It’s hard to believe that the pod-cast left can spew forth as much drivel as they have in the last 2 months to justify their voting first for Biden and now for their opposition to the reign of Drooling Joe… As I was reading my twitter feed I a received a belated Christmas Gift in the form of an article entitled “ Get Ready To Fight Joe Biden” written by one Dr. Ben Burgis. Sometimes, the universe just smiles upon you and gives you a little gem like this article to eviscerate. And that is what I plan to do here in this piece.
Dr. Burgis in his first paragraph to introduce this article states that he voted for Joe Biden for the laundry list of reasons the liberal media told him do so: a champion of civility, a candidate that brings together the classes, a candidate that could at least in theory represent less harm (that is if you forget his 47 year record in office) , and of course the all the important supreme court nominees. And this is rounded off with the bold statement of strategic reasons.
Take this tidy-bit of strategic thinking for example: “But now that Trump has vacated the Oval Office, the Left should resist the temptation to position ourselves as a pressure group within a permanent coalition with centrists. If we see our role as “pushing Biden to the left” inside the mainstream Democratic field rather offering a robust alternative, we risk ceasing to exist as a distinct political current…”
Okay, that sounds great, but then why exactly did Dr. Burgis vote for Biden in the first place? If you want to maintain a robust alternative to the DNC and its field of establishment players—don’t you need to not vote for these people that represent the antithesis of your values than? It seems pretty simple to me if you cannot a) leverage them or b) create a coalition of progressive large enough to defeat their goals—you have to abstain from voting for these types of people. Since after all the establishment in the DNC is dead set on destroying the left you have to be willing to destroy their power base as well.
“The problem is that our most important goals can’t be accomplished through the pressure group strategy…”
Dr. Ben Burgis “Get Ready To Fight Joe Biden”
Dr. Burgis argues that a stronger and more organized left already exists. As of now the DSA has nearly 20 times the number of members it had in 2015. So this fact seems to equate to Burgis as the tipping point for the DSA to create an institutional insurrection. Burgis also seems to be assured by this fact that a massively strong DSA Movement will spring into power in the next year when the other 1/3rd of the Senators and Representatives are up for reelection? But at the same time Dr. Burgis says that the permanent coalition with centrists is something we should resist? And he also claims that the Left doesn’t have enough power right now within the government to fight Biden. So, what is the left to do? Are we to wait 2 years in the blind hope that some how 20-30 people who even Burgis admits might not even be anything more than DSA members in name only get elected? Is this really the plan Burgis? Are you really telling America just to wait? We’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and Godot isn’t coming! But we could be winning right now and I will explain how.
There is a reason Joe Manchin will be more powerful than any other Democratic Senator in the Senate—and it isn’t because Joe Manchin is some Machiavellian wonder working behind the scenes using power and influence to get his way. It’s because the senate is 50-50 and his vote will always be on the line and not guaranteed. This fact unlike the weakness shown already by the Progressive Caucus and the Squad is why Joe Manchin is now the defacto power in the Senate. Sure, Chuck Schumer might be the Majority Leader , but Joe Manchin calls the shots! It will be Manchin’s vote that either ensures a tiebreaker from Kamala Harris or puts the Republicans back in power. It will be Manchin’s vote that ultimately must be secured far more readily than any other Democrat in the chamber. And he will leverage this power to benefit himself and his biggest donors because he will only have a limited time to use this Power.
Of course the House of Representatives has dealt with this sort of power struggle before long before the John Boehner nightmare with the “Tea Party Caucus”; Nancy Pelosi had to appease the “Blue Dog Caucus”. If one thing Nancy has learned it is that a small intractable group of a party can ultimately control the entire discourse of that party—and she will not have that again undermine her authority. Sadly, the Squad and the Progressive Caucus as a whole are so disorganized and so weakly affiliated with anything remotely progressive that calling it a threat to the DNC Neoliberal agenda is a dream at best and at worst a terrible joke at the expense of the American public. Either way Speaker Pelosi has learned how to negate any leverage that Squad or the Progressive Caucus might represent effectively by dividing them so effectly. And with the razor thin margins of the Congress for the next 2 years the 95 members (94 Representatives and 1 Senator) of the Progressive Caucus and the smaller Squad should be a critical power player in the conversation in Washington. However, neither group seems to be able to realize this fact and instead confine their performance art to the safe confines of Twitter and other social media outlets—instead of withholding votes and putting forth a viable progressive agenda that would break the back the DNC Neoliberal Agenda.
