Ever since I can remember I have thought of myself as left of liberal. If that puts me in the camp of “Democratic Socialist” I am happy with that label. However, labels are prone to vast over-simplifications. I think real issues are always multifaceted which require weighing pros and cons in a balanced, rational approach. There are no magic ideologies only better and worse ones weighed against benefit and downside. I have lived 59 years with an unapologetic approach to social issues and ethical responsibility. Historically, I have found myself wrong more than I have been right but shame gets you nowhere, learning gets you everywhere. The determinate factor for failure to learn and refusing to mindlessly repeat the past are facts and statistics. There are better and worse facts. Facts may as well be another word for work. Research is work. It is active and not passive. Passivity makes one into a parrot, a mimic of knowledge and wisdom. If you do not do your own research you will absorb opinions around you which can be largely manipulated by technology and unabashed and unrestrained capitalistic production machines.
Democrats lag far behind Republicans when it comes to capital investment and know-how for ideological programming. Republicans are very good at it and have major networks involved in hypnotic appeals to base emotions rooted in the amygdale1. Don’t get me wrong, leftist make attempts but they pale with regard to the effectively of the right. For one thing, modern leftists generally want to appeal to more positive emotions and facts which, from an evolutionary perspective, do not carry the emotive intensity of fear, hatred, paranoia, etc. For the most part, we must constantly face an uphill battle to viably stake out our positions to others. I have been diligently involved in this battle all my life. Additionally, being from the Deep South, and spending all of my early years around staunch Republicans, I know well how difficult and overwhelming it can be to counter and challenge opinions based on the workings of intense capitalistic media and social productions. The only consolation one can have in the face of arrogant conservatism is facts and statistics, good research and solid sources. If one’s loyalties are based on the feeling of being right or correct, better facts will never have a chance. Better facts are NOT produced or intuited they are worked for and valued apart from whether I like them or not. Personally, I hate being the victim of manipulation and ideological cons on the right so that is why I have decided to work for Hillary and not Bernie.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Bernie and wish this country was ready for a candidate like Bernie. I have the scars to prove that our country is not ready for Democratic Socialism. We have not been around long enough to have explored the political options which bestow wisdom on a culture. We are still too green and reactionary to have lived the trade offs of anti-government extremism and treasuring hard earned communal lessons codified into laws, regulations, and social services. We are too quick to expect to “win” wars and solve international issues with simplistic aphorisms that have been passively handed to us. Bernie is right in intensely bringing out the way we have been victimized, not by an evil government, but by capitalism gone wild and on steroids. Capitalism does not just produce and distribute good and services more efficiently as the Austrian Economists advocate. It also is very effective at consolidating power. Oh sure small business is given lip service as the validation of unrestrained capitalism but historically power and capital have always congealed in symbiotic embrace. Today, at times, we ironically hear the word corporatism batted about by the right as if they just discovered the detestable alliance between big business and corporations. However, historically, we have bumped into this in many other forms most notably, our Founding Fathers.
Spend some time reading about mercantilism and why the early founders of our country like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and John Adams were motivated to leave Europe and start our democracy. They detested the hermetically sealed, historical alliance of power and wealth while 95% of individuals died early in tragic, inadequate and bare subsistence conditions. History has more than adequately demonstrated that wealth corrupts and successfully feeds on others with a blind and ravenous appetite. Unfettered capitalism produces and shelters power at the expense of production, the work and reward of individuals. Left to its own, without regulation and restraint, capitalism does not encourage individualism and merit but ultimately creates the government it needs to impermeably sustain and enrich itself. This is why the Austrian Economists are naive to the point suspicious and questionable motives. They simplistically create an artificial and absolute chasm between capitalism and government which always results in capital = good and government = bad. I have always stated that if there were no government, unabashed capital and wealth would have to create one. Folks that think we can live some sort of libertarian and anarchistic life with a government “so small we can drown it in a bathtub” are living a well produced lie and myth. The bottom line is we will have government, the only choice is do we make it work for us or delude ourselves into thinking that no government or minimal government is some sort of viable option. It is not. The vacuum created by no government or minimal government will give rise to the worst atrocities and violence of those that rise to the top of the world of Mad Max.
Our government has earned some hard achievements that favor the individual and value fairness but Bernie is totally correct that this is being threatened by power and vast infestations of capital. If we give our government to the likes of Trump and the illusion of small government we will give them everything they want to destroy what is valuable and meaningful in our country. Do anti-government haters really think that Trump and his kind are going to come down on the side of altruism, freedom and protections for the individual? Hell no! What folks are missing is the vast, reality show production of some sort of utopia where the rich and anarchy favor the working individual. This illusion has been repetitively ingrained into an assumed pseudo-reality where the lion and the lamb lay down together in chummy competition irrespective of might and hunger.
This brings me around to why I am working for Hillary. The Republican machine has put multi-millions of dollars into having us believe that Hillary is dishonest. I have even talked to stanch Democrats that have bought into this illusion. Where are the facts? After 8 Benghazi commissions and lots of viscous allegations no arrests have been, no cover up has been proved, no dereliction of duty has been established. Republican leaders have made multiple comments attesting to their woeful political motivations and the taxpayers have spent millions on their reckless political ambitions. We have heard about emails but no arrest has been made. If there were any proof of giving classified information away illegally it would have surfaced long ago. My wife and I have both had secret and top secret clearances and there is no doubt such an allegation, if true, would be a clear violation of the law and bring swift punishment on the violator. Any yet, we hear from regular folks that they think Hillary is dishonest. There is no positive proof that she is dishonest and disproving a negative, as the Republican machine knows, is an impossibility. Sorry folks, but what popular opinion is demonstrating is that Hitler was right; propaganda is the surrogate of truth in its unrequited repetition. Marketing obviously works successfully on this principal where ‘truth in advertising’ is an antiquated and irrelevant superstition of the past. Show me the proof where Hillary is dishonest. After all the money and effort to prove it – nothing. They have nothing but rhetoric to show for this fantastic production of reality. In light of this vacuum, I choose another opinion.
The Republicans are not stupid. They know Hillary is their greatest threat for not getting the presidency and not getting the Supreme Court justices they want. They have known this for years and have actively been targeting and marketing the Hillary-dishonesty-show going back to the nineties. Now it has become increasingly apparent why Hillary is such a threat to them. She obviously is not perceived by them as welcoming big business and wealth interests or they would not have created such an effective propaganda machine. They, themselves, are the proof that she threatens something they hold dear – money. Has anyone heard them say anything negative about Bernie? Very little, if any. Why? Hillary is accused of taking money from Wall Street so why would that bother Republicans. After all, they are the ones that got Citizens United2 through the court. They are the ones that talk up free market capitalism. They think “corporations are people too”. They have shown that they will contribute to Democrats or Republicans to further their capital interests. So why would they be threatened by Hillary if she were what they say she is? Why do they talk so little about a “Democratic Socialist” running for president?
It is because they know that Bernie will never make it in the general election. In spite of the freak show circus act they have made with their candidates they know that even a blatant fascist would size up well with a socialist. I have lived through times even in the G.W. Bush years where socialism was synonymous with profanity. President Obama has been accused of everything from socialist to communist to Islamic terrorist. Folks, this is not just loud mouth politicians. There are many, many folks in this country that are scared to death of this radical and created fantasy about the left in our country. Many folks that never vote would probably come out of the woodwork to vote against a “Democratic Socialist” and vote for a thinly veiled fascist. The revolution Bernie talks about can equally come against him for a large segment of the American population. So far, his masses of revolutionary folks have not materialized in the Iowa and New Hampshire caucuses but we have seen a huge increase in the average number of Republican voters in these states. What makes Bernie supporters think the backlash will not be worse than the hope for a revolution? If I vote for Bernie and a Trump or a Cruz gets into office I am responsible for that strategic oversight. Either Trump or Cruz could really be the death or great demise of our country. Do I want to live with that if Bernie’s revolution does not materialize? I think it is probable it will not. The majority of the country does not have the education or background to make a Bernie work.
This brings me to another point. Even if Bernie did make it in – do you think he would be more successful than President Obama? Hell no. If you think President Obama was scapegoated by the right just wait until Bernie becomes president. Bernie will not have the super majority President Obama had and we may as well call off the government for four years to save the taxpayers some money. What would make any sane person think that Bernie would be able to do more than President Obama in our highly tilted and gerrymandered right wing politics? He would get absolutely nothing done, piss off the people that voted for him and allow the right to come back with radical right wing-nut vengeance. Bernie would be the best thing for them long term to rejuvenate their failing party. Why would anyone on the left want to help them accomplish their mission and give credence to their Fox News reality show?
Regrettably, the country is not ready for Bernie but Hillary could actually be more likely to make incremental progress than the polarization that Bernie brings with him. I do not want to go backwards to the days of G.W. Bush. I think we need to show the country that the myths the right popularizes about the left is not real. We have made real progress from the financial meltdown, deregulating banks and traders resulting in 30 to 100 trillion dollar hocus-pocus derivatives worldwide3 and two massive wars we had no business in except to kill thousands of our young men and women and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians4. We need to have ideals, a compass, a direction and Bernie brings that but we also need to think strategically and practically about how to extend our successes and counter the Republican propaganda machine. We should not let our personal desire override the need to bring the majority of the country along with us to make democracy and fairness work better. This is a long term fight. Let’s not sabotage the possibility of winning the war for the sake of a battle. Let’s give the Republican machine its worst fear, Hillary for President. Don’t let them dupe us into buying their mass marketed rhetoric about Hillary. She is our best chance for moving forward. The intelligent right knows it and have put a lot of effort into making us think she is not honest. Let’s be measured, strategic and incremental to show the right how not to be a nut and actually make some progress rather go backwards to the dark ages of recent years.
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1 The Conservative and Liberal Brain
2 Formalism: When a Lie Becomes Truth (really)