Aastha पास्ता

@aasthauprety

✍🏽 writer, editor, socialist 🌹 views are my own 🛸 editorial @rooseveltinstitute.org @rooseveltforward.org and member @nyguild.bsky.social‬ aasthauprety.substack.com 👩🏽‍💻 nyc via dc

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Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· 26d

x.com/_waleedshahi...

"Eventually, almost everyone claims they opposed apartheid...But justice is not measured by where we stand after history has issued its verdict. It is measured by where we stand when the verdict is still being rendered." -@NYCMayor
on Nelson Mandela and Palestinian human rights

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· 26d

@equatormag.bsky.social www.equator.org/articles/mor...

Two years on, this grotesque convergence – total narrative victory coexisting with the unhindered erasure of Palestinian life – reveals that the issue was never a lack of facts or a failure of empathy. The reality of Palestine induces a special form of disavowal, because its implications threaten too much of what the West believes about itself. To truly accept what is happening in Palestine requires acknowledging that the international order is a fiction, and that Western prosperity remains tethered to a brutal, selective inhumanity. Confronted with a truth that would shatter their own moral and ideological self-conception, Western liberals retreat into moral paralysis: they validate the trauma and permit the genocide to continue anyway.

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· 27d

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· 28d

good stuff

FINISH RECONSTRUCTION
•
End the legacies of slavery and colonialism.
Reinforce anti-discrimination laws. Honor all treaties and tribal sovereignty. Enact reparations and massively invest in good jobs, quality housing and infrastructure in neglected minority communities.

END MASS INCARCERATION AND POLICE IMMUNITY
Demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor. Treat drug addiction and mental illness as health issues, not crimes. End qualified immunity and empower civilian oversight bodies with real authority over the police.

END BLOCKADES, EMBARGOES, AND SANCTIONS
People around the world deserve to live their lives without U.S. interference. End economic warfare against countries whose governments act independently of the United States, such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran.

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jul 7

he’s good

El-Sayed, who is Egyptian American and a Muslim, links how people view Israel to how they will deliver on other progressive priorities and called it a
"moral Rorschach test."
"If you can't speak to the absolute worst thing that people can do to other people, it's hard to take seriously when you say that you're going to stand in the cut and be a protector for the people in your own communities," he told
CNN.

Not opposing Israel, El-Sayed said, is proof of being captive to corporate dominance and afraid of AIPAC. El-Sayed recently told Semafor that Stevens
"is a suit with a large AIPAC bank account, that's it. I hope maybe they find some way to teach her how to string together two coherent sentences."
Asked whether he believed that support of Israel could not be about money, El-Sayed told CNN, "Not if you're a Democrat and you believe in human rights." Asked whether one could be a Zionist and a progressive, he said,
"Every definition of a Jewish state ends up in some articulation of illiberal values, every single one."

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jul 4

250: to love all people is to want those of us in this country to discover our humanity james + grace lee boggs:

As a people we have had a long history of living on the backs of other peoples in the world, living by the exploitation of Africans, Asians, Arabs, South Americans-all people whom we have considered less human than ourselves. So little have we cared for the humanity of others that the great majority of the American people have been supporting, by our taxes, by our votes, by our silence, the dropping of millions of tons of bombs on people in Asia with as little concern as if we were eradicating roaches in our kitchens. We have bullied or condoned the bullying of the rest of the world in the conviction that we knew more about freedom and democracy than other people. Because it served our immediate

A revolutionist does not hate the country in which the illegitimate and oppressive system and government continues to rule. Far less does the revolutionist hate the people of the country. On the contrary, a revolutionist loves the country and the people, but hates what some people are doing to the country and to the people. Someone who hates the country and the people becomes a renegade, and runs away. Therefore the important question is not
"Is the revolutionist for overthrowing the gov-ernment?" Rather it is "Do you believe the present government and the existing institutions of this country serve the need of the people to continue advancing their humanity?"

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jun 25

aasthauprety.substack.com/p/the-moveme...

