Caracas, 30 Mar. AVN.- A total of 5,001,058 signatures against the interventionist decree of the United States against Venezuela has been gathered so far, said on Sunday Jorge Rodriguez, chief of the campaign Obama repeal the executive decree.
“At one o’clock in the morning, we managed to reach more than 5 million signatures for the repeal of the infamous decree, enemy of peace and especially interfering with matters that only concern us as Venezuelans,” he said in telephone contact with state media.
Rodriguez highlighted the permanent mobilization and deployment of the Venezuelan people, especially the members of the rank-and-file battle units Bolivar-Chavez (UBCh), to achieve this figure that represents the patriotic feelings of the nation against the decree in which the government of the United States terms Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the security of their country.
As for the house by house operations conducted throughout the national territory, as part of the signature-gathering campaign, the also mayor of the Libertador Municipality said they have been a resounding success and will remain in the coming days.
“Yesterday we held a videoconference with the 20 governors of the country as well as the protectors of Miranda, Lara, Amazonas states and they reported that there is a deep deployment of UBCh in every house across the territory,” he said.
Rodriguez called those who have not yet signed to use the coming days to do so, considering “that these are days of reflection, meditation, on the occasion of the start of Holy Week.”
“And that some of these reflections will involve the defense of our land: the Venezuelan homeland we must all do,” he urged.
In this regard, he recalled that the collection points remain in all Bolivar squares and in various public spaces of the 135 municipalities in the country, where people can go to participate in this campaign for the defense of democracy and independence of Venezuela.
“The intention we have is to take the president of the United States, Barack Obama, the proof that the people of Venezuela do not want rude interference,” he added.
Completing their mission with revolutionary and medical ethics
THE Cuban medical brigade is a united team. Recently, the tension has been reduced, and suitcases packed for their return home. The tranquil city of Monrovia, is not the same one they experienced during the first days of their stay. The hustle and bustle of the market along the main roads signals, paradoxically, calm.
Members of the Cuban medical brigade combating Ebola in West Africa. Photo: Ronald Hernández
I talk to doctors and nurses, and tell them what they already know: In Cuba we are following you and waiting for your return. But they resist being called heroes, perhaps because they genuinely are. The day Cuba announced its decision to join the fight against Ebola, which was in reality the decision of their people, of these men, to travel to Africa’s danger zones, where the Ebola epidemic was concentrated, we Cubans became a single family. We regard them as our own, like fathers, brother or sons, and were always concerned for their health, for the patients they saved, and of those they lost. I have spoken to almost all of them, and they are all so different, but alike in one aspect. These men are Cubans of the Revolution. I want to share with you the testimony of 63 year old Dr. Leonardo Fernández, intensive therapy and internal medicine specialist, MSc graduate in emergency medicine and intensive care, and assistant professor at the MedicalSciencesUniversity in Guantánamo, In his own words…
“My family is used to it, as I have already completed various missions, but we also share the same values. It’s a small and totally revolutionary family: my wife, two children, an aunt and two uncles. My wife is retired, my daughter is a clinical laboratory graduate, and has completed a mission in Venezuela; my son is an ambulance driver. A small, but very united family.
WITH FEAR, BUT ALSO COURAGE
“I believe in the youth. Why not! The youth is change, revolution. I tell my youngest compañeros: I can’t think like you, I grew up in a different time, in a different era, with other needs, now there are other perspectives, more facilities. The youth is change. We have to form values, principles. The majority of the brigade members are young people. We are only four or five senior members. They have been very brave, above all the nurses, and have worked with great intensity, with fear, we all felt a great sense of fear, before leaving, and here… and we still feel it, because even up until the last day, that little creature can infect us. With fear, but also with courage. I believe the training we received in Cuba was excellent, decisive, I would say, since we were told from the very beginning the reality of the situation. They told us what we would be facing and the risks we would run, we were given all this information in Cuba. I greatly appreciate the training offered by the WHO, but that which we received in Cuba, in the Medical Collaboration Central Unit and the Pedro Kourà Institute of Tropical Medicine was exceptional.
So, we left knowing what was to come, knowing the risks, physiologically and technically prepared for the task ahead. This was fundamental. And later, the General’s (Raúl Castro) farewell filled everyone with strength.â€
TRAGEDY AND SOLIDARITY
Dr. Leonardo Fernández. Photo: Enrique Ubieta Gómez
“When we arrived, we found a country, a city, deserted. There were hardly any cars or people on the streets, there was no one. Even in the hotel where we ate lunch and dinner, there were only Cubans and three UN representatives. And now, I tell you, what a difference! … So, one leaves with this little bit of pride: knowing that I did something so that this city is once again full of people. People greet us in the street, when we go out to eat or shopping, they treat us with great affection. The cars in the road stop to allow the Cubans to cross.
