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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cYou Have Owners\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMr. [Bernie] Sanders,\u201d the New York Times <\/em>reported last Tuesday, \u201chas built a following of voters who want and expect more from their [Democratic] party, from their government, and from their country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s true enough, with some key qualifications: it\u2019s not \u201ctheir party\u201d any more than it\u2019s \u201ctheir government\u201d or \u201ctheir country.\u201d Like the U.S. government and the nation, itself, the Democratic Party is owned by the capitalist class<\/a>. Expecting anything decent from it is a fools\u2019 game and always has been. It\u2019s like George Carlin used to say<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cForget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don\u2019t. You have no choice. You have owners<\/em>. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations; they\u2019ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the City Halls; they\u2019ve got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feel the Hate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For many years I have been trying to tell \u201cprogressives\u201d who cling to the quixotic notion of advancing social democracy, peace, and environmental sanity through the Democratic Party that the party\u2019s corporate establishment hates <\/em>them and would rather lose to the ever more fascistic Republican Party than to the moderately social-democratic wing of their own party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The evidence of this hatred (not too strong a word) is plentiful. Think of Barack Obama\u2019s future White House chief-of- staff and future racist Chicago \u201cMayor 1%\u201d Rahm Emanuel<\/a> working as a foulmouthed right-wing Congressional leader to purge antiwar candidates<\/a> from the party\u2019s 2006 House of Representatives candidate roster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sociopath Emanuel<\/a> would go on to regularly threaten and abuse progressives<\/a> who meekly tried to push the militantly neoliberal, Citigroup-captive Obama administration<\/a> towards small measures of social and environmental decency. His corporatist blood brother Obama made sure to purge advocates of Single Payer health insurance \u2013 irrelevantly supported by most of the U.S. populace \u2013 from the national health care reform debate in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was nothing new or surprising about all that. The second half of the Jimmy Carter administration was dedicated to corporate-friendly de-regulation<\/a> that helped usher in the tragic two-term Reagan presidency after Carter kicked progressives to the curb. The Bill Clinton presidency was a monument to smug pro-corporate \u201cfree market\u201d politics and policy<\/a>, with the party\u2019s progressive wing treated with contemptuous disdain<\/a>. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDavid, tell me something interesting<\/em>.\u201d That was then First Lady Hillary Clinton\u2019s dismissive response \u2013 as head of the White House\u2019s health reform initiative \u2013 to Harvard medical professor David Himmelstein in 1993. Himmelstein was head of Physicians for a National Health Program. He had just told her about the remarkable possibilities of a comprehensive, single-payer \u201cCanadian style\u201d health plan, supported by more than two-thirds of the U.S. public. Beyond backing by a citizen super-majority, Himmelstein noted, single-payer would provide comprehensive coverage to the nation\u2019s 40 million uninsured while retaining free choice in doctor selection and being certified by the Congressional Budget Office as \u201cthe most cost-effective plan on offer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Democrats\u2019 \u201ccontempt for their left flank,\u201d Clark Iverson recently reminded me, \u201cwas laid bare in the 1968 [Chicago] police riot<\/a> at the [Democratic National] convention, and it has basically remained in place ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An Unforgivable Sin: Complicating a Coronation (2016)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Four years ago, the moderately social-democratic progressive Democrat Bernie Sanders broke the rules by turning his 2016 presidential candidacy into something more than just a nice foil to make Hillary Clinton\u2019s nomination seem like less of a pre-arranged corporate-Democratic nomination. It was an unforgivable sin. The Democratic establishment responded with venomous scorn. They called the senator from Vermont all kinds of nasty names and made sure to rig the primaries<\/a> against \u201cradical\u201d Bernie, who nonetheless dutifully campaigned for the dismal, dollar-drenched, demobilizing, and doomed Hillary in the general election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what if Sanders was far better positioned to defeat the supremely dangerous fascist-style Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump<\/a>? The Democrats are first and foremost about serving corporate sponsors<\/a>, not winning elections, much less social justice or environmental sanity, and those sponsors did not and do not want even a mildly social-democratic candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democratic Red Baiters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2020 