Rob Kall has encouraged discussion about Bernie Sanders' capitulation to the corrupt plutocrat who will be the 2016 Democratic Party nominee. This is my public reply, reporting the message I sent in response to the email that BS sent to his mailing list(which was published on OEN yesterday)to justify his betrayal of his supporters. His reasons are unpersuasive.

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Dear Bernie,

Your message below shows you are either:

1) naively incompetent to think that changing the corrupt DNC platform you present as your excuse here matters, or

2) a fraudulent, fawning, sellout, "sheepdog" as forecast by many from the start, who was more interested in effective fundraising strategies than fighting strategically for the progressive political change necessary to overcome the ruling plutocracy.

Yes, that stark choice may be criticized as a false dichotomy which omits a less harsh middle theory, that you were never really that serious and you were just kidding when you raised a quarter billion dollars from $27 donors to oppose a Clinton restoration and win the election.

Your campaign did provide a valuable catalyst for the first stage of your aborted progressive revolt. But your flimsy explanation for quitting and capitulating provides no basis to choose a more nuanced understanding than those two choices offered for your flip-flop from opposing plutocracy to now embracing it.

That you ran a very effective speaking and fundraising operation in a unique year of political ferment driven by the Millennial generation is not evidence for any particular view of your true motivation for ultimate betrayal.

Your statement trying to justify endorsing Clinton does not even begin to explain why you failed to make real demands of the plutocratic Democrats instead of capitulating without getting anything of real political value in exchange.

Your appeal to partisan polarization promotes a plutocratic Kabukinarrative that provides no legitimate explanation either for your capitulation to a corrupt election process prior to the Convention, which also betrays a promise to your supporters, or your failure to now oppose both Clinton and Trump by offering the American public the progressive ballot choice that a majority has shown that they want.

Your strategy for holding public officials accountable in this corrupt plutocracy is defective. It cannot be accomplished by supporting them but by challenging and defeating them, unless the deliver something of proven value now - before you endorse them.

Your strategy for electing down-ballot progressives by supporting the most unpopular Democrat in recent history at the top of the ticket makes no sense. instead of offering the usual lesser of evils voting, a progressive campaign opposing Clinton and Trump is far more likely to increase the turnout of progressive voters. With no credible progressive chance of victory turnout will be depressed as usual .

The bone you throw to authentic reform by suggesting you will be fighting for changes in the Democratic Rules Committee is both far too late to make a difference, and also not credible in view of the strategic incompetence displayed in the rest of your message, and campaign. As one commenter writes "the Democratic primary was rigged to enable a Clinton win. Your campaign have been ineffective in opposing this theft. By endorsing Clinton before the rigging has been corrected you have sacrificed the considerable leverage that would have been needed to make the necessary rules changes to democratize the party. This is not how to prevent the 2020 election from being predictably stolen from any progressive challenger by the corrupt Democratic Party establishment, just as it was stolen in 2016.

You have proven to be a strategically incompetent leader of the movement. For just one example, as the always incisive BAR described just one of the failures, "the Sanders campaign never even knocked on the door of black support."

Please do not try to continue misleading this movement by using the mailing list you have acquired under what has turned out to be false pretenses to propagandize for Clinton, or for more ineffective and diversionary strategies like changing the DNC Platform.

You are reminiscent of the kind of embarrassing excuse for a progressive that Obama turned out to be. You are a New Deal liberal. But you could not stand with FDR and say of plutocrats as he did 80 years ago: "They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred." Progressives do not support plutocrats, no matter how nasty their captive media gets.

But you have usefully clarified that in this corrupt plutocracy it is necessary to "throw all the bums out." That includes the Clintons and anyone either so weak, corrupt or ignorant as to support them without at least getting something of significant value in return that can be transparently and authentically shared with their supporters. You have failed to do that and you owe us who supported you, and whom you did not even bother to consult about your capitulation, a far more convincing explanation than you have given for that failure. Meanwhile we can turn our campaign to obtaining justice for Clinton's "servergate" fix and local efforts to continue the struggle against the corrupt faction of the Democratic Party you have chosen to endorse.

In closing, you might take lessons from your friend, the always truthful and honorable Cornel West.

(Article changed on July 15, 2016 at 08:49)

Authors Bio:
Rob Hager is a public-interest litigator who filed a Supreme Court amicus brief n the 2012 Montana sequel to the Citizens United case, American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock, and has worked as an international consultant on legal development and anti-corruption issues.