I've been supporting Bernie Sanders since he first ran for office in Vermont (and as part of my morning spiritual work to clear my mind and open it to all the possibilities of the coming day I've been praying for him for many years) because his positions are close to mine. If I were to accept any political label it would be Democratic Socialist.
So I go to this thing last Sunday for the publication of a collection of previously uncollected Allen Ginsberg poems with poets and others who knew Allen well reading and speaking. When it's question time someone asks how the panelists think Allen would have dealt with this election.
Activist and write Eliot Katz, who's written a book about Ginsberg and politics, says no one can say for sure how Allen would react. He says he introduced Ginsberg to Bernie Sanders when Sanders was mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and is planning on voting for Bernie in the primary in New Jersey, but if Hilary gets the nomination he'll vote for her and quotes some statements of Ginsberg that make him think Allen would support that.
Then Bob Rosenthal, Ginsberg's personal assistant for decades, who is writing a book about that called STRAIGHT AROUND ALLEN, reads a poem Ginsberg wrote about Bernie and admits in his first presidential vote in 1968 he opted for The Peace & Freedom Party and later realized that it was the same as voting for Nixon. And that Allen was very aware of the '68 debacle the split among Democrats caused, and he too thinks Allen would support Bernie but would vote for Hilary if she got the nomination.
But the questioner, and some other Bernie supporters there, didn't understand or care what was said, because instead of asking questions about Ginsberg and his poetry and life and new posthumous book, some people made vitriolic statements about Hilary and how no one should vote for her. When in response Katz said Hilary had supported women's causes, one woman yelled that Hilary has never supported women or women's causes!
This echoes posts I've been reading on Facebook from some of my Bernie supporting friends, whose combination of rabid attacks on Hilary and whining about the unfairness of every aspect of this election season if it impacts negatively on the results for Bernie has deeply disappointed me. If anyone truly believes that a Supreme Court nomination of Trumps' would be better than one made by Hilary, I seriously question that person's motives. And if it is the idea that Sarandon suggested that a Trump win would bring on the revolution, then I seriously question that person's understanding of reality.
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2 comments:
Lal--In late '63 and early '64, Paul Friedman, anticipating Sarandon, used to say that Goldwater had to be elected in '64 and he'd fuck things up so bad that the country would have to elect a socialist in '68. Well, we know how that turned out. And that was to a large extent because the assholes who ran the Democratic Party saw to it that Gene McCarthy got euchered and sandbagged and flat screwed out of the nomination. No matter if your precinct or caucus voted 100% for McCarthy, the fix was in at the state conventions and we got Happy Warrior Humphrey instead of Clean Gene.
This time around, if you can't stand the idea of more Clintons, you can vote for Jill Stein or even write-in Bernie.
Bob B.
the point of my post is that a write-in for bernie or a vote for jill stein is a vote for trump...though in Mass and Jersey that might not seem like a problem it still could be...
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