The media has been trying to present Hillary Clinton as the inevitable nominee for the Democratic Party for years, long before even one person had a chance to vote in either Iowa or New Hampshire; and every time they have an opportunity to try to declare Bernie Sanders candidacy to be over they do.
They've been doing this since the New York primary at an escalating pace without mentioning the problems with voting there that gave her an enormous edge often after the initial reports. As I explained in Can Hillary Clinton win without cheating? there have been voting problems in at least fifteen to eighteen different states and the stories have been growing, often faster than I can update this list. Recent stories indicate that if Bernie Sanders contests it Illinois might be overturned due to voter manipulation and several more states have even bigger problems including New York and Arizona which might have the biggest problems with voter suppression of all.
There are enough problems with the voting irregularities to raise serious doubts about the legitimacy of this election. When you add in the much larger advantage the media gives Hillary Clinton in this election and establishment candidates of their choice in others, there is no legitimacy to this election system. Jeff Weaver has been ridiculed by saying that he might try to win by convincing "super-delegates" to changes sides since Bernie Sanders is more electable than Hillary Clinton. This may seem to be inappropriate, but if we can't get a new election which is the most appropriate way to handle it then it is a better way to correct the problems long enough to overhaul the election system so that everyone can access the information they need, including an opportunity to hear from all candidates not just ones that collect bribes thinly disguised as campaign contributions, in the next election and ensure that they're vote is counted.
This is obviously a flawed way of handling it but it isn't as bad as ignoring the much larger problems, which is what the media is doing.
While trying to make Bernie Sanders appear as if he is inevitably going to lose they asked him if he would endorse Hillary Clinton and he indicated that it would be up to her to earn the votes of his supporters; and that he would do everything he could to ensure that a Republican isn't elected.
In a Town Hall immediately following his on MSNBC Rachel Maddow started by asking Hillary Clinton what she would do if anything to earn the support of Bernie Sanders supporters and if she would change any of her positions. She responded angrily and said that when she lost in 2008 she did everything she could to support Barack Obama without conditions and indicated that since she had so many votes that him that he should simply do the same for her without question.
Of course she didn't mention any of the epidemic voting problems or the enormous advantage the media was giving her with their coverage. Many Bernie Sanders supporters are fully aware of this and they're also aware that after campaigning as a progressive promising to put on a comfortable pair of shoes and walk the picket line if necessary and not to hire lobbyists among other things Barack Obama did the opposite once he got in office breaking most of his promises unless there was an enormous amount of protests keeping him honest, or at least preventing him from breaking too many more promises.
Despite all her rhetoric and flip-flopping during the campaign, Hillary Clinton hasn't done nearly as good a job pretending to support the public when all evidence indicates that she'll cater to her contributors once in office, assuming the media and political establishment manages to rig the election for her.
Donald Trump is already calling her "Crooked Hillary" and can be expected to repeat it over and over again between now and the election; and even though he exaggerates and lies about a lot of things there is an enormous amount of evidence to indicate that he is right about this one on many subjects from reliable sources. I provided a long list of these stories on several posts including Why would anyone consider Hillary Clinton if they knew this?
The media has repeatedly said that Trump has the worst approval rating ever; and that Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton are almost as bad; perhaps the three candidates with the worst approval ratings since polling began are running this year. The reason for this has an enormous amount to do with the media coverage given to these candidates. With the consolidated media they have the ability to rig elections for their candidates by simply refusing to give any coverage at all to progressive candidates; and that is what they almost always do.
For one reason or another they gave insane amounts of coverage to these candidates without providing fair coverage for any decent candidates, enabling these outrageous candidates to rise to the top. Bernie Sanders has shown there is an enormous amount of support for real reform. Hillary Clinton doesn't come close to attracting the crowds and enthusiasm that Bernie Sanders does.
They might be able to rig the media coverage and perhaps in many cases the votes making it seem like she has much more support than he does but they can't fake that!
Just because Bernie promised to do what he can to prevent a Republican from being elected doesn't mean that he has to support Hillary Clinton who is as corrupt on financial issues and war mongering as the Republicans. He can either continue fighting to convince the public to support himself; of if they successfully rig the media coverage and votes, like they did in 2000; he can put his weight behind Jill Stein.
When he ran as a Democrat he ran the risk of saving the Democratic primary while providing a modest amount of reform and adding his credibility to the corrupt establishment. If he wins then that risk is still there but his supporters aren't going to forget who the real progressives are, assuming they continue doing their research.
The worst thing that could happen is if he loses as a result of cheating and he adds his credibility to their party even though they aren't doing more than a token amount of reform; and his response indicates he knows that his supporters won't fall for that.
Fortunately it clearly isn't over yet and there is even an effort that is beginning to organize a March on the Democratic National Convention 2016! with additional support at Bernie Supporters March on Philadelphia - Democratic National Convention and at the Democratic Underground This could be the biggest protest in years thanks to the incredibly bad candidates the establishment is trying to push through especially when they're trying to shut out much better candidates with well informed grassroots support that won't fall for media lies.
If these protests turn out to be large enough they could either convince the Democratic Party to start fixing the system by giving Bernie Sanders the nomination, since his campaign hasn't been dependent on epidemic amounts of fraud and begin cooperating with further reforms. Obviously many of the insiders may not go along with this but if there's enough pressure from the real grassroots they might not have a choice especially if they realize that refusing to nominate Bernie Sanders would jeopardize their duopoly by having enormous turnout from alternative parties including Jill Stein and the Greens.
If they do give Sanders the nomination hoping to preserve their duopoly it will be up to the public to pursue Instant Run-Off elections alternative media outlets until we can get media reform and more reliance on ballot initiatives.
Regardless of how or why we wound up in this insane situation it has potentially created the biggest challenge to the corporate duopoly in decades. It is virtually guaranteed that there will be another alternative party candidate from the Libertarian Party on the right; and with record breaking negative polling it is highly unlikely that Donald Trump will win.
Besides Hillary Clinton is simply not much better and falling for the same lesser of two evils trick while large portions of the country falls apart isn't much if nay better than Donald Trump, especially since the outrage of all these people provides the greatest alternative which is real reform, either with Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein.
The claim that Hillary Clinton has that much more support than Bernie Sanders because of the votes in a seriously rigged system with enormous amounts of corporate propaganda given to the people instead of the most important stories about Hillary Clinton and other candidates is no more credible than Joseph Stalin's claims to have won 98% to 99% percent in election when he was still in power!
As I've said in numerous posts since Invest in Activism, AND Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein and Grassroots and more before that the most important thing is grassroots activism; but we also need candidates in office that are at least trying to do their best so that we aren't fighting them tooth and nail just to prevent them from making things worse. With Clinton that would be even tougher than with Obama who broke many promises including to put on a pair of "comfortable shoes" not hire lobbyists and much more. Clinton clearly isn't even trying to do a good job pretending. But even Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein isn't a messiah and they don't pretend to be.
On at least one issue Jill Stein might actually be better than Bernie Sanders. He has repeatedly said that he favors arming and training Muslims to fight ISIS. That is how they were created in the first place. If we continue arming and training anyone we should keep it to a minimum since many of the groups we armed in past have turned against us or sold weapons to enemies.
It is far better to simply stop bombing Muslim countries turning people against us and making terrorists seem like lesser of two evils to some. If most Americans were being bombed by American bombs they would be much more likely to see this. This won't solve all problems but it would dry up the support for ISIS and help turn Muslims against ISIS. And developing functioning local economies both here and abroad will help reduce root causes as well.
Even after the eastern primaries including Pennsylvania Clinton is still only ahead by about 327 pledged delegates and there is still a chance to pull ahead, especially if they challenge voter irregularities. If they do this and have enough people let them know that they're not going to take it any more they could still get the nomination.
But if they rig it for Hillary Clinton and try to make us choose the lesser evil a Sanders endorsement could provide the boost and attention Jill Stein and the Grassroots movement they need to win and break up the duopoly.
If Bernie Sanders doesn't do this and the outrage is enough they could still do this; but refusing to try is submitting to corporate rule without accountability.
Which sounds an awful lot like submitting to tyranny!
Sign this petition to let Bernie Sanders and establishment know we won't help elect another corporate puppet. Break the Corporate Duopoly: Support Jill Stein and the Green Party if You Lose the Democratic Nomination
Bernie Sanders endorse Jill Stein Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment