Please read this very honest and educational rant from my friend Gianni on being honest about American political history and Bernie Sanders politics. Underneath the self-righteous anger is a very very smart history lesson ... pass it on
HEY BERNIE SUPPORTERS: there is a certain type of Bernie supporter who I think may be doing more harm than good. I mean, in the long run. It is getting really infuriating to hear these people hysterically insist that Bernie was "never REALLY a socialist" or "well that word really doesn't mean anything" or "well, it's really not what people think"...
Fuck off.
Fuck off you timid uneducated unevolved parochial Cold War Philistines
You fucking craven fellow travelers of Post-Soviet Market Triumphalism
You are the passive accomplices and collusionists in all of the atrocities perpetrated through the brute Turbo-Capitalism of the Global Lootocracy.
You, you, you who can't bring yourself to utter the "s" word, and wish to erase it from the entire narrative.
How fucking dare you!
Are you so deficient that you were unaware of the term Social Democrat?
Are you unaware of the profoundly important role the Social Democracy current in Europe played for generations?
Do you not know of France's Parti Socialiste? Of the esteemed Mitterrand? Of Germany's famed SPD, and of the august Willy Brandt, who resisted both the Nazis, and later, as mayor of Berlin, the Stalinists? Whose foreign policies won him a Nobel prize---and domestically kept the capitalist "miracle" alive in W Germany during a world recession?
Do you know anything of our own history, of Norman Thomas, of Eugene Debs? Or of the myriad independent tendencies and constellations of beliefs that define themselves as "socialist" ?
STOP COMPARING BERNIE TO OBAMA
OBAMA WAS/IS A RIGHT-CENTER WALL STREET LIBERAL
Right-wing liberal? Huh?
Yes. There is such a thing, especially in these polarized, atomized days.
Bernie is a social democrat, or if you prefer, a small "s", independent socialist. And has been for most of his 50 year career.
Hillary and Bill were pure, unabashed, pro-business centrists.
If they looked liberal at all, it was only in comparison to the unbelievably reactionary turn their opponents had taken.
Ted Kennedy was a classic liberal.
Jimmy Carter, was not. Jimmy Carter, 40 years ago, was viewed as a pro -business centrist who was to the right of President Ford, and definitively to the right of Senator Jacob Javits, NYC Republican liberal. Carter sluggishly moved toward the left when the corporate grandees found a much more dynamic proponent in Ronald Reagan.
Eugene McCarthy, and Bobby Kennedy, were classic liberals, both, in spite of the later hagiography painting Bobby as some kind of genteel radical populist.
JFK was a centrist surrounded by Arch-Cold War Liberals. He was a younger, fresher, seemingly open-minded presence in the highest echelons of power and on the world stage, but au fond, his core planks were not vastly different than Eisenhower's---but he was "newer" than the general, and "newer" than the truly liberal Adlai Stevenson....
George McGovern was about as far to the left as a liberal could go. Ramsey Clark was also an extreme left liberal. So was Rep Donald Fraser, and perhaps Bella Abzug, although she was often more of a pragmatist.
Nelson Rockefeller was a liberal centrist. Daniel Moynihan was a conservative right-centrist Democrat who was also pro-Labor, which some felt redeemed him
Fuck off.
Fuck off you timid uneducated unevolved parochial Cold War Philistines
You fucking craven fellow travelers of Post-Soviet Market Triumphalism
You are the passive accomplices and collusionists in all of the atrocities perpetrated through the brute Turbo-Capitalism of the Global Lootocracy.
You, you, you who can't bring yourself to utter the "s" word, and wish to erase it from the entire narrative.
How fucking dare you!
Are you so deficient that you were unaware of the term Social Democrat?
Are you unaware of the profoundly important role the Social Democracy current in Europe played for generations?
Do you not know of France's Parti Socialiste? Of the esteemed Mitterrand? Of Germany's famed SPD, and of the august Willy Brandt, who resisted both the Nazis, and later, as mayor of Berlin, the Stalinists? Whose foreign policies won him a Nobel prize---and domestically kept the capitalist "miracle" alive in W Germany during a world recession?
Do you know anything of our own history, of Norman Thomas, of Eugene Debs? Or of the myriad independent tendencies and constellations of beliefs that define themselves as "socialist" ?
STOP COMPARING BERNIE TO OBAMA
OBAMA WAS/IS A RIGHT-CENTER WALL STREET LIBERAL
Right-wing liberal? Huh?
Yes. There is such a thing, especially in these polarized, atomized days.
