A Response To Roy Delfino's "Ten Reasons Why Bernie Sanders Must Be Stopped"

Originally published August 10, 2017

Too bad for you, Roy. In 2020, Bernie is going to kick the crap out of whatever corporatist shill the establishment Democrats attempt to ram down our throats. Which means that in 2020 the Dems will actually have a nominee who stands for universal health care, free tuition at state colleges, no more illegal wars of aggression, and, crucially, getting big money out of our politics so that our “democracy” can actually become a democracy. Which further means that he will destroy Trump in the general election and become the closest thing to FDR we’ve had in 80 years. You remember FDR, Roy? The guy who welcomed the hatred of the monied elite, while he gave us Social Security and banking regulations, helped us survive the Great Depression, and saw us succesfully through the brutal challenge of WWII? The guy on our dimes, who is commonly considered one of our two or three greatest presidents?

After 43 years as a registered Democrat, I abandoned the party 2 years ago after the DNC and the MSM succeeded in blocking Bernie’s candidacy by pulling every cheap trick in the book to stick us with Hillary. Coming out of nowhere, with no money and essentially no name recognition, with the DNC and the MSM conspiring to give him no air time whatever — while the orange buffoon got literally billions in free coverage- with the MSM and conservaDems constantly ridiculing him as a “socialist” who couldn’t possibly win, Bernie managed to get 47% of the elected delegates, while funded by small individual donors, a simply amazing achievement. And that’s because Americans of good will were amazed and enchanted to encounter a politician who throughout his entire long career had fought for the genuine interests of ordinary Americans, as opposed to those of wealthy donors. A politician who cut to the essence of why we truly are an oligarchy — the dependence of our politicians on big money donors. A politician who eschewed empty focus-group-tested slogans (“Stronger Together”) in favor of blunt, straightforward language demanding policies that the American people want and need, but that they never get because that would inconvenience the donor class. A man who had organized the first Civil Rights sit-in in a northern state while in college, who was arrested for protesting housing discrimination, who was the deciding vote that approved Burlington’s Gay Pride march in the 1980s, who was decreed an “honorary woman” by Gloria Steinem in the 1990s owing to his tireless efforts to achieve equal rights for women, who as a mayor in lily-white Vermont twice endorsed Jesse Jackson for President, who worked diligently for the interests of Latino farm workers in Florida — and who was castigated as indifferent to the concerns of women and minorities during the recent primary because he actually stood up for policies that would help ALL Americans, not just those whom identity politics deems to be of superior virtue. And of course he was ridiculed constantly for being a “one issue candidate” because he dared to cut to the heart of the issue — that politicians dependent on big money donors can never be expected to serve the true interests of the people.

It’s evident, Roy, that you are very butt hurt that your favored candidate Hillary couldn’t beat arguably the least qualified presidential candidate of our history. But should anyone have been surprised? Hillary was probably the ONLY Democrat who could lose to Trump. And how exactly was this Bernie’s fault? The MSM were literally agog at how Bernie, during the primaries, stuck strictly to policy issues, and ignored Hillary’s scandals over email security, Clinton Foundation pay-for-play, and any number of other issues that less principled opponents would have harped on constantly. But I suppose that, by having a clearly understandable platform that addressed the actual needs and concerns of the American people, Bernie inevitably demonstrated how bereft Hillary was in that regard. Nonetheless, after the nomination, and despite the despicable way in which the DNC and MSM had treated him throughout the primaries, Bernie bit his lip and campaigned for Hillary — or rather, campaigned against Trump — until the election.

