07.02.17 Purity or victory: What’s a progressive to wish for?

So much hand wringing in the Democratic Party, ever since Trump unexpectedly beat Hillary Clinton! The intensity of the anguish only increased after Democrat Jon Ossoff failed to beat Karen Handel in Newt Gingrich’s former Georgia district in June. This put the Dems’ record at 0 for 4 in special elections this year. The sky must be falling more rapidly than ever.

After last November, many argued that Democrats failed to capture the White House because they hadn’t run on a clear economically populist message. This view continues to hold sway despite subsequent polling showing that Clinton lost not on economics*, but on her own failures and how culturally alienated (not economically alienated) Trump voters were. (You can read “culturally alienated” here as racist; though other cultural memes such as guns and religion certainly played a part.)

Some commentators have jumped on this latter bandwagon, lecturing Dems that it’s time to give up on “identity politics” (the right wing’s term for giving a shit about minorities and women) and abortion rights. That is, if only Dems would sell their souls, they’d start winning: Without the Neanderthals on your side, you’re toast!

Leftier Democrats (including most Bernie Sanders supporters) buy the economic argument lock, stock, and barrel. The solution, in their view, is to go whole hog for single payer, more regulation, and higher taxes on the rich. Your blogger fits well within this policy camp, but, as we shall see, not wholly with the proposition that this approach is a panacea for electoral woes.

The first thing required of Democrats at this point is some perspective:

• The Democrats didn’t lose the presidential election. Our candidate won the popular vote by over three million votes. She lost the electoral college by only 70,000 votes in three states. And, of course, she was a terrible candidate and a certain foreign power put a thumb on the scale against her.
• Compared to previous results in the districts the Dems have lost this year, their totals have improved dramatically. All four special elections thus far have taken place in deep-red places. We should be encouraged by the results, rather than discouraged.

So, my proposition is that Democrats do not need to renounce social and racial justice, or even economic centrism, to win at the presidential level. I don’t believe, in fact, that die-hard racists – those who would rather give up their own health care before seeing any of “those people” get any – can be won over in any case.

Nonetheless, Democrats were wiped off the map across most of the country at the local and state level during the Obama years. As admirable as the former president is in many ways, he was a terrible politician – he paid no attention to the fate of the party and the party, for its part, utterly lacked integrity and competence. This has been and remains an unmitigated disaster for at least three reasons:

• State office holders (legislatures and governors) create electoral districts. In our horribly flawed democracy, when the GOP controls those levers, it assures that Democrats can’t win at any level.
• Local and state offices are the bench from which candidates for Congress (and the presidency) emerge. If you have few Democrats holding these offices, you’ll have fewer ready to run for Congress.
• Losing begets losing: Local voters who only see Democrats as losers or as incompetent or as out of touch with their issues become accustomed to rejecting them.

A progressive neighbor of mine (almost all my neighbors are progressive) asked me to comment about abortion rights, in this context. This question gets to a struggle in most political parties: which is more important, purity or victory? The GOP has certainly struggled with this question and has answered it by booting all the moderates out of their party. This has not hurt them – yet – because our system is tilted in their favor (the built-in advantage for less-populated areas), because they already control most of the levels of power, and because of Democrat incompetence.

So, should Democrats accept anti-choice politicians (or gun nuts) as the price of winning?

Recently, Democrats who were never particularly comfortable with Bernie Sanders to start with, along with many progressive women (for obvious reasons), excoriated Sanders for assisting the mayoral campaign of an anti-choicer in Oklahoma City. This particular struggle has also played out in venues like January’s Women’s March, where anti-choice women’s groups were made personae non gratae.

Abortion rights, gay rights, immigration rights, and the importance of black lives are litmus test issues for me. But I’m here in Montgomery County, Maryland, where I will never be faced with a dilemma in choosing a Democrat over a Republican.

How about in Oklahoma City? Or the suburbs of Atlanta?

There is a moral dilemma. If we insist that our party be pure, we may be hurting a Democratic candidate who could win and do a lot of good for people who need it. Think that if a somewhat distasteful Democrat wins over an evil Republican: they may help lift more black folks out of poverty and devote more resources to the needs of single moms and their infants and the schools those kids will go to. Is it moral to, in effect, facilitate the victory of a Republican, who will help only the wealthy and, most likely, be even worse on social issues than the flawed Democrat?

I also think purity is bad strategy. Progressives cannot win the school board seats, the city halls, and the state legislatures everywhere with an identical message or set of priorities. And, we have to understand that the only thing that matters in January of a new Congress is the numbers of Ds (and Is aligned with them) vs. Rs. It’s the votes for Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader that determine everything that follows. There must be more Ds than Rs, even if I don’t love every single D.

We also have to be practical in our thinking: how much difference is the mayor of Oklahoma City going to make on reproductive freedom? He (it is a man) doesn’t have any authority on that issue and lives in a state where even a solid pro-choicer would have zero influence.

Another example worth considering is Joe Manchin, the Democratic – but rather right-wing – senator from West Virginia. He only votes with other Democrats about 60% of the time. He is wrong on guns and coal and numerous other issues. But, the key question is: if we “primary” him and beat him with a reliable progressive, can that progressive win in November?! Remember, Manchin is standing with Dems right now in opposing Trumpcare. And he will vote for a Democrat to lead the Senate in 2019.

(I’m not declaring absolute opposition to a race against Manchin. I am saying that this is not the no-brainer purist lefties may proclaim.)

Democrats in blue states and counties have a responsibility to move the party left. There should be no room in Montgomery County for Democrats who favor powerful, wealthy development interests. There should be no room in Maryland for Democratic state legislators (or governors) who support the bail bond or gambling industries or downplay racial injustice.

But, if we are to stop the GOP agenda and the party’s racist and xenophobic acolytes across the country, we have to beat them at the ballot box! Maybe if Dems were politically dominant right now, I would be fine with kicking out every Wall Streeter and abortion opponent. But protest marches and candlelight vigils are not going to take our country back. The only thing that can do that is winning elections. Towards that end, we need to temper the virulence of our internecine battles and tolerate some politicians we’d rather not. The Democratic Party must be a big tent.

So, to answer the neighbor who asked me to address this question: I can live with a mayor in Oklahoma City whom I disagree with completely on abortion. And I can live with a Joe Manchin in one of the most racist, Trump-friendly states in America. I feel this at the same time I feel it is past time to kick the right wing Dems out of Montgomery County and Maryland.

As a college football coach famously put it in 1950: “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” That needs to be progressives’ and Democrats’ mantra for at least the next few years.

*It was apparent that within days of the election that Trump voters, on average, were more wealthy than the rest of the country.

(c)2017 Keith Berner

02.04.17 I’m a Democrat

I have worked on more Democratic political campaigns than I can count (starting with George McGovern in 1972 – that’s a picture of me at age 12 in Time Magazine, 9/25/72*). I even served as a precinct captain for four years here in Takoma Park, MD. I quit that post in 2006 out of disgust with Maryland’s machine politics and the pro-corporate Dems on the national scene. Notwithstanding my anger at the party, I continued to vote almost exclusively for Democratic candidates, because what choice did I have? (The exceptions are when I have written in “Mickey Mouse” in races where the GOP had no chance.)

Since 2006, I have called myself “anti-Republican,” rather than “Democrat.”

It’s 2017, that luxury is gone. All the fantasizing by Greens about a third-party’s route to salvation are out of touch with the reality of our rigid two-party system. Lefty calls for a political revolution to overthrow Wall Street Democrats may be noble, but may also be distracting us from our one and only task at hand: winning!

For those new to this blog, let me specify: I’m from the Bernie end of the spectrum. If I could, I’d kick the private sector out of all public services (starting with health care!), ban all guns, remove religion from the public square, confiscate excess wealth, and oppose US hypocrisy in foreign policy.

