by LLP
June 21, 2017
I probably don't have to tell you who Bernie Sanders is, he's the most popular active politician in the United States. Bernie became a hero to many by standing up to greedy 'capitalists' and promising big hope and change™ to all of his followers. Bernie made socialism cool. There are people working toward making Bernie a 2020 candidate as we speak. I don't think a lot of them have been this energized since the last guy that was supposed to bring big hope and change™. Whatever happened to that guy? Anyway, doesn't matter, Bernie's here now and all our wildest dreams are about to come true. I'm sure every 'Bernie bro' out there had some mental image of what they thought their perfect Bernie socialistic future would look like. It went, step 1: take from the rich and give to the new super cool government; step 2: ???????; step 3: equality/peace/justice/prosperity/rainbows/unicorns. Bernie knew how to make all that stuff happen, he always talked about inequality and the evil corporations, that's all they needed to know. It was a Bernie or bust bandwagon and only the squares weren't on board. Well, that's great people are excited, but while many are preparing to waste a lot of time and money for the next bringer of hope and change™ to gain power, we should probably take a closer more objective look at Bernie Sanders' so called revolution and where it will actually lead.
Bernie's Economic Platform and Socialism
Let's start from the beginning.
From what i can gather Bernie's early life was a spectacularly unimpressive mess. He came from a middle class Jewish family and eventually graduated from the University of Chicago (the same Chicago school associated with the right wing economic theories that Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman pushed, and that gave us Barack Obama and his Skull and Bones economic advisor Austan Goolsbee). Bernie never really had a job and was low on money quite a bit, but Bernie had a dream, he wanted to be a politician so he could stop Hitler and stick it to the man. He spent the next 20 years getting really good at SJWing and parroting talking points that someone at some point said were the most important things to the middle class. He organized some campaigns and joined socialist groups and banged some hippy chicks, and whatever, not a lot of anything to write home about. Finally at 40 years old Bernie Sanders gets elected to something, mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and with the title comes his first real paycheck.
He did a few decent things as mayor, but nothing that anyone who wasn't a greedy capitalist pig wouldn't do, white people problems type stuff. Sanders made some good calls and was on the right side of a few issues that enough Burlington voters cared about, and then bam, he goes and gets himself elected to the US House of Representatives, and it only took 10 more years to do it. Finally, Bernie was getting paid a Representative's salary, cue the Jeffersons' theme song. Anyway, long story short, he started getting a Senator's salary in 2007 with a little boost from some mystery friends. He basically bitched about the wealthy for 60 years and voted sometimes on some stuff with no one in particular. We don't really hear much about Bernie's personal life throughout all of this, he has a kid and a couple of wives. His whole life's story in 2 paragraphs. Made all of his money from the government, never wrote any important legislation, wasn't important one way or the other in the grand scheme of Congress, and has had the same outdated talking points for the last 60 years. The economic climate is drastically different today than it was 20 or 40 years ago, let alone 60.
Democrat leadership helped Sanders get elected to the Senate in what was described as a very expensive campaign in 2007, somehow Sanders managed to get hold of more than $5 million for the win. Since then Bernie has molded his working man rhetoric to specific issues that are meant to offer a controlled alternate viewpoint to that of the more extreme neoliberal policy, but one that never strays far into economic issues the New Democrat leadership considers settled. Sanders just did what Trump did, told the people some stuff they wanted to hear. College and health care, apparently those things were the solutions to all of our problems the whole time. It isn't like they haven't been stringing us along with both of those things for the last 40 years while acting like dismantling the real citizen protections was groundbreaking legislation and a super cool thing we all wanted to do. The Green party has both of those things in their platform and no one is declaring their candidates revolutionaries. Why? Probably because the media doesn't like some of the other stuff in their platform that actually would make a big difference for you, the individual, and the majority, economically. All Bernie did was steal parts of the Green platform that the same people that run stuff now could get their hands on and mess with making sure you don't get decent coverage and that you won't receive a dime to spend yourself. The wealthy would get to keep all their stolen wealth, the jobs would be low paying and fewer and fewer in number, government benefit will still have a work requirement, and you would still be unable to pay your bills. Nothing is going to stop any of this at this point. This is the future and these people are still fighting over ancient shit we should have had done and over with a long time ago.