Most Americans are not disdainful of Hillary because of any malice on Bernie’s part, but because she is such a transparent phony. Whenever she speaks, you get the impression that she is trying to manipulate you rather than inform you. Everything is focus-group tested, rather than from the heart. The spectacle of Hillary’s advisers crafting a new “spontaneous” personality for her during the primaries — try to wrap your head around “planned spontaneity” — was priceless fodder for comedy. Her propensity to outright lie, or, more commonly, lie by omission, is well known; her political style is best described as “sophistry”. How she managed to continue her political career after her serial lie about Tuzla is quite a testimony to the low standards of our electorate. And it is also apparent that she is willing to change her positions on a dime if she perceives political advantage in it. That makes her the polar opposite of Bernie, who has fought throughout his career for the positions he truly believed in, often when he knew that these policies didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of gaining him popularity or even being taken seriously at the time. In my book, that’s what you call a MENSCH.

But my chief concern about Hillary — which Bernie hardly if ever raised — is that she is one of the world’s premiere war criminals. Her guilt for the Iraq fiasco runs deep. Not only did she purport to believe the claim that Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda — something which no other leading Democrat was inane and opportunistic enough to do — but when Bush gave Saddam an ultimatum to abdicate immediately or face invasion, and more principled Democrats like Kerry were yelling — “Wait a minute, give the inspectors time to finish their inspections!” — Hillary joined with a number of Republicans in endorsing Bush’s ultimatum. As to the catastrophic debacle in Libya, which was also rooted in evident lies, Hillary was Sarkozy’s chief partner in driving this illegal assault. Now formerly prosperous Libya lies in ruins, slavery hs become a fact of life there, and Gaddafi’s arsenal is in the hands of psychotic jihadists throughout the Middle East and North Africa. And Hillary helped out in the latter respect by working with the CIA to arm and support the Wahhabist jihadi infiltrators (hilariously called “rebels” by the professional liars in our MSM) who have rendered Syria a living hell for years. And Hillary’s neocon appointee Victoria Nuland played a key role in fomenting the neo-Nazi-driven coup in Ukraine, which became a fait accompli when the US immediately recognized the coup government. (Absent this recognition, Ukraine could have averted Civil War with the accelerated election that Yanukovich and the EU had agreed to.) And now, to top things off, Hillary has helped to issue in a new Cold War by working with the DNC and Russophobes of the Deep State to concoct the “Russia interfered in the election” canard; indeed, it was Hillary herself who invented the “17 intelligence agencies” lie in her last debate with Trump.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/what%E2%80%99s-left-russiagate%E2%80...

https://caucus99percent.com/content/russiagate-hoax%E2%80%8A%E2%80%94%E2...

As far as I’m concerned, anyone who supported Hillary over Bernie in the primaries is an accomplice to war crime. Of course, most Hillary supporters were too clueless to understand that — but this clearly doesn’t apply to you, Roy.

The one great silver lining of Trump’s humiliating victory over Hillary is the fact that Bernie can now be elected President in 2020 — which is what is going to happen, Roy. Fulminate as you will, that is the fate in store for you and our nation. Because the MSM and DNC can no longer hide Bernie from the American public — his name recognition is very high, and most Americans can now grasp what Bernie is about. Even if they don’t support some or many of his policy proposals - either on principle or because they may be very difficult to achieve — they know he is a straight-talking guy who has their best interests at heart. And after being forced to choose between Hillary and Trump in the last election, the prospect of waking up in an America where you know that the guy in charge is doing his level best to look out for your real interests, and those of our civilization and our planet, will be the greatest relief. A man you know won’t resort to cheap tricks to deceive you, and who will strive to be honest with you. A guy who, with no fanfare, will buy a pair of boots for a homeless man he met on the street in mid-winter, simply because he felt that was the right thing for him to do.

http://www.snopes.com/winter-at-bernies/

Yes, Bernie is as mortal as the rest of us. As hard-driving as he is in pursuit of his important goals, he can occasionally be short-tempered and demanding. Although Bernie is very approachable — a high proportion of people in Vermont know him on a first-name basis — making friends or schmoozing is not his top priority. He’s a busy guy. So congrats to you, Roy, for digging through Bernie’s 40-year political career to uncover a handful of episodes which display Bernie in a less-than-saintly light. You’ve won your spurs as a political propagandist. However, your anecdotes won’t change the fact that Bernie is viewed favorably by 86% of the people in his home state of Vermont. Since he got only (!) 73% of the vote in his last senatorial election, that means that half the people who didn’t vote for him consider him to be an honorable guy.

