Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on Saturday condemned Israel as a racist state, warning activists that there is an organized opposition against progressive critics of Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians.
The sharp criticism from the lawmaker from Washington state marks among the highest-level condemnations of Israel, as several members of her caucus plan to boycott Israel President Isaac Herzog’s address to a joint session of Congress later this week.
Speaking on a panel at Netroots Nation, an annual progressive activist conference in Chicago, Jayapal was addressing pro-Palestinian attendees interrupting the session.
Right now, “the Squad” is quite outside my graces ever since the ratfucking of the rail unions.
We don’t get to see behind closed doors. I get it, and I feel the same way, but rail workers have been getting some things they asked for, but their right to protest was also undermined. What should have happened is the government forces the rail companies to give into the union demands, not the other way around, but that was likely never an option with the current government. If they got the best deal possible for the rail workers by publicly cooperating, whatever. They are a hugely important part of the economy (hence, they should get their way if they’re that important), so the government wasn’t going to let it shut down.
I don’t even necessarily agree their right to protest was undermined. There were 12 unions negotiating during that period. Only four of them were wanting the strike to continue. It’s a weird situation, and you’re right, we can’t pretend to know what went on behind closed doors. But to me, it looked like 4 unions were trying to hold the rest hostage and force everyone to keep striking when they didn’t want to.
Regardless, this certainly isn’t something anyone should be villainizing The Squad for. They’ve done more for progressive rights than any group of congresspeople in recent memory. People who are still salty over it should maybe take a moment of introspection and figure out if they actually think The Squad are bad people, or if maybe Right wing media got ahold of the one time they weren’t 100% on the side of unions and workers and ran it into the ground as a way to diminish support for them.
To me, it’s almost certainly the latter.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/congress-votes-to-avert-rail-strike-amid-dire-warnings
Those 4 unions represented a majority of the workers.
Do you have the exact numbers handy? That’s not something I’d heard. Not saying you’re wrong, I’d just like to see the actual breakdown.
Regardless, I think my overall stance will stay the same. This isn’t a black and white issue. And I still trust them FAR more than anyone else in Congress. Even if they didn’t get all the workers everything they asked for once. And let’s be clear, the workers still got a lot from those negotiations. They’re in a much better spot now than they were. No, it doesn’t mean the fight is over, but the wheel of progress turns slowly, especially when one party is throwing every resource they have to get it to spin backwards. Small wins are still wins.
Or to put it in American terms: you can win by 5 touchdowns or a single extra point, either way, your record looks the same. Sure, it feels better to win by blowout. But it feels a LOT worse to lose.
This article says that the 4 unions represent 60,000 workers out of 115,000:
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/21/1137640529/railroads-freight-rail-unions-vote-contract-strike
Not an excuse. Their breaking the picket line shows that they’re just another gaggle of Beltway bottom-feeders who talk out the sides of their necks when it’s convenient to score a couple extra votes. I don’t reward that kind of behavior.
So basically you’ll never vote for anyone because no politician will ever agree with absolutely everything you do. For that matter, no person will. There are always occasions where you accept something that’s better than nothing than accepting nothing out of moral grandstanding.
I don’t accept
strikebreakers or scabsany anti-labor moves that wind up suppressing the right to withhold one’s ‘essential labor’, since we want to play the semantics game now. So much bad faith out of you liberals; and you wonder why I have no time, patience, or consideration for you ‘people’.Well you should at least learn the meanings of those words, because they aren’t those. They did not go to work for rail companies to undermine the strike.
I get you want to be idiologically pure and everything. Personally, I want whatever is best for the workers. I know from the outside I was mad about it, but I can’t say it definitely was not what was best for the workers. They were not going to be allowed to strike for long, if at all. The fact they are getting some of the things they asked for in the demands is enough to show that it wasn’t just caving the the rail companies.
Being angry is a lot easier than being realistic.
(Go protest. That’s great. But elected officials don’t have the liberty to be idealistically pure.)
Then maybe your system is shit, deserves to cave in, and you shouldn’t be surprised when distrust and contempt are fostered by anyone who upholds it. If I can only trust a politician to run their mouth in public and then act total opposite, what am I supporting them for? What am I propping them up for? What am I upholding that isn’t my own people getting fucked by the moneyed?
They can’t be idealistically pure because they should be doing what’s best. What don’t you get about this? Ideals are good as a measuring stick, but they aren’t useful if they can’t be adjusted when doing something good is possible.
Let’s take the trolly problem as a hypothetical. The trolly is going down a track that will kill 100 people, but I can negotiate with the trolly company to take another track that will kill none instead. Should I negotiate even though it means doing business with an entity I don’t ideologically agree with? Any reasonable person will say yes. You’re saving 100 people for a minor idealistic failing.
The end goal should be to help the workers, which probably in the end means limiting the influence of (or destroying) the rail companies. That’s not going to happen today though, so in the meantime out elected officials should do what’s best within their abilities. Protestors should do what’s best in their abilities. Go fuck up the rail company’s day.
Sitting around and saying the politicians who are pretty much as close to your ideals as possible, whole still being electable, are bad is useless. Keep them elected to do their work there, then you do your work where you can. If your ideals aren’t based on outcomes, what good are they?
I would love Santa Clause to be real, but me being idealistic about it won’t make it happen. I need to adjust to having the best outcome possible, and maybe accept that helping people have a good holiday season through other means is a realistic option.
You might want to look into what happened a little bit more. A minority of the unions were trying to hold the negotiations hostage. It’s not as black and white as you’re painting it.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/congress-votes-to-avert-rail-strike-amid-dire-warnings
It was only 4 unions, but representing 60k out of 115k workers. PLUS, the unions all agreed that if anyone went on strike, they would all strike together. They did this so they would all be stronger in negotiations.