But, to insist on purity is to condemn the left (all of it) to minority status, on school boards, city councils, and statehouses across the country. I will henceforth call myself a Democrat and do whatever I can to help beat the GOP everywhere.  This will mean sometimes prioritizing a big tent over trying to topple elected officials who don’t always vote the way I want.

Yes, we should have internal debates in the party. Yes, we should support primary challenges to “bad” Democrats, but only when such challenges are not going to bite us in the ass that November.

It is the job of all people even moderately left of center in this country — just as it is the job of the most embittered Bernie (and Hillary) supporters – to elevate victory as a principle over purity.

The one thing Democrats can no longer tolerate: an incompetent party that rests on laurels, comforts itself in its own moral rectitude, and cedes the entire political system to the far right (which is now the only right in this country).

The Democratic Party, love it or not, is the only vehicle to take our country back. Get on board or get out of the way!

*That issue featured All in the Family and Sanford & Sons on the cover, under the headline “Toppling Old Taboos.” The bumper sticker I was holding at the rally in the old Cleveland Arena read “Nixon Bugs Me, Too!”

©2017 Keith Berner

01.19.17 Shame on America. Shame on Americans.

Any critical thinker will find that the United States has more often than not behaved in direct opposition to its proclaimed values. From the Indian genocides, to slavery, to Jim Crow, to the overthrow of elected governments around the world, this country has put its hypocrisy on display over and over again.

The election of a racist, misogynist, xenophobic, Putin-loving, authoritarian, is – as I’m hardly the first to note – a new nadir of horrific depth. Yes, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. But there is no denying that the overwhelming land area of the country and about half of the population are getting in Trump exactly what they wanted.

On both right and left, there is a popular trope afoot that a neglected, impoverished sector of the American populace — the white working class — had good cause to rise up for change.

On the right, this is self-serving bullshit, because the GOP has never given a hoot about those people. Sure, some of the rednecks were too dumb to realize they being duped. But the above-the-national-income average of Trump voters reveals the falsehood in the claim. Trump voters were not primarily driven by hope for a better life or by stupidity. No, they voted the way they did because they are racist pigs. These people don’t care if they lose their health insurance, as long as they are certain that African Americans, Latinos, and all those other “outsiders” aren’t getting any. (Oh yeah, and as long as women and gays know their place.)

On the left, this lie is just another round of way-too-common self-flagellation. Again, it’s utter bullshit to believe that the Democratic Party platform and the Clinton campaign forgot about people in need. Hundreds of pages of policy were devoted to improving the lives of the poor and middle class.  Could there have been more emphasis on those policies in the campaign’s public communications? Maybe. But it’s ridiculous to think that racists would have voted any differently with more information. It is the very fact that Democrats are proud to be diverse that resulted in our loss.

The reality is that this is a deeply racist country without any deep commitment to democracy and justice. Unless we face this fact, we on the left are going to keep shooting at each other and avoiding reality. There is no other side – whether among elected officials or their near-fascist followers – that is worth negotiating with, nonetheless catering to.

The only way to overcome American Shame is to beat those who perpetrate it. There should be no talks with Republicans, no visits to Appalachia to feel poor white men’s pain. No, we must find and organize righteous voters. We should be recruiting righteous candidates. We should be forcing the hard right (the only right remaining in the US) to own its failures and alienate at least some of its racist supporters (those who decide that they need to eat, even if that means black people get to eat, too).

So, no votes for Trump nominees from Democrats. An unbreakable filibuster for every Trump court appointment. No cooperation in Congressional committees or Democratic votes for GOP bills in the House and Senate.

Barack Obama tried turning his cheek for his first five years in office. We must not repeat that mistake. And we can start by rejecting the claim that there was any blame on our side (apart from party incompetence and Clintonian misjudgment) for the beatings we have taken everywhere.

None of this means that the Democratic Party and the left in general have nothing to learn or change. But it does mean that we must focus on victory and call the bigots what they are, today and from now on.

©2017 Keith Berner

 

01.16.17 Bernie and Hillary supporters go for the jugular

I endorsed and contributed to Bernie Sanders’s campaign (twice). When it was apparent (after the New York primary) that he had no path to victory in the primaries, I endorsed and contributed to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. I have Facebook friends on both sides who apparently believe that trashing the other candidate and their supporters is more important than stopping the GOP/Trump agenda.

From a Bernie supporter on Christmas day:

All right, Planned Parenthood, you gave us Hillary Clinton, and that gave us Donald Trump. And now you want our help? Why shouldn’t we put our efforts into starting a truly progressive health care organization?

He and his respective bitter losers have been screaming for weeks about how Bernie would have been a “certain” winner against Trump. There are some smart, highly logical people in this group, who are so blinded by their ideology that they can’t see the error in conflating hindsight with prediction. (And who thinks it would be a good idea for some disgruntled boys to found a service in place of PP? Is it ok to throw women under the bus while they try to grow their little fantasy into an international movement?)

Oh yeah, this same person denounced Bernie himself, when Bernie got behind Clinton at the convention.

Today, a gang of Hillary freaks used a Slate article in praise of John Lewis (who recently called Trump’s presidency illegitimate) to launch more than 80 comments attacking not Donald Trump, but (you guessed it): Bernie Sanders. (The person who posted – a friend of my friend — did so with the comment “Don’t get me started on that asshole Sanders.”) In the face of James Comey, Russian hacking, Clinton campaign mistakes, Clinton’s horrific mishandling of the email scandal, they blame (you guessed it again) Bernie Sanders for delivering Trump to the White House.

My friend commented on that post by declaring that Bernie Sanders didn’t mention Hillary’s name often enough as he campaigned hard for her in the fall. Geez, if only Bernie had said, “Hillary, Hillary, Hillary,” she’d be president, right? I wrote back to him, denouncing this destructive movement and calling for unity.

In both cases, these individual “friends” of mine took the 5-10% of the national agenda I disagreed with them on to denounce me in harsh, personal and political terms. The Bernie supporter called me a “right-winger” who was “trying to destroy [his] world” when I switched my loyalty to Hillary last spring. The Hillary supporter has accused me of “being enamored of [my] own intellect.” Both leveled these insults publicly.

It’s awful political news for all of us that these people won’t stop fighting with each other and that both consider me (and Planned Parenthood and John Lewis) the enemy. Fighting the last battle assures a loss in the next war!

It’s horrific personal news, when these fanatics are so rigid that they throw a friend overboard over a partial disagreement.

A pox on both their houses. Democrats will have to build a big tent and win without them. As for me, my life will be happier with friends who don’t insult me when I disagree with them.

©2017 Keith Berner

10.29.16 Does the rattlesnake bear the blame?

When a rattlesnake bites a person taunting it, which one is to blame?

The analogy to present circumstances is imperfect: a rattlesnake isn’t morally at fault for biting. The GOP and all its alt-right companions are nothing if not morally culpable. Just the same, it is as inherent to the nature of the GOP as to the rattlesnake to act the way they do. (It sadly took Obama five years to learn this and stop negotiating with himself.)

And Hillary Clinton is the taunter. For nearly 30 years, Clinton and been bitten over and over again by the snake. Yet, over and over again, she persists in the same behavior that turns GOP overreach into scandal that ends up tearing her down and our interests along with her. From Whitewater to “Emailgate,” Clinton’s instinct is to hide stuff that doesn’t need to be hidden and – when busted – to dig deeper and cast a web of petty lies that further enrage and empower the rattlesnake.

Imagine that Clinton decided while secretary of state to use a State Department server for her email. Imagine if a year and a half ago, she came out within a day and said, “Wow, that was a real error in judgment on my part. Here are the keys to everything.”

Instead, she pretended it didn’t happen, she lied about circumstances around it. As recently as late summer this year, she stood up in front of the country and claimed that FBI Director James Comey had exonerated her of bad behavior. (He had declared her breaches unindictable, but was unflinching in condemning what she did.) It wasn’t until September that she could bring herself to simply say, “I’m wrong. I’m sorry.” At which point, who could possibly believe her sincerity?

This latest imbroglio almost certainly has zero legal implications or connection to public policy. It doesn’t matter. Decades of Hillary Clinton’s behavior have so undermined her credibility that we don’t stand a chance of simply laughing this latest turn out of existence: it will be on the front pages nonstop through November 8.

We still need Hillary Clinton to be elected. And – after she is – we know the GOP plans to waste millions of dollars and hundreds of hours to investigate everything from her secret plans to kill babies to how she ties her shoes. But we can also count on her to react each time by making everything worse. We have seen no evidence at all that she is capable of learning from her past mistakes and, so, we know she will continue making them.

Now, I know some readers will condemn me for criticizing Clinton at all in this time of political crisis. Sure, we have to do whatever it takes to win. But just as I have no tolerance for GOP evil, so have I none for Clinton hagiography on the establishment “left.” (“Left” is in parentheses here because many of these folks are military hawks and Wall St. apologists.)

Oh for a progressive leader who has an ounce of common sense and enough humility to learn from mistakes on the way to becoming an ever-more-effective leader. We don’t have that this year. Will we ever again?

©2016 Keith Berner

10.22.16 Voting for Hillary Clinton in “Safe” Maryland

I’m proud that Maryland is in the top three bluest states in the country (Hawaii is first and Vermont and Maryland are neck and neck). This means that any individual progressive (or wing-nut) can cast a protest vote in Maryland and not put our 10 electoral votes in play. In fact, when I switched my presidential endorsement from Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton in May, I wanted her to beat Donald Trump nationally, but still planned to write in Sanders as a protest vote in November.

So, what changed for me?

This election stopped being about one candidate or one party vs. another. Trump’s campaign has ended up making it a referendum on bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, and – finally – democracy itself.

In this new light, it is essential to decimate the forces of darkness – not only Trump himself, but the legions of “deplorables”* behind him and the GOP elite that sowed these bitter seeds for decades and will not denounce evil when it is in their midst.

We must each stand up – in public and in the voting booth – to declare our opposition to hate and our love for democracy.** It is not enough to achieve an electoral-vote landslide on November 8. No, we must drive up the popular total everywhere – in swing states, as well in deep-blue and deep-red ones. The moral outcome of this election must be overwhelming. To vote for Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, or a write-in candidate, as our democracy is under assault, is an abdication of responsibility, a retreat from the real world of nuance and hard choices.

Which side are you on? You may not abstain (or meekly protest, which is a form of abstention) in the face of evil.

*Hillary Clinton was an idiot to have publicly called Trump supporters “deplorable” in September, even though she was mostly correct in using the term. Yes, there are many angry, suffering people who have been neglected by the elites of both parties. Yes, at the very least, Democrats must address their needs (the GOP never will). Yes, poor education and pernicious TV have fostered ignorance that cannot solely be blamed on the individual. Just the same, citizens who welcome and propagate lies and embrace hate are deplorable. It is correct to denounce them and the party that mobilized them.

**Our democracy is flawed. But a flawed democracy does not equal zero democracy – the difference is profound. The need-to-be-improved good should never be set against the impossible perfect. Fight to improve our democracy, but do not allow it be stolen from us.

©2016 Keith Berner

09.26.16 Not watching the debate

My watching or not watching will not impact anything except my mental health. The horror is now so palpable that I have to remove myself from it, including — potentially — boycotting all election news until it’s all over.

I’m deeply angry at Clinton, who is just about the only candidate in the universe who could give Trump a chance to win. (The classic Clinton decision to keep her pneumonia secret, coupled with her broad insult against Trump supporters as deplorable were more nails in her coffin. [Her statement about Trump supporters was true, but didn’t need to be said, at least not by her.]) I’m equally disgusted by TV “journalists” whose pursuit of ratings has overcome any commitment to their supposed profession or responsibility to the public good. (Matt Lauer: please rot in hell.)

In case you’re wondering why I have not been bloviating about the election all along, it is because I assume all of you dear readers are able to read the newspaper. And I hope that a substantial number of you know better than to watch TV “news.” Further 95% of you are supporting Clinton, anyway. As for the other 5% Bernie or Busters who are going to vote for Stein or Johnson, you are a lost cause, still trying to escape your responsibility for W’s election, his Supreme Court picks, and the Iraq war — there’s no point in discussing political responsibility with you.

If I were a religious man, I would be praying for the deity’s mercy on us all. I’m not, though, leaving me with only anguish and a desire to find a country that will have me.

PS. When I’m not motivated to write blog posts, you can find my comments on this or that news item on Facebook (Keith Berner in Takoma Park, MD). My posts are usually public, meaning you don’t have to “friend” me to see them (and, in fact, I don’t friend people whom I don’t know).

©2016 Keith Berner

07.10.16 Rage

Rage about all the black men killed by racist cops (not to mention all the injustice meted out that stops short of outright murder).

Rage at the sniper who killed innocent officers who were protecting protesters, setting back the cause of justice.

Rage at the NRA and the venal politicians who take their money and do their bidding.

Rage at the gun nuts who claim that an armed crowd at that gay bar in Orlando would have saved lives: tell that to the armed and dead cops in Dallas.

Rage at almost all Republicans for almost everything they support, oppose, and lie about.

Rage at the Clintons whose arrogance and paranoia have handed rope to our enemies over and over again for 25 years.

Rage at the right-wing freaks who think that misuse of an email server merits prison but starting a war founded on lies with hundreds of thousands of dead doesn’t.

Rage at the driver who ran over the kitten in the road today and was in too much of a hurry to stop, seconds before I arrived on my bike and held the kitten in my hands as it died.

Rage at the white people who chose on Friday to tell us how much better things are than we think, because violent crime rates are going down and GDP is going up.

Rage at the white people who will never get why Black Lives Matter.

Rage at a judge for putting a rapist in jail for only six months in order not to inconvenience him too much.

Rage at North Carolina for making me carry my birth certificate the next time I need to pee there.

Rage at the Nader and Sanders supporters who value their purity over the need to prevent evil.

Rage at Trump for everything.

Rage at Trump’s Virginia campaign manager, Corey Stewart, who blamed Hillary Clinton for the dead cops in Dallas.

Rage at Kansas for renaming public schools “government schools.”

Rage at Romney, Ryan, and Wall Street for not giving a shit about anyone who isn’t as lucky as they are.

Rage at journalists who enable climate change deniers and supply siders in the name of “balance.”

Rage at ideologues who decry science.

Rage at theocrats who declare Jesus white and bigotry right.

Rage at anyone who stays home on November 8. Rage at the right wing machine that steals voting rights while it proclaims freedom and tries to enforce it elsewhere at the barrel of a gun.

Rage at myself for looking forward to my page-view counts for this post.

Rage at the universe for not fixing any of this.

©2016 Keith Berner

07.06.16 Apology to Bernie Sanders + Don’t trust NYT

On May 29, I wrote about the hypocrisy of the Sanders campaign’s having opposed the superdelegate system in principle, while turning to superdelegates as the the last hope for overturning the will of the voters. While I stand by the my post, as a whole, it included these unfortunate words: “his supporters. . .throw things.” This was an oblique reference to an incident that was widely reported as taking place at the Nevada state convention in May. I should never have made that reference and hereby apologize for it.

As it turns out, there was no chair throwing in Nevada. According to the myth-busting website, Snopes.com, the incident was completely made up by a Nevada journalist by the name of Jon Ralston and then further propagated by such liberal bastions as Rachel Maddow and the New York Times.

Your blogger was gullible enough to take Maddow’s and NYT’s reports at face value. Dear Reader, as an one-person opinion blogger, I cannot promise you that I will engage in the kind of fact checking that I would expect of professional journalists and the institutions they work for. I find it outrageous that Maddow and NYT (not to mention hundreds of other media outlets) didn’t do their due diligence on this. I have learned a new lesson about relying on them and will try harder to verify controversial items I see in the mainstream media.

Ultimately, I don’t think this particular piece of misreporting changed in any significant way the outcome of the race: Bernie Sanders pretty much had no hope of victory by then. But it certainly contributed to greater hostility between the Clinton and Sanders campaigns, which has not been good for anyone (except Trump and the GOP).

So, what of the Bernie claim that the media was horribly unfair to him from the moment he got in the race. I certainly saw clear evidence of this from the Washington Post, which is a consistent pro-corporate rag with no line between editorial and reporting. But I again failed to notice New York Times’ irresponsibility. This outstanding piece by Bill Moyers sheds good light:

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone wrote a scathing takedown of The Times’ most egregious offense: a March article by Jennifer Steinhauer on how Sanders functioned as a legislator. Headlined “Bernie Sanders Scored Victories for Years Via Legislative Side Doors,” as originally published, the article recounted how effective Sanders was at attaching amendments to pieces of legislation, both Republican and Democratic, and forging coalitions to achieve his ends. The piece was bandwagon stuff.

But then something happened. The original article, already published, underwent a transformation in which Sanders suddenly wasn’t so effective a legislator. Even the headline was changed to “Via Legislative Side Doors, Bernie Sanders Won Modest Victories.” And this paragraph was added: “But in his presidential campaign Mr. Sanders is trying to scale up those kinds of proposals as a national agenda, and there is little to draw from his small-ball legislative approach to suggest that he could succeed.”

Responding to angry Sanders supporters, The Times’ own public editor, Margaret Sullivan, asked why the changes were made and wrote, “Matt Purdy, a deputy executive editor, said that when senior editors read the piece after it was published online, they thought it needed more perspective about whether Mr. Sanders would be able to carry out his campaign agenda if he was elected president.” Yeah, right.

Moyers also reports the numbers:

On CNN, Clinton got more than 70,000 of the Democratic-candidate mentions, while Sanders got just under 42,000. On MSNBC, Clinton got more than 93,000 mentions to Sanders’ roughly 51,000. On Fox News, she got more than 71,000 mentions to his more than 28,000. The numbers are similar on the Lexis-Nexis database of newspapers.

Moyers’s conclusion about why all this happened, though, contradicts one part of the conspiracy theory held by many Bernie supporters. According to Moyers, media bias against Sanders was not the result of a corporate, right-wing cabal to defeat the left, but rather resulted from a self-reinforcing echo chamber. That is, the media assumed from the start that Sanders couldn’t possibly win against Clinton. Therefore, they under-covered him and denigrated him to justify their firm conclusion that he was and would be a loser. Writes Moyers:

. . .this isn’t just what the MSM think of Bernie Sanders. It is what the media think of losers. They don’t like them very much, and they seem determined to make sure that you don’t like them either — unless they beat the press’s own odds and become winners.

Do I suspect anti-left bias in the media? To some extent. But in some ways it’s even more alarming to learn that the news sources we rely on are just so completely irresponsible that truth and balance simply don’t matter. If you can’t rely on the New York Times, whom can you rely on?

©2016 Keith Berner

06.13.16 Mr. Trump isn’t wise on foreign policy — he’s just winging it (WaPo letter)

My letter will appear in the print edition of the Washington Post on Tuesday, June 17

 

Just because Joseph A. Mussomeli correctly eviscerated the neoconservatives for a lack of humility and inability to learn from their mistakes does not mean that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy is “level-headed” [“Trump’s foreign policy wisdom,” Washington Forum, June 10].

Mr. Trump has come to his foreign policy positions as he has the rest of his so-called policies: by winging it. He has neither substantive knowledge of nor experience in foreign affairs. His statements represent his instinct du jour, rather than any coherent whole. Mr. Trump cites himself as his main foreign policy adviser. He is volatile, thin-skinned and so taken with violent rhetoric that there is no telling what he would do as president.

I share the writer’s concern about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s affinity with the neocons; however, there is little doubt that she would conduct U.S. foreign policy with far more grounding in reality than Mr. Trump possibly could.

Keith Berner, Takoma Park

05.29.16 Rigged

The system is rigged. It always has been.

It was rigged in favor of landowners. And men. And white people. The number of ways our so-called “democracy” is anti-democratic is mind-numbing. And our fellow citizens’ minds have been purposely numbed by a corporate media and dumbed-down education system to believe our deeply flawed system is the envy of the world.

So, we reach Political Year 2016 (which began last year, of course). We still have Tuesday voting (rigged against workers). We have a notoriously irresponsible news media, rigged in favor of its greedy corporate owners. We have small, unrepresentative states that get to choose first for everyone else. We have closed primaries that prevent free democratic choice. We have caucuses that assure only the most highly motivated couple of percent take part.

We have Republicans – empowered by the courts – working assiduously to make voting more difficult and removing all remaining obstacles to racist disenfranchisement.

We have superdelegates, put in place by Democrats to after the McGovern debacle of 1972 to thwart the popular will if that popular will could threaten party victory and party elites’ power.  And we have Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz as head of the DNC, who has done everything in her power to kill off threats to Hillary Clinton in service to party elites.

So, our broken system results in two front runners who are hated by most of the country. On the “bad” side is a fascist bigot, who – alas – will be backed by the majority of his party: the angry on the ground and the power-hungry running the show. On the “good” side is a family that has created scandal out of everything they’ve touched for a generation, because of their hubris and obsession with secrecy.

And there’s Bernie Sanders, a supposed saint. His policy stands seem saintly, indeed. But he forgot about the South and African Americans in planning his campaign. And his supporters scream and yell and throw things and threaten to make everyone suffer if they don’t magically get their way.  Sanders himself seems increasingly distracted from the substance of his revolution that did not happen, as he refuses to condemn bad behavior on his side and whips up the frenzy of his mobs who think something has just been stolen from them.

A revolution would change the rules. There would be Saturday elections, with plenty of early voting opportunities, in multi-member districts, with ranked voting. Districts would be determined by natural and jurisdictional borders. The system would encourage and enable participation. The media would cover facts, expose fallacies, and discuss various points of view (even those I disagree with). Schools would make social studies and government studies about more than how great America is. No one would give a shit about Iowa and New Hampshire.

Sanders and his supporters knew what the rules were before they embarked on their noble cause. At best, they would launch the revolution to change them, but those rules were still in place and hardly secret. It is not like Lucy yanked away the football when Charlie Brown was already running towards it. No, that football was clearly not in place to be kicked this year, last year, four years ago. The rules were not suddenly changed to hurt Bernie Sanders.

A substantially greater number of participants in the Democratic primaries and caucuses this year have chosen Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. That includes an overwhelming majority of minority voters. Sanders is right that closed primaries hurt him. But his supporters seem to have no problem at all with the even less democratic caucuses where he did well.

And, it’s fine with me to hate the superdelegate system. But to pin your hopes on it at the last minute when that is your only possible route to the nomination? This is what Sanders & Supporters are doing now.

It doesn’t matter that Clinton is imploding or polling worse than Sanders against Trump. What matters is that Clinton won the most votes this year. Sanders didn’t. Even if Sanders wins in California, that result will not change.  So the supposedly pure-democracy-loving Sanders campaign is now willing to disenfranchise everyone who chose Clinton, because they know better. How is this different than the behavior of party elites?

It isn’t and this is hypocrisy 101: claim to be be for the people. Except when you don’t like their decisions.

I’m not saying I like their decision. I voted for Sanders in Maryland. I have come to the point where I guess he’d do better in November than Clinton. But I am not willing to just toss aside others’ votes for what amounts to a guess.  I’m also not against trying for a political revolution. I believe it would be our only long-term hope. But when you turn on your own principles to bring it about, you’ve gone too far for me.

