by B. R. GOWANI
Bernie Sanders tries to convince his fervent supporters that Hillary Clinton is not evil incarnate PHOTO/David Horsey/Los Angeles Times
PHOTO/Mirror
The Revolutionary stabs his own comrades
On his website, author/historian William Blum, enumerated instances of foreign governments overthrown (37) and attempts made at overthrowing others(22) between 1949 and 2014 by the United States government, and poses the following question, then answering it himself:
“Why will there never be a coup d’état in Washington?”
Blum is right.
But there is another reason: leaders like Bernie Sanders are responsible for ruining chances for any change. In Davenport, Iowa, in October 2015, amidst applause of his supporters, Bernie Sanders had promised :
“I pledge to you that every day I will fight for the public interest not the corporate interests.” “I will not abandon any segment of American society—whether you’re gay or black or Latino, poor or working class—just because it is politically expedient at a given time.”
Bernie repeated this promise in many forms since the announcement of his candidacy on April 30, 2015 and had attacked Hillary Clinton harshly for her Wall Street connections, for a long time.
But on July 25, 2015, the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Bernie, the leader of the “revolution,” made a u-turn and stabbed his own comrades with this unpalatable announcement:
“I understand that many people here in this convention hall and around the country are disappointed about the final results of the nominating process. I think it’s fair to say that no one is more disappointed than I am. But to all of our supporters – here and around the country – I hope you take enormous pride in the historical accomplishments we have achieved.”
Back in June, when Bernie declared his support for Hillary, he provided the reason as,
“I think the issue right here is I’m going to do everything I can to defeat Donald Trump.”
The Washington Post newspaper owned by Jeff Bozos of Amazon terms Sanders as “a liberal thorn in Clinton’s side.” This is an not true, because Hillary could gulp down liberal thorns such as Sanders without even a belch. Sanders is pushing Hillary to accept some of his reform ideas. Hillary will probably adopt a few ideas that are not too radical. The changes will be more symbolic than substantive. Billionaire Bezos, whose interpretation of the US Declaration of Independence is “Nobody has a right to happiness. You should have a right to pursue it, and I think the core of that is liberty,” is a Hillary supporter like many others in the tech industry. He gained a $1.6 million contract from the US State Department when Hillary was secretary of state. (Bezos also got $600 million contract from the US CIA.)
No hope
One has to, however, remember that no revolutionary change is going to happen after the election, no matter who wins, because both Trump and Hillary are from the upper echelon of society, and don’t want to see any drastic changes. Let us not forget that once upon a time they were good friends, and who knows they maybe friends again in not too distant future.
Indian Parallel
In January 2014, Indian music director Vishal Dadlani described the position of the voters in the Indian election, in a tweet:
“Stuck between a moron and a murderer….what now, India!?”
The moron Dadlani was referring to, was Congress Party’s Rahul Gandhi (scion of the Nehru/Gandhi family), and murderer (for killing of Muslims in 2002 Gujarat riots under his watch) was Bhartiya Janata Party’s Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s Chief Minister. Modi went on to become the Prime Minister in May 2014. This simile would apply to the current US situation: Trump is the moron; and, Hillary is the murderer (Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan).
Another similarity is whereas the Indian National Congress Party uses Muslims mostly just for votes during elections, this is the way the Democratic Party in the US uses blacks – just for votes.
Trump
Yes, Trump is a loathsome unpredictable character who has brought out the Republican bigotry in the open, which in a sense is good because now that one knows the extreme racial sentiments so we can choose to deal with it. His impulsive zeal just can’t let him ignore certain comments he considers inflammatory so he inevitably responds to each and every attack. Whatever the size of his sexual member may be, but Trump’s oral member is too big and showing. The world has witnessed it every time he has opened his mouth. Most of the time it ejects racist, sexist, and other rubbish, however, one has to admit that occasionally sensible things have known to come from it – one such example is: US friendship with Russia.