Bernie is a social democrat, or if you prefer, a small "s", independent socialist. And has been for most of his 50 year career.
Hillary and Bill were pure, unabashed, pro-business centrists.
If they looked liberal at all, it was only in comparison to the unbelievably reactionary turn their opponents had taken.
Ted Kennedy was a classic liberal.
Jimmy Carter, was not. Jimmy Carter, 40 years ago, was viewed as a pro -business centrist who was to the right of President Ford, and definitively to the right of Senator Jacob Javits, NYC Republican liberal. Carter sluggishly moved toward the left when the corporate grandees found a much more dynamic proponent in Ronald Reagan.
Eugene McCarthy, and Bobby Kennedy, were classic liberals, both, in spite of the later hagiography painting Bobby as some kind of genteel radical populist.
JFK was a centrist surrounded by Arch-Cold War Liberals. He was a younger, fresher, seemingly open-minded presence in the highest echelons of power and on the world stage, but au fond, his core planks were not vastly different than Eisenhower's---but he was "newer" than the general, and "newer" than the truly liberal Adlai Stevenson....
George McGovern was about as far to the left as a liberal could go. Ramsey Clark was also an extreme left liberal. So was Rep Donald Fraser, and perhaps Bella Abzug, although she was often more of a pragmatist.
Nelson Rockefeller was a liberal centrist. Daniel Moynihan was a conservative right-centrist Democrat who was also pro-Labor, which some felt redeemed him
sing along with Jill Soble !!!!
Americans have been rewarded for their collective amnesia. The 40 year corporate war on our attention spans allowed history to be constantly revised, and the corruption of academia by business driven ultra-specialization created an army of expensively educated cogs who never ask questions, seek the origin of things or even feel it is relevant, and dismiss those who do as foolish, naive or disruptive. Memory is heresy, and besides, there is no fixed truth anyway.
Almost no one has taken a stand against this onslaught, has championed critical thought, the humanities, erudition and intellectual heterogeneity...No one vociferously and passionately points out the damage that has been done to our ability to think and assess: Oh wait, hasn't Hillary? ummmmmm NO NO NO I DON'T BELIEVE SO NOR DO I REMEMBER ANY OTHER PROMINENT POLITICAL FIGURES OF THE "INFORMED AND PROGRESSIVE" PARTY TAKING THIS ON...
And why would they? They are, after all, beneficiaries of this degeneration. Because if it benefits Wall Street, it benefits the Democratic Party Inc....
But an anti-Wall Street, 74 year old, Jewish independent socialist who's campaign has been so successful that even the media cant marginalize him, DOES make people think, just by virtue of what he is, and how far he has gotten. If anyone had even hypothesized about such a thing any time over the past 4 decades they would have been treated like they were brain damaged.
So Bernie's supporters need to be as scrupulously honest and direct as he is, because, after all, this is perhaps his most powerful weapon against his opponents: They are LIARS. He is not.
So do not cherry-pick, or trim the sails
, or distort, or evade...There is nothing wrong with being aggressive when it comes to the truth...Take a fucking stand...V Tach the moribund consciousnesses around you and educate them.
Regardless of the electoral outcome, the Sanders campaign will still have won a great victory if it illuminates possibilities for ordinary people to reconnect with politics. And not as a bunch of mindless, button-wearing drones who, at best, might be able to rattle off a prolix laundry-list of their candidates achievements and hazy promises, learned by rote...That is not politics. That is just brand-loyalty. Real politics demands impassioned, sophisticated, sapient participants. Not "choosy consumers"...
But an anti-Wall Street, 74 year old, Jewish independent socialist who's campaign has been so successful that even the media cant marginalize him, DOES make people think, just by virtue of what he is, and how far he has gotten. If anyone had even hypothesized about such a thing any time over the past 4 decades they would have been treated like they were brain damaged.
So Bernie's supporters need to be as scrupulously honest and direct as he is, because, after all, this is perhaps his most powerful weapon against his opponents: They are LIARS. He is not.
So do not cherry-pick, or trim the sails
Regardless of the electoral outcome, the Sanders campaign will still have won a great victory if it illuminates possibilities for ordinary people to reconnect with politics. And not as a bunch of mindless, button-wearing drones who, at best, might be able to rattle off a prolix laundry-list of their candidates achievements and hazy promises, learned by rote...That is not politics. That is just brand-loyalty. Real politics demands impassioned, sophisticated, sapient participants. Not "choosy consumers"...
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