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  by Jean-Pierre Voiret
This is a crosspost with the Saker blog
[gtranslate]
A fact practically never mentioned in the Western mainstream media is the fact that the People’s Republic of China recommended a few years ago that in the interest of peace and development, humankind should feel as a ‘Community of common destiny’ (Ren lei ming.yun gong tong xiu: 人类命运共同休). This recommendation was not only stated as an essential foreign policy goal of the People’s Republic herself, it even found entrance in a United Nations resolution on Human Rights. The phrase was also included in the preamble of the constitution of the People’s Republic of China when its constitution was amended in 2018. However, until now, this fact has found no echo whatsoever in our media and in the consciousness of the Western peoples.
Suggesting this type of international consciousness to raise our feeling of being a community in this world is not new. The great German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had already suggested in his 18th century publication Novissima Sinica that great cultures, like the Chinese and the European culture, should come closer, expand their intellectual exchanges, and raise commonly the consciousness of global human problems and potentials. After him, many other intellectuals brought forward proposals for bringing together human cultures, for example through the exchange of students. As an instance of such proposals, which very often were far from abstract, let us mention the following proposition written by a certain F.H. King in 1911 in a book published by the Organic Gardening Press (sic) of Emmaus, Pennsylvania: “It is high time for each nation to study other nations and, by mutual agreement and cooperative effort, the result of such studies should be made available for the rest, so that all may become co-ordinate and mutually helpful component factors in the world progress. One very appropriate and immensely helpful means for attacking this problem would be for the higher educational institutions of all nations, instead of exchanging courtesies through their baseball teams, to send select bodies of their best students, under competent leadership and by international agreement, both east and west, to study specific problems. Such a movement, well-conceived and directed, manned by the most capable young men, would spread and broadcast a body of important knowledge which would contribute immensely to world peace and world progress. If some broad plan of international effort such as is here suggested were organized, the expense of maintenance might well be met by diverting so much as is needful from the large sums set aside for the expansion of navies; for such steps as these, taken in the interest of world uplift and world peace, could not fail to be more efficacious and less expensive than the increase in fighting equipment. It would cultivate the spirit of pulling together and of a square deal, rather than one of holding aloof and of striving to gain unneighbourly advantage”.
Was that not a very insightful proposal, written but 3 years before the beginning of WW I?
Now, mentioning the cost of navies as a superfluous expense of money that could be better used for peaceful aims was certainly no melodious sound to British ears at the time. But considering what armaments cost the World today and how huge the debts carried by many states have grown, it really seems that steps in the direction of peace and development instead of war and destruction have become essential for mankind. Let us imagine what could have been done on this planet alone with the 6500 billion dollars spent in the past years on war in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen! Is it not crazy to see that this insanity goes on and on, now in Ukraine, instead of nations sitting together to develop means of peaceful collaboration and development which would bring riches not only to the poor but also to the rich themselves through intelligent investments?
 The Sahara recovery might allow for modern transportation means such as highways connecting various countries, or railroads. Animal caravans could be retired.
However, the world is now changing, and the Asian powers in general feel that the planet is going through a very important period of development, and the international system is going through a moment of great transformation. This transformation is occurring in favor of the Asian powers in general, i.e., China first and foremost, and the main Asian states such as Russia, India, Iran and Turkey. These forces feel that they are witnessing a historical turning point in which they are regaining their civilizational weight and influence on the world, which had been lost during the past 500 years.
The Asian states are still witnessing disparities, rivalries, and disagreements among them, the frameworks of cooperation between them are still developing and have not yet been crystalized, and part of these main (Asian) countries still have partnerships with the West. However, all of these states share a feeling that this world is becoming more pluralistic and more balanced, and that they are facing a great historical moment that they can seize to take away from the West a part of its domination and hegemony over them, whose consequences were at the expense of them and their people.
Now the west, instead of feeling provoked and defied could also seize such opportunities, take advantage of a very possible peace between the two geopolitical blocks and regain the prestige lost in long colonial and neo-colonial enterprises. These enterprises did bring profits, but they also cost huge losses and, after each world war, brought huge risks of total financial collapse.
