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Resubmitted with a title that keeps it in its proper file fwiw
Louis Proyect wrote
By Jeff St. Clair
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/10/bern-rate-the-once-and-future-sandernistas/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think it's pointless to dump on Bernie Sanders any more at this
point. To say that Bernie did not win black and Hispanic votes
because he voted for Clinton's Crime Bill and "could never connect
with the most vulnerable voters in the country' , which " alone
doomed his campaign" is not a very adequate analysis of that issue.
"Running as an economic revolutionary, Sanders spent most of his
time in the cozy milieu of college campuses instead of in desolate
urban landscapes or working-class suburbs. It’s hard to earn the
trust of poor people when you don’t spend much time in their company."
That's not at all what I saw. I saw many reports of Sanders rallies
in black and Hispanic areas of the Los Angeles basin, including east
and south L.A, and in the Richmond and south Bay Area, Chico and
blighted northern counties, during his three weeks in California -
so much so that Hillary had to come back to the state to campaign.
Glen Ford is far closer to the mark in pointing out that black
people are a captured demographic; they can't go anywhere, so the
Democratic machines can again use them and ignore them; he says in
effect that they will remain loyal to the Democrats until they
perceive that the white Republican Party is not the overarching
threat; that if the Republican Party is rendered obsolete or
fractured in the fracas over Trump, black voters could very quickly
shed that allegiance; and that they "are the real social democratic
constituency" (as are Hispanics). They will be absolutely frustrated
in any event, but that's their stance on presidential elections. Not
so much the younger blacks anymore, who are coming up front against
the Democrats, in the #black Lives matter movement, for instance.
As for the Crime Bill, it's well to remember that Bill Clinton, who
launched a 20-year long war on America’s blacks and Hispanics, at a
campaign rally in Philadelphia for his wife angrily told black lives
matter protesters they are "defending the people who kill the lives
that matter to you" after facing growing criticism that the 1994
crime bill he championed while president led to a surge in the
imprisonment of black people and destroyed black communities; and
had those who held signs that read "black youth are not super
predators" quickly removed from the event. And also the footage of
Hillary Clinton defending the bill in 1994 by calling people in
gangs "super predators" who should be "brought to heel", which was
widely circulated during the campaign by activists and the black
lives matter movement. Not to ignore his role in helping to destroy
the welfare platform supporting immense numbers of poor children in
America. Certainly, you can criticize Bernie Sanders for voting for
the Crime Bill, but implying a false equivalency to the Clintons on
that ground alone would be a cheap shot.
St. Clair acknowledges that "Sanders raised more than $212 million,
a staggering amount, mostly from small online donors. He didn’t
incur large debts and doesn’t owe any financial obligations to the
usual Democratic Party loan sharks. He broke the money-dispensing
monopoly of the DNC and deserves credit for that."
From the Politico article, I sense that aides wanted Sanders to go
for the tactical jugular against Clinton, take on Clinton’s email
server investigation and Bill Clinton’s sex scandals. Sanders was
right in avoiding personal attacks and running a clean campaign by
sticking to issues. To that extent, he has served his constituency well.
St. Clair does not mention in his piece that Bernie was also, very
significantly, talking about real issues, and that this was greatly
frustrating to Hillary who wants to move to what Glen Ford describes
as "a big tent right wing party" by capturing Republicans opposed to
Trump, allowing her to ignore that part of her base in minority
communities - to whom she has to spin, equivocate and lie repeatedly
- whereas the last thing she wants to go on about are their issues.
Nor does she want to have to defend her corporate constituency
against Bernie's allegations, or to have to talk any more, from now
until November, about the corporate campaign kitty, the Clinton
Foundation or the content of her lucrative speeches to her
transnational corporate sponsors, whom she and Bill have shared with
Republicans for all of their political careers. None of that would
be present if she were just running against her Republican brethren.
Bill Clinton along with white politicians preponderantly from the
South co-founded the right wing DLC. He twice ran on platforms
moving as far to the right as possible to head off Republicans, with
Hillary at his side, specifically to curtail the rising electoral
power of black voters in the South and labor. It's the only kind of
campaign they know how to run, as Glen Ford says of Hillary, "This
old dog has but one trick." And so, Bernie should just go away, and
stop interfering with the plan for Clinton's candidacy to unite the
corporate world around the Clinton dynasty. So that they can
continue to make the world safe for their really so TNC
constituents, savagely stomp on dissenters and smooth the path
globally - by any means necessary.
