"Anarchists and the Bernie Sanders Conundrum"
By: Colin R. Mulholland
(11/13/15 ) - (11/18/2015)
As an anarchist and as an activist I can only do so much. To be an anarchist is to also understand that in your lifetime you will help bring about amazing changes to your community and possibly your country. But it is the validity of an actual anarchist to agree and understand that in one's lifetime that we may never see the fall of the American government. Why? Well, because currently the United States government is just to darn powerful; while the united states is constantly divided. To fully understand this is to understand how modern politics works is through (for the most part) contributions from capitalists through things such as Super Paks, which gradually are blank checks given to politicians from the contributors. The biggest and quite frankly the most active and powerful political contributors are the sons of the second wealthiest family in America the Koch brothers, the owners of Koch Industries. These guys have spent an unestimated, but a very large amount of money on the Republican party within the last few decades. But they aren't the only ones. Republicans, Democrats, you name it-capitalists contributed to it. Money has the biggest placeholder in politics more than the politics itself, for the most part politics is just talking. Lying. Deceiving. It's always been like this, a shell game that excludes the common man/ woman from the truth and exploits their loyalty. Further spewing these nonsensical beliefs that one man can fully lead a country of human beings to absolute freedom. This is where the country is divided. Through this Jesus Christ-like reteric, these modern day Moseses part the sea (America) in half.
Last night I was dealing with some personal problems and couldn't think straight. Music ordinarily helps me when this happens but something didn't add up last night while I was working. Music wasn't helping at all. So I turned to some Jerry Garcia interviews from the eighties. This calmed me down strangely. After being calmed my mind finally had a copacetic order and I gradually switched to some of Noam Chomsky's latest interviews which lead me to stumble upon a video compilation of Bernie Sanders speeches. Now I think we can all agree that Sanders has some well thought speeches and views that's lead him to have a prolific following. It seems to me that there has never been a presidential candidate of this magnitude since the old days of politics where every political candidate had to gain contributions and campaign at a grassroot level. These days these things have certainly been made easier with Planes, cars, and of coarse the internet of all things. There's no denying this, but it is my personal belief, and also millions across this countries belief as well that the overall decadence of a political campaign is made possible by money. Whether it's through the candidate's own wealth through their own capitalist ventures or through friends and relations-it cannot be denied that money in politics is the greediest form of political progress in the spectrum.
Just as Americans are divided within the spectrum of voting, anarchists have also been divided amongst each other, and lately the greatest example of this has been the question over the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. Many Anarchists are still opposed to Bernie Sanders' candidacy despite his track record as an activist himself in the sixties. There are anarchists within the spectrum of the philosophy itself who, though they keep a free thinking mentality, though they protest and they contribute; they (in turn) completley lack any filter. Yes, anarchism is the philosophy of no order and no rules. But as Steve O said in the film "SLC Punk" "Everything has systems, even me" and based on these self systems we are automatically conditioned with these mental filters that help us restrict the content we let slip from our mouthes. These anarchists do not have these filters. These anarchists I like to refer to as Dayglo Anarchists. They're bright, vivid, but are too out there with their beliefs. The sad part is a majority of modern, young anarchists will never identify themselves to a religion or some sort of eastern philosophy such as I have with Taoism, but if they have ever studied the Tao they would have learned that the basic Taoist principle is: he who speaks knows nothing, while the man of silence knows all. In the Kevin Smith film "Dogma" the character Rufus as played by Chris Rock, makes a speech about how the Jesus portrayed in this film hated how things were carried out in his name based on the beliefs of his mortal followers. He said that it is better to have Ideas because you can change an idea but beliefs are much harder. The dayglo anarchists are opposed to any change within their circle of thought and that is a huge contradiction to anarchism because anarchism is about constant change. It is about the diversity amongst each group of individual and is never subject to segregation. This is why I'm kind of opposed to the whole anarchist ranking system. For those of you who do not know what the anarchist ranking system is it is as follows:
*(Red) Anarcho- Syndicalism/ Communism.
* (Yellow) Anarcho- Capitalism. (1)
*(Green) Anarcho- Primitivism
* (Purple) Anarcha- Feminism
* (Pink) Queer Anarchism
* (White) Anarcho- Pacifism
This anarcho ranking system is just another way to make sure that anarchism and free thought are divided amongst each other. Though they share a common goal, they are very seperated on the key issues in anarchism and the seperate philosophies involved within them are the reason that anarchism hasn't had a real advantage. As a philosophy it holds much truth, but as a political system it falls short.
As much as I agree with Senator Sanders on a lot of the key issues, and let me tell you that as an anarchist this is the first time I've ever agreed with a Democrat on anything. Hell, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys ran for governor of California so I guess it is possible to find some sort of common ground with a politician if his cards are actually played right and he isn't hiding any cards up his sleeve. But my only real problem with Bernie Sanders is the stance he has on Social Security and the Minimum Wage. On a recent Yahoo news interview with Katie Couric, he denies there is a social security problem.* Which is a rather false statement if you've done your research. A CBS news article stated that Social Security has taken a huge hit in correlation to the fact that people are just not having as many babies these days.** A New York Times article also stated that there are just not enough jobs that are helping to re stimulate the US economy.*** These things are exactly the fault of our government, and the end result is people are just not wanting to raise kids in such a crummy world as we are currently living in. From ISIS to Donald Trump. The American people are simply fed up with the government's misnomers. As for the job situation people are simply fed up with working at jobs that give minimal pay for such high risk work, but this kind of behavior is actually causing jobs to fill up and the available positions vanish fast. This part is the fault and the (quite frankly) inevitable downfall of the lower class. If you ask me, raising the wage won't solve these problems, but by creating more free to low cost (based on one's income) job programs that help educate and train people in various occupational careers in which after said training is complete, these certified trainees can be placed on a list that promises them at least ONE interview with multiple employers that can help re stimulate this economy. These programs already exist but the problem is there is not enough funds to keep helping these programs survive. We can fix this problem easily by cutting military spending and munitions purchases down to little or nothing. ELIMINATE SUPER PAKS and by eliminating them congress should pass a bill that states capitalists can only donate small sums of cash into the political party, the way it ACTUALLY use to be (which will never EVER happen again since congress are bloody capitalists themselves...) The biggest one of all is that the United States government should be fixing itself, and if the government can somehow MIRACULOUSLY fix itself then maybe every other problem faced with the world can eventually fix itself and THAT is where I think Bernie Sanders fits into the aspect of why I think he won't be such a bad president after all.
If people are united then coexistence amongst ideas and philosophy will bring a definite change amongst Americans that will lead to an eventual outcry within communities to exterminate tyranical systems. And once this happens, those who believe in the idea that TRUE freedom still exists will once again fight and die to regain the system that once belonged to the common man and not by the greedy monarchy of complacent loyalists. This is the reason why the story of Che Guavara needs to be told. BUT, if my words did not convey any sort of message in you, if my words haven't helped you gain any further understanding. If my words haven't educated any sort of populous on anything here today I sincerely apologize for failing you. As an anarchist I can only do so much, but as an anarchist it is my civic duty to educate you as much as I can and to help you in making the decision of "is voting for Bernie Sanders really that bad?" Every politician I've seen so far in my short 23 years of life have been worthless war mongors and petty capitalists. But now I see a man who actually wants to cause chaos and change the system from within, a statement in which Michael Moore made in his book "Stupid White Men" said would be the only real way any real opposer of the government's injustice can do. But maybe the recent words of fellow anarchist and linguist Noam Chomsky can help your decision: "The Bernie Sanders campaign, which I think is important. He's impressive, he's doing good and courageous things, he's organizing a lot of people. That campaign ought to be directed to sustaining a popular movement which will use the election as a kind of insentive and go on and unfortunatley it's not. When the election is over, the movement is gonna die, and that's a serious error."****
-Colin R. Mulholland
(November 2015)
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NOTES:
(1) Noam Chomsky stated in an interview with teleSUR that Modern Libertarianism is not like the original movement, and if anything it's like Anarcho-Capitalism and that in itself is a tyranny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBZLnfKSa_k
REFFERENCES:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpgJYNaIeqo)
** http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-real-reason-behind-social-securitys-problems/
*** http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/social-security-present-and-future.html?_r=0
**** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBZLnfKSa_k)
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