Reynoso’s platform looks how it does because his campaign knew that’s what can win in the uniquely left-wing district that is NY-7. Valdez’s platform looks how it does because her movement fiercely believes in achieving those things. Reynoso had little to say about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, or the US’s complicity and hypocrisy on the world stage, until he was gearing up to run for Congress. The Valdez camp, on the other hand, is moved to participate in politics by that very contradiction they see in the liberal establishment. That’s not to say that Reynoso or the Working Families Party don’t believe in fighting fascism, but I do believe that Valdez’s politics were received as braver and more authentic for a reason.

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jun 25

Darializa’s victory is the more seismic, but Claire’s might be the most fascinating. I wrote about the relentless effort to discredit the socialist left and how it failed in NYC.

Image of Darializa and Claire campaign lit surrounding a black and white image of Espaillat with "REJECTED" written in red letters over his face. The title of the piece is "The movement keeps moving: socialists come in like a wrecking ball"

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jun 24

🫖

Taking out the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus with a self-described communist 32 year old PhD student who tweeted "fuck Kamala Harris" is beyond insane. DEFCON 1 moment for the Democratic establishment.

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jun 24

socialists coming for establishment progressives in nyc

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jun 21

✌🏽🌹

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jun 20

another Atlantic hall of famer 🔥🔥💯

i ain't reading all that
i'm happy for u tho
or sorry that happened

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jun 20

oh okay

According to Zack Rosen, founder of California YIMBY and the Abundance Network, the problem with politics is Americans being too involved.
Bemoaning the rise of small-dollar political donations in fundraising documents leaked to the Prospect, Rosen is blunt: "Small dollar internet fundraising makes politics dumber."

Why California
YIMBY Opposes the Billionaire Wealth Tax
California YIMBY is taking a formal position against the One-Time Wealth Tax (California Billionaire Tax Act or "CBTA") headed for the November ballot.

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jun 18

her inability to shut up is inspiring

FT article by Hillary Clinton called “the world may not like Trump’s Gaza plan—but there is no alternative”

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jun 15

also lmao pew

“when politicians you agree with humiliate their politics opponents, do you like it a lot, like it a little, dislike it a little, or dislike it a lot”

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Jun 15

i think we’d be better off realizing that this first thing is just as unimportant (and harmful) as the second www.pewresearch.org/politics/qui...

screenshot of a question that asks you to indicate on a scale from not at all important to extremely important how important it is that the U.S. “have an economic system based on capitalism” or “have a culture based in christian religious beliefs”

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· May 29

lmao

Remarkably, Project 2029 seems to consider its proposals to be moonshot goals. The Bulwark reports that the Project 2029 policy advisers it interviewed said “they were less concerned with calculating how programs would be paid for or whether their plans could be realistically shepherded through Congress than with animating their base.” Whom do they consider their base? It’s hard to imagine these proposals animating large groups of voters. If this is just their vision board, then why are they playing it so safe?

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· May 21

"Roosevelt mentioned" meme with girl holding social security check, wearing an FDR pin, and surrounded by other Roosevelt-related symbols

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· May 20

oh they’re sneaky. LTG was bad enough

Tweet from David Weigel: “Little note on CAP conference. Antony Blinken joined Sen. Andy Kim and Linda Thomas-Greenfield in a foreign policy discussion.

But he wasn't on the conference page - the only speaker not listed. Good way to not get protested!”

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· May 18

Arthur meme where Buster asks "You really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies?"

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· May 17

caravanseraiforum.substack.com/p/adaptation...

While the Global North still ultimately holds a climate debt to the Global South, the latter cannot afford to wait for payment. By focusing on solutions that are labor- rather than capital-intensive and environmental rather than mechanical—like planting trees along a river bank—developing nations can capitalize on their local endowments and know-how, thus seizing a resilient future that’s wholly owned by them rather than by their northern creditors.

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· May 13

absolutely

Choosing “Medicare for all” over “public option”

choosing between John Fetterman and Lindsey Graham, Abdul says “John Fetterman is an ogre”

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· May 12

???

