Voting Your Conscience vs. Voting for the Likely Winner

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This blog crossed my radar this evening: Kevin Gosztola, a liberal political commentator, is of the opinion that some elements of the Democratic Party are beginning to panic about the degree of success of Bernie Sanders.

Mr. Gosztola describes the situation as follows.  In the last few decades, he says, there has been a trend of liberals being gradually controlled by those who want to allow business interests to continue to manage the political system.  (Liberals have traditionally opposed the power wielded by Big Business.  Evidently, according to Mr. Gosztola, this is more appearance than fact.  Reading between the lines, I see an accusation that moderates such as the Clintons and Barack Obama are reluctant to oppose Big Business, as evidenced by the jettisoning of the Single Payer Health Care system that was desired by so many liberals, in  favor of a system that allows Insurance companies to manage Health Care.  In a telling sentence, Gosztola says that "Those in power expect liberals to police others on the left who would threaten their supremacy."  They expect liberals to police the extreme left!!!  As if they were judges, who expected the defense attorney to keep the defendant 'under control!')

Well, of course Mr. Gosztola wants to make left-leaning liberals mad.  But perhaps we should be mad; over the years, the only sort of Socialist that was allowed to reveal his beliefs was a liberal Democrat; anyone further to the left was reviled and scorned.  But Bernie Sanders has encouraged those left-leaning folks, whose dreams seemed to have died with the trade unions whose power was becoming gradually strangled by treacherous politicians, or by trade union bosses whose excesses lost them the needed public support, to think once again what it meant to be a kinder gentler nation.

It has been difficult, with neoconservatives focusing the public's attention towards imaginary enemies abroad, to think of America as a place where the weak are protected.  By a massive onslaught of media propaganda, Big Business and the representatives of the monied classes have managed to portray the wealthiest of the wealthy as those who are most deserving of public sympathy.  Bernie Sanders's relentless --and deserved-- accusation of the tiny minority that controls nearly 90% of the wealth of the country is bringing new energy to those who had hidden behind a front of being 'Moderates', steeling themselves to allow the interests of 'Business' to take higher priority than the needs of the abject poor.  The propaganda against the abject poor is everywhere: they have televisions (How dare they!) and cars, and even stereo systems!

And now, says Mr. Gosztola, the pundits on the conservative edge of the Democratic Party is fearful that if Bernie Sanders were to be the Democratic nominee, and were to win, he would not be able to put through his election promises, because he could never get them through Congress.

This is where, Mr. Gosztola says, the grassroots mobilization of the movement Bernie S. has put together comes in.  It has to mobilize to put pressure on Congress to put through Bernie Sanders's agenda.  Tragically, this sort of mobilization is hard to imagine taking place, given the dismal performance of the organization that elected Barack Obama.

Mr. Gosztola has an explanation of why Obama's machine could not do the job: he made it part of the Democrat National Committee, thus making it part of the establishment, which was ultimately under the control of Big Business.  I'm not absolutely sure that this is what Mr. Gosztola writes, but read for yourself.  It seems to be what he is saying, and it certainly looks like what happened.  Obama stuck to many of his principles, but he got a few things done by acceding to the Establishment.  Will Bernie Sanders compromise to the same extent?  Will his network of supporters be absorbed into the establishment once he is elected?  Is Hillary Clinton the only hope for Democrats to get into the White House?  This means that we will only make infinitesimal progress towards obstructing the so-called 1% from controlling even more of the country than it does already.

Everyone is filled with abject fear of the retribution of the powerful big money, which is pathetic.  It seems to me that we need a more robust left-leaning philosophy, such as that which Bernie Sanders offers.  Hillary Clinton only offers a slowing down of the erosion of the power of the people.  Bernie Sanders offers a reversal of this erosion, provided the people in his movement stay true, and mobilize a grassroots effort to put pressure on Congress after Bernie is in the White House, to pass the legislation that is needed.

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Religion, the Old Opiate. OMG.

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I was recently looking up the name of someone on the Internet, and it just so happened that there were numerous people with that name.  And --and this is the sad part-- most of them were evangelists!!!  What a sad thing it is that in this day and age, so many are wasting their time with religion!

