Tag: Senator Bernie Sanders

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. 

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.

No-Legislation Attached

~ rebelwillfarnaby ~ Leave a comment

If you ask most of your Democratic friends about the state of America and the culture wars, most would say the battle against oppression has never been more grave. The right is at our throats. What’s strange is there is a paradox here – The left believes they are losing the culture wars, even though they control 90% of the media(look at major endorsements of Trump v Hillary), the messaging on every television channel,  and the film industry. Yet the right has dominated legislatively since Reagan(de-unionizing, placing judges, repealing labor laws) and they believe they are losing their country more than ever. 

First lets highlight that panic and fear are powerful motivators, even when your status doesn’t warrant panic. Anecdotally I hear Republican voters say “this is the most important election of our lifetime, no matter if you like Trump or not we have to get those supreme court judges, because if the other side gets them we will lose the presidency for the next 50 years.” OFF TOPIC- of course we lose to them, our language is weak and passive. On the left you only see this kind of language used towards celebrities that have tweeted something racist or homophobic. The big difference is where Republican and Democratic leadership direct the energy and anger of their voters. 

So what are the results of each of these strategies? The Republicans have run the table on placing judges, stopping dem judges, passing tax cuts, killing unions through labor laws, and generally any economic legislation. The Democrats have succeeded at keeping their voters permanently on the hook with No-Legislation Attached Issues. Whether intentional or not, our voters don’t attach organization and legislation with change. We keep fighting stupid games with stupid prizes. And rest assured the class that funds the republicans, they don’t play stupid games- they play the most important games with the most important prizes. They use legislation to shape the economy in their favor as we argue. 

Why does the left take up this strategy? The same reason as the right, their donors. How many corporations have run racial inclusion, BLM, social justice ads since George Floyd? The is a complete perversion for many reasons. This is capitalism rotting just causes from the inside out. We are seeing companies that engage in near slave labor overseas, yet also claiming to stand for racial justice in the USA just to sell more sneakers, hamburgers, and purses. Talk about delegitimizing a cause, make the whole fight nothing but lip service via tv ads that include no solutions. The second reason businesses are so keen to take up these social justice narratives is specifically because there is No-Legislation Attached! Why is the CEO of Citigroup, one of the major banks that no doubt plays a role in racist policies that make it more difficult and expensive for African Americans to buy a home, now being highlighted by the left!? It is much more affordable to shoot out a tweet and cash in on a hot marketing fad than to actually help Black Lives in America. 

There is a lot of talk, but how much do Black Lives Matter when we cripple so many hard working black women with a stagnant starvation wage that we refer to as minimum wage? How much do Black Lives Matter when we let predatory lenders prey on the impoverished and unbanked in their community? How much could a Black Life matter when we let them die in the street if they do not have insurance? Those questions require legislation, the kind MLK and Bernie Sanders fought for, and it is going to cost. This is were our supposed “friends” at the DNC stop agreeing with us and take up their donors position that we must be destroyed. MLK told many around him that once he started down the road for economic justice for workers, he wouldn’t be around much longer. He told those around him, his white allies will soon abandon him on his next fight – the fight for economic justice would cost them, literally. While his white allies might have taken some risk backing him, they had plenty to gain, they seemed like heroes for not being racist. Yet he knew they only wanted the image or “checked box” of helping, and when it came to making this system fair on economic grounds, they had no intention of seeing Black Lives prosper. 

“What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?” – Martin Luther King Jr.