No liberal is safe

  • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    This is the first time I've seen Chen go for a dunk and blow it.

    This is simply not at all how American foreign policy works. Every military action short of an Iraq-scale invasion is run out of the White House and other parts of the executive (the State Department, the CIA, etc.). Individual congresspeople don't have a "stop bombing Yemen" button. And while they do vote on some foreign policies, they individually have as much say on that as they do on something like Medicare for All. Just as individual congresspeople don't have an "enact M4A" button, they don't have an "end sanctions on Venezuela" button or an "end saber rattling against China" button. Bernie can't do a damn thing about the U.S. Navy fucking around in the South China Sea, for example.

    Bernie is of course open to criticism on his views of China -- here he is on some bullshit Tibet bill, for instance. But he's not anywhere close to the crowd that's really hawkish toward China, and it's ridiculous to suggest he could just stop the Cold War 2.0.

    • invalidusernamelol [he/him]M
      ·
      4 years ago

      BERNIE AND ME by Michael Parenti

      People have asked me what I think of the Bernie Sanders campaign. Bernie and I used to be close political friends up in Vermont in the early 1970s. We ran together on a third party ticket (the Liberty Union Party). I ran for the U.S. House of Representatives and Bernie ran for the U.S. Senate. (I got 7% of the vote; he got 3 or 4%--but who's counting.)

      Bernie stayed in Vermont. I wanted to write rather than run for office in one-sided campaigns. So I spent the years writing books, articles, teaching courses, giving interviews, doing guest lectures all over the country, and marching in demonstrations. But I remained good friends with Bernie. I gave him moral and monetary support in his successful campaigns for Mayor of Burlington, then U.S. House of Representatives.

      But I eventually broke with him because of his position on the Yugoslavia war, the "humanitarian war" as Bill Clinton and his national security state people called it. As did many liberals and some Trotskyites and anarchists, Bernie stood shoulder to shoulder with NATO and the CIA and the Clinton White House in the destruction of Yugoslavia, the 78 days of bombing, drenching Serbia in depleted uranium, leaving Serbia with the highest cancer rate in Europe and breaking up Yugoslavia, one of the best social democracies in Europe, though not without its serious blemishes.

      Today, I wish Bernie the best. He is a Democrat although he calls himself a socialist and an independent. But he takes very good stands on Social Security, human services, and curbing the banksters. However, he has voiced not a word about what his foreign policy might be. I suspect it has not improved. I will most likely not be voting for him. Probably I will support some third-party candidate who will run a hard hopeless campaign---of the kind we used to do in Vermont years ago. ----MICHAEL PARENTI

      • Alaskaball [comrade/them]MA
        ·
        4 years ago

        I remember hearing this speech and thought "damn, Parenti's old" Dude's held up the torch of Communism in the bleakest empire on the earth during the darkest times to be an open and hardline Red when nearly everyone on this subs parents were protein in their parents sacks.

        Respect for the OG Reds

      • rozako [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I will most likely not be voting for him. Probably I will support some third-party candidate who will run a hard hopeless campaign—of the kind we used to do in Vermont years ago.

        Damn that's a really good line.

    • opposide [none/use name]
      hexagon
      ·
      4 years ago

      True I just was mostly just shitposting and liked the title I came up with