"Only Sanders, Gabbard and Warren speak to the anti-austerity leanings of the Democratic Party's captive base."
While the rise of Sanders has certainly exacerbated the political crisis that plagues U.S. imperialism, it has also created a new set of problems for the left. U.S. imperialism is dominated by the most entrenched and opulently wealthy finance capitalist class that human history has ever known. This class is dedicated to its self-preservation and understands the crisis at hand. U.S. capital is so monopolized and so unequal that most of humanity is living what George Jackson called "half-lives." The "political revolution" that Sanders proposes is too left for the ruling class but not left enough for humanity. Presented before poor and working-class Black Americans are two options: remain captive to the Democratic Party out of disdain for the White Man's Republicans or chart a new political path toward socialism. This will undoubtedly require that the U.S. imperial apparatus is torn down, root and branch.
It should be obvious by now that neither Sanders nor any of the leftish Democratic Party candidates can lead the anti-imperialist movement that is necessary to bring the empire to its knees. U.S. militarism threatens to render the planet unhabitable for humanity to defend the interests of the ruling class. The U.S.' strategy of endless war is an attempt to control the sharpening contradictions of U.S. imperialism which have damaged the legitimacy of the system to the point of no return. Massive inequality, debt, and underconsumption cannot be resolved short of a revolutionary movement that disempowers the ruling elite and redistributes the wealth that it has stolen from the people. While the starving working class cannot vote the ruling class out of power, its anger toward austerity has inspired Wall Street to encircle Bernie Sanders in the primary debates as part of its continued effort to ensure that such anger doesn't become a mass movement outside of the ideological and institutional grip of the Democratic Party.
***
Black Agenda Radio, Danny Haiphong discusses his new book on American Exceptionalism, American Innocence (starts minute 37)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
