Click here to access article by Ajamu Baraka from CounterPunch.
Although I applaud the debunking of Sen. Bernie Sanders' candidacy and the criticism of his supporters, I have several problems with this article. My basic problem seems to be related to political concepts. This is partly due to the gradual shift of the political spectrum to the right in the US since WWII up until the economic crash of 2007-2008. Since then it is becoming more difficult to identify people in the liberal and left end of the spectrum.
After WWII the radical left was seriously diminished in its influence. Immediately after the war the capitalist ruling class launched an attack on labor unions and many of the New Deal social welfare policies in an attempt to rollback the gains that the left made in the US during the 1930s. They focused these attacks most viciously on radicals by purging them from labor unions, academia, and Hollywood--and they were successful. What I mean by "radicals" are those people who were fundamentally in opposition to, or seriously questioned, capitalist rule and organization of society.
For the past two and a half centuries since its founding, the USA has been a capitalist organized nation. Beginning with the concentration of wealth by capitalists in the late 19 century, there have been people on the left side of the political spectrum who have opposed this type of organization of society. Moving to the right of this spectrum, we find "liberals". These are people who support the capitalist organization of society, but oppose various harmful consequences: especially wars and social injustice. Moving further to the right we find traditional conservatives who want low taxes, the rule of capitalist law, and preserving the status quo. Now moving to the extreme right we find what was often referred to in the past several centuries as "reactionaries", however I think that a more up-to-date and accurate term is "fascists". Some liberals are confused by this shift to the right of the political spectrum by identifying themselves as "leftists". I believe that the author of this article does this with his many references regarding the left, and I believe that he and others he refers to are "liberals".
In this article he vilifies other "leftists", who are really liberals, for supporting Bernie Sanders' candidacy. He correctly identifies their ignorance about what Sanders' advocates in foreign policy. Sanders is a Zionist. Every policy that promotes the power of Israel in the Middle East is fine with Bernie Sanders.
The confusion, about the current political spectrum (since 2007/2008) that I referred to earlier, exists today because I think that the political spectrum is currently in a state of flux. The conflicts, contradictions, and lies that have been exposed in capitalist rule and the many threats to the biosphere as a result of capitalist operations are causing many people to consider questions about the capitalist system.
