What happens if Bernie Sanders wins?

Now that it looks like Bernie Sanders might actually win (with the new Iowa poll putting him at 35% to Hillary’s 43%), we need to look to the future – really, whether he wins or loses. I don’t know about you, but one effect of the Bernie campaign is to make me a Facebook addict. I used to hate Facebook. But the horserace gets to me. Isn’t it exciting? I lap up every little dribble of Bernie/Hillary and yeah even Trump news. As I was caught up in the drama, a meme I guess you call it popped out at me about a book called NationalSecurity and Double Government, by Michael J. Glenn. The thesis of this book is that the idea that the President, the Congress, and the Supreme Court rule this country is illusory, that since Truman launched the Cold War, the National Security apparatus has been increasing its hegemony and was now running the government. Glenn came to this conclusion when he observed that Obama seemed incapable of fulfilling his campaign promises of ending the Iraq and Afghan war, closing Guantanamo, or curtailing the surveillance state. He essentially concludes that the President simply doesn’t have that kind of power any more. Now this guy is no conspiracy theorist. He was attorney for none other than the Council on Foreign Relations  (CFR) in 1980, that august body, long headed by David Rockefeller, which dictated foreign policy for most of the post war period, overseeing the interests of the Rockefeller family and its allies throughout the world. The Rockefeller wing of the ruling class dominated the political discourse for decades. This is Standard Oil after all, so they still have considerable influence.

So – and we know this – the electoral process is a charade, a Reality TV series to distract us from what’s really going on. Bernie, even if he is elected by a wide margin, will not be able to do much. Of course the strategy is to keep his huge grassroots organization together to flex its clout whenever necessary by mass emails, FB posts, and demonstrations.

The National Security Apparatus, which includes the CIA, FBI, NSA, Homeland Security, ICE, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and the local police is used to demonstrations. They couldn’t give a ratfuck about democracy or that 70% of the people are against their policies. They have their hands on a death machine that in 35 minutes could destroy every living creature on the planet six times over. And that’s just the bombs.

Scandal may be fiction, but remember the original story came from a prominent member of the Bush, Sr. administration.

So who’s running this show, anyway? If we concede that the national security apparatus is firmly in control, who controls the national security apparatus? Donhoff’s classical analysis in “Who Rules America?” probably holds. The CFR and its international wing, the Trilateral Commission, wield the biggest influence over foreign policy. The neocons like Chaney et. al. are part of this group, and represent a right pole. And there’s a left pole of sorts who weren’t so eager to go to war in Iraq, but who went along (Hillary).

Domestically, the ruling class is more divided. The Committee on Economic Development, also Rockefeller dominated, seems to espouse a more liberal approach, their website currently questioning the high cost of college and advocating for more childcare. Then there’s ALEC, the Koch Brothers outfit that spouts a right wing privatization program and has managed to take over a large number of state legislatures.  

In any case, the primary way which this ruling class currently rules is by buying politicians and by dividing the people by race. Bernie Sanders is a huge threat because he can’t be bought. It will be so interesting to see how they try to stop him. Our best – and only – hope is to keep organizing the largest movement possible that demands a society that puts people before profit and to make sure that it embraces the Black Lives Matter movement and remains in place after the election, no matter how it turns out.