Yes, we're stuck with a corporate capitalist state or as Hedges would say,
"inverted totalitarianism", and only the truly deluded thought that Hillary
would turn anything around. Most of us who used to be truly deluded, had an
epiphany after Obama took office. And I agree that our lives will continue to
become more and more difficult under the system that is now in place. But the
system is definitely in place, backed up with unimagineable power. This book by
Ellsberg is one of the most terrifying books I've ever read because he
describes in great detail, what our nuclear defense system is like and how it
got to be this way. You can see the power of the military and of America's
continuing efforts for domination over Russia and China. The excused used to be
that the Communist powers were a Communist block wanting world domination. So
now America still wants to dominate. Russia isn't a communist country and China
is not trying to convert countries to Communism. It focuses on its own economic
development and to this end, it is involved in economic projects throughout the
world. So America has change its rhetoric, but its laws and political
structure, its service to its large corporations and its banks, remain the same.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2018 1:48 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Et Tu, Bernie?
Whether we slide down the slippery slope quickly or slowly, it's still a
downward trend. Hillary Clinton would not have turned anything around. Maybe
we would be some better off, but Corporate Capitalism would still Rule the
American Empire. I will probably vote for the lesser of the many Evils, but
only because another Donald Trump could well close all doors to future change.
It's bad enough we have a conceited braggart in office, but imagine if we
"elected" a Donald Trump with a real brain instead of pudding?
Carl Jarvis
On 6/18/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In 2020, I can't predict who I'd vote for, for president. I suppose
that it doesn't really matter, except to me. But voting must certainly
matter, or else there wouldn't be so many efforts to stop certain
groups of people from voting. It obviously mattered in the swing
states. And regardless of my abhorrence of much of what Hillary stands
for, we wouldn't be having these horrors at our borders right now, nor
the disappearance of environmental protection, nor expressions of
overt racism on a daily basis, nor the withdrawal from the Iran deal
or the Paris climate deal if she'd become President. It's all a matter of
degree.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2018 12:05 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Et Tu, Bernie?
I'm trying hard to get past being judgemental. Bernie Sanders will do
what he does, and some change will circle out from his actions.
Eugene Debbs ran, as have many others, for president. That fact may
not have advanced a better life for the Working Class, but it did keep
his name and his many good works in people's minds.
Even though I would most likely never support Bernie Sanders for
president again, his effort did bring new thinking and did help move a
portion of the public to left of center, politically.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/18/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Great article? It was a really upsetting article! It reminded me of
stuff I really would have preferred to forget. Anyway, aside from
remaining ethically pure, I'm not sure what Eugene Debbs accomplished
by running for President from jail. Did politics change? Is Bernie
selling out or is he just trying to accomplish change, even a tiny
bit of change?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2018 10:58 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Et Tu, Bernie?
Great article! Hedges reminds us that we must learn to think on our
own two feet. Under the constant pressure of the Corporate Media, we
are misdirected into believing we need a strong leader to bring about
change.
But we forget that change bubbles up. Control by the Ruling Class
comes from the top, down. And the change that bubbles up is only
effective when, like the rising tide, it carries all of us to a
higher plain. We, the Working Class, are the collective leader.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/18/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Et Tu, Bernie?
Mr. Fish / Truthdig
There are two versions of Bernie Sanders. There is the old Bernie
Sanders, who mounted a quixotic campaign for the Democratic
presidential nomination as a democratic socialist who refused
corporate cash and excoriated corporate Democrats. And there is the
new Bernie Sanders, who dutifully plays by the party's rules, courts
billionaires, refused to speak out in support of the lawsuit brought
against the Democratic National Committee
(DNC) for rigging the primaries against him and endorses Democratic
candidates who espouse the economic and political positions he once
denounced.
