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YCW Newsletter - Don’s Note - August
🕑 Added 2019-08-26 16:52:38 +0000 UTCAs someone who was in my 20’s by the time social media was a thing, I’ve never really gotten over being able to talk to someone in the north of Sweden with another friend in Chicago. I think that’s one thing we’ve been able to get across on our little show - different types of people and ideas from all over. After six months of working on the podcast the whole is coming into focus after mostly being disconnected talks about things that interest us. Lots of stuff to disagree with from episode to episode, but that seems better than hiding the warts. In the long run we are all cancelled but people have been generous so far.
The past few weeks have been a good example of the diversity:
- A discussion of the concept of the “Islamic state” with Khalid.
- A two-hour journey into the life of our friend Steve from Boston.
- Joking around with our old friend Leo.
- Premium episodes about finance, Yukio Mishima and C.B. Macpherson.
- A No Goals semi-reunion episode with Molly and Alana.
- A talk with RedMaistre about Catholicism and politics.
- Discussing climate change and radicalism with Alex.
- A few episodes with “Professor Pizzagate” about the Epstein scandal.
As far as I can tell, the next few months will continue to be all over the map. Thank you for listening and to those of you who have signed up for the bonus episodes. If you want more of something then please let us know. If you want less of something, then let us know, but politely.
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Dontent
Revolution to the end? (About the DNC) - Harper’s Magazine blog
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We’re All Reformists Now
A timeless piece of politics wisdom to me is “pick a fight you can win and then win it.” That was the problem with electoral campaigns on the left - most of the time it was putting up paper candidates where it was unclear what was being gained. Remember that Kshama Sawant winning a municipal seat in Seattle in 2013 was considered remarkable and widely thinkpieced. In those years, you would see far-left groups run a candidate in a stronghold seat where one of the major parties didn’t run, get maybe 10% of the vote, and then brag to people it was a sign that socialism was on the march.
I think the past few years with the DSA and Labour have shown that the mainstream of the major political parties has been so hollowed out that it has become possible to essentially leapfrog the professionals at specific points of weakness. I have doubts about the effectiveness of this as a total strategy but at this point: Who cares? The fact is that the left is so underdeveloped in the USA and Canada that seeing a resurgence of the new social democracy is way better than what existed before. It’s hugely annoying to centrist professionals and it’s exciting for a lot of young people. I love being crabby, but why be crabby about that?
I think there’s something to be said for encouraging people to do the positive things they want to do even if you think it’s not optimal. Like if you disagree with anarchists, it’s probably a waste of time to argue with them, why not find something to work on like encouraging the development of local cooperatives. And I think that applies to the reformist projects - that’s probably one reason you see warmness towards them, because they let people who aren’t hardcore ideologues but still have inclinations to play into them. Okay, maybe Corbyn won’t abolish the state, but he’ll put some money into cooperatives and community development, and then you can do that. Is this cooptation? That’s the way politics is supposed to work. Make a demand, get it partially met, go about your life, work for the future.
There’s a lot of value to letting other people do their thing and then not worrying about it much. Chip in where you can, volunteer where you can, whatever, not dive in too far and then struggle. The present rulers of the world are so deeply psycho that it’s good to count some small wins. Where I live in Ontario I am skeptical that a new-new-left will build up out of existing institutions but we’re definitely in a “whatever works” situation. The Ford government is making new rounds of cuts and the coming federal election doesn’t offer much hope at this point. But whenever a bad situation like this comes together it always points to the possibility to me of a new left coalition finally readying for a counterattack.
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2019 Canadian general election endorsement:
I will vote NDP again. Although there is no NDP candidate here yet. So maybe I won’t vote.
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Life as a Content Generator
Time is flying by so fast. I have no idea where it is going. Most days I feel like I don’t have time to write anything, which is nonsense, because obviously I’m not clocking in to a 9-to-5. Did buying a Sony help? I did play a fair bit of Fallout 4 but not a psycho amount. I’ve had wacky allergies lately but that can’t account for it. I guess Tom and I have been putting extra work into the podcast lately but even then… who knows. I have ideas swirling around for a book but harder to put them on paper. I’m deeply in that stage where I do pseudo-work, like getting books about how to write book proposals or reading about historical socialist movements, rather than getting things down in my own words. I tend to be a person who gets it all out in a burst rather than chipping away but that’s a terrible idea for the stuff I’m working on. This all sounds like frustration but I’m pretty hopeful. It’s just that one day I spent a few hours looking up to-do apps and project management software instead of just working on things.
Love,
Don