“We witnessed the birth of this unit. We were frightened the first week, but as time went by, we had to put a stop to these fears, because they wanted us to do more than had been requested of us. We saw entire families die, children left alone, the mother, father and three little brothers all died, terrible…But we also saw others who survived Ebola, who after recovering, gathered together and adopted orphaned children. There is no better reward for us than to see the solidarity of Liberians with each other. We came as volunteers, and at no time in Cuba did they talk to us about rewards. At my hospital they arrived and asked who was willing to go, and told us that we might not return, and I raised my hand. No one told us: We are going to pay you so much, or we are going to give you such and such a thing. This is what the majority of people believe.â€
FEELING LIKE A HERO?
“Look, the media impact of this mission, the information which has been disseminated via Facebook, via the internet, has made some believe that we have done something extraordinary, which makes us heroes. I believe that we have completed a task, with revolutionary and medical ethics. How is it different from those working in the Brazilian jungle? How is it different from those in the Venezuelan jungle, working alone in indigenous communities for months? How is it different from those serving in African villages? I have been lucky enough to have experienced another part of Africa. I lived, for example, in the capital of Mozambique, working in a provincial intensive therapy center, but I had colleagues who were living on the border, in the jungle, in temperatures reaching 48 degrees… What’s the difference? The difference is that this was a high-profile international mission, which received the importance it deserved. It’s true that you have to have courage to say I’m going, and I am going to fight it, that’s undeniable, but it was just another task.
“We don’t need rewards, the acknowledgement of our willingness to be here is enough, and that our people speak of us is the greatest recognition. If something material comes at some point, it is welcome, as we still have needs, but I don’t believe I deserve it, that they are obliged to give me something. The Five were in prison for 16 years and at no time did they think of this sort of thing.
“The people need individuals who lead by example. I have had the good fortune, the personal privilege of having spoken with Vilma, with Raúl himself, perhaps he doesn’t even remember, as I was a doctor on a convoy with them. I have spoken with Fidel three or four times, like I am speaking to you now. They are true heroes, and I don’t see them speaking of their heroism, their bravery. In order to gain respect you don’t have to feel or believe yourself to be a hero. What I would like people to recognize is that I am a true revolutionary, firm in my principles. That is enough. And there are many such people in Cuba, very many. Those who everyday, get up at 12:00 am to make the bread that I am going to eat in the morning, those who cut sugarcane for decades, so that we would have food, they are without a doubt, heroes.
I RAISED MY HAND AND LATER ASKED WHY…                        Â
“I served on a mission in Nicaragua in 1979, one month after the triumph of their Revolution. They triumphed on July 19, and on August 17 the first Cuban brigade arrived. I stayed there until 1981, in Puerto Cabezas, on the Atlantic coast. Imagine, I was the doctor assigned by Daniel Ortega to Fagoth, the leader of the counterrevolution on the Atlantic coast. I was very emotional during the Alba meeting, as Daniel gave me a hug at the end. Nicaragua was where I really became a revolutionary. When I was 17 years old, you couldn’t listen to a Beatles song, or go to a bar, or be in the streets late at night. And despite the fact that my family had been affiliated with the July 26 Movement, that my father and sister had been in the Sierra, I was a rebel, and I didn’t understand. I liked rock music and had longhair. But I had been educated in the principles of the Revolution and one day they told me: there is this situation, I raised my hand and began. I learned to value Cuba. Being outside of Cuba, I learned to value the Revolution. Afterwards, I never signed up for collaborative missions, it seemed absurd to me, until Fidel calld upon doctors to go to the United States, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We were selected among the first 150. Later the brigade grew to 1,500. In the end we didn’t go to the United States, for various reasons, but Fidel spoke at the Ciudad Deportiva, a moment I still remember. But then the earthquake in Pakistan occurred and the floods in Mexico and Guatemala. The brigade was divided up. I went to Pakistan, with the first group, the majority military doctors and some civilians with specific experience in these types of events. At that time, Bruno RodrÃguez, inquired as to my willingness to go directly to East Timor. I was one of those who said “Here we are,†I raised my hand thinking I wouldn’t be chosen as I was getting ready to return to Cuba, and I was selected. I was in East Timor for two years. Later came the earthquake in Haiti and they asked for volunteers. On that occasion I raised my hand and later wondered why.
