Green New Deal, ofwel linkse tak van de Democraten niet verantwoordelijk voor mager resultaat dat de partij boekte (bij de verkiezingen) voor het Congres

De Democraten hebben weliswaar de presidentsverkiezingen gewonnen, maar ondanks een keer zo hoog budget voor die verkiezingen dan de Republikeinen, hebben ze geen extra senaatszetels gehaald en daardoor zelfs zetels verloren in het huis van afgevaardigden....... Kortom je zou kunnen stellen dat Biden als nieuwe president bitter weinig voor elkaar zal krijgen.......

Binnen de Democratische Partij wijst men met de vingers naar de links kant van die partij als schuldigen voor dit negatieve resultaat in het congres...... Linkse Democratische politici die o.a. achter de Green New Deal staan, hebben het wel degelijk goed gedaan tijdens de verkiezingen, ofwel de conservatieve tak van de Democraten wijst volkomen onterecht naar de progressieve krachten in de partij als schuldigen voor dit verlies aan macht in het congres..... 

Als die conservatieve Democratische tak van de partij zo doorgaat bestaat de kans dat de partij zal worden gespleten en er een nieuwe wat meer linkse Democratische Partij zal ontstaan. Gezien het resultaat van die progressieve, meer linkse tak zou die wel eens de oude Democratische Partij kunnen overvleugelen en dat zou een hele verademing zijn, daar er nog amper verschil bestaat tussen de Democratische en Republikeinse Partij, wat voor de wereld betekent dat Biden door zal gaan op het illegale oorlogspad en dat wellicht op een heel wat fanatiekere manier dan de Trump administratie.......

Kenny Stancil van Common Dreams schreef een artikel over deze zaak:

Published on Monday, November 09, 2020 by Common Dreams

99% of Green New Deal Co-Sponsors Won Their Races This Cycle: Analysis

"Saying progressive policies held Democrats back from expanding their House majority/taking the Senate just doesn't hold water with data available so far."

by Kenny Stancil, staff writer

 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks to Sunrise Movement activists protesting in the offices of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in Washington D.C., on Nov. 13, 2018. (Photo: Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times via Redux)

Shedding more light on a significant electoral trend that progressives have drawn attention to in the aftermath of the 2020 U.S. election, a new analysis by Earther found that of the 93 House co-sponsors of the Green New Deal resolution who ran for reelection this year, only one lost their congressional race. 

"Simply put," wrote journalist Brian Kahn in Earther, "the Green New Deal is not a political loser," including for representatives in swing districts.

Kahn identified four House co-sponsors who represent districts that "range from very slightly Democratic to moderately Republican," according to Cook Political Report's Partisan Voting Index. 

Of those four, three—Reps. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), Jahana Hayes (D- Conn.), and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.)—have already "decisively won their reelection bids," while the fourth, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D- N.Y.), is projected to win handily "once all mail-in ballots are counted."

"This quick-and-dirty analysis," Kahn said, "aligns with other data showing that representatives who have sponsored and voted for progressive policies were not punished by voters."

As Common Dreams reported this weekend, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and others pointed out that every single congressional member who ran for reelection this year as a supporter of Medicare for All won their race. 

Ocasio-Cortez hinted that her team would be "running numbers" on the Green New Deal—of which she is the lead House sponsor—next. As Earther's analysis showed, the reelection rate for representatives who co-sponsored the Green New Deal resolution was nearly 100% as well, with 92 out of those 93 congressional members retaining their seat.  

"Saying progressive policies held Democrats back from expanding their House majority/taking the Senate just doesn't hold water with data available so far," Kahn noted on Twitter.

Brian Kahn    @blkahn

Replying to @blkahn and @AOC

Let's also not forget one of the Green New Deal Senate co-sponsors is the vice president-elect! Saying progressive policies held Democrats back from expanding their House majority/taking the Senate just doesn't hold water with data available so far

5:51 PM · Nov 9, 2020

2.2K   245 people are Tweeting about this

As Common Dreams reported last week, the blame game within the Democratic Party began immediately in the wake of its lackluster showing in down-ticket contests, with officials from the right and left flanks of the party pointing fingers at each other. 

The New York Times allowed Ocasio-Cortez to make the evidence-backed case for the positive role played by the left in the 2020 election, but for the most part, corporate media outlets over the weekend did their best to cement the right-wing narrative that progressive policy ideas are to blame for the party's underwhelming performance in down-ballot races.

So-called moderate Republicans like former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, as well as moderate Democrats like South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, were given airtime on CNN to falsely claim Americans don't back egalitarian policy proposals.

People for Bernie     @People4Bernie

Yesterday we officially entered a new era of not listening to anything John Kasich says. The era will continue until further notice.

The Hill   @thehill

John Kasich: "The Democrats have to make it clear to the far left that they almost cost him this election."

