Bernie Sanders wins New Hampshire / people waking up?
- Thread starter Heather
- Start date
angelburst29
The Living Force
In the past, I've noticed - that who ever Soros and Henry Kissinger endorse, generally gets selected as President. At this point in time, everything points to Clinton, as their selection. In a comical way, depending on how you look at it, our last "real" President was JFK. Everything and anything that has filled that slot since then, as acting President have been "inserts" to promote the agenda of the elites. I do give honorable mention/credit to Ford and Carter, for starting out on the right path, for public and economical reforms. But in Ford's presidency, efforts were nullified by the Rockefeller families interference. As for Carter, there's several indications that the Iran hostage crisis was "managed" to distract any of Carter's reforms from taking shape and being instrumented. The fact, that the hostage crisis ended the day Reagan was sworn in, is another sign that the crisis was manipulated to replace Carter. It's also interesting to note, both Ford and Carter were ex-Naval Officers and were fully backed by the Military.
Obama is our first "Black President." We may be in line for our "first Woman President" and first "Husband & Wife" (Combo) as President's?
Either way, I envision, when the ship finally begins to sink under water - who ever is acting President - will be the first one to "jump ship" and seek shelter from the angry mobs. I don't know where I get this crazy idea from (may be those pesky dreams) but there's the feeling, out of the chaos - a high ranking Official from the Air Force, with Naval Intelligence backing - will take center stage. I see these (Military) individuals, secretly working behind the scenes - preparing to take the helm and take measures to bring some type of order to neutralize the situation. Much in line but to a lesser degree, in the same manner, President Putin arrived on the scene to take the helm, with dedicated individuals backing him? In both cases, to stabilize the current situation and take initial steps towards recovery.
With these thoughts in mind, any of the hoopla surrounding Sanders and the other Candidates is only presented as a distraction from our true state of affairs, none of which, will be remedied by those "exceptional and entitled" individuals. The only true changes will come from our individual and shared efforts. None of those Candidates, not one, has ever lived in the 99 percentile of their constituents.
* Johnson (Texas oil man - rancher) was sworn into office on an airplane after the Kennedy assassination.
* Nixon (Watergate) is the only U.S. President in history to resign his office.
* Ford (Vice President Nelson Rockefeller) is the only President never elected President or Vice President.
* Carter (Peanut farmer) had success promoting Middle East peace. But the Iran hostage crisis made him look weak and ineffectual.
* Reagan (Hollywood actor) is the only President to survive after being wounded by a would-be assassin.
* Bush#41 (WW2 torpedo bomber pilot) was the first sitting Vice President to be elected President since Martin Van Buren.
* Clinton (a saxophone player with a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford) was the first baby-boomer generation President.
* Bush#43 (managing partner/part owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team) led the United States into war against Iraq.
* Obama (community/public service) is the first African American president of the United States.
Obama is our first "Black President." We may be in line for our "first Woman President" and first "Husband & Wife" (Combo) as President's?
Either way, I envision, when the ship finally begins to sink under water - who ever is acting President - will be the first one to "jump ship" and seek shelter from the angry mobs. I don't know where I get this crazy idea from (may be those pesky dreams) but there's the feeling, out of the chaos - a high ranking Official from the Air Force, with Naval Intelligence backing - will take center stage. I see these (Military) individuals, secretly working behind the scenes - preparing to take the helm and take measures to bring some type of order to neutralize the situation. Much in line but to a lesser degree, in the same manner, President Putin arrived on the scene to take the helm, with dedicated individuals backing him? In both cases, to stabilize the current situation and take initial steps towards recovery.
With these thoughts in mind, any of the hoopla surrounding Sanders and the other Candidates is only presented as a distraction from our true state of affairs, none of which, will be remedied by those "exceptional and entitled" individuals. The only true changes will come from our individual and shared efforts. None of those Candidates, not one, has ever lived in the 99 percentile of their constituents.
* Johnson (Texas oil man - rancher) was sworn into office on an airplane after the Kennedy assassination.
* Nixon (Watergate) is the only U.S. President in history to resign his office.
* Ford (Vice President Nelson Rockefeller) is the only President never elected President or Vice President.
* Carter (Peanut farmer) had success promoting Middle East peace. But the Iran hostage crisis made him look weak and ineffectual.
* Reagan (Hollywood actor) is the only President to survive after being wounded by a would-be assassin.
* Bush#41 (WW2 torpedo bomber pilot) was the first sitting Vice President to be elected President since Martin Van Buren.
* Clinton (a saxophone player with a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford) was the first baby-boomer generation President.
* Bush#43 (managing partner/part owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team) led the United States into war against Iraq.
* Obama (community/public service) is the first African American president of the United States.
Clinton was sent to England to learn the 'dark arts', whereas it seems Hillary was born with them.
Carter didn't seem to know who he was dealing with on the national level at all... remember he put many of the usual suspects on his team like Z. Brezenski, National Security Advisor, who 'helped' Carter craft his 'Carter Doctrine' for the Persian Gulf... and many other 'usual' policies in Nicaragua etc.
Sanders and Trump aren't really all that much different than their competitors, they aren't part of the regular puppet show of contenders, but they've both participated in their way. Bernie's hands aren't so clean, but then that's part of working in the Beltway... same with Trump, only he's 'worked the system' as have many others that have played along the edges. Trump's difference is his tv 'reality' work, which means that most of the American public already knows who he is and have some idea of his ego etc. They know it and he's stated it himself, and is correct in the simple fact that you need an ego like that to work in the system and succeed like he did... otherwise, as the recently released film about him on YouTube (Johnny Depp as Trump!), he's not any different than the rest of the characters on Wall Street, only his angle was more on his own, but utilizing all the regular state assets and abilities in his favor. Typical for his kind. Sanders reminds me more of Carter, only with better knowledge of the system, but seems clueless about what he's up against. Anyone that thinks they can 'fix' the system, doesn't know the system, and unlike Trump who seems to just be giving it all lip service like a reality tv show, bernie seems like a true believer.... a do-gooder without enough knowledge of how to actually do 'good' within the system and no knowledge of the collapsing economy, market short squeezes and dead cat bounces aside, within a few months, the party's chosen puppet leader will have more pressing things to blame Putin on... like the collapse of the Western empire... so more war please so the puppets can go down with the ship of state.
Carter didn't seem to know who he was dealing with on the national level at all... remember he put many of the usual suspects on his team like Z. Brezenski, National Security Advisor, who 'helped' Carter craft his 'Carter Doctrine' for the Persian Gulf... and many other 'usual' policies in Nicaragua etc.
Sanders and Trump aren't really all that much different than their competitors, they aren't part of the regular puppet show of contenders, but they've both participated in their way. Bernie's hands aren't so clean, but then that's part of working in the Beltway... same with Trump, only he's 'worked the system' as have many others that have played along the edges. Trump's difference is his tv 'reality' work, which means that most of the American public already knows who he is and have some idea of his ego etc. They know it and he's stated it himself, and is correct in the simple fact that you need an ego like that to work in the system and succeed like he did... otherwise, as the recently released film about him on YouTube (Johnny Depp as Trump!), he's not any different than the rest of the characters on Wall Street, only his angle was more on his own, but utilizing all the regular state assets and abilities in his favor. Typical for his kind. Sanders reminds me more of Carter, only with better knowledge of the system, but seems clueless about what he's up against. Anyone that thinks they can 'fix' the system, doesn't know the system, and unlike Trump who seems to just be giving it all lip service like a reality tv show, bernie seems like a true believer.... a do-gooder without enough knowledge of how to actually do 'good' within the system and no knowledge of the collapsing economy, market short squeezes and dead cat bounces aside, within a few months, the party's chosen puppet leader will have more pressing things to blame Putin on... like the collapse of the Western empire... so more war please so the puppets can go down with the ship of state.
angelburst29
The Living Force
Some things to consider, with Bernie Sanders, which I haven't noted in the discussions here .....
