Bernie Sanders would, overall, if pressed a typical amount, be a dramatic improvement over 45 out of 45 past U.S. presidents. But that’s a low bar.
When it comes to foreign policy, it ought to go without saying that Trump, Biden, and Buttigieg are walking catastrophes. A bit of research suggests that Elizabeth Warren is pretty much a true believer in slightly modified catastrophe. But what about Bernie Sanders?
I think that, as he is right now, Sanders would, overall, if pressed a typical amount, be a dramatic improvement over 45 out of 45 past U.S. presidents. But that’s a low bar. I’m delighted with his domestic policies and with the prospect of watching the corporate media squirm as he wins. And I think Sanders has improved enough on foreign policy, in part in response to this demand, to support him now.
I also think that LBJ would have been pretty good on domestic policy if he’d resisted militarism and understood the connections between the two, and I wonder whether Sanders understands that lesson or rather has internalized the corporate-media notion that it’s anti-militarism that hurts your domestic agenda.
Sanders evolved in recent years from his 2016 campaign mode of insisting that Saudi Arabia ante up its fair share of the cost of global wars, as if wars were a public service, and never mentioning the financial cost of militarism when asked about funding domestic programs, to trying to end the war on Yemen (and one on Iran), saying he’d move some completely unspecified amount of money out of the military, and listing the military industrial complex in the list of the forces he’d be challenging as president.
But lately, the military industrial complex has vanished from Bernie’s speeches, suggestions from his staff that he would push to end Afghanistan or one of the other wars have never materialized, he’s never indicated within 10% or $100 billion or at all how MUCH money he would seek to move to human and environmental needs from the military budget, he’s never spoken of mass murder as a moral problem, and — while he no longer talks about war as a public service that foreigners aren’t helping to fund, he still talks about foreign policy as a matter of bringing recalcitrant foreigners into line.
When Sanders does speak about the financial cost of militarism, he says that as president he will wrangle up the world’s nations and convince them to start spending money on climate protection rather than militarism. One can’t help cheering for such a statement, because it’s so bizarrely almost wonderful coming from a presidential candidate. But it’s only almost, because it conveniently omits the real problem. The United States is the biggest war maker and the biggest weapons dealer. If the U.S. were to stop selling weapons, many nations’ military spending would plummet. If the U.S. were to stop spending quite so much on weapons, it would spark a reverse arms-race.
When the Sanders campaign sent out a survey asking people what issues they cared about, and foreign policy was nowhere to be seen, a friend of mine emailed a complaint and got back a response. The response from the Sanders campaign included this:
“Around the world, dictators are rising up to exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances in order to gain power and personal wealth. In Russia, China, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and elsewhere, authoritarian leaders are rising to power. They are hostile to democracy, dismantle the free press, they sow hatred toward ethnic and religious minorities, and they use government to benefit their own selfish financial interests. And they find comfort and support in the words and deeds of President Trump. They are the powerful and wealthy few tyrannizing powerless poor people everywhere.
“As Bernie has said: ‘There is a global struggle taking place of enormous consequence. Right-wing authoritarians backed by a network of multi-billionaire oligarchs are forming a common front. We who believe in democracy must join together to build a progressive global order based on human solidarity.’
“Bernie is calling for a new international coalition to fight to rebuild democracy. We must:
- Build a sustainable energy future, not enrich fossil fuel companies who profit from destroying the air, land and water that our children and grandchildren will depend on.
- Devote our resources to fighting diseases, not building weapons of mass destruction.
- Break up the information monopoly in which a handful of multinational media giants, owned by a small number of billionaires, control the flow of information on the planet.
- End the practice of multinational corporations stashing over $21 trillion in offshore bank accounts to avoid paying their fair share of taxes while working families suffer.
- Create trade agreements that benefit working people, not the corporations that oppress them.”
