Acclimated Behaviorisms

Lately, I find myself speculating about the possibility that perhaps the increase of global temperature and the human complicity through the acceleration of carbon release are having an effect on the thinking and behavior of people. There has seemingly always been a divide between what we humans claim we want and believe and what we do, but in these times that disconnectedness seems to have been raised into what might be called a most prominent characteristic of our species. The disconnect seems to infuse the great majority of political posturing and the majority of the supposed bandwidth of our political leanings.

Are we becoming becoming crazier from the heat? Will we reach a point where consciousness is impossible? Are our technological advances in communication and travel reducing our consciousness while we are only imagining that we are more informed and more in touch?

It has been dumbfounding to me to watch the extravagant awfulness of the growing global desperate grasping for strategic impunity and more domination (which is very prominently displayed by the fake “bipartisan” corporate capitalism of Washington – there is one corporate team playing against itself). Devious shifting and outright thuggery are the preferred methods of crushing any movements which might bring about democratization and environmentally responsible behavior. This really is nothing new, but it is now running on heavily marketed corporate snake oil.

Enter Bernie Sanders – Again.

Someone decided that Mr. Sanders should speak at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on Tuesday October 9th. In what has been characterized as a “rebuke” of all things Trump, Mr. Sanders worked to highlight the rise of Trump-like “demagogues” and their “oligarchic authoritarianism” in numerous nations and to emphasize that people who believe in democracy need to be united in working against these corporatized bigots. On the surface, this speech seems to be focussed in a good direction, but as I read the words of Mr. Sanders and his insistence that the rise of these predators around the planet should be seen as connected to Trump, I could not help but see that Sanders is still continuing to turn a blind eye to the reality of the role of republicans and democrats alike in helping to bring us to this low level of debauchery.

Here are some of his words,

“While the leaders who make up this AXIS (emphasis added) may differ in some respects, they share key attributes: intolerance toward  ethnic and religious minorities, hostility toward democratic norms, antagonism toward a free press, constant paranoia about foreign  plots, and the belief that the leaders of government should be able to use their positions of power to serve their own selfish financial  interests.

Interestingly, many of these leaders are also deeply connected to a network of multibillionaire oligarchs who see the world as their economic plaything.”

In the above quote, there is only one aspect of the list of corruptions – the blatant expression of intolerance toward religious and ethnic minorities – which was not also part of Hillary Clinton’s career and the work of the DNC, but nowhere is there a condemnation of the democrats leadership in Mr Sander’s diatribe. We are supposed to blame Trump, the republicans, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, Vladimir Putin. the Saudis,….. but not one word of blame was aimed at any democrats or their multibillionaire oligarchic manipulators. There is a mention of the democrats’ favored billionaire oligarch George Soros, but Sanders preferred to portray him as a victim of unjust name-calling.

From climate crisis to the bloated military budget to economic injustices, Sanders blames “the right wing” and seems determined to make sure that “the right wing” continues to be code for republicans. He is leading people to not associate the democrats with these corruptions. The ends justify the means to Sanders through his use of words as bait in order to hook people into the corporately controlled democrat creel.

The seeming irony is that, by trying to get us to swallow this blatant  misrepresentation of how we came to be in this toxic global environment which is full of democrat and republican conniving and fraudulence, Sanders is playing the same game as Trump and the variety of nefarious predators who he seems to be assailing. However, this manipulating tactic is now so common that it cannot truly be described as ironic because calling it irony would imply that the purpose of the speeches by Trump and by Sanders have side-effects which were not intended and I have no way of believing that either of these men or their faking parties are desiring to or capable of doing what is necessary to challenge the corporate owned and corporately determined course. The end result is more of the same.

Sanders claims to be an independent, but his independence is primarily limited to the method of using leftist words in order to reinforce the foolish delusion that the democrats are the necessary alternative while they continue to share the same capitalizing predatory militarizing economic method of grasping for privatized global domination as do their republican allies. There is no progressive movement possible when you cling to any organization which enables private control by a tiny minority of craven corporate manipulators.

In his explosion of hot air Sanders shows that he is still incapable of addressing the situation realistically. Until he admits that he is still being complicit in maintaining the very corruption which he defines – in a very slanted manner – the chances for what he says he wants to happen will continue to shrink. His DNC-loving knack for inspiring people is just that. A knack which he continues to use for the benefit of the super-delegated undemocratic version of corporate republicanism.

Trump and Sanders and their preferred affiliated privatized pseudo-political parties represent the failure of our species to evolve beyond our acclimation to the corrosive toxicity which underlies the seemingly unavoidable escalation of degradation. Clearly, the addiction to the drug known as free market capitalism causes people to believe stimulating manipulated words are the proof of responsible action when they are merely buzzwords which, whether intentional or not, reduce our likelihood of behaving responsibly.