Bernie’s Strange Brew of Nationalism and Socialism
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421369/bernie-sanders-national-socialism
Venezuela is a Socialist Country
http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/venezuela-is-out-of-food-heres-what-an-economic-collapse-really-looks-like-02132016
Venezuela Is Out of Food: Here’s What an Economic Collapse Really Looks Like
February 13, 2016 - After several years of long lines, rationing, and shortages, the socialist country does not have enough food to feed its population, and the opposition government has declared a “nutritional emergency.” This is just the most recent nail in the beleaguered country’s slow, painful economic collapse.
Many people expect an economic collapse to be shocking, instant, and dramatic, but really, it’s far more gradual than that. It looks like empty shelves, long lines, desperate government officials trying to cover their tushes, and hungry people. For the past two years, I’ve been following the situation in Venezuela as each shocking event has unfolded. Americans who feel that our country would be better served by a socialist government would be wise to take note of this timeline of the collapse.
In 2013, many began to suspect that the outlook for Venezuela was grim when prepping became illegal. The Attorney General of Venezuela, Luisa Ortega Díaz, called on prosecutors to target people who are “hoarding” basic staples with serious sanctions.
Shortly thereafter, grocery stores instituted a fingerprint registry to purchase food and supplies. Families had to register and were allotted a certain amount of supplies to prevent “hoarding.”
Then, just over a year ago, it became even more apparent that the country was falling. when long lines for basic necessities such as laundry soap, diapers, and food became the norm rather than the exception. Thousands of people were standing in line for 5-6 hours in the hopes that they would be able to purchase a few much-needed items.
Shortly after the story broke to the rest of the world, the propaganda machine shifted into high gear. As the government began to ration electricity, it was announced that this was not due to economic reasons at all, but instead was a measure of their great concern for the environment.
As the situation continued to devolve, farmers in Venezuela were forced to hand over their crops last summer. They assumed control of essential goods like food, and began putting retail outlets out of business. Then, once they had control of the sales outlets, they began forcing farmers and food manufacturers to sell anywhere from 30-100% of their products to the state at the price the state opted to pay, as opposed to stores and supermarkets.
But that wasn’t enough to keep the population fed. (Isn’t it astonishing how much less motivated people are to produce food and supplies when they are no longer allowed to benefit from their hard work? Historically, collectivism and farming have never gone successfully hand in hand.) This January, the government told citizens that they would need to produce their own food. The Ministry of Urban Farming was created to oversee this. While self-reliance sounds great, it isn’t so great in Venezuela. Just so the urban farmers don’t get too self-reliant, a registry of the crops and livestock will be required. (And obviously, they’ve already proven that they have no issue forcing farmers to hand over what they’ve produced.)
Now, it looks like all of the socialist measures and forced food production haven’t been enough to keep the people of Venezuela fed. The country is in so much trouble now that it isn’t possible to cover it up with propaganda.
According to Breitbart.com, lawmakers have learned nothing.
Socialist legislators are hoping to manipulate the initiative in the other direction, and use it to expand government control of private food enterprises. Legislator Héctor Rodríguez has insisted that the economic emergency “does absolutely nothing,” and the government should impose itself on private enterprises. Another socialist legislator, Ricardo Molina, iscalling for the government to expropriate Polar, Venezuela’s largest private food corporation: “we have to intervene on private sector enterprises.”
Venezuela previously forced a Polar food distribution center in Caracas to shut down in July, putting 12,000 tons of food, six million liters of soft drinks, and 2,000 jobs at risk.
And now, the announcement of the “nutritional emergency” makes it official. Venezuela is out of food, and it’s only a matter of time before Venezuelans are quite literally starving due to a long series of terrible decisions by their leaders.
It’s essential to note as this all plays out that there is little people can do now to rectify their situations. If they aren’t already quietly prepared, they are completely at the mercy of their socialist government. It is absolutely vital to put back supplies well before the general public is aware that a crisis is pending.
As well, consider the fact that many folks here believe that a socialist government is exactly what our country needs. They eagerly lap up the promises of “free education” and “free healthcare.” They warmly embrace a presidential candidate who is an unabashed socialist. It absolutely astonishes me. They’d be well-advised to pay attention to how well the freebies have worked out in Venezuela. Socialism is not a sustainable economic model, something that has been proven time and time again, much to the detriment of the victims of the misguided notions.
The game pieces here are already lined up to control the American people should our economic situation continue to worsen. For example, there are already laws in place to “prevent hoarding.” Remember a few years ago when President Obama signed an executive order that gives the federal government authority over every resource and infrastructure element in the United States?
There are a lot of uncomfortable parallels that can be drawn between America’s financial situation and the disaster in Venezuela, and one thing is clear: self-sufficiency is the only way to protect your family. Even if you haven’t really begun to prepare, there’s still time to become more self-reliant. Here are some steps you should consider:
Build your pantry: Start purchasing a few extra things every week to build up a food supply to see you through some rough spots. Create a pantry full of healthful, nutritious foods for your family, even if you’re on a budget.
Learn to grow/raise your own food: If you aren’t already growing some of your own food, it’s time to start. While many people believe they can easily begin farming after the SHTF, it’s not always quite like you may have imagined. Work out the bugs now so that when you are truly reliant on what you raise, you’ll be more likely to be successful. This can be done even on a lot in town.
Stock up on non-food supplies too: It isn’t just food that is in short supply in Venezuela. Be sure you stock up on other necessities too. Here’s a list of non-food items you can stockpile. And if you don’t have a huge budget, don’t worry. Here’s another list of items you can get very inexpensively.
Purchase an emergency food supply: Stock up on long-term storable food that you can stash away. These are the supplies you will rely on if the stores close, and purchasing buckets is the very fastest way to build a food supply when time is of the essence. They are packaged so that you can put them in a storage area and forget them until the day comes that you need them. Add a bucket or two every month to build your supply on a budget, or purchase in quantity to save money and have your supply instantly.
It is vital to practice OPSEC (Operational Security) by keeping your preparedness related activities on the down low. Preparedness and self-sufficiency author Tess Pennington warns that in a crisis situation, things you said months or years ago could come back to haunt you.
A person should think twice about telling others about any prepping investments they have made. If a SHTF scenario occurred, anything said previously can be used against that prepper. For example, if you tell your neighbor you have silver coins stashed away, if times were desperate enough, that neighbor could turn on you. Keeping quiet about what one does is second nature to some. But for others that are new to the idea of prepping, they do not see the whole SHTF picture. If one person tells another about their preps, one person could tell another person about what preps their neighbor has. Then, the word spreads throughout; especially when a severe situation occurs. People will remember what you have told them, and come to you for help (if they are unprepared). Helping a neighbor or family member in need is a noble deed. However, those preparedness items are an investment for you and your family; and therefore, no one outside of the family should know what you have (unless you want that person to know).
As people become more desperate, they behave far differently than they would in normal circumstances. You have to be prepared for the day when you might have to defend your home, family and supplies. When an economic disaster strikes, the one thing you can count on from the government is that they will not be prioritizing you and your family. In a situation like the one in Venezuela, you will be completely on your own at best. At worst, your supplies will be targeted “for the greater good.” Maintain your freedom by becoming quietly self-sufficient.
