Tag Archives: Duopoly

America’s War Party

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By Steven Lendman

Source: SteveLendman Blog

America is a one-party state with two wings, each virtually identical to the other, differing only in style and rhetoric.

They’re in lockstep on issues mattering most – notably supporting endless wars at the expense of peace, equity and justice.

America’s so-called war of independence changed little, afforded no benefits for “we the people,” did nothing more than substitute new management for old.

Civil war had nothing to do with freeing slaves, everything to do with keeping the nation intact and serving dominant monied interests. War assures huge profits.

19th century wars were waged to steal land and resources from America’s native people, annex Texas, then half of Mexico, followed by Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, Hawaii, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Canal Zone, Puerto Rico and other territories.

Peace candidate Woodrow Wilson manipulated public sentiment in office, turned largely pacifist Americans into raging German haters and got the war he wanted.

Senator Robert La Follette/later 1924 Progressive Party presidential aspirant said at the time “(e)very nation has its war party.”

“It is not the party of democracy. It is the party of autocracy. It seeks to dominate absolutely.”

“It is commercial, imperialistic, ruthless. It tolerates no opposition. It is just as arrogant, just as despotic, in London, or in Washington, as in Berlin.”

“The American Jingo is twin to the German Junker. If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another.”

Yesteryear’s “Jingo” is today’s bipartisan neocon, the curse infesting Washington, waging endless wars on humanity at home and abroad – risking another global one with super-weapons able to extinguish life on earth.

Socialist leader Eugene Debs was imprisoned for opposing America’s involvement in WW I. Ahead of his ordeal, his Socialist Party called the war “a crime against the people of the United States.”

He said “(t)hey tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people.”

“That is too much, even for a joke…Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder… And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.”

During the war my dad was conscripted to fight in, about 900 people were imprisoned for opposing it. Tens of thousands declared themselves conscientious objectors and refused to serve.

True to its tradition, The New York Times supported America’s war party, urged its readers to inform authorities of “any evidence of sedition” instead of denouncing the great war preceding the greater one two decades later.

Endless others followed, raging today in multiple theaters, much more likely coming, possible nuclear war today more threatening than perhaps any previous time.

Monied interests support America’s war party – benefitting hugely at the expense of most others.

Resisting tyranny is a universal right and obligation. We have a choice – resist or perish.

 

America the Epicenter of Pure Evil

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By Stephen Lendman

Source: SteveLendmanBlog

No nation in world history harmed more people grievously over a longer duration than America – never beautiful, no bastion of democratic values, no advocate of world peace and stability.

Bipartisan lunatics run things, a criminal cabal, humanity’s greatest threat. The domestic and geopolitical agendas of each new administration is worse than its predecessors.

Elections when held are farcical. Duopoly power always wins, monied interests alone served, ordinary people increasingly harmed – full-blown tyranny and nuclear war perhaps following the next major state-sponsored false flag.

Americans have no say on how they’re governed, democracy a mirage. None whatever exists. Scoundrel media and self-serving politicians pretend otherwise – most people either unaware of how they’re ill-served or too indifferent to try changing things, going along with what harms them.

Intelligent people I know are too preoccupied in their daily lives to realize and get involved against the grave danger facing humanity.

The likelihood of a Hillary presidency should terrify everyone – a war goddess, the greatest threat to world peace of any leader in US history if she succeeds Obama.

Yet media scoundrels serve as her press agents. Polls show her ahead. US voters are so out-of-touch, uninformed and indifferent, they support what demands opposition.

I tremble at what’s coming with her in charge. Things may never be the same again. How many more wars will be waged?

How many victims will die or be gravely harmed with her as president? Will the remnants of social justice be entirely discarded? Will police state ruthlessness be harsher than ever? Is unthinkable nuclear war likely?

Is Orwell’s dystopian nightmare on steroids our future? Will Americans ever awaken to the clear and present danger they face? Will they revolt or remain dismissive?

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

‘What It Takes to Be President of the American Police State: Anti-Big Money, Anti-War, Pro-Constitution, Freedom-Loving Candidates Need Not Apply’

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By John W. Whitehead

Source: A Government of Wolves

“The qualifications for president seem to be that one is willing to commit mass murder one minute and hand presidential medals of freedom to other war criminals in the next. One need only apply if one has very loose, flexible, or non-existent morality.”—Author and activist Cindy Sheehan

Long gone are the days when the path to the White House was open to anyone who met the Constitution’s bare minimum requirements of being a natural born citizen, a resident of the United States for 14 years, and 35 years of age or older.

Today’s presidential hopefuls must jump through a series of hoops aimed at selecting the candidates best suited to serve the interests of the American police state. Candidates who are anti-war, anti-militarization, anti-Big Money, pro-Constitution, pro-individual freedom and unabashed advocates for the citizenry need not apply.

The carefully crafted spectacle of the presidential election with its nail-biting primaries, mud-slinging debates, caucuses, super-delegates, popular votes and electoral colleges has become a fool-proof exercise in how to persuade a gullible citizenry into believing that their votes matter.

Yet no matter how many Americans go to the polls on November 8, “we the people” will not be selecting the nation’s next president.

While voters might care about where a candidate stands on healthcare, Social Security, abortion and immigration—hot-button issues that are guaranteed to stir up the masses, secure campaign contributions and turn any election into a circus free-for-all—those aren’t the issues that will decide the outcome of this presidential election.

What decides elections are money and power.

We’ve been hoodwinked into believing that our votes count, that we live in a democracy, that elections make a difference, that it matters whether we vote Republican or Democrat, and that our elected officials are looking out for our best interests. Truth be told, we live in an oligarchy, and politicians represent only the profit motives of the corporate state, whose leaders know all too well that there is no discernible difference between red and blue politics, because there is only one color that matters in politics—green.

As much as the Republicans and Democrats like to act as if there’s a huge difference between them and their policies, they are part of the same big, brawling, noisy, semi-incestuous clan. Watch them interact at social events—hugging and kissing and nudging and joking and hobnobbing with each other—and it quickly becomes clear that they are not sworn enemies but partners in crime, united in a common goal, which is to maintain the status quo.

The powers-that-be will not allow anyone to be elected to the White House who does not answer to them.

Who are the powers-that-be, you might ask?

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the powers-that-be are the individuals and corporations who profit from America’s endless wars abroad and make their fortunes many times over by turning America’s homeland into a war zone. They are the agents and employees of the military-industrial complex, the security-industrial complex, and the surveillance-industrial complex. They are the fat cats on Wall Street who view the American citizenry as economic units to be bought, sold and traded on a moment’s notice. They are the monied elite from the defense and technology sectors, Hollywood, and Corporate America who believe their money makes them better suited to decide the nation’s future. They are the foreign nationals to whom America is trillions of dollars in debt.

One thing is for certain: the powers-that-be are not you and me.

In this way, the presidential race is just an exaggerated farce of political theater intended to dazzle, distract and divide us, all the while the police state marches steadily forward.

It’s a straight-forward equation: the candidate who wins the White House will be the one who can do the best job of ensuring that the powers-that-be keep raking in the money and acquiring ever greater powers. In other words, for any viable presidential candidate to get elected today that person must be willing to kill, lie, cheat, steal, be bought and sold and made to dance to the tune of his or her corporate overlords.

The following are just some of the necessary qualifications for anyone hoping to be appointed president of the American police state. Candidates must:

Help grow the military–industrial complex: Fifty-five years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the growth of the “military-industrial complex” in his farewell address, the partnership between the government, the military and private corporations has resulted in the permanent militarization of America. From militarized police and the explosive growth of SWAT teams to endless wars abroad, the expansion of private sector contractors, and never-ending blowback from our foreign occupations, we have become a nation permanently at war. As the New York Times pointed out, “themilitary is the true ‘third rail’ of American politics.” The military-industrial complex understands the value of buying the presidency, and has profited from the incessant warmongering of Obama and his predecessors. If money is any indicator of who the defense industry expects to win this November, thus far, Hillary Clinton is winning the money race, having collected more campaign contributions from employees with the 50 largest military contractors.

Police the rest of the world using U.S. troops: The U.S. military empire’s determination to police the rest of the world has resulted in more than 1.3 million U.S. troops being stationed at roughly 1000 military bases in over 150 countriesaround the world, including 48,000 in Japan, 37,000 in Germany, 27,000 in South Korea and 9800 in Afghanistan. That doesn’t include the number of private contractors pulling in hefty salaries at taxpayer expense. In Afghanistan, for example, private contractors outnumber U.S. troops three to one. Now comes the news that the U.S. is preparing to sendtroops to Libya on a long-term mission to fight ISIS.

