Representative Cori Bush demonstrating for an extension on the federal eviction moratorium
Over 70,000 American children tested positive for covid-19 last week - a big jump from the previous week’s numbers. Still, the message from corporations, Republican Governors, and national Democratic leaders, and fucking UNICEF of all things, is the same - get your asses back to school, and packed into classrooms, asap.
Totally, genuinely progressive pundits (and not at all controlled opposition who punch Left and let the establishment off the hook) like Emma Vigeland have wasted no time blaming Leftists for Nina Turner’s primary loss in Ohio’s 11th Congressional District this week. “That People’s Party must be thrilled that Nina Turner lost. What a victory to see that McCarthyite imperialist go down. One step closer to Medicare For All!” Vigeland mocked, referring to the upstart party that Turner initially joined before abandoning when a congressional seat opened up.
Sure - the Democratic Party and its corporate and special interest supporters funneled millions of dollars into beating Turner - but we all know who to really lash out at the day after…tiny, insignificant independent parties with no money, of course.
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Former President Obama’s friends attempted to extract donations from working people for a vanity project in his name this week in honor of his 60th birthday. His former staffer Valerie Jarret wrote on twitter, for example, “My dear friend Barack Obama is turning 60 tomorrow. For his birthday gift, I’m asking you to chip in $6 or $60 to help us bring the Obama Presidential Center to life in Chicago.”
That’s a compelling plea, Valerie. Here’s my counter-proposal:
I'll give $600 to any organization that has a viable plan to stop the Obama center from being built here in my hometown. He's a multi millionaire war criminal and this center will take away public, green space away from Brown and Black families.
Speaking of gross asks from the powerful and resourced of the poor and vulnerable - Rep. Cori Bush jumped right back on the fundraising line after convincing the Biden administration to partially extend the can-kicking and debt-piling eviction moratorium.
“I refused to accept Congress going on vacation while 11 million face eviction,” Bush wrote in a mass text sent out nationwide. “For 5 days we pushed…but we must keep working. Can you donate to support us?”
Indeed Bush and her colleagues must keep working, especially because all 11 million renters are no less vulnerable to eviction now than they were five days ago. One might even argue that the federal legislators of the ruling party of the most powerful and richest country in the world should keep working even without added donations from poor people.
Hopefully Bush and her colleagues find the wherewithal to continue working on their meager six-figure salaries, staff budgets and housing allowances, to go with, you know, the power to make laws.
Congress and even the so-called Progressive members of The Squad, sure managed to do plenty of work without donations from us this past week when they allocated billions of unconditional support to the government of what the world’s leading human rights organizations call an apartheid state - Israel. The sad truth is that The Squad has fought more for apartheid Israel in the past week than for Americans experiencing housing insecurity but go ahead and keep simping.
A 60 day targeted eviction moratorium gives the renters it will actually apply to time to pack their bags. That's it.
Still, members of The Squad - our supposed progressive stalwarts against the excesses of the system they don’t attempt to dismantle and the party leaders they endorse - show no shame in centering themselves and their Herculean five-day struggle on the steps of the Capitol in drawing attention far too late to the rental crisis. No one, not a single renter, is out of looming danger of eviction and poverty after Rep. Bush and others got the cruel Biden administration to narrowly extend the moratorium on evictions for some renters.
Rental debt will still continue to accrue, the moratorium on evictions will be partial and apply only to geographic areas the federal government chooses, and even those insulting third-measures will only last 60 days. Still, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to twitter to pat herself and Bush on the back with a photo of them celebrating emotionally and captioned, “it always seems impossible until it’s done.”
This brief post has it all when it comes to the gold standard of self-aggrandizing politician propaganda - Centering themselves and their “struggle” of a few days (with their staffs serving as surrogate stand-ins whenever they tired) instead of the real, never-ending struggle of renting families’ suffering, claiming that the rental crisis is “done,” it’s all there.
Other progressive politicians have piled on with the self high fives, lying and saying that Bush saved millions from eviction. Sadly, no one has been saved from eviction.
The extension of an already callous, insufficient emergency policy designed to keep the landlord/serf relationship intact and protect the creditors who fill the ranks of this current and all previous Presidential administrations, will merely ensure that renters' debts continue to grow.
There is no plan or even political will among elites in the Democratic majority to cancel that debt and there is absolutely nothing in place to prevent renters from being put on the streets in a couple more months once the weather turns cold.
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I appreciate friendly White folks' goodwill, but some of you are acting as though Nina Turner was a miraculous factory worker insurgent running for her first office. Relax. She's a career politician & establishment Democrat who pissed off people by endorsing Sen. Sanders.
Rep. AOC & Sen. Sanders worked w Trump to support coups in Latin America, & Rep. Omar now supports genocide of Palestinians by Apartheid Israel but, sure, lifelong politician Nina Turner who refused to tweet about M4A as thousands marched for it would've been so been different...
This is the exact line of bullshit I heard from my Rush Limbaugh carbon copy father. Stop pretending to be on the left because no one on the left is falling for it.