Bernie’s Strange Brew of Nationalism and Socialism
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421369/bernie-sanders-national-socialism
Venezuela is a Socialist Country
http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/venezuela-is-out-of-food-heres-what-an-economic-collapse-really-looks-like-02132016
Venezuela Is Out of Food: Here’s What an Economic Collapse Really Looks Like
February 13, 2016 - After several years of long lines, rationing, and shortages, the socialist country does not have enough food to feed its population, and the opposition government has declared a “nutritional emergency.” This is just the most recent nail in the beleaguered country’s slow, painful economic collapse.
Many people expect an economic collapse to be shocking, instant, and dramatic, but really, it’s far more gradual than that. It looks like empty shelves, long lines, desperate government officials trying to cover their tushes, and hungry people. For the past two years, I’ve been following the situation in Venezuela as each shocking event has unfolded. Americans who feel that our country would be better served by a socialist government would be wise to take note of this timeline of the collapse.
In 2013, many began to suspect that the outlook for Venezuela was grim when prepping became illegal. The Attorney General of Venezuela, Luisa Ortega Díaz, called on prosecutors to target people who are “hoarding” basic staples with serious sanctions.
Shortly thereafter, grocery stores instituted a fingerprint registry to purchase food and supplies. Families had to register and were allotted a certain amount of supplies to prevent “hoarding.”
Then, just over a year ago, it became even more apparent that the country was falling. when long lines for basic necessities such as laundry soap, diapers, and food became the norm rather than the exception. Thousands of people were standing in line for 5-6 hours in the hopes that they would be able to purchase a few much-needed items.
Shortly after the story broke to the rest of the world, the propaganda machine shifted into high gear. As the government began to ration electricity, it was announced that this was not due to economic reasons at all, but instead was a measure of their great concern for the environment.
As the situation continued to devolve, farmers in Venezuela were forced to hand over their crops last summer. They assumed control of essential goods like food, and began putting retail outlets out of business. Then, once they had control of the sales outlets, they began forcing farmers and food manufacturers to sell anywhere from 30-100% of their products to the state at the price the state opted to pay, as opposed to stores and supermarkets.
But that wasn’t enough to keep the population fed. (Isn’t it astonishing how much less motivated people are to produce food and supplies when they are no longer allowed to benefit from their hard work? Historically, collectivism and farming have never gone successfully hand in hand.) This January, the government told citizens that they would need to produce their own food. The Ministry of Urban Farming was created to oversee this. While self-reliance sounds great, it isn’t so great in Venezuela. Just so the urban farmers don’t get too self-reliant, a registry of the crops and livestock will be required. (And obviously, they’ve already proven that they have no issue forcing farmers to hand over what they’ve produced.)
Now, it looks like all of the socialist measures and forced food production haven’t been enough to keep the people of Venezuela fed. The country is in so much trouble now that it isn’t possible to cover it up with propaganda.
According to Breitbart.com, lawmakers have learned nothing.
Socialist legislators are hoping to manipulate the initiative in the other direction, and use it to expand government control of private food enterprises. Legislator Héctor Rodríguez has insisted that the economic emergency “does absolutely nothing,” and the government should impose itself on private enterprises. Another socialist legislator, Ricardo Molina, iscalling for the government to expropriate Polar, Venezuela’s largest private food corporation: “we have to intervene on private sector enterprises.”
Venezuela previously forced a Polar food distribution center in Caracas to shut down in July, putting 12,000 tons of food, six million liters of soft drinks, and 2,000 jobs at risk.
And now, the announcement of the “nutritional emergency” makes it official. Venezuela is out of food, and it’s only a matter of time before Venezuelans are quite literally starving due to a long series of terrible decisions by their leaders.
It’s essential to note as this all plays out that there is little people can do now to rectify their situations. If they aren’t already quietly prepared, they are completely at the mercy of their socialist government. It is absolutely vital to put back supplies well before the general public is aware that a crisis is pending.
As well, consider the fact that many folks here believe that a socialist government is exactly what our country needs. They eagerly lap up the promises of “free education” and “free healthcare.” They warmly embrace a presidential candidate who is an unabashed socialist. It absolutely astonishes me. They’d be well-advised to pay attention to how well the freebies have worked out in Venezuela. Socialism is not a sustainable economic model, something that has been proven time and time again, much to the detriment of the victims of the misguided notions.
The game pieces here are already lined up to control the American people should our economic situation continue to worsen. For example, there are already laws in place to “prevent hoarding.” Remember a few years ago when President Obama signed an executive order that gives the federal government authority over every resource and infrastructure element in the United States?
There are a lot of uncomfortable parallels that can be drawn between America’s financial situation and the disaster in Venezuela, and one thing is clear: self-sufficiency is the only way to protect your family. Even if you haven’t really begun to prepare, there’s still time to become more self-reliant. Here are some steps you should consider:
Build your pantry: Start purchasing a few extra things every week to build up a food supply to see you through some rough spots. Create a pantry full of healthful, nutritious foods for your family, even if you’re on a budget.
Learn to grow/raise your own food: If you aren’t already growing some of your own food, it’s time to start. While many people believe they can easily begin farming after the SHTF, it’s not always quite like you may have imagined. Work out the bugs now so that when you are truly reliant on what you raise, you’ll be more likely to be successful. This can be done even on a lot in town.
Stock up on non-food supplies too: It isn’t just food that is in short supply in Venezuela. Be sure you stock up on other necessities too. Here’s a list of non-food items you can stockpile. And if you don’t have a huge budget, don’t worry. Here’s another list of items you can get very inexpensively.
Purchase an emergency food supply: Stock up on long-term storable food that you can stash away. These are the supplies you will rely on if the stores close, and purchasing buckets is the very fastest way to build a food supply when time is of the essence. They are packaged so that you can put them in a storage area and forget them until the day comes that you need them. Add a bucket or two every month to build your supply on a budget, or purchase in quantity to save money and have your supply instantly.
It is vital to practice OPSEC (Operational Security) by keeping your preparedness related activities on the down low. Preparedness and self-sufficiency author Tess Pennington warns that in a crisis situation, things you said months or years ago could come back to haunt you.
A person should think twice about telling others about any prepping investments they have made. If a SHTF scenario occurred, anything said previously can be used against that prepper. For example, if you tell your neighbor you have silver coins stashed away, if times were desperate enough, that neighbor could turn on you. Keeping quiet about what one does is second nature to some. But for others that are new to the idea of prepping, they do not see the whole SHTF picture. If one person tells another about their preps, one person could tell another person about what preps their neighbor has. Then, the word spreads throughout; especially when a severe situation occurs. People will remember what you have told them, and come to you for help (if they are unprepared). Helping a neighbor or family member in need is a noble deed. However, those preparedness items are an investment for you and your family; and therefore, no one outside of the family should know what you have (unless you want that person to know).
As people become more desperate, they behave far differently than they would in normal circumstances. You have to be prepared for the day when you might have to defend your home, family and supplies. When an economic disaster strikes, the one thing you can count on from the government is that they will not be prioritizing you and your family. In a situation like the one in Venezuela, you will be completely on your own at best. At worst, your supplies will be targeted “for the greater good.” Maintain your freedom by becoming quietly self-sufficient.
No, socialism as the only system is not a sustainable model. But then, we see what capitalism has done to the planet; it's not sustainable either. We also saw what communism did; it isn't sustainable.
