Friday, January 24, 2020

Fighting Dirty vs. Playing It Straight

The main criticism of Bernie Sanders from the left is that he's too nice to survive in this cutthroat, backstabbing world of politics. He gallantly told Hillary Clinton at a 2016 primary debate that Americans are "sick and tired of hearing about your damned emails" and later he let bygones be bygones when it emerged that the Clinton-controlled Democratic machine had, indeed, rigged the process against him. He even appeared at numerous rallies for Clinton after she was crowned the nominee by undemocratic acclaim.

She just repaid that misplaced gallantry by trashing him once again, in what could be the opening salvo of a shadow campaign for a second nomination on a second ballot at a brokered convention.

Bernie needs to get over his dual loyalties in a hurry. He's always seemed to have one foot in the Senate and one foot in the rest of the United States. He is loath to criticize his opponents, even going  so far as to preface even mild criticisms of their often cruel policies with "So and So is a good friend of mine." When he says that Joe Biden is a good friend of his, that is an insult to everybody whom Biden has damaged throughout his overlong neoliberal career. When Sanders says he will even support Michael Bloomberg should he win the nomination, even appearing arm in arm with him on Martin Luther King Day, that is a slap in the face to every black or brown man who was ever rousted by cops on Bloomberg's direct orders, just for the crime of existing. It was an insult to all the desperate people that "Mayor Mike" had ordered fingerprinted when they began applying for food stamps in near record numbers after the 2008 financial collapse.

Since Sanders's campaign slogan is "Not me, us," he needs to define his terms. Too frequently, the "us" seems to include people like Biden. Sanders, by any standard of logic, cannot define Biden as a good friend at the same time that he rails against the billionaires that Biden has faithfully served. He certainly cannot, or should not, vow to support Bloomberg, whose obscene net worth is estimated at more than $50 billion.

At the same time, those urging Sanders to "fight dirty" are also wrong. Playing dirty implies engaging in smears and hit jobs, which are dishonest to the core. Criticizing Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren or Michael Bloomberg for their policies and history is not "attacking" them. Pointing out their lies is not trashing them. It is playing it straight and honest to say that Biden has always wanted to gut Social Security and that Elizabeth Warren was a life-long Republican who is a wholehearted proponent of American militarism and imperialism.

The Democratic machine is carefully keeping Sanders imprisoned in the Senate for the duration of its sham impeachment trial, which is nothing less than an extended campaign commercial for Biden and a gruesome propaganda  extension of the Russiagate excuse for Hillary Clinton's ignominious loss to Trump. It is an open declaration of the neoconservative bent of the Democratic Party, with Chief Prosecutor Adam Schiff channeling George Bush and actually saying that "we have to fight Russia over there so we don't have to fight them over here."

This kind of mendacious rhetoric is the very definition of playing dirty. It doesn't matter that the Republicans are a hundred times worse, when both parties come to the staged event with unclean hands.

The artificially restricted impeachment articles also tacitly assert that the president does not have the inherent right to formulate foreign policy. They nakedly assert that foreign policy is the sole purview of the permanent security and military apparatus, made up of the State Department, the CIA and the Pentagon. They transparently claim that foreign policy is for the ultimate benefit of weapons manufacturers, oil companies and other extractors and exploiters and evictors.

That Trump was partying and bloviating at Davos, and that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in Jerusalem crafting foreign policy even as the Senate trial was getting underway are testament to the corruption and widespread bipartisan complicity in the corruption. Each of these dirty plutocrats knows, or think they know, exactly how this show is going to end.

If Bernie Sanders does indeed win the nomination, and if he does indeed defeat Trump in November, his struggles will only be just beginning. He'd better consider who his friends are, and that for the most part, they do not reside in Washington, D.C. Martha's Vineyard, Hollywood, the Hamptons or Davos, Switzerland.

The CIA and the State Department and the congressional intelligence committees funding them and protecting them will still be exerting utmost control. We'll still be living under an oligarchy for the foreseeable future. 

We'll just have to wait and see whether a President Sanders repeats what Barack Obama did once he won the White House: disband his grassroots movement under very friendly pressure and non-refusable offers.

Now is the time to brace ourselves and to prepare for all kinds of dirty possibilities. As Howard Zinn said, it's not who's occupying the White House that matters, but who is out in the streets.

10 comments:

  1. Another very effective Vermont legislator of 40 years ago, Ralph Wright, retired after serving very well as Speaker of the House in Montpelier and wrote a book about his life in politics. It was titled, "All Politics Are Personal," and Bernie has pretty clearly taken it to heart.

    Congress is always going to have scum like Jesse Helms, Joe McCarthy, Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan. The trick is to work around them rather than try to barrel over them. As St. Jerome once said, "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." Bernie works hard to find the spot in each opponent's heart that will listen to reason. It's why he's gotten more legislation passed in his Congressional tenure than anybody else (possibly anybody else in the history of the place.)

    I don't know if he's at the technical level of a Dick Cheney, who could reach into the bowels of the civil service to find the apparatchik whom he could use, or an LBJ, who could charm the pecker off a peckerwood, but he doesn't let ideological purity get in the way of pushing, pushing, pushing toward the goal.

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  2. I am not in the least bit concerned that Sanders will pull an Obama once in the White House. His great trials (as well as ours) will come from the plutocrats and their minions in the Republican and Democratic parties that will do everything they can to sabotage his genuine progressive policies and transformative agenda. We will all need to stay vigilant and ready to hit the streets but not because Sanders will fall in line like Obama. He has earned that kind of faith and the fight continues.

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  3. It could be that Bernie simply realizes that Democrats are mostly a bunch of fragile snowflakes.

    Fragile politicians actually reveal their own weakness and immaturity when they squeal to the teacher/parent/media 'He hit me!' expecting the usual response of 'She/he hit me first!' which the media would milk for all it's worth. Bernie is mature enough to resist the bait and smart enough to make nice by patting them on their tender little heads and offering them an apology without groveling or begging for absolution.

    Aren't Americans fed up with phony, double-talking, self-centered, disingenuous politicians? They're also sick and tired of those who blame others for everything, make dubious/false claims, deny known facts, and engage in personal attacks. But enough about Hillary and her proteges ;-)

    Bernie's smart not to go there. He may not be Mr. Congeniality, but he has the winning combination for this particular time and place: authenticity, maturity, and wisdom; being consistent and persistent for half a century fighting for the right causes and issues; and having good character. Ding! Ding! Ding! We've got a WINNER!

    The establishment will naturally try to destroy Bernie, but the more they try, the more they'll help him because Americans have seen them lie, cheat, and steal to stack the deck for Hillary. Bernie's status as an outsider is the best place for him to be, and the worst thing he could do is act like them or how they want or expect him to act.

    Win or lose, Bernie is taking us closer to the Promised Land than any other living politician. I urge everyone to get behind him, warts and all. After all, it's about US.

    And remember, when they attack Bernie for being a socialist, tell them that socialism isn't just for big corporations anymore!

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  4. "If Bernie Sanders does indeed win the nomination, and if he does indeed defeat Trump in November, his struggles will only be just beginning. He'd better consider who his friends are, and that for the most part, they do not reside in Washington, D.C. Martha's Vineyard, Hollywood, the Hamptons or Davos, Switzerland.

    The CIA and the State Department and the congressional intelligence committees funding them and protecting them will still be exerting utmost control. We'll still be living under an oligarchy for the foreseeable future. "

    Truer words have never been spoken.

    Good luck, Bernie. You'll need it.

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  5. I share your enthusiasm for Bernie...I think.

    But he will be truly ALONE in DC, unless he is more wily and connected than I believe:


    'New Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that President-elect Donald Trump is “being really dumb” by taking on the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia’s cyber activities.

    “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.'

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/312605-schumer-trump-being-really-dumb-by-going-after-intelligence-community

    '"So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman [politician] he’s being really dumb to do this.”'

    Evil Chuckie Schumer all but admitted that there is a "deep state" ready to take on Bernie, just as it has done with Trump.

    As I said above, "Good luck, Bernie." You're going to need it.



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  6. Add to the mix, or to the mess:

    "Corporate Media Equate Sanders to Trump — Because for Them, Sanders Is the Bigger Threat"

    https://fair.org/home/corporate-media-equate-sanders-to-trump-because-for-them-sanders-is-the-bigger-threat/

    January 24, 2020 ~ by Julie Hollar

    Sunrise is waging militant optimism:
    #WeAreThePoliticalRevolution —

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=Hv8kSqGSm0c&feature=emb_logo


    "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
    ~ John F. Kennedy

    https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/speeches-african-american-history/1964-malcolm-x-s-speech-founding-rally-organization-afro-american-unity/

    Malcolm X - By Any Means Necessary - Organization for Afro American Unity (June 1964) --

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBS416EZsKM

    Malik Shabazz, aka Malcolm X, addressing a large group of so-called negroes in Harlem.
    He discusses the creation of the Organization for Afro American Unity (OAAU)
    and the need for justice by any means necessary.

    WE NEED JUSTICE BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY !


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  7. "WE NEED JUSTICE BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY !"

    Be careful what you wish for.

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  8. Mad Max:

    That is not a wish.
    It is a fervent assertion.
    The Earth is burning.
    The Amerikan Empire, bolstered by global banksters, must be expunged posthaste.
    We have no alternative.

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  9. Erik Roth:

    Malcolm X sought "revolution" some 60-70 years ago, and yet, here we still are. And, too, there he now rests, almost forgotten.

    So as I said, be careful what you wish for:

    Revolutions have a way of devouring themselves, even if revolutionaries are fortunate enough to realize their momentary dreams.

    Think 1793.

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  10. As some already counselled above, let's not delude ourselves. Schumer's aperçu cannot be denied. The elites are a hell bent comet of rock and ice, driven, mean and cold. Their caste locked on to an unbending course long ago and will not be deterred. The 1% that forms the comet's nucleus drags a long translucent tail of nobodies forever being cast off to nowhere.

    All a winning politician can do, no matter how meek or bold, pious or impious, is to hang on and ride the comet along its inexorable way. The only agency allowed to the elected is how they wave their Stetsons. You become a celebrated success in politics by leaning into the set course of the elite. Otherwise, you fall off or get knocked out of the saddle.

    The oligarchs, CEOs, generals, spooks, along with the corrupted servants who form the 'coma' enveloping the comet, are not nobodies. Expecting a president to steer them on a new course is as foolish as ordering the hit man's bullet, already discharged, to veer away from your trusting heart.

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