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DANCING shyly, popular teenager Amy* is just one of the 800million TikTok users who love performing for the camera but her moves arent the first thing you notice.

Painfully skinny, the bones on her bare legs jut out, and on closer inspection it becomes clear shes in hospital an inpatient recovering from a serious eating disorder and regularly posting about her experiences.

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While her account is based on her recovery, her 50k followers are shown regular images of her gaunt, unwell body and detailed videos about her diet which, while innocently intentioned, are the type of content experts warn can still expose users struggling with their own disorders to "triggering" content which "glamorises" eating disorders.

TikTok's community guidelines prohibit content that seeks to promote or glorify eating disorders, and the company says such videos will be removed.

But Amy's posts are just the tip of the iceberg.

Dig a little deeper, and a sinister underlayer of purposefully cruel videos telling teens to starve themselves and restrict their diets are easily accessible, and can even creep up on peoples TikTok feeds randomly.

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Tragically, eating disorders are all too common, with approximately 1.25million people in the UK suffering from one, according to charity Beat, and there has long been an issue with social media users being subjected to potentially harmful and exacerbating content.

Its a particular problem on TikTok because the For You feed shows users a random mix of videos using an algorithm, which means even if you dont follow any eating disorder content, you may scroll on to it anyway accidentally.

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Forty one per cent of TikToks 800million users are between the age of 16 and 24," explains Kerrie Jones, clinical director and founder of eating disorder clinic Orri.

"This is important because it is also the typical age bracket where people are vulnerable to developing eating disorders and the lack of content regulation and the use of algorithms that deliver content automatically means that people are at risk of consuming harmful content without even actively looking for it.

The rise of our influencer generation means that theres a risk of romanticising and even glorifying eating disorders with content that focuses on food, eating and exercise habits.

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This type of content can exacerbate someones existing eating disorder symptoms keeping them trapped in the cycle of their illness or encourage those who are vulnerable to engaging with an unhealthy relationship to food and exercise.

Call centre worker India Edmonds, 22, from Brighton, knows exactly how damaging it can be.

She developed an eating disorder when she was 14, and at the height of it was using social media to find thinspiration photos, weighed just six stone, was admitted to hospital and almost died.

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For me, the illness hasnt completely gone and I still get thoughts about my weight and what I eat, but with treatment I can cope with it now and have learned to live with it and it doesnt control my life anymore," she says.

Social media can have such a negative impact on people with eating disorders, and with TikTok you dont need to even look for it - it just comes up on your feed, which could easily be triggering. You cant control it.

Its hard when you constantly see videos of people who seem so perfect - its easy to compare yourself to them. Because videos can just pop up on your feed, it can be difficult to ignore."

Due to the competitive nature of eating disorders, seeing other people talking about their experiences is enough to remind India of how she felt at the depths of her problem.

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She says: If I see videos of people with eating disorders I do end up clicking on them and looking at their profile. It makes me think about it a lot more, and it sounds odd but sometimes makes me miss it - for me it was about weight and being small and I sometimes compare myself to them without even realising.

Id prefer to choose what I watch. A couple of weeks ago a video popped up made by a girl who was an inpatient on a psych ward and she was glamorising it and I didnt agree with that - she made it look fun which could be so damaging for people watching.

It reminded me of my own experience, and was upsetting. I come across a lot all the time on social media. Sometimes it feels its just to get the likes or views.

Even for someone who doesnt have an eating disorder, young teens who are easily influenced - it would easily put the idea into their head and think they could do it too.

While TikTok has taken action to ban certain hashtags such as anorexia and bulimia, many users keen to view eating disorder content simply use common misspellings of these terms that still return examples of harmful eating disorder videos.

It doesnt take long to find intentionally sinister content.

One user promises to post: "thinspo, meanspo and fatphobia interact to starve, and says: Skip dinner, wake up thinner.

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One post by a "pro ana" user, liked nearly 1,000 times, recommends a ten day diet plan that varies between eating absolutely nothing to eating a maximum of 200 calories a day.

Another user, who recommends exercising five hours a day, posts a picture of a girls midriff, with the caption: If your ribs arent showing you arent trying hard enough.

Fans write in and give their height and weight, and the account writes back to tell them how much weight they need to lose.

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While this is obviously sinister content, the line between normal and "harmful content" is far from obvious too.

Videos that at first glance seem positive or harmless can also trigger those with an eating disorder, and sometimes even popular influencers play a role in this.

Doctor Aragona Giuseppe, medical advisor at Prescription Doctor, says: The most damaging [content] is of course is the pro-ana content but also even a person posting their diet plan or their what I eat in a day can have hugely damaging effects on a young person, because they start to believe that they should also be limiting their intake of food also.

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The obsession with weight and losing weight has always been apparent, however, it is becoming heightened by TikTok because it appears so normal as well as people being able to access this type of content 24/7.

The what I eat in a day hashtag has been viewed over 3.3billion times, with users posting everything theyve eaten over a 24-hour period, with diet versions often focusing on calorie counts.

One user posting under the what I eat in a day hashtag states they have been eating 300-600 calories max and in one day states lunch was five snow peas, 20cal, and a slice of toast with cheese, 177cal and for dinner six chicken nuggets, 306cal and four french fries, 32cal.

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There is also an eating disorder version of the hashtag, 'what I eat in a day in recovery', which has been viewed 280,000 times.

Care worker Sarah* works at a psychiatric hospital on an eating disorder ward which supports young girls between the ages of 12 and 18, and has seen how damaging these videos can be first-hand.

Its such a competitive illness

She says: One 15-year-old patient who was admitted recently said she found TikTok especially triggering during lockdown, especially the what I eat in a day videos which show peoples weight loss food diaries.

"Its such a competitive illness if she saw someones diet was less than what she ate, she felt like she needed to do the same, or less.

"Its extremely damaging.

This is where the content influencers post plays a pivotal role.

One user with just under 50,000 followers describes themselves as into fashion, fitness and lifestyle, and posted a "ten weight loss tips" video recommending drinking lots of water before meals because youll be less hungry, and also recommends drinking lots of caffeine and intermittent fasting.

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The video was posted using a series of contradictory, common hashtags including "healthy living", "lose weight fast" and "fasting for weight loss".

Thank you so much!!! Ive been waiting for this video for months now and it was SO HELPFUL! one user commented, while others were quick to condemn the advice, saying: Just stop, youre sending a really bad message to young girls.

Theres also a new influx in positive eating disorder influencer accounts users who document their recovery with the aim to help others, but also still inadvertently post content that could trigger other users.

One such account with 15,000 followers shows a girl acting out a scene from when she was in an eating disorder ward, and hiding her breakfast up her sleeve to trick the nurses into thinking shed eaten.

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The video was liked over 220,000 times, with one viewer commenting: Do you know how many young impressionable girls are on this app seeing this?!

Writer Eve Simmons, 29, had an eating disorder in her early twenties, and was admitted to hospital aged 23.

Speaking about triggering videos on social media, she says: Theyre abhorrent and incredibly damaging, not only to people who have had eating disorders but also people whore vulnerable to developing them, which could be anyone really.

I didnt look at content like that because for me it wasnt about the way I looked - it was trying to maintain control over my life, which happened via food.

All of the stuff out there, online or on TV - everything can be a trigger when youre in that head space, even the smallest things can be a trigger. So imagine what its like when you have actual people in eating disorder units with their emaciated bodies posting pictures of their food.

The thing that also really gets me is influencers who perhaps have recovered from their eating disorder and are body positive but are still extremely thin and are still reiterating the very destructive messages but are more disguised because they dont look so gaunt and unwell now.

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"We know that there are positive recovery communities out there which some of our beneficiaries have found helpful it can be very encouraging to hear stories from people who were previously unwell and are now thriving," says Beat's director of external affairs, Tom Quinn.

We would encourage those making positive videos to avoid mentioning specific weights or BMI, or showing photos of themselves when unwell, as although these are well-intended they can be triggering for people currently ill.

Signs and symptoms of anorexia

A TikTok spokesperson told The Sun Online that the platform "was built to provide a positive place for creativity, and we prioritise the safety and wellbeing of our users".

"Content that supports or encourages eating disorders is strictly against our community guidelines and will be removed," the spokesperson added.

"However for some users, TikTok provides a forum to share their experience of living with or recovering from an eating disorder and expression of this nature is permitted.

"This is a complex and multi-faceted issue and we work each day to ensure that we are growing our policies and practices to keep our community safe."

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So, what more do experts think should be done?

"We recognise there have been steps taken to limit the spread of so-called 'pro-ana' or 'pro-mia' content, such as blocking certain hashtags," says Beat's Tom Quinn.

However, from the amount of triggering videos still live it's also clear that people have been getting around this.

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We believe there are further measures that still need to be introduced, such as getting real people to filter out harmful content."

The charity also advises users to take breaks from social media, an idea backed by other experts, with Dr Giuseppe adding: These types of apps are essentially brainwashing tools and the more time people spend watching this type of harmful content the more likely they are to believe that this is normal and of course it will likely trigger eating and body disorders as well as fuel obsession with the way people look.

