Grant Marcus
They say it is difficult to beat the house, or break the dealer, when talking about gambling. But now, apparently, in a rigged system, it is as difficult to count your vote in a democracy that requires gobs of money to beat “the house” in the casino’s “Democratic Party.” If you are a Democrat, you have the same chances of getting a good candidate to represent you, as winning millions in Las Vegas. And it is impossible to win when the deck is stacked, and all the Bernie cards are missing.
That’s what has been revealed in recent Wikileaks documents and the release of 20,000 private emails that show the workings of this year’s election cycle inside the Democratic Party. The leaks may have come from Guccifer 2.0, who is the hacker that previously released a series of Clinton emails. These series of emails focus on the Democratic National Committee. They span from January to May 2015, and show a clean case of voter fraud by the Party. The DNC staff has already admitted guilt, and they have apologized for foul play. Yet to save face, they have blamed the Russians for the leaks, and avoided their responsibility for the content.
The hacked leaks come from seven accounts within the DNC: Communications Director Luis Miranda (10,770 emails), National Finance Director Jordan Kaplan (3,797 emails), Finance Chief of Staff Scott Comer (3,095 emails), Finance Director of Data and Strategic Initiatives Daniel Parrish (1,472 emails), Finance Director Allen Zachary (1,611 emails), Senior Advisor Andrew Wright (938 emails) and Northern California Finance Director Robert (Erik) Stowe (751 emails).
Emails suggest how, top down, DNC leaders could spread the negative word about Bernie, such asbeing “disorganized,” and with an appearance out of fashion; or, as Brad Marshall put it, “never having his act together.” That’s a lot of irresponsibility levied on a legislator, who has 35 years in public office, and who recently got over 70 percent of the vote in his last bid for U.S. Senate. 91 percent of Vermonters voted for Sanders in the primary.
Marshall went on in his email to attack Bernie’s spiritual beliefs, because “this could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps…” while Miranda castigated “Morning Joe” of MSNBC as “f—–g Joe,” and demanded censorship of certain parts of the program. (Too bad he didn’t censor himself.) Anchorman Ed Schultz, a Bernie supporter, was fired by MSNBC after he did successive interviews with the Senator, as the DNC put pressure on MSNBC’s president.
In another email, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz suggests she has studied Bernie’s strategy before the DNC, and warns Clinton delegates that Bernie will push for a $15 living wage and rights for Palestinians. In another email, Schultz calls Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, “a damn liar…[and] an asshole.” Communications such as this went back and forth between Clinton and Schultz as well, even though the DNC is required to be impartial. 7,500 emails between the two have yet to be shared by Wikileaks. They are due out next week.
The emails released largely reflect attitude, or bias by the DNC, when by law, they are supposed to be impartial. And these emails don’t reflect the physical impact they had on the election, such as Clinton getting 15 times the media publicity of Bernie Sanders, despite his huge turnouts at rallies. They don’t describe how media mantra-ed that Bernie never stood a chance, because of unnamed corporate super-delegates. Many prime-time news comments about Bernie were flippant, disrespectful or negative.
The Bernie Sanders folks on the ground and in the trenches have experienced firsthand the horrid force of bias and Bernieism. They have been segregated and scoffed at during Democratic club meetings, locked out of voting sessions, had political signs hazed and torn down and had canvassing data sabotaged. Voting machines in nearly every primary have not matched exit polls, votes have gone uncounted and votes have gone missing, while caucuses have been decided by coin toss.
In Bernie’s place of birth, in Brooklyn, New York, 120,000 votes disappeared. The registrar of that district was since fired. The DNC stripped voting roles, eliminated debates, manipulated pundits to the forefront who were already backing Hillary and stacked corporate super-delegates in Clinton’s favor. And the corporate media colluded with these efforts. Owned by the billionaires, who have been sharply criticized by Bernie, the money-media blacked out the Senator, and/or reported on him negatively, while censoring stories on voter discrepancies. In California, all the major news stations announced Hillary Clinton the winner of the primary the day before Californians voted; and Clinton was declared winner on election night even though 2.5 million votes was yet to be counted. As of the first week in July, Sanders had actually passed Clinton in California, and had a lead of 51-49%. Even so, pledged delegates were not allowed to reflect that.
Berniecrats have had enough of Bernieism and invisibility. They want people held accountable for their Bernie bigotry and voter fraud. They want people to understand the difference between a People’s party, and The Dollarcratic Party of corporate influence, so connected to the corporate media. Even the convention center in Philadelphia is housed by Wells Fargo, and many of the super-delegates chosen by Wasserman are lobbyists out of Washington. It means that in spite of Bernie, the Trans-Pacific Partnership was not banned and neither was fracking. It meant there was no carbon tax or a moratorium that would leave fossil fuels in the ground. It meant that a living wage is still a poverty wage. These trade delegates are also war hawks who support a no-fly zone over Syria, and war with Iran. What Hillary’s super-corporate-delegates leave us with is a perfect establishment plan for joblessness, austerity, illiteracy, human misery and endless war. So much for Bernie’s viewpoints and 45 percent of Democratic votes, reading through the mountains of bias, getting an iota of compromise from the DNC.
With the admission of wrongdoing, class action suits against the DNC are sure to follow. One Bernie supporter talked about the DNC emails, and all the time and money he had put into supporting Sanders.
“It was a rigged election. But we knew it all the time,” he said. “The emails are proof of it. I want my money back.”
So when you turn on your television set, and celebrate the Democratic Party and the first woman to be given the Presidential nomination, know there is a caveat, that had the primary been conducted fairly, the GoldmanSachsocrat that comes before you might never have been nominated. And what she offers you are the platitudes of a Party platform, which has extracted the teeth from Bernie’s proposals, and for which her leadership has no intention of following through. What the Clinton Party will do is no different than Republicans. What Hillary will prove is that we have one big party held at the expense of every
American, leaving you and me out of the process. This is what Democrats can look forward to, to a Republican in a dress. It could be why she is soliciting the votes of Jeb and George Bush, and why they are seriously considering her proposal. So, if you liked George, you’ll love Hillary. What she signifies is the lowest moral denominator of the Democratic Corporate Party.
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Grant Marcus managed the Ventura Avenue Bernie office, was central in canvassing, and was a $27/month donor to Team Bernie. He is a registered nurse, has a Masters in English and lives in Ventura.