To The Russia Warmongers: We're Not Going To Let You Get Away With This

I received an email a few days ago from the nice folks at BOLD Democrats (that's honestly how they spell it) with an exciting invitation, as made possible by the U.S.' putting sanctions on Russia last week: "Thank Senate Democrats for punishing Russia."

I would do one of those "no matter that so and so" routines. I would point out that we might want to see the much touted 17 intelligence agencies provide any evidence for the Russians having hacked the DNC before assuming that's the real reason Senate Democrats did this, or that the Russians who will be hurt the most by these sanctions aren't Moscow officials but Russian children who will die from the poverty this is sure to cause, or that it's actions like this that exacerbate the "I dare you to start it" game that Russia and the U.S. have been in for the last few months. But I won't make inconvenient facts like these the main focus, because those responsible for the world war that's likely to soon ensue have shown not to care about them. Our priority at this point should be keeping these fanatics from succeeding in their longer term mission.

How do we not let them get away with it? I mean this not in the sense of revenge, which also has no real benefit at this point, but in stopping the warmongers’ agenda. How do we stop demagogic drivel, as is exemplified these days in everything from the email mentioned to a billion similarly conceived internet memes, from taking their intended effect? Though we can’t do much for the Russian proletarians who will be hurt by the oligarchy’s latest move, how do we stop Muslims, lower class Americans, and the others in the line of fire from being hurt similarly in these next few years? How do we stop not just the Deep State’s war with Russia, but the economic and environmental collapses that the Deep State inadvertently brings us towards faster than ever, from taking too catastrophic an effect?

These queries, while taken seriously by most, are too intimidating for most to confront directly. The problems are so big, and the social pathologies standing in the way of their solutions are so noxious, that it seems the only way to stay sane is by tuning them out. Enough about how ordinary people disengaging is what the establishment wants, the disengaged probably reason; the establishment’s schemes are going to go through regardless. And I’d leave them alone in their decision if this article’s headline were meant conditionally.

I’ve recently done a piece with a similar point of rejecting inaction, but in this case I’ll make it more to the point: when we disengage, we let the BOLD Democrats of the world get away with it.

When we don’t speak up if someone says something power-serving, don’t directly support or contribute to alternative media, or don’t publicly voice dissent to the actions of the Deep State, demagogues and the supporters of the status quo are empowered to spread their reactionary messages without opposition. If someone isn’t actively countering things like the exemplified email, the email, so to speak, will be all that makes up the general consciousness.

When we don’t express solidarity with the neoliberal order’s victims, don’t participate in getting legislation passed that would help them, or don’t fight the elitist logic behind society’s oligarchical drift, we are enabling the plutocrats, white supremacists, and genocide-creating foreign policy neocons. Without an effort towards equality, the ideology that says poor and downtrodden individuals have brought their disadvantage on themselves will be all that society goes by.

And above all, without active focus on the dynamics that threaten civilization as we know it, the types that ignore climate destabilization, plunder natural resources with abandon, and advocate what could lead to nuclear war will be the only ones to have a say. In that case, BOLD Democrats and the rest, we’re not going to let you get away with it. We’re going to resist the fearmongering and misinformation you use to keep your ideas afloat, work to dismantle your autocratically maintained power centers while building inclusive systems of our own, and create a world where no one can hurt innocent bystanders for personal gain and then try to get people to cheer them on by calling it “punishing Russia.”

To put on my newsroom face after that slight editorializing, the apocalypse is almost here and the zombies are within sight-just in the last few days, Russian and U.S. war planes have been feet away from actual combat. The zombies may have bitten Bernie Sanders, as was indicated by his happy endorsement of Russian sanctions, but we survivors shouldn’t let that discourage us-as Bernie says, this was never about a man but about a movement, and the movement is going to make things right.

Reminder To Democratic Loyalists: You're Now The Chief Opponents Of Progressive Change

Inflated leverage over the political system is rarely the main method dictatorships use to maintain their control. Every time an oppressive regime has been established, the powerful have fabricated every kind of justification they can come up with for continuing the status quo. They say it's the will of deities, natural principles, and other larger forces for the hierarchy to have reached astronomical proportions. They say the victims of the self-serving system they've created are poor or powerless because they've made themselves so. They say the current order is inextricably in place, and all efforts at change are naive attempts to rebel against reality itself.

