The Left Likes Its Chances by Frank Stipp

The cities are toxic. The subways are seething. The carbon is cooking.

The forests are burning. Siberia’s melting. The ocean is rising. South Asia’s flooding.

Our cells are half plastic. Miami’s a puddle. They site nuke plants on rivers.

The war is raging. The money is talking. The radio’s braying. The TV is barking.

The press has got to be joking.

The fossils are fueling. The wealth is concentrating. The rent’s too damn high.

The copters are filming. The police dress in armor. The weapon’s on autopilot.

The music don’t rock. The tribes don’t dance. The kids are all wrong.

Informants are trending. Integrity’s fleeing. Dignity’s dying. Courage is fleeting.

Art says too little. A poet can’t make a living. Big Brother is watching.

Sex needs a museum. Love is on wifi. Don’t fucking touch me. Everyone’s back aches. Inflammation is chronic. Your sisters’ on opioids. Cigarettes are electric.

Mental health comes in pill form. Votes are in petro dollars.

And, oh yeah, Trump’s in the White House . . .

But the Left likes its chances.

[pullquote]The Left Forum brings together some of the most effective activists and organizers on the ground with the best scholars on the planet, observed Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin, a courageous and high profile civil disobedience agent. “I get to see people I’ve known for decades.”[/pullquote]

The annual Left Forum conference had filled a prison-sized classroom complex known as John Jay College of Criminal Justice with intellectuals, sociologists, identity enthusiasts, panelists and lecturers for half a decade. So when the event was downsized to a more human scale at LIU last month, questions arose. Had the recent arrest of Julian Assange discouraged attendance? asked one neighboring business owner. Was the Left summering at the Pensacola Riviera? speculated another. Had the average lifespan of a radical gone that far past retirement age?

Just the opposite, cited LF impresario Rick Wolff. While preparing a conference along the usual lines — hundreds of presentations, thousands of attendees –John Jay administrators demanded the school both govern the event and retain the proceeds. [An ongoing investigation into allegations of a long-time prostitution and narcotics ring at John Jay (N.Y. Times 9/22/18) was cited for the university’s change of heart]. “We smiled and said thank you very much,” said Wolff. The Conference quickly booked the downtown Brooklyn campus. “We had to scramble, and it’s smaller,” he added, but the alternative was unacceptable.

CONVERGENCE

Dr. Frederick Mills of Bowie State University, a frequent Left Forum presenter, also insisted the condensed gathering was no reflection on a weakening of the Left. Just the opposite, explained Mills, a professor of philosophy with a specialization in Latin American governance. Instead, he asserted, “we are experiencing an awakening. A convergence” of disparate groups and voices into an amalgamation of like agendas. He listed the Answer Coalition, Black Alliance for Peace, LGBTQ entities, immigrant rights groups, Never Again, and many others.

This dynamic is complemented by recent direct action accomplishments. These include the precedent-setting protection of the Venezuelan Embassy from occupation by Washington-backed anti-Venezuelan government forces for 37 days; immigrant rights groups’ blocking of ICE raids against suspected ‘undocumented’ immigrants outside targeted apartment complexes in Chicago and New York; Never Again (an anti-racist Jewish movement against concentration camps) in alliance with immigrant rights organizations turning out across the country at immigration facilities, following nationwide revulsion against breaking up families, mistreatment of children, and the operation of federal detention and concentration camps on US-Mexico borders and across the country.

[pullquote]The Left recognizes that (this schism) is structural , not just one individual in the White House and the growth of White Nationalism.[/pullquote]Mills further emphasized that the disintegration of the centrist character of the Democratic Party is well underway. After a closed-door meeting between left-leaning Democrats: Occasio-Cortes, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib – and House Speaker Pelosi — which House leadership originally called for to reign-in the quartet for its public call to address intraparty differences — leadership was forced to argue The Four’s censure resolution against the White House for racist statements.

REST IN PEACE

Author Chris Hedges, who also addressed the conference, notes in his book Death of the Liberal Class that what we’re seeing is the ‘center’ coming apart. Establishment Democrats are beholden to corporate funding, yet want to pretend to be progressive.

“Liberals created the US system of mass incarceration, the war on drugs, the re-colonization of Latin America, etc.” added Mills, “not just Republicans.” These are sharply distinguished from programs favored by those who see themselves as progressive. “The Left recognizes that (this schism) is structural , not just one individual in the White House and the growth of White Nationalism.”

BET THE FARM

“The tide is already turning,” said Wolff. “In Fairfax, Virginia, Lee Carter, a politician in the mold of our own AOC, beat the leader of the Virginia State House, running openly as a Socialist.” With such opportunity in the offing – or at least some glimmer of understanding of who’s on which side –“it’s sad if we don’t grab it.”