Sanders and his "Sandernistas" rarely talked about ending US illegal wars of aggression. If liberal/progressives had insisted that Bernie take an anti-war platform and a reduction of the military-industrial-complex, then Bernie might well be in the White House now, instead of Trump. Instead most of the Sandernistas told liberal/progressives to shut up about the wars. They said it would be political suicide for Bernie to bring up war during a presidential campaign. Sandernistas said not to worry about the wars, because Bernie was secretly antiwar. We fell for that one with Obama, who committed more war crimes than George W. Bush.
Andre has the guts to say that liberal/progressives do not deserve free college, universal healthcare and all the goodies that Bernie was selling us, while also selling us the trillion dollar F-35 boondoggle. I agree with Andre, especially since Bernie sold out his loyal followers, and sheep dogged for warmongering Hillary. We do not deserve Bernie's socialism at home with all the US illegal wars of aggression going on. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said:
"A time comes when silence is betrayal--- I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube."
The Empire is waging all sorts of wars: militarily, economic and propaganda. It is waging economic terrorism against the Global South. The Empire-backed World Bank, IMF and banking monopolies force austerity on the poor of the world.
Those poor countries in the Global South that are under attack by the Empire's economic terrorist organizations do not get to have Bernie's socialism. Not only do I agree with Andre that until the wars are stopped we in the Empire do not deserve Bernie's socialism, nor do we have funds or the energies for it. Bernie and the Sandernistas rarely spoke about rehabilitation of America's poor; it was all about the middle class.
Whatever the Empire does in its foreign policy, sooner or later the chickens come home to roost. The Empire keeps crushing countries of the Global South whose leaders want to use their country's natural resources for their own people. Leaders like Castro, Che and Ho were personally vilified for not embracing capitalism. The Empire keeps conspiring to overthrow governments that nationalize their natural resources, and have social programs for the people.
The Empire never stops plotting to overthrow anti-colonial revolutions. Venezuela, Iran, Syria and Yemen are under attack because they want to go their own way. There will be economic warfare, propaganda warfare, political warfare and when those don't work to impose conformity and compliance; then there is the Empire's military option. For the Empire "all options are always on the table", including the nuclear option. The Empire would rather see the destruction of the entire world, than to coexist with a threat to its hegemony of a New World Order.
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Now the cry goes out again that the Russians are coming! Those like myself that lived through the Cold War are seeing it repeated. The paranoia, propaganda, lies, repression, persecution and provocations are deja vu. The US has encircled Russia with military bases, and plays war games on its border. We are told, and we are supposed to believe that Russia is the aggressor and an expansionist threat.
Georgia attacks South Ossetia, and we are told that Russia invaded Georgia. The US midwifes a coup against an elected government in Ukraine, but it is Russia that is blamed for destabilizing Ukraine. Crimea has a referendum to rejoin Russia, and we are told that the Russians used military force to annex Crimea. The US has criminally invaded Syria, but we are told that Russia invaded Syria, even though they are there legally. The Empire always needs and wants enemies.
We are supposed to be afraid that Putin will "destroy the West's democracy" by sowing dissention, chaos and his meddling in US elections with a few Facebook ads. If anybody wants to destroy America's democracy, then they are several decades too late. It has already been mostly destroyed. The Bill of Rights have been eviscerated, except for the 2nd Amendment, which is enabling the worst fascistic tendencies in the US to heavily arm themselves. The police are militarized. The US has secret police, secret courts, and secret prisons.
Nationalism that breeds repression at home and wars abroad is running amok. The people no longer have the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Protesters are restricted to so-called free-speech zones, and they are subject to indiscriminate mass arrest. The people are told to obey the government, but it is the government that is supposed to obey the people in a democracy.
Andre has much to say on all the above issues in his book "Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism". The book is a collection of many of his great writing of the past few years. Shorter versions of his essays have been published in articles by non-Western media, such as the New Eastern Outlook (NEO) as well as Western alternative media such as The Greanville Post.
Andre writes about the Empire's many crimes. Terrible crimes have been committed against millions of people who have done the West no harm, and were of no threat to the West. The Empire and its vassal states punish people of the Global South for being born in countries with vast natural resources that the Empire covets. Andre gives these victims a voice and a human face.
Andre's writings are not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. He will pound the truth into you on every page, and you may not be able to put his book down, as I could not. The reader realizes that Andre is on a mission. Part of that mission is to be the conscience of the world, and to make sure that the victimized are not forgotten and that they are not alone. Andre has a great capacity for empathy for the victims of the Empire. His writing, videos and documentaries cry out for the world to have empathy too. The world is empathy deficient.
Even for those that already intellectually know the truths that Andre writes about, will have that truth pound into their hearts and souls. Unfortunately, the people that are ignorant of the truth, are the most likely ones not to read Andre. We all know people like that. They are our brother-in-law, neighbors, and the students and professors in our institutions of so-called higher learning. Our schools do not teach the important truths and philosophies anymore. They have just become vocational schools turning out accountants, lawyers, propagandist, stockbrokers, and super sales people to keep churning money in the economy, so that it moves up the food chain.
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