This is admirable in proposing a popular global movement, and in caring about the fate of people in other countries without using that care as an excuse to bomb them. Both of those are very rare things. Also, not putting Iran or North Korea on the list of problems is stunning.
But, notably absent from the above list of steps to take regarding Russia, China, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines, is the idea that the United States could cease arming and training their militaries.
The U.S. government facilitates the sale of U.S. weapons to each of those countries except Russia. (See Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Arms Trade Database, and “Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Construction Sales And Other Security Cooperation Historical Facts: As of September 30, 2017.”)
The U.S. government also provides military training to all of those problem governments, no exceptions. (See the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Military Training Report: Fiscal Years 2017 and 2018: Joint Report to Congress Volumes I and II, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Congressional Budget Justification: FOREIGN ASSISTANCE: SUPPLEMENTARY TABLES: Fiscal Year 2018.)
The U.S. government also provides funding for the militaries of each of those governments except Russia. (See on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Congressional Budget Justification: FOREIGN ASSISTANCE: SUMMARY TABLES: Fiscal Year 2017, and Congressional Budget Justification: FOREIGN ASSISTANCE: SUPPLEMENTARY TABLES: Fiscal Year 2018.) Compare the outrage one hears about this in the U.S. media with the fury one encounters over providing hungry people with food.
The shift I would most like to see in Senator Sanders’ approach to the world is one away from the fantasy of the United States leading troublesome foreigners toward the light, instead focusing on undoing the ongoing destruction that has been normalized and made invisible and in which the U.S. government has been leading the way for decades.
With that in mind, I think Bernie Sanders would benefit his campaign and our little planet by answering these questions:
- What would you like the U.S. discretionary budget to look like? With 60% now going to militarism, what percentage would you like that to be?
- What program of economic conversion to peaceful enterprises would you support?
- Would you end, continue, or escalate U.S. war making in: Afghanistan? Iraq? Syria? Pakistan? Libya? Somalia?
- Would you end the exemption for militarism in Kyoto, Paris, and other climate agreements?
- Would you sign / ratify any of these treaties: Paris Climate Agreement? Convention on the Rights of the Child? International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights? International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights optional protocols? Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women? Convention Against Torture optional protocol? International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families? International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance? The Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities? International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing, and Training of Mercenaries? Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court? Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity? Principles of International Cooperation in the Detection, Arrest, Extradition, and Punishment of Persons Guilty of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity? Convention on Cluster Munitions? Land Mines Convention? Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons? Proposed treaties banning the weaponization of space and banning cyber crimes?
- Would you halt or continue expenditures on the production and so-called modernization of nuclear weapons?
- Would you end weapons sales and the provision of military training and funding to any governments? Which?
- Would you close any foreign bases? Which?
- Would you halt or continue the practice of murder by missiles from drones?
- Do you recognize the ban on war, with exceptions, contained in the United Nations Charter? And the ban on threatening war?
- Do you recognize the ban on war, without exceptions, contained in the Kellogg-Briand Pact?
- Will you end discriminatory bans on immigrants?
- Should actual, non-military, no-strings-attached foreign aid be eliminated, reduced, maintained, or increased? How much?
- 84% of South Koreans want the Korean War ended immediately. Should the United States block that?
- Should NATO be maintained or abolished?
- Should the CIA be maintained or abolished?
- Should the ROTC be maintained or abolished?
- Should domestic police forces be trained by, collaborate with, and be armed by militaries?
- Should the U.S. military pay sports leagues, secretly or openly, to celebrate militarism?
- How large should the U.S. military’s advertising budget be, and how much should the U.S. government spend promoting the concepts of nonviolent dispute resolution and the abolition of war?
This article was originally published at DavidSwanson.org on January 28, 2020.
If you vote Dem or Rep you are an accessory to murder. War is murder wrapped in a flag. There’s no honor in war. It’s worse than pedophilia.
