Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[Derec]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Explains What Democratic Socialism Means - Business Insider

"We're talking about single-payer health care that has already been successful in many different models, from Finland to Canada to the UK,” she said.

Both Canada and UK have major problems with their healthcare systems. And many other countries with strong social systems such as Germany or France do not have a "single payer". Note, Medicare is not a "single payer" system, and therefore "Medicare4All" would not be one either. "Universal Healthcare" ≠ "Single Payer".

Ocasio-Cortez, who is still paying off her student loans,

Still? Despite making congresswoman wages for over five years now? The Biden plan to severely lower minimum payments for most student loan borrowers wasn't such a good idea.

also believes in tuition-free public colleges and universities.

Note that she went to a fancy private university.
Some countries have tuition-free universities. Germany for example. It is much harder to get into university, as the number of seats is limited. It's not like in the US where everybody can enroll, even if they barely graduated high schools. No "remedial pre-algebra" or "remedial German" in German universities, but they are common here.
Also, because they have less money coming in, facilities are usually less nice-looking at German universities compared to their US counterparts.

This is what infuriates me a lot about AOC and those like her. She latches onto a nice-sounding idea but doesn't bother to do any research or even to think about it more deeply. That's why she embraced the socialism label and DSA without thinking what that word means or what DSA stands for. That's why she drove >3300 miles roundtrip to protest an oil pipeline without informing herself about energy infrastructure.

Her platform includes guaranteeing Americans a living wage that maintains "basic levels of dignity so that no person in America is too poor to live," Ocasio-Cortez said.

Another impractical idea. "Living wage" is a function of family size among other things, and family size is not really a bounded quantity, and therefore "living wage" would not be either. Would she mandate that if, say, Jim Bog Duggar worked at McDonalds he should be paid $60/hr for flipping burgers because he has a gazillion kids?

"That's what democratic socialism means in 2018, and not this kind of McCarthyism Red Scare of a past era.”

In other words, she did not inform herself what "democratic socialism" actually means.

Democratic Socialism Is About Democracy - 07.25.2018 - Jacobin

Jacobin is a commie rag.

 

[Derec]

I suppose it matters what one means by “ socialism” and by “ good economic sense” in order to be in a position to evaluate that claim.

And what do you mean by them?

 

[lpetrich]

But at least I have the good economic sense to reject socialism and realize that the Magic Money Tree does not exist.

Define "socialism".

I also note that to most self-described socialists, socialism != "Magic Money Tree"

There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in groves of birch trees.

 

[lpetrich]

"What initially drew me to DSA was the fact that they showed up everywhere that I showed up."

That's not a good reason to support them and join them.

She was noting that the DSA seemed to agree with her on lots of issues.

Also about Michelle Caruso-Cabrera running against her in 2020, a fellow Hispanic woman with a hyphenated name. "And it was just the most cynical, disgusting thing."

She thinks it is "disgusting" that somebody would challenge her in an election?

No, because MCC seemed to be running on imitating AOC's ethnic and gender identity. AOC didn't seem nearly as bothered by Badrun Khan, as far as I could tell. BK was also running, but she didn't have that kind of support.

You’re famous for skillfully clapping back at haters from time to time, but you don’t come off as mean, and you never punch down. How do you stay so positive?

Ugh. "Clapping back". "Haters".

LOL

Positive? Mitaynes for example thinks that she should be free to not pay rent and that the rights of property owners do not matter.

She should also learn English!

I'm not a xenophobe, and I am fluent in a second language: autotranslator.

The sign:
Tu inversión es mi desplazamiento.
Google, Bing, from Spanish:
Your investment is my displacement.

 

[laughing dog]

I suppose it matters what one means by “ socialism” and by “ good economic sense” in order to be in a position to evaluate that claim.

And what do you mean by them?

I’m not the one making judgments. Socialism has come to so many different meanings. Frankly, I have no idea what “good economic sense “ means.

 

[Elixir]

It's AOC, dude. Such a princess. Not like Trump the victim, who always gets run down on IIDB and needs defending (or whose enemies need attacking). This little bitch needs to be smacked down, and we have just the guy to do it.
Everyone else here heaps unwarranted praise on AOC, so once again intervention is called for; any dollar she makes, any clothes she wears, and any idea she expresses, must be mocked to death or be the subject of outrage. Just to balance things out, you know?
Nothing to do with misogyny, really. Or racism, nuh uh.

 

[ZiprHead]

But at least I have the good economic sense to reject socialism and realize that the Magic Money Tree does not exist.

I thought it was the Republicans that thought the magic money tree existed.

 

[Elixir]

But at least I have the good economic sense to reject socialism and realize that the Magic Money Tree does not exist.

I thought it was the Republicans that thought the magic money tree existed.

Republicans truly are the real magicians.
They make all the money on the tree disappear. (Into their donors’ pockets).

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Ah more conservative whining about the "socialism" boogeyman. Yawn.

 

[Elixir]

Ah more conservative whining about the "socialism" boogeyman. Yawn.

To be fair, imaginary entities do need a lot of propping up.

 

[lpetrich]

On with Kara Swisher: AOC on Trump vs. Biden, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tech, Gaza & More on Apple Podcasts

AOC needs little introduction. The congressman from the Bronx is one of the most recognizable legislators today. I'm talking to her about all things tech, including AI, her opposition to the TikTok ban, and data privacy, as well as progressive politics, Biden versus Trump and Gaza, and, of course, who she is and who she's become.

...
KS: What effect does all the tech, money and power have on American democracy?

AOC: Yeah, I mean, it's something that I think about constantly because I see a lot of this concentration of money and power also in the way that it overlaps in tech as a lot of it as being almost the automation of the existing, pre-existing systems of inequality that predate the internet.

KS; Right, there's always been rich, powerful companies, whether it's defense contractors, pharmaceutical, oil companies come to mind.

AOC: Right, but what tech does is that, like it does with many other industries, just as it can streamline, automate and cut out middlemen in the delivery of certain services, it also streamlines and accelerates the modes of inequality to a degree that I don't think could have ever happened prior to the internet.

Thus making our era the Second Gilded Age, much like the one in the late 19th cy.

What to do about them?

Because they are unregulated, they're not accountable, and in fact, the legislation benefits them.

Yeah, I mean, I look at them as oligarchs and aristocrats.

Good perspective.

 

[lpetrich]

Then about social media and some of its founders, and how she said to a very rich person that he will either have to do something about income and equality or else he will have to armorplate his Tesla.

Then on Elon Musk claiming such things as how President Biden wants to import voters, a version of the Great Replacement Theory.

About Amazon and its NYC HQ2 plans, AOC said

No, I do not regret it at all. And our community doesn't regret it at all too. We have proven and shown over and over and over again that everything that we said at that time was right.

Then saying that Amazon will still want to come to NYC because of all the talented people there. The company doesn't need big giveaways to do so. The company decided on a site in Virginia near DC.

And the same things that we cautioned about, that it was going to be a taxpayer funded boondoggle, that working people were going to be displaced, that it wasn't going to be local people that get jobs, but really Seattle based or other folks that are just going to relocate and displace folks that are actually looking for opportunity. All of those things came out to bear.

After discussing the odd politics of some Silicon Valley venture capitalists, they discussed AOC's DEFIANCE Act: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Leads Bipartisan, Bicameral Introduction of DEFIANCE Act to Combat Use of Non-Consensual, Sexually-Explicit “Deepfake” Media | Representative Ocasio-Cortez

The legislation will create a federal civil right of action for victims of “digital forgery” in which their likeness is created using software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means to falsely appear to be authentic. ...

“Victims of nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes have waited too long for federal legislation to hold perpetrators accountable. As deepfakes become easier to access and create — 96% of deepfake videos circulating online are nonconsensual pornography — Congress needs to act to show victims that they won’t be left behind,” said Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “The DEFIANCE Act will allow victims to finally defend their reputations and take civil action against individuals who produced, distributed, or received digital forgeries. I’m grateful to lead this legislation with Senator Dick Durbin, along with my Democratic and Republican colleagues in both the House and Senate.”

Back to KS and her. "The first thing that I think for me is that the way I go about legislating always starts with bringing in impacted people and communities first."

While I wouldn't come out and say that the bill doesn't prohibit or prevent, this is becoming established as a federal crime, I do think that there are so many questions about establishing new crimes, given the current bias in our criminal justice system. That our first question was, given the total lack of protections, how do we prevent this from happening in the first place? And by establishing a course of action for survivors first, that creates precedent, it allows and gives platforms, I think, something to look at and cite in determining their own policies.

I think that she has the right idea. Care about victims directly rather than use them as pretexts to attack people that one doesn't like and otherwise ignore them.

 

[lpetrich]

Then about the TikTok ban, something she voted against, despite it passing the House 360-58.

You'd be surprised, but antitrust brings together odd bedfellows between Democrats and Republicans. People like Matt Gaetz are also pretty reliable in terms of breaking up corporate monopolies in the tech sector.

...
And bipartisanship is not just for bailing out Wall Street and voting for endless war. There's also bipartisanship in the space of civil liberties. Jim Jordan has oddly agreed with me on facial recognition technology, civil liberties, freedoms, things like that.

Then about MTG vs. Jasmine Crockett's eyelashes. AOC objected, MTG asked "Are your feelings hurt?" and AOC called MTG a "baby girl". She then said that she was reminded of her first term, when a lot of people would attack her and nobody would defend her.

And I know that when I go home, a lot of what I hear is from black women saying, thank you for standing up for us because no one else does. And it's usually just us that have to stick up for each other. And again, was this a great moment?

They then got into AIPAC, with AOC comparing that lobbying org to the National Rifle Association.

Yes, the American-Israel Political Action Committee, which is not, it is an extreme right-wing organization. They endorse insurrectionist members of Congress that sought to overturn the presidential election. This is not just about general friendly pro- Israel policy.

This is about backing a right-wing Israeli coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu and a political operation to punish anyone who stands up to this right-wing Israeli government and stands up for, in the most basic sense, Palestinian human rights. They have a big money network, just like big oil does, just like the NRA does, and they operate very similarly to the NRA. The races that we have seen these have been ones where they've mobilized heavily on.

 

[lpetrich]

KS:

... Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is trying to achieve the one thing that might just shore up her fractured party building a new democratic coalition that can consistently draw a majority a of American support. Her willingness to forge unlikely alliances in a surprisingly productive place has opened a path for new voters for her party.

Her ideas and her own political ambitions, if she ever decides to run for higher office. Three terms in, one gets the sense we're witnessing a skilled tactician exiting her political adolescence and coming into her own as a veteran operator to reform Americans' most dysfunctional political body. ...

AOC:

... One is that now that I'm in my third term, I know my way around this place. I feel this way about, you know, tending bar for seven or eight years.

...
And I knew it at the time, but I made a very clear determination that that narrative was so big and so overwhelming that I was not going to waste my time trying to say, you all are getting me wrong, you don't understand me, etc. I just knew that it was going to take years of me being myself for my actions to accumulate into a body of analysis. And SO it's two things, but in terms of a morphology or changing, at the end of the day, I haven't changed a single policy position that I originally ran on.

I have all of the same exact convictions, values, policy commitments. I've just gotten better at executing on them. And I understand that my role is in that inside-outside political strategy that the left has built an increasingly sophisticated outside, but we have an anemic inside.

And I feel like right now, my role is to build a juggernaut of momentum. And I mean, goddamn, if honestly, if we can get to a place where a regular old Democrat believes in trust-busting and a regular old Democrat believes in a full path to citizenship and Medicare for all and combatting climate change and a Green New Deal, fuck yeah. Like that's literally what my goal was from the beginning.

My goal has always been to bring the mainstream to me and in the process have my beliefs be mainstream.

