The Bernie Campaign: The Democratic Party's Biggest Insurrection in Decades

[Commentary] Of the three previous Democratic Party insurrections, only one gained the nomination, and none won the presidency. Corporate capitalism -- wielding its muscular appendage, mass media -- can be depended upon to take off the gloves and pummel the insurrection's candidate to the extent that the campaign has gained momentum. That happened to Sen Eugene McCarthy, Sen George McGovern and Jesse Jackson. It's now happening to Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

The last days of January brought one big-daily newspaper editorial after another after another attacking Sen Sanders with vehemence and vitriol. The less unlikely his winning of the nomination gets, the more that mega-media assaults promoting absurdities will intensify. Meanwhile -- at least as long as her nomination is threatened from the left -- Hillary Clinton will benefit from corporate biases that wallpaper the mass-media echo chambers. The Jan 31 New York Times editorial endorsing Clinton could hardly be more fanciful and hagiographic if written by her campaign. Many of the same media outlets and overall corporate forces that denounced Eugene McCarthy in 1968, George McGovern in 1972 and Jesse Jackson in 1988 are gunning for Sen Bernie Sanders in 2016. We shouldn't be surprised. But we should be ready, willing and able to do our own messaging -- widely and intensely -- in communities across the country. The Sanders campaign could be a watershed for progressive organizing through the rest of this decade and beyond. That will largely depend on what activists do -- in the next weeks, months and years.

[Norman Solomon is a journalist, media critic, author and activist.]