What’s about to come upon us is going to make many regret not taking advantage of an opportunity named Bernie Sanders
By Rubén Luengas
Translation: Jorge Iniestra Urrutia
Like a comet in the sky, Bernie Sanders is a bright phenomenon in the American political spectrum. Millions of people understood his call for a «political revolution» in the form of a «democratic socialism» that has nothing to do with the misinterpretations of these concepts made by it’s detractors. In a very particular and enthusiastic way, young people followed the 74 year old senator, fed by the hope of real change despite facing the evident erosion of true democratic values, of the culture itself, and of the civic dimension of individuals that has traditionally served as an antidote towards apathy.
Thanks to Bernie Sanders’ candidacy, which always sustained inequality as the great moral, economic and political topic of the present, we have witnessed how it was possible to break the simulation of the democratic debate during the primary elections which come to an end next Tuesday with Washington D.C.’s primary election.
It is impossible, within this context, to talk of democracy and what it should mean, without the existence of a society that is well informed by a media that is steadfast in exposing the true face of power. What we have mostly seen is a media deploying an intense effort of manipulation and adulteration of the so called public opinion. Nobody doubts the massive proliferation of the flow of information that exists today, with it’s facade of apparent ideological plurality, this doesn’t mean that they truly favor diverse visions or that they promote, for society, a true communication. This last word’s etymological meaning being, «to make common».
Senator Sanders’ campaign has been a thorn on the side of many because besides being a campaign for the presidential nomination, it has also been a campaign of counter-information that exposes and exhibits a false democracy that is administered by the elite in power for their personal gain, in it’s place looking «to make common» a true and genuine democracy. That is why recently in Santa Monica, California, Bernie Sanders refused to concede defeat to former secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in the name of so called «unity» of the Democratic Party in order to form a united front against Donald Trump for the upcoming general election in November.
Sanders has externalized over and over again his commitment to do what ever it takes to prevent someone as dangerous as Donald Trump to make it to the White House, yet looking to guarantee that the Democratic Party’s platform distances itself from policies that have overwhelmingly benefited those at the top while at the same time crushing the so called «American Dream» for millions of American’s. In other words, Sanders is not an «old stubborn man» that craves power and the spotlight that comes with staying in the race. It’s more about being an American that is conscious of the wrong path that his country has been dragged on by it’s leaders, not to mention, their addiction to war. One of them being Hillary Clinton herself, who has demonstrated this through her actions, whether during her time as senator when voting in favor of the Iraq war or as the leading figure in foreign policy under Barack Obama’s administration, pushing for the destitution of former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, without assuming any responsibility to the world, along with her boss, Barack Obama, of the tragic consequences.
It is worth to remember in this case what WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, said in February of 2016, considering that the aspiring democrat was in favor, in his own words, of a «stupid and endless war».
Assange also highlighted Clinton’s “poor policy decisions,” which he said have “directly contributed” to the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
The war in Libya is «Clinton’s Iraq», who was secretary of state of the United States of America from 2009 to 2013.
A long, very long time will pass before someone comes along with such unusual honesty and runs for the presidency of the United States by telling it’s people truth’s like this one:
«The US cannot continue intervening in Latin America and overthrow governments or trying to destabilise them for economic reasons.»
I have already expressed this before in some of my columns, not only those who are convinced of the great value behind Bernie Sanders’ campaign should be grateful to him, but also his detractors, whether they be democrats or republicans, because just as the lucid mind and great American intellectual, Noam Chomsky, has said, the Democratic Party today occupies the ideological space that once belonged to republicans, while these, the republicans, have moved to an irrational right, leaving themselves outside of the spectrum and turning into a party of «candidates for one of the most dangerous organizations for humanity».
The results of these crucial U.S. primary elections, because of the grave danger of the world we are living in, shouldn’t be seen by it’s citizens as if they were just a mere numeric and statistical result of who won and who lost, as if it were the final score in a Super Bowl, where everyone just goes back home happy or sad. What Senator Sanders is looking to avoid with his admirable tenacity is that we assist, once more, to the «democratic» burial of democracy, and instead, do what should be the job and the mission of a media that is committed to the people, which is to identify, expose and denounce those who have hijacked true democracy. That’s why Sanders keeps fighting while so many of us are lamenting that millions of American’s did not have the lucidity to realize that, like the comets in the sky, a long time will go by before we see someone in the political horizon who is as committed to democracy as Bernie Sanders. Many of those who voted against him, did so against their own interests. Maybe with time and with what’s about to come upon us, will make them realize the rare opportunity that they let slip by. But by then, it will be too late.
It is journalism’s moral obligation to denounce the closed circles of power that, from the shadows, mark the lives of millions of people, yet, during the primaries, many of those who «inform» acted as spokespersons or as part of these closed circles of power, constantly recreating themselves in the juicy media circus offered by protagonists such as Donald Trump, instead of a profound analysis that this delicate situation in our national and worldwide panorama, demands. With his message, Sanders «miraculously» was able to put up a great battle when he launched his candidacy on April of 2015: «How is it possible for the richest 1% to posses almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%?», asked the senator from Vermont.
Without someone like Bernie Sanders in the general election in November, who could represent the real interests of more than the 90% of the population within a similar panorama described crudely by the extraordinary comedian, George Carlin, with such demolishing words:
It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got.
Because the owners, the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want:
They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.
That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!
You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place! It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.
By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don’t give a fuck about you….they don’t give a fuck about you… they don’t give a FUCK about you.
They don’t care about you at all… at all… AT ALL. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Thats what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick thats being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.
It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.»
Rubén Luengas/Entre Noticias