Long after I gave up believing in miracles and Divine Intervention, I kept up a facade of being religious.  I often wondered, in later times, why I kept on with it, and it seemed to me that I was trying to set an example for my friends and younger people.

An example of what?  What is so admirable in clinging to what is nothing but a set of well-intentioned lies?

People who admired me --if there were any-- would have got the message that it was a good thing to profess belief in something even if one did not believe.  (I'm firmly convinced that my skepticism was very poorly disguised.)

People who despised me would have nodded to themselves, thinking that it was this pretense of religiosity that was my ruin.  I was not doing a service to religion.

One of my friends finally argued successfully that life was too short to profess something you did not believe, and I finally came out.  It was a huge relief; but it immediately frustrated me that it was obvious that the vast majority of professed believers were not believers at all.  Of course, there is no way we can be sure; most people are lazy thinkers, who do not follow through on what they say, or appear to communicate to others.  They can say: "I am not a bigot," without really examining their beliefs and attitudes to see whether they are bigots.

I have to say that I'm not a Christian, though I do believe in the life and example of Jesus, as reported in the so-called New Testament.  I also believe that some of the most accurate records of the sayings of Jesus have been kept out of the N.T., because they possibly conflicted with the objectives of the secular Roman administration.  We have no idea how Jesus would view the modern Christian religion, though The Church and The Faithful have blissfully convinced themselves that Jesus would forgive them practically anything.  (He probably would, but he would beat them within an inch of their lives first.  He would cleanse the religion.)

So I have pity on these numerous evangelists.  Like sheep without a shepherd, they keep handing out these comforting words, and they feel that it is their duty to divert the natural instinct of their sheep to be charitable into giving to their own silly evangelical funds, to supposedly enlighten the heathen in various foreign lands, but actually to keep themselves in comfort.  They do not see this as anti-Christian.

Arch, fuming

A Level Playing Field: What some do not have

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A recent comic explains in easy terms why some people find it easier to succeed.

The Last Democratic Debate

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A blogger describes the Last Democrat Debate, held last Friday.

This commentator is clearly favorably disposed towards Bernie Sanders, but also positively disposed towards all three candidates, very evidently.  But Bernie Sanders has got his vote.  He analyzes the debate on gun safety, on the banks, and Wall Street, made a side run into Bill Clinton's past behavior, President Obama, and the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

Bernie Sanders ("has only one volume: yelling,") but he continues to be the highly credible (to us) angry old man, passionately critical about all the things liberals and progressives are angry about.

Hillary Clinton is described as highly knowledgeable and very experienced in almost every area.  But the author quotes a NYT columnist, Nicholas Kristof as saying that Hillary Clinton stands for continuity at a time when lots of people want discontinuity.

Martin O'Malley has approval ratings in the single digits, but he is reported as actually having gained some ground during this debate, even if not enough to be a serious contender for President.

It looks to me as if Hillary Clinton, despite all the reasons why she's too much of an insider for any liberal to be happy with her, is going to be president.  Despite also the fact that she is a woman, and it seems as if the vast American unwashed is less happy with a woman than it is with a man of minority race.  There are women heads of state in half a dozen countries already, and there have been even more: Germany and India included.  (The example of Britain is not one we're happy to count among the successes for women.)

Continuity is bad for this one big reason: that some really gigantic businesses (e.g. Exxon and G.E.) have received government subsidies almost forever.  The US bails out failing banks.  I guess the reason we ordinary people do not know the economic reasons why these subsidies are necessary or even desirable is because we're not rich enough to have the wisdom of the highly affluent.  (I'm guessing that according to current law and circumstances, if Exxon were to declare bankruptcy, be partitioned into smaller companies and sold by the Government, they would be bought up by Chinese and other foreign buyers, which we cannot stop.  I'm not a member of the Dark Side of the Force, namely Business and Economics people, so I have to speculate, very nervously.)  However, a recent commentator (Paul Krugman) gave the opinion that all the frightened talk that any little scratch that Big Business is given could lead to fatal bleeding is highly exaggerated.  Taxes have been raised, with no ill effects.  Regulations have been put into effect, and the economy has grown stronger.  We need someone who will not buy into the scare tactics of Big Money.  Hillary Clinton is more likely to take baby steps than Bernie Sanders.  This is why it would make much more sense to have a sort of presidium, in this case consisting of Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley, Elizabeth Warren, say, and maybe some moderate Republican or two.  This would permit a limited sort of continuity, which our massive economy might need, but also give the executive some courage to undertake massive legislative initiatives that are needed to put a stop to the enormous mass of exploitation of the poor that continues.

