Killing Socialism

Source: "World Population Review 2020"

In his “Killing Series” (Killing Lincoln, Killing Reagan, Killing Jesus, etc.), former Fox News conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly uses a powerful hook in his titles, one that leaves only one question unanswered: is he for or against the killing? You would think that‘s the one thing to be clear about, but no. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Some conservatives have been known to go out of their way to deconstruct the “socialist” teachings of Jesus, Lincoln’s “socialist” war on the South, etc. After all, if there’s one thing that history teaches us is that you can spin it however you want. Alternative truth is as alternative truth does.

And so goes socialism. Somewhere between the hot war and the cold one, socialism committed political harakiri by declaring war on capitalism. Of course, depending on how intelligent your education was, over time you realized that socialism had nothing to do with it. The real system was unmasked as “communism”, an unsustainable hijacking of socialism by totalitarian dictatorships. An attempt to sanitize the dictatorship part. Yet another chapter in the history books under the “alternative truths” era. Not unlike, when it comes to systemic distortions in history, invoking the unalienable rights of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not quite self-evident to those forced immigrants from Africa, now was it. More like self-serving. Let’s get one thing clear, American Fringe: if it doesn’t sting half the time it ain’t the truth. 

Speaking of the pursuit of happiness: one of the least intelligent things history has witnessed over the past 100 years is the political pandering to the mutual exclusivity of capitalism and socialism. As if your left arm and your right arm were mutually exclusive. Oh, the evolutionary harakiri...

Capitalism and socialism were never meant to be “standalone” systems. There is no endgame in pure socialism anymore than there is one in pure capitalism. When the roots of free trade sprouted, when supply and demand driven economics launched a thousand ships, and when the invisible hand of the market itself first touched the brave new face of mankind, the emerging system known as capitalism was never intended as a means to replace social welfare. Not in a million years. In fact, quite the opposite is true: through the newfound wealth of hundreds, and eventually thousands, the collective notion of charity was born (collective as in, post-Royal). It was a self-conscious realization that perhaps something should be done to help the disenfranchised. Whether in guilt or practicality (an overly disenfranchised society cannot be capitalized on, not to mention it is dangerously unstable), socialism was born out of capitalism. One could not, and still cannot, exist without the other.

After a Marxist false-start, severely wounded by a Soviet false flag, socialism finally found its wings in European intelligence. After two devastating world wars, no one understood better the importance of a free and enfranchised society. Not “or”. AND.

To pity socialism against capitalism is not merely unintelligent: it reveals a pathological need to affiliate yourself to a political ideology for the approval of your peers. One that you neither understand nor care to do so. At best, it persists in great part by a misguided overcompensation for a pain caused by false flags: Socialism may or may not be communism, but it must die. Capitalism may or may not be post-slavery, but it must be killed.

The zero-sum games of politics are systemic dead-endgames. They are evolutionary filters of sorts, where obsolete prime directives go to die. Not merely in body, to be sure: extinct. Wiped out from the face of time, for the greater good of an enfranchised human race.

Why I'm Not Feeling The Bern

First, I do feel the need to point out that of all candidates, Bernie Sanders is one of the most principled politicians the United States has to offer in 2016. One of the burdens of the U.S. is the unethical purchasing of political power. If anyone is doing an impressive job at minimizing the purchase of his/her campaign, and therefore her/his convictions, it's Bernie Sanders. Even "self-financed" billionaire Donald Trump is not last in outside / "dark" money (PAC): Trump is second to last in PAC funding, at almost $2 million as of March 2016. Sanders is dead last at under $50,000. (OpenSecrets.org)

Second, I also feel the need to point out that Sanders is one of the most socially empathetic candidates in the U.S. political mix today. The shaming of social empathy has traditionally been a dark political pastime of the U.S., even by moderate liberals. Conventional wisdom dictates that survival of the fittest is seriously eroded by "excessive" social empathy, like a mother and a father who tiresomely disagree on what nurtures and what weakens the child. According to the same conventional wizards, social empathy is the damning of the poor: it makes them lazy and weak (Ronald Reagan's "Welfare Queen"). This prevalent suspicion, embedded in the American quilt, is the fundamental reason the U.S. is in the bottom half of the thirty most developed nations when it comes to social progress. (Social Progress Index)

You would think that those two significant attributes would be enough to feel the Bern. After all, haven't we always turned a blind eye towards the darker side of politicians, as long as we believed they were enlightened in matters that are most important to us? (Something future generations may call Trumping, much in the same way we use the term Machiavellian today.) But more to the point: with those two impressive Sanders attributes highlighted, is there anything about him that would even require the old blind eye?

The answer to that depends on whether you believe that the dark side of socialist democracies are the lesser of two evils. With that I am offering the reader the courtesy of not insulting his or her intelligence, by taking it as a given that ALL man-made socioeconomic systems have a dark side.

Even more importantly, the answer to the blind eye question depends on whether you believe that a vastly less homogenous nation like the U.S., vastly larger, with vastly more significant technological and scientific contributions to the planet, can or should wear the "Nordic Model" skinny jeans (the Nordic Model is the socioeconomic system of five European nations: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). If you believe that the shiny side of the Nordic Model is not heavily fueled by a fiercely "offshore" capitalist model, then you might want to challenge your own sense of social fairness. The offshore dog-whistle by the way is in great part code for "let's do our dirty business in nations where they give much less of a shit about social fairness than we do". If you have not considered that the Nordic Model is still greatly benefitting from the war chest of its non-social heyday, then you might want to vet Bernie Sanders' idealism a little better. Don Corleone's way of life did not magically clean itself up after a whole new generation. You can put lipstick on a pig, but you're still addicted to bacon.

Here's the heart of the matter: the conservative rich are not laughing at Sanders because they think he's a dreamer; they're laughing at him because they know where the money that will be used for "free" healthcare and "free" education comes from. And they know how it's made. Because it's not your mom and pop's money from back in Pleasantville. In case that doesn't sink in, please think back to the Scandinavian heyday war chest. And to the Corleones: Bernie is like Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton), when she begs the conscience of her husband Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), "I thought you weren't going to become a man like your father... Because this all must end... this Sicilian thing that's been going on for two thousand years."  

The Corleone boys don't do lipstick, Bernie.

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This is not the election of a lifetime. The elections you make for yourself every day when you wake up are the elections of a lifetime. Stop falling in love with politicians preaching change, and be the change. These are not the droids you're looking for. 

This is also not a call for a non-vote. By all means, do vote. The democratic process, as frustrating as it may be, is still the healthiest way we have so far in our evolution to propose a general way forward. But destiny is not up to our leaders. It never has been, and it never will be. There is only one destiny, and it's the collective sum of all individual destinies. The only thing you can do to help change the world is focus on your own destiny. Only then will your vote truly count.

Just be aware of one slight rule of engagement, when it comes to focusing on yourself: the more you take without giving, whether in love or in profit, the more insignificant your destiny will be. Even if it makes you a billionaire. Especially if it makes you a billionaire.

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