If only more voters had supported Bernie Sanders, made the primary into an uncontrollable landslide, that could have changed things - made the "not allowed" into "try and stop it now!" The voters didn't do that though...too many remained too blind, or misguided by others, to recognise a good thing when it was right under their noses!
The fault is not in Bernie, the fault is in the USA's culture of fearing anything resembling socialism, and in being duped by neo-liberalism under the label "Democratic". Bernie Sanders' policies hardly resemble socialism anyway, as any expert would confirm. There's paranoia in the USA, paranoia so deep, handed down from McCarthyism and still, in 2016, too many remain unable to see past it.
There has been no proper left-wing politics in the USA for too long. The powers that be prefer it to remain that way, and will make it their business to see that it does. It'll take several more elections, some catastrophic out-turns and drastic events before the truth finally dawns.
The best, fairest and sanest piece, about Senator Sanders, I read at the weekend is by William Rivers Pitt at Smirking Chimp:
The Long Victory of Bernie Sanders
Not forgetting that it's Music Monday:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows.......
(From Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen)
Sung by Don Henley
For years being a tempest against the corporate coup d'état that has destroyed this republic, and there's no reason to recite a laundry list of the reasons at this time, I agreed wholeheartedly with Senator Sanders' message. However, I vowed months ago that if he ended his campaign and ultimately endorsed the epitome of Wall Street, Hillary Clinton, that I would abandon him and vote third-party. I will honor this pledge.
ReplyDeleteMany people may not know this, but Jill Stein reached out to him -- twice. In the last couple of weeks, she even offered him the top slot on the Green Party ticket. He never even granted her the courtesy of a response.
The Democratic Party has proved itself to be as beholden to the international banking cabal, and the transnational corporations, as the GOP. Neither party listens to, or cares for, the working or middle class in this country. For this reason, I will lend my total and unequivocal support to the Green Party. Granted, she doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell, but this isn't about that. My stance is a protest; a protest against the permanent policies of unending war, ecological genocide, poverty and corporate greed. It's against the construction of an economic system that favors only a few, at the expense of far too many. My vote to to let the powers-that-be know that I personally will not accept this.
Endorse and vote for Clinton if your conscious tells you it's the right thing to do. Mine doesn't.
Freshly back from my staycation and there are so many chores to catch-up. Today is yard work in heatstroke weather...big ugh!
ReplyDeleteMany factors fed into Bernie's campaign efforts. Hillary supporters always point to the yuge number of popular votes she received, exceeding Bernie's by several million. Had independent voters been allowed into open, state primaries, her lead would surely have been diminished, and may have provided her loss, not counting the pre-paid super-delegates, of course.
As you indicate, socialism is a spooky word here in the USA. Lil Bush instigated one of the largest, socialist reforms with his bailout of the automobile and financial industries starting in 2008, and it continues to this day under the guise of "quantitative easing". Too-big-to-fail-anythings don't exist in capitalism. Taxpayers don't bailout industries in capitalism. So, I guess socialism is OK, but just don't call it that.
Then there are the vagina voters. I want to believe that those individuals also supported Hillary's platform initially, yet her platform became much more Bernie-centric as it evolved over the course of the primaries. The DNC committee has recently formulated a Democratic Party platform that wreaks of Bernie's original platform. I guess the DNC wants lipstick, earrings, and pantsuits on Bernie.
Then of course, there are the Christians. Democratic socialist sounds too much like communism and atheism. Bernie is a non-practicing Jew and supports Palestine. Three strikes against him. Better to have a nice Methodist like Hillary.
Ageism played a role, too. Many pundits reveled in Bernie's ancientness...five years older than Trump, six years older than Clinton. Please!!!
I've said a number of times that the next POTUS will have a very difficult reign, so in some respects I'm glad Bernie will be free of that dust. He played a very significant role in Democratic Party reform, essentially by bringing the Millennial electorate into politics and presenting a social, working-class ideology. Kudos to The Bern!
