Tag: progressive strategy

5 Books every Bernie Sander’s Supporter Must Read…

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ Leave a comment

Fancy yourself a Progressive? It can be difficult to find helpful literature to learn more about the ideas and policies of Bernie Sanders. This is an odd list in that it isn’t entirely Political or Economic non-fiction, there are biographies and some fiction. While understanding the reasoning and logic behind the policies is certainly the first step, learning from Bernie’s grit, attitude and character is the only way we can achieve his vision in the future. Here are TAR’s five books that every Bernie supporter must read! 

5.) Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders

TL;DR- Hear it from the man himself. Extremely dry but information-dense, you’ll be a Jedi next time politics is mentioned with friends. 

Straight from the horse’s mouth. Controversial figures like Bernie tend to be hard to find accurate information on. You’ve never heard a full Bernie speech on a tv network. Non-fanatics beware, this is dictionary dry if you don’t love data and policy. However, if you are sick of being defenseless when people trash Bernie’s ideas you have to pick this up. This book is like a Jedi getting a lightsaber, Bernie breaks down every single policy. Most importantly he explains how bad the current system is leaving no other option but “radical” change. 

4.)Island and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

TL;DR While most people have heard of the dystopian Brave New World, it tends to overshadow Huxley’s masterpiece about a “perfect” society. This book is a crucial exercise in opening your mind to the way the world could be. 

Ok go ahead and get the conspiracy theory comments out of the way here. If you haven’t read Huxley, he is one of the greatest writers of all time from a prose, entertainment perspective. This is wild considering these are two of the greatest philosophical works ever created. Island is first because it will exercise your ability to think big and reimagine society. It is the opposite of the dystopian Brave New World, centering around a “perfect” society. 

 The plot centers around an Island named Pala, which is nearly impossible to reach due to ocean currents but sits upon the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. Strangely enough, Pala is also home to the happiest longest living humans on earth. The main character, a cynical journalist named Will Farnaby is hired to attempt to get to Pala and do the bidding of an Oilman. 

Upon his arrival he is stunned to meet people who are shockingly authentic and honest, essentially calling out his BS and negativity. Farnaby’s mission is to win over the new king’s mother, who is not a native of Pala. Farnaby and the outsider mother hit it off as fellow cynics. All the while a nearby dictatorship is threatening to invade Pala to take its oil. Will Farnaby navigates his own selfish ambitions of a future paycheck with the acceptance and love from the people of Pala, knowing that he was sent by an Oilman. 

Brave New World is much more well known with reviews abounding. However, Huxley’s main critique of capitalism is worth noting. If you live under a rock the book is about a dystopian future(that is very similar to the present) where instead of the Government ruling with force, they give people as many drugs as they want and give them simple jobs. An opening scene really sums up one of the best messages. They breed humans in a lab and raise them to adhere to society. In one room babies and let out to crawl and play with a room full of books and plants. They are having a great time exploring when all of a sudden blaring sirens and flashing lights erupt, leaving the babies horrified. A visitor asks the main scientist, “I know we don’t want people to read because if they like reading they will stay home and not consume anything, but don’t we want people to like plants so that they will consume transportation resources to get there?” The main scientist replies “Yes, at first we thought that as well, but once people grew to love nature they would stay out there and consume less and less. Now we make them hate plants but love country activities like dirt bikes and golf consuming more than ever.” 

Essentially, the things we love are what perpetuates an “unfair” capitalist system. There is a one-percenter getting a large cut of everything you buy. 

3.)A Traitor to His Class by HW Brands.

TL;DR – Are you mired in thoughts that even if Bernie won he couldn’t get anything done? Grab any FDR resource you can. Not only will it give you some hope, but it is also important to see the tactics used against the greatest President of all time.

It was really tough to not make this number 1. Honestly, the only thing stopping it is list continuity and the fact that it is extremely long. While many might not read this one, take this into account and watch anything you can on FDR. The Roosevelt series, an awesome Doc by Ken Burns, was on Netflix recently which is an excellent intro to what the man did, and why he was so informative to Bernie’s life.

You likely gathered this by the title that FDR did not grow up poor like Bernie. Yep FDR was a 1%er. So what turned this high achieving Richy rich into the most progressive pro-worker president in American history? Well, while he always leaned that direction it is safe to say the experience of losing the use of his legs late in life created the FDR that built so much of America we know today.  See FDR grew up not only wealthy but also handsome and very active. He loved playing sports and early on was being groomed for a Presidential run. Once he was viewed as handicapped the party was not so keen on him anymore, plus he lacked the confidence himself being overcome with self-doubt. Until he ran for Governor of New York during the Great Depression, becoming the most popular Governor in the country. 

What is perhaps makes FDR so relevant to Bernie is that the media hated FDR more than any politician in history. Yet despite the hatred of all of the wealthy elites, he enjoyed record-breaking popularity with voters. If we wish to succeed we must study FDR’s playbook, the wealthy have been obsessing over his impact and aggressively dismantling it for decades. 

2.)Saving Capitalism by Robert Reich

TL;DR – Reich lays out exactly how modern-day mega-monopolies like Amazon and Google spend all of their resource rigging the system away from true market competition. From contract law to the tax code, the system is aligned entirely against workers and consumers. Super powerful info in this book that is a little less dry than Bernie. 

We all know Robert Reich, he is all over Facebook with cute little videos. And I will admit I have seen him occasionally fall in line with the regular corporate Dems on culture issues. However what makes Saving Capitalism so powerful is not only his extensive background in economics, he also served in the Clinton administration. That might seem like a bad thing until you actually see him out there constantly explaining why Bernie is not only morally right but also economically proposing the best agenda. Perhaps Reich’s familiarity with the Corporate Dems is what enables him to explain precisely why they are so wrong on economic policy. For the record, it has long been said Reich was often ignored by Clinton whose staff and advisors were taking often times the opposite position. 

Saving Capitalism is a deceptive title, especially for this list, but it is actually making a brilliant point. Reich makes the argument that large corporations and the wealthy have tilted the system so far in their favor by changing laws and regulations they are on the verge of breaking our market economy. His point is that, in a certain sense, this is not even a capitalist system in the first place. He points to companies like Comcast lobbying to change contract law. Meaning that when you sign a contract for their service they can now include in the fine print that you forfeit the right to take any legal action against the company and will accept the results of arbitration they provide. Meaning they can not live up to any part of the contract, provide the worst service imaginable to all of their customers just to boost the bottom line, and the customers have to accept it. Why do we accept it, because the alternative is AT&T, which lobbies with Comcast for the same laws. All the while Comcast and AT&T refuse to compete against EPB of Chattanooga. EPB has the highest customer satisfaction in the country and was the first provider in America to provide GB Fiber internet. So why don’t you have EPB? Comcast has been using them since their inception and has successfully gotten the government to block EPB from expansion. Why? All because they are funded by the taxpayers of Chattanooga. This beckons the big question from Reich, who is really stopping progress here? 

1.)The People, No. A Brief History of Anti-Populism by Thomas Frank

TL;DR- Courting college-educated elites has been the downfall of democrats. Frank explains how the current trend is leading to the Democrats being the party of rich elites as opposed to the party of FDR that fought for workers. Frank makes the case that Populism or anti-elitism has always been the most powerful tool in American politics. If the Democrats don’t make drastic changes they risk being on the wrong end of the most powerful political weapon in America. 