Sanders' metamorphosis began in December 2015 when he saw the
groundswell of support for his candidacy and thought he could win
the nomination. He dropped the fiery, socialist rhetoric that first
characterized his campaign-he had given whole speeches on democratic
socialism shortly after he announced his candidacy in May 2015. He
hired establishment Democratic Party consultants such as Ted Devine,
who, ironically, played a role in the creation of the superdelegates
that helped fix the nomination victory of Hillary Clinton. He would
spend tens of millions of the some $230 million he raised during the
campaign on professional consultants. When it was clear he would
lose, Sanders and his influential campaign manager, Jeff Weaver,
began coordinating closely with the Clinton campaign. By May of
2016, Sanders had muted his criticisms of Clinton and surrendered to
the Democratic Party machine. He has been an obedient servant of the
party establishment ever since.
Sanders was always problematic. His refusal to condemn imperialism
and the war industry-a condemnation central to the message of the
socialist leader Eugene V. Debs-meant his socialism was stillborn.
It is impossible to be a socialist without being an anti-imperialist.
But at least Sanders addressed the reality of social inequality,
which the Republican and Democratic establishment pretended did not
exist. He returned political discourse to reality. And he restored
the good name of socialism.
Weaver and Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, built a de facto
alliance in the weeks leading up to the convention. As the
convention was about to begin, WikiLeaks exposed the Clinton
campaign's nonaggression pact with the Sanders campaign. Many
Sanders delegates, by the time they arrived in Philadelphia in July
2016 for the convention, were enraged at the theft and fraud
orchestrated by the DNC. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair and
the architect of the theft, stepped down. Some DNC staff members were fired.
Sanders delegates were deluged on the eve of the convention with
messages from the Sanders campaign to be respectful, not to disrupt
the nominating process and to support Clinton, messages that often
turned out to have been written by Clinton staffers such as Mook and
then sent out under Sanders'
name. Sanders was a dutiful sheepdog, herding his disgruntled
supporters into the embrace of the Democratic Party machine.
The scope of fraud in the primaries was breathtaking. Donna Brazile,
who took over the DNC after Wasserman Schultz was removed, later
revealed the existence of a joint fund-raising agreement among the
DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.
"The agreement-signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and
Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias-specified that in exchange for
raising money and investing in the DNC, Clinton would control the
party's finances, strategy, and all the money raised," Brazile wrote.
"Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party
communications director, and it would make final decisions on all
the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the
campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and
mailings."
Sanders, although he knew by September 2016 that the process was
rigged, said nothing to his supporters. He was tacitly complicit in
the cover-up.
It
was left to one of the architects of the fraud, Brazile, to reveal
the scam.
But by then it was too late.
Sanders' capitulation in the face of the overwhelming evidence of
the rigging of the nomination process was political and moral cowardice.
He missed his historical moment, one that should have seen him
denounce a corrupt, corporate-dominated party elite and walk away to
build a third-party candidacy. Sanders will never recover politically.
To see the future, he has only to look at the campaign events he
held on behalf of Clinton after her nomination. His crowds dwindled
from thousands to a few hundred after he endorsed Clinton. Data
collected by Harvard Harris Poll charted the downward spiral of his
favorability ratings as he became more and more obsequious to the
Democratic Party establishment. His 2020 campaign for the presidency
will be a pale reflection of 2016. His "political revolution" slogan
has been exposed as another empty public relations gimmick.
If we are to defy corporate power, which is vicious when it feels
threatened, we need leaders with the fortitude to withstand the
onslaught.
Debs never sold out. He was sent to prison in 1919 and ran for
president in
1920 from his prison cell. If we are not willing to pay this price
we better not play the game.
"There is but one thing you have to be concerned about, and that is
that you keep foursquare with the principles of the international
Socialist movement," Debs said in a June 16, 1918, speech in Canton,
Ohio, that led to his being sentenced to 10 years in prison on a
charge of violating the Espionage Act. "It is only when you begin to
compromise that trouble begins.
So far as I am concerned, it does not matter what others may say, or
think, or do, as long as I am sure that I am right with myself and
the cause.
There
are so many who seek refuge in the popular side of a great question.
As a Socialist, I have long since learned how to stand alone."
Those who support Sanders' capitulation, including his high-priced
establishment consultants, will argue that politics is about
compromise and the practical. This is true. But playing politics in
a system that is not democratic is about becoming part of the charade.
We need to overthrow this system, not placate it. Revolution is
almost always a doomed enterprise, one that succeeds only because
its leaders eschew the practical and are endowed with what the
theologian Reinhold Niebuhr calls "sublime madness." Sanders lacks
this sublime madness.
The quality defined Debs. And for this reason Sanders is morally and
temperamentally unfit to lead this fight.
"I never had much faith in leaders," Debs said. "I am willing to be
charged with almost anything, rather than to be charged with being a
leader. I am suspicious of leaders, and especially of the
intellectual variety. Give me the rank and file every day in the
week. If you go to the city of Washington, and you examine the pages
of the Congressional Directory, you will find that almost all of
those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of
Congress, and misrepresentatives of the masses-you will find that
almost all of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen
from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad
I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit
that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the
ranks, and not from the ranks."
Heather Gautney, the author of "Crashing the Party: From the Bernie
Sanders Campaign to a Progressive Movement" and an associate
professor of sociology at Fordham University, has detailed the
numerous ploys used by the Democratic Party establishment to deny
Sanders the nomination. These tactics included the party elites'
appointment of
718 superdelegates-Democratic senators, governors and members of
Congress, party officials, dozens of registered lobbyists or "shadow
lobbyists" and wealthy corporate donors.
More than 400 were pledged to Clinton before Sanders announced his
campaign.
The party also banned those who were registered as independent
voters from voting in many primaries, although the taxpayers pay for
the primaries. It orchestrated the theft of the vote in caucuses
such as Nevada's. And it limited the number of debates to deny
exposure to Sanders. Brazile passed on the CNN debate questions in
advance to the Clinton campaign.
"Over a third of under-30 voters-Sanders's core constituency-weren't
registered to any political party," Gautney writes in an article in
The Guardian. And when they got to the polls they were turned away.
In the New York primary, she notes, "between 3 and 4 million
'unaffiliated' voters were disenfranchised due to a statute that
required changing one's party affiliation 25 days prior to the
previous general election."
The Democratic Party in New York in the upcoming primary requires
unaffiliated voters to register as Democrats 11 months before the
primary, a condition that will cripple the progressive candidacy of
Cynthia Nixon for governor. Sanders, bowing to the demands of the
party elite, has refused to endorse Nixon's bid against Gov. Andrew
Cuomo.
Gautney calls the system broken, but it works exactly as it is
designed to work. The Democratic Party elites have been refining the
mechanisms and exclusionary rules since the presidential election,
along with purging the party of progressives, to ensure that an
insurgent candidate like Sanders will never get close to the
nomination. Sanders, no doubt, thinks he can overcome these
obstacles by being obedient to the party hierarchy. This is a
terrible miscalculation.
In state after state, as Gautney details, Sanders was systematically
robbed.
And he and any other insurgent can expect the same treatment in 2020.
Yes, the party formed a tripartite Unity Reform Commission with
representatives from the Clinton campaign and the Sanders campaign
to review the rules. But the Unity Reform Commission is cosmetic. It
cannot make changes to DNC rules, only recommendations, which have
to be approved by the rules and bylaws committee and the DNC members.
The rules and bylaws committee and the DNC are stacked with
lobbyists, consultants, establishment and Clinton loyalists, and
people, like Brazile, who rigged the election against Sanders. They
retain control over any changes to the rules. The public has no say.
There is not one Sanders supporter on the committee. The final
recommendations submitted by the commission said nothing about the
chief source of corruption that grips the Democratic Party-corporate
and billionaire money. It didn't mention campaign finance reform.
Any attempt at reform is meaningless until corporations and
billionaires stop bankrolling the party.
The Democratic Party is neither democratic nor in any real sense a
political party. It is a corporate mirage. The members of its base
can, at best, select preapproved candidates and act as props in a
choreographed party convention. Voters have zero influence on party
politics.
