The right-wing record of Bernie Sanders

The right-wing political record of Bernie Sanders
By Tom Hall
15 May 2015

...In 1990 Sanders ran for the House of Representatives, defeating an incumbent Republican and a Democrat in a three-way race. During congressional deliberations over authorizing the first Gulf War, Sanders declared his support for sanctions, diplomatic pressure and even the use of US forces to “pressure” Iraq into submission, while stopping, along with most congressional Democrats, just short of voting for the actual war. This caveat was dropped in 1993, when Sanders voted for US intervention in Somalia. Sanders then voted for the NATO air war against Serbia in 1999.

…Sanders voted in 2001 for the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, the congressional resolution that was the basis of George Bush’s invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and the launching of the “war on terror,” and which is still cited by Barack Obama as the legal justification for drone-missile assassinations in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries. He regularly voted for military appropriations bills, required to fund the ongoing war in Iraq Sanders claimed to oppose.

.Sanders’ stance on immigration is entirely in line with right-wing efforts to scapegoat millions of impoverished and exploited Hispanic workers for the falling living standards of American working class. He has repeatedly introduced bills in Congress calling for the suspension of the federal visa program under the guise of protecting American jobs. For his efforts, he has earned the admiration of noted anti-immigrant racist and talk show host Lou Dobbs, who called him “one of the few straight talkers in Congress.”

On the massive NSA spying first revealed by Edward Snowden, Sanders has staked out a position virtually indistinguishable from the public position of Barack Obama, “welcoming” the opportunity to “discuss” government spying while demanding that Snowden be punished for revealing it. … Last July, Sanders co-sponsored the Obama-supported USA FREEDOM Act in the Senate, which would regularize NSA spying under the guise of regulating it.

…His role in the campaign (was) to use his reputation as a politician of the “left” to disguise the ever more right-wing orientation of the Democratic Party: its abandonment of even a nominal commitment to social reform, its embrace of war, assassination, mass surveillance and an increasingly dictatorial role for the American imperialist state, both internationally and at home.

REST OF STORY:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/05/15/sand-m15.html

• Bernie Sanders:  A booster for U.S. imperialism

  
  I HAVE lived and been an activist in Vermont for the past 30 years, during which time I closely followed Bernie Sanders’ political career that has led him from Burlington mayor to U.S. congressman to U.S. senator to presidential candidate.

  Over those years, I have had a number of direct encounters with him. I can tell you from my experience that Bernie is (1) a very rude human being (which makes it hard to understand how he has been a successful politician) and (2) has never been part of the social-change movements here in Vermont, and has often been at odds with us, particularly when it concerned wars and other international issues–most recently, the savage Israeli attack on Gaza.

  My first experience with Bernie came shortly after he was elected mayor, and I moved to Burlington partly on that basis. It came while I was participating in a Central American solidarity action at a General Electric Gatling Gun factory in the early 1980s in support of peasants in El Salvador and Nicaragua against whom the machine guns mounted on helicopters were being used.

  One would have expected, and I certainly did at the time, that Bernie–back then, much more of an “avowed socialist” than he is today–would have supported our civil disobedience protests to rid the “Peoples Republic of Burlington” from this odious human rights blot. Burlington had a sister city in Nicaragua.

  But Bernie did not. Instead, I vividly remember Bernie standing arms-folded alongside the right-wing union officials from the factory and the Burlington Police Department as we were being arrested. He falsely insinuated that we were “anti-worker,” and he refused to have any serious political dialogue with us activists. Bernie next made cozy with the cops and their union, who endorsed him in his future mayoral elections.

  To my knowledge, Bernie has never spoken out against U.S. imperialism, calling it for what it is–namely, the foundation of upper-class profits and middle-class privileges in the belly of the beast. Down through the years as a politician, he has waffled at best on opposing U.S. wars against the developing world and other people who are deviating from what our rulers want. To his credit, Bernie did vote against the Iraq wars (though this was not a particularly courageous stand to take given how many other members of Congress did the same), but he has not consistently voted against the military funding legislation that made these wars possible.

  Moreover, back in 1999, he was an enthusiastic supporter of Bill Clinton’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. At that time, I was a member of a group of angry and upset peace activists, including Dave Dellinger, who held a sit-in at Bernie’s Burlington office and were arrested after Bernie refused to speak with us. At that same time, one of Bernie’s Washington staff, the labor historian and activist Jeremy Brecher, wrote a stinging open letter explaining why he could not continue to work for and represent a politician who would take that kind of pro-war position.