11:35 AM · Nov 8, 2020 12.3K

1.4K people are Tweeting about this

(voor de video in bovenstaand twitterbericht, zie het origineel)

 

David Sirota   @davidsirota

this is the kind of clip that someone will put in a retrospective in 5 years when climate change has destroyed Utah and the entire country, and only then will everyone finally realize what a total monster Mitt Romney is

The Recount @therecount

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) says who he voted for is “in the rearview mirror.” Now "I want to make sure that we conservatives keep on fighting to make sure we don't have a Green New Deal, we don't get rid of gas and coal and oil, that we don't have a Medicare For All plan ..."

5:05 AM · Nov 9, 2020  2.4K

470 people are Tweeting about this

(voor de video in bovenstaand twitterbericht, zie het origineel)

Waleed Shahid    @_waleedshahid

Rep. Jim Clyburn railing against "socialism" while often having a bust of one of America's most prominent democratic socialists -- W.E.B. Du Bois -- behind him on TV is a mood.

9:54 PM · Nov 8, 2020

7.4K    1.4K people are Tweeting about this

These assaults continue despite recent polling, including surveys commissioned by Fox News, that indicates the majoritarian popularity of left-wing policy ideas eschewed by Democrats and Republicans alike, including an expanded role for the government in the provision of healthcare and the creation of green jobs in energy and infrastructure. 

In Georgia, for instance, where Democrats have a chance to secure a Senate majority if they win both runoff races, voters prefer a universal public option to the Affordable Care Act. 

Since voting ended last week, however, numerous corporate-friendly politicians have advocated for shifting the nation's political center of gravity rightward, despite the fact that politicians who supported popular redistributive policies, such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, were reelected at higher rates than ostensibly centrist Democrats, including in swing districts. 

"The people who actually back progressive policies came through the election largely unscathed and, in many cases, fared better than their more conservative Democratic counterparts in swing districts," Kahn wrote.

"For all the complaining about progressive policies sinking Democrats' chances of expanding their hold on the House and overtaking the Senate," he added, "the data available so far just is not there."

John Nichols, The Nation's national affairs correspondent and author of The "S" Word: A Short History of An American Tradition... Socialism, tweeted that "the Democratic Party's problem is not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."

"The Democratic Party's problem," he continued, "is that it keeps trying to marginalize the people who build energy and excitement about fighting for the future, like... Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."

Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

============================================

Zie ook: 'De hypocrisie van 'liberale en linkse' Democratische stemmers'

'Democratie is meer dan verkiezingen alleen: tijd dat politici dat in hun oren knopen'

'Met de winst van Biden is het fascisme in de VS bepaald niet weggestemd'

'Biden (de gekozen VS president) al bezig met aanstelling van door Republikeinse eisen geschikte 'kabinetsleden'' 

'Het electorale college in de VS, met 'kiesmannen', werd opgetuigd om de slavernij te laten voortbestaan''

'VS militarisme marcheert door: geen discussie of media aandacht voor Washingtons oorlog tegen de wereld'

'VS moordmachine weer in handen van 'volwassen en bekwame leiding'' 

'Joe Biden president, echter de peperdure campagne was zo slecht dat de senaat in handen blijft van de Republikeinen......' (en zie de links in dat bericht!!)

En ter zijde: 'De EPA heeft toestemming gegeven om dicamba te herintroduceren op de VS markt, leuk vooruitzicht daar Biden TTIP zal tekenen'

'Bidens puppeteers verwijten Trump slap buitenlands optreden' 

Biden en Trump zijn voor het blijven winnen van schalie-olie en gas met een 'mooie rol' voor Shell

Milieugroep Food & Water Watch (F&WW) heeft een onderzoek gedaan naar olie- en gaswinning (schalie-olie en -gaswinning) en dat vergeleken met het inzetten op duurzame energieproductie met gebruikmaking van zon en wind (en aardwarmte) en komt tot de conclusie dat de laatste, dus duurzame energieproductie veel meer banen genereert dan de winning van fossiele brandstoffen middels fracken, bovendien geven deze banen veel meer zekerheid aan de arbeiders die in die 'tak van sport' werken.(zo ligt de winning van schalie-olie plat vanwege de lage olieprijs) 

F&WW zet vooral in op zonne- en windenergie, echter ik neem aan dat ze wel degelijk ook aardwarmte hebben meegenomen in hun onderzoek, immers alleen met deze combinatie kunnen we tot een energie-fossielvrije toekomst komen (en door windenergie te gebruiken voor de productie van waterstof, waarmee we ook de zware industrie en zelfs vliegverkeer 'fossielvrij' kunnen maken!!) Echter als F&WW alleen heeft ingezet op zonne- en windenergie zal het beloofde aantal banen nog flink verder stijgen!!

Daarover gesproken: F&WW stelt dat met het inzetten op zonne- en windenergie het aantal banen zal groeien tot 16.500, terwijl de Shell (!!) fabriek voor het kraken van ethyleen (voor schaliegas) niet meer dan 600 mensen werk verschaft...... Het Department for Energy (DOE) komt echter tot andere cijfers, volgens dit ministerie zal het inzetten op petrochemische industrie in Pennsylvania uiteindelijk voor 7.000 mensen een baan opleveren, ik neem aan dat men daarin ook toeleveringsbedrijven meerekent en uiteraard de arbeiders die meewerken aan het fracken, ofwel het uit gesteente halen van schaliegas (en olie).......

