Progressive Insurgency in America?
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
The notion is laughable on its face. How can progressivism exist under one-party rule with two extremist right wings taking turns running things?
Differences between them are largely rhetorical, virtually nothing distinguishing them on domestic and geopolitical issues mattering most.
Republicans and undemocratic Dems support privileged interests exclusively, America’s most vulnerable exploited and abused.
Calling Obama progressive before, during, and since in power is like calling a cat a dog. He was and remains a world-class thug, an unindicted war criminal, a front man for Wall Street, war profiteers, and other powerful interests.
Naked aggression supporters Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other con artists like them are no different.
So are media scoundrels, supporting what demands condemnation, reporting rubbish unfit to print, read, hear, or view, suppressing vital truths they want silenced.
Nation magazine progressivism is more pretense than real. It gets funding support from international con man George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and other establishment groups.
It disgracefully fronts for undemocratic Dems, notably since the neoliberal 90s, backing the Clinton co-presidency and Obama regime, failing to denounce their high crimes of war and against humanity, their neoliberal contempt for ordinary Americans.
The Nation belongs to the so-called Media Consortium (MC), along with Democracy Now, Truthout, In These Times, Alternet, The American Prospect, and other self-styled progressive left media – sources the late Edward Herman called the “cruise missile left.”
Nation magazine editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel’s columns appear regularly in the neocon/CIA house organ Washington Post, exposing her connection to what she claims to oppose – a con-woman like other undemocratic Dems.
He claim about a “progressive insurgency…only just beginning” is utter nonsense. Progressive public sentiment revealed in some polls doesn’t translate into electing a ruling political class sharing their views.
Just the opposite! Same old, same old wins every time, dirty business as usual always triumphant each time elections in America are held at the federal, state and big city levels.
Vanden Heuvel cited con man Bernie Sanders as an example of a growing “progressive insurgency” in the country – along with congressional aspirants Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and others yet to be elected and serve a single day in Congress.
They have no voting record to judge them on, no idea whether their campaign rhetoric translates into supporting progressive policies if elected in November.
Vanden Heuvel quoted the NYT, nonsensically saying “Democrats brace as storm brews far to their left,” adding “a new generation of confrontational progressives has put Democrats at the precipice of a sweeping transition” – falsely equating less extremist undemocratic Dems with progressive politics.
Dems were never as progressive and liberal as they wanted constituents to believe. New Deal and Great Society programs constituted their high water mark.
FDR’s agenda during the Great Depression was all about saving capitalism, not serving all Americans equitably.
No evidence of “a powerful reform movement building on the left” to change the political climate in Washington exists, as vanden Heuvel claimed.
Growing numbers of social, environmental and anti-war activists, if they exist in enough numbers, don’t translate into shifting how America is governed.
The nation’s criminal class in Washington is bipartisan – overwhelmingly for imperial wars, neoliberal harshness, and tough crackdowns on nonbelievers.
They support corporate predators at the expense of ordinary Americans they don’t give a hoot about – just pretending they do rhetorically.
Occupy Wall Street’s failure showed what activists for change are up against. The bipartisan power of the state opposes them – Obama, Hillary, and undemocratic Dems as vicious as neocon Republicans.
When it comes to issues mattering most, ones vital to privileged interests, both sides of the isle are in lockstep with each other.
If a few true progressives become congressional members, it won’t change a thing. The political process in Washington is too debauched to fix.
The only solution is nonviolent revolution. Voting is a waste of time – accomplishing nothing positive each election cycle.
It’ll be no different in November midterms, 2020, and other elections to follow.
Privileged interests run things, the way it’s always been since the nation was founded, a fantasy democracy, never the real thing.
Ordinary people have no say whatever. It’s delusional to believe anything politically can change things.
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My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
