Bernie Running For Prez As A Green! (No, Not Really. Only In Jill Stein's Dreams)

My previous post was just a teeny bit facetious about my reaction to hearing about Bernie planning to endorsing Hillary. Just a teeny bit. The aggravation with Bernie, the wishing he would just go away, the estimation that he has much less power now than if he had endorsed Hillary a month ago, and that the longer he puts it off the more his power shrinks and the less it matters what he does -- those were all sincere. Saying that Cornel West is the only person left who cares what he says or does: that was a slight exaggeration. Of course I want Bernie to endorse Hillary. I just don't care about it nearly as much as I did a month ago, and I believe the same holds true for many other people.

I was serious when I said that I pitied anyone who made plans based on expecting Bernie to say a certain something at a certain time. But I exaggerated how uncertain it seems to me now that Bernie will endorse Hillary, and when. But that still leaves a huge amount of uncertainty about how enthusiastic, memorable, and effective his endorsement will be. I'll be very surprised if Bernie is half as enthusiastic in his support as Barack and Elizabeth and Joe and the Big Dog have been.

In all seriousness: looking over the headlines from the Google News search: bernie endorse hillary, a lot of reporters who presumably have more access to the players than I do are saying that the endorsement will happen on Tuesday, period. So, I guess we'll see about that on Tuesday.

Mixed in will all of those headlines are a few about how Jill Stein has announced that she will step aside as the Green Party Presidential candidate if Bernie wants to take her place. That seems to be latest Last Hope of the Bernie or Bust morons, and the latest additional evidence -- as if more were needed -- that Jill Stein is a moron, who either actually doesn't care whether Hillary or Donald is elected, or would actually prefer Donald.

I'm sure there will be more Last Hopes. Who knows what Last Hope the Busters will dream up next. Who knows if they will ever stop -- I mean literally ever. They might still be dreaming up ways that Bernie could would win the 2016 Presidential election after that election is over. After Hillary has served for 8 years and Michelle has been elected. The Bernie or Busters could still be dreaming up ways that Bernie will win the 2016 election after Bernie is dead, and up until the moment they die themselves.

I'm fairly sure -- fairly sure -- that Bernie will not actually run against Hillary after he's already announced that he'll vote for her. He's inconsistent as Hell, but not quite that inconsistent, not quite that divorced from reality. As I've said for quite some time, the only person who can get Donald elected is Bernie. Bernie running for President as a Green would definitely get Donald elected. But, as much as Bernie despises the party for whose Presidential nomination he competed, it doesn't look as if he actually would run Green and hand the election to Donald out of that spite. Jill could get Donald elected if she had more power. Bernie has that much power but he probably will actually give Hillary some sort of half-assed endorsement, and that, or actually anything else short of him running as a Green, should be enough.

The 2014 Mid-Terms And The Can't-Do Attitude Of Some Leftists

First of all, let's try to shake off this reluctance to call ourselves Leftists if we're left of center. Let's get a grip and speak plainly: yes, there are some Communists in the Democratic Party. And there are some Nazis in the Republican Party. And that's one of the long list of reasons why the Democratic Party is much better than the GOP.

It irks me so to hear people say that they "usually" vote Democratic, but they hate doing it, because Democrats and Republicans "are all pretty much the same," all "bought and paid for by corporations," and "things will never really change" because "those in power" don't want them to.

Things change all the time, so there's one of those premises I don't buy. You can read about some dramatic changes about to occur as a result of the mid-terms in this brief, accurate and depressing portrait of Jim Inhofe, who will probably be the next chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The stupidity of the readers' comments on the article are even more depressing, matching the stupidity of the US public's behavior this past Tuesday. There may be changes in Social Security and Disability checks received by the elderly and disabled. There will be changes in policy on women's rights, minority rights, affirmative action, voting rights, LGBT rights -- if you feel that Americans have entirely too many rights and that poor people have it too good and that it's time for billionaires to finally catch a break, the election returns should gladden your heart.

No, I don't buy the premise that Democrats and Republicans are the same. It astounds me that anybody could think they are.

Corporations aren't all the same either. Yes, they contribute heavily to the campaigns of both Democrats and Republicans, but they don't all contribute the same to both sides of the aisle. It'd be pretty stupid for oil companies to give as much to the party trying to take away their tax exemptions -- that'd be the Democratic Party, including that notorious wimpy centrist corporate stooge Barack Hussein Obama -- as they give to the party stamping at the bit to open up Keystone XL and remove restrictions on fracking -- yes, Sparky, that'd be the Republicans.

Also, one of the two big parties is trying to reverse the cynically-named Citizens United and VASTLY REDUCE the amount of money given to political campaigns, and no, Sparky, it ain't the GOP.

I don't buy that "those in power" all want the same things. I put the phrase in quotes because power constantly shifts, there isn't one clearly-defined Them running everything, that's a paranoid fantasy. In reality, individual human beings wield power, people who by no means always agree about everything, even when they're in one and the same of the 2 major parties. party. To those who feel powerless -- if you occasionally try to DO something to change the things which dissatisfy you, your chances of actually having more power yourself are better than if you just sit there and bitch and vote 3rd-party and stupidly, smugly believe yourselves to be morally superior to all of us who are actually trying to do something.

I'm talking to you, Greens. Yes, I blame you for Inhofe, and yes, I still blame you for W beating Gore, and no, I don't want to try to explain to you how the one individual most responsible for bringing global warming to the attention of the general public is different from the Republican POTUS whose administration shored up the near-unanimous Republican position that global warming isn't happening, if you really are too stupid to see the difference.

Oh well. About all we can do now is hold on for 2 years, dig in and try to keep the GOP from killing us all, and hope that the stupidest among us re-learn what they learned between 2010 and 2012 and then forgot again.

Yeah, I'm a little bit steamed. Just a tad.