Shell speelt dus ook hier weer een heel smerige rol, voor het bouwen van de fabriek (in feite een soort raffinaderij) heeft het bedrijf maar liefst 1,65 miljard dollar aan subsidie gekregen...... Vandaar ook de berichtgeving van Shell dat het blijft inzetten op de winning van gas*, zo kan men het schaliegas als LNG naar o.a. Nederland vervoeren, waarvoor een door de overheid betaalde LNG-terminal op de Tweede Maasvlakte werd gebouwd, zo kan Shell ondanks deelname aan gaswinning in Rusland inzetten op 2 paarden en mocht het tot een clash komen met de VS over deelname aan Russische gaswinning kan Shell zich terugtrekken uit die winning en helemaal inzetten op LNG uit de VS, een zogenaamde win win situatie (gedver!!)........

In het schrijven van Lisa Newcomb op Common Dreams wordt gesteld dat de schaliegas en -olie winning goed is voor in totaal 18.300 banen in Pennsylvania, echter ik neem aan dat men hiermee het totaal aantal banen bedoelt dat in de VS nodig is voor schalie-olie en gaswinning..... Overigens dient nogmaals opgemerkt te worden dat de schalie-oliewinning momenteel stil ligt vanwege de te lage prijs voor olie op de wereldmarkt....

Zowel Trump als Biden hebben al beloofd dat ze in zullen blijven zetten op olie en gas en tevens geen eind zullen maken aan de winning van schaliegas en -olie..... Daarvoor hebben beiden een fikse bonus ontvangen van de energiesector voor hun campagne, al kreeg Biden een lager bedrag (1,6 miljoen tegen 4,5 miljoen dollar voor Trump; peanuts vergeleken met de subsidie die Shell ontving), men neemt daar dus ook aan dat Trump de verkiezingen zal winnen..... (al geeft ook deze zaak aan dat het niet uitmaakt wie er president is, ook wat betreft oorlogsvoering is er weinig verschil al belooft Biden meer militaire actie te zullen ondernemen tegen o.a. Venezuela.......)

Published on Monday, September 21, 2020 by Common Dreams

Fracking Not a 'Sustainable Pathway to Prosperity': New Report Shows Clean Energy Would Create More Jobs Than Fossil Fuels

"For the sake of giving workers a stable future, protecting public health, and making real strides in the fight against climate chaos, the choice is clear: Clean energy jobs can deliver far more good jobs for Pennsylvania."

By Lisa Newcomb, staff writer

Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks to reporters at Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport after participating in a CNN town hall event on September 17, 2020 in Avoca, Pennsylvania. Despite calls from climate advocates to ban fracking, Biden told CNN's Anderson Cooper the process needs to be included in a transition to net-zero emissions. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

As U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette toured the Shell Ethane Cracker Plant in Beaver County, Pennsylvania Monday, a new report from a watchdog group indicates clean energy technology can produce more jobs in the state than fracking and other fossil fuel-related industries.

"Political leaders in the state must create the policies that will grow these industries, instead of doubling down on fracking's false promises about jobs," Alison Grass, research director for Food & Water Watch said in a statement accompanying the organization's report Monday. "For the sake of giving workers a stable future, protecting public health, and making real strides in the fight against climate chaos, the choice is clear: Clean energy jobs can deliver far more good jobs for Pennsylvania."

The report comes as both President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden attempt to woo voters in the Keystone State, as a victory there could mean winning the White House for either candidate.

Food & Water Watch's report, "Cracked: The Case for Green Jobs Over Petrochemicals In Pennsylvania," found that while the Shell Ethane Cracker Plant—the same one Brouillette visited Monday—negotiated an "unprecedented $1.65 billion tax giveaway," it will only employ 600 workers, while a similar monetary investment in wind or solar manufacturing would employ 16,500 people.

In a press release previewing Brouillette's visit, the Department of Engery said the plant "has provided approximately 7,000 jobs to the greater Pittsburgh area and jumpstarted the rapidly growing need for a robust petrochemical industry in Appalachia."

Grass disagreed with that claim. "Instead of continuing to hand out money to frackers and petrochemical corporations, Pennsylvania could create a real, worker-centered recovery by investing in clean energy manufacturing. This research shows that clean energy outperforms fossil fuels when it comes to putting Pennsylvanians to work," she said.

The report also indicates that despite repeated claims from Republican lawmakers including President Trump of incredible job gains due to fossil fuel industry investments in the United States, "the fracking boom only boosted employment by about 18,300 in Pennsylvania. With another bust already in progress, fracking cannot provide a sustainable pathway to prosperity or an adequate solution to the deindustrialization that has imperiled the region for decades."

In addition, the report's authors wrote in a summary of their research, "tax cuts for the largest corporations in the world strengthen corporate power, increase inequality, and dampen job growth by encouraging speculation instead of employment." 