So what do we make, amid this sickeningly advanced stage in maybe the most effective authoritarian takeover in history, of the justifications provided by the power structure's gofers in the Democratic Party? The Republicans have largely rallied support for the oligarchy with the mentioned tactics of claiming natural principles are at work and blaming the victims, but the neoliberal propaganda aimed towards the left has been less blatant-and thus more insidious.

The goal of the Democratic establishment propagandists is not so much to convince ordinary people that the status quo is justified, but to make them accept the institutions and leaders that keep the status quo in place. When Democratic leaders serve the oligarchy's interests, they blame their actions on scapegoats, or hide that they took those actions at all, so that their supporters remain complicit.

Like all pro-status quo deceptions, its laughably transparent nature from the perspective of those who haven't accepted it is matched by its unassailable logic from the perspective of those who have. The downside to this spasm of revolutionary momentum that's come in the last two years is that it's made the pro-establishment strains more vocal as well; as was definitely not the case a few years ago when the neoliberal order was safe and sound, rank and file supporters of the Deep State's Democratic wing are coming out in full force these days.

One of my regular publicizing sites Medium abounds with often very popular articles from former Hillary Clinton supporters who feel the need to keep aggressively pushing their leaders' repugnant agenda. Online forums being besieged by comments from usually rude and hostile Democratic loyalists is more common than ever. And this typical hostility from establishment liberals hasn't just been widely observed on the Internet.

This phenomenon represents an inevitable point in every transformative movement which Sanders campaign organizer Becky Bond calls the counterrevolution, wherein the supporters of the status quo lash out when they see change coming around the corner. In that case, we shouldn't let it bother us as it shows our effort is succeeding. But in the hopes of expanding this movement, I'll give a friendly reminder to the counterrevolution's members: by attacking Bernie Sanders' revolution, you are acting as the biggest obstacle there is right now to progressive change.

When establishment loyalists attack Bernie's revolution, they are attacking the only hope the Democratic Party has of ever again becoming a dominant force. The Democratic Party in its current form, along with the dangerous agenda it represents, are disfavored by respectively around two thirds and at least six out of ten of the country, while Bernie Sanders is America's most popular politician and his goals are supported by the majority in virtually every respect. Naturally, the Democrats have been beyond decimated in the last eight years, while the Berniecrat candidates have so far won by far larger proportions.

Already Berniecrats are breathing new life into the party, with Montana democratic socialist Rob Quist leading in deep red Montana, while establishment Democrat Jon Ossoff has performed relatively poorly in his bid for Congress. By backing the latter type of candidate out of spite for Bernie Sanders, loyal Democrats are ironically exhibiting the same behavior of the Bernie or Busters they like so much to decry.

To be fair, when establishment loyalists judge the Sanders wing to be unworthy of their support, they're not doing so with the same kinds of justifications Bernie or Busters had for not supporting Clinton. Despite all the inaccurate stereotypes and old primary attack lines that Clintonists still direct at Sanders supporters, we're objectively ideal allies in the progressive cause.

Sandersists are disproportionately women and people of color, shattering the "Bernie Bro" characterization. We've shown ourselves to be typically very committed to working for change, as evidenced by how we've built a serious presidential campaign and a major movement without any help from the corporate elite. And our top goals are to get money out of politics, end the paradigm of perpetual war, bring about social and economic equality, and bring about climate action, regardless of which party we're holding accountable in those regards. By demonizing us, loyal Democrats are attacking an essential resource for bringing about positive change.

And when loyal Democrats say Sanders supporters are unrealistic or naive, as I've illustrated, they're directly setting themselves up against the goals many of them want. The image above is satire. But its sentiment is accurate; those who align with the establishment wing of the Democratic Party are supporting an agenda that represents 21st century civilization's endgame, and the consequences of that will soon make themselves impossible to ignore.

Because of the Democratic establishment's embrace of the militaristic foreign policy that's done so much to increase terrorism, a major attack on the United States will soon occur. Because of the Democratic establishment's cheating the only candidate who had any real chance to beat Trump, the administration will use the crisis as an opening for staggering autocratic takeovers and an insane burst of military aggression. Because of the Democratic establishment's pushing lately for war with Russia, the aggression will include just that. And because of the Democratic establishment's refusal to adequately re-regulate Wall Street or fight climate change, this will all take place amid an epic economic crash that's already in its early stages, and yet more increasingly intensified steps towards environmental apocalypse.

History doesn't care whether anyone thinks the status quo is moral or sustainable. Monumental injustice and instability are what await us so long as the status quo is in place, and no number of Medium articles asserting the contrary are going to change that.