Nearly all of the criticism of Bernie Sanders and his supporters takes the same basic track: 'Bernie Sanders and his band of magic unicorn liberals do not understand the basic political realities of America.' They then go on to explain that he would never get anything through the present congress.
Not to be completely condescending, but no shit, Sherlock. Bernie Sanders has only been pointing this out for years.
America is an oligarchy.
The strange and shocking fact is that Sanders critics seem to know that the American republic has been overthrown — and yet their reaction to this is placid acceptance.
"We should elect Hillary Clinton," they say. "She knows how to work her way around an oligarchy, boy."
Indeed she does.
The widely published, peer-reviewed and circulated studies concluding that we have fallen to oligarchy do not say that oligarchy began with George W. Bush. Nor did it end with the election of Barack Obama.
We fell to oligarchy decades ago.
We were an oligarchy through Hillary's husband's presidency, and on through Bush. We remain an oligarchy. It has simply taken us this long to collectively wake up.
America's middle class is being eviscerated. We are slowly but surely becoming Mexico. Worse, the continued manipulation of our government by banks and oil and arms companies has placed the entire planet on the fast track to annihilation via human-caused atmospheric heating.
And yet the solution of the 'pragmatists' is, in effect, "well, hey, we'll tinker around the edges of the oligarchy in order to make the inevitable destruction of the middle class marginally more merciful, until such time as the planet is destroyed."
Pardon me? That is your plan? Surrender?
Not anybody in American history ever died to give us oligarchy.
Millions, on the other hand, have given their lives, limbs and comfort to give us a republic. And we're just going to give it up? Worse, the Washington Post and the Clinton campaign have decided to deride and ridicule the very idea of fighting back.
Clinton recently called Sanders single-payer healthcare proposal a "better idea that will never, ever come to pass." It is possible that this is a threat. She may be saying, on behalf of the oligarchs, 'don't even dream about this. We'll tell you what reforms we'll be enacting when we decide what is most profitable for us.'
More likely, though, she is simply saying, 'I have pragmatically looked at the political landscape, and we just don't have the votes for single-payer, and never will.'
Okay. Well, then, let's look at the other things that are pragmatically impossible: We can't raise a living wage. We cannot cut the insane military budget. We cannot regulate emissions. We cannot regulate the banks.
We're Mexico, kids, and then we die; that's just how this is pragmatically going to roll!
Pardon me again, but fuck that. Some of us — and I hope to God a majority — are unwilling to go skipping merrily down the road to oblivion while the mechanisms of democracy are yet intact.
And this is what Bernie Sanders is calling for: A political revolution, utilizing the ballot box, to restore our republic — a government that actually represents the will of the people.
Why is he doing this?
John F. Kennedy once said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Sanders knows this. Does Clinton? Does the Washington Post?
Today, an identity thief can apply for credit in the name of their victim, charge up outrageous debt, and then stick the victim with the bill. Debtor's prisons are returning to America, the legislation sponsored by the oligarchs. The victim, then, who never signed any agreement with any bank, never asked for credit, never wanted anything to do with this system, if unable to pay the ransom on his freedom, will then be hustled off to a for-profit prison — also sponsored by the oligarchs — to provide free slave labor to the credit card company that enabled the fraud of the thief!
Do you really think people are going to quietly put up with that?
Violent revolution won't begin with Sanders or his supporters.
But America is an extremely heavily armed society. People are not going to simply sit placidly by and accept their lot as peasants. Sooner or later, they will rise up and behead the tyrants.
We have been an oligarchy for thirty-five years. Every year, every decade, under both Republicans and Democrats, the middle class has declined.
Soon nothing will remain but millions of hurting, hungry, angry people, with hundreds of millions of guns and billions of rounds of ammunition. How do you think that will turn out?
So, please: If your criticism of Sanders doesn't begin with 'this is how I would turn the tide against oligarchy', do us a favor: keep it to yourself.
Us realists are working on a serious, adult problem, and need nothing more from the unicorn 'pragmatists' who helped to create this mess in the first place.