Trump versus Clinton,
bigotry versus corruption.
Clinton versus Sanders,
corruption versus liberation.
Sanders versus Trump,
liberation versus bigotry.
Trump versus Clinton,
disgrace versus defeat.
Clinton versus Sanders,
defeat versus renewal.
Sanders versus Trump,
renewal versus disgrace.
We are what we choose,
“character is fate.”
There is an old saying: “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” After the primary elections of March 15, I see the American electorate as a sow’s ear, and I’m hoping the primaries between now and July change that view. Here is what I mean:
After the primaries of March 15, a friend observed: “Rubio and Kasich have both indicated that if Trump is the nominee of the Republican party, they may not be willing to support him, a dramatic break from tradition and previous pledges to do so. Presidential campaigns cost almost a billion dollars these days and many of the establishment Republican donors and PACs are starting to indicate that they may not be donating money to a Trump presidential bid. Trump may have to make good on his boast that he is self-funded. So far, he has been spending mostly other people’s money on his campaign, only about $250,000 of his own. It would be such sweet justice if he wound up bankrupting himself and lost to boot.”
Getting Hillary as president is no consolation for me. I’ll never vote for Hillary, and if the result is Trump, so be it. I will not be manipulated into voting for the oligarchy/plutocracy. Given a choice between voting for corruption (Hillary) or accepting chaos (not voting for Hillary, and Trump winning), I choose chaos. If America is not ready to reform itself yet, then maybe a few years of Trumpian political chaos will dispel some illusions and stiffen some spines in favor of renewed revolution.
If it is Hillary that wins this November, then the Wall Street plantation will have weathered the storm of 2016 and Hillary will get a few years of cracking the whip — like Scarlett O’Hara — to keep most Americans picking cotton for Wall Street. I wonder what’s in those $225,000 speeches Hillary gave to Goldman Sachs, privatize Social Security?
However, Bernie Sanders has led a young generation to see the light, and they will persist against America’s corrupt gerontocracy beyond Bernie’s time in public life.
Trump is an American Mussolini, a blowhard who surfs high on the wavecrest of the accumulated frustrations of legions of underachieving less-educated white males (and females!) who are envious of wealth, impatient with critical thought, and who gain emotional uplift venting their noise in Trump’s bigots’ liberation movement. Trump is a branding expert who knows how to get maximum attention with minimum cost, he won’t have to spend much for a continuing campaign. The media will cover Trump religiously because he is total entertainment, brings in mega-viewership, and thus maximizes the networks’ ability to charge and get top dollar for advertising that frames the video clips of his antics. You have to think of capitalism as a disease, a virus of the mind that reprograms the body into an obsessive compulsive behavior of blind accumulation: zombies, the living dead of thoughtless grab.
For the general election campaign, Trump’s legion of fanatics will pony up if need be, especially if they are told it is to ward off the evil Hillary (and she is evil). Also, numerous of the Republican moneybags will want to put some of their chips in with Trump’s campaign stakes on the political poker table, because they will want to buy into some access in case Trump actually pulls it off and then has real power to grant favors. Remember: mental disease.
What I get out of the less-than-desired vote for Bernie in the primaries of March 15 — assuming that this is the trend from here on out — is the following.
1. The American political system is completely corrupt, which is a natural consequence of it being entirely in the service of a thoroughly corrupt economic system (of slavery, basically).
2. A majority of Americans — male, female, white, black, other — support that system, and are voting to keep it.
3. A majority of Americans — male, female, white, black, other — are not willing to vote for (support) a movement to reform America’s political and economic system, as is clearly shown by their unwillingness to vote (in majorities) for the Bernie Sanders campaign.
4. You can’t vote for the system and then whine about being a victim of it, and justifiably expect any sympathy.
That the electorate’s preference against reform (and redistribution) is entirely against its interests is obvious to all, and negates any justification to feel pity for this electorate. Spartacus gained history’s everlasting respect because he revolted against his slavery and lead a multitude of other slaves in a war to free themselves. Slaves who vote for their slavery gain neither pity nor respect, and their subsequent pleas for more scraps from master’s table will fall on deaf ears.
