People's World on Bernie -

[TBF]

Interesting article on BLM and Bernie in People's World. In fact, very interesting when you consider that Communist Party USA owns People's World - it's their publication. Why on earth would they choose to compare Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump and completely ignore the supposedly popular "front-runner" Hillary Clinton? Honestly, it made me want to vomit. Has Communist Party USA been co-opted by the DNC? I will let you decide -

The left’s challenge: facing institutional and individual racism
by: Joel Wendland
August 12 2015

This is going to sound harsh but for me there is noteworthy parallel (note, I say parallel rather than equivalence) between the phenomenon of Donald Trump's garbage and the support by his followers in the past few days and the reaction of the Bernie Sanders campaign and its supporters to a couple of protests at rallies held to give Sanders a platform for his campaign.

We can learn about the dominant ideological positioning of the Trump campaign, the Republicans generally, and the extremism of the bulk of their vocal primary supporters by the apparent response of many GOP voters to the Megyn Kelly/GOP-FOX debate kerfuffle. The tenor of the backlash to Kelly's strong questions about Trump's sexism (notably not lodged against the nine other sexists on the platform) and other of Trump's critics reveal how obviously, sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and anti-working-class sentiments are at a fever pitch over on the right.

With this in mind, what does the response of Sanders' supporters and his campaign to the events in Seattle this past weekend suggest about what is happening over here on the left? Focused and emotionally intense criticisms that range from denunciations of the protesters' "tactics" to denunciations of one of them as a Palin supporter or as Hillary Clinton plants or whatever is to me revealing of how some of us on the left handle public discomfort addressing racism-our own and the power structure's. Defenses of Sanders' record in the 1960s and making the point that he hired an African American woman in his social media campaign ring hollow, with good reason, for too many people. (They seem to parallel Trump's own claim that he can't be sexist because he likes women CEOs or whatever garbage fell from his bloated yap.)

Here: http://peoplesworld.org/the-left-s-challenge-facing-institutional-and-individual-racism/

[GoneFishin]

1. There are billions of campaign $ at stake. And campaigns have no ethical boundaries since Rove.

So who knows what the hell is happening behind the scenes with any of this weird shit.

[Enthusiast]

6. Precisely. These evil fucks might resort to anything.

There is no question in my mind. ANYTHING

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. You fight the most with the people closest to you, and

a slight from a friend or close acquaintance feels worse than an attack from those for whom you have no respect.

And when you agree on desired outcomes, what's left to fight over? Tactics in achieving those outcomes.

[TBF]

3. Perhaps you're correct -

but this is just bizarre to me. I look at the actions of the republicans over the years and this "outrage" seems to me to be straight out of the Karl Rove playbook. Bernie is NOT the candidate they want to run against - they want to run against Hillary because they think they can beat her. So they do what they can early on to knock out this candidate who is gaining at the polls. As a bonus they have democrats pissed off at each other.

I am so ready for this whole (swiftboat) incident to be over.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. For all the sturm und drang, all the angst online

Bernie's doing fine so far. He hired on a smart young lady to help guide him in altering his message to appeal to audiences he wasn't reaching, he's staying on topic, and he's doing well for this early in his first national campaign. Hillary has several advantages, mostly stemming from having done this before, but she also has all sorts of baggage that Bernie never piled up. So she started out as the default candidate, the 'devil you know', but Bernie's message is getting out, and he's letting people know he isn't a devil of any sort.

[azmom]

5. Both CNN and CNBC had great pieces on him

Tonight.

[TBF]

16. That is good to hear -

I guess ultimately I may just have to take a break from DU and help locally on the Bernie campaign. Watching Bernie and supporters getting attacked from every direction is so disheartening.

[azmom]

17. My thoughts exactly.

[Enthusiast]

7. Hillary is anchored down by tons of negatives. That is my honest appraisal.

Hillary's candidacy will insure a Republican victory.

[SoapBox]

9. I've said it before and I will continue to say it...

There is Bush Burnout...There is Clinton Burnout...but bigger than both of those is Hillary Burnout.

[RichVRichV]

8. One thing to consider.

I don't think most Marxist's particularly like Bernie. He claims to be a socialist and yet his socialistic views are way less radical than theirs (compared to mainstream America). I think a lot of them view him as hurting their image of what socialism should be.

I've seen a couple very far left attacks against him now.

[SoapBox]

10. Well...he is a Democratic Socialist.

[RichVRichV]

11. A lot of people don't understand that democratic socialism and communism

are no where near each other on a political scale. In fact I would put democratic socialism substantially closer to capitalism than communism.

[artislife]

12. ^^^^This .

Purity, he is too watered down for them.

[StandingInLeftField]

13. Exactly this ^

If you've ever spent any time on revleft or similar, the infighting between tendencies is EPIC!

[TBF]

15. Yeah, I look at Rev Left from time to time ...

there is infighting for sure but not over whether Bernie is a better choice than Hillary. Instead they are more interested in how BLM could be a vehicle for systemic change in a serious way.

[eridani]

18. 40-50 years ago, tendencies were mainly into winning mimeo wars with each other

Nothing is really different now, except it's Twitter and Facebook wars. The one stellar exception is Socialist Alternative, which runs massive voter outreach campaigns for its candidates where they exist. Still Dems have a far greater range.

[TBF]

14. Of course -

Mostly in communist circles it is just mocking liberals for being so ineffective though. They are not going to spend their time taking down Bernie - they've got bigger goals (revolution). And that is why it is so odd to see an article like this in a so-called communist party publication - targeting the most socialist of the candidates running. The article states: "But the protests really aren't even about Sanders either, as I see it." Then why are they only targeting him? We are over a year away from election. Why are they not protesting in front of the White House or Congress? I've heard some make the argument that they feel there is no hope to change minds there. Seriously? You have an African American president and you don't think he'd be interested in this topic?

BS. They are targeting Bernie because he is a threat to the status quo. And even People's World is willing to target him. Which leads me to believe Communist Party USA is a front for someone else. It makes absolutely no sense.

Great Lenin quote -
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament.
Lenin, State and Revolution (1917)