As Trump and Biden vie for votes ahead of the November election, calls for aggressive action from climate advocates appear to fall on deaf ears, or, perhaps, ears attuned to corporate donors—the energy and natural resources sector has donated $4.5 million and $1.6 million to each campaign, respectively—despite polling showing voters are concerned with fracking and the climate crisis in general and support a Green New Deal, which neither candidate defends.

As recently as last Thursday, during a CNN town hall, Biden reaffirmed his previous statements that he will not ban fracking. Trump, sending Brouillette to celebrate the Shell plant Monday, deploying Vice President Mike Pence to the state earlier this month as well as visiting to rally fossil fuel industry workers in the Keystone State himself, continues to deny the effects of human activity—including fossil fuel extraction and production—on the climate crisis.

The report's authors note the president's emphasis on the industry in helping him win a second term in November, writing, "The Trump re-election campaign is heavily emphasizing fossil fuel and petrochemical jobs in Pennsylvania. Trump held a campaign-style rally at the facility a few months ago, and more recently falsely claimed credit for its construction. Brouillette's two-day visit is a strong indicator that the White House will continue to emphasize the importance of fossil fuel jobs."

Biden's campaign, despite the former vice president's recent visits to the state, has some critics concerned he is not articulating his vision clearly nor investing enough in key battleground states.

Referring to the relative lack of Biden campaign resources on the ground in Pennsylvania, one local Democratic county chairperson told the New York Times last week, "I do think the polls have tightened because of the lack of presence."

Both Trump and Biden have planned visits to Pennsylvania this week.

Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

================================
* Zie: 'Shell positief over LNG markt: hoe is het mogelijk? ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!' 

Zie ook:

'Shell neemt Kosmos Energy over, 'specialist in diepzeeboringen', of: hoe Shell ook de diepzee verder 'duurzaam' wil vervuilen' 

'Shell, Exxon, Total, Dupont, Dow en anderen lobbyen bij Trump om afval plastic te exporteren naar Afrika' 

'Kleine bedrijven en consumenten betalen de vergroening, waar de grote vervuilers miljarden aan subsidie krijgen'

'Willem Alexander opent expositie: Museum Boerhaave moet eindelijk de sponsoring door Shell stoppen!!'

'Shell krijgt plek op top 30 lijst van Royal Bank Canada (RBC)'

'Shell gaf advies klimaatresolutie te verwerpen' (!!!!)

'Australië: film 'Dirty Power: Burnt Country' maakt gehakt van regeringsbeleid en media misinformatie' (en zie de links in dat bericht naar meer artikelen over de gevolgen van de klimaatverandering voor Australië en het smerige beleid van de regering daar)

'Absolute noodzaak volgens Michael Moore, Jeff Gibbs en Greta Thunberg: het redden van mens, dier, natuur en aarde, voor het echt te laat is'

'Shell kijkt vooruit >> naar de subsidiepot voor duurzame energie, terwijl nog vele jaren lang veruit de belangrijkste bezigheid olie- en gaswinning zal blijven' 

'Shell, ExxonMobil en andere oliemaatschappijen gaan 180 miljard dollar investeren in plasticproductie.........'

'Bas Heijne weet, geenszins 'onbehagelijk', niet wat te denken van de klimaatverandering....... OEI!!!'

'ExxonMobil vervolgd voor 'misleiding...' Nou zeg maar het op grote schaal bedonderen van de kluit!!'

'Shell was al in 1989 overtuigd van klimaatverandering.............' (!!!!)

'Exxon lobbyist (politicus) dagvaardt milieugroepen voor kennis bij Exxon over klimaatverandering.......' (ongelofelijk ook.....)

EU met mooie woorden over een 'Green New Deal' terwijl de ECB oliemaatschappijen steunt met een bedrag van 7 miljard euro.........

PvdA EU grofgraaier Timmermans stelt zich aan als was hij een puber als Greta Thunberg, maar dan één op ADHD niveau, waarbij hij zich vals voordoet als een milieuactivist met zijn 'Green New Deal'*, terwijl hij in het verleden fiks heeft meegeholpen de klimaatverandering aan te jagen.....

Nu blijkt dat de Europese Centrale Bank (ECB), de oliemaatschappijen een subsidie heeft gegeven van 7 miljard euro om onze planeet verder naar god te helpen..... Dit nog naast de vele miljarden waarmee afzonderlijke lidstaten, als Nederland, de wereldvernietigende fossiele brandstofmaffia steunen, Nederland zelfs met een bedrag hoger dan de ECB steun, t.w. 8,3 miljard op jaarbasis....** 

Moet je nagaan: de directeur van de ECB, Christine Lagarde, liet enige tijd geleden nog weten dat ze alle wegen zou bewandelen om de klimaatverandering tegen te gaan, de smerige oplichter!!! (om over Rutte 3 nog maar te zwijgen, naar buiten toe zich voordoend als het groenste kabinet ooit, laat de praktijk ook in deze zaak zien dat het tegenovergestelde het geval is.....**) 

              

               Voor wie haar niet kent, dit is oplichter Lagarde 

Oil Change International is een kort onderzoek begonnen dat zal worden aangeboden aan Lagarde, de topgraaier van de ECB, het onderzoek neemt nog geen halve minuut tijd in beslag en doe dit ajb, het moet afgelopen zijn met steun voor de wereldvernietigers van de oliemaffia!!