5. If you support the system, you share its characteristics.
Based on the primary returns to date, a majority of Americans — male, female, white, black, other — are corrupt, that is to say morally weak. They are not innocent and undeserving victims of capitalist exploitation (which they yowl about when it’s their turn to get screwed), they are enablers, the lowest grade of perpetrators but perpetrators nonetheless.
In this sense our democracy is working, the ruling class, which is selected by: acclaim, popular votes through consumption dollar choices, and ballot box choices, does in fact reflect the character of the electorate. If that character is one of corrupted morals and ethics, small-minded selfishness and intellectual mediocrity, then the ruling class distilled from the popular stew will also be a morally bankrupt mediocrity, and obsessively compulsive about self aggrandizement.
If we get Trump as president it will be undeniably horrible, where that “horrible” is in comparison to what could have been (what we could have been). A Trump presidency would be honestly bad.
If we get Hillary as president it will be a horribleness in denial of its true nature. A Hillary Clinton presidency would be dishonestly bad.
I would prefer not to believe what I have written above about the majority of the American electorate. So, I hope that voting in favor of Bernie Sanders increases significantly in the primaries to be held between now and July.
I am a Latino and was an experimental physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. During the 1990s, I was put in the position of being an “affirmative action coordinator” (AAC) for my physics division (an administrative unit) at the Lab. The Lab is a good-old-boys club, and being an affirmative action coordinator was one way for an ethnic minority individual to demonstrate their acceptability (submissiveness) and reliability (obedience and loyalty) to upper management, in the hopes of gaining future advancement (getting more pay) by an appointment to one of the few showcase token jobs.
There were certainly sincere trainers of AACs at the Lab, people who believed in the mission of creating greater opportunities for advancement by minorities and women, and I followed through on that training by advocating for such advancements, within the framework of the AAC role. The actual task of the AAC was to assist their management in compiling the annual report (to the Office of Equal Opportunity, OEO) on the ethnic-racial composition of their administrative unit, and the year’s progress or regress regarding the hiring and advancement of minorities and women.
My management quickly discovered that as the OEO mandate was for “minorities and women” they could get just as much OEO credit for advancing white women as anyone of a darker shade of pale. As this was far preferable on the tribal level the Lab embarked on a campaign of major pay raises and promotions for white women, allowing it to continue their traditional neglect of minorities with a sense of relief. To pass the first of my token acceptability tests, my job as an AAC was to go along with these reports submitted to the OEO.
This job experience was my personal introduction to the role of the “comprador” in the colonial administrations of all empires. I describe the comprador, or the native buyer of native labor for the colonial masters, in my article (linked down below) “Blacks, Hispanics and Immigrant Bashing for Colonial Control.” I did not last long as an AAC after my realization of its purpose in the eyes of the management.
The combination of my experiences growing up in white-dominant America and trying to make my career as a scientist, of mentoring minority physics students, and of “failing” my token acceptability test resulted in the formation of my more-or-less unified ideas about “race in America.” However, this is not a topic I wanted to explore, I preferred to think about physics, energy and nature instead of small-minded tribalism and bigotry in the service of careerism. But the course of life insisted on presenting me with “race in America” and I eventually had to “figure it out,” primarily to dispel my confusion and to get beyond my personal frustrations related to it. So, while I have my own synthesis of “race in America,” I have no pretensions to expertise on this topic, nor originality about it. Basically, I have fairly clear ideas about what pisses me off about “race”: I hate to see wasted human potential, and shuttered human minds.
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Note added on 4 August 2019
For me, Yvette Carnell has moved from raging insight, in 2016, to delusional irrelevance in 2019. I can’t recommend her to anyone anymore. Jane Elliot, however, remains stellar.
The late Bruce A Dixon (1951-2019, managing editor of Black Agenda Report) was absolutely on target with his commentary on Carnell (27 April 2019), here:
https://blackagendareport.com/why-ados-reparationists-oppose-free-tuition-and-student-debt-forgiveness
About Bruce A. Dixon:
http://flcourier.com/bruce-a-dixon-dies/
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In searching the Internet for more Bernie Sanders videos to enjoy, I came across some by Yvette Carnell, and thus became aware of her work on politics from the Afro-American perspective. I was very impressed by what I saw and heard. I find Yvette Carnell’s commentary to be very sharp, insightful, erudite, and informed about current events and popular culture, and her delivery to be very spontaneous, fluid, lucid, articulate and witty. It is because of the experiences I mentioned earlier — combined with my enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders — that has made finding Yvette Carnell’s videos such a positive delight.