What really puts this book at the top of the list is its relevance. Because this is a list of the proper “tools” of a Bernie supporter this book takes spot numero uno. If you read this title and went “eww populist are racist!” you need to order this book immediately. That very reaction is what led to Frank writing the book. Hailing from Kansas Frank is a historian who has written about the history of the original populist party that started in Kansas. Knowing the real story he was shocked to see Democrats using the word populist as a term for the boogie man and anyone who is racist, oh yeah, and somehow they used it slander, Bernie Sanders. However as Frank demonstrates, the elites will always demonize regular people and as they have done since the beginning, except now the roles are reversed, the Dems are the elites and the Republicans are now wielding the most powerful tool in American politics, anti-elitism.  

The book starts with the original people’s party of Kansas who attempted to form a party of western farmers, black and white southern farmers, and industrial workers of the city. While their success was limited, most of their ideas became a reality in America through none other than FDR. The Peoples part eventually became the populist party and went on to have one of their candidates run for president on the Democratic ticket, William Jennings Bryant. WJB was the first politician ever to self fund a campaign. He was also the first politician to actually travel around the country to stump, solidifying him as one with the people. WJB ended up being outspent by the largest margin in American history. 

The book continues to show how the Democrats dominated politically after the great depression by becoming the party of the people that were against the media and the wealthy elites. It represented workers and unions, sticking it to the boss. This domination continues until Richard Nixon with the help of Pat Buchanan stole the Democrat’s thunder as they were starting to sell out and work for elites. See Nixon, while working for millionaires, started using populist rhetoric, speaking to the forgotten, underrepresented population. Thus began the shift of working people to the republican party. 

Pat Buchanan went on perfecting his message of anti-elitism, seeing its effectiveness with real voters. Perhaps you know where this story ends…. Buchanan seeks a third party run in 2000, only to be run out of the race when Donald Trump claims he is also running third party. Next thing we know, Trump takes Buchanan’s whole entire script straight to the white house. Guess who guessed that Trump would flip the midwest? Pat Buchanan!

Bonus* Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

This is added as a bonus, however, we truly believe the very thing that makes Bernie so successful, his grit and determination, are exactly what we as supporters are lacking. This book is one of the best ever for motivation and mental health. We are in for a long ride here, we need to be mentally strong. 

The Most Eye Opening 10 Minutes Of Your Life | David Goggins – YouTube

Where Does Someone Like Pete Buttigieg Come From?

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ Leave a comment

Where I come from it’s cornbread and chicken

Where Pete comes from its crooked politicians

Where Pete comes from lotta billionaire lapsittin

Yes, we know it is late in the game to write a hit piece on Mayor Pete, but his past employer McKinsey has resurfaced recently after it was revealed that Mckinsey sold Purdue pharma a plan to skyrocket the sales of oxycontin. Yep, the company Pete clung to and defended, and even claimed “Most Americans work in the private sector. And I think the experience I got there served me well. If you’re going to manage the largest economy in the world, it’s probably a good idea that you’ve had a little bit of professional experience looking at a balance sheet or knowing what an income statement is.” And like they say on Rising, if someone tells you who they are, you should believe them. Let’s take a look at Pete’s history as a complete corporate sell out and complete fairweather politician. Don’t forget this is the same kid that wrote an award winning paper for a college scholarship about how amazing and inspiring Bernie Sanders was. 

While there is no shortage of Corporate sell out Dems, Pete is the quintessential, perfectly encapsulating, phony snake of a sellout. To be frank the only reason we are ok with writing a negative piece is because Pete will likely be the #1 adversary to the Bernie/Turner wing of the party moving forward. If we are not labeling and recording this guy’s moves, he will be the next Biden, becoming President after flip flopping his way through Washington for years seeking power. Pete’s brand of being the artificial midwestern white-gay Obama, was honestly just complete cynicism, they guy has abandoned every cause that can help working people since coming into power and become known as having phenomenal relations with donors. He has flip flopped so much it is really difficult to find a starting point to his corruption. 

Lets begin with Pete’s love of Bernie Sanders, yes that’s right, when Pete first took interest in politics he was feeling the Bern! Here is the link to the full paper here. To be honest it is really sad to see a completely corrupt adult at one time say things like “This disturbing trend reveals cynicism, a double-sided problem, which is perhaps, the greatest threat to the continued success of the American political system.

Cynical candidates have developed an ability to outgrow their convictions in order to win power.” “ It also calls into question what motivates a run for office – in many cases, apparently, only the desire to occupy it.”

Of course Pete chalks this up to being an immature kid. It is sad to know at one time he was dramatically opposed to the very type of politician he has become. It nearly begs the question, did he ever have good intentions or did he become entirely corrupted working at McKinsey? After Bernie was clearly in the lead after Nevada, this is what Pete had to say about him saying his campaign was a “revolution with a tenor of combat, division and polarization.”“Senator Sanders believes in an inflexible ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans,” 

This is the same guy who was singing Bernie’s praises saying  

“Candidates have discovered that it is easier to be elected by not offending anyone rather than by impressing the voters. Politicians are rushing for the center, careful not to stick their necks out on issues. Most Democrats shy away from the word “liberal” like a horrid accusation.” 

He literally goes on to praise Sanders courage for calling himself a socialist-

“Sanders’ courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself: “Socialist”….. Here is someone who has “looked into his own soul” and expressed an ideology, the endorsement of which, in today’s political atmosphere, is analogous to a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

We could literally start a Pete vs Pete twitter where he is arguing both sides of every position on record. He literally hasn’t held a position in Washington and already has a worse record of flip flopping than Biden or Kamala who have been there for years. We are actively lobbying websters to put Pete’s picture beside the word cynical. There is no one with a more cynical personally enriching story. From his very mouth we know he has changed views on everything that he once cared about. For TAR, that is enough for disqualification. However we are just scratching the surface on Mayor Cheat.

Let’s get into McKinsey, the experience that Pete claimed to be crucial to his ability to run the country. Funny your experience on extracting the absolute highest amount of profit from customers buying groceries is how you want to run the country. So who is McKinsey? We will do a complete deep dive into their other work, but for now let’s focus on their instrumental work in perpetuating the opioid crisis. You’ve likely heard of Purdue Pharma, they are the distributors of Oxy-Contin and the creators of the opioid epidemic. Well we can’t give them to much credit, McKinsey was the company that came up with the plan in 2007 to skyrocket sales and distribution. Yep, while Pete was there this company was architecting a plan to not only help boost sales but also how these companies can fight the public relations nightmare from willingly killing thousands of people. There is no sense in shying away from calling these people what they are, murderers. McKinsey was the company that wrote the game plan to give doctors kickbacks for distribution, they also wrote a policy to reimburse CVS for each of the predicted overdose deaths, a total to the tune of $37 million dollars. The most shocking part, they created this plan in 2007, Purdue was already under investigation, it was known how dangerous these substances were at this point. That didn’t stop them, to McKinsey that was an opportunity. They could collect fees for consulting Purdue on how to handle the government pressure and still boost sales through kickbacks and chemical addiction. 

If Bernie was here to make sure working people got the resources and care they need, you could say Pete was here to ensure the water was always muddied and working people never fully got what they needed. See Democrats like Pete are almost like forgein implants. They are on “our team” as regular americans but they are sponsored and placed by Billionaires who are not on our team. See Pete served to completely muddy the waters on Medicare for All and Tuition Free College. If we buy into this idea that Bernie’s dialogue alone opened the Overton Window, and made people more open to his ideas, then by the same logic people like Pete are combatting that shift and keeping it center right. See Pete gives a liberal policy but ultimately sows seeds of doubt about changes we desperately need. Take his healthcare plan, Medicare for those who want it. Essentially he checked the liberal box of saying people would no longer die in the streets, but he would not go near his donor friends in the insurance industry, they could keep ripping off the American people. No elimination of private insurance. And we are not talking about the extensive insurance policies of the wealthy, we are talking about the health insurance you have today, if you are lucky enough to have insurance. Even those covered by employers hate their insurance plans. This is where the skilled Corporate Dems thread the needle, they give a vague plan that appeases liberal voters who won’t research, while keeping them vague enough that they are never actually doing anything that could negatively impact donors. Pete was actively using Republican think tank talking points in an attempt to discredit Bernie and M4A.

Again look at Pete’s college plan, free college for everyone making less than $100,000/year. It is hard to actually explain how shitty it was of Pete to drop these little thoughts that aren’t good ideas but create massive traps for anyone seeking to make college free. Now we will have legions of people armed with the excuse, “Oh so we are going to pay for rich peoples college!?”. See Pete, while trying to taint an idea he would never have acted on, wanted to have a Bernie moment and please his donors. It made him look like Bernie to go against the wealthy, right? For more detail check out our post on tuition free college for all. If you know history, you know when FDR passed social security people lobbied to not give it to the ultra wealthy. While there seems to be merit there on the surface, FDR and his administration knew that any program passed must include all Americans if it is to survive. How many times have the wealthy like the Koch brothers and Joe Biden tried to destroy social security? Countless times, now imagine if they didn’t receive their money back from the program and only poor people got it? Social Security would have been destroyed in Washington with the passing of FDR. 

If we stand any chance moving forward, we must politically destroy the arguments of people like Pete, because he is spending every waking hour working to destroy us.

Why Does Nancy Pelosi Hate Us?

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever had that sneaking suspicion that while you know how corrupt the Republicans are, what if the Dems you support are just as bad behind closed doors? Well to be honest if it is still just a suspicion for you, then you just aren’t really paying attention. What’s worse is we have systems like Facebook and biased media channels so if you stay on CNN and FB as a Dem you will never hear about things like Pelosi showing off a freezer with hundreds of dollars of Jeni’s ice cream while she stalls on stimulus checks. This might not seem like a big deal, however the fact that this was running rampant in conservative circles, even being used for ads, and most Democratic voters never saw it is scary. Just imagine what your own side can do and get away with!? Think about all the horrible things about Trump on the left media that a Trump voter has never heard before, it allows Trump to do whatever he wants, and the Dems are the same. The longer we feel a judgemental air of superiority over Trump voters and Republicans, not only will we keep losing, we will keep backing morally bankrupt people seeking cover behind our hatred for Trump. 

Let’s back up, while we will get in plenty of pot shots on Nancy and it is easy to do so, it is more important to understand why she and the Obama wing hate the Progressive left more than anything on earth, even Trump. First let’s start with what the Dems get right and where they are actually aligned with the Progressives. Perhaps the biggest overlap is that the sellout Dems acknowledge climate change, but wow I literally can’t think of anything else where they align more with us than the donors and Republicans. It is truly sad that we will support them just because they will sometimes agree in theory with us. This is the core of why they hate us, when you look close enough, they are much closer on the ideological spectrum to Republicans than they are with us. Think about all they share with Conservatives, they love tax cuts, take donations from the same wall street donors, both agree on endless war, they both hate medicare for all, and they no longer help the lowest among us. Crazy to think we could go on for days and days about the overlap of Pelosi and the Republicans, from endless wars to doing the bidding of ISP’s for hefty donations. 

This is a great lead into why she hates us so much. If we are honest with ourselves on where she is on the spectrum and where the progressive left is, she is in much closer proximity to the right. On the legislative/economic agenda, we are talking a frog hair split four ways separating her from the Conservatives, that close. When you think about it objectively, we are pretty foolish to just expect someone to change their lifelong personal views. We as progressives are asked to give up everything we believe in constantly, and it is so offensive and also impossible. See you can’t change someone’s life experiences that form their beliefs that then lead to their actions. That’s why it is a fool’s errand to try and ever work our agenda in with the Pelosi/Obama regime. Pelosi is worth over $114 million dollars(that we know of) and grew up super rich. Do we really think we are going to talk her into taxing herself? Do we really think she knows anything about the existence and struggle of working class Americans? 

So how has Nancy Pelosi become so wealthy? Go figure, her husband has amassed a fortune owning a Venture Capital fund. If you are unfamiliar with VC, these are the money people in Silicon Valley who dump hundreds of millions into new companies. Ok big deal, she’s ultra wealthy, I’m sure she earned her place before that!? Nope, Pelosi’s father was a politician who served the wealthy like her. Her father was the Mayor of Baltimore and a US Representative for Maryland. His career was successful until his run for Governor- “D’Alesandro was a strong contender for Governor of Maryland in 1954, but was forced to drop out due to being implicated in receiving undeclared money from Dominic Piracci, a parking garage owner convicted of fraud, conspiracy, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.[5] Piracci was the father of D’Alesandro’s oldest son and namesake Thomas D’Alesandro III’s wife, Margie Piracci D’Alesandro. “ Not only was he corrupt but this story of a wealthy powerful family sounds like a story from Russia where families and oligarchs rule, enriching themselves with ease and offense to everyone else. Wouldn’t you love to know how much Nancy and Paul Pelosi took home with the Trump tax cuts? If they even pay taxes it is likely more than $1 million! 

Perhaps the greatest barrier for the Bernie agenda is that the average person has never met someone even 10% as wealthy as Pelosi. If you are making less than $100k/year the chances of knowing a top 1%er is extremely slim. People who don’t have money are led to believe the ultra wealthy work or worked just like them. This is one of the greatest illusions of our time, that you can be a billionaire and a worker at the same time. What we mean by this is that their earnings are not directly correlated with the amount of work they do. When you work in a factory, you get paid an hourly rate, that makes you a worker. If you made $180,000 every day since Jesus was born, you would need 76 more years to catch Bezos if he stopped making money today, and that is an old stat(March 2020). See there is no direct service or benefit Bezos himself provides, he just happens to be the owner who spends his time hiring private detectives to bust potential unionization. He spends his time ensuring he can pay his employees the absolute minimum amount of money. Billionaire don’t work in the same way the rest of us do, they spend time rigging the system to keep permanently enriching themselves. They aren’t working in the economy, they are working on the economy, lobbying to change laws and get out of taxes. And Nancy is the queen of this game, offering a cultural alternative to Republicans without going near the purse strings.

