In a free, fair and open process, Bernie Sanders would be odds on favorite to become Dem standard bearer against Trump in November. According to polls, he’d likely defeat DJT and become the 46th US president.
That’s not how things are playing out in the run-up to the Dems’ July convention, things rigged for Biden, Sanders considered less “safe” to assure continuity—the way the nation is run for privileged interests exclusively at the expense of most others.
The NYT is in the vanguard of Sanders bashing, publishing pieces that read like Dem press releases demeaning him.
Propagandist David Brooks masquerades as a columnist. Ahead of Super Tuesday he said: “No, not Sanders, not ever,” falsely calling him a Soviet Union apologist—bashing him for supporting Nicaraguan Sandinistas over US-supported tyranny in the 1980s, and making positive remarks about Cuba under Castro.
Separately, Brooks is cheerleading Biden’s campaign, a dirty business as usual politician throughout his public life, a figure supporting endless wars against invented enemies and privileged interests at the expense of world peace and the public welfare.
According to Brooks, anti-democratic right-wing extremist Biden represents “black, brown, white, suburban and working class” Americans [sic], adding, Sanders “treat[s] [Dem party] leaders with contempt [sic].”
A separate Times piece, headlined “The Bernie Sanders Personality Test,” criticized him for the wrong reasons with remarks like the following: “[D]uring a campaign event… [he] ordered a crying baby to ‘keep that down…’”
“[T]he public sees [his] crotchety impatience, the refusal to moderate or change…The mask is the man. The caricature is the candidate.”
There’s “a real Bernie the public does not get to see—intense…mood[y]… [N]obody likes (him) in the Senate.”
He’s “too abrasive to get elected. [His House and Senate] record [is] thin… [P]eople [in the Senate] don’t hate Bernie… [T]he feeling is closer to resentment.”
“As a boss, [he’s] notoriously tough… demanding and particular… to a fault.”
“In many ways, he is the quintessential Brooklyn diner patron: The service is never quite fast enough, and what they deliver is never quite what he ordered”—demeaning him and other Brooklyn restaurant patrons, the NY borough where he was born and bred.
An unnamed source was quoted, saying he “never makes you feel like you’re good enough to be in the room with him [sic],” adding, he’s “prone to outbursts…difficult to work with.” He eschews small talk. He’s not good at backslapping.
His 1988 Soviet Union visit when serving as Burlington, VT, mayor was slammed—falsely claiming he let himself be used for anti-American propaganda.
“[H]is desire for friendship meshed with the efforts of Soviet officials in Moscow to ‘reveal American imperialism as the main source of the danger of war,’” claimed the Times.
The self-styled newspaper of record reinvented his good will visit, accusing him of dealing with an enemy of the state, adding, the “Times examined 89 pages of letters, telegrams and internal Soviet government documents revealing in far greater detail the extent of Mr. Sanders’s personal effort to establish ties between his city and a country many Americans then still considered an enemy despite the reforms being initiated at the time under Mikhail S. Gorbachev…”
“[T]he Kremlin viewed… sister city relationships as vehicles to sway American public opinion about the Soviet Union.”
At the time, Ronald Reagan encouraged increased US/Soviet Russia relations, rapprochement a way to avoid confrontation.
Sanders’ visit was a positive gesture, needed then, much more needed now at a time when bilateral relations are dismal, the risk of possible confrontation heightened.
According to Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, the Trump regime “is not just modernizing its nuclear forces, but is striving to give them new capabilities, which greatly expands the likelihood of their use”—heightening the risk of nuclear war by accident or design.
Deploying so-called low-yield nuclear weapons on submarines potentially raises the threshold for using them.
Last month, the Pentagon simulated a nuclear strike on Russia, an invented scenario used, the US responding to a strike by Moscow on a NATO ally.
It’s implausible because Kremlin leadership and officials are peacemakers, not war-mongers like their US counterparts.
The threat of nuclear war is real because of US rage for global dominance, making the unthinkable a serious risk.
It’s heightened whether Republicans or Dems run things in Washington—whether Trump, Biden or Sanders is president next year.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only anti-war aspirant in the race for the White House—demeaned by establishment media, disqualified by Dem party bosses.
They reject Sanders for not being “safe” enough—even though he votes most often along party lines, going along to get along.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
