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Don’t Get Berned Again.
Bernie Sanders as depicted in The Nation.
John V. Walsh
By now we have heard chapter and verse, repeatedly so, on the failure of Bernie Sanders to take an antiwar position, much less a stance against U.S. Empire. (Yes, Bernie, there is an Empire.) Paul Street is a leader in the genre with well-documented dissections of Sanders’s flaws on every front and David Swanson provides the latest addition.
The Pro-Empire Candidate.
We have heard Sanders’s defense of the Israeli atrocities in the bombing of Gaza, his call for Saudi Arabia to do even more killing and his concern about Putin for – well, being Putin and Russian. Thus Bernie is joining a cheering section that could root us right into nuclear war and oblivion. Here cited by Chris Hedges is a sample from an interview with Bill O’Reilly:
‘“The entire world has got to stand up to Putin. We’ve got to deal with sanctions, we’ve got to deal with freezing assets,” and “You’ve got to totally isolate them politically. You’ve got to totally isolate them economically… You freeze assets that the Russian government has all over the world… International corporations have huge investments in Russia, you could pull them out…”
…
Confirmation comes in an NPR interview with David Green:
…
BS: …..The United States has got to work with our European allies and allies throughout the world to come up with an intelligent, rational approach to deal with Russia, to deal with ISIS and deal with other national security threats.
DG: Sounds like you would intervene less than this president has?
BS: No, I didn’t say that. You’ve got to look at each particular case, obviously.
…
And, obviously also, there is not a shred of anti-interventionist or anti-imperial philosophy displayed here.
To give Bernie credit, he did vote against the war on Iraq and he has supported the nuclear/sanctions deal between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, UK, France and Germany. (Certainly the latter is a positive step toward peace in that it removes the Israeli excuse for an attack on Iran, but it remains unclear how Obama and company intend to use the deal. Is it simply a way to free up resources from the Middle East for an assault on Russia and China? That is the most likely outcome, but we shall see.) And certainly Sanders’s Iraq vote suggests he is not as reckless or bloodthirsty as Killary, but that is setting the bar somewhere beneath the belly of a viper.
Bernie’s Bribes.
The fundamental problem with Sanders’s campaign is that it is based on bribery, and an especially immoral sort of bribery at that. For Bernie promises more social benefits IF we, the beneficiaries, let him continue the Empire’s warfare – both economic and military. That is a most unsavory sort of bribe. Basically he gives us butter if we give him guns to kill innocents.
In fact, Killary’s campaign is much the same thing, perhaps presented in a more noxious, arrogant fashion as only she can do, but nevertheless the same thing. So it is not surprising that a few weeks back E.J. Dionne in his weekly cameo on NPR suggested that Bernie’s campaign could help Killary by keeping attention focused on domestic issues. Unsaid is that such an approach keeps attention off the constant wars and interventions.. And most important, Bernie soaks up support and energy that progressives might otherwise bestow on a genuine anti-interventionist candidate. In so doing he protects Killary.
Sanders’s stance is the essence of every imperial candidate. On the Republican side, the goodies promised are tax cuts in return for the electorate’s backing of wars. In fact this is the tactic of every Empire. The British provided unparalleled freedoms at home while they raped much of the globe. Even in the Roman Empire a citizen had privileges, which non-citizens lacked. For example a Roman citizen convicted of a capital crime was not executed by the horrendous torture unto death of crucifixion – unless for treason, that is, a lapse in loyalty to the Empire. Bernie is only the latest to promise the imperial citizenry more goodies if we are loyal to the Empire. This does not mean that Bernie is worse than the other candidates – only that he is no different from them. He is simply more of the same.
Bernie Will Be a Loser With His Present Strategy.
But there is something even more troubling about Bernie. As Obama showed in 2008, Killary’s Achilles heel is her blood curdling, deranged bellicosity. So Obama paraded as a peace candidate. Unfortunately he was And this would be a winning strategy for Bernie. There is a substantial peace base in the Democratic Party, and virtually every one of his supporters would welcome an anti-Empire position. It would motivate them and also quiet those many antiwar progressive voices now opposed to him. It is most odd for a candidate to eschew a winning strategy. The conclusion is that interventionism is Bernie’s heartfelt conviction.
