{"id":2660,"date":"2016-07-04T17:32:09","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T21:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/?p=2660"},"modified":"2016-07-06T23:26:19","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T03:26:19","slug":"2660","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/?p=2660","title":{"rendered":"Time to Put the Sheepdog Narrative to Sleep"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2014 Rose Roby
\nJuly 4, 2016<\/em><\/p>\n

In May 2015, shortly after Sanders announced his run, the popular leftist blogger Bruce A. Dixon of Black Agenda Report<\/a>, put out a piece that went viral throughout the anti-Sanders left blogosphere titled \u201cPresidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016.\u201d Dixon asserted:<\/p>\n

\u201cBernie’s job is to warm up the crowd for Hillary, herding activist energies and the disaffected left back into the Democratic fold one more time. Bernie aims to tie up activist energies and resources till the summer of 2016 when the only remaining choice will be the usual lesser of two evils.\u201d<\/p>\n

In spite of its popularity, the thesis was bullshit then and it is bullshit now. It allows the small and ineffective left to wallow in its elitism as it dehumanizes masses of voters and turns them into \u201csheep\u201d with no minds of their own.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s try to picture the conversation that hatched this diabolical plot:<\/p>\n

Bernie:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHey Hillary, I have a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel! I can save the Democratic Party for you. First I run for president and spend the next year riling up the voters with all that stuff that you and Bill managed to expunge from the Democratic Party when he was king \u2014 like healthcare for all, and welfare and fair wages. And peace \u2014 don\u2019t forget that one \u2026<\/p>\n

Hillary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cRight! And don\u2019t I deserve credit for mass incarceration? \u2026 And what about when I did that great job as Secretary of State, you know, bringing ISIS and mass death to the people of Libya? I can hardly wait for you to expose to the masses how deeply indebted I am to the big banks and Wall Street! \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernie:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cRight you are, my friend. I\u2019ll even make a big fuss over all those bribes, ooopsie, I mean \u2018speaking engagement fees\u2019 that Goldman Sachs gave you. Better yet, I can even demand that you release the transcripts, which of course you\u2019ll refuse to do. Then I go and lose the primaries! I order all those mindless sheep we call voters to work their sweet little tuchuses off to get you elected \u2014 and they\u2019ll go out and do it! How does that sound, Hilly baby?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hillary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCool beans, Bernie baby! Who wanted this whole thing to be a cake-walk for me anyway? I can hardly wait to start disenfranchising hundreds and thousands of voters to ensure my victory. I mean if that doesn\u2019t put the dull-witted, unwashed masses solidly in my camp, what will?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sound ridiculous? It is.<\/p>\n

\"evilIt\u2019s not particularly helpful to figure out Bernie\u2019s motive for getting in the race. Sometimes the most obvious answer is also the most logical \u2014 he wanted to take a shot at becoming President. Perhaps he thought that even if he didn\u2019t win, the moment was right to re-introduce a more liberal\/left vision for a party that\u2019s been moving dangerously to the right for over 25 years. The Democratic Party establishment had purged the principles of a social safety net and economic justice long ago; they hardly wanted Bernie Sanders to come along and promote the kind of humanistic vision that late-stage capitalism could no longer afford.<\/p>\n

The Establishment figured they had nothing to fear from a Sanders run. After all, the last leftist to take a shot at a Presidential run in 2008, Dennis Kucinich, was never able to poll the 15% necessary to be included in a single debate. Sanders calls himself a Democratic Socialist (which the anti-Sanders left is always quick to point out isn\u2019t REAL socialism anyway) but the Beltway elite assumed the very inclusion of the \u201cdirty word\u201d would cause the vast majority of the red-blooded, capitalist-loving American electorate to reject Sanders out of hand.<\/p>\n

Enter Millennials: Stage Left<\/h4>\n

The elite hadn\u2019t counted on Berniemania sweeping over the millennials \u2014 most of whom had not even come of voting age in 2008. They hadn\u2019t expected the younger generation to be ready and willing to fight against a capitalist ruling class that left them with little more than a mountain of student debt and nary a good job in sight. They never saw the coming of polls declaring that no less than 69% of people under 30 would vote for a socialist, and show majorities of that age group expressing a preference for socialism over capitalism.<\/p>\n

So the ugliest vitriol in primary season was directed at millennials; from a million dollar online trolling campaign to spread the myth of the woman-hating \u201cBernie Bro,\u201d to Madeline Albright\u2019s promise of \u201ca special place in Hell\u201d for young women who rejected Hillary Clinton, to feminist icon Gloria Steinem\u2019s shockingly sexist dismissal of college-age female Bernie supporters as \u201cboy-crazy\u201d bimbos who let their silly girl hormones cloud their political judgment. That the DNC machine played up the myth of Bernie-loving misogynistic young men and self-loathing, dim-witted, Hell-bound young women isn\u2019t surprising given the pseudo-feminist PC cover the Clinton campaign has had to rely on.<\/p>\n

Once Bernie started bringing in crowds of up to 30,000 people, the Beltway realized that their imagined cakewalk was not materializing and they would have to pull out all the stops. They disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters, and called out their hired guns in the media to parrot the \u201cClinton is Inevitable\u201d line to hold back the flood.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s beyond absurd to suggest that this was the scenario they not only predicted, but wholeheartedly desired and that they were conspiring with Sanders from the start to bring us to this point.<\/p>\n

The Black Agenda report is run by prominent members of the Georgia Green Party. This isn\u2019t so obvious based on their particular brand of agitprop, ending each article\u2019s \u201cwhat is to be done?\u201d section with some variation of \u201cWe must take to the streets!\u201d rather than \u201cJoin the Green Party!\u201d So when Mr. Dixon smugly proclaims that after the primary season \u201cthe only remaining choice will be the usual lesser of two evils.\u201d he \u201cdisappears\u201d his own party\u2019s candidate more thoroughly than even the mainstream press!<\/p>\n

Misanthropy Now! Misanthropy Tomorrow! Misanthropy Forever!?<\/h4>\n

The Green Party did indeed have something to fear from a Sanders\u2019 run \u2014 namely, their registered members. Their fears were fulfilled! California Green Party\u2019s curmudgeonly Co-Chair Mike Feinstein mourned \u201cThe Sanders Campaign Is Absolutely Destroying Us!\u201d in a June 4 article in Mother Jones<\/a> of the same name. Feinstein notes that the party has lost 30% of its membership since Sanders entered the race.<\/p>\n

The charming Mr. Feinstein goes on to say, \u201cThey intentionally went after our voters because they are low-lying fruit on the issues,” citing mailers the Sanders campaign sent to Green Party members, and is \u201capoplectically mad\u201d over it. (Personally, I think \u201capoplectically angry\u201d would have been more precise, but they say that those the Gods would destroy they first make apoplectically mad.)<\/p>\n

From \u201csheep\u201d to \u201clow-hanging fruit,\u201d many Green Party insiders have an exceedingly hard time talking about their base as actual human beings with their own hearts and minds. Is it any wonder that they weren\u2019t able to inspire enough loyalty to hold on to their own members after Sanders came on the scene?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the Greens. In their defense, they actually had something to lose. Then there\u2019s that small but vocal segment of the left, like the secular version of the madman in the park carrying a sign saying \u201cRepent Ye Sinners! The End Is Nigh!\u201d Only their signs say \u201cWake Up Ye Sheeple! The End Is Nigh!\u201d Their political strategy consists of angry Facebook postings where they revel in their contempt for the \u201cdupes\u201d and \u201csheeple\u201d the way a pig revels in rolling around in shit. The success of the revolution is based on the number of Likes and Shares they receive, and by only talking to each other, the most eloquent get their empty online validation. The only thing they seem to hate more than the horrors of the GWOT are the pathetic fools who still believe they can do anything about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet The Hell Off My Turf, You Racist, War-Mongering Kids!\u201d<\/h4>\n

\"keepoffgrass\"There is this \u201cgentlemen\u2019s agreement\u201d that you don\u2019t mess with another leftist\u2019s turf, and Sanders broke it big time. So while Green Party leaders lament the fact that the Sanders campaign \u2014 the supreme Sheepdogging scheme of the past year \u2014 has been stealing their members, other Greens rejoice that \u2014 as a result of mass defections \u2014 their party has been purified, that the ones leaving were never steadfast Greens in the first place. And now bitter Old Guarders are freaked out that since the end of the primaries, Sanders supporters have been (re)joining the party in droves. Even as many, if not most, Green Party regulars are thrilled by this influx, the bitterest of the Old Guard concede that maybe these Sanders independents have now seen the error of their ways, but they must still suffer an extended period of repentance. At worst, the refugees are returning with their wickedness intact and must be \u2014 if not repelled \u2014 then carefully quarantined.<\/p>\n

