[Peace-discuss] My take on Sanders' campaign to draw people into the Democratic Party, and recent Democracy Now coverage

[David Green]

My foreshadowing of Amy Goodman's decline dates at least to 2016:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/24/rape-culture-the-hunting-ground-and-amy-goodman-a-critical-perspective/


On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 10:08 AM David Green <davidgreen50 at gmail.com> wrote:

> https://soundcloud.com/whatisleftpod/preview-the-politics-of-aoc
>
> Aimee Terese has been on to AOC for quite some time, this excerpt from 11
> months ago.
>
> Her co-host Benjamin Studebaker has also written about AOC on his blog, in
> February of last year:
>
>
> https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2019/02/18/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-seems-confused-about-race/
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 1:39 AM J.B. Nicholson via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>> DN is an increasingly establishment-friendly news outlet no better than
>> NBC, CBS,
>> PBS, etc. The issues that drove Aaron Mate away are serious and the most
>> recent AOC
>> interview on a major bill is consistent with their slide into being just
>> another
>> establishment outlet.
>>
>> Goodman's most recent AOC interview has some talk about the bailout bill
>> (I refuse to
>> call it a "stimulus" because it only stimulates executives ability to buy
>> back their
>> stock, artificially inflate their company value, and buy out competition
>> all while
>> not funding the public at large. None of that helps us.).
>>
>>
>> https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/7/aoc_coronavirus_stimulus_corporate_slush_fund
>>  > JUAN GONZÁLEZ: [...] Congresswoman, could you talk about the debate
>> that you had
>>  > within yourself in terms of whether to support this package, given the
>> enormous
>>  > tax breaks and the direct grants and loans to corporate America?
>>  >
>>  > REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Yeah. Well, you know, I think,
>> ultimately, this
>>  > debate, it was up to each and every member. I don’t slight any member
>> for how they
>>  > voted. I could not bring myself to ultimately support this bill,
>> because I believe
>>  > that people will soon see the extraordinary asymmetrical assistance
>> that went to
>>  > corporations. We’re not just talking about half a trillion dollars
>> that went to
>>  > Wall Street, as I mentioned in my remarks. That is being leveraged to
>> $4 trillion
>>  > for Wall Street and corporations. And what we’re seeing in payroll
>> protection for
>>  > small businesses is just a drop in the bucket compared to that.
>>  >
>>  > But, ultimately, what this administration did was hold every hospital
>> hostage,
>>  > hold every frontline worker hostage. And it is not an easy decision
>> whatsoever for
>>  > any member. But, ultimately, I think that people will soon see the
>> betrayal that
>>  > was in this bill, that was pushed forward by the administration and by
>> Mitch
>>  > McConnell. It is completely — it is completely unethical and inhumane,
>> what has
>>  > been done. And we talk about the oversight of this bill. It is far too
>> little. It
>>  > is far too flimsy. And what we have essentially done was give Steven
>> Mnuchin a
>>  > blank check to pick and choose who this administration will reward
>> with $4
>>  > trillion.
>>
>> When AOC said "I could not bring myself to ultimately support this bill"
>> it gives the
>> impression that she voted against the bill but she didn't exactly say
>> that she voted
>> against that bill. AOC won't say precisely how she voted and because DN's
>> reportage
>> is biased in her favor, they don't explicitly ask her how she voted using
>> proper
>> language and confirmation of how she voted.
>>
>> The Hill recently insisted "AOC DID vote no on the bailout" in
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjXMdFCMDuk but there's no evidence to
>> back that up.
>> It's a voice vote. Sadly, The Hill quoted this same interview segment
>> from DN to
>> conclude that AOC voted against that bill. That's either The Hill's poor
>> evaluation
>> criteria at work, or they're a part of the manufacture of a proper image
>> for AOC.
>>
>> Jimmy Dore responds to that claim from The Hill in
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5uH0Dn7PfU and makes excellent points:
>>
>> - AOC should have called for a roll call vote, but she didn't.
>>
>> - AOC should have called out her leadership for not insisting on a roll
>> call vote,
>> but she didn't.
>>
>> - AOC has an invitation to go on Jimmy Dore's show and say that she did
>> not vote for
>> that bailout bill, but she won't go on Dore's show and say that because
>> she knows the
>> truth: she voted for that bill. I call this an excellent point because
>> this is a real
>> 'put up or shut up' moment and we need to be clear about who is on our
>> side.
>>
>> - Therefore AOC wouldn't be using euphemisms like she "could not bring
>> [her]self to
>> ultimately support this bill" if she had voted against that bill. She'd
>> be explicit
>> and precise in her language. She'd rightfully and repeatedly boast to her
>> base and to
>> her constituents that she did right by them in their time of need, thus
>> justifying
>> putting her in power.
>>
>> I'd also add:
>>
>> - Democracy Now (Amy Goodman) never should have accepted that vague
>> language from
>> AOC. Goodman should have asked "So did you vote for the bill, yes or no?"
>> but Goodman
>> didn't do that. We had come to expect a vastly different interview style
>> from DN and
>> Goodman in particular -- asking lengthy questions to that CNN reporter
>> (Aaron Brown?)