That's awfully ambitious -- trying to end Gilded Age II.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC:

... I think that the reason that AIPAC is spending so big right now is because they understand that their time is up.

And they may be able to claw on for a cycle or two. But what they don't understand is that they have completely lost a generation that is now ascending to be the largest voting block in the United States of America. And they have lost it, if not permanently, they have lost it generationally.

... It is because of the unwavering, unnuanced, completely unquestioning support for the atrocity. And that's why I do think on the point of genocide that the famine is important.

Then saying that older people had experienced different things about Israel, and that made them more sympathetic.

She then explained her support for President Biden's re-election campaign, despite a lot of people being turned off by him.

... And I think that if you're in a blue state, what people do not understand is that a national abortion ban predates, it preempts any state level law.

If you're in New York and you're California and you think you're sitting pretty because our state laws allow abortion, if a national abortion ban is passed, we're done. We are done.

Then saying that we ought to get into politics, rather than out of it, especially with downballot candidates. She has the right idea there -- it's not just the Presidency that one should be concerned about.

 

[lpetrich]

Finally,

KS: So very last question, what happens to you if Donald Trump wins? What do you do? What's your first move?

AOC: I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn't be surprised if this guy threw me in jail.

KS: Really?

AOC: He's out of his mind. I mean, he did his whole first campaign around, lock her up, this is his motto.

KS: Oh, he didn't say that, you know, he said he didn't say it.

AOC: Yeah, right? I take him at his word. I take him at his word. I take him at his word when he says that he's going to round up people. I take him at his word when he threatens journalists. I take him at his word. I feel like what we saw in his first presidency was an amused bouche to what his intentions are. That's where he has learned from his mistakes of appointing professionals, and he will not make that mistake next time.

KS: Well, thank you so much.

AOC: Thank you. Really appreciate it.

From Trump's wanting vengeance on people that he feels have wronged him, and also from Project 2025, a plan for right-wing takeover of the US Gov't, complete with preferring loyalty over everything else, like competence and skill and professional ethics.

 

[Derec]

Define "socialism".

Asked and answered. You asked me the same question in post #5794 and I answered you in post #5798.
Btw, damn this thread is huge!

I also note that to most self-described socialists, socialism != "Magic Money Tree"

Yeah, that belief is strong with them.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in groves of birch trees.

Birch trees?

 

[Derec]

She was noting that the DSA seemed to agree with her on lots of issues.

Well, that's not what she said. In any case, she should have checked out DSA's constitution before joining them.

No, because MCC seemed to be running on imitating AOC's ethnic and gender identity. AOC didn't seem nearly as bothered by Badrun Khan, as far as I could tell. BK was also running, but she didn't have that kind of support.

Imitating? MCC is not pretending to be a Latina just to "imitate" AOC. I guess AOC is just bothered that there are Latinas who would dare run against her.

I'm not a xenophobe, and I am fluent in a second language: autotranslator.

It's not xenophobia to want US politicians to use English rather than other countries' languages.

The sign:
Tu inversión es mi desplazamiento.
Google, Bing, from Spanish:
Your investment is my displacement.

Yeah, I figured it out without Google. It's a stupid sentiment. She is not entitled to somebody else's property. She reminds me of Comrade Kaprugina from Dr. Zhivago.

 

[Derec]

I’m not the one making judgments. Socialism has come to so many different meanings.

It is not my fault that so many are misusing the word, to the point of getting confused. DSA at least understand what the word means, even if AOC might not.

Frankly, I have no idea what “good economic sense “ means.

I didn't think you did.

 

[Derec]

Not like Trump the victim, who always gets run down on IIDB

Wrong thread!

This little bitch needs to be smacked down, and we have just the guy to do it.

Let the record reflect that it was you who called AOC a "bitch".
And she is a politician. She should be fair game for criticism just like every other politician.

Nothing to do with misogyny, really. Or racism, nuh uh.

No, nothing to do with any of that.
Quite the contrary. It is those who are saying that female and non-white politicians should not be attacked or criticized are the ones who are sexist and racist because they demand different standards based on race and gender.