Politics

When presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders addressed a Dec. 21 California campaign rally he railed against “more extreme weather - Venice, Italy is underwater.” But with an overflowing crowd of more than 14,000 people assembled on the sand and boardwalk, the democratic socialist’s supporters flooded that other Venice - L.A.’s bohemian beach known for weightlifters, tattoo parlors, skimpily-clad sidewalk skaters and street performers.

Beneath a sunny sky the masses listened for about three hours to the candidate and his advocates, including local musicians, activists, politicians, Prof. Cornel West, actor Tim Robbins and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the “Squad’s” socialist superstar. The Grammy Award-winning Mexico City-born brother/sister duo Jesse & Joy performed original songs and covered John Lennon’s “Imagine” in Spanish and English. They urged people to “vote hate out of office, together we’re stronger.” Joy insisted: “Remember to register.”

Al Capone wasn’t prosecuted for tax evasion because it’s cool or smart or strategic to prosecute murderers for lesser crimes, but because proving murder in court was going to be more difficult.

That’s not analogous to a Congressional impeachment, but the opposite of how Congress operates. Congress sits on indisputable evidence of the greatest crimes while impeaching presidents for lesser offenses that are harder to prove.

Andrew Johnson publicly did everything he could to limit “freedom” for African Americans to a meaningless word. He was impeached for firing the Secretary of War.

Richard Nixon had indisputably bombed Cambodia, a crime that one failed article of impeachment charged him with, not to mention Vietnam and Laos. In fact, he had sabotaged the peace process and kept a war going for years during which millions of people were killed. Lyndon Johnson (who had committed similar horrors) believed Nixon guilty of treason for the sabotage. When Nixon fled Washington, he was about to be impeached for employing a group of thugs to break into a Democratic Party office.

Why in the world should Elizabeth Warren choose to run for vice president?

The obvious answer that can save you the time of reading further or, you know, thinking, is my blatant sexism. Clearly, every time I’ve supported female candidates in the past for City Council, House of Delegates, Congress, and the White House has been part of an elaborate plot — no doubt hatched in Moscow — to create a cover for my secret but very real sexism, which I was saving for just this crucial moment. Also, my considering a dozen male candidates to all be dramatically worse than Elizabeth Warren is an obvious pretense and scam, as also therefore must be the positions I’ve taken on public policies for decades.

Or, there could be some other reasons worth considering. Here are six.

1. A Bernie Sanders – Elizabeth Warren ticket would take the nomination, and take it early, allowing the pair of them to focus on defeating Trump-Pence.

Anyone who’s been paying attention should get the picture by now. Overall, in subtle and sledgehammer ways, the mass media of the United States -- owned and sponsored by corporate giants -- are in the midst of a siege against the two progressive Democratic candidates who have a real chance to be elected president in 2020.

Some of the prevalent media bias has taken the form of protracted swoons for numerous “center lane” opponents of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The recent entry of Michael Bloomberg has further jammed that lane, adding a plutocrat “worth” upwards of $50 billion to a bevy of corporate politicians.

The mainline media are generally quite warm toward so-called “moderates,” without bothering to question what’s so moderate about such positions as bowing to corporate plunder, backing rampant militarism and refusing to seriously confront the climate emergency.

It is time we acknowledge the political realities before us, and align on the candidate who will not only win, but build the kind of multicultural, multiracial and working class movement that will enable the next President to take on corporate power and deliver justice for all.

As the executive director of Rights & Democracy (RAD) in Vermont and an organizer based in our state for more than two decades, I have had many opportunities  to work closely with U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

I know what drives him, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right when she says, he is “the real deal.

Last week, I attended Joe Biden’s first rally in California since he launched his presidential campaign more than six months ago.

It was revealing.

The Biden for President campaign had been using social media and its email list in the Los Angeles area to urge attendance. Under sunny skies, near abundant free parking, the outdoor rally on the campus of LA’s Trade-Technical College offered a chance to hear the man widely heralded as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

No more than 500 people showed up.

Admittedly, as an active Bernie Sanders supporter, I didn’t have high expectations. But what struck me about the rally went beyond the dismal turnout and the stale rhetoric from a corporate Democrat posing as a champion of working people.

So the state of Virginia is going to be run (House, Senate, and Governorship) by members of the Democratic Party for the first time in decades.

This means either that the go-to excuse of elected Democrats is going to become something other than “It’s the Republicans’ fault,” or that change is actually upon us.

Why not take this opportunity to consider what a changed government might look like?

The state of Virginia could, if it chose, take any number of progressive steps. It could create single-payer healthcare, tax wealth, make college free, make the minimum wage a living wage, end the death penalty, ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, pass the national popular vote bill, replace three-quarters of the mandatory testing in schools with actual teaching, abolish the pledge of allegiance, pay teachers better, enforce the right to unionize, and so on.

For many decades, any politician daring to fight for economic justice was liable to be denounced for engaging in “class warfare.” It was always a grimly laughable accusation, coming from wealthy elites as well as their functionaries in corporate media and elective office. In the real world, class warfare—or whatever you want to call it—has always been an economic and political reality.

In recent decades, class war in the USA has become increasingly lopsided. The steady decline in union membership, the worsening of income inequality and the hollowing out of the public sector have been some results of ongoing assaults on social decency and countess human lives. Corporate power has run amuck.

Now, the billionaire class is worried. For the first time in memory, there’s a real chance that the next president could threaten the very existence of billionaires—or at least significantly reduce their unconscionable rate of wealth accumulation—in a country and on a planet with so much human misery due to extreme economic disparities.

Senator Cory Booker has become a Pro-Nuke Holocaust Denier and must not be president or vice.

As desperate mostly-young millions march worldwide for the survival of our Earth, Booker embraces explosive atomic 500-F climate killing machines that are roasting Her.

As desperate mostly-young millions march worldwide for the survival of our Earth, Booker embraces explosive atomic 500-F climate killing machines that are roasting Her.

Any of our 96 badly run, rarely inspected US nukes could explode into a nuclear holocaust at any time.

In Booker’s New Jersey, three dying public-subsidized nukes spew heat, radiation, and carbon. Their safety is “guaranteed” by Trump’s fake Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They’re dangerously decrepit, but what’s he done to guarantee their safety? (Hint: they can’t get private insurance).

Now he’s Trump-style slandering the global grassroots safe energy movement for demanding nuke accountability.

Nuke reactors spew gargantuan quantities of waste heat and deadly radiation. That includes Carbon 14, a global warming agent.

Progressive activists often see a frustrating pattern. Many Democrats in office are good at liberal platitudes but don’t really fight for what we need. Even when constituents organize to lobby or protest, they have little leverage compared to big campaign donors, party leaders and corporate media spin. Activist efforts routinely fall short because -- while propelled by facts and passion -- they lack power.

Right now, in dozens of Democratic congressional districts, the most effective way for progressives to “lobby” their inadequate representatives would be to “primary” them. Activists may flatter themselves into believing that they have the most influence by seeking warm personal relationships with a Democratic lawmaker. But a credible primary campaign is likely to change an elected official’s behavior far more quickly and extensively.

In short, all too often, progressive activists are routinely just too frigging nice -- without galvanizing major grassroots power.