*Names have been changed.

If you're affected or need advice, please visit Beat's website, or call their helpline number 0808 801 0677.

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How TikTok became a hotbed of pro-anorexic videos and severely underweight influencers promoting - The Irish Sun

Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, joins The Final Round to discuss his thoughts on the latest developments with the coronavirus as the White House approves the newest FDA guidelines on vaccine approval and the vaccine race.

SEANA SMITH: Welcome back to The Final Round. Lets get to the latest on coronavirus. The Wall Street Journal reporting that the White House has dropped its objections and has signed off on the FDAs guidelines for approving a coronavirus vaccine.

For more on this, we want to bring in Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding. Hes an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. And we also have Yahoo Finances Anjalee Khemlani joining the conversation.

Doctor, its great to have you on the show. With the White House signing off on the FDAs two-month COVID-19 vaccine guideline, I guess my first question to you is, where does this put us on a likely timeline for a vaccine to be approved?

ERIC FEIGL-DING: Well, the vaccine actual timeline hasnt changed. Its whether Trump would have previously had the gall and ability to overrule the FDA in approving it without the extra safety data.

So if anything, this will actually make the trials reports in confidence more safe because we will have the extra data to be sure that is efficacy has it works well enough and safe. And I think this is good news all around. It just means that Trump unlikely would be unlikely to approve it before election day.

SEANA SMITH: And doctor, we talk about the fact that with this vaccine, so many Americans, weve seen survey after survey that they are hesitant about potentially taking a vaccine, that there is a lot of distrust out there. Do you think that this type of headline at least would help improve Americans and their trust for a potential vaccine?

ERIC FEIGL-DING: Yeah, I think this is a really good move. Because one-third of Americans say they wont take it outright. One-third say they will, and one-third said, well see. And this wait and see and the huge number of people wont taking is really worrisome because a vaccine is only as good as how many people take it, right? A 100% effective vaccine is only 50% effective if half the people take it.

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And so I think this lays the seed that people can trust it, that when the results come out, the scientific community will get behind it, as opposed to panning those too early and too risky. And that key messaging is one of those things where you will actually win the war in the long-term against the coronavirus next year whenever it rolls out in the general population.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Doctor, Anjalee here. I know that Dr. Peter Marks, who we all know is the FDAs top vaccine expert there, has been at various events and symposiums talking about this two-month period, but also saying that they wish they had more time, spurring what I think is a letter from multiple health experts pushing for even more time.

Now that the White House caved on the two months, any chance that we will just continue following science on this one? And is more than two months necessary?

ERIC FEIGL-DING: Yeah, I think we will probably need longer. It depends the timeline actually depends. A trial has enough data when, actually, enough people get sick, and you can actually have a contrast between the vaccine and the placebo group.

But I think, you know, this is a good first start. Actually, the FDA posted online, against the White House wishes, in one of their other side websites, which kind of forced our hands. Because then the White House would have had to undermine the FDA publicly, very publicly.

So in certain ways, the FDA won this battle, they won it grudgingly. And hopefully, there wont be any more of these [INAUDIBLE]. But technically, Trump can still approve the vaccine over because as of last month, they assumed all the approval powers from the FDA. So hopefully, they will abide by this. And hopefully, well have good data.

SEANA SMITH: Doctor, I want to get your thoughts just on what we heard from President Trumps campaign today. And thats the fact that hes planning to debate Joe Biden next week. Now its scheduled for October 15th, which will put us just two weeks after the president had tested positive.

Just from your perspective, as a doctor, are there any safety concerns that you have about Trump attending the debate and participating in the debate?

ERIC FEIGL-DING: Yeah, Trump, for example, he took his mask off yesterday. Hes still infectious. On average and this is average people recover and theyre no longer infectious after 10 days after they show symptoms. 10 days is very, very close to the 15th.

And honestly, you know, Trump is much older, and he has risk factors. So he could actually be infectious and sick longer than normal. So 10 days is average. Half the people are longer than that. So he could still be infectious at the debate.

So I think at minimum, you should have much better plexiglass, which, by the way, Pence rejected for the debate tomorrow against Kamala Harris, which is very weird and strange. But personally, I think there should be a virtual or rescheduled.

AKIKO FUJITA: Doctor, looking at all the vaccine developments outside of the US, weve got China now looking to get some kind of assessment from the WHO to allow for the emergency use of some of their vaccine candidates.

And Im curious how significant you think any kind of assessment or approval from the WHO would be, especially given concerns about the way in which the trials have been conducted in China, the safety and efficacy questions. I mean, ultimately, is this really about trying to get the vaccine to more of the emerging and developing countries that are likely to be left out as some of the big names that weve been talking about?

ERIC FEIGL-DING: Yeah, I think WHO, their vaccine consortium is the COVAX consortium with Gavi, a Danish group, that US, as a part of warp speed, are completely separated from because US did not want to join them.

WHO is wanting to make sure that the vaccines are safe and get into the hands of developing countries, and hence why they have developed and actually made pharma commit to actually reducing their profits and waving their profits altogether.

Meanwhile, the US warp speed vaccines have not. And that probably limits the availability of all these warp speed vaccines for developing countries and getting their hands. So WHO cares about global health. Again, Trump cares about America first again.

And thats not a good idea because with all these vaccines, their vaccines could actually be superior to ours. And now were basically putting all our eggs in one basket. And that is risky.

See more here:
Why you may not be losing weight on the keto diet - Sports Grind Entertainment

This week, all eyes were on a pair of hard-fought Democratic primaries in Massachusetts. Sen. Ed Markey staved off a primary challenge from Joe Kennedy III, while the progressive mayor of Holyoke, Alex Morse, lost his bid to replaceRep. Richard Neal. Morse was dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct leveled at him by the Massachusetts College Democrats, which he was unable to shake off even after they were shown by The Intercept to be an unfounded smear campaign. Markey and Morse were both backed by the youth-led climate group Sunrise Movement. Sunrise leaders Evan Weber and Alex OKeefe join Ryan Grim to discuss the lessons of this week.

Ed Markey: The time to be timid is past. The age of incrementalism is over. Now is our moment to think big, to build big. This is what this election is all about.

[Musical interlude.]

Ryan Grim: Welcome to Deconstructed, Im Ryan Grim, filling in once again for Mehdi Hasan who this time, we promise will definitely be back soon, and hell tell you what hes been up to.

But before he does, were going to take a look at this weeks much-discussed Democratic primaries in Massachusetts, starting with Ed Markeys victory in the partys Senate primary.

Evan Weber: He really had our back in a really big way over the course of the past year, you know, so when we heard that he was facing a tough reelection fight, we knew that we had to take a stand.

Thats one of my guests today, Evan Weber, Political Director of the Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate action movement that threw its weight behind the Markey campaign and ultimately helped him to a surprisingly comfortable victory over his challenger, Joe Kennedy III. Ill also speak to his colleague, Sunrises Creative Director Alex OKeefe. Well discuss the Markey win, but also the primary loss of another Sunrise-backed candidate, Alex Morse, who tried to unseat Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal in Massachusetts 1st district.

Today on the show: What can we learn from the Massachusetts primaries?

[Musical interlude.]

A year ago, Joe Kennedy III looked like a real threat to Ed Markey, the incumbent in the 2020 Massachusetts senate election. No Kennedy had ever lost an election in Massachusetts. Kennedy was in his late 30s, compared to the 74-year-old Markey, and he had a big advantage in the polls, especially with Black, rural, and lower-income voters. And yet

Newscaster: In the Massachusetts primary, Senator Ed Markey became the first person to ever defeat a member of the Kennedy family in that state.

Joe Kennedy III: I called Senator Markey to congratulate him and to pledge my support.

Newscaster: And when all the votes are found, this is gonna end up being something like a 10-point win for Ed Markey.

RG: So what went wrong? Kennedy, it turned out, was never able to give a convincing answer as to why he was running in the first place, given his platforms apparent similarity to Markeys. Oddly, that was the same unanswerable question that had bedeviled his great uncles presidential campaign in 1980.

Newscaster: Why do you want to be president?

Former Sen. Ted Kennedy: Well, Im were I to make the announcement to run, the reasons that I would run is because I have a great belief in this country that it is has more natural resources than any nation of the world.

RG: That rambling answer came before Ted Kennedy had even announced his run, and it was over before it had begun.

In 2020, his great nephews race turned at the end on the meaning of the Kennedy legacy, and, as well talk about later during our interview, it was Sunrise and Markey that baited Kennedy into a trap.

In the closing days, his campaign released an ad in which Markey inverted JFKs most famous adage, telling voters:

Ed Markey: With all due respect, its time to start asking what your country can do for you.

RG: An offronted Kennedy went on the attack, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime friend of the Kennedy family, jumped in the race to defend the clans honor.

It backfired. The public was not here to stand up for dynasties not even the Kennedys in Massachusetts.

But the biggest part of the story is the support Markey got from the Sunrise Movement and allied youth organizations. Sunrise is a climate action group, made famous when it and Justice Democrats, joined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, occupied Pelosis office in 2018. Markey and Sunrise were able to harness an energy reminiscent of the Bernie Sanders campaign, mobilizing young voters and transforming Markey from an old, staid incumbent into a familiar, hip progressive grandpa fighting off a challenge from the establishment.

Even the Bernie Bro trope showed up in the race. In recent weeks, Kennedy resorted to accusations of cyberbullying by Markey supporters. Even that didnt seem to move many voters; Markey beat him by 11 points.

But there was another story going on in Western Massachusetts, in the 1st congressional district. There, Sunrise, and Justice Democrats, and others endorsed Alex Morse, the 31-year-old mayor of Holyoke, in his campaign to unseat congressman Richard Neal. That story played out very differently.

Polls showed Morse closing in on Neal just a few weeks before the election, but on August 7, as early voting was already underway, all hell broke loose.

Newscaster: The University of Massachusetts Democrats stating Morse had sexual relations with male students while he was teaching at UMass Amherst and he used his position for sexual gain.

RG: The allegations against Morse, who is gay, were vague, claiming that Morse had made students uncomfortable with sexual advances. But they didnt contain any specific or verifiable claims, or even victims. They were enough, however, to persuade groups like Sunrise to back away from Morses campaign.

Newscaster: Morse, speaking to Western Mass News, saying he believes this is a political hit job and says the Neal campaign is to blame.

RG: Then starting on August 12, The Intercept published a series of exposs that turned the story on its head:

Newscaster: The online publication The Intercept reported yesterday that the allegations against Mayor Morse may have direct ties to congressman Richard Neals campaign.

RG: We actually never proved a direct link to Neals campaign, but we did reveal a scheme by College Democrats, going back a year, to entrap Morse in order to generate sexual misconduct charges that could be used against him in the hopes of currying favor with Neal. Even the state partys leadership was involved.

Nationally, Morse was vindicated by what The New York Times called a cascade of head-spinning revelations. And those revelations were enough to get Sunrise and other groups back into the race behind Morse for the final stretch, but by then the damage was done.

Locally, that reference to The Intercepts reporting was fleeting and anomalous, as new outlets continued to treat the story as if it was real, with Neal saying the non-existent student victims should be heard, and Morse denying he did anything wrong.

An ad from Neals super PAC tarring Morse with the accusations continued to run locally through Election Day, even after they had apologized for it and said that it had aired accidentally.

Ad Host: Now, Alex Morse admits to sexual relationships with college students, even while he was a university lecturer.

RG: Neal, after benefitting from well over $5 million in spending, survived the challenge, 59 to 41.

[Musical interlude.]

RG: To talk more about Markeys win, Morses loss, and whats next, Im joined by Evan Weber and Alex OKeefe, two leaders of the Sunrise Movement.

Evan, thanks for being here.

EW: Great to be here. Thanks for having us, Ryan.

Alex, thanks for being here.

AOK: Yeah, thank you for inviting me.

So, how did you all settle on both the Ed Markey race and the Alex Morse race? Which one came first?

EW: Yeah. So in both cases, [laughs] it was a pretty, pretty easy decision. Ed Markey came first. We endorsed Ed Markey back in August of 2019, a month before Joe Kennedy even entered the race.

You know, we had worked closely with Ed Markey throughout the prior year, right after Sunrise Movement famously sat in Pelosis office and was joined by AOC. And Markey quickly reached out to AOC and Sunrise Movement to figure out how he could work with us to build a movement for a Green New Deal. And

RG: So it was that occupation that kind of got his attention?

EW: It was. Yeah. And, you know, AOC kind of took Congress by storm by joining our protest of Pelosis office and, you know, Ed Markey is a guy who had been working on climate change for several decades, you know, since the 80s, working on clean energy and climate change. And when he saw sort of the energy that AOC and our movement brought along to the issue, he knew that he needed to be a part of really standing alongside and channeling that, and helping to bring it along to the halls of Congress.

And so he came up with the idea to turn our sort of proposal for a committee into a bill, into the Green New Deal resolution, that could set forward this vision for transformation that we were talking about. We started working really closely together with him from there.

You know, so when we heard that he was facing a tough reelection fight, he had had our back in a really big way over the course of last year and we wanted to have his. He stuck his neck out for us and, you know, really went out on a limb with the Green New Deal. And then there were these rumors that Kennedy was getting in the race and we knew that we had to take a stand.

RG: And so, its one thing to kind of have somebodys back, but you guys ended up doing even more than that. Alex, you know, when did you realize that the Sunrise Movement support, and the kind of millennial-left support of Markey was going to be kind of the entire rationale for his reelection? And how did that translate into how you shape the campaign message?

AOK: Well, I tend to like underdogs. And I remember when we worked on the Charles Booker campaign, and I was in the campaign office as we were awaiting the results. And I was talking to some people on the left and people gave Markey no shot I mean, even some people within our movement just did not believe that Ed Markey could defeat Joe Kennedy.

And I really tend to like these underdogs and I tend to think: Okay, well then, if they really need our help, if theyre desperate, then theyre going to allow us to be very creative, and really have control.

[Laughs.]

AOK: Markeys star really began to rise on a meme level when he posted this iconic photo of him wearing Air Revolution sneakers outside his home in Malden. And this just kind of created a new persona for him that is almost inexplicable, similar to Bernie Sanders as this progressive grandpa that has been around the block for so long and is tough as nails and is not really going to allow anyone to tell them where to stand, his iconic political ad says that as well.

And they were working on building what he was calling a Markey-verse, with a lot of Sunrise Movement volunteers online. Because Markey made a decision that he was not going to canvass door to door, we thought we need to have a whole new style of digital organizing. So there became many meme accounts and offshoot, spin-off accounts of Shrek for Ed Markey, doggos for Ed Markey and all this stuff does not necessarily persuade voters by 20 percentage points and swing elections, but what they do is they give people hope that theres other people out there that believe Ed Markey can win. And thats really important for mobilizing our base to do phone calls, to donate money to Markey, and to eventually vote for him. So this larger Markey-verse grew out and created a character of Ed Markey that many people opted into, many people could see and recognize.

RG: Whats the reaction been from elected officials in the Democratic Party, you know, since last night? Are you sensing any change in their posture toward the Sunrise Movement? Because one of the arguments for getting behind Markey was this will show veteran politicians that if they come the right way, it doesnt matter, necessarily, what theyve done in the past that, you know, the millennial organizations are going to have their back. Have you seen anybody kind of putting out feelers?

EW: You know, I would say it started even before last night, and in the last couple of weeks, it was clear that Markey was gaining a lot of momentum, he was racking up tons of endorsements from progressive leaders and organizations and icons, and poll after poll showing him with strong, single-digit, even double-digit leads, which is what he ended up securing the win with.

You know, right after, right after Pelosis endorsement, which just, you know, totally backfired, the Markey campaign raised $400,000, immediately after that endorsement in comparison to Kennedys campaign raising just $100,000 off of it. We saw more and more progressives endorsing Markey as a result of that, sort of upset at Pelosis hypocrisy around the primary rules. And we even saw some establishment folks like Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler, you know, chairs of committees, people in democratic leadership, that work with and have to work with Pelosi regularly, throw their weight behind Markey, bucking Pelosi

RG: Right and both of those survived primary challenges of their own in New York recently.

EW: They did. Carolyn Maloney, in particular, had a very unexpectedly close primary challenge and Jerry Nadler as well. And since AOCs election, theres been this sort of sea change in the way that New York politicians have been relating to the left, including [laughs] the leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer. He did have Markeys back in this election, which is perhaps unsurprising. Hes an incumbent Democrat, but Schumer also reached out to Markeys team, I am told, very early this morning to congratulate him, to see what he can do to work more closely together.

I also heard that Markey got a call from Joe Biden very, very early on last night to congratulate him.

RG: Right, Schumer is kind of the most interesting of those, and also could be the most consequential. You know, if Democrats take the Senate in 2021, hell be Senate Majority Leader. And he wont be a kind of rank and file guy who, you know, can rack up a decent voting record, but say: I wish I could have done more. No, hell be in charge of the entire floor agenda; itll be significantly up to him the strength of the legislation that gets to a potential Joe Biden administration.

Do you have a sense that the call he made last night to Ed Markey has something to do with the fact that hes up in 2022, and is wondering if some of this energy could get behind him if he goes the right direction? And is it possible? Or is Wall Street Chuck too far gone for people like the Sunrise Movement?

AOK: I think its possible. Im optimistic in general. I mean, if you look at Ed Markeys record, theres a lot of blemishes on it, things that I never supported the Iraq War he voted for, the Biden crime bill. He has a record that looks a lot like Joe Bidens on paper, even though hes led on progressive issues like climate his entire career.

But what were trying to show is that we will not just attack you if you dont endorse the Green New Deal. But if you convert, if you join us, were not going to hold a grudge. We say at Sunrise: No permanent friends and no permanent enemies. So if you join us, not only are we going to like, not primary you, but were also going to support you in a way that only young people can.

