[Peace-discuss] Supporting Bernie Sanders risks sending a message that he is on our side or at all useful

[J.B. Nicholson]

Brussel, Morton K wrote:
> A reasonable, and unusual statement by Bernie. Even if the military budget should 
> be cut by far more than 10%
Don't worry, if history is any guide, Bernie Sanders will abandon any statement which 
is even mildly critical of the establishment.

He said reasonable (and unusual, for establishment media) things about universalizing 
healthcare for Americans including writing a Medicare for All bill which sits in the 
Senate today. In the midst of a pandemic, when people are losing their jobs (and thus 
the way so many Americans get their healthcare), Sanders ended his 2020 campaign 
saying "Let me be clear: I am not proposing that we pass Medicare for All in this 
moment. That fight continues into the future.". It's not clear when "the future" is 
in this context. And in his video statement 
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uQV83U5Dk) around 41m44s he said "This is not 
Medicare for All, we can’t pass that right now." doing what he can to quell any 
uprising which demands a sane medical rollout. Not long after that he voted for the 
"CARES" Act which help put trillions into the economy mostly routed toward the 
wealthiest businesses and individuals instead of into a national jobs program or 
repeated direct cash payments to individuals (a one-time $1200 payment is quickly 
spent to pay a few bills). Sanders is continuing the fecklessness he demonstrated in 
2016 when he was rightly called a sheep herder for the Democratic Party.

Fortunately for Sanders there seems to be nobody protesting today who routinely 
pushes for Medicare for All or other social policy that could benefit the 99% in a 
time of crisis. There's plenty of virtue signaling[1] but no policy changes. As I've 
said before, when establishment figures are echoing your slogans (#BLM 
#BlackLivesMatters), you're losing.

Perhaps after more months pass, rent delays have expired, and more Coronavirus has 
spread this too will change.



[1] A few examples:

https://archive.md/3qyno
https://archive.md/KvOPq -- recent entertainment industry articles (from 
establishment media) about white actors quitting voicing roles for not-strictly-white 
characters.

https://archive.md/blT3n -- Uncle Ben's, Aunt Jemima, and Mrs. Butterworth's are 
being redesigned to reflect modern 'woke' sensibilities.

Managers are hosting time-consuming talks on how we can become more mindful of 
"micro-aggressions" and discuss how horrible we feel about recent police murders.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/51088/alternative-term-to-blacklist-and-whitelist 
-- technical terminology being rewritten to avoid saying 'whitelist' and 'blacklist' 
but instead say 'allow-list' and 'deny-list', or change 'master/slave' into 
'server/client' and so on.

But in none of these cases can I point to policy changes that improve people's lives 
such as people's wages being increased from a sub-living wage to a living wage, or 
setting up universal services that enjoy wide public support. Instead I see the 
status quo continuing: The so-called "gig" economy (part-time workers without 
healthcare, without paid leave, etc.) means making a business out of exploiting 
consultants or contractors. High-tech contract workers are exploited even to death 
(child laborers in the DRC who mine materials used to build computers, for example).