Bye Bye Bernie

Here is a very good article about the American perception of socialism. American views on socialism are described as "tangled," "all over the map," "ground into the dust over the years," "a straw man," "the boogeyman," "the Robin Hood thing," "an unthreatening egalitarianism," "the unfinished business of the New Deal," "(the) name for almost everything that helps all of the people," "the epithet they have hurled at every advance people have made in the last twenty years," "a good thing," and "a bad thing."

This article is from the New Yorker, but don't let that scare you away. It's not written in highly intellectual language that most wouldn't understand. In fact, I was amused by the baseball bat flipping, mike dropping, slam-it-home point beautifully illustrated in the ad on the left hand side of the article that obscured about a third of several paragraphs making them very difficult to understand. Somebody paid for this ad that makes the topic of this article, socialism, difficult to understand. Somebody paid to force this ad onto my internet, which I pay for every month. It's a fantastic illustration of capitalism making socialism hard to understand. You don't need to understand every word of the article. Just take a gander at that ad. And, while you're at it, try to get rid of that ad. It's impossible. This little form of capitalism, which is annoying internet subscribers everywhere, and obscuring understanding of socialism, is impossible to get rid of. And I'm not even IN America!

But, if you didn't get the same ad I did, or if you aren't yet convinced, the article is well written. I advocate a thorough reading of it on this day when America's best shot at some policies that they DESPERATELY need, Bernie Sanders, just ended his campaign leaving the American public with a choice between Trump and Biden, Synthol Injection Republicanism, and Republicanism Light. A giant douche or a turd sandwich.

AGAIN.

Well, we know Donald Trump is fond of fearmongering when it comes to socialism. Its detractors will often site countries where socialism has failed, like Venezuela under Chavez and Maduro, but that's somewhat akin to saying that Joe Exotic's tiger farm failed because of his choice of hairstyle. And the cognitive dissonance can be cut with a butter knife when you mention countries where it has worked, like Finland, Sweden or the U.S.A. Trump ignorantly spouts alarmism like "I'm running against a crazy bunch of socialists," or "America will never be a socialist country," like he knows what the damn word means. He clearly doesn't. There are lots of words he doesn't understand despite his claims to have the best words. Here's a word that the Washington Post writes, "explains why Trump should not be president." The last line of the article is pure gold! We have a president, unfortunately, who is often wrong — but never in doubt.

There are endless contradictions in the US when it comes to what the socialism haters say and what they do. Not the least of which has been the state intervention (not just under the Trump administration) in economics in ways that are commonly associated with hardline socialism. Ron Kind, a Democrat, refers to it as "authoritarian socialism." And, of course, it brings to mind:

When it comes to contradictions, the word "capitalism" is another historically tangled web of social encoding it would seem. Here's another article from the Warshington Post. It seems that young people, who have not been so saturated by Pavlovian sophistry (yet) tend to blame capitalism, or the way it's being practiced in the US, for some bad things like the widening gap between the haves and the have nots, financial crises and the bailouts that come with them, the realization that the "free market" isn't really a thing, basic necessities like health care and a living wage not being provided to people who work very hard, and economic growth not translating into good jobs for them. They aren't swallowing the rhetoric as easily as their Cold War progenitors may have. This gives me hope for the U.S. even though they're going to suffer through yet another bogus election soon.

But before that, Americans are going to suffer through something that just might have a better chance than Bernie Sanders had of straightening out some shit in their country. Covid 19 the Coronavirus. I recently learned that it's not named for being the 19th incarnation of Coronavirus, but being the one discovered in 2019. That's right, it was synthesized in China in late 2019. NOT December 31 as recorded on the WHO website. But earlier. And the WHO, though knowing about it in 2019, waited too long before they did anything. Much like almost everybody, probably just didn't want to piss off China. Who they knew had just ordered researchers to destroy records and declare themselves liars. The fucking corruption in this world!

I'm hoping that the exposure of this specific corruption of the world, their leadership, the greed, the heartlessness and the fragile nature of the economic systems that can't even survive a month without paycheck to paycheck workers going broke, will wake some people up in America and other countries. Maybe the essential employees of Walmart and Amazon who are risking their lives right now to keep the countries where they work from Armageddon, will be paid more than the least amount that they can possibly be paid by law. I always think of Chris Rock when I think about minimum wage. He said that you need to understand your employer's position. They WOULD pay you less, but they can't by law.

The strangest thing about all this is that amidst this tragedy that would have been eased tremendously by policies that he has supported all his political career, Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race. Universal healthcare is a must. Coronavirus is proving that. Science is working on a vaccine. What if the man or woman who could have cured this virus couldn't afford to get an education? Bernie supports educating everyone who wants to be educated. Even parents. Bernie supports free child care. And the worth of teachers (toot toot) is being recognized now not only for their child care purposes but the educational purposes as well. Bernie believes teachers should be given a much deserved raise across the board. How is it that at the time when the country needs him most, his support can't even match that of a dead wood candidate like Joe Biden? I don't believe it. It's another national con like the one that got Trump "elected" and that got Hillary "chosen" as the Democratic candidate in 2016.

Perhaps two straight, or possibly even concurrent, tragedies like Coronavirus and a second term for the worst president possible may awaken the revolutionary spirit in America. Maybe a write-in vote or two or several million for Bernie Sanders might put the runaway train back on the rails. I doubt it, but we can always hope.