vehicles is a much better bet. Also with regard to air quality in cities. A good goal would be to have half of new cars/light trucks and quarter of heavy trucks be electric or plug in hybrid by 2035. It is still not as ambitious as GND, but it has the advantage of being doable. One way the federal government can lead by example is to convert the entire fleet of USPS mail vehicles to full electric by 2030 at the latest, and hopefully earlier than that. These vehicles make frequent stops and thus electric motors have the most advantage over ICEs because they don't have to idle and because you can recapture much of the kinetic energy when slowing down.

 

[lpetrich]

How the American left is rediscovering morality | US news | The Guardian - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders talk to Sarah Smarsh about knowing what’s right from wrong - With an illustration showing a woman with long black hair and wearing a blue dress.

After tRump's election,

“I just really felt like our country wasn’t understanding itself,” Ocasio-Cortez told me by phone while campaigning for congressional candidate Cori Bush in Missouri. “We didn’t understand each other, and we didn’t understand ourselves as a collective nation.”

She grew up in New York City, an experience that she considers not much different from growing up in a small town. She went to college in another big city, though. But late in 2016, someone invited her to visit the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters, and she and some friends drove there in an old Subaru. They traveled through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and finally North Dakota. They were protesting a planned pipeline being routed to near them and away from nearby Bismarck.

“The cigarette lighter didn’t work, so we couldn’t charge our phones,” she said, recalling plugging in at rest stops as they traversed Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota. They talked with people along the way. Ocasio-Cortez recognized their class struggles, so similar to the ones she saw back in the Bronx.

When they reached Standing Rock, the destination proved to be as formative as the journey. There Ocasio-Cortez witnessed a “profoundly spiritual experience.” Each night in the camps, Indigenous activists entered wigwams to sweat and pray – an ancient ritual for purification and fortification.

“Native American spirituality was the lynchpin for the water protectors there,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “That is where people get the strength.”

That was a transforming experience for her, and she soon accepted recruitment by the Justice Democrats to run for Congress.

Bernie Sanders also gets into moralism.

“It’s hard to imagine why anyone would be involved in politics if one didn’t have a moral sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice,” Sanders told me by phone from Washington not long after he visited Kansas with Ocasio-Cortez.

...
“We are not a just and moral society when three people own more wealth than the bottom half of America. As we speak this moment, you got 40 million people living in poverty. Thirty million people without any health insurance,” Sanders said. “It is racial justice. It is environmental justice. It is issues of war and peace and trying to create a peaceful world, not a world where countries are aiming nuclear missiles at each other.”

 

[Derec]

She grew up in New York City, an experience that she considers not much different from growing up in a small town.

She sounds delusional.

She went to college in another big city, though.

Aka "not very different than small town".

But late in 2016, someone invited her to visit the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters, and she and some friends drove there in an old Subaru.

I wonder what the mpg of the car were, what emissions it puts out etc.

They traveled through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and finally North Dakota.

Sounds logical, burning at least two barrels of gasoline to protest an oil pipeline.

They were protesting a planned pipeline being routed to near them and away from nearby Bismarck.

Because when you route a pipeline what you want to do is route it though built-up areas and not through largely uninhabited areas where there are already two pipelines along the same corridor. </Lefty logic>

That was a transforming experience for her, and she soon accepted recruitment by the Justice Democrats to run for Congress.

Justice Democrats: a far left (socialist really) group ran by a Nazi collaborator sympathizer Saikat Chakrabati. He now basically runs AOC behind the scenes as her chief of staff.

 

[ZiprHead]

Justice Democrats: a far left (socialist really) group ran by a Nazi collaborator sympathizer Saikat Chakrabati. He now basically runs AOC behind the scenes as her chief of staff.

On August 2, 2019, Representative Ocasio Cortez announced that Saikat Chakrabarti “has decided to leave the office to work with New Consensus to further develop plans for a Green New Deal.

 Saikat Chakrabarti

 

[laughing dog]

I wonder what the mpg of the car were, what emissions it puts out etc.

They traveled through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and finally North Dakota.

Sounds logical, burning at least two barrels of gasoline to protest an oil pipeline.

Regardless of the merits of the protest, that observation ignores the obvious idea of "investment" or did you expect them to ride horses all the way there?

Because when you route a pipeline what you want to do is route it though built-up areas and not through largely uninhabited areas where there are already two pipelines along the same corridor. </Lefty logic>

Nimbyism is practiced all of the time.

Justice Democrats: a far left (socialist really) group ran by a Nazi collaborator sympathizer Saikat Chakrabati. He now basically runs AOC behind the scenes as her chief of staff.

Once you get a grip on a smear, you never let go. You have offered no evidence that Mr. Chakrabati sympathized with the Nazis. He does admire an Indian "freedom fighter" who did have the desperate view to collaborate with the enemy of his "enemies" which meant he did collaborate with Hitler. Your "guilt by association" tactic is childish and ineffective.

 

[ZiprHead]

They were protesting a planned pipeline being routed to near them and away from nearby Bismarck.

Because when you route a pipeline what you want to do is route it though built-up areas and not through largely uninhabited areas where there are already two pipelines along the same corridor. </Lefty logic>
View attachment 22912

Thousands of Native Americans and their allies have gathered on former Sioux land delimited by the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie to try and stand in the way of the “black snake” that could poison the Standing Rock Reservation’s water supply. Many have noted that the pipeline corridor was repositioned from its original route north of Bismarck after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected it citing its threat to drinking water in that mostly-white municipality. Yet the Corps failed its federal mandate for meaningful consultation with the Standing Rock Tribe before signing off on a route that moved the pipeline to their doorstep.

That land has been traditionally Sioux land since granted to them in 1851.

The pipeline wasn't going to go through Bismark. The people of Bismark didn't want the pipeline near them for the same reasons the Sioux tribe doesn't.

Note that in the original north of Bismark plan, there was only one small water crossing. The new plan has three water crossings, one far larger than the original, comprising far more risk of water contamination.

 

[laughing dog]

Thousands of Native Americans and their allies have gathered on former Sioux land delimited by the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie to try and stand in the way of the “black snake” that could poison the Standing Rock Reservation’s water supply. Many have noted that the pipeline corridor was repositioned from its original route north of Bismarck after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected it citing its threat to drinking water in that mostly-white municipality. Yet the Corps failed its federal mandate for meaningful consultation with the Standing Rock Tribe before signing off on a route that moved the pipeline to their doorstep.

View attachment 22913

That land has been traditionally Sioux land since granted to them in 1851.

I also note you didn't criticize the people of Bismark when they didn't want the pipeline near them for the same reasons the Sioux tribe doesn't.

The people of Bismarck are generally not people of color. Nor did they vote for "leftists".

 

[ZiprHead]

Thousands of Native Americans and their allies have gathered on former Sioux land delimited by the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie to try and stand in the way of the “black snake” that could poison the Standing Rock Reservation’s water supply. Many have noted that the pipeline corridor was repositioned from its original route north of Bismarck after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected it citing its threat to drinking water in that mostly-white municipality. Yet the Corps failed its federal mandate for meaningful consultation with the Standing Rock Tribe before signing off on a route that moved the pipeline to their doorstep.

View attachment 22913

That land has been traditionally Sioux land since granted to them in 1851.

I also note you didn't criticize the people of Bismark when they didn't want the pipeline near them for the same reasons the Sioux tribe doesn't.

The people of Bismarck are generally not people of color. Nor did they vote for "leftists".

The original plan was obviously the far superior plan, but fuck them injuns.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC is often asked about her being a democratic socialist, but to her, socialism is a convenient label, even if it sends right-wingers into screaming hysterics.

“A moral imperative is absolutely part of how I approach public policy. Because if it’s not there, then what does?” Ocasio-Cortez said, noting that the tattered books that most shaped her politics were written by moral leaders such as King and Howard Thurman. “Everyone’s going crazy about socialism and democratic socialism. For me, that’s not my seat. My seat is a moral seat.”

She said that we have long sought to be a rich society while failing to discuss the idea of a good society.

“That is why we pay people less than a living wage. That’s why we allow people to be paid starvation wages. That’s why we allow people to go bankrupt in chemotherapy. That’s why we allow people to have their home stripped by a bank that manufactured the crisis in the first place,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Those are not the markings of a good society.”

Critics call progressive platforms like hers unfeasible, but Ocasio-Cortez isn’t buying it.

“In a society that is materially and logistically and in every way capable of ensuring people are paid a dignified wage, have healthcare, have access to an education and opportunity – if that is materially possible,” she said, “I feel like we are morally compelled to make it so.”

Looks more like center-left social democracy than Marxism-Leninism. "Socialism" is too broad a term.

“I can’t go in with a plan” for staying true, she said. “It’s one thing to say it’s so corrupt and compromised. But you don’t see the small ways in which that is so.”

She might re-read her favorite moral texts, she said, or try to visit her would-be constituents back in the boroughs more often than other representatives do. Running without corporate money set the right foundation for the path ahead, she said. Still, “you just don’t know until you get there. But you walk in with an intention and a commitment.”

That's a very commendable ambition. She likes Keith Ellison of MN, Ro Khanna of CA, Pramila Jayapal of WA, Raúl Grijalva of AZ. She hopes to have the courage of Barbara Lee, the only Representative to reject invading Afghanistan in 2001. But I think that it will be difficult to avoid being corrupted unless one has some friends who also want to avoid being corrupted, at least if one is not an extreme introvert like myself. Fortunately, she's made some friends in Congress.

“I think they’re holding the candles,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I hope to just be one more.”

I'm quoting this at length because AOC seems to show very commendable self-awareness and awareness of what she is trying to do.

 

[Derec]

confiscating property owned by Palestinians?

Why do you think it irrevocably belongs to "Palestinians"? Allah?

 

[Derec]

The original plan was obviously the far superior plan, but fuck them injuns.

Quite the opposite. First of all, it was not the "original plan", it was just an early route proposal, and it was a worse route than the one selected - it is longer, it crosses more water, and it crosses more densely populated land - including populated by "injuns" as there are thousands of them living in Bismarck.
Current Dakota Access Pipeline Route Has 33 Fewer Water Crossings
Even Snopes agrees.

No matter how often the lies of the "No DAPL" crowd are debunked, they keep repeating them. They are like Christian apologists in that regard.