Trump is a racist, sexist, anti-Muslim bigot, however, he is also a businessman and his central religion is money. If he becomes president, the only thing Saudi Arabia or any other Muslim country, or Mexico or China would have to do is to flatter Trump about his business acumen and invite him to build Trump Towers in their countries. His rhetoric will undoubtedly change. They just have to pamper his ego. As far as carrying out the promises Trump has made to his supporters, he’ll do the things which don’t in any manner hurt him or his rich supporters. This is going to make his supporters mad. Trump is unpredictable but his unpredictability has a method to its madness.
Hillary
Bernie‘s opposition to Trump is understandable but supporting Hillary whom he knows very well is a corrupt warmonger, and has very little to do with children or women or other human beings, is extremely tragic. Someone should have flown in the Libyan/Iraqi/Afghani children who lost their mothers and mothers who lost their children in the US-conducted wars to speak at the Democratic National Convention or at the Republican National Convention against this hellish woman. She was almost beatified at the Convention by her husband, former president Bill Clinton. In the war against Libya, it was Hillary who along with Susan Rice and Samantha Powers played a major role in dragging Obama into that war. It was a sad spectacle at the Convention when Obama endorsed Hillary, the woman who tarnished his reputation, of which he is not left with much, due to the war against Libya. She is also hawkish on Syria. Obama expressed his resistance to involve militarily in Syria thus, “Don’t do stupid shit.” Hillary criticized Obama after she left his Administration:
“Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”
She believes in organizing governments, of course, after removing or extending to support removal of the ones not to her liking. Honduras’ President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a military coup in June 2008. In her 2014 book, Hard Choices (p.266), Hillary reluctantly denounces Zelaya’s removal because
“No one wanted to see a return to the bad old days of frequent coups and unstable governments. I didn’t see any choice but to condemn Zelaya’s ouster.”
But just a few lines later, she shows her true color when she states her plan to hold quick elections so the issue of Zelaya’s return is rendered unimportant. If she was genuinely critical of what “constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup,” according to the US embassy cable, then she would have worked to reinstate Zelaya back to power. But no. Instead, she was quick to erase Zelaya from the Honduran scene as can be seen from the following quote.
“In the subsequent days I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [of Foreign Affairs Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico. We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of [ousted President Manuel] Zelaya moot and give the Honduran people a chance to choose their own future.”
Israel Lobby‘s darling, Hillary is not going to enhance relations with Iran – one of the few achievements of Obama, who is also at least mildly critical of Saudi Arabia, the country which has done the most harm to Muslims worldwide by spreading fanaticism through its barbaric brand of Islam called Wahhabism, with its petrodollars. And the Clinton Foundation has received millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia. In 2011, when Hillary was Secretary of State, Saudi was sold billions of dollars of advanced fighter jets by Boeing, the company which had donated $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Meanwhile Hillary played the role of an “international saleswoman” for Boeing persuading Russia, China, and others to buy Boeing products. This so called champion of women’s rights, doesn’t give a damn about Saudi women’s human rights.
Hitlerian-scale support
The two parties (Democratic and Republican) are part of the same ruling class and they want to maintain status quo. They both screw the common populace, the only difference being the Republicans don’t believe in foreplay, whereas the Democratic Party loves it and never forget to use lubricant. Tons of verbal lubricant was on display at the DNC. The support for Hillary from the upper echelons of the country is growing on a Hitlerian scale. She has support from several quarters: billionaires include Michael Bloomberg (former mayor of New York) and George Soros; members from the opposite camp, i.e., the “official opposition” Republican Party, including former president George H. W. Bush (papa Bush) have voiced their vote for her; as too have several Hollywood stars.
Hillary is loved by the defense contractor employees. Nine out of world’s ten biggest arms producers supports Hillary. She is a favorite of the drug companies, also.