Bernie has mentioned a number of executive orders that he intended to sign into law on day one. I have not heard anything about ending the predation by the surveillance police state that would repeal all laws violating consitutional rights – civil liberties, which would restore freedom and would make America a safer place, because the surveillance police state is full of psychopathic criminal predators that have endangered our lives, property, intellectual property, and livlihoods. The backdoors into technology insisted on the tech industries by the FBI have increased vulnerability to cyber-attacks also. These individuals are predators. Police run child pornography black market bitcoin websites, and there are many treasonous acts including Executive Order 12333, the Electronic Surveillance Act of 1984, Section 215, Section 715, the NDAA, The Espionage Act, HR6393, The Patriot Act, the American Freedom Act, and FISA, all of which are horrific treasonous acts of tyranny, and must immediately be repealed!
Crime is rampant! So is terrorism! Who do these psychopaths think that they are fooling?! They are an organized crime ring! The only reason that they ever bust anyone is over a turf war!
“I’m delighted with his domestic policies…” – Mr. David Swanson, not out of context. While I realize I am on foreignpolicyjournal dot com, Mr. Swanson’s delight is alarming indeed. (The only domestic policy one can find delight in, or heck, even just acceptable, is anarcho-capitalism. Corruptible representative government does not solve problems; it amplifies them to no end, and often is the culprit in creating them.)
Since all of the treasonous tyrannical acts which I listed above, in addition to more than I would be able to list all violate the constitution and its amendments, they are confessions of crime contracts, and not laws, because all laws must not violate the Constitution, without the Constitution being amended. A bill is not an amendment to the Constitution. Yes, they really are that redraded!
Reaganomics- Executive Order 12333 – spyng for procurement, an economy made for perverts and mentally incompetent frauds. Of course it is all totally illegal.
The stupidity, corruption, and hubris of the surveillance state and foreign policy writers will result in their own demise. That is simply a given.
Once these psychopaths decide something, even though their decisions are morally and intellectually reprehensible, they do not stop. That is the pathology of psychopaths. They continue unabated on auto-pilot in a brainless, hearless, soul-less, gutless, spineless campaign of terror until they are stopped by an outside force, which is inevitable.
Attempting to defend one’s actions against these psychopaths is daunting, because in a George Orwell, meets Franz Kafka Joseph K type nightmare scenario with an endless barrage of blatant lies, and sanctions, rumor mongering based on lies, and terrorism involving supporting terrorist networks to aid these psychopaths, one has extended so much time and energy in self defense.
The world is fed up with them. They will have to learn the hard way. Somehow, they have waltzed through life like a bull in a china shop, destroying everything in its path.
Most people learn that they cannot do things like that when they are two years old. The psychopaths are emotionally immature and stuck in the mental reasonning state and intellectual capacity of a two year old.
They are literally incapable of seeing the consequences of their actions, like a two year old. They cannot think 5 minutes ahead, let alone 5 years ahead. They simply act without thinking at all. They want, what they want, when they want it, but unlike two year olds, they have weapons of mass destruction.
They really ought to be institutionalized for life for mental incompetency for being a grave danger to others.
When America was allies with Iran, the only year that the U.S. was at war in the Middle East was 1973, in the Yom Kipur war. Since the U.S. has demonized Iran, and committed a sworn alliance to Saudi Arabia and Israel, in 1979, we have been at war in the Middle East for all but 4 years.
There is major corruption within the medical mafia in America as a result of the fee for service system, which results in more fees for more services, which Medicare for all does not begin to address. There is estimated to be between $780 billion to $920 billion a year in medical fraud, which is the equivalent of the entire defense budget! Addidtionally, medical error is the third leading cause of death in America, and 2/3 of Rx spending is spent on psychiatric drugs proven not to work, increase mental illness symptoms, and cause harmful and even fatal side effects. The white mortality age fell for the first time under Obama.
Most people want to be able to receive anti-biotics when needed, and have proper treatment for injuries caused from accidents.
