TWSP | 21 Oct 2015
What Bernie is doing for Hillary as a flank guard is exactly what he has been doing for the democratic party in the state of Vermont for more than two decades – preventing the emergence of a political insurgency to their left.
Preconcert between Hillary and Bernie is strongly suspected concerning the email issue because this was the moment when all the other candidates could have ganged up on Hillary and held her accountable – something that is now much less likely to occur until the presidential debates a year from now. Hillary gets a whole extra year of immunity thanks to Bernie. Watch Hillary’s facial expressions carefully throughout this clip to see evidence of preconcert. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrBXcKcviuc
In the wake of this week’s debate among the Democratic Party presidential candidates, awareness is growing of the treachery and duplicity of Bernie Sanders, whose current statements and past track record cannot stand up to sustained scrutiny. Bernie is now coming under concentric attack from a series of black and antiwar websites which are intent on exposing the reality behind the facile rhetoric he has been using to dupe the ever gullible mush heads.
In this process, some of Bernie’s doubletalk on the questions of war and peace is being parsed, revealing a clear intent to deceive voters. Justin Raimondo of AntiWar pointed out that the opportunist Bernie had been attempting to straddle both sides of the issue on the Syrian no-fly zone. As Raimondo noted:
‘Bernie Sanders issued a statement that tried to bridge the gap between the peacenik left and the cruise-missile left:
“I support President Obama’s effort to combat the Islamic State in Syria while at the same time supporting those in trying to overthrow the brutal dictatorship of Bashar Assad. I oppose, at this point, a unilateral American no-fly zone in Syria, which could get us more deeply involved in that horrible civil war and lead to a never-ending U.S. entanglement in that region.”
At what point would Sanders support a no-fly zone – and what about one imposed by a multilateral coalition of Western nations? He doesn’t say, but he’s clearly not taking the standard leftist noninterventionist line in this debate for the simple reason that what passes for the “left” today is split on the issue of what to do about Syria, if anything.’ [i]
This scrutiny also includes a critical re-examination of Bernie’s political and legislative history, helped along by an invaluable article published by Vermont peace activist Will Miller in the wake of Bernie’s now infamous spring 1999 decision to support the humanitarian bombing of Serbia in the midst of a political hysteria stoked by Christiane Amanpour of CNN. Bernie’s vote in favor of humanitarian bombing was extremely unpopular among Vermont voters, leading to a heated discussion with activists in which Sanders attempted to explain his warmonger vote. Miller’s insights are worth quoting at some length. The image of Sanders, which emerges here is that of an unscrupulous political opportunist, acting as a border guard or gatekeeper for the Democratic Party in Vermont, including by his efforts to sabotage the emergence of an antiwar and anti-Wall Street third-party to the left of such discredited figures as Howard Dean (of the Dean Witter fortune) and Patrick Leahy. Under his nonsensical “democratic socialist” label, Sanders was acting in symbiosis with the Democratic Party, and it is precisely this role which he is taking national in the form of his sham run for the presidency.
NATO bombing of Serbia 1999
Miller goes all the way back to the dawn of Bernie’s career, explaining that ‘Bernie became an imperialist to get elected in 1990. In August, 1990–after the Bush administration enticed Iraq into invading Kuwait–Sanders said he wasn’t “going to let some damn war cost him the election,” according to a staff member who was present at the time. So Sanders backed the buildup in the Persian Gulf and dumped on the left anti-imperialist peace movement, singling out his former allies like Dave Dellinger for public criticism….
The symbiosis mechanism between Bernie and the official Vermont Democrats worked like this: ‘The Vermont Democratic Party leadership has allowed no authorized candidate to run against Bernie in 1990 (or since) and in return, Bernie has repeatedly blocked third party building. His closet party, the Democrats, are very worried about a left third party forming in Vermont. In the last two elections, Sanders has prevented Progressives in his machine from running against Howard Dean, our conservative Democratic Governor who was ahead of Gingrich in the attack on welfare.’
