Amid the Crowing of the GOP and Clinton, Sanders Is on the Rise

[99th_Monkey]

Amid the Crowing of the GOP and Clinton, Sanders Is on the Rise
By Robert Scheer * Oct 2, 2015 * Truthdig

How easy it is to mock the Republican candidates. They’re the gang in the clown car climbing all over each other to offer a reactionary message of disarray that has all but destroyed the chances of the Bush family dynasty continuing. But isn’t that a grand achievement for the democratic process?

Why continue a political legacy that has failed in so many dramatic ways to serve the needs of the American public, instead giving us irrational but high-tech wars dealing death from the skies, heartless banking deregulation boosting the fortunes of the rich at the expense of the vast majority, and a vast state apparatus of surveillance enforced by the imprisonment of any whistleblowers who dare reveal its existence?

Good riddance to bad rubbish, except that the alternatives of Trump, Fiorina or Carson only make Jeb Bush look stunningly reasonable in comparison. The other problem is that Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate, is not fundamentally different from the scion of the Bush dynasty. She is instead a perfect stand-in for Jeb Bush if, as appears likely, the Republican Party should reject him for the sin, as with House Speaker John Boehner, of appearing too moderate. For Democrats, appearing moderate is quite easy, as Clinton proved as a senator and secretary of state: Just carry water for the military-industrial complex and Wall Street while pretending to be concerned about the ordinary folks who suffer from those costly policies.

Clinton, in rhetoric and action, will never allow a Republican opponent to appear more hawkish than herself. In the general election, she will burnish her record of support for every bit of military folly from George W.’s invasion of Iraq to her own engineering of the campaign to overthrow all secular dictators in the Middle East who have proved to be an inconvenience to the Saudi theocracy. During her tenure in the Obama administration, Clinton, by her own frequent boastful admission, was the hawk in the Cabinet pressuring the president to be even more aggressive in his drone assassinations and murderous air wars, which have destabilized the region and created what the pope recently termed the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War.

But it is the still troubled economy that will dominate the election, and it is the failure of the Democratic Party establishment—now represented singularly by Clinton—to deal with the lingering recession that explains the startling rise of Bernie Sanders as a viable candidate.

The Vermont senator’s success is not a result of charisma or image manipulation, both of which he quite properly treats as dangerous distractions from what ails us, but rather his deeply informed critique of the bipartisan policies of Presidents Clinton and Bush that have brought so much misery in their wakes.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/amid_the_crowing_of_the_gop_and_clinton_sanders_is_on_the_rise_20151002

[Live and Learn]

1. K&R nt

[NorthCarolina]

2. That's a really good read. K&R

Thanks.

[99th_Monkey]

3. Sure.

I thought so too. Since it was dated Oct 2, I almost didn't post it, assuming
it had already been posted. So glad I did the op, that some appreciate it.

[hedda_foil]

4. K&r. Love Robert Scheer.

[bvar22]

5. Truth.

DURec.

[SoapBox]

7. K & R!

"Clinton, in rhetoric and action, will never allow a Republican opponent to appear more hawkish than herself. In the general election, she will burnish her record of support for every bit of military folly from George W.’s invasion of Iraq to her own engineering of the campaign to overthrow all secular dictators in the Middle East who have proved to be an inconvenience to the Saudi theocracy. During her tenure in the Obama administration, Clinton, by her own frequent boastful admission, was the hawk in the Cabinet pressuring the president to be even more aggressive in his drone assassinations and murderous air wars, which have destabilized the region and created what the pope recently termed the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War."

Hell, the entire thing should have been in BOLD!

No more Bush...No more Clinton...and especially NO more Hillary.

[sabrina 1]

9. What's sad is how tragic the results of all these PNAC policies have been for so many people.

People are focused on the massive refugee crisis now affecting Europe, but remember the refugee crisis in Iraq, when over 4 million Iraqis fled the violence we created.

Many of them went to Syria who took them in and according to Riverbend, who ended up fleeing also, were treated far better in Syria than in Jordan where they also ended up.

Now those Iraqi refugees have had to flee Syria, again trying to escape more of the violence we are creating.

Every NATO nation that participated in this criminal violence against humanity should be forced to take in the victims of that violence.

See how they are ANGRY and refusing now to accept responsibility for the results of their criminal wars.

Shameful, disgusting, and to continue to promote the continuation of these criminal policies in the face of so much human suffering, leaves me without printable words.

[99Forever]

8. Excellent piece. Thanks.

[Enthusiast]

10. Kicked and recommended!