Well, this was on the 10th and on the 11th or 12th we were in Haiti, and I led the brigade’s intensive therapy unit. On my return, as a reward, they told me that I needed to participate in a “collaboration†effort, as all the missions I had served on had been for wars, or disasters and so I spent three years in Mozambique.
“A little later this epidemic took hold, I had heard of Ebola, I know Africa, I had treated hemorrhagic fevers in Mozambique, and I raised my hand, and here I am. Nothing special, right? This is life. While I have strength and they accept me, I will go where I am needed.â€
Paul Street sees Sen. Bernie Sanders candidacy for the 2016 Democratic Party (DP) presidential nomination as an “unworthy endeavor ” and as a dream. Sanders ran for mayor of the largest city in his state. He won the city. He next ran for the U.S. House of Representatives. He won the House seat. He ran for the U.S. Senate. He’s now serving his second term in the senate.
His successes aren’t dreams. They are realities. Clearly, they are far above the level of accomplishment of which Paul Street is capable. Sanders’ accomplishments are only dreams to Mr. Street.
Paul Street says the 2016 DP nomination is unworthy of Sanders, not that Sanders is unworthy of the nomination. Street evidently sees Bernie as so grand and so glorious that even the office of president of the USA is beneath Bernie’s dignity. Fortunately, Bernie is so down-to-earth and modest that he will gladly accept the presidency.
“In recent months, “Progressive Democrats†have been hoping to breathe new life into the United States’ hopelessly 1%-dominated “two party system,â€Â Mr. Street writes.
Street confuses Sanders’ campaign with the DP-GOP “system.” The people in Sanders campaign couldn’t care less if this so-called “system” breathes or doesn’t breathe. The people in the campaign care whether campaign breathes or doesn’t. The campaign picks the campaign manager, raises its own funds, hires its consultant, assembles its staff, prepares the all-important strategy and budget — with no input or output what so ever from the  DP or from the so-called “system,” treated by Paul Street as an omnipotent and demonic angel.
This systemic angel has to be something that Mr. Street encounters only in his nightmares.
“Leaving aside Sanders’ terrible record on Israel-Palestine and U.S. imperial policy more broadly and focusing just on domestic policy, it is a complete waste of time – not a worthy endeavor,” Street writes.
Street shouldn’t leave aside anything.
Sanders’ record on the Middle East is lamentably representative of the whole of bourgeois regime, the “system,” and the mass of the US people, especially the Left opportunist element. As for U.S. imperial policy, Sanders consistently and vigorously fights for deep cuts in the bloated U.S. military budget, a tactic designed to undercut imperial policy in the Middle East and imperial policy more broadly.
The left opportunist element always struggles against deep cuts in the bloated US military budget, falsely alleging that such cuts are a complete waste of time as well as an unworthy endeavor.
“Both of the nation’s dominant political “parties†now stand well to the right of majority public opinion and in accord with the views of the elite political “donor class on numerous key policy issues,” Street writes.
Isn’t stating the obvious a complete waste of time?
“Basic candor requires acknowledgement that the Democratic Party has in recent decades become an ever more full-fledged and unabashed rich folks’ party, not to mention a longstanding party of war and empire,” Street writes
Almost everybody has acknowledged in recent centuries –19th, 20th, and 21th – that the DP is and has been a full-fledged bourgeois and imperialist party.
Where has Paul Street been? He just discovered that the DP is a bourgeois party. Before his discovery, what did he think the DP was?
 “As such, it will never allow a candidate sincerely committed to progressive and populist domestic policy goals – much less, one who calls himself (however vaguely) a socialist – become its standard-bearer,” Street writes.
Apparently, Paul Street does only what he is “allowed” to do. He wrongfully attributes the same limitation to Sanders. But sanders intends to become the “standard-bearer” even if the DP incumbents, major contributors, top consultants, and bureaucracy don’t allow it. Street sounds like  somebody who is used to quitting when something is improperly disallowed. Sander plans to rise to state power by strict compliance with constitutional principles and democratic process. So, the constitution and democracy will entitle the rightful winner to assume the role of “standard-bearer.”
” Why help the dismal dollar Dems disguise their oligarchic essence?” Street asks.