I want Bernie Sanders to continue campaigning in California. I want his supporters to be at the table pushing hard in the convention rule-writing. And I want Sanders to give a prime-time speech at the convention at which he reminds us again how rigged this whole country is for the ultra-wealthy. I want him to keep demanding progressive change. I want his dignity to be intact for the many fights to come.

But the time has already come to stop clawing for one or two delegates here and there or seeking to have superdelegates overrule the voters’ will. And on June 8 (the day after the California primary), it will be time finally, completely, and with unity to do whatever is necessary to stop a fascist from becoming president of the United States.

©2016 Keith Berner

05.01.16 Hillary Clinton for President

Oh how it pains me to write this. My opinion of both Clintons has been consistent for a very long time. I hardly need to recount their political and policy sins again.

Also, I have not given up on the political movement Bernie Sanders represents. Yes, the system is rigged for the wealthy. Yes, income and wealth inequality are killing what remains of our grossly imperfect democracy. Yes, we need a political revolution to truly address our problems.

But that political revolution is not going to happen in 2016. Bernie Sanders has no remaining path to the Democratic nomination (other than the vanishingly unlikely and extremely distasteful possibility of convincing delegates that a majority of Democratic primary voters – and an overwhelming majority of African American voters – who voted for Clinton this year don’t matter; is that the kind of democracy we seek?).

Sanders should stay in the race until the Philly convention and continue speaking out for the progressive agenda and revolution we need. He should use all the leverage he can to influence Clinton and the party platform (though, the latter hardly matters).

But, as I have written previously, this year, our nation stands at the edge of an abyss the likes of which it has not seen in the lifetime of anyone reading this. Hard-right theocrats, racists, and Ayn Randers control the Congress, governorships, state legislatures, and school boards coast to coast. The only thing that stands in the way their agenda’s being fully enacted is the presidency.

If you need to hold your nose to support Hillary Clinton (as I do) than start holding it. It is not sufficient simply to stop attacking her (though that is absolutely necessary, since every attack from the left will be in a Donald Trump ad this fall). No, we also need to write checks, make phone calls, and knock on doors. We must do whatever it takes to keep GOP hands off the White House.

©2016 Keith Berner

04.17.16 Bernie Sanders for President (with caveats)

Bernie Sanders represents my values. It’s about time we had a national leader who is not only willing but eager to speak truth to power. Sanders is right to describe our economic and political systems as rigged for the wealthy and powerful (who, of course, are usually the same). He is right to condemn corporate corruption. He is right to speak out against a Democratic Party establishment (currently embodied by the odious DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz) that has tried repeatedly to rig the current presidential campaign in favor of the establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton.

From a progressive-values standpoint, Sanders has very few flaws. He didn’t suddenly discover the moral catastrophe of economic inequality because of pressure during this campaign. He has been speaking up for the left-out, the “little people,” ever since he ran for mayor of Burlington, decades ago. Before that, he was an active participant in the civil rights movement. (Hints from Clinton supporters like [for shame!] Congressman John Lewis [D-GA] that he might have been insufficiently so, have been proven a lie.) His own integrity and incorruptibility are beyond question.

The only less-than-bright spot in Bernie Sanders is his relative lack of enthusiasm for gun control, which is hardly surprising for a politician from a rural state. Attempts by Clinton to portray Sanders as a gun nut, though, are wildly off the mark.

So, why have I lacked passion in my support for Sanders for president? Partly, it’s because I assumed he never had a chance. Party, it has been my assumption that his nomination would doom the Democrats in November. (I have softened on this as his poll numbers against Trump and Cruz have remained higher than Clinton’s; though I still believe that his numbers would drop significantly under a full-throttled GOP onslaught.)

I have also been thrown by the almost obsessive opposition to Sanders by progressive figures like Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. Krugman and others have been hammering away at how Sanders’s economic numbers don’t add up and how he lacks any reasonable plan for getting getting his program through a Congress that has stopped even the decidedly centrist Obama in his tracks.

I find these arguments compelling, but also have to remind myself (and you, dear reader) that almost no political candidate’s numbers add up or plans for success have any chance in the real world. Bernie Sanders’s campaign is aspirational. It is not a legislative program. And, Sanders is right that the only hope for progress in this country is a political revolution. That revolution isn’t going to start in Congress. But it has to start somewhere. If not Bernie Sanders, then who?!

Finally, I have been disturbed by Sanders’s almost complete failure to reach out to and captivate African Americans. I cannot imagine a political revolution in this country that does not include the very people who were the targets of America’s Original Sin and the country’s ongoing indifference to their daily lives and struggle. In creating his campaign, Sanders forgot African Americans and wrote off the South. To some extent, this was a reflection of his own skepticism about his chances. If he wasn’t really trying to win then it hardly mattered if he lost too many states with early primaries.

To some extent, Sanders’s blindness to building a real “rainbow coalition” (to use a phrase that ended up sounding empty in Jesse Jackson’s mouth), like his stance on guns, is a result of decades serving a lily-white rural state. Sanders has tried to repair the damage recently and had some success. He is certainly not a bigot himself. But his early failures figure into my relative lack of passion for his candidacy.

The New York State primary campaign has provided an opportunity for me to rekindle some passion. Sanders has shown his typical, unusual courage in speaking out against Israeli policy and Prince of Darkness Benyamin Netanyahu ­– in Brooklyn of all places! Sure, college students have been pushing for boycotts and some progressive Jewish leaders have been denouncing AIPAC and Likud. But an actual elected official speaking the truth about Israel? And a Jewish one, at that? Unheard of! (Your blogger is also Jewish, but foremost a humanist.) This alone reinforces my commitment to support Sanders over a Clinton, whose whole family swears allegiance not only to AIPAC and Likud, but also to the butchers in Cairo (Mubarak and Sisi) and Riyadh.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile is a poster child for most of what is wrong in our political system and country. I’m glad she has moved decidedly left in the course of this campaign, under pressure from Bernie Sanders and his supporters. She says she now opposes free-trade-at-all-costs and Wall St. dominance. Her utterances on this and other topics are encouraging, if not wholly persuasive. (Remember, Barack Obama appointed Wall St. and the NSA to run his administration after sounding very different during his campaign.)

As I have written, I have particular loathing for the Clintons because their hubris leads them over and over again to waste political capital on scandals of their own making. Open the books on Whitewater in 1992 and there is no impeachment. Admit to flawed judgment and release all the emails in 2015 and “Emailgate” disappears. Release transcripts of the Goldman Sachs speeches and you start to climb out of the hole your politically incompetent decision to feed at that trough dug in the first place.

I will never understand how African Americans managed to forgive the Clintons for the explicitly racist campaign Bill ran on Hillary’s behalf in 2008, and the implicit racism of Hillary’s dog whistles for the folks who now support Trump in places like West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Now we have the spectacle of Bill’s shouting down Black Lives Matter protesters last week. (The thought of that man running loose in the White House gives me the [slick] willies.)

(I accept Hillary’s denunciation of the 1994 crime bill. Everyone has learned a lot since then, including her. This is a case where she should be applauded for growth, rather than condemned for flip-flopping.)

To the extent that Clinton’s consistent progressive rhetoric this campaign season can be believed, there remains one area of profound difference between her and Sanders: foreign policy. Clinton voted for the Iraq War and has tried to distance herself from that decision only out of political expediency. Her embrace of military intervention in Libya more recently shows a continued arrogance (your blogger was torn on the issue at the time for humanitarian reasons, but was not secretary of state). It’s not not only that Clinton puts too much stock in military solutions; it is also that she believes in an American mission to remake the world. Hillary Clinton is a neocon. The fact that the GOP neocon establishment has recently hinted at supporting her in November should give more circumspect foreign policy analysts pause.

(Your blogger is not an isolationist and has some fear that Sanders could be too much of one. As destructive as US involvement in the world has usually been, the chaos that would result from complete US disengagement would not be pretty.)

A Democrat better win in November. The stakes for anyone to the left of Attila the Hun are higher this year than perhaps ever in American history. Unlike in the disaster years of 1980 and 2000, Democrats now have precious few holds on power across the country. Even as the national GOP is providing an amusing political spectacle this year, right-wing freaks own outright a substantial majority of governorships, state legislatures, and school boards from coast to coast. A slightly unbalanced Supreme Court has broadly expanded the powers of the corporate elite in the past 20 years and game will be up if the GOP gets one more appointment there. The only thing standing in the way of a right-wing extremist abyss is the presidency.

In this context, it is frightening to hear Sanders supporters tout a “Bernie or Bust” line. It’s bad enough that Nader and his supporters deemed Gore the larger evil in 2000, leading to hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq, not to mention W’s myriad other policy disasters, which – at best – will take decades to recover from.

It seems unlikely now that the Democratic nominee will be anyone other than Hillary Clinton. Trump and Cruz may be flawed enough to lose even in the face of an uninspired Democratic electorate or a new Clinton scandal. But if Bernie supporters stay home, or – worse – continue to attack Clinton after the nomination is secured – they create unacceptable risk.

So, why am I still going to vote for Bernie Sanders in the Maryland Democratic primary on April 26? Because his voice still needs to be heard. Also, because if he can manage to win convincingly in the remaining primaries (which I doubt), he could just eke out a victory in July. (If Sanders does not win in New York this Tuesday, I will call publicly for him to tone down the anti-Clinton rhetoric.)

Bernie Sanders is an American hero for raising issues that Democrats have ignored for decades. He is worthy of your vote. But let not your love of Bernie now blind you to the greater imperative of Democratic victory in November.

03.16.16 Chris Matthews’s unethical fundraising for Kathleen Matthews (and Clinton ties, too)

It’s astounding how low the two moneybags candidates in the MD-8 congressional race will go. Today, we take a look at Kathleen Matthews, whose famous husband is a news anchor at MSNBC.

This story (“Chris Matthews at center of NBC’s latest news scandal”) focuses on the pattern of guests on Chris’s “Hardball” having contributed to Kathleen shortly before or after their appearances [using first name to distinguish the two spouses].

“And while most of you know that our show doesn’t typically cover congressional races, I will continue to fully disclose my relationship with her as part of MSNBC’s commitment to being transparent and fair in our coverage,” added Matthews.

But Matthews, who has made glowing references to Kathleen on his show without mentioning her campaign, hasn’t uttered a word about the contributions his 62-year-old wife has received from his TV guests.

The article provides a number of specific examples of apparent appearance-contribution correlations, including from Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY).

“Clinton Donors, Associates Boost Campaign of Chris Matthews’ Wife: MSNBC host surrounded by conflict of interest concerns” has a slightly different take: rather than highlighting “Hardball” appearances, it focuses on Clinton connections:

The Daily Caller first reported in February that some of Clinton’s biggest backers are funding Matthews, the former chief communications officer at Marriott International. This has led to accusations that Chris Matthews has a “clear” conflict of interest in covering the Democratic side of the 2016 presidential race. [Added by blogger: the latter linked article from, Huffington Post, is about how Chris’s Clinton ties have made him biased against Bernie Sanders, resulting in an outcry from Sanders supporters – see below.]

Among bigwig Clinton donors who are pouring money into our little congressional race (which will end up being the most expensive in the country, due completely to David Trone and Kathleen):

• Elaine Schuster, a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly who previously served on the board of the Clinton Foundation
• Mark Penn,the infamous campaign consultant who has switched from moderate left to hard right, as has suited his own pursuit of power over the years
• Billionaire Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of the Blackstone Group

A more extensive list can be found in the article.

There is nothing ipso facto wrong with political celebrities contributing to a local race, but the ties between the Clintons, NBC, and Chris/Kathleen certainly don’t pass the smell test. In your blogger’s not-so-humble opinion, voters should always find it disturbing when large contributions from outside the local area are fueling a local campaign.

Here’s more about Chris’s bias towards Hillary Clinton:

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has been accused by Bernie Sanders supporters of being blatantly one-sided in favor of Hillary and against Bernie Sanders, to the point that thousands of progressives have signed a petition calling for MSNBC to suspend the host of “Hardball” “because of his constant shilling for Hillary Clinton.” The magazine Esquire sharply criticized Matthews’ recent interview with Clinton as “ahistorical and out of bounds” for his attacks on Sanders. Now, research by The Daily Caller reveals that Hillary’s biggest donors are backing Matthews’ wife — Kathleen Matthews — in her congressional race in Maryland.

How ironic that one of the most progressive congressional districts in the country is being dominated by large money, questionable ethics, and nasty ideological accusations.

©2016 Keith Berner

03.13.16 The Democratic Race

I have written about my values agreement with Bernie Sanders. I certainly haven’t been shy about calling out the Clintons, based on policy (Wall St. and neocon hawkishness) and character (hubris leading to politically damaging behavior that hands hanging-rope to political enemies).

Though the GOP seeks at every turn to deny it, we live in a reality-based world. We don’t get to simply have Bernie be our president, just because we agree with him. We don’t get to mold Hillary by slicing off what we disagree with and reforming her character to our liking. Therefore, I have considered the most compelling argument for a Democratic candidate to be who beats Donald Trump in November.

If only we could know.

Here, the arrogance of both Hillary’s and Bernie’s supporters is stunning. If there is one thing Michigan demonstrated, it is that polling is unreliable. Polls eight months before November cannot possibly inform us about electoral outcomes then (made more complex by the 50 separate sets of polls to be analyzed).

Supporters on both sides can only rely on common sense and gut instinct to make such predictions.

• Would Bernie lose centrist or right-leaning independents that Hillary would hold?
• Would Trump-leaning independents who have been damaged by the economic catastrophe of the past 40 years be drawn to Bernie’s populist economics or would their empty nationalism turn them off to him?
• Would Hillary capture enough GOP neocons (many of whom are being quite open about supporting her over Trump) to compensate for the number of bitter Bernie supporters who decide to stay home?
• Would Democratic neocons flee to the GOP rather than vote for Bernie?
• Would African Americans and other people of color who have thus far been indifferent to Bernie’s message stay home if he were the nominee?
• Are Hillary’s negatives as high as they possibly could go already, because she is so well known and has been under constant attack for decades?
• Would Bernie’s negatives climb sky-high once the full throttle of the right-wing attack campaign is turned on him?*
• Is there another Clinton scandal in the offing?

We don’t know. Anyone who says they do is selling snake oil.

Given that the potentially most compelling criterion for candidate selection is unknowable, my most passionate concern is that all non-Republicans (I refuse to call myself a Democrat) exercise some restraint in coming weeks, both in tarnishing the other candidate and the other candidate’s supporters. And, I also land back on my values and the only choice they lead to.

Before Michigan, I was very close to believing the race was over and dedicating myself to a Hillary victory in the fall. For one thing, I don’t want to be part of a supposed revolution that does not have people of color at the forefront. But African Americans supported Bernie in greater numbers in Michigan than they had in previous contests. They may well continue the trend in the other Midwest industrial states.

Also, a compelling New York Times editorial this past week highlighted the ugliest aspects of classic Clinton behavior, as Hillary purposely distorts Bernie’s record in a scorched-earth effort to destroy him. (What short-term thinking! Hillary cannot win in November without support from “Berners” [purposeful play on my surname]).

I will proudly vote for Bernie Sanders on April 26 in Maryland. Regardless of whatever else happens, I want him and his message to be in the race through the last primary.

And, again, I hope with all my heart that all non-Republicans will remember that that we must be in the trenches together when we face the corporate-dominated, demagogic, bigoted GOP next fall.

*So far, the Washington Post is the only media outlet running a concerted campaign against Bernie, through daily lead-editorial attacks on his policies and character. Meanwhile, the GOP is purposely laying off him, because they are convinced they’ll have an easier time beating him than Hillary.

