Comments by "" (@thehumanity0) on "Noam Chomsky On Force The Vote" video.

The issue is that Force the Vote required political capital. So instead of getting concessions that would give concrete results, you get a vote that's 100% going to fail. Not sure why people can't even acknowledge House progressives didn't just "not fight", they decided to pressure Pelosi for high-profile committee seats & an end to PayGo, the killer for Medicare for All and any real Climate action.
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Kyle did try to organize in FTV, at least to a limited extent, but after it was over, he later admitted it should have been more focused on persuasion than divisive attacks on House progressives motives aka exactly what Dore was doing from nearly the beginning.
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@AssBlasster Pretty sure Jimmy was aware that would never actually happen especially when he turned FTV into a public smear campaign (almost immediately when it started) against Justice Democrats & House progressives, you know, the people who were 100% NEEDED for FTV to even get off the ground.
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@lbdlars4484 "It's not just virtuous, it's the only way to get this done." No, it's really not. It's become such a trope among Leftists to blatantly say that "Force the Vote is the only way" and that if you're not for it you're against fighting and against Medicare for All. The FTV debate became incredibly disingenuous on both sides, but this is definitely one of those arguments that was constantly made & not a serious point.
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Pretty sure Chomsky isn't saying don't fight for Medicare for All ever, he's saying don't waste your political capital & very real concessions you can get on a vote that's 100% doomed to fail. You can say that the vote will matter in term of increasing public support, but that's just entirely speculation & I could just as inaccurately say the vote will decrease public enthusiasm since the bill would effectively be dead-on-arrival, & historically that is the effect those bills have. Either way, you should stop conflating Force the Vote as the very definition of "fighting" as if there is no other way to fight & fight using legislative strategies that are still in the realm of possibilities.
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@gelidsoul The "political capital" I'm referring to was withholding Pelosi's vote to get concessions - you know, the entire point of FTV, or are they "corrupt" too? I thought I made that pretty clear in my comment.
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@gelidsoul So actually getting several concrete concessions (getting PayGo dropped & numerous high-profile committee seats, several on the budget committees that decide these issues) is simply "squandered leverage", but asking for a vote that had a complete certainty that it would fail & be dead-on-arrival on the House Floor is somehow not squandered leverage? A sane person would say you have that backwards, but then again FTV was never really about logic.
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@gelidsoul If you think committees are worthless then you don't understand how Congress works. They literally have jurisdiction over Pharmaceutical companies & numerous other corporations and agencies. PayGo is a left-wing policy killer - somehow the FTV leftists understand its severity when it was implemented & an ongoing issue (the entire Left was up-in-arms against Pelosi for its implementation), but pretended it didn't matter when House progressives removed it. All you're doing is working backwards from your conclusion in an attempt to claim nothing else matters except a month-old strategy that's, in actuality, meant to fail by design. See, I'm willing to admit that FTV could've had a positive backlash effect (though that is still just pure speculation & is not proven, just as much if I were to say that it would have a negative backlash effect), but in your case, you're completely refusing to acknowledge basic practices in Congress or the issue that PayGo presented before it was waved in exchange for a concession for Pelosi's vote.
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@gelidsoul Also, if removing PayGo and getting high-profile committee seats are "half measures", then getting a vote on Medicare for All that would completely fail is a nothing measure by comparison. This is the entire disagreement of the issue, but you completely fail to even acknowledge what people have been saying for months.
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I think FTV was a completely weak political strategy, but I fully agree with a General Strike, that's something that's been proven to show results in places like France & South America.
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Never understood why you would even want to be called the 'Tea Party anything' when the actual Tea Party is just a bunch of lunatics.
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Yes, the way to "spark activism" was this highly divisive issue that successfully managed to fracture the entire Leftist movement in the country. There's a reason why it failed, & it's because some of the organizers were more interested in attacking others than convincing everyone in a calm and persuasive way, including the politicians, who you NEEDED for it to work.
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More realistically it just worked to fracture the Left on reasonable strategic differences & led to a lot of ad hominem attacks & smear campaigns that were illegitimately & illogically questioning people's motives. There's a reason why FTV failed & never even got off the ground.
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@Banelion001 The fact that Kyle only clipped 4 seconds out of his answer was just asking for people to take Chomsky completely out of context. Kyle does this type of editing sometimes to bolster his own arguments without fully approaching the subject & it's incredibly frustrating. If Kyle had showed his full answer, I'm sure the vast majority of people's gut response wouldn't have been "Chomsky's telling us to not fight and give up!".
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Kyle is being slightly disingenuous with his arguments here. It's just factually wrong to say that not doing the Force the Vote strategy is automatically the equivalent of "not fighting", but in reality, the House progressives held their votes for Pelosi in exchange for eliminating PayGo and numerous House budget & high-profile committee seats. This again falls into the trope that "if you're not for Force the Vote, you're not in favor of fighting". I don't know why we have to go over this again and again, but people are still making misleading arguments about this.
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@kalebaldwin5398 Exactly, & not to mention the only reason the Tea Party gained any real power at all was because Trump was elected & propped up a lot of the more lunatic GOP members, but even then, their politics was nearly indistinguishable from average Republicans. The comparison is absolutely a moot point.
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He literally just explained how activism is the key to long term success, so... no? Not sure why you think he would, but the fact that Kyle clipped out only 4 seconds of his answer just ensured people would take his opinion out of context.
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@brandonwhite8709 You're making a blatant & false assumption that FTV is the only way to "apply pressure on the system". Pretty sure Noam would tell you this if he was allowed to elaborate or if you even watched his full answer at all. Chomsky has been a long-time supporter of unions and union strikes, but because strikes actually involve a strategy that leaves at least a chance for victory and success, I imagine that doesn't count for the FTV zealots.
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