Which brings us to Democrat's sleazy "lesser-evil" con game. Now, what should be clear is that both major parties serve roughly the same corporate puppet masters. What differs is that Republicans serve somewhat more evil ones, and serve them with greater unanimity and stronger fealty; it's as if the party had made taking Voldemort's Dark Mark a litmus test for membership. While Democrats certainly are somewhat different, they're certainly not different enough-- different enough, that is, for responsive, responsible governance meeting the grave emergencies of our society and planet.
In fact, no one has stressed that damning lack of difference more forcefully than Barack Obama. Perhaps the Democratic Party leadership should consider ordering a mob hit on Obama, for when he speaks his unguarded mind, no one could cripple Democrats' crumbling legitimacy more grievously. It was bad enough when Obama privately reassured Democrats' sponsoring banksters (many likely guilty of large-scale criminal fraud) that he intended to stand between them and the pitchforks. But consider something even more damning Obama said--more damning because he said it to Chris Matthews on national television. Remember the highly colored--but scarcely exaggerated--words portraying the ever-worsening evil of today's Republicans above? Well Obama, scarily lucid when he wants to be, acknowledged that Democrats aren't really all that different from those same Republicans, saying "Most of the time we're playing between the forty yard lines here." Just consider those words, which carry the authority of the Democratic Party's sitting U.S. president, the next time Democrats try to con you that they're radically different from those "evil Republicans." As the Democratic Underground writer of the "forty yard line" link just shared tellingly put it, "Maybe that's because both teams are owned by the same people--and it's not us."
Not only do corporatist Democrats differ little from evil, bought-off Republicans; they're actually criminally culpable for condoning and perpetuating Republican evil. Nowhere can we see this more clearly than in Obama's failure to investigate and prosecute major war criminal George W. Bush and his henchmen, and in Democrats' utter refusal (a refusal imposed even on plain-spoken Bernie Sanders) to label Jeb Bush "the war criminal's brother." Considering Democrats' obvious self-interest in using that label--it would be the instant death blow for Jeb's campaign--their refusal to apply it proves just how much Democrats are part of the same evil game. For applying it would raise embarrassing, unanswerable questions for Democrats, like why Bill Clinton imposed genocidal sanctions on Saddam Hussein's innocent people, why Democrats overwhelmingly joined the bandwagon for Bush's wildly imprudent criminal war, or why Barack Obama decided to continue Bush's universal spying and even expand his unending ill-advised war on terror (albeit in proxy form). But perhaps the worst instance of Democrats and Republicans playing the same evil game is Obama's and Mitt Romney's criminally irresponsible "gentleman's agreement" never to mention climate change --a life-or-death issue for humanity, but politically inconvenient for both--throughout their series of 2012 presidential debates.
All of which convincingly proves that Democrats' "lesser-evil" argument, blaming reform-minded voters for enabling Republican evil when in fact no one deserves blame for enabling it more than the Democratic Party itself, is a sleazy con game. CounterPunch writer Andrew Levine has insightfully argued that "lesser-evilism" is a political race to the bottom, but he didn't go far enough in explaining its sleazy dynamic. In fact, it's rather simple: both Democrat and Republican teams playing for the same plutocrat owners, both operate under severe constraints controlling what they may say and do. Ditto for consolidated mainstream media, owned by an ever smaller number of corporate media giants. So among the three "parties" (Democrats, Republicans, and media), there's a common conspiracy--that Republicans' worst misdeeds--generally embarrassing to Democrats and media, since they're complicit--should disappear down the memory hole. Their worst misdeeds never properly denounced, Republicans are emboldened for ever-worse coups against the common good.
A Democratic Party not complicit, and holding the moral high ground to denounce Republican evil, could have stopped the GOP's worst misdeeds long ago. With Democrats so deeply to blame for Republican evil, no reform-minded voters should be duped by the sleazy blame-shifting con of voting for Democrats as the lesser evil. In fact, Democrats simply hide beneath the ground cover of Republican evil to perpetuate their own plutocrat donors' preferred brand. What voters should in fact feel guilty for is enabling that.
Show Us the Anti-Money
Sorry if we've been long in stating our revolutionary case, but since we, unlike our enemies, believe that rational persuasion is the essence of democracy, we took pains to be clear and well-documented. While our revolution's justification was somewhat long, its strategy is short and sweet. It can be summarized in the slogan "Show Us the Anti-Money."
We focus on the 2016 presidential race, since, important as Congressional races are, the presidential race is the only one commanding national attention. Contrary to the unimaginative, Democrat-allergic left, which merely dismisses Sanders' Democratic candidacy as a sham, we see a rare honest presidential candidate openly calling for political revolution, in a race that draws obsessive national attention, as a virtual revolutionary "perfect storm." But only if we don't make the fatal mistake of settling for Sanders' Democratic candidacy as our revolution. Obviously, we don't plan to.
Instead, what we plan to do is rigorously apply our slogan "Show Us the Anti-Money" to the whole pack of 2016 presidential candidates. Plutocrats' purchase of our government is the root of all our political evils, and as the only major-party candidate who's called for a political revolution against plutocrat money, Bernie Sanders is the only adult in the room, the only candidate utterly free from the influence of that money, and the only one with a viable platform for ridding us of it. Therefore, he's the only major-party presidential candidate worth voting for. As solicitors of billions of plutocrat dollars, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush don't even register on our radar as serious candidates. And we have a strong bias against other Democrats and Republicans, because their party leadership makes it virtually obligatory for them to accept oligarch dollars. As a lifelong independent scarcely funded at all by corporate dollars, strategically forced to run as a Democrat, Bernie alone has our trust. If he doesn't win the Democratic nomination--and if he fails to, it will be due simply to party propaganda we aim vigorously to counteract--we plan to write him in in the general election. In states where write-in votes aren't counted, we plan to simply vote Green.
Our Nickname Should Be "Sheep No More"
As the political revolution Bernie called for but can't as a Democratic candidate lead--and perhaps must disavow--we passionately believe Bernie can't be a sheepdog if his ever-growing legion of supporters aren't sheep. In fact, we're insulted that the likes of Chris Hedges--who shares our belief in the moral imperative of revolt--considers us such, and therefore can't imagine a political revolution based on Bernie's candidacy. For those who do, who "feel the Bern" so strongly its sparks could ignite revolution, please consider joining ours. For more information, visit our Revolt Against Plutocracy Facebook page; to take the ultimate revolutionary plunge, take our WIN (Write-in November) pledge on our Revolt Against Plutocracy website. By refusing the con of lesser-evilism, you'll show Bernie's revolutionary movement truly deserves the nickname "Sheep No More."
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