As any good power player in Congress knows—these Progressives worry about their opponent’s feelings and how they will look on instagram if they fight too hard against their own party? Did the “Tea Party Caucus” care if their membership were hated by the establishment in the RNC—clue, no! Instead they harnessed their power and leveraged it to the maximum effectiveness even if that meant destroying their own party’s goals. This simple fact is lost on both Dr. Burgis and the Progressives in congress.
Instead the good Doctor pretends that literally and I quote, only after “ hundreds of AOC’s and Rashida Tlaib’s are in congress” can a true progressive agenda be enacted in congress. I have to ask—why? Right now the squad’s seven votes are more powerful than they will be for a long period of time. Their seven votes can literally scuttle any major legislation in the house (think of the Blue Dogs in 2008-2010) that comes down party lines—the majority of social programs and relief programs are sure to follow this trend. And if the 94 house of representative members that purport to be members of the Progressive Caucus are in fact Progressives in more than just name they can vote as a block too—then nothing can get past the House of Representatives without their approval! That is power! Yet, our good doctor tells us that no we must wait until the AOC and Rashida have 98 members in their squad or more before we can even hope to see a change in the House? Why? Right now she and the rest of the squad and the Progressive Caucus have the power to get anything they want! Unless, they too have succumbed to the reality of Washington and are now just parasites feeding on the host—we call their constituents? So, I ask you isn’t it already too late for the Squad? Haven’t they been assimilated into the Washington D.C. machine and now everything they do is just an act of Performance Art for Social Media feedback…
Now let’s examine Dr. Burgis’ next statement—“a harm reduction candidate”—that is if you only believe to ignore the 47 years of Biden’s record! First off “a harm reduction candidate” is a vague statement—Pinochet is a “harm reduction candidate” if one compares him to Stalin. That doesn’t mean you’ve selected the morally better option by voting for Pinochet over Stalin. It just means of the two horrible candidates you selected the slightly less horrible option. If the electoral politics of your nation state has devolved into a contest between those who are only moderately harmful and those that are truly harmful one must do everything in their power to not empower either option. Otherwise one is merely accepting the fact that less harm even on a grand scale of reducing the population of a state by 1-2 million is morally justifiable when compared to a person willing to kill off 20-30 million of the same population. Yes, numerically speaking one is less, but, can you really say one choice is morally better? This is especially the case if you have the possibility to fight that selection right now?
That is the general problem I have with the “less harm candidate” nonsense that the left-punditry spewed forth the entire primary once it became abundantly clear that Bernie Sanders (Sanders was the harm reducing candidate) was out the race. But, more specifically, I challenge the entire concept that Biden is in fact a candidate that represents less harm in any significant fashion.
In the 1970’s Joe Biden commented that he wasn’t going to send his kids to a school that was a “racial jungle” and throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s he pushed an anti-busing stance that was the hallmark of the most racist members of congress at the time. While running for President in 1987 Biden not only praised segregationist George Wallace (not to mention he spent time defending the ideology of Wallace as well) for the award he personally bestowed upon Biden in 1973 but also told Southern audiences that Delaware was a friend of the South during the Civil War. In 1987 also during his first run for President Biden was caught embellishing his “Civil Rights Activist” career—later it came out from his own mouth that his civil rights activism was confined to watching the marches on the evening news! This same tired trope of Biden the Civil Rights Activist was pushed again 2020—this time no one in the MSM pushed back hard in the media like they did in 1987. But, what he did manage to do successfully was create the 1994 Crime Bill.
A bill that created the current prison state we live in today in America. A bill that he had been pushing since the 1980’s and finally found a willing President in Clinton to sign into law; a bill that would only lead the destruction of the lower classes and the creation a prison-slave economic state! Ask yourself is it right that California employees prisoners to fight wild fires at less than the pathetic Federal Minimum wage of $7.25 per hour? In some states prisoners actually owe the state more money after incarceration due to private prisons and their exploitive practices. You can thank Joe Biden for this one.
