YouTube has the video Revolution: a success story: Ray Raphael at TEDxEureka

Among Ray Raphael’s 17 books is The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord, which chronicles the 1774 Massachusetts Revolution featured in this talk. Raphael also authored A People’s History of the American Revolution (the first volume in Howard Zinn’s “People’s History” series), Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Founding Fathers and the Birth of Our Nation.

At the end of the video, what Ray Rafael explains fits so nicely with one of the messages that Bernie Sanders want us all to understand – revolutions are started by the people, not the “leaders”.

I first learned about this story when I got together with the “We Want Bernie – Worcester” people in the 2016 campaign. Chris Horton gave me a book to read. Now Stone Riley is trying to get Bernie Sanders to come to Worcester on the day Worcester celebrates this story. Thanks to Stone for providing the link to this talk.

VOX has the article A Clinton-era centrist Democrat explains why it’s time to give democratic socialists a chance.

The rise of the Democratic left, personified by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), has raised a serious question: Should Democrats lean away from market-friendly stances and get comfortable with big government again? Should they embrace an ambitious 2020 candidate like Sanders and policies like the Green New Deal, or stick with incrementalists like former Vice President Joe Biden and more market-oriented ideas like Obamacare?

One of the most interesting takes I’ve seen on this debate came from Brad DeLong, an economist at the University of California-Berkeley. DeLong, who served as deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy in the Clinton administration, who is one of the market-friendly, “neoliberal” Democrats who have dominated the party for the last 20 years. The term he uses for himself is “Rubin Democrat” — referring to followers of finance industry-friendly Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.

Yet DeLong believes that the time of people like him running the Democratic Party has passed. “The baton rightly passes to our colleagues on our left,” DeLong wrote. “We are still here, but it is not our time to lead.”

From this article, I found a pointer to Brad Longs’ 28 Tweets. Twitter has such a wonderful litterary platform that he had to break it up into 28 pieces. I still can’t figure out why people like Twitter so much.

I think it is fair to say that the already-broken American political public sphere has become significantly more broken since November 8, 2018.

On the center and to the left, those like me in what used to proudly call itself the Rubin Wing of the Democratic Party—so-called 1/

I first found out about this from the piece on Naked Capitalism – Bill Black Analyzes Brad DeLong’s Stunning Concession: Neoliberals Should Pass the Baton and Let the Left Lead.

Jerri-Lynn here. The times they are a’changin. In this Real News network interview, Bill Black analyzes Brad DeLong’s stunning concession that neoliberals should get out of the way and let the left lead since their coalition with Republicans did not work.

Here is The Real News Network video Clinton-Era Official Says Left Should Lead Following Center-Right Failures.