Jefferson's Guardian - Jill Stein could make the presidential debates, if enough voters poll for her to a margin of 15%. I am considering casting my vote for Stein, too, as a rebuke to Bernie's loss and not wanting to cast for Hillary. Stein is on my state's ballot. She's on the ballot in some of the largest populated states. Here's a map of states allowing Green Party on their ballots:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jill2016.com/ballot_access
"Under the 2016 Criteria, in addition to being Constitutionally eligible, candidates must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College, and have a level of support of at least 15 percent of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations’ most recently publicly-reported results at the time of the determination. The polls to be relied upon will be selected based on the quality of the methodology employed, the reputation of the polling organizations and the frequency of the polling conducted. CPD will identify the selected polling organizations well in advance of the time the criteria are applied."
http://debates.org/index.php?page=overview
Jefferson's Guardian ~ Hi there - nice to see you!
ReplyDeleteI read of Jill Stein's offer to Sanders, and have wondered why she received no response from him, or from his campaign - at least none we've been made aware of. Personally, I do not believe that Bernie Sanders is as ungracious as this would indicate. I suspect there's more to this side of the story than we know.
I respect your views, you are among what appears to be a very large group with similar feelings.
I am not a Democrat - I registered Independent in 2008 when I became eligible to vote and remained so until this spring, when I changed my registration to Dem so's to vote for Bernie in the primary. As it happened Oklahoma then changed their rules and I need not have changed anything. I am now stuck with the Dem label until September 1st when OK allows changes again. :-(
I'm undecided how to vote, or indeed whether to vote, apart from showing preference in down-ticket races. I intend to watch and wait. There's a way to go yet, and lots more could happen to change the way things are looking today.
The Green Party isn't on OK's ballot. In any case, Greens have been a tad too passive for my liking over the years I've been in the USA. Bernie, on the other hand has been fighting his whole life for the likes of you and I - for ordinary people. I refuse to abandon support for him and for what he has done over past months. I trust his judgment, and understand that, in choosing to primary as a Democrat he has been beholden to the Party, and has needed to endorse their nominee, if he is to be allowed any say at all at the convention and beyond. He has not "sold-out".
Your plan of protest could lead to a President Trump of course - and if that is fine with you, so be it.
My way of protest is to continue to support Bernie Sanders - not Hillary Clinton, not Jill Stein, not Donald Trump by default - but Bernie Sanders, on whatever road he travels from here on.
mike ~ Hey! Good to see you! On this we are in perfect agreement!
ReplyDeleteThat so many things were stacked against Bernie from the start makes it even more amazing that he did as well as he did. That, at least, has shown the powers that be that there's a strong undercurrent of protest brewing in this nation. The powers that be were all set to put it down, one way or another - "everybody knew" they would be. As it happened, a goodly proportion of voters helped, in the variety ways you've outlined. Voting irregularities via electronic voting, though these could never be proved, are a possibility too.
Onward and sideways - for now - I guess. :-/
I've just read a piece at Counterpunch by John Eskow -
ReplyDeleteAmerican Presidential Politics is a Small, Dumb Network Sit-Com in a World of 1000 Channels
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/18/american-presidential-politics-is-a-small-dumb-network-sit-com-in-a-world-of-1000-channels/
I liked this paragraph from it:
The best thing about the Sanders candidacy—and it is no small achievement—was to suddenly make blazingly obvious to us all what each of us had suspected on our lonesome — that we’re actually not alone in our revulsion toward the system, that all of America is so god-damn sick of the Democrats and Republicans and Wassermans and Priebuses and Gingriches and Blitzers and Maddows, and yes, the (shillings and) Pences—the whole tedious operetta—that even a cranky old Jewish quasi-lefty who started his campaign with no thought of winning could come very close to tearing down the whole shithouse. What if the next Bernie Sanders is fiercely articulate, physically attractive, charming—and an Actual Socialist? As a Tin Pan Alley lyricist once asked, “How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?”
But in the meantime we’re stuck with two candidates loathed by everyone outside their immediate families.
That next Bernie Sanders figure will appear, one day, and it'll be thanks to the original Bernie that he/she will feel inspired to do so - but too many of his original supporters will, conveniently, forget this.
Always nice to see Lenny get his due.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's Bob:
'But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
Indeed you're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody'
Read more: Bob Dylan - Gotta Serve Somebody Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Sabina ~ Love Leonard Cohen's songs (better sung by others for my taste though).
ReplyDeleteThen there's your Joni's contribution
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.......
Clunky parody time (lol!) -
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They steamrolled Bernie
And gave us neo-Hilliberally