What To Do If Bernie Does Not Win: Alternate title, The Tiger or the Fungus

As a writer and communicator, it is an unusual circumstance that finds me at a loss for words.  

Worse, I am at a loss for ideas.

If it comes down to Trump vs.  Clinton, the “lesser of two evils” concept will not apply.  Between these two ego driven minions of power hunger and divisiveness there is only evil; and evil not subject to degree.

The country has been under the oppression of a Clinton democratic machine dictatorship since 1992.  Between 2000 and 2016 that machine in the form of the Clinton foundation has run the Democratic Party biding its time for a third and fourth term.   In these years since 1992, we have seen the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to a handful of way too rich greedy corporate hogs than ever before in the history of the nation.  We have seen an exacerbation of the hideous war on drugs (really on the poor and especially non-white poor.)  Due to this disgraceful war on drugs, we now have more incarcerated people than any other nation in the world.

We have seen numerous trade deals whose sole intended purpose was to enrich corporations with the “unintended” consequence of the theft of millions of good paying manufacturing jobs from Americans.  All this sacrifice of the middle class lies on the altar of the billionaire handful.

Big Pharma is ripping off Americans as in no other country in the world.  Medicare is prevented by law from negotiating costs, and these criminal corporations do not even have to disclose how they arrive at their pricing.  Name one other industry with that amount of privilege.  Bill Clinton opened wide the FDA door to pharmaceutical industry abuse in 1997.  Since then these profit driven criminals blanket the TV with direct to customer advertising misleading the public in their marketing zeal and endangering us all with drugs often more unsafe than the very street drugs against which the country has been at war for 35 long wasteful years.

Our roads, bridges, schools, drinking water delivery systems, waste management, environmental protections, railroads, airports and all other manner of infrastructure are in such dangerous disrepair that we must be deeply ashamed of ourselves. The sole cause of this is greedy neglect.

The cost of a college degree is so expensive that the young face the choice of being deprived of the education or burdening themselves with debt often equal to that of a home mortgage.

Wages, relative to inflation, are lower than any time in the last 40 years and people are forced to work longer hours and multiple jobs for a bare existence.  Quality affordable day care is practically non-existent.  As a result of this obscene transfer of wealth our culture has suffered a mortal blow.  The chief casualty of these Clinton “new democrat” years has been the end of hope and opportunity in America.

While the Affordable care Act of Obama has taken a small step in the right direction, big Pharma and private medical insurance companies are raking it in as never before.   Worst of all, it is still abusively impossibly expensive  for an unfortunate person of any age and mostly the elderly to become sick.  Only in America.

Clinton claims to care about the climate and the planet.  Yet she traveled the globe as secretary of state promoting the most dangerous of fossil fuel exploitation:  fracking.   She slops at the trough of the fossil fuel industry.  The most egregious proof of her hypocrisy about climate change:   the endorsement of Clinton by the Koch brothers.

Foreign policy is a disaster.  As secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has championed the Clinton/ Bush/Cheney doctrine of Middle East regime change. This disgraceful misguided policy has cost thousands of brave American service men and women’s lives.  Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed not to mention displaced, maimed, dislocated, made homeless and families destroyed.   I argue that our uninvited meddlesome intervention has stoked the fires of radical Islam hatred of western values and created power vacuums which have enabled the establishment of the ISIS caliphate and its satellite beachheads.  That in turn has directly caused the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War.  Ask the Europeans.

Moreover, America has wasted trillions of dollars which could have been used to repair our infrastructure, resurrect our manufacturing base, and provide relief to the poorest longest suffering Americans:  the young, the old, and those stuck in permanent war zone neighborhoods.

There will be those who ask how can the Clintons be blamed for all this?   Here is their crime:  they have stood idly by in the service of their banking Wall Street corporate billionaire buddies and done absolutely nothing to help the helpless. (Hillary Clinton earns more money giving speeches to the financial vultures than many earn in a lifetime and then has the nerve to refuse to reveal the transcripts.  Why occlude if there is nothing to hide?)  If government does not step in to attempt to right this gross malfeasance, who has the will and the resources to do so?  

All this being said, the Clintons have the audacity to champion the status quo and slow incremental change.  Where has that gotten us since 1992?

I accuse the Clintons of callous gross negligence of the people in most dire need in favor of great benefits to the most advantaged.

Now, I consider the alternative.

As an independent who has generally sided with democrats, I readily admit the murky unfathomable mean and hateful depth of the republican assault is not something I am able to understand or explain.

Out of nowhere comes Trump. The behavior of  this disgraceful, foul, racist, unconstitutional, violent, erratic and divisive would be demagogue is so well known that it does not need repeating here.   Even Republicans are horrified and appalled.

So, I will dig very deeply and try to find some positives, if any.  First and foremost, as a self financed billionaire, he is not owned by the same corporate interests served enthusiastically by the Clintons. Furthermore Trump opposed and opposes the Clinton corporate trade deals which have gutted the workforce of America and led to massive unemployment and underemployment.   Now to foreign policy.  Trump is a cheap businessman.  He sees money as a means to power.  (The Clintons see power as their ultimate ego gratification.)  I find it difficult to believe Trump would squander trillions of dollars on foreign misadventures.  In this regard, he is not the war monger that the Clinton neo conservative consortium (some of the same players in the Bush/ Cheney conspiracy) clearly is.  There can be no doubt about it, the last thing this nation needs is more endless Middle East warfare, regime change, and entanglement.  The one biggest positive that I can dredge up about Trump is simply that he is not the Clinton machine.  Enough is enough!  If the overreaching power of this oozing invasive fungus is not stopped now, then when?

So, to coin a phrase, I am stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea.  Another way to put it is trapped between the tiger and the fungus.  The tiger is big, aggressive, boisterous, orange and extremely dangerous.  The fungus is sneaky.  It exists as an attachment to the host.  The fungus tendrils have been gripping us for too many years.  The fungus is clandestine and subtle, so much so that many are not even consciously aware of it though it influences every aspect of our lives.

All this rambling soul searching leaves me fragmented, dissatisfied, and frankly confused.  Which is worse:  the tiger or the fungus?   The tiger wants to feast on your bones.  The fungus already has. The tiger consumes its victim rapidly.  The fungus allows the victim to live, just barely, in order to perpetually feast.

I try to conclude my writings with some offering of a positive notion.  Today, that is not in the cards.