Sow seeds of discord and foment wars among other nations under the guise of democracy: It’s not enough for the commander-in-chief to lead the United States into endless wars abroad. Any successful presidential candidate also needs to be adept at stirring up strife within other nations under the guise of spreading democracy. The real motive, of course, is creating new markets for the nation’s #1 export: weapons. In this way, the U.S. is constantly arming so-called “allies” with deadly weapons, only to later wage war against these same nations for possessing weapons of mass destruction. It happened in Iraq when the U.S. sold Saddam Hussein weapons to build his war machine. It happened in Syria when the U.S. provided rebel fighters with military equipment and munitions, only to have them seized by ISIS and used against us. Now comes the news that President Obama has agreed to sell weapons to Vietnam, lifting a decades-long embargo against the nation whose civil war claimed the lives of more than 90,000 Americans.

Speak of peace while slaughtering innocent civilians: Barack Obama’s campaign and subsequent presidency illustrates this principle perfectly. The first black American to become president, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize long before he had done anything to truly deserve it. He has rewarded the Nobel committee’s faith in him by becoming one of the most hawkish war presidents to lead the nation, overseeing a targeted-killing drone campaign that has resulted in thousands of civilian casualties and deaths. Ironically, while Obama has made no significant effort to de-escalate government-inflicted violence or de-weaponize militarized police, he has gone to great lengths to denounce and derail private gun ownership by American citizens.

Prioritize surveillance in the name of security over privacy: Since 9/11, the Surveillance State has undergone a dramatic boom, thanks largely to the passage of the USA Patriot Act and so-called “secret” interpretations of the mammoth law allowing the NSA and other government agencies to spy on Americans’ electronic communications. What began as a government-driven program under George W. Bush has grown under Obama into a mass surveillance private sector that makes its money by spying on American citizens. As Fortune reports, “In response to security concerns after 9/11, Americans witnessed the growth of a massive domestic security apparatus, fueled by federal largesse.” That profit-incentive has opened up a multi-billion dollar video surveillance industry that is blanketing the country with surveillance cameras—both governmental and private—which can be accessed by law enforcement at a moment’s notice.

Promote the interests of Corporate America and Big Money over the rights of the citizenry: Almost every major government program hailed as benefiting Americans—affordable healthcare, the war on terror, airport security, police-worn body cameras—has proven to be a Trojan Horse aimed at enriching Corporate America while leaving Americans poorer, less secure and less free. For instance, the so-called “affordable” health care mandated by Congress has become yet another costly line item in already strained household budgets for millions of Americans.

Expand the powers of the imperial president while repeatedly undermining the rule of law: George W. Bush assumed near-absolute power soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Unfettered by Congress or the Constitution, Bush led the “war on terror” abroad and championed both the USA Patriot Act and Homeland Security Department domestically. This, of course, led to the Bush Administration’s demand that presidential wartime powers permit the President to assume complete control over any and all aspects of an international war on terrorism. Such control included establishing military tribunals and eliminating basic rights long recognized under American law.

When Barack Obama ascended to the presidency in 2008, there was a sense, at least among those who voted for him, that the country might change for the better. Those who watched in awe as President Bush chipped away at our civil liberties over the course of his two terms as president thought that perhaps the young, charismatic Senator from Illinois would reverse course and put an end to some of the Bush administration’s worst transgressions—the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, the torture, the black site prisons, and the never-ending wars that have drained our resources, to name just a few. As we near the end of Obama’s two terms in office, that fantasy has proven to be just that: a fantasy. Indeed, President Obama has not only carried on the Bush legacy, but has taken it to its logical conclusion. Obama has gone beyond Guantanamo Bay, gone beyond spying on Americans’ emails and phone calls, and gone beyond bombing countries without Congressional authorization. As journalist Amy Goodman warned, “the recent excesses of U.S. presidential power are not transient aberrations, but the creation of a frightening new normal, where drone strikes, warrantless surveillance, assassination and indefinite detention are conducted with arrogance and impunity, shielded by secrecy and beyond the reach of law.”

