by Ramin Mazaheri and crossposted with PressTV
PressTV’s guiding light has always been to be a “voice for the voiceless”. This is why it was collectively decided that in our coverage of the US presidential election primacy should be given to third parties and non-mainstream political groups, as a political duopoly systematically and legally suppresses them with such vehemence that it causes many to say that US elections should actually not be considered fair or open.
We have interviewed and passed on the analyses of socialists, Greens, Libertarians and more. However, perhaps the most prominent outsider political group has repeatedly refused our normal media requests – the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which is perhaps best incarnated by its figurehead, the failed presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
In another effort designed to give unheard American voices more media coverage, PressTV sent their primary election correspondent not to Washington, New York City or California, but to the unofficial capital of what’s disparaged as “flyover country” – Chicago, the nation’s 3rd-largest city. However, in online discussions DSA’s Chicago chapter openly refused to speak with Iranian media, saying: “The officers of our organization have decided that it would not serve our interests to do an interview.”
That’s a curiously self-centred phrase for a group of officers who likely aspire to serve as civil servants – aren’t civil servants supposed to put the ideals and needs of the nation ahead of their own interests?
Chicago DSA’s conduct was, sadly, in keeping with PressTV’s experience with DSA’s national leaders: for weeks their New York City headquarters has not returned our calls, even when the calls were from PressTV management asking about this apparent blacklist of Iranian media. Representative Rashida Tlaib, one of DSA’s two national-level politicians, also refused to return contacts from PressTV, even though we assumed that she would definitely want to help break past the longstanding communication barriers which have been erected by American Islamophobia.
Personally, I am not surprised by any of this: If I had one euro for every time an (allegedly) leftist group in France (where I am normally based) refused to speak with PressTV – I could afford a month’s vacation. But for the Iranian taxpayer and voter French fake-leftism is not as important as the DSA’s refusal to speak to Iranian media: France has slavishly followed Washington’s foreign policy on Iran for decades, and DSA now aspires to set that policy.
PressTV feels it is critical to broadcast the DSA’s blacklisting of Iranian media because DSA’s prejudice has many political implications within the country that has waged such devastating capitalist-imperialist war on Iran since 1979. Iran, too, has a critical election coming up to prepare for – in June 2021.
Regardless of the timing of the US presidential election – and Iranians reject the absurd, pathetic and amateurish recent claims that Iranian operatives have meddled in the 2020 US election – it is critical to broadcast this information to Iranians so they can have a proper amount of time to absorb and incorporate the implications of DSA’s anti-Iran prejudice into their own analyses as voters and responsible citizens.
So PressTV’s decision is merely responsible public journalism. This cannot – as DSA openly feared, you will read – possibly be construed as “foreign meddling” by any thinking person.
That preamble now dispensed with, the conundrum posed by DSA’s arrogant blacklisting is this:
If this is the (allegedly) leftist wing of the Democratic Party, and they are so very nakedly anti-Iranian, then why should an Iranian believe that victories by Joe Biden and the Democratic Party will herald a major change in Washington’s belligerent, murderous, long-running policy towards Iran? Many currently suggest this, but DSA’s anti-Iranian stance must give us pause for reconsideration.
The (allegedly) leftist wing of the Democratic Party is not some new, principled, pro-Iran lobby in the lobby-dominated US system
DSA is the one influential group within the Democratic Party (but I will easily disprove the myth of their reach shortly) which openly and repeatedly promises to push the Democrats to the left, and yet they clearly have no interest in basic discussion or the merest exchange with Iranians.
They will talk about Iran, but not with Iran – this is a fundamentally unilateral and classically imperialist stance, no?
And this stance remains unjustly firm even when Iranians insist openly that they have a cooperative and even sympathetic stance towards DSA – I have already related PressTV’s editorial policy regarding the election. Iranians will likely see parallels between the efforts of PressTV to speak cooperatively with DSA officials and the efforts of Iranian diplomats to speak cooperatively with officials in Washington.
DSA may be surprised to learn that Bernie Sanders was reasonably appealing to Iranians, and probably for the same reason he is somewhat popular among the American public – he and DSA make pleasant-sounding promises which contradict the incredible and undeniable belligerence, violence and rapacity of Washington. For an Iranian nation which debated for years in public about the JCPOA pact on Iran’s nuclear energy program, which sacrificed much to implement it, and which is waiting even today for Western nations to finally uphold their word after signing it, there is a lot of lure in words like these from the DSA’s most prominent elected official member, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
“I think, overall, we can likely push Vice President Biden in a more progressive direction across policy issues,” said Ocasio-Cortez in September. “I think foreign policy is an enormous area where we can improve; immigration is another one.”
