I started commenting on a Pro-Hillary piece, Bernie Mania Is Actually a Form of Deep Despair, but I turned it into a diary. I actually thought the author, Seth, was for Bernie until the end, it was so thoughtful and civil. That is how we should be behaving towards each other.
That headline describes exactly why I am a Bernie supporter. ABSOLUTELY I have experienced a form of despair — particularly since the Republicans/Supreme Court stole the election in 2000. I have felt like there is NOTHING at all I could do to change the appalling corporatist, warlike course of our country. In 2002, 15 million of us worldwide marched in the streets, beseeching our leaders to stop the march to illegal, stupid war. They spat in our face — called us a “focus group.” What happened to the anti-war movement? It went away, just like they wanted. That type of disrespect breeds despair. The behavioral scientists call it “learned helplessness”. An animal in the lab that can’t control anything — that gets shocked in its cage, and can do nothing to stop it vs. an animal that can stop the shock through some action — becomes listless, uninterested in life, won’t even try. It brought me to this website back then (H/T, Markos) where at least I could hear others lamenting the ghastly state of affairs. With Bernie, we have a chance to raise our voice!
It seems to me that in 1972 the diarist above experienced the joy and satisfaction of communal action by like-minded people, campaigning for McGovern. But Nixon won, and he perceived that he and his colleagues “failed”. His optimism and hopefulness for change were killed by the establishment (yes, that’s what the establishment does, and they are very good at it), and they went away. He gave up on thinking we could really change the world, gave up believing in democracy. Indeed, we have nothing resembling a democracy now — see the Princeton study. The establishment wants us to go away, desperately. But I still believe in what the founders of our country did — the concept of self-rule.
That’s one reason I moved to Vermont in 2000 — I wanted to live among the type of citizens who would vote into office people like Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, and Jim Jeffords (Republican who switched parties to try to avert Cheney’s War.) I have not been disappointed. I feel like I do live in a state that is a democracy. And I feel a great joy and honor every time I go to the voting booth to vote for Bernie. Because he is really one of us, socially and financially. (In Burlington, I have randomly chatted with him in line getting coffee, and sat at the next table in an Indian restaurant.) He fights hard for the right things, he’s good at it, he doesn’t give up, and he doesn’t take bribes, so I believe him. Bernie has no skeletons in his closet beyond a honeymoon in Moscow and a raunchy essay he wrote in college. Bernie is a hero of mine. He has inspired me several times this winter to leave my 3-year-old at home, drive 2 hours to New Hampshire, and knock on doors for him. Let yourself be inspired! Let’s be brave like Bernie.
Hillary’s fine as far as it goes — she knows how to play the money game, and she has used her wealth and influence to change the world in a net positive way. But she works within the confines of the oligarchy. She sees nothing wrong with personally collecting millions from the richest, most powerful people on the planet, and then claiming that she will work against them when she is elected. I don’t believe her when she says she will be tough on Wall Street criminals. One of the worst capos, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, is a close friend of Hillary and Bill, and he is scared to death of us and Bernie Sanders. The Masters of the Universe who are the "house" in Wall Street's rigged casino are drooling over another Clinton presidency. They have already paid for her services, and they are not worried in the least about her rhetoric fed to the rabble on the campaign trail: "They dismiss it quickly as political maneuvers. None of them think she really means her populism.” Her friends should know better than any of us, but I don't think she really means her populism, either. I don’t believe for a second that she will fight TPP after she’s elected. She has liked everything about it — until she ran into Bernie.
That’s my beef with Hillary — she is not credible, and her mind is closed to the possibility of the extreme change we need in order to convert our oligarchy into something more like a democracy. Nothing illustrates this more than the pro-Hillary argument that Bernie won’t be able to get anything through Congress. That worldview says: Not only have we no hope to change our corporatist, oligarchic course, but we don't even believe we can change the composition of the Congress! That’s a bunch of bunk — talk about learned helplessness!
My fervent wish is for as many people as possible to experience the joy of voting for someone who We the People can believe in with all our hearts and minds. Right now it’s just me with 71% of Vermonters and a few exuberant Iowans. Join us! It is an incredible feeling — the opposite of despair.