Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

I guess we all live in our own bubbles, to some extent. As a Bernie supporter, all I’ve been getting from Biden supporters the last couple of days (well, the last few years, really, but I’m talking about the last few days now) is how we must now unite behind Biden and stop saying any mean things about him.
I suppose if I was a moderate Republican, I’d be hearing all sorts of appeals from them now, too, because that’s a group they’re trying to appeal to, right? I don’t know. I haven’t heard from any moderate Republicans, and am not convinced they exist. Has the Biden campaign come out with anything, a statement or a policy, to try to attract them? I suppose that may come with his VP choice. I doubt very much that he will pick a veep who will appeal to Berners, just like Hillary didn’t.
In fact, I haven’t heard anything from the Biden campaign since Bernie backed out. Again, maybe I’m living in a bubble, but I haven’t heard any statement from Biden talking about how “my good friend Bernie has advanced a lot of important issues, which we take very seriously, and we are glad to have his support” Instead, CNN was lambasting the shit out of Bernie for not praising Biden enough in that speech where he said “Joe Biden is a decent man” and “I’m going to work with him.”
In lieu of official statements from Biden, what I’ve heard from friends is “You’ve really gone off the deep end now, Willie.” I haven’t gone anywhere.
I have stated repeatedly, emphatically, that I’m not supporting anybody but Bernie and anybody who criticizes me now for not supporting Biden just hasn’t been listening to me for the past several months.
Stop talking about holding my nose and eating a turd sandwich. Go try and appeal to some GOP moderates. You lost my vote ages ago.
Don’t sound so surprised.

I am heartbroken and devastated. The candidate who had a plan to convert the U.S. to a green economy, and get the carbon out of the air before it is too late has lost to the candidate who doesn’t think fracking is so bad. The candidate who is in favor of universal health care, which everybody can see after the events of the last couple weeks is totally necessary, has lost to the candidate who has promised to veto it. The candidate who inspired millions has lost to the candidate who inspires nobody.
The 2020 election will be between two Republicans and no matter who wins, the U.S. will continue on its slippery slide into right wing insanity. I won’t be voting for Trump, I couldn’t bring myself to do that, but if anybody thinks I’m voting for Biden, they’ve got another think coming. I said Bernie or Bust and I meant it. Neither Biden nor Trump represents me or even comes close.
While I will not be voting for Trump, I totally understand the logic of any Berners who do. If Biden wins the election not only is universal health care off the table for the next four years, but the Democratic party won’t even worry about it. They will make no effort to rein in the oil companies, or the banks, or the pharmaceutical companies, and a lot of their voters will be perfectly O.K. with it.
If Trump wins, we have another chance in 2024. My hopes are on Alexandria Ocasio Cortez now.
I still love Bernie. I will always love Bernie. He restored my faith in the American electorate and in the human race. That took a hit today. But we are not going away. Those issues are not going away. The struggle continues.

I don’t know what results will be announced from Wisconsin. Of course, if Bernie wins I plan to gloat about it, but if not the results are illegitimate. Of course, in that case, all of the Biden supporters, those people who are not terribly worried about saving the environment, or having a decent health care system, or getting money out of politics, or anything at all really because whenever you ask them what policy of Biden’s they like they absolutely cannot come up with an answer (it’s rather like Joe Biden himself when asked what people who’ve lost their jobs due to the quarantine are supposed to do) will be crowing and saying “See, he’s winning all the primaries, Bernie should just drop out now so we can get on with the process of nagging you into voting for our lame ass candidate for the next 6 months by calling you stupid and treasonous.”
In any event, the Supreme Court justices who voted to carry on with the primary, no points for guessing which justices, are endangering public health and, since it’s pretty much guaranteed that one side will say the results are invalid, the results are invalid.
One thing that the Democrats have proven beyond any doubt this primary season is that they are incapable of running a credible primary and probably (unless the nominee is Bernie) should not be entrusted with running the entire government.
Of course, neither should Trump, but the Democrats had lots of chances to impeach him and they totally screwed the pooch on that one, too.

I saw a fantastic quote on Facebook today, from one of my favorite authors, the recently deceased Ursula Leguin. I haven’t read all of her work, but I loved The Dispossessed, the Lathe of Heaven, and The Mote in God’s Eye. The Dispossessed was more of a political statement than a science fiction novel but LeGuin is a lefty like me, so I enjoyed it.

Anyway, it was a rather long quote so I’m not going to try and get it exact or even paraphrase, but the gist was the capitalism and maintaining a healthy ecosystem are mutually incompatible, because capitalism depends on always making more, and the environment depends on balance. There is a place for both the wolves and the mosquitoes.
It’s the kind of simple statement that once you hear it you know it’s absolutely true. Capitalism depends on always making more money. We have a large number of billionaires in the world today, and I’ll bet every one of them dreams of becoming the world’s first trillionaire. Corporations need to make a profit every quarter in order to keep their stockholders happy, and they might do that by increasing sales, but they more often do it by slashing the work force, and maybe raising prices. In any event, there are limits. If you raise prices too high, nobody will be able to buy your product at all, and if you slash your work force by too much you won’t be able to function.
There are limits. Those limits are not currently being heeded, so capitalism is bound, eventually, to fail.
Of course, properly regulated, capitalism could be a part of a sustainable world-wide system. But any such system would depend on a healthy ecosystem, and rich people don’t want to spend a damn dime on that.

I made a list of things to get done in the time of quarantine, that was about four days in, and I’ve pretty much ignored it entirely because tomorrow’s always another day and I’ve gotten lost in watching Netflix and doing Sudoku puzzles which is a total waste of time because I’m not getting any better at them. I have grown a beard so I can check that off the list but as far as serious goals go, I might as well have put ‘get a little bit fatter’ on the list because I’ve accomplished that, too.
With each day being very much like the day before, I’m finding it hard to pick a topic for my daily blog. I don’t want to write about politics every single day, and y’all can watch Netflix for yourselves. Currently, I’m watching The Crown, The Flash, Arrow, Community and How I Met Your Mother and out of those five only Community would hold my interest in normal times. It’s just a sitcom with a simple premise and a group of wacky characters, but it definitely has moments of brilliance. I recommend.