[“Speaking Truth To Empower”]
What we are now witnessing is: a small wealthy politically connected minority trying to thwart real democracy at work—and silence the voices of the masses of disaffected Americans who support Sanders.
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America’s establishment elites are growing desperate to derail the presidential prospects and historic political mass movement of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
This week’s denunciations of Sanders for saying Fidel Castro achieved positive results in raising the literacy rates of Cubans is one of the latest attempts to discredit him. These antiquated Cold War redbaiting arguments shows just how out-of-touch these folks are. They don’t seem to realize we’re now living in the twentieth year of the 21st Century.
Since when have American leaders ever been against buddying with brutal dictators? Hasn’t Washington always supported dictators and undemocratic governments throughout the planet? Hasn’t Washington’s collaboration with the world’s worst dictators too often been a bi-partisan effort?
During the recent South Carolina debate, Sanders’ comments from a 60 Minutes interview was raised to apparently highlight his problematic socialist thinking. Sanders correctly stated that “Cuba made progress in terms of education.” This statement is now being used to say Sanders has “sympathies” for dictators.
The phoniness of this specious line of attack underscores just how worried the establishment is that Sanders will win the White House—and help usher in a movement to end undemocratic wealth inequality in this country. What we’re seeing are acts of sabotage against Sanders by America’s wealthy, their media, and by establishment Democrats.
These immoral individuals would rather have Trump for four more than see Sanders in the White House. They are terrified of Sanders’ grassroots campaign and the implications it has for their continued gluttonous hoarding of America’s wealth. Since they benefit very nicely from America’s existing inequality, they tell us Sanders’ platform proposals are unrealistic and unaffordable.
Amid all the hypocritical noise this week, the most important question regarding Sanders’ Castro comment has gone unasked. Was Sanders’ comment not in fact true?
According to UNESCO, Cuba’s literacy rate is 99.7 percent—among the best in the world. Moreover, Cuba is also known to have some of the best doctors in the world, despite decades of economic warfare spearheaded by Washington. But within the fearmongering fog of disinformation and half-truths these facts are suppressed, especially by a corrupt corporate media.
Of course, the central hypocrisy here is again the notion that America’s political establishment doesn’t like dictators. Nothing could be further from the truth. America loves dictators—as long as those dictators behave themselves and kowtow to “American interests,” meaning to the interests of big business.
We don’t have enough time here to list all the dictators America has supported throughout the world. But to pretend America does not support dictators is absurd given the historical record.
For example, let’s examine one military dictator America backed wholeheartedly, who once ruled Cuba with an iron fist: Fulgencio Batista.
When Fidel Castro toppled Fulgencio Batista, in 1959, he disrupted and unholy alliance between Batista and America. Factually, Batista was the kind of repressive dictator Castro is accused of being. Batista suspended the Cuban constitution, adopted policies that widened the gap between rich and poor, engaged in public executions and torture, among many other outrages.
But America’s political establishment loved Batista. Why? Because Batista allowed American big business to control Cuba’s best resources. Batista ignored the needs of the Cuban masses while catered to American business elites who prostituted Cuba by using it as their personal playground. Even Mafia leaders had free reign in Cuba under Batista, and this didn’t seem to bother Washington at all.
If Castro had allowed that situation to continue, American politicians would’ve supported him just like they did Batista. But Castro had the gall to ignore the dictates of America, so he is denounced as being somehow more despicable than the torturers and murderers Washington always does business with.
To many people around the world, the idea that the American government cares about non-white people being abused in foreign countries is laughable.
Latin Americans are among those who have suffered severely because of the deadly duplicity of American foreign policy. In Latin America, names of vicious U.S. backed dictators like Jorge Rafael Videla, of Argentina; General Castelo Branco, of Brazil; Augusto Pinochet, of Chile; Efraín Ríos Montt, of Guatemala; Anastasio Somoza, of Nicaragua; Alfredo Stroessner, of Paraguay; Alberto Fujimori, of Peru; Juan María Bordaberry, of Uruguay; have all gone down in infamy for their brutality.
America’s corporate media surely knows about the sordid history of American foreign policy with the world’s worst dictators. So, why aren’t they educating the American people about these things? Why are they propagating lies and pretending that the American government is opposed to doing business with dictators?
The crooked corporate interests of American big businesses are now working overtime to stop Senator Sanders and more importantly the people-powered movement he represents. It should be now clear that even the Democratic establishment is trying their best to prevent the kind of change Sanders’ platform represents.
What we are now witnessing is: a small wealthy politically connected minority trying to thwart real democracy at work—and silence the voices of the masses of disaffected Americans who support Sanders.
We should take heed of the undemocratic schemes we are seeing. There are now reports that so-called “superdelegates” are saying they will be doing everything they can not to support Sanders. Apparently, what Democratic voters want matters little to these superdelegates. Many of these people are conniving lobbyists connected to corrupt corporations.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is doing his part in running interference for the other billionaires like himself who are petrified by the politics of Sanders. In doing so, he is using his money to pervert democracy.
Many in New York are not surprised by this. Bloomberg used his money and influence to get the New York City Council to change the rules so he could buy his way to a third term as mayor.
Bloomberg is now touting endorsements he has gotten from Black so-called leaders—who the great radio journalist Mario Moorhead correctly calls “misleaders.” Are these endorsements supposed to convince Black Americans that Bloomberg, who vehemently supported Stop-and-Frisk until he decided to run for president, is worthy of getting our votes? We should reject those who sell us out for their own advancement.
We’re being told to forget that Bloomberg said Whites get stopped too much by police, and Blacks don’t get stopped enough. Bloomberg said this knowing NYPD data shows Whites are more often found with drugs—and guns—although they are stopped at rates much lower than Blacks. Black America must face an awful truth: many of our Black “leaders” must be removed from political power and influence. How can these leaders endorse someone like Bloomberg who increased Stop-and-Frisk, by 600 percent, after taking over from Rudy Giuliani?
These misleaders tell us we should forgive Bloomberg because we need to remove Trump from the White House. So, we should forget how Bloomberg used racial policing to criminalized Black New Yorkers and wish for the best if he becomes president?
We are now living in a historical moment of change. Senator Sanders’ grassroots people first mass movement points a new way forward to a more equitable society unlike the status quo politics of inequality.
