It matters not what Putin, Trump, Hillary, Obama, Bush, Bloomberg, Buttigieg, or Chris Matthews thinks.
Because they are all the old aristocracy, clinging to the past, which everyone else hates.
Bernie IS going to win, and for a change, with People Power, not the CIA rigging which the likes of Bush (in particular) relied upon.
People are fed up with the old neoliberal order. They want to see more Democratic Socialism, of the kind that one of the best US Presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, pioneered.
FDR called for Four Freedoms.
Bernie calls for Healthcare-as-a-right, free College Tuition, debt forgiveness in those categories, Green New Deal (which includes a national Jobs Guarantee) and many other highly advantageous and popular reforms which have been held back by the business-as-usual politics of people like Chris Matthews, and the greed of billionaires like Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg. Other countries managed to do these things from far less wealth than the USA has. And the USA presently wastes most of it's resources on stupid things, rather than what the people need.
Even Communists, like myself, see much value in this and heartily endorse Bernie as the best candidate we've seen in a way too long time.
Noting, however, a Communist like myself might go further. It's easy for me to say this typing at a keyboard, and not actually bringing it about, like Bernie.
Anyway, in addition to what Bernie proposes, I would
1) Denounce all the Russiagate conspiracy stories spun by the mainstream media and US intelligence agencies, and call for full investigation of potential partisan actions of government officials such as John Brennan in the development of Russiagate claims and investigations. Investigate the murder of Seth Rich, and obtain the DNC server for official investigation. Investigate the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein and his associations.
2) Call for cancellation of all US sanctions against all countries including Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. Recognize the validity of the Referendum in Crimea, and support a peaceful resolution of concerns in the Russian ethnic areas of Ukraine, without prejudice against Russian alignment or annexation.
3) Withdraw all US forces from foreign conflicts and bases. Close Guantanamo.
4) End military aid to Israel, Egypt, Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia and other foreign groups.
5) End the use of vetoes in the UN security council, and especially vetoes that serve the purpose of permitting Israel to continue illegal violence against Palestinians.
6) Terminate NATO, OAS, and similar cold war imperial coordinating organizations.
7) Terminate the CIA (replaced with a non-operative open intelligence gathering coordinating organization), NED, and similar empire-promoting organizations.
8) Cut the US military budget to less $200B, with emphasis on personal training and achievement, passive security, non-aggression, diplomacy, joint UN forces in foreign theaters, and eliminating weapons of mass destruction and corresponding "delivery systems."
9) Nationalize the US oil, coal, energy, and transportation industries. All future development of fossil fuels to be cancelled, and all funds from existing extraction flow into substitution projects based on renewable energies.
10) Nationalize finance in the interests of investment in America for Americans, and the development of use of Americans to their greatest abilities, not scams.
11) Grant Clemency to Julian Assange, and respect what he says regarding the origin of emails published in Wikileaks.
12) End all felony immigration crimes and limitations, except for the business of producing false documentation, and knowingly hiring foreign nationals without authorization.
13) Buyback and destroy assault weapons and the like.
14) End the adult prohibition of all psychoactive drugs including LSD, meth, heroin and the like, instead restricting advertising, taxing all psychoactive drugs, and providing free anonymous treatment. Develop safer packaging and alternatives that are equally satisfying to users.
15) Nationalize the Drug Industry, and prioritize the development of safe anti-infection agents, and less toxic pain relief methodologies, as well as elimination and cleanup of toxics.
16) End the adult prohibition of sex work.
17) All American workers automatically represented by applicable union, with representation in upper management or ownership boards.
That's about where I'd like to start, as a Communist President, as I'm hoping to be in about 2036.
But I can see that's not going to happen in 2020. Bernie is already pushing the envelope more than many of the old aristocrats and the deep state can tolerate.
So I cut him some slack. Also noting that Bernie has been quite consistent in focussing only on winnable concessions in foreign policy, such as ending US participation in the Yemenese slaughter, rather than the full big picture in foreign policy I am trying to describe, along with other things, above.
Meanwhile, he has been fully consistent in supporting domestic Democratic Socialist programs like Medicare for All, all his national career, and not weaseling around to find the proper crowd and investor appealing phrases, like Public Option.
So, what you see is what you get, and always has been.
Take that for the better and/or the worse, as you see it.
I am not fooled that this is the apotheosis of a great struggle. It is only the far too long delayed beginning of a great struggle, for the first time not being sold out from before the get go. Even Truman was a sell-out, because the corrupt Democratic Party of that time rejected Roosevelt's favorite, the anti-Imperialist Henry A. Wallace. Truman and no Democrat until Bernie has attempted to challenge the Rule of Finance we now live in more perfectly under neoliberalism.