The reason why people are afraid of the Green New Deal more than anything, because its all based on political economy, theyre afraid of attack ads about the Green New Deal. And so if you show them that we can produce better political ads than the other side can, like the Green New Deal-maker ad that we produced, we can reinvent your character and sell you to a whole new audience, then thats going to make you a lot more willing to support the Green New Deal.

And I think Ed Markeys transformation is best seen in that Road to a Green New Deal Tour that Evan was talking about. Before our first stop in Boston, Ed Markey had a line, Theyre giving these tax breaks to these oil companies, then they have the nerve to call what were doing socialism. And at that time, the dirty word around the Green New Deal is that it was a socialist wish list, right? It was a Trojan horse for socialism.

And so he would go on to say, even though the crowd was cheering at the word socialism, he would go on to say: Well, no, thats not what it is, though, folks!

[Laughs.]

AOK: And then by the end of the tour, having seen the transformation that we were sparking and the fervor we were sparking around the country, by the last DC stop with AOC and Bernie Sanders by his side, he said: They call it socialism. Well, you know what I say? Give us some of that socialism!

Yeah.

AOK: And Ed Markey, to his core, is a politician a politician I respect who will move with the movement, who will make very smart political calculations. Thats why we trust him as a dealmaker for the Green New Deal. And he saw that the momentum was with the young people, and hes one of the few, few, few if any other incumbents that dont just say, I love these young climate kids. It inspires me! But Ed Markey would bring a Black kid from the South, like me on the phone and ask for my advice and then follow it. He bet his career on the advice we gave to that last line in that dealmaker video, Its time to start asking what your country can do for you.

You know, he bet his political career luring the Kennedys into a fight a fight about the soul of neoliberalism and what it ended up being was a disastrous miscalculation for Joe Kennedy, because it showed the ruling class was so offended that you would even ask them for more. But you have to have so much trust in the next generation, and that trust is weaved into the Green New Deal.

RG: Now the only member of the Massachusetts congressional delegation that hasnt signed on to the Green New Deal was up for reelection too, Richie Neal.

Lets talk a little bit about the bad news from last night. You guys got behind Alex Morse, the Holyoke mayor, supporter of the Green New Deal. Why do you think he fell as short as he did? The returns are still coming in it; looks like hell lose by about 18 points.

EW: Yeah. So obviously I think were gonna have to take our time to analyze what exactly led to the unfortunate loss there last night. You know, we backed Alex Morse early this spring, after many, many efforts to pressure and push, Richie Neal to close the gap [laughs] on Massachusetts delegation supporters of the Green New Deal and you know, hes a guy whos taking money from fossil fuel companies and utilities and he didnt seem too interested.

So, here was this young guy, Alex Morse, who moved his city to 100 percent clean energy, reduced their emissions by a huge amount while mayor, and shut down the last remaining coal plant in Holyoke. You know, it was kind of a no-brainer there for us to get involved in this race.

Obviously, there was this sort of late-breaking scandal-non-scandal in the race that

RG: Yeah.

EW: pulled groups like ours out of the race for a critical week near the end where we were trying to evaluate what was going on and your reporting helped us understand and see clearly that there were some pretty bad intentions and corruption at the heart of these allegations and scandals that I think did bring a lot of national attention to his race in a way that was helpful and allowed us to do one of the things that we do well, which is, you know, put national progressive firepower on a race like this. But it also created this opening for Richie Neal and his allies to continue to spread misinformation and homophobic smears behind the scenes, through mailers, and digital ads, and TV ads that his disgusting super PAC aired, which obviously did seem to have some impact in the race, because polls showed that there were a lot of people still undecided, that Richie Neal was under 50 percent, which is historically bad as an incumbent, there was a real opportunity to close that gap. But it seemed like when those undecided folks were making their decisions, they went with Richie Neal, for some reason.

And so I do think that that had an impact. And, unfortunately, the local media did not do a good job of picking up on the great reporting that you did as the rest of the national progressive movement, and did cover the scandal [laughs], and the original breaking thing, but did not do as good of a job of covering the corruption of the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

The way that this smear unfolded, do you think itll change the way that kind of progressive organizations respond to the next attack that is leveled personally against an insurgent or progressive candidate?

EW: I think it absolutely will. You know, Ill speak for the Sunrise Movement specifically: The way that those attacks played out was a big learning moment for us as a young organization. And weve been doing a lot of reflection, and are going to be doing more debriefing about how we can be better responsive to those kinds of attacks and smears going forward.

As our movement continues to grow power, like Alex talked about, more and more of those character attacks and smears are going to come our way. And we have to be ready to discern whats real and whats not, and, you know, have a default position of standing by our folks and doing our best to take claim seriously, but also make sure that were getting properly vetted evidence.

So whats next for Sunrise Movement on the electoral front?

I know that at The Intercept were watching the New Hampshire Governors primary, Andru Volinsky, kind of insurgent candidate there.

Were watching Jess Scarane, a candidate in Delaware whos challenging Chris Coons.

But what are you guys looking at? And where do you think youll put your energy between now and November? Or are you just going all general election?

AOK: I mean, as far as I know, we are going all general election. Weve done our part. We won in landslides across the country in a lot of these primaries. We reelected the Squad. We have someone, Mike Siegel, in Texas running to flip a Texas red seat for the Green New Deal, supported by labor unions, could really transform the entire political game in Texas, if that happens.

So were pivoting to the general election and using these really powerful champions that weve elected as our major protagonist in the story. Obviously, Joe Biden is not the protagonist that is going to mobilize young people to vote, and, unfortunately, he doesnt seem to have that much intent to mobilize our generation to vote. We believe its very important to defeat Donald Trump, and we want to use the Squad as really powerful motivators for our generation to see what comes after November.

We have to build that vision, the first hundred days of Joe Bidens presidency, and build a vision of how we can shut down society and actually force him to take certain concessions from the left. We also have really powerful leaders like Ed Markey, who are now going to be on the inside negotiating with other senators who are now afraid of us, who also now want our support.

So we are going into 2021, if Joe Biden is President, with a real position of power to make the political agenda for the Democratic Party.

RG: Well, congratulations on your win last night, and good luck going forward.

Evan Weber is political director for Sunrise Movement. Alex OKeefe is the creative director of the Sunrise Movement. Evan and Alex, thanks so much for joining us on Deconstructed.

EW: Thanks so much for having us, Ryan.

AOK: Yeah, Thanks for the invite. Its good to win!

Beats losing.

AOK: [Laughs.] Thats for sure.

Read more here:
Markey Won. Morse Lost. What Happens Next? - The Intercept

When the pandemic eventually ends, globalization may no longer accelerate at the same rate as before. Particular sectors will remain hard-hit, and tensions between the United States and China will continue, and may even become more menacing (to borrow from Mao Zedong, the making of a global capitalism is not a tea party).

But none of this signals the end of globalization, an imminent collapse of capitalism, or an inevitable decline of the American empire. Global business will still be profiting from the commodification of nature and human activity, US corporations will still be a leading force in high tech and business services, the dollar will still be the global currency, and the Federal Reserve effectively the worlds central bank.

The crisis that consequently frames the political opening beckoning the American left isnt capitalisms economic but social failures; capitalisms vulnerability is marked by the destructive impact of its successes on popular needs, aspirations, and fears.

And with the responses from parties and states to the rising popular discontent falling short, this crisis of legitimacy has expanded into a political crisis. Alongside popular anger with policies like free trade and austerity has come a loss of faith in state institutions ranging from social agencies to the judiciary and the police, as well as disenchantment with mainstream political parties.

The pandemic further exposed the distorted priorities and social irrationalities of capitalism: its lack of planning capacities and unpreparedness to deal with social emergencies, the ugliness of its inequalities, its general disregard for those who produce needed goods and provide essential service. The health pandemic was, as well, the canary in the mine for the far greater environmental pandemic waiting in the wings, a threat which will demand very much more than social distancing, lockdowns, or vaccines.

Especially important, the pandemic hinted at new possibilities in class resistance and formation. Will the popular empathy for frontline workers that emerged during the crisis be translated into a new working-class confidence, militancy, and wave of unions organizing? Will the remarkable scale and broad support of the Black Lives Matter protests expand to include the wider concerns of black working-class families such as housing, education, health care, and union jobs? And if so, might such a pivot contribute to the kind of black-white-brown working-class coalitions that could overcome the racial divisions that have so haunted and diverted working-class unity and effectiveness?

Through the pandemic something of a social-democratic sensibility surfaced in liberal circles (see for example The America we Need). Suddenly calls for universal health care, sick pay, and more robust welfare provisions seemed common sense. But as welcome as this was in terms of expanding the space for the Left, it should not be exaggerated; to a significant degree it reflected the liberal comfort, now that Sanders was safely defeated, with expressing qualified support for left-wing positions.