BELLMAWR, N.J. - When Rachel Negro-Henderson started shopping at Aldi regularly during the pandemic — a change her family made when her husband lost his income as a crew coach
— she'd sometimes have awkward run-ins with acquaintances.
"People would not want to talk about why they were here, like it was a mistake," the healthcare administrator said.
"They just stumbled into a grocery
store because they needed a tomato.
"

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· May 10

I will also be thinking of Julia Ward Howe, the activist who issued the antiwar Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870, urging for the adoption of a mother's day devoted to peace. In her proclamation, Howe wrote:
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated Earth a
voice goes up with our own. It says:
"Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· May 4

Tweet from Adam Johnson: "If you can’t even argue for the barest of the barest minimum of accountability for those responsible for genocide in your own party then you do not take any of this seriously. You are a mere staking horse for zionism’s 2028 rebrand"

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Apr 29

polarization is good open.substack.com/pub/roosevel...

Instead, we have to polarize by offering a different story with equal explanatory power. Polarization often gets a bad rap.
But social movement researchers like
Frances Fox Piven and Gene Sharp have shown that polarization is a critical mechanism for forcing the broader public to pick a side on an issue. So I would argue our problem is we are not polarized enough. The Right currently controls the debate and drags our entire window of discourse along with it. We need to offer our audience sharp moral choices about the issues of our times by polarizing against unjust policies.

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Apr 27

Although the initial proposal for Project Bluebird mostly emphasized the potential for “personality control,” it’s clear that CIA officials were also interested in broader, more ambitious outcomes. One document summarizing a “special meeting” between U.S., British, and Canadian intelligence services notes the CIA’s desire to research “the psychological factors causing the human mind to accept certain political beliefs” and “determining means for combatting communism,” “‘selling’ democracy,” and preventing the “penetration of communism into trade unions.”

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Apr 24

aasthauprety.substack.com/p/learning-h...

This is what brought me to thinking about the distinction between the leftist approach of embracing contradiction and the more liberal mindset of "two things can be true." To generalize: It often feels as though liberals hold two opposing forces in front of them and don't do anything with it. They don't dig deep or investigate, and so instead of propelling them forward, the contradiction renders them stuck.
Worse yet, they weaponize nuance to undermine the causes they ostensibly care about. While liberals hate polarization, as they seek not to offend, leftists welcome polarization as the very force that clarifies analysis and transforms society. Liberal analysis strips contradictions of power dynamics and reduces them to superficial concepts like "reaching across the aisle," bipartisanship, and "civil discourse."

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Apr 23

The latest issue of Caravanserai asks, How should the federal bureaucracy be reformed to work better and more effectively than it did before Trump took office? I loved this answer about Congress. Our lawmakers should know stuff! (and also be able to pass laws to be fair)

Much of what ails Congress dates to the era of Newt Gingrich, when Republicans did lasting damage to members’ capacity to legislate effectively: cutting House committee staff by roughly a third, abolishing the Office of Technology Assessment, and reducing funding for the Congressional Research Service. As of 2023, there were roughly 500 fewer House committee staff than in 1977. Together with stagnant salaries throughout Congress and limited growth in staffing levels in Member offices, these changes paved the way for a world in which Congress’s spending power is almost exclusively expressed via massive omnibus packages drafted by leadership staff—which rank-and-file members may not even have reviewed.

We are getting the legislature we pay for. Today, the average Congressional staffer—someone who may be responsible for a portfolio including everything from “oversight of the financial sector” to “public safety”—is inexperienced, overworked, and underpaid. Unsurprisingly, the majority of them are under 35 and do not intend to stay long term. Popular accounts of why the government has failed to deliver on major priorities tend to conclude that the best thing legislators can do is get out of the way and provide the executive branch with greater flexibility and authority. Watching your octogenarian Senator asking Mark Zuckerberg how Facebook makes money, you can’t really blame them. It’s no surprise that public opinion of the legislative branch rests near an all-time low when it churns out one embarrassment after another. However, Americans’ cynicism is self-sustaining—concern for public perceptions has made members of Congress reluctant to champion long-overdue investments in the institution.

Aastha पास्ता@aasthauprety· Apr 12