©2016 keKeith Berner

03.05.16 Responsibility to protect: A moral dilemma in the Middle East

I just finished watching “The Square,” a moving documentary about the brief rise and harsh fall of the Egyptian revolution, 2011-13. In the film, we follow three activists (two liberals and one Islamist) who take part in the massive people-power overthrow of brutal dictator Hosni Mubarak. We see the military hijack the revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood betray it, resulting in the absolute religious dictatorship of Mohamed Morsi. The film ends as first the people and then the military, led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, overthrow Morsi.

“The Square” doesn’t show us the aftermath, as el-Sisi reinstates an absolute military dictatorship, murders thousands, and eventually releases Murbarak from prison. Neither do we witness the increase in terrorism across the country as Brotherhood supporters and the crushed remnants of liberal democrats wage a war of attrition against the military in a destroyed nation.

When I see or read about events like these, my heart breaks for the people on the ground. At the same time I am outraged about this country’s complicity. For decades, a United States, obsessed with stability for Israel, supported Mubarak with a blind eye to his terrors. (The Clintons, who consider the Mubaraks good friends, are – perhaps – the most complicit of our fellow citizens.) For a brief time, perhaps half the time that the liberal revolution seemed to have a chance, the US seemed to be on the right side in Egypt. But then the US backed the blatantly unfair elections that put the Brotherhood in power (elections do not equal democracy!).

The US switched back to supporting military oppression as soon the Morsi was overthrown. Only months after the el-Sisi massacre in Tahir Square and the full institution of rule by brute force, the shameful John Kerry (backed, of course, by Barack Obama) was in Cairo, embracing the butcher and praising him as a democrat.

The broader lessons here are (1) the US fails (at least its stated values, if not its great-power interests) when it chooses sides in fraught situations, (2) the US fails when it embraces dictatorships in the name of stability over human dignity, and (3) the US has been failing every single day for 50 years in supporting Israeli security over nearly every other priority.

+++++++++

In the international human rights field (where I spend my working hours), there is a concept called “responsibility to protect” (RTP). This noble principle is meant to prevent further Holocausts, Rwandas, and Srebenicas (to name three of myriad examples). The idea is that the rights of human beings trump those of regimes, that state sovereignty is subordinate to preventing atrocities and genocides. In fact, states with the means to intervene in such situations are required to intervene.

If one cares about human life and dignity, this seems an unimpeachable moral philosophy. Indeed RTP is why I supported US intervention, as Muammar Gaddafi prepared to slaughter his opponents in 2011. The recent two-part series in the New York Times “The Libya Gamble” focuses on Hillary Clinton’s advocacy for intervention and the irony of her hubris about positive outcomes, with the Iraq War disaster still in the present. Not only was I with Clinton in 2011, I was also – briefly – on the side of US military intervention in Syria in 2013.

The NYT stories cover not only the decision making leading to US intervention, but also the aftermath, as the West loses interest and Libya slides into chaos, becoming (perhaps) a greater hotbed of international terrorism and human suffering than even in Gaddafi’s worst years.

This story is not really about Clinton or just Libya. Rather is it about the helplessness of the West to predict or manage outcomes, even on those relatively rare (in my view) occasions when its intentions align with its values. The US destroyed Iraq, increasing Iran’s power and creating ISIS. The US helped turn Libya into a failed state. The US repeatedly supported the wrong side in Egypt.

So, what does this mean in regard to RTP? It is a terrible moral dilemma. How do the lives lost in Libya’s collapse compare to those if Gaddafi had massacred his opponents? How does human suffering in Syria compare to an unknown outcome if the US had started bombing the in 2013? Do we have more blood on our hands by staying (mostly) out of conflicts or by intervening and “owning” the result?

My belief in RTP has been fundamentally shaken by the NYT series, as I have related it back to events of the past 15 years.

The GOP and its unrepentant neocons admit no moral dilemmas. For them, the answer is always intervention and always military. They never acknowledge the great hypocrisy of US foreign policy over 170 years, as the US preached democracy, but propped up dictatorships in service to US business interests. They never give up their simplistic and arrogant ideology, in the face of complexity and limited ability to dictate outcomes.

I have not become a complete non-interventionist. We should have stopped the Rwandan genocide (the country is now ruled by a dictator who has brought universal healthcare and massive economic development to his impoverished people – another moral dilemma) and were right to stop the one in the Balkans (where a cold peace rules and underlying issues have never been resolved).

I guess where I land is that principles and ideology (whether RTP or GOP/neocon) are no excuse for not thinking, not seeking to grasp complexity, and – above all – not acting with humility. We can’t declare we will never act. But if we do not face the world with an acknowledgement of limited power and understanding, then positive outcomes are utterly impossible. Ultimately, morally fraught situations must be considered individually and after deep deliberation, rather than through a single, simple moral lens.

I have reluctantly come to agree with Obama’s decision not to become enmeshed in Syria (though, I condemn the shear incompetence that led him to declare “red lines” he was unwilling to enforce). In the midst of this horror, nonintervention is more responsible than the alternative. (And, we cannot know whether doing a better job of arming the so-called democratic rebels in 2012-13 would have made us proud. We can see a long history of US-supplied arms being used against us after we exit the bloodbaths we have created). But, deciding not to intervene militarily, does not, cannot, excuse US support for the el-Sisis of the world. Egypt is a case where the moral thing to do was to exit with our tail between our legs and let el-Sisi sink or swim on his own. (As for Israel, it deserves no support at all from the United States as long as it remains a racist, hegemonist power.)

©2016 Keith Berner

02.09.16 The big dawg escapes the pound and loses his muzzle

I wrote yesterday about the New York Times lead story, where supposed feminists told young women they were going to hell or accused them of chasing young penises, for/by supporting Bernie Sanders.

Today, the lead story  in the NYT was about Bill Clinton’s accusing Bernie Sanders of being dishonest.

There is a fair case to be made that Bernie is not prepared to be president or won’t be able to get his ideas implemented or would hand the fall election to the GOP. But accusing Mr. Squeaky Clean of dishonesty? Tell me how many votes the Dawg is going to drive towards Hillary and away from Sanders with this disgusting attack. It’s back to 2008 South Carolina where Bill tossed away decades of empathy with Black America by going full-bore racist in his desire to anything, everything, whatever to beat Barack Obama.

And, this again, is why I loathe the Clintons. They are so fucking out-of-control tone deaf that they hand foot after foot of rope to their own enemies, and ours.

Your blogger has reluctantly concluded that Hillary better win the nomination and the November election. But with every piece of news about the $3/4-million from Goldman Sachs and the refusal to release transcripts, with every attack on young women who are thinking for themselves, with every assault on Bernie Sanders’ character, I look at the abyss on one side and Hillary Clinton on the other, and the abyss looks more and more attractive.

Apart from the Bushes, there is not a family in America that deserves to lose every election, every single day, than the abhorrent Clintons.

©2016 Keith Berner

01.31.16 Heart and head do battle in the Democratic primaries

Hillary Clinton is by far the most experienced and qualified candidate for president this year, with background in the White House, the Senate, and as Secretary of State.

Bernie Sanders represents my ideals and aspirations.

Hillary (and Bill) create scandal without crime, when they meet criticism with silence. Their arrogance and sense of entitlement led to Ken Starr and Monica Lewinski as it has to the continued prominence of the “email scandal” this year. If the Clintons had opened the books on Whitewater or said “I blew it and I’m sorry” as soon as the email issue arose, there would have been no festering wound that wasted their political capital and damaged our interests. This same arrogance led Hillary to sell her soul to Wall St. in million dollar speeches even though (1) she didn’t need the money, (2) knew she was going to run for president, and (3) knew (or ought to have) that her actions would hurt her politically.

Bernie is squeaky clean.