But how can DSA improve US foreign policy if they refuse to dialogue with foreign nations and their media representatives? How can the knowledge of foreign policy which is held by DSA officials – from the national down to the local level – increase, and thus improve their ability to conduct foreign policy if elected or appointed to office, if they are forbidden or unwilling to engage with foreigners? How can foreign policy improve when dialogue comes from only one unilateral direction? How can diplomatic progress be pushed in a more progressive direction if there is such a huge gap between words and actions, as Iran is currently fuming about due to the West’s failure to honor the treaty they have signed?
For many in places like Iran, China, Russia and elsewhere, these logical questions are about as difficult to understand as it is to understand the funny way a knight moves in chess, yet all this appears to be beyond the ken of DSA. Whatever DSA’s rationale – ignorance, apathy, duplicity, inexperience, cynicism – it results in a huge, telling blind spot which may produce deadly real-world consequences for Iranians.
However, DSA is not just illogical, but also – we are sad to say – unprincipled and even hysterical.
The Chicago chapter of DSA made this very clear in their messaging to me (PressTV may decide to publish all our correspondences, but only if our honesty and accuracy is questioned – we assume it will not be.) when they said, “…DSA will not reach the levels of relevancy necessary to be an active player in building those ties if we make choices that our political enemies can use to claim we are under the influence of foreign powers.”
DSA rather exemplifies the common global perception of Western-style democracy via admitting to a belief that one should attain political relevancy not by years of exemplary public service and by providing proofs of moral selflessness in favor of the masses and especially of the lower classes, but merely by making enough brutal realpolitik moves.
What DSA fails to realise is that even if they achieve their goal of relevancy, by the time they do the perceptive American people will have seen right through their phony claims, hypocrisy and inability to uphold quintessentially American values like the freedom of the press. This article is one example – necessarily rendered for public view and public judgment – of DSA’s phony claims. DSA will simply not get away with xenophobic, anti-free press polices such as this one forever, I am sorry to inform them.
To whom does this policy extend? Russia, China, Cuba, etc.? These countries will also publicly ask the same questions Iran is asking now. How much of the world is DSA planning to exclude from the human right of free speech, free press and the expectation of basic politeness and cooperation?
DSA seems to foolishly believe they are a private group or private media – absolutely not: many of their members are running for public office and thus they must be transparent, diplomatic and held to higher standards – DSA does not seem to realise their own voters will expect that of them?
DSA is not going to push the establishment anywhere, because they are the establishment
In that explanation from DSA there is another telling trait: unreasoning hysteria, which leads to very real, very damaging xenophobia, ignorance and the foundations of war. It’s hysterically paranoid of DSA to assert that merely speaking with Iranian media – which has very little reach in the US (due to American censorship of our outlets) – automatically means that DSA members are “under the influence of foreign powers”.
This reveals a hysteria regarding the unscrupulous behavior of their opposition – DSA’s “political enemies”, who are also, incidentally, their fellow citizens – but more importantly it reveals the lack of a backbone to stand up to and to combat unscrupulous and hysterical behavior.
There is also an implication there about what they seem to believe is the low intelligence of the average US citizen – that they apparently cannot be trusted to think rationally, and for themselves, and in favor of freedom of the press? That’s surprising, especially because the average American is so very much in favor of freedom in the press.
But it mainly reflects a hysterical lust for power. DSA is saying quite clearly: to hell with the average American’s oft-trumpeted values of free press and free speech if it might hinder DSA’s acquisition of influence and privilege.
I don’t know why they are so worried about gaining power? DSA already has it. (Or, rather, they incorrectly think that they do.)
Every single other third party jumped at the chance when Iranian media came knocking on their door with a promise of balance, fairness and open ears except for DSA. This is because DSA is undoubtedly a part of the establishment, unlike other third parties and non-mainstream political groups. DSA is not an official political party, but they do much to give this impression. No, DSA is and has always been merely committed to working within the Democratic Party establishment and has no interest in upending the anti-democratic duopoly which dominates the US and – crucially – keeps providing the world’s richest nation with such atrocious public servants.
Ok, so they are another American political group which is totally allied with the establishment and thus is also totally anti-Iran – so what?
How bad is DSA’s blacklisting of Iranian media, really?
The reality is that DSA are a paper tiger if there ever was one. Iranian voters, diplomats and thinkers must look past their youthful, photogenic appearances and (obviously) empty words.
DSA currently has about 75 members holding national, state, city and county posts in this huge country of 330 million people. That includes just three members in federal posts, all in the House of Representatives. Bernie Sanders is not even a member of DSA. The idea that such a powerless minority will somehow be handed top cabinet posts in a Biden presidency is beyond laughable, yet DSA supporters constantly dangle this exact claim.