See at the end of the day if Obama and Pelosi lose the Republicans, it isn’t really a big deal. Personally they will become more wealthy, and on the political end, they love their job the most as the minority party. Each party seems to rather be the ones obstructing, counting donor checks, and making network appearances than the ones leading. If there weren’t Republicans to foil off of, it is hard to say the modern day Democratic party would even exist, it is a complete hollow shell with  no ideology. This is the way Pelosi wants it, no expectations other than being anti-racist. And this is why she hates us, we ruin her whole game. With Bernie on the scene they are exposed for having no agenda. With Bernie they were exposed as swamp creatures who thrive on serving donors and seeking personal enrichment. Finally with Bernie around their personal wealth was at stake. See they didn’t believe they had to stop Bernie because he would be bad for the country, they knew how bad he would be for the ultra corrupt and wealthy, herself included. 

The Case for Tuition-Free Public Colleges and Universities

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ 1 Comment

Debating the “sheer recklessness” of any real policy has become the mainstay of CNN and the Corporate Dems. Back when Bernie was running in the primary and they were forced to cover him, they spent all of their air time bashing his ideas as pie in the sky, featuring “experts” from conservative think tanks to explain how the policies ruin our system and never work. The idea that drew the most fire other than M4A was making public colleges and universities tuition-free. This is the idea that flew all over most people, especially corporate Dems. Let’s dive into why the plan and walk through the primary misunderstandings and benefits of the policy.

Perhaps it has always been this way, but attending college seems to become more and more political every year. By political I mean that not only are ideas and politics discussed there, it is becoming a difference of parties whether you are pro college or not. Many conservatives(anecdotally) seem to view college as an institution owned by the DNC that is made to brainwash and liberalize their kids. While this is certainly understandable, it is hard to say for sure that it is the college changing kids opinion as opposed to the fact that a child is moving out of their home and away from all of their childhood influences. While this isn’t an objective or rational argument, we need to be aware that the very mention of college can have negative implications to conservative, rural voters. This is where Bernie’s plan can begin to heal the issue by letting all people attend college regardless of income, as opposed to Bidens plan, which is going to further the wedge between us by offering a massive cash give away to college-educated liberals without letting the impoverished into college. Basically, if you are with us, here is some money, but for everyone else, kick rocks. 

Imagine if college attendance matched the real demographics and income distribution of real Americans, it wouldn’t be possible to have strong political leanings. This is where those who didn’t attend college are wrong, it isn’t that colleges are super liberal, they are filled with wealthy elite professors talking to wealthy elite students. It is just by chance that the Corporate Dems have also recently abandoned the working class for college-educated elites. If everyone in the country had the same opportunity to be educated without strangling debt, this would destroy one of the best gatekeepers to prosperity. 

Perhaps the most flak that the plan caught was from an economic perspective. CNN railed constantly from Lincoln Project talking points that the plan was way to expensive to ever happen. They argued that like all of Bernie’s plans it would make the deficit skyrocket. Oh, the deficit, the magical trump card for anything you don’t like, don’t mind spending billions on a fighter plane, but how dare you try to educate us and raise the deficit! Ironically we never hear someone mention the economic impact of a large swath of the country holding massive amounts of debt. As of today there is over $1.5 Trillion in student debt, with 65% of it being held by people under 40. So how does this impact our economy? Well according to one study a 10% rise in student debt decreases homeownership by 1.5%. See this economy is a pie and we all have a slice. Your money is finite, if you have student loans that is monthly payments that will never circulate in the economy. You won’t spend that $100-$500/month on a local restaurant, the stock market, rent, a home, or anything else. On top of the economic damage from not spending, carrying that debt makes it harder to get a loan, to buy a car or home, so no more borrowing to stimulate the economy. This is already a big deal, just imagine in the next 10-15 years as our generation is the bulk of the economy and 66% of us have lingering student loan debt, that does not bode well for us long term compared to countries like Germany where you can get your higher education like a masters tuition-free. 

The other argument that conservatives and corrupt Dems like Mayor Pete make is, why should we pay for some rich kids college? If you know history as a democrat you understand how disgustingly cynically it is for someone like Pete to try and twist this in voters’ minds. You might be familiar with the name Franklin D. Roosevelt or FDR, only the most popular democratic President of all time. See Roosevelt went head to head constantly with people like Pete, always slamming them for cynically seeking self-empowerment. When FDR was leading the charge to create social security, the same argument was used, “Why would we pass a plan that includes rich people?”. See people like Pete aren’t just magically pulling a Bernie and turning on their donors, this is just a ploy to kill the bill and make sure no one can receive the benefit. FDR and his administration knew Social Security would never work if any group was excluded, not to mention the most powerful group. See when you include everyone the argument of fairness is completely removed. If you start giving tuition-free college to everyone making less than $120,000/year, imagine the anger and hostility for everyone hovering right on that line for household income, you would be incentivizing them to stop working once they approached that number. Imagine you have 4 kids, once you earn that $120,000th dollar, on the absolute lowest end you’ve just lost $160,000 that you will pay intuition. See Pete’s argument is a double poison pill, on the front end it makes the policy much harder to pass, but it also implants future troubles that will doom the policy. 

While Biden’s plan to just eliminate all student debt, would be extremely divisive, it would create an economic explosion. Granted it would not be anywhere near the results we would see from UBI or from M4A. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of the velocity of money, check out our post about it here. Essentially, the $1.5 Trillion would no longer be going to a small group of predatory lenders, and instead flow back into the economy. However, this would be going to a group that does contain some of the wealthiest most upwardly mobile people in the country. So to some degree, this is a Wildcat liberals way of giving tax cuts to the rich, they are finally helping the minorities who are more likely to carry student debt, and at the same time enriching their donors and constituents. 

This is why you must eliminate tuition and student debt together. Playing favorites with literal money is one of the most divisive political moves possible, at a time when the country has never been more divided. Or we can open the gates of upward mobility, reviving the American Dream. Imagine the spark of hope for so many impoverished students that if they work hard, they can go to college, regardless of money, and make a better life for their family. 

And finally, the main reason we have so much confidence in Bernie’s plan is that we have seen it work before, in America. See the most economically successful period in America was after WWII when every soldier was given free college tuition in the GI bill. We have seen free tuition pay dividends down the road, clearing roadblocks to an individual’s success in this economy.

Erasing Student Debt without Tuition-Free College?

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ 3 Comments

With the stage set for Joe Biden to take the White House, many on the left are praying he will pass anything from Bernie’s agenda. By the looks of his complete corporate sell-out of a cabinet, from Amazon to Air B’n’B people, we are crazy to expect anything but a social security cut. However, they have recently floated the idea of eliminating all college debt. While this seems like a victory at first, this falls right in line with the Wildcat Democrats, they only move on things when it enriches or empowers them. With the election results showing the new American divide is the college-educated vs the non-college-educated, this seems to be a massive payout to highly educated people who supported Biden. This has the potential to incite class warfare, this is a trillion-dollar wealth transfer to the most upwardly mobile segment of the population. You are probably thinking, wait wasn’t Bernie for this? Are the companies that loan this money preying on minorities that receive the worst end of the bargain? Let’s break down how this plan differs from Bernie’s and why exactly the corporate Dems are keen on it.