I love Cuban music, and this last year read a magnificent history on the subject, Cuba and its Music, by Ned Sublette. I recommend this book highly, and have written about it in previous blog entries (Chuck Berry’s “Louis, Louis” is a cha-cha-cha). The history of Cuban music is coincident with the history of African slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas. Sublette’s book opened my eyes about many aspects of my own birth cultures.
The Afro-Cuban experience has been one of interactions (as in the 30 year war for independence) and tensions (as in slavery) between Spanish-speaking Whites, and Blacks and Mulattos who also spoke Spanish yet retained some of their African languages. The Afro-American experience has been largely one of tension (slavery, Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Civil Rights, Affirmative Action, neo-liberal economics) between English-speaking Blacks and Whites, and between English-speaking Blacks and Spanish-speaking Latinos.
In the same year I read Sublette’s book, which deepened my understanding of the Afro-Cuban experience, I discovered the work of Jane Elliott, which deepened my understanding of the Afro-American experience. If you are not familiar with Jane Elliott, the videos linked below will quickly enlighten you about her work and insights. Note that Yvette Carnell is a political scientist and black woman, and that Jane Elliott is a professional educator (originally 3rd grade) and white women; very morally lucid and intellectually powerful women.
Below, I list web-links to videos of commentary by Yvette Carnell, videos about Jane Elliott, and web-links to most of my writing on “race in America.” Some of my recent articles on “Campaign 2016” (Bernie, Hillary, Donald) are also listed because economic disparity is the driving dynamic of this electoral season, and the point of bigotry and racial discrimination is to maintain vast economic disparity.
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Yvette Carnell videos:
Bernie Sanders Is Right: Black People ARE Poor
7 March 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk7M_YDTmQ0
Here’s How Black Clinton Supporters Are Just Like Tea Partiers
24 February 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-5sqbElf7Y
Civil Rights Icon John Lewis Wants Them Scraps From Ms. Hillary’s Table
11 February 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiAy2v4qAzM
Black People Obsess Over Black Culture Out of a Desperate Need for Validation
15 December 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7yOaVjwbLc
“Pigment politics doesn’t get you (us) anywhere.”
Crabs in a Barrel Isn’t the Problem. This is.
22 October 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMjZQ-hjyMM
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Jane Elliott videos:
The Anti-Racism Experiment That Transformed an Oprah Show Audience
Where Are They Now? | OWN (2015)
(5:13)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NHeFgaVWs8
Jane Elliott: “How can we not be racist?” (1992 Oprah TV)
(20:21)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8ZC5JaK0dA
Being Black, by Jane Elliott
(0:59) (~1990s – 2000s)
https://youtu.be/4yrg7vV4a5o
Blue Eyed TRAILER – Jane Elliott
(7:03) (~1990s – 2000s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtx0yzFxp_0
Jane Elliott “The White Fear” (2016)
(2:35)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k3yCG7PHzg
A deeper look: The psychology of racism (Jane Elliot on TV, 2015)
(5:56)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1hC_z2mHTg
Epigenetics of Racism, with Jane Elliott
(Interview of Jane Elliott by Philippe Matthews on 4 November 2015)
(51:50) [Excellent – MG,Jr.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BepjO6PmNWU
“Prejudice is an emotional commitment to ignorance.”
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MG,Jr. (2006-2008):
Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America
20 March 2008
http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/03/20/obama-and-the-psychic-auto-shrink-wrapping-called-race-in-america/
The Heart of Whiteness
21 April 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/04/21/the-heart-of-whiteness/
Blacks, Hispanics and Immigrant Bashing for Colonial Control
31 May 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/05/31/blacks-hispanics-and-immigrant-bashing-for-colonial-control/
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MG,Jr. (2015-2016)
Between Slavery and Socialism in America Today
10 November 2015
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/10/between-slavery-and-socialism-in-america-today/
Red Badge of Bigotry
26 June 2016
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/26/the-red-badge-of-bigotry/
The Cult of Hillary, the Ultimate Junk Bond
29 February 2016
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/29/the-cult-of-hillary-the-ultimate-junk-bond/
Convenient Privileges vs Classified Trust (Hillary’s e-mails)
4 March 2016
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/04/hillarys-emails-convenient-privileges-vs-classified-trust/
Godzilla Breath Flames Naked Crooks (Campaign 2016)
11 March 2016
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/11/godzilla-breath-flames-naked-crooks-campaign-2016/
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Enjoy!
and, Be kind.
