by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
After all the hullabaloo and the rhetoric, the real Bernie Sanders steps forward. When asked on NBC’s Morning Joe show if he will vote for Hilary Clinton he gives an emphatic “Yes”. His reason for his decision he explains, "I will do everything I can to defeat Donald Trump."
Sanders hasn’t yet endorsed Hillary Clinton but barring her arrest by the FBI, he will.
Here’s a bit of useful information for Sanders’ enthusiastic young supporters who, tired as they are with politics and political parties that do not represent them, have now been abandoned by him: We have seen all this before. Simply replace the Trump name with Reagan, Bush senior, his imbecile son George W Bush and on and on. We have to support the person who will harm us least and in this case that may well be Clinton not Trump. It’s the old lesser of two evils argument that we have heard time and time again.
Sanders is fundraising for his Democratic Party colleagues and has raised more than $2 million in the past few week. “He has been signaling the transition of his movement from a presidential run to one aimed at bolstering liberal Democratic candidates for Congress and offices up and down the ballot”, AP reports. His tactic, his reason for holding back on the endorsement is to gain some leverage at the convention in his campaign to “change” the Democratic Party and make it a party of the people. Like a pied piper, he leads his supporters in to the Democratic Party, that graveyard of social movements.
He is also no fool in one aspect, he knows that Clinton is despised by most of his young supporters including women, so he makes clear he is a campaigner for the party not the individual.
His political revolution is only just getting started says Sanders and that, "My job right now is to fight for the strongest possible platform in the Democrat election," It is important to remind ourselves what Sanders means by “political revolution”. In his own words it is drawing people in to the democratic process. And to which political organization should these millions direct their activity? Well the Democratic Party of course, the party of Goldman Sachs, Wall Street and the billionaire class that Sanders has railed about for a while.
To be honest, Sanders is a fraud, he is certainly not a socialist. He tapped in to the righteous anger that exists in US society and the response surprised even him. His efforts now and the reason for holding out on the endorsement is the party platform. Big deal. As if the millions of young people that looked to him for real change did so on the basis of getting some nice sounding phrases in the Democratic Party platform.
As Bruce Dixon of the Black Agenda Report pointed out with regard to the Democratic Party platform: *
“Take the Democratic party platform of 1992, the year Bill Clinton was elected. It promised targeted jobs programs to reduce inner city unemployment, the building of affordable housing, funding of urban mass transit, measures to begin weaning the economy off fossil fuels. It promised a peace dividend, the investment of some of the former Cold War military budget into the civilian economy to create jobs and opportunities. It pledged new environmental protections and committed Democrats to rolling back carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Every bit of this was garbage. On the other hand, the one percent were promised the end of welfare, so that millions would be thrown out onto the low wage labor market, and NAFTA. Those were among the promises that were kept.”
As a friend said to me the other day when we were discussing Sanders platform boasts:
“You know what they say about the platform don’t you?”
“No” I reply innocently.
“It’s what’s left behind when the train leaves the station.”
*At the time of writing I find that the Black Agenda Report website is down so the link above may not be functioning. Hopefully it is a temporary issue and nothing serious, This is an excellent source of political news and analysis.
After all the hullabaloo and the rhetoric, the real Bernie Sanders steps forward. When asked on NBC’s Morning Joe show if he will vote for Hilary Clinton he gives an emphatic “Yes”. His reason for his decision he explains, "I will do everything I can to defeat Donald Trump."
Sanders hasn’t yet endorsed Hillary Clinton but barring her arrest by the FBI, he will.
Here’s a bit of useful information for Sanders’ enthusiastic young supporters who, tired as they are with politics and political parties that do not represent them, have now been abandoned by him: We have seen all this before. Simply replace the Trump name with Reagan, Bush senior, his imbecile son George W Bush and on and on. We have to support the person who will harm us least and in this case that may well be Clinton not Trump. It’s the old lesser of two evils argument that we have heard time and time again.
Sanders is fundraising for his Democratic Party colleagues and has raised more than $2 million in the past few week. “He has been signaling the transition of his movement from a presidential run to one aimed at bolstering liberal Democratic candidates for Congress and offices up and down the ballot”, AP reports. His tactic, his reason for holding back on the endorsement is to gain some leverage at the convention in his campaign to “change” the Democratic Party and make it a party of the people. Like a pied piper, he leads his supporters in to the Democratic Party, that graveyard of social movements.
He is also no fool in one aspect, he knows that Clinton is despised by most of his young supporters including women, so he makes clear he is a campaigner for the party not the individual.
His political revolution is only just getting started says Sanders and that, "My job right now is to fight for the strongest possible platform in the Democrat election," It is important to remind ourselves what Sanders means by “political revolution”. In his own words it is drawing people in to the democratic process. And to which political organization should these millions direct their activity? Well the Democratic Party of course, the party of Goldman Sachs, Wall Street and the billionaire class that Sanders has railed about for a while.
To be honest, Sanders is a fraud, he is certainly not a socialist. He tapped in to the righteous anger that exists in US society and the response surprised even him. His efforts now and the reason for holding out on the endorsement is the party platform. Big deal. As if the millions of young people that looked to him for real change did so on the basis of getting some nice sounding phrases in the Democratic Party platform.
As Bruce Dixon of the Black Agenda Report pointed out with regard to the Democratic Party platform: *
“Take the Democratic party platform of 1992, the year Bill Clinton was elected. It promised targeted jobs programs to reduce inner city unemployment, the building of affordable housing, funding of urban mass transit, measures to begin weaning the economy off fossil fuels. It promised a peace dividend, the investment of some of the former Cold War military budget into the civilian economy to create jobs and opportunities. It pledged new environmental protections and committed Democrats to rolling back carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Every bit of this was garbage. On the other hand, the one percent were promised the end of welfare, so that millions would be thrown out onto the low wage labor market, and NAFTA. Those were among the promises that were kept.”
As a friend said to me the other day when we were discussing Sanders platform boasts:
“You know what they say about the platform don’t you?”
“No” I reply innocently.
“It’s what’s left behind when the train leaves the station.”
*At the time of writing I find that the Black Agenda Report website is down so the link above may not be functioning. Hopefully it is a temporary issue and nothing serious, This is an excellent source of political news and analysis.
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