Also, the domination and hegemony of the west upon Asia, Africa and the Near East was not achieved without mighty political costs, and the question is if these costs were not much higher than the advantages that could result from exchanges and commerce with these countries, provided they have first developed to technically equal partners. This is China’s opinion, and the current Chinese policy shows, especially in Africa, that the Chinese government and the Chinese economy feel that developing Africa, and later trading with this then more developed Africa will bring more advantages than practicing a colonial policy there.
They also think that the time has come to throw down the limits of consciousness which hinder the citizens of the world to genuinely feel as citizens of the world. For instance, China declared herself ready to conduct more international cooperation and exchanges with countries committed to peaceful use of outer space. “Foreign astronauts are welcome to visit China’s space station and join Chinese astronauts in making more positive contributions to exploring the universe and building a community with shared future for mankind” (Asia Times, 2022.07).
So what sort of project should be started to bring about into mankind the needed feeling of intelligent cooperation on worldwide projects worth the efforts?
In my opinion, there is currently one project that could succeed in showing that common development is of great advantage for all the nations participating in the effort:
The re-greening of the Sahara desert.
 As unbelievable as it may seem, with enough help, the whole world could be transformed from a barren desert into a tropical paradise, and it could be done in less than a decade if it were done right. The world could go from being 2/3 desert to 2/3 grassland, or better yet farmland.
Currently, that is since a few years, the climate of the Mediterranean basin seems to show an increase in climate instability. Rain in North Africa ceases earlier, the desert expands, Spain, Italy and Greece are now so dry that even the rich Po valley in North Italy is showing diminishing crops. On top of this, huge forest fires devastate each summer Greece, Spain, Italy and even France. As for the countries further north, their problem is weather instability: Germany, which was shocked by huge floods in the Ahr-valley last summer, has also had forest fires like France this year.
Everybody laments climate change, but those who hope to solve these problems with such low-efficiency techniques like windmills are like children trying to stop a flood by throwing small stones in the river. The world needs real solutions, and human creativity is the solution.
Human creativity begins with analysing the problem. Let’s do that.
In the Summer months, the north-east trade wind is getting weaker in the Atlantic Ocean, and humid air volumes are brought over the Sahel zone towards the North from the West African monsoon zone. This takes place in July and early August, when around 100 to 200 mm precipitations make savanna grass grow in the Sahel. In our days, however, it seems that going further north, these huge volumes of humid air rise higher than before in the atmosphere of the desert. In this way, the rain-containing air masses reach altitudes like thirty thousand feet above sea level – higher than in earlier years, because the heat emitted by the Sahara seems to be growing: As the humid air masses reach the first sand dunes of the desert, the huge heat reflection by the dunes send them higher and higher. Every pilot flying north from Bamako or Niamey can confirm that: as soon as he reaches the desert, his plane is lifted higher by the air masses even if he, the pilot, doesn't pull his controls!
Under Ghaddafi, Libya started pumping water from the aquifers and greening efficiently parts of the desert. Huge plantations of corn have been growing south of Benghazi until they were destroyed as a consequence of the US-induced civil war.
After the humid clouds rise so high in the air over the desert, it is obvious that no rain comes down on North Africa and on the Mediterranean basin in the summer months – hence the dryness and the forest fires. The rain comes down when the clouds get cooler after reaching more northern latitudes, after having passed the Alps. Thus for example the “tropical” rain that came down on the Ahr-valley in Germany in the summer of 2021.
The only solution to solve these problems and solve the dryness nuisance of the Mediterranean Basin would be the re-greening of the Sahara desert.
Now, around 5000 years ago, the Sahara desert was indeed green!