So, what's the solution?
As I wrote elsewhere some time ago, it seems to me that everybody is looking at this problem the wrong way, trying to decide which system is "right" across the board. There needs to be some nuance and flexibility.
Communism works best at the family/tribe level. No question. Family members can work and help each other.
Capitalism works best at the community/inter-community level. Families or individuals can start businesses and compete with other business. There's nothing wrong with business competition. Nothing wrong with those who work hard having more than those who don't. But there needs to be some reasonable limits/ceilings.
At the national level, there should be a socialized system that all communities pay into and which provides some services. Health care and education, electricity and water can be covered at this level and also international trade and foreign policy regulated based on input from all communities. Certain requirements/restrictions in place to minimize the possibility of corrupt individuals becoming members of these bodies.
Anyway, that's my solution because I DO see that there is a lot about some socialized things that is good. But I also see it tends to make people lazy if it is taken too far. But I've also seen the evils of capitalism.
So, what's the solution?
As I wrote elsewhere some time ago, it seems to me that everybody is looking at this problem the wrong way, trying to decide which system is "right" across the board. There needs to be some nuance and flexibility.
Communism works best at the family/tribe level. No question. Family members can work and help each other.
Capitalism works best at the community/inter-community level. Families or individuals can start businesses and compete with other business. There's nothing wrong with business competition. Nothing wrong with those who work hard having more than those who don't. But there needs to be some reasonable limits/ceilings.
At the national level, there should be a socialized system that all communities pay into and which provides some services. Health care and education, electricity and water can be covered at this level and also international trade and foreign policy regulated based on input from all communities. Certain requirements/restrictions in place to minimize the possibility of corrupt individuals becoming members of these bodies.
Anyway, that's my solution because I DO see that there is a lot about some socialized things that is good. But I also see it tends to make people lazy if it is taken too far. But I've also seen the evils of capitalism.
PhoenixToEmber
Jedi Council Member
Laura said:
I agree. This is pretty much my exact position on the matter. Even if Bernie really is the near-perfect leader (and his foreign policy says otherwise), that he somehow magically wins, and he truly pushes back against the PTB (the "Secret Government") my answer to those who think he will do this is November 22nd, 1963. He'll get shot in the head, a bad cover story will be peddled, and people will argue about the how and why for decades until the actual culprits are already dead. Maybe he'll become a martyr and that'll wake some people up, but regardless, it will not change the direction the U.S. is heading in. Those in power will never allow another Kennedy, and with today's technology, they could pull off an assassination much more efficiently than in the 60's. They've done it before, and knowing what we do about psychopaths, we'd be foolish to assume they wouldn't do it again.
Nević Nenad
The Living Force
Laura said:
You described Yugoslavian type socialism, or 'self-managing socialism' as it was called. Worked great (if you ask any of the Yugoslavian nationals except Croats. They were "suppressed, tortured, without freedom . . . " and similar :) ).
Broke dawn, but not because of economics but because of nationalism, mostly instigated by the US and the West.
Laura said:
I think the problem with this debate "socialism vs. capitalism" is that it's usually just people pushing each other's buttons, which I think is also evident in the article angelburst29 posted. People are basically fighting windmills. It seems the decades-long propaganda on both sides infected people's minds so deeply that they just can't think straight on these issues (especially in the US, it seems).
People defending capitalism say "oh, things got wrong, but if we only stick to the pure doctrine of F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman, this will be the perfect system", and the socialists say "oh, communism went wrong, but if we stick to the pure doctrine of Karl Marx all will be heaven"... When in fact, these are schizoidal theories with no basis in reality or offering any pragmatic solutions for our problems, osit. Or as Medvedjieff called them in his Munich speech - "phantom ideologies".
As for capitalism, something that bothers me about this mantra of the "small/weak government" that seems prevalent in the US is that yes, we need a "slim government", in the sense that they are not supposed to regulate every fart and every aspect of human life. But we also need a very strong government indeed in order to hold in check/crush corporate power! People defending capitalism don't realize that we are governed by mega corporations in cahoots with the "deep state", and we would need a strong government in order to fight it, or even to prevent this from happening in the first place (witness Putin). Also, a government should be "socialist" by default, because it is supposed to care for all the people, and it is a monopoly by definition. So a "capitalist" government doesn't make any sense at all, except of course if you want to use it as a vehicle to rob people to oblivion, which is exactly what we are seeing in the West.
Whereas with socialist ideas, I have the impression that many of those who promote it basically want a "free ride", witness the debate about "unconditional basic income" in Europe. They don't see the necessity in life to make efforts and contribute to the community, and the value of these efforts, osit.
As Gurdjieff said, people are talking different languages and don't understand each other, which I think is quite evident in this debate.
Here is Laura's post on the matter from a while ago:
Laura said:
angelburst29
The Living Force
You bring some interesting views Luc - that deserved deeper consideration in the way the three systems have been applied and what has resulted in terms of pro's and con's. "Socialism vs. Capitalism vs. Communism" when applied on an individual basis in governing, does seem to reflect "phantom ideologies" of a "one size fit's all" when a combination of the three, properly applied to compliment each other in proactivity, would generate creativity in each of it's spheres - three working bodies, each with it's own Mandates, yet a "gray area in between" that mirrors a working compatible relationship of both and then a third. It reminds me of what the C's referred to "as a triad".
Quote: " As Gurdjieff said, people are talking different languages and don't understand each other, which I think is quite evident in this debate."
I wonder, when evaluating these three systems individually, Venezuela and Socialism as an example, if they're not "test programs" by the elite, in isolating one Country, monitoring and using the test data, while pushing the system to "the extreme of collapse" to better gauge their position, in avenues of attaining benefits and confiscating valuable minerals, land and other commodities for their advantage?
Luc, I appreciate your efforts in locating and reposting Laura's Session on the issue of Communism vs. Socialism vs. Capitalism. This Session and Laura's thoughts have been on my mind lately, while digging deeper into the economic and Political sphere of the current developments in Russia and also China. Could combining these three systems, in a working relationship - be considered - Multi-polar? Not only for a Nation, within it's own working body .... but also on a International Integrated World system?
Putin and his Staff have been working closely with International Law and Treaties with other Countries, on an International level to combine mutual efforts in trade and other activities. On the local level, Russia is working within it's own Country, to build a stronger infrastructure towards self sustainability, which meets it's peoples needs (on one level), reorganizing development structure (housing, health and social), on another level and up-grading it's educational system (introducing some programs developed in China) to upgrade living standards.
Likewise, China which has developed high standards in it's Educational Programs, with high productivity in it's Industrial Sector, is working with Russia and BRICS, not only in trade agreements but in trying to upgrade it's Social infrastructure - to better meet the needs of the Chinese people and their long Historical Customs. It might be part of - the need to acquire large sums of Gold - to stabilize their own Countries. With the Sanctions lifting for Iran, Iran seems to working closely with Russia and China to fortify it's own inner structure, while increasing International Trade. None of the three Countries want to conquer - the World.
So, I guess the question is, " Is the term "Multi-polar" similar to the structure - Laura has described in a working relationship between Communism, Socialism and Capitalism?"
Quote: " As Gurdjieff said, people are talking different languages and don't understand each other, which I think is quite evident in this debate."
I wonder, when evaluating these three systems individually, Venezuela and Socialism as an example, if they're not "test programs" by the elite, in isolating one Country, monitoring and using the test data, while pushing the system to "the extreme of collapse" to better gauge their position, in avenues of attaining benefits and confiscating valuable minerals, land and other commodities for their advantage?