Tell the European Central Bank to stop fueling the climate crisis

Romain IOUALALEN, Oil Change International <info@priceofoil.org>

The European Central Bank has approved over €7 billion to fossil fuel companies since the start of the pandemic

Take the survey & tell Europe's central bank to take the climate crisis seriously!

The economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has given immense power to central banks, which have spent hundreds of billions to keep the world economy afloat. The European Central Bank (ECB) alone approved a €750 billion stimulus program in March, followed by an additional €600 billion in June.

We now have an opportunity to tell the ECB that people around the world expect action, not just words. The ECB has launched an online consultation process seeking opinions as they revise their new strategy. Allies at Reclaim Finance, SumOfUs, and 350 have developed an online survey to allow you to participate easily in this process.

Fill out this online survey and it will be sent directly to the head of the European Central Bank.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, European leaders have pledged to make the recovery green and to focus efforts and resources on climate-friendly solutions. However, the ECB continues to operate as if the climate crisis did not exist. Since the beginning of the crisis, it has already handed at least €7 billion to fossil fuel companies, supported corporations active in coal, oil, and gas, and resisted calls from the public to integrate strict climate safeguards in its policies.

Christine Lagarde, the President of the ECB, recently committed to “explore every avenue” to fight climate change. As governments around the world continue to massively support the fossil fuel industry through stimulus packages, despite the industry’s abysmal climate, human rights, and financial track record, the European Central Bank has a responsibility to lead by example and to put its money where its mouth is.

It’s crucial that the ECB hears from as many concerned individuals as possible. If we can push them to integrate strict climate considerations in their policies, other central banks are likely to follow suit. As the climate crisis intensifies, it is more urgent than ever to deprive the fossil fuel industry of the oxygen it runs on: cheap public money.

Participate in the survey to tell the ECB it needs to take the climate crisis seriously.

Best,

Romain Ioualalen
Senior Campaigner, Energy Transitions and Futures
Oil Change International

MORE INFORMATION:

"ECB unveils €750 billion stimulus against coronavirus," Euractiv, 07-04-20.

"Press Release: Monetary policy decisions," European Central Bank, 06-04-20.

"ECB’s Lagarde to pursue ‘every avenue’ to fight climate change," Euractiv, 07-09-20.

"G20 Energy Policy Tracker," Energy Policy Tracker, 07-15-20.

"Money Is the Oxygen on Which the Fire of Global Warming Burns," The New Yorker, 09-17-20.

=========================================
*  'Green New Deal', vast en zeker bedacht door Timmermans en zijn partijcollega de valsgroene volksverlakker Samsom.... 'Bedacht', nou nee, immers een paar (echt) progressieve Democraten in de VS, waaronder Alexcandria Ocasio-Cortez, spreken al veel langer over de 'Green New Deal.....' Wat een stel EU kneuzen en daarmee verdienen ze ook nog een enorme berg (mede door ons opgebracht) belastinggeld!!

** Zie: 'Nederland sponsort fossiele industrie met 8,3 miljard euro per jaar'

Bernie Sanders wordt door communistenjagers gesaboteerd in zijn campagne

Op CounterPunch een artikel geschreven door Dave Lindorff over Bernie Sanders en wat je gerust een haat-campagne door de VS massamedia tegen hem kan noemen, een campagne die moet voorkomen dat Sanders in het Witte Huis belandt.... Bloomberg, één van de Democratische kandidaten, doet alleen mee om te voorkomen dat Sanders inderdaad in het genoemde huis kan plaatsnemen als president van de VS..... (van 2001 tot 2018 was Bloomberg zelfs Republikein en men stelt terecht dat hij terugkeerde in de Democratische Partij om te voorkomen dat Sanders de verkiezingen zou winnen....*)

De voorverkiezing in Iowa is volgens Lindorff een fiasco geworden door machinaties in de Democratische partij van figuren die Sanders niet lusten...... Iowa waar in feite is nog steeds niet bekend is wie echt heeft gewonnen, ook al weet men dat Sanders de meeste stemmen wist te verzamelen..... 

Lindorff betoogt terecht dat socialisme niet haaks staat op democratie, maar in feite 2 kanten van dezelfde munt zijn. Socialisme is niet hetzelfde als communisme 'zoals we hebben gezien in de Sovjet-Unie en China, zo concludeert Lindorff, waar ik aan toe zou willen voegen dat de situatie in de Sovjet-Unie niets met communisme van doen had, zoals de Chinese maatschappij niets met communisme te maken had en heeft. Beide landen werden (en wat China betreft wordt) geregeerd als een politiestaat ofwel dictatuur.......

