Why We Must Vote for Bernie
By Dr. I. Kamal
CA
A few of us would recall the Democratic primaries leading up to the presidential elections of 1968, which took place at the height of the increasingly unpopular war in Viet Nam. While there were murmurings of disapproval from some of the politicians, there appeared to be no challenger to Lyndon B. Johnson, a strong president widely expected to be elected for a third term in office. Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota was the first to announce his candidacy against the incumbent LBJ and the disastrous war. He fired up the youth and many thinking men and women of the country.
Gene McCarthy’s initial successes encouraged the entry of Senator Robert Kennedy, who was tragically assassinated on the night of the California primaries. At the time of the assassination, Sen McCarthy had been leading Robert Kennedy by a wide margin. However, at a riotous convention in Chicago the party establishment, even more powerful at that time than it is today, selected LBJ’s lackluster Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had not even participated in the primaries, as the nominee for the Presidency. Amidst tears and protests of his supporters, Gene McCarthy refused to stand as an Independent candidate. The outcome was the election of Richard Nixon, and several more years of the disastrous war.
In my opinion, lackluster is about the best description of Bernie Sander’s opponent in the current Democratic primaries. Her selection would be courting disaster. In poll after poll, Bernie is shown as beating Donald Trump by a far greater margin than Hillary, and Trump is fast catching up, especially since he obtained support of the Republican establishment. The latest, conducted May 15 to 19, 2016, is a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll which shows Bernie Sanders beating Trump in a head-to-head matchup by a margin of 54 points to 39; in contrast, Hillary Clinton is beating Trump by a meager 46 points to 43, which can be considered within the margin of error. Some other polls show Trump actually beating Clinton. People who do not want a Trump presidency need to take serious note of this. Some people wonder why, when Clinton’s showing vs. Trump is so poor compared to Bernie’s, does she have 3 million more votes in the primaries? The answer is simple: it is because most states do not allow independent voters to vote in the primaries. In the state of New York alone, more than 3 million voters were thus disenfranchised. If independent voters were allowed to vote in all states, as they would be in the general elections, Clinton’s 3 million vote majority, which she brags about so often, would evaporate into thin air.
The enthusiasm and vitality behind Bernie Sanders’ movement are worth taking note of. Currently, the media is happily ignoring Bernie for obvious reasons, but the enthusiasm and vitality can be seen on social media, such as on YouTube by typing Bernie Sanders and the current date. One only needs to listen to a Clinton speech to note the enormous difference.
Here are some other points which the readers need to bear in mind when voting for the Democratic primaries in California:
1. In all other Western democracies, there is a worker-friendly socialist or labor party and a business-friendly conservative party, with different names in different countries. With power shifting between these two major groups, a healthy outcome of economic progress and worker benefits has emerged. In the USA unfortunately, both parties have become two faces of the same coin, especially since the eight years when Bill Clinton was President, politely described as a move to the center. This had left the voter nothing much to choose from. A Bernie Sander presidency would move the country towards the democratic socialism of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, perhaps the greatest president of the USA, who was voted as the man of the twentieth century.
2. Bernie Sanders is one of the few politicians who have correctly understood the root of the problems in the Muslim world (which he correctly pronounces as Muslim instead of Muzzzlim, which some media folks and politicians disparagingly use): their religion is under attack by terrorists who are trying to hijack it and to impose their own distorted view of Islam, a view which conforms to the pre-Islamic daur-e-jahiliya (the age of ignorance). Bernie Sanders has correctly identified the solution as well: the Muslim world itself will need to take the bull by the horn, as King Abdullah of Jordon has said, and as the Pakistan army is valiantly doing. Intervention by the USA only creates resentment, and provides a recruiting tool for the terrorists.
3. Bernie’s opponent has accepted money from the big banks and super PACs but had refused to take a contribution of $40,000 raised by MPAC when she first ran for the senate from New York. Bernie Sanders does not believe in super PACs, and did not attend the meeting of AIPAC, a first for a presidential candidate since quite some time back. All PACs are a negation of one-man-one-vote principle of democracy, and an attempt for individuals or parties to buy themselves into power.
4. Hillary still carries the baggage of Bill Clinton and his alleged affairs, which had hurt Al Gore during his presidential race against George Bush in 2000, and did not help her in her own contest against Barack Obama in 2008. In Bill Clinton’s record is his nothing-doing stance on Bosnia, which had been subjected to a holocaust and genocide, with Slobodan Milošević tying up handcuffed soldiers of the United Nations on roof tops. I still remember the hear-rending complaint of a sticker in Dr Nazir Khwaja’s TV channel, after showing news of the atrocities “You allowed it, Mr President!” All the Bosnians wanted was for their arms embargo to be lifted, so that they could defend themselves against a heavily armed and powerful enemy. Even this was not allowed, although senior Republican Senator Bob Dole and former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, among others, strongly urged it.
5. Hillary Clinton also carries her own baggage of voting yes on the Iraq War (which President Obama had used so effectively in the Democratic primaries of 2008), the Ben Ghazi disaster, the emails on her private server, and the alleged improprieties in the Clinton foundation and other business dealings. In fact, both Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s records are scandal-ridden, with fresh revelations coming out every so often. In this background, Bernie Sander’s issues-oriented honest-to-goodness messages come like a breath of fresh air.
6. Donald Trump has been leading a campaign based on mistrusts and insults left and right, and his election would send the wrong message to Americans and the rest of the world. Even if Hillary Clinton becomes the nominee and manages to get elected, the seeds of hatred and mistrust will continue to seethe and simmer. Only by an unequivocal and credible expression of respect and equal rights for all citizens, in words and in action, coming from the highest office in the land, which only Bernie can provide, can the rising wave of hatred and mistrust be stemmed.
Some people are hesitating to vote for Bernie Sanders because they think Hillary Clinton already has it sewn up, it’s a done deal. I would still urge them to vote. This would strengthen Bernie’s hands and the inclusion of items on his agenda, which include a balanced approach to the Palestinian problem, are included in the party platform. Hillary Clinton has been talking a lot about the need for party unity. The best way to attain this would be to follow the example which John F. Kennedy set in 1960, when he appointed Lyndon Baines Johnson, his strong opponent in the Democratic primaries, as his running mate on the ticket. I think Bernie would agree to this for the sake of party unity, provided his agenda is reflected in the party platform. A Clinton-Sanders (or vice versa) ticket would be formidable and unbeatable.
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