I may have written about this before, making the point that going to a march doesn’t make someone a civil rights “activist.” Yes, people supported those causes — but those marches were also social events. (Kids today go to the mall, we used to go to marches.) Everyone used to go!
At a press conference yesterday announcing the Congressional Black Caucus PAC’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) was asked about Sen. Bernie Sanders’ civil rights movement work:
Q.: This one in particular is for congressman John Lewis. You were obviously a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Obviously Senator Sanders was involved in civil rights work in the Chicago area in the private sector. What do you say on his previous work on civil rights and —
REP. JOHN LEWIS: — well to be very frank I don’t want to cut you off but I never saw him. I never met him. I was chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for three years — from 1963 to 1966. I was involved in the sit-ins, the freedom rides, the March on Washington and the March to Selma to Montgomery and directed the voter education project for six years. But I met Hillary Clinton. I met President Clinton.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago
Hit job.
Congressman Lewis: Which did more lasting damage to black kids, the Flint River or Welfare Reform?
Attacking HRC with WJC 20-year-old record is pretty weak tea Lless. Bernie’s colleagues simply do not like him. One bit. That is a huge argument against his nomination.
Uh, yeah. So?
Your post ends with Lewis saying only that he did not see Saunders, but that he did meet the Clintons, and this has some meaning for you? What, pray tell? Read Michelle Alexander’s Op-Ed on the Clinton’s legacy. Pay scant attention to the aging dinosaurs of the black mid-leadership class.
Lewis is as old as dirt and farts. He has always kissed the Clintons asses and gets paid to do so. No one I know in the black community pays much attention to him anyway. He’s a corporatist who’ll dance to anyone’s music. Yeah, he’s an icon alright and oughta’ be placed in the room where history can judge his worth! Go Bernie!!!!!
…and, BTW, Lewis supported Hill in ’08 too, until he realized Obama was going to win. A two-faced bastard who lies his ass off!
The fact that Lewis didn’t see Bernie doesn’t mean he was’t there. It could mean he just wasn’t sucking up to the leadership, as the Clintons no doubt were. Always climbing.
I have great respect for Mr. lewis but am more impressed w Hill’s other establishment bosom buddy, H (mass murder) Kissinger. Nice of her to acknowledge his impact on her world view. Poster boy for foreign policy knowledge does not equal FP judgement. Does Hillary aspire to war criminal status?
“aspire to war criminal status”? It is probably well beyond that. Look, I think this country needs a woman president, but Hillary? Susie, you may very well come to regret your insistence on Hillary, if she goes all the way:
http://www.ianwelsh.net/henry-kissinger-is-a-war-criminal-hillary-clinton-is-a-war-criminal/
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/12/sanders_proudly_declaring_kissinger_is_not_my_friend_totally_destroys_notion_that_clintons_better_on_foreign_policy/
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/12/henry-kissingers-war-crimes-are-central-to-the-divide-between-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders/
I for one, after reading what I have for the last day, will not vote for her.
If all I read was Salon, The Intercept and Ian Welsh, I’d agree with you. But I read much more than that.
“What I think is really interesting, and I think it’s important to think about this, is that a lot of times, people who make accusations about other people’s hidden, corrupt motives, are actually saying very little about the people they’re accusing, but saying a great deal about themselves.
“Because what those people are saying, the people who spew those kinds of accusations is, “I cannot believe that anybody would do anything out of a sense of duty or principle. They must be doing it for some corrupt reason.”
“And the reason they think that, is because they themselves never do anything out of conviction or principle, and so they believe everyone else is plagued by the same pathology of soullessness that plagues them.”
— Glenn Greenwald
His net worth is less than $10,000. Where’s the money?
Bernie worked in civil rights for a brief period, and then nothing. That’s my point. And yes, I read Michelle Alexander’s opinion piece. I read a lot more than most of my readers. As to the “aging dinosaurs of the black mid-leadership class”: Well, I pay attention to people who influence voters. That’s how elections are won.
Yeah, pretty much. Anyone who travels in political circles knows he is personally liked but not much respected by his colleagues, since he denigrates anything they do as corrupt — since it’s not perfect.