primary campaign has taken the elitist class hatred that reigns atop the Democratic Party and its many affiliated media outlets to a new level. I have been following the \u201cliberal\u201d elite\u2019s unmitigated and corporate-funded loathing<\/a> and ignoring<\/a> of Bernie Sanders for much of the last year. It\u2019s not a pretty story. The ruling class contempt has come replete with noxious red-baiting and flat-out slander combined with absurdly false claims that the richest country in world history \u201ccan\u2019t afford\u201d to make health care a human right or to move off the fossil fuel addiction that is collapsing human civilization<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou Know the Thing\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n All of this is as expected, as is the standard claim that the progressive candidate (Sanders) is \u201cunelectable\u201d even though he was the most electable potential Democratic nominee. This is standard operating procedure. What\u2019s different this time is the extent to which the corporate Democratic media-politics machine is willing to make its determination to lose to the Republicans rather than to the progressive wing of its own party grotesquely obvious by advancing a candidate who is clearly losing his marbles.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d like to say that Biden is unelectable because he\u2019s a corporatist and imperialist<\/a> whose record and platform stand well to the right<\/a> of majority-progressive public opinion on numerous key issues (health care, Social Security, climate change, the minimum wage, bankruptcy protection, financial regulation, the Pentagon budget, war, and more). All of that and more helps damage Biden as a presidential candidate, but the deepest nail in Biden\u2019s electability coffin may be his obvious cognitive decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s clear as day. He confused his wife with his sister on stage last week. He sometimes doesn\u2019t know what day it is or what state he\u2019s in. He says he\u2019s running for \u201cthe Senate.\u201d He has impulse-control issues that are a classic sign of dementia. He called a Warren supporter in Iowa fat (\u201cLook, fat\u201d)<\/a> and \u201ctoo old to vote.\u201d He called a young woman at one of his events \u201ca lying, dog-faced pony-soldier.<\/a>\u201d He tells ridiculous and garbled stories about a parking lot confrontation with a Black tough named \u201cCorn Pop.\u201d He says he \u201clearned about roaches\u201d when he was a lifeguard and \u201clikes it when kids sit on my lap.\u201d He tells poor Black families to \u201cput the television, I mean the record player on\u201d so kids can hear \u201cthe words.\u201d He can\u2019t remember a key phrase (\u201call men are created equal\u201d) from the Declaration of Independence and so tells a crowd \u201cyou know the thing\u201d<\/em><\/a> \u2014 yes, you know the thing<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deleting Dementia: A \u201cClassic Orwellian\u201d Moment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I could go on but won\u2019t because doing so would be too depressing and start to feel like able-ism and elder-abuse<\/em>. Glen Greenwald<\/a> is correct:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cit is visible to the naked eye that the 77-year-old six-term Senator and two-term Vice President is in serious cognitive decline<\/em>\u2026That is a grave matter not just because the establishment wing of the Democratic Party wants to put him in charge of the world\u2019s most dangerous nuclear arsenal, a large chunk of the planet\u2019s health, and the welfare of hundreds of millions of people, but also because it directly pertains to whether he can sustain the rigors and spotlight of a General Election against the incumbent President. And multiple incidents over the past couple weeks \u2014 from Biden\u2019s forgetting the words of the most iconic and memorized passage of the Declaration of Independence to confusing his wife for his sister to spouting sentences that make no sense \u2014 have only intensified those worries\u201d(emphasis added).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Truly horrifying is the Democratic Party media and politics establishment\u2019s Orwellian determination to squelch public discussion of Biden\u2019s pitiful mental state \u2013 a problem of which the establishment is fully cognizant. It was Democrats who first raised the problem of Biden\u2019s unmistakable cerebral bankruptcy, but, Greenwald notes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cas the Democratic establishment has united with creepy speed and obedience behind Biden in order to stop the Sanders candidacy, those who now raise these concerns instantly come under a withering assault of insults and attacks from Democratic Party operatives along with their crucial media allies<\/em>: thinly disguised pro-Biden reporters who continue to insist on wearing the unconvincing and fraudulent costume of neutrality. They are invoking the classic Orwellian formulation<\/a> from the novel 1984:<\/em> \u2018The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command\u2019\u201d (emphasis added).<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Anyone who doubts that Biden is \u201cgoing through some things\u201d in his cognitive life should look at this clip<\/a> of Biden being interviewed on Sanders and Hillary in 2016: he sounds remarkably lucid and intelligent smart compared to how he is now[1]<\/strong>. He\u2019s just not the same guy in this interview anymore. Could Jill Biden say something, before it\u2019s too late?