May Write Away 5, 6, and 7

Ya get into a pattern and flake out for a