A View From The Left-After “SUPER TUESDAY”. . . On Presidents and Lesser Evils

After “SUPER TUESDAY”. . . On Presidents and Lesser Evils

With Bernie Sanders’ loss in many states on Tuesday – and especially Massachusetts (CNN has an interesting statistical breakdown) – his path to a possible Democratic nomination has narrowed considerably.  Sanders and his campaign need to decide whether their priority is building a genuine populist/Left movement or preparing to support Hillary Clinton. 

 

Ambivalence on these aims has been at the root of Sanders unwillingness to attack Clinton more directly, as well as his failure to articulate a radically alternative foreign and military policy. Usually Republican Neocons are now tellingly moving to support Clinton, in fear of an unreliably militarist Trump – or for his allegedly tepid support for Israel. Some may leave the Republican Party to join a Democratic establishment that is more reliably pro-war.

 

And the failure to effectively bring his message of economic opportunity to communities of color – ironically the people who have suffered the most under neo-liberal austerity -- has been at the core of Sanders’ primary electoral failures.  Whether any of this can change during the remaining campaign season and especially whether there will be any enduring organized populist movement surviving this election season remain in question.

 

KILLING SOMEONE ELSE'S BELOVED:

Promoting the US Way of War in Campaign 2016

Meanwhile Donald Trump and most of the other Republican candidates have been competing over who can most successfully obliterate combatants as well as civilians…   But it's not just the Republicans. Every single major candidate from both parties has plans to maintain some version of Washington's increasingly far-flung drone campaigns. In other words, a program that originated under President George W. Bush as a crucial part of his “global war on terror,” and that was further institutionalized and ramped up under President Obama, will soon be bequeathed to a new president-elect.  When you think about it that way, election 2016 isn’t so much a vote to select the leader of the planet’s last superpower as it is a tournament to decide who will next step into the Oval Office and have the chance to play god.   More

 

Building a Sanders ‘Rainbow’ Campaign

In the final analysis, the influence of the Sanders campaign on the future of American politics will be determined by what comes after the campaign. This is the question Sanders activists have to answer as the primary season winds down. Will the independent local Sanders groups, Labor for Bernie, People for Bernie, Democratic Socialists of America, the Working Families Party and the progressive unions that have endorsed Sanders (including the Communication Workers of America and the National Nurses Union) create a post-electoral coalition that fights for Sanders’ platform (and “Sanders Democrats” and independents) at the federal, state and local level? Will local Bernie groups embed themselves in social movement and electoral politics and engage in a dialogue with activists of color as to how predominantly white progressive groups can become firm allies in struggles against racism. Too often, even the most progressive of electoral activity subsides when the charismatic candidate leaves the electoral scene… Ultimately, Sanders’ “political revolution” won’t be built by Bernie, but by us. And that us must be as diverse as those who constitute the 99 percent.   More

 

The Anti-War Position Bernie Sanders Can Represent

There's a huge opening to critique the economic foundations of America's wars — one that fits perfectly with the populist anger fueling the rise of Bernie Sanders… A comprehensive anti-war position looks at Daesh as the logical conclusion of the worst failures of global capitalism — namely the global lack of opportunity in the marketplace that imprisons and marginalizes people, especially young Muslim men. Enshrouded with gluttonous wealth — and often supporting friendly neoliberal dictatorships that quash domestic opposition — Western countries become the symbol to destroy in order to reclaim agency against American and Western modernity. When Thomas Piketty blamed Daesh on burgeoning inequality in the Arab world, he was right.   More

 

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a DNC member and combat veteran, endorses Sanders

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, whose campaign has attracted little support from fellow members of Congress, picked up a high-profile endorsement Sunday from Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).  Gabbard announced that she is is stepping down as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee to support the White House bid of the senator from Vermont over that of Hillary Clinton… Gabbard, who made the announcement on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” has cut a video for the Sanders campaign in which she explains her reasoning, citing her status as one of the first female combat veterans in Congress.  “As a veteran of two Middle East deployments, I know firsthand the cost of war,” Gabbard says. “I know how important it is that our commander in chief has the sound judgment required … to know when to use America's military power and when not  to use that power. As vice chairman of the DNC, I am required to stay neutral in Democratic primaries, but I cannot remain neutral any longer. The stakes are too high. That’s why today … I’m endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders to be the next president and commander in chief of the United States.”   More

 

New Report Shows Hillary Clinton Drove US Into Libya Disaster

A new in-depth report from The New York Times paints a damning portrait of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US government’s involvement in the war in Libya. While there had been previous reports citing Clinton as leading the charge for the US to enter the war and overthrow former Libyan Leader Omar Gaddafi, the Times published a play-by-play story with on-the-record comments numerous current and former Obama Administration officials.  The most prominent of those on-the-record comments came from former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who claimed that the decision to go to war in Libya was heavily influence by Clinton. In fact, Gates says she made the difference in a “51-49” decision that ultimately destroyed the country of Libya and allowed ISIS to grab new territory in the Middle East.  The breakdown of the events thoroughly supports the view that Hillary Clinton learned nothing from the Iraq War debacle. And, according to the Times, “The lessons of the Libya experience have not tempered her more aggressive approach to international crises.”    More

 

ANDREW BACEVICH: Donald Trump and the Remaking of America

Whether or not Donald Trump ultimately succeeds in winning the White House, historians are likely to rank him as the most consequential presidential candidate of at least the past half-century. He has already transformed the tone and temper of American political life. If he becomes the Republican nominee, he will demolish its structural underpinnings as well… That a considerable number of Americans appear to welcome this prospect may seem inexplicable. Yet reason enough exists for their disenchantment. American democracy has been decaying for decades. The people know that they are no longer truly sovereign. They know that the apparatus of power, both public and private, does not promote the common good, itself a concept that has become obsolete. They have had their fill of irresponsibility, lack of accountability, incompetence, and the bad times that increasingly seem to go with them.    More

 

Donald Trump Is the Price We Pay for the ''War on Terror''

Terrorism in the United States is statistically a negligible cause of mortality: One is about as likely to die from being crushed by a flat-screen TV, and more likely to die falling in the bathtub than from terrorism. Imagine if we had spent $4 trillion to cure cancer or heart disease. Nevertheless, nearly every word US government officials have uttered about the matter during the last 15 years has been designed to instill dread of terrorism in the population. And it has worked. Voters in the Republican primary in South Carolina declared terrorism to be their foremost concern, eclipsing a stagnant, low-wage economy; deteriorating living standards leading to an actual increase in the death rate of GOP voters' core demographic; …The operatives of the national security state must have been rubbing their hands with glee: Through relentless conditioning, their agenda is now the creed of a numerically significant and highly motivated segment of the electorate.   More

 

CHRIS HEDGES: The Revenge of the Lower Classes and the Rise of American Fascism

The Democrats are playing a very dangerous game by anointing Hillary Clinton as their presidential candidate. She epitomizes the double-dealing of the college-educated elites, those who speak the feel-your-pain language of ordinary men and women, who hold up the bible of political correctness, while selling out the poor and the working class to corporate power.  The Republicans, energized by America’s reality-star version of Il Duce, Donald Trump, have been pulling in voters, especially new voters, while the Democrats are well below the voter turnouts for 2008. In the voting Tuesday, 5.6 million votes were cast for the Democrats while 8.3 million went to the Republicans. Those numbers were virtually reversed in 2008—8.2 million for the Democrats and about 5 million for the Republicans… There is only one way left to blunt the yearning for fascism coalescing around Trump. It is to build, as fast as possible, movements or parties that declare war on corporate power.   More

 

Donald Trump’s Appeal to White Nationalism

Trump received an endorsement from the nation’s most popular neo-Nazi website, the Daily Stormer (the site often refers to Trump as “Glorious Leader” and features his face on the top of its homepage). In an August article for the New Yorker, Jared Taylor, the former editor of the defunct white nationalist magazine American Renaissance, said, “I’m sure he would repudiate any association with people like me, but his support comes from people who are more like me than he might like to admit.” … For his part, Trump has also reflected white supremacist talking points online. In November, he tweeted a bogus statistic, popular among hate groups and peddled by the Council of Conservative Citizens, the modern extension of the White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and ’60s, claiming that 81 percent of white homicide victims were killed by African-Americans.   More

 

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