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Monday, February 3, 2020

Juan Cole: "Only Bernie Can Save Us Now"


"Gee, Lois. Not even Superman can save us now."



But according to University of Michigan comedian, Juan Cole, Bernie Sanders can.

Usually, Professor Cole is normally using his hysterical blog to bash Israel and promote Israel's enemies. But it's Trump season now. Juan was hoping Trump would be impeached, but not even Superman can remove Trump from office now through impeachment. So now, Cole has pinned his last great hope on Bernie Sanders. Here is the headline of Cole's article in his blog, Informed Comment:


On the Big Issues, Bernie Sanders is the Only one who Can Save America




https://www.juancole.com/2020/02/issues-sanders-america.html

And what are the BIG Issues?

1. The Climate Emergency
2. The Crisis of Plutocracy and inequality
3. The Extinction Crisis and Corporate Pollution
You can read the linked article for yourself to see just how hysterical Cole is on the subject of climate change. According to Cole, nothing-nothing - is more important than climate change. Cole has apparently bought into the doomsday predictions of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that we only have a couple of decades before it all comes to a crashing end. 
"There isn’t anything more important. Nothing. Most of the issues that American politicians campaign on pale into nothingness in comparison. What good would it do to have Americans have better and universal health care if a boiling earth is going to harm their health anyway? Why spend $1 trillion a year on national defense if the real enemy is our own seas and atmosphere, which is planning for us catastrophes the Soviet Union or Iran never did or could? Terrorism is a piddling little minor problem; you are more likely to fall down and hit your head in your shower than you are ever to be harmed by a terrorist."

Actually, I would put Islamic terrorism right at the top. "Piddling little minor problem", indeed. And I have news for Professor Cole. Lots of people have fallen down and hit their head in the shower. (Just yesterday, a couple of people fell in the shower and hit their heads in London.) He might want to choose a more apt comparison. But it's not the first time Cole has pooh-poohed the issue.

".... and all but Steyer are so tied to the corporate sector that they cannot see the need for massive government intervention. 

Are you getting a clue here?

And this:

"The climate crisis is a much more dire threat than Hitler’s Axis was. Hitler was defeated by the US government, not by the private sector." 

A bigger threat than Hitler's Axis? Seriously? World War II caused some 56 million deaths. I challenge Cole to produce numbers of deaths due to climate change that can match that. And a minor correction: It was the US Military and the military forces of our allies that defeated Hitler. With all due respect, it wasn't Cordell Hull. I guess Cole just doesn't want to give any credit to our military.
Then there is Big Issue number 2. Plutocracy.



One of the biggest canards against Trump is that he is racist, represents racists, and is keeping minorities down. If Cole is concerned about inequality, he might want to look at the economic indicators under Trump's presidency. Not only is the economy booming, but unemployment figures are at historic lows-especially for African-Americans and Hispanics. And that is represented in the growing approval rates for Trump among those groups. 

"Only Bernie Sanders among the candidates understands the urgency of the Crisis of Plutocracy and has a workable plan for dealing with it. Tax policy was the major instrument working against vast inequality and plutocracy in Eisenhower’s 1950s and we need desperately to return to that."

Yes, Bernie has a plan. Raise our taxes. Income redistribution. Cole is arguing that we-desperately-need to raise taxes.

Finally, there is Big Issue number three:

"Microfibers and microplastics are everywhere. In fish, microfibers have accumulated in key organs and caused starvation and sterility. They are accumulating in human beings, too. Microfibers attract carcinogenic chemicals and concentrate them in key organs. This development is extremely alarming. As a cancer survivor, that angers me to a boiling rage."

Yes, it's crisis time because microfibers and microplastics are everywhere. And how about that insect Armageddon? And it's all because of those corporate polluters and Donald Trump.

I am all for keeping panda bears and Siberian tigers from going extinct, but I'm not so sure about the California cockroach.

"So, why isn’t this environmental crisis on CNN and Fox News or on the lips of our politicians? Surely Something Needs to be Done Now? Because CNN and Fox are largely owned by Randall Stephenson and Rupert Murdoch, respectively, both of them big boosters of Trump; as billionaires they are heavily invested in all the corporations and activities that have produced the Sixth Major Extinction."

Randall Stephenson aside, this paragraph implies that CNN supports Trump, which is a laughable implication. Stephenson might be a Trump supporter, but CNN is on a  non-stop crusade to destroy Trump.

And I wish Cole had provided an explanation for the Sixth Major Extinction, so I didn't have to Google it. For all I knew, it come have been the Coming of the 12th Imam.

But fear not.

"And Bernie is the only one we can depend to step in and take big action to address the Extinction Crisis? Yes, Bernie is the only one."

Bernie Sanders is a Marxist. That is not the formula for this country. It is a system that is a proven failure. It is a system that has currency only in academia, where theories dominate. There is a vast difference between theory and reality. The Soviet Union, where Sanders spent his honeymoon, and the East Bloc were a reality. Cuba is a reality. Only fools like Sanders, his young, immature followers, and his cheerleaders in academia fail to see that.


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