De VS kan je in feite geen democratie meer noemen, de verschillende administraties die elkaar opvolgen bedienen vooral de super welgestelden en eventueel hun grote bedrijven...... Waar de reguliere (massa-) media in de VS Sanders afmaken als een communist die eenmaal aan de macht tegenstanders zal laten executeren, ofwel deze media maken van Sanders een 'communistisch monster' en dat middels leugens, verdraaiingen, fake news (nepnieuws), propaganda en vooral door haat en angst te zaaien (tegen/voor deze politicus).....

Lees het (soms ook humoristische) artikel van Lindorff en verbaas je, zoals ik, over de smerige machinaties in de VS, een 'land' dat zegt overal democratie te willen brengen (door landen plat te bombarderen) en zelf in feite al lang geen democratie meer is, niet alleen daar het grote geld uitmaakt wie de verkiezingen wint, maar ook door alle belemmeringen die arme en/of gekleurde burgers moet beletten te gaan stemmen........

Sanders wordt niet alleen in de VS pers onderuitgehaald, maar ook in de rest van het westen laten mediaorganen weten dat ze hem niet lusten, vanmorgen nog 'een mooi voorbeeld' in het megasuffe MAX Nieuwsweekend, waar leeghoofden Willem Post ('Amerika deskundige') en presentator de Bie hem wegzetten als een gevaarlijke halve zool; later wellicht meer over dit meer dan belachelijke gesprek op Radio1)

De wereld snakt naar rust en stabiliteit, zaken die je niet krijgt als Trump een tweede termijn mag dienen, hetzelfde is het geval met figuren als de Democraten Buttigieg en Bloomberg aan de macht....... Laten we hopen dat Sanders de voorverkiezingen en uiteindelijk het presidentschap van de VS wint, echter ik vrees dat dit niet zal gebeuren en het is zeker dat wanneer dit mislukt, de media, de grote bedrijven en de plutocraten (of oligarchen, wat je wilt) daar verantwoordelijk voor zijn......

February 13, 2020

The Red-Baiting of Bernie Sanders Has Begun and is Already Becoming Laughable

by Dave Lindorff

With Bernie Sanders now having won New Hampshire (and probably Iowa, where he won the popular vote) and confirmed his position as the frontrunner for president in the Democratic Party primaries (the New York Times’ poll guru Nate Silver is giving him a better than 40% chance of gaining enough delegates by the end of the primary season to win the nomination on the all-important first ballot at the National Convention in July), it’s becoming open season on socialism and its more anodyne relative democratic socialism.

A few days ago, right-wing columnist Marc Thiessen, writing in my local paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, mocked the catastrophic mess of the Iowa Democratic Caucus, where there is still, six days after the voting, no clear decision on who won, Sanders or Pete Buttigieg, blaming the fiasco on “the same brilliant minds who came up with Medicare-for-All and the ‘Green New Deal.’”  His conclusion, “The Democrats’ failure in Iowa stemmed from the same fundamental flaw that has caused socialism to fail (sic) wherever it is tried — the hubris of a tiny cadre whose grand visions and lack of humility far exceed their ability to deliver.”

Thiessen’s thesis fails on a number of factual grounds, of course. First of all, the failure of the Iowa Caucus was not the work of socialists at all or of the Sanders campaign. In fact the self-described social democrat in that race, Bernie Sanders, was the victim of the foul-up (if that is what it was and not sabotage). It was the work of neoliberal veterans of the 2016 Clinton campaign and the earlier Obama years who had teamed up to found a tech company, Shadow Inc., which got contracted by the neoliberal Democratic National Committee in secret to create a totally unneeded smartphone-based app for counting and tracking the votes in state caucuses and primaries. The app was so poorly designed, so untested, and was presented so late and with no training to Iowa caucus workers that it failed stunningly, even awarding delegates to the wrong candidates. This has led experts to conclude that it may be impossible to find out who really won the Iowa delegate count.  

What is clear and unarguable is that Sanders won the popular vote, both on the first round of voting, and on the second when supporters of losing candidates were allowed to shift their vote to their second-favorite top-tier candidate.

What Thiessen should have said was “The same brilliant minds in the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) who stole the primary from Bernie Sanders in 2016 are trying to do it again.”

But he couldn’t say that because he was so eager to tar “socialism” with the blame. He even linked the alleged “socialist” fiasco to Soviet Russia, citing a Soviet-era joke about it taking 10 years to get delivery of a car after purchase.. Of course that would have ruined his plan to use the cock-up as an opening to besmirch “socialism.”

Thiessen’s not alone, though, in his willful ignorance about socialism — or in his willingness to lie about its reality in countries where its virtues have been practiced for over half a century.

For another example of how luridly ignorant and dishonest the media and the political opponents of socialist ideas are in this intellectual backwater of reaction we rather ironically call the United States, take the MSNBC talking-head host, Chris Matthews. Speaking on an MSNBC panel after last Thursday evening’s New Hampshire Democratic candidates’ debate, Matthews opined that if Sanders were to win the presidency, he would end up establishing a dictatorship and start having his opponents shot.

Even his co-panelists were aghast it the absurdity of this claim, but Matthews doubled down saying, “I believe if Castro and the reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park and I might have been one of the ones getting executed,” adding, ”I don’t know who Bernie Sanders supports over these years, I don’t know what he means by socialism.”