The medical testing industry is a racket that has gotten out of hand. People would be better off without all of this extremely expensive and unnecessary medical testing. Obama increased funds for this in wellness checks, for free colonoscopies, mamograms, gynecological exams, and prostate exams. I don’t know about you, but there are other ways that I would rather spend both my time, and my money, when in good health, and with no family history of those diseases. People could get those tests without meeting their sky high deductibles, but could not go in for antibiotics. It sounds as if Obama and the medical community had reached the decisions that we are better off dead, particularly since mamograms involve radiation, and we are just supposed to trust that they will not OD us with deadly radiation.
911, anyone, anyone? Who put the explosives in the buildings? 3000 people murdered. Just as the Zapruder film proves Kennedy was shot from the front, the videos of the towers collapsing prove that there were explosives in the buildings.
From my point of view, it appears that the elections will be decided by low information voters, corrupt players, and people in a state of cognitive dissonance with all of the information that has come out over the last few years regarding the faked 9/11 attacks, with the full collusion of the U.S. government and our partners in crime, Saudi Arabia and Israel in which the U.S. blamed innocent people that had nothng to do with it, and went to war in seven nations over it, not addressed by a single candidate. That is just too much to overlook and forgive, for me. That does not even begin to touch on the rest of the corruption within both parties.
The ballot looks like this to me:
Choose the correct answer to the problem below:
1+1=
A. 3
B. 4
C. 5
D. 6
E. All of the above
Ms. Pelosi, how many Democrats does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Pelosi- Well, that is something that would have to be outsourced to Israeli intelligence, but I can tell you that it takes 2,000 brand new IPads to count the Nevada caucus.
Since I campaigned independently and voluntarily without supervision for Bernie Sanders for the 2016 primary, emailing and texting hundreds of organizers every single day even before going to work with three positive articles on Sanders and three negative articles on Hillary Clinton, with a brief summary consisting of a few bullet points, since the media was completely ignoring Bernie and refusing to criticize Hilary, many people may be wondering why I am not supporting Sanders in this election. It is for several reasons consisting of developements that have occured and information that has been released and that I have learned since the primary. I will not be voting for anyone, because everyone that is running fails to meet the standards required to lead our nation. It is my hope that Sanders supporters will push Sanders to adopt more stringent policies and address matters that have been swept under the rug, but cannot be ignored by any credible candidate.
Firstly, the corruption within the DNC surpasses every organized crime ring in America. The RNC is no better in those regards, but Sanders must fully commit to ending the corruption which he seems remiss to do, since he has made no effort and has even aided and abetted the guilty party(s) in their cover-ups of monumental and heinous tyranny and treason. The information that was uncovered regarding the faked 9/11 attacks with First Responders and architects, engineers, and pilots storming Capitol Hlll, demanding the re-openning of the 9/11 with verifiable irrefutable evidence presented by former CIA expert pilot John Lear, son of Lear Jet founder with proof that the flight turns would have snapped the planes innhalf with the hair pin turns required to strike where the buildings were struck by a missile launched off of the top of the Woolworth building. The holes in the towers were also smaller than the planes. Building Seven was not struck by a plane at all, but imploded through controlled demolition as the Twin Towers did. Fusilage and tires were found at the scene from another type of plane. The black boxes were never recoverred. The planes alledgedly used to strike the towers are still in use. The buldings were pulverized to dust which would not happen, and the planes would not have been able to penetrate 14 inches of steele, which the towers were constructed with. Larry Silversein, the new owner of the World Trade Center at that time, just took out an enormous new insurance policy on the buildings and didn’t go to work the day of the attack, nor did major CEOs or managers, in fact, many comapanies had one fatality, like UBS, located at the top floor. The FBI had only one fatality also, an agent that ran in to rescue people. There is more evudence than this, which you can research from Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and John Lear, and the Architects and Engineers for Truth on 9/11. They prove all of these things with hard math, science, photos, news clips, as well as other facts, not theories, but facts.
