The Digger

by Nick Reid -  Uniting the Fringe Against the Center Watching the news lately, you get the impression that the world is being ripped in two by the scourge of the far-right and the far-left. Populism they call it. Warring tribes in a binary war for the soul of the free world. In the US, Our dear orange Pericles is scheming mightily to manipulate the already unconstitutional powers of executive privilege to follow through with his promise to militarize the commons at the boarder. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is in virtual upheaval over how to contain a 5-foot-2 congresswoman for making the “antisemitic” observation that perhaps Israel has too much influence over Washington while the rest of the party keep McCarthyism alive with their own Russophobic “tropes”. Across Europe and many other parts of the world, you here a similar tale of the populist left and/or the populist right going too far in one direction or the other, many times both simultaneously in an act of sociopo...

The only way we'll defeat the foreign policy establishment is if the Left and Right can be brought together. By  ANDREW J. BACEVICH  •  March 8, 2019 Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) speaks at The American Conservative’s 5th Annual Foreign Policy Conference on Nov. 15, 2018.  Danny Delgado/Delgado Photos     This past week, I participated in a forum convened in Washington by Democrats of a decidedly progressive persuasion. The purpose of the gathering was to explore alternatives to the existing over-militarized pattern of U.S. foreign policy. Although a conservative, I have over the years come to admire more than a few progressives, even without necessarily sharing their views, especially on cultural matters. More to the point, I have long believed that the forging of a progressive-conservative coalition on America’s proper role in the world is a prerequisite for wresting control of U.S. policy from the existing and utterly hidebound national s...

Ralph Nader, left liberal, and Jimmy Dore, a near-inexorably socialism drifting progressive, are, IMO, tuned into the working class mood of the era; in touch and woke.  Are their demands sufficient? Not, IMO, by a long stretch, if socialism is the ultimate cure. But, if we keep in mind that revolution is not an event in time marked by historians, but a process culminating in such an historical event, then let's intelligently and purposefully participate in tearing down the capitalist edifice with all currently available forces which may stop shy of what socialists envision but will have brought socialism within range of possibility.  Currently, socialism resides well beyond the horizon of the working class "shlep's" comprehension and imagination. If the best some doctrinaire socialists can do is tell a "one year old": shape up junior, stop pissing in your bed, or else... socialism as a project is doomed.

Excerpt: The Trumpenleft (or “Sputnik Left,” as it is also called by  professional anti-Putin-Nazi intelligence analysts ) is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It is a gang of nefarious Putin-Nazi infiltrators posing as respectable leftists in order to disseminate Trumpian ideology and Putin-Nazi propaganda among an assortment of online leftist magazines that hardly anyone ever actually reads. The aim of these insidious Trumpenleft infiltrators is to sow confusion, chaos, and discord among actual, real, authentic leftists who are going about the serious business of calling Donald Trump a fascist on the Internet twenty-five times a day,  verbally abusing Julian Assange , occasionally pulling down oppressive statues, and sharing videos of racist idiots acting like racist idiots in public. The Trumpenleft is determined to sabotage (or momentarily disrupt) this revolutionary work, mostly by tricking these actual leftists into critically thinking about a host of issue...

Link:   Truths and Falsehoods About Ralph Nader's New Book Excerpt: "Before Werleman begins his condemnation of Unstoppable, he assures us, “I like Ralph Nader. I like his politics and I like the causes he has championed,” and he lists some of Nader’s accomplishments, including auto and highway safety laws, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Then Werleman launches his attack: “But Ralph Nader wants liberals to back libertarian Republican Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky)”. . . . But does Nader seriously believe liberals are prepared to sacrifice the other 90 percent of their ideals to rally behind a neo-confederate, Koch brother-shill like Rand Paul?” In fact, Nader never says this or anything close to this. The index in Nader’s Unstoppable reveals three mentions of Rand Paul on pages 43, 92 and 109: p. 43: “In 2013, Senator Wyden [D-Oregon] teamed up with Repub...

Link:   Nader Gathering Explores Potential of Left/Right Alliance Excerpt: "Following Nader's latest book,  Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State , Tuesday's one-day conference will explore key areas where the progressive left and conservative right find agreement, including: Civil liberties The minimum wage The commercialization of childhood Corporate welfare The imperial perpetuation of America’s wars Trade policy The unpunished crimes and misdeeds of Wall Street The purpose, according to event organizers, "is to convene unlikely allies to tackle the bold ideas" presented at the gathering and "turn them operational." A panelist for one of the event's sessions, anti-war and human rights activist Medea Benjamin offered snapshots from the conference via her Twitter account:..." For a sense of the agenda, here is the complete list of the day's panels and the individuals repre...