Luc, I appreciate your efforts in locating and reposting Laura's Session on the issue of Communism vs. Socialism vs. Capitalism. This Session and Laura's thoughts have been on my mind lately, while digging deeper into the economic and Political sphere of the current developments in Russia and also China. Could combining these three systems, in a working relationship - be considered - Multi-polar? Not only for a Nation, within it's own working body .... but also on a International Integrated World system?
Putin and his Staff have been working closely with International Law and Treaties with other Countries, on an International level to combine mutual efforts in trade and other activities. On the local level, Russia is working within it's own Country, to build a stronger infrastructure towards self sustainability, which meets it's peoples needs (on one level), reorganizing development structure (housing, health and social), on another level and up-grading it's educational system (introducing some programs developed in China) to upgrade living standards.
Likewise, China which has developed high standards in it's Educational Programs, with high productivity in it's Industrial Sector, is working with Russia and BRICS, not only in trade agreements but in trying to upgrade it's Social infrastructure - to better meet the needs of the Chinese people and their long Historical Customs. It might be part of - the need to acquire large sums of Gold - to stabilize their own Countries. With the Sanctions lifting for Iran, Iran seems to working closely with Russia and China to fortify it's own inner structure, while increasing International Trade. None of the three Countries want to conquer - the World.
So, I guess the question is, " Is the term "Multi-polar" similar to the structure - Laura has described in a working relationship between Communism, Socialism and Capitalism?"
David
Jedi Master
luc said:
Yeah and the recent session comes to mind where ‘Hegelian logic’ was mentioned, specifically ‘dialectic logic,’ which seems close to the norm in reasoning or maybe conditioned state of reasoning, when it comes to what appear to be opposites… ‘hot’ vs ‘cold’
What is Hegelian Dialectic? found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_F4WomLlq0
And a cute demonstration of what happens, when two sides are somewhat like already poisoned chalices, in this youtube. ‘dialectics in the Princess Bride.’
Found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2y40U2LvKY
I guess whatever the solution, one needs to extract the poison out of any ideology, though one would require first to know what that poison is, that being pathology/psychopathy and its influence on and in any system, tall order…
And those without conscience it seems, regardless of what passes as intelligent, seems so self-serving that their actions could be said to be ‘un-reasonable,’ so it would seem very difficult to do anything. As mentioned in one thread… which I can’t remember off hand.
Anyway… Just thought the links might be useful to anybody who’s interested… FWIW
Avala said:
Yes, nationalism was a big tool that was used in breaking apart Yugoslovia. We see the same thing being applied in many parts of the world for different purposes: Ukraine, Moldova, Turkey, and it is now emerging in European countries as well.
For any who haven't seen it, do check out the Weight of Chains documentary that covers how the US empire destroyed the beautiful country that was once Yugoslavia:
PhoenixToEmber said:
Trump seems to be the real wildcard...in the last debate, bringing up 9-11 in a less than patriotic manner while criticizing Bush Jr... another attack on the system, and not just the party... as well as the greatest sin of all in criticizing the Republican worship of Ronald Reagan as less than a god.
That's downright blasphemy, that is! Fighting words... How dare he!!! especially in a hall packed with Republican donors and staff! Bernie, by comparison is shot down for just a little squeek about Obama and by inclusion, Hillary, who has agreed to speak no evil. There is a similarity, but he pales in comparison to Trump, with his Big Apple, in-your-face, "Hey! I'm walkin' here!!!" attitude. 
Trump is a perfect reflection of our 'American' culture right now, unveiling just enough of the Wizard of Oz behind that curtain that the sheeple can handle... a few little bites at a time. Will Bernie step up to the challenge of attacking the system he thinks he can fix?Most amusing repub debate, some not knowing what to do or say, while the others jumped in defense in rather classic mode, forget the words...'Cognitive Dissonance'? Demagoguery at its modern American finest... rather funny to watch.. like a textbook lecture coming to life on tv for everyone to watch. Bernie seems rather safe by comparison, he's not really independent enough to stand alone like Trump, who admits that he's worked with everyone on both sides of the BS show in the States... including the Rockefellers, Rothchilds etc.... he's worked the system like they all have, only he really doesn't seem to understand enough about the behind the scenes activity (how many in the system do?)... reminds me of Kennedy in those terms... and Trump, like Putin, has and can work with anyone as long as they're willing to work with them... and that is the problem Putin has learned, but the Donald hasn't seemed to figure that out quite yet, most of them don't control their destiny, they've already sold out... Seeing him spout out his opinions freely, something so off the charts here in the States... reminds me of that film "Bulworth"... and if the election system allows him to sneak through all those controlled electronic ballot boxes, then perhaps he'd have the same ending?... though the interesting point would be why allow him to do so? Controlled Chaos? And isn't it Amreica's turn?
It points out the truth that our election system is nothing but a reality tv show, and the Donald acts more like 'The Bachelor' than a contestant in the race. Meanwhile, Bernie is like watching the usual 'liberal' program by comparison, another do-gooder, who, like all the rest, won't win the nomination, but if allowed to, will end up surrounded by the usual team giving him the usual advice as surprise events occur that require his attention before he gets to work on any of his agenda...either way, the system works to subvert the people no matter what political/economic system or beliefs are put in place. It really doesn't matter what it is called, once there is enough to steal, subvert and set up as an empire of dominance by the few, then it will happen, by design every time here in Purgatory, isn't this the school's function after all? "If you build it, they will come." No Field of Dreams, but rather a Nightmare for the Soul.
I hope they both continue to win, it would be better entertainment and perhaps the PTB want the extra distraction 'going forward'?
angelburst29
The Living Force
Since I brought up the subject of Venezuela and it's Socialist platform of government, new developments suggest "a Coup" may be in it's near future?
Coup Threatened in Venezuela amidst Deepening Economic Crisis
http://www.globalresearch.ca/coup-threatened-in-venezuela-amidst-deepening-economic-crisis/5507973
In the midst of skyrocketing inflation, food scarcity and economic stagnation in Venezuela, the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) party is maneuvering for the removal of President Nicholas Maduro.
The constitutional crisis between the legislative and judicial branches is the product of a deep fracture in the Venezuelan ruling class that threatens to boil over in the coming weeks. Ramos Allup announced that “in the coming days we will offer an exit proposal for the disgrace that is this government.”
The Venezuelan constitution allows for popular recall of elected officials, including the president. A referendum can only take place after the official’s term has reached its midway point, which in Madero’s case would be in April 2016. The number of votes required to recall Madero will be roughly 200,000 votes less than the total received by the MUD in the December legislative elections. In other words, a successful recall is a clear possibility.
But Ramos Allup alluded to something more in his speech:
“There is a movement within the government that is asking for Maduro’s resignation as the lesser evil,” he said. The government “is doing everything possible to give itself a coup, I don’t have any doubt because it’s the only justification that we have after this defeat and the monumental errors of 17 years.”
The implications of these words are clear enough in a country that has had six coups d’état in the last 70 years.
Maduro has responded by making clear that his government is prepared to defend Venezuelan capitalism at all costs. Speaking Thursday at a ribbon cutting ceremony for a factory in the state of Carabobo, he said, “We are taking care of social and labor stability, and we are making a daily effort to maintain the entire productive capacity of the country.” In recent weeks, Maduro has made good on his promise by sending civil guard forces to quell isolated strikes.
The political crisis in Venezuela has been sparked by an escalating economic crisis. The failure of the nationalist, export-based economic reforms of Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez have ended in widespread poverty and social misery.
In the third quarter of 2015, the Venezuelan economy shrank 7.1 percent. Inflation was at 141 percent for the year ending in September 2015, and many experts believe inflation will exceed 200 percent in 2016. There is a real possibility of a debt default, with half of the country’s $10 billion in debt payments due this November. “The country is in economic meltdown. The figures are predictably horrific,” economist Edward Glossop of the research firm Capital Economics told CNN.
Video has surfaced of food riots outside of a Central Madeirense supermarket in the town Acarigua. A scarcity of food has produced a desperate situation for millions of working class Venezuelans, with some states reporting that 70 to 90 percent of grocery stores lack basic staples like rice, chicken and corn flour.
Under these conditions of chaos, the right-wing MUD, backed by US imperialism, is creating conditions for a change in power. In particular, the US government wants to obtain access to Venezuela’s oil, which is currently processed and sold by the state-owned oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA).
In November 2015, documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was operating a massive surveillance operation out of the US Embassy in Caracas to hack into the computer network of PDVSA.
After the program was made public, US State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the US government “has no interest or intent to destabilize the Venezuelan government.” Kirby added, “There’s no intent to use electronic surveillance to benefit commercial gains.”
These claims are laughable. The US has funded numerous dictatorships and death squads across Latin America in an effort to more effectively extract resources on behalf of American corporations.
In 2002, the CIA was the instigator of a coup attempt against Chavez. In the months before the attempt, coup leader Pedro Carmona made regular visits to the White House and met with Bush administration officials, who gave explicit support for the coup. Twenty people were killed in the coup attempt, which fell apart when the military and hundreds of thousands of people converged on the presidential palace to demand Chavez’s reinstatement.
But the crisis in Venezuela today is a product of the failure of Chavez’s program and his so-called Bolivian Revolution. The Chavez and Maduro governments have responded to workers’ strikes with massive state repression and have based their programs on a defense of capitalism with only mild social reforms and limited nationalizations.
Their nationalist approach has left the population vulnerable to fluctuations in the world oil market, with devastating consequences for workers and peasants. Only a movement of the working class, independent of the Bolivian PSUV and linked in struggle with the workers of North and South America, can oppose efforts by MUD and US imperialism to further carve up the country on behalf of Wall Street.
Coup Threatened in Venezuela amidst Deepening Economic Crisis
http://www.globalresearch.ca/coup-threatened-in-venezuela-amidst-deepening-economic-crisis/5507973
In the midst of skyrocketing inflation, food scarcity and economic stagnation in Venezuela, the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) party is maneuvering for the removal of President Nicholas Maduro.
The constitutional crisis between the legislative and judicial branches is the product of a deep fracture in the Venezuelan ruling class that threatens to boil over in the coming weeks. Ramos Allup announced that “in the coming days we will offer an exit proposal for the disgrace that is this government.”
The Venezuelan constitution allows for popular recall of elected officials, including the president. A referendum can only take place after the official’s term has reached its midway point, which in Madero’s case would be in April 2016. The number of votes required to recall Madero will be roughly 200,000 votes less than the total received by the MUD in the December legislative elections. In other words, a successful recall is a clear possibility.
But Ramos Allup alluded to something more in his speech:
“There is a movement within the government that is asking for Maduro’s resignation as the lesser evil,” he said. The government “is doing everything possible to give itself a coup, I don’t have any doubt because it’s the only justification that we have after this defeat and the monumental errors of 17 years.”
The implications of these words are clear enough in a country that has had six coups d’état in the last 70 years.
Maduro has responded by making clear that his government is prepared to defend Venezuelan capitalism at all costs. Speaking Thursday at a ribbon cutting ceremony for a factory in the state of Carabobo, he said, “We are taking care of social and labor stability, and we are making a daily effort to maintain the entire productive capacity of the country.” In recent weeks, Maduro has made good on his promise by sending civil guard forces to quell isolated strikes.
The political crisis in Venezuela has been sparked by an escalating economic crisis. The failure of the nationalist, export-based economic reforms of Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez have ended in widespread poverty and social misery.
In the third quarter of 2015, the Venezuelan economy shrank 7.1 percent. Inflation was at 141 percent for the year ending in September 2015, and many experts believe inflation will exceed 200 percent in 2016. There is a real possibility of a debt default, with half of the country’s $10 billion in debt payments due this November. “The country is in economic meltdown. The figures are predictably horrific,” economist Edward Glossop of the research firm Capital Economics told CNN.
Video has surfaced of food riots outside of a Central Madeirense supermarket in the town Acarigua. A scarcity of food has produced a desperate situation for millions of working class Venezuelans, with some states reporting that 70 to 90 percent of grocery stores lack basic staples like rice, chicken and corn flour.
Under these conditions of chaos, the right-wing MUD, backed by US imperialism, is creating conditions for a change in power. In particular, the US government wants to obtain access to Venezuela’s oil, which is currently processed and sold by the state-owned oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA).
In November 2015, documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was operating a massive surveillance operation out of the US Embassy in Caracas to hack into the computer network of PDVSA.
After the program was made public, US State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the US government “has no interest or intent to destabilize the Venezuelan government.” Kirby added, “There’s no intent to use electronic surveillance to benefit commercial gains.”
These claims are laughable. The US has funded numerous dictatorships and death squads across Latin America in an effort to more effectively extract resources on behalf of American corporations.
In 2002, the CIA was the instigator of a coup attempt against Chavez. In the months before the attempt, coup leader Pedro Carmona made regular visits to the White House and met with Bush administration officials, who gave explicit support for the coup. Twenty people were killed in the coup attempt, which fell apart when the military and hundreds of thousands of people converged on the presidential palace to demand Chavez’s reinstatement.
But the crisis in Venezuela today is a product of the failure of Chavez’s program and his so-called Bolivian Revolution. The Chavez and Maduro governments have responded to workers’ strikes with massive state repression and have based their programs on a defense of capitalism with only mild social reforms and limited nationalizations.
Their nationalist approach has left the population vulnerable to fluctuations in the world oil market, with devastating consequences for workers and peasants. Only a movement of the working class, independent of the Bolivian PSUV and linked in struggle with the workers of North and South America, can oppose efforts by MUD and US imperialism to further carve up the country on behalf of Wall Street.
angelburst29
The Living Force
Bernie Sanders’ Phantom Movement
http://www.globalresearch.ca/bernie-sanders-phantom-movement/5508068
Bernie Sanders, who has attracted numerous young, white, college-educated supporters in his bid for the presidency, says he is creating a movement and promises a political revolution. This rhetoric is an updated version of the “change” promised by the 2008 campaign of Barack Obama and by Jesse Jackson’s earlier National Rainbow Coalition. Such Democratic electoral campaigns, at best, raise political consciousness. But they do not become movements or engender revolutions. They exist as long as election campaigns endure and then they vanish. Sanders’ campaign will be no different.
No movement or political revolution will ever be built within the confines of the Democratic Party. And the repeated failure of the American left to grasp the duplicitous game being played by the political elites has effectively neutered it as a political force. History, after all, should count for something.
The Democrats, like the Republicans, have no interest in genuine reform. They are wedded to corporate power. They are about appearance, not substance. They speak in the language of democracy, even liberal reform and populism, but doggedly block campaign finance reform and promote an array of policies, including new trade agreements, that disempower workers. They rig the elections, not only with money but also with so-called superdelegates — more than 700 delegates who are unbound among a total of more than 4,700 at the Democratic convention. Sanders may have received 60 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, but he came away with fewer of the state’s delegates than Clinton. This is a harbinger of the campaign to come.
