by Scott Creighton
Old #FeelTheBern has jumped into the gun-control via mental hygiene laws debate with both feet backing the corporate rights-grabbing agenda. So much for the guy who supported the second amendment and voted against the Brady Bill. With new promising poll numbers we get a new go-along-to-get-along Bernie.
So much for the hero of the fringe left.
Bernie Sanders is nothing more than a sheepdog. His purpose is to bring the stragglers of the left back into the warm embrace of the centrist, corporate Democratic Party. The self-proclaimed “socialist” has never offered one single real alternative to our beloved capitalist system, offering only mild restraints to an out of control savage capitalist feeding frenzy taking place in New York, DC and London at this time.
Remember, in 2000, the “socialist” and “populist” Bernie Sanders voted FOR the complete deregulation of derivatives back when Brooksley Born was fighting the Clintons and Wall Street to stop the pending destabilization we witnessed in 2008.
As for the 2003 American Dream Downpayment Act, the George Bush plan to give down-payment money to unqualified sub-prime buyers who were being used to create the derivative bombs that demoed our economy, I dare you to try to find the roll-call vote in the House. It may have been a unanimous voice vote and that would mean he voted for that treason as well. Or he may have skipped that one which took place on the Dec. 8th, 2003.
As for his protective stance on Israel and the mental gymnastics he performs publicly in order to excuse their brutal treatment of Palestinians, I find it all pretty repulsive. As I do much of his bullshit these days.
[Constituent] Are you going to go further… [and end] $30 billion going to Israel over the next ten years?
[Sanders:] You have a situation where Hamas is sending missiles into Israel… and you know where some of those missiles are coming from? They’re coming from populated areas… Hamas has very sophisticated tunnels into Israel for military purposes.
[Constituent:] Gazans have a right to resist.
[Sanders:] Excuse me, shut up! You don’t have the microphone.
[Constituent:] You’re going to arrest people?
[Constituent:] Occupied populations have the right to resist.
[Sanders:] You have a right to your view… Hamas is very clear: their view is that Israel should not have a right to exist.
[Constituent:] Bullshit! .. Fuck Israel!
[Sanders:] Furthermore, the issue of Gaza is not the only issue right now in that region As some of you may have noticed… There’s a group called ISIS. Do you know what ISIS is? Daily Kos
You’ll notice a marked change in his tone and rhetoric regarding Israel these days. It used to be he would criticize the IDF for their brutal treatment of Palestinians like when he called out Jessie Jackson asking him if he supported the plight of those people in Gaza and the West Bank.
Now he blames Hamas for all of Israel’s sins and even hides behind references to “ISIS” when confronted by his constituents over his apologist approach to Israel today.
The way I see Bernie Sanders is about the same way I saw Barack Obama during the lead-up to the 2008 election. He’s a left-cover politician who will do whatever he needs to in order to remain in office.
Now it seems he’s pushing for “broader” background checks on gun purchases.
At the moment, you can’t buy a gun if you have committed a felony or beat your spouse or are prone to other violent outbreaks, or have been diagnosed with serious mental illnesses. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
The whole purpose of this current American Gladio campaign is pass legislation that goes well beyond those current restrictions.
No, it’s not about “gun grabbing”, at least, not for everyone.
What they want is simply a mechanism in place whereas they can set up councils of sorts which will determine if someone has the propensity to commit violent acts… sometime in the future.
What they wish to use as the justification for these decisions are things like online comments or writing or even letters written to editors, correspondence with various political figures and of course, all that data Big Business will be collecting on you and everyone else you know thanks to the USA “Freedom” Act and the pending CISA legislation.
Think of it as a piece of the fascist puzzle they are manufacturing here in the States.
Five years from now, maybe sooner, Big Business will process all your personal information. You’re comments online, your emails, your phone calls, even everything you say in the privacy of your own home (how many devices do you own listen to your conversation waiting for you to ask them a question?), everything you produce by way of communication will not only be recorded, but it will be processed by vast algorithms that will determine the very essence of who you are.
From that data, they will decide many things about you, one being, what threat you pose to their rule.
It will make it easier for them if you have a history of opposing things like the fascist New World Order (“its a big idea” G.H.W. Bush) or companies like Monsanto.
Imagine a world run by Big Business in which they can decide, on their own, that you should no longer be allowed on the internet. No blog, no Facebook, no Twitter. They decide your anti-establishment outlook on life means you are likely to either commit a violent act, or “radicalize” another to the point where they do. So, you are categorically removed, unpersoned, vanished from the public debate without anyone to take up your cause, to advocate for your reinstatement.
Do you think they intend to take these kinds of actions against certain people with no consideration of them seeking the only recourse they would have left to them? Because, you know, built into the legislation is complete immunity for the companies that do this.
So it’s not so much about disarming folks before the snatch-teams kick in their doors in the middle of the night. It’s about preventing an angry citizen from seeking retaliation against whatever corporate entity is responsible for destroying his/her or her life simply because they way they speak or think.
The problem with the new mental hygiene approach to gun laws or any other constitutional protections we have, is an obvious one: who decides and on what criteria are these decisions based?
That’s why we have constitutional protections in the first place. To safeguard against an out of control government stripping us of our freedoms for arbitrary, self-serving reasons.
It’s no different when GE, Verizon and Halliburton want to do it.
When coming out for “broader” background checks, Mr. Sanders here is supporting the very kind of legislation that will end up, in the near future, being cited as the foundation for one of the most destructive legal wranglings of the new century. Kinda like that derivatives deregulation bill he backed in 2000. Kinda like being an apologist for Israel time and time again, making sure they get away with their brutality until the next time they bomb hospitals and schools in Gaza.
Being right on universal healthcare, holding corporate execs accountable and calling for free education in the US is one thing. I can give the man credit that and if that were all he was about, I might even support his candidacy.
But the big things, you have to get right the first time. And if I can see this shit developing, and you can see this shit developing, Bernie Sanders can damn sure see this shit developing. Just like he could see deregulating derivatives would be a disaster in the making and just like he can CLEARLY see what the IDF is doing to the people of Palestine is a crime against humanity.
At a time in the country when even the republican base is shifting in a more populist, dare I say, “socialist” direction, it doesn’t take political courage to stand where Bernie stands right now. He isn’t a voice howling in the dark way out on the fringe anymore. His views are becoming mainstream and that is mainly because of the failure of neoliberal economic austerity being heaped on us from the right and the left.
Trouble is, he’s now regurgitating other mainstream policy propaganda on behalf of the very institutions he pretends to oppose. And if you “progressives” out there can’t see that (I’m talking to you, Zooers), you’re either willfully delusional or just plain ignorant as to how this one party, the Business Party, works here in the land of the big PX.
Me? I don’t support the asshole. And for good reason.
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