Sanders Inspires Outrage by Uttering Basic Historic Facts over 30 years ago
Debate largely a waste of time
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Last week, I did two things simultaneously. First, I jumped feet first into support for Senator Sanders. I will indeed vote for him when it is Minnesota’s turn to vote on March 3. You may have read my reasons why, if you have followed this blog for even a short time. I think Sanders is one of only two actual Democrats left in the race — with a possible third being Tom Steyer, who seems to have endorsed a fairly progressive agenda as well, though he has some problems — and the Senator has demonstrated that he can win elections even in conservative parts of the country. It’s that simple. We do the best we can which means voting for the Left whenever possible.
The second thing is I started using the Twitter account I have owned since 2008. And in my effort to gain an audience for my forthcoming update to Bellamy’s utopian novel Looking Backward, I found myself trafficking with a bunch of not only full-on “Berners,” some of whom have been with him for like 4 years or more, but also a bunch of folks who are absolutely terrified by the possibility that an actual Democrat might earn the nomination of his Party. It is VERY eye opening to see these two camps engage. Obviously, I can’t stand above it completely, but I feel that as a guy who has only recently jumped off the fence and likely understands the process a lot better than many of them, I can remain to some degree healthily distanced from much of the toxicity of the whole civil war.
But as a result of these two events, I have had the opportunity to discover how ridiculous, and desperate some of the arguments against Sen. Sanders, and to some degree his fellow Progressive Senator Warren, truly are. I would like to take just one of those arguments: this business about Cuba.
Apparently, at some point when he was Mayor of Burlington Vermont, more than 30 years ago, Sanders had said something positive about Cuba. Here’s the clip from CBS’ 60 Minutes from last weekend which inspired such an unbelievable degree of outrage among Sandersphobic Democrats, and more or less off the mark attacks at the South Carolina Debate from Sanders’ opponents.
But you will notice that the VERY first thing out of mouth of the scion to the Cornelius Vanderbilt fortune, Anderson Cooper, was concern for “dissidents”. Why no expressed concern for the people of Cuba who benefited from literacy? Why is the gut response of the American pundit class to take the side of political opponents of the Cuban regime?
It’s apparently scandalous to say something to the effect of “It is a historical fact that when Castro came to power, he instituted a major literacy program that ultimately wiped out illiteracy in Cuba.” His outrageous claim was judged “Mostly true” by Politifact, who affirmed that a literacy program was established in Cuba following the War, but also noted that the literacy program was filled with ideological, probably pro-regime messaging. Admittedly, the literacy program wasn’t Dick and Jane and it wasn’t Pedagogy of the Oppressed either. But whether Sanders’ critics want to admit it or not, it did teach almost every Cuban to read.
I suppose it would also be scandalous to mention that Castro’s literacy program was based on the one that was instituted among his troops during the Cuban revolutionary war, because the vast majority of the fighters were peasants who were not only illiterate, but illiterate by design of the regime, and illiterate peasants can’t read Marx. So what? In fact: what Sanders said, and then reiterated several times in interviews and during the debate last night was essentially what Obama said back in 2016, which Vice President Biden subsequently but emphatically denied and then immediately walked back. Here’s the President speaking on his visit to Cuba.
There are no angels in international politics: Castro was a dictator while he lived, but the US used Cubans to attempt to overthrow Castro since 1960, not for the benefit of the Cubans, but for the benefit of US corporations in Cuba And US security interests vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. If you need proof of that statement, look no further than the demand for reparations for US nationalized property and the Helms Burton act which extends the embargo on Cuba indefinitely until the Cuban people produce a Government to the liking of the United Statesians.
We know that US policy hurts not only the Cuban people but also the American Farmer. We also know that a temporary thaw in relations at the end of the Obama Administration helped spur investment and led to a slight opening in the Cuban economy for things the US says it likes, namely private sector investment. These, like Sanders’ comment on literacy, are historical facts.
I am having a difficult time, therefore, understanding the outrage among the anti-Sanders crowd on television. And I would be completely befuddled if I wasn’t aware that it is all just a show. These people can’t really be outraged on behalf of the Cuban People that Sanders said something about Castro. That to me seems beyond cynical to make such a claim. If they REALLY cared about the welfare of the Cuban people, they would be advocating for complete normalization of relations, the same way we have normal relations with China or Vietnam, and the end to the economic warfare we have been conducting against that Island for 60 years now which has cost the Cuban economy more than $130 billion by one estimate.
No: it seems that the outrage has more to do with protecting the possibility of Democrats winning in Florida in 2020. What this argument says is that Floridian Democrats are so fickle that this one comment, which isn’t really praise for Castro the dictator, but one of the social policies of his administration, and a politically expedient — and perhaps somewhat subversive — label of “democratic socialism” are just completely beyond unconscionable for Florida voters.
The faux outrage is being fed by DLC Democrats like Donna Shalala, who represents the 27th Congressional District in Florida and is a close Clinton ally. The Congresswoman states that Sanders first of all doesn’t know what he is talking about, and second, he doesn’t understand the visceral fear/hate that Florida residents have for socialism and communism in Florida. Never mind that Sanders is not a Communist, except relative to the Clintonite positions adopted by Shalala — and in the fever dreams of Senator Marco Rubio who apparently live streams while driving, violating distracted driving laws. Nor does it matter that the only socialism Sanders actually supports would be described as “social democracy” by actual socialists and “welfare-statism” by actual conservatives.
These facts are unimportant to a person claiming to speak for the Latino residents who make up 63% of her District, calling them “our community,” but who doesn’t speak Spanish her own self. Here’s Shalala’s critique of Sanders’ comments.
From a broader perspective, really: What difference does Sanders’ comments about literacy in Cuba really make? He merely said an historical fact, “There was a literacy program following Castro’s rise to power,” and then asked the rhetorical question, “Do we think literacy programs are bad?” If Sanders had said something inflammatory, like “I hope Florida gets hit the hardest by the consequences of global warming,” then I could understand why the people of Florida would be outraged.
But: Let’s not forget — and I would hope that Shalala would not forget this either — that Hillary Clinton lost the state of Florida in 2016 without saying a single word of praise for Castro or socialism, or literacy even. She lost it clearly, by about 115,000 votes. This wasn’t a 2000-527-hanging chad-triple recount scenario. She lost it clearly. And in 2018, when Andrew Gillum lost the governor’s race to Trumpist Ron DeSantis, it was a Democrat losing to a Republican in a State wide election. Gillum didn’t utter a single word about Castro to my knowledge, though he may have said the apparently triggering word “literacy” once or twice, I don’t know. Did Democrats really think that the tide would turn so dramatically in just two years where Floridians would just follow the ephemeral winds of change and vote for a Democrat now? If Clinton and Gillum couldn’t get it done, what makes them think that Biden or Mayor Pete could?
Who would satisfy the Floridians? How can the Democratic Party prostrate itself to the demands of these incredibly fickle voters, who hear a 50 second clip from a national news program, and suddenly light their hair on fire and run around screaming like the world is over? What could the Democratic Party bring Florida, so that their vote for a Democrat could finally be secured once and for all? How can the Democrats bribe them to vote for the Democrat, whoever he or she happens to be this fall over one of their own, Donald J. Trump?
More importantly, where was Shalala, or Chris Matthews’ or whoever is freaking out about Sanders saying something that is entirely characteristic of Sanders and has been a matter of public record for 30 years or more when Obama said virtually the same thing, or Michael Moore said much more in Sicko? Where was the outrage at the apparent insensitivity of such comments? Why is it only disqualifying now that Sanders utters a fairly common sentiment which is actually a mere restatement of historical fact, rather than the full-throated endorsement of dictatorship that they are trying to make this out to be?
I should ask: If Florida is allowed to hold the nation hostage to force them to nominate a candidate to the Clintonite Shalala’s liking, or to the preference Scarborough/Brzezinski/Matthews axis on MSNBC, or to the liking of the business class who apparently enjoys the economic benes under Trump, even if they claim to detest him otherwise, then why should we care about what they think?
I always tell my 13 year old son, who threatens to tattle on his sister if she doesn’t do as he demands: “If you’re going to threaten it, then you better be prepared to do it, and if you are prepared to do it, then just do it, don’t threaten it. But if you’re just threatening it to try to get her to do what you want her to do, then you are engaged in terrorism. And that’s that.”
Same advice goes to Florida. Put up or shut up. If Floridians do not want Sanders as the President, then they ought to vote the hell against him and quit threatening to do so in an attempt to extort the rest of the country into doing what they want. If they prefer Trump to Sanders so much that they would rather have Trump than “not Trump”, then they should own that, and let the rest of us get on with doing what we were doing before they chimed in.
In the fall, let the chips fall where they may. But if Sanders is the nominee and Florida, and the anti-Sanders fear monger class on the television, and the Clintonite DLC moderates who own the Democratic Party support Trump because Sanders mentioned the historical facts that 1) Castro established a literacy program that virtually eliminated illiteracy in its first decade, 2) that literacy programs aren’t all that bad, and 3) while we need to be critical of a dictator for doing dictatorial stuff, we can still welcome the rise of literacy in the Cuban population, they should just do what they have to do, and at least I could respect them for their intellectual honesty.
Like all articles on The New Haberdasher, this story is presented to you for free. If you like what I do, consider supporting my work with a small monetary contribution at my Patreon and thank you.