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n This, \u201cprogressive Democrats,\u201d is how much \u201cyour\u201d (no, their<\/em>) party\u2019s establishment HATES you. It is determined to serve up a right-wing dementia victim as a toy mouse food item for the feral fascist feline Tabby Trump this summer and fall instead of mounting a serious challenge headed by the mentally agile progressive-populist Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Could it be any clearer that the Democratic Party privileges its clientage to capital over winning elections and defeating eco-cidal racism-sexism-nativism-fascism?<\/p>\n\n\n\n No Killer Instinct<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe someone should have started a petition to Bernie saying something like this: \u201cDear Senator Sanders, if you don\u2019t bring up Joe Biden\u2019s clear and obvious dementia in your next debate and in your campaign from now on, we demand the return of our contributions to your campaign. Your continuing silence on this matter will be proof that you have no serious intention of winning the nomination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not that Sanders would have done the right thing. He doesn\u2019t seem to have the killer instinct required to prevail. He\u2019s too polite and intimidated by the Democratic establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can bet \u201cHoney Badger\u201d Trump<\/a> won\u2019t hold back on Biden\u2019s dementia. He\u2019s already locked in on \u201cSleepy Joe\u2019s\u201d palpable mental deterioration, which the Democratic establishment now insists on tossing down Orwell\u2019s memory hole even as Biden\u2019s memory card fades further in plain, nationally televised sight.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing you can\u2019t say about Trump, who Noam Chomsky rightly describes as \u201cthe most dangerous criminal in human history,\u201d is that he lacks the killer instinct required in high-stakes politics and heavyweight boxing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Social Imperialism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With Demented Joe\u2019s clear victory (his defeat of Sanders in Bernie\u2019s Michigan \u201cfirewall\u201d yesterday seals the deal<\/em> \u2013 it\u2019s over) in the nomination battle, Sanders can be expected in due time to honor his unfortunate advance \u201csheepdog\u201d promise to support the eventual Democratic nominee, no matter who it is. What a sad that promises to be: stumping for the ridiculous and offensive right-wing corporate imperialist and dementia victim, his \u201cfriend\u201d Joe Biden. It will be another great stain on his \u201csocialist\u201d legacy, along with his support for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (also promised in advance), his backing of an F-35 base in Vermont<\/a>, his embrace of Bill Clinton\u2019s war on Serbia<\/a>, his vote for the 2001 Authorization of Unilateral Military Force Against Terrorists (the AUMF, which gave George W. Bush a green light to launch wars wherever he wished), his backing of Barack Obama\u2019s Libyan fiasco, his support for an increased U.S role in the Syrian Civil War, and his two 1998 votes<\/a> in support of U.S.-led regime change in Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lenin had a phrase for European \u201csocialists\u201d like Karl Kautsky, who combined advocacy of left movements and reforms at home with support for imperial policies abroad: \u201csocial imperialists.\u201d Lenin described such leftists as \u201csocialist in words, imperialist in deeds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n An Orwellian Masterpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe media,\u201d a left friend writes from Michigan, \u201cdid everything they could to paint Sanders as anti-American and radical and hide Biden\u2019s awful record.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy is it,\u201d a mainstream, pro-establishment Michigan Democrat (MPEMD) responds, \u201cthat Bernie can\u2019t just admit he lost without blaming it on a grand conspiracy? More voters voted for Biden because more voters wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The MPEMD is off base. Bernie hasn\u2019t acknowledged defeat yet and is too polite and respectful to blame his losses on a big plot. Call it a \u201cgrand conspiracy\u201d of whatever you like, this is just an accurate description of historical reality: \u201cthe media \u2026did everything they could to paint Sanders as anti-American and radical and hide Biden\u2019s awful record.\u201d That happened<\/em>. It is precisely what occurred<\/em> at \u201cliberal\u201d MSNBC (MSDNC) and CNN (and other outlets). MSDNC is reporting on history it helped make \u2014 \u201can Orwellian masterpiece\u201d in the words of my friend Terry Thomas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now, as Greenwald argues, that same \u201cliberal\u201d media is hiding Biden\u2019s dementia even though the media operatives and managers are fully aware of the former Vice President\u2019s mental debilitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This isn\u2019t about \u201cconspiracies.\u201d It\u2019s about social and institutional power and George Carlin\u2019s point: \u201cwe have owners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n AK-47?