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Update, 2 August 2017
During 2017, I read numerous comments (on Facebook) posted by Yvette Carnell, on the subject of immigration (which she is hostile to, particularly the illegal kind), and the presumably increased labor competition Black Americans (the “descendants of slaves,” not the later free African immigrants) face from immigrants generally and Mexicans – Spanish speakers – in particular. The following conclusion is what I consider the significant insight I have gained from a distillation of Yvette Carnell’s commentary:
Black Americans resent White Americans for not loving them, and they resent all immigrants and their American-born descendants for getting in the way of that yearned-for love.
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The best thing that could happen to the U.S.A. this year would be for Bernie Sanders to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for the presidency, and then for Sanders to win the general election in November. The Republican Party’s nominee will most certainly be Donald Trump. However, the possibility exists that due to means mostly foul that Bernie Sanders would not be the Democratic Party nominee. If this disappointment materializes in July, then you may find yourself harangued by rabidly passionate partisans telling you how to vote based on their preferences. So, in this essay I present a tool — Bayesian analysis — that can help you to clarify your own thoughts about how to proceed in a period of uncertainty, and to strengthen your convictions in a logical manner. This will be easy reading, stick with it.
The purpose of Bayesian analysis is to logically select the best course of action from a set of available options, despite uncertainties about the probabilities of the outcomes that may occur, and where the decision-making process takes into account your own personal preferences regarding those outcomes. You can easily learn the mechanics of basic Bayesian analysis by looking up articles on the Prisoner’s Paradox. I will proceed directly to our model “general election” problem:
Should “I” (a given Sandernista and/or Democratic Party voter) vote for Hillary Clinton, or not-vote for Hillary Clinton, if the general election is a Clinton versus Trump race?
A “not vote” means to instead vote for a third party candidate, or write in a candidate on your ballot, or abstain from voting for the presidency.
We identify two mutually exclusive actions: vote for Hillary Clinton (vote-H), and not-vote for Hillary Clinton (vote-not-H).
There are two mutually exclusive general (national) outcomes: Hillary wins (H-win) or Trump wins (T-win).
The probability of an H-win is designated by the letter p. The quantity p is an as yet uncertain number whose magnitude lies between zero (a certainty of a T-win) and one (a certainty of an H-win).
Because the probabilities of an H-win and T-win must add up to unity, the uncertain probability of a T-win is the quantity (1-p).
Since we have two actions (vote-H, vote-not-H) and two general outcomes (H-win, T-win) there are four possible specific (or personal) outcomes:
D1: vote-H, and H-win,
D2: vote-H, and T-win,
D3: vote-not-H, and H-win,
D4: vote-not-H, and T-win.
I, the voter, have very personal preferences, or desirabilities (D1, D2, D3, D4) regarding each of these outcomes.
For example, I might decide that voting H and having a T-win would rate on my personal desirability scale at -1000! You can use any numbers (positive or negative) you like for your personal subjective values D1, D2, D3 and D4 for the four objective outcomes.
Recall that specific probabilities for vote-H are: p (for an H-win), and (1-p) (for a T-win).
Recall that specific probabilities for vote-not-H are: p (H-win), and (1-p) (T-win).
My actions in a voting booth will not alter the actions of millions of other voters in their voting booths, so p is independent of what I (or any other single voter) does.
Recall that the desirabilities for the action vote-H are: D1 (H-win), and D2 (T-win).
Recall that the desirabilities for the action vote-not-H are: D3 (H-win), and D4 (T-win).
The expected value to me of any of the four outcomes is the quantity gotten by multiplying the probability of that specific outcome with the desirability I assigned to that outcome. So the four expectation values are:
For the action vote-H expectation values are: p*D1, and (1-p)*D2.
For the action vote-not-H expectation values are: p*D3, and (1-p)*D4.