Hillary is nearly 100% artifice and focus-group-tested sound bites. (It was distressingly hilarious when her campaign announced a few months ago that she would henceforth be more spontaneous.)

Bernie is authentic. He says what he means and doesn’t pretend to be anyone else.

The Clintons turn nasty when they sense they’re in political trouble. Who can forget their racist campaign in 2008, once they realized that they had underestimated Barack Obama (another sign of their famous arrogance)? The same tic is on display in 2016, with Chelsea Clinton’s lie that Bernie would take away everyone’s health care. (Clinton supporters do the same kind of thing: in yesterday’s Huffington Post, Peter D. Rosenstein twice calls Bernie a liar, just because they happen to disagree.)

Bernie fights fair, exemplified by his refusal in the first Democratic debate this year to carry on about Hillary’s emails or to distort her record and positions.

Hillary couldn’t excite a roomful of kindergarteners hopped on Frosted Flakes. Bernie draws huge, passionate crowds wherever he goes.

I loathe the Clintons. It’s only somewhat about policy. Yeah, I’m very disturbed by Hillary’s hawkishness and history of Wall St. fealty. But what I truly hate is their character: the entitlement, the nastiness, the perpetual handing of rope to their (and our!) enemies. It’s shocking how politically tone deaf these veterans of national politics are. But arrogance and stupidity go hand in hand.

As one after another progressive pundit has made the case against Bernie in recent days, they keep coming back to how unrealistic his plans are. (On Facebook, I recently agreed with Paul Krugman’s argument in the New York Times against “relitigating” health care reform.) Or they point out that Bernie could lose by McGovernite proportions against whatever evil fucker the GOP puts up against him.

Of course, the critique of Bernie’s pie-in-the-sky idealism is on the mark. Faced with a hostile Congress (there’s doubt that even the Democrats would support his plans), there isn’t a chance in hell for single payer or free college tuition. But the flip side of that argument is that all campaigns tout plans that won’t stand a chance in the meat grinder of politics and legislation. What is wrong with painting a picture of where you would like to lead?

As for electability, Bernie’s supporters are right that many recent polls show him running as well or better than Hillary against named GOP opponents. But the flaw in this argument is that the national media has only just begun to beat up on him (thanks, Washington Post for your great leadership on this) and the GOP has mostly ignored him. How will his polling numbers fare when he is in the spotlight as the Democratic nominee? Not well, I assure you.

On the other hand, everyone knows everything about Hillary. There will be no new lines of attack on her. Those of us who loathe her will still loathe her. Those who love her know their lover well and won’t suddenly go fickle. That is, the polling on Hillary is what it is and is not going to change more than marginally in months ahead.

Oh how I want a Bernie Sanders in character and ideals to be our president. Oh how terrified I am that – even if he could pull off the nomination (which remains extremely unlikely) – he could lead us off the cliff in November.

And don’t forget, the left and the Democrats are at the edge of the abyss. Unlike when Ronald Reagan won in 1980 and W pulled off his wins in the aughts, the GOP now has a lock on Congress and a huge majority of states and this year’s party is far to the right of the GOP of even 10 years ago.

The only thing in the way of hard-right government by mandate in this country is a Democratic president in 2017.

I will vote for Bernie in Maryland’s April primary. And I won’t vote for Hillary in November, because I know that Maryland will go blue even without my vote. But if I were in Ohio or Virginia, I’d do what I must to prevent a catastrophe.

I want Bernie to win in Iowa and New Hampshire, because the progressive idealism he represents needs an ever-increasing voice in the national debate.

But after going back and forth on this for year, I’m back where I started: crossing my fingers that Clinton does nothing (more) to self destruct, wins the nomination, and vanquishes the forces of darkness in November.

PS. I contributed to Bernie’s campaign this year and would never give a dime to the Clintons or their wholly owned DNC.

©2016 Keith Berner

05.03.15 Bernie Sanders for President

In this dismal 2016 presidential season, we finally have a candidate to be proud of, someone to represent our ideals, someone to be truly excited about. What enthuses me most about Bernie Sanders (beyond his integrity) is his commitment to run directly, explicitly against the plutocrats. It seems to me that the root cause of nearly all ills in our very ill society is the utter dominance (close to complete ownership) of the political and economic systems by giant corporations and their largest shareholders. Even the top 1% are outside this group; it’s the top 1% of that 1% we’re talking about. Embodied by the Koch Brothers, those who control everything seek only to increase their control, while minimizing the size of their own club.

There is another Democrat in the race for 2016 who has spent a political career sticking a finger in the wind to determine what daily role to play, who is currently pretending to oppose this dominant elite. Don’t be confused: that is all triangulation and no passion, calculation without commitment. Hillary Clinton is the opposite of authentic – she is all artifice all the time.

Bernie Sanders is the real deal. He will speak – nay, shout – the truth from now until (at least) until a year from now.

“So,” those seeking to catch this blogger for inconsistency will ask, “What about your telling us recently that we will have to vote for the Pretender in November 2016″? That was your blogger as political analyst predicting what is (still) a likely outcome of the primary season. But now is not the time to vote or campaign based on fear. This is the time to support and vote for our ideals. We need Bernie Sanders. Sure, it would be a dream come true for him to win the White House. But even if that doesn’t come to pass, only he can save us from a campaign season of pretension and reaction. Only Sanders can and will keep bringing the true state of the nation to the forefront of the so-called debate. Without Bernie Sanders, there will be no debate at all.

I toyed with endorsing former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley for president. O’Malley is a good man and a solid progressive. But he lacks the fire that Bernie Sanders has. Further he was the mayor who introduced abusive policing to Baltimore, which has borne it’s ugly fruit over the past two weeks. This doesn’t permanently count O’Malley out for me (I could turn to him if he ends up appearing to have a better shot than Sanders at beating Clinton), but he is not my first choice. Bernie Sanders is.

I sent Bernie Sanders my contribution today. Are you ready to join the campaign?

©2015 Keith Berner

04.15.15 You’ll have to vote for Hillary (sorry!)

If you are are in  red or purple state, you don’t get to vote your conscience (or sit on the sidelines) in November 2016. Sure, there is lots to abhor about the Clintons, but the contrast between Democrats (disappointing as they are) and the GOP has become a deep chasm. Since I live in Maryland, I am comfortable declaring that HRC won’t get my vote in the spring or the fall. But if I were in Ohio or Maine or Virginia, I would not have that luxury.

Progressive hero (and Nobel-prize winner) Paul Krugman makes an eloquent case in the New York Times for stopping the GOP, regardless of what one thinks of the Democratic nominee:

As we head into 2016, each party is quite unified on major policy issues — and these unified positions are very far from each other. The huge, substantive gulf between the parties will be reflected in the policy positions of whomever they nominate, and will almost surely be reflected in the actual policies adopted by whoever wins.

For example, any Democrat would, if elected, seek to maintain the basic U.S. social insurance programs — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — in essentially their current form, while also preserving and extending the Affordable Care Act. Any Republican would seek to destroy Obamacare, make deep cuts in Medicaid, and probably try to convert Medicare into a voucher system . . . And any Democrat would try to move forward on climate policy, through executive action if necessary, while any Republican — whether or not he is an outright climate-science denialist — would block efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions . . .The differences between the parties are so clear and dramatic that it’s hard to see how anyone who has been paying attention could be undecided even now, or be induced to change his or her mind between now and the election.

One thing is for sure: American voters will be getting a real choice. May the best party win. [emphasis mine]

Among the things Krugman neglects in his otherwise outstanding piece is the courts. Can you imagine Scott Walker’s, Ted Cruz’s, or even the (supposedly moderate) Jeb Bush’s court appointments? Even without all the other policy differences between the parties, preventing further right-wing radicalization of the courts across the country (not just the Supreme Court) should make every Naderite and Green vote Democratic in November.

©2015 Keith Berner