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Please come to our Burlington VERMONT Meetup August 17, and/or our Montreal QUEBEC Meetup August 18 (with Lambert)

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The deets, as we say these days:

Burlington

Date: August 17

Time: 8:00PM

Place: Zero Gravity Brewpub at Flatbread. Here is a handy map:

How to recognize Lambert: I am tall, not overly thin, with glasses, greying-white short hair, and glasses. I will be wearing a red shirt, and will have a black computer bag either over my shoulder, or near me. In the unlikely event that my bus is late, the “call-ahead” (they don’t take reservations) for the table is under “Naked Capitalism.”

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Montréal

Date: August 18

Time: 6:00PM

Place: Café Cherrier, on St. Denis near the Sherbrooke Metro. Here is a handy map:

How to recognize Lambert: As above. (I have more than one red shirt.)

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If you plan to attend, feel free to say so in comments, so we have a rough idea of the size; but do come whether you have said so in comments or not.

Looking forward!

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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18 comments

  2. Anonymized

    Wish I lived in Montreal. Hopefully you’ll have a Meetup in Toronto sometime (unless you already had one and I missed it).

  3. Antoine LeBear

    I’ll come to the Montreal meetup!
    Too bad it’s the same day the Nouveaux Cahiers du Socialisme (New Cahiers of Socialism) launch their new magazine, a lot of people from my network will be there. It’s at The Lab, 279 Ste Catherine east, about 15 minutes walk from the Café Cherrier so if we feel like mingling with socialist types we can go there after. It will be full of francophones though.
    (https://www.cahiersdusocialisme.org/ their website, french only)

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      Presumably some of the Francophones will deign to speak to me, particular when they hear my crude American English!

      What I would really like to hear is some detail on the Carré Rouge movement and what happened to it and to the people involved in it.

      1. Robin Dick

        I’m really hoping to make it tomorrow night. Two of my children were involved in the Carré rouge movement and, at the time, we lived very close to where most of the action took place (close to Café Cherrier in fact).

      1. Outis Philalithopoulos

        It may be a reference to the very famous cahiers of spring 1789. All over France, local electoral assemblies (nobles, clerics, Third Estate) compiled cahiers de doléances, “lists of grievances” explaining what they thought was wrong and what ought to be done. While naturally imperfect, it was an extraordinary step towards “democratic involvement in public affairs” (William Doyle).

        I looked a bit at the website, but couldn’t tell for sure whether this was the reference that was intended.

  5. Altandmain

    I will not be able to make it unfortunately.

    Like Anonymized, I live in Ontario and it would be a few hours to drive over or by train. Toronto is closer for me as well (I will be moving to a town about 2 hours drive from Toronto to the West).

    Buffalo might also be possible for me.

  6. john c. halasz

    If anyone is planning to go to the Burlington VT meet-up from Montpelier VT (or passing through on the way up), I could use a ride. Would share gas. I can be reached at 223-6704.

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