Many people vote lesser-evil because they see it as the only alternative but they harbor deep misgivings since they know it doesn’t work. Obama was the last lesser evil candidate. And he wasn’t just the lesser-evil guy; he was regarded as the coming of the messiah.

But after nearly eight years of his regime, there are several more US wars & troop deployments; US military meddling against the Arab democratic uprisings to reverse them; two carpet bombing sieges over Gaza bankrolled by the Pentagon under commander-in-chief Obama; serious inroads against the US Bill of Rights, including especially in the Black community; more immigrant deportations than under George Bush. The greater evil couldn’t have done worse.

While the majority of people who vote lesser-evil have misgivings & reluctance—actually the majority of eligible voters don’t even register or if they do, don’t bother to vote—radicals who call themselves revolutionaries jump whole-hog into campaigning for the lesser-evil with a simple-minded credulity that never fails to appall. But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t abandon political principles in the ballot box because if you do that’s called expedience. And expedience has always proven the enemy of justice.

Comedian Sarah Silverman introduced Bernie Sanders to the Los Angeles rally last night that drew 28,000 people. She praised him for his “moral compass & sense of values” that always “put him on the right side of history.” Just like Silverman, who signed a public statement in the midst of Israel’s carpet bombing siege over Gaza (last summer) supporting Israel by saying “Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities.”

Israeli apartheid is what yokes the comedian & the shill. That’s the problem of lesser-evil politics. You lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

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This post from August 24, 2014 explains the statement Silverman signed:

Big news today from the conservative Jerusalem Post is that “hundreds” of Hollywood “A-listers” signed a statement written & published for trade journals by Creative Community For Peace (CCFP), “an organization of prominent entertainment industry executives devoted to using art & music to build bridges for peace.” Turns out the “hundreds” are only 193 people, maybe prominent agents & producers in the industry but hardly A-listers except for Seth Rogen, Schwarzenegger, Roseanne Barr, Kelsey Grammer, Tom Arnold, Sarah Silverman, Ivan Reitman, Bill Maher, Sylvester Stallone, Minnie Driver, Kathy Ireland, Mayim Bialik, & Ziggy Marley. These are hardly the people one turns to for political counsel unless you also consider Jon Voight a political guru & look to candy manufacturers for nutritional advice.

Creative Community for Peace was founded in 2011 as a pro-Israel, anti-BDS group of music executives & agents to counter the growing influence of Palestinian solidarity & the refusal of prominent entertainers to perform in Israel. The executives who run CCFP orchestrate the careers of people like Aerosmith, Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber. When media announced the formation of CCFP, the headline read, “Music moguls to artists: Don’t boycott Israel” which could be taken as a threat.

Though the website has a flashy video announcing “Music speaks its mind & knows no borders” & has a petition titled “Don’t Let Israel’s Detractors Politicize Art”, the group was formed to support Israel, defame Palestinians, & counter the influence of BDS among performers. It’s not about bringing people together with music but an attempt to hijack pop culture in the service of Israeli apartheid. As one of the organizers said at the founding meeting, “It’s all a question of image. For many in the younger generation, being associated with the anti-Israel cause can be way more cool.” The cultural attache for the Israel Consulate who was also at the founding meeting said, “We need to make Israel cool.”

CCFP spokespersons claim BDS is about ‘undermining Israel’s right to be a state for Jews’. In fact, the BDS campaign organizers accept the 1967 borders & a two-state solution. Many BDS activists do not accept those borders, think the very concept is a dried up old prune, & believe Palestinian justice demands a democratic secular state where Jews & Palestinians live as brothers & sisters.

No one challenges the right of Hollywood performers & agents to be politically reactionary; this is still a free country, as they say, so you can be as stupid as you like. But you’d have to be naive not to recognize there is coercion involved–the kind of coercion that forced Penelope Cruz & Javier Bardem to back down on their outspoken support for Gaza, the kind of coercion that says (sub rosa, of course) “support Israel or you’ll never work in this town again.”

