thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-10--HUMAN RIGHTS FRAUD FROM UKRAINE TO NICARAGUA

Western ruling elites have corrupted human rights organizations and institutions at practically every level using corporate grant making and government funding .
The practical results of this corruption mirror corporate techniques of control fraud and strategic avoidance of regulation .
Economics writers like Michael Hudson and William Black , among others , have explained how corrupt US and allied corporations have exploited these fraudulent abuses for decades .
Control fraud is essentially no different from ancient practices like debasing coins , adulterating food products or selling defective goods as fit for use .
They all fool people into accepting something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ damage .
In the United States , powerful corporations control US political and institutional life sufficiently to be able to co-opt justice and escape criminal prosecution .
This reality crowds out honest , socially responsible business and financial practice .
Parallel to control fraud by major financial institutions , other multinational corporations , for example oil , mining or information technology corporations , operate what various writers call a “ veil of tiers ” strategy misrepresenting their earnings so as to avoid tax or other regulation , and legal prosecution .
More legitimately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ veil of tiers ” strategy spreads risks associated with potential litigation .
The international human rights industry uses similar techniques to justify and cover up Western attacks against the peoples of the majority world .
The dependence of international human rights NGOs on corporate and government funding and on publicity via corporate media and public relations over time has generated the osmosis of corrupt corporate practice into the human rights industry .
Writers like Cory Morningstar have analyzed exhaustively how this takeover by corporate culture of the “ non-profit industrial complex @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mechanism in a continuous state of flux and refinement .
The ruling elite channel an immeasurable amount of resources and tools through these organizations to further strengthen , protect and expand existing forms of power structures and global domination.
” In a human rights context , control fraud takes the form of politically motivated , false , sensationalist accusations based on egregiously one-sided , often fact-free research , sometimes using fake pseudo-scientific reconstructions .
Accountability for these false accusations is rendered negligible by means of a “ veil of tiers ” strategy starting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local or national human rights NGOS , progressing via larger international human rights NGOs and auxiliary private contractors to regional human rights institutions , then reaching United Nations organizations and ultimately the highest levels of the international human rights legal system .
By excluding independent corroboration , the interchange from one level to the next imparts spurious mutual legitimacy of varying degrees between the organizations and institutions involved .
The process is quasi-judicial with zero accountability , such that attempting to counteract false accusations is extremely difficult if not impossible , especially in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the human rights industry is even less accountable than multinational corporations .
Two recent examples , among innumerable others , confirm the creeping monopolization of the human rights industry by corrupt corporate practice .
Against both the Ukraine government in February 2014 and against the Nicaraguan government in May 2018 , Western human rights NGOs made very similar accusations that their police forces murdered peaceful protestors indiscriminately .
In both cases , the accusations were false .
The context of the killings in both cases was a violent attempt at regime change by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In Ukraine ’ s case , the opposition had been supported for over twenty years with US government funding amounting to over US $ 5 billion as confirmed in 2013 by Victoria Nuland , then US Assistant Secretary of State .
That US government finance was in addition to funding from US corporate oligarchs like Pierre Omidyaar and George Soros .
The most notorious event in the regime change campaign in Ukraine took place over February 18th-20th in 2014 when over 70 people were killed in Kiev ’ s Maidan square during violent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ massacre led to the overthrow of the legitimate government and its replacement by a fascist US client regime .
After the event , even CNN felt bound to report a leaked conversation between Estonia ’ s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and Catherine Ashton , High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs in which Paet confirmed that a pro-opposition doctor treating wounded protestors claimed opposition snipers , not government security forces , had shot the protestors .
That report was followed by the broadcast from Italy ’ s Mediaset Matrix television channel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with mercenary snipers confessing they had fired on both protestors and police during the Maidan protests in February 2014 .
The mercenaries had come forward aggrieved at not getting paid by the opposition aligned figures who hired them .
Even so , the Ukraine authorities announced their investigation into the shootings was complete , simply repeating the false accusations against the former Ukrainian government despite categorically clear evidence to the contrary .
A prominent part of the Ukraine prosecutors ’ false case was a virtual reconstruction of events by a private New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work is funded by US oligarch owned grant making bodies , like the MacArthur Foundation , the Oak Foundation and the Open Society Foundations .
Ivan Katchanovski of the University of Ottawa has exposed as phony the SITU Research reconstruction of the Maidan shootings , demonstrating , for example , that in various cases SITU Research ’ s imaging moved wound locations indicated in the respective forensic autopsy reports in order to suit the video ’ s conclusions .
Katchanovksi ’ s detailed analysis draws on other evidence omitted by SITU Research which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ witness testimony from 25 wounded opposition supporters that they were shot from opposition controlled buildings .
Katchanovski points out that numerous video and TV footage shows opposition snipers and shooters in buildings controlled by the opposition .
That footage is supported by over 150 witness testimonies confirming snipers were firing from those locations .
Katchanovski also notes that Brad Samuels , founding partner of SITU Research “ said in a video [ start at 55:16 ] that ‘ …eventually , there is a consensus that there was a third party acting .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were shot in the back .
Somebody was shooting from rooftops.
’ ” Katchanovski remarks that Samuels ’ “ striking observation was not included anywhere in the SITU 3D model report that he produced.
” Katchanovski ’ s critical analysis of SITU Research ’ s material and of the broader official Ukraine investigation into the Maidan massacre has never been seriously challenged .
Similar false accusations ignoring readily available contradictory evidence and also using SITU Research modeling were made against Nicaragua ’ s government earlier this year .
On May 30th the Organization @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Group of Independent Experts ( GIEI ) , the Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team and SITU Research jointly published a video allegedly proving that Nicaragua ’ s police shot and killed unarmed protesters at a demonstration on May 30th 2018 .
But detailed analysis of the video shows that in this case too SITU Research have misrepresented data , namely the distance between the police and the protestors which was in fact about 175 metres , in order to harmonize the reality of what happened with their virtual reconstruction which claims police snipers fired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The video footage of the protests in Nicaragua contains no scenes where Nicaraguan police use their firearms .
Similarly , just as in their false reconstruction of events in Kiev ’ s Maidan square , SITU Research omitted a substantial body of information contradicting their account of the shootings in Managua on May 30th .
The context in this case too was of extremely violent protests by organizations funded by the US government with over US $ 15 million just in 2017-2018 .
For example , local human rights organizations received over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government that year as did local media NGOs .
Although , two solidarity organizations wrote and published an open letter to the organizations who produced the video , respectfully questioning their findings , to date the letter has received only a formal acknowledgment without replying to the questions .
In both Ukraine and Nicaragua , the US government funded local opposition aligned NGOs to make false allegations of very serious human rights violations .
A private company contractor was funded by US corporate interests to produce false pseudo-scientific material unfairly incriminating the governments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NGOs repeated the false accusations on the basis of that same false evidence .
Regional human rights institutions accused the governments concerned on the basis of that same material .
The accusations are false but the Nicaraguan government and accused members of the former Ukrainian government are denied a fair defense .
This same process has been repeated over and over again against governments resisting US and allied policies .
Western human rights organizations share the same corrupt methodology as their corporate and government patrons .
They make false claims , suppress inconvenient @ @ @ @ @ @ @ avoid independent scrutiny and systematically evade accountability .

I
Western ruling elites have corrupted human rights organizations and institutions at practically every level using corporate grant making and government funding. The practical results of this corruption mirror corporate techniques of control fraud and strategic avoidance of regulation. Economics writers like Michael Hudson and William Black, among others, have explained how corrupt US and allied corporations have exploited these fraudulent abuses for decades. Control fraud is essentially no different from ancient practices like debasing coins, adulterating food products or selling defective goods as fit for use. They all fool people into accepting something that causes them loss, hurt and damage.
In the United States, powerful corporations control US political and institutional life sufficiently to be able to co-opt justice and escape criminal prosecution. This reality crowds out honest, socially responsible business and financial practice. Parallel to control fraud by major financial institutions, other multinational corporations, for example oil, mining or information technology corporations, operate what various writers call a “veil of tiers” strategy misrepresenting their earnings so as to avoid tax or other regulation, and legal prosecution. More legitimately, in the field of insurance, the “veil of tiers” strategy spreads risks associated with potential litigation. The international human rights industry uses similar techniques to justify and cover up Western attacks against the peoples of the majority world.
The dependence of international human rights NGOs on corporate and government funding and on publicity via corporate media and public relations over time has generated the osmosis of corrupt corporate practice into the human rights industry. Writers like Cory Morningstar have analyzed exhaustively how this takeover by corporate culture of the “non-profit industrial complex serves hegemony as a sophisticated fine-tuned symbiotic mechanism in a continuous state of flux and refinement. The ruling elite channel an immeasurable amount of resources and tools through these organizations to further strengthen, protect and expand existing forms of power structures and global domination.”
In a human rights context, control fraud takes the form of politically motivated, false, sensationalist accusations based on egregiously one-sided, often fact-free research, sometimes using fake pseudo-scientific reconstructions. Accountability for these false accusations is rendered negligible by means of a “veil of tiers” strategy starting at a low level with small, local or national human rights NGOS, progressing via larger international human rights NGOs and auxiliary private contractors to regional human rights institutions, then reaching United Nations organizations and ultimately the highest levels of the international human rights legal system. By excluding independent corroboration, the interchange from one level to the next imparts spurious mutual legitimacy of varying degrees between the organizations and institutions involved.
The process is quasi-judicial with zero accountability, such that attempting to counteract false accusations is extremely difficult if not impossible, especially in the short term. If anything, the human rights industry is even less accountable than multinational corporations. Two recent examples, among innumerable others, confirm the creeping monopolization of the human rights industry by corrupt corporate practice. Against both the Ukraine government in February 2014 and against the Nicaraguan government in May 2018, Western human rights NGOs made very similar accusations that their police forces murdered peaceful protestors indiscriminately. In both cases, the accusations were false.
The context of the killings in both cases was a violent attempt at regime change by a US government funded political opposition. In Ukraine’s case, the opposition had been supported for over twenty years with US government funding amounting to over US$5 billion as confirmed in 2013 by Victoria Nuland, then US Assistant Secretary of State. That US government finance was in addition to funding from US corporate oligarchs like Pierre Omidyaar and George Soros. The most notorious event in the regime change campaign in Ukraine took place over February 18th-20th in 2014 when over 70 people were killed in Kiev’s Maidan square during violent confrontations between police and protestors. The massacre led to the overthrow of the legitimate government and its replacement by a fascist US client regime.
After the event, even CNN felt bound to report a leaked conversation between Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs in which Paet confirmed that a pro-opposition doctor treating wounded protestors claimed opposition snipers, not government security forces, had shot the protestors. That report was followed by the broadcast from Italy’s Mediaset Matrix television channel of interviews, here and here, with mercenary snipers confessing they had fired on both protestors and police during the Maidan protests in February 2014. The mercenaries had come forward aggrieved at not getting paid by the opposition aligned figures who hired them. Even so, the Ukraine authorities announced their investigation into the shootings was complete, simply repeating the false accusations against the former Ukrainian government despite categorically clear evidence to the contrary.
A prominent part of the Ukraine prosecutors’ false case was a virtual reconstruction of events by a private New York contractor called SITU Research whose human rights work is funded by US oligarch owned grant making bodies, like the MacArthur Foundation, the Oak Foundation and the Open Society Foundations. Ivan Katchanovski of the University of Ottawa has exposed as phony the SITU Research reconstruction of the Maidan shootings, demonstrating, for example, that in various cases SITU Research’s imaging moved wound locations indicated in the respective forensic autopsy reports in order to suit the video’s conclusions. Katchanovksi’s detailed analysis draws on other evidence omitted by SITU Research which also contradicts their claims, for example witness testimony from 25 wounded opposition supporters that they were shot from opposition controlled buildings.
Katchanovski points out that numerous video and TV footage shows opposition snipers and shooters in buildings controlled by the opposition. That footage is supported by over 150 witness testimonies confirming snipers were firing from those locations. Katchanovski also notes that Brad Samuels, founding partner of SITU Research “said in a video [start at 55:16] that ‘…eventually, there is a consensus that there was a third party acting. It is clear from forensic evidence that people were shot in the back. Somebody was shooting from rooftops.’ ” Katchanovski remarks that Samuels’ “striking observation was not included anywhere in the SITU 3D model report that he produced.” Katchanovski’s critical analysis of SITU Research’s material and of the broader official Ukraine investigation into the Maidan massacre has never been seriously challenged.
Similar false accusations ignoring readily available contradictory evidence and also using SITU Research modeling were made against Nicaragua’s government earlier this year. On May 30th the Organization of American States subsidiary body the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), the Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team and SITU Research jointly published a video allegedly proving that Nicaragua’s police shot and killed unarmed protesters at a demonstration on May 30th 2018. But detailed analysis of the video shows that in this case too SITU Research have misrepresented data, namely the distance between the police and the protestors which was in fact about 175 metres, in order to harmonize the reality of what happened with their virtual reconstruction which claims police snipers fired from a distance of around 250 metres.
The video footage of the protests in Nicaragua contains no scenes where Nicaraguan police use their firearms. Similarly, just as in their false reconstruction of events in Kiev’s Maidan square, SITU Research omitted a substantial body of information contradicting their account of the shootings in Managua on May 30th. The context in this case too was of extremely violent protests by organizations funded by the US government with over US$15 million just in 2017-2018. For example, local human rights organizations received over US$3 million from the US government that year as did local media NGOs. Although, two solidarity organizations wrote and published an open letter to the organizations who produced the video, respectfully questioning their findings, to date the letter has received only a formal acknowledgment without replying to the questions.
In both Ukraine and Nicaragua, the US government funded local opposition aligned NGOs to make false allegations of very serious human rights violations. A private company contractor was funded by US corporate interests to produce false pseudo-scientific material unfairly incriminating the governments for those violations. International human rights NGOs repeated the false accusations on the basis of that same false evidence. Regional human rights institutions accused the governments concerned on the basis of that same material.
The accusations are false but the Nicaraguan government and accused members of the former Ukrainian government are denied a fair defense. This same process has been repeated over and over again against governments resisting US and allied policies. Western human rights organizations share the same corrupt methodology as their corporate and government patrons. They make false claims, suppress inconvenient evidence, do all they can to avoid independent scrutiny and systematically evade accountability.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-03-30--Why Trump Will Probably Win Re-Election

Why Trump Will Probably Win Re-Election

Another important dispatch from The Greanville Post .
Be sure to share it widely .
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches by historian Eric Zuesse The author ’ s prediction may well hold true , except that the corrupt DNC may have a winning card up their sleeve : a negotiated convention choosing Andrew Cuomo .
Throughout this election-season in the United States , there have been many indications that the stupid voters who chose Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016 are doing it yet again and chose Joe Biden over Sanders , and that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2016 and are repeating that performance in 2020 .
A new poll shows it clearly .
Unlike Biden and Hillary , who have had broad support but tepid support , Sanders has had support which is not only passionate but is also broader than does Trump .
A close reading of all of the polls , both in 2016 and in 2020 , indicates that the passion-factor is crucial to electoral victory ( bringing a candidate ’ s voters to the polls , or “ turnout ” ) but hasn ’ t been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ billionaires ’ ‘ news ’ -media ; and , therefore , the stupidest voters haven ’ t even noticed it , but went instead for what they had been deceived to think ‘ the more-electable ’ candidates : Hillary in 2016 , and Biden in 2020. strong enthusiasm for Biden among his supporters – at just 24 % – is the lowest on record for a Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years of ABC/Post polls .
More than twice as many of Trump ’ s supporters are highly enthusiastic about supporting him , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worse than it was for Clinton in 2016 : There ’ s déjà vu in these results : Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton found herself in largely the same position four years ago .
She , too , had a slim lead among Democrats for the nomination and ran essentially evenly with Trump among registered voters .
And she lagged in enthusiasm , with a low of 32 % very enthusiastic in September 2016 .
Biden is 8 points under that mark now .
Furthermore — and also confirming earlier polls — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prefer Biden over Sanders , up 63 points from February ; two-thirds of blacks say the same , a 34-point increase .