After the First Responders stormed the Hill on 9/11 requesting that the investigation be re-openned, Pelosi filed to impeach Trump thirteen days later as a distraction. Trump, as all recent presidents is guilty of numerous acts of treason, bribery, high crimes, and misdemeanors, which the DNC ignored in their impeavhment against him because they are all guilty of many, if not all of those crimes themselves.
I do support healthcare for everyone, however, the corruption is obscene within the medical community, which Sanders has failed to address other than the high price of prescription drugs. There is an estimated $920 billion worth of waste and fraud within the fake healthcare system and 2/3 of prescription drug spending is spent on psychiatric drugs proven not to work, increase the symptoms which they are marketed to alleviate, and can cause fatal side effects, even homicidal and suicidal behavior. Over 330,000 people have died from the opioid epidemic, and almost no doctors have been held accountable at all, but their victims have died, suffered mass incarcerations and totally destroyed lives as well as the lives of their families. The suboxone treatment is more addictive than the opiods taken, whether heroin or oxycontin, but is still being used for treatment. Medical error is now the third leading cause of death in America, and the white mortality age fell for the first time under Obama. These are murderers, and snake-oil sales people that have cornered the dtug market, being glorified drug dealers with no accountability in over 95% of the cases.
Bernie is more interested in fattening the wallets of the medical community and education industry than substantially improving the quality of life for the majority of Americans with a debt-free, interest-free government greenback which would eliminate the need for income taxes, and the budget would automatically balance, without a need to reduce spending. I contacted Sanders offices and emailed him regarding this but had no reply. A college degree does not guarantee anything other than less time in the job market, but it does guarantee more money for the universities. This is a matter of supply and demand. Many jobs which formerly required a two year associates degree now require a PhD. for employment, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and dietician.
The federal, state, and local governments own 2/3 of the land in America, and the federal government owns the majority of vacant homes in America since they took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under Obama.
If Sanders really wants to help young people, or people who never were granted opportunities through a rigged and abusive system, it should be with a national homestead act. That would be an enormous boon to employers as well because people would be more likely to remain at their jobs, saving employers the head ache of high turn over.
In order for prison reform to occur, we need legal reform because most of the laws are a just totally unnecessary in many instances but are extremely oppressive, in addition to the fact that many are not even laws at all, but confessions of treason, bribery, and high crimes, including the Espionage Act of 1917, the NDAA, FISA, section 215, section 702, HR6393, the Electronic Surveillance Act of 1981, Executive Order 12333 of 1984, the Patriot Act, and the American Freedom Act.
So, in summary, those are the primary reasons why I will not be supporting Sanders, or anyone else for that matter in the 2020 election.
How is it possible that only 2,606 people died in the 9/11 attacks in the World Trade Towers alone and normally had 50,000 employees in just buildings 1 & 2 working in them since elevators were inoperable unless most people knew prior to the attack and didn’t go in? It isn’t possible! They all knew except a few companies! Cantor Fitzgerald had 658 fatalities alone! Four Hundred and Fifty companies had offices there!
Maybe there should be a hold their feet to the fire campaign in this election cycle, just writing across the ballots, It’s the Constitution Stupid! Free Assange! Free Manning! Free Schulte! Free the millions in prisons and jails for non-violent drug and alcohol charges! Free the Palestinians! End the wars! Maybe after a few elections of more ballots like that, than ones in which candidates are voted for, they will realize that they must obey us!
P.S. I am not Russian and have not been instructed by a Russian or anyone else to post this!
Maybe there should be a hold their feet to the fire campaign in this election cycle, just writing across the ballots, It’s the Constitution Stupid! Free Assange! Free Manning! Free Schulte! Free the millions in prisons and jails for non-violent drug and alcohol charges! Free the Palestinians! End the wars! Maybe after a few elections of more ballots like that, than ones in which candidates are voted for, they will realize that they must obey us!
