Written by James and Jean Anton   

“the Bernie Sanders campaign … that campaign ought to be directed to sustaining a popular movement that will use the election as a kind of an incentive and then go on, and unfortunately it’s not. When the election's over, the movement is going to die…

The only thing that’s going to ever bring about any meaningful change is ongoing, dedicated, popular movements that don’t pay attention to the election cycle. It’s an extravaganza every four years…

(Sanders) is basically… Eisenhower” – Noam Chomsky.



So Chomsky wants a popular movement, but not a political movement.

The last time he was happy with a popular movement was in 2011. Even then, I wondered why. The Occupy movement looked like a joke to me. The hippie-type movement had no teeth. It never said what it was for, only what it was against… vaguely… the status quo? (whatever that means).

In the end, all the Occupiers seemed to do was annoy a few people, hang up some hand-painted banners advertising themselves (but not their goals)… and then they went away.
Where are Chomsky’s heroes now? One has a feeling that most of them, having “grown up,” have gotten “serious.” That most of them , recovering neoliberals, won’t even bother to vote.

They accomplished nothing. Despite their “efforts,” we have drifted further to the extreme right than at any time in our history. Wall St. has moved from lobbying the government to ruling it.

Occupy failed because it did not have a political leader, or even a spokesperson. Without a leader, it went in all directions, ultimately feeding on itself like Ouroboros, the mythological snake that eats its own tail.
So much for Professor Chomsky’s popular movement.

Professor Chomsky compares Sanders to Eisenhower (which is not a compliment).
He should ask himself:
If Eisenhower were alive today, would he break up the big banks? Would he demand that criminal charges be brought against big-bank and Wall St. crooks? Would he call for an end to Citizens United? Would he crusade for Medicare For All or for free public education? Would he call for for paid childcare or medical leave? Would he fight to expand Social Security?
Professor Chomsky seems to think that he would.

Would Eisenhower fight for gay rights or against universal surveillance? Would he oppose the Patriot Act? Would he have voted against wars in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria? Would he oppose privatization in general, and prisons-for-profit in particular? Would he denounce excessive incarceration of black people and Hispanics? Would he oppose the TPP, NAFTA? Would he support abortion rights?
Would he say that Edward Snowden has defended American Freedom?
Professor Chomsky seems to think that he would.

Professor Chomsky, with his impeccable memory, seems to forget that (besides the famous military-industrial complex warning – which was all well and good but like the Occupy movement went absolutely no where) Eisenhower was most well known as the country-club President. He seems to forget that Eisenhower was criticized for spending too much time at the golf course, where he hobnobbed with the people he admired most – the One Percent. Would country-club President Eisenhower crusade against the redistribution of America’s wealth to the One Percent?
Professor Chomsky seems to think that he would.

Sanders flies economy. He won’t be golfing with hedge-fund managers or big Pharma executives because as he has made it very clear, “They don’t like me.”

You should have said, Professor Chomsky, that Sanders is America’s only hope and champion. That as President he will have a tough row to hoe, but that a transformational politician like Sanders comes along only once in a lifetime. And that if it’s “meaningful change” that most Americans want, we are on the verge of getting it through Bernie Sanders and his supporters.
What were you thinking Professor Chomsky?

At this time when so many people don’t vote because they feel the system is corrupt and rigged against them, it is imprudent of you to rain on Sander’s parade.

This is not a time to be sour. Rome is on fire. You shouldn’t be playing the violin.

REFERENCE
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/noam-chomsky-electing-president-empire