What they miss is that thousands upon thousands of Greens made the move to register Democrat only in order to vote for Sanders in the primaries, with the full intention of re-registering as Greens after the primaries were over. They are beginning to do so.<\/p>\n

The problem for the Green leaders who want to be welcoming, but at a minimum failed to resist the initial anti-Sanders hysteria, is that it isn\u2019t so easy to hit a switch that turns that hysteria off, and these are truly hysterical times. Yes, people can certainly be manipulated, but they\u2019re not so easy to control.<\/p>\n

Additionally, there\u2019s a large segment of the initial Bernie or Bust movement that was either \u201csoft\u201d Democrats or registered Independents. Some are taking notice of the Green Party for the first time. Although Jill Stein initially endorsed the sheepdog line, she changed her tune as the Bernie or Bust movement emerged, and it became obvious that Bernie wouldn\u2019t win the nomination. Dr. Stein promptly did a 180, praising Sanders\u2019 campaign and offering them a Plan B, promising to keep that vision alive in her own campaign, the one that\u2019s going all the way to November. Opportunistic? For sure. Smart? Absolutely!<\/p>\n

Ironically, as Sanders people move towards Stein, a new unholy alliance is being forged between the anti-Sanders ultra-left and the Clinton campaign. DNC operatives have been endlessly pounding the theme that Clinton is the preferred candidate of Blacks and Latinos. In perfect harmony, the ultra-left has been reveling in the fact that the Black Establishment \u2014 a wholly-owned subsidiary of the DNC \u2014 has again delivered the Black vote to Clinton, Inc., one of the principal engineers of mass incarceration and the gutting of the welfare system. It\u2019s not even a surprise that the ultra-left hardly lifts a finger to help Stein.<\/p>\n

The Ruling Class Is NOT Omnipotent<\/h4>\n

\"despair\"The left has a penchant for treating the ruling class as omnipotent. Everything is some kind of plot to serve their ruling interests. This masquerades as a tribute to their own leftish cleverness. They are smarter than everyone else because they more thoroughly root out the schemes, conspiracies and manipulations that the ruling class uses to control the universe.<\/p>\n

But in fact, it masks their utter impotence in trying to organize the mass organizations and movements that \u2014 out of the other sides of their mouths \u2014 they are always calling for. It\u2019s not their fault that everything is hopeless. If all is ruling class controlled, then what\u2019s the use of doing much of anything other than growing antibiotic-free vegetables in their own private gardens?<\/p>\n

These pseudo-leftists deny the agency of the working and poor people of this country and this world.<\/p>\n

The ruling class, while powerful (that\u2019s why they call it the \u201cruling\u201d class), is far from omnipotent. Thus when the masses do put up resistance, the rulers connive and conspire to turn that resistance to their advantage. But the very fact that they do so is because they are forced to respond to working class power. They would rather it not have existed at all (e.g., the ruling class did not invent the mass industrial union movement of the 1930\u2019s just to give themselves an excuse to implement Social Security and unemployment insurance). To these pseudo-leftists, the Sanders campaign is less a mortal threat to the ruling class, than a mortal threat to their little masquerade.<\/p>\n

For them, perhaps, the end is indeed truly nigh.<\/p>\n

So Now What?<\/h4>\n

A\"fist\"s the sun sets on Bernie\u2019s campaign and he signals his intention to get behind Clinton in the general, the Black Agenda Report crew and their ilk are quick to brag about how they told you Bernie was a sheepdog all along. But it doesn\u2019t take Nostradamus to predict what Bernie had promised from the start, namely that he would endorse Clinton if he failed to secure the nomination. Just as the Green Party leadership set certain things in motion that are now out of their control, so Bernie has energized millions around the call for a Political Revolution. Millions remain energized, whether or not he wants to call the whole thing off.<\/p>\n

Recent polls show Stein at 7%, a remarkable accomplishment given that she\u2019s only known by 12% of the electorate! Poll after poll shows that over half of Sanders\u2019 supporters won\u2019t be voting for Clinton. Even Donald Trump isn\u2019t scary enough to stampede progressives into squandering the moment and the movement on a vote for Neocon Hillary. At some point, it\u2019s like the boy who cried \u201csheep\u201d once too often.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2014 Rose Roby July 4, 2016 In May 2015, shortly after Sanders announced his run, the popular leftist blogger Bruce A. Dixon of Black Agenda Report, put out a piece that went viral throughout the anti-Sanders left blogosphere titled \u201cPresidential … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,23,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green","category-politics","category-sanders"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/sander_stein02.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s77v4L-2660","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2663,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions\/2663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}