by B. R. GOWANI
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66462430/merlin_90391215.0.jpg)
Gheraoe-d (Encircled or Besieged)
“We were gheraoed* by every Age,
No one ever came to our rescue!
Then, one day, we gheraoed them,
And every tyrant shouted his rage.
No reason to worry:
We shall rise soon despite the pain.
And every city which is now dark
Will see the light once again.”
Revolutionary Pakistani poet Habib Jalib
we have been exploited by most politicians
no one gave thought to our suffering and agony
then one day we put forth Bernie Sanders
and every Democrat motherf****r vehemently opposed this
no reason to panic:
we shall emerge and form a third party
every city now under corporate control will feel the freedom
from those greedy motherf****s
Motherfuckery
Hundreds of millions of people had waited too long for the moment when somebody would match President Donald Trump’s profanity-laced language that he hurls at his targets. That honor fell on a newly elected Congresswoman of Palestinian origin Rashida Tlaib. On January 3, 2019, Representative Tlaib (Democrat from Michigan), while addressing the group MoveOn.org, called Trump a “motherfucker.” (Between 4:32 to 4:40 in the video.)
“And when your son looks at you and says, ‘Mama, look, you won. Bullies don’t win,’ and I said, ‘Baby, they don’t,’ because we’re gonna go in there and we’re going to impeach the motherfucker.”
She was so right. However, it’s time to remember that Trump is not the only motherfucker. There are so many of them; they belong to all walks of life, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller, pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martin Shkreli….
Back in 2011, Trump, then running for president, used the same word for the Chinese during a presidential election race speech:
“Listen you mother fuckers—we’re gonna tax you 25%,”
Motherfuckery is in the DNA of the United States. The entire country is made up of stolen, annexed, conquered, and purchased land (the Louisiana Purchase, the Alaskan Purchase, and the Gadsden Purchase. The amount paid for purchases was meagre.) The indigenous population upon whose land and lives the United States came into existence make up just a little over 1.6% of the total US population! The country was built with slave, indentured, “coolie,” and whatever free or dirt cheap labor the US could lay its hands on. Native Americans and slaves suffered indescribable indignities and gruesome deaths. Now, it is replaced by dirt cheap labor and resources worldwide through corrupt leaders of other countries or through wars when the US is opposed by those leaders. The US is involved in killing hundreds of thousands of people and leaders in name of “democracy” and “human rights.”
When the ruling class gets exposed once in a while for a crime, the usual excuse put forth is:
“This is not who we are.”
But this is exactly who we are:
- We won’t give food to hungry if they have no money.
- We won’t treat sick if they have no money.
- We won’t provide shelter to homeless if they have no money.
- One can go on.
There were thousands of households in Detroit, Michigan whose water had been cut off because they didn’t have $25 to pay the bill. Because of the present COVID-19 or Coronavirus crisis, the city has temporarily decided to restore the water supply. This came about after a huge outcry from the public. Even so, there are confusing steps people have to take before they see their water restored. Atlanta, Georgia and Seattle, Washington were in the same situation. The former executive director of the Detroit Public Health Department Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:
“What I would like to see is the water just being turned on anyway and then working with people to facilitate keeping it on.”
As of August 2017 63 million people that is 1 in 5 people have unsafe drinking water. After looting and plundering so much, the US still cannot provide clean water, housing, health, education, and a decent life to all its residents! The capitalists have their “moderates” in the government who run for offices in the name of people but work for their paymasters.
Moderates
In 2016, Republican candidate Trump lost the 2016 presidential election to Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton by almost three million votes but still became the 50th President of the United States. Thanks to the Electoral College support. But Clinton herself had won the Democratic Party’s nomination through an unfair system against her major opponent, Bernie Sanders. Since loss of presidency to Trump, the Democratic establishment along with its media mouthpieces (CNN, MSNBC, NPR, New York Times, Washington Post, etc.) has put most of its energy on how to remove Trump in November 2020, without talking about changing the rotten system and improving common people’s condition. However, the party’s top leadership/establishment opposes progressive candidates; it lends backing to candidates considered “moderates” who are helpful in perpetuating the status quo. The goal being the presidency instead of changing the system. The Democratic leaders’ argument is not to scare the “moderate” voters – an euphemism for continuing the corrupt mode of governance.
Joe Biden
Obama’s former Vice President Joe Biden’s victory in South Carolina with the help of that state’s powerful black congressman James Clyburn on February 29 gave some hope to Democrat leaders that they won’t have to indulge in too open favoritism against Sanders. Democratic establishment is so damn against Sanders that they don’t mind bringing in the decaying Biden to the forefront. It is doubtful that Biden’s in-coherency and diminishing physical vigor will allow him to reach the White House, that is, if he’s the Democratic Party candidate and is able to beat Trump – unless the Democrat leaders take his skeleton for an oath.
Biden’s views are so regressive and opposite of Sanders, that while reading Nathan Robinson’s profile of Biden, one cannot clearly say whether he is really a Democrat or a Republican mole in the Democratic Party.
After “moderate” Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the 2020 presidential race former president Barack Obama talked with him in order to garner endorsement for Joe Biden. Obama’s chief strategist for presidential campaigns David Axelrod hinted on cable TV that his former boss asked Amy Klobuchar (another “moderate”), and Buttigieg to get behind Biden. They both listened. Obama is a man of action not bullshit like Trump because in the words of Obama:
“The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.”
The above words Obama uttered was at his foundation’s annual gathering of youths where his goal is to create clones in his own image for public office so that the unjust and corrupt neo-liberal policies stay intact. Obama’s *flaw* is Wall Street and the “good” stuff he did is to put a break on Sanders’s race towards winning the Democratic nomination to keep common people from enjoying benefits from Sanders’s reforms!
He also advised the youth:
“This idea of purity, and you’re never compromised, and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff. You should get over that quickly.”
Yes. Obama’s so correct: the ruling class has “no time” for purity and such bull shit, it’s in a race to accumulate as much wealth as it can!
Sanders under siege
The Democratic politicians, highly paid TV anchors, talk show hosts, billionaires, and others are busy portraying Sanders as some kind of a monstrous tyrannical communist and are extremely critical of his inflexibility, combativeness, and non-compromising stand.
For Bill Maher Sanders is “too far out left” because Maher dislikes Sanders’s wealth tax which can affect his $100 million.
Chris Matthews of the MSBNC tried to scare his audience by portraying Sanders who, if he came to power, will have his government execute his opponents in New York City’s Central Park.
Here’s the hellish woman Hillary Clinton:
“Honestly, Bernie just drove me crazy.” “… Nobody likes him. Nobody wants to work with him. He got nothing done. He was a career politician. He didn’t work until he was like 41, and then he got elected to something. It was all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”
After conceding to Hillary, Sanders campaigned for her 58 times and this is how she paid him back.
One can only ask for moderation if the candidate is demanding extreme measures. Sanders’s requirements reflect desperate need for the people such as healthcare for all, free education, writing off student debts, and a wage for workers which would support a decent living by taxing the very rich.
Sanders called these reforms a revolution given this country’s wealth and her resistance against providing all these basic necessities. Sanders wants to implement social programs based on the Danish model.
Elsewhere Sanders said:
“We can’t continue having a nation in which we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major nation on Earth, at the same time as we’re seeing a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires.”
These are just basic reforms helping common people to cope with daily miseries.
Compromise?
One could expect Bernie Sanders to act in moderation, be flexible, behave in a non-combative way, be willing to compromise if he was really acting like a tyrant by
- taking away all wealth of rich people like Jeff Bezos, Mike Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros; … and order them thrown out of US;
- gathering media people who have been poisoning people’s minds with false or fake information into New York’s Central Park for beheading;
- and so on.
If Sanders government were to proceed with the above measures, one can request him for some compromise and one may expect some compromises from Sanders such as
- not throwing out filthy rich from US but finding them work in Amazon warehouses where they’ll have no restrictions like using restrooms during breaks only;
- not beheading the propagandists but instead putting them in total isolation to let them brood over their doggish loyalty towards their corporate masters;
- and so on.
Of course, the real revolutions are bloody and real revolutionaries don’t beg for change for year after year like Bernie has been asking for decades.
Real revolution
Malcolm X was correct when he described the Democrats as political foxes and the Republicans as political wolves:
“This is why I say it’s the ballot or the bullet. It’s liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody. [applause] America today finds herself in a unique situation. Historically, revolutions are bloody, oh yes they are. They have never had a bloodless revolution. Or a non-violent revolution. That don’t happen even in Hollywood [laughter] You don’t have a revolution in which you love your enemy. And you don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it. Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems.
A revolution is bloody, but America is in a unique position. She’s the only country in history, in the position actually to become involved in a bloodless revolution. The Russian Revolution was bloody, Chinese Revolution was bloody, French Revolution was bloody, Cuban Revolution was bloody. And there was nothing more bloody than the American Revolution. But today, this country can become involved in a revolution that won’t take bloodshed. All she’s got to do is give the black man in this country everything that’s due him, everything. [applause]”
Finally, let us voice the elephant in the room and say in the unlikely event that Joe survives the debate and other rigors of the race, and wins against Trump (a virtual impossibility, given Trump’s tactics), his presidency may soon go to his vice president. Let us hope he is extra careful in choosing her as she will reap the reward of the presidency.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com
*(English translation from Hindi/Urdu by Tariq Ali in An Indian Dynasty: The Story of the Nehru-Gandhi Family (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1985), pp. 180-81). The poem was written for Indian workers who indulged in “gherao” or “encircle and besiege”, that is, not letting the owners and managers out of factories and offices unless they agreed in writing to workers’ demands.)