Ta Nehesi Coates’ Bernie Sanders Brain Fart Isn’t Even About Reparations

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Bruce A. Dixon

When favored spokesnegro Ta Nehesi Coates urgently warns us that Bernie Sanders doesn’t support reparations, but doesn’t mention that his presumed candidate Hillary doesn’t either, or that the Green Party candidate Jill Stein does, it’s easy to see Coates doesn’t really want to talk about reparations. Coates just objects to the popularity of socialism, and wants to spread the old lie that socialism and socialists ignore the workings of white supremacy.

Ta Nehesi Coates is a black Baltimore born writer who enjoys prominence chiefly cause the good white folks at the Atlantic give him a column. For the moment, Coates lives in France, and earns his keep dispensing timely wisdom upon us all from across the water.

Coates’ latest transatlantic brain fart blasts Bernie Sanders for not embracing reparations. Since changing his own mind on reparations in a long June 2014 Atlantic piece, Coates is presumably qualified to speak on the subject. But in nine hundred words Coates never mentions that his own presumed candidate Hillary Clinton also has no use for reparations, or that the Green Party’s presidential candidate Jill Stein does endorse reparations.

So Coates’s piece is really not so much about reparations, as it is about Sanders or even something else.

Sanders doesn’t endorse reparations, Coates wants us to believe, because Sanders is a socialist, and socialists according to Coates downplay, ignore or deny the existence of racism and white supremacy. For the entire second half of the piece this is where Coates stays and doubles down, repeating nonsense claims that that socialists can’t see white supremacy, so presumably black folks in motion ought to avoid it, and calling Bernie Sanders “an avowed socialist”.

That pretty much sums up Coates’ weekly dose of disinformation, dispensed from across the water, courtesy of his sponsors.

Number one, stay away from Bernie cause he ain’t for reparations.
Number two look out for those socialists too, cause they make a point of ignoring and denying the role of white supremacy..
Number three, Bernie Sanders didn’t return my call to explain himself

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]ven as conventional neoliberal wisdom goes, this is pretty lazy stuff, which Mr. Coates could really have done in three tweets instead of nine hundred words. Maybe his patrons at the Atlantic pay him by the word.

Nice work if you can get it.

In the real world, not the fantasies of Mr. Coates, Bernie Sanders is no kind of socialist. Socialists stand for the working class, the poor, the common man and woman regardless of nation and color. Bernie’s socialism stops at the water’s edge, as he endorses apartheid in Israel, the Pentagon budget and the global empire of hundreds US bases and vast military industries that eat half the nation’s wealth annually. This makes Bernie no friend of the poor anyplace outside the US and not so much the friend of the poor inside it either, really no kind of socialist at all. Bernie know this, and has rarely if ever called himself one in recent years. But he allows, even encourages us to call him that this year because socialism is popular, even though Ta Nehesi Coates thinks it should not be.

As long as they keep paying Mr. Coates, we’ll be treated to more of his very conventional wisdom. Get ready for it.

For Black Agenda Report, I’m Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com.

ba radio commentary

Sorry State of Affairs for What Passes as ‘Left-Progressive’-
Submitted by Nixakliel on Thu, 01/21/2016 – 22:06

POLITICS in the US: – Based on Articles & comments of 3 recent AlterNet / DN! / Salon [= pro Dim websites faking like ‘progressive’ Alt-Indy media sites] website pieces.

1} ‘Sparks Fly Between Bernie & Hillary Over Health Care & Wall St In Dem Debate’ [@www.alternet.org/comments/election-2016/sparks-fly-between-bernie-and-hi… ]: } How the GP & Jill Stein is being over-looked [= dissed] by most so-called ‘progressives’… In the comment section of the article there are over 400+ comments & counting. -YET- Besides myself only 2 other people even mentions the GP’s Jill Stein, while 10 – 11 people mentioned Dim Liz Warren [who IS NOT even in the race] to be either Bernie’s or even Billary’s VP pick. That’s 3 [includes myself] out 400+ mentioning Ms Stein who IS running as the GP’s POTUS candidate, vs 10-11 so-called ‘informed’ ‘progressives’ commenting on a supposed ‘progressive’ web-site hyping Dim Liz Warren who IS NOT even running!!! {