Let's take a look at a few things from Bernie's platform at the Feel the Bern website. You'll notice all of Bernie's planks regarding economic inequality and the social safety net revolve around third way economic policy. Bernie kept a firm distance from proper redistribution methods and made sure the focus was on the work requirement that the 'Conservative' movement made so popular. Third way policy attaches a work requirement to who gets to have their general welfare promoted or gets benefit from the government. From the Earned Income Credit to SNAP, if you aren't working hard just for the sake of it you don't deserve anything in the eyes of the current state, and what little is earmarked for you is spent for you by them usually without your knowledge. You get expired food and to freeze to death on the steps of your local institutions. It allows them to pick and choose which special interest to help out while not at all benefiting, and even criminalizing, other citizens. This combined with control of the labor market gives the private state control of the economy, the lack of circulating capital gives them ownership of the means of production. The elites created a large underclass in extreme poverty to dump the leftovers that would inevitably pile up when demand was not met as they drained the system of its wealth. The citizens of their community get what they want first, then if anything is left over and about to go bad they let the peasants have at it while deducting money from their taxes. Tossing out a few giveaways to the middle class at the end of their schemes is just more stretching out of the already slim slice of the pie. Eventually the government will collapse, or there will be a people's revolt. They can keep talking about the minimum wage, but, like most New Democrat policies, it will only help a few people here and there, and maybe even hurt a few, and will never address the root cause of most of our current problems. If you can find one policy of Bernie Sanders that isn't as I've described, please post it in the comment section below.
Will Bernie put any money into your pocket? No. In fact, if you read his platform you would know that his programs "aren’t the Reagan-era “welfare queen” giveaways as Republicans have branded them—they’re essential tools the federal government can wield to achieve a more just, equitable society". Welfare queen giveaways? What the fuck is he talking about? Not only did Reagan's "welfare queen" not exist, but those redistribution programs being taken for granted by detached and full of themselves politicians helped build the strong middle class we've been destroying since the 1980s, they also provided necessary resources to poor citizens and profit and opportunity for small businesses. Lacking any kind of economics beneficial to the bottom of the spectrum, I can only conclude there's nothing particularly revolutionary about Bernie Sanders' platform. His programs might save a few people from going bankrupt from medical or education bills, but in the long term they or their children will lose all of their wealth and ability to make any significant amount of money thanks to AI technology and the destruction of our economic, safety and environmental standards with nonsense economics and free trade agreements.
Elite Contingency
Eventually you realize that Bernie was only promoted in the media because his economic platform was rather tame despite what the media and propagandists want you to think, and they needed a 'grassroots' challenger everyone liked to lose to Hillary. He's for taxing the wealthy, single payer, and free college, just like everyone else has been for the last forever, what a revolutionary. What they don't want you thinking is that you deserve to get any money whatsoever from those stealing the wealth of your country and the future of your posterity. You will take a low paying job, give your labor to the state, or you can go fuck yourself.
Since the takeover in the 1980s the elites have been working at destroying the people's government and taking your political power. They own the means of production and control the economy through the job market and government subsidies for the mass of people they have in poverty. They're already running a socialistic economy and people are starting to notice the terrible conditions that always accompany right wing socialism. By giving air time to and promoting the 'radical' 'revolutionary' policies of Bernie Sanders they're softening the citizens of the US to the idea that we're socialists, while at the same time steering completely clear of any economic policy that would promote a recovery for capitalism or the people's state. Freedom, competition, opportunity, these are things that the socialist must destroy to maintain their power, the desperation of the people feeds the need and dependence on the state. Right wing religion teaches us that if you're in poverty you did it to yourself, and the private state has no obligation to you whatsoever. The state spending your money for you on what they think you should have and only giving benefit or constitutional protection to special interest is how private state socialists are giving benefit to those that conform and promote their political and economic religions.
Bernie Sanders was not going to make any significant changes in the current distribution of wealth. The same people would own and run the same stuff. Bernie's been saying the same thing for years just waiting for someone to throw him a bone. At some point even he had to know he would never be allowed to win. Bernie charged on though, Bernie and his supporters were fighting until the end. Bernie knew something his followers didn't though, that ineffective revolutions paid pretty good, and that a $795,000 book deal that tripled his net worth needed a great ending. After all was said and done Bernie made a bunch of money, got some great book material, told his followers to vote for the person they were 'revolting' against, and never advanced one thing that would save us from the downward spiral we're in. If they have to give something up to slow our discontent they want to choose what that thing is going to be themselves, they'll do it whenever they feel like it and they'll most likely just stick on another band-aid that doesn't really fix anything and is unconstitutional but that allows them to continue their agenda of putting us all on the same global economic level for a little bit longer.
Social Policy and the Constitution
Not only is Bernie's economic platform completely worthless to a large percentage of us, he's also a big believer in clogging up the system with social justice issues. Everyone in Washington is under this impression that the Constitution only applies to who they want it to apply to. Bernie has the same positions as the Democratic party when it comes to catering to special interest, he's a defender of social justice and not economic justice. His positions differ on some issues, but nothing too much to rock the boat or that will get anything changed for the majority of us.
One example of Sanders showing disregard for the Constitution while trying to champion a perceived social issue occurred fairly recently during a Senate hearing for Trump nominee Russell Vought. Bernie's issue was with something Vought had written in defense of Wheaton College for firing a person who claimed that Muslims and Christians "worship the same God." Sanders claimed that Vought's article was islamophobic for saying that "They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned." Sanders finished by remarking that Vought "is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.” Not only was Sanders defending the notion that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, and are apparently no different to one another to Sanders, but he was doing so under questioning regarding the religious qualifications of the nominee, which is unconstitutional. When you take an oath to the people's government it was assumed by the founders that this office and your duty to the American people became your primary allegiance. All other loyalties, such as to a religion or an organization, became secondary and less important. Most of the politicians in Washington, Bernie and whatever person claiming to be a progressive without the proper redistribution plank included in their platform, aren't loyal to the citizens, they are loyal to special interest groups and failed ideologies, many of whom are out to end our government and destroy the Constitution and its obligations to all of us.
The revolution should be focused on eliminating poverty in the US
Even though Jill Stein had the superior platform, the media attention Sanders and his supporters received was enough to frame Bernie as the underdog candidate deemed acceptable to detached centrists and self proclaimed Independents. Stein and the Green party platform included some type of universal basic income, or at the very least a roll back of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, also known as welfare 'reform'. She also included universal health care, and was from a family of doctors who worked for a living, as doctors, Bernie, and writing off all current education debt, as well as some big ideas on climate change and decent jobs. These are the kinds of things that give you the benefit you've been owed for those things of value that are being stolen from you, and would create the infrastructure capitalism needs to operate properly to benefit the citizens and consumers. Eliminating poverty gives the bottom 50% back the control of their share of the economy, control the private state is using to cement and enrich themselves with tax payer money. Of course they didn't want one single soul thinking Jill Stein had a chance at anything, her only press was terrible articles written by unprofessionals who were tasked to show their loyalty and responsibility to the people, and failed miserably, instead remaining loyal to a private state economic religion. Bernie Sanders was quickly made the poster boy for progressivism and 'the left' by the media and is to this day their next big chance for hope and change™.
People were complaining that Bernie wasn't on the ballot because the Democrats cheated him, yet the superior platform that Bernie only borrowed safe planks from was on the ballot in nearly every state in the US. We could have been on the road to change right now, but apparently since Bernie the 76 year old Jewish man wasn't the name on the ballot it wasn't worth it. Let's not forget that the Green party offered Bernie Sanders the top spot on their ticket, and he turned them down. He didn't just turn them down, he completely ignored them and their platform and told his followers not to vote for her. Bernie Sanders robbed you of being able to vote for Bernie Sanders. Some want him to run on a DraftBernie third party ticket in the future, a ticket we can be sure will not include necessary economic policy the rest of us need implemented asap, and one that will also presumably 'split the vote'. I'm not sure they can match the money he's making from high dollar Democratic donors anyway, he has to get what he's passing around to his buddies from someplace and real grassroots organizations are generally poor. I'm guessing Bernie isn't a fan.
What Bernie Sanders and his followers are doing is wasting time that we don't really have any more. If economic policy that properly redistributes wealth and income isn't the centerpiece of any platform, it isn't worth putting your energy behind. Sanders can start up however many think tanks he wants to spread this new and improved new democrat economic nonsense for the next generation of marks, nothing will change for the better for the increasing number on the bottom, tens of millions of American citizens who supposedly have Constitutional protections and representation. The only real difference between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton was who would get to own you. Hillary sold her soul to the global elites long ago, for Bernie it was the political elites in Washington, who the global elites also own. Bernie probably just loves the attention, makes him feel like a big shot, and it's good for business. Bernie wanted to make money without doing much work, that pretty accurately describes the life and times of Bernie Sanders. Leftists need to say enough of this centrist middle class rhetoric bullshit. The middle class gets its money from the bottom who need resources, everyone should have their general welfare and security promoted and be able to get benefit from their government. Claiming to be for the middle class and who cares about the 50% of the population forced into extreme instability is what got us into this mess. According to Sanders doing that same thing a different way will get us out. Some revolution.