If Hillary Clinton is elected, there is just a minute possibility that she will have the courage and the confidence to adopt some of the policies that Bernie Sanders has espoused, and keeps pushing.  She is a remarkable woman: intelligent, wise, compassionate, and patient.  Sometimes a little too patient; I think the patience might be actually a weakness here.  We don't want her being patient with her bank buddies.  She is quick to forgive.  We don't want her being too quick to forgive her banker buddies.  She is too much of an insider.  Even if Bernie Sanders is elected President, you just know that incredible forces are going to come into play to intimidate him into playing the inside game.  Looking back on how far President Obama retreated from his pre-election rhetoric, we know that this sort of thing must happen.

[Added Later]: P.S.  Since I wrote the above, I'm seeing new information about the debate, specifically that Hillary Clinton's  performance was disappointing in a number of dimensions.  I wish I had watched the debate; I'm responding to second-hand information.

Some people have accused Hillary Clinton as taking mean shots at Bernie Sanders, especially in regard to his single-payer health care plan.  To be honest, this is the plan that those who had thought about health care reform had hoped for.  The reason that Obama did not pursue that route is manifold: the public had to see that that route was logically necessary; the health insurance industry needed time to sufficiently discredit itself, and finally, the people had to test out the planned health insurance system set up by the ACA to believe that such a system was possible.  It is more possible with a single-payer plan, but significant planning has to take place that such a system would not get bogged down by government bureaucracy.  It has to be possible to progress in that direction, but progress will be incremental.  It is disingenuous for Hillary Clinton to ridicule such a proposal, and to claim that it was hostile to the ACA (and Obama), which is not true, and which is what she is supposed to have said during the debate.

Given time to react to the debate, I imagine Hillary Clinton might have been more moderate in her responses.  But it is disappointing that she feels the need to shoot from the hip during these debates, because it could be a weakness of her administration, if she gains the White House.  The last thing we want is a President with knee-jerk reactions.  

So, it's not the end of the world, but the fun times are definitely coming to a close.

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A blogger ponders on why we grieve David Bowie

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David Bowie died on Monday, (I think that's right,) and millions are grieving.  An article by Caroline Framke (?) ponders the question why we grieve over public figures--specifically artists--whom we have never met.  The article quotes a tweet by "@elusiveJ", which you should read in the article.

In my case, I think that one of the tragedies of these times is the shortage of public figures who, throughout their public lives, lived in such a way that we could admire them.  Their responses to events were either right spot on, or they did not respond.  In their chosen artistic spheres, of course, they have to be a little larger-than-life, but if they do that in some moral way, we admire them.

Some of the public artists I admire are (many of them still alive):
Joan Baez
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison
Lionel Ritchie
Jon Stewart
Michael Palin, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, and Terry Gilliam,
Jane Fonda
Gene Wilder,
Mel Brooks
Cyndi Lauper,
Garrison Keillor

though I don't share their views on everything.

I wasn't influenced by David Bowie as much as many others; artistically, his influence was enormous, and (as the article says) he changed some people's lives permanently.  Public figures affect people in different ways, and it is not possible to encapsulate a life that makes sense to absolutely everybody.  I loved David Bowie because I felt he was a really decent guy, a human being all of a piece.  That's what integrity is: nothing contradictory in the person.  It is difficult to be that way; I certainly am not.  I'm grateful to David Bowie for his art, and for his great example as a human being.

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