Tag Archives: Bernie Sanders

Political Rants

A worthy vessel.

Well, it happened again … the neocons and the Petersen Institute have lost their candidate. The only real pleasure I derived from last Tuesday’s primaries was to watch them have their asses handed to them yet again, this time with even greater finality. They really don’t have any even marginally viable candidates left. Cruz makes some of the right noises for them, but he’s from a different stream of reactionary politics and no one can stand the guy. Kasich is basically finished, unless he discovers some way to earn 110% of the remaining GOP primary delegates. Rubio was the last worthy vessel for that extremist clown car, and that fucker and his retrograde cold war revival worldview is out. Good riddance.

Lost my little tin car.With that out of the way, I am sure the imperial war machine party is looking for another tin car to drive around in. It’s quite possible that they would settle on Trump. Someone, after all, is going to populate his foreign policy establishment – thousands of them, keeping the gears of empire turning day by day. That’s kind of what makes him dangerous, though not so much as a Rubio or a Bush. It is also just conceivable that the neocons at least might begin to look favorably on a Clinton presidency. She is bellicose, obviously, and her differences with the Bill Kristol crowd on regime change are relatively minor. They might not overtly support her, but I could see them not vehemently opposing her if the alternative is Trump.

Many of the folks I know who have been involved in the Sanders campaign found Tuesday night to be very discouraging. I really think that, aside from the fact that Sanders would make a good president, an important function of his campaign and the movement associated with it is to push forward progressive policy positions that have never really seen the light of day in the institutional Democratic party. Win or lose, he can accomplish this, and it may be our best defense against neocons and paleo-imperialists (like Kissinger) looking to find a new political home. I support Sanders’s decision to continue fighting for that reason as well as the simple fact that a Bernie victory is still mathematically possible (unlike Kasich, though it’s hard to discern this fact from the news coverage – neither MSNBC nor any of the other cable outlets played Sanders’s speech Tuesday night, though they did cover Kasich’s).

So, fight on, Bernie people. We owe it to the country and to the millions around the world who are sweating out this scary superpower election.

luv u,

jp

 

Political Rants

Stupor Tuesday.

There are a lot of things that can be said of this week’s primary contests; it’s a pretty complicated story from where I sit. I would have liked to have seen Bernie Sanders do better than four states – Massachusetts would have put a bit more spring into the campaign. If the guy can’t win in Massachusetts, you kind of have to scratch your head a little. Totally love Bernie and I agree with most if not all of his policy proposals, but he needs to get people to the polls if it’s going to go anywhere. He is, of course, a movement candidate, so my hope is that the movement will outlive the candidacy, but more on that later.

THAT'S what they throw at me?Things are more complicated on the right. The Republican races inspire a mixture of joy and dread. The possibility of a Trump presidency is not something I want to contemplate. That said, I couldn’t stifle a chortle of joy to see the institutional G.O.P. leadership get what they so richly deserve. After decades of stoking the most virulent reactionary sentiments imaginable, they are reaping a bitter harvest in Trump. They are watching him win primary after primary, and resolve to stop him at any cost. Then they look at second place and see someone they perhaps despise even more than Trump – Ted Cruz. Best of all, every vessel the neocons chose to carry their message forward has hit a wall, trounced by a man who calls the Iraq war “a big fat mistake”, who says he will protect Social Security, and who sees Planned Parenthood as a valuable asset on some level. Heresy!

The fact that conservatives and most of the mainstream media can’t face is that the core policy positions of the Republican party, from extreme austerity to interventionist militarism, are wildly unpopular with their own base. To shore up their flagging political fortunes they are emphasizing the xenophobic appeal of Trump, his being endorsed by the likes of David Duke and others of that ilk, his calls for exclusion of Muslims, Mexicans, and others. None of that hurts Trump in the south, in particular. But the fact that candidates like Bush, Rubio, Walker, and even Christie have been unable to get any traction speaks to how completely their core governing principles have collapsed under their own weight.

With all of my worries about what lies ahead, that much, my friends, is something to be thankful for.

luv u,

jp

 

Political Rants

Another country heard from.

New Hampshire has refocused the race for president a bit, and now we’re bracing for the contests to come. As I write, another Democratic debate is scheduled for this evening. My hope is that Senator Sanders will have worked out a way of speaking about foreign policy that will make him less of a target on that score. I’m not suggesting that he adopt more hawkish positions – quite the opposite. He just needs to articulate some of the quite nuanced views that he has held for many years. If ever we needed an alternative take on foreign policy, that time is now.

{Later that evening … }

Really, Hillary? I mean, really?Okay, I did hear some encouraging words from Senator Sanders on war and peace. Not enough, in my opinion, but certainly better than last time. I am glad that he gave some historical perspective to a position that is just as relevant today as it was in the 1950s: the conviction that the United States should not be acting like an empire, overthrowing disobedient regimes whenever we feel like it, bombing wherever we please, always opting early for the sword. Clinton did what she always does – offer a set of proposals that extend the bad policy we are currently implementing. Could Sanders have disagreed more with the underlying premises of her positions? Oh, yes … but you have to pick your fights in a television debate.

It was heartening to hear Sanders call Clinton out on her bragging about being endorsed, in a sense, by Henry Kissinger. I’m very glad he addressed that, because it counteracts Clinton’s attempt at arguing that political fights of previous decades have no bearing on the current policy debate. Kissinger is still a player and continues to undergo a kind of rehabilitation promoted by both Republicans and – shamefully – Democrats. Sanders was right to denounce him as in essence a war criminal, with the blood of many thousands on his hands. Maybe I was in the minority in being gobsmacked by Clinton’s invocation of Kissinger at the last debate – she tried to minimize it a bit during the PBS debate somewhat, but that fell kind of flat.

It’s incumbent upon us, the other America, to push Sanders and, yes, Clinton to the left on these and other issues. We cannot afford to continue these bankrupt policies overseas; if we just accept the comforting lies, we can look forward to another decade or more of pointless war.

luv u,

jp