Eighty percent of Sanders backers say they ’ ll vote for Biden against Trump ; as noted , 15 % say they ’ d back Trump .
( This is familiar : Twenty percent of Sanders supporters said they ’ d vote for Trump in spring 2016 . )
How bad was it in 2016 ?
It definitely accounted for Hillary ’ s losing to Trump in the three crucial states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Although the early estimate that “ Nearly Half of Sanders Supporters Won ’ t Support Clinton ” turned out to have been an over-estimate , the final real figures still were quite substantial , and far more than accounted for Hillary ’ s losses in each one of those three crucial states .
So : they ’ re doing it again .
And maybe they ’ ll blame Russia , and blame Sanders , for it , like Hillary did in 2016 .
A con-job requires not just a deceiver but a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — that is plain stupid .
New York Times headlined misleadingly on 28 March 2017 , Times said it wasn ’ t a “ Turnout ” problem .
Of course , they simply lied .
This is how billionaire-controlled media deceive enough of the stupid in order to sway ‘ elections ’ : they do it by misreporting the reality . )
The stupid never learn from prior experience , but only repeat prior experience .
There is a difference between learning and repeating .
Repeating can be done merely by memorizing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ idiots want America to be run like a business , but the problem is that it already is .
And to the stockholders in it ( mainly the billionaires ) , their own benefits are vastly more important than the benefits to the public — the billionaires ’ corporations ’ employees and consumers — the taxpayers ( other than themselves — if they even pay taxes , or at least taxes that are higher than the subsidies they receive from the government ) .
Collectively , the billionaires get the government that they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the scraps that are left over .
And this is how it happens .

Another important dispatch from The Greanville Post. Be sure to share it widely.
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches by historian Eric Zuesse
The author's prediction may well hold true, except that the corrupt DNC may have a winning card up their sleeve: a negotiated convention choosing Andrew Cuomo. [dropcap]T[/dropcap]hroughout this election-season in the United States, there have been many indications that the stupid voters who chose Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016 are doing it yet again and chose Joe Biden over Sanders, and that they thus handed Trump the victory in 2016 and are repeating that performance in 2020. A new poll shows it clearly.
Unlike Biden and Hillary, who have had broad support but tepid support, Sanders has had support which is not only passionate but is also broader than does Trump. A close reading of all of the polls, both in 2016 and in 2020, indicates that the passion-factor is crucial to electoral victory (bringing a candidate’s voters to the polls, or “turnout”) but hasn’t been receiving the attention it deserves in the billionaires’ ‘news’-media; and, therefore, the stupidest voters haven’t even noticed it, but went instead for what they had been deceived to think ‘the more-electable’ candidates: Hillary in 2016, and Biden in 2020.
This fact is now receiving yet another powerful confirmation in an ABC News poll published on March 29th, headlined “Biden consolidates support, but trails badly in enthusiasm: Poll”
It says:
strong enthusiasm for Biden among his supporters – at just 24% – is the lowest on record for a Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years of ABC/Post polls. More than twice as many of Trump’s supporters are highly enthusiastic about supporting him, 53%.
It’s even worse than it was for Clinton in 2016:
There’s déjà vu in these results: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton found herself in largely the same position four years ago. She, too, had a slim lead among Democrats for the nomination and ran essentially evenly with Trump among registered voters. And she lagged in enthusiasm, with a low of 32% very enthusiastic in September 2016. Biden is 8 points under that mark now.
Furthermore — and also confirming earlier polls —
Eighty-three percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning seniors prefer Biden over Sanders, up 63 points from February; two-thirds of blacks say the same, a 34-point increase.
Eighty percent of Sanders backers say they’ll vote for Biden against Trump; as noted, 15% say they’d back Trump. (This is familiar: Twenty percent of Sanders supporters said they’d vote for Trump in spring 2016.)
How bad was it in 2016? It definitely accounted for Hillary’s losing to Trump in the three crucial states: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Although the early estimate that “Nearly Half of Sanders Supporters Won’t Support Clinton” turned out to have been an over-estimate, the final real figures still were quite substantial, and far more than accounted for Hillary’s losses in each one of those three crucial states. So: they’re doing it again. And maybe they’ll blame Russia, and blame Sanders, for it, like Hillary did in 2016. A con-job requires not just a deceiver but a believer. But to be conned repeatedly — that is plain stupid.
New York Times headlined misleadingly on 28 March 2017, Times said it wasn’t a “Turnout” problem. Of course, they simply lied. This is how billionaire-controlled media deceive enough of the stupid in order to sway ‘elections’: they do it by misreporting the reality.) (The lyingheadlined misleadingly on 28 March 2017, “A 2016 Review: Turnout Wasn’t the Driver of Clinton’s Defeat” , and reported that, “it’s clear that large numbers of white, working-class voters shifted from the Democrats to Mr. Trump,” and hid the fact that, as McClatchy newspapers headlined on 1 May 2017, “Democrats say they now know exactly why Clinton lost” and that this reason was that “Obama-Trump voters, in fact, effectively accounted for more than two-thirds of the reason Clinton lost.” Those voters did “turn out,” but for Trump instead of for her — and, yet, thesaid it wasn’t a “Turnout” problem. Of course, they simply lied. This is how billionaire-controlled media deceive enough of the stupid in order to sway ‘elections’: they do it bythe reality.)
The stupid never learn from prior experience, but only repeat prior experience. There is a difference between learning and repeating. Repeating can be done merely by memorizing, but learning requires real intelligence.
Those suckers chose the candidate they had been spoon-fed to misbelieve would have the higher likelihood of beating Trump — the propagandized lie (and it was a lie) being that Hillary (and now Biden) would be more electable than Sanders. This stupidity is the reason why Americans in the coming November 3rd election will be choosing between two candidates both of whom are — themselves — stupid, incompetent, and disastrous for everyone except perhaps their own billionaire sponsors, who had financed their campaigns.
The idiots want America to be run like a business, but the problem is that it already is. And to the stockholders in it (mainly the billionaires), their own benefits are vastly more important than the benefits to the public — the billionaires’ corporations’ employees and consumers — the taxpayers (other than themselves — if they even pay taxes, or at least taxes that are higher than the subsidies they receive from the government). Collectively, the billionaires get the government that they have bought , and everybody else gets the scraps that are left over. And this is how it happens.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-03-30--Black Politics, Class Struggle and the Illusion of Centrism

“ Black poor and laboring folk need to escape the clutches of Democratic Party hucksters while restoring their own agency and will to fight.
” Anyone who knows [ African Americans ] , who knows their history…must recognize that…the hatred of bourgeois society and the readiness to destroy it when the opportunity should present itself , rests among them to a degree greater than in any other section of the population in the United States .
— C. L. R. James , 1948 Are African Americans still among the most progressive groups in the United States ?
Black America ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of socioeconomic justice once earned the admiration of people around the world .
The central thrust of the 20th century black liberation struggle was a grassroots demand for social and economic redistribution that promised to empower all poor and laboring people .
On some level , the African American masses have long recognized capitalism as a fundamental obstacle to their freedom .
Poll after poll continue to identify black people as among the nation ’ s staunchest advocates of robust social spending and the placing of strong constraints on capitalism ’ s tendency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what the Caribbean Marxist C. L. R. James said of black folks in the wake of World War Two remains true today .
“ African American masses have long recognized capitalism as a fundamental obstacle to their freedom.
” But how do we reconcile the tradition of principled African American resistance to capitalist oppression with the apparent support of older black voters for corporatist , neoliberal politicians like Joe Biden ?
If black America ’ s political sensibilities skew left , why does its voting majority hew to the center ?
The answer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life and thought .
Despite the reductionist narratives about “ the black vote ” that circulate in mainstream media , black communities contain profound political contradictions .
Yes , younger African American voters have proven far more receptive than have their parents to the populist , social democratic themes of Bernie Sanders .
But the political cleavages within black America go well beyond the generational divide .
To grasp the paradox of African American voting behavior , one must examine the veiled dynamics of class and ideology .
Throughout U.S. history , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in popular struggles to transform the capitalist economy and construct a more humane order .
The black masses stood to benefit dramatically from the wholesale reorganization of a system that reduced their ancestors to chattel while continuing to consign racialized groups to the social margins .
“ The political cleavages within black America go well beyond the generational divide.
” But black Americans were never universally hostile to the capitalist model .
For some African Americans , the greatest fault of bourgeois society was not its subjugation of black workers but its failure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ upper echelons .
The black professional and entrepreneurial classes have always produced a corps of strivers who were far more interested in achieving individual status than they were in seeking collective black advancement .
Such figures were immensely valuable to the white bourgeoisie .
As moderate politicians , clergy and race leaders they often served as buffers , policing African American working-class behavior and prescribing respectability .
As fervent antiradicals they pursued narrow racial reforms while helping blunt or suppress militant black crusades for full employment , unionization and the substantial reallocation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black Democratic Party insiders are the functional equivalents of such “ responsible Negro leaders ” of the past .
Whether they are formal politicians ( e.g .
Corey Booker , Kamala Harris and Obama ) or mere functionaries , their job is to manage the African American rank and file on behalf of the corporate establishment , primarily by consolidating a centrist black voting bloc within the Democratic Party .
“ The black professional and entrepreneurial classes have always produced a corps of strivers who were far more interested in achieving individual status @ @ @ @ @ @ @ An array of black bureaucrats use their influence to help confine African American electoral politics to the soft ideological middle , ensuring that widespread black aspirations for a fair and just society never seriously threaten the prerogatives of private wealth .
Black Democratic Party operatives seek to camouflage class antagonisms among African Americans ; to equate racial progress with the feeble policies of “ diversity and inclusion ” ; and to reject even modest forms of class struggle as detached from or inimical to an authentic black political identity .
It is hardly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , pundits and preachers who gain prestige and patronage by serving the interests of Wall Street played a conspicuous part in anointing Biden as the “ safe ” choice for African Americans .
Sure , there are plenty of black voters who are genuinely wary of or opposed to the anticapitalist ideals of Sanders .
But there are many more African Americans who yearn to restore the commons , institute universal healthcare , and impose firm restraints on the capitalist class .
They want a politics that offers not just window dressing but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justice and immigration .
“ There are many more African Americans who yearn to restore the commons , institute universal healthcare , and impose firm restraints on the capitalist class.
” The problem is that even when such progressives manage to escape voter suppression and other forms of disfranchisement , they often operate within institutional and church networks that bind them to black elites and enlist them in bourgeois programs of class collaboration .
Combine that reality with the severe alienation from formal politics that exists among much of the black dispossessed and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compliant African American electorate , a polity acclimated to the empty symbolism of racial representation , desiring peace yet complicit with U.S. empire and its wars of domination , and forced to accept self-sacrifice as the price of participation in the Democratic Party machine .
The illusion of pragmatic centrism distorts not only African American electoral patterns , but also black political consciousness itself .
The manufacturing of a moderate black consensus and the virulent racism of Trump and his ilk drive black workers into self-destructive alliances with plutocrats and other class enemies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rituals of clientage , no wonder so many members of the black laboring classes recoil in bitterness , withdrawing into atomized worlds of individual survival .
“ What you get is a chastened and compliant African American electorate , a polity acclimated to the empty symbolism of racial representation.
” But neither resignation nor accommodation can protect the African American grassroots .
What black poor and laboring folk truly need is an organizational base for challenging the ideological hegemony of moderate black Democrats .
They need mechanisms for overcoming the inertia of centrism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They need to escape the clutches of Democratic Party hucksters while restoring their own agency and will to fight .
Ultimately , black workers—like all workers—need a bona fide labor party .
In the short term , however , African Americans who wish to transcend the petty bourgeois agenda of the black political class must seize every opportunity to shift the balance of forces and promote a meaningful program of social provisions able to change the conditions of life at the bottom .
To that end , the Sanders campaign may prove useful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apprehensions of a leery black electorate , the Sanders movement has championed a set of reforms based on principles of fairness and redistributive justice that are deeply rooted in the philosophies of the African American rank and file .
Whoever finally emerges as the Democratic nominee , the struggle for Medicare for All and a Green New Deal has revitalized an ethic of prophetic dissent that has long found rich expression in the black radical tradition .
“ The Sanders movement has championed a set of reforms based on principles of fairness and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the philosophies of the African American rank and file.
” The basic political aspirations of most everyday black people are not mysterious or exotic .
Like many of their compatriots , the majority of African Americans long to live with dignity in a peaceful society free of systematic exploitation , discrimination and brutality .
Biden ’ s strong showing among African American voters does not signal broad black support for the center-right policies of the Democratic establishment .
The black masses are far from satisfied with the dystopia of late capitalism .
Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rebranded version of the austerity they have long endured .
They must reject the bankrupt tendency in African American politics that ingratiates itself to the more cosmopolitan , less overtly racist wing of the ruling class .
Life under a neoliberal regime run by urbane oligarchs ( Obama ’ s cronies ) may be marginally more bearable than life under a neoliberal regime run by vulgar bigots .
But in the long term , neither scenario will ensure our survival or that of other oppressed people .
As black workers and poor people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reject moderation , no doubt they will expand the horizon of popular expectations , sharpen the tools of class confrontation and mobilize around their concrete interests within and beyond the electoral arena .
Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report ’ s Facebook page at http : //facebook.com/blackagendareport

“Black poor and laboring folk need to escape the clutches of Democratic Party hucksters while restoring their own agency and will to fight.”
Anyone who knows [African Americans], who knows their history…must recognize that…the hatred of bourgeois society and the readiness to destroy it when the opportunity should present itself, rests among them to a degree greater than in any other section of the population in the United States. — C. L. R. James, 1948
Are African Americans still among the most progressive groups in the United States?
Black America’s fierce commitment to an egalitarian vision of socioeconomic justice once earned the admiration of people around the world.
The central thrust of the 20th century black liberation struggle was a grassroots demand for social and economic redistribution that promised to empower all poor and laboring people.
On some level, the African American masses have long recognized capitalism as a fundamental obstacle to their freedom. Poll after poll continue to identify black people as among the nation’s staunchest advocates of robust social spending and the placing of strong constraints on capitalism’s tendency to produce inequality.
In essence, what the Caribbean Marxist C. L. R. James said of black folks in the wake of World War Two remains true today.
“African American masses have long recognized capitalism as a fundamental obstacle to their freedom.”
But how do we reconcile the tradition of principled African American resistance to capitalist oppression with the apparent support of older black voters for corporatist, neoliberal politicians like Joe Biden? If black America’s political sensibilities skew left, why does its voting majority hew to the center?
The answer lies in the complexities of African American life and thought. Despite the reductionist narratives about “the black vote” that circulate in mainstream media, black communities contain profound political contradictions.
Yes, younger African American voters have proven far more receptive than have their parents to the populist, social democratic themes of Bernie Sanders. But the political cleavages within black America go well beyond the generational divide. To grasp the paradox of African American voting behavior, one must examine the veiled dynamics of class and ideology.
Throughout U.S. history, the black working-class has played a leading role in popular struggles to transform the capitalist economy and construct a more humane order. The black masses stood to benefit dramatically from the wholesale reorganization of a system that reduced their ancestors to chattel while continuing to consign racialized groups to the social margins.
“The political cleavages within black America go well beyond the generational divide.”
But black Americans were never universally hostile to the capitalist model. For some African Americans, the greatest fault of bourgeois society was not its subjugation of black workers but its failure to fully include nonwhite elites in its upper echelons. The black professional and entrepreneurial classes have always produced a corps of strivers who were far more interested in achieving individual status than they were in seeking collective black advancement.
Such figures were immensely valuable to the white bourgeoisie. As moderate politicians, clergy and race leaders they often served as buffers, policing African American working-class behavior and prescribing respectability. As fervent antiradicals they pursued narrow racial reforms while helping blunt or suppress militant black crusades for full employment, unionization and the substantial reallocation of wealth and power.
Today’s black Democratic Party insiders are the functional equivalents of such “responsible Negro leaders” of the past. Whether they are formal politicians (e.g. Corey Booker, Kamala Harris and Obama) or mere functionaries, their job is to manage the African American rank and file on behalf of the corporate establishment, primarily by consolidating a centrist black voting bloc within the Democratic Party.
“The black professional and entrepreneurial classes have always produced a corps of strivers who were far more interested in achieving individual status than in seeking collective black advancement.”
An array of black bureaucrats use their influence to help confine African American electoral politics to the soft ideological middle, ensuring that widespread black aspirations for a fair and just society never seriously threaten the prerogatives of private wealth. Black Democratic Party operatives seek to camouflage class antagonisms among African Americans; to equate racial progress with the feeble policies of “diversity and inclusion”; and to reject even modest forms of class struggle as detached from or inimical to an authentic black political identity.
It is hardly surprising that the layer of black professionals, pundits and preachers who gain prestige and patronage by serving the interests of Wall Street played a conspicuous part in anointing Biden as the “safe” choice for African Americans.
Sure, there are plenty of black voters who are genuinely wary of or opposed to the anticapitalist ideals of Sanders. But there are many more African Americans who yearn to restore the commons, institute universal healthcare, and impose firm restraints on the capitalist class. They want a politics that offers not just window dressing but actual antiracist positions on policing, criminal justice and immigration.
“There are many more African Americans who yearn to restore the commons, institute universal healthcare, and impose firm restraints on the capitalist class.”
The problem is that even when such progressives manage to escape voter suppression and other forms of disfranchisement, they often operate within institutional and church networks that bind them to black elites and enlist them in bourgeois programs of class collaboration.
Combine that reality with the severe alienation from formal politics that exists among much of the black dispossessed and what you get is a chastened and compliant African American electorate, a polity acclimated to the empty symbolism of racial representation, desiring peace yet complicit with U.S. empire and its wars of domination, and forced to accept self-sacrifice as the price of participation in the Democratic Party machine.
The illusion of pragmatic centrism distorts not only African American electoral patterns, but also black political consciousness itself. The manufacturing of a moderate black consensus and the virulent racism of Trump and his ilk drive black workers into self-destructive alliances with plutocrats and other class enemies. With “politics” reduced to rituals of clientage, no wonder so many members of the black laboring classes recoil in bitterness, withdrawing into atomized worlds of individual survival.
“What you get is a chastened and compliant African American electorate, a polity acclimated to the empty symbolism of racial representation.”
But neither resignation nor accommodation can protect the African American grassroots. What black poor and laboring folk truly need is an organizational base for challenging the ideological hegemony of moderate black Democrats. They need mechanisms for overcoming the inertia of centrism and the anemia of brokerage politics. They need to escape the clutches of Democratic Party hucksters while restoring their own agency and will to fight.
Ultimately, black workers—like all workers—need a bona fide labor party. In the short term, however, African Americans who wish to transcend the petty bourgeois agenda of the black political class must seize every opportunity to shift the balance of forces and promote a meaningful program of social provisions able to change the conditions of life at the bottom.
To that end, the Sanders campaign may prove useful. Even as it founders on the apprehensions of a leery black electorate, the Sanders movement has championed a set of reforms based on principles of fairness and redistributive justice that are deeply rooted in the philosophies of the African American rank and file. Whoever finally emerges as the Democratic nominee, the struggle for Medicare for All and a Green New Deal has revitalized an ethic of prophetic dissent that has long found rich expression in the black radical tradition.
“The Sanders movement has championed a set of reforms based on principles of fairness and redistributive justice that are deeply rooted in the philosophies of the African American rank and file.”
The basic political aspirations of most everyday black people are not mysterious or exotic. Like many of their compatriots, the majority of African Americans long to live with dignity in a peaceful society free of systematic exploitation, discrimination and brutality. Biden’s strong showing among African American voters does not signal broad black support for the center-right policies of the Democratic establishment. The black masses are far from satisfied with the dystopia of late capitalism.
Black people cannot afford to accept a rebranded version of the austerity they have long endured. They must reject the bankrupt tendency in African American politics that ingratiates itself to the more cosmopolitan, less overtly racist wing of the ruling class. Life under a neoliberal regime run by urbane oligarchs (Obama’s cronies) may be marginally more bearable than life under a neoliberal regime run by vulgar bigots. But in the long term, neither scenario will ensure our survival or that of other oppressed people.
As black workers and poor people build political confidence, combat fatalism and reject moderation, no doubt they will expand the horizon of popular expectations, sharpen the tools of class confrontation and mobilize around their concrete interests within and beyond the electoral arena.
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thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-03-29--Sanders Gets Swallowed by the DNC Machine: It’s Time to #DemExit

It isn ’ t as if anti-Democratic Party sentiment doesn ’ t exist in the Sanders camp .
The morning after Sanders ’ defeat in Michigan , a significant number of his followers tweeted # DemExit to express their anger toward the Democratic Party establishment .
There is a very real possibility that Biden ’ s candidacy will manifest even more disaffection from the younger generation than Hillary Clinton for the simple fact that Sanders ’ policy agenda is now favored by majorities in both parties .
However , the current forces behind Sanders and much of the left generally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The likelihood that millions of Sanders supporters will continue to try and organize their way into the Democratic Party machine is just as high , if not higher , than the possibility that they leave the Democratic Party for good and focus instead on other strategies to win power behind their demands .
Much of what occurs politically in the United States is dependent on the political activity and organization of Black America .
Black Americans have been the most radical and revolutionary force in the U.S. ’ destructive history .
However , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The last forty-plus years has seen the state-ordered destruction of the Black liberation movement be seized by the ruling class to create a misleadership class that holds great influence over Black voters .
Class contradictions in the realm of political ideas have sharpened between increasingly impoverished Black youth and those older Black voters who believe that a proximity to power and status is more important than the class interests of a formerly enslaved people .
That means warding off the Republican boogeyman , especially Donald Trump , whose very presence in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Civil Rights brand that the misleadership class has built over the course of two generations.The political conditions that exist in Black America shape the entire political landscape , but they have been suppressed by the popular mainstream adage that Sanders alone could have won the Black vote if he had tried harder .
Sanders could indeed have done more to appeal to the most progressive sentiments of Black America by speaking directly to the needs of the community .
However , to do so would go against Sanders ’ class-first social democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of social democracy is its inability to challenge power beyond the realm of bourgeois elections .
Another critical weakness of social democracy in imperialist contexts is the failure of the ideology to respect the right of self-determination of all oppressed nations .
By running in the Democratic Party and espousing the worldview of “ democratic socialism , ” Sanders was in a double bind from the beginning .
Sanders had little incentive to shed his anti-Venezuelan views or appeal to the interests of Black Americans without facing a gauntlet of establishment wrath for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knows what Black Americans should think and do about their problems .
The Black political establishment was never going to favor Bernie Sanders.And Sanders himself was in no political position to take a leap outside of the bounds of the Democratic Party .
That leap can not be made within the electoral arena at all .
It must be made in the streets and in the struggle to galvanize a mass Black political conversation , led by Black America .
The conversation will inevitably take a class struggle orientation if not for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black Americans do not hold positions of power or status .
Most Black Americans are workers , and very poor workers at that.If the Democratic Party is going to die , it will have to be Black Americans who kill it.Everyone else in the struggle must organize their own communities to oppose racist state terror , endless war , and capitalist plunder and use any means necessary to unite workers and poor people around a set of specific demands .
“ If the Democratic Party is going to die , it will have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The Democratic Party continues to be the most formidable impediment to the development of a mass movement in the United States .
Bernie Sanders ’ campaign has millions of devoted supporters who are committed to Medicare for All , a Green New Deal , and a wide array of universal programs that would improve the lives of the eighty percent of people suffering under late stage capitalism .
However , those millions remain inside of an entity that is completely hostile to their demands .
Tens of millions of dollars have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate .
It is clear from the ruling class ’ reaction to Sanders that neither he nor anyone like him will be allowed to hold the most coveted position in the U.S. imperial state .
The Democratic Party is thus where social movements are sent to die .
Social democratic movements such as the one led by Sanders will be crushed again and again should future attempts to wrestle control of the Democratic Party be mobilized after the 2020 election debacle .
The outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States and across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terms of facilitating a mass exit from the Democratic Party .
U.S. imperialism is inherently structured to impose the utmost of exploitation upon workers and oppressed people .
Black workers who disproportionately make up the low-wage capitalist service economy will be hurt the most by both interruptions in work and an increased exposure to the virus from the inability to take off from work .
At least thirty-three million workers do not have access to any sick time at all .
The United States has no public health system capable of testing and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Even worse , U.S. imperial sanctions have left nations such as Iran vulnerable to the spread of the disease and Americans of all classes are blockaded from access to Cuban-made anti-viral medications that have helped over a thousand people recover from the virus in Italy and China .
“ The Democratic Party is where social movements are sent to die.
” The putrid response to the coronavirus is compounded by the fact that the U.S. lacks a single-payer healthcare system and is ruled by a capitalist dictatorship that prioritizes profits over the needs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China ’ s policy of containment has nearly eradicated the virus from Wuhan .
Chinas central government built two hospitals , mobilized tens of thousands of health workers , and employed its massive high-tech industry to track and treat those who contracted COVID-19 .
Countries like Cuba , Vietnam , and South Korea have taken similar measures with great success .
As the virus spreads around the world , an opportunity exists for experiments with international solidarity and socialist political organization in the United States .
The Democratic Party , however , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a clip of 1.5 trillion dollars than with mobilizing an effective response to the virus .
Bernie Sanders ’ New Deal-like speech was ignored by the Democrats and the corporate media .
Only the demise of the Democratic Party can free up the potential of the people to resolve the many problems created by capitalism and imperialism .
The repression of Sanders creates more favorable conditions for the Democrats ’ demise to occur , but only if the people are ready to seize the time .
And as of this moment , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S.— a fear of China , of Donald Trump , and of socialism .
Fear must be replaced with a desire for control over the commanding heights of the political and economic system that dictates our lives .
Organizing our way out of the Democratic Party is a critical first step in this process .
Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report ’ s Facebook page at http : //facebook.com/blackagendareport Or , you can comment by emailing us at comments @ blackagendareport.com

It isn’t as if anti-Democratic Party sentiment doesn’t exist in the Sanders camp. The morning after Sanders’ defeat in Michigan, a significant number of his followers tweeted #DemExit to express their anger toward the Democratic Party establishment. There is a very real possibility that Biden’s candidacy will manifest even more disaffection from the younger generation than Hillary Clinton for the simple fact that Sanders’ policy agenda is now favored by majorities in both parties. However, the current forces behind Sanders and much of the left generally struggle with the issue of power. The likelihood that millions of Sanders supporters will continue to try and organize their way into the Democratic Party machine is just as high, if not higher, than the possibility that they leave the Democratic Party for good and focus instead on other strategies to win power behind their demands.
Much of what occurs politically in the United States is dependent on the political activity and organization of Black America. Black Americans have been the most radical and revolutionary force in the U.S.’ destructive history. However, Black America is not a monolithic people. The last forty-plus years has seen the state-ordered destruction of the Black liberation movement be seized by the ruling class to create a misleadership class that holds great influence over Black voters. Class contradictions in the realm of political ideas have sharpened between increasingly impoverished Black youth and those older Black voters who believe that a proximity to power and status is more important than the class interests of a formerly enslaved people. That means warding off the Republican boogeyman, especially Donald Trump, whose very presence in the White House is an existential threat to the Civil Rights brand that the misleadership class has built over the course of two generations.The political conditions that exist in Black America shape the entire political landscape, but they have been suppressed by the popular mainstream adage that Sanders alone could have won the Black vote if he had tried harder. Sanders could indeed have done more to appeal to the most progressive sentiments of Black America by speaking directly to the needs of the community. However, to do so would go against Sanders’ class-first social democratic political tradition. A major ideological weakness of social democracy is its inability to challenge power beyond the realm of bourgeois elections. Another critical weakness of social democracy in imperialist contexts is the failure of the ideology to respect the right of self-determination of all oppressed nations.
By running in the Democratic Party and espousing the worldview of “democratic socialism,” Sanders was in a double bind from the beginning. Sanders had little incentive to shed his anti-Venezuelan views or appeal to the interests of Black Americans without facing a gauntlet of establishment wrath for embracing “dictators” or assuming he knows what Black Americans should think and do about their problems. The Black political establishment was never going to favor Bernie Sanders.And Sanders himself was in no political position to take a leap outside of the bounds of the Democratic Party.
That leap cannot be made within the electoral arena at all. It must be made in the streets and in the struggle to galvanize a mass Black political conversation, led by Black America. The conversation will inevitably take a class struggle orientation if not for the simple fact that the vast majority of Black Americans do not hold positions of power or status. Most Black Americans are workers, and very poor workers at that.If the Democratic Party is going to die, it will have to be Black Americans who kill it.Everyone else in the struggle must organize their own communities to oppose racist state terror, endless war, and capitalist plunder and use any means necessary to unite workers and poor people around a set of specific demands.
“If the Democratic Party is going to die, it will have to be Black Americans who kill it.”
The Democratic Party continues to be the most formidable impediment to the development of a mass movement in the United States. Bernie Sanders’ campaign has millions of devoted supporters who are committed to Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and a wide array of universal programs that would improve the lives of the eighty percent of people suffering under late stage capitalism. However, those millions remain inside of an entity that is completely hostile to their demands. Tens of millions of dollars have been donated and invested in a Democratic Party candidate. It is clear from the ruling class’ reaction to Sanders that neither he nor anyone like him will be allowed to hold the most coveted position in the U.S. imperial state. The Democratic Party is thus where social movements are sent to die. Social democratic movements such as the one led by Sanders will be crushed again and again should future attempts to wrestle control of the Democratic Party be mobilized after the 2020 election debacle.
The outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States and across the world poses both dangers and opportunities in terms of facilitating a mass exit from the Democratic Party. U.S. imperialism is inherently structured to impose the utmost of exploitation upon workers and oppressed people. Black workers who disproportionately make up the low-wage capitalist service economy will be hurt the most by both interruptions in work and an increased exposure to the virus from the inability to take off from work. At least thirty-three million workers do not have access to any sick time at all. The United States has no public health system capable of testing and treating people on a nation-wide scale. Even worse, U.S. imperial sanctions have left nations such as Iran vulnerable to the spread of the disease and Americans of all classes are blockaded from access to Cuban-made anti-viral medications that have helped over a thousand people recover from the virus in Italy and China.
“The Democratic Party is where social movements are sent to die.”
The putrid response to the coronavirus is compounded by the fact that the U.S. lacks a single-payer healthcare system and is ruled by a capitalist dictatorship that prioritizes profits over the needs of the masses. In contrast, China’s policy of containment has nearly eradicated the virus from Wuhan. Chinas central government built two hospitals, mobilized tens of thousands of health workers, and employed its massive high-tech industry to track and treat those who contracted COVID-19. Countries like Cuba, Vietnam, and South Korea have taken similar measures with great success. As the virus spreads around the world, an opportunity exists for experiments with international solidarity and socialist political organization in the United States.
The Democratic Party, however, is more interested in bailing out capitalist enterprises at a clip of 1.5 trillion dollars than with mobilizing an effective response to the virus. Bernie Sanders’ New Deal-like speech was ignored by the Democrats and the corporate media. Only the demise of the Democratic Party can free up the potential of the people to resolve the many problems created by capitalism and imperialism. The repression of Sanders creates more favorable conditions for the Democrats’ demise to occur, but only if the people are ready to seize the time. And as of this moment, fear is in command of politics in the U.S.— a fear of China, of Donald Trump, and of socialism. Fear must be replaced with a desire for control over the commanding heights of the political and economic system that dictates our lives. Organizing our way out of the Democratic Party is a critical first step in this process.
COMMENTS?
Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport
Or, you can comment by emailing us at comments@blackagendareport.com


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-03-28--Tough times need vanguard parties – are ‘social media users’ the West’s?

And when did you become an economist ?
“ The economy is not important now ” must have been a pretty unusual PhD thesis .
We have likely all heard of “ internet tough guys ” – people who make bold claims or threats online , yet would flee at the sight of conflict – but who knew social media had so many people qualified to tell entire nations what to do regarding Corona ?
