Never mind Bernie Sanders, pundits are mentioning Andrew Yang’s plan to GIVE every American $1000 a month as the US contemplates the Wall Street fall-out from the Corona Virus – although, due to a lack of testing materials, only 500 cases have been reported in the US.
How would a ‘democratic’ government handle 5000 cases? Two Senators have self-quarantined after attending a Republican event at the same time as a person who tested positive, even as a few of their colleagues dare to mention the need to extend paid sick leave — usually limited to a few days a year! — in order to keep factories running, not to mention subsidizing companies so that they continue to pay workers even if they stay at home because they are missing crucial production elements.
As a cruise ship with infected passengers drifts off the California coast awaiting permission to dock ‘SOMEWHERE’, setting of NIMBY’S (‘not in my backyard’) across the area, failed Democratic candidates continue to shamelessly fall in behind Joe Biden in order to block the possibility of a declared social democrat entering the White House. Even Elizabeth Warren appears tempted to endorse the former Vice-President, who can hardly pronounce a sentence without hesitating, (‘stuttering’) hoping to implement her plans by become his running mate.
While every screaming indicator should propel the ‘socialist’ to a swift victory in the delegate count, the Land of the Free comes face to face with the fact that it can no more dictate Saudi-Russian oil prices than it can predict the future of a virus, losing its grip on the capitalist economy while resisting the transformation of government into a savior of last resort.
Putting its faith in one man — a seventy-seven year old who is running for the third time to be president — on the strength of his association with the former community organizer who showed how to turn left-leaning aspirations into effective centrist cooperation — a crucial swathe of voters could just as easily crown Bernie as they did Trump, is likely once again to vote against its interests.
How could this be happening? Bernie continued to build support after being maneuvered into defeat in 2016, but did not use those four years to explain the differences between capitalism, communism and the myriad governing philosophies in between which have enabled the majority of citizens in certain capitalist economies to flourish. Now it’s too late to reveal the fact that Sweden — or some other Nordic country — has the highest happiness rate. And it will take another four years for the American people to become familiar with the theories and practices that made this possible during the hundred year period that followed the ‘Bolshevik’ (translated as ‘majority’) Revolution.
Meanwhile, elderly Americans are at risk from a bacterium, while emergency policies that would have been routine for a government having the upper hand over private enterprise, flounder under the leadership of a president who brags about his ‘medical abilities’, issuing orders based on his ‘instincts’ — or rather, his determination to prevent a stock market crash that would take him down with it.
Tragically, Democratic talking points appear less relevant than Aesop’s fables, which American children still learn about, and which taught the lower classes of Athenian society to save themselves from the powerful using their free will. Two millennia later Luther argued for the supremacy of reason to justify an individual relationship to God, followed by Marx and Engels who based socialism on its power. In defiance of these sages, at a time when nature points to the need for a well organized government, Americans are still being warned about ‘The Bolshevik Threat’.
P.S. You can find how Iceland, which was on the front-line in the 2008 economic meltdown, is handling the virus here.
Deena Stryker is a US-born international expert, author and journalist that lived in Eastern and Western Europe and has been writing about the big picture for 50 years. Over the years she penned a number of books, including Russia’s Americans. Her essays can also be found at Otherjones. Especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