The scientific study of the Sahara desert has shown that this part of the world has been alternatively infertile, or green with vegetation: in the course of Earth's history, the Sahara desert has seen 230 periods of vegetation growth alternating with dry climate phases! In the middle of the Holocene climate phase, around 6000 years ago, the Sahara actually had cattle breeding and cultivation. Rock engravings existing in the Hoggar and the Tibesti regions of the Sahara show that. These pictures also show gazelle herds and vegetation. The current dry climate phase began 3500 to 4000 years before Christ. But from those times, huge water reserves still exist underground, the so-called “aquifers”. Some aquifers are salty, but most of them are sweet water. Under Ghaddafi, Libya started pumping water from the aquifers and greening efficiently parts of the desert. Huge plantations of corn have been growing south of Benghazi until they were destroyed as a consequence of the US-induced civil war. Fear that the water reserves will soon be exhausted are not justified: the reserves are so huge (more than 100,000 cubic miles, alone for the Nubian aquifer, the Sahara's biggest underground water reserve!) that it would take thousands of years to use it up. And until this happens, humankind will have solved the problem of atomic fusion and will have unlimited energy at its disposal to desalinate seawater.
Now what about the costs? During the last twenty years, as we said, the West has spent 6500 billion dollars on wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Yemen! Only a portion (only a portion!) of this gigantic amount of money would have sufficed to make the Sahara green again, and so to avoid the humid air masses rising to huge altitudes over the hot desert. And the sales of irrigation equipment and the building of water pipelines in the Sahara would have secured huge profits for a great many enterprises in Israel (irrigation technology), the USA, and Europe. Not to mention the huge savings obtained by avoiding future forest fires around the Mediterranean basin, and by stabilizing the weather from the equator to northern Europe.
Instead of incredibly expensive wars, which bring no positive results neither for the West nor for Africa, the nations of Europe and Africa ought to organize a conference for re-greening of the Sahara. The United Nations could organize such a conference and later supervise the project. A huge project indeed, but cheap compared to the wars of the last twenty years. And able to secure a huge contribution to the nourishment of Africa‘s northern half.
If leading nations are able can come together to realize common space projects like Space Lab, why not work together for the re-greening of the desert? Wouldn’t that be a task more worthy of human efforts than fighting and killing? Wouldn’t that contribute to making mankind finally feel like a family, as a community of common destiny, able to give itself sensible and positive aims?
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.
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 EXPOSING CAPITALISM'S MULTITUDE OF VICES AND INCURABLE PROBLEMS—
FROM INGRAINED RACISM and TERRIBLE ECONOMIC CRISES & EXPLOITATION TO ENDLESS WARS
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 The Korean conflict, still enveloped in the heavy fog of US propaganda, is just one spot on the globe where Washington waged a genocidal war.
An unquestioned assumption amongst America’s Establishment is that the global dominance that America inherited from having been the last of the major world powers to enter World War II, and from having suffered (by far) the least damage from that War, needs to continue in perpetuity, and that it needs to become total U.S. dominance over the entire planet, and especially dominance over the world’s largest nation, Russia, which is 1.77 times larger than America (the world’s third-largest country) is. (Russia is 1.74 times larger than Canada, the world’s second-largest country, is; and is 1.78 times larger than China, which is the world’s fourth-largest. It is 2.01 times larger than the 5th-largest, Brazil; and is 2.20 times larger than the 6th-largest, Australia. It is 5.20 times larger than the 7th-largest, India. So, there are only 6 giant countries: Russia, Canada, America, China, Brazil, and Australia.) The term that many scholars use to refer to this belief — this objective, that America’s dominance over the entire world would be good instead of bad — is “hegemony”. Here, this belief will be explained.
Historically, any nation’s Establishment (its aristocracy and their employees and other agents) seeks to control as much of the world’s natural resources as possible, and this craving by them is the leading cause of wars. Russia, as the world’s largest nation, is also the world’s richest in natural resources. That is the main reason why the thousand-or-so people who control America (who mainly are America’s billionaires, America’s richest and best-connected individuals) want, more than anything else, to control Russia, which they don’t YET control. Their top mutually shared (virtually unanimous, if not 100% unanimous) assumption is that, however this is to be done, America needs to achieve control over Russia — that it is a good, instead of a bad, objective to pursue. If any member of America’s Establishment does NOT hold this objective, then that person would be shunned by all of his or her colleagues, and would consequently become targeted by all of them for defeat or conquest, destroying that person’s reputation and/or enterprises. Consequently, none comes forth publicly in opposition to this objective, which is called “U.S. hegemony” when it is not being labelled instead by benign-sounding ideological terms or phrases such as “democracy,” “freedom,” “the American way,” “the liberal international order,” or “the rules-based international order,” all of which presume that America’s continued and increased control over the world will help, instead of hinder, such alleged “values” — which really are global conquest, however that is to be achieved. So, the public join in: they (as workers for, or other agents of, those extremely wealthy individuals), likewise favor continued, and increased, U.S. global rule, hegemony. This goal is accepted by America’s public, as-if it were the very meaning of being an American ‘patriot’, and to oppose it is thus ‘unpatriotic’. This belief, in the virtuousness of extending yet further the American empire, is also the reason why the highest-respected of all institutions in America is “the military.”
