Bernie* is continuing to bang the gong and clang the cymbal on progressive issue on social media. In this morning's Facebook Feed, Bernie* pronounced that the Covid 19 virus had laid bare the defects in our for-profit health care system, showing -- now more than ever -- why Medicare-for-All was necessary.........
I really don't understand the point of this. By withdrawing from the race, by foregoing the threat of abstention or running a third party ticket, Bernie gave up any all leverage he had to bring about "our" agenda.
Does Bernie really think the pandemic was needed to make people see the need for medicare for all? Rubbish. Through January polls showed that a substantial majority of all ordinary, working Americans favored Medicare for all. THEY didn't need a pandemic to make them see the necessity.
Does Bernie really think the Flawless Obama, or Nancy (La Mousse) Pelosi, Furious Hillary, the New York Slime or any Centrist Democrat didn't understand the imperfections of the for-profit health excuse industry? Of course not. They just don't give a damn. Corporate profit is what they are about and the system works great for that purpose.
It pains me to say this but Soap Box Bernie is just talking himself into irrelevance. He got his NYT op ed. By summer the media will have forgotten him and progressive reform will be buried under a heap of commissions.
The Democratic Party is just a tool. The tool remains in the hand of corporate puppets. So it's back to square one. Either progressives gain control of the tool or find another one. To that end, the progressive movement needs a leader, someone who will not just talk but talk, act and win political control over something with tangible political consequence. Bernie* is no longer the leader of anything because there is nothing for him to take control of, neither the party, nor the presidency. As such he is just another voice in the din.
Typically, my Facebook Feed provides a more or less steady diet of homilies of one sort another: the importance of being kind, the need to help those in need or to have our neighbour's back, the way to find balance amid the turmoil, to bring out the positive in life or to achieve a sense of community while being mindful, cheerful, hopeful... and so on. These gently nagging but uplifting thoughts are accompanied by pictures of a sunset, a rose mandala, a firefighter, a giggly sweet child or an adorably cute puppy and, of course, of Jesus.
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic the number of such moralizing posts has surged, compounding the usual number of homiletic exhortations one could expect at Easter. And so it was I learned the other day that someone out there was looking for the "opportunity" to love me in order to be able shout ..Alleluja, Alleluja. Alleluja, Christ is risen!" Evidently, the solution to the economic and health crisis we are in is to smile on your brother; everybody love one another right now!
Arrgh!!! Arrgh!!! Arrrgh!!!
I've had it with religion. Throughout its history Amurkans have confused homiletics with politics. Politics is about how to organize obligations and benefits within a society; how to produce and distribute social product. You don't need a lot of aspirational feel good/do good stuff for that. It is a practical question.
To the extent it arises at all, a moral issue arises with the primary question of what is the purpose of living together at all? There are two possible answers: either society exists as fodder for hucksters or it exists to provide fodder to all.
The question was posed at the beginning of Plato's "Republic." Thrasymachus gave the first answer stating that what is called "justice" is simply the advantage of rulers who manipulate and exploit the demos as sources for their own profit. The second answer, given by Socrates, was that justice consisted in promoting the well being of all in accordance with the capacities of each.
You don't need religion to make the choice. A study was done some 20 years ago with Bonobo apes in which a group of six apes were given a task to do at the end of which they each got a banana. For several weeks the apes did the task and got their bananas. Then, one day, they did their task and everyone got a banana except one who got nothing. The apes immediately raised a ruckus, threw their bananas at their keepers and refused to cooperate further.
Evidently, the apes did not need Buddha or Jesus or Mahomet or Swami Prachtamuchtananda to make their choice. Unfortunately, Amurkans are all but genetically predisposed to substitute preaching for political discourse whenever possible.
In fact, homiletics is just the other side of hucksterism. De Tocqueville noted that while "acquiring the good things of this world" was the prevailing passion of Americans, certain momentary outbreaks occurred, "when their souls suddenly burst the bonds of matter by which they are restrained" and whole families trekked off into the woods to listen for several days on end to wandering preachers who hawk about the word of God from place to place. "Religious insanity is very common in the United States."
But just as common is hucksterism. Just as whole businesses are devoted to religion, whole business (lucrative ones at that) are devoted to branding and marketing one worthless box of cereal over another. Worst of all are the political hucksters who sell aspirational cornflakes while shoveling public treasure to banks, corporations and those whom Thrasymachus called the "true rulers."
In fact, the homiletics is used to detract attention from the hucksterism. As Clemenceau famously said of Wilson "He talks like Jesus Christ but acts like Lloyd George." Our politicians are always tear jerking us with hopeful homilies about this and that while they lead us to economic slaughter. Meanwhile gaggles of preachers, do-gooders, self-improvement specialists, and swindling swamies of one sort or another detract us from the task at hand with vague nostrums about finding self and helping others. It is all beside the point. Social activity must never be based on philanthropic flim-flam, but rather must aim at the elimination of the basic deficiencies in economic and cultural life that lead to the degradation and degeneration of the individual.
I have nothing against harboring private religious sentiment or practicing goodwill toward men; but eliminating the basic deficiencies in our economic life does not require Jesus. It simply requires counting bananas.
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Post Script. The day after I wrote this, David Dole posted the latest tee vee ad from Joe Biden which serves as a perfect, paradigmatic example of how homiletics substitutes for real politics and carries water for political hucksterism. Watch and Gag.
In normal times, the Woodchip Award Committee waits until the end of the year to make a decision as to the winner of the year's Golden Brioche Award.
But these are not normal times. Already there is a surfeit of incidents providing jaw-dropping examples of the imperviousness to reality of the ruling class.
First there was Senawhore Lindsay Graham worrying that a one time $1,200 check might "disinsentivize" wage slaves from working two or three jobs to keep nose just above water.
Then there was the New York Slime columnist who wrote an article about the incidental pleasures of self-isolating and working at home, among which, we learn, are relaxing baths and pouring one's self a cool glass of wine....
While these benefits were being extolled in the nation's so-called paper of record, the Administration announced it was cutting back on food stamps for the poor and unemployed.
Masks? Let them use scarves.
And we are not even through April. At this rate, by the end of the year the one thing there will be more than enough of is runner ups for the award.
But Nancy Peelousy has managed to trump all trumps, and it is hard to see how the Golden Brioche Aware could possibly go to anyone else.
As of this last week 17 million people are counted as unemployed over a three week period. Tens of thousands lined up for food at food banks which announced that they were at the limit of their capacity to provide food baskets to the thousands needing them.
There are probably those who have never looked into one of these food baskets. Suffice to say that they are not choc' full of choice cuts and fresh organic produce. They are bags stuffed with cheap fats and carbs with the occasional apple, orange or banana thrown in. Stuff to survive on when starving but nothing better. While tens of thousands of stunned and shocked unemployed lined up for these food baskets, Nancy Pelosi gave a a Zoom-Chat interview with an English talk show host, during which, while sitting in front of two large, brushed steel refrigerators, she explained, how she and her family enjoyed stocking up on designer chocolates.
Nancy's Delights Basket (For Herself)
"How much of your diet is chocolate and candy?" "Ah well.... as much as possible..." Back at the start of the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover was asked why he allowed pictures of himself in a dinner tux to be published. "To uplift the people's spirits," came the earnest reply.
No doubt Pelosi felt that her sweet toothed good cheer would bring a smile to all of our faces; you know... to take our minds off unemployment, rent due and hunger.
The French invented a contraption for this sort of thing and a wise thing that. But we Chipsters will content ourselves with awarding Pelosi the first (Dipped Chocolate) Golden Brioche Award for 2020.
The New York Slime printed a gushing story about how Bernie has endorsed Biden. We've got to make Trump a one-term president said the erstwhile "political revolutionary." That's nice.
Do Big Banks and Big Oil and Big Inc. support a candidate without a pro quo?
I am a student burdened by a life-long debt; where's my pro quo?
I am working two dead-end jobs each paying a minimum wage under $10; where's my pro quo?
I am a renter whose rent eats up half my income and who can't afford health insurance; where is my pro quo?
I am a senior trying to survive of $1400 a month out of which $400 a month goes toward my medicare "copay" and drug plan; where's my pro quo? Pro quo me, Mr. Biden
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