Letter to Liz Warren’s campaign:
Letter to Liz Warren’s campaign:
Liz is my Senator and I started out supporting her. Now I am leaning Bernie or frankly, any Democrat but Liz. My disenchantment started with Liz wiffle-waffling over Medicaid for All. Is she for it or against it now? Having some third system for a transition as Liz has reportedly proposed is a trillion dollar opportunity cost which can and should be avoided.
Why can Liz not say anything nice about socialism? I am a union member and DSA member, and Liz’s program is a socialist program. Why can she not acknowledge democratic socialists such as Eugene Debs, Upton Sinclair, Michael Harrington, Bayard Rustin and Victor Berger? We don’t want ‘Bernie Lite’ and we definitely do not want another entitled, neoliberal, rightist candidate like Hillary Clinton. I’m so disappointed, and looking forward to a progressive challenger from the real Democratic party of the people when Liz runs again for Senate.
I was a credentialed voting state delegate to the 2018 Democratic convention. I welcome your response.
best,
Henry Edward Hardy
Copyright © 2020 Henry Edward Hardy
To a neoliberal friend
Friend, you are precisely correct in identifying classical liberalism and neoliberalism as being economic philosophies and nothing but that in the strict sense of the terms.
I am using the term liberal in the American political context where liberalism is identified with FDR liberalism which is classic liberalism plus social programs borrowed from democratic socialism and new left liberalism which adds civil rights and anti-war planks to that platform.
In the US political context, neoliberalism is closely identified with the Clintons and has the following characteristics:
* Economic neoliberalsim including deregulation of the banks and industry.
* Rejecting social welfare programs “end welfare as we know it.”
* Support for the military-industrial complex and agressive use of a combination of propaganda and support for pro-American puppets through organizations such as the national endowment for Democracy plus a program of covert assassinations and multiple limited wars abroad, carried out through a combination of pinpoint air attacks and assassinations plus military, training, intel and economic aid for “moderate” terrorist militias.
* Triangulation, the political strategy of running to the left in the primary as a “progressive who gets things done” and then adopting in the general and as a governing strategy a position just slightly right of the Republicans, on the assumption that will create a solid governing majority from the center plus the left, the latter of which will be forced to take whatever crumbs they can get rather than nothing, or the worse republican alternative.
Neoliberalism failed with the Great Recession, and triangulation failed with the DNC and HC’s corrupt manipulation of the primary process.
We supported blue dog, right wing democrats for 50 years and it ended with a kick in Bernie’s teeth at the Convention. A friend of mine told me a lot of specifics about how they were spied on by infiltrators, decredentialled, had their pages taken away, were physically prevented from sitting together in blocks, were shouted down at every time they tried to speak or chant, and were physically manhandled and assaulted by HC and DNC operatives bullying them.
My delegate friend from Brooklyn said it was the saddest and most upset he has been since his father died. I heard similar stories from a number of other people who were there as Bernie delegates and whom I know and trust.
The machine right wing and neoliberal delegates aren’t getting a Mulligan for that, sorry. Not going to happen that we just say no worries well that’s just politics.
If that’s just politics then back at ya. How you liking it so far?
We will never support another Clinton or Clintonian triangulator unless we get equal support for our positions and our candidates. Yes to cooperation and alliance, but no to this entitled assumption that left wing democrats must support right wing democrats, but not the reverse.
Copyright © 2018 Henry Edward Hardy
Why I support Bernie Sanders for President
Bernie Sanders is a good man, brave, kind, compassionate, courageous, insightful, thoughtful, and honest. He is a friend to all living things. Bernie Sanders is the kind of candidate who comes along only once in a lifetime. We shall not see his like again. Vote your hopes and not your fears. Vote SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT!
If you want to understand why there are so many die-hard Bernie supporters such as myself, I offer this. It isn’t because we hate Hillary Clinton. It isn’t because we are all democratic socialists. It isn’t because we all hate all of the rich.
We support this good man because he is kind, he is compassionate, he is a real person who has always had the same message, who doesn’t bend and blow with the breezes of popularity or the outcomes of focus groups.
We support Bernie Sanders because he is the last, best hope of leading us by the angels of our better nature, to making the aspirational America with ‘freedom and justice for all’ real, to restoring the character and standing of America to where the people of the world will thank us for our brother and sisterhood, and not hide their children in fear and curse us whenever they hear a plane overhead.
Bernie’s America is our America is the America of “This Land is Your Land.” Our America is the America of “America the Beautiful.” Our America is the America of “We Shall Overcome.” Ours is the America of “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Our America is the America of Abraham Lincoln and Sojourner Truth and Emma Goldman and Paul Robeson. Our America is the America of Joe Hill and Eugene V Debs and Norman Thomas. Our America is the America of Michael Harrington and Kwame Ture. Our America is the America of Malcolm X and Upton Sinclair. Our America is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. Our America is the America of Smedley Butler and Abbie Hoffman.
Join us!
Deeply Moving Message from Bernie Sanders
Copyright © 2016 Henry Edward Hardy
Civilian Control of the Military?
This was written in response to a thread on the facebook group, The Constitution of the United States of America, titled, Do you think a President should have to serve in the military because he is Commander in Chief?
To ask, “Do you think a President should have to serve in the military because he is Commander in Chief?” is completely the wrong way of posing this question. The proper way of framing it is, “Do you think that the Commander-in-Chief should always be a civilian, elected President, in order to secure a democratic republic from military control?”
As James Madison said: “In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive, will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.” [1]
This principle of civilian control has been and remains the fundamental precept upon which the command and control of the US Armed Forces depends and from which it draws its legitimacy:
“From the birth of democracy in ancient Greece, the idea of the citizen-soldier has been the single most important factor to shape the Western way of war. In a democracy, combatants bear arms as equals, fighting to defend their ideals and way of life. They are citizens with a stake in the society they have vowed to defend. They do not fight as mercenaries, nor are they guided by coercion or allegiance to the whims of a dictatorial leader. Rather, their motivation stems from a selfless commitment to an idea that far exceeds the interests of any individual member of the society. For the armed forces officer of the United States, this ethos began with the militiamen who defended their homes, secured the frontier, and won a war of independence against the most formidable military power of that era. The American military tradition has since been governed by a strict adherence to the primacy of civilian control and, within that framework, has continued to champion the role of the citizen-soldier as the defender of the nation’s ideals.” [2]
[1] Max Farrand. 1911. Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1:465. Civilian control of the military
Copyright © 2010 Henry Edward Hardy
About Scanlyze
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Scanlyze is an online magazine of essays, commentary, satire, and analysis. Were we half as clever, for inspiration we would take Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Swift, Montaigne, or Seneca.
“The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.”
John F. Kennedy, October 26, 1963
Show your support for Scanlyze!
Click the “Make A Donation” link below to make a donation through PayPal using either your PayPal account or any major credit card.
This site is semi-archival. I actively post on @hhardy01@mastodon.social.
Paypal or credit card donation
Copyright © 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 Henry Edward Hardy.
Recent Comments
Scanlyze 