>> about shitty news coverage from CNN, "keeping" Pres. Clinton on the phone
>> answering
>> tough questions and for far longer than he wanted to talk followed by
>> Goodman
>> pointing out in subsequent interviews about that call that 'the most
>> powerful man in
>> the world doesn't know how to hang up the phone?', and so on. We don't
>> need unclear
>> reportage like what we got from AOC in this promotional spot posing as an
>> interview.
>> We get euphemisms and obscurantism all the time from other
>> establishment-friendly
>> outlets. DN was supposed to stand apart from that coverage and be worth
>> charitably
>> contributing to.
>>
>> Consider this excerpt from DN, which is typical of what they've broadcast
>> every day
>> recently:
>>
>> https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/9/bernie_sanders_naomi_klein
>>  > NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I think the main thing that I want to say this
>> morning, Amy, is
>>  > just that I just would like to express my huge gratitude to Bernie
>> Sanders, to his
>>  > entire family, to the many people who worked for the campaign just so
>> tirelessly
>>  > and opened up the window of what was possible politically in this
>> country. It was
>>  > an incredibly tough campaign. And I trust that Bernie is making the
>> right decision
>>  > in this moment as the leader of that campaign and also as a U.S.
>> senator. I know
>>  > that he’s not going to just go relax, as he said in his address. He
>> intends to
>>  > fight for people, as he has always done, in this critical moment, in
>> terms of what
>>  > kind of relief, rescue and reimagining that we do in the midst of this
>> pandemic.
>>  > He is staying on the ballot. He is still building power in order to
>> pressure the
>>  > Democratic Party and Joe Biden to run the most progressive campaign
>> that they can.
>>  > So, you know, I feel so much gratitude for Senator Sanders.
>>  >
>>  > More than anything else, I think what the campaign did is help us find
>> each other.
>>  > And by “us,” I mean that huge “us” of the “Not me. Us.” campaign. And
>> he did this
>>  > not just in this campaign, but in 2016, where he really broke the
>> spell of the
>>  > Reagan era, that spell that has lasted for four decades, that told
>> people, who
>>  > believed, that this system that was funneling so much wealth upwards
>> and spreading
>>  > insecurity, precariousness, poverty and pollution for everybody else —
>> everybody
>>  > who saw that system and thought there was something deeply wrong with
>> it, what the
>>  > neoliberal era told us was that we were the ones who were crazy, we
>> were a tiny
>>  > minority of fringe people, and that we should just accept it. And what
>> the Sanders
>>  > campaign did in 2016 is tell us that we had been lied to, that, in
>> fact, there
>>  > were so many millions of us who saw that this world was fundamentally
>> upside down.
>>  > And all of the incredible organizing, including digital organizing but
>> also
>>  > in-person organizing, wove this amazing web, and we were able to find
>> each other
>>  > and find that we were many and they were few. And so, I don’t think we
>> can ever
>>  > thank Bernie Sanders and the campaign enough for that. And being part
>> of the
>>  > campaign as a volunteer — but I did go to four states for the campaign
>> — was some
>>  > of the — provided some of the greatest moments of my political life. I
>> mean, I was
>>  > in Nevada when we won, and got to be part of that incredibly joyful
>> moment and
>>  > just got to meet so many other like-minded people.
>>
>> Precisely what did Sanders do in or around 2016 that could fairly be
>> described as
>> "[breaking] the spell of the Reagan era, that spell that has lasted for
>> four decades,
>> that told people, who believed, that this system that was funneling so
>> much wealth
>> upwards and spreading insecurity, precariousness, poverty and pollution
>> for everybody
>> else"?
>>
>> Sanders used Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and some other policy
>> ideas to
>> attract people to a campaign he (by all available evidence) never
>> intended to win.
>> Then he full-throatedly endorsed his neoliberal opponent Hillary Rodham
>> Clinton.
>> People at the time were so pissed at how his campaign was treated that
>> they sued the
>> DNC corporation (a suit both DN and Sen. Sanders himself were tellingly
>> silent
>> about), and these disaffected Sanders supporters did not vote for Clinton
>> (becoming
>> part of a major reason why she lost -- she didn't keep the Obama voters
>> across enough
>> states with enough electoral votes to win). I believe that came to be
>> known as
>> "#DemExit", inspired by the portmanteau Brexit.
>>
>> Regarding Noam Chomsky's comments to DN about Sanders' 2020 campaign:
>>
>> https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/9/noam_chomsky_bernie_sanders_campaign
>>  > Noam Chomsky: [...] Suppose Biden is elected. I would anticipate it
>> would be
>>  > essentially a continuation of Obama — nothing very great, but at least
>> not totally
>>  > destructive, and opportunities for an organized public to change what
>> is being
>>  > done, to impose pressures.
>>  >
>>  > It’s common to say now that the Sanders campaign failed. I think
>> that’s a mistake.
>>  > I think it was an extraordinary success, completely shifted the arena
>> of debate
>>  > and discussion. Issues that were unthinkable a couple years ago are
>> now right in
>>  > the middle of attention.