The best action for me to take (in this model problem there is only a choice between two) is the one which has the highest utility value. The utility for an action is the sum of the expectation values of its consequences.
The utility value for vote-H is UH:
UH = p*D1 + (1-p)*D2.
The utility value for vote-not-H is Unot-H:
Unot-H = p*D3 + (1-p)*D4.
When UH is greater than Unot-H, vote Hillary (hang on, we’re still just talking math).
When UH is less than Unot-H, vote Not-Hillary.
I have taken the definitions and formulas described above, and worked out the general problem for any set of numbers D1, D2, D3, D4, and p (enough has been said that the mathematically inclined can easily duplicate this work). Now, I will lay out the algorithm for decision-making (picking an action) and show specific numerical examples, which you can use as templates to work out your own personal cases.
Define:
x = D2 – D4
y = D1 – D3
The extremes of x and y can be characterized as follows:
At large positive y (y >> 0): H-loyalty, happy to vote-H for an H-win.
At large negative y (y << 0): H-antipathy, unhappy to vote-H for an H-win.
At large positive x (x >> 0): H-guilt, at a failure to vote-H given a T-win.
At large negative x (x << 0): H-disgust, at a wasted H-vote with a T-win.
There are four possible classes of voters for this problem:
H-regardless
Bernie-or-Bust
Between guilt and disgust (over H)
Between anger and happiness (over H).
H-regardless voters are defined by:
x > 0, and y > 0,
and they will be most satisfied to vote-H regardless of any estimate they may make of p (the probability of an H-win). These are the “Hillary or bust” voters.
Example #1 (H-regardless):
D1 = 10 (H-win is good),
D2 = 0 (T-win is not good),
D3 = 0 (I let the H-team down, but at least they didn’t lose),
D4 = -10 (shame! I didn’t support the H-team and result is a T-win).
Thus x = 10, and y = 10.
Analysis indicates they should vote-H regardless of any estimate of p, if they are to be most satisfied.
Bernie-or-Bust voters are defined by:
x < 0, and y < 0,
and they will be most satisfied to vote-not-H regardless of any estimate they may make of p (the probability of an H-win).
Example #2 (Bernie-or-Bust):
D1 = -5 (I hate the idea of vote-H to stop a T-win),
D2 = -10 (damn! I did a vote-H and still got the T-win),
D3 = 5 (an H-win is better than a T-win, and, yea!, I didn’t have to vote-H!),
D4 = 0 (if T-win was destined at least I didn’t waste my vote on the loser H-team).
Thus x = -10, and y = -10.
Analysis indicates they should vote-not-H regardless of any estimate of p, if they are to be most satisfied.
The other two classes require the calculation of the critical probability, q, defined as:
q = -x/(y-x),
which is equivalent to
q = x/(x-y).
Between guilt and disgust voters are defined by:
x > 0, and y < 0,
and they will be most satisfied to:
vote-H if p < q,
vote-not-H if p > q.
Example #3 (Between guilt and disgust):
D1 = -5 (H-win is better than a T-win, but I didn’t want to vote-H),
D2 = 0 (no guilt for the T-win, I did a vote-H),
D3 = 5 (H-win, which I didn’t have to vote for),
D4 = -10 (guilt over the T-win since I didn’t do a vote-H).
Thus x = 10, and y = -10, and q = 50%.
These people will be most satisfied if they:
vote-H if p < q = 50%
vote-not-H if p > q = 50%.
In the above example the voter only feels safe to vote their preference of vote-not-H (and avoid feeling guilt if the result is a T-win) if H is more than q = 50% likely to win the election.
Between anger and happiness voters are defined by:
x < 0, and y > 0,
and they will be most satisfied to:
vote-H if p > q,
vote-not-H if p < q.
Example #4 (Between anger and happiness):
D1 = 10 (happy to vote for an H-win),
D2 = -10 (unhappy with a T-win since I did a vote-H),
D3 = 0 (I didn’t vote-H, it doesn’t much matter),
D4 = 0 (I didn’t vote-H, it doesn’t much matter).
Thus x = -10, and y = 10, and q = 50%.
These people will be most satisfied if they:
vote-H if p > q = 50%
vote-not-H if p < q = 50%.