 Picasso, who authored the legendary painting Guernica, to commemorate German bombing barbarism during the Spanish Civil War, also painted this canvas, to help the world remember US atrocities in Korea.
Prior to 1898, America had been only a confused but largely democratic country, and not yet an imperialistic capitalist, or “fascist,” country, such as it has been ever since then, except during the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945), when America was — for only that brief time-span — the most fully democratic country that it has ever been. Almost immediately after WW II, America became, even more than it ever had been, an imperialistic capitalist country, effectively controlled by its military-industrial complex, which never before even had existed. This is the reason why U.S. President Harry S. Truman (inspired by the advice that he had received from his hero, Dwight David Eisenhower — “Ike” — the most gifted liar of anyone who became America’s President, except for Barack Obama) created, in 1947, both the U.S. Department of ‘Defense’ (America’s first-ever standing army — which had been condemned by America’s Founders, but Truman and the U.S. Congress dismissed that concern) and the CIA (for producing coups, which America started doing in 1948 Thailand).
Ever since 25 July 1945 (only months after FDR’s 12 April 1945 death), America has been a fascist-imperialist country, under the ideological guise of being ‘anti-communist’ until 1991, when communism ended in Russia and President G.H.W. Bush committed the U.S. and its allies secretly on 24 February 1990 to being simply anti-Russian, even without any continuing ideological excuse, at all, remaining. This new America is today’s version of Nazi Germany, hyper-militaristic, a nation with global ambitions of conquest: aspiring for control over all countries.
Here is a good list of this new, fascist-imperialist, America’s, invasions, ever since the end of WW II — ever since, actually, 25 July 1945 (when the decision was first made for the U.S. Government to take over the entire planet). Few, if any, of those 161 foreign deployments of U.S. troops served U.S. national security (such as the U.S. regime claimed), but all served U.S. billionaires and were propagandized-for by U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media, at the time, so as to fool the public into believing that this was being done for “national defense” and “democracy” and “human rights” and “freedom,” when it was actually being done for imperialism to benefit America’s billionaires — to increase their access to the least expensive natural resources. As can be seen from that list, the U.S. Government is, now, and long has been (ever since 25 July 1945), controlled by its Military-Industrial Complex, or, more precisely, by America’s hundreds of billionaires who own control over America’s top 100 ‘defense’ (aggression) firms. Those are the only people who gain from U.S. imperialism. Everybody else loses from it, and many millions of people lose their lives because of it — because of these billionaires, who hide their identities behind fronts such as “BlackRock” and “Vanguard” and “State Street”, so that their guilt won’t become known, for what they do, and how they do it.
In addition to conquests by means of invasions, the hegemoniacal President Truman also initiated the long and continuing string of U.S. coups by the CIA, which he created in 1947 as an adjunct to the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department, in order to do dirty work for both that Department and the State Department. The CIA-edited and written Wikipedia (which blacklists — blocks from linking to — sites that aren’t CIA-approved) has a (probably intentionally) incomplete list of “U.S. coups” that excludes both the earliest one, which overthrew and replaced Thailand’s Government in 1948, and the latest one, which overthrew and replaced Ukraine’s Government in 2014, and the Wikipedia article is (likewise probably intentionally) mis-titled “United States involvement in regime change” (a title that few people will Web-search for), instead of “U.S. coups” (a title that many people Web-search for). Obviously, the CIA doesn’t want people to be able easily to find the list of U.S. coups that it contains. However, that list of 45 U.S. coups (all of which occurred, of course, after 1947) is the most-nearly-complete one that is presently on the Web, and you can see that list here. All of the instances of “United States involvement in regime change” that pre-date the CIA’s creation in 1947 were of a fundamentally different type, not U.S. coups, because there didn’t even exist, prior to the CIA, a U.S. agency to plan and carry out coups. So, there have been at least 47 U.S. coups since 1947 (those 45, plus the 1948 one in Thailand, and the 2014 one in Ukraine).
