A pragmatist is the guy in front of the firing squad who asks for a blindfold: “If you can’t see the firing party, perhaps it isn’t happening!” Channel surfing the other night (without a blindfold) I caught two political events on C-SPAN.
On one channel I caught who I call ‘The Mad Queen’ at her campaign event in New Hampshire. Standing behind her (not wearing a blindfold) was Senator ‘Feel the Bern’ Sanders. He told the world he was now endorsing ‘The Mad Queen’ Hillary. Wonder how many of those nice, decent young and old Bernistas felt like wearing a blindfold? After all, they know how much ‘The Mad Queen’ is the antithesis of what they and their (once) fearless leader stand for. Well, let’s say half of what he stands for. You see, ‘Feel the Bern‘ Sanders had to run as a Democrat because he did what all of the other Democratic politicians are doing; which is to remain silent on our obscene foreign policy. More damaging than that to anyone who calls himself or herself a ‘progressive‘ is to wear a blindfold on the highest amount of military spending ever, which is happening under Mr. ‘Change We Can Believe In‘ Obama.
Surfing to the next C-SPAN channel, I caught a live campaign event in Indiana for ‘Il Duce With The Orange Comb Over.’ Check out old film clips of Mussolini giving speeches (here) and then watch ‘The Donald Duce’ (here). Amazing the similarities . . . except of course the original Duce did not continually repeat statements one after the other like ours does.
The ‘Donald Duce‘ likes to strut around taking the bit from Teddy Roosevelt and rearranging it to say, “Walk loudly and carry a big stick.” His a-hole wall and his Islamophobia, while promising to Make Amerika Better, seem to carry the day. What the working stiffs who support ‘Donald Duce‘ do not realize is that the jobs he intends to ‘Make Amerika Better‘ with will be more of the same dead-end jobs with bum paychecks . . . and most likely part- time with no benefits.
We have become a nation that is more laughable than any Woody Allen satire (here). With a compliant sellout media in place 24/7, the suckers are fed this total “He said, she said” distraction until the first week in November.
Two super rich deviates, one a billionaire and one just a multi-millionaire, are telling you to follow them to happy days are here again . The skeletons and dirty laundry they both carry with them will factor out any total disgust by the majority of the electorate . . . while a more enlightened minority will see through the crapola and vote Green Party or Libertarian or some other third party alternative. Yet, all those wonderful pragmatists out there will continually tell us, “Yours can’t win so wear a blindfold“.
“A sucker is born . . . every four years!” paraphrased from P.T. Barnum.
Philip A Farruggio is a semi-retired baby boomer born and bred in blue collar Brooklyn, NYC. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn longshoremen, and educated at “free tuition” Brooklyn College, class of ’74. Philip has written more than 300 columns since 2001 and his work is found on many fine progressive sites like World News Trust, Nation of Change, Information Clearinghouse, Intrepid Report, Sleuth Journal, Dandelion Salad, Counterpunch and Dissident Voice.
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