{"id":31416,"date":"2016-02-16T18:19:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T22:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=31416"},"modified":"2016-02-16T18:20:04","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T22:20:04","slug":"chris-hedges-on-bernie-sanders-and-the-corporate-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=31416","title":{"rendered":"Chris Hedges on Bernie Sanders and the Corporate Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nby RUSSELL MOKHIBER<\/p>\n

Bernie Sanders is the only major party candidate for President who favors a single payer national health insurance system.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s not to like?<\/p>\n

That was the question Ralph Nader asked Chris Hedges on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBernie Sanders wants to break up the New York banks, he wants to impose a Wall Street transaction tax, he wants to regulate drug prices, he\u2019s for full Medicare for all \u2014 everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital \u2014 he wants to get rid of these corporate tax havens, he\u2019s pushing for a $15 dollar an hour minimum wage, he wants to stronger labor unions. What\u2019s not to like?\u201d Nader asked Hedges.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he did it within the Democratic establishment,\u201d Hedges said. \u201cHe\u2019s lending credibility to a party that is completely corporatized. He has agreed that he will endorse the candidate, which, unless there is some miracle, will probably be Hillary Clinton.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what he does is he takes all of that energy, he raises all of these legitimate issues and he funnels it back into a dead political system so that by April it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the role of Van Jones in the last election,\u201d Hedges said. \u201cHe was running around, using the language of Occupy \u2014 Occupy the Vote \u2014 and that is what Bernie has done. I don\u2019t understand. He fought the Democratic establishment in Vermont his entire career. Now he has sold out to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBernie has also not confronted the military industrial complex at all,\u201d Hedges said. \u201cOn a personal level, having spent seven years in the Middle East, I\u2019m just not willing to forgive him for abandoning the Palestinians and giving carte blanche to Israel. He was one of 100 Senators who stood up like AIPAC wind up dolls and approved Israel\u2019s 51-day slaughter last summer of Palestinians in Gaza \u2014 the Palestinians who have no army, no navy, artillery, mechanized units, command and control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hedges, who was on the show to promote his new book Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt (Nation Books, 2015)<\/a>, said that we need independent political candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I was a strong supporter of your independent runs,\u201d Hedges told Nader. \u201cThat\u2019s why I voted for (Green Party Presidential candidate) Jill Stein in the last election. But they have to be outside the system. And we have to begin to build movements that are divorced from the Democratic and Republican parties. My fear is that by this time next year, Bernie Sanders is running around once again repeating this mantra of the least worst and stoking fears against whoever the Republican candidate is. And we\u2019ve gone nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen that routine before,\u201d Nader said. \u201cUnfortunately, Dennis Kucinich had to toe the line. He was done by April. They even kept him out of some of the debates. Yes, we have seen it before. They are done by April. And then they are forced into a loyalty oath to whoever wins the nomination. And of course, it\u2019s invariably the corporate Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ralph Nader Radio Hour co-host Steve Skrovan asked Hedges what a liberal feeding frenzy within the Democratic Party would look like and why the Democratic Party was so afraid of a vigorous debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the party is completely captive to corporate power,\u201d Hedges said. \u201cAnd Bernie has cut a Faustian deal with the Democrats. And that\u2019s not even speculation. I did an event with him and Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein and Kshama Sawant in New York the day before the Climate March. And Kshama Sawant ,the Socialist City Councilwoman from Seattle and I asked Sanders why he wanted to run as a Democrat. And he said \u2014 because I don\u2019t want to end up like Nader.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t want to end up pushed out of the establishment,\u201d Hedges said. \u201cHe wanted to keep his committee chairmanships, he wanted to keep his Senate seat. And he knew the forms of retribution, punishment that would be visited upon him if he applied his critique to the Democratic establishment. So he won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lie of omission is still a lie,\u201d Hedges said. \u201cBernie\u2019s decision to play the game within the Democratic Party and in essence lend credibility to the party and lend credibility to Hillary Clinton is very destructive. A liberal feeding frenzy within the Democratic Party would see a rise of an actual liberal establishment \u00a0within the party \u00a0\u2013 I\u2019m not sure one exists any more \u2014 that challenged the Party for selling out working men and women.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nader said that the retribution by the Democratic Party against their left is pretty harsh, \u201cbut not against their right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSenator Joe Lieberman \u2014 he goes (in 2008) and he endorses McCain at the Republican National Convention against Obama and he comes back after Obama wins to Washington and they give him a major chair of a major Senate committee,\u201d Nader said.<\/p>\n

___
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