How much of the Corona crisis has been caused by social media virtue-signallers , hypochondriacs , communications degree-holding intellectuals , helicopter Dads , bossy cows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the herd , management or pop stars tell them to do ?
That ’ s an interesting question : would we all be in lockdown prior to the internet and Facebook ?
A practical follow-up question is : which nations have leadership which are perhaps even steered by social media , and which nations have leaders who can steer the national boat through choppy waters ?
As socialists know and accept , a vanguard party is essential precisely because there are so many choppy waters in life .
Choppy waters are doubled for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sanctions , blockades and endless cold war .
Capitalists and libertarians once again use Orwell against us – the same old , facile “ some pigs are more equal than others ” of Animal Farm – conflating totalitarianism with socialism , even though the two have entirely different ends and means .
Despite their absurd claims , the vanguard party concept is not anti-democratic .
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel had truly universal support from every Cuban ( in Cuba ) I asked because he rose level by level by repeatedly showing his competence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ goes for Xi of China ( as I will soon remind ) .
Nobody expected a low-ranking cleric like Khamenei to take over for Khomeini , but he has repeatedly showed his competence and abilities ; go tell the tens of millions shouting “ Khamenei rahbar ” ( Khamenei the leader ) that socialist-inspired democracy , with both direct and indirect , hasn ’ t worked out well .
In post-1917 countries one rises to the 1 % via actual competence , and not just by buying elections , as in the West @ @ @ @ @ @ @ governor of Arkansas , who became president , and then America was stuck with her .
Emmanuel Macron did… I don ’ t even know how he got so far so fast , and I really don ’ t want to know what went on behind closed doors with him .
Regardless , are some pigs more equal than others , to pose their question ?
Certainly , what you won ’ t hear from such socialist detractors is that China ’ s President Xi spent years doing hard rural work during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then teaching illiterate farmers how to read during his Cultural Revolution nights .
Now , I suppose it is technically a possibility : none of that was earnestly heartfelt on Xi ’ s part , and he is secretly amassing a personal fortune because the recesses of his heart are nothing but pure bitterness and hate for the socialist ideal of equality which he was forced to display and teach ; he has also spent decades duping everyone in China that he is a competent public servant ; Xi has zero warm sentiment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and wants only revenge ; any moment now Xi will launch a surprise attack of totalitarianism designed solely for his personal benefit and revenge .
These are the very real – yet ALWAYS unsaid – logical extensions of Western arguments made against vanguard parties in general , as well as against Xi .
Westerners insist that socialist vanguard parties are corrupt not just at the core but all the way to the periphery .
Another unsaid logical extension is that no vanguard parties informally exist in the West .
If , however @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such people have risen to the 1 % solely on merit .
Xi ’ s supposed “ merit ” , is not merit at all… unlike theirs .
Don ’ t push Westerners to explain these points – they have no answers .
Much of this applies to Iran as well – their system is based on the idea of the “ guardianship of the Islamic jurist ” .
“ Down with those opposed to the guardianship of the Islamic jurist ” is always included in the “ down withs ” , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , England , the US and Israel ” .
The vanguard party in Iran is obviously the clergy ; I have written extensively and objectively about how I believe this is being bureaucratically formalised into the “ Basij ” , and I have discussed how the structure of the Basij has been clearly modelled on the Chinese Communist Party .
How can that be , Ramin , when Communists are atheists ?
Firstly , they are not .
Maybe Marx was , but to hell with him on this point .
Cuba is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prevalent are those who practice Santeria ; Vietnam has always constitutionally protected religion ; Confucianism and Taoism , it is rarely recognised , are two sides of the same East Asian cosmological coin , and China ’ s intolerance on this point is being remedied .
The USSR never reconciled religion and socialism , and this is a huge reason explaining why they are no more ; a reason as big as Krushchevian corruption and capitalist-roading .
However , the structural and political similarities between the Basij and the CCP arise not from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of two countries who have had post-1917 , socialist-inspired revolutions .
The similarities are not “ coincidental ” at all , though those who misunderstand and reject socialism would surely explain away my comparisons with such sweeping , facile , pseudo-explanations .
I ’ m not sure that you can have a vanguard party without the structures , policies and protections – as well as many of the aims and demands – which are greatly dissimilar from the CCP and the Basij ?
Few examples exist , sadly , for me to study @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I suppose .
The idea of a formalised vanguard party – as in Iranian Islamic Socialism and other forms of socialism – does not mean totalitarianism .
I suppose it could , but why can it not also mean elite governance performance ?
Why must we look only at the negative aspects , and not the positive ?
What are we – capitalist-imperialists ?
The Corona crisis is not going to validate the support of formal , socialist-inspired vanguard parties in China , Iran , Cuba and elsewhere – they need no validation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made .
What it will certainly do is discredit the Western model of “ non-vanguardism ” , “ hidden-vanguardism ” , “ technocratic vanguardism ” , “ 1 % er-vanguardism ” or whatever else you want to term their bankocratic , aristocratic , bourgeois oligarchies which govern .
The incredible spanner Western politicians have suicidally thrown into their economies will prove this : they have none of the unity , foresight , determination and especially the political modernity of countries like China and Iran , yet they are adopting similar Corona responses .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ without causing Great Depressions in the Lost Decade II-embarking Eurozone for certain , and also for the US economy , which disastrously combines a finance & service & consumer-based economy with non-Trumpian evangelism for self-harming globalisation .
It will take great pain , but this is what humans often require to make serious change , sadly .
It will split apart families , but that is what civil war does .
I don ’ t know which nation will be the first to see their lower class starting to attack their neoliberal/neoliberal-client systems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ selfishness of the “ first responders ” whom they are repeatedly told to adulate – but they will all reach the same place as China and Iran : who is in charge ?
Who is the vanguard party to lead and staff the bureaucracy , which organises and decides on the logistics , and who needs to spread the night soil so we all can eat ?
All workers are valid and equal , of course , but a vanguard party is needed to run a government .
The alleged path goes capitalism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the idea that no vanguard parties are needed is anarchism , and Cubans will also correct you when you call them communist : they know they are not that far .
The amount of self-empowerment espoused in anarchism may not even be possible on a billions-level ?
These are questions for a later date… .
Allow me to disqualify myself from the vanguard party : I have been passed up for management over and over ( of course everyone claims this ) , so maybe they are right ?
I am used to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and I quite like it now !
The people who deserve to be in vanguard parties are those who evince both the capability for selflessness as well as the capability for superior political thought .
After all , some have capabilities for great artistic thought , or great engineering thought , or have great social skills – political policy certainly requires input from all sectors and classes but their bureaucrats do need to have a masterful grasp of modern political ideology , as well as a grasp of what not to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the enemies of modern political ideologies .
These qualifications are evinced by people like Xi , Khamenei , Diaz-Canel and France ’ s Yellow Vests .
The roar that the Yellow Vests will make when France ’ s lockdown in over… that ’ s another article .
I don ’ t think you can find a journalist writing in any Western language who has stood shoulder to shoulder with them more often , and I can promise France : put the Yellow Vests in charge and you ’ ll have exceptional national governance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese commies and Cuban socialist-Santeriaists , the Yellow Vests ’ actual support is hard to gauge : polls constantly showed over 50 % support , yet the Animal Rights Party won 2.2 % in the 2019 European Parliament elections , double the Yellow Vests parties combined .
Who is the vanguard party in the US ?
That I can not say – I do not think one is apparent .
I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , Bernie Sanders and their few public comrades are interesting given the limitations of the US political context , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s necessary now , and especially far from what will be necessary given the trajectory of Great Depression 2 .
The times make the man , as they say .
The West ’ s vanguard parties seem intent on making times as difficult for the lower classes as they possibly can .
Time well spent would be turning of Western MSM , as well as social media , and reflecting on who you think should really be in charge .

This is part of a series of dispatches by correspondent Ramin Mazaheri
[dropcap]S[/dropcap]o when did you become an epidemiologist? You seem quite willing to shame anyone not sterilising every square inch of every square inch.
