So now Bernie is a Russian agent too!
The things you learn on the interwebs.
Hillary fans continue to have bizarre emotional meltdowns all these months later, as a writer for The Nation discovered.
On Thursday afternoon, Senator Bernie Sanders voted against legislation to put new sanctions on both Russia and Iran. He voted for a Russia-only sanctions bill, but opposed the final bill’s inclusion of new sanctions on Iran because, like John Kerry, he feared it would endanger the 2015 nuclear deal.
I tweeted out a screengrab of Sanders’ statement saying as much, and noted that he was one of only two senators to vote no. Then I went about my business. When I checked Twitter an hour later, all hell had broken loose.
BERNIE
SANDERS
IS
A
RUSSIAN
ASSET. https://t.co/BIvkNv93z7— Sir James The Second (@JKH2) June 15, 2017
Bernie Sanders also doesn't want to upset his buddy Putin. https://t.co/xC5lL51oY2
— Matt Murphy (@MattMurph24) June 15, 2017
it's time to start wondering if Bernie isn't working with trump/russia too... seriously.
— JP (@JermePhilip) June 15, 2017
sanders took $$$ from the russian PAC, he needs to be investigated for his role in russiagate, like his spreading fake news & proaganda
— mark john junor (@markjunor3) June 15, 2017
@gzornick BECAUSE SANDERS WORKED WITH RUSSIA PLUS MORE.
— Vikkie Suie (@suievikkie) June 15, 2017
So how did people jump to this conclusion that Bernie Sanders, by opposing Democrats, must ipso facto be working at the behest of Russia? It wasn’t entirely organic. And it points to how fake news can infect some of our brethren on the left.
Blame starts with the people with megaphones that peddle this nonsense. Eric Garland, who became a Twitter celebrity with his bizarre “game theory” thread, has explicitly tied Sanders to Russia in his threads. So has Melissa McEwan on her Shakesville blog. “Bernie Sanders, who has visited Russia, has not been, to my knowledge, suspected of being vulnerable by Russian kompromat cultivated on his visits, unlike Donald Trump. But, as I said above, if I intend to say something, I will state it plainly, and here I am plainly stating that I do believe these connections warrant more scrutiny,” she wrote. The Palmer Report, which churns out Russia-related fake news by the pixel load, wrote a post in April: “Bernie Sanders must disclose what he knows about his campaign adviser Tad Devine and Russia.” And of course, uber-grifter Louise Mensch has joined the conspiracy theorists.
The "if you don't hate Russia you are a Russian agent" hysteria has become absolutely pathological for Democrats.
One day in the future these people will look back and be embarrassed, like seeing old pictures of yourself with a mullet.
The attack and smear Bernie campaign starts far, far above the level of tweets.
The NY Times, for example, has been busy smearing Bernie this week.
Of course the source of this campaign is predictable.
On the simplest level, for Sanders to have defied the anti-Russia hysteria constantly pushed by the Democratic party is tantamount to treason. How dare he take a cautious, de-escalating stance on such a major issue! Mainline Democrats are already eager to blame Sanders for everything else, so why not turn this small political action into a major snafu?
One of the biggest critics of Sanders’ vote was Peter Daou, the definition of a centrist extremist if there ever was one. Daou served as an adviser for Clinton in 2008 and is known online for his extreme loyalty to the Democratic establishment. As such, he was eager to tear Sanders for standing against the party line.
Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul were the ONLY TWO VOTES **AGAINST** the Russia sanctions bill. Bernie was out of sync with every Dem senator. https://t.co/3DnLWiOtav
— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) June 15, 2017
As Shaun King pointed out this week, real progressives like Bernie aren't welcome in today's Democratic Party.
Comments
I too, thought the Russia Derangement Syndrome
would not last long, there being so little actual substance to it. But that doesn't seem to have been the case. Whomever or whatever is orchestrating this massive disinformation campaign, they or it have been phenomenally successful. Watching so many otherwise intelligent people eagerly devour and then spew out CIA-generated propaganda, is a very disheartening experience. It seems as if the Democratic Party en masse, has chosen to approve and imitate Karl Rove's infamous dictum of how reality gets determined:
"That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
It's a devilish and dangerous way of thinking, no matter how politically convenient it may be.
native
It's also transparent
Even if the Brawndos in the US mostly fall for it, the rest of the world won't. A large part of the power that the US once wielded was its soft power. That's eroding fast, and as countries cooperate less with the US, everything it tries to accomplish will be proportionally more difficult.
We won't even be able to cause damage with sanctions, the way things are going.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
I love the Russians!
They're so much like us. Right down to the drunken nitwits fighting for scraps.
The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.
"I don't care about Russia"
Holy shit.
I took private ballet lessons from a Russian prima ballerina when I was 11.
That explains a lot.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
And yet Bernie has been pushing the Russia narrative in the
press for all he's worth.
It's just not enough for the Clintons. Nothing but absolute obedience will do.
It doesn't matter what you've done in the past for Veruca. She only cares about getting what she wants now.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
how can he justify this stuff?
I see what he is doing. He would have voted for sanctions against Russia, balking only when Iran was included.
How can progressives pray for this guy to lead our movement? nope.
not even if he could and would.
which he can't and won't.
It's disturbing, the extent to which he goes along
to get along. He's also got image problems. He's fine as a Senator, as far as that goes, but the Left definitely needs a new standard bearer.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Yes yes and yes.
@irishking @CSTMS it's been interesting to me how many Sanders supporters will either justify or ignore his support of this Russia nonsense. To me his pushing this is completely reckless and there is no excuse that makes it ok. So, he's either bending over for the political mainstream/MIC/TPTB and can't stand up to the pressure or he really believes this crap regardless of the lack of evidence. Frankly, I'm not sure which is worse.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
I was a hardcore Sanders supporter,
and donated buckets of money, but I'm usually quick to call a spade a spade. If he isn't toeing the line, I'm looking elsewhere. I'm not entirely satisfied with Warren either, for similar reasons. She seems a bit bellicose lately, and I wonder to what extent the Deep Staters have gotten to her?
Can we support Cornel West for President?
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
I'm actually forgiving to a fault.
I was one of those people who made plenty of excuses when Sanders started running Her campaign for her. I figured he was just keeping his word from back when he said he'd support the nominee, whoever it was. Then it dawned on me that he'd been volunteering that information since before the first vote had been cast. He was already telling people "I won't be a spoiler" accepting one of the popular narratives that came out against him before it even had really kicked in. None of that set right but again, I was able to rationalize this as "playing the game" or what have you.
Once he started saying Her won "fair and square" and that he can't acknowledge the fraud committed against us, I was done with him. His buying into the Russia nonsense sealed the deal. I know a lot of people cut him a lot of slack on this stuff for being Bernie, but there's working within the system, or whatever you want to call it, and then there's going too far. He may still believe all the stuff he's in public saying, but ignoring the rampant corruption in the Democratic Party insures nothing will ever change.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
I try to look at what people do
rather than what they say, and his actions speak loudly. He hasn't joined the party, and is once again Independent. To me this telegraphs that the party is hopelessly corrupt, in it's current configuration.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Exactly.
That's one argument I will agree with the Hillbots on, but for very different reasons. Why are you wasting time with a unity tour and going on TV saying what the Democrats need to do when you won't join the party? Hell, he couldn't have even voted for himself in the primary in my state being an Independent. That tells me all I need to know, really.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
The Left needs a global strategy,
and Bernie Sanders unfortunately, is not able to provide one. Neoliberals and neoconservatives both have very active global operations and strategies. The American Left has nothing of the kind... yet.
native
The idea that while American Presidents change,
yet its foreign policy never does, is right on the money. Our global strategy has to involve choosing leaders who won't cooperate with or cave in to the neocon and neolib cabal that is so enamored with these wars.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
@native The American Left would
The American Left would have to give up some fairly cherished habits of thought and some deeply ingrained, if not loved, habits of behavior, in order to build such a strategy.
1)We would have to come together in small groups face-to-face across the country without a big umbrella organization hovering over us and organizing everything.
2)We would have to talk to people who agree with us and establish trust, at the same time that we cut ties (at least political ties) with those who break our trust and work for the establishment (a good way to suss this out is the proliferation of establishment talking points, especially anything that excuses either the wealthy or the political system).
3)We would have to create a homemade politics, rather than searching a menu of options provided and agonizing over which lesser evil to take or despairing over the fact that nothing's on the menu that we want.
4)We would have to start analyzing the United States truly as a global empire--or perhaps as the main arsenal of the real global empire, which has to do with finance, petroleum, and weapons, and those who own the companies which produce them. Doing this would eliminate the "Why didn't you include Zimbabwe" issue, in which lefties write up a whole long list of wrongs they oppose, present it to the community for ratification, and people start standing up saying "Why didn't you mention Zimbabwe? Why didn't you mention geoengineering? Why didn't you mention every last thing this crap empire has done to wreck the planet and the people living on it? Are you saying Zimbabwe isn't important??
Ultimately, we have no strategy outside the electoral system, which is why we always argue over vote Dem vs vote 3rd party vs don't vote.
This is a stripped-down, impoverished version even of the fairly mainstream left-wing efforts as late as the 80s.
The Clintons have been a very successful blight on the American left. No wonder they're billionaires now.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
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