First off, we should know, the Corporate Democrats that sell out constantly would never actually pass a bill to help working families, it is strictly against their donor’s demands. So how does this debt relief bill gets approved by the lenders that pay for their mansions? This is where Wildcat liberalism comes in. See the Dems find a way for these seemingly liberal policies to line the pockets of them and their rich donors. Stated more clearly the Pelosi brand of liberalism is to back a cause once it is financially profitable for her and her donors. Someone like Elon Musk becoming one of the wealthiest men on earth from renewable energy is a great example. They only get on board once they can make money doing so, just like all these consumer brands running marketing campaigns for social justice. Is the cause morally there? Sure, but they are ultimately doing it to make money. Nothing is sacred to this group of corporate elite Dems, and their donors who run these marketing campaigns. Remember Nike backing Collin Kapernick, all the while using slave and child labor to make their shoes overseas. While the call for social justice is real and legitimate, the movement has been overtaken by those profiting off the campaign. This is the case for every “liberal” cause that the corporate Dems have backed, it either makes them wealthy or at the least cost them nothing, for example publicly backing the #metoo movement yet not passing any legislation. 

So how could relieving student debt not excite the Bernie Base? Well if you are familiar with the debate on student loan debt there are a few different ways to slice this cake. The plan Elizabeth “The Snake” Warren and the Bidens corporate administration back calls for erasing all student debt. Is removing student debt a bad thing? No, at first take it is a really good thing. We know that minorities are more likely to take on student debt to attend college. If you are younger than 45 you know the pressure of attending college, do it or flip McDonald’s hamburgers for the rest of your life. We are also aware of the predatory practices with student loans, for example it does not disappear with bankruptcy. Student loans also cripple those in the most critical roles in society like social workers, who the market system tell us are worthless based on their paycheck. From this perspective you are probably wondering how could we not be excited about their plan? 

This is where it is important to highlight the difference in the Corporate plan and the Bernie plan. Bernie’s plan included making all public colleges and universities tuition free. This is the crucial part that Biden is missing, and also the part that risk further dividing the country. Imagine being in the massive group of people who did not attend college and you have no student debt, but you have plenty of debt on your home and car. You voted for Trump, he losses and Biden devises a plan to transfer as much wealth as possible to his voters and not you. He does it by erasing all student loan debt, not UBI or free healthcare that all voters receive, but by erasing the debt that majority of his voters carry. This is the major difference in Bernie’s plan and theirs, they are breaking FDR’s golden rule, never create a program that doesn’t include everyone. They are choosing a specific group to help, if we should ever cry foul play it is now. When the governement starts segmenting people you enjoy it until you are on the losing end of the deal. What happens if the Republicans are propelled by angry voters to give UBI only to those who didn’t attend college?(it would never happen) We would be in an outrage! This is why Bernie’s plan of making public universities tuition free is superior, it includes everyone and prevents this nightmare student debt crisis. 

This is the the primary divide between Bernie and the Corporate Dems like Pete and Warren, he is actually fighting for all people, not just his voters or donors. For the Corporate Dems the greed and thirst for personal power aligns with todays cynical climate. They flourish speaking negatively about the other side, scoring internet sound bites are much more important than actually legislating, Kamala Harris is a great example of that. This is why they will only back progressive seeming policies when they are lucrative to them and their base. They aren’t in the game to help the nation, they don’t care about red states or red voters, just the next election.

Mindful Politics

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ Leave a comment

If you have ever meditated you are more than likely familiar with the term mindfulness. If you live in America you are wondering what the hell the word mindfulness is doing next to the word politics. Lately, we are a country in the grips of division and downright hatred for each other. While progressives technically “won” with Trump gone, we lost power in major ways with the fall of Bernie. There are more reasons than ever before to be filled with rage on all sides of the political spectrum. The only people in America that aren’t enraged are the elite, highly educated, wealthy whites. If we are to put up the fight of our lives to build on Bernie’s momentum and try to live a peaceful, happy life it will take some mental strength training. While this specific piece won’t be on meditation, a valuable lesson still applies, like exercise to keep the body in top shape, we need to keep our minds and mental health in top condition to stand any chance. When you are going against the wealthy you are disadvantaged from the start on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the wealthy are at the self-transcendence stage, thinking about the world they want to build, while we are a hungry army worrying about next months light bill and trying to use our free time thinking critically. 

The term mindfulness has a million definitions and we are not qualified to make one, but you likely have a sense of what we are saying. We are talking about self-awareness, empathy, the ability to keep ones cool, watch emotions pass by rather than act on them, situational awareness, etc. A quick example of not being mindful at all and just reacting occurs every day on Facebook, for example attacking Trump over selling arms to the Saudis when Obama did the same thing, you reacted immediately without thinking. When we follow the media and react to everything from our defensive default setting, we pay a huge price. First and foremost we are sacrificing our own peace of mind, getting angry constantly means we are not peaceful and happy. If we can’t let go of our knee-jerk reaction to headlines, they will ruin our life morning by morning, taking away from the family, community, and ruin the chance to help those in need. On a purely strategic side, we look like fools falling into traps that legitimize Trump’s claims about fake news. See we take the bait and start knocking Trump only for a Trump supporter to google and see that Obama did the same thing, reassuring them that Trump is right and we are drones, controlled by the media. The sad truth is, without a strong dose of mindfulness, we are drones of the media, absent-mindedly accepting whatever the DNC puts out there.

The Corporate Dems have mastered the concept of Red Herrings, or better known as the Red Herring Fallacy. Google describes the fallacy as follows- The red herring fallacy is a logical fallacy where someone presents irrelevant information in an attempt to distract others from a topic that’s being discussed, often to avoid a question or shift the discussion in a new direction. A relevant example is the Dems backing the fight for racial injustice publicly, all the while passing bills favoring the ultra-wealthy and hurting the working poor minorities. Or the classic line that Joe Biden was more electable than Bernie Sanders because he’s a moderate, despite his losing record and Hillary’s loss. The trend with Corporate sell-outs like Nancy Pelosi and Pete Buttigieg is their phobia of having an economic agenda. Their owners, whoops I mean donors, will not allow them to have an economic plan that helps the majority of people. This is the core of Bernie’s hatred, he constantly had real plans to make real impacts on worker’s lives. See Pete is an all-star culture warrior, no one can make a conservative look more stupid on tv that Mayor Pete. Scoring sound bites that rally the ultra woke to dropping donor talking points against M4A, Pete embodies everything they want. Pete was a master of dropping Red Herrings, “Why back Bernie’s plan when mine won’t take your insurance but has a public option.” This led so many off the trail and it was so comfortable because he is really saying “if you’re rich and not worried about healthcare at all, nothing changes and you don’t have to feel guilty when Bernie tells you people are dying in the streets and going bankrupt”. 