However, that ludicrous claim is made precisely to get people to not vote for a real third party, especially a genuinely socialist one, like Party for Socialism & Liberation for example. What’s even funnier is that American reactionaries fearfully believe these outlandish claims by DSA! But American reactionaries are especially foolish.…
Non-Americans should realise that DSA exists to act as an anti-progressive safety valve within the Democratic Party – DSA is incredibly effective at ensuring that the establishment does not have to make any genuine domestic changes. They are not “socialists”, they are “reformists”, and their obvious flaw is that they are mere reformists of an atrocious, antiquated, aristocratic, capitalist-imperialist system.
DSA has just brazenly proven that when it comes to Iran they won’t lift a finger in favor of major changes in Washington.
But they want no real changes domestically, too, and they couldn’t even get them achieved even if they weren’t just paper tigers: From Bernie’s backing down in 2016 despite leaked proof of collusion against his candidacy by the Democratic Party elite, to the ascendence of the Clintonista Kamala Harris in 2020, to infuriatingly and unforgivably adding the qualifying adjective of “Democratic” to “Socialist” which actually propagandises against international socialism and not for it, to the unspoken reality that DSA’s media prevalence is almost wholly due to a hysterical American right-wing which needs some leftists (even fake-leftists) to scapegoat – this list can go on and on and on.
Deeper explanations as to why DSA is repeatedly seen but never felt in American politics are obviously too numerous to list here, but – when it comes to DSA readers – this article does not aim to focus on DSA’s shortcomings but instead to persuade them to reform their anti-Iranian press policy.
The reality which non-American readers must comprehend is that the US system is based entirely on the influence of monied lobbies. Iranians must realise that there is absolutely not one single pro-Iranian lobby within the US, but that there are many, many anti-Iran lobbies willing to pay for influence (and also for Iran’s destruction) within this strange “democracy with American characteristics”.
In short, unless Iran sells off a significant minority of Iran’s state-controlled economy to American corporations, or unless Iran recognises Israel, no such pro-Iran lobby can be created: those are the preconditions which the US 1% has always insisted upon from modern Iran in order to end their hot and cold war.
Of course, not only are these things democratically rejected by the Iranian people, but any intelligent analysis of Iran shows that (and DSA members may learn something new about Iran here) any political party which undertook such efforts would be democratically voted out of office before they could complete such immoral, unpatriotic and anti-revolutionary tasks. Iran is a unique (revolutionary) nation with a unique (revolutionary) structure, and just as the US Constitution clearly prescribes an awful duopoly, modern Iranian culture has created – via undeniably vibrant, innovative and open debate over decades – a political system which proscribes certain things, two of which were mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
This is precisely why people like Bernie Sanders and DSA hold such appeal in Iran: the enlightenment of the average US voter appears to be the only way that Washington will ever give up their war on revolutionary (unique) Iran.
This is precisely what makes DSA’s blacklist of Iranian media so disheartening: it shows that neither mainstream party appears to have any sincere goodwill towards Iran – which is the basis of cooperation between equals – not even on the (alleged) left.
Of course, that concept is hardly new among Iranians.
Conclusion: One is on the right path over and over again, but via necessary self-corrections
It seems entirely necessary to assert that DSA’s promises of a progressive push to foreign policy towards Iran are not achievable at best and entirely disingenuous at worst, especially if they do not engage in immediate and sustained self-reform.
The current leaders of the DSA stand in incorrect opposition to the democratic will of 80 million Iranians, and we can safely assume the democratic will of their own members as well, and probably – by a slight democratic majority – the democratic will of 330 million Americans.
As it currently stands DSA – like so many Westerners – arrogantly, imperialistically and chauvinistically insists that they have the right to tell Iranians what they should want, and what they should do, and that if Iranians do not slavishly follow them then this means war… or at least silence, suppression and blacklisting for starters.
That is all totally unacceptable.
This article serves notice to Iranians as to what the DSA appears to have in mind for Iran should they gain power – their views are absolutely not rightly-guided. As to Americans who are about to head to the ballot box, this article makes no suggestion – it only fairly and accurately adds new information.