Since when has the DP “disguised” its class essence? To the contrary, the DP always shamelessly but proudly exposes itself as a bourgeois party. Indeed, the DP at every opportunity or even in the absence of opportunity, not only conspicuously but also promiscuously exposes itself — and all of itself with utter vulgarity.
“Why abet their attempt to seem to have had a full and open debate over the issues that concern ordinary Americans?” Street asks..
Sanders debates in a full and open manner with any opponent who dares to confront Sanders. If his opponents flee from a full and open debate, then Sanders cannot compel their participation. The subject of these exchanges is always, at Sanders insistence, the issues that concern ordinary Americans. Sanders isn’t trying to abet “their” attempt to seem to be full and open. Sanders is being full and open himself in political discussions no matter what his opponents and their mouthpieces choose to do.
“As Sanders;’ adviser Tad Devine recently told Salon’s Luke Brinker, “We have not really raised money…” Street writes.
Obama wasn’t the most endowed candidate in the 2008 primary or the 2008 general. He was the most endowed in the 2012 primary but not in the 2012 general. So, being most endowed doesn’t assure victory. Sometimes money wins, other times money loses. True, GOP trash or, in other words, the majority of the judges on the U.S. Supreme Court recently rigged the political scales to favor endowment, but this change does not supply cause for quitting, just because winning is now harder.
“Also significant, the corporate media is highly unlikely to treat Sanders as a “serious†and “viable†candidate – an additional and related death blow to his chances,” Street writes.
The big bourgeois media, like “both of the nation’s dominant political ‘parties’ now stand well to the right of majority public opinion.” The mass of the US people, especially working and middle class liberals and moderates, view the bourgeois media with contempt and suspicion. In other words, the lying cappie press is not as influential as it used to be.Yes, the cappie press is still influential, but it’s losing credibility real fast.
[Cappie refers to capitalist or pro-capitalist with the same affection and honor that commie refers Communist or pro-communist.]
“A saving grace for a Sanders run would if he were to drop in advance all hopes of winning and using the presidential campaign stage as an educational platform,” Street writes.
Saving Grace! That’s not a saving grace. That’s just a disgrace. Sanders would be adopting the quasi-anarchist and buffoonish stunt of aiming to lose rather than aiming to win. Perhaps instead of aiming either to lose or to win, he aims merely to run. And, of course, he “educates” people. Consider the lessons he would have to teach if he squares with people. How to be a phony candidate. How to perpetrate a political fraud. How to palm-off a campaign as a school or vice versa. How a stuntman impersonates an actor.
Paul Street’s phony campaign is an unworthy endeavor for a person of Sanders’ character.
If Sanders wins, it won’t be the first time. His earlier wins weren’t stunts, dreams, or unworthy endeavors. They were real acts of high accomplishments.
Paul Street sounds like somebody who has never run or helped out in a campaign.
For a People’s Caucus Beyond the Quadrennial Extravaganza
by PAUL STREET
The Violin Model
The late and formerly Left provocateur Christopher Hitchens once usefully described “the essence of American politics†as “the manipulation of populism by elitismâ€: the cloaking of plutocratic agendas, of service to the rich and powerful, in the false rebels’ clothing of popular rebellion; the hidden and “unelected dictatorship of money†(Edward S. Herman and David Peterson) masquerading in the false rebels’ clothes of the common people. “That elite is most successful,†Hitchens added in his study of the classically neoliberal Clinton presidency, “which can claim the heartiest allegiance of the fickle crowd; can present itself as most ‘in touch’ with popular concerns; can anticipate the tides and pulses of public opinion; can, in short, be the least apparently ‘elitist.’ It is no great distance from Huey Long’s robust cry of ‘Every man a king’ to the insipid ‘inclusiveness’ of [Bill Clinton’s slogan] ‘Putting People First,’ but the smarter elite managers have learned in the interlude that solid, measurable pledges have to be distinguished by a reserve’ tag that earmarks them for the bankrollers and backers.â€
The Democrats have no monopoly on such manipulation in the two-party system. The Republicans have long practiced their own noxious version. Still, the division of labor between the two dominant corporate and imperial political entities in the US party system assigns the greater role to the Democrats when it comes to posing as the political arm of the working class majority, the poor, women, and minorities at the bottom of the nation’s steep and interrelated hierarchies of class, race, gender, ethnicity, and nationality. For the system-serving task of shutting down, containing, and co-opting popular social movements and channeling popular energies into the nation’s corporate-managed, narrow-spectrum, major-party, big money, and candidate centered electoral system, the Democrats are by far and away “the more effective evil†(Glen Ford’s phrase). For the last century, the Marxist political analyst Lance Selfa notes, it has been their job to play “the role of shock absorber, trying to head off and co-opt restive segments of the electorate†by masquerading as “the party of the people.â€
The Democratic Party has been most adept at ruling in accord with what David Rothkopf (a former Clinton administration official) in November 2008 called (commenting on then President Elect Obama’s corporatist and militarist transition team and cabinet appointments) “the violin model.â€Â Under the “violin model,†Rothkopf said, “you hold power with the left hand and you play the music with the right.†In other words, “you†gain and hold office with populace-pleasing progressive-sounding rhetoric even as you govern in standard service to existing dominant corporate and military institutions and class hierarchies.
The Obama administration has been an especially revolting but instructive violin lesson to say the last. Compare the 2008 Obama campaign’s progressive-sounding “hope†and “change†rhetoric and imagery/branding with the Obama administration’s predictably ugly corporate and imperial record, including such highlights:
* The bail out and protection of the Wall Street financial institutions and chieftains who collapsed the US and global economy.
* The passage of a Republican-inspired version of health insurance reform (the absurdly named “Affordable Care Actâ€) that only the big insurance and drug companies could love.
* The undermining of urgent global efforts to impose binding limits on world carbon emissions and its related approval and encouragement of the United States’ emergence as the world’s leading producer of gas and oil.
* Obama’s embrace of the expanding US-totalitarian national security and surveillance state and his related and unprecedented repression of leakers, whistleblowers, and journalists.
* Obama’s relentless and reckless military imperialism within and beyond the Muslim world – something that has fueled the dramatic expansion of extremist Islamic jihad and sparked a dangerous new confrontation with Russia.
An Unworthy Endeavor
In recent months, “Progressive Democrats†have been hoping to breathe new life into the United States’ hopelessly 1%-dominated “two party system†by running the nominally socialist, technically Independent, and genuinely populist and domestically progressive US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to challenge the Clinton-Obama arch-neoliberal and imperial corporate Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Iowa 2016 Democratic Presidential Caucus and the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary. Leaving aside Sanders’ terrible record on Israel-Palestine and U.S. imperial policy more broadly and focusing just on domestic policy, it is a complete waste of time – not a worthy endeavor. Both of the nation’s dominant political “parties†now stand well to the right of majority public opinion and in accord with the views of the elite political “donor class†on numerous key policy issues.
Basic candor requires acknowledgement that the Democratic Party has in recent decades become an ever more full-fledged and unabashed rich folks’ party, not to mention a longstanding party of war and empire. As such, it will never allow a candidate sincerely committed to progressive and populist domestic policy goals – much less, one who calls himself (however vaguely) a socialist – become its standard-bearer. It will nominate either Hillary Clinton or (in the chance of highly unlikely developments) some other corporate Democrat in the summer of 2016. Why help the dismal dollar Dems disguise their oligarchic essence? Why abet their attempt to seem to have had a full and open debate over the issues that concern ordinary Americans? Why assist any effort to make either of the two dominant political organizations that Upton Sinclair all-too accurately described as “two wings of the same [Big Business-dominated] bird of prey†seem more progressive than they really are? Why lend a hand to the corporate-captive Democrats’ efforts to manipulate populism in service to elitism?
“Not Emblematic of a Democracyâ€
Thankfully, perhaps, the ever-escalating hyper-plutocratic cost of presidential campaigning seems to be turning Sanders against making a run for the White House either outside or inside the Democratic Party. Sanders has become increasingly reticent about the effort. It’s not because he thinks that Hillary Clinton or any other Democratic candidates are likely to advance anything remotely like a progressive agenda to tackle the issues of poverty, inequality, and climate change (issues that Sanders sincerely holds dear, I think). As Sanders;’ adviser Tad Devine recently told Salon’s Luke Brinker, “We have not really raised money…He [Sanders] has absolutely no rapport with the people giving him money…As a matter of fact, he’s spending most of his time trashing them.†By Brinker’s calculation, Sanders’ Senate campaign committee possessed a modes $4.5 million while his political action committee, Progressive Voters of America, raised just over $535,000. “Meanwhile,†Blinker noted:
“ Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton each aim to raise well north of a cool billion for their campaigns; Bush’s financial juggernaut is already on track to collect $50 million to $100 million for the first three months of this year, and while his party’s base is decidedly skeptical of him, his cash cow of a campaign may ultimately be too much for his rivals to overcome. As for Clinton, there’s no doubt that much of her strength in early polls reflects goodwill among Democratic voters — of course, 2008 attests that such sentiment can be fickle — but is that what’s really behind the recent spate of headlines that for all her flaws, Democrats have no other alternative? Hardly. Above all else, the party apparatus is loyal to Clinton because, in the unlikely event that she doesn’t run, they don’t see any other candidate who could build anything like her money machine, and in the near-certain case that she does enter the race, strategists don’t see how any potential rival would compete against it. So why alienate a potential president by backing someone else†(emphasis added).
Also significant, the corporate media is highly unlikely to treat Sanders as a “serious†and “viable†candidate – an additional and related death blow to his chances.
Never mind that much of what Sanders advocates – genuinely progressive taxation, restoration of union organizing and collective bargaining rights, single-payer health insurance, strong financial regulation, public financing of elections, large-scale green jobs programs to put millions to decently paid work on socially and ecologically necessary tasks and more – is popular with the US working class majority of citizens. That’s technically irrelevant under “our†current system of 1% elections, 1% lobbying, and 1% media, etc As Blinker notes, “the question of who counts as [a] ‘serious’ [presidential candidate] cannot be separated from the question of money. What we’re witnessing is a vicious circle whereby candidates struggle to raise money and therefore struggle to get their messages out and rise in the polls, and because said candidates’ polling numbers are nothing to write home about, it’s difficult to get donors to pay up…The implications of such an order are nothing if not pernicious….Economic inequality and political inequality, it turns out, are indelibly linked….Call it what you will — a plutocracy, an oligarchy, a corporatocracy — but this state of affairs is not emblematic of a democracy.â€
Gee, you don’t say. A saving grace for a Sanders run would if he were to drop in advance all hopes of winning and using the presidential campaign stage as an educational platform. He could exploit the process to relentlessly expose the authoritarian and dollar-drenched absurdity of the nation’s oligarchic 1% elections and party system. He could advocate for a powerful new popular sociopolitical movement beneath and beyond the big money-big media-major party-mass-marketed candidate-centered quadrennial electoral spectacles that are staged for as yet another method for marginalizing and containing the populace ever four years – a movement that would include in its list of demands the creation of a political party and elections systems worthy of passionate citizen engagement.
Imagine a Democratic Society
Sanders or other potential electoral “saviors†aside, backing a “progressive†(whatever that term means anymore) candidate in Democratic presidential Caucus and primary race is not the only way to oppose Hillary and other corporate-imperial fake-progressive Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire. “Progressives†in those states could simply ignore or more actively resist Democratic campaign events. They could disrupt and protest those events, making statements against the plutocratic and militarist nature of the Democratic Party today and against the farcical, corporate-crafted charade that the US elections process has become. (It’s a charade that is featured for an absurdly long period of time, particularly in Iowa and New Hampshire – the “first in the nation†caucus and primary states). Alternately, and more positively, they could do something along the lines of what Noam Chomsky suggested to Occupy Boston activists in October of 2011 – hold local people’s caucuses and primaries based on issues, not candidates and their marketing entourage:
“We’re coming up to the presidential election’s primary season. Suppose we had a functioning democratic society (laughter). Let’s just imagine that. What would a primary look like, say, in New Hampshire? … The people in a town would get together and discuss, talk about, and argue about what they want policy to be. Sort of like what’s happening here in the Occupy movement. They would formulate a conception of what the policy should be. Then if a candidate comes along and says, ‘I want to talk to you,’ the people in the town ought to say, ‘Well, you can come listen to us if you want…we’ll tell you what you want, and you can try to persuade us that you’ll do it; then, maybe we will vote for you…What happens in our society? The candidate comes to town with his public relations agents and the rest of them. He gives some talks, and says, ‘Look how great I am. This is what I’m going to do for you.’ Anybody with a grey cell functioning doesn’t believe a word he or she says. And then maybe people for him, maybe they don’t. That’s very different from a democratic society.â€
With the first $5 billion presidential campaign contest coming around corner, an “electoral extravaganza†(Chomsky) very possibly pitting two dynastic families (the Clintons and the Bushes have together have held the White House for 20 of the last 26 years) against one another in an ever more openly oligarchic New Gilded Age, now seems as good a time as ever to embrace a different, genuinely popular type of politics from the bottom up. The top-down method has failed miserably and not incidentally threatens to wipe out life on Earth in the not so distant future.