We clearly we do need more than just Bernie Sanders. We need a never ending push from all of us, in the direction Bernie is showing us, and in all the others as well. I am not denying that we need more, I am only saying this path of following Bernie and Democratic Socialism looks best now, possible now, and that is as important as anything. We should take the ball and run with this as fast as we can, precisely so that people can see the benefit of government based on Democratic Socialism, and not just Corporate Socialism as clearly the Military Industrial State is.*
(*Chomsky often pointed out that goverment planners under Truman were quite explicit about this. They looked back and the vast national expenditures of WWII and how that had finally made the economy hum again. They considered directing future expenditures of that scale on either domestic or military programs, but decided the military spending would be more politically expedient. And thus the endless warring and war mongering of the Cold War and War on Terror was begun. The money HAS to be spent, or the economy would collapse from lack of spending. But if we continue to spend it on just blowing things up, the final crater will likely be at home.)
We have a much longer way to go in anti-Imperialism it seems to me. It does not, yet, generate the same level of popular interest, sadly, and one can only hope it won't take a war to change that.
I think one thing may be to constantly discuss military-industrial costs, and how they are keeping us from better democratic socialism. However, I think ultimately the ethical dimension of this has to be part of our social discourse, rather than left to military planners. The impact of US foreign policy in the past 75 years has approximated pure evil in thwarting external democracy and worker power internationally with great violence. Americans need to come to understand the lies they have been told about themselves and the rest of the world. And put an end to Empire once and for all, on the basis of ethical principles foremost, and costs secondly.
Anti-Imperialism has always been a central feature of the Communist movement. Socialists have straddled both sides more often in various times and places, such as favoring the Korean War, though the grass roots socialists of today are as anti-imperialist as the communists.
So, we do have to constantly point out the disinformation, misinformation, uninformation, and plain hypocrisy that constantly surrounds us.
Even if the best political leaders imaginable are unable to, for political and extra-political reasons.
(I appreciate the anti-imperial candidacy of Tulsi Gabbard. Her envelope of anti-imperial rollback is far bigger than Bernie, though still not perfect as she still believes US must defend Israels-right-to-exist above human rights concerns just as all the other candidates do. She has not enunciated Democratic Socialist programs as well as Bernie. And not that it is her fault, but she has not been a winning candidate. But I think she'd make a great VP, and President after 8 years of Bernie.)
Because they are all the old aristocracy, clinging to the past, which everyone else hates.
Bernie IS going to win, and for a change, with People Power, not the CIA rigging which the likes of Bush (in particular) relied upon.
People are fed up with the old neoliberal order. They want to see more Democratic Socialism, of the kind that one of the best US Presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, pioneered.
FDR called for Four Freedoms.
Bernie calls for Healthcare-as-a-right, free College Tuition, debt forgiveness in those categories, Green New Deal (which includes a national Jobs Guarantee) and many other highly advantageous and popular reforms which have been held back by the business-as-usual politics of people like Chris Matthews, and the greed of billionaires like Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg. Other countries managed to do these things from far less wealth than the USA has. And the USA presently wastes most of it's resources on stupid things, rather than what the people need.
Even Communists, like myself, see much value in this and heartily endorse Bernie as the best candidate we've seen in a way too long time.
Noting, however, a Communist like myself might go further. It's easy for me to say this typing at a keyboard, and not actually bringing it about, like Bernie.
Anyway, in addition to what Bernie proposes, I would
1) Denounce all the Russiagate conspiracy stories spun by the mainstream media and US intelligence agencies, and call for full investigation of potential partisan actions of government officials such as John Brennan in the development of Russiagate claims and investigations. Investigate the murder of Seth Rich, and obtain the DNC server for official investigation. Investigate the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein and his associations.
2) Call for cancellation of all US sanctions against all countries including Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. Recognize the validity of the Referendum in Crimea, and support a peaceful resolution of concerns in the Russian ethnic areas of Ukraine, without prejudice against Russian alignment or annexation.
3) Withdraw all US forces from foreign conflicts and bases. Close Guantanamo.
4) End military aid to Israel, Egypt, Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia and other foreign groups.
5) End the use of vetoes in the UN security council, and especially vetoes that serve the purpose of permitting Israel to continue illegal violence against Palestinians.
6) Terminate NATO, OAS, and similar cold war imperial coordinating organizations.
7) Terminate the CIA (replaced with a non-operative open intelligence gathering coordinating organization), NED, and similar empire-promoting organizations.
8) Cut the US military budget to less $200B, with emphasis on personal training and achievement, passive security, non-aggression, diplomacy, joint UN forces in foreign theaters, and eliminating weapons of mass destruction and corresponding "delivery systems."
9) Nationalize the US oil, coal, energy, and transportation industries. All future development of fossil fuels to be cancelled, and all funds from existing extraction flow into substitution projects based on renewable energies.
10) Nationalize finance in the interests of investment in America for Americans, and the development of use of Americans to their greatest abilities, not scams.
11) Grant Clemency to Julian Assange, and respect what he says regarding the origin of emails published in Wikileaks.
12) End all felony immigration crimes and limitations, except for the business of producing false documentation, and knowingly hiring foreign nationals without authorization.
13) Buyback and destroy assault weapons and the like.
14) End the adult prohibition of all psychoactive drugs including LSD, meth, heroin and the like, instead restricting advertising, taxing all psychoactive drugs, and providing free anonymous treatment. Develop safer packaging and alternatives that are equally satisfying to users.
15) Nationalize the Drug Industry, and prioritize the development of safe anti-infection agents, and less toxic pain relief methodologies, as well as elimination and cleanup of toxics.
16) End the adult prohibition of sex work.
17) All American workers automatically represented by applicable union, with representation in upper management or ownership boards.
That's about where I'd like to start, as a Communist President, as I'm hoping to be in about 2036.
But I can see that's not going to happen in 2020. Bernie is already pushing the envelope more than many of the old aristocrats and the deep state can tolerate.
So I cut him some slack. Also noting that Bernie has been quite consistent in focussing only on winnable concessions in foreign policy, such as ending US participation in the Yemenese slaughter, rather than the full big picture in foreign policy I am trying to describe, along with other things, above.
Meanwhile, he has been fully consistent in supporting domestic Democratic Socialist programs like Medicare for All, all his national career, and not weaseling around to find the proper crowd and investor appealing phrases, like Public Option.
So, what you see is what you get, and always has been.
Take that for the better and/or the worse, as you see it.
I am not fooled that this is the apotheosis of a great struggle. It is only the far too long delayed beginning of a great struggle, for the first time not being sold out from before the get go. Even Truman was a sell-out, because the corrupt Democratic Party of that time rejected Roosevelt's favorite, the anti-Imperialist Henry A. Wallace. Truman and no Democrat until Bernie has attempted to challenge the Rule of Finance we now live in more perfectly under neoliberalism.
We clearly we do need more than just Bernie Sanders. We need a never ending push from all of us, in the direction Bernie is showing us, and in all the others as well. I am not denying that we need more, I am only saying this path of following Bernie and Democratic Socialism looks best now, possible now, and that is as important as anything. We should take the ball and run with this as fast as we can, precisely so that people can see the benefit of government based on Democratic Socialism, and not just Corporate Socialism as clearly the Military Industrial State is.*
(*Chomsky often pointed out that goverment planners under Truman were quite explicit about this. They looked back and the vast national expenditures of WWII and how that had finally made the economy hum again. They considered directing future expenditures of that scale on either domestic or military programs, but decided the military spending would be more politically expedient. And thus the endless warring and war mongering of the Cold War and War on Terror was begun. The money HAS to be spent, or the economy would collapse from lack of spending. But if we continue to spend it on just blowing things up, the final crater will likely be at home.)
We have a much longer way to go in anti-Imperialism it seems to me. It does not, yet, generate the same level of popular interest, sadly, and one can only hope it won't take a war to change that.
I think one thing may be to constantly discuss military-industrial costs, and how they are keeping us from better democratic socialism. However, I think ultimately the ethical dimension of this has to be part of our social discourse, rather than left to military planners. The impact of US foreign policy in the past 75 years has approximated pure evil in thwarting external democracy and worker power internationally with great violence. Americans need to come to understand the lies they have been told about themselves and the rest of the world. And put an end to Empire once and for all, on the basis of ethical principles foremost, and costs secondly.
Anti-Imperialism has always been a central feature of the Communist movement. Socialists have straddled both sides more often in various times and places, such as favoring the Korean War, though the grass roots socialists of today are as anti-imperialist as the communists.
So, we do have to constantly point out the disinformation, misinformation, uninformation, and plain hypocrisy that constantly surrounds us.
Even if the best political leaders imaginable are unable to, for political and extra-political reasons.
(I appreciate the anti-imperial candidacy of Tulsi Gabbard. Her envelope of anti-imperial rollback is far bigger than Bernie, though still not perfect as she still believes US must defend Israels-right-to-exist above human rights concerns just as all the other candidates do. She has not enunciated Democratic Socialist programs as well as Bernie. And not that it is her fault, but she has not been a winning candidate. But I think she'd make a great VP, and President after 8 years of Bernie.)
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