Act as if the work of the presidency is a hardship while enjoying all the perks: The race for the White House is an expensive, grueling horse race: candidates must have at a minimum $200 or $300 million or more just to get to the starting line. The total cost for this year’s election is estimated to exceed $5 billion and could go as high as $10 billion. However, for the winner, life in the White House is an endless series of star-studded dinner parties, lavish vacations and perks the likes of which the average American will never enjoy. The grand prize winner will rake in a $400,000 annual salary (not including $100,000 a year for travel expenses, $19,000 for entertaining, $50,000 for “general” expenses and last but not least, $1,000,000 for “unanticipated” expenses), live rent-free in a deluxe, 6-storey, 55,000 square foot mansion that comes complete with its own movie theater and bowling alley, round-the-clock staff, florists, valets and butlers. Upon leaving the White House, presidents are gifted with hefty pensions, paid staff and office space, travel allowances and lifetime medical care. Ex-presidents can also expand upon their largesse by writing books and giving speeches (Bill Clinton was given a $15 million advance for his memoir and routinely makes upwards of $100,000 per speech).

Clearly, it doesn’t matter where a candidate claims to stand on an issue as long as he or she is prepared to obey the dictates of the architects, movers and shakers, and shareholders of the police state once in office.

So here we are once again, preparing to embark upon yet another delusional, reassurance ritual of voting in order to sustain the illusion that we have a democratic republic when, in fact, what we have is a dictatorship without tears. Once again, we are left feeling helpless in the face of a well-funded, heavily armed propaganda machine that is busily spinning political webs with which the candidates can lure voters. And once again we are being urged to vote for the lesser of two evils.

Railing against a political choice that offers no real choice, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson snarled, “How many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?”

Remember, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

Why Americans Must Demolish the Political Duopoly and Create a New Progressive Alliance

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By Thomas Baldwin

Source: Dandelion Salad

A Call to Action!

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”– Albert Einstein

Duopoly: “preponderant influence or control by two political powers.”

Demolish: “to destroy by breaking apart; to put an end to.”

Corporate fascism (or Corporatism): “the complete merger of corporate and state entities to create a political entity.”

The United States is experiencing a serious crisis and most Americans know it. Our government and the Washington establishment is disintegrating at near breath taking speed. It could well be the most serious situation in at least a hundred years. For years now several authors have described our government in Washington as being “broken” or “dysfunctional”. But these words seem inadequate any longer.

It is much more like a “living” entity which is dying and is in a critical state; all vital signs are poor. Crises are generated in Washington from incompetence and corruption. Little or nothing gets done; few if any serious problems are addressed. Everything is addressed as “partisan.” But that is a delusion because as I will mention later there is really only one party with two different factions serving the corporate fascists. When the two factions finally agree on something, then it is called “bipartisan” because the two political parties appear to be constantly fighting over power and money. What, if anything, is to be done about this evil charade?

Read the full article at  Dandelion Salad.

Hillary and Tim Kaine: a Match Made on Wall Street

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By Eric Draitser

Source: CounterPunch

Earlier this week, Bernie Sanders warned that Hillary Clinton’s eventual vice presidential pick must not be someone from the milieu of Wall Street and Corporate America. And while Sanders is still fighting to win the Democratic Party nomination in what many have argued is a rigged system with a foregone conclusion, it appears that Sanders is also intent on influencing the course of the Clinton campaign and the party itself.

In a thinly veiled demand that Clinton embrace the core principles of the Sanders campaign in order to secure the support of Sanders’s political base, the insurgent Democratic candidate hoped aloud “that the vice-presidential candidate will not be from Wall Street, will be somebody who has a history of standing up and fighting for working families, taking on the drug companies…taking on Wall Street, taking on corporate America, and fighting for a government that works for all of us, not just the 1%.”

And while that description may sound positive for its sheer idealism, it does not seem to account for the fact that banks and corporations effectively own both major parties, and that nearly every top Democrat is in various ways connected to the very same entities. In any event, it is useful still to examine a few of the potential Clinton running mates in order to assess just what sort of forces are going to be put in motion to help deliver a Clinton presidency.

The Actors on the Playbill

Beltway pundits are fond of remarking that Tim Kaine, the underwhelming centrist Democrat senator (and former Governor) from Virginia, is at the top of the list for Clinton. He’s safe. He’s experienced. He’s safe. He’s a Democratic Party loyalist with experience fundraising. Oh, and did I mention that he’s safe? Such is the general tenor of the conversation around Kaine, a politician with a long track record and a mostly forgettable personality known more to DC insiders than to the general voting public.

What could be better for Hillary Clinton, perhaps the least liked Democratic (presumptive) nominee in decades, than to have a party establishment insider who represents the status quo as her running mate in an election year that will undoubtedly be remembered for the ostensibly anti-establishment candidates and rhetoric on display throughout?

To be fair, Kaine does represent Virginia, a swing state that is crucial for Donald Trump, and which could spell victory for Clinton should she carry it.  And of course, Kaine can also posture as “tough on Wall Street” from his days as DNC Chairman and party mouthpiece during the passage of the so-called “Wall Street reform” bill.  Despite nothing substantive coming out of the bill, Kaine is still able to cash in the political currency derived from that bill, and perhaps meekly shield Clinton from continued attacks vis-à-vis her connections to Wall Street.

Of course Kaine also comes with his own baggage, including his anti-abortion stance which earned him the ire of many pro-choice activists in Virginia when he was Governor.  Considering the shameless droning from Clinton and her backers about being “the first woman president,” it would certainly raise serious questions – and open up an obvious angle of attack for Trump – were she to sport her feminism and focus on women’s reproductive rights by selecting a man with an anti-abortion record.

A look down the list of other potential choices reveals that Clinton truly has very little to choose from.  Both Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julian Castro, as well as Labor Secretary Tom Perez, have both had their names bandied around as Clinton seeks to solidify the Latino vote in an election where the Republican candidate has worked tirelessly to alienate that all-important demographic as much as possible.  But of course, the obvious question to be asked in response to either of these potential selections would be “Who?” Neither Castro nor Perez is well known nationally, nor have either of them won major elections or really done anything of note in their tenure in Obama’s cabinet.  Despite being Latinos, they are utterly forgettable, and unlikely to bring significant returns to Clinton.

While other names such as New Jersey junior senator Cory Booker, as well as Ohio senator Sherrod Brown, have been discussed, both men hail from states with Republican governors, meaning that were they to accept a VP slot, their senate vacancies would be likely filled by Republicans, a scenario that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has already said “Hell no!” to, vowing to “yell and scream to stop that.”

Who Else Is “Ready for Hillary”?

So that then leaves the two most interesting potential running mates: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders himself. Warren, who conspicuously refused to endorse Clinton over Sanders, has tremendous upside for Clinton as she has been perhaps the Democratic Party’s most vehement opponent of Wall Street, having led many high profile attacks on the major banks in her tenure in the Senate.  From a public relations branding perspective, she is essentially the female Bernie Sanders, a progressive Democrat who presents herself as an ally of working people and an enemy of bankers. For Clinton, Warren would also round out the “First Woman…” card, allowing the Clinton campaign to quite literally become a campaign about breaking the glass ceiling in US politics. The stump speeches almost write themselves.

Finally, there’s Mr. #FeelTheBern himself. His latest comments (mentioned above) certainly do have a subtext that implies his willingness to accept a running mate slot.  Having fashioned himself as the champion of the middle class and threat to the Washington establishment, Bernie would provide much in the way of credibility to a lackluster Clinton campaign which has failed to excite even many ardent Democrats.  Sanders would also guarantee a unified Democratic Party ticket, and provide much needed defense of Clinton’s left flank.  In short, Sanders, like Warren, would give anti-Clinton progressives the pretext many of them need to justify their voting for the much-hated Clinton.

Never mind the fact that neither Sanders nor Warren would actually do anything to combat Wall Street finance capital as Vice President.  Never mind the fact that no one on Wall Street is particularly scared of either politician being given the ceremonial power that comes with the Vice Presidency.  These are just the kind of uncomfortable, but inescapable, facts that progressives must choose to ignore.

The difficulty for either Sanders or Warren is the marketing of their decision to left progressives, some of whom would see collaboration with Clinton and the Clinton political machine as a betrayal and a complete sell-out.  However, aside from driving a some relatively small number of progressives to vote for Jill Stein and the Green Party (or stay home entirely), it is unlikely that the negative impact in the progressive base would amount to anything more than some hurt feelings followed by the usual acquiescence to the Democratic Party line.