So: after WW II, the U.S. regime perpetrated at least 130+ U.S. invasions (out of 161 foreign military deployments of U.S. troops during 1945-2021, not even including The U.S. Government’s usage of proxy-forces instead of U.S. troops, such as is now the U.S. regime’s standard way of invading, because it’s far cheaper to do).
After World War II ended, the U.S. regime slaughtered or assisted in slaughtering, between 1945 and 2007 (and not even counting more recently, such as in Syria and Yemen), “between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world”. (This count also doesn’t include the numbers, such as in Iraq after the 1990 war, which died as a result of U.S.-initiated sanctions against countries that America’s billionaires wanted to bring under their control that weren’t yet under their control.)
There is every indication that the U.S. regime is even planning to ‘win’ a nuclear war against Russia if America’s preparation of a U.S.-led NATO Operation Barbarossa II (successor to Hitler’s plan) against Russia fails to materialize like they hope it will.
As a consequence of the reality of post-1944 America’s being fascist-imperialist (and its consequent record of doing far more invasions, coups, and sanctions, than any other country does), overwhelmingly the highest percentage of people polled throughout the world on questions of which country poses the greatest or biggest threat to peace in the world say that that country is the United States. No other country comes even close. Soon after Hitler left off, Trumanite America continued on, and far more successfully, but for America’s billionaires, instead of for Germany’s.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s next book (soon to be published) will be AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change. It’s about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
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NOTE: ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS
Read it in your language • Lealo en su idioma • Lisez-le dans votre langue • Lies es in Deiner Sprache • Прочитайте это на вашем языке • 用你的语言阅读
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EXPOSING CAPITALISM'S MULTITUDE OF VICES AND INCURABLE PROBLEMS—
FROM INGRAINED RACISM and TERRIBLE ECONOMIC CRISES & EXPLOITATION TO ENDLESS WARS
PREFATORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR
The people have had enough. The pervasive corruption, the nonstop crimes, the arrogant hypocrisy run too deep. All establishment institutions —politicians, media, churches, and even the military—have lost credibility, as they should, since no part of a degenerate empire can ever be honorable. In fact, the American people are way overdue. It's time for them to wake up, not in the Democrats' smug "woke" style that deviously props up the rotten status quo, but in an honest and courageous manner that opens the road to liberation not just for US citizens, but for the entire planet. No more manufactured troubles, frustrations, disgusting inequality, economic insecurity and fear at every corner, plus endless penury and wars. NONE of them are inevitable occurrences. They are all created by a sociopathic and irrational system. That's why we salute this message. It typifies what tens of millions are feeling in America today. They won't be stopped.—PG
"I had decided not to vote anymore, no longer willing to do the Lesser Evil thing. The Democrats and Republicans are not just NOT working for me, but both parties are actively working AGAINST my interests and those of average Americans. But if Jimmy Dore runs for president on the People's Party, and I hope he does, I WILL vote for Jimmy."—Barbara Havlena
Jimmy Dore for ‘24!
Jimmy Dore is considering running for president. He could win.
Every time he’s brought it up the crowds at his stand-up shows and in the live chat have exploded with excitement!
Nick Brana
National Chair, People's Party
It’s a dark time in America. And it’s getting worse.
Millions lack food and health care and live paycheck to paycheck. Poverty wages are now gutted by inflation. Eviction and homelessness sweep every city. Desperation is so deep it drives people to opioid addiction and mass murder-suicide. The looming fall of the dollar and depression. A dying empire is lashing out for war with not one but two nuclear powers. The major "left-wing" party in this country leading the charge for annihilation and censorship.
Thankfully, I and many others have recently found real hope and joy in the prospect that Jimmy Dore could run for president of the United States.
Jimmy has been considering a run for president with the People’s Party for the past several weeks. We’ve been discussing it with him and Stef and have developed a fifty-state campaign and ballot access plan with organizers and leading ballot access attorneys.
The crowds in Des Moines, Omaha and Kansas City erupted in cheers when Jimmy surprised everyone at his live stand-up shows last month and said, “I’m thinking of running for president,” and took townhall-style questions for the first time.
 Brana That weekend, Jackson Hinkle told him he should run for president live on Jimmy’s show and Jimmy said he’s considering it. Then Jimmy asked Chris Hedges what would happen if he was to run for president on air. And on June 3, I joined Jimmy and Stef in studio and told them and all of their supporters why he needs to run. We discussed it for the last half of the segment with Jackson and Kurt Metzger weighing in. The next day Jimmy uploaded the whole conversation to YouTube.
Jimmy would be the most popular comedian to ever run for president. He would be the first candidate with his own hugely popular online show — something that has only just now become possible due to the rise of the internet and independent media.
We believe that Jimmy could WIN.
And not just by becoming president, but by consolidating and organizing a surging populist movement — the kind Ralph Nader described and predicted in his 2014 book, Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.
Jimmy could win by using the campaign to organize direct actions. By building a major new populist party that realigns our politics along class, like the new parties breaking through in Latin America and Europe. By supporting strikes and giving a surging new generation of unions an alternative to co-optation and death in the Democratic Party. By showing people that billionaires are to blame instead of the poor. By showing us if change is possible within the electoral system. By striking fear into the hearts of the richest people on Earth and making them reconsider the wisdom of cruelly impoverishing so many. By showing millions of Americans what a leader with integrity looks like.
This is why Jackson said that Jimmy embodies the political realignment that is happening in this country and should run. It’s why Max Blumenthal told me that Jimmy’s campaign would give him hope. And it’s why Ralph Nader told Jimmy and me that he supports Jimmy running and would advise the campaign.
Jimmy comes from a big family in the South Side of Chicago, where he worked as a bricklayer and forklift driver. He’s starred in two Comedy Central Specials and built The Jimmy Dore Show with his wife Stef Zamorano, a former teacher and union leader. Stef, The Miserable Liberal, produces and stars on the show with him.
Through his show, Jimmy has consistently led and been right on issues like RussiaGate, the chemical attack in Syria, the DNC rigging a second election against Bernie Sanders, the CARES Act bailout for Wall Street, Covid vaccine mandates and lockdowns, Bernie’s spinelessness, the Squad’s careerism, and the need for a major new populist party free of corporate money.
His #ForceTheVote campaign reshaped US politics by exposing that even progressives like AOC are quickly corrupted by the Democratic Party. The People’s Party was the only major national organization to partner with Jimmy and demand a floor vote on Medicare for All in the middle of the pandemic.
When Jimmy asked him about running on the show, Chris Hedges said the media would dredge up something he said or did, or allegedly said or did, and use it to attack him endlessly. He’s right, they would do this to any independent populist who truly challenges the corporate state, but as Ralph pointed out, we’re in a very different political and media age from when he ran in 2000.
We’ve been through two great recessions and a pandemic that were used to crush us and create super billionaires. People are working more, making less, and living worse. Faith in institutions has collapsed across society, including the major parties, the media, big business, the banks, the courts, and schools. Trust in government is at historic lows. The number of independents is at record highs. And a majority of Americans want a major new party and an independent candidate for president.
The corporate media is now so discredited that their attacks amount to free publicity and rally mass support. Trump and Rogan grew rapidly while being attacked by the media. If their attacks could make Trump president six years ago, despite him being the antithesis of his working class voters, imagine what they’ll do today for a no-bullshit comedian with real populist principles and policies. The way Jimmy triggers liberals is one of his greatest advantages. It gets people rooting for him. The more he’s attacked, the more people will tune into his show to see him shred the establishment.