St. Clair says "the Sanders campaign fed them one illusory scenario
after another". I got all the emails that the Sanders campaign sent.
I did not sense that I was being fed "one illusory scenario after
another". The campaign information was hopeful but quite consistent
in acknowledging the long shot that the campaign became after the
east coast "Super Tuesday". St, Clair continues, "In the end, he
lost [in California] by more than 400,000 votes, a humiliating
margin that can’t be written off to voter suppression or hacked
machines." I followed the polls on the California primary. It's my
home state, although I live up in the poorer northern rural tier of
counties, which came in solidly for Bernie to the end. Bernie's poll
numbers, in California as in so many other places rose consistently,
from being double digits down to a neck and neck race well within
the margin of error at the end. And contrary to what St. Clair says
and aside from other ways in which the election was rigged, there's
no denying the effect of the way the primaries were staggered, with
the southern US polls coming first, where Clinton ran best, giving
her initial momentum; the discouraging fact that the California
primary, with the most delegates, occurred at the end of the
campaign; California independent voters being prevented from getting
the proper ballots, as Greg Palast
revealedhttp://bernie-sanders.leadstories.com/1194263-how-california-is-being-stolen-from-sanders-right-now---greg-palast.html;
the AP announcement before the California polls had even opened that
Hillary had locked up the nomination - all of which had a markedly
dampening effect on voters' inclination to get up and go to their
voting precincts, which had a whole lot to do with the disparity in
the final results in California.
And why wouldn't Sanders be dumbfounded by the success of his
campaign? He has repeatedly said so. No one expected much of
anything at the outset, but he found that he had caught the crest of
a wave of disaffection against the establishment especially on the
part of young voters, who were registering to vote in massive
numbers, many for the first time, and specifically to vote for him.
That he had problems, as his campaign reaped funds and supporters
and had to rapidly expand, with recruiting trusted staff from the
cynical ranks of available professionals, and that he now has
problems with how to follow up on what he has perpetrated, is not
surprising at all. And in how he has built on the potential he found
shows that Sanders is a savvier politician than almost anyone has
given him credit for - as the Politico article acknowledges.
Also from the Politico article, I sense that aides wanted him to go
for the jugular against Clinton, take on Clinton’s email server
investigation and Bill Clinton’s sex scandals. Sanders was right in
avoiding personal attacks and running a clean campaign by sticking
to issues that mattered to people. To that extent he certainly
served his constituency well. The Democratic establishment of course
want his now-massive email list, and a lot rides on their getting
it. It is certain that, with Obama calling him in, the pressure to
do so is heavy. Sanders has to choose whether to endorse Hillary or
just campaign hard against Trump without signing up to do much for
her directly. And assuming the decision is his to make, what kind of
long-term organization to build out of his email list.
Glen Ford rightly said yesterday that the moment of truth has come
for Sanders. He must act according to the logic of the “movement”
that he claims to lead, or bow to the logic of the duopoly political
system. “If Sanders folds before Philadelphia – as early as this
week, if the White House has its way – then history will treat him
as a saboteur of the 'movement' that he claimed to lead.” But the
important thing to keep in mind, of course, is not Bernie (as he has
repeatedly reminded us), but the resurgence going forward, and its
possible effects, here in the heartland of capitalism, on what
appears to be the increasingly flailing system.
My step-daughter announced yesterday that she and friends up here in
Humboldt and Del Norte counties are going to Philadelphia to join
the Sandernista rallies in July - with absolutely no prompting from
their old socialist relative and friend, who's been quiet about his
biases. The only advice I would offer is to be aware of the
importance in any movement of knowing your reliable allies and above
all your enemies, their capabilities and their vulnerabilities; in
their actions, to choose those factions with an effective focus on
specific and relevant issues having direct impact on people's life
chances, unlike so many movements in the past; to recognize the
limitations of identity issues; and to prepare to be clobbered by
the media and to know what to do when confronted by the highly
sophisticated, repressive police presence that they'll encounter.
St. Clair says in conclusion, "Your move, Sandernistas." So where is
St. Clair, if not identifying as a Sandernista for whom it's "your
move"? I look for him to publish more penetrating stuff than what I
read here.
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