PressTV would like to place great emphasis on the ideas which are guiding our coverage of this unfortunate issue:
PressTV expresses no any animosity nor hard-heartedness to DSA due to their mistakes regarding Iran – they have obviously been misled via decades of unchecked Western Iranophobia. PressTV cannot stress enough that our desire for normal cooperation, friendly discussion and moral comportment has not been changed one iota despite this disagreement and the necessary airing of our fair and dispassionate criticisms, which are made entirely in the name of normal journalistic and (informal) diplomatic dialogue. PressTV would be rude to appear as if we are making any demands of anyone or any organisation – nor would PressTV degrade themselves thusly – we only politely ask, publicly, that DSA reform their stance on their misguided decision to blacklist Iranian media.
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.
Never heard of this organization until now. I’m just surprised they haven’t been arrested and jailed for even daring to use the word Socialist in their name, regardless of their true affiliations. My guess is that the entire Sanders operation was nothing but a Dem funded gaslighting organization intended to take the steam out of any nascent socialist groundswell, not to mention providing a clearinghouse to infiltrate, identify, and eliminate would-be socialist agitators. Alternative political action within the current U.S. “democratic” system is no longer even a remotely viable alternative. Nobody who’s serious is wasting their time in that manner, and they’re damn sure not flying banners with the word Socialist emblazoned on them for all to see.
Thank you Ramin; It is good to know. FEAR is the unavoidable core driver whenever Americans attempt to drive Leftist politics. If DSA had satisfied your expectations, they would have been absolutely terrified of losing whatever minimal opportunity they think they have to influence American minds. Why? they would be bombed time and time again by the twisted McCarthyist mentality which dominates political conversation in America. They would be neutralized as political players for being treasonous. So yes, they do what Sanders did. Be half hearted and stay within safe political parameters. They will justify it by saying it is a pragmatic compromise in order to attain any semblance of political credibility in the American environment. They might even run the line by us that “politics is the art of the possible.” Hence, in America, being anti Iranian is hewing to keeping within the art of the possible.
They want to survive as a viable institution in the American scene. This is agony for principled Leftists. As in the established mental climate it is well nigh impossible. I suspect you already understand this – nevertheless it is great to have you here calling in the critique.
Who really believes that anyone belonging to the establishment can be socialist in any meaningful way? Being socialist excludes being establishment and being establishment excludes being socialist. The twain are mutually exclusive.
Depends on what one means by “socialist,” doesn’t it? Assuming we’re going with government-controlled spending, this is not necessarily in the public’s interest, as demonstrated by the corrupt or cowardly oligarchs calling themselves “socialists”…
Unfortunately, I would say your analysis regarding DSA is 100 % correct. You are not alone is identifying DSA as a “safety valve” within the Democratic party tasked with preventing any serious challenge to the rotting American political and economic system that serves the elites. I am also not surprised that they rejected the opportunity to have a dialogue with PressTV because they are afraid of being accused of being under the influence of Iran because they have a history of supporting US Imperialism:
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/07/06/dsa-jacobin-iso-socialism-conference-us-funded-regime-change/
The whole US establishment – lock, stock and barrel – is under the suffocating control of Israel and its supporters.
A hostile relationship with Iran is not in America’s interests, and has never been, but no US politician dare admit this fact, not if he or she wants to have a viable future in politics or anywhere else.
US politicians go to great lengths to convince themselves and others that the US and Israeli interests are one and the same, but no one is convinced.
Any US politician who appears on Press TV would be villified and hounded withoud mercy.
Because Press TV is not deemed as “kosher”.
The whole US media is owed by just a handful of organizations. Their numbers are just to give the illusion of diversity and choice.
Dr. Scott Atlas was forced to apologize to everyone, for appearing on the “Kremlin owned” RT recently. RT is not deemed as “kosher”.
Press TV, like the BBC, and RT are all government- affilliated national broadcasters, yet 2 are black-listed and villified and the BBC gets a free pass.
Why do you think that is?
The BBC has learned to toe the Israeli line and de-humanize the Palestinians and other victims of Israeli crimes and as such it has been deemed as “kosher” while the other 2, especially Press TV, have shown that they still have work to do.
Selah
Ramin,
Look at the map and your country is blocking their access to the core of Eurasia which they have not abandonned their objective of putting their hands on. It’s as simple as that. Just look at Venezuela
Ramin, I think that you’re hoping to somehow get blood out of a stone (a cat to play a Chopin etude?). The simple truth is that the US’s Borg-like political/economic system is an existential threat to the people of the world, period.
We can take a pretty good guess at what the US intends for Russia, China, Iran and, for that matter, the rest of the nations of the world, by reading part of what influential “great man” US VIP George Kennan wrote a number of decades ago (before China’s economic miracle really took off):
“…..we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. ……..We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.
………
We should cease to talk about vague and — for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
We should recognize that our influence in the Far Eastern area in the coming period is going to be primarily military and economic. ……… It is my own guess, on the basis of such study as we have given the problem so far, that Japan and the Philippines will be found to be the corner-stones of such a Pacific security system and if we can contrive to retain effective control over these areas there can be no serious threat to our security from the East within our time. Only when we have assured this first objective, can we allow ourselves the luxury of going farther afield in our thinking and our planning.”
After having experienced firsthand the US’s post-WWII utopia, Russia, China and Iran and some other nations have relatively recently made their own “outside the box” agreements. They involve something called the “petro-yuan”, physical gold
http://russia-insider.com/en/petro-yuan-bombshell-and-its-relation-new-us-security-doctrine/ri22044
and an alternative to the SWIFT system (the primary means by which the US imposes “sanctions” on other nations and, lately, even individuals):
https://www.rt.com/business/382017-russia-swift-central-bank/
What should now be obvious even to cadavers is the wildly-flailing desperation of the US transnational Elite and their political slaves in Washington, the European Parliament and in the capitols of their various vassal states. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act was/is the granite monument of that desperation.
The de-industrialized, hollowed-out, run-down, perpetual-war-based US economy and USD-hegemony are now, for the first time since the end of WWII, being seriously challenged by other increasingly powerful nations’ economies AND their currencies AND their weapons. Things are no longer going strictly the Superpower US’s way. China’s economy is by some estimates now larger than that of the US.
Put simply, we are witnessing the competition of all competitions and its outcome will determine the place of the US economy in a new, unavoidable, multi-polar world economy and, at the same time, the ultimate fate of the Fed’s quadrillions of printed-out-of-thin-air USD (likely a near-total loss of purchasing power, especially for foreign-manufactured goods, which will mean a dramatic drop in the standard of living of average Americans). IMO, the only important question is whether the US Elite will “go gentle into that good night” and develop a peace-based economy that will operate on the US mainland, or will it lead the world into a no-win nuclear shootout at the OK Corral to finally “settle things”. So far, it’s looking like the latter.
“DSA will not reach the levels of relevancy necessary to be an active player in building those ties if we make choices that our political enemies can use to claim we are under the influence of foreign powers.””
This is a totally circular argument, of course.
The snake eating its tail.
And show in the process that it has zero confidence and, like an immature individual, takes its cue from what is “permitted” by grownups.
DSA thus shows that it needs the approval of the very group it is trying to change before it can demostrate any independeince of thought. This cannot end well for the DSA.
And, BTW, never underestimate the combination of ignorance and inexperience.
Katherine
“The Chicago chapter of DSA “. Chicago is Obombast Killary heartland; the confluence of wealth from Range Cattle, Flatland Corn and Obama Family Laundry. Viagra Triangle, from the Urban Dictionary:
So named for the abundance of mostly-affluent older men who frequent the local bars, and the “triangle” where State and Rush Streets come together (with East Bellevue Street being the base of the triangle). The ecosystem of the Viagra Triangle could not exist without a fully-stocked pond of anxious, and artificially infertile females, with a Platinum card of her own, and several upgrades to the base Lexus, she is looking for more, while her looks and latest Botox treatment hold out. Seriously, guy, you’re never going to get anywhere with the chicks in the Viagra Triangle, they all require a personal financial statement before sitting down.
— by ChicagoMike September 09, 2008
Chicago is known for increasing inequality in wealth and a shrinking middle class. DSA does nothing to bring socialist thinking back to the U$A. Chicago has moved ever deeper into The Jungle since the days when Upton Sinclair first described its savage stockyards:
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/static/section/chicagos-wealth-divide.html
LOL Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
But jokes aside, Ramin, I would say you are lucky that the Americans let PressTV operate there at all.
Seriously, if an Israeli media outlet tried to set up an office in Iran, my feeling is that the Iranian people would burn it to the ground themselves, never mind the government.
I see your point, but it’s not at all fair to compare Iran to Israel – the two are nothing alike. There’s a billion reasons Americans should oppose Israel, but they have no reason to hate Iran.
And Iran is not always on their hind legs shouting about free press like the US.
The dsa appear to be nothing more than oligarch’s and super delegates.
The fact that Sanders endorsed Biden – after his primary win was stolen – gives the game away. Sanders was there as a distraction.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/politics/bernie-sanders-joe-biden-endorsement.html
Just like their idol, Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are merely a Trojan Horse for the Democratic Party.
In fact, it would be better to call the DSA and their allies as a classic Controlled Opposition political outfit.
Don’t waste your time on the DSA.
Democratic Socialists of America goes all in for Biden
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/17/dsoc-o17.html
DSA is “controlled opposition.” Sponsored by Pierre Omidyar or some similar deep state oligarch.