> =8AFrom: "Mitchel Cohen" <mitchelcohen at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Bernie Sanders' Sellout at Town Meeting in VT
> Date: Wed, 05 May 1999 01:05:17 PDT
> =8A
> I received this "insiders" report from Will Miller, professor at University
> of Vermont. Bernie Sanders, self-avowed socialist, is also taken to task in
> the current NY Press by Alexander Cockburn. Please note in his report
> --just making sure you get that far -- the ongoing despicable role of Prof.
> Bogdan Denitch, the co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America.
>
> - Mitchel
>
> =46rom: Will Miller <wmiller at zoo.uvm.edu>
> Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 00:20:13 -0400
>
> Will reports:
>
> Apparently, Bernie Sanders has forgotten what a Town Meeting is.
> Perhaps he lived in Burlington (too "big" for town meetings) and Washington
> (scared to death of town meetings) for so many years he cannot recall how a
> democratic town meeting actually works.
>
> No one is allowed to appoint themselves the moderator for the town meeting.
> Persons who are partisans on the issues before the town are excluded from
> the moderator's election in favor of persons who can moderate fairly and
> evenhandedly.
>
> Sanders, as the self-appointed moderator/boss, opened the evening
> with naked self-justification. "It is a very complex situation..."
> followed by the ritual of demonization of Milosevic--a technique he has
> perfected over the last eight years on Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Then he
> presented the false dilemma that the only alternative to bombing is doing
> nothing.
>
> Sanders said his situation was the same as that of Joschka
> =46ischer's of the Green Party, Germany's Foreign Minister, who has outraged
> his Green Party membership by supporting the bombing his coalition
> government is carrying out as part of NATO. The assembled citizenry moaned
> audibly.
>
> He continued by subjecting the packed room of over 200 people to
> more than an hour of a panel presentation by people of his own choosing;
> even then, only one panelist overtly supported his position--Bogdan Denich,
> a professor from New York City and leader of the pro-imperialist wing of
> the Democratic Socialists of America.
> Another panelist, Shirely Gedeon, a UVM Economist whose speciality is the
> Balkans, undercut Sander's historical analysis and a third, Roddy Cleary, a
> feminist and religious activist, challenged he support of the bombing
> directly.
>
> Apparently, with all the college and universities in Vermont,
> Bernie had to travel far into flatlander territory to find an academic
> willing to support his "bomb now, talk later" position. In fact, Denich
> went beyond Bernie's present position and called for sending in ground
> troops, immediately.
>
> After allotting the panelists and himself 12 minutes each and now
> more than an hour and a half into the meeting, the people finally had a
> chance to speak. But only for 2 minutes each, dictated the self-appointed
> moderator Bernie! And this after having lectured us on how complex the
> issue of the US/NATO War on Yugoslavia really is.
>
> When he was challenged by a few members of the meeting about his
> undemocratic restriction of peoples' speech, he said anyone who didn't like
> it could leave. It seems when Sanders was in college in Chicago, he learned
> more from Mayor Richard J. Daley than from his academic studies.
>
> The overwhelming majority of the people present were against Sander's
> support for the bombing. Even with all his attempts to control
> the meeting, the people had at him for more than an hour and a half. He
> was denounced for his selling out to the Empire and it's war machine and
> for his support for the 9 year old war against Iraq and his active support
> for every US intervention since he has been in Congress--Iraq, Somalia,
> Haiti, Bosnia, Liberia, Zaire (Congo), Albania, Sudan, Afghanistan and
> Yugoslavia. He was further criticized for his refusal to ban or even object
> to the use of depleted uranium with it's long term toxicity in both Iraq
> and Yugoslavia.
>
> Sanders even tried to escape responsibility for arresting 15 of his
> constituents in his office one week ago for the crime of wanting to talk to
> him without an appointment by blaming those arrested for their arrest, as
> if they went out and brought the police in to arrest
> themselves.
>
> Sanders was repeatedly unresponsive to questions put to him. His
> evasiveness and arrogance did not serve him well. In the end, only a few
> people defended him. Whatever else Sanders gets for his joining the other
> side in the global struggle for social justice--he has lost the left and
> the peace movement here is Vermont. Maybe in the next election he will
> finally have to run officially as the Democrat he has been for the last 9
> years! And then the people of Vermont will be free to build the
> anti-capitalist political movement and party that Sanders has worked so
> hard to block for more than a decade.
>
> People left the meeting resolving to escalate the antiwar movement
> before the US escalates the war with an invasion of ground troops. The
> latest leaks out of NATO sources in Europe suggest that the current plan is
> to invade with troops by the end of May. Remember Vietnam! Never again!
>
> All Power to the People!
>
> Will Miller
>
> *******************************************************************
> Will Miller Phones: (802) 656-3137 (office)
> Philosophy Department before 9:00 PM (802) 879-0288 (home)
> University of Vermont (UVM) Philosophy Dept. FAX (802) 656-3133
> 70 South Williams Street, Room 107 E-mail wmiller at zoo.uvm.edu
> Burlington, VT 05401-3404 Web page: http://www.uvm.edu/~wmiller
>
> *******************************************************************
> Manifest Destiny 1998:
> "If we have to use force, it is because we are America! We are the
> indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."
> Madeleine Albright, U.S. Secretary of State, February 19, 1998
> *******************************************************************
>
>
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