Monday, June 27, 2016

A Box of Moon Rocks



I am a great fan of Glenn Greenwald. His most recent article in "Intercept" is both brilliant and insightful. For instance, he calls out his colleagues in the media for their self absorbed and myopic need to oversimplify Brexit and other angry populist reactions to the corruption of establishment politics, finance and media. One of the points that he makes is that not all anti-establishment sentiment is grounded in racism, nationalism and Right-wing hysteria.
"More importantly still — and directly contrary to what establishment liberals love to claim in order to demonize all who reject their authority — economic suffering and xenophobia/racism are not mutually exclusive. The opposite is true: The former fuels the latter, as sustained economic misery makes people more receptive to tribalistic scapegoating. That’s precisely why plutocratic policies that deprive huge portions of the population of basic opportunity and hope are so dangerous. Claiming that supporters of Brexit or Trump or Corbyn or Sanders or anti-establishment European parties on the left and right are motivated only by hatred but not genuine economic suffering and political oppression is a transparent tactic for exonerating status quo institutions and evading responsibility for doing anything about their core corruption."
The "core corruption" of the MSM is on full display these days as we slither toward the Democratic Convention. This has been particularly interesting to me as I have seen the establishment media indict and belittle Sanders daily for his refusal to sit down, shut up and worship at the feet of their newly crowned queen, Hillary Clinton. The assertion has been that anyone still running outside of the establishment - although no one claims being in the establishment, mind you - is somehow eroding the chances of the establishment/not establishment/sort-of-establishment candidate, Clinton. They are hauling out one lonely poll indicating that 80% of Sanders voters are softening toward Clinton, and that Elizabeth Warren is replacing Bernie as the voice of the Left. Yeah, and I have a box of rocks from the moon to sell ya.
No one has talked to us, of course. Nobody has called me; I am a registered Democrat for the time being. Nobody has called any Sanders supporter that I know, or any Sanders supporter that anybody I know knows, or any Sanders supporter that anybody I know knows who knows someone else who is a Sanders supporter. Well, you get the message. They seem to cobble this stuff out among themselves, reinforcing one another the way drunks do at a bar when confirming their right to stay drunk.
The material point is that Bernie Sanders is the foundation of the New Left. Warren is a pillar of the New Left. Clinton isn't on the Left at all - old new or in between. Warren is working to defeat Trump. Bernie has said he would do the same. He will endorse Clinton, if he endorses Clinton, in his own good time. The perpetual prating of 12 year-old reporters with better hair than minds won't make a goddamned bit of difference. After all he is a 74 year-old Democratic Socialist, running for president in a country that routinely confuses us with nerve gas, Joe Stalin and genital herpes. Now you can say a lot of things about our Senator Sanders, but a coward who is easily manipulated ain't one of them.
So, treat yourself to the work of a real reporter, a true journalist who speaks truth to the powerful and powerless alike. Greenwald gets it! He usually does.