"I'll never forget watching the primary votes being counted for
Michigan, one of the key states that decided the 2016 election,"
Gautney wrote in The Guardian. "Sanders' 'pledged delegate
count'-which reflected the number of votes he received from
rank-and-file Democrats-exceeded Clinton's by four.
But after the superdelegates cast their ballots, the roll call
registered 'Clinton 76, Sanders 67.' "
"In Indiana, Sanders won the vote 44 to 39, but, after the super
delegates had their say, Clinton was granted 46 delegates, versus
Sanders' 44," she wrote. "In New Hampshire, where Sanders won the
vote by a gaping margin (60% to 38%) and set a record for the
largest number of votes ever, the screen read '16 Sanders, 16 Clinton.' "
Sanders, who calls himself an independent, caucuses as a Democrat.
The Democratic Party determines his assignments in the Senate. Sen.
Chuck Schumer of New York, who oversees Wall Street campaign
donations to Democratic candidates, offered to make Sanders the head
of the Senate Budget Committee if the Democrats won control of the
Senate, in exchange for the Vermont senator's support of Clinton and
the hawkish, corporate neoliberal Democratic candidates running for
the House and Senate. Sanders, swallowing whatever pride he has
left, is now a loyal party apparatchik, squandering his legacy and
his integrity. He routinely sends out appeals to raise money for
party-selected candidates, including the 2016 Democratic senatorial
candidates Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan in New
Hampshire, Ted Strickland in Ohio and Catherine Cortez Masto in
Nevada. Sanders made a blanket endorsement of every Democrat running
in the 2017 election, including the worst corporate Democrats.
There was about $6 million left from the Sanders campaign, and it
was used to form an organization called Our Revolution in August 2016.
The organization was set up ostensibly to fund and support
progressive candidates. It was soon taken over by Weaver, who
ensured that it was not registered as a political action committee
(PAC), a group that can give money directly to campaigns. It was set
up as a 501(c)(4), a group prohibited from having direct contact
with candidates and giving donations directly to candidates. The
501(c)(4) status allowed it to take and mask donations from wealthy
donors such as Tom Steyer.
Sanders' decision to quietly solicit contributions from the
billionaire oligarchs who funded the Hillary Clinton campaign and
control the Democratic Party betrayed the core promise of his
campaign. Yet, even as he created a mechanism to take money from
wealthy donors he continued to write at the bottom of his emails
"Paid for by Bernie Sanders, not the billionaires."
Eight of the 13 staffers of Our Revolution resigned in protest. The
organization is now adding a PAC.
Meanwhile, the DNC rules and bylaws committee has recommended a rule
that any candidate in a primary be required to demonstrate he or she
is a "faithful" Democrat. This loyalty test, intentionally vague,
gives the DNC, which will consider the rule change in August, the
power to disqualify candidates and block them from appearing on the
ballot. If the party elites feel threatened, they can nuke any
candidacy, including one mounted by Sanders, before it even begins.
The Democratic Party elites in an open process and without corporate
backing would not be in power. They are creations of the corporate
state. They are not about to permit reforms that will see themselves
toppled. Yes, this tactic of fixing elections and serving corporate
power may ensure a second term for Donald Trump and election of
fringe candidates who pledge their loyalty to Trump, but the
Democratic elites would rather sink the ship of state than give up
their first-class cabins.
The Democratic Party is as much to blame for Trump as the Republicans.
It is a full partner in the perpetuation of our political system of
legalized bribery, along with the deindustrialization of the
country, austerity programs, social inequality, mass incarceration
and the assault on basic civil liberties. It deregulates Wall
Street. It prosecutes the endless and futile wars that are draining
the federal budget. We must mount independent political movements
and form our own parties to sweep the Democratic and Republican
elites aside or be complicit in cementing into place a corporate
tyranny. Sanders won't help us. He has made that clear. We must do it
without him.
Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
