No liberal is safe
This is the first time I've seen Chen go for a dunk and blow it.
This is simply not at all how American foreign policy works. Every military action short of an Iraq-scale invasion is run out of the White House and other parts of the executive (the State Department, the CIA, etc.). Individual congresspeople don't have a "stop bombing Yemen" button. And while they do vote on some foreign policies, they individually have as much say on that as they do on something like Medicare for All. Just as individual congresspeople don't have an "enact M4A" button, they don't have an "end sanctions on Venezuela" button or an "end saber rattling against China" button. Bernie can't do a damn thing about the U.S. Navy fucking around in the South China Sea, for example.
Bernie is of course open to criticism on his views of China -- here he is on some bullshit Tibet bill, for instance. But he's not anywhere close to the crowd that's really hawkish toward China, and it's ridiculous to suggest he could just stop the Cold War 2.0.
BERNIE AND ME by Michael Parenti
People have asked me what I think of the Bernie Sanders campaign. Bernie and I used to be close political friends up in Vermont in the early 1970s. We ran together on a third party ticket (the Liberty Union Party). I ran for the U.S. House of Representatives and Bernie ran for the U.S. Senate. (I got 7% of the vote; he got 3 or 4%--but who's counting.)
Bernie stayed in Vermont. I wanted to write rather than run for office in one-sided campaigns. So I spent the years writing books, articles, teaching courses, giving interviews, doing guest lectures all over the country, and marching in demonstrations. But I remained good friends with Bernie. I gave him moral and monetary support in his successful campaigns for Mayor of Burlington, then U.S. House of Representatives.
But I eventually broke with him because of his position on the Yugoslavia war, the "humanitarian war" as Bill Clinton and his national security state people called it. As did many liberals and some Trotskyites and anarchists, Bernie stood shoulder to shoulder with NATO and the CIA and the Clinton White House in the destruction of Yugoslavia, the 78 days of bombing, drenching Serbia in depleted uranium, leaving Serbia with the highest cancer rate in Europe and breaking up Yugoslavia, one of the best social democracies in Europe, though not without its serious blemishes.
Today, I wish Bernie the best. He is a Democrat although he calls himself a socialist and an independent. But he takes very good stands on Social Security, human services, and curbing the banksters. However, he has voiced not a word about what his foreign policy might be. I suspect it has not improved. I will most likely not be voting for him. Probably I will support some third-party candidate who will run a hard hopeless campaign---of the kind we used to do in Vermont years ago. ----MICHAEL PARENTI
I remember hearing this speech and thought "damn, Parenti's old" Dude's held up the torch of Communism in the bleakest empire on the earth during the darkest times to be an open and hardline Red when nearly everyone on this subs parents were protein in their parents sacks.
Respect for the OG Reds
I will most likely not be voting for him. Probably I will support some third-party candidate who will run a hard hopeless campaign—of the kind we used to do in Vermont years ago.
Damn that's a really good line.
That's a better Bernie burn than the Chen one honestly, cuts a bit deeper.
True I just was mostly just shitposting and liked the title I came up with
I mean Chen's right. Do people really think anyone in the future will think the left nobly fought against rising cold war tide when everyone the left has elected is rubber stamping Biden's foreign policy and the orgs are going along with it?
Guys, we have to focus on electoralism and anti-authoritarianism. Also we can't blame anyone we elect when nothing happens because the bloodthirsty machinery of the bourgeois state can't be controlled by one man.
I'm gonna say this one is pretty lame. (MarxMadness explained why much better than I could. And I'll add to that that it's weird to pick a tweet you agree with to dunk on. And presumably Chen agrees with that statement about climate change.)
this shot is non-canon like his praise of merkel, so in short Chen doesnt miss
ah man. if I could apply the Disney approach to canon to other things in life, that would be amazing. "you skipped work this week.""Sorry, but it wasn't canon."
But you also miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And he doesn't take every shot. So it follows that he does miss.
If I can find a post in the dunk tank that he didn't dunk on, wouldn't that prove it? :thinkin-lenin:
You know which episode they touched on that was? I'm interested to hear.
This is such a stupid fucking tweet.
Bernie: guys, climate change is real
Tankie mouthpiece: (thinking) how can I make this about China?
Tankie here. I approve of comrade Chen's tweet, as required to obtain my Xi bux.
Chen is smart, not only was that a dunk but it appeals to Bernie's sense of self-importance. And Chen might also literally be right that (unfortunately) Bernie is the single best positioned person not in Biden's admin to slow a Cold War from brewing.
How? Sanders isn't part of any foreign policy committee and he barely made the dems sweat on the $15 minimum wage.
Are we just forgetting that Bernie's whole thing of "Not Me, Us" was about building dual power? Dual power that he mothballed the second the caved to the establishment. He absolutely had the opportunity to maintain that movement and use it to put massive amounts of social pressure on Biden.
Exactly, which makes this dunk correct. Honestly Chen is maybe giving him too much credit and still thinking he can regain that political capital that he just vaporized when he dropped out.
Bernie’s whole thing of “Not Me, Us” was about building dual power?
This is wishful thinking. He never said anything to this effect, and was very transparent the whole time (dating back to 2016) about playing the electoral game straight up. He was never ever ever going to break away from the Democratic Party and try to establish some leftist organization. Anyone could have seen this after he chose to ran in the Democratic primaries and/or after he campaigned for Hillary after he lost the first time around.
Make of his strategy what you will, but don't imagine it was something it never claimed to be and then get mad at him for betraying a fiction.
Then he's absolute garbage lol, fuck him for doing something good and backing off because he's an electoralist.
Chen is absolutely right when he said that Bernie could have stopped this. He could have but chose not to and I will in fact blame him because he's willfully not being part of the solution and even misleading people into thinking he's something more than he was.
Also bro, you need to chill with the incredibly liberal and reactive defense of imperialist garbage. I'm tired of having these conversations with you.
incredibly liberal and reactive defense of imperialist garbage
yeah get the fuck out of here
Right, it's not a straight up slam, he's trying to appeal to Bernie's better angels.
Why would anyone ask that ? He lost the election and does not have much infleuce over foreign policy. I guess he can vote against military funding
The reasoning is he worked so hard to build a sort of dual power during the primaries then just switched it off and got back in line.
He could have continued using the almost half billion dollars he got to build out a real movement that connected people and organized resistance outside of electoralism, but he sold it to the DNC to send out "BIDEN'S DOG HAS CANCER! DONATE $5 NOW TO SAVE HIS LIFE!" emails.
So yeah, fuck Bernie for disassembling the one good thing he built and cowarding out from the political capital he'd gained by waking up a huge portion of the youth and working class.
Well Chen, I wouldn't count on that guy for anything useful, his only utility seems to be his hilarious Kaufmanesque political pratfalls that demonstrate the futility of reformism and entryism.