If such an analysis sounds cynical and jaded, that’s because it is. Perhaps a better descriptor would be disdainful.  Indeed, as someone who watched with bemused melancholy as progressives lined up to support Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, my position on support for ANY Democrat is the same as Harry Reid’s position on swing state senator VP picks: Hell no!

Indeed, the very notion of collaboration with a war criminal and Wall Street puppet such as Clinton is anathema to everything the left and “progressives” are supposed to stand for.

Of course, there is also the elephant (and donkey) in the room: both major parties are wholly owned subsidiaries of finance capital and the corporations that rule over us. This is the realization that millions of Americans have already made, and which millions more are making.  This is the realization that keeps Democratic and Republican apparatchiks up at night.  And this critical revelation is what Bernie, Liz, & Co. are there to suppress.

Eric Draitser is the founder of StopImperialism.org and host of CounterPunch Radio. He is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. You can reach him at ericdraitser@gmail.com.

The Corporate Liberal in America

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By Jason Hirthler

Source: CounterPunch

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s greatest stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Whether seated in Congress or exiting a voting booth, a corporate liberal is someone who supports anything progressive that does not challenge corporate power. In practice, this means corporate liberals will fight for progressive identity politics. If it has to do with race, sexual orientation, and gender, it generally doesn’t challenge corporate power. Major corporations support progressive positions on those issues, too. Corporate liberals march for gay rights and the larger LGBTQ community itself. They support feminism. They support reproductive rights. They support African-American protests against police brutality—up to the point where they become threatening to the establishment. (Bill Clinton did initiate the prison industrial complex that unduly incarcerates huge numbers of minorities.)

This support is all to the good. Tremendous progress has been made by popular protest of the devastating prejudices that have for years denied individual rights. But when their elected Democrats undermine economic justice, promote imperial warfare, and refuse to seriously address climate change, corporate liberals just look the other way. As Joe Clifford noted in his piece on Bernie Sanders, being a corporate liberal also means rejecting, “…a ban on fracking, a proposal to oppose TPP, the $15 per hour minimum wage proposal, a call for single-payer health care, and a statement of opposition to the illegal Israeli occupation.” These proposals, courageously put forward by James Zogby, Bill Mckibben, Cornell West and the rest of the Sanders contingent at the recent Democratic Platform Committee meeting in Washington, were all struck down. In a beautiful expression of moral courage, West refused to back the platform in its final iteration, saying,

“[If] we can’t say a word about [Trans-Pacific Partnership], if we can’t talk about Medicare for all explicitly, if the greatest prophetic voice dealing with impending ecological catastrophe can hardly win a vote and if we can’t even acknowledge occupation as something that’s real in the lives of a slice of humanity … it just seems to me there’s no way in good conscience I can say take it to the next stage.”

Yada Yada Yada

Words like these have no effect on the corporate liberal. If there’s a centimeter’s difference between their Democratic platform and the diseased corpus of Republican anarchism, the corporate conscience is salved. A corporate liberal is the one that puts “occupation” in quotes. A corporate liberal never makes the perfect the enemy of the good. A corporate liberal believes in reform, in humanitarian warfare, in the responsibility to protect, and in The New York Times front page. A corporate liberal supports all of this, though reform may be glacial, though good wars may slay millions, though interventions may undermine sovereignty, and though The Times may be rife with half-truth. It makes no difference, so long as reform is better than rollback, Barack’s slaughter is numerically less than Dubya’s, and The Washington Post is marginally more truthful than FOX News. As long as you can trust Erin Burnett more than Bill O’Reilly, it makes no difference that we will move further and further to the right, picking up steam until we barrel straight into corporate fascism. So long as the corporate liberal sits to the left of the patrician publican, he has some claim on the progressive mandate. Or so he says. Yet the best way to repel fascism, and realize that progressive mandate, is by joining a movement headed left, rather than a party moving right.

Nothing Forbidden

As Alan Nasser elucidates, there is nothing intolerable in the lesser evilism of the corporate liberal. He will endure—or more likely, watch others endure—intolerable realities while maintaining the unblinking rectitude of the blind ideologue. Author Chris Hedges writes that capitalism is “plunging us into a state of neo-feudalism, perpetual war, ecological disaster, and a dystopian nightmare.” But this, too, is not intolerable. We must accept it in order to ensure that the real nightmare—whomever happens to be running on the Republican ticket—is barred from the White House forever.

We must tolerate whatever Democrats do because they are better than Republicans. Even if that means, as it surely has and surely will, for all the identity groups corporate liberals support, a deteriorating quality of life. Lower incomes, higher unemployment. Bigger debts, bullshit jobs. Higher infant mortality, higher heart disease. More inequality, less social support. Less social support, more incarceration. More suicide, more alcoholism, more drug abuse, more debt, more stress, more unhappiness. And, if one is aware enough, the consciousness of having—perhaps unwittingly at the time—for more slaughter of brown people abroad, and the deliberate aggression against nuclear powers that will raise the prospect of nuclear extermination for millions. The Democrats have no such mandate, but the corporate liberal gives them the power to pretend they do. These are the wages of neoliberalism and imperialism, enabled by the logic of the lesser evil.

Like Dr. King, Karl Marx understood the major threat was not the fanatic on the fringe, but the moderate in the middle. The real threat is not the extremist, who will burn out by necessity if not already burned down by the moderate herd. It is the moderate herd that threatens to permit the intolerable through gradualism. Incremental genocide. Slow-motion regime change. The soft coup. The generational heist of millions of working class jobs. The decade-long liquidation of working class home equity. The century-long evisceration of labor rights. The hidden decades of disinformation campaigns that conflate freedom with free markets. Marx said, “Our task is that of ruthless criticism, and much more against ostensible friends than against open enemies.” He understood what King did, which is part of the reason why they are two of the most revolutionary figures of the last couple of centuries of Western civilization.

Too Much to Lose

Corporate liberals rehearse Manichean pieties about good and evil locked in a dualistic embrace, fighting to the death. There are no third parties in this vision. It is a necessary dualism. Hence the occasional need to undermine democracy to save it, as Hillary’s campaign demonstrated through repeated voting irregularities and financial chicanery engineered through her DNC front. It’s just simpler that way. For a political party of millionaires backed by billionaires, it just doesn’t do to disturb the status quo, rock the boat, upset the apple cart, shake the foundations, incite protest, disturb our creature comforts, move us out of our comfort zone, spark rebellion, overthrow the system, or change the world.

Is lesser evilism an elaborate rationale for preserving the status quo? Lenin said you can’t make a revolution in white gloves, and there are plenty of corporate liberals paying lip service to progress while glad-handing its well-heeled antagonists. That is why, in the end, corporate liberals are anti-revolutionaries. They would rather save capitalism than endure a potentially messy transition to socialism. Leave the revolution to Universal Studios and stubble-cheeked Third World rebels in hand-knitted berets. Social reforms in capitalist countries seem to happen like they did in South Africa, where identity politics achieve astounding successes, and calls for economic justice are swallowed up in the celebratory din. This is because corporate power cares deeply about economic power, but couldn’t care less about your sexual identity. For corporations—even if the executive board morally supports it—the gay community is ultimately another target market, a rich source of disposable income to be mined.

The least oppressed in any electorate always seem to be the greatest obstacle to change. Always willing to put justice on layaway. Always arguing for incrementalism, which strikes me as a luxury of the leisure class. Social progress will have little impact on them anyway, but paying lip service to its values will burnish their reputation. The discomfiting appearance of Bernie Sanders disturbed the polished script rehearsed by the Hillary camp for years. It was her turn, the first female president, upholding the rights of the vulnerable and achieving hard-won incremental gains through patience, hard work, and political acumen. For a moment, the Hillary faithful looked harried, wrong-footed, and exposed to the will of the mob. But now that the dodgy primaries are done, and Bernie has scampered back to the warmth of the herd, we can return to the language of compromise and the lesser evil. Had Bernie broke with the party he refused to technically join for 40 years, joined Jill Stein on the Green ticket, garnered support from voices like Kshama Sawant and movements like Socialist Alternative and Black Lives Matter, he could have founded a serious alternative to the mercenary duopoly. But he fell for the ruse of internal reform. But not everyone does. King continued in his Birmingham letter to discuss the white moderate, saying he was the one,

“… who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

Sound familiar? King’s white moderate and Marx’s ostensible friend is our corporate liberal. Same spin, different decade. The corporate liberal is an embodiment of the idea that political parties are the graveyards of movements. Hedges himself wrote a book called, “Death of the Liberal Class” five years ago. It should’ve been the elegy before the interment of the Democratic Party as a serious option in electoral politics. Yet here we are, about to anoint another corporate liberal to the highest seat in the land. In that case, consider this article yet another epitaph awaiting its headstone. Let’s hope it’s not a long wait. Voices like Sawant’s and the momentum of movements like BLM give us reason to think it won’t be.

