Demos Debate: Hillary Grins and Bernie Dances

“The Intercept report revealed, among other new disclosures, that at one point in 2012 Obama had approved 20 people for assassination in Yemen and Somalia. More than 200 were killed by drones in those countries that year, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.” (theguardian, 10.16.15)

In general terms, the production on Tuesday night of the Democratic Party debates in Las Vegas, the model city for Wall Street, home to casino-capitalism couldn’t have been more different than the recent republican carnival-like sideshows. Democrats discussed issues like adults; republicans name call and appeal to bigotry like kids on a playground in middle school. Even the debate’s also-rans, James Webb, an old-fashioned republican in democrats’ clothing, Martin O’Malley, former Baltimore Mayor (?) and Maryland governor, and Lincoln Chaffee, a candidate who got left behind by the republican party, seemed more attractive and in touch than the brat pack on the right.

As one might expect, the major media figures, both left and right, pronounced Hilary the winner over Bernie Sanders. Clinton overcame expectations of “boring” and seemed vaguely human. She laughed, made jokes, and probably kept Biden out of the race. She also appealed to her own and the next generation of “yuppies” (young upwardly mobile professionals), who understand much about giving lip service to “social justice” but little about economic justice: how the capitalist machine is destroying Mother Nature worldwide and creating factionalism within the borders of the USA. Clinton’s support for Wall Street and the liberation of the banks from the restraints of Glass-Steagall, which New Deal type legislation restricted banks from betting on phony “financial instruments” like “collateralized debt obligations,” speaks to the way Hillary worships the status quo.

Hillary and Bill are famous for moving the democratic party so far to the right that to call her a progressive, in light of her own bank statement and opportunistic claims, is for those who have followed her from Chicago to Arkansas, Arkansas to Washington, Washington to New York, New York to Washington…laughable.

Bernie, the Brooklyn-born social democrat, moved once to Vermont and became a congressman in 1991 and was elected to the Senate in 2007. He’s a longtime, old-fashioned social democrat who has spent a lifetime seeking real social justice via restoring economic opportunity and redistributing the wealth. When the 1% control campaigns and more than half the assets, revenue, and media itself, you’ve got the circumstance for creating a volatile and uncivil country or call it “fascism,” where business and government merge. Democrats who express themselves with deadly drones and assassinate citizens or bomb hospitals abroad are no better than those who sacrifice children and innocent students to the bloodlust of the nations’ arms manufacturers.

Sanders’ passion and authenticity spoke to the online community and community of the youthful and young at heart. His supporters made a myriad of small donations to his campaign since the debate. Sanders repeatedly focused on the real issues of “inequality,” even as he came to Clinton’s rescue on the bogus “email” issue. While Clinton dogged the Independent rural representative from Vermont on the gun issue (he got a D- from the NRA), Hillary, like Obama, is a “bad faith” democrat who speaks of social justice but has, historically, signed off on the rich man’s IOUs.

Meanwhile Bernie is dancing on TV and thanks to small donors, hurtling down the Interstate toward Iowa and New Hampshire.