At the time of his vote in favor of unprovoked aggression against Serbia in 1999, Sanders acted out his self-righteous hypocrisy in a kind of town meeting with the dedicated activists who had done the heavy lifting to get him into office in the first place. We note his cynical ingratitude, even to the extent of calling in the police to arrest and antiwar delegation – all of which foreshadows the treatment today’s fawning mush heads can expect when it comes time for them to be dumped by Bernie:
‘Sanders as the self-appointed moderator/boss opened the evening with naked self-justification. “It is a very complex situation…” followed by the ritual of demonization of Milosevic – a technique he has perfected over the last eight years on Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Then he presented the false dilemma that the only alternative to bombing is doing nothing. Sanders said his situation was the same as that of Joschka Fischer of the Green Party, Germany’s Foreign Minister, who has outraged his Green Party membership by supporting the bombing his coalition government is carrying out as part of NATO.
Back in Vermont the assembled citizenry moaned audibly….The overwhelming majority of the people present were against Sanders’ support for the bombing. Even with all his attempts to control the meeting, the people had at him for more than an hour and a half. He was denounced for his selling out to the Empire and it’s war machine and for his support for the 9-year old war against Iraq and his active support for every US intervention since he has been in Congress–Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Liberia, Zaire (Congo), Albania, Sudan, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia.
He was further criticized for his refusal to ban or even object to the use of depleted uranium with its long term toxicity in both Iraq and Yugoslavia. Sanders even tried to escape responsibility for arresting 15 of his constituents in his office one week ago for the crime of wanting to talk to him without an appointment by blaming those arrested for their arrest, as if they went out and brought the police in to arrest themselves.’ [ii]
Miller ends his account with a rousing “Remember Vietnam! Never again!” – All in all a very valuable reminder for Bernie’s followers of today.
Counterpunch, continuing its useful campaign to expose the Vermont pseudo-socialist, gives the following summary of Bernie’s major misdeeds:
‘During the 1990s, the not-so “independent” Congressman Sanders voted for and/or otherwise supported: Economic sanctions that killed more than a million Iraqi civilians; Every U.S. bombing of Iraq from 1992 on; The sending of U.S. military units to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to threaten Iraq because “we cannot tolerate aggression”; The objectively racist and mass-incarcerationist Federal Crime bill; Every US intervention since elected to Congress–Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Liberia, Zaire (Congo), Albania, Sudan, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. The “leftist” Congressman Sanders liked to send out mailings to veterans that supported the US having “the strongest military in the world” and praised soldiers as sacrificing “for the freedom of Americans.” Sanders repeatedly failed to invite antiwar veterans’ groups to his many veterans events in the state….After the 9/11 attacks, “Bomber Bernie” (as Burlington peace activists dubbed Sanders) voted for the initial 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists that has been cited as the legal justification for U.S. military interventions and endless U.S. “global war on terror” – including the invasion of Iraq (which Sanders opposed along with most Democrats in Congress in 2002 and 2003).’ [iii]
Bruce A. Dixon, blackagendareport.com
Bruce Dixon of the Black Agenda Report shows that Bernie is simply a repeat performance of that old shopworn technique of the Democratic Party, which consists in fielding a sheepdog candidate in every election in which there is no incumbent Democrat running for the White House, and thus capable of stifling rebellion in and dissent in the Democratic ranks. An example of this would be the just cited Howard Dean of 2004, where we see the usual flimflam of a right-wing Democrat posing as a leftist in order to neutralize the centrifugal tendencies of this Wall Street dominated party.
Dixon obviously has Bernie’s number:
‘Vermont senator and ostensible socialist Bernie Sanders is playing the sheepdog candidate for Hillary Clinton this year. Bernie’s job is to warm up the crowd for Hillary, herding activist energies and the disaffected left back into the Democratic fold one more time. Bernie aims to tie up activist energies and resources till the summer of 2016 when the only remaining choice will be the usual lesser of two evils. “The sheepdog is a card the Democratic party plays every presidential primary season when there’s no White House Democrat running for re-election.” Spoiler alert: we have seen the Bernie Sanders show before, and we know exactly how it ends. Bernie has zero likelihood of winning the Democratic nomination for president over Hillary Clinton. Bernie will lose, Hillary will win. When Bernie folds his tent in the summer of 2016, the money, the hopes and prayers, the year of activist zeal that folks put behind Bernie Sanders’ either vanishes into thin air, or directly benefits the Hillary Clinton campaign. Don’t believe us? Then believe Bernie himself interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on ABC News “This Week” May 3:
STEPHANOPOULOS: So if you lose in this nomination fight, will you support the Democratic nominee?
