Too many who consider themselves members of the American political left have elevated Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to a near godlike status. The more often Sanders is accused of being a socialist by his political enemies on the Right, the more convinced the Left becomes that he surely walks on water.

Although Sanders may have been a socialist back in the 80s when he was Mayor of Burlington, he is not a socialist today. Rather he is a technofascist disguised as a liberal. Bernie backs all of Obama’s nasty wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere. He “supports the troops” by favoring all military spending bills, even when they hurt everyday people. Sanders stands behind all military contractors who bring jobs to Vermont. That’s part of his job as a senator, but it does not make him a socialist. (He was running as a Democrat and endorsing the Bush-Obama agenda for unprovoked military aggression abroad.)

Senator Sanders rarely misses a photo opportunity with Vermont National Guard troops when they are being deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq and he’s always at the Burlington International Airport when they return. But if Sanders truly supported the Vermont troops, then he would vote to end all of these unnecessary wars immediately and bring our troops home, out of harm’s way.

Senator Patrick Leahy, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Congressman Peter Welch could hardly contain their enthusiasm over the news that Burlington International Airport had been named as a possible site to house the Air Force’s new F-35 fighter jet scheduled to replace the Vermont Air National Guard’s aging fleet of F-16s. The new high-tech instruments of death will cost $115 million each, whereas F-16s cost a mere $20 million each.

From whom might these F-35s protect Vermont? Canada? Upstate New York? Why would anyone want to invade Vermont? Vermont has no military bases, no large cities, no important government installations, and no strategic resources unless you count an aging nuclear power plant. And the F-35, so far, is dysfunction. Pure profiteering.

Like Obama, Bernie Sanders thinks killer drones are cool. Major General Michael Dubie, head of the Vermont National Guard, has expressed the hope that the Vermont Guard might be morphed into a center for drones.

Sanders is a darling of AIPAC and supports the right-wing Likud government of Israel. … He never questions the U.S. government’s unconditional support of Israeli acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians. …



Then there’s the U.S. government-owned Sandia National Laboratories. For over two years Sanders and former University of Vermont President Daniel Fogel have been encouraging Sandia to open a satellite laboratory in Vermont. Sandia designs, builds, and tests weapons of mass destruction. To be fair, the Vermont laboratory envisaged by Sanders would not be involved with nuclear weapons, but with projects related to energy efficiency, renewable energy, and electric grids. Still, Sandia is operated under contract by Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor in the world. Lockheed Martin produces F-35s and drones. General Dubie, head of the Vermont National Guard, has close ties to Lockheed Martin, and recently received an honorary doctorate from the University of Vermont. Evidently the university doesn’t mind getting in bed with a manufacturer of atomic bombs.

Bernie Sanders loves to rail against Corporate America, Wall Street, and the super-rich, but he has nothing to show for it, and has not constrained their power and influence.

But everybody on the Left loves Bernie.

From this article:



http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/30/the-myth-of-bernie-sanders/