If politics is the art of communication, then Sanders must be judged the winner, hands down.

[kpete]

In fact, the Sanders campaign represents a breakthrough for progressive “messaging” of remarkable scope and impact. Sanders, with his calls for political revolution against the billionaire class, is not just another standard-issue, forked-tongue, feel-your-pain Democrat; at each MSM-covered appearance he blasts out piercing alarms about the radical inequities and irrationalities of the status quo, along with sorely needed solutions—primal truths that would otherwise lie dormant and buried in the scattered isolated islets of far-leftdom.

To dismiss these crucial inroads into mass consciousness as mere diversion, to deride his proposals as milquetoast Keynesian stopgap, betrays the old far-left allergy to the complexity and cacophony of the large stage of life, a debilitating preference for the safety and certitude of the tiny left echo chamber. Sanders’s campaign, whatever its flaws, is thrusting front and center to a mass audience a whole series of principled, critical demands and issues (many of which overlap with those raised in splendid isolation by Jill Stein and the Green Party), the realization of which would markedly advance the material well-being and future prospects of ordinary Americans: $15 an hour minimum wage; union card check to expand organizing rights; improved Medicare for all; expansion (not retrenchment) of Social Security; revamped progressive taxation to reduce income inequality; a Wall Street transaction tax; a rapid transition to renewables to combat climate change; opposition to the ecocidal, neo-fascist TPP, NAFTA, and WTO; an end to the militarization of local police forces; cracking down on hate groups; free tuition at all public universities and colleges to alleviate student debt peonage; paid family leave; and so on. If realized in the aggregate, these demands would challenge the neoliberal logic of the prevailing order.

As a tactical matter, then, the Sanders upsurge is an invaluable tool for the mass dissemination of left themes and solutions right now—a priceless benefit that far outweighs the realpolitik lapses that preoccupy the left-echo-chamber Sanders refuseniks.

Now notice that I just used the word tactical. Allow me to explain. Whatever the rough spots in Sanders’s progressive resume, especially on foreign policy, it remains a stubborn tactical reality (and perhaps I will also be forgiven for using the word reality) that it is only through the vehicle of the his presidential campaign as a Democrat that these kinds of progressive issues and solutions can flood the airwaves and touch the tens of millions of desperate but ill-informed Americans who most need to think and hear about them—in most cases, for the first time. This is the unique and irreplaceable value of the Sanders candidacy: it is strewing seeds of mass consciousness around issues of class and inequality and the environment in a way that no other person or party could accomplish right now. Radicals need to ask themselves: How is that a bad thing?

MORE:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/18425/why-the-radical-left-really-really-needs-to-quit-whining-about-bernie-sande

[DinahMoeHum]

1. Original Greek word: "Politikos" aka "pertaining to citizens"

. . .which implies and requires communication among citizens.

Great article.

[sabrina 1]

2. Excellent article.

these demands would challenge the neoliberal logic of the prevailing order.

That's precisely why we are seeing the desperate reaction, see Brock and his Dark Money Super Pac, of those most threatened by the PEOPLE'S interests possibly becoming the most important interests of our government rather than the way it is right now.

They have a lot to lose, having worked so hard for decades to grab all they can grab for themselves, buying Candidates, installing THEIR Reps in power, taking over the media, and because of the their success in doing so, getting their hands on Public Funds, Medicaid now, Education and the big prize they are still working on, Social Security.

They bought one party out totally, they have half the other party making their goal of taking SS and privatizing almost a fait accompli.

Sanders campaign therefore is an enormous threat to them and they will do everything they can to derail it.

Let's hope we the people are strong enough to stop them this time.

[ancianita]

3. K & R

[LWolf]

4. I've been listening

Last edited Sun Sep 20, 2015, 12:12 PM - Edit history (1)

to the "radical" left. I usually do, since I agree with them more often than not. In most cases, I don't really consider them radical, which is why I put the quotes around it. The only thing I really see that might be spun by some to be "radical" is that they exist outside the two-party system; rogues, as you will.

Many of those "radicals" are going to vote for Sanders in the D primary. In states with open primaries, they'll vote for Sanders and then vote for someone else in the GE if he doesn't get the nomination. In states with closed primaries, they'll register D to vote in the primaries, and then vote for someone else in the GE if he doesn't get the nomination.

That's what I'm hearing.

It tells me two things: First, Sanders, based on this and on other reports on other groups that don't usually support the Democrat, will pull many more crossover votes from outside the party than Hillary Clinton can ever hope for. The biggest challenge for the Sanders campaign is to get the nomination. If he does, I think he's got the GE.

Secondly, his primary campaign is bringing people back to the Democratic Party, and bringing in new people. He's growing the party. If he's nominated, then the hope he's offered, that people are coming to the party to find, will keep many of them here, strengthening the Democratic Party in the long term. If he's not nominated, then it's a short term gain that won't be sustained.

Given these two things, one has to question why the Democratic Party establishment is so determined to shoot him down. A win in the presidential election, a growth in people coming to the party...those are positives. The only reason I can think of that they might not WANT this is that they don't want the Democratic Party to be the people's party; they wan't to please their corporate masters.

And THAT is the third big reason Democratic voters should be determined to nominate Sanders. It's a chance to reclaim our party for the people it is supposed to represent.

[Uncle Joe]

5. "The Deep State" is their true ideology.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016132673

Given these two things, one has to question why the Democratic Party establishment is so determined to shoot him down. A win in the presidential election, a growth in people coming to the party...those are positives. The only reason I can think of that they might not WANT this is that they don't want the Democratic Party to be the people's party; they wan't to please their corporate masters.

[LWolf]

6. Yes. nt