The range of official politics remains confined, and dangerously so. On the one hand an egomaniac president with fascist leanings who is ill-disposed to accept the electoral writing on the wall. On the other, a conservative Democratic Party establishment ready to lower the bar to the least inspiring of alternatives: a commitment to bring back the stability of the pre-Trump normal that was so critical to the very advent of Trumpism.

This, then, is the context the American socialist left faces today: the persistence of anger and frustrations with some four decades of deterioration in the quality of life; the experiences and lessons of the pandemic; the pockets of openness to a more egalitarian zeitgeist; and the vacuum at the heart of the dominant political parties. Can the Left, in responding to this moment, escape its own crisis of marginalization?

What kinds of demands and campaigns might contribute to building and spreading the understandings, networks, commitments, struggles, and structures that can materialize the possibilities pregnant in this moment?

We can expect the emergence of a wide range of mobilizations, based on differing demographics, regions, constituencies, and interests. But can we also identify a short and focused set of demands not a wish list or a comprehensive program for a socialist government, but demands that go beyond particularist concerns that contribute to the construction of a nationwide movement with accompanying organizational structures? Can we, that is, create a social force capable of fundamentally challenging capitalist power?

The specific demands can only emerge out of widespread discussions. The demand for universal health care, its crucial importance all the more revealed through the pandemic, seems an obvious focal point. That this has already been rejected by the Democratic Party, with the approval of leaders from some key unions, signals one arena of struggle that will undoubtedly occur within the broad left itself (never mind extending the notion of universal care to pharma-care and dental care, and ending private control over the research and manufacture of drugs and protective equipment). To that goal three demands, each strategically related to the new openings posed above, might be added.

One is the demand for a onetime emergency wealth tax. This is an unashamedly populist demand, intended to appeal to a broad swath of the population without addressing the underlying issues of democratic economic control.

A second is economic conversion, an unashamedly radical demand that moves beyond the generalities of the Green New Deal and the vagueness of a just transition to engage workers in struggles that link the maintenance of a livable planet to the democratically planned restructuring of jobs and the economy.

Third, we need a push for greater unionization. The promise here lies not only in shifting the balance of power between groups of workers and their employers, but in unleashing a long-awaited union upsurge with the potential to transform a working class currently fragmented and demoralized into a coherent social agent capable of winning and sustaining social change.

In the late 1980s the distribution of household wealth in the United States (net worth minus debts) was already stunningly unequal with the wealth of just the top 10 percent of households being more than one-and-a-half times that of the combined wealth of the rest.

By 2020 the top 10 percent increased their share to double that of all other US households. The shift was even greater for the 1 percent at the top of the American pyramid: at the start of 2020, 1.6 million American families had as much wealth as the 144 million households constituting the bottom 90 percent (See Federal Reserve and Pew Reserach Center Social and Demographic Trends).

Such astonishing inequalities contradict any substantive notion of democracy. It perpetuates, through intergenerational transfer, future inequalities that are even less defendable. Rationalizing such inequality as the necessary price of our rising standard of living was always a feeble defense but it is all the more so today, after three decades in which the top 10 percent grabbed 70percent of the total increase in US household wealth while the quality of life for most Americans stagnated or deteriorated.

During the Depression, the top income tax rate in the United States went from 25 percent in 1931 to 63 percent the following year, and 70 percent at the end of the 1930s. At the beginning of WWII, it was increased again to 81 percent and, in light of the war emergency and sacrifices ordinary people were called on to make, it was raised to 94 percent, and an excess profit tax was also introduced. (Today, by contrast, the top rate of tax is just 37 percent).

In that same spirit the current emergency moment, with its special sensitivity to inequalities, and the massive and unwarranted wealth of the rich, calls for a decisive and radical reversal in the distribution of wealth.

To get a sense of the fiscal potentials of a onetime emergency wealth tax to offset the costs of the pandemic, consider the following example. If the top 1 percent were kept to their share of wealth at the end of the eighties (one-quarter of all wealth) that is, if their wealth increased at only the rate of the total increase in American wealth since 1989 this would justify a onetime average tax on their current wealth of 23 percent or some $7.5 trillion (it might be phased in over a few years to accommodate the process of cashing in some locked up wealth so as to pay the tax).

This would, because of the overall growth in inflation-adjusted wealth, still leave the average household in that top 1 percent with more than triple the wealth they had in 1989, and the average wealth of someone in that top category some eighty-nine times the average wealth of those in the bottom 90 percent.

To put this $7.5 trillion in perspective, it would cover the estimated pandemic deficit of some $6 trillion (i.e., an almost $4 trillion increase in the fiscal deficits in 2020 and 2021 over the pre-pandemic year 2019, plus an assumption of continued emergency spending while tax revenues lag).

Or to use another comparison, the $7.5 trillion exceed Bidens largest proposed budgetary item, the Green New Deal, costed at $7 trillion over seven years. These are only illustrative, but they point to a significant onetime emergency wealth tax going a long way toward overcoming the fiscal space lost in coping with the pandemic or for addressing essential programs. (And if an emergency onetime wealth tax of just 1 percent were levied on the rest of the top10 percent, that would generate another $4 trillion).

No less important is the strategic significance of placing such an emergency tax on the public agenda. It would keep the inequalities in American capitalism in the public eye and those at the top of the pyramid on the defensive. It would also position the Left re: future debates over getting the fiscal deficit in order; if we were in the midst of exposing wealth inequalities and discussing how far to go in a new tax on wealth, elites might be in a bit of a bind arguing that the deficit is unaffordable and there is nothing to do but cut social programs and wages.

And as Matt Bruenig has convincingly argued, highlighting the class distribution of wealth shifts, the understanding of a black-white wealth gap into a race-inflected class gap (if the wealth is so concentrated at the top, it is only through going after the top 1 percent or 10 percent that significant redistributions can occur).

A wealth tax, however, will not solve all our woes. As with the notion of printing money and spending our way to the good society, we cannot pretend that simply taxing the wealth of the richest households will provide all the revenue we need.

Middle-income workers will also have to see their taxes raised. First, because there arent enough superrich to finance all our expectations on an ongoing basis. Second, because environmental pressures demand limits on the growth of private consumption, and taxes are a mechanism for limiting individual spending and channeling the funds toward collective services that are kinder to the environment education, health care, and public spaces.

Third, winning workers over to accepting a greater weight to public (collective) consumption is not just an environment concern but a socialist one. Public consumption can further economic equality and involves a cultural change that speaks not so much to consuming less, but to consuming differently and hopefully better.

Think, for example of taxes securing better health care, water supplies, schools, libraries, public transit, parks, recreation centers, cultural activities, ending poverty, and for that myriad of universal services making it easier to look to more time off work as productivity increases.

Winning the working class to high taxes will not be easy, but it will be impossible without an especially high tax on the rich. Wealth taxes, such as an emergency onetime wealth tax, are therefore a condition of gaining broad acceptance for the taxes needed to pay for what we want from governments.

Wealth taxes are doubly egalitarian: they take more from the rich (from each according to ability to pay) and, if distributed properly (to each according to need), the pool of taxes collected from both workers and the rich will disproportionately benefit the working class.

A final note on this: there are those who see, in the stunning levels of fiscal expenditures introduced during the pandemic, a precedent that tends to downplay the tax issue. We simply need to print more money to get us to the good society. There are a number of problems with this seductive argument but the main one is that how societies determine the allocation of their labor and resources who is in charge, what the priorities are, who gets what rests on considerations of social power and corresponding values/priorities.

Transforming how this is done is conditional on developing and organizing popular support for challenging the private power of banks and corporations over our lives and with this, accepting the risks this entails. Controlling the money presses is certainly an element in this, but hardly the core challenge.

The environmentalist movement has impressively raised environmental consciousness and the Green New Deal has effectively placed the issue of massive environment-oriented infrastructural investments on the public agenda. Yet the call for a just transition for those threatened with job loss generally has limited resonance among workers.

Without the power to deliver on the promises, the demands come across as slogans rather than actual possibilities. And without linking the call for a fair transition to concrete struggles in specific workplaces and communities, the promise of a just transition is too vague to engage workers.

The dilemma we face is that while the urgency of the environmental crisis tends to push us to develop a mass base as quickly as possible, emphasizing that environmental advance will mean that introducing comprehensive planning and taking on the property rights of corporations (you cant plan what you dont control) amounts to overturning capitalism policies which risk limiting the base of supporters and demand a much longer time frame. There is no shortcut here; there is no way forward other than telling the truth and winning workers over to its implications.

Directly related, popular demands are often too vague to engage workers. Missing are concrete links to everyday struggles: the loss of jobs, the loss of the communitys productive capacities, addressing the potential of alternative production for social use. (See the exemplary work of Green Jobs Oshawa). Absent such engagement, it is near impossible to overcome the impact of accumulated defeats over decades that have not only lowered expectations of what can be achieved but even erased just thinking about alternatives.

The significance of a strategic emphasis on conversion is that it links environmental issues to retaining and developing the productive capacities we will need for the environmentally sensitive transformation of everything about how we work, travel, live, and enjoy life.

It shifts the focus from the trap of looking to private corporations competing for global profits to inward development where possible, and applying our skills and resources to planning for social use. And it is only in engaging in struggles and campaigns that are both immediately concrete and national (and international) in scope, that it becomes possible to develop confidence in genuine possibilities.

The political demands this raises require new capacities largely undeveloped in the states historical coping with administering a capitalist economy. Specific institutional proposals would include a) the creation of a national conversion agency to monitor closures and the rundown of investment, for the aim of placing productive facilities that corporations no longer find profitable enough into public ownership and retooling them for social use; b) markets for environmentally friendly products and service through government procurement of the products; c) the creation of decentralized (regional) environment-technology hubs staffed by hundreds of young engineers exploring unmet community needs, and bringing together or developing anew the capabilities of addressing them; and d) elected community conversion boards to oversee the local economic transformations.

This brings to the fore again the question of financing. One response is a levy on financial institutions in order to develop a fund to address environmental restructuring. Having bailed the finance industry out in desperate times, such a levy is an obvious quid pro quo.

Yet if capital especially highly mobile finance capital is left with the right to move whenever it is unhappy, it also retains the blackmailing power to undermine democratically determined goals. Capital controls are therefore both a defense of basic democratic principles and a practical necessity.

Taking the question of democratic participation and engagement seriously would mean mobilizing workers in their community or through their organizations. Labour councils would be encouraged to establish conversion committees and actively participate on the community environmental boards, and locals that created conversion committees in their workplaces would be supported with research and funds from their national unions.

These workplace committees would address what they were producing and what products they might produce, act as early-warning whistleblowers to check corporate environmental failures and inadequate investment plans, and stand ready to take direct action to bring in a newly constituted national conversion agency.

Protests may surface via all kinds of struggles student movements, fights for gender equality, anti-racist demands, immigrant rights, and so on but as Andr Gorz famously noted (See Leo Panitchs discussion of Gorz), the trade union movement still carries, in spite of its weaknesses, a particular responsibility; on it will largely depend the success or failure of all the other elements in this social movement.

The card check (if a majority of workers sign up for the union it must be automatically legally recognized) has been the main legislative change emphasized by unions: More radical steps would include banning any corporate attempt to influence workers decisions on unionization; banning, as well, the use of scabs to undermine workers on strike, particularly critical in first contracts before unions have had a chance to consolidate a solid membership base; and, given the overall imbalance in employer-worker power, removing the prohibition against solidaristic worker refusals to handle or work on goods shipped from a struck plant (hot cargo).

The present moment could not be more favorable for pushing Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to defend unionization, and for prioritizing legislating the card check. The link between rising inequality and the decline in union density has been well-documented, and various social movements have indirectly laid vital ground for unionization.

This was the case with Occupy, which in the fall of 2011 shined an international light on popular anger over how extreme income inequality had become. The Fight for Fifteen followed soon after, revealing widespread support for lower-paid workers.

That struggle was endorsed by unions, who insisted that even if the demand was met through legislation, unionization remained essential: first, to block employers from recouping by other means than what the law forced them to do re: wages; second, to extend any monetary improvements to broader workplace rights.

The pandemic qualitatively increased the potential support for unionization to a new level, as empathy for the frontline spread workers on matters of both pay for their special risks and the failures of employers to do everything possible to provide proper equipment and the safest possible work environment.

And in regard to the increased profile the BLM protests gave to black-white disparities, it is worth noting that, in a notable example of the positive over-representation of blacks, unionization rates are higher among black workers than their share of the working population (this is especially the case for black women who are less than 12 percent of the female workforce but over 17 percent of unionized women). That unionization has been cut in half since the early 1980s is inseparable from discussions of the quality of black lives.

There is skepticism on whether Biden will come through on the card-check, which he had also endorsed as part of the Obama-Biden ticket but then reneged on. But there is also a question about the extent to which higher union density, in itself, would bring greater class-conscious or even effective unions.

Canada currently has more than double the union density of the United States, yet the labor energy is greater in the United States. Sixty years ago, the share of the US workforce in unions was almost triple its roughly 10 percent today. Yet unions werent able to block or even significantly moderate the subsequent context in which they operated (slower growth, more mobile capital, more international competition, more aggressive corporations, and hostile governments).

The crisis in American unions lies in their general failure to effectively come to grips with those changes. What they now confront is not just adding members but transforming their structures and aspirations to overturn the incapacitating context they confront.

This does not negate the importance of legislation sympathetic to unionization it is absolutely crucial but it poses the hope that a legislative breakthrough (as opposed to various minor reforms) might be seized upon by unions as a once-in-a-union-lifetime chance to reverse labors death by a thousand cuts.

In the 1930s, the United Mine Workers, fearing that if Big Steel werent unionized the miners would be isolated, sent some one hundred organizers out to organize steelworkers into their own union. It is that kind of foresight and boldness that needs to surface once again. Only a virtual crusade could lead to the kind of dramatic leap forward essential to making unions into a confident and leading social force.

Only through the ferment of an explosion in unionization might we see a reordering of union priorities and structures, the engagement of rank-and-file members in the struggle for unionization, the emergence of new leaders and new blood. And if this leads unions to penetrate Amazon warehouses and Walmart distribution centers with all their disruptive power and bring workers as far apart as personal care workers and Google programmers into the organized working class, then the class as a whole will be strengthened.

It is fundamental that, if union leaderships do come to enthusiastically embrace the spread of unions, they do not ignore their own members. If they dont first get their own members onside, the shift in resources and attention outward will be resented and undermined.

If leaderships ignore the working conditions of their own members especially in regard to workplace health and safety (which has gained such prominence since the pandemic) and relentless speedup, the drive to increased unionization will falter. This is not only to get and retain support from their members for moving on to organize other workers, but such high-profile struggles uniquely demonstrate to nonunion workers that unionization really matters.

Buoyed by new enthusiasm and power, a revived labor movement could lead a political upsurge against the social rot at the heart of the American empire the appalling inequality, permanent working-class insecurity, denial of the most basic needs like universal health coverage, the stunted lives, punishing austerity, decaying infrastructure, and the contrast between the liberating promise of technology and the confining reality of daily life.

And it is that kind of example that can inspire young people black, white, Hispanic, Asian to look once again to labor struggles for where the action is. From there, unions could ambitiously move to confront and reverse the economic context that underpinned their years of defeat: free capital movements, corporate driven free trade, the prioritization of competitiveness over all else, and the distancing of life below from decisions made above.

Capitalism has, by and large, been successful in making the kind of working class it needs: one that is fragmented, particularist, employer-dependent, pressured by its circumstances to be oriented to the short term, and too overwhelmed to seriously contemplate another world.

The challenge confronting the Left is whether it can take advantage of the spaces capitalism has not completely conquered and the contradictions of life under capitalism that have blocked the full integration of working people, to remake the working class into one that has the interest, will, confidence, and capacity to lead a challenge to capitalism.

This is primarily an organizational task. Policies matter of course there is no organizing without fighting for reforms but the choice of policies to focus on and the forms the struggle for those reforms must be especially attuned to their potentials for organizational advance.

The above emphasis on a wealth tax, for example, is based on keeping inequality in the forefront, and so creating fertile ground for mobilizing anger and raising more fundamental questions. The emphasis on conversion points to the necessity of radical economic and state transformations if we are to address our most critical needs. As well, it emphasizes the centrality of engaging workers in ways that can develop their understandings and capacities.

The emphasis on unionization is closest to a policy directly addressing working-class power, but it also locates policy primarily in terms of serving as a catalyst for transforming unions, not just growing them, and so leads to expanding future strategic options.

For the socialist left, with the only seemingly viable option for the time being to operate within existing political parties, the foremost task is figuring out how to maneuver through the institutional morass these parties inhabit and use the openings to: support the most promising workplace and community struggles; restore a degree of historical memory to the working class; and contribute, through campaigns and discussions of lessons learned, to developing the individual and collective class capacities to analyze, organize, and act.

Out of this comes the most difficult undertaking: the project cultural as much as organizational and political of creating a new politics that, as Andrew Murray so clearly put it, is not only class-focussed but class rooted. That is, the invention of a left that is not just engaged in periodic working-class struggles but is genuinely embedded in workers daily lives and whose prime commitment is to nurturing the best of the working class historic potentials.

See the original post:
We Need a Politics That Is Not Only Class-Focused, but Class-Rooted - Jacobin magazine

The reports of the death of the oil industry are, to quote Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated.

Driving the news: Progressive leaders are pouncing on the current collapse in the oil sector as a sign this is the beginning of its end and a turning point for the climate-change movement. Not so fast.

The big picture:

Where it stands: A lot of potential factors could make this moment in history the beginning of the end for the oil industry, but both history and experts suggest that absent explicit actions by governments, the long-term outlook for the oil industry is at least neutral, and even possibly positive.

Lets look first at the three factors suggesting the outlook will be positive for the industry, and then three that could change things.

The three positives:

What I worry about most is history suggests when the economy is suffering, the pace of environmental policy ambition wanes, said Jason Bordoff, a former Obama administration energy official who now leads Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy. It means that policies that would slow oil demand growth may get pulled back.

Oil demand tracks closely with economic growth. It may not feel this way now, but history suggests the economy will eventually get better.

This crisis moment could actually force better financial decisions overall and weed out producers less financially secure, Bordoff says. And as the economy improves and demand recovers, "strong companies might do quite well over the next decade, Bordoff said.

Why dont you just stop eating if you want to lose weight?

Its important to change oil demand over a period of years and decades if you want to create a sustainable reduction in emissions, said Ed Crooks, vice chairman of the Americas for consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

The three variables:

This pandemic could change our society for the long haul. Maybe

The first three would reduce oil demand, while the last three would increase it. Regardless, theyre tinkering around the edges.

By the numbers: Lower oil demand from aviation, road transport and cruise ships could result in a loss of just over three million barrels a day by 2040, compared to an overall oil market of 115 million barrels of oil a day or more by then, an S&P Global Platts Analytics analysis found.

If this is a big if countries around the world seek to infuse their economic stimulus plans with clean-energy policies, that could go a long way in keeping the oil industry on its knees where it is now.

The most immediate and obvious impact of Joe Biden winning would be that he would likely infuse clean energy into any additional stimulus measures still needed by then.

The bottom line: We might not be going anywhere right now, but neither is the oil industry.

Continue reading here:
Oil sector poised to bounce back from the coronavirus - Axios

BURLINGTON, VermontAfter avoiding addressing his fate on election night, Bernie Sanders was suddenly in a hurry to explain his merits in the presidential race.

The 78-year-old Independent moved quickly to the front of a meeting space inside the Hotel Vermont in Burlington, more somber than angry, more of a realist than an optimist.

Speaking to reporters on a chilly afternoon, he started from the gate by announcing the obvious: he was not currently winning the 2020 primary from a delegate point of view.

There was no crowd of supporters or even much in the way of staff to cheer him on. His wife, Jane O'Meara Sanders, and Faiz Shakir, his campaign manager, sat to the side in chairs watching the senator make what may be one of his final cases of the campaign. His message was straight to the point.

We are losing the debate over electability, he said, while claiming victory over the ideological debate of progressive ideas.

Sanders remarks came after a little over 17 hours of uncharacteristic silence, following losses in Mississippi, Missouri, Idaho, and Michigan. The Michigan loss was particularly devastating given its mathematical and emotional significance to the candidate.

The last message on Sanders official Twitterusually buzzing with activitywas frozen at a more hopeful time, 7:44 p.m. on Tuesday, well before all results trickled in from several states. His last tweet on election night provided optimistic guidance for voters to stay put amid accounts of long lines to vote.

If youre in line at the polls, stay in line! he tweeted.

With his scheduled rally in Cleveland canceled due to coronavirus concerns and no good news on the horizon to tell his supporters, the senator, at a critical moment in his second presidential campaign, went dark.

Sanders was taking stock of the race, absorbing the round of losses and what they meant for his future, a source familiar with his thinking told The Daily Beast.

The senator is a very deliberate thinker, the source who has been involved in high-level campaign discussions, said when asked about this decision not to speak Tuesday night.

He defies convention in every single way.

Before his press conference, on Wednesday morning, there were signs of life from the campaign with Sanders co-chairs, former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who were previewing lines about keeping the campaign going until at least the next Democratic debate, scheduled for Sunday.

The point now is to move forward for the issues that Senator Sanders has been fighting for, Khanna said on CNNs New Day early Wednesday morning.

By early-afternoon, an aide to one senior Sanders official said they were still standing by to hear further guidance.

Sanders, himself, was in Vermont still reeling from what one person close to the senator described as the whole force and weight of the Democratic Party coming up against one man.

That weight had been shifting at a rapid pace from Sanders to former Vice President Joe Biden since South Carolina, where Biden scored a landslide victory that helped catapult him to success on Super Tuesday, when the lions share of the primarys delegates were up for grabs. Then, dozens of endorsements rolled in, including the coveted backing of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, some of the partys brightest stars and both contenders former rivals.

For Sanders, the Michigan defeat36.4 percent to Bidens 52.9 percentwas particularly painful. Four years ago, when, after winning the states primary by a slim margin against Hillary Clinton, he claimed a resurgence in support for his progressive bid. At the time, he remarked it was an enormously successful night for us.

This time around, the success was significantly harder to quantify. From the numbers, its obvious the difference is dramatic, Steve Marchand, an early backer of Sanders 2016 effort, said about the immediate aftermath of Michigan from the past election to present.

Certainly at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. I thought it might be a precursor to a withdrawal today, Marchand said. When youre having a good night, you like to crow about it, but when youre not you tend to clam up.

Natalia Salgado, political director at the Center for Popular Democracy Action, which endorsed Sanders this cycle, said his initial silence struck her as a much needed moment of self-awareness for the senator to go in deep with his team to assess the road forward. I think the result of that thoughtfulness was reflected in his speech today, she said.

At his Burlington press conference, Sanders was realistic about his current place in the race and signaled he would use the debate platform to hold Biden accountable on several of their biggest points of contrast, including rising health care costs and medical debt.

Sanders will also have a chance to deliver something of a monologue on Wednesday night, appearing on NBCs The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

But beyond the bookends of late night television and Sunday nights debate, the time in between is largely unknown. In Burlington, even the traveling reporters who follow his every move were unsure of Sanders next location.

Still, as the candidate plotted his way forward, other parts of the campaign continued to function as usual. At the headquarters, on the second floor of an office building on a popular street for shops and restaurants in the city, a street level sign encouraged visitors to volunteer, donate, and get free bumper stickers.

This week: PIZZA+ calls, the sign read, encouraging people to help out on Saturday.

Outside the office, a wooden piece of art portraying Sanders loomed over visitors with the tag line KNOT FIR SALE.

More:
Bernie Emerges From 17 Hours of Silence Ready to Debate - The Daily Beast

Kanye West starts conversations and debates. Hes provocative by trade -- it gets the people going -- especially over the last almost two years.

The rapper emerged in early 2018 from an uncharacteristic period of quiet sporting a MAGA hat, doubling down on support of Trump, and proclaiming slavery "sounds likea choice. In many Black conversations online, in print and in person, the tone regarding Kanye used to be a bemused but still warm and sometimes empathetic recap of his antics -- a bless his heart. Sentiment is now overwhelmingly enough of him, already, or even a straight f--k Kanye.

When Kanye was just disrupting telethons, crashing award stages, and ranting about fashion conglomerates, there was at least the sense that the rapper was fighting, in his own maybe misguided way, for a greater collective good. Now, after years of extending West grace -- because of the tragic loss of his mom in 2007, because of his mental and emotional health, because of his talent, or just because the Black communitys instinct is to protect our men publicly -- the collective Black we are largely done trying to decipher his motives and intentions.

West, the son of a noted English and African-American Studies professor and a former Black Panther, emerged in the music scene as a semi-conscious rapper, addressing racial inequality, oppression and community ills in his lyrics along with the standard rap fare of money, clothes and women. Music fans who werent of age during the first conscious era of hip-hop in the early 90s found something in Wests music that was missing with 50 Cent, Ja Rule, and even Kanyes big brother and frequent collaborator Jay-Z, the hip-hop chart dominators of the early to mid-00s.

In his 2018 essay for The Atlantic, Im Not Black, Im Kanye, Ta-Nehisi Coates examined Wests seeming separation from his Blackness, and how far away it is from the West fans love: When I heard Kanye [through production on Jay-Zs Blueprint album], I felt myself back in communion with something that I felt had been lost, a sense of ancestry in every sample, a sound that went back to the separated and unequal, that went back to the slave. Now, the man who once famously declared the president didnt care about Black people on live national television has put on a MAGA hat, said it made him feel like Superman, and publicly supported a president whose apathy and abject disdain for anyone other leaves marginalized people as vulnerable as those Katrina victims Bush failed to aide.

Kanyes always said f--ked up or off the wall things, hip-hop writer and historian Dart Adams remarks to Billboard. But this is it. Now, hes doing serious damage. And the thing is, his following is so large and so young he can say the most false thing. The wrongest thing ever. Things that arent even based in fact. But, because Kanye said it, theyre going to defend it.

Harmful is a descriptor often used, now, in reference to Kanyes impassioned, on the fly rhetoric. In his mind, hes just being a free thinker. But theres a correlation to a figure as influential as Kanye continuously comparing being a Democrat to slavery, and the President and his supporters thinking nothing of comparing being investigated to lynching, in every sense of the word. Nah, fam.

For a while, we pondered, What happened to the old Kanye? Che Rhymefest Smith, Kanyes longtime creative partner, co-writer of some of his strongest work including Jesus Walks and New Slaves, and a collaborator on Jesus is King, believes the conversation around West is unfairly limited. I dont know what to tell you about an old person or a new person, he says. Thats Internet banter.