What is most despicable about this public statement from CCFP is the claim “Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities, nor can it be allowed to hold its own people hostage. Hospitals are for healing, not for hiding weapons. Schools are for learning, not for launching missiles. Children are our hope, not our human shields.” Eely-Oily Weasel writ large!

CCFP says they’re heartened at the enormous response in the industry to their arm-twisting & expect the list of signatories to grow beyond the little group of right-wing flunkies whose flagging careers are all washed up. That only means they’ve got some real muscle planned. So while they support Israeli apartheid with bully-boy tactics, let us continue to reach out to the highest aspirations of human beings for peace & justice. We don’t hold the young in such contempt & don’t think it’s about making BDS cool but about making apartheid decidedly uncool & making justice prominent in the hearts & minds of young & old.

This is a photo of Gaza City yesterday where Israel continues it’s bombing rampage. CCFP wants musicians to provide the music score to this carnage.

(Photo of Gaza during August 2014 Israeli bombing siege by Roberto Schmidt/AFP)

Authorities have declared a State of Emergency in Ferguson, Missouri. Media will portray it as a necessary police response to rioting & criminal misconduct in the Black community. It is a militarized attempt to deny the Bill of Rights to Black activists protesting continuing violence & commemorating the death of Michael Brown. Hundreds have been arrested; one young man was shot & killed.

Our fullest solidarity with the Black community in Ferguson.

How can Betty look so calm when British jihadis are plotting to blow her up next weekend along with Phil, who she’s always called her “anus horribilis,” & some of her worthless kids? British authorities say they have it on good authority that the plot is being masterminded from Syria by Islamic State commanders.

No arrests have been made so far but counter-terrorism officers are monitoring the plot’s development closely. Well what the hell are they waiting for? The jihadis to land at Heathrow & start chopping off heads?

Following in the footsteps of the ink cartridge & underwear bombers, the ISIL guys will be detonating a pressure cooker bomb in Central London. So if you’re walking out & about in Central London next weekend you might want to avoid any guys ambling with a Kalashnikov rifle in one hand & a pressure cooker in the other–& clear the area around Betty & her entourage.

Let’s go straight to the point here: the furor over the two Black women interrupting Sanders at the Seattle rally is way out of proportion to the “offense” & that’s the tip-off that something else is going on here–i.e., racism. And I don’t hesitate to add, misogyny that two Black women would have such chutzpah as to interrupt a white man. Wow! Speak of intersectionality!

As Alice Bach pointed out, the women asked for a moment of silence for the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s murder. They couldn’t even get a moment of silence in a four-minute interruption because everybody was so eager to hear Sanders drone on about social security.

Once again, their little faux-pas, their little violation of good manners was no big deal; the only big deal is the ferocity of the racism expressed against these women by white progressives.

At this point in time, most of us don’t know if BlackLivesMatter (BLM) is just a hashtag, a rallying cry, a social movement, a network, or just a FB wall & website. All we know is that it isn’t a formal organization but seems to represent activists & organizations from the Black community trying to forge a broader civil rights & Black power movement. Veteran political activists understand how inchoate & chaotic that process can be. That’s the character of social movements–particularly when they’re trying to organize those sustaining violent political repression, like the Black community in the US.

So it’s quite disturbing to see what a political firestorm was set off when two Black women in Seattle, identified as BLM activists, interrupted an outdoor rally where Bernie Sanders was speaking. There’s a veritable witch-hunt against them. In the furor going on, the two women are accused of being Clinton agents, Sarah Palin supporters, or Republicans in disguise & not genuine civil rights activists. Who gives a rat’s ass who they are!? Interrupting Sanders is no big deal. I personally have been in auditoriums & watched politicians booed to the rafters, including at Harvard, Columbia, & NYU Universities.

