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Bill Hayton. A Brief History of Vietnam: colonialism, war and renewal: the story of a nation transformed. 2022 In 1953 the French controlled only the Red River, Mekong Delta, central Vietnam around the ancient capital of Hue, Danang and some “upland regions where minority groups maintained autonomous fiefs. Outside the main cities, the Viet Minh now controlled the country but, after bitter defeats in 1951 and 1952, the Politburo [of the Viet Minh] recognized that they could not defeat the French through pitched battles in the lowlands. Instead, they decided to lure the French into the hills by mounting a series of diversionary attacks on Laos. Thus the stage was set for the denouement of the French presence in Indochina: the battle of Dien Bien Phu.” (210) General Navarre decided to attack the Viet Minh which was what the Viet Minh wanted. (211)

From - Samuel Eliot Morison. “Why Japan Surrendered.” The Atlantic. Oct. 1960. “When General McArthur after the war asked Hirohito why he did not earlier take a stand against it, he made a symbolic gesture of his throat’s being cut. . . . Mr. Grew, an old schoolmate and personal friend of President Roosevelt’s, had been American ambassador to Japan for several years before Pearl Harbor. Knowing Japanese personalities and politics as did no other American, he detected through the double talk of the Suzuki government a genuine desire to end the war. He knew that the one essential gesture to help the peace party in Japan was to promise as a condition of peace that the Emperor would not be deposed. From 20 December 1944, Mr. Grew was undersecretary of state. He found that many top people in the department did not share his views. A popular demand, “Hirohito must go,” was being whipped up by a section of the American press and by certain columnists and radio commentators. Admiral Leahy observed that some of the civilians who had access to the President wanted Hirohito to be tried as a war criminal, and the nationalist press in China demanded that he be hanged. . . . After hearing reports of the destructive bombing raids on Tokyo of 23 and 25 May 1945, Mr. Grew called on the President and begged him to make an explicit statement, in an address that he was planning to deliver on the thirty-first, that Hirohito could retain his throne if Japan surrendered. Harry Truman, who had been in the presidential office only six weeks, was sympathetic but felt unqualified to make so vital a policy pronouncement without military advice. At his request Mr. Grew consulted General Marshall and Secretaries Forrestal and Stimson. They, too, were sympathetic, but advised against making any such assurance at that time. It is very unlikely that it would have been accepted, since the Japanese military and naval chiefs were against concluding peace even after two atomic bombs had been dropped and explicit assurances about the Emperor had been given.”

Deborah, Pickman, Clifford. Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: a biography of Julia Ward Howe. 1978. Howe’s husband was not impressed with the philosophy of maintaining the union. To avoid conflict, he “was inclined to let them go.” (138) Abolitionists were not happy with people who wanted to preserve the union but not abolish slavery. (138-139) The writing of the Battle Hymn of the Republic began “in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind.” (144) “Had God inspired her?” Probably in her mind. (144-145) In her book Later Lyrics, published in 1866 rarely mentions slavery. Instead, she concentrated on American nationalism after the Civil War. (161) “Julia was not impressed with what she saw of the slaves in Cuba.” She preferred western culture influence Negroes which shows did not accept the African except on her terms. “The Negro among negroes is a coarse, grinning, flat-footed, thick-skulled creature . . .k laziest of brutes, chiefly ambitious to be of nob use to any in the world.” Many in the abolitionists movement believed this and others vehemently criticized this view. American racism and denigration non-whites is deep in our marrow. (136)

While we associate Boston with the Irish the city's first Irish mayor wasn't elected until the 1880's. (Deborah, Pickman, Clifford. Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: a biography of Julia Ward Howe. 1978. 219)

After reading two books about Japan and watching a world War II video it is clear that the so-called Japanese obsession with serving the emperor until death was a creation of the Japanese militarists in the 1920s. See Hirohito and the making of modern Japan. Herbert P. Bix. And, Inventing Japan: 1853-1964. Ian Buruma. The video is World War II in Color, Road to Victory: Okinawa.

Kevin Phillips. The Politics of Rich and Poor: wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath. 1990. “The enormous concentration of wealth in the United States during the 1980s - most of it in the hands of the top one percent of Americans - will provoke what Kevin Phillips calls a watershed change in American politics.” (Book jacket) Sounds very much like 2023. “From the White House to Capitol Hill, a critical weakness in American politics and governance is becoming woefully apparent - the frightening inability of the nation’s leaders to face, much less define and debate, the unprecedented problems and opportunities facing the country.” (ix) During the Reagan Administration Democrats colluded with Republicans in passing the Gramm-Rudman bill which dropped “individual tax rates for millionaires from 70 percent to 28 percent.” (xi) The 1980s glorified capitalism and unfettered wealth. No one talked of the homelessness. The Republicans, under Reagan, drove wealth “toward the riches portions of the population.” (xvii) This is a constant in American history: “changing popular and governmental attitudes toward wealth.” Phillips reminds us of the late nineteenth century (the Gilded Age) and, of the 1920s. (xviii) “The 1980s were a second Gilded Age.” (xviii) Critics of this used the word “oligarchy” which was abandoned and then revitalized recently by a few people. (xviii) “Since the American Revolution the distribution of wealth has depended significantly on who controlled the federal government, for what policies, and in behalf of which constituencies.” (xix) Reagan therefore, “reversed what late-twentieth century Americans bad become used to. The liberal style that prevailed from 1932 to 1968 had left a legacy of angry conservatives indignant over two generations of downward income redistribution.” (xix) In 1989 the Wall Street Journal wrote, “Statistical evidence already suggests that the American dream is fading.” (3) Under Reagan the United States became a debtor nation “for the first time in seventy years.” (4)

The Last from Simpson The French High Command could not see further than their pencils. The Vietminh rushed to cut escape routes from Dien Bien Phu. The most rudimentarily educated observers could see that pursuing the Vietminh “was an optimistic dream. But the French High Command seemed numb to its implications.” “The tightening of Giap’s ring of steel around Dien Bien Phu emphasized the strongpoint’s dependence on air supply and tactical support.” And, “air force commanders in Vietnam” were not impressed that this would work. In addition, the French Air Force noted that the Vietminh increased their number of anti aircraft guns which were very accurate. In one battle won by the French they looked more like survivors of the Holocaust. The commitment of the Vietminh was truly astounding. “Some of the coolies were stripped to the waist, and sweat glistened on their bare chests. Heavy loads pressed down on their makeshift shoulder padding, and the muscles of their straining claves swelled and twitched with their efforts. They came singly and in teams of two or four: one man with a mortar baseplate on his shoulders, strapped into a crude bamboo carrying frame; two men struggling, sinking ankle-deep Ito the churned mud of the trail, with a wheel slung between them on a swaying carrier pole; four men passing, stepping carefully, the muscle-tearing weight of a breechblock bearing them down, sucking the breath from their lungs. The checkpoint huts sagged with dampness, and thin shreds of thatching hung over the doorless entrances. Relief crews squatted nearby, eating sticky rice and waiting for the order to shoulder another load.” “There was a general mobilization, a modern-day manifestation of the ancient Vietnamese saying in time of conflict or menace, all the population-men, women, old people, children-will become soldiers. . . . Delta rice was spirited past French outposts by sampan, and medicines purchased on the black market in Hong Kong and Bangkok were backpacked in from the border regions and the coast. Even segments of bombed-out rail lines were reestablished. . . . The Vietminh used small rail cars pushed by coolies running barefoot along the track bed. . . . In addition the Vietminh used horses, sampans, wagons and bicycles.” Vietminh uniforms consisted of “cheaply made tennis shoes or sandals

More from Simpson. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu “ranks with Agincourt, Waterloo, and Gettysburg as one to the great military engagements of history.” “the Vietminh infantryman who returned again and again to the attack at Dien Bien Phu was hardly as student of Marxism, but, encouraged by the political cadres, he was seeking somewhat he had never had and was willing to die for it.” French generals met and “all were unanimous in advising against the operation and presented tactical and technical objections.” Another high ranking French officer tore “holes in the logic of Operation Castor.” He also criticized the French idea that their base at Dien Bien Phu would “block a Vietminh move into Laos. In this country one does not block a direction. That is a European notion with no value here.” He also “warned that Dien Bien Phu could become a bottomless pit absorbing French battalions that could be fixed in place by only one Vietminh regiment.” Navarre’s staff was “isolated from the realities of the war in their air conditioned headquarters, they had moved units and arrows over detailed wall maps as if the impassable mountains, swamps, thick jungles, monsoon rains, raging torrents, heavy fogs, and searing heat did not exist.” The Vietminh had grown from a ragtag bunch of guerrillas to a modern disciplined, well led army over the previous seven years. “France was sick of the seemingly endless guerrilla war of attrition that had demolished entireFrench battalions, required successive waves of reinforcements, inflicted heavy losses on the officer corps, and ruined a number of military careers.” General Salan had extensive military experience in Indochina. The French and the Vietminh faced “difficult terrain.” Navarre’s staff did not comprehend this with plans of massive sweeps not considering that “few French units had the stamina jungle-fighting skills needed for such operations. Reports had been filed any top French officers which predicted that without the protection of artillery the French “would be defeated by the Vietminh.” Cogny comes to Indochina and based on his previous service their he believed that rice production was the key to the war. The Chinese sent experienced instructors to the Vietminh. They would advise on antiaircraft operations and artillery. In addition, would send “regiments to China for training and rearmament.” The French occupation of Dien Bien Phu was just what Giap wanted. The French patrols outside of their base exhausted the soldiers as they traveled “through rough terrain, fording mountain torrents, cutting through heavy tropical growth, examining deserted villages, and sprinting across potentially treacherous stretches of open ground. The jungle guarded its secrets, and the danger of ambush was real.” French aircraft gave away the progress of the French forces. “Reports from the returning patrols were not good. . . . stiff resistance not far from Dien Bien Phu.” Operations Castor required control of Dien Bien Phu but “would be impossible if the Vietminh controlled the approaches to the fortified camp.” In France’s favor was that the various tribesmen were a “constant threat to the encroaching Vietminh.” These tribesmen were unforgiving. Although they surrendered their weapons to the Vietminh in order to save a Meo’s mother’s life “a few days later they returned with the heads of five Vietminh.” This did not coincide with “the sanitized atmosphere of General Navarre’s headquarters in Saigon.” Not that we didn’t do the same. Simpson attributes this to “special operations” type of warfare. I don’t think so.

Labeled Climate Culprits, European Farmers Rebel Over New Standards Asked to cut herds, move or even shut down to help meet E.U. environmental goals, agricultural workers say too much is demanded of them. Their anger is reshaping the political landscape. Helma Breunissen at her farm in Renswoude, the Netherlands. She and other farmers bridle at being called peak emitters. Credit... Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times By Monika Pronczuk and Claire Moses Monika Pronczuk and Claire Moses traveled across the Netherlands to speak to farmers and others affected by E.U. efforts to tackle climate change. Published Aug. 26, 2023 Updated Aug. 28, 2023, 9:57 a.m. ET To meet climate goals, some European countries are asking farmers to reduce livestock, relocate or shut down — and an angry backlash has begun reshaping the political landscape before national elections in the fall. This summer, scores of farmers descended on the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, to protest against new E.U. rules aimed at restoring natural areas and cutting emissions that contribute to climate change. Farmers have protested in Belgium, Italy and Spain, too. The discontent has underscored a widening divide on a continent that is on the one hand committed to acting on climate change but on the other often deeply divided about how to do it and who should pay for it. A farm in Deventer, the Netherlands. The dairy sector produces almost half the country’s emissions of nitrogen. Credit... Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times Those like Helma Breunissen, who runs a dairy farm in the Netherlands with her husband, say that too much of the burden is falling on them, threatening both their livelihoods and their way of life. For almost 20 years, Ms. Breunissen has provided the Dutch with a staple product, cow’s milk, and she felt that her work was valued by society, she said. The dairy sector in the Netherlands, which also produces cheeses like Gouda and Edam, is celebrated as a cornerstone of national pride. But the sector also produces almost half the Netherlands’ emissions of nitrogen, a surplus of which is bad for biodiversity. Ms. Breunissen and thousands of other farmers bridle that they are now labeled peak emitters. “I was confused, sad and angry,” said Ms. Breunissen, who manages a farm of 100 cows in the middle of the country. “We are doing our best. We try to follow the rules. And suddenly, it’s like you are a criminal.” A Sense of Betrayal For many farmers, the feelings run deep. The prominent role of agriculture was enshrined in the European Union’s founding documents as a way of ensuring food security for a continent still traumatized by the deprivations of World War II. But it was also a nod to national identities and a way to protect competing farming interests in what would become a common market. To that end, from its outset, the bloc established a fund that, to this day, provides farmers with billions of euros in subsidies every year. Increasingly, however, those subsidies and the bloc’s founding ideals are running up against a new ambition: to adapt to a world where climate change threatens traditional ways of life. Scientists are adamant: To fulfill the bloc’s goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and to reverse biodiversity losses, Europe has to transform the way it produces its food. Ms. Breunissen manages a farm of 100 cows. “We are doing our best,” she said, referring to efforts to mitigate climate change. “We try to follow the rules. And suddenly, it’s like you are a criminal.” Credit... Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times In the Netherlands, the government has asked thousands of farmers to scale back, move or close. The authorities set aside about 24 billion euros, about $26 billion, to help farmers put in place more sustainable solutions — or to buy them out. Wilhelm Doeleman, a spokesman for the Dutch Agriculture Ministry, said farmers were not the only ones affected. “The government has also imposed measures in the sectors of construction, mobility and industry,” he noted. “But,” he acknowledged, “the biggest challenge lies with the farmers.” For Ms. Breunissen, who is 48 and works as a veterinarian in addition to her duties on the farm, none of the government-proposed options seem feasible. She is too young to quit and too old to uproot her life, she said, and the authorities have not provided enough support and information on how to change what she now does. “There are so many questions,” she said. “The trust in the government is completely gone.” A New Political Force The disappointment of farmers with establishment parties is feeding new political movements — and in some places has made rural communities a ripe new constituency for far-right nationalist parties and others. Although only nine million out of almost 400 million voters in Europe work in agriculture, they are a vocal and influential bloc that attracts the sympathy of many on a continent where a nation’s identity is often tied to the food it produces. A host of new groups are vying to displace traditional parties. They include the Farmer Citizen Movement, known by its Dutch acronym BBB, which was established four years ago. The party has just one seat in the 150-member Dutch House of Representatives, but it swept regional elections in March, and polls predict it will do well in national elections in November. E.U. farm subsidies and the bloc’s founding ideals are increasingly in conflict with a new ambition: to adapt to a world where climate change threatens traditional ways of life. Credit... Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times Caroline van der Plas, the party’s co-founder, used to be a journalist in The Hague covering the meat industry, and she has never worked in farming. But she grew up in a small city in a rural area, and she said in an interview that she wanted to be “the voice of the people in rural regions who are not seen or heard” by policymakers. She and her party have talked down the need for drastic steps to cut emissions, saying the reductions can be achieved through technological innovation. Policies should be based on “common sense,” she said, while offering no concrete solutions. “It’s not like science says this or that,” Ms. van der Plas said, referring to how theories can change. “Science is always asking questions.” Parties like the Farmer Citizen Movement are making headway, analysts said, by presenting the issue of ecological transition as part of the culture wars. Referring to that phenomenon, Ariel Brunner, the Brussels-based Europe director of the environmental charity BirdLife International, said, “There is political manipulation.” But, he added, “it is feeding on real grievances, and a real sense of hardship.” Sharing the Responsibility Many farmers say they are not resistant to addressing the problem of climate change, and they note that their livelihoods are more directly affected by it than those of many others. But they say the burden should be more evenly spread. Geertjan Kloosterboer, a 43-year-old farmer with 135 cows in the east of the Netherlands, is the third generation to work his family’s farm. He said that four of the past six summers had been extremely dry. “There is something changing,” he said. But, the question, he added, was: “What can we do about it together?” Mr. Kloosterboer said that he was willing to innovate but that the government was asking too much, too quickly. “Tell me what I have to do, in order to do the right thing,” he said. Geertjan Kloosterboer, 43, is the third generation to work his family’s farm. The question when it came to climate change, he said, was: “What can we do about it together?” Credit... Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times The Agriculture Ministry said that it had provided business counselors to advise individual farmers. But it acknowledged that because the country would be ruled by a caretaker government until a new coalition is formed after the elections in November, for the moment, the way forward remained unclear. Sitting at her kitchen table on her farm, surrounded by paintings of cows and a reproduction of “The Milkmaid,” by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, Ms. Breunissen said she felt that all the attention was centered on urban zones rather than rural areas and that there was no space for “this type of life.” “If you want to change anything, you have to all together decide to consume less,” she said. “It is not just about the faMonika Pronczuk is a reporter based in Brussels. She joined The Times in 2020. More about Monika Pronczuk Claire Moses is a reporter for the Express desk in London. More about Claire Moses

Storm Center is a film available on YouTube. Stars Bette Davis as a librarian fired for not removing a book about how wonderful communism is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZvh2tlmcgM

We Are Witnessing the First Stages of Civilization’s Collapse Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland? MICHAEL T. KLARE Flames from the Caldor Fire crown in trees at Echo Lake, Calif., in August 2021. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images) In his 2005 bestseller Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, geographer Jared Diamond focused on past civilizations that confronted severe climate shocks, either adapting and surviving or failing to adapt and disintegrating. Among those were the Puebloan culture of Chaco Canyon, N.M., the ancient Mayan civilization of Mesoamerica, and the Viking settlers of Greenland. Such societies, having achieved great success, imploded when their governing elites failed to adopt new survival mechanisms to face radically changing climate conditions. Bear in mind that, for their time and place, the societies Diamond studied supported large, sophisticated populations. Pueblo Bonito, a six-story structure in Chaco Canyon, contained up to 600 rooms, making it the largest building in North America until the first skyscrapers rose in New York some 800 years later. Mayan civilization is believed to have supported a population of more than 10 million people at its peak between 250 and 900 A.D., while the Norse Greenlanders established a distinctively European society around 1000 A.D. in the middle of a frozen wasteland. Still, in the end, each collapsed utterly and their inhabitants either died of starvation, slaughtered each other, or migrated elsewhere, leaving nothing but ruins behind. The question today is: Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland? As Diamond argues, each of those civilizations arose in a period of relatively benign climate conditions, when temperatures were moderate and food and water supplies adequate. In each case, however, the climate shifted wrenchingly, bringing persistent drought or, in Greenland’s case, much colder temperatures. Although no contemporary written records remain to tell us how the ruling elites responded, the archaeological evidence suggests that they persisted in their traditional ways until disintegration became unavoidable. These historical examples of social disintegration spurred lively discussion among my students when, as a professor at Hampshire College, I regularly assigned Collapse as a required text. Even then, a decade ago, many of them suggested that we were beginning to face severe climate challenges akin to those encountered by earlier societies—and that our contemporary civilization also risked collapse if we failed to take adequate measures to slow global warming and adapt to its inescapable consequences. But in those discussions (which continued until I retired from teaching in 2018), our analyses seemed entirely theoretical: Yes, contemporary civilization might collapse, but if so, not any time soon. Five years later, it’s increasingly difficult to support such a relatively optimistic outlook. Not only does the collapse of modern industrial civilization appear ever more likely, but the process already seems underway.