If Sanders is denied the nomination — the Clinton machine and the Democratic Party establishment, along with their corporate puppet masters, will use every dirty trick to ensure he loses — his so-called movement and political revolution will evaporate. His mobilized base, as was true with the Obama campaign, will be fossilized into donor and volunteer lists. The curtain will come down with a thunderclap until the next election carnival.
The Democratic Party is a full partner in the corporate state. Yet Sanders, while critical of Hillary Clinton’s exorbitant speaking fees from firms such as Goldman Sachs, refuses to call out the party and — as Robert Scheer pointed out in a column in October — the Clintons for their role as handmaidens of Wall Street. For Sanders, it is a lie of omission, which is still a lie. And it is a lie that makes the Vermont senator complicit in the con game being played on the American electorate by the Democratic Party establishment.
Do Sanders’ supporters believe they can wrest power from the Democratic establishment and transform the party? Do they think the forces where real power lies — the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, corporations, the security and surveillance state — can be toppled by a Sanders campaign? Do they think the Democratic Party will allow itself to be ruled by democratic procedures? Do they not accept that with the destruction of organized labor and anti-war, civil rights and progressive movements — a destruction often orchestrated by security organs such as the FBI — the party has lurched so far to the right that it has remade itself into the old Republican Party?
The elites use money, along with their control of the media, the courts and legislatures, their armies of lobbyists and “think tanks,” to invalidate the vote. We have undergone, as John Ralston Saul has written, a corporate coup d’etat. There are no institutions left within civil society that can be accurately described as democratic. We do not live in a capitalist democracy. We live in what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls a system of “inverted totalitarianism.”
In Europe, America’s Democratic Party would be a far-right party. The Republican Party would be extremist. There is no liberal — much less left or progressive — organized political class in the United States. The growth of protofascists will be halted only when a movement on the left embraces an unequivocal militancy to defend the rights of workers and move toward the destruction of corporate power. As long as the left keeps surrendering to a Democratic Party that mouths liberal values while serving corporate interests, it will destroy itself and the values it claims to represent. It will stoke the justifiable rage of the underclass, especially the white underclass, and empower the most racist and retrograde political forces in the country. Fascism thrives not only on despair, betrayal and anger but a bankrupt liberalism.
The political system, as many Sanders supporters are about to discover, is immune to reform. The only effective resistance will be achieved through acts of sustained, mass civil disobedience. The Democrats, like the Republicans, have no intention of halting the assault on our civil liberties, the expansion of imperial wars, the coddling of Wall Street, the destruction of the ecosystem by the fossil fuel industry and the impoverishment of working-men and -women. As long as the Democrats and the Republicans remain in power we are doomed.
The Democratic establishment’s response to any internal insurgency is to crush it, co-opt it and rewrite the rules to make a future insurgency impossible. This was true in 1948 with Henry Wallace and in 1972 with George McGovern — two politicians who, unlike Sanders, took on the war industry — and in the 1984 and 1988 insurgencies led by Jackson.
Corey Robin in Salon explained how the Clintons rose to power on this reactionary agenda. The Clintons, and the Democratic establishment, he wrote, repudiated the progressive agenda of the Jackson campaign and used coded language, especially regarding law and order, to appeal to the racism of white voters. The Clintons and the party mandarins ruthlessly disenfranchised those Jackson had mobilized.
Sanders’ supporters can expect a similar reception. That Hillary Clinton can run a campaign that defies her long and sordid political record is one of the miracles of modern mass propaganda and a testament to the effectiveness of our political theater.
Sanders said that if he does not receive the nomination he will support the party nominee; he will not be a “spoiler.” If that happens, Sanders will become an obstacle to change. He will recite the mantra of the “least worst.” He will become part of the Democratic establishment’s campaign to neutralize the left.
Sanders is, in all but title, a Democrat. He is a member of the Democratic caucus. He votes 98 percent of the time with the Democrats. He routinely backs appropriations for imperial wars, the corporate scam of Obamacare, wholesale surveillance and bloated defense budgets. He campaigned for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential race and again in 1996 — after Clinton had rammed through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), vastly expanded the system of mass incarceration and destroyed welfare — and for John Kerry in 2004. He called on Ralph Nader in 2004 to abandon his presidential campaign. The Democrats recognize his value. They have long rewarded Sanders for his role as a sheepherder.
Kshama Sawant and I privately asked Sanders at a New York City event where we appeared with him the night before the 2014 climate march why he would not run for president as an independent. “I don’t want to end up like Ralph Nader,” he told us.
Sanders had a point. The Democratic power structure made a quid pro quo arrangement with Sanders. It does not run a serious candidate against him in Vermont for his U.S. Senate seat. Sanders, as part of this Faustian deal, serves one of the main impediments to building a viable third party in Vermont. If Sanders defies the Democratic Party he will be stripped of his seniority in the Senate. He will lose his committee chairmanships. The party machine will turn him, as it did Nader, into a pariah. It will push him outside the political establishment. Sanders probably saw his answer as a practical response to political reality. But it was also an admission of cowardice. Nader paid a heavy price for his courage and his honesty, but he was not a failure.
Sanders, I suspect, is acutely aware that the left is broken and disorganized. The two parties have created innumerable obstacles to third parties, from locking them out of the debates to challenging voter lists and keeping them off the ballot. The Green Party is internally crippled by endemic factionalism and dysfunction. It is dominated in many states by an older, white demographic that is trapped in the nostalgia of the 1960s and narcissistically self-referential.
I spoke three years ago to the sparsely attended state gathering of the Green Party in New Jersey. I felt as if I was a character in Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel “The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta.” In the novel, Mayta, a naive idealist, endures the indignities of the tiny and irrelevant warring sects of the Peruvian left. He is reduced to meeting in a garage with seven self-described revolutionaries who make up the RWP(T) — the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (Trotskyist) — a splinter group of the marginal Revolutionary Worker’s Party. “Stacked against the walls,” Llosa writes, “were piles of Workers Voice and handbills, manifestos and statements favoring strikes or denouncing them which they had never got around to handing out.”
I am for a revolution that abandons imperial expansion, especially in the Middle East, and makes it impossible to profit from war. I am for a revolution that nationalizes banks, the arms industry, energy companies and utilities, breaks up monopolies, destroys the fossil fuel industry, funds the arts and public broadcasting, provides full employment and free education including university education, forgives all student debt, blocks bank repossessions and foreclosures of homes, guarantees universal and free health care and provides a living wage to those unable to work, especially single parents, the disabled and the elderly. Half the country, after all, now lives in poverty. None of us live in freedom.
This will be a long and desperate struggle. It will require open confrontation. The billionaire class and corporate oligarchs cannot be tamed. They must be overthrown. They will be overthrown in the streets, not in a convention hall. Convention halls are where the left goes to die.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/bernie-sanders-phantom-movement/5508068
Bernie Sanders, who has attracted numerous young, white, college-educated supporters in his bid for the presidency, says he is creating a movement and promises a political revolution. This rhetoric is an updated version of the “change” promised by the 2008 campaign of Barack Obama and by Jesse Jackson’s earlier National Rainbow Coalition. Such Democratic electoral campaigns, at best, raise political consciousness. But they do not become movements or engender revolutions. They exist as long as election campaigns endure and then they vanish. Sanders’ campaign will be no different.