Jason Hirthler is a veteran of the communications industry and author of The Sins of Empire: Unmasking American Imperialism. He lives in New York City and can be reached at jasonhirthler@gmail.com.

Bernie Sanders Endorses the World’s Greatest (Presumptive) Evil

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Bernie Sanders ran an extraordinary race, making lots of noise and causing great consternation, but never daring to leave the corporate duopoly. Now his job is to deliver the bulk of his sheep into Hillary Clinton’s enclosure. This final mission will require lots of lying, but Bernie got off to a good start with his surrender speech. “The Clintons have an infinite capacity for lying, and now they’ve got Bernie Sanders lying for them, too.”

By Glen Ford

Source: Black Agenda Report

“Sanders’ job is to shepherd his flock into a little leftwing corner of Hillary’s Big Tent, right next to the latrine and alongside her loyal Black Democrats.”

Bernie Sanders this Tuesday consummated his sheepdog agreement with the Democratic Party, delivering a formal endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president.  The capitulation script that Sanders read in New Hampshire, with the cackling Banshee of War at his side, could have been written back in the spring of last year, when he formally threw his hat into the race. From the very start, Sanders was firm in his allegiance to the Democratic wing of the corporate duopoly, and any indications to the contrary were purely products of his supporters wishful imaginations.

Bernie Sanders did not lie to his followers; they deceived themselves, just as most of them – the ones that were old enough – had fooled themselves into believing that Barack Obama was a peace candidate and a political progressive back in 2008, although Obama’s actual record and policy pronouncements showed him clearly to be a corporate imperialist warmonger – a political twin of his principal primary election opponent, Hillary Clinton and her philandering, huckster husband.

Back then, phony leftists like Bill Fletcher and Tom Hayden swore on their mothers’ honor that Obama’s campaign was really a people’s movement, a prelude to revolution – as if the Democrats, a militarist corporate political party, could give birth to an anti-corporate, anti-militarist people’s revolution.

Real Fascist vs. Trump Cartoon Version

Bernie Sanders threw around the word “revolution” quite a bit. He was still using it in his surrender speech on Tuesday, assuring his flock that the revolution would continue as he marched arm in arm with the most dangerous person in the world, today – far more dangerous than Donald Trump, who will be buried in a landslide of historical proportions in November by a multi-billion dollar mountain of campaign contributions from Hillary Clinton’s Democratic and Republican friends on Wall Street. Sanders’ job is to shepherd his flock into a little leftwing corner of Hillary’s Big Tent, right next to the latrine and alongside her loyal Black Democrats, who are so meek in the presence of power that they won’t even complain about the smell.

In his kow-tow to the Queen of Chaos, Sanders put words in Clinton’s mouth that she never really said, and that would be lies if she did say them. Hillary “feels” this, Hillary “believes” that – it was as if he could read Hillary’s mind.  Hillary “knows,” said Sanders, “that something is very wrong when the very rich become richer while many others are working longer hours for lower wages.” Maybe she does know that, but she has no intention to do anything about it – just as she had no intention of allowing the Democratic Party platform to oppose TPP, although she claims she’s against it. As for those compromises Clinton did make on the platform: she was lying. The Clintons have an infinite capacity for lying, and now they’ve got Bernie Sanders lying for them, too.

If only 5 percent of Bernie Sanders’ 13 million voters formed or joined a party of the 99 percent – let’s say, the Green Party – that party would have nearly twice as many members as the British Labor Party. which would be one helluva start. Or, they can crawl along with Bernie into Hillary’s stinking Big Tent, where the real fascists live – the ones with actual experience in regime change, nuclear brinksmanship and mass Black incarceration.