Then in 2005 Joe Biden helped to give us the new Bankruptcy laws! Thanks—Joe! Instead of helping out those in debt and failing, Joe’s new Bankruptcy laws allowed credit cards especially to turn unsecured debt into a life long corporate serfdom. In fact in 2008 when it was proven that many of the issues causing the US economy to implode, were in fact driven by predatory loans and credit lenders, Biden fought the creation of any government organization that might oversee and regulate such markets. Once again Biden was looking to do less harm by making sure that the exploding student loan debt and credit debt of our population was secured for the lender and not the debtor—way to go Joe! Always helping the disadvantaged of our society.
Who can forget the welfare queen narrative of the 1980’s? Well, again in 1988 when Joe Biden was riding high on the hopes of being President he penned a wonderful column in his local news paper—I guess if it had been more of a success he would have sought syndication in the major papers of the day… But, the point of my complaint is once again Joe Biden was more than willing to glam onto the popular rhetoric of the right for his own neoliberal agenda. This time it was to once again paint the minorities and the economically disadvantaged as being undeserving of finical aide. And that what they needed was to get these lazy people off the doll no matter what. Not that systemic poverty is the issue in America. This brings me to my next point—Unions.
Scranton Joe—is a union man! Well, in 2011 Joe Biden was vacationing in the Hamptons during the Verizon Strike. Many overtures by those striking were made to Joe for even the most modest of support all to no avail. Joe also that same year was specifically asked to show support for the workers fighting in Wisconsin for collective bargaining—once again Joe decided to pass on this request. Furthermore, in 1977-78 Joe Biden was asked by the members of the Unions that supported him to help them get stronger pro-Union legislation passed through the Senate—first he vacillated and finally he sabotaged it. Nearly 20 years later he would help to pass the Union Gutting NAFTA trade bill and then nearly 20 years after that he would support the Trans-Pacific-Partnership another deal that would have only further gutted the Union base of this nation. So, sure, no harm done here to America at all so far—unless, you feel wars are bad?
Biden, has been always a hawk on war. In 2002, he helped to authorize the second Iraqi-US War Operation Freedom. He supported the first Iraqi War-Desert Storm. In the late 1990’s he talked about how it was going to be necessary at some point to remove the threat of Saddam Hussein—Finally in 2002 that occurred. And of course as part of the Obama administration he was part of the largest covert drone operation the US had ever undertaken up to that point. With Obama and Biden the US embarked on their largest drone strike program that authorized the extrajudicial killing of American citizens even children in foreign countries. The extrajudicial killing of Osama Bin Laden—Joe even used this catchy slogan for his 2012 campaign trail “Bin Laden Is dead And GM is Alive”. Then the two embarked on a North African destabilization plan. Government’s like Libya were destabilized and are now failed States. The Obama administration also saw an increase in the US military presence in nearly all continents including Europe. Under Joe’s watch the US might have reduced forces in Iraqi but we managed to increase forces everywhere else in the world!
Furthermore, one has to accept that Joe Biden has always used his office to enrich his beloved family. MSNBC, CNN and the like have spent the better part of the last four years telling us how corrupt Donald Trump and Company are—and it is all true! The problem is that is also true for Joe Biden and Company! The entire political system is a form of corruption that is so embedded into the culture of Washington D.C. that it only draws stares and raised eyebrows when one is absolutely corrupt without the so-called presence of mind to follow the community standards one is now part of!
In short it is perfectly acceptable as Biden and Obama did after their joint 8 years in office to benefit directly from being the ex-VP and President. But it is beyond the pale to do it while one is in office, that is just uncouth and in bad taste( oh, and slightly illegal but mostly just unseemly)! Never mind the fact that everyone is enriching family and friends to ensure that when their selfless acts of community service are concluded they can immediately cash in on the lucrative endorsement, book writing, and special consultant business’ they’ve create after their public service has come to an end. After all what is the point of becoming a public servant if at the end you cannot ensure that your wealth is not increased 10-20 fold. For example Joe Biden has ensured that his wastoid of an offspring Hunter Biden has held esteemed positions in MNBA as a VP and on the board of Am-Track—all from a guy with a crack cocaine addition and only the most rudimentary intelligence that I can gather from his actions. But wait it does get better Joe’s little brother James has been attached to the hip of Joe since his first campaign and it has always paid off! This is corruption—often James Biden’s business deals corresponded with visits from clients at the Whitehouse. And it is the type of corruption that every member of the Senate and House of Representatives is engaged in as well. So, you can understand why they don’t even try to change the nature of business in Washington , D.C. you would literally be taking money out their own families’ mouths.
