2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumSanders, Redbaiting and the ‘Denouncing’ Double Standard
MARCH 11, 2016
The Daily Beast (2/28/16) goes full-on red menace with Bernie Sanders
During the Miami Democratic debate (3/9/16), Sen. Bernie Sanders was asked about sympathetic comments he had made in 1985 about the left-wing leaders of Cuba and Nicaragua. Despite repeated questioning, Sanders refused to retract his remarks:
MARIA ELENA SALINAS, UNIVISION: Senator, in retrospect, have you ever regretted the characterizations that you made of Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro that way?
SANDERS: The key issue here was whether the United States should go around overthrowing small Latin American countries. I think that that was a mistake
SALINAS: You didnt answer the question.
SANDERS:
Both in Nicaragua and Cuba. Look, lets look at the facts here. Cuba is, of course, an authoritarian, undemocratic country, and I hope very much as soon as possible it becomes a democratic country. But on the other hand, it would be wrong not to state that in Cuba they have made some good advances in healthcare. They are sending doctors all over the world. They have made some progress in education. I think by restoring full diplomatic relations with Cuba, it will result in significant improvements to the lives of Cubans and it will help the United States and our business community invest.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed up moments later:
You know, if the values are that you oppress people, you disappear people, imprison people or even kill people for expressing their opinions, for expressing freedom of speech, that is not the kind of revolution of values that I ever want to see anywhere.
Clintons suddenand hypocriticalsupport for human rights notwithstanding, the moment was predictable as it was routine. Its been 25 years since the end of the Cold War, so younger voters may not be used to these types of loyalty rituals. But whenever the issue of socialismor communism, its more fear-inducing cousincomes up, the press must attempt to compel those who have previously expressed support or sympathy for red politics to denounce their prior statements. Sanders refusal to do so caused noticeable agitation among the moderators.
Its to be expected that this line of questioning would be advanced by Univision, which has deep ties to anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in Miami. Lead debate moderator Jorge Ramoswho, to his credit, is open about his point-of-view journalismhas long been a harsh critic of socialist governments in Latin America. In addition to his standard on air and online editorials, Ramos and Univision partnered with media giant Disney to create Fusion, a nominally left media publication that frequently criticizes the leftist government of Venezuela and communist Cuba. (Univision is owned by an investment group led by Haim Saban, Clintons single-biggest financial backer.)
A handful of Clinton partisans jumped at the chance to paint Sanders as a far-left loony who likes to cozy up to dictators. Salons Amanda Marcotte, one of the medias most reliable Clinton boosters, jumped right in, linking to a recent Daily Beast piece by Michael Moynihan, former senior editor of libertarian Reason magazine and current Vice/Bank of America talkshow host, who did a rundown of Sanders dreaded leftist past. Suddenly, a topic Marcotte had never once tweeted about, or expressed any public concern for, was of utmost importance and needed to be brought to the forefront of public discourse.
The Daily Beasts Jonathan Alter followed suit, tweeting out after Sanders praised Cuban healthcare, Bernie a lefty sucker for Cuban line on healthcare. If he got sick there, hed medevac out. And wheres his concern for human rights there? Alters concern about human rights was hard to discern when he wrote Time to Think About Torture for Newsweek in November 2001, imploring liberals to consider the practice so long as it didnt involve cattle prods or rubber hoses. In his almost 6,000 tweets, this is the first time Alters employed the words human rights. Like Marcotte, such urgent liberal principles only seem to pop up when it serves their preferred candidates talking points.
A third such instance again involved the Daily Beast, which published Hey, Bernie, Dont Lecture Me About Socialism, by Garry Kasparov. Kasparov, chair of the dubious Human Rights Foundation, is the author of the subtly titled book, Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped. In his piece, the famous chess player-cum-neocon offered up some warmed-over capitalist bromides:
And that while inequality is a huge problem, the best way to increase everyones share of pie is to make the pie bigger, not to dismantle the bakery
. A society that relies too heavily on redistributing wealth eventually runs out of wealth to redistribute. The historical record is clear. Its capitalism that brought billions of people out of poverty in the 20th century. Its socialism that enslaved them and impoverished them.
Its no surprise the Daily Beast would be ground zero for Sanders red-baiting; this is, after all, the publication that claimed communist Cuban troops had been deployed to Syria based entirely on one spurious Fox News report, and despite numerous requests from FAIR to do so, refused to correct this error. Theres something almost charming about the Daily Beasts crusading Cold War posture in 2016, or at least there would be if it didnt serve as fodder for Clinton partisans to offer tacit apologies for Reagans right-wing death squads.
So far, the smear doesnt seem to have picked up much traction. Though the Washington Post, Business Insider and Talking Points Memo did straight reporting on the issuethus helping advance the tropegenerally the effect of these tactics dont seem to have as much purchase as they used to.
Nevertheless, the enterprise of demanding those on the left denounce governments unfriendly to the United States, particularly socialist ones, remains a favorite pastime of centrist mediasuch is the function of those seeking to push Sanders on his support for the Cuban and Sandinista governments.
The Daily Beasts Moynihan postured on Twitter: What I learned from Twitter: The Somoza and Batista dictatorships were bad, so supporting the dictatorships that replaced them is good. As Sanders noted, the Cuban government is undemocratic, but the Nicaraguan government that replaced Somoza is in no sense a dictatorship. The Sandinistas stood for election in 1984, winning 67 percent of the vote. Then they stepped down when they were voted out in 1990. They were voted back in in 2006, and were re-elected in 2011. This is peculiar behavior for a dictatorship.
In the 1980s, when Sanders was praising the Sandinistas, there were some limits on civil liberties; for example, the US-funded newspaper La Prensa faced censorship. Since the US at the time was also funding the Contras, a guerrilla army that was systematically killing civilians in an effort to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, under current US law the leadership of La Prensa would have been imprisoned for providing material assistance to terrorists.
Theres a stark contrast between the Univision moderator taking Sanders to task for 30-year-old comments about Nicaragua, and the lack of any questions about Hillary Clintons policies as secretary of State toward Honduras. After Honduras left-leaning elected president was overthrown in a 2009 coup, Clinton worked behind the scenes to legitimize the coup regimewith the result that Honduras is now one of the most violent nations on Earth.
Clinton will, no doubt, not be asked to denounce the coup she helped usher in. Thats because only Sanders had the gall to support countries under attack by the United States, and must therefore play the tedious denouncing game.
Sanders, as candidates for the presidency often do, has also praised the US, but he will never be asked to denounce his country for killing of millions of Indochinese in the 1960s and 1970s. Clinton, who has infamously praised Henry Kissinger, will never be asked to denounce the former Nixon aide for personally overseeing the terror bombing of Cambodia that killed at least 150,000 civilians.
Condemnations, in the centrist press, only work one way. Crimes carried out by capitalist countries, namely the US, are one-off mistakes or follies or blunders, while the offenses of socialist countries are existential products of an unmitigated evil that must be categorically denounced lest one be called a dictator or commie apologist. Recalling Americas past, one gets a line-item vetoLBJs civil rights record, good; the carnage of Vietnam, badbut when its Americas enemies, its all or nothing.
Such a double standard shows not a concern for human rights, but for weaponizing liberal sympathies: namely, the idea of human rights, used to muddy the waters and ultimately promote Americas imperial ends. It is an almost 90-year-long traditionand one on full, depressing display in the latest round of Sanders red-baiting.
http://fair.org/home/sanders-redbaiting-and-the-denouncing-double-standard/
Xipe Totec
(43,893 posts)malthaussen
(17,242 posts)... and it always has been. We support the enemies of our enemies, and undermine the friends of our enemies, and it makes no never-minds what their domestic conditions really are like (nor ours, if it comes to that). And we choose our enemies: I never believed any of them "hated America" as a country, just wanted us to get our noses out of their business (and their raw materials). Naturally, Mrs Clinton, as a traditionalist, is going to employ all the cliches of the Cold War and American Exceptionalism she can. I doubt Fidel Castro beheaded as many Cubans during his entire reign as do Saudi Arabia in one year.
-- Mal
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)bigtree
(86,025 posts)...we rightly advocate against violence and injustice in our own government, but I fail to see why, even as we oppose the U.S. aggression, that we're somehow supposed to be mute about abuses elsewhere. This is a false choice being present here to justify Sanders' expressions of support for the dictatorships in Cuba and Nicaragua.
Certainly the government is hypocritical in their criticism of others, but this isn't about the government's reaction. It's about American citizens' perspectives and advocacy.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)which is demonstrated in his responses. You should be embarrassed for what you've posted,
it is disgusting to continue to peddle it as you do.
bigtree
(86,025 posts)...acting if sanders is above criticism just because you agree with him or hold a different viewpoint.
You're not interested in a discussion, just bashing and personal attacks. You can do that without my participation or knowledge. (blocked)
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)twisted distortion and now you imagine you'll get away with it??
I am embarrassed for you, you have found a new low for yourself.
noamnety
(20,234 posts)but some of us vote for officials responsible for authorizing those acts.
When we vote for such people, we in turn shoulder some of the responsibility.
malthaussen
(17,242 posts)Insofar as the Republic reflects the will, or at least the indifference, of its people, the acts to which we turn a blind eye are striking when contrasted with those which we condemn. If our government can praise or ally with another that commits human rights outrages, as we certainly do, then it makes one wonder under what grounds we condemn others for lesser outrages. In the case of Cuba, what exactly has the Cuban nation or government ever done to us that deserves the kind of treatment we've given them for the past 50 or so years? IIRC, we invaded them.
-- Mal
bigtree
(86,025 posts)...of your own invention.
We should rightly condemn the excesses and abuses of our government, even in response to tyranny and repression in other countries. Those reactions by our government and military are correctly weighed and measured against our own actions and responsibility.
Yet, that should not preclude us, American citizens, from expressing equal objection to tyranny and abuses abroad; both holding our government responsible and advocating for accountability and justice in other nations.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)an apologists agenda. Interesting denial on your part while claiming to defend the rights
of the gay community in Cuba.
malthaussen
(17,242 posts)The OP is about hypocrisy. It is, I suggest, hypocritical to condemn a for actions we are fine with b doing.
In the OP, Mr Sanders states that, while certain abuses do occur, certain good consequences have resulted from Mr Castro's seizure of power. It's hardly an all-or-nothing proposition, is it? If it were, no country could be free of criticism. Nothing wrong with criticism, but rather disingenuous to suggest that, if one doesn't criticize whom I want him to, he is either actually supporting it or indifferent to its evils.
-- Mal
ConsiderThis_2016
(274 posts)and keep her fingers crossed that the moderate Muslims & Christians escape the friendly fire. I'm sure the Saudi Arabia "Oil" barrens who fostered the Wahhabi / ISIS click, got the Clinton Foundation's #.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)I'm all aquiver about this. We're at the "then they ridicule you" stage. Much better than the "First they ignore you" stage.