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Voters who have been induced by their and the media\u2019s owners<\/em> to \u201cwant\u201d Biden have \u201cchosen\u201d a candidate who is going to be a sacrificial seal in the jaws of the Great Orange Shark next November \u2014 unless a COVID-19 recession makes it possible for Biden to slip into an assisted care unit in the White House. Then perhaps a 25th Amendment removal, clearing the way for an Amy Klobuchar (AK-47) administration in October of 2021?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden Would Veto Medicare for All, So Reciprocate the Hate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, this was just sent to me: \u201cBiden Indicates He\u2019d Veto \u2018Medicare-for-All.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Just because it\u2019s from FOX News doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not true. It\u2019s accurate: Bernie\u2019s (literally) demented \u201cfriend\u201d Joe Biden would veto a measure to make health care a human right in the U.S. Think about that. Let that sink in. Biden is the very definition of a class enemy<\/em>, comrades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The corporate Democrats are Public Enemy #1 in my opinion. The Trumpenvolk would never ride without these sorry, sold out agents of capital posing as \u201cdemocrats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cProgressive\u201d Democrats, please have the mental and moral capacity to get and act on the simple and undeniable fact that \u201cyour\u201d party\u2019s establishment hates you. Hate them back. It\u2019s okay: you need to turn your Bernie buttons in for Yellow Vests<\/a> and gas masks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last Dance with Electoral Jane<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf voting changed anything,\u201d Emma Goldman once said, \u201cthey would make it illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Caucusing for Sanders was my last half-hearted dance around that coffin of class consciousness known as the American ballot box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Voting might change things in a decent way, one day, but not under the existing and overlapping U.S. party, elections, and media systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLast dance with Mary Jane[2],<\/strong> one more time to kill the pain. I feel summer creeping in and I\u2019m tired of this town again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Endnotes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1.<\/strong> The content of this interview is interesting and ironic: \u201cVice President Joe Biden offered effusive praise for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders Monday, lauding Hillary Clinton\u2019s chief rival for doing a \u2018heck of a job\u2019 on the campaign trail and praising Sanders for offering an authentic voice on income inequality. And while Biden said Democrats had a slate of \u2018great candidates\u2019 running for president, he suggested Clinton was a newcomer to issues like the growing gap between rich and poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real. And he has credibility on it,\u2019 Biden said during an interview with CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger. \u2018It\u2019s relatively new for Hillary to talk about that,\u2019 Biden continued, acknowledging that Clinton has \u2018come forward with some really thoughtful approaches to deal with the issue\u2019 of income inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Hillary\u2019s focus has been other things up to now, and that\u2019s been Bernie\u2019s \u2014 no one questions Bernie\u2019s authenticity on those issues,\u2019 he said\u2026Biden expressed little shock that Sanders was drawing ample support among Democrats, claiming that Sanders\u2019 self-identification as a socialist mattered little to his party\u2019s voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018If Bernie Sanders never said he was a democratic socialist, based on what he\u2019s saying people wouldn\u2019t be calling him a democratic socialist,\u2019 he said, claiming Clinton entered the race with an \u2018awful high bar for her to meet\u2026I never thought she was a prohibitive favorite,\u2019 he said. \u2018I don\u2019t think she ever thought she was a prohibitive favorite. So I think it\u2019s, you know, everything\u2019s sort of coming down to Earth.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2.<\/strong> See the Vimeo video<\/a> of that signature Tom Petty song \u2013 the creepy one where he tries to revive a corpse played by Kim Basinger. It\u2019s an apt visual and musical metaphor for those of us on the left who got sucked into the money-drenched mortuary that is American capitalist \u201celectoral democracy\u201dagain.Join the debate on Facebook<\/a>More articles by:PAUL STREET<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul Street\u2019s<\/strong> latest book is They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy<\/a> (Paradigm, 2014)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MARCH 13, 2020 (counterpunch.org) by\u00a0PAUL STREET \u201cYou Have Owners\u201d \u201cMr. [Bernie] Sanders,\u201d the New York Times reported last Tuesday, \u201chas built a following of voters who want and expect more from their [Democratic] party, from their government, and from their country.\u201d That\u2019s true enough, with some key qualifications: it\u2019s not \u201ctheir party\u201d… Continue reading