And when did you become an economist? “The economy is not important now” must have been a pretty unusual PhD thesis.
We have likely all heard of “internet tough guys” – people who make bold claims or threats online, yet would flee at the sight of conflict – but who knew social media had so many people qualified to tell entire nations what to do regarding Corona?
How much of the Corona crisis has been caused by social media virtue-signallers, hypochondriacs, communications degree-holding intellectuals, helicopter Dads, bossy cows, and sheep who generally follow whatever the herd, management or pop stars tell them to do? That’s an interesting question: would we all be in lockdown prior to the internet and Facebook?
A practical follow-up question is: which nations have leadership which are perhaps even steered by social media, and which nations have leaders who can steer the national boat through choppy waters?
As socialists know and accept, a vanguard party is essential precisely because there are so many choppy waters in life. Choppy waters are doubled for socialist-inspired countries due to imposed wars, sanctions, blockades and endless cold war.
Capitalists and libertarians once again use Orwell against us – the same old, facile “some pigs are more equal than others” of Animal Farm – conflating totalitarianism with socialism, even though the two have entirely different ends and means.
Despite their absurd claims, the vanguard party concept is not anti-democratic. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel had truly universal support from every Cuban (in Cuba) I asked because he rose level by level by repeatedly showing his competence as a civil servant. The same goes for Xi of China (as I will soon remind). Nobody expected a low-ranking cleric like Khamenei to take over for Khomeini, but he has repeatedly showed his competence and abilities; go tell the tens of millions shouting “Khamenei rahbar” (Khamenei the leader) that socialist-inspired democracy, with both direct and indirect, hasn’t worked out well. In post-1917 countries one rises to the 1% via actual competence, and not just by buying elections, as in the West.
Conversely, Hillary Clinton married the governor of Arkansas, who became president, and then America was stuck with her. Emmanuel Macron did… I don’t even know how he got so far so fast, and I really don’t want to know what went on behind closed doors with him.
Regardless, are some pigs more equal than others, to pose their question?
Certainly, what you won’t hear from such socialist detractors is that China’s President Xi spent years doing hard rural work during the days of the Cultural Revolution, and then teaching illiterate farmers how to read during his Cultural Revolution nights. Now, I suppose it is technically a possibility: none of that was earnestly heartfelt on Xi’s part, and he is secretly amassing a personal fortune because the recesses of his heart are nothing but pure bitterness and hate for the socialist ideal of equality which he was forced to display and teach; he has also spent decades duping everyone in China that he is a competent public servant; Xi has zero warm sentiment for those rural citizens he worked with, and wants only revenge; any moment now Xi will launch a surprise attack of totalitarianism designed solely for his personal benefit and revenge.
These are the very real – yet ALWAYS unsaid – logical extensions of Western arguments made against vanguard parties in general, as well as against Xi. Westerners insist that socialist vanguard parties are corrupt not just at the core but all the way to the periphery.
Another unsaid logical extension is that no vanguard parties informally exist in the West. If, however, there are, it is because such people have risen to the 1% solely on merit. Xi’s supposed “merit”, is not merit at all… unlike theirs. Don’t push Westerners to explain these points – they have no answers.
Much of this applies to Iran as well – their system is based on the idea of the “guardianship of the Islamic jurist”. “Down with those opposed to the guardianship of the Islamic jurist” is always included in the “down withs”, and even before “down with the MKO, England, the US and Israel”. The vanguard party in Iran is obviously the clergy; I have written extensively and objectively about how I believe this is being bureaucratically formalised into the “Basij”, and I have discussed how the structure of the Basij has been clearly modelled on the Chinese Communist Party.
How can that be, Ramin, when Communists are atheists? Firstly, they are not. Maybe Marx was, but to hell with him on this point. Cuba is full of Catholics, but even more prevalent are those who practice Santeria; Vietnam has always constitutionally protected religion; Confucianism and Taoism, it is rarely recognised, are two sides of the same East Asian cosmological coin, and China’s intolerance on this point is being remedied. The USSR never reconciled religion and socialism, and this is a huge reason explaining why they are no more; a reason as big as Krushchevian corruption and capitalist-roading.
However, the structural and political similarities between the Basij and the CCP arise not from cosmological agreement but from the natural similarities of two countries who have had post-1917, socialist-inspired revolutions. The similarities are not “coincidental” at all, though those who misunderstand and reject socialism would surely explain away my comparisons with such sweeping, facile, pseudo-explanations. I’m not sure that you can have a vanguard party without the structures, policies and protections – as well as many of the aims and demands – which are greatly dissimilar from the CCP and the Basij? Few examples exist, sadly, for me to study and compare. Never say never, I suppose.
The idea of a formalised vanguard party – as in Iranian Islamic Socialism and other forms of socialism – does not mean totalitarianism. I suppose it could, but why can it not also mean elite governance performance? Why must we look only at the negative aspects, and not the positive? What are we – capitalist-imperialists?
The Corona crisis is not going to validate the support of formal, socialist-inspired vanguard parties in China, Iran, Cuba and elsewhere – they need no validation among their people; their bones are made.
What it will certainly do is discredit the Western model of “non-vanguardism”, “hidden-vanguardism”, “technocratic vanguardism”, “1%er-vanguardism” or whatever else you want to term their bankocratic, aristocratic, bourgeois oligarchies which govern.
The incredible spanner Western politicians have suicidally thrown into their economies will prove this: they have none of the unity, foresight, determination and especially the political modernity of countries like China and Iran, yet they are adopting similar Corona responses. It simply can’t be done without causing Great Depressions in the Lost Decade II-embarking Eurozone for certain, and also for the US economy, which disastrously combines a finance & service & consumer-based economy with non-Trumpian evangelism for self-harming globalisation.
It will take great pain, but this is what humans often require to make serious change, sadly. It will split apart families, but that is what civil war does.
I don’t know which nation will be the first to see their lower class starting to attack their neoliberal/neoliberal-client systems – and attacking as well the reactionary selfishness of the “first responders” whom they are repeatedly told to adulate – but they will all reach the same place as China and Iran: who is in charge? Who is the vanguard party to lead and staff the bureaucracy, which organises and decides on the logistics, and who needs to spread the night soil so we all can eat?
All workers are valid and equal, of course, but a vanguard party is needed to run a government. The alleged path goes capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism – the idea that no vanguard parties are needed is anarchism, and Cubans will also correct you when you call them communist: they know they are not that far. The amount of self-empowerment espoused in anarchism may not even be possible on a billions-level? These are questions for a later date….
Allow me to disqualify myself from the vanguard party: I have been passed up for management over and over (of course everyone claims this), so maybe they are right? I am used to being a powerless cog in a machine, and I quite like it now!
The people who deserve to be in vanguard parties are those who evince both the capability for selflessness as well as the capability for superior political thought. After all, some have capabilities for great artistic thought, or great engineering thought, or have great social skills – political policy certainly requires input from all sectors and classes but their bureaucrats do need to have a masterful grasp of modern political ideology, as well as a grasp of what not to do: i.e., the ideologies held by the enemies of modern political ideologies. These qualifications are evinced by people like Xi, Khamenei, Diaz-Canel and France’s Yellow Vests.
The roar that the Yellow Vests will make when France’s lockdown in over… that’s another article.
I don’t think you can find a journalist writing in any Western language who has stood shoulder to shoulder with them more often, and I can promise France: put the Yellow Vests in charge and you’ll have exceptional national governance immediately. Unlike the Iranian clergy, Chinese commies and Cuban socialist-Santeriaists, the Yellow Vests’ actual support is hard to gauge: polls constantly showed over 50% support, yet the Animal Rights Party won 2.2% in the 2019 European Parliament elections, double the Yellow Vests parties combined.
Who is the vanguard party in the US? That I cannot say – I do not think one is apparent. I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and their few public comrades are interesting given the limitations of the US political context, but they are still far from what’s necessary now, and especially far from what will be necessary given the trajectory of Great Depression 2.
The times make the man, as they say.
The West’s vanguard parties seem intent on making times as difficult for the lower classes as they possibly can. Time well spent would be turning of Western MSM, as well as social media, and reflecting on who you think should really be in charge.