Corbyn & Sanders: Here’s What You Should Have Won

I’ve spent most of yesterday and this morning constructing this little rant. I wasn’t sure what to rant about, but then a meme of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn came to mind. The meme says “In the new language of corporate power, when we call a candidate ‘unelectable’, we simply mean they cannot be bought.” 

Ain’t that the truth?

While both men are not identical in policy, they’re both on the left, and to the likes of Rupert Murdoch, they’re a threat. A threat to his power, and a threat to his wealth. 

I mean seriously, can you imagine Jeremy Corbyn allowing Rupert Murdoch’s organisations to virtually get away with hacking the voicemails of sports stars, politicians, or missing children? Of course not. Leveson 2 would be well underway. 

Can you imagine Bernie Sanders sitting down with the big global polluters and working out a favourable tax rate for them, while the average American has to work themselves into an early grave for $40,000 a year? I really don’t think so. 

Both Corbyn and Sanders had something to offer. Something that gave people hope. 

Hope that their children will be able to have the same opportunities as any other child. 

Hope of an economy that works for everyone, and not just the 1%, or the 5%, but every single one of us. This ‘For the many, not the few’ thing wasn’t just a soundbite. It was a passionate belief that we can be a better society. 

Isn’t that what we all want, regardless of political persuasion?

Hope of equality, hope of changing the ignorant mindset that makes somebody think that it’s okay to abuse someone based on the colour of their skin, their religious beliefs, their sexuality, or whatever life choice they make that doesn’t fit in to *their* very British way of life. 

I couldn’t help but think of Farage as I ended that paragraph. 

Principle-based politicians are a rare breed. Of course, many will tell you about their socialism, and how they stood on a picket line in the 1980’s, and how they protested against Nelson Mandela’s incarceration, but ask them for a recent example of their commitment to socialism and they have this bewildered look about them. 

When a politician is taking Pound after Pound, and Dollar after Dollar from hedge funds, foreign-policy lobbyists, giant corporations, and media moguls, they have no right to talk about principles. That includes the stale baguette, Keir Starmer. 

Is it any wonder that so many young people felt a pair of ‘socialist relics’ offered them genuine hope for their future? 

Sanders and Corbyn wanted health and education to be a human right, and not determined by the wealth of your parents. There’s nothing particularly radical about this, unless you read right-wing newspapers, because they will tell you how these basic necessities are part of a quasi-communist takeover of all the institutions that you hold dear, which is of course, nonsense.

Sanders and Corbyn both embraced the seriousness of the climate crisis - a cause which matters to young people considerably more than it matters to a vast majority of their parents and the politicians elected to represent the best interests of their constituents, rather than the shareholders of huge polluters. 

Sanders and Corbyn both wanted the very richest to pay a bit more corporation tax. Britain and the United States are riddled with poverty. The richest and fifth richest countries on the face of the planet ‘cannot afford’ to feed their poorest children, and they ‘cannot afford’ to house their homeless people. 

In Britain’s case, we can afford £12 billion for a test and trace coronavirus contact system that is less effective than one of those 1980’s CB radio things from Tandy, where you used a wire coat hanger as an antenna. Roger that? 

Over in the States, the loser Trump created the most corrupt administration in modern American history. He has used his position to enrich himself and his family, filled his administration with former industry lobbyists, and they use taxpayers money to cover their personal expenses in a way that makes Britain’s 2009 MPs expenses scandal look like the theft of a sherbet pip from a sweet shop. 

Of course they can afford to feed the hungriest children. Of course they can afford to house homeless humans. 

They just don’t want to, because if they did, they would. 

I guess it’s easy to say we’ve missed an opportunity, in the cases of both Sanders and Corbyn, but be in no doubt, they were never going to be allowed to give us that opportunity. 

The campaign of hatred against Jeremy Corbyn was the most vicious and dishonest smear campaign against a British politician that you’re ever likely to witness. The British media were relentless with their lies, particularly the printed press. His own parliamentary party wanted not just to get rid of Corbyn, but break him as a man. His own party hierarchy plotted against him, before the introduction of the fantastic Jennie Formby, and McNicol shuffled off to the Lords to pick up his allowances. 