2} Then there’s a Salon@Alternet piece that goes at length to link the racist rhetoric of the Repugs & Trump [by name] to the racist legacy of ‘Ole’ ‘Slave Owning’ / ‘Injun-Killin’ Andrew Jackson- calling him by name 11Xs [see @ www.alternet.org/comments/culture/we-have-always-been-good-haters-our-do… ]. Yet the Salon authors ‘conveniently’ failed to say that Jackson was a / THEE founding Father of the Democrat / Dixiecrat [= pro-slavery & then pro Jim-Crow] Party & thus was the 1st Democrat POTUS [they also failed to say ‘Ole’ AJ was a notorious slave-plantation owner -&- exterminator & exiler of Native Peoples as he STOLE their lands for even MORE slave-plantations]- Because IMO to say so would likely have screwed-up their ‘neat-spin’ as they tried to ‘tar’ just Trump & the Repugs ALONE w Jackson’s racist legacy- while excluding the Dims!!! Yet 2 AlterNet commenters INSISTED that- when I pointed out this Historical FACT: “That’s all NOW ‘Irrelevant’ “ [Huhh WTF!]!!

3} Then AlterNet posted a DN! ‘debate between 2 so-called ‘feminist socialist’
: ‘Clinton vs Sanders, Who Do Progressives Choose? 2 Socialist Feminists Debate’ [see @www.democracynow.org/2016/1/19/clinton_vs_sanders_who_do_progressives ] Featuring: Suzana Walters [Pro Killary] vs Liza Featherstone [Pro Bernie]:
– First of all NO real ‘Progressive’ let alone a real ‘socialist’ worthy of the name, would ever call or even think of backing Killary as a ‘progressive’!! In fact Ms Walters even admits Killary’s NOT really been a ‘progressive’ [& just started acting like one due to Bernie’s run]. Ms Walters said a whole Slew of [empty] Words which all boiled down to she’s backing Killary cause she both a Woman [said so explicitly] & also a DIM [NOT said out-right but definitely IMPLIED]. But she definitely said she has NO beef w Bernie as the Dims’ POTUS nominee.

But if for Ms Walters it was really about backing a woman who’s a real ‘progressive’- but NOT necessarily a DIM- she’d be backing GP POTUS candidate Jill Stein [neither Ms Stein nor the GP EVER came up even though I KNOW for a fact Amy G knows about her]

– Ms Featherstone was a lot more substantive & definitely critiqued Killary’s NON-‘progressive’ track-record- including vs women & Blacks [no-one talked about her or Bernie’s FP record / positions]!! Re: Bernie- Ms Featherstone admits Bernie not really a ‘socialist’, but as a feminist-socialist’ definitely finds him much better than Killary.

BUT- Ms Stein is at-least just as ‘progressive’ as Bernie is- In Fact even MORE SO [especially re: Foreign Policy]- Even though Ms Stein [as far as I know] does NOT even claim to be a ‘socialist’ / DEMOCRAT-‘socialist’ like Bernie does [NOT!].
–
IMO this again shows that most so-called ‘left Alt Indy’ media [IE: Salon, AlterNet & even DN!] is really just Pro DIM media faking like they’re really alternative progressive independent media!!!

Another Take on Bernie’s NO Re: Reparations @ AlterNet:

Submitted by Nixakliel on Fri, 01/22/2016 – 05:38

‘White People Just Don’t Get It: Bernie Sanders, Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Reality of Reparations’
-Sanders’ recent comment is another chapter in a long debate among liberals and progressives about the relationship between race and class.
[See @ www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/white-people-just-dont-get-it-bernie-… ]

TAGGING ALONG FOR BREAD CRUMBS
Submitted by akechlo on Sat, 01/23/2016 – 21:52

What is very disturbing is how the African Americans, (who seem to be very, very highly educated ), constantly and shamelessly allow themselves to be used as window curtains by the white supreme power brokers for some small drops of bread crumbs that fall from their masters’ tables!

These chosen window curtains do not seem to understand the damage they inflict on the rest of the 99.999% blacks people who only pop up in the minds of the power brokers during election circles! These black elites are the stumbling blocks for any progress that black people can confront together because they are only thinking about their personal aggrandizements!

In Flint, Michigan, another window curtain by the name Darrell Earley, tagged along with the supreme Governor of Michigan Rick Snyder on his racist cost cutting episode that introduced lead contaminated water in the water system of the city of Flint! Now, Mr. Earley is now on the hook for being the sole guy responsible for the lead poisoning people in Flint, Michigan!

Here is the HEADLINE:

“Meet Darnell Earley, the man behind Flint’s water crisis and a lot of other municipal messes”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/meet-darnell-earley-man-behind-…

When will these patsies stop tagging along for bread crumbs while hurting themselves and others?