Conditioning: Pavlov is sitting in a pub.  A patron enters, ringing a bell over the door.  Pavlov thinks, “Oh, I forgot to feed the dog!”

Our society has been so deeply conditioned to believe that Socialism is evil and ALWAYS constitutes Communism it’s just a knee-jerk reaction by huge swaths of Americans.  The so-called “free market” is the only economic system that works and makes sense, we’re told.  But here’s the thing: from time to time the so-called “free market” just…shits the bed and everybody suffers.  No, everybody not rich suffers.  It’s SO common for the “free market” to crash and burn, it has a name: “The Business Cycle.”

See, every seven to ten years the “free market” crashes.  Mostly, that’s just rich people extracting money from everyone else – often after creating some economic bubble somewhere, usually housing.  But…WHEN the “free market” fails – as it does on a regular and predictable basis – what do rich people do?  Why, they turn to Socialism.

Not for everyone, of course.  Just the rich people.  And just enough to prop them up so they can do it all again to everyone else.  Of course, rich people receive Socialism all the while, what with subsidies to their businesses and such.  But it’s NEVER acceptable to help “the poors.”  Ever.  Under any conditions.

Remember the Second Republican Great Depression?  The one in 2008?  THAT was caused by rich people being irresponsible and the solution was…wait for it…socialism!  Government spending as much as conservatives would allow.  They fought it every step of the way, of course, but only for show.  Their rich masters needed socialist help and they were, by God, going to receive socialist help but the conservative show had to go on as well, pretending socialism wasn’t socialism in this case.  Although conservatives slowed progress – as usual – socialism saved the day.  Then the economy was handed back to Capitalists and – voila! – it’s crashing again.

Defenders of this bullshit Capitalist system will no doubt want to point out that Covid-19 was unexpected.  Okay, sure.  But that’s the thing.  The first Republican Great Depression, the one in the 1930’s, was seriously exacerbated by an unexpected natural event called the Dust Bowl.  It was a long-term drought, itself exacerbated by poor farming practices of the day.  Maybe running one’s economy so close to the edge of failure that a single, unexpected event can wreak so much havoc is a very bad idea…

But now the Fed is talking about injecting 1.5 TRILLION dollars into Wall Street to “help stimulate the economy.”  (No explanation about how giving hugely rich people even MORE money will stimulate the economy – since it won’t.)  They’re using “Quantitative Easing” – a program conservatives ripped on every chance they got when Obama was President.  1.5 TRILLION dollars!  I haven’t heard ONE conservative asshole ask how we’re going to pay for it, either!

You want to stimulate the economy and you’ve got 1.5 Trillion dollars to use?  Here’s an idea: send every American a check for $4,500.  That would stimulate the economy in ways giving the same money to rich people simply won’t.  But we can’t do that.  Giving money to the poors, where it would do overwhelming good, is Socialism but giving it to Wall Street, where it won’t do anything, is just sound economic policy, see?  (Just putting this here: The Dow was 29,551.42 on Feb 12 of this year.  It closed Friday, Mar 13 at 23,185.62, down from it’s high 6,365.80…)

Now that everybody is crapping their panties about Covid-19, people are talking about allowing – heaven forfend! – government paid testing of the population.  Even the poors!  But rest easy.  It will only last as long as Covid-19 is a problem.  Then the poors become pure victims of the ‘Greatest Country on Earth’™ again.  But in the meantime, Socialism, not Capitalism, will save the day…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For reasons I can’t explain – outside of pure hubris – the United States refused the Covid-19 tests used by the World Health Organization preferring to use it’s own.  It’s my understanding that’s not really an unusual practice but it would help if the US had actually HAD it’s own test in the first place.  Every time you hear the test being developed will take 18 months, remember, a test exists right now.  It’s just that American pharmaceutical companies can’t profit from the WHO’s test.

I’ll tell you, watching the Trump team in action is, well, a mind-boggling experience…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m going to say to my Berners again – ‘Blue, No Matter Who.’  There’s not a damn thing a Berner can tell me I don’t know.  The DNC cheats?  No shit.  Biden is a corporate shill?  Absolutely.  Biden is having cognitive challenges?  No question.  Bernie is, in every measurable way, the better choice?  Abso-fucking-lutely!

BUT…the DNC told you up front Bernie didn’t stand a chance.  It doesn’t matter if he’s more popular.  It doesn’t matter if he has the better program ideas.  NOTHING matters.  They TOLD US they were not going to let him win right up front.

Imagine marrying a person who cheated on you throughout the courtship and maintains that they can not – WILL not – be monogamous.  Did they do you wrong when they went outside the relationship again?  You KNEW going in they weren’t going to be faithful.  Getting all butt-hurt that they did exactly what they said they would do seems…unreasonable.

In the same way, declaring ‘Bernie or Bust’ is unreasonable.  At the convention, Bernie simply will not be an option and we knew it going in.  I prefer Bernie and I’m proud to be a Sanders supporter.  But this is different than 2016.  In 2016, any one of us can be forgiven for not believing Donald Trump could actually be such an existential threat – such a complete failure of a human being.  He seemed – hell, he STILL seems – like a pathetic caricature of a human being.

Our protest vote in 2016 made sense.  It was the one way we had to demonstrate to the DNC that we do NOT accept their abuse of the system.  But in 2020?  Your protest vote will not be a “principled stand.”  It will be a Pyrrhic victory.  Sure, you’ll make your point but you’ll leave Donald Trump in the Oval Office.  Worse, you’ll give the DNC the perfect scapegoat: Bernie supporters.

So let’s support ‘blue, no matter who’ but think of it as ‘blue to block.’  This is not about Bernie, anymore, or even the DNC.  It’s about the future of a once-great nation and if there’s going to be ANY chance to recover from the damage inflicted by Charles Koch, step one is stop Trump.  At the very least, we all vote Biden and he loses to the Russians anyway?  WE BLAME THE DNC!  Aggressively.  Relentlessly.  Mercilessly.  If we don’t stop Donnie Dumbass, I fear (honestly) there may not be any more “elections” in this once-great nation.  The DNC shill MUST win, whether we like him or not.

Because, remember, in 2024, AOC will be old enough to run…