I’m going to attempt to leave my sardonic nature at the door and write something positive-ish. Two of the most frequent things I see after writing a rant are along the lines of “you’re not helping” or “what does this mean?” So I’m going to try to step away from that for a moment. No promises. A lot of people are going to post, and have posted, the barber shop interview with Bernie Sanders and Killer Mike. They should. It’s one of the most genuine and honest moments between a candidate and a potential voter/supporter ever fucking recorded- And it should be shown to every potential and registered voter in this country. Every. Fucking. Single. Voter.
Whenever someone asks me why I support Bernie Sanders for President, I ask them how much time they have. If the individual has limited time, I generally say “Bernie Sanders is the only person running for President that will admit that you exist off camera. And he’ll bust his ass to make sure you are represented.” Take a look at the man’s career, and this is undeniable. Rare, but undeniable.
After Mike Dukakis shit the bed in 1988, Democrats rallied around each other and said “Never Again”. Never again will we lose because we don’t have the funding, the connections, or the infrastructure to win. Winning was everything. And it happened, rather successfully. Sort of. For a minute. And not really.Go ahead and check the Overton Window. We won the only way career politicians have won every fucking always: We sold our souls to the highest bidder. It’s not like oligarchs and plutocrats started running the show with Reagan, it’s just that the Third Way realized that if we want to sit at the big kids table, we need that money, too. The amount of sacrifice in order to get that seat didn’t fucking matter- nor did it come cheap. Both in terms of actual money and integrity. The amount of people marginalized in the process didn’t fucking matter. All that mattered was winning. And it nearly worked.
I’ll put it to you this way: Bill Clinton could fuck whomever he wanted and it was no big deal because the Big Deals were already done and on paper. A brand new police state, for-profit prisons, welfare reform, NAFTA, repealing Glass-Steagall, and more war. Rahm Emanuel can say that opposing Blue Dog Democrats is fucking retarded, and that’s just Rahm being Rahm. Hillary Clinton can lie about taking fire in a fucking helo, and Brian Williams gets fired. But Anthony Weiner shows his dick in his draws on Twitter, and every Democrat lines up to shame the guy into oblivion? It’s not because Anthony Weiner did something more abhorrent than any other politician; he wasn’t a part of the team. He was a progressive. Progressives are detrimental to progress- not because they can’t win, but because they should win. People that speak truth to power are sentenced to die in the wilderness because honesty and integrity have no fucking place in American politics.
Bernie Sanders is our best chance to put someone in the White House that isn’t fully bought and paid for. He’s the only person running for President that said, on camera, “I watched my friends get the shit kicked out of them.” He’s the only person running for President that isn’t a fucking political windsock. The guy clearly isn’t focus-group tested. He’s not a pre-packaged shill for Wall Street. His soul is written on his sleeves- not on a Monsanto brief. Goldman Sachs and Time Warner don’t like the guy. Ask yourself if you like Goldman Sachs and Time Warner. Ask yourself if you like war for fun and profit. Ask yourself if the bargain you’ve made- wagering your ideals and true nature- is worth the cost of electing the “comfortable/inevitable” candidate. It’s not Pascal’s Wager- it’s a Faustian fucking bargain. Oh, and ask yourself this one last question:
“If the Democrats who decided that a generation of New Deal muthafuckas could be kicked to the curb in order to usher in a new age of corporate boot lickers worked out, why can’t we kick the corporate boot lickers to the curb and do the right fucking thing again?”
People often, rightfully, criticize Democrats for not taking the long view. Not seeing the big picture. I’ll leave you with the one guy who sees the big picture and holds the long view.
Vote for Bernie Sanders. Get involved. Do and be. We’re past “live and learn”. We’ve had plenty of opportunities to learn. Now it’s time to live and teach.