It is an easily documented fact that almost none of the major centrist media have thoroughly and honestly covered the obvious parallels between Jeremy Corbyn’s recent gains in the U.K. and Bernie Sanders’s less recent (and less positive) fate at the hands of the Democratic National Committee according to the Wikileaked emails from July and November of 2016…a very well documented set of facts that has never been denied by the DNC. The DNC actively and effectively opposed the whole Sanders movement. No matter who leaked those (I repeat…undenied by the DNC) emails and for whatever reasons, that fact remains salient.
Corbyn, on the other hand, had a Labour Party hierarchy that apparently either didn’t even effectively try to oppose him or at the very least did not do so effectively enough. He won…or perhaps better said made great strides towards winning…and Bernie Sanders lost.
There is a lesson to be learned here.
Read on for more.
Corbyn’s Lesson: Embrace Change We Need, in Counterpunch by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers.
The shocking election result in the United Kingdom – the Conservatives losing their majority and the creation of a hung Parliament; and Jeremy Corbyn being more successful than any recent Labor candidate – cutting a 20 point Theresa May lead down to a near tie – gives hope to many that the global shift to the right, fueled by the failures of governments to meet the basic needs of their population and growing economic insecurity, may be ending.
Corbyn is a lifelong activist whose message and actions have been consistent. He presented a platform directed at ending austerity and the wealth divide and was openly anti-war. There are a lot of lessons for the Labor Party in the UK from this election but there are also lessons for people in the United States. We review what happened and consider the possibilities for creating transformative change in the United States.
The Corbyn Campaign Results
The Corbyn campaign showed that a political leader urging a radical progressive transformative agenda can succeed. Many in his own party, the neo-liberal pro-war Blairites, claimed Corbyn could not win, tried to remove him from leadership, and sabotaged and refused to assist his campaign.
Sound familiar? It should. Substitute “the neo-liberal pro-war Clintonites” in the above paragraph and you have an exact match for the DNC’s style of opposition to Sanders and its stated reasons as well.
More.
—snip—
“Here are the figures for Blair’s three wins. He got a 36 per cent share of the vote in 2005 – much less than Corbyn. He received a 41 per cent of the vote – about the same as Corbyn – in 2001. And Blair’s landslide victory in 1997 was secured on 43 per cent of the vote, just two percentage points ahead of Corbyn last night.
“In short, Corbyn has proved himself the most popular Labour leader with the electorate in more than 40 years, apart from Blair’s landslide victory in 1997.”
Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor of Jacobin, writes that Corbyn was not only campaigning against the Tories and Theresa May, but battling his own party – yet he still “won.”
Sound familiar again? It should, short of the “won” part.
Continue.
“This is the first election Labour has won seats in since 1997, and the party got its largest share of the vote since 2005 — all while closing a twenty-four point deficit. Since Corbyn assumed leadership in late 2015, he has survived attack after attack from his own party, culminating in a failed coup attempt against him. As Labour leader he was unable to rely on his parliamentary colleagues or his party staff. The small team around him was bombarded with hostile internal leaks and misinformation, and an unprecedented media smear campaign.”
“Every elite interest in the United Kingdom tried to knock down Jeremy Corbyn, but still he stands.”
“…an unprecedented media smear campaign.”
Now we are in Trump territory.
And U.S. media territory as well.
Change that last sentence above slightly, and what do you have?
“Every elite interest in the United States tried to knock down Donald Trump, but still he stands.”
Yup.
The Brits are beginning to see the truth of the matter. In the centrist media…the corporate-owned centrist media no matter whether it is ostensibly to the left or right of the controlling center…it is all false news, all of the time. And large parts of the electorate are voting…reflexively, but voting anyway…against what they are being told to do on every level by the major media.
Trump 101.
He understands this on a cellular level.
That’s why he ran the way he did, and that’s why he won.
It wasn’t the Russians who caused HRC’s loss, it was too much positive media coverage directed at her and way too much screaming, wanking and wonking negative media coverage of Trump.
Well, Zelda, I’ll tell ya what.
If they don’t like this Trump fella that
much, maybe he’s really onto something!!!
Further:
What can we learn regarding US politics?
Sunkara argues Corbyn demonstrated that a winning campaign strategy is “to offer hopes and dreams to people, not just fear and diminished expectations.” In current US terms that means it is insufficient just to oppose Trump, a positive vision for the future that shows what a candidate and party stand for is needed, e.g. it is not just enough to defend the failing Affordable Care Act and oppose the Republican’s American Health Care Act, you must stand for something positive: National Improved Medicare for All. This is one example of many.
Sunkara provides more detail:
“Labour’s surge confirms what the Left has long argued: people like an honest defense of public goods. Labour’s manifesto was sweeping — its most socialist in decades. It was a straightforward document, calling for nationalization of key utilities, access to education, housing, and health services for all, and measures to redistribute income from corporations and the rich to ordinary people.
“£6.3 billion into primary schools, the protection of pensions, free tuition, public housing construction — it was clear what Labour would do for British workers. The plan was attacked in the press for its old-fashioned simplicity — “for the many, not the few” — but it resonated with popular desires, with a view of fairness that seemed elementary to millions.