News media, one of the strongest advocate of ruling class policies, is mostly behind Hillary. Trump’s lewd remarks and his treatment of women is utterly deplorable and should be condemned and the media did its work. But is Hillary’s wars or support for wars, which leads to death and destruction, any less disgraceful? Actually, it is more shameful because Hillary’s hands have blood on them. Probably Trump’s business may have caused, directly or indirectly, his worker’s or workers’ death, his hands have no such blood as Hillary’s have. But you don’t hear much about Hillary’s death and destruction on news media. (The women’s groups who just love to go after Trump never utter anything about Hillary’s wars.) Bruce A. Dixon reminds us of Malcolm X’s astute observation in the 1960s as to how the US system operates:
“If [President Lyndon B.] Johnson had been running all by himself, he would not have been acceptable to anyone. The only thing that made him acceptable to the world was that the shrewd capitalists, the shrewd imperialists, knew that the only way people would run toward the fox would be if you showed them a wolf. So they created a ghastly alternative. And it had the whole world — including people who call themselves Marxists — hoping that Johnson would beat [Senator Barry] Goldwater [of Arizona].”
Trump is turned into a wolf of whom most people are scared of.
Revolutionary change
The agenda of the ruling class is never in alignment with the majority of the population; but it has to represent and maintain some semblance of smooth running of the capitalist system. It has to make people feel that they are a part of it. But how do you get the people to agree to a program that is mostly beneficial for the ruling class? That work is undertaken by the news media which manufactures consent of the people through constant lies, propaganda, scare tactics, creating enemies, and so on. Almost ninety years ago, reporter Walter Lippmann had suggested a way to maintain a distance from the “bewildered herd.”
“The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.”
The news media does it’s work with great panache and helps the perpetuation of the facade of “democracy“.
But now things are changing. No doubt social media such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. have provided people with platforms to register their grievances, but its greater impact on governance remains ineffectual. The New York Times’ motto: “All the News That’s Fit to Print” but news deemed unfit from the point of the elite class is to be ignored or censored. A case in point: many voices writing on Facebook against the Indian armed forces’ atrocities and the killing of Kashmiri guerilla fighter Burhan Wani and dozens of others have been censored. (Click here, here, and here to learn about them.) The Facebook response against people’s outcry opposing the censorship was typical to what other giant corporations give: refrain from displaying anger and instead rely on diplomatic bullshit.
“We are looking into this matter and will respond as soon. Thanks for reaching out.”
So now it is people like Mark Zuckerberg who’ll be deciding what is “terrorism” and what is not “terrorism.”
In a rare instance when Facebook’s Zuckerberg decides to support a decent cause, such as Black Lives Matter, the employees try to counter it with “all lives matter.” The reason is that whites are a majority in the country and at Facebook they are in extreme majority; there are only 2% blacks in that company. In the US, the black population is 13%.
The freedom the general public is enjoying right now, wouldn’t last too long if deemed threatening to the ruling class. The tech companies will come up with some technology to stop people’s uprising on social media without affecting their companies’ profit.
But revolutionary change is not totally impossible. Through a combination of two ways it can be attained: one is by strengthening the Green Party and its leader Jill Stein. What is needed is that leaders like Ralph Nader, Nina Turner, Kshama Sawant, Barbara Ehrenreich, and other like minded people should join hands and try to make Green Party a viable alternative for people tired of corrupt warmongers from the Democratic and Republican parties.
The other is through revolutionary acts. Today’s Malcolm Xs, Che Guevaras, Frantz Fanons are whistle blowers like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange of Wikileaks, Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning). Nowadays, the states are too powerful, ruthless, and murderous and it’s not easy to fight them without causing too much death and destruction. What could be done instead, is to release government and corporate documents either through hacking or stealing, to expose their devilish plans. It is no doubt the riskiest way, however, is also the most harmless way. Of course, if you are caught, like Manning, then your years will be spent naked in a tiny cell.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com