A Party of Lemmings Led by a Zombie: Why We Need to Keep Bernie Sanders’ Vision Alive

Remember, it’s not just NAFTA that the Clintons pushed; not just the welfare bill or the reordering of criminal sentencing in the ’90s that exploded the prison population, or the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, or the killing of Glass-Steagall — it’s also the 1994 Communications Act that deregulated the media (wonder why CNN is overrun with stealth Clinton surrogates? And why Debbie Wasserman Schultz is in league with MSNBC?) Just about every other successful shrinking of the social safety net and deregulation of business you can think of was advanced by the Clintons, their allies or the state and local GOP, who were swept into power with the collapse of the Democratic Party at those levels after the Clintons’ conquest of the party. Indeed, no amount of proof that the Clintons’ public policy agenda has heaped misery upon 90 percent of the population will dilute the mainstream media’s representation of Hillary as one of history’s greatest champions of progressive causes — even if very real social advances in race, gender and sexual-orientation equality, which have become associated with the Clinton brand, reflects the political establishment’s key co-optation strategy: minority inclusion on the team in exchange for minority “markets.” So here we have the 2016 Democratic convention: The “talented 10th” from all strata of society, marching lemming-like behind an undead leader in support of ever more income inequality, the maintenance of the prison-industrial complex and a planet on fire. Surely, you say, the checklist of progressive domestic policy positions in HRC’s acceptance speech proves she has turned a page. My dear liberal-apologist friends, please know your history. Your fellow Hillary fan, Bob Woodward, showed in “The Agenda,” his 1994 book on the early years of Bill Clinton’s presidency, that Bill campaigned as a progressive populist and knowingly did an about-face once he took office — with his economic policy team dissuading the president-elect of any impulse to be seduced by his campaign rhetoric at the notorious economic retreat held in Arkansas in the weeks after the election. Since that day, the Clintons have understood their formula: flowery language for the masses, legislation by corporate committee (with legions of lawyers). Want more proof that Hillary is a zombie? She lives off others’ brains. I suspect this is achieved through an elaborate network, probably channeled through the Clinton Foundation’s Canadian front organizations. Clearly her supporters have abandoned the critical-thinking capacity associated with the frontal lobe. How else to explain their belief in such nonsense as the idea that a subsidiary of Comcast (MSNBC) gives voice to left progressive ideals? Even more worrying is the prospect that these folks are so stupefied that they’re intellectually incapable of recognizing that their beloved champion is a full-regalia oligarch, rightly despised by tens of millions of Americans because she and her husband sold out the middle class (let alone the working class and the poor) and who recognize that she has no intention of doing anything different this time around. And, thus, she’s on the brink of losing this election to a terrifying proto-fascist buffoon, hellbent on empowering the most retrograde, reactionary/racist pockets of an increasingly Godforsaken land. Two Philadelphia stories: The Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia is one of the most distraught and shattered in the entire United States. It’s like a war zone, and has one of the highest infant mortality rates, suicide rates and now homicide rates in U.S. history. I went to a political rally there, and at one point I strayed from the crowd, wanting to check out more of the neighborhood. Someone ran over from the demonstration, pulled me back and warned me, “Don’t be silly. It’s not safe to wander. You are not welcome here.” Driving out of town at the end of the convention, I passed through Main Line Philadelphia. It also took my breath away, but for the opposite reasons. There can be few neighborhoods in the world that are so lavishly wealthy. Mansion after mansion on gorgeous grounds, betraying something that must be lost on the vast majority of the American people: This remains the richest country in the history of humanity. On any given day, I have very little desire to accumulate vast wealth; but driving through Main Line Philadelphia, I can’t help but imagine what life would be like living in these sprawling estates. I came upon a narrow street; my instinct told me there’d be more beautiful properties ahead, but the sign read simply, “Private Street: Only Residents Allowed.” You are not welcome here. So while the number of very poor exceeds the very rich, the large majority of the American population lives in between. Main Line is the unattainable dream; Kensington represents the fear that renders those between the two extremes subservient. The very thought of falling into the hell of Kensington keeps them running ever faster on their gerbil treadmill of death. It is an insufferable, meaningless existence; no wonder so many join their army of lemmings on their death march to the cliffs, a zombie drum majorette in the lead. The English philosopher John Gray, like his kindred spirit Truthdig’s Chris Hedges, is a scathing critic of the “myth of progress.” In his breakthrough 2002 work “Straw Dogs,” Gray pointed out that progressives’ use of the term “evolution” is a bastardization of Darwin’s theory of random selection. Like Hedges, Gray points to Freud’s theory of the death drive to help clarify how humanity is not on an inevitable path to greater social harmony, but rather how we as a species are just as prone to inevitable bouts of horrific destruction (let alone daily, hourly acts that undermine). Freud’s theory posits that just as humanity possesses a “tendency toward survival, propagation, sex and other creative, life-producing drives” (dubbed Eros), we also have a drive toward death and self-destruction (Thanatos). Yet Gray points out how science — in contrast to social and political organization — achieves consistent advancement of knowledge through the acceptance of the scientific process by a tightly coordinated and regulated network of well-populated international institutions. So there is progress on that front. In contrast to Gray, I am not so certain that our social and political condition is so dire. I point to the option 2 group I mentioned earlier as a source of hope. In particular, I felt that Bernie Sanders produced one of the most hopeful and compelling visions for how Thanatos could be contained and Eros flourish that I’ve heard in my lifetime. Indeed, one of the things that struck me as most persuasive about Sanders’ program was how, almost like a scientist, he began his campaign explaining that in the realm of the social organization of “advanced” technological societies, we know where to look to find positive examples, and he pointed to the social democracies of Western Europe. While Sanders’ embrace of Scandinavia was dropped as a talking point pretty early in the campaign, his program remained firmly rooted in the idea that a truly democratic state is the most powerful instrument available at the moment to contain the destructive forces (think Thanatos) unleashed in our era of globalized capitalism and to initiate positive programs (think Eros) that benefit people and the planet. Sanders remained unwavering in his radical commitment to this project throughout a year-long campaign that ended with him as, far and away, the most popular politician in the country. Your support matters…

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