SocraticGadfly: Bernie Sanders gets an early start on sheepdogging

July 27, 2023

Bernie Sanders gets an early start on sheepdogging

This is an extended review of Bernie Sanders' newest book, moving a bit beyond a review bomb.


It's OK to Be Angry About CapitalismIt's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism by Bernie Sanders
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a review bomb and I don't care if you don't like that, #BlueAnon. Bernie needs to be called out on this.

Clearly, Bernie's getting an early start on sheepdogging for the left hand of the duopoly for the 2024 election, and enlisting the help of Green Party hater John Nichols from The Nation. (He is a Green Party hater and I know that from personally tangling with him, as I've done multiple times on Twitter, I think going back to the 2016 general election and possibly earlier.)

And, Bernie's a sheepdogger.

As for being angry about capitalism? He's right as far as he goes. But, he doesn't go that far.

But, does Bernie talk about defense contractors? Does he talk about being a general warhawk, related to that? Does he talk about his own decades-long lust for F-35s? No and no. (And yet, as I blogged yesterday about "recent stupidities at Counterpunch," it let him rail about the new NDAA — even while said railing deleted his hope stated two weeks ago that the Senate would try to do something about Biden sending cluster bombs to Ukraine.)

Did he talk about being an actual socialist, as in a corporate socialist for Big Ag? No.

Does he talk about Palestine? No. About the US and NATO poking Russia with various sticks, culminating in the Ukraine stick? No. And in the railing at Counterpunch above, did he talk about that NDAA having money for arms for both Ukraine and Israel? No.

I didn't one-star it because what he says is good enough as far as it goes. But, it can't get more than 2 stars because it's sheepdogging for the 2024 election. And, for time No. 927 or whatever, this is why I don't subscribe to The Nation.
 
And, it's stuff like this — especially given that Jeff St. Clair at Counterpunch has surely seen that book and yet gave him space to sheepdog — that frustrates me about it at times.

No comments: