...all that discreet.
For instance, Matthews uses some McCarthyite language that resonates with me. (I lived through that era and remember seeing it on TV.)
Matthews: "The only person standing between a confirmed socialist who is calling for political revolution in this country winning the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, which has always been more moderate than that, is you." (my emphasis)
"
Confirmed atheist" and "
confirmed, card-carrying communist" are phrases I heard during that era, and a bit later from the John Birch Society (red-baiting yahoos). Cleverly, Mathews takes out the word "democratic" from "democratic socialist" (Sanders' description of himself) and substitutes in the word "confirmed," with its awful echoes back to the time of 'commies' and 'pinkos' under every bed, and lives and careers ruined, and unions purged of lefties. It's a pretty sickening thing for me to hear.
Then he attacks the 60s rebellion against war and injustice, as if we should have been silent about millions of people slaughtered including nearly 60,000 of our own conscripted soldiers, and vast political, social and economic injustice here at home and abroad. We were supposed to put up with that, and shut our mouths and just think about making money and buying the latest glitzy consumer goods. I'll admit that most of us 60s protestors didn't fully grasp what we were up against--a secret government that killed three of our political leaders within the space of five years--JFK*, RFK, MLK. (Yes, they did!) A military-industrial complex that was MANUFACTURING war for their own profit, and were not about to allow punk kids to refuse to be their cannon fodder! We were up against an already in-place coup d'etat that was not about to permit democracy to work as it was meant to.
For this asshat, Chris Matthews, to dismiss the tragedy and bloodshed and trauma, and the catastrophic assassination of democracy, in that era, as follows, is truly disgusting:
...do you think (young people rallying to Bernie's revolution is) going to help in the general election or is it what we used to call in the Sixties an NDC candidacy—"November Doesn't Count"—we just want to win the party, we don't care about the general.
Yeah, November doesn't count if the president you elect is murdered!*
Yeah, November doesn't count if the candidate you vote for next is murdered!
Yeah, November doesn't count if the greatest civil leader of your era is murdered!
The deep trouble within the Democratic started then, with LBJ promising peace in 1964, and getting elected on that premise, and then going to all-out war, and so few in the Democratic Party leadership standing up to that, even a great progressive like Hubert Humphrey crumbled to war. And, yes, the few who did stand up against it--leaders such as George McGovern--got our support. But we knew, by that time, that November WOULDN'T count, no matter what we did.
WE never decided that "November doesn't count." The cowards in our leadership decided that "November doesn't count"! Thence to their blowing with the winds of Reaganism! And, in more recent times, blowing with the winds of Cheney-Rumsfeld-ism.
And, finally, "November doesn't count" if our own party can't come up with a leader that we can believe!
They say vote out of fear of evil clowns like Trump and Cruz. And they give us a congenital waffler in league with the banksters and the war profiteers to vote for. If "November doesn't count" this time, it won't be because of Bernie Sanders and his youthful and other supporters. It will be because nobody believes the sanctioned candidate--if we make the huge mistake of nominating her.
That is the final irony of this truly stupid Mathews-Clinton exchange. Bernie is, by far, the better candidate. And this is, indeed, a new era. The time for restoring democracy in this country is upon us. The time for righting the wrongs of the previous half century is here. And you better believe that November is going to count!
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*(Recommended:
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, by James Douglass. He establishes, beyond question, that the CIA killed JFK, in a truly brilliant book. He is working on two more books, on the RFK and MLK assassinations. )
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