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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Are we watching the downfall of the Democratic Party as we know it?
That’s not such a bad idea. From Bill Clinton’s sell out to Wall Street interests to Biden disgracing the country with his sycophantic support for Netanyahu, the working-class norms of the party of FDR have been sold off in favor of the financial backing of the American oligarchs.
This has so eviscerated its multi-ethnic proletarian base that it is heading towards deep losses against a career criminal who is corrupt, misogynist, and racist.
Now Bill’s peripatetic spouse, who has forever been a target for right wingnuts although for mostly the wrong reasons, has now shot her erstwhile party in their political balls. A true Democrat-in-name-only or DINO.
This time by propping up the AIPAC-endorsed contender against Jamaal Bowman, the progressive incumbent in the June 25th primary in New York's 16th Congressional District. Bowman has become widely respected for his social democrat leanings and is a vociferous opponent of Netanyahu’s genocidal response to the Hamas incursion into Israel last October.
Since when should agents of a foreign governments be allowed to wade into American elections? It wasn’t so long ago that Mrs. Clinton was herself the victim of the Russian malarkey that pumped Trump into the White House.
To burnish his pro-Israel credentials, Latimer has denigrated his opponent, who has national recognition and receives campaign donations from across the country, by claiming Bowman’s constituency includes Dearborn in Michigan, demonizing that majority-Arab community, and asserting Bowman has received money from Hamas supporters.
George Latimer, Jamaal Bowman
George Latimer is not socially progressive. He’s a career politician with deep ties to local political machines. He rubs elbows with the uber-rich and has a mindset to match – racist, elitist and more Republican than not.
Not only is Latimer the beneficiary of Israeli-backed shekels, he has Republican anti-everyone-who-won’t-kowtow-to-capitalist-cronyism deep pockets overflowing into his coffers.
As proclaimed in a January New York Daily News headline: “Pro-Trump GOP donor hosts fundraiser for George Latimer in primary challenge to Representative Jamaal Bowman.”
Furthermore, he has attracted funding from more than 60 Republican donors to Mazi Pilip, an Israeli Defence Forces veteran running in the district represented by George Santos before the disgraced Congressman’s ouster from the House.
Senator Bernie Sanders another progressive who like Bowman opposes Biden’s continued support of Netanyahu as well as the overarching issue of corporate greed that is hurting too many ordinary Americans, warns of the mounting danger posed today of any political hopeful who blindly supports “the corporate agenda and Establishment neo-con foreign policies.”
Bernie then addressed the existential issue of the survival of democracy in the United States, noting that “the defeat of Bowman… would be a message to every member of Congress that if you oppose corporate interests the billionaire class will take you down.”
Let’s take a look at what AIPAC really is in its opposition to Bowman’s advocacy for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is the damage-control propaganda arm of the Israeli government that has worked behind-the-scenes for years manipulating U.S. policies and elections.
AIPAC took a lead role last month in tanking primary hopes of Oregon progressives Susheela Jayapal and Jamie McLeod-Skinner by funneling millions of dollars into the campaigns of their reliably pro-Netanyahu opponents.
Netanyahu previously conspired with American billionaires to subvert the ‘BDS’ (boycott-disinvestment-sanctions) movement across the United States and stop them from calling out Israel for its murderous tactics, economic oppression and continuous humiliation of an entire people.
The boycotts against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, so front and center before the current war have faded into obscurity behind the current headlines both those shocked by the October 7th Hamas attack, murder and kidnappings, and appalled by the current genocide in Gaza and overt government support for the settler movement on the West Bank.
But ten years ago, when BDS surged to prominence around the world, Netanyahu relayed a request through billionaire Sheldon Adelson to mount a propaganda campaign on Israel’s behalf. A key element was to buy the political power necessary to push through anti-BDS laws that would shut up the protesters and muzzle their rights to free speech.
This band of merry billionaires became known as Adelson’s Army aka his Gulfstream warriors since so many owned private jets and worked to remake the political policies of America in Netanyahu’s fascist image. Using their own money and covert slush funds from various Israeli government proxies.
Hillary Clinton was criticized during her run for the Democratic nomination in 2016 for being in the pockets of Wall Street cronies, a claim she vociferously denied then, but confirmation of which has seeped out over the years in tell-all books from campaign insiders.
She used corporate funding linked with connections and her name recognition to tank Bernie Sander’s grassroots presidential campaign.
Now, by kowtowing to AIPAC, Clinton continues to sell out the democratic values of what used to be the party of the people and is turning it lock, stock and barrel over to the wealthy elite, the same folks that brought us, bought and paid for, his eminence Emperor Trump.
But stand warned Mrs. Clinton, you of all people should know that there are laws against aiding and abetting foreign agents which is why Adelson swore his co-conspirators to secrecy.
Under Crimes and Criminal Procedure § 951 of the federal statutes embodied in Title 18 of the Code of Laws of the United States of America:
“Whoever, other than a diplomatic or consular officer or attaché, acts in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General… shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
And goes on to clarify that, other than official and publicly acknowledged representatives of foreign governments or businesses:
“…the term “agent of a foreign government” means an individual who agrees to operate within the United States subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official.”
Betraying your party, betraying democracy to aid a foreign fascist murderer, makes you guilty of the same – and worthy of a padded jail cell.
And the saddest cut of all, is that as a DINO with inordinate might over today’s Democratic machine, you will bring down the respected political party developed from the populism of FDR with you.
(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)