  In the last couple of years, a huge battle has taken place in Burlington and surrounding towns over the Pentagon’s plan to station the new F-35 warplane boondoggle at the Burlington Airport. A large and diverse movement came together to oppose it, based on everything from the noise level for those who have to live under its takeoff to its contribution to militarism and global warming. Did Bernie stand with the people’s movement? No, he has supported the F-35 to the hilt, standing instead with the area’s military types.

  Last fall, when members of Code Pink and Occupy confronted him about his failure to oppose Israel’s attack on the Gaza civilian population, Bernie took an evasive liberal position, criticizing the Palestinians who were resisting as much or more than the Zionists. He then called the police on us.

  Yes, I will freely admit that Bernie can talk a good talk about economic inequities and the need to redress them. He’s definitely on the mark there. An Occupier can agree. While never much of an environmentalist, he has even added a bit about global warming to the end of his standard populist stump speech. (When I knew him as Burlington’s mayor, he was all in favor of letting developers take over the public lands on Burlington waterfront–which fortunately was stopped due to actions by Green activists with whom he could never get along.) However, is that enough?

  In my view, we need to be clear–especially if we are socialists–about the strong linkages between what capitalism does overseas and here at home, and we need to stand firmly in solidarity with all of those people who are opposing U.S. imperialism and call for no more military spending that is being used to kill and repress them. I will certainly not waste my vote on a politician who does not take that stand.

  As importantly, we need to be building revolutionary movements to take power away from the ruling class, not campaigning for politicians who invariably let us down with their promises of reforms.

  Jay Moore, Marshfield, Vermont

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  We have a better choice:

  Published on Wednesday, June 24, 2015

  by  Common Dreams

  Under Green Party Banner, Jill Stein Officially Sets Sights on 2016

  Power to the People Plan ‘would end unemployment and poverty; avert climate catastrophe; build a sustainable, just economy; and recognize the dignity and human rights of everyone in our society’

  by

  Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

   

  

  Jill Stein at an Occupy Wall Street demonstration in 2012. (Photo: Paul Stein/flickr/cc)

  Vowing to combat the “converging crises” of racism, militarism, climate change, and “extreme materialism,” Dr. Jill Stein on Tuesday announced this week that she is running for president of the United States as a Green Party candidate.

  In a campaign kick-off speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Stein laid out the major planks of her platform, excerpted below:

  Our Power to the People Plan lays out these solutions in a blueprint to move our economy from the greed and exploitation of corporate capitalism to a human-centered system that puts people, planet and peace over profit. This plan would end unemployment and poverty; avert climate catastrophe; build a sustainable, just economy; and recognize the dignity and human rights of everyone in our society. The plan affirms that we have the power to take our future back:

  We have the power to create a Green New Deal, providing millions of jobs by transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030. 

  We have the power to provide to a living-wage job and workers rights for every American. 

  We have the power to end poverty and guarantee economic human rights.

  We have the power to make health-care a human right through an improved Medicare for All system.

  We have the power to provide education as a right and  abolish student debt.

  We have the power to create a just economy.

  We have the power to protect Mother Earth.

  We have the power to end institutional racism, police brutality and mass incarceration. 

  We have the power to restore our Constitutional rights. 

  We have the power to end our wars of aggression, close foreign bases and cut military expenditures 50%

  We have the power to empower the people.

  …Speaking of her economic priorities, Stein told Democracy Now‘s Goodman: “We are very focused on reforming the financial system, not only breaking up the big banks, but actually establishing public banks at the community, state and national level, so that we actually can democratize our finance. We can nationalize the Fed and ensure that it’s running for public purpose and not simply for private profit.”

  … Stein’s official entry into the 2016 presidential race coincides with the filing of a lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) on Monday. That lawsuit, brought by the advocacy group Level the Playing Field and the Green and Libertarian parties, seeks to expand the 2016 general-election presidential debates to independent and third-party candidates.

  Stein—who was arrested, along with vice presidential candidate Cheri Honkala, trying to enter a presidential debate sponsored by the CPD in the fall of 2012—was reportedly “deeply involved in negotiations with Level the Playing Field to have the Green Party join as co-plaintiff in this suit.”

  http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/06/24/under-green-party-banner-jill-stein-officially-sets-sights-2016

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