Sanders is an advocate of what was once called in the socialist movement “social chauvinism” in contradistinction to “social democracy.” Social chauvinism, where loyalty to Empire replaces loyalty to peace and the humanity of all nations, has been a plentiful commodity on the planet since World War I, at least, and Sanders appears to stand squarely in that barbarous tradition. On domestic matters there is little difference in the rhetoric Killary and Sanders will deploy in the campaign; he is Killary’s doppelganger. Thus Sanders is unable to distinguish himself sharply from Killary, and politics is all about making clear distinctions for the voters. So with his present strategy, he will lose.
The Task for Sanders Supporters.
To return to Paul Street’s analysis, on one matter he falls short. He writes in answer to the ever wishy-washy David McReynolds: “ I’m really not sure why … (McReynolds) puts the onus on peace and racial justice activists to initiate discussion with Sanders. Those activists are not purporting to run for the White House. Sanders is. If he’s serious about peace (not likely) and racial justice (probably), then it’s on him to reach out to movements.” But that is just the point. If these activists are working to put Sanders in the White House and he is an interventionist, aka social chauvinist, then it is up to them to either withdraw their support or demand a change in Sanders in return for that support. That seems pretty obvious. As Nader points out the time to make demands of a candidate is before you give them support, because after they are elected all leverage is lost. Did these people not learn that when they scurried after Obama in 2008 on the basis of “trust” and “hope”?
So the question must be put. Is it moral to support a candidate to get some more goodies in return for the sacrifice of ever more lives by the US military machine? Or if this moral appeal does not move the Sanders supporters, then the prospect of a new World War with Russia and/or China should give them pause. As a decades long worker for Single Payer, I am not willing to gain Single Payer as Bernie promises at the cost of more war, death to innocents in the developing world and perhaps annihilation of humanity. The task for Bernie supporters is to demand and get an antiwar stance or drop their support. Not only is this a winning strategy as opposed to the losing strategy Sanders is now pursuing; it is the ethical position.
So if you are “feeling the Bern,” especially if you supported Obama in 2008, watch out. Don’t get Berned again.
John V. Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com . For more on just how demented Killary is, see “The Secret Life of Hillary Clinton.”
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1 comment
Yes, John V. Walsh is correct about Bernie Sanders (BS).
Professor Walsh is correct to criticize BS’s interventionist/imperialist ideology, particularly with regard to Russia, and to worry about the danger of World War (actually, the danger of an expanding World War). But readers should know that Prof. Walsh has been a long-time supporter of Rand Paul, who expresses interventionist/imperialist ideology with regard to Russia which is very similar to that of BS.
Compare the bellicosity towards Putin and Russia expressed by BS to that expressed by Rand Paul. Rand Paul wrote this Russophobic, Putin-demonizing op-ed published in Time Magazine in March 2014: http://time.com/17648/sen-rand-paul-u-s-must-take-strong-action-against-putins-aggression/
Then the Orwellian “Ukraine Freedom Support Act” passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which Rand Paul is a member, by a unanimous vote ( http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/senate-foreign-relations-committee-unanimously-passes-ukraine-freedom-support-act-of-2014 ). Rand Paul most certainly did not vote against the passage of this legislation out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Were Rand Paul and BS two of the U.S. Senators voting unanimously for the “Ukraine Freedom Support Act”? “Following Senate passage today of his bill to provide lethal military and non-military assistance for Ukraine and expand sanctions against Russia, U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said unanimous support for the legislation demonstrates “a firm commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty” in response to a continued Russian invasion.” ( http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/ranking/release/senate-unanimously-passes-corker-legislation-to-support-ukraine-expand-sanctions-against-Russia ). Rand Paul most certainly did not vote against the passage of this legislation by the full Senate.
