Why Bernie Sanders might be murdered if he continues to do well

I find it hard to believe that Bernie Sanders has a chance at becoming president. His views have excited a number of potential voters both in the Democratic Party and outside of it, particularly among the young. But he’s immersed in the kind of politics which sometimes gets people killed in the Land of the Free.

A year before Hillary Clinton announced she would run for president, I predicted she would get the support of the establishment and “win.” She currently has a massive lead in the primary because of “super delegates,” the party establishment, mostly already pledged to her. The Democratic Party has favored her in setting up the debates, and she’s received millions of dollars from Wall Street and other powerful forces.

I didn’t support Bernie’s campaign largely because I saw it as an extension of the Kucinich campaign. Such campaigns have resulted in the more leftist candidate losing and throwing support to the Democratic Party’s front-running corporatist, draining leftist support from alternatives such as the Green Party and dooming hope for the left. Bernie pledged to give his support to the winner, who I assumed would be Hillary, with the deck stacked as it is.

Bernie has done far better than expected, organizing around the corporate media on the Internet. The mainstream press, as expected, have been brutal toward his candidacy. Still, Sanders has been running nationally nearly tied with Hillary.

But history has been cruel to candidates on the wrong side of the ruling Forces of Greed (FOG).

Senator Wellstone

One recalls another progressive Senator, Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash 11 days before he would have been almost certainly reelected. Wellstone, like Sanders, was despised by the ruling FOG. He was known as the conscience of the Senate, and was a one-vote margin against the Bush Republicans. With the popular Wellstone out of the race, a Republican took his seat and the Democrats lost control of the Senate.

One version is that the cause of the plane crash was bad weather and icing, but that’s not true. Another is pilot error, but there were two pilots on this small aircraft, with considerable experience.

Senator Robert Kennedy

Yet another progressive senator, Robert Kennedy, was murdered while running for president. Election polling indicated he would have almost certainly have won. It should be noted that there were also similarities between the campaigns of Sanders and Kennedy.

Kennedy’s platform, for example, was about racial and economic justice, social change, and non-aggression in foreign policy. Like Sanders, a crucial element of Kennedy’s campaign was youthful supporters. Kennedy was opposed by the ruling FOG, particularly by business interests, like Sanders.

Like Sanders, Kennedy was also blunt and untraditional in his campaigning. In one speech when asked, “Where are we going to get the money to pay for all these new programs you’re proposing?” RFK replied to his audience of medical students, about to enter lucrative careers, “From you.”

Although the legal system convicted Sirhan Sirhan of the murder, acoustics experts have independently concluded from sound recordings of the event that more than 8 shots were fired at Kennedy (one concluding that 13 shots were fired). Sirhan’s gun could maximally have held 8 rounds.

The fatal wound came from behind Kennedy’s ear, opposite Sirhan’s position, indicating, some say, that the shot came from behind Kennedy. Indeed, an eyewitness told CNN that there were two shooters.

Robert’s big brother, Jack

The ruling Forces of Greed require almost total subservience, allowing only slight deviations from their demands of presidents, and will not allow major changes which diminish their wealth and power.

The definitive case is the assassination of President Kennedy, who made the mistake of believing it was he who ran the country.

Leftists are divided on this, perhaps one of the best known debates being the long running one between Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti.

Chomsky’s view, to paraphrase, is that JFK was part of the establishment, so there was no reason for them to kill him. JFK had a conservative record of balancing the budget (without using Social Security funds to do it), increasing military spending, and taking a clear anti-communist, Cold War stand, so could hardly be called a leftist.

But Parenti insisted (and I agree) that the establishment requires presidents to toe the line more firmly than did JFK. Kennedy hinted that he was going to destroy the CIA and agree to a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty after being elected, for example, alarming some in the National Security State. The fact that Kennedy was obedient most of the time may not have been enough.

I’ve often thought it more than strange that the most important piece of evidence in the JFK murder was his brain, which went missing. I could understand the brain of a homeless guy missing, but the brain of the president of the USA?

Those who believe Kennedy was not shot from behind, but from the front by men seen carrying rifles (by several witnesses), say the brain is the key piece of evidence.

They say the brain would have shown clearly the entry point for the bullet was through the front of Kennedy’s head, and the massive exit point from the back of his head. This would have made it obvious that the bullet did not come from the direction of the Book Depository from which Lee Harvey Oswald was said to have fired the fatal shot.

But the brain was conveniently lost. It is delusional to fabricate a “magic bullet” theory (the accepted “evidence”) to counter this if one has the intact brain, or what was left of it.

There have been many alleged motives for the murder of JFK, and they all appear to be in some way connected to a pull on the establishment leash by a sitting president. Michael Parenti sums it up with a great many facts most citizens will never see.

Since Kennedy’s death, the most progressive candidates with a good chance to win an election have met with tragic and unusual deaths as I’ve pointed out above.

Murder is not necessary to stop a candidate opposing the system—corporate media generally savage attempts by leftists who somehow manage to catch a bit of attention (as in the case of Sanders), but more generally they are completely censored out of the mainstream media, as has been the case for Jill Stein of the Green Party.

Barack Obama

A person on Facebook questioned recently why President Obama hasn’t been killed after his Obamacare legislation became law. The reason is simple, Obamacare is run by corporations that make billions of dollars for our ruling Forces of Greed. Obamacare has far more to do with profit from pain and suffering than it does with medical care.

President Obama has toed the line well, expanding the lucrative wars, bailing out the banksters, and recently pushing one of the most brutal trade pacts ever proposed, the Trans Pacific Partnership, all primarily benefitting the ruling FOG. He should be expected to become fabulously wealthy from making speeches nightly for a quarter of a million dollars each, as did Bill Clinton, the system of delayed payment for services which has become business as usual.

Conclusion

Many leftists point out that Bernie has been supportive of the “War on Terrorism,” and military spending, a record which should please the establishment, just as JFK had a record of supporting the National Security State line, for the most part. But like President Kennedy, Sanders has ruffled the feathers of the ruling FOG.

Bernie is running on taxing trading on Wall Street and actually giving the working class something back for their taxes, which is not allowed by the ruling FOG, who believe the treasury belongs to them. As billionaire Leona Helmsley so succinctly put it, “Only the little people pay taxes,” and woe be it to any presidential candidate challenging that aphorism.

The current establishment plan for Bernie is to do him in with media slurs, a dirty Clinton campaign, and a rigged Democratic Party election system, all of which have worked well in the past to keep democracy from having an iota of a chance to break out in the land (one recalls when Congressman Kucinich qualified for Democratic presidential debates in Nevada, but was denied participation).

But if these things should fail, it’s hard to imagine the ruling FOG allowing Senator Sanders to sit behind the desk in the Oval Office.

Jack Balkwill has been published from the little read Rectangle, magazine of the English Honor Society, to the (then) millions of readers USA Today and many progressive publications/web sites such as Z Magazine, In These Times, Counterpunch, This Can’t Be Happening, Intrepid Report, and Dissident Voice. He is author of “An Attack on the National Security State,” about peace activists in prison.