>>  >
>>  > The worst crime he committed, in the eyes of the establishment, is not
>> the policy
>>  > he’s proposing; it’s the fact that he was able to inspire popular
>> movements, which
>>  > had already been developing — Occupy, Black Lives Matter, many others
>> — and turn
>>  > them into an activist movement, which doesn’t just show up every
>> couple years to
>>  > push a leader and then go home, but applies constant pressure,
>> constant activism
>>  > and so on. That could affect a Biden administration.
>>
>> I disagree. With what leverage will Sanders "pressure the Democratic
>> Party and Joe
>> Biden to run the most progressive campaign that they can" (and what a
>> weak standard
>> that is) or "impose pressure"?
>>
>> What activist movement did Sanders build? Sanders had some people
>> interested in his
>> campaign and Sanders has a Democratic Party candidate incubator group
>> ("Our Revolution").
>>
>> I'd chiefly attribute increased interest in Medicare for All and
>> Universal Basic
>> Income now to COVID-19 lockdown/stay-at-home economic pressure (various
>> types of
>> strikes, people losing their jobs, to name a couple of examples) more
>> than I'd
>> attribute this to Sanders' speeches.
>>
>> And, even if we assume this activist movement exists, precisely how is
>> that activist
>> movement more likely to sway a theoretical Biden administration than the
>> Trump
>> administration?
>>
>> The most credit I can give Sanders is bringing slightly more attention to
>> Medicare
>> for All for a time but ultimately that credit had to stop when he
>> abandoned that very
>> effort in the swan song of his campaign (when he said "Let me be clear: I
>> am not
>> proposing that we pass Medicare for All in this moment. That fight
>> continues into the
>> future." and saying in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uQV83U5Dk around
>> 41m44s "This
>> is not Medicare for All, we can’t pass that right now."). He did that in
>> order to
>> appease his real master the Democratic Party.
>>
>> I can't help but think that Congress knows that bailing out businesses
>> was
>> unnecessary and that they are all too feckless to challenge their party
>> leadership
>> for a better bill. So they're falling back on unchallenging PR to create
>> better
>> "optics" (as they say in the public relations biz).
>>
>> I could be convinced toward Chomsky's nicer position if he gave evidence.
>> But there
>> is none to be found so it's not surprising that Chomsky didn't give any
>> evidence. As
>> far as I can tell it's all a 'feelings'-based argument driven by a
>> Democratic Party
>> desire to manufacture a better legacy for someone who did drop Medicare
>> for All
>> promotion, and absolutely did vote for the bailout bill (we have the roll
>> call vote
>> to prove this). That vote means that Sanders could have made a name for
>> himself by
>> voting against that bill and then taken that 'no' vote to the people whom
>> he still
>> hopes to collect votes from and campaign contributions from -- remember
>> that Sanders
>> merely "suspended" his campaign. That bailout bill still would have
>> easily passed the
>> Senate without Sanders' yay vote). So my calling Sanders feckless seems
>> completely
>> fair, right, and proper to me, particularly considering that this is a
>> time of
>> obvious struggle for the poorest among us, and that this bill implements
>> the largest
>> wealth transfer. People haven't fully felt the effects of this bill yet.
>> By the time
>> they do they'll be asking "Wha happened?" and they'll need to look back
>> on history
>> and recognize not only what did happen, and who made it happen, but also
>> they'll need
>> to skip a lot of establishment-friendly media which was lying to them.
>>
>> Recent big events (including war!) are so poorly covered by DN of late,
>> DN is just
>> not worth my time and certainly not worth contributing money to. I only
>> watch it now
>> on rare occasion and purely as a bellweather for so-called "progressive"
>> media as DN
>> is still considered a well-known outlet in those circles. I don't trust
>> the news I
>> get from DN without other independent confirmations. Also, the interviews
>> DN gets are
>> often not that great (see above with AOC).
>>
>> I think that history will come to see Jeffrey St. Clair's book "Bernie &
>> The
>> Sandernistas: Field Notes From a Failed Revolution"
>> (https://store.counterpunch.org/product/bernie-the-sandernistas/) about
>> Sanders' 2016
>> campaign as prophetic -- Sanders deserved the criticism he received for
>> his 2016
>> campaign from both St. Clair and Black Agenda Report (such as
>> https://www.blackagendareport.com/bernie-sanders-sheepdog-4-hillary).
>> Sanders
>> deserves the criticism he receives now. And the establishment-friendly
>> media is
>> desperate to create another narrative where Sanders looks a hell of a lot
>> better than
>> his political record can support (on April 7 he posted
>> https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1247689671557201924 which reads
>> "There is a
>> word to describe our health care system today: grotesque. We need
>> Medicare for All."
>> and then on April 8 he "suspended" his campaign and dropped Medicare for
>> All saying
>> it wasn't politically tenable. If that doesn't urge sharp critique, what
>> does?
>> Sanders never had a foreign policy position that was clearly
>> distinguishable from a
>> neocon's, so he's got nothing to offer there). Perhaps Jimmy Dore is
>> correct: Sanders
>> did what he did to escape being viewed with hatred like the DNC views
>> Ralph Nader.
>> Sanders' choices are consistent with that motivation.
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>
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