After passage by the House under dubious circumstances, it was subsequently signed into law by Obomba ( http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/december/18/bombs-away-obama-signs-lethal-aid-to-ukraine-bill/ )
Of course, I agree, BS’s expressed support for single-payer health care reform is not enough to look past his support for continued U.S. imperialism and war-mongering. But, consider Rand Paul’s attitude about health care as a right in the U.S.:
“With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have to realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses. Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services, do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? You’re basically saying you believe in slavery. You’re saying you believe in taking and extracting from another person. Our founding documents were very clear about this. You have a right to pursue happiness but there’s no guarantee of physical comfort. There’s no guarantee of concrete items. In order to give something concrete, you have to take it from someone. So there’s an implied threat of force. If I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care, do you have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be. If you believe in a right to health care, you’re believing in basically the use of force to conscript someone to do your bidding.” ( http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/may/27/sarah-silverman/did-rand-paul-equate-right-health-care-slavery/ )
So, Rand Paul doesn’t even have support for true health care reform (single-payer) going for him…
I am a member of an email list called “amicus50” (named after 50 physicians who supported an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the individual mandate portion of ObombaCare should be declared unconstitutional: http://www.singlepayeraction.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/brief.pdf). Some time after the Supreme Court decision which upheld the individual mandate, Prof. Walsh urged the list members to support Rand Paul because Paul was opposed to ObombaCare.
I judge articles by their inherent merit, without prejudgment based on the identity of the author (and I applaud The Greanville Post for doing the same). In this regard, I would draw readers’ attention to an article by Louis Proyect (who has been called by one wag, “The Left Boot of NATO” — because of Proyect’s support for the NATO war against Libya). In that spirit (merit vs author identity), consider what Proyect has to say about Prof. Walsh’s romance with libertarians, including Rand Paul, here: https://www.greanvillepost.com/2014/07/06/john-v-walsh-ralph-nader-and-the-right-left-alliance-no-thanks/
The libertarians clearly had high hopes for Rand Paul. I note that Justin Raimondo, at the libertarian site antiwar.com has now overtly soured on Rand Paul ( http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/07/28/rand-paul-fraud-failure-liar/ ). With regard to the Iran nuclear deal, the articulate Raimondo says, “So Rand Paul is now repeating AIPAC’s dishonest talking points. This is reminiscent of the same sort of propaganda that led the US to invade Iraq: “factoids” ripped out of context and promulgated by the Bush administration and its pet neoconservative pundits to create an entirely false picture of an Iraq that was seeking nuclear weapons. In short, the Rand Paul that we were all hoping for – someone who would stand up to the War Party and refute their propaganda – is no more, if he ever existed in the first place. Instead of refuting the lies he’s joining in the telling of them – and in doing so, he’s crossed the Rubicon as far as libertarians and all those who oppose war with Iran are concerned.”
Thus, perhaps Prof. Walsh has also soured on Rand Paul by now. But, as of June 2014, Walsh was asking readers to consider Rand Paul for the presidency in 2016 ( http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/16/the-progessive-aka-liberal-antiwar-movement-rip/ ):
“1. On the Democratic Side. The progressives must field a candidate to take on the bloodthirsty Hillery to make good on Nader’s challenge. Otherwise, she could well be “the first woman” – to start a world war. So far there is no one – and the undependable Bernie Sanders is not that person, as even a cursory reading of the late Alexander Cockburn’s denunciations of Sanders over the years makes clear. Nor is that great American Indian, my Senator, Elizabeth Warren who ran for Senate as a hawk on Iran, a credible peace candidate.
2. On the Republican Side. Antiwarriors here must make sure that there is an antiwar Republican running in the primaries and hopefully winning the nomination. That person is Rand Paul. And Brat’s victory over the establishment’s candidate bodes well for Paul’s success. So the forces of peace are making headway in the GOP even though they face an uphill battle.”
Rand Paul opposed the PATRIOT Act, but could not stop the USA Freedom Act ( http://original.antiwar.com/john-v-walsh/2015/06/21/opposition-to-spy-state-first-step-to-least-popular-in-washington/ ). Yes, Rand Paul opposing the U.S. Patriot Act is good — but, like BS’s support for single-payer, for me it can not and will not outweigh his support for U.S. imperialism. Is it enough for Prof. Walsh?
Let’s face it, none of the candidates for the U.S. presidency with even a remote chance of winning are opposed to U.S. war-mongering and interventionism in the service of imperialism. The very nature of U.S. electoral politics effectively precludes this. A plutocracy runs the show via political puppets and courtiers in a profoundly corrupted system revolving around money and greed and distributed power. The corporations run the government. Voting in presidential elections is irrelevant to changing the liberal fascism and imperialism which form the very core of the U.S. Despite the facade of differences between political parties, the core is one of liberal fascism and imperialism, and trying to change that by voting in U.S. elections is tilting at windmills. The leopards spots will not be changed by voting for this versus that candidate for president in the offered roster.