In a similar vein to Wests own arguments about not being constrained to monolithic thought, Smith points to the idea of duality in artists -- essentially being able to view both the person and the art, not just one or the other.

People go straight to Donald Trump [when discussing West]...Who you choose to polarize in terms of how you view a person doesnt make it the whole of that person, he explains. We understand dualism when it comes to Tupac. We understand dualism when it comes to people who are dead, like Nipsey Hussle. But when it comes to politics, our dualism shuts down We are throwing culture and art away over this enemy [of Black people] or the next one. (Smith says he sees no difference in Trump or former VP and current Democratic candidate Joe Biden when it comes to harmful policy.)

But as previously mentioned, Wests contributions to art and culture were a large factor in overlooking things like him using the Confederate flag in his merch, or even saying that Black people need to stop talking about racism. But his Trump support (even as he admitted he doesnt vote, a problem in and of itself), his amplification of harmful rhetoric, and his refusal to listen even to people close to him, proved increasingly impossible to reconcile with the music weve loved. The current national climate that doesnt allow the luxury of half-baked and incendiary public dialogue, and West has been in Calabasas for a long time. To some, thats part of the problem hes untethered from the Black community, in a bubble of privilege.

T.I. went to talk to Ye about his Trump support, and was shocked to learn that West wasnt even aware of some of the administrations more harmful policies, like the travel ban. "He loves the thought of [Trump].... he defied all odds and in his mind, that's how it is, Tip told The Breakfast Clubs Charlamagne. He don't know the things we know, because he has removed himself from society to the point that it don't reach him." In a conversation about Wests visit to the White House last year, former S.C. State Representative and CNN commentator Bakari Sellers put it more succinctly: Kanye West is what happens when Negroes dont read.

Smith called West out publicly last year for losing sight of his roots and community, but then reconciled with his friend and brother. Right after that public argument... Kanye came right back to Chicago, and made some investments. And it wasnt about me, it wasnt about Dondas House (charity), it was about Come back to your village... Kanye came and sat at my dinner table, and I said, How long has it been since you sat at my dinner table? Thats my problem with you and our brotherhood. And he was able to say Yeah, man... I f--ked up.

For years, we made up our own excuses for Kanye, needing to identify an impetus in his erraticism. Its the Black ethos of --you got the family, and you got the black sheep of the family, and they do things that make people look at them crazy, but theyre still part of the family, Adams explains. Weve applied that to Kanye because we believed he can still be saved; theres still good in him.

Now, weve had to start accepting maybe that this is just Ye. In late 2018, Michael Eric Dyson, who has authored books about Tupac, Jay-Z, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Barack Obama, echoed the sentiments of many: Kanye had become indefensible. This is time for us to say Kanye, we as African-American people cannot stand idly by while you give cover to a man who is proved to be a white supremacist. Black media outlets published eulogies and obituaries to the Kanye we embraced -- and who embraced us back. Or at least to the person we thought that Kanye was; as writer and Morehouse professor David Dennis, Jr. pointed out, A lot of the sadness isn't about who Kanye has become but for the realization that he's been this person all along.

The level of public criticism and condemnation of West from Black people is breaking long-standing rules of engagement in our community. The collective we have historically been hesitant to abandon support of prominent Black figures, because the odds are already heavily stacked against them, and we expect mainstream media to jump at a chance to paint them in a negative light. Thats a large part of the reason why R. Kelly and Bill Cosby went so long without real public outcry, and why there are still some who staunchly defend them.

(Kanye) was harmful five years ago. He was a serious problem three years ago, Adams insists. Im beyond belief that people are still supporting this guy and showing up on HBCU campuses They should have been like, You cant say all of this s--t, and do all of these things, and we still support you.

However, the ideology that tearing a Black man down is a bigger problem than anything said Black man did is crumbling in the era of public accountability, or as its critics call it, cancel culture. Kanyes latest transgressions; treading on our history by minimizing slavery, and co-opting spaces Black poeople carved out to be able to express our Blackness freely and safely -- the Black church and the Historically Black College/University -- with messaging about getting rid of the 13th amendment and not making choices based on skin color, are too alarming to not call out.

Although his mother was raised Baptist and his father was referred to as a pastoral counselor, West didnt grow up in the Black church, so as Sunday Service has grown from an invite-only Holy Ghost jam session in Calabasas for Ye and Kims fellow VIPs, to an actual church experience, scrutiny has increased.

An appeal to the Black church is part of the redemption playbook for disgraced Black celebrities. Michael Jackson, who had his own complicated relationship with Black folks at the height of his pop stardom, sought the refuge of the First AME Church of Los Angeles a day before appearing in court to fight child molestation charges. O.J. Simpson, who famously separated himself from his Blackness after he became one of the first true celebrity athletes, was met with a warm welcome in D.C.s Scripture Cathedral after his acquittal, with the churchs senior pastor exclaiming, If he wants to return home, the Black nation is here to receive our brother. Even R. Kelly would churn out inspirational fare like You Saved Me, and appeal to the Black community and church base at his moments of highest scrutiny. At a glance, its easy to assume West is doing the same, but the difference is, Kanye is offering no apologies nor asking for forgiveness.

Black folks are wary of whether theres any oil, as we say (anointing, spirit, biblical grounding) on Sunday Service. Even though Black millennials have left the church in larger numbers than previous generations, some traditions of the Black church are embedded in their spirits, including the power of worship through song, evolved from slave spirituals and messages of freedom. Worship is sacred. But, maybe proving the point of those who say the Black church is too quick to forgive, some argue that we cant condemn a mans spiritual journey out of hand.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham, a national voice for Black activism and change and the daughter of two ministers, was invited to a Sunday Service months ago in Calabasas. She believes Kanyes intentions, at least, are genuine. From what I saw, I feel like Kanye is genuinely trying to come into relationship with God, she tells Billboard. In as much as someone can judge anothers walk with God -- which is to say, not at all -- I dont take for granted that talking about your spirituality is not always welcome in pop culture.

However, she adds: That said, I am deeply worried about how the platform is being used. I had some hope -- until I researched the church Kanye has been attending and the pastor hes been learning from. That church seems to follow a clear philosophy of white evangelicalism, which has been repeatedly harmful to Black people, people of color, LGBTQ people, and women.

Shes referring to Adam Tyson: the young, evangelical minister West has credited as his spiritual leader in his radical rebirth as a Christian. Simply having Tyson take a place of honor with him in the pulpit of Black churches is making some uneasy. And perhaps because West doesnt have roots in the church, his take on the worship experience feels performative to many. His intentions may be genuine, but the execution is lacking.

Wests take on a full gospel project, Jesus IsKing,finally dropped this morning after almost a months delay. A companion IMAX film of the same title is in theaters today, as well. Many have heard the music already, as Kanye has incorporated it into his services and hosted listening sessions over the last several weeks. Critics of Kanyes last effort, 2018s Ye, noted that he didnt appear to have much to say that hadnt already been examined in 2016s The Life of Pablo. Now, fans and critics alike are eager to learn how hes translated his spiritual journey into his art.

On the question of West remaining canceled by Black people, Kanye himself refuted critics while at Howard University's homecoming -- one of the most popular HBCU homecoming weekends in the country, on a campus commonly referred to as the Mecca -- asking the crowd Do I look canceled to you?(Attendance wasestimated at being "in the hundreds," but aerial shots inspired public comments about a small turnout.)

Smith believes the responsibility of making amends with West and who he is, is on us as consumers and fans. I pray that the public can look at how they may love or hate an artist and then apply that -- working out that confusion -- to how we deal with our aunties, and our brothers and our mamas, he offers. And use that to heal ourselves, and our own guilt about how we treat ourselves sometimes. Our own hypocrisies. This is what art is; its a reflection of the society that we live in. Perhaps what upsets people about Kanye so much, is what we see of him in ourselves.

When Smith is asked if he thought West owed any explanations or apologies to the Black community, he responds, laughingly, No one owes anybody anything. However, he amends his statement: But we need each other and we gotta stop throwing each other away so easily.

Time will tell if Black fans and former fans will adopt the same spirit. Or maybe Smith, who takes issue with the public elevating artists to leaders, is right that some responsibility lay with our penchant towards celebrity pedestaling, and the pressure that puts on artists. As Coates notes, (For) Black artists who rise to the heights of Jackson and West, the weight is more, because they come from communities in desperate need of champions When brilliant Black artists fall down on the stage, they dont fall down alone.

Packnett Cunningham respects West, and is among those hopeful that hell grow into the potential of his work. I hope Kanye listens to his people, his elders, historians and the fans whove been with him since Day 1, she emphasizes. (Its worth noting that he did rejoin his original manager, John Monopoly, for a period last year, but it didnt last.)

All of us are open to his spiritual journey -- we want Kanye to be his best self," Packnett Cunningham continues."We just want to make sure its not used to demean our enslaved ancestors and promote an administration that continues to do us harm. Thats antithetical to a Biblical understanding of who Jesus Christ is.

The rest is here:
Using This Gospel: The Black Community's Skepticism of Kanye West's New Direction - Billboard