Corbyn was unlucky to have such an anti-Socialist, undemocratic set of MPs, in a party that still has the brass neck to describe itself as a Democratic Socialist party. 80% of them were not only treacherous careerists, but they were also absolutely fucking talentless. 

Sanders had to put up with similar in his attempts to become the Democrats presidential nominee. 

Much of it started back in 2016, when Sanders committed the unforgivable crime of challenging the Democratic establishments right simply to anoint Hillary Clinton as the party’s presidential candidate. 

Sanders was a massive threat to the establishment. Biden and Trump will never be any sort of threat to the establishment, because they are at its very heart. The Republican and Democratic leaderships are there to ensure that, before a candidate gets selected to compete in the parties’ name, that he or she will serve the interests of the establishment first and foremost. So you will always have two candidates, each vetted for obedience to power. 

Sanders, like Corbyn, put simply, isn’t for sale. 

The demonisation and the naysayers that attack and belittle Sanders and Corbyn give us reasons to maintain the struggle for a more just and democratic society. And yes, it really is a struggle. 

And no, we won’t just be going away. 

The whole “cult of Corbyn” thing really was nonsense. If you want to see cult-like devotion, take a look at the ex-Lib Dems now telling you that Sir Keir Starmer will be the greatest leader Britain has ever seen. Bless their Hush Puppies. 

Corbyn was simply the figurehead of a mass movement. Figureheads, or leaders, come and go, but the movement continues. Jeremy didn’t invent socialism, he just took it mainstream. It’s up to us to keep the flame burning, because another figurehead *will* be along soon, and they will need us just as much as we will need them. 

While many British centrists will be celebrating the arrival of Joe Biden, I prefer to celebrate the departure of Donald Trump.  

When Donald Trump was calling Biden a socialist, you didn’t actually believe him, did you? 

The US Democrats are no allies of the left. They’re moderate Tories at best, which may well resonate with much of the membership of the Labour Party, who are currently witnessing their party lurch to the centre-ground wastelands. 

This lurch sits well with much of the British media, because it means the establishment isn't under threat. If you honestly believe establishment naval fluff like SIR Starmer is somehow a threat to the establishment that rules over your lives, I’ve got this amazing unicorn you might be interested in. 

In the short term, the people of Britain and the United States have no political choice. Whether they back Biden, Johnson, Starmer, or Donald Trump, it’s a vote for a continuation of the greedy elite. 

To them, it’s all about entitlement. Rotate the establishment every now and then and nobody will ever notice. 

Like Biden, Starmer may well be considered to be ‘the lesser of two evils’, but how does that help you? 

In the US, your healthcare is judged on the strength of your credit card, in Britain, the health service is openly pillaged by the friends and donors of the Conservative Party. 

Do you think Starmer and Biden oppose private sector involvement in a fundamental human right such as your health and wellbeing, that should never be based on your ability to pay? One of Starmer’s own advisers was a private healthcare lobbyist. 

You knew what you were getting with Sanders and Corbyn, whether you agreed with them or not. The thought of putting patients before profits isn’t really as radical as some of you might think. 

Personally, I don’t think Joe Biden will serve a full term, and if he does, he will stand down after the first. I could be wrong, but be honest, some of his speeches are becoming increasingly uncomfortable to watch, and he really isn’t the same Biden of ten years ago. 

The left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in particular - who has just been re-elected with 68.8% of the vote - must be prepared. 

The next few days promise to be exciting, but once all of that settles down we are back to the reality of a half-hearted lockdown, a deep recession, corrupt politicians, think-tanks and focus groups, feeble opposition, cronyism, a health service under massive pressure, homelessness, poverty, a forgotten housing crisis, family budgets having to stretch further than ever, and not one of these leaders - Starmer, Johnson, Biden, or Trump - have the answers to any of these problems. 

But you know who did? 

Jeremy Corbyn, and Bernie Sanders. 

Enjoy your day and take good care.

Rachael

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