“The Labour left remembered that you don’t win by tacking to an imaginary center — you win by letting people know you feel their anger and giving them a constructive end to channel it towards. `We demand the full fruits of our labor,’ the party’s election video said it all.”
Corbyn showed how important it is to have the correct analysis on foreign policy. Twice during the campaign, the UK was hit by a terrorist attack. Corbyn responded by telling the truth: part of the reason for terrorism is the UK foreign policy, especially in Libya. He also opposed the use of nuclear weapons. The Conservatives thought these anti-war positions would hurt Corbyn, instead they helped.
This is even more true in the United States with the never ending wars the country is fighting. But, the unspeakable in the United States, as Paul Street calls it, is acknowledging that terrorism is conducted by the US. This taboo subject makes it hard for people to understand that the US is constantly committing acts of terrorism around the world, which lead to predictable blow back from US militarism, regime change and war. No elected official will tell these obvious truths, which the people of the United States would instinctively understand if they were voiced.
Although the U.S. is often portrayed as a `center-right’ nation and progressives are called extremists, the reality is that there is majority support for a progressive agenda. There is a developing national consensus in the United States for transformational change, and Bernie Sanders articulated some of that consensus, at least on domestic issues, in his run for president, but the problem is that U.S. elections are manipulated by the elites in power who make sure that their interests are represented by the winner
Sunkara ends his article on Corbyn saying “Also, Bernie Sanders would have won.” We do not know what would have happened in a Trump-Sanders election. The closest example may be McGovern’s 1972 campaign against Nixon which he lost in a landslide. In that campaign, the Democrats deserted their candidate, even the AFL-CIO and big unions did not support McGovern and Nixon demonized him in the media. Would Clinton-Democrats have stood with Sanders or would they have sabotaged him like the party did to McGovern?
“Would Clinton-Democrats have stood with Sanders or would they have sabotaged him like the party did to McGovern?”
I wonder.
They probably would have abandoned him if the Rats had run some centrist stooge like Bush III. But Trump changed all of that by sheer force of personality.
And of course…the kicker:
Despite their significant losses, the Democrats are still controlled by Clinton-Obama Wall Street and war neo-liberals as we saw in the recent DNC chair election where Clinton protégé, Tom Perez, was elected. We are not optimistic that the US can apply the Corbyn model within the Democratic Party because it has been a party representing the oligarchs from its origins as the party of plantation slave-owners.
The duopoly parties that represent Wall Street, war and empire will not allow voices that represent “the many, not the few” to participate in US elections. They shut them out whether they run as an insurgent inside a party, as people learned from the mistreatment of Bernie Sanders by the DNC, or if they run outside of the two parties. The bi-partisans make independent party runs nearly impossible with unfair ballot access laws, barriers to voter registration, secret vote counting on unverifiable election machines, exclusion from the debates and exclusion by the corporate media, who are in cahoots with the bi-partisans.
Yup.
It Comes Down to Building An Independent Mass Political Movement
We live in a mirage democracy with managed elections, as we describe in the article “Fighting for A Legitimate Democracy By and For the People,” on the long history of wealth dominating politics in the U.S.
Historically, transformations have occurred because of mass social movements demanding change and participating in elections through independent parties that have grown out of a movement with candidates from the movement (Corbyn has been involved in every anti-war movement, anti-apartheid, anti-austerity, pro-peace and human rights movements among others). Showing mass electoral support, even without winning, has resulted in significant changes – union rights, women’s voting rights, the eight-hour workday – indeed the New Deal came out of third party platforms. It is important to resist the duopoly parties in order to get to the root of the problems we face; as Patrick Walker explains, the “grassroots resistance must oppose Democrats as well as Trump.”
A broad and diverse social movement whose demands are articulated by an independent party platform has forced one of the two parties to capitulate to the movement or disappear. That still seems to be the most likely path to real change for the US.
Yup.
But…how likely?
Not very, given the plain fact that the Democratic Party will not “disappear” easily, given its huge financial support from the corporate center.
Corbyn teaches that we should embrace the radical transformational change that is needed, whether in elections or as a movement, to inspire people to take action and shift the realm of the possible. The people thirst for change as their economic situation becomes more insecure. There needs to be a movement that addresses that insecurity through a human rights lens, or else the insecurity will be channeled towards hatred and violence.
The key first step is to show the many, we are with them; that we are listening and acting consistent with their beliefs. Taking this correct first step, lights the path ahead of us.
Yes.
But…who are “we,” exactly?
That’s the next political question that will need to be asked and answered before a real path towards a representative democracy can be charted.
So far?
No practical third party shows any real signs of life and there is absolutely no real change in the Democratic Party. Schumer/Pelosi forces still rule the roost, using shadow-play puppets to disguise the truth of the matter.
Stay tuned.
May you be born(e) into interesting times.
AG
P.S. Read these while you’re at it.
and
The Resurrection of Jeremy Corbyn
At least some people appear to have a clue.
