I'm really enjoying this dialogue. Anybody for moving to Vancouver?
Seriously, I'll take up a few of Ted's points first.
a) The Theory of Change presented at the Green New Deal Summit looks pretty good. You didn't say what the debate around it was, nor whether it was accepted. Nonetheless, it is way beyond what the Canadian Green New Deal or LEAP has achieved. A small point: "the capitalist class is the problem" perhaps leaves open the possibility of small capitalists or the petit bourgeois being left to their own devices - which would be to grow.
b) Struggles for reforms shouldn't be ignored, as you say. But that doesn't mean that we buy into the logic of the reformers. Someone in Black Lives Matter came up with the idea of calling the widespread use of violence by the police "systemic". That idea opened up lots of other possibilities.
c) The left can be asinine. But that's only a part of the reason why the working class doesn't pay a great deal of attention to those handing out pamphlets. I've been a socialist for many decades. One of the questions I have often asked my co-workers during those years (and I've had quite a few different jobs) is whether they would prefer to have more say in how the workplace was run. Of the dozens of replies, I only remember one who said that they just want their paycheque. When I ask the bosses whether they'd be willing to share the power in the workplace there hasn't been one would would agree to that. But I usually followed up my initial question to the workers with the question of whether they'd like to work towards a democratic workplace and the usual response was: "You and whose army?" In other words, and this is very important, the vast majority of workers don't have a problem with radical ideas, it's the very practical side effect of being fired for trying to spread the word (and the social dislocation of a large-scale change). And, of course, we've seen many people fired for a good deal less than being radical. This observation has led me to the conclusion that one of the left's tasks should be to create a safe alternative or haven for those waging battle within the belly of the beast. Co-ops, food programs, etc (like the early Black Panthers, the early Sandinistas, the Zapatistas, liberation movements around the world) help in both the production and distribution of life's necessities.
And that leads me to David's point: "...at some point Capital goes on strike and forces a retreat". Absolutely true. It's not necessary to be pessimistic to recognize that (whether Mitterand, Allende or...). (Who was it who said: "Pessimism of the mind, optimism of the spirit"). No country on earth, alone, is strong enough to deal with the power of capital. Which means that the progress towards survival is, and must be, international. We must have sufficient resources, of all types, to survive, not only the withdrawal of capital, but its onslaught. And that internationalism is beginning. Look at the international responses to Black Lives Matter, the environmental movement's breadth or the feminist response to Trump. So, it is beginning as a realistic response to the causes of the crises.
That's enough for now.
Larry