On Bernie Sanders

The left wing has a lot of work to do.

Good point, Ian, though if I were a betting man, I would bet that when change comes to America, it will be from the right. 🙁 The left does not have a good track record of getting stuff done in recent history.

i’m not an establishment collectivist “2 party” person. unlike the bern, who i feel misled us “not belongers” by selling out to the party selection candidate — hilly billy — i learned something along the way as i travelled this life to where i am now, at 65. i learned from various “intellectuals”, not the least of which was the great arthur koestler. koestler taught me about something called the collectivist mind, in his tome, “ghost in the machine.” and how vicious and inhuman it is. he suffered its brutalness as he became disillusioned with the german communist party and finally, when he could take no more and still be honest with himself and his fellow sufferers, renounced party membership.

i was strung out hoping against hope for more from the bern. i liked his compassion for the young generation who deserves affordable university tuitions, especially when the party pols readily print mounds of paper to bail out wall street firms. and readily invade foreign countries and wreak death and destruction on innocent foreign civilians in the fraudulent name of democracy.

i learned free choice is an inviolate right of life. oh, how wise i consider myself for having learned from experience over the course of life. psychologists label this “working the organizing experience. that’s a helluva lot more than the bern has learned: readily giving up the chase of upright values and instead getting back in line as an establishment party politician. how could he dare say he supports “crooked hillary?” my god, i go with christopher hitchens well before believing some cloaked establishment media website like factcheck.org that disputes the truth/ accuracy of trump’s criticism of hilly billy’s character. come on, more than 30 books on hilly billy’s bad behaviors have been published, and many by hard working and trustworthy authors. and i’m going to take factcheck.org’s word? get real.

so the bern is nothing more than a “belonger” collectivist, siding with the democrats against the republicans. i wouldn’t give a rats ass for either party.

the bern should feel ashamed that he has lived a full life and not learned important truths. i suggest he read arthur koestler and get serious about his pursuit of truths.

i’m sorry i contributed to his campaign. i certainly do not want my money going to support crooked hillary. (and her rapist husband who should be facing similar prosecutions for his violations of non-consenting woman to satisfy his hypersexual appetite.)

disgusting. ah, the accumulation of wealth and power. hillary will show us the way.

Exactly right on this one, Ian – if I was going to nitpick, I’d say that I think it goes slightly too far to say that he is now irrelevant. He’ll still be around for a few years, and the fame and attachment from primary voters will help him do more of what he’s always done, keep pushing for the things in his stump speech.

The idea that some imaginary “needle” has been moved to the left is ludicrous. What Bernie showed was not “how well a a socialist can do” but rather how easily the powers-that-be were able to dispose of him by ignoring and patronizing the “movement”, rigging the primaries, and dominating the airwaves – with Bernie´s announcement of supporting Hillary the final coup-de-gras. Now that the “youth” have found out how badly the game of politics is rigged I predict that, like my generation (baby-boomer), they will turn to trying to make the best of a bad situation by making money and by using or beating the system as best they can. Wanna bet?

Yes, whenever a crack is opened against all the odds in the totalitarian US I am given hope, from Occupy to Bernie, even given all of the failings.

However, this latest move by Bernie shows the similarities with Occupy and the faults of that movement: the unwillingness of US leftists to create their own organizations, designed for broad appeal, with staying power, and longterm strategies.

While Occupy egotistically chose to guard its own revolutionary authenticity against co-optation (to the point of refusing to make demands!), Bernie has chosen pragmatically to accept minor concessions for inclusion in the establishment rather than mark a longer term rupture and break with establishment politics. Perhaps that is the correct move. Maybe attempting to break the Democratic party with hopes for a leftist alternative is foolhardy at this conjuncture. But I can’t help but suspect that the lead organizers and activists who rose around Bernie saw greater possibilities for professional advancement with Hillary than against her. No long term change will arise from it. I hope I am mistaken.

When I see this toothy photo of Bernie I can’t help to remember the ‘ would you buy a used car from this man’ rhetorical question asked about Nixon. Sanders certainly did sell a clunker to his poor followers and now he has voided any warranty that was implied in their contract.

I hope that some of his followers have learned a lesson about our buyer beware political system and the danger of following a pied piper into the veal pens. His capitulation insures that any progressive movement his supporters worked for will die the death of a thousand cuts inside the belly of the beast.

2500 years ago, Heraclitus said that character is destiny. I don’t think the Berniestas and Bernie Bros were listening. There were reasons why long before Sanders announced his candidacy back in April 2015 some of us called him a joke and said he folded more easily than a cheap lawnchair. He may have run on Medicare for All but he voted for Obamacare in March 2010. Later that year in December 2010 in the last days of the 111th Congress, he staged an 8 hour filibuster in which he railed against corporate greed and protested the proposed extension of the pro-rich Bush tax cuts. Thing was this was no act of rebellion. He had gotten bipartisan approval for his stunt, and he held it on a Friday when there was no business on the Senate floor and after most of his colleagues had already left for the weekend. So his “filibuster” was designed not to inconvenience anyone. The next week his colleagues come back, pass the bill, and Obama signs it that Friday. That is, was, and always will be Bernie Sanders. It wasn’t like that anything he had to say about the rich and the corporations wasn’t true. It was rather that it was a feature of his protest that nothing was meant to come of it.

That was essentially the same game plan he had when he kicked off his Presidential bid 5 years later. Give a few speeches and eventually endorse Clinton, the inevitable nominee. To his surprise and Clinton’s fury, he stumbled into a viable campaign. He had, much like Trump, tapped inadvertently into some of the vast anger and discontent that seethes within our society. As a result, his issues, and there was never anything that wrong about them, or his targets, gained a larger audience although they never did really break through nationally. This was because he never had an over-archung vision which tied them together and did not know how to exploit the media, something that Trump was consummate at. The Sanders campaign, as opposed to Sanders himself, accomplished several notable things. The people in it showed that through the internet and social media large numbers of young and independent voters could be energized, that a major campaign could be funded with small donations, and that the Democratic party, its leaders, and its nominating process were hopelessly anti-democratic, rigged and corrupt.

I suppose we all like to think that, given the right circumstances, we would rise above our limitations, but Bernie didn’t. It wasn’t in him. Given the opportunity, given to so few, between the greater and the lesser, he chose the lesser. Character is destiny.

If I am angry about the whole Sanders episode, it is because it represents another opportunity squandered by progressives. With what is coming on in our not so distant future, we have neither the time nor the luxury to keep mucking about like this. We need fighters who will fight and keep fighting for us. One of the standard criticisms of Obama has been: Look at what he does, not what he says. If we apply this to Sanders, our judgment of him must be harsh. He talked, for a while, and then left us. Instead of fighting a corrupt and unequal system, he is back campaigning for it and its preferred candidate. How he thinks he can maintain any credibility doing that, I have no idea. But then I have never understood why progressives engage in exercises in self-delusion like the Sanders candidature in the first place. You may have resisted the notion that Sanders was a sheepdog but that is what he has become, campaigning for Clinton. Don’t beat up the Black Agenda Report for having told you that way back when, and don’t blame me for calling him a Trojan horse meant to steal the oxygen from the creation of any real progressive alternative to the two parties. And please spare me about Jill Stein and the Green party. For once, blame yourselves. And for once drop all the self-delusions and the what-ifs and the eleventy-dimensional chess claptrap. If you want a progressive alternative, start building and organizing. And focus. Don’t keep reading into whichever figure of the day throws out a few progressive catchphrases all kinds of things which are not and were never there and don’t turn them into your next hero. We don’t have the time or the resources to keep playing these deadend games.

I had two emails from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee yesterday celebrating Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton. Today, I had this email from them:

After Bernie’s call for unity yesterday, we just figured Democrats would…well…unify.

But instead, everything is falling apart.

FIRST: We heard barely a peep from grassroots Democrats.
THEN: A Quinnipiac poll showed Trump and Clinton tied in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania.
NOW: We’re questioning whether the Democratic Party can unify at all.

I’m glad their appeal has fallen flat. The DCCC is notorious for recruiting former Republicans and Republicrats to run for Congress. They oppose actual liberal candidates. Best to support individual liberal candidates.

“Donations to Jill Stein Explode Nearly 1000% Since Sanders’ Endorsement of Clinton”
http://tinyurl.com/zpfyv5k

Hugh: You may have resisted the notion that Sanders was a sheepdog but that is what he has become, campaigning for Clinton. Don’t beat up the Black Agenda Report for having told you that way back when, and don’t blame me for calling him a Trojan horse meant to steal the oxygen from the creation of any real progressive alternative to the two parties.

Chris Hedges said it too.

This reminds me of Yeat’s “second coming”:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I agree with Ian Welsh’s assessment of Sanders’s achievement. He always said he would support the DemParty nominee if it wasnt’ him. “Lefter-than-thou” purists who feel “betrayed and let down” by Sanders doing what he always said he would do are just upset because he hasn’t provided them the validation or catharsis or whatever they somehow believe he owed them.

Thanks to the Sanders effort, millions of people have become aware of eachothers’ existence. They have learned some things about political organizing and social organizing and sustaining an effort through counter-mainstream channels. They have also seem how an ongoing stream of money can be raised through counter-mainstream channels and in defiance of Clintobama Shitocrat oligarch wishes. If they are disappointed in how the Sanders thing worked out, they can remember that they don’t have to let their disappointment encourage them to go limp and go dark. They can stay organized and break up into as few or as many different theory-action groups as they please in order to pursue different political-combat and political-warfighting approaches towards whatever shared or different objectives they set for themselves.

Sanders will stay a Senator until retirement or defeat. He will make maybe-strong or maybe-weak efforts to obstruct the Obama-Clintonite Free Trade Conspiracy agenda . . . in particular obstructing TPP, TTIP, TISA, etc. He may try to support or obstruct other things.
If Clinton gets elected, he may try to raise objections to some of her wanna-be appointees . . . such as the pro-war-with-Russia Flournoy, Nuland and other such neo-conservaliberal filth and scum.

It remains to be seen how many of the Sanders supporters decide to betray themselves and any hope of a survivable future by joining the Klinton Koolaid Kultists. Some will, some won’t.

“Lefter-than-thou” purists who feel “betrayed and let down” by Sanders

Uhhh…

Thanks to the Sanders effort, millions of people have become aware of eachothers’ existence. They have learned some things about political organizing and social organizing and sustaining an effort through counter-mainstream channels.

Thanks to the Obama campaign, millions of people have become aware of each others’ existence. They have learned some things about political organizing and social organizing and sustaining an effort through counter-mainstream channels.

Thanks to Occupy Wall Street, millions of people have become aware of each others’ existence. They have learned some things about political organizing and social organizing and sustaining an effort through counter-mainstream channels.

Sanders will stay a Senator until retirement or defeat. He will make maybe-strong or maybe-weak efforts to obstruct the Obama-Clintonite Free Trade Conspiracy agenda . . . in particular obstructing TPP, TTIP, TISA, etc. He may try to support or obstruct other things.

Be still my heart.

If Clinton gets elected, he may try to raise objections to some of her wanna-be appointees . . . such as the pro-war-with-Russia Flournoy, Nuland and other such neo-conservaliberal filth and scum.

I’m sure the very thought has her quailing with fear.

It remains to be seen how many of the Sanders supporters decide to betray themselves and any hope of a survivable future by joining the Klinton Koolaid Kultists. Some will, some won’t.

If they won’t, won’t that make them “‘lefter-than-thou’ purists”?

Bernie didn’t fight. He let Hillary blatantly steal election after election and illegally disenfranchise millions of voters.

He wasn’t real and he never was.

Trump is our next president.

hey hugh, tell me something i didn’t already know 10x over. thank you for your deep dark illuminating tidbits. it was obvious that sanders was establishment from the beginning. in fact, when ian mused in the past that sanders may not in the end flip to clinton, i replied that of course he would. so why did i send money to sanders? because unlike you, i know that a progressive party will never happen in these united states. yet the sadness i feel for the next generation drove me to it. and sanders was the only one talking about student loan badness. hope against hope. hey, ian just posted some thoughts on hope. alas, all we boomers have to offer them is more grandma/ grandpa prune skinned oldies. who rely on their sycophant young staffers to set policy. as they, the point men are too old and rickety in brain cells to think clearly for more than one hour daily. sick. sick. sick.

@XFR

Most Amerikans are bolted fast to the status quo and although they whine a lot they are going nowhere. The only voters who have a chance to affect the future are those who reject the system outright and refuse to participate in the sham, don’t vote, boycott.