I love this article. I especially love it because I listened to a videoed
interview with Chris Hedges today, which was on Truthdig in which he again
expressed his absolute disapproval of Sanders' Democratic candidacy.
Although he said the same things as he has said in his articles, in this
interview, he sounded rigid and truly disconnected from reality. It is the
first time that his demeanor and the content of what he said, made me
uncomfortable. I think, perhaps, that the terrible state of our country has
radicalized him, perhaps beyond reason.
Miriam
Weissman writes: "My bias is to back Bernie Sanders, warts and all. But, at
the same time, I think we need to face up openly and honestly to Bernie's
mixed record, especially on foreign policy."
Bernie Sanders announces his presidential campaign on April 30. (photo:
Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
Is Bernie Sanders an American Empire Denier?
By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
26 September 15
Should progressives back Bernie Sanders even though he backs Israel against
the Palestinians, US meddling in Ukraine, the new Cold War with Russia, and
at least some US bombing of the Islamic State in Syria? Or should we
maintain our anti-imperialist purity and stand aside? My bias is to back
Bernie, warts and all. But, at the same time, I think we need to face up
openly and honestly to Bernie's mixed record, especially on foreign policy.
Few on the left have savaged that record more harshly or unfairly than
journalist Chris Hedges, an ordained Presbyterian minister, who damns Bernie
as not a true socialist, democratic or otherwise.
"You cannot be a socialist and an imperialist. You cannot, as Bernie Sanders
has done, support the Obama administration's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen and be a socialist. You cannot, as
Sanders has done, vote for every military appropriations bill, including
every bill and resolution that empowers and sanctions Israel to carry out
its slow-motion genocide of the Palestinian people, and be a socialist. And
you cannot laud, as Sanders has done, military contractors because they
bring jobs to your state."
Setting himself up as a one-man vanguard to define socialism on behalf of
the benighted and brainwashed masses, Hedges preaches with the certainty of
those who have seen the light and know the way to secular salvation, whether
in Athens, Barcelona, or Peoria. But he loses himself in a sectarian
wilderness, offering no way to get from where we are to where we want to go.
Welcome to the old-time religion. In nearly every American election, purists
like Hedges push the left into the same sterile debate. Should we fight
within the Democratic Party, where we will likely be co-opted? Or should we
create a third party, where we will likely be ineffective? Both are usually
dead ends, convincing many of us to put the majority of our energy into
organizing and direct action outside the electoral and Congressional arena,
as we did in the civil rights, free speech, and anti-war movements of the
1960s.
But that was then, this is now. Thanks primarily to the energy and
common-sense proposals of Bernie Sanders, millions of Americans have opened
their minds to the possibility of a democratic and egalitarian control of
the economy, which is not a bad working definition of socialism for the 21st
century. We need to talk to, work with, and learn from these Americans, and
most of them will vote in the Democratic primaries.
This could pose a huge problem, as Hedges argues. But it does not have to.
US politics is not a closed system, not with party primaries that can become
hard-to-control free-for-alls. Just watch how Donald Trump and Ann Coulter
are changing the conservative movement and Republican Party to take as their
defining issue a nativist opposition to migrants. This Republican rebranding
will likely continue even if Trump fails to win the nomination, Inshallah.
Far worse, the anti-migrant and anti-Muslim wave will become even more
dangerous if, as seems likely, the migrant crisis on this side of the
Atlantic further strengthens Europe's far right and neo-fascists. Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
The Democratic Party can similarly change in a positive direction, but not
if we join Hedges in the wilderness and refuse to take advantage of the
opening that Bernie is helping to expand. Change will not be easy. It will
be step-by-step, not a revolutionary flash. And the odds are very much
stacked against us. But change can happen even in a party of militarists and
imperialists.
One small example. In 1966, Ramparts editor Robert Scheer ran for Congress
against a New Dealish incumbent who supported America's war in Vietnam.
Horror of horrors, Bob ran as a Democrat, and those of us at Berkeley who
helped organize his unconventional campaign took a lot of guff. Our revenge
was that Bob nearly won, leaving his political soul largely intact and
opening the way for the extremely progressive Ron Dellums to win the seat in
1970. Feel free to chuckle that Hedges wrote his anti-Sanders screed for
Truthdig, a website run by Scheer, whose views remain quite different from
those of his colleague.
Rather than damning Sanders for being "a full-fledged member of the
Democratic Caucus," we need to understand why he and so many other
self-identified liberals and socialists came to support the permanent war
economy, the military-industrial complex, and the unending intervention in
the affairs of other countries. The causes are deeply rooted in earlier
failures of our capitalist economy coming out of World War II and how the
first Cold War served as a response to them.
We clearly have a lot of re-education to do. But it suffices for now to
recognize a simple fact of economic reality. While a militaristic and
imperialistic government could once promise both guns and butter, those days
are long gone. Now we have to choose between a warfare state and a welfare
state, which Bernie has largely done. He has chosen to favor his domestic
policies, where he is unquestionably a democratic socialist, though much
less so than the British Labour Party's new leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
What, then, of Bernie's foreign policy? To be fair, which Hedges is not,
Bernie opposed both the First Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq and is
generally dovish, seeing war as a last resort and a fatal threat to the
domestic programs he wants to expand. He has also backed the path of
diplomacy, supporting the nuclear deal with Iran. But, in his speeches and
voting record, he has tended to back Obama and the idea that the US has a
positive and humanitarian role to play by intervening, especially in the
Middle East.
"I believe that the United States should have the strongest military in the
world," he told ABC's Martha Raddatz. "We should be working with other
countries in coalition. And when people threaten the United States or
threaten our allies, or commit genocide, the United States, with other
countries, should be prepared to act militarily."
Sadly, no serious presidential candidate could say less. But he could say
more. He could speak out against America's imperial policies, which
increasing numbers of Americans now oppose. He could, but I doubt he will.
Bernie prefers to ignore the American Empire and, in effect, deny that it
even exists.
Our job as progressives is to make that difficult for him. Just as he pushes
Hillary Clinton on environmental issues, we should push Bernie to openly
confront the evils of empire. This is why we need to use the Democratic
primaries rather than avoid them, and how we can use them to build an
ongoing socialist movement that will become increasingly anti-imperialist.
That, Rev. Hedges, is part of how we get from where we are to where we want
to go.
________________________________________
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly
Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a
magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France,
where he is researching a new book, "Big Money and the Corporate State: How
Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently
Break Their Hold."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Bernie Sanders announces his presidential campaign on April 30. (photo:
Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Is Bernie Sanders an American Empire Denier?
By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
26 September 15
hould progressives back Bernie Sanders even though he backs Israel against
the Palestinians, US meddling in Ukraine, the new Cold War with Russia, and
at least some US bombing of the Islamic State in Syria? Or should we
maintain our anti-imperialist purity and stand aside? My bias is to back
Bernie, warts and all. But, at the same time, I think we need to face up
openly and honestly to Bernie's mixed record, especially on foreign policy.
Few on the left have savaged that record more harshly or unfairly than
journalist Chris Hedges, an ordained Presbyterian minister, who damns Bernie
as not a true socialist, democratic or otherwise.
"You cannot be a socialist and an imperialist. You cannot, as Bernie Sanders
has done, support the Obama administration's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen and be a socialist. You cannot, as
Sanders has done, vote for every military appropriations bill, including
every bill and resolution that empowers and sanctions Israel to carry out
its slow-motion genocide of the Palestinian people, and be a socialist. And
you cannot laud, as Sanders has done, military contractors because they
bring jobs to your state."
Setting himself up as a one-man vanguard to define socialism on behalf of
the benighted and brainwashed masses, Hedges preaches with the certainty of
those who have seen the light and know the way to secular salvation, whether
in Athens, Barcelona, or Peoria. But he loses himself in a sectarian
wilderness, offering no way to get from where we are to where we want to go.
Welcome to the old-time religion. In nearly every American election, purists
like Hedges push the left into the same sterile debate. Should we fight
within the Democratic Party, where we will likely be co-opted? Or should we
create a third party, where we will likely be ineffective? Both are usually
dead ends, convincing many of us to put the majority of our energy into
organizing and direct action outside the electoral and Congressional arena,
as we did in the civil rights, free speech, and anti-war movements of the
1960s.
But that was then, this is now. Thanks primarily to the energy and
common-sense proposals of Bernie Sanders, millions of Americans have opened
their minds to the possibility of a democratic and egalitarian control of
the economy, which is not a bad working definition of socialism for the 21st
century. We need to talk to, work with, and learn from these Americans, and
most of them will vote in the Democratic primaries.
This could pose a huge problem, as Hedges argues. But it does not have to.
US politics is not a closed system, not with party primaries that can become
hard-to-control free-for-alls. Just watch how Donald Trump and Ann Coulter
are changing the conservative movement and Republican Party to take as their
defining issue a nativist opposition to migrants. This Republican rebranding
will likely continue even if Trump fails to win the nomination, Inshallah.
Far worse, the anti-migrant and anti-Muslim wave will become even more
dangerous if, as seems likely, the migrant crisis on this side of the
Atlantic further strengthens Europe's far right and neo-fascists. Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
The Democratic Party can similarly change in a positive direction, but not
if we join Hedges in the wilderness and refuse to take advantage of the
opening that Bernie is helping to expand. Change will not be easy. It will
be step-by-step, not a revolutionary flash. And the odds are very much
stacked against us. But change can happen even in a party of militarists and
imperialists.
One small example. In 1966, Ramparts editor Robert Scheer ran for Congress
against a New Dealish incumbent who supported America's war in Vietnam.
Horror of horrors, Bob ran as a Democrat, and those of us at Berkeley who
helped organize his unconventional campaign took a lot of guff. Our revenge
was that Bob nearly won, leaving his political soul largely intact and
opening the way for the extremely progressive Ron Dellums to win the seat in
1970. Feel free to chuckle that Hedges wrote his anti-Sanders screed for
Truthdig, a website run by Scheer, whose views remain quite different from
those of his colleague.
Rather than damning Sanders for being "a full-fledged member of the
Democratic Caucus," we need to understand why he and so many other
self-identified liberals and socialists came to support the permanent war
economy, the military-industrial complex, and the unending intervention in
the affairs of other countries. The causes are deeply rooted in earlier
failures of our capitalist economy coming out of World War II and how the
first Cold War served as a response to them.
We clearly have a lot of re-education to do. But it suffices for now to
recognize a simple fact of economic reality. While a militaristic and
imperialistic government could once promise both guns and butter, those days
are long gone. Now we have to choose between a warfare state and a welfare
state, which Bernie has largely done. He has chosen to favor his domestic
policies, where he is unquestionably a democratic socialist, though much
less so than the British Labour Party's new leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
What, then, of Bernie's foreign policy? To be fair, which Hedges is not,
Bernie opposed both the First Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq and is
generally dovish, seeing war as a last resort and a fatal threat to the
domestic programs he wants to expand. He has also backed the path of
diplomacy, supporting the nuclear deal with Iran. But, in his speeches and
voting record, he has tended to back Obama and the idea that the US has a
positive and humanitarian role to play by intervening, especially in the
Middle East.
"I believe that the United States should have the strongest military in the
world," he told ABC's Martha Raddatz. "We should be working with other
countries in coalition. And when people threaten the United States or
threaten our allies, or commit genocide, the United States, with other
countries, should be prepared to act militarily."
Sadly, no serious presidential candidate could say less. But he could say
more. He could speak out against America's imperial policies, which
increasing numbers of Americans now oppose. He could, but I doubt he will.
Bernie prefers to ignore the American Empire and, in effect, deny that it
even exists.
Our job as progressives is to make that difficult for him. Just as he pushes
Hillary Clinton on environmental issues, we should push Bernie to openly
confront the evils of empire. This is why we need to use the Democratic
primaries rather than avoid them, and how we can use them to build an
ongoing socialist movement that will become increasingly anti-imperialist.
That, Rev. Hedges, is part of how we get from where we are to where we want
to go.
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly
Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a
magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France,
where he is researching a new book, "Big Money and the Corporate State: How
Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently
Break Their Hold."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