Thus we come to his cabinet picks as President. Besides their diversity—they have one thing in common they are all indebted to big business in the top slots. Blinken, Yellen, and more are linked directly to the very businesses that they might soon regulate? How will that work out? After all—they all know that Joe Biden’s Presidency is a one-term affair at best. So, after that won’t they need a new gig possibly? You cannot just burn bridges by doing something stupid like regulating Amazon or Goldmansachs—after all you might need to be a special consultant to make ends meet after your low paying government days are over! These are the same type of people that Democrats and MSM complained about in Trump’s cabinet—but, now to question why Yellen made 7 million dollars in speaking fees to finical groups is just sexist and absurd… Which of course it isn’t when one considers that she would be regulating these very business’ in her role as Sectary of Treasury. But, remember this is the less harmful option.
So, after reviewing this short sample list of Joe Biden’s greatest hits of doing no harm—I really wonder how is that a logician such as Dr. Burgis can with a straight face write the statement that Joe is a candidate of less harm? Sure, all candidates do less harm to some segments of the population and more to others—it is the reality of winner-take all politics! The only problem is that both Donald Trump and Joe Biden serve the same masters MONIED INTERESTS ONLY! Yet, some how a person with 47 years of doing the very things that the Leftist Punditry on alternative media claim they stand against and we must fight—vote for him? That is the greatest contradiction of all time.
This isn’t to say that Trump is a good person—he clearly isn’t. Trump is: a sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and clearly mentally challenged fraudulent huckster. (He might even be a rapist—but, we cannot confirm that because the case against him never went to court—clearly, it is a possibility given his misogynistic tone towards women.) Yet, is Biden really all that better on anything? Biden proudly spent 3 plus decades in the US Congress fighting the social welfare safety net claiming proudly that he voted to cut everything from SNAP to Veteran Benefits to get a balanced budget in the 1980’s to the 1990’s. Trump gave American corporations and wealthy a giant Tax Break once—Biden voted for Bush’s tax cuts in 2000 and then helped to make them permanent with Obama. Biden and many other Neoliberal Democrats voted gleefully to repeal the Glass-Steagall act in 1999—he claims he was regretful of that vote later—but in 2005 he helped his corporate overlords with the Bankruptcy Act—enslaving the debtor to the creditors in many cases. Then in 2008 after the great crash he fought tooth and nail to ensure no regulatory agency would be created to look into the economic collapse. But of course voting for this Biden was an act of conscience and clearly one that out weighed Biden’s myriad of faults in the face of Trump’s Fascism.
Speaking of Fascism—what exactly is the new left’s definition of Fascism? It seems to be anything and everything that it literally has no meaning at this point. A group of strangers riot and that is due to fascism if they wear MAGA T-Shirts. A group strangers riot and they wear Bernie Bro T-shirts they are fascists! BLM is right now safe from fascism claims only because the Neoliberal left needs to pretend that having a few token Black Activists and Media stars insulates them from any claims of being racist. Even when they whitewash Biden’s own racism calling segregated bused school districts “Racial Jungles” or his use of condescending terminology about how minorities are just as smart as white kids—is that fascism? After all this man has literally been at the nexus of many of the worst policies over the last half century. He is a corporate puppet to say the least. And worst yet he is one with no points of leverage except from the right! So, how is fighting Biden any better than fighting Trump? Besides the most rudimentary fact that Biden won’t late night tweet a pardon?
Burgis then claims that left doesn’t have to worry about McCarthyism taking hold in America—I find this statement both delightfully optimistic and misguided. We are seeing McCarthyism already in the Democratic Party at this very moment. The corporate media talking heads of the major cable newsrooms have been spewing Russian Interference nonsense since day one of Trump’s Presidency! (I’m not supporting Trump in any way—but, let’s face it with one failed impeachment and one failed collusion investigation—it seems very obvious to me that we are looking in the wrong areas of Trump’s misdeeds. I would look at the fraud he most likely did as a real-estate developer—but that is just, me? However, these issues have become the litmus test for mainstream media outlets and to a degree the alternative left outlets mirror these same issues to lesser or greater degrees.) And still not a week ago I heard Rachel Maddow still spewing forth that Trump had outside help to win his election 2016. Ironically, she made this baseless claim while telling her audience that Trump incited an insurrection based on an election fraud narrative that was false. All while American Representatives are literally calling for the expulsion of other members for working with Domestic Terrorists! And now the Democrats are calling for a new Domestic Terrorist Act! This is now in conjunction with a renewed assault on the alternative media distribution sources like Youtube.