No movement or political revolution will ever be built within the confines of the Democratic Party. And the repeated failure of the American left to grasp the duplicitous game being played by the political elites has effectively neutered it as a political force. History, after all, should count for something.
The Democrats, like the Republicans, have no interest in genuine reform. They are wedded to corporate power. They are about appearance, not substance. They speak in the language of democracy, even liberal reform and populism, but doggedly block campaign finance reform and promote an array of policies, including new trade agreements, that disempower workers. They rig the elections, not only with money but also with so-called superdelegates — more than 700 delegates who are unbound among a total of more than 4,700 at the Democratic convention. Sanders may have received 60 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, but he came away with fewer of the state’s delegates than Clinton. This is a harbinger of the campaign to come.
If Sanders is denied the nomination — the Clinton machine and the Democratic Party establishment, along with their corporate puppet masters, will use every dirty trick to ensure he loses — his so-called movement and political revolution will evaporate. His mobilized base, as was true with the Obama campaign, will be fossilized into donor and volunteer lists. The curtain will come down with a thunderclap until the next election carnival.
The Democratic Party is a full partner in the corporate state. Yet Sanders, while critical of Hillary Clinton’s exorbitant speaking fees from firms such as Goldman Sachs, refuses to call out the party and — as Robert Scheer pointed out in a column in October — the Clintons for their role as handmaidens of Wall Street. For Sanders, it is a lie of omission, which is still a lie. And it is a lie that makes the Vermont senator complicit in the con game being played on the American electorate by the Democratic Party establishment.
Do Sanders’ supporters believe they can wrest power from the Democratic establishment and transform the party? Do they think the forces where real power lies — the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, corporations, the security and surveillance state — can be toppled by a Sanders campaign? Do they think the Democratic Party will allow itself to be ruled by democratic procedures? Do they not accept that with the destruction of organized labor and anti-war, civil rights and progressive movements — a destruction often orchestrated by security organs such as the FBI — the party has lurched so far to the right that it has remade itself into the old Republican Party?
The elites use money, along with their control of the media, the courts and legislatures, their armies of lobbyists and “think tanks,” to invalidate the vote. We have undergone, as John Ralston Saul has written, a corporate coup d’etat. There are no institutions left within civil society that can be accurately described as democratic. We do not live in a capitalist democracy. We live in what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls a system of “inverted totalitarianism.”
In Europe, America’s Democratic Party would be a far-right party. The Republican Party would be extremist. There is no liberal — much less left or progressive — organized political class in the United States. The growth of protofascists will be halted only when a movement on the left embraces an unequivocal militancy to defend the rights of workers and move toward the destruction of corporate power. As long as the left keeps surrendering to a Democratic Party that mouths liberal values while serving corporate interests, it will destroy itself and the values it claims to represent. It will stoke the justifiable rage of the underclass, especially the white underclass, and empower the most racist and retrograde political forces in the country. Fascism thrives not only on despair, betrayal and anger but a bankrupt liberalism.
The political system, as many Sanders supporters are about to discover, is immune to reform. The only effective resistance will be achieved through acts of sustained, mass civil disobedience. The Democrats, like the Republicans, have no intention of halting the assault on our civil liberties, the expansion of imperial wars, the coddling of Wall Street, the destruction of the ecosystem by the fossil fuel industry and the impoverishment of working-men and -women. As long as the Democrats and the Republicans remain in power we are doomed.
The Democratic establishment’s response to any internal insurgency is to crush it, co-opt it and rewrite the rules to make a future insurgency impossible. This was true in 1948 with Henry Wallace and in 1972 with George McGovern — two politicians who, unlike Sanders, took on the war industry — and in the 1984 and 1988 insurgencies led by Jackson.
Corey Robin in Salon explained how the Clintons rose to power on this reactionary agenda. The Clintons, and the Democratic establishment, he wrote, repudiated the progressive agenda of the Jackson campaign and used coded language, especially regarding law and order, to appeal to the racism of white voters. The Clintons and the party mandarins ruthlessly disenfranchised those Jackson had mobilized.
Sanders’ supporters can expect a similar reception. That Hillary Clinton can run a campaign that defies her long and sordid political record is one of the miracles of modern mass propaganda and a testament to the effectiveness of our political theater.
Sanders said that if he does not receive the nomination he will support the party nominee; he will not be a “spoiler.” If that happens, Sanders will become an obstacle to change. He will recite the mantra of the “least worst.” He will become part of the Democratic establishment’s campaign to neutralize the left.
Sanders is, in all but title, a Democrat. He is a member of the Democratic caucus. He votes 98 percent of the time with the Democrats. He routinely backs appropriations for imperial wars, the corporate scam of Obamacare, wholesale surveillance and bloated defense budgets. He campaigned for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential race and again in 1996 — after Clinton had rammed through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), vastly expanded the system of mass incarceration and destroyed welfare — and for John Kerry in 2004. He called on Ralph Nader in 2004 to abandon his presidential campaign. The Democrats recognize his value. They have long rewarded Sanders for his role as a sheepherder.
Kshama Sawant and I privately asked Sanders at a New York City event where we appeared with him the night before the 2014 climate march why he would not run for president as an independent. “I don’t want to end up like Ralph Nader,” he told us.
Sanders had a point. The Democratic power structure made a quid pro quo arrangement with Sanders. It does not run a serious candidate against him in Vermont for his U.S. Senate seat. Sanders, as part of this Faustian deal, serves one of the main impediments to building a viable third party in Vermont. If Sanders defies the Democratic Party he will be stripped of his seniority in the Senate. He will lose his committee chairmanships. The party machine will turn him, as it did Nader, into a pariah. It will push him outside the political establishment. Sanders probably saw his answer as a practical response to political reality. But it was also an admission of cowardice. Nader paid a heavy price for his courage and his honesty, but he was not a failure.
Sanders, I suspect, is acutely aware that the left is broken and disorganized. The two parties have created innumerable obstacles to third parties, from locking them out of the debates to challenging voter lists and keeping them off the ballot. The Green Party is internally crippled by endemic factionalism and dysfunction. It is dominated in many states by an older, white demographic that is trapped in the nostalgia of the 1960s and narcissistically self-referential.
I spoke three years ago to the sparsely attended state gathering of the Green Party in New Jersey. I felt as if I was a character in Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel “The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta.” In the novel, Mayta, a naive idealist, endures the indignities of the tiny and irrelevant warring sects of the Peruvian left. He is reduced to meeting in a garage with seven self-described revolutionaries who make up the RWP(T) — the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (Trotskyist) — a splinter group of the marginal Revolutionary Worker’s Party. “Stacked against the walls,” Llosa writes, “were piles of Workers Voice and handbills, manifestos and statements favoring strikes or denouncing them which they had never got around to handing out.”
I am for a revolution that abandons imperial expansion, especially in the Middle East, and makes it impossible to profit from war. I am for a revolution that nationalizes banks, the arms industry, energy companies and utilities, breaks up monopolies, destroys the fossil fuel industry, funds the arts and public broadcasting, provides full employment and free education including university education, forgives all student debt, blocks bank repossessions and foreclosures of homes, guarantees universal and free health care and provides a living wage to those unable to work, especially single parents, the disabled and the elderly. Half the country, after all, now lives in poverty. None of us live in freedom.
This will be a long and desperate struggle. It will require open confrontation. The billionaire class and corporate oligarchs cannot be tamed. They must be overthrown. They will be overthrown in the streets, not in a convention hall. Convention halls are where the left goes to die.
Harmony6566
A Disturbance in the Force
MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS. ... Brilliantly said in 9 words ...