Shouting down or interrupting speakers is not my preferred method of protest because those being shouted down always turn the discussion from their rancid ideas to the denial of their right to free speech. And civil liberties should never be mangled in that way. But what the two BLM activists did in Seattle is no big deal unless you are an uncritical supporter of Sanders or want a chance to go after Black power activists & make it look respectable.

Sanders stinks on civil rights & is trying to recover ground he lost so publicly & shamefully at the Netroots conference in July. When BLM activists (or the two who claim they are) in Seattle confronted him, his supporters go ape. Because that is how debased lesser evil politics goes. Some suggest it’s a COINTELPRO/FBI operation to divide Blacks from white progressives like Sanders. Sanders doesn’t need the FBI to discredit him. His support for Israel & a Jewish-only state, his identification of Palestinians with Hamas (only one of their political organizations); his xenophobic opposition to immigrant rights; & his massive fumbles at Netroots around BlackLivesMatter are worse than even the FBI could come up with.

Sanders is a political supernova & a flunky to the Clinton campaign. After the Democratic Party convention, he’ll be a has-been, his role as shill exhausted. No matter how fervent his supporters, his campaign amounts to nothing–& just feeds the politicians as saviors mythology. Everybody’s looking for another Jesus.

It apparently doesn’t take much for BLM activists to whip up a firestorm. Twitter was aflame when Black activists wanted to close the BLM conference in Cleveland (in late July) to whites so that Black activists could convene in privacy. This was denounced as an expression of toxic identity politics. And that might give us a clue to what’s really going on here.

What does matter to the future of US politics is not what two-bit hustler is elected president but the emerging civil rights & Black power movement. It appears those who despise identity politics are having serious problems with that emerging movement & want to discredit & thwart it. So let us be frank: white supremacy is a multi-faceted, Hydra-monster. Racism against Black people can strut itself as progressive, universal, unwilling to recognize boundaries between humans when what it really masks is a distrust in Blacks & in their leadership. So it bears repeating, there will be no social transformation in this country without the political leadership of Black men & women. How will that be won when so many people are racist? Through the exercise of Black political power.

This is a protester at the Ferguson, Missouri commemoration of the murder of Michael Brown last August 9th. This young man represents BlackLivesMatter & the future of the US–not the likes of Bernie Sanders.

(Photo by Rick Wilking/Reuters)

It was only a few months ago the US Justice Department (that cleared the cop Darren Wilson in the murder of Michael Brown on August 9th 2014) issued a damning report on the systemic racism & unconstitutional policies of the Ferguson, Missouri police department toward the Black community. The report highlighted a low ratio of Black cops on the police force & a wide range of abuses, including denial of the Bill of Rights. Ferguson, after the death of Brown, was one of the first cities where the militarization of police departments became evident & alarming.

This phalanx of white riot police taken at the commemoration protests yesterday would suggest the Ferguson police department hasn’t learned a damn thing & doesn’t feel the least constrained by the federal investigation. Why create a provocation by showing up in riot gear at a commemoration? Because you want to incite peaceful protesters angered by your presence? Because you want to deny them their constitutional right to protest?

This little boy is 11-year-old Amarion Allen standing in front of a police line. Does this unarmed little kid under four feet tall & 70 pounds pose any threat whatsoever to law & order in Ferguson, Missouri? What about the right to assemble? Does that still not exist in Ferguson? Should Obama send federal troops to enforce the rulings of the US Justice Department? Or is there no way around building a new civil rights & Black power movement to ensure that the Bill of Rights prevails in Ferguson & every other Black community in the US?

(Photo by Rick Wilking/Reuters)

Government workers in Srinagar, Kashmir have been protesting for years now to regularize their jobs from day-rated temporary workers & to raise the retirement age from 58 to 60 (since India has no social security). The government’s consistent response has been truncheons, tear gas, & water cannons of purple dye. The use of disproportionate force against striking & protesting workers is of a piece with the brutal methods of Indian military occupation in Kashmir.

