In the same ‘Governing Under the Influence” article mentioned above, Sen. Sanders sounds like any other politician at a town hall defending a huge corporation and an outrageous defense contract. When Sanders was asked why, when he denounces wasteful government spending and the influence of money in campaigns, he would support Lockheed Martin, the senator’s answer: “‘What part of the F-35? What are my options as a Senator? …if I said no to the F-35 coming to Burlington, for Vermont National Guard where would it go? South Carolina?’” In his 2012 campaign, Sanders again ran on the slogan that the F-35 fighter had to be built somewhere so that somewhere might as well be in Vermont. I’m sure his supporters can argue like they did with gun control that he has an obligation to take care of his constituents and that might effective for anyone but a revolutionary.

In a scathing piece in The Daily Beast Sanders is taken to task for supporting the DoD’s boondoggle, the F-35 stealth fighter, a budget buster by billions of dollars, is already obsolete according to DoD officials. According to those same officials “is plagued with embarrassing problems with . . . its software, its sensors, and its gun (which won’t be able to fire until 2019).” A few months ago a military spokesman said that the fighter jet “‘wasn’t optimized for dogfighting.’” One Air Force official observed that the jet was already 10 years out of date and couldn’t even defeat a 40-year-old F-16 in a mock dogfight. A CIA employee personally confirmed to me that the F-35 was indeed a colossal waste of money. He also said the GAO reported that the project would end up costing a trillion dollars and a half of trillion dollars to maintain over the lifetime of the planes.

However, in what may be the most egregious betrayal of his own moral code and again involving Lockheed, Sanders had participants in a civil disobedience protest arrested at the Lockheed plant. They chained themselves to the fence surrounding the plant to protest the manufacturing of “Gatling guns to fight socialists in Central America.” His lack of empathy for the protesters and the victims of oppression is in stark contrast to his support of the Sandinistas, the denunciation of US foreign policy in Central America, and his own history of activism. One might even draw the conclusion that Bernie Sanders is no different than any other politician who puts his values on the top most shelf and maybe even in the attic on election day.



As is with politics, so many actions influence other actions, dovetail with actions that seem at odds, or comingle in disturbing ways. So it is with many of Sanders’ decisions. Although Sanders, a full-fledged member of the counter culture, lived mostly off the grid in sparse conditions, he still was filled with political ambitions. To satisfy his political ambitions, Sanders had no qualms about abandoning his convictions or even poor folks he claims to champion. Early in his political career Sanders, in spite of being a vocal critic of US Latin American foreign policy, certainly made some questionable decisions concerning Latinos as was evident in his decision to protect Lockheed from protesters. For example, in 1998 Sanders lobbied for a bill that would allow the dumping of low grade nuclear waste in Sierra Blanca, TX or an act of environmental racism. Additionally, Sanders also rejected any compromise to that bill, including the right of the mostly Latino residents in Sierra Blanca to reject the proposal. He even refused to meet with representatives of the community who drove from their homes in Texas to Vermont. Dismissing their request for a meeting with “’Absolutely not [I’m not meeting with you],’” Sanders said. “’I’m gonna (sic) be running for reelection in the state of Vermont.’” Sanders had his priorities, which was to win at all costs.

Sanders’ no vote against the Immigration Reform Act of 2007, introduced by Harry Reid and co-sponsored by Senators Patrick Leahy and Ted Kennedy, is another position the senator struggles to justify to the Latino community. He claims now that the bill would have created a class of “semi-slaves,” but he didn’t express any concern about the welfare of immigrants after his nay vote. In fact this was his position in 2007: