Bernie Sanders and the Nonchalant Case Against National Socialism

What follows are segments of an email exchange that I had with a friend who is a Bernie supporter for the most part.  As Bernie’s place in the primary dwindles, it appears Joe Biden will be the Democratic Party presidential nominee.  While I don’t feel bad for Bernie Sanders, I do feel bad for many (but certainty not all) of his supporters who I know are truly good people that want the best for their country and fellow countrymen (I also believe this to be true of many Trump supporters).  As someone who likes supporting the underdogs, I hate to see Bernie get dragged through the mud by DNC cronies, mainstream media pundits, and establishment politicians.  Even though I find unbearable his perpetually aggravated demeanor and berating delivery, I share Bernie’s sentiments about the unfair and unjust systems of power ruining America.  I cringe at the thought the only options for President that America has are Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and would much rather see a Trump versus Biden matchup. And while I’m inclined toward the radical political perspective that the two-party system in America is a racket and only offers two sides of the same coin, it’s sometimes hard to shrug off the presidency as something mundane and unimportant considering the damage inflicted on humanity and the planet throughout the first part of the century by George W. Bush, and arguably to a lesser extent by Barack Obama.   Nevertheless, at this point in my life I still cannot bring myself to support a man who is decidedly and ardently Socialist.  Part of my reasoning is explained in this email to my friend, excerpts of which are below:

Aaron to Friend:

You may have heard of Jordan Peterson. I had intended to send you some links to some of his lectures but never got around to it.  He kind of reminds me of you in that you both talk like Kermit the Frog.  I’ve slowly been getting through his latest book (Jordan Peterson’s).  It’s a little long, but I think you’ll find this lecture pretty interesting (it picks up as it progresses and I still haven’t finished the whole thing). He touches on some of the concepts you and I were discussing over the phone.

Friend to Aaron:

My friend Berto turned me on to Jordan Peterson. I think you met Berto at my wedding -- Native American-looking guy, about 15 years older than us. I spent a day or two watching a bunch of videos. I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said, appreciating the clarity of his thought, and really admiring his voice (HA!!).

I will check out this video.

Are you familiar with Ivan Illich? Have I mentioned him to you? Wrote a bunch of books in the 70s criticizing various aspects of industrial society. I think he's brilliant and often dead-on right (though his writing is very dense--requires slow, patient reading).

 Deschooling Society is his first book. See if you can find it. He calls our education system the longest, most drawn out initiation ritual in the history of the world. And, of course, it's just gotten longer since the 70s.

 Friend to Aaron again:

I watched the whole thing, minus some of the question and answer section. Good stuff.

What stood out for me was a comment he made about "socialists" that he met in Canada--something that he realized after reading a book by George Orwell. The young socialists weren't socialists because they loved the poor. They were socialists because they hated the rich.

Unfortunately, I think this is also an issue with the Bernie phenomenon--and based on the crowd I saw at his rally (including myself, my brother, and his fiancée), less of his main base of supporters is poor or working class and more of them just hate the rich who are oppressing the poor and working class.

Anything about the lecture particularly strike you?

Aaron to Friend:

You think I want to start some fucking online discussion with you or something, whitey?  

Just kidding.  Yeah, I too found The Road to Wigan Pier backstory compelling insofar as Orwell's realization that socialists can be selfish assholes, too.  

Warning - this email will be super helter-skelter - even that word leads me on a tangent by reminding me of a story by James Thurber - ever heard of him?  The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (good movie, too).  You'd like him - before you go any future with this email please go click on this link and read Chapter Five, pg. 44 -  More Alarms At Night, in its short entirety  - found here and available in PDF format: 

https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20131017)   There will also be a lot of typos.  

I have a lot of friends supporting Bernie but I can't because I don't like the way he looks.  Just kidding, I have nothing against that, but I'm can't throw my vote (which matters much anyway less in populous Cali) behind someone who's principles I question.   There's something that strikes me odd about a multi-millionaire with three houses who flies around in private jets to campaign (I realize that that may be the only way to do it effectively) and didn't pay his staff the $15/hour he advocates.  Not that I want Trump to be in office, nor am I worried about Socialism. (for some reason my friends who are willing to vote Trump over Bernie if it came down to it think that if Bernie were elected America as a whole would swing far left and we'd go full-blown Soviet Union with the Squad girls appointed Czars to various ministries.  I think Bernie would face massive political and populous resistance, which would pretty much only result in higher taxes and business as usual - meaning things would get done but done slowly.)  In other words, I don't fear Bernie and I don't think he's a bad guy.  I feel bad for him because the DNC is gunning for him, but then I don't feel bad for him because he doesn't defend himself and rolls over and takes it, similarly to how he endorsed Hillary in 2016.   A part of me wants to see him endorse Biden just so his supporters can finally realize he's a shill.  But yeah, in the bigger picture I can't bring myself to get behind socialist principles because I think they undermine freedom. I'm want to pay taxes and help care for those who need the help in society and the world, but I don't trust politicians or government agencies to save us from our complicated societal dilemmas, many of which are caused by human behavior which cannot be modified by the state.  I do think in a free society a person can voluntarily act as a socialist - meaning you can give away your money and help those who you see fit by, for instance, offering up your property to those who need shelter or donating money to those in a homeless camp - but I don't see any of my private property owning friends with expendable incomes and Bernie Sanders bumper stickers doing that.  Which gives me the impression that they see the system as flawed and expect to change it by electing a President that will do that for them (maybe that's oversimplified.  Separately, I am a little disconcerted by some of his more radical supporters, but maybe in the same way that Trump has supporters that blindly support his every move and believe his every word - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD3NQtIzQng).  It may be a bit of a cop-out, but saying that I'm not a socialist prevents me from having to behave as one voluntarily.  I think a true socialist should abide by his egalitarian beliefs regardless of the type of economic system at play, meaning they could re-distribute their wealth and offer their property to others on their own volition, but no one seems willing to do that.  I also think there’s sometimes a failure of them to realize how well -- despite all it's flaws -- our current system (and the capitalistic parts of it) has actually worked for them and how much better off their lives are because of it.  Having said that, I hate the way our current system is set up - namely the military industrial complex and waging war for the sake of empire - something I think Sanders will not change.  This reminds me of a quote from a good book by Arundahti Roy from her book on Power Politics which looks at the problems of big dams in India.  She writes:  

If we have the right institutions of governance in place - effective courts, good laws, honest politicians, participatory democracy, a transparent administration, that respects human rights and gives people a say in decisions that affect their lives - then the globalization project will work for the poor, as well.  They call this "globalization with a human face."  The point is, if all this were in place, almost anything would succeed: socialism, capitalism, you name it.  Everything works in Paradise, a Communist State as well as a Military Dictatorship.

I would also defer to Martin Luther King on the Communism vs. Capitalism question (I've uploaded a collection of his speeches and sermons to google drive:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9gJ_qYpD21wQXpES2FtMlZOTHM) . 

He said:

Now I would like to take a few minutes to say something about this method or this philosophy of nonviolence, because it has played such a prominent role in our struggle over the last few years, both north and south. First I should say that I am still convinced that the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and human dignity is nonviolent resistance. I am convinced that this is a powerful method. It disarms the opponent, it exposes his moral defenses, it weakens his morale and at the same time it works on his conscience, and he just doesn’t know how to deal with it. If he doesn’t beat you, wonderful. If he beats you, you develop the courage of accepting blows without retaliating. If he doesn’t put you in jail, wonderful; nobody with any sense loves to go to jail. But if he puts you in jail, you go in that jail and transform it from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and human dignity. Even if he tries to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things so precious, some things so dear, some things so eternally true that they are worth dying for. And in a sense, if an individual has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live. This is what the nonviolent discipline says. And there is something about this that disarms the opponent and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

Another thing about this method is that it makes it possible for individuals to struggle to secure moral ends through moral means. One of the great debates of history has been over this whole question of ends and means. There have been those individuals who have argued that the end justifies the means. Sometimes the whole systems of government have gone down this path. I think this is one of the great weaknesses and tragedies of Communism; it is right here, that often the attitude that any method, any means can be used to bring about the goal of the classless society. This is where the nonviolent philosophy would break from Communism or any other system that argues that the end justifies the means, because in a real sense the end is pre-existent in the means. And the means represent the ideal in the making and the end in process. And somehow in the long run of history, immoral means cannot bring about moral ends. And so the nonviolent philosophy makes it possible for individuals to work to secure moral ends through moral means.

-The American Dream, Martin Luther King, Jr., February 5, 1964, Drew University

Also:

This is true in our international struggle. We look at the struggle, the ideological struggle between communism on the one hand and democracy on the other, and we see the struggle between America and Russia. Now certainly, we can never give our allegiance to the Russian way of life, to the communistic way of life, because communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. When we look at the methods of communism, a philosophy where somehow the end justifies the means, we cannot accept that because we believe as Christians that the end is pre-existent in the means. But in spite of all of the weaknesses and evils inherent in communism, we must at the same time see the weaknesses and evils within democracy.

Democracy is the greatest form of government to my mind that man has ever conceived, but the weakness is that we have never touched it. Isn’t it true that we have often taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes? Isn’t it true that we have often in our democracy trampled over individuals and races with the iron feet of oppression? Isn’t it true that through our Western powers we have perpetuated colonialism and imperialism? And all of these things must be taken under consideration as we look at Russia. We must face the fact that the rhythmic beat of the deep rumblings of discontent from Asia and Africa is at bottom a revolt against the imperialism and colonialism perpetuated by Western civilization all these many years. The success of communism in the world today is due to the failure of democracy to live up to the noble ideals and principles inherent in its system.

And this is what Jesus means when he said: “How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?” Or to put it in Moffatt’s translation: “How is it that you see the splinter in your brother’s eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?” And this is one of the tragedies of human nature. So we begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves.

-Loving Your Enemies, Martin Luther King, Jr.

It's not secret that almost all people are stubborn about their outlook on the world and reality (I am the king of this).  "Perception is reality" goes the saying.  I listened to a really good interview lately about how people are dead-set in their ways and really suggest you check it out:  

https://www.peakprosperity.com/peter-boghossian-how-to-have-impossible-conversations/

People do not formulate their beliefs on the basis of evidence. They think they do, but instead, they cherry pick pieces of information or pieces of data to support the beliefs they already have. The key thing to understand is that people formulate their beliefs because of some moral impulse, derived from a community to which they belong. They have a strong moral sense of why they ought to believe something. Arguing with evidence doesn’t work. That triggers something called the backfire effect — it’s well established in the literature — where people just hunker down or double down in their beliefs.

I was recently reading about that in a New Scientist piece. But it this idea that perception is reality can go much deeper than just politics.  It literally can take effect in preceding the physical matter in space differently according to our own biases. 

To end with the JP thing are three more points: 

1) This guy's impression of him is funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fcWGB-RABM

2) I can't find the lecture I watched it in, but there's another Road to Wigan Pier-type excerpt from Neitzsche (whom I have read zero of and whose name I can not spell) from his book Thus spoke Zarathustra that JP reads, and it's an interesting parable that gets at Orwells point about men who seek power for the benefit of others:

Thus I speak to you in a parable—you who make souls whirl, you preachers of equality.  To me you are tarantulas, and secretly vengeful. But I shall bring your secrets to light; therefore I laugh in your faces with my laughter of the heights. Therefore I tear at your webs, that your rage may lure you out of your lie-holes and your revenge may leap out from behind your word justice. For that man be delivered from revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.

The tarantulas, of course, would have it otherwise. "What justice means to us is precisely that the world be filled with the storms of our revenge"—thus they speak to each other. "We shall wreak vengeance and abuse on all whose equals we are not"—thus do the tarantula-hearts vow. "And 'will to equality' shall henceforth be the name for virtue; and against all that has power we want to raise our clamor!"

You preachers of equality, the tyrannomania of impotence clamors thus out of you for equality: your most secret ambitions to be tyrants thus shroud themselves in words of virtue.  Aggrieved conceit, repressed envy—perhaps the conceit and envy of your fathers — erupt from you as a flame and as the frenzy of revenge.

http://gnosischicago.blogspot.com/2013/06/nietzsche-on-tarantulas.html

3) Have you taken a look at his recommended reading list?  (https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/books/book-list/) I did for the first time last month, and was happy to learn that I've read a number of books on there, and was even at that time reading The Painted Bird by Jerry Kosinky - same guy who wrote Being There, the film of which we've discussed since. (Chance the Gardene at the party talking to the gay man: I love to watch.   "I'll go get Warren!")

Man's Search for Meaning is also good: http://www.dividedcore.com/non-fiction/2015/11/24/dachau-concentration-camp-and-mans-search-for-meaning.htm 

I've become less anthropocentric lately.  Meaning, I'm starting to care less about people and their stupid people problems.  You should hear the shit I have to deal with at work:  "blah blah blah blah blah, yada yada yada"  It's like, just shut the fuck up for once.  I've been trying to learn more about the non-human world and the other billions of species and mind-blowing forms of life that inhabit the planet.  Obviously I'm using the tools and knowledge (books, writing, digital media) developed by people in order to get there.  Some things come to mind when I say this.  Some natural history writers that I like: Martson Bates (you really should read Gluttons and Libertines, you'd love it.  Then check out the Forest and the Seas.  On top of that try to get a book called Science Made Stupid, it's fucking hilarious.  The writing Loren Elisey and Aldo Leopold are up there with with Ed Abbey in terms of their enjoyable writing on the wonders of the natural world.  Carl Sagan's Cosmo's has been really influential to me (as I write I'm burning you the MP3s to listen to (for your eternally-belated care package), but  by reading the book or watching the original series one can attain the same if not great impact.  The only magazine that I subscribe to and barely have time to read is New Scientist - it's great.  Last year I started, then stopped, but would like to finish Aristotle's History of Animals - pretty cool read.  At my night job, where I do most of my YouTube video watching while cleaning instruments on the weekends, I watch the amazing Eons series, which has really gotten me interested in deep time and paleontology, would highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzR-rom72PHN9Zg7RML9EbA).  (Separately, as an evil capitalist I watch a bunch of investing videos because I'm trying to figure out how to have my money make money.  Sometimes it's annoying to talk about money so apologies in advanced, but thanks to those Coronavirus videos by Chris Martenson I was able to see the economic crash coming, so quit while I was ahead and pulled all my money out.  Since then I've gone full-crypto as result of watching videos on digital currencies at work.  It's a gamble but if you're ever looking for an interesting bet you may want to look a bitcoin and ethereum.)   

Something related to all this is how I've changed in relation to our impact on the planet.  I used to think that we're killing the Earth and are totally doomed, and while that may be true especially when it comes to over-fishing, pollution (especially plastics in the oceans and industrial accidents like Fukushima), biodiversity loss, and waste as it relates to trade (https://www.localfutures.org/programs/global-to-local/insane-trade-short-film-factsheet/), and while we are always on the brink of a nuclear holocaust that can annihilate everything, I've slowly been leaning to a very controversial stance that things are not a bad as they seem when it comes to climate change and terrible weather events.  This is definitely a position that I'm still learning about and am trying to figure out where I stand because I don't know enough about it (especially the science ((for instance, check out these two episodes - One, Two -  if you want to get an idea of how difficult it is to wrap one's head around some of the climate stuff is) to adequately defend myself (my skepticism is fed and compounded by spending too much time on the Watts Up With That? site), but nowadays I kind of roll my eyes when I hear about how terrible the effects of carbon dioxide and how we need to overhaul the system for the greater good.  But I also recognize that I'm naturally a contrarian and that perception is reality so I probably won't believe anything anyone tells if I don't like them, and I usually like the underdogs (I have a Tulsi bumper sticker.  I think she's principled, which I dig in the same way I dug Ron Paul who is still working hard with an excellent podcast and YT show: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkJ1N-7g9Q6n7KnriGit-Ig  -- because of him I've lost all trust in central banks, the federal reserve, fiat currencies, and have been buying 5 silver coins each week from JM Bullion for the past three years or so).

I wasn't sure where to throw this quote in but in so I'll insert it here at the end.  All this talk about the world ending and shit going up in flames really remind me of two things:

1) The History of Rome  - how they must of felt during periods of their 1000 year roll from Republic to Empire.  I cannot recommend this podcast more: https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com 

2) My second favorite quote form Ivo Andric's noble prize-winning novel the Bridge on the Drina - an amazing novel that spans 400 year is is about a Bridge in modern-day Bosina.  (You should put that on your reading list too): 

Every human generation has its own illusions with regard to civilization; some believe that they are taking part in its upsurge, others that they are witnesses of its extinction.  In fact, it always both flames up and smoulders and is extinguished, according to the place and the angle of view. 

-http://www.dividedcore.com/fiction/2014/9/4/the-bridge-on-the-drina.html

Yes you have mentioned Ivan Illich to me.  I have Toward a History of Needs on my bookshelf but haven't read it yet.  I'm hoping there's a multi-month quarantine and I'll have the chance to catch up on some much need reading and writing.

Alright man, take care,

Aaron