Sputnik just reported that U.S. intelligence is warning Bernie that Russia is trying toinfiltrate the Sanders campaign. Bernie said that he doesn’t care who Putin wants to be president, but if he gets elected, he will make sure that Russia does not interfere in our elections, according to Sputnik. It must be fake news since it was on Sputnik.
I thought that I would pass this message along though:
Please contact Natasha Fatale for the give away of high level positions in the Sanders campaign and administration at 011-7-750-00-75 extention 1200.
The Nevada State Democratic Party is asking volunteers to sign NDAs without specifying what information volunteers are forbidden to disclose. If it was an NDA used specifically for protecting the information about the voters that they contacted, that would be understandable, but with all of the past election rigging as well as current attempts to rig the election against Sanders, volunteers should not be forbidden from whistleblowwing about state party corruption. Afterall, it is called the Democratic Party, which we learned in 2016 was nothing more than false advertising and a complete misnomer. It is absolutely disgusting!
Unfortunately, Sanders seems to be becoming more and more flexible to capitulating his own set of values, just like all presidents have done. In the past, I truly beleived that he was above that. I’m not sure what happenned to him after 2016, but it doesn’t look very optimistic for voters getting someone truly revolutionary with Sanders, unfortunately.
Here are some of Sanders bending like a willow statements. I knew that he had supported the war in Kossovo, but has expressed disapproval of all of the other wars.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/sanders-geopolitical-issues/5703987
Correction on above statement, Had and not has.
Nancy Pelosi asked,” What is all of this talk about establishment Democrats? Is there something going on that I’m not aware of here?”
Yes Nancy, it means that a much larger sector of your voter base is anti-establishment, even though they are not Russians! Imagine that! Go figure that some people are opposed to tyranny, human rights abuses, wars, pathological lying and treason!
P.S.
You are an establishment Democrat by the non-Russian anti-establishment Democrats.
The use of cookies by websites ought to be banned. When I created my blog, which I can no longer blog on because of hackers repeatedly destroying my devices and computers, I was given the option by wordpress to use cookies, which I refused, being a constitutionalist. If someone is blogging for the sake of user data theft, they are blogging for the wrong reason. Unfortunately, way too many alternative websites and bloggers are frauds with alterior motives of data theft, by account of my own unfortunate experiences, which is why they frequently resort to plagarism, because they have no sincerity in what their website is about at all. I even have the accept cookies turned off on my system, yet, the Unz Review installed cookies anyways, over-riding my own security. Many other sites have also over-ridden my own security.
The use of cookies does not “override” your security. There is no “theft” of data involved. Sites that use cookies to not “hack” your computer. The purpose of cookies is simply to provide website visitors with a better user experience, including the ability to deliver more relevant ads to users. Anyone wishing to learn how FPJ uses cookies can do so here:
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/about/privacy-policy/
Dr. Paul,
You are in a very unique position, being a physician with strong ties to the voters, the medical community, and the government, as is your son Rand Paul.
The medical mafia places wealth over health and mal-practice and outright fraud are the current business model with medical error being the third leading cause of deathnin America, over $920 billion a year in fraud and waste, over 330 million opioid deaths, and suboxone more addictive than the heroin any prescription drugs which addicted people, and over 2/3 of prescription drug spending on psychiatric drugs based on an idea as antiquated as the four humors. Parcelesus was the first to realize that diseases were caused by external things outside of the body, however, the entire psychiatric industry is living in the dark ages and is still behaving like barber surgeons! If you and Rand could please educate your fellow practioners as well as the FDA and congress that this is not only costing people and the government trillions of dollars a year, but is based on outright junk science that causes more psychiatric disorders than it is marketed to cure, the world would be eternally grateful!
Sorry for the error of not thinking and used entire population statisic of 330 million for the 330,000 opioid deaths. what’s a few zeros? lol!