RSN: The Seven Stages of Establishment Backlash: Corbyn/Sanders Edition, Modern-Day Slavery and Environmental Devastation Go Hand in Hand,

Reader Supported News | 21 January 16

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Glenn Greenwald | The Seven Stages of Establishment Backlash: Corbyn/Sanders Edition

Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
Greenwald writes: "Evidence of a growing Sanders movement is unmistakable. Because of the broader trends driving it, this is clearly unsettling to establishment Democrats - as it should be."
READ MORE

he British political and media establishment incrementally lost its collective mind over the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the country’s Labour Party, and its unraveling and implosion show no signs of receding yet. Bernie Sanders is nowhere near as radical as Corbyn; they are not even in the same universe. But, especially on economic issues, Sanders is a more fundamental, systemic critic than the oligarchical power centers are willing to tolerate, and his rejection of corporate dominance over politics, and corporate support for his campaigns, is particularly menacing. He is thus regarded as America’s version of a far-left extremist, threatening establishment power.

For those who observed the unfolding of the British reaction to Corbyn’s victory, it’s been fascinating to watch the D.C./Democratic establishment’s reaction to Sanders’ emergence replicate that, reading from the same script. I personally think Clinton’s nomination is extremely likely, but evidence of a growing Sanders movement is unmistakable. Because of the broader trends driving it, this is clearly unsettling to establishment Democrats — as it should be.

A poll last week found that Sanders has a large lead with millennial voters, including young women; as Rolling Stone put it: “Young female voters support Bernie Sanders by an expansive margin.” The New York Times yesterday trumpeted that, in New Hampshire, Sanders “has jumped out to a 27 percentage point lead,” which is “stunning by New Hampshire standards.” The Wall Street Journal yesterday, in an editorial titled “Taking Sanders Seriously,” declared it is “no longer impossible to imagine the 74-year-old socialist as the Democratic nominee.”

Just as was true for Corbyn, there is a direct correlation between the strength of Sanders and the intensity of the bitter and ugly attacks unleashed at him by the D.C. and Democratic political and media establishment. There were, roughly speaking, seven stages to this establishment revolt in the U.K. against Corbyn, and the U.S. reaction to Sanders is closely following the same script:

STAGE 1: Polite condescension toward what is perceived to be harmless (we think it’s really wonderful that your views are being aired).

STAGE 2: Light, casual mockery as the self-belief among supporters grows (no, dears, a left-wing extremist will not win, but it’s nice to see you excited).

STAGE 3: Self-pity and angry etiquette lectures directed at supporters upon realization that they are not performing their duty of meek surrender, flavored with heavy doses of concern trolling (nobody but nobody is as rude and gauche online to journalists as these crusaders, and it’sunfortunately hurting their candidate’s cause!).

CLICK IN LINK TO VIEW

STAGE 4: Smear the candidate and his supporters with innuendos of sexism and racism by falsely claiming only white men support them (you like this candidate because he’s white and male like you, not because of ideology or policy or contempt for the party establishment’s corporatist, pro-war approach).

STAGE 5: Brazen invocation of right-wing attacks to marginalize and demonize, as polls prove the candidate is a credible threat (he’s weak on terrorism, will surrender to ISIS, has crazy associations, and is a clone of Mao and Stalin).

STAGE 6: Issuance of grave and hysterical warnings about the pending apocalypse if theestablishment candidate is rejected, as the possibility of losing becomes imminent (you aredestined for decades, perhaps even generations, of powerlessness if you disobey our decrees about who to select).

STAGE 7: Full-scale and unrestrained meltdown, panic, lashing-out, threats, recriminations, self-important foot-stomping, overt union with the Right, complete fury (I can no longer in good conscience support this party of misfits, terrorist-lovers, communists, and heathens).

Britain is well into Stage 7, and may even invent a whole new level (anonymous British military officials expressly threatened a “mutiny” if Corbyn were democratically elected as prime minister). The Democratic media and political establishment has been in the heart of Stage 5 for weeks and is now entering Stage 6. The arrival of Stage 7 is guaranteed if Sanders wins Iowa.

Headline covering Jeremy Corbyn. (photo: The Intercept)

Headline from The Daily Beast. (photo: The Intercept)

It’s both expected and legitimate in elections for the campaigns to harshly criticize one another. There’s nothing wrong with that; we should all want contrasts drawn, and it’s hardly surprising that this will be done with aggression and acrimony. People go to extremes to acquire power: That’s just human nature.

But that doesn’t mean one can’t find meaning in the specific attacks that are chosen, nor does it mean that the attacks invoked are immune from critique (the crass, cynical exploitation of gender issues by Clinton supporters to imply Sanders support is grounded in sexism was particularly slimy and dishonest given that the same left-wing factions that support Sanders spent months literally pleading with Elizabeth Warren to challenge Clinton, to say nothing of the large numbers of female Sanders supporters whose existence was nullified by those attacks).

People in both parties, and across the political spectrum, are disgusted by the bipartisan D.C. establishment. It’s hardly mysterious why large numbers of adults in the U.S. want to find an alternative to a candidate like Clinton who is drowning both politically and personally in Wall Street money, who seems unable to find a war she dislikes, and whose only political conviction seems to be that anything is justifiably said or done to secure her empowerment — just as it was hardly a mystery why adults in the U.K. were desperate to find an alternative to the craven, war-loving, left-hating Blairites who have enormous amounts of blood stained indelibly on their hands.