This government worker at a recent protest was knocked off his feet by the high velocity of the water cannon & that’s one of its purposes. Water cannons are extremely dangerous in several ways, including knocking people down, damage to internal organs, eye injuries (including blindness), broken bones, panic, & death.

The history of water cannons against protesters is politically telling about the regimes that use them. They’re manufactured primarily in the US & UK & exported to oppressive regimes all over the world but they were first used for crowd control in 1930s Germany when Hitler came to power. The US used them most notably against the civil rights movement in the 1960s & England reportedly used them (including with purple dye) in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. They are no longer used in the US or UK–which doesn’t mean they won’t be again.

Water cannons with dye added–first experimented with in Northern Ireland–were made notorious against the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. At the now-named Purple Rain Protest in Cape Town in 1989, police turned purple water cannons on thousands of peaceful protesters who stood their ground politically by getting on their knees rather than back down against the assault. One of the protesters leapt onto the water cannon vehicle, seized the nozzle, & turned it away from protesters on to the facades of nearby buildings.

Many regimes use water cannons (including Argentina, India, the Philippines, Malaysia, Hungary, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Egypt, South Korea, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Germany, South Africa, Israel, Turkey, Indonesia). The most repressive put additives, including dyes, in the water cannons. Deaths were reported in Indonesia (in 1996) when the regime added ammonia; in Zimbabwe (in 2007) when peaceful protesters panicked; in Turkey (in 2013) when liquid tear gas was added; in the Ukraine (2014) when a man got pneumonia from being sprayed in freezing temperatures. Israel routinely uses a foul-smelling additive called Skunk against Palestinians. One journalist exposed to Skunk said, “if you mixed dirty diapers with not-so-fresh road kill & left them all in the sun for a few days, you might get an idea.” The smell of Skunk stays for days despite repeated washing & scrubbing.

After the 1989 anti-apartheid protest in Cape Town, purple rain became a symbol of protest & the graffiti proclaiming “The Purple Shall Govern” appeared everywhere. Let the purple govern in Kashmir.

Our fullest solidarity with government workers in Kashmir.

(Photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters)

Wounded Warrior Project puts on impressive, moving fund appeals full of patriotic fervor showing veterans missing limbs, with incapacitating brain injuries, needing lifelong rehabilitation. All that patriotism being shilled by movie stars who never went to war; all that fervor & never a reproach to the Pentagon who sent those young people to war whole, brought them back in pieces, & doesn’t think it has any responsibility to provide for them completely without having to beg for charity.

If you want to study the art of rationalization–more importantly, if you want to distinguish rationalization from theoretical elaboration–there’s no better place right now than reading the volumes of crap pumped out by half-assed radicals endorsing Bernie Sanders. They pumped the same crap out about George McGovern & Jesse Jackson & actually believe they’re being original. Much of it is petulant, all of it is recycled, most of it is just hilarious.

The magazine New Politics is a cornucopia of the stuff. One writer named Jason Schulman says “It’s an unfortunate fact that class-struggle politics in the electoral arena has become far more complex in the United States than it is anywhere else in the world.” Really!? Even more complex than India that has nearly 2,000 political parties? More complex than Egypt that has one party (the military junta) & if you try to run against it you’ll get put in jail & tortured?

Schulman goes on to explain there are “Democrats who represent the ruling class & Democrats who (imperfectly – they’re very rarely revolutionaries) represent the working class. I see nothing class-collaborationist in opposing the former & (critically) supporting the latter. Yes, ruling class politicians usually win Democratic primaries simply because they raise more campaign funds, have name recognition, & are incumbents, etc. – but not always.” Our man Schulman’s got all the lingo down but he’s still talking through his ass. Presumably he thinks Sanders represents the working class & that may be true. But only the most backward, xenophobic, provincial, racist part of the working class. Those who are international in their views, who oppose war, support Black power & immigrant rights think Sanders is a windbag & a loser.

Gibberish is the linguistic hallmark of rationalization. But it’s most rancid character is the xenophobia & racism. And its substitution of maneuvering for politics.