In fact, the attacks are why Jimmy is such a great candidate. Comedy can laugh off and flip attacks more effectively than logic and facts. Comedy reduces the establishment to a joke and lets you entertain while you preach. That’s why the corporate media attacks against Jimmy have backfired and just made him more popular, including hit pieces by CNN and the Daily Beast.
The media also recycles the same attacks over and over against anyone who defies the establishment, making them trite and predictable. They’ll smear him as a conspiracy theorist, right winger, grifter, anti-vaxxer, racist, sexist, and try to #MeToo him again. But the more the media tries to demonize Jimmy, the more obvious it will become that they have no response to his message and are just trying to destroy someone who speaks for the working class. The more they attack him, the stronger he will become.
Even without the corporate media coverage, Jimmy will have greater media reach than any independent candidate in modern history thanks to his show and other independent shows. He already has a million subscribers on YouTube and a half a billion views. He’s done shows with many other major podcasters like Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, and former UK Member of Parliament George Galloway, who just yesterday said that he supports Jimmy running.
The Bernie 2016 campaign set off a flourishing of independent media as people tuned in for campaign news that the corporate media wasn’t covering. Jimmy’s campaign would launch a second renaissance of independent media, with populist channels growing across many platforms, further replacing corporate media and increasing the movement’s resiliency against Big Tech censorship and deplatforming.
The absurdity of a jagoff comedian becoming president by being better than legions of "serious" politicians is the ultimate political statement that perfectly reflects the zeitgeist of this country. Liberals who try to attack him for being a comedian will immediately have to face that their ultimate global hero is a comedian who ran for president in Ukraine and won.
A now-ubiquitous internet has also transformed organizing and empowered working class campaigns in unprecedented ways in the last 20 years.
Independent YouTube shows and podcasts rival and even exceed the viewership of corporate media. Social media lets us communicate and organize with people directly, bypassing traditional media gatekeepers. Smartphones and apps enable new kinds of mass canvassing. Online crowdfunding allowed Bernie to raise more than $200 million in small and recurring donations on each of his campaigns. Even with the suppression, we have tools that the movements and campaigns of the past could only dream of.
For years Jimmy and the People’s Party called for Bernie, AOC and progressive Democrats to leave the party and join us in starting a major new one free of corporate money. But after 18 months of selling out to Biden’s corporate war-mongering agenda, they are so thoroughly discredited that we don’t need or want them anymore. Jimmy’s campaign can give this country a real populist opposition party without them.
Jimmy is already bringing out thousands of people across every part of this country. At his shows you see young and old, men and women, right and left, people of every race and gender – a cross-section of America. His show has and is taking him to Buffalo, Tempe, Baltimore, Raleigh, Philadelphia, Houston, Addison, Orlando, Tampa, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Des Moines, Omaha, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Irvine, Honolulu, Denver, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Rosemont, Chicago, San Diego, Sacramento, Indianapolis, Louisville, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Spokane, Tacoma, Virginia Beach, Richmond, Arlington, Miami, West Palm Beach, Portland, and more. This is what a nationwide revolution looks like!
His campaign tour could be even more incredible, potentially with figures like Chris Hedges, Cornel West, Susan Sarandon, Anya Parampil, Max Blumenthal, Chris Smalls, Medea Benjamin, Jackson Hinkle, Richard Wolff, and Aaron Mate joining him on the road, and in what is sure to be the most revolutionary White House cabinet in the history of this country.
President Dore would have incredible power to change lives. He could use executive authority to its fullest extent on day one: wipe out student debt, end the war on terror, effectively legalize marijuana, enforce anti-monopoly rules, break up big banks, pardon whistleblowers like Assange and Snowden, use a form of eminent domain on Big Pharma patents to force them to lower drug prices, and reinvigorate the labor movement by prioritizing workplaces with collective-bargaining agreements for federal contracts.
He could wield the greatest bully pulpit in the world to excoriate Congress into doing its job and helping people. He could be the real organizer-in-chief, calling thousands of people to the streets of DC to protest Congress and their billionaire donors. He could convene special sessions of Congress, denying members of the House and Senate vacation until they give every American health care and a living wage. He could veto corporate legislation, forcing the establishment parties to team up to pass anything, further exposing them as Wall Street tools and setting them up to be further replaced by People’s Party members of Congress in 2026.