Perhaps the most critical time to be mindful is in one on one, face to face conversations. In this environment, Red Herrings abound. See people don’t study debate, have you ever been discussing something with someone and by all accounts, you break down their argument on the issue and seem to be at a checkmate only for them to say, “well at least Trump didn’t ……..”. That is the telltale sign you chased a Red Herring, meaning they threw something out there they weren’t really thinking through or even thought was a legitimate argument. So how do you handle these scenarios? Well if you can be mindful and not react to everything they say. See what you can’t realize is you will never argue someone into believing you, no matter how stupid their logic. On top of that, it is a natural law that they would have a higher opinion of you and your opinions if you are being a good listener. See if we just listen and ask questions we will have civil conversations and allow people to open up some common ground. The more you listen you find the personal reasons behind a belief. Imagine Medicare for All right as you meet someone, only to find after a violent discussion that their mother has just died of treatable cancer that she couldn’t afford treatment for. Yes, that is a sad example but we have to respect every human enough to assume they mean well and have a reason for what they believe. And if you have had enough real conversations, you will find that beliefs are rooted in real-life experiences, it is beyond disrespectful to believe presenting some “facts” should change someone’s beliefs. 

Human beings are complex, and they can and usually hold conflicting beliefs. We must find a way to separate humans from their vote. We are letting the behaviors of Donald Trump stand in as the behavior of people we know and love. If the same rigorous standards are applied to anyone they would become hated. Have you ever support an unethical person, watched their show, voted for them? Of course, you have. We must find empathy and understanding if we are going to have the conversations needed to get someone like Bernie in the white house. The media is painting us in a corner as extremist, let’s make sure we turn that idea on its head.

Local Everything

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever wondered what life was like or would be like with no large chains or corporations? What would your town look like if Sonic, McDonald’s, and Walmart didn’t exist? Those are just the obvious retail chains, could we function without larger companies like the internet or agricultural companies? This article will serve as an open ended thought experiment to build upon in series format. Let’s first dive into the advantages of large companies and how they occurred somewhat naturally, then we will look at the advantages of moving to localism. 

First, let’s think about how businesses have gotten so large and how they became non-local. Walmart is a great example here, they started with one location in Arkansas and expanded all over the world. Was this a Dr. Evil style plan to ruin rural economies? Very doubtful. See they had legitimate value to offer their customers, they had the lowest prices. Then as they grew they were able to keep lowering prices due to volume discounts. See businesses naturally get better prices as they get larger and larger. No matter where you live Walmart can give you the cheapest Boar’s Head Deli Meat because they are Boar’s Head’s largest customer. It’s called a unit discount, you buy X amount of units the price per unit drops. To this point they defeated competition honestly by having lower prices and more options. From there you can see how someone would open new locations in towns that didn’t have grocery stores(of course we also know they went to plenty of towns and put the locals out of business). Thus the value of having low prices spread to consumers across America. 

Let’s just compare the composition of American small towns before and after Walmart. While the prices benefit the community and leave more money in their pocket upon purchase of groceries, they are permanently taking money out of their community. See before Walmart they might have paid higher prices, but they were paying a member of the community who was going to spend that money in the community. Just imagine how many local business owners have gone under because of Walmart, potentially 3-15 business owners per town. This is how corporations start the slide toward inequality, first, they take out the local grocery store owner in a small town, she then quits visiting the local salon to get a discount at Heads Up, slowly putting the local salon out of business. This is the snake that eats itself, we selfishly or for survival need the discounts, and we perpetuate the cycle leading to fewer and fewer people owning businesses and making a profit. It is like a corporate vampire that has sucked the money of every rural town in America. 

Why is it so tough for us to try and support our neighbors? First, these large companies spend fortunes to win over trust so let’s not pretend the average person is just stupid. Secondly, many of these chains like Walmart and Dollar General prey on the impoverished, they know if you barely have enough money for food, you will buy from the cheapest store where you can get the most food per dollar. So many people are barely surviving today that we can’t just ask them to start paying more at a local level until wages start to rise to support the community. 

From a cultural standpoint, we are the most individualistic society on earth, this is another barrier to corporations’ advantage, for now. Think about Native American cultures where you were valued based on how much you gave to others. If you caught the largest fish the “prideful” thing to do is to give it to the whole tribe. Contrast that with our views of the community, the small town where people watch out for each other is dead and gone. This is the same reason we struggled more than any other country with COVID, we have a hard time thinking collectively. However, this same individualistic drive could save us. We need to flip the script and use that drive to open your own local business. We already adore the big entrepreneur culturally, now we need to adore the local entrepreneurs! This isn’t too big of a shift for Americans, the shift will be supporting local members of the community consciously. 

One of Karl Marx’s most accurate and relevant critiques of capitalism is that eventually, our work would alienate us to the world and importantly alienate us from the products we produce. What did he mean by alienate? Well, Marx saw the system with two halves, the owners and the workers. He believed that the longer a worker was asked to produce a product with no ownership, the more hostility would grow toward the product. Likewise they would grow alienated from the outside world where the product is being sent. Let’s think back to the America of Eugene Debbs childhood in the early 1800s when the majority of Americans worked for themselves as farmers or small business owners. Say you lived in a thriving small town like Debs, and you were the town watchmaker. You had control over the process and got to see the clock come together from beginning to end, feeling prideful of your daily work. Then you also felt connected to your community being the clockmaker, you walk around town seeing your clocks and your happy customers and you feel a sense of belonging in the community. Let’s compare that picture of the local clockmaker with the factory worker in the clock factory. In the factory, he works placing the same cog in the same clock all day long. He never completes a clock himself or sees a finished product because the rest of the process is finished in another building. The clocks are then distributed to customers that he doesn’t know and never sees. Eventually this employee starts to completely despise clocks and the factory. 

So how can we take back the profits of ownership and our life satisfaction? Is it through Government oversight? Is it through a lobbying effort or private group? Hard to say but this is a cause dear to our heart here at True American Radar. We often hear the phrase “vote with your dollar”,  in America that is the true ballot. We are starting on that level, personally opting for local at every chance. However, let’s not kid ourselves, this will take a mass coordinated movement to turn the tide against the Walmarts of the world. Stay tuned for more discussion on this topic.

Why Bernie Couldn’t Speak Up.

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ Leave a comment

As time passes and we got to see Joe Biden get as close as possible to blowing the election entirely. His candidacy was the detriment of many Senators and Representatives, or Trump’s candidacy was their savior. Either way, Biden wasn’t even close to the Blue Wave, and we believe history will show this was the election that started a damning trend for the Democrats, they officially traded all policy to court white suburban voters. Not only did Joe abandon policy he abandoned the working class altogether for the college-educated. Seeing this complete disaster play out, we can’t help but wonder, would Bernie have flipped the senate and given us the blowout needed to delegitimize Trump? Because Joe Hidden’s low enthusiasm campaign couldn’t fully take Trump out, he will be in our face for the rest of our lives. This brings up an old campaign question, should Bernie have declared war on the media and lashed out at them for supporting their elite friend? 

It is easy to want to criticize Bernie, he’s the only one in the arena! And as the saying goes, it is easy to criticize others when you’re sitting in the bleachers. However many respectable people in the progressive left knocked Bernie for taking the abuse of the media and the corporate Democrats. They wanted him to call them all out for being hypocrites, it’s safe to say it felt like the good guy could finally get a shot to layout the bully. After so many years of the Government serving the wealthy and being so corrupt who didn’t want someone to stick it to the Andrew Cuomos of the world. Heck, we see that conservatives wanted to give Washington the middle finger so bad they would have backed anyone willing to do so. While it would have felt good for 30 seconds watching Bernie accurately tell off Jake Tapper, it wouldn’t have gone the way we think.

For those who are thinking,” well Trump went against the media and he won” let’s break that down. While Trump’s Twitter following and media strategy were successful, read more about it here, let’s focus on the damage the media did to him. In 2016 Trump was able to best the media. Even though he won, the media was able to cripple him in so many ways. They did successfully frame him as a rude and an idiot to the suburban white people that gave Joe the election. After Trump shocked them, thanks to his Twitter following(which dwarfed all media channels combined), the media adjusted their gameplan. Their strategy evolved and they found their calling card. It wasn’t in persuading voters, it was in completely silencing those they didn’t like. They didn’t need to convince voters to choose Joe Biden, they just had to cover the race like he was the only one running. This is the game Trump bested them at, ‘news media’ is just a marketing channel. And just like marketing the more a name or face is repeated the more it sinks in. In 2016 Trump garnered Billions in free advertising from CNN and MSNBC, they couldn’t quit talking about him. This is the first big reason why Bernie didn’t have the option to go nuclear on an interview with Anderson Cooper, he would have been exiled immediately, with them cutting reruns of the moment to make Bernie look insane. That is the price Trump paid, they replayed his gaffes until it drove suburban whites right out of the party. Just pause for a moment and think of all the humiliating offensive things Joe Biden has said on the campaign trail, the corn pop scenario comes to mind, or the let your kids listen to records moment, if that had been Bernie or Trump it would have played on every station on repeat, yet the media never mentions it. 

Had Bernie teed off on MSNBC he would have been smeared into oblivion. Think about it, they so rarely even let him on the air, if he would have lost his temper they would have spent every waking hour declaring they were right, Bernie was crazy. I can just hear it now, Bernie is a crazy sexist that attacked a woman live on air, just as we suspected his a sexist maniac. Think about the fact that Bernie has lived a spotless life, no dark secrets or dirty deeds like all other politicians. Yet despite the fact that he has believed the same positions on record his whole life, they still spent more time smearing him over saying Cuban literacy rates were impressive(highest in the world). Hold those smears in your mind as we think about all of the past life issues of other candidates that were never mentioned- Elizabeth Warren was a conservative her whole life, Joe Biden saying he didn’t want to send his kids to school with black children in a “race jungle”, Pete Buttigieg going from a Bernie fanboy to a corporate straw-man. The list goes for days, but we will never hear these stories on CNN or MSNBC. Sadly if you want to know the truth about the Corporate Dems, Fox News is more likely to tell you the truth. All of these stories were there, yet we never heard them. This again highlights the fact that the media’s true power lies not in persuasion(because they are more hated than Mitch McConnell) but in omission. They are the information gate-keepers of the world, if they don’t cover it, it doesn’t exist. This is how they are slowly trying to remove Bernie Sanders and his platform from our collective consciousness. Let’s not forget for the last few years Bernie has been the most popular senator in the country, and you will never see his face on CNN or MSNBC. 

The thing often overlooked about Bernie is his chess grandmaster-like ability to win and push ahead despite every one of power declaring war on him. Remember how badass it was when he put so much pressure on Bezos that he raised the company minimum wage to $15/hour. Talk about making it happen! We really believe that Bernie had a very well thought out philosophy on how to conduct himself, as well as the knowledge of how the media would treat him. You can watch clips for days of Bernie talking about the corruption of the media and how they are negatively impacting us. This is the final point as to why Bernie did pull a Trump, his reputation will stand through history. See Trump went to war, and he had a heavy price to pay. There are already talks of historically “canceling” everyone who worked with him. There are already movies coming out to bash Trump, they will tell him story till the end of time just to try and humiliate his name and legacy. See if Bernie would have declared war, he would become a laughing stock of high brow corporate Dems. His reputation would have been painted by the media as the maniac we always told you he was. We would hear quips and jokes at his expense, and he would live in our minds as a joke instead of the thought leader of America. 

One of Bernies great moves is that we all respect him more than his adversaries and infinitely more than the media. He walked the tight rope campaigning for 6 years and maintained respect decency and honesty despite naysayers trying to knock him down the whole time. In honor of Bernie’s hard work let’s vow to never forget his fight, but most importantly never forget who our true enemies are. They came after our boy, let’s have his back for once. Turn off CNN! Turn off MSNBC!

The War Within – Why Progressives need to accept the war Corporate Dems have waged.

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ Leave a comment

Ever since the corporate Democrats and their donors teamed up against Bernie in the primaries, the debate has gone back and forth on whether we should just fall in line and support Biden. For Bernie supporters our next move will possibly be the most important of the movement, do we stay organized, our splinter into a thousand pieces? Let’s really start to think about how we can accomplish the agenda, but most importantly we need a thorough understanding of our enemies and how they sabotage us. We will also explore the flimsy reason why we wouldn’t go to war with Biden and company. In life and especially in politics you are never sitting still, if you aren’t moving forward, you are moving backward.

Flashback to 2015 when Debbie Wasserman-Shultz and Hillary Clinton rigged the DNC and democratic primary against Bernie Sanders. Did you know the DNC didn’t even allow Bernie access to their voter database(they give access to all candidates)? If you aren’t familiar with the process, imagine the RNC choosing Ted Cruz over Trump, and giving all data and resources to Cruz. Bernie had to start completely from scratch on outreach. Despite being essentially cheated and constantly dogged by Hillary and the rest of the corporate dream team, he still fought like hell to stop Donald Trump. Then after she lost the election, she spent all of her time publicly blaming Bernie for her loss, pathetic! It is truly amazing that Bernie has the integrity to take the high road and not blow up on them. 

Back then, we had no idea how to react to Trump, we were led to believe this was the evilest human to date. It was a no brainer that we could never support Trump, and any vote against Hillary could only be sexism or racism. Plus the first time around Bernie was such a long shot that it lessened the feeling that something had been taken from us, in a sense we couldn’t lose what we didn’t have. It was mostly in hindsight that we saw the Clinton shenanigans with the DNC and with the Iowa vote count, that we realized how close we were. More importantly, the first run showed us that we did exist in politically relevant numbers. Perhaps the biggest lesson missed was the strength and determination of the Corporate Dems aka our opponents. We underestimated them then, and underestimated them in 2020, to our downfall.

The 2020 Sanders campaign showed so much grit and experience from the first time around, yet no amount of skill and experience could win. When Bernie pulled ahead of Warren and started knocking Pete around at the polls, it looked like a sure victory. Then came a crucial lesson for us, the media bats last. After a pitiful campaign full of gaffs Joe Biden leaned into the political establishment and won South Carolina handily. Even though Bernie won Nevada by a similar margin, Joe received 4x the amount of positive coverage as Bernie. 

Then the unthinkable happened, behind closed doors, every greedy corporate Dem led by Obama connived up a plan to stop Bernie Sanders at all cost. They would all drop out to endorse the man in 4th place who had no agenda and seemed to be facing rapid mental decline. Never in history has someone in Pete Buttigieg’s position dropped out so early. Never forget that when this weasel gets a cabinet position in the Biden administration and Bernie doesn’t. Another lesson we didn’t learn with Warren in 2016 that we must remember with Pete- our most dangerous enemies are in blue and they are right beside us. If you don’t remember Warren endorsed Hillary when she could have tipped the race for Bernie, we should have known she would be the final dagger on Super Tuesday when she refused to drop out despite never finishing second in any state. If you watch Game of Thrones(Spoiler alert!), this is exactly like the scene where the knights watch all stab John Snow with the deception being led by Ollie, the small boy that John mentors, who stick the very last knife in his stomach. 