SANDERS: Yes. I have in the past.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Not going to run as an independent?
SANDERS: No, absolutely not. I’ve been very clear about that.
Bernie Sanders is this election’s Democratic sheepdog. The sheepdog is a card the Democratic Party plays every presidential primary season when there’s no White House Democrat running for re-election. The sheepdog is a presidential candidate running ostensibly to the left of the establishment Democrat to whom the billionaires will award the nomination. Sheepdogs are herders, and the sheepdog candidate is charged with herding activists and voters back into the Democratic fold who might otherwise drift leftward and outside of the Democratic Party, either staying home or trying to build something outside the two party boxes.” [iv]
The skepticism about Bernie’s antiwar commitment is fully justified in the light of his own public statements. Bernie’s policy positions show above all that he wants the Middle East to be dominated by the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. Bernie would have a hard time in today’s Democratic Party if he were to come out in full support of the foreign policy of Netanyahu, but given the close collaboration between Saudi Arabia and Israel, this is perhaps a politically safer way to express the same thing in indirect and failed terms. Bernie also wants the dissent of Syria into total chaos and terrorism, accomplished through the ouster of President Assad and the smashing of the Syrian state:
“What we have got to do right now is demand the countries in that region — Saudi Arabia has the third largest military budget in the world. We restored the Kuwaiti royal family to their position in the first Gulf War. You’ve got the UAE sitting there which is an extraordinarily wealthy family.”
“So the first point I would make is that it is wrong to ask the United States alone — our armed forces, our taxpayers –to put that country [Syria] back together again. You need a regional force of people who are prepared to take on ISIS and destroy that barbaric organization.”
“In terms of Assad, clearly, you have a horrendous dictator who has been at war his own people.”
“I would put my major priority in the area right now on getting rid of ISIS and phasing out — making sure that we get rid of Assad. It doesn’t have to happen tomorrow. What we’ve also got to do — and this is tough stuff — is work with Russia, work with Saudi Arabia, work with Iran, all of whom have common interests in opposition to ISIS.” [v]
As far as 9/11 truth was concerned, it soon became very obvious that talking to Bernie was absolutely futile. Some activists then tried to get them to support the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, but that turned out to be absolutely futile as well. Bernie is not a fighter and has a great aversion to real political risks.
Finally, there is Bernie’s absurd and obsolete fascination with the stagnant Social Democratic societies of Scandinavia, especially Denmark. (The politics of Sweden, we should note, are dominated by the Wallenberg banking family — not exactly a model of democratic governance.) William L. Shirer, in his well-known study The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, refers bitterly to Denmark as the “model protectorate” under German occupation, with minimal resistance. As for today, it is difficult to find up-to-date comparative statistics, but in the view of the Central Intelligence Agency, the percentage of the Danish population which lives below the CIA definition of the poverty line is 13.4%. The comparable figure for the United States, presumably using the same criteria, is listed at 15.1%. Given the source, everyone should take these figures with more than a grain of salt, but, at the same time, we are still waiting for Bernie to explain why he finds the Danish model so overwhelmingly attractive. Denmark is of course a monarchy on the British model, so maybe that explains it.
[i] http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/10/06/trump-against-the-war-party/
[ii] Will Miller, “Bernie the Bomber’s Bad Week, “Liberty Union Party, http://www.libertyunionparty.org/?page_id=363
[iii] Paul Street, “Bernie Out of the Closet: Sanders’ Longstanding Deal with the Democrats,” Counterpunch, July 21, 2015, http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/21/bernie-out-of-the-closet-sanders-…
[iv] Bruce Dixon, Black Agenda Report, “Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016,” May 6, 2015, http://blackagendareport.com/bernie-sanders-sheepdog-4-hillary
[v] Bernie Sanders on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 8, 2015.