But the nature of “establishments” is that they cling desperately to power, and will attack anyone who defies or challenges that power with unrestrained fervor. That’s what we saw in the U.K. with the emergence of Corbyn, and what we’re seeing now with the threat posed by Sanders. It’s not surprising that the attacks in both cases are similar — the dynamic of establishment prerogative is the same — but it’s nonetheless striking how identical is the script used in both cases.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34744-the-seven-stages-of-establishment-backlash-corbynsanders-edition

The White House Asked Social Media Companies to Look for Terrorists. Here's Why They'd #Fail.
Jenna McLaughlin, The Intercept
McLaughlin writes: "The White House asked internet companies during a counterterrorism summit earlier this month to consider using their technology to help 'detect and measure radicalization.'"
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Wealth, Influence of Gates Foundation Distorting International Development
RT
Excerpt: "Enormous wealth and influence wielded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is distorting the direction of international development in a global vacuum of accountability, a new report claims."
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US Congressional Committee Subpoenas Ex-Drug CEO Shkreli
Sarah N. Lynch and David Ingram, Reuters
Excerpt: "A U.S. congressional committee has demanded that former drug executive Martin Shkreli appear at a hearing on drug prices to testify about his former company's decision to raise the price of a lifesaving medicine by more than 5,000 percent, congressional aides said on Wednesday."
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Parent: Fiorina 'Ambushed' Children With Anti-Abortion Rally
Bradford Richardson, The Hill
Richardson writes: "Republican primary candidate Carly Fiorina has been accused of ambushing a group of Iowa pre-schoolers, who were on a field trip to a botanical garden, with an anti-abortion rally."
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Detroit's Teachers Are Holding a Massive 'Sickout' to Protest the Conditions in Their Schools
Casey Quinlan, ThinkProgress
Quinlan writes: "Detroit's public school teachers are staging mass 'sickouts' - which involves large groups of teachers across the city all calling in sick to work - to protest against what they call 'deplorable conditions,' such as mold, warped floors, and dead rats."
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Modern-Day Slavery and Environmental Devastation Go Hand in Hand
Katie Herzog, Grist
Herzog writes: "Slavery didn't end with the Emancipation Proclamation. Despite slavery being illegal in every country on the planet, there are more enslaved people alive today than at any point in history."
READ MORE

Many of the workers who toil in slavery are in industries, which lead to large environmental 
destruction. (photo: Shutterstock)


lavery didn’t end with the Emancipation Proclamation. Despite slavery being illegal in every country on the planet, there are more enslaved people alive today than at any point in history. From fishing boats in Thailand to private homes in New York to diamond mines in Congo to rock quarries in India, there are an estimated 30 million people working in bondage right now. That’s right — 30 million.

Modern slavery is the subject of Blood and Earth, a new book by Kevin Bales, who cofounded Free the Slaves, an organization working to end slavery around the world. Bales spoke with Fresh Air’s Dave Davies, and he said that the devastation bondage causes isn’t limited to the lives of enslaved people themselves; it also has a devastating effect on both the planet and the climate. He said:

I was amazed to discover the role that slavery plays in CO2 emissions and in the simple and basic fact of how global warming takes place ….

When we calculated up, very conservatively, how much CO2 is coming from slavery, it worked out like this: That if slavery were a country it would have the population of Canada, but it would be the third-largest emitter of CO2 after China and the United States.

This is, in part, due to deforestation. Bales continued:

I can point to … the gigantic mangrove forests at the bottom of Bangladesh, India, Thailand, and Burma that’s called the Sundarbans forest, and it’s the largest carbon sink in Asia. In other words, [it’s] a place where carbon is taken out of the air and sequestered by the trees, both into the sea and into the trees themselves. So this is a very important forest for removing atmospheric carbon. This is also a place where slaveholders are using slaves to clear cut these mangrove forests, to put in shrimp farms, to put in rice paddies, to burn the wood, to do a lot of different things with it. But it’s almost all slave-based deforestation.

So what’s the consumer to do? How can we be sure the shrimp on our plates and the phones in our pockets aren’t the product of slave labor? Unfortunately, Bales says, there’s a lack of information out there for even informed consumers:

At the moment, if we were only able to use just the minerals or just the foodstuffs or materials that we know are absolutely clean, we would all be sort of short on cellphones and clothes and food, because a lot of it is still rather murky. I spend some time in the book walking through the supply chain that leads to our cellphones and our laptops and trying to point to who are the criminals and who are the accomplices and who are the people who are deeply and certainly responsible, and at what level that responsibility lies.

Of course, the ultimate responsibility on the ultimate end of the supply chain rests with us. And we’re responsible for what we buy and what we use, but we’re not as responsible as the people who sell it to us, and we’re certainly not as responsible as the people who make the phones, because this is their business, they should be clean about what they do.

Big business, however, isn’t exactly known for its transparency — or its responsibility. Besides, it’s not like there’s a label for “slavery-free,” like there is for free-range or organic. Even retailers like Whole Foods that advertise their commitment to social and environmental justice have been accused of selling food processed by enslaved people. But there are some things you can do, Bales says, like talking to the managers of the stores you frequent, looking at where your investments are, and getting involved with anti-slavery organizations. These may seem like small steps, but there are 30 million people — and one giant planet — that need you.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34738-modern-day-slavery-and-environmental-devastation-go-hand-in-hand