Fellow MSNBC host Chris Hayes noted that Sanders frequently cites the decidedly peaceful democratic nation of Denmark, which boasts such socialist-inspired policies as government-run health insurance, free college, government-owned public transit and expansive paid maternity/paternity leave. To that Matthews replied combatively, “How do you know that? Has he said that?”

Well, yes, countless numbers of times, Chris, but maybe it doesn’t get reported on your network.

This is, I’m afraid, only the start. So propagandized has the US been by almost a century of lurid anti-Communist and anti-socialist red-baiting in our schools, our media and in the rhetoric of our political duopoly of pro-capitalist parties that all too many Americans unthinkingly accept and parrot this kind of ignorant nonsense. People don’t even realize that our own excellently run Veterans Health Care system is a purely socialist example of a UK-style National Health System (NHS), government-owned with doctors on salary, or that our Medicare program is a socialist-style, single-payer government-run health insurance program like Canada’s. You just have to be old or disabled to qualify for it.

Look at Trump’s vow in his State of the Union rant, to “never allow socialism” to “take over” the United States. Think I’m paranoid?  Look at how MSNBC commentator Jake Johnson (supposedly a political scientist professor!) freaked out when Bernie Sanders spokeswoman Nina Turner referred to Democratic Primary late buy-in candidate Mike Bloomberg, $60-billion former mayor of NY City and world’s 12th-richest person, an “oligarch.”  Johnson called her word choice “unfair and inaccurate” and added that the word had “implications in this country that I think are unfair and unreasonable.”

In other words, to people like Johnson, it’s countries like Russia, Ukraine, Byelorus and maybe China that have “oligarchs,”  but not the US, where we instead have “billionaires” whom we often refer to euphemistically as “philanthropists” because they donate a small portion of their year’s profits to charities of one kind or another.

Turner argues there is little or no difference. “Buying his way into the primaries” which Bloomburg, who is bypassing all the early contests while spending so far over $350 million on advertising and on hiring paid ‘influencers’ to promote his brand, is doing, she argued, makes him an “oligarch.”

This is the problem in a nutshell: The harsh reality is that the US today has among the most extreme wealth and income gaps in the world — indeed in the history of mankind. Our government — and this has been documented — is today almost totally responsive only to the needs and wishes of the wealthy and their corporations, whose lobbyists, it turns out, actually write most of the legislation that gets passed into law by Congress. The rich, who are for the most part beyond the law, pay little or nothing in taxes, shift their profits and wealth abroad to off-shore banking shelters with impunity, and legally bribe the members of Congress and the candidates for the presidency as well as their cabinet officers with what are called “campaign contributions,” free trips on corporate jets to exotic resorts, and promises of lucrative do-nothing positions on corporate boards after they leave their political jobs as errand-boys and girls for the rich and powerful.

So let’s take a look for the uneducated, ignorant and propagandized at what socialism and democratic socialism actually mean in the real world.

Socialism is for starters fundamentally democratic (democratic socialism is really a tautology). It advocates and celebrates the idea of people controlling their government by the electing of representatives who run the government, but also envisions extending that democratic control to the workplace, particularly in areas of economic activity where there is a paucity of competition (as in the energy industry, the arms industry, the power sector, utilities, health care the media and mass transit}. Sometimes that control comes in the form of government takeover of an industry, as for example of healthcare in the UK,  the railways in Germany or France, or the Post Office in the US. Sometimes it can come in the form of giving workers and even local communities — so-called stakeholders in the proper running of a company where they work or live — seats on the boards of enterprises. This is a requirement for large industrial firms in Germany and some other countries.

The US, since at least 1917 and the success of the Russian Revolution, has deliberately conflated socialism with Soviet Communism and later with Chinese Communism. (I should add that the US has also, all the way back to 1917, actively worked through economic strangulation and military action, to crush any attempts around the world to actually create a socialist society, from the Russian Revolution through election manipulation in France, Italy and Australia, to embargo and subversion in Cuba, coups in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America, and elsewhere, and wars in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Congo and other countries. This sordid history makes the common argument spouted in the US that socialism “doesn’t work,” spurious in the extreme.)

Actually though, even Lenin himself readily admitted that Russia had not succeeded (and could not expect to succeed) in achieving the “socialism” described above, because of its primitive level of industrial and class development, and so it was limited to a kind of “state capitalism.”  He was correct, but the thought leaders in the US ruling class backed by the lickspittle “independent media” in this country have ignored that point and stick with the false claim that the Soviet Union and Maoist China, with all the horrors of dictatorship they imposed on their peoples, provide examples of the “evils of socialism.”  (Never mind that before the Russian and Chinese revolutions peasants were virtual or even legal slaves of the land-owners, the countries were a ruled by a Czar or a bunch of brutal warlords, respectively, and freedom didn’t exist for the vast majority of the people.)

Back in the early 1960s, as first President Kennedy and then Lyndon Johnson worked to establish what eventually became the Medicare program for the elderly and disabled, an actor named Ronald Reagan was hired by the American Medical Association to attack the idea in a series of paid public advertisements on radio and TV. As Reagan warned darkly, if “socialized medicine,” which is what he called government insurance for the elderly and disabled, were established by Congress, “behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country until, one day as Norman Thomas said, we will awake to find that we have socialism… and one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.”

Of course, by 1981 when Reagan was elected president, Medicare and Medicaid had been operating for 16 years. By that point, Americans loved both programs, which were significantly improving the health and longevity of the nation’s people even if they didn’t always realize they were benefitting from a program that is socialist in form and inspiration. 
Freedom in any event hadn’t declined at all. Indeed freedom from poverty was far greater because far fewer of the elderly were going bust paying for medical care, and far fewer younger adults were being bankrupted trying to care for their aging parents, grandparents and disabled family members.

Medicare, Medicaid, free public college, subsidized transit and the like are not, in themselves, socialism, but they are socialist ideas, as are electric power cooperatives and municipally owned water systems. Bernie Sanders’ idea of expanding and improving Medicare into a program of Medicare for All so that nobody (and nobody’s employer) needs to pay thousands of dollars annually for individual medical insurance or tens of thousands of dollars for family medical insurance and related health care costs. Sanders favors free public college because a nation’s young people are all of our responsibility. If they succeed, we all succeed as a nation. And they cannot succeed if they graduate with a degree and $50-100,000 in student loans, some bearing interest as high as 9%.

Socialism has nothing to do with freedom and democracy or a lack of it and everything to do with building a caring society that seeks to raise everyone and give everyone the opportunity to work and succeed in that society. Socialism is not scary, it’s not Communism and it’s not dictatorship, whatever the wack-jobs like Jake Johnson, Chris Matthews of MSNBC or Sanders’ latest red-baiting attacker, Joe Biden, may say.

Bernie got it right when he told Pete Buttigieg, who has the financial backing of 40 billionaires, “You cannot take support to billionaires and then say you’re going to be for the people.”

For me, the simple way to look at it is this:  socialism is the idea that democracy should be expanded beyond the political sphere to include the economic sphere. It takes the freedom which today exists largely only in the home and on one’s front yard but that gets chipped away elsewhere and doesn’t even exist inside the workplace, and extends it to the workplace and beyond. Socialism’s premise is that government and society at large have a responsibility for the welfare of a country’s most vulnerable, and that the aggregation of vast wealth and the existence of grinding poverty are antithetical to a good society.  Capitalism’s premise, in contrast, is that the pursuit of wealth in itself is a positive thing, and that the achieving of wealth is prima face evidence of the virtue of the person who has it, while poverty is the deserved result of a person’s presumed lack of industry.

More articles by:Dave Lindorff

Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).
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* Het is voor velen in de VS wel duidelijk dat wanneer hare kwaadaardigheid Hillary Clinton niet misdadig vals had gespeeld tijdens de democratische voorverkiezingen, ze deze had verloren en de kans groot was geweest dat Sanders tot president was verkozen.......

Zie ook:
'Robert Epstein: Google en Facebook corrumperen de politiek en manipuleren de presidentsverkiezingen' 

'Joe Biden met dubbel verlies: hij dreigde met een rechtszaak om zo de resultaten van de voorverkiezingen in Iowa tegen te houden van publicatie'

'Democratische voorverkiezingen presidentschap Iowa: de soap is begonnen, nu is het nog wachten op de beschuldiging van 'Russische inmenging''

'Facebook staat valse informatie toe tijdens de (voor-) verkiezingen van het presidentschap in de VS'

'Max Boot, promotor van de illegale oorlog tegen Irak is pissig dat Bernie Sanders kritiek levert op die oorlog' 

'VS burgers zijn gewaarschuwd: Rusland kan hun hersenen hacken en laten geloven dat Joe Biden niet geschikt is als president'

'Hillary Clinton: Bernie Sanders is a 'Russian Asset''

'Nieuwe Russische hack samenzweringstheorie t.a.v. Joe Biden 'schokt' VS Democraten'

'VS presidentschap wordt gekocht met 100 dollar per uitgebrachte stem'

'Hillary Clinton manipuleert democratische voorverkiezingen'

'Michael Bloombergs deelname aan de verkiezingen laten nog eens zien hoe ondemocratisch de VS presidentsverkiezingen zijn'

'Media en politiek bepalen waar wel en niet over gesproken wordt >> over manipulatie en desinformatie gesproken'

'Niet Rusland maar Trump beïnvloedt nu al de verkiezingen in Groot-Brittannië'

'Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez grilt Zuckerberg over misleidende advertenties op Facebook: liegen in verkiezingstijd is toegestaan'

'Tulsi Gabbard (Democratische presidentskandidaat) en de gestoken verkiezingen'

'Ollongren (D66 minister) manipuleerde bevolking met beschuldiging Russische manipulatie door desinformatie en nepnieuws' (zie ook de links in dat bericht naar meer berichten over Ollongren en haar leugens)