He could fight for an end to homelessness, expanded Social Security, an end to job-killing trade deals, free public college, a jobs guarantee, abolishing mass incarceration, free speech or nationalization for every social media platform, public funding of elections, and a multi-party system with ranked choice voting and proportional representation.
Candidate and President Dore would move the working class from a perpetually reactive position to a proactive one. From powerlessness to revolution. All through one of the greatest and most enjoyable comedy tours of all time. As Matt Orfalea said, #Dore24 is a historic opportunity.
There couldn’t be a better time for his campaign. Despite holding the presidency and both houses of Congress, the Democrats have done nothing for working people. Biden has betrayed even his moderate campaign promises for a public option and $15 minimum wage. He ended the eviction moratorium, is hiking Medicare premiums and incrementally privatizing it, is selling off infrastructure to Wall Street, and let the child tax credit expire.
Biden’s approval ratings are worse than Trump’s. Support for the Democratic Party is even crashing among Black and Latino voters. Just 33% of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance, including 49% of Black voters, 24% of Latinos, and 22% of 18-34-year-olds. Most people don’t even think he has the mental fitness for the job. The Democrats are facing huge losses in the midterms. And Trump also remains largely unpopular.
In fact, the corporate parties and candidates have become so profoundly disliked that if the working class doesn’t build a major new populist party free of corporate money, billionaires will create an astroturf version themselves to co-opt the half of the country that is now independent. France offers a preview of how elites respond after they milk the establishment parties for all they’re worth and run them into the ground. For decades the center-left Socialist Party was the largest party on the left in France. A few years ago it became so unpopular that elites formed a new neoliberal party, La République En Marche, and ran Emmanuel Macron for president. The ruse worked and Macron was elected president twice. There are indications that billionaires are already engineering such a ploy in the US.
As Jimmy told me, if non-voters were counted, they would win every presidential election in this country. He is the kind of unconventional, outrageous, principled and hilarious candidate who could inspire them to vote again. Voters already tried to elect populist outsiders in the primaries in both parties in 2016, Bernie and Trump, but the corporate parties will never allow truly anti-establishment candidates to win their primaries and run in the general election. The Democratic and Republican Parties have the power to simply refuse to list a candidate who threatens them on the ballot, and they’ve done it before.
In 2016 I believed in someone and gave every ounce of energy I had to elect him president. Then he betrayed me and millions of his supporters. He had the power to run [as an] independent, build a new party, and finally break this wretched system. But he sold out instead.
When I walked out at Our Revolution after Bernie tried to take billionaire money — while he kept signing every email and T-shirt with “Paid For By Bernie Sanders, Not The Billionaires” — I never thought I would believe in anyone that way again.
The day after Trump won as a result of what the Democrats had done, I pulled over and wrote an article on my phone at a New Jersey rest stop saying that we need a major new party free of corporate money in this country. It was my goodbye letter to politics and the belief that things could change. I was giving up.
But the article went viral and hundreds of people reached out to me in every way enthusiastically saying, “yes we need this, how can we help.” And I said, “you’ve got the wrong person. I’m not a leader. And I’m burned out. Done with politics.” And they said, “that’s exactly why you have to do it. Because you don’t want to. Because you’ll do it for the right reasons.”
I never thought I would believe in someone again like I had believed in Bernie, until I got to know Jimmy. And that’s why Jimmy Dore should run for president. Because so many thousands of us who thought we would never believe in anyone again believe in him. Everywhere Jimmy goes people tell him that he keeps them sane. Everywhere they bring him thoughtful personal gifts as a token of their appreciation. There’s only one other person I’ve ever seen inspire that kind of love and support and hope.
They call us nihilists and say we believe in nothing. But they’re wrong. We believe in Jimmy’s integrity. We believe in his outrage. And we believe that with him and Stef, we can change this country.
#Dore24
Nick Brana
National Chair
People’s Party
You can reach the People's Party here:
https://peoplesparty.org/
https://www.facebook.com/peoplespartyusa
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