After that nonchalant betrayal of progressives' most vital interests, Clinton only added insult to injury. Consider this superb article by Steven Rosenfeld, mainly about her open return to being the hawk she's always been, but also cataloguing her overall turn to the right since her progressive-suckering remarks at the first Democratic debate. As Rosenfeld rightly notes, Clinton since then has (1) defended her corrupting Wall Street donations and speaking fees ( shamelessly invoking the sacred tragedy of 9/11 in her defense ), (2) bashed Bernie Sanders' progressive-beloved proposal for single-payer health care, (3) called for more aggressive military interventions in Syria, and (4) proposed new middle-class tax cuts (presumably tied to cuts in domestic programs benefitting the middle-class and poor).
And as the cherry on Clinton's right-wing sundae (that's how it must have tasted to her after the castor oil of having to claim she was progressive), Rosenfeld discusses Clinton's overtly hawkish speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, contrasting it with Sanders' express desire not to inject our nation into wars "over the soul of Islam." While Rosenfeld is correct in stressing that Clinton has always been an interventionist, he simply doesn't go far enough in stressing the danger she poses our nation. For that purpose I prefer Andrew Levine's CounterPunch article "The Real Trouble with Bernie," which, based on the assumption that Sanders is certain to lose, rebukes his irresponsibility in not emphatically calling out Clinton on what a peril to our nation her hawkishness is. As Levine puts it, "as President, Hillary will be a modern day Annie Oakley, but with nuclear weapons, not six shooters. It is a frightening prospect."
I agree that it's a very frightening prospect, worsened by a factor Levine doesn't note: how crucial global peace, as opposed to endless war, is as a precondition for addressing climate change. Beyond the Lusaka Declaration I cited early in his article, Naomi Klein makes global peace an essential part of her climate justice agenda, for how can a world endlessly at war command the gargantuan resources and unprecedented cooperation humanity needs to defeat the climate enemy? It simply can't, which makes Clinton a double "epic fail" in terms of Klein's climate justice agenda: for her corrupting ties to fossil fuel interests and for an inveterate militarism that itself wastes fossil fuels and annihilates any hope of climate cooperation rooted in global peace. It's with superb reason that I've branded Clinton "Naomi Klein's anti-matter."
How We "Kick Up a Big Stink"
What the reams of evidence just presented mean to show is that, with Hillary Clinton such a clear and present danger to humanity, and with progressive politicians having no rational grounds for supporting Clinton--no defensible justification rooted in the common good--their endorsement of her is not merely cowardly but villainous. Every so-called "progressive" pol who endorses Clinton becomes a willing tool of the Clinton machine and its assault on democracy--spreading the lying message that "Madam President" is hunky-dory in progressive terms when in fact our backstabbing enemy.
Acknowledging the cowardly treachery of endorsers who've joined the Clinton machine dictates a simple strategy to climate activists and progressives: we must wake up from being zombies (about progressives having any real voice in Clinton's Democratic Party) and "kick up a big stink" (by publicly rebuking Clinton-endorsing progressives for driving us out of the party). Specifically, we must warn them that we, as conscience-driven climate activists and progressives, reject their craven endorsement of Clinton rather than Sanders and will categorically refuse our votes to her if she's the Democratic nominee. Indeed, we should warn them that their indefensible endorsement of Clinton is driving progressives in droves from the Democratic Party--a warning we should affirm by pledging to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein if Clinton's nominated.
So essentially, our "kicking up a big stink" has two parts: (1) signing Revolt Against Plutocracy's (RAP's) Bernie or Bust pledge and (2) joining in a public shaming campaign against so-called "progressives" who've endorsed Hillary Clinton, upbraiding them for an irrational choice that tells climate activists and progressives that we're utterly unwelcome in a Democratic Party clearly owned by Hillary Clinton.
Why the Bernie or Bust pledge? Because, with limited precious time left before the primaries, it already has 25,000+ signers--far more than any similar pledge, created from scratch, is likely to generate. What's more, it already has a dedicated staff--Revolt Against Plutocracy's leadership and volunteers--tirelessly promoting it. As an effective tool of revolt against the Clintons' undemocratic de facto purging of progressive voices from the "Democratic" Party, nothing better is anywhere in sight.
But what about the wording of the pledge, which mentions writing in Sanders and not voting Green if Clinton's nominated? Well, RAP's pledge did start out that way (citing voting Green as the best option in states that don't allow write-ins, but lately, in light of Democrats' hard-heartedness in not endorsing Sanders, we've been opening up toward a more radical "Greener" interpretation of the pledge. As a co-founder of RAP, I fully intend to vote for Jill Stein if Bernie's not nominated, and also to lobby for a "Greener" wording of the Bernie or Bust pledge. But it's perfectly fine if pledge signers "agree to disagree" on how they'll vote if Clinton's nominated; the point is to make a powerful, united protest against her tyrannical exclusion of progressives from representation in the U.S. government. I simply think that voting Green--voting for a splendidly progressive party unjustly excluded by Democrats' dirty tricks from ready ballot access--is the most forceful protest against Clinton's purging of progressives. If Third Way Democrats fear anything more than Bernie, it's the rapid growth of a Green Party alternative.
Clearly, the logic of Naomi Klein's climate justice vision dictates that we elect a progressive president and Congress ASAP--humanity's very survival may depend on it. Bernie Sanders has already declared what he would do as a progressive president faced with a Republican Congress: he would use his bully pulpit to rally his supporters and denounce Republican in terms of his wildly popular progressive agenda--an agenda that already has him beating front-running Republicans by wider margins than Clinton. Seeing how much a Republican Congress would favor Clinton's militarist, fossil-fuel-friendly, pro-Wall Street agenda, can anyone picture Hillary Clinton doing that? She'd almost certainly excuse her "reach across the aisle" by a "spirit of bipartisanship" and a "pragmatism that gets things done." When the things getting done are endless war and warming of the climate beyond recognition, climate activists and progressives must revolt against Clinton's tyrannical domination of the Democratic Party. If it doesn't soon become Bernie Sanders' party, we must leave it. Please sign the Bernie or Bust pledge --our most forceful tool for sending that message.
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