A Vermont Socialist's opinion on Bernie S.

[cloudythescribbler]

107. please detail what this author lies about "on one thing after another"

Incidentally, for the record, I also disagree with Bernie on the F-35 and his vote on the Israel war, but have still sent in an affordable nonspectacular donation. I am also not exactly a worshipper of the ISO and think you are right to be critical of the very unreliable Counterpunch, tho I think "detest" is more categorical than I am about them -- some of their stuff over the years has struck me as good.

But I didn't see anything in this column by a former Sanders intern that struck me as a "lie", though much that was (to my ears) the usual blather about how anything that has to do with the Democratic Party, from BCA in Berkeley CA to the Rainbow Coalition to Bernie Sanders is a waste of time. There's plenty of opportunity for action outside of the Democratic Party even for strong Bernie supporters, and even for the duration of his campaign. It is urgently important to me that he will get into the Democratic debates and raise issues to millions of mostly Democratic Party viewers that the mass base of the Democratic Party doesn't hear detailed or presented. I doubt for example that Jill Stein (who spokke at a panel I went to over the weekend at the Left Forum, along with Kshama Sawant, another politician I have contributed to, will lose much funding or activism due to Bernie, again even during his campaign. The notion that progressives somehow are drained by more progressive Democrats running is belied by the fact that there was NO upsurge, or even a noticeable 'bump' in progressive activism in years when no left candidate ran within the Democratic primaries, like 1996 or 2012. It is simply an illusion to think that there is any significant "distraction" from other work by the Jesse Jacksons, the Dennis Kucinich/Howard Dean (in 2004) candidates, or the Bernie Sanderses.

There is an argument for refraining from voting within the Democratic Party period, but I have yet to find the person, even those I highly respect, who condemns progressives for doing so in situations like this who doesn't strike me on this point of protesting overmuch -- and I don't mean street protesting and miilitancy, which I continue to support and to participate in to the extent I am able during all these supposedly horrible 'distractions'