In the above example the voter only feels satisfied voting for the H-team if it is a sure winner, so they should vote-H only if they estimate that the probability of H-team success, p, is greater than the q (critical probability based on desirabilities) for this case, which is 50%.
Two more examples follow.
Example #5 (Between disgust and guilt, with a lot of guilt-fear):
D1 = 100 (H-win, okay I guess),
D2 = -100 (sad if a T-win, but no guilt as I did a vote-H),
D3 = 200 (I’d rather vote Bernie or Jill Stein if H-win is destined),
D4 = -1100 (lots of guilt over my vote-not-H with a T-win).
Thus x = 1000, and y = -100, q = 0.90909.
This guilt-fearing voter should only vote their not-H preference if they believe an H-win is over 91% likely! Specifically:
vote-H if p < q = 90.909%
vote-not-H if p > q = 90.909%
It would be so much better to jettison the guilt.
Example #6 (Between anger and happiness, with a lot of anger):
D1 = 10 (guess I had to vote-H to prevent a T-win),
D2 = -1100 (damn!, I vote-H and get a T-win),
D3 = 0 (H-win, and I didn’t have to use up my vote for it),
D4 = -100 (T-win anyway, glad mine wasn’t a loser vote-H).
Thus x = -1000, and y = 10, q = 0.99009.
This person is angry about the idea of “having to” vote-H to prevent a T-win, and then that vote-H being for a loser. They should:
vote-H if p > q = 99.009%
vote-not-H if p < q = 99.9909%
In the above example the voter only feels satisfied voting for the H-team if it is a sure winner. If T-team is destined to win, then they want to use their vote elsewhere instead of on vote-H.
Why don’t you try making up some examples by choosing D1, D2, D3, D4 and p? The value in actually working out numerical examples based on your own preferences (desirabilities) is that it helps to clarify your mind about all the possible choices and outcomes you may be faced with. That can improve your self-confidence and sense of calmness about the whole electoral spectacle. Also, it may give you ideas about other types of choices to play Bayesian games with. Enjoy.
If you remember the 1960s, or studied them in one of your ancient history classes in college day-care, you will recall: “don’t trust anyone over 30.” This piece is somewhat along the same lines, from someone on Medicare.
Typical readers of left wing websites (like the lively Counter Punch) may feel that Bernie Sanders “is pulling his punches” with regard to countering Hillary Clinton’s campaign hysterics (and their echoes in the NYT and similar organs of the apparatchikarchy). But, Bernie (and his campaign tacticians) may in fact be calibrating his fire just right. There are overwhelmingly more Americans who are not so politically turbocharged as the Internet Leftists, and the present level of intensity of Bernie’s rhetoric seems to be very effective at waking them up and drawing them in. A more strident presentation by Bernie now might strike the blacks, women and middle-of-the-roaders in the Carolinas (and beyond) as insulting and off-putting (as for instance Trump’s attacks are for many despite their sympathy with his politics).
Bernie is an experienced politician (get over it) and like a cobra knows it is important to keep his limited amount of venom in reserve, and to not spit it all out against lesser provocations early in the hunt, but to save it for a fatal strike nearer the end of the chase, and at the crescendo of the drama. Many of the Republicans and Hillary now look increasingly impotent because they spit out big wads of their venom early, which were quickly seen by the public to be ineffective (lies, hissy fits, clumsy fumbles), and these failures shifted the public image of such candidates from being powerful leaders to being bumblers and pathetic losers.
Bernie is doing so well in corralling the public consciousness because he is pursuing his own agenda as regards delivering his message, rather than allowing himself to be distracted and diverted into taking red herring poisoned bait tossed in his path by the despairing Clintonites. In brief, in this election cycle Bernie’s campaign is the most successful of any candidate so far (he must be doing something right), AND there is still a long way to go.
Bernie Sanders is younger than most politicians, pundits (whether unpaid freelance amateurs or professional touts), lobbyists, and professionals of every sort: the people who are all set, the people whose youth is behind them. Sanders is like Michael Moore in this regard (see “Where To Invade Next”). Like the childish youth who didn’t need a weatherman to tell them which way the wind blew in 1989, and chiseled away at the Berlin Wall, Sanders is like all kids when told by mommy and daddy “no, you can’t do that” and asks: “Why not?” Is there some law of physics preventing it? It is obvious why he carries the youth vote: anyone with any future yet to be achieved wants to support a politics that favors their aspirations in the here and now.
The insurmountable barriers seen by the people who are all set — people who criticize or oppose Bernie — are entirely mental ones, an inertia anchored in place by habits and “investments,” both of money and ego. I have children aged between 16 and 34, and I view the political scene through the potentialities for their futures, as do they. It’s not about old me or the satisfaction of my sophisticated political tastes.
If the sclerotic politburo of the Democratic Party ultimately thwarts progress and puts Hillary up as the candidate, I’ll vote for Jill Stein. There are still 9 months to go before I have to consider that; much can happen between now and then.
If Bernie is ultimately sidelined, his movement won’t actually go away because the “movers,” the “youth” who still want futures (my children included), will still be there. They (we) will just shift to other vehicles to carry on the fight.
Bernie has already done a lot, many millions of people have been awakened: fire is ours.
Fire Is Ours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIX5zcitEaY
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Dear Mr. Charles M. Blow (chblow@nytimes.com),
This letter is in response to your Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, on 10 February 2016,
Stop Bernie-Splaining to Black Voters
by CHARLES M. BLOW
10 February 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/opinion/campaign-stops/stop-bernie-splaining-to-black-voters.html
[The NYT endorsed Hillary Clinton on 31 January 2016]
In response to your article:
Younger people of all types are not as tied to the political traditions and habits of the past as are their elders, primarily those over 45, and today’s high-earning professionals for whom the status quo is just fine. There are many young black faces in the enthusiastic crowds Bernie Sanders draws.
Young blacks are most likely to think for themselves as regards candidate appeals, as is true of young women, who overwhelmingly support Bernie (most recently in the New Hampshire primary), despite the “instructions” given them by Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright, because for today’s young women the point of women’s lib was to free them to think and act for themselves instead of robotically obeying old programming that required them to vote solely on the basis of gender (and more generally, to submit to instruction from “authority”).
So, I agree that it is counterproductive for Bernie supporters to “splain” to black Americans: the young ones don’t need it (and most of these will vote for Bernie, I bet), and the older ones (supporting Clinton) aren’t going to be convinced and contradict a lifetime of political habit. Unfortunately for the country, the Clintons have been able to exploit that traditional black political loyalty, which you described in your article.
My hope is that older people will think of their children’s and grandchildren’s futures when considering how to vote. To me, Bernie Sanders is the obvious best choice based on that consideration. But, I have come to realize that it is impossible (at least for me) to convince anyone about anything political because everyone wants to “think” for themselves, and because I have found that people, generally, believe what they want to believe, regardless of logic and facts.
You might find the following article interesting, about the different potentialities to the American political economy that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton represent. Forwarding this article is as far as I’ll go in “splaining” Bernie.
Why Bernie vs Hillary Matters More Than People Think
by BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER
5 February 2016
http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2016/02/05/why-bernie-vs-hillary-matters-more-than-people-think/
Kind regards,
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Update: an interesting new article by Benjamin Studebaker
Why Bernie Sanders is More Electable Than People Think
by Benjamin Studebaker
10 February 2016
http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2016/02/10/why-bernie-sanders-is-more-electable-than-people-think/
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William Blum, (and then) Manuel García, Jr.
On Feb 5, 2016, Bill Blum (BBlum6@aol.com) wrote:
Anti-Empire Report, February 5, 2016
http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/aer143.html
Blum’s discussion of Sanders, in the above, was published by Counter Punch:
Is Bernie Sanders a “Socialist”?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/05/is-bernie-sanders-a-socialist/
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Bill,
“It appears that the German and Japanese people only relinquished their imperial culture and mindset when they were bombed back to the stone age during World War II. Something similar may be the only cure for the same pathology that is embedded into the very social fabric of the United States.” [Bill Blum]
This is the essential fact that I came to long ago. I think this a universal truth, like “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It is probably embedded in our genetic coding. Richard Dawkins’ book “The Selfish Gene” would lead you to that realization.
Ambrose Bierce wrote “Politics, n. strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.” After having read Dawkins, one could put the adjective “selfish” in front of “interests” in Bierce’s definition, though it is a bit redundant.
On your earlier points about short memory and/or attention span in public political speech, John Kenneth Galbraith said: “Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.” In his day this was understood to be irony.
I found the writings of Toni Judt (1948-2010) to be the clearest on the use to the labels “socialist” versus “social democrat,” and the value of applying that political approach in the U.S. (the closest to it now in the U.S. is Bernie).
Judt was a historian of the 20th century, he grew up in a Jewish Marxist Eastern European family that emigrated to England, and he benefited from post WWII English socialism to become a university scholar and writer, eventually teaching at NYU. Judt was superb.
If the insights and attitudes that Judt represented could become mainstream in this country then it wouldn’t require a WWII-type holocaust to reorient the U.S. social fabric.
Kind regards,
Manuel
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Hi Manuel,
I found the writings of Toni Judt to be the clearest on the use to the labels “socialist” versus “social democrat,” and the value of applying that political approach in the U.S. (the closest to it now in the U.S. is Bernie). [MG,Jr.]
He’s the closest to what? An example of the uncertainty surrounding the two concepts?
Bill
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Judt’s point is that the word “socialist” is too prejudiced in the American public mind (from decades of anti-communist propaganda) as equal to “communist” = “bad” = dictatorial = enslaving. Rather than fruitlessly trying to correct this imprinted misrepresentation, Judt believed American style “social democrats” should use that label, and emphasize their preference for popular democracy (as opposed to Citizens’ United style corporate “democracy” = oligarchy), which was aimed for social benefit.
The social democracy that reigned in Western Europe from 1945 to 1975 was demonstrably the most successful form of socialism ever practiced, where it is clearly understood that it was a “compromise,” it was capitalism restrained by socialist goals.
The fundamental point here is that political pragmatism motivated by socialist ideals has been proven to work for the good of many millions of people for at least three decades: “social democracy.” On the other hand, the imposition of ideological purity on populations (in the name of a higher and future good) was a failure that has poisoned the words “communist” and “socialist” in billions of minds around the world.
The quibbling by comfortable armchair leftists about whether Bernie Sanders is a “real” socialist or not is just silly. He is obviously a social democrat of the classic European post WWII mold, and that is by far the best alternative now realistically available to the American electorate.
“In a land without sheep, a goat is a prized possession.”
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
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My comments above are also my response to the articles below (also from 5 February 2016).
When Chivalry Fails: St. Bernard and the Machine
JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/05/when-chivalry-fails-st-bernard-and-the-machine/
Is a “Socialist” Really Unelectable? The Potential Significance of the Sanders Campaign
GARY LEUPP
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/05/is-a-socialist-really-unelectable-the-potential-significance-of-the-sanders-campaign/
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In Conclusion:
Hillary Clinton is the past, she is the candidate of the people who run the country (the parasites of the status quo).
Bernie Sanders is the candidate of the people who are the country, and of the generation that will be the country for the next three to four decades.
Bernie Sanders has accomplished what no leftist and ultra-leftist organization, big or small, has been able to do since at least the presidential campaign of George McGovern, and probably since the Great Depression: motivate millions of Americans to become politically active for a socialist agenda (an agenda of “social democracy”).
The carping by ideologues to the orthodox far left from Sanders only highlights how far removed from reality they remain, where reality in this case means having any significant impact on the pubic political consciousness, and any practical effect in causing some substantive improvement in the lives of the American people.
As Jorge Semprún (1923-2011) learned from an old communist wise man, when they were both imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, dialectical materialism “is the art and technique of always landing on your feet.” The criticisms of Sanders by leftist ideologues strikes me as a nervous dance in which the authors are trying to arrive at positions they can later point to as justified by the subsequent course of events (“I told you so.”). But, as they haven’t a clue as to what that course of events will be, they are either nervously equivocal and prolix, or stridently sarcastic to cloak that nervousness: will they land on their feet?
The hundreds of millions of Americans who work for a living, struggle to raise families, and desperately want a fairer political economy that is not a myriad of interlocking rip-offs that feed off of them are showing themselves ready to listen to the message of Bernie Sanders. They are not concerned with leftist orthodoxy and ideological purity, they want pragmatic social democracy now. Also, they have zero interest in the nuanced critiques of avocational leftists who are anxious to land on the feet, whatever happens.
manuelgarciajr 