So good luck with Kamala, or Corey, or whatever other tool of monied interests you get behind in 2020, Roy. The American people now know who Bernie is, and a high proportion of them are getting wise to the fact that the Republicans and establishment Dems such as yourself constitute a duopoly whose primary intent is to feather the nests of the powerful interests who fund them. I’m one of those people, and I’ll be damned if I will ever again vote for a politician who takes money from corporate lobbyists or PACs. Once a sizable proportion of younger Americans understand this and feel the same way, a real political revolution will be achieved. And our mentor in breaking through to that revolution will be President Bernie Sanders.

P.S. — With respect to your moniker characterizing you as fighting “conspiracy theories” (a phrase invented by the CIA) — only scumbags averse to rational argument use that term.

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Lily O Lady's picture

the money keeps coming in, they win. Bernie could endanger that. Whatever Dems say, they just don’t want to jeopardize the gravy train.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Alligator Ed's picture

The Dims will cheat Bernie out of his rightful nomination.

Trump will trounce any of the other so-called Dem heavyweights, i.e., those who have graduated from kindergarten and have entered first grade.

Excellent essay, by the way

Pleasantry

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Why are we reading about this as if it's current and pertinent (with Delfino's "reasons" such as, "He [Sanders] refuses to take responsibility for his actions," being outright parochial and unsupported by facts)?

Why isn't the date of Delfino's Medium essay noted as such in your post?

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

Pluto's Republic's picture

@bobswern

...his archive of focused essays into the c99 Vault. He feeds a little in at a time. His topics happen to be investigative, pertaining to the Russia Hoax. This is a topic of great interest to many of us. There were very few journalists who were able to maintain their objectivity and common sense and they succumbed to the Russia Hoax and could not do their job properly. At the same time, those who spoke the truth were treated very badly. They were banned from many popular news and social media sites. Their work was frozen or discarded.

This author had his entire archive at Medium shut down without notice. We invited him to move his work here, where intellectually honest and ethical writers are can speak freely. We are one of the few sites where people could openly discuss the dangerous and false propaganda about Russia that the intelligence agencies and media monopolies pushed onto the American people.

Over a two year period, people have been intellectually damaged by this Hoax. They are still too misinformed to communicate about real world events. They'll bring that into the voting booths in 2020, so don't expect an enlightened government to emerge. Our our foreign policy is a disaster and our international relationships have been shattered. Americans do not trust US news media and do not believe their government. A majority of American journalists and news hosts were completely bamboozled by the Russia Hoax. They are no longer trustworthy. We are a Failed State. The intellectual harm is so deep, it cannot be repaired except through attrition. Society has been distorted by fear.

We are archiving it.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@Pluto's Republic @Pluto's Republic

I, too, am thoroughly disgusted by the outrageous behavior of many leaders in the Democratic Party totally distorting the reasons for Hillary's loss in the 2016 primary, while simultaneously ignoring many salient facts--among them being the illegal abuse of our surveillance state's resources by the Dem status quo to attack Trump--for strictly political partisan purposes. I've written about this, myself, as early as Fall 2016, over at DKos. And, I've been following it closely ever since.

The above being said, as the author of this post noted, a couple of comments below, they didn't note this as being an old piece. (And, frankly, the Delfino post--the subject of this post in which we're commenting--at Medium is just weak tea, across the board. And, it's old weak tea, at that. Furthermore, references regarding Russiagate in the Delfina post, as covered by veganmark, account for only a small portion of the two-year-old article.)

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

@bobswern Sorry about that. On my other archived articles, I have included the original publication date, but I slipped up here. My response to Delfino was posted Aug 10, 2017, so I presume that his essay was written shortly before that date. I have revised this to include its original publication date.

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Mark F. McCarty

@veganmark

Immediately above.

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson