Letters to friends :: Eliminate everything that doesn’t serve you.

Ever since 2016 I have been a huge fan of the American politician Bernie Sanders. He’s a US senator running for president of the United States. In 2016 he almost beat establishment favorite Hillary Clinton in the primaries to be the nominee of the Democratic Party. Thanks to some blatant cheating on the part of the Democratic National Covention and thanks to the mainstream media Bernie Blackout he lost. Hillary was a candidate lots of people pretty much hated or were lukewarm about at best, so Trump won. Trump is good for business, and every little totally irrelevant news bit about the latest stupid, megalomaniac or outright false tweet Trump sent out, helped the media make profit like almost never before. The mainstream media crowned Trump the king of the US, helped by Hillary’s own boundless arrogance and sense of entitlement. She still blames Bernie for her loss to Trump.

Bernie is having a new go at clinging the Democratic nomination. I become very emotional about this. I want the guy to win.

Why?

He is the only candidate, apart from Tulsi Gabbard, who poses a threat to business as usual.

By business as usual I mean:

the way both the Republicans and the Democrats represent the interests of the superrich in the US. They may publicly bicker over abortion, LGBT rights and gun control, but economically they are Plan A and Plan A light.

What is plan A? Everything needs to be set up in a way that the superrich benefit. The Republicans do this openly and aggressively. The Democrats pretend to fighting for working people, while at the same time doing the bidding of the superrich, just like the Republicans.

They have been able to do this very easily, because the superrich control the mainstream media, famous politicians like Hillary Clinton all have their friends and allies in the mainstream media, and policies that benefit the poor are kept out of the mainstream media. This system is slowly crumbling because alternative news sources have popped up online.

People like Joe Rogan, Jimmy Dore, Lee Camp, Abby Martin or the journalists from the show Rising, or The Humanist Report, and many others are basically hosting talk shows out of their garage in some cases. They are becoming more credible and more popular than CNN or MSNBC or other mainstream news outlets.

Well, I got obsessed.

I have started wearing Bernie T-shirts, I started posting 20 times a day on Instagram to promote Bernie Sanders. I even have a Facebook page called PEP Talk For Berners.

Why?

Because:

• I detest the fact that the mainstream media is completely misrepresenting Bernie Sanders. They are simply not being objective. They manipulate titles of articles to give his name a negative ring. They keep representing him as a fringe candidate that has no chance to win the election. Remember when all the ‘experts’ and pundits said the same thing about Trump? God, am tired of hearing people say what they are so, so, so sure is going to happen on election day…
• He genuinely cares about people. He’s probably the only candidate who is in it to create a better society and not just to please his own ego. His campaign slogan is the only genuine one: #notmeus
• His policies make sense. I don’t know if they are the best possible solution in the long term, but right now something needs to be done IF we care about people. About 60,000 Americans are dying because of a widespread opioid crisis. Why? Because they are DESPERATE. Americans don’t have savings. Many live paycheck to paycheck. A college education has become an adventure where you may consider selling one of your kidneys if you are to make it through without accumulating a life long debt. People work long hours, see their taxes go to the military (60 percent of what Americans pay in taxes goes to the military) and not to things that would actually benefit them.
• Am fucking tired of hearing Americans equate standard Social Democratic policies with Stalinist communism. It’s the laziest possible argument against Bernie Sanders. ‘He’s a socialist.’ These people like to compare the US to Venezuela. Are you kidding me? What’s happening in Venezuela has no relevance for the US and Bernie’s propositions.
• I honestly think a Bernie presidency would benefit lots of working people, would counter racism, bigotry, American interference in other countries’ elections, would reduce the military, would prevent war, etc

But now a word on the title of this post: Eliminate everything that does not serve you.

On a macro level I see lots of people struggling. Lots of people are struggling to make ends meet. Most people are probably doing a job they are not too excited about, but they have embraced their job because it pays the bills. It saddens me that people are all running after a bit of money via a job and then spend their hard earned money on some short trip or other short term pleasure to escape from the drudgery of it all.

On a micro level I am just like everybody else, also running in the rat race to have SOME financial security. Hell, maybe a pension some day. HA!

In that sense posting stuff to promote Bernie on Instagram doesn’t help me at all. This week I even forgot about a class I had scheduled with one of my students, because the first thing I do in the morning is post Bernie stuff on Instagram. Not check my agenda.

Nobody is paying me to support Bernie Sanders, no matter how dearly I love the guy and everything he stands for.

So I have reached the conclusion that the limited brain capacity I have should go to supporting my family.

I have deleted the Instragram app. I have also deleted the Twitter and Facebook app.

It will also shut my eyes to the kindergarten mentality that reigns on social media.

I can get 200 likes on Instragram per day, or I can get 200 dollars per day, doing actual work.

Let the trolls take over social media and waste their time while I am making money. Not much, am not designing weapons for the IOF (The Israeli Offensive Forces), am just a teacher and a coach/therapist, based in a low wage country, Slovakia, so I have no illusions, but I do wish to make as much money as I possibly can with my very limited and commerically nearly usesless skill set. Caring for people will not get you much money. That’s the sad irony of the human economic system. The more dehumanised your commerical activity is, the more money you will be able to make with it.

So if this passage has any conclusion it’s something in the vein of:

Am eliminating social media, because it simply doesn’t get me anything, it damages me and my family, and the most active people online are truly the unhappiest.

I swear, the more frequently somebody posts on a social media platform the more miserable they are.

Happy people are not super active on social media.

They are too busy doing things that are making them happy.

I have also decide that this website will become nothing more than a place where my friends – if I have any – can get an update as to how am doing. Later I would be happy if my son and – maybe – his future siblings could come here to know more about their father, maybe get a bit of wisdom here and there.

If any stranger out there benefits from what is on this site I will be grateful too.

What I would also like to add is that I still have the strong belief that an invidual human can make something out of his or her life, but that as the human race we are probably doomed. The most stupid people are the most vocal, and the most selfish, corrupt, narcissistic people get into positions of power…

My prediction for the 2020 presidential election in the US? Bernie is the only candidate that can beat Trump, BUT the Democratic Party, helped by the mainstream media, will bar him from becoming the nominee. They will run a so called ‘centrist’ candidate against Trump that few people will be truly enthusiastic about, and Trump will win, just like in 2016.