This is where we have to take a step back and really study our adversaries. In 2020 we quickly forgot who was really against us and how motivated they were to stop us. Clearly, we are losing the internal battle for the party. Let’s not forget the Democratic party is a shell that stands for nothing except the person in charge. If we want someone like Bernie to ever be able to win, we have to start picking off his adversaries. Replicating AOC’s victory should be our number one goal, let’s pick off vulnerable corporate Dems. Even if we can’t beat them we cannot allow them to ignore us by staying quiet and submitting to them. The Republicans cream us because they allow invigorated and aggressive members to take the world by storm. Pelosi can’t let people like Bernie in because they expose her as what she truly is- Republican Lite. The big picture lesson, we will never beat the Republicans, without beating the Corporate pseudo-Republicans on our own team first. Despite the trash-talking, we actually have to prove we have more voters than them. Say we actually go toe to toe with them and fight just as hard but keep losing, then we will have to look internally at the fact that our message does not resonate. For the time being, our enemies in blue seem to be a larger roadblock than our message.

Jesus the Socialist

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ Leave a comment

Did you know that in Europe, most Christians are on the left. Well that is at least how the parties are established. If you hold all other things constant it makes sense, Jesus was about helping the poor and disadvantaged so it would make sense to support the side that believes in welfare programs for the poor. This is another interesting cultural difference with the US, generally speaking Europeans tend to believe that society at large is responsible for the welfare of the impoverished. While in the US, we generally believe private operations and individuals at churches and nonprofits should administer welfare to the impoverished, not the Government or society at large. Interestingly our priorities are extremely apparent when you get off any interstate exit in a city and see all the homeless people, very possibly veterans, begging for money despite the fact that there are more empty homes than there are homeless in the US. The most important questions for today are, why do Christians overwhelmingly support Republicans and do progressives have something to offer them? 

To address why Christians support the right, lets examine all the topics outside of abortion, even though it appears to be the driving force, similar to Racial Justice and LGBT rights on the left. So, how have we come to the place where the Christians in America truly believe that Democrats and liberals have been waging a war against them for ages? First let’s look at all the areas where they are correct and how Dems constantly barraid them. Then let’s start to dissect where there is serious overlap with the progressive movement and the Christian faith. 

If you did not grow up in a church you probably haven’t heard many of their arguments other than the extremely political fights that make the news. One message echoed repeatedly is that the church and faith writ large is always “under attack”. Now if you are a protesting BLM activist you likely feel the exact opposite, make sure to check out our Cancel Culture and lack of meaning post if you missed it. While this message of attack is as old as the bible itself, it has become almost exclusively political. It is hard to tell when exactly it happened, back in the 90’s and early 2000’s people didn’t completely assume that if you are a Christian you had to be a Republican. Now we are led to believe that faith and Conservatism are not mutually exclusive. While this is hard to pin down, it’s a safe bet that social media helped wedge this gap. However this defensive posture from people of faith is a move out of self defense. It might be hard for some of the ultra woke to swallow this but imagine you are raising a family in a small rural area. You are a farmer, a christian, a great member of the community who gives back. However any time you turn the Television on, all you see are extremely liberal people writing extremely liberal shows for extremely liberal actors. Everytime you watch sports you are blasted with a political message. Take a step back from whose right technically on those issues, we have someone who is contributing to society and chooses to live a rural life, taking care of his family and paying taxes. Yet everywhere he looks at a screen, liberals are screaming that he and his neighbors are the problem. Imagine keeping to yourself and doing all the things our culture tells us we should do, work hard, take care of your family, etc. and all of a sudden you are “evil and obstructive”. 

“The Left has won the culture wars, now they are just riding around shooting the survivors.”

Funny how the Left is the party of tolerance, just not Christian tolerance, unless you are Joe Biden pandering to religious Black voters. While the church has a penchant for forcing their flavor on other religions or the non-religious in public places, the Dems never defend freedom of religion or speech when it comes to Christianity. However they fight tooth and nail for any member of the Muslim faith. While they probably do need more legal and moral support, if Vegas were placing odds, I would be the Democrats are exclusively pandering to the woke crowd and don’t have a genuine interest in helping the Muslim faith. 

Let’s call for a cease-fire. From a purely political perspective, with the Dems ramping up the cultural war on Christians, the Republicans are able to guarantee victory across the south and the midwest. From the left’s perspective it is a dumb strategic move to further this narative by constant attacks on the rural religious lifestyle. Who knows, maybe Texas would already be blue? Before your next attack on “some dumb republican I grew up with” try to find overlap.

How exactly we find common ground is a tall order, but not an impossible one. Let’s start with Eugene Debbs, the legendary Christian-Socialist. Yes, you read that correctly, Christian-Socialist! Debbs grew up in Indiana the son of a small business owner. For context, during Debbs lifetime American Cities and factories flourished, leading to many Americans seeking employment from someone else for the first time in their lives, for more on this check our piece on American Entrepreneurship. Growing up and even into adulthood Debbs did not even consider himself a left wing or liberal person, he was fairly centrist. He was however extremely religious, his faith came before all else. His political views started to change when he became head of a rail union, this is what led Debbs to his lifetime of organizing and agitating. 

In light of today’s politics, Debbs’ ability to tie american kitchen table values to socialism(and he really said it, no democratic socialism) highlights the complete failure of imagination we see in today’s corporate democratic party. Really try to clear your mind of any knowledge of Debbs and image this line coming from the pulpit of a church or a town square of a small town(it did!)-

“ It matters little whether Jesus was born at Nazareth or Bethlehem. The accounts conflict, but the point is of no consequence.

 It is of consequence, however, that He was born in a stable and cradled in a manger. This fact of itself, about which there is no question, certifies conclusively the proletarian character of Jesus Christ. Had His parents been other than poor working people — money-changers, usurers, merchants, lawyers, scribes, priests, or other parasites — He would not have been delivered from His mother’s womb on a bed of straw in a stable among asses and other animals.

 Was Jesus divinely begotten? Yes, the same as every other babe eve born into the world. He was of miraculous origin the same as all the rest of mankind. The scriptural account of his “immaculate conception” is a beautiful myth, but scarcely more of a miracle than the conception of all other babes. 

Jesus was not divine because he was less human than his fellowmen but for the opposite reason that he was supremely human, and it is this of which his divinity consists, the fullness and perfection of him as an intellectual, moral, and spiritual being”

That is an excerpt from his 1914 essay Jesus The Supreme Ruler. Before you get concerned this is not some radical religious left hook or something, it is just to highlight that the conservative right does not own religion. They are however appealing to and defending Christian voters, meanwhile the Democrats are actively disrespecting them at all turns. 

Trump won in 2016 as a result of 1% more of inner city voters that were not highly motivated to show up. To win you don’t have to win a whole group, sometimes you just have to give them less of a reason to hate you. Oh yeah, and maybe we should be trying to share some common values with our fellow Americans!