AUGUST 18, 2023The Uselessness of Bernie Sanders BY PETER BOLTON Peter Bolton is a Washington, DC-based journalist, activist and scholar. He is a regular contributor to The Canary and CounterPunch where he writes about global politics. He has a master’s degree from American University in Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs and aspires to bring academic analysis to a broad public audience. In April, Bernie Sanders announced that he will not seek the Democratic nomination for the 2024 presidential election, instead backing his 2020 rival and incumbent president Joe Biden. He stated that he would “do everything I can to see the president is reelected.” Earlier this month, another major figure from the Democratic Party’s so-called “progressive” wing, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, went so far as to denounce West’s run based on fears about the tired and discredited so-called “spoiler” effect. West recently responded to their refusal to back to him during an interviewwith The Breakfast Show on Black Entertainment Television (BET). He said of Ocasio-Cortez: “She’s given in to the perceptions of the corporate wing of that party and the corporate wing says over and over again, ‘all we have is two parties.’” Speaking of Sanders, he said: “I love the brother and, you know, even in love people have deep disagreements about these things. But I think, again, he’s fearful of the neo-fascism of Trump… See, part of the problem is that people look at Biden and they really don’t want to tell the full truth.” West has hit the nail on the head. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t just surrendered to ‘two-party system’ defeatism; she has also proven to be just another lackey of the Democratic leadership in Congress. Amongst her worst moves have been: voting in favor of funding for arming Ukraine (guaranteeing further bloodshed and a likely military stalemate in what is fast turning into a proxy war); voting in favor of thwarting a strike by rail workers; and supporting US intervention into Venezuela. Signs that she would be heading in this direction emerged as early as March 2020 when Politico reported that she had been “replacing some outspoken radicals with more traditional political professionals.” Biden, meanwhile, is the personification of everything that is wrong with the Democratic Party. In March 2020, I interviewed Jacobin columnist and author of Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden, Branko Marcetic. Marcetic summarized some of the worst things Biden did throughout his career in Congress. He pointed in particular to his Senate votes on criminal justice and immigration policy: “Biden has well over a decade of pushing really extreme ‘tough on crime measures’ — often more extreme than the Republicans that he was trying to out-posture in these instances… On immigration, Biden, like many Democrats… voted to enable the powers that Trump and Obama have used to launch the kind of deportation state.” Marcetic added that Biden also supported neoliberal economic policies such as slashing social security and “was the architect of the foreign policy that accelerated the migrant crisis coming out of Central and South America.” Though not in the same league as Hilary Clinton in this regard, he also pointed to Biden’s corrupt dealings, stating that “the Burisma thing with Hunter Biden is just the tip of the iceberg.” As I argued in CounterPunch in August 2019, Biden’s record has been further tarnished by the fact that he served as Barack Obama’s vice president. From signing so-called “free” trade agreements to continuing the bank bailout, and from renewing the Patriot Act to presiding over an out-of-control National Security Agency, Obama’s two administrations were hardly better than those of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama’s record was arguably even worse in terms of foreign policy. His administration played a hand in the 2009 coup in Honduras against the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya and intervened in Libya, in the process turning it into a failed state. Bush’s drone assassination program, meanwhile, was accelerated by a factor of ten under Obama’s watch. Following the disastrous Obama administrations, for many on the left Sanders appeared at the time to be the best hope of transcending the empty promises of the Democratic Party and building a movement for real radical change. However, given both his steadfast support for Biden and his refusal to back Dr. West, he has now outlived whatever utility he may have once had in this endeavor. But I argue that there were major problems with him and his political project long before this. Indeed, many of the warning signs were apparent as early as when he first crashed into the national consciousness in 2016. To be sure, Sanders failed to win the Democratic nomination in 2016 and 2020 in part because establishment Democrats who dominate the party’s internal structures conspired to rig the primary against him and ensure the victory of one of their own. Even the Democratic National Committee’s own chair Donna Brazile said: “If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead.” But Sanders nonetheless made his own set of unforced errors during his primary battles with Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, respectively. In 2016, for instance, he said of Clinton during a primary debate in New Hampshire, “I happen to respect the secretary very much; I hope it’s mutual.” In 2020, meanwhile, Sanders frequently referred to Biden, both during and after the primary contest, as “my good friend Joe.” Referring to two of the most ruthless neoliberal warmongers and corrupt Washington insiders in this way lost him all credibility as an outsider candidate who was claiming to be launching a challenge to the stale neoliberal and imperialist status quo. The reason he did so is not entirely clear. Perhaps he was hedging his bets in case he lost and thought to himself that, if so, he should then try to work in the Senate to get concession from their administrations. Of course, since Clinton lost we couldn’t know then whether that would have been successful. But in the years since Biden’s 2020 victory, we have now seen just how fruitless an exercise this has been. To take just one example, as I argued at CounterPunch in June 2021, Biden’s infrastructure program included only the most modest of progressive components. Predictably, Biden seemed more interested in appeasing other establishment Democrats, and even Republicans as part of the “bipartisanship” cult, than he did in recognizing the mandate that Sanders’ policy ideas had achieved during the primary contest. This deluded notion that Sanders could ever have brokered progressive concessions from a Clinton or Biden administration points to another of Sanders’ fatal flaws — he ultimately got too close to the Democratic leadership in Congress to really think and act as an outsider/anti-establishment candidate. Sanders’ fawning language also played directly into the hands of Donald Trump. Trump was able to present himself as the only such candidate given that, unlike Sanders, he was willing to criticize both Clinton’s and Biden’s obvious and well-documented corruption and profiteering throughout their political careers. With respect to the former, the late polemicist Christopher Hitchens wrote in a 2009 article published at Slate: “It appears from the donor list of the Clinton Foundation that there is barely an oligarch, royal family, or special-interest group anywhere in the world that does not know how to get the former president’s attention. Just in the days since the foundation agreed to some disclosure of its previously “confidential” clients — in other words, since this became a condition for Sen. Clinton’s nomination to become secretary of state — we have additionally found former President Clinton in warm relationships with one very questionable businessman in Malaysia and with another, this time in Nigeria, who used to have close connections with that country’s ultracorrupt military dictatorship.” The aforementioned Branko Marcetic, meanwhile, noted in a 2019 articlepublished at Jacobin: “…the Biden family’s propensity for engaging in money-making ventures that — gee whiz, just somehow seem to constantly overlap with Biden’s political career — will make him a perfect foil to Trump. Whether it’s Biden’s son, Hunter, being hired as a lobbyist for a Delaware credit card company whose favored legislation Biden was voting for; Biden’s brother mysteriously getting hired by a mid-size construction firm shortly before it received a $1.5 billion government contract; or Hunter, again, joining the board of a corruption-tainted Ukrainian gas producer while Biden spearheaded US policy on Ukraine.” It’s not in my nature to say anything positive about Donald Trump, but when he says “lock her up” and “lock up the Bidens” on the campaign trail and at rallies around the country, I’m with the bastard on that one! (Though, admittedly, it is something of a case of ‘the pot calling the kettle black.’) The fact that Trump has been closer to the mark on criticizing Clinton and Biden shines light onto what is perhaps the most important reason why Sanders’ revolution ultimately failed. In defending his decision to endorse Biden for the 2024 election, Sanders stated: “The last thing this country needs is a Donald Trump or some other right-wing demagogue who is going to try to undermine American democracy or take away a woman’s right to choose, or not address the crisis of gun violence, or racism, sexism or homophobia.” By making such a statement, he reveals that he doesn’t understand the reason for Trump’s rise to power in the first place. Because it was the corrupt neoliberal status quo upheld by Biden and other establishment figures from both of the major parties that created the groundswell of desperation and disaffection that Trump could tap into by falsely portraying himself as an outsider candidate. It is the classic faux populist far-right playbook in which a charismatic (and often buffoonish) figure presents himself as the people’s savior from an out-of-touch elite and then channels legitimate grievances people about have about that elite and its failures toward all the tradition scapegoats. The ultimate failure of Sanders’ revolution and his subsequent support for Biden leads to two further conclusions. First, it shows that the left needs someone who understands what led to the rise of Trumpism in the first place and will forthrightly criticize establishment Democrats for being the crooked, self-serving shysters that they are. Cornel West has consistently shown that he gets it on both counts. And second, Sanders’ failure shows the futility of attempting to achieve radical social and political change within the confines of the Democratic Party. Clearly, the only solution is to build an independent left that challenges the neoliberal and imperialist status quo that has been dutifully upheld by administrations of both of the major parties. Of course, there will always be those who say that this is a fool’s errand given the US’s history of having a two-party system. But I contend this is only true for as long as we allow it to be true and, indeed, believe it to be true. Whether it be Syriza in Greece or the MORENA party in Mexico, across the world new and formerly minor parties can and do overcome the obstacles of their countries’ political systems to win power in spite of the inevitable naysaying of their ‘insider strategy’ opponents. Indeed, Sanders’ failure shows that it is, in fact, the insider strategy that is the true fool’s errand. And with Cornel West, a public intellectual with broad name recognition, running as a Green in next year’s race, perhaps 2024 could be the year when the independent left proves the naysayers wrong.