So, as I write this Matt Taibbi in his New Letter on Substack just released an article called “Meet the Censored: Status Coup”outlining how Silicon Valley is slowly, but surly morphing its content on platforms like Youtube to meet the requirements of the Media Elite and Political Elite. Make no mistake Silicon Valley will not fight for personal freedoms—they are fighting for their own profit margins. I firmly believe that we are seeing a strong realignment of the community standards of these private firms such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and so on to meet the demands of political elites in the DNC ( only because they are in power nominally speaking now) wish to create. The DNC is creating a very dangerous “US or Them” narrative when it comes to political freedoms online. And yes, Dr. Burgis we will again see the COINTELPRO operations with our new Domestic Terrorist Bill—these types of so called protection of freedom bills like this never protect the Freedoms of the Left only those in Power.
And don’t worry the lip service paid to the BLM movement in both the media and political spheres are just a smoke screen. All of the so-called defunding the police campaigns that were promised in July of 2020 are now scaling back their promises of creating agencies to help the population find other solutions to violence, drug addiction and so on. The Police are still well funded. Partly due to the fact that Joe Biden created the Crime Bill of 1994 and with Obama as VP helped to over see the hyper-militarization of the Police! There is literally no reason every Police department in America to be outfitted like they are part of SEAL Team Six. But, again we must ask if the BLM movement started Under Obama in 2012—why didn’t Biden and Obama do more to reduce Police Violence after the riots in Ferguson, MO that year? Why did they stand so silently by with nothing more than a Town Hall in 2016 that ultimately left the Status Quo in place? The answers are simple the actions required to alter these states of affairs were beyond the scope of their concerns! It will be very
As I write this there are still droves of National Guards in the Capitol after the Inauguration. All for the protection of Democracy from what has become the phantom menace of White Supremacist Domestic Terrorists ( not that these groups don’t exist, they clearly do) that were supposedly going to once again disrupt the Democratic Process! All of which didn’t occur again. But, we are told the violence that took place on January 6th , 2021 is one of insurrection… As if the congressional members and news media just learned this term and wish to use it every day for a month in order to ensure that they have enlarged their vocabulary.
The problem with insurrection is that it is very general terminology—so, for example let’s say you disrupt the local government in your town that is planning on building a road through a wetlands and endangering the migration patterns ducks. This would in fact be a case of insurrection. Or is it a peaceful protest that protects the environment? We are running into a dangerous place where all protests that disrupt the government could be in fact called Insurrection. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement the Insurrection act was used basically to quell Labor Movements and Civil Rights Movements—so think about who is pushing the limits of fascism?
Perhaps, the issue is the fact that the Democratic Party has for a long time been trying to morph itself into something other than a working class party. Ever since the end of golden period of 20th Century American Industrialism (1940-1974) the Democratic Party has been consciously attempting to rebuild itself as the party of the intellectual elites in America. It has developed this fear of the working class roots primarily during the late 1980’s and Biden has certainly helped to shape it. Sure, it often still tries to brand itself in some halfhearted manner as the party of the middle class and minorities. But these attempts are merely done so to remind the minorities and working class that really the Democratic Party is basically all you have to hope will give you even the most modest of crumbs. And this talk of insurrection isn’t because DNC is afraid that radical white supremacists will take over America. It is because they are afraid that radical worker unions, and worker parties will see that direct action even violent direct action might be a means to success! And God forbid, the workers of the world unite as one party with a real power base. This is the insurrection the DNC is afraid of and will use any all means to destroy. So, remember civil liberties are only supported as long as they don’t attempt to create a more economically equal state of affairs for all people.
And this is where I fear that Dr. Burgis is putting too much faith in the fact that Democrats will champion “Civil Liberties” especially under Biden—I fear that his belief that we only have to fear electoral politics on the left. But, as I’ve already shown Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter to name the most popular social media sources aren’t fighting for civil liberties of their members they creating acceptable discourse that creates a feedback loop design to push a dominate narrative that is both profitable and soon to be politically acceptable to the party in power. And we are already seeing the consequences of these actions: the censorship of Status Coup on Youtube, the censorship of stories negative to Hunter Biden about his laptop contents by The New York Post by Twitter and of course censorship of the President himself on Twitter. These are the true signs of Fascism—when media and political parties become one and exclude all other speech. And I fear the no party is immune to these concerns right now in America.
Furthermore, Dr. Burgis makes a claim that to me is astonishing—“ socially conservative Supreme Court Justices” if we are fighting Joe Biden on everything else what exactly in his 47-year record makes anyone think that Biden is going to become the champion of Progressive Social Reforms? This is after all the man that has upheld the Hyde Amendment in the past. Repeatedly lied about his “Civil Rights Activism” while supporting far-right tough on crime legislation and the destruction of the social welfare safety net. This isn’t a person I believe we can trust in way shape or form to promote the “Progressive Social Initiatives”. But, even so does that matter now?
The three Judges approved by Trump aren’t dying off? Biden and Congress will never agree to pack the court. So, really what are we fighting Joe Biden on with this issue? The only potential Justice to retire or die is Stephen Boyer at the age of 82. However, Stephen Boyer isn’t exactly looking like he will retire in the next 4 years. But, more importantly what is Burgis’ strategy to fight Joe Biden if Justice Boyer resigns or dies in office? Dr. Burgis has ruled out that Biden can pushed to the left. Burgis has also ruled out coalition building because in most cases the Left is too weak and too disorganized to make any real push in these coalitions in any meaningful manner—so what then are we to do? Biden’s record shouldn’t give any true Socialist any glimmer of hope. In fact at best we can only hope that Biden will nominate a fiscally moderate candidate that hasn’t spent the better of his or her career attempting to eviscerate the Union movement, as well as being just a status quo on societal issues like Roe v. Wade and LGQBT rights? If that is all we can hope far then are we really wining anything at all? No.
But , I’ve saved the best for last with these quotes by Dr. Burgis :
“To achieve the reforms we need, we must focus our energy not on the lobbying centrists to be more social democratic but on building a Left that can beat them in the near future—and govern in own name. If that goal is our lodestar, our task is clear: to draw unambiguous contrasts at every turn.
The only way to do this is to draw clear bright lines between what workers desperately need and what the Biden Administration is willing to them. We can’t deny the obvious reality of Republican obstruction, but instead of fixating on it, we should emphasize what the new administration could if it wanted to.”
This makes the Schlieffen Plan of 1905 look pale in comparison—look out student’s of Clausewitz we have the next Sun Tzu on our hands here with this bit of strategic wisdom. So after 4 pages of his article the good Dr. Burgis has finally told us the secret to success is not to push for Biden to the left, not to try to build stronger coalitions in the left or convert others to the left, nor is it about organizing on the ground; grassroots movements that would change people’s lives in real ways—no, instead the left should wait for electoral politics to finally turn to their favor and of course in the mean time write strongly worded essay’s about how Joe Biden isn’t a socialist! Well, news’ flash Dr. Burgis, Biden is the first to happily declare that he isn’t a Socialist and you voted for him. He mocked the socialist movement every chance he got in the primary and the general election and you still voted for him. So, what contrast do you wish to draw that he won’t already readily accept and declare that you are right—he’s not a socialist and by the way he won with your vote?
But, even more disturbing, I find is that if we are drawing this strong contrast between Biden and our Socialist Democratic values isn’t that in essence a form of group pressure tactics designed to cause Biden to shift his position in favor of public opinion? A fool’s errand you’ve already declared?
So what are we to do? Our quiver is empty now Dr. Burgis! According to your essay in Jacobin the left’s only viable fighting method is to create an ambiguous partisanship coalition that goes under the banner of the DSA? And perhaps, post on substack, medium, and youtube our strongly worded compare and contrast essays’ like some rejects from the Great Cultural Revolution? Is this really the best strategy the left can do right now Dr. Burgis? Are you seriously telling millions of people that it is pointless for them to ban together on the ground right now in grassroots organizations and create change at the neighborhood and small town level? If , so, this Socialist Wants Nothing To Do With Your Brand Of Bourgeois Coffee Table Socialism!!!