Friday, February 12, 2016

Best essay yet explaining why Bernie instead of Hillary

This is a good one for Democrats to read before making a final vote decision. I love that Democrats are, by and large, the party of the open-minded, willing to look at all sides with intelligent analysisOf course, it helps that we have two intelligent candidates to choose between. (~.~)

Capitalism vs. Democratic Socialism?

by Stephen Pizzo | February 11, 2016 - 9:51am

I've been quietly watching this campaign for months. My close friends know I support Bernie Sanders. Some agree with me, others do not. Those who do not, believe that Hillary Clinton, as flawed a candidate as she clearly is, is a safer bet for 2016. They do not believe that the old socialist from Vermont can break through to mainstream voters in a general election, thereby almost guaranteeing a GOP victory.

And, of course, following on the GOP victory they fear, would follow a cascade of Supreme Court appointments, and the gutting of Obama's (few) progressive policies, regulations and programs, like Obamacare.

Danger, danger, Will Robinson, they robotically warn me in daily emails.

I get it. Yes, there is danger there. But, if I've learned anything in my 70-years, it's that some old adages passed from generation to generation survive because, by the time you get close enough to the grave that the smell of dirt fills yours nostrils daily, those old adages stand up real good to the test of time.  (So true...)

  • No pain, no gain
  • Fear is life's parking brake.
  • Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
  • Fear is the only thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve.

"Well yeah," they tell me, "But Sanders is a socialist. How many Americans are going to vote for a socialist?"

Now that's a question worth exploring. So let's.

Let's begin with wealth — or precisely, who seems to be getting it and who's not. It's become a cliché, repeated so many times, in Facebook memes, news reports and progressive political rhetoric: The 1%. — they have the wealth, most of it, and they're still soaking more of it up every day.

The American middle class has withered in direct and verifiable ratios to the One Percent's gains.

Poor Americans? There's more of them, as once lower-middle class blue collar workers slip into poverty.

Homeownership falls, as fewer and fewer can afford the freight.

Rents soar as would-be first time homebuyers give up on that dream seek rental units, forcing rents up. Now these renters struggle to just keep up with ever- rising rent.

Homelessness grows. As soaring rents force once lower-middle class renters out. Tens of thousands of discharged veterans, home from two decades of Middle East wars, struggle to adjust to civilian life, with little if any help from their former Pentagon employers, end up on the street or in shelters.

Millennials believe they will never be able to retire because by then, either Republicans would have gutted the program, or growing federal deficits will force deep reductions in future benefits.

Okay, so that's the lay of the political landscape.

So, what's a progressive voter to do? Sure, we fear all GOP candidates for President. And sure, we'd prefer a Democrat instead in the Oval Office.

But wait. What about all the crap above? That's there. It's still there. We progressives elected Obama in 2008 because he held out the promise of change, but change within the existing political/social framework. And he tried. Maybe not as hard as we'd hoped, but he did try.

Still, at the end of two terms in office all "the crap above" is pretty much right where it was in 2008. Some things are marginally better; Obamacare did get a few million more Americans insured, but fell far short of the universal, single-payer system that every living actuary will tell you is the only way a national healthcare system can be sustained.

And yes, the troops did come home, most of them. But the wars continue, and now seem poised to grow again in Afghanistan, Syria and Libya.

Well, you know all this. The question is what's a progressive voter to do this time around? We could "vote safe," and go with Hillary Clinton. She is a known quantity. We know she can be trusted — not ethically, but politically. We can trust her not to rock the boat in any meaningful ways. She would be an incrementalist — at best. She would certainly not make any startling moves that might spook Wall St. There are too many political/fiscal eggs in that too-big-to-fuck-with basket. And she would not break up the big banks, which are now so much bigger than they were before the 2008 crash (they caused) that they are truly fearsome Frankensteins, roaming the planet in search for the next big bubble.

Hillary would not mess with any of that. That's just not her style. Her style is cautious and calculated — exactly the kind of traits one might want in a President, in normal times.

But these are not normal times. (See, "all the crap above.")

And so there's Bernie Sanders.

Look, I've been around politics and Washington for a long time. I am not naive. If anything I am beyond cynical. I see no more heroes, only players. Bernie is no savior. But he is a disrupter. And that's what I'm looking for. And that's what millions of other progressive voters, young and old, are looking for; someone capable of throwing monkey wrenches into the status quo machinery, and forcing a full-stop and re-analysis. A reconsideration of some of the core beliefs that have gotten us where we are today, the good and the bad of it:

  • Is lassie faire capitalism as effective a driver of national development and security it was during a different time in history?
  • Are international "free-trade" deals really the good deals for America as a whole as we've been told? Or do they really benefit corporations and banks which move goods and money internationally?
  • What role have trade deals played in the gutting of the American middle class and growing poverty in our blue collar communities?
  • Has the vast wealth acquired now by the top 1% finally so compromised our political processes that America can no longer honestly claim it's a genuine democracy? (Or a democracy at all?)
  • And just what are the core responsibilities of a 21st-century democracy? Are we only free to complain, thanks to the First Amendment, but that's it? How about government services? Who should get them? What should they be? Should citizens have a right to healthcare? Food? Shelter? A clean environment, even if that means limiting growth? Or do we only have a right to expect a strong national defense structure, at the expense of most other national needs? And, if that's all we have a right to, then just what exactly are we paying to defend? Just the right to complain about it, from administration to administration?

Which brings me back to Bernie Sanders. He stands as the only progressive running I can reasonably expect will not only be asking those hard and long overdue questions, but would sincerely fight for answers and solutions. Sanders is the only candidate I can reasonably expect to disrupt, rather than reinforce, the status quo.

Finally there's this question: Unrestrained capitalism vs. democratic-socialism. Is that a choice Americans are ready to make?

For young voters, I strongly suspect, the answer in 2016 will be something along these lines:

"If lassie faire capitalism cannot, or will not, provide us upwardly mobile careers and opportunities, that pay at each level a livable wage, provide us cities with safe streets, affordable housing, reliable and affordable healthcare for everyone, clean water and a survivable natural environment, then we're more than ready to give democratic-socialism a try. Since the current system is failing, why should we fear change? We ARE a generation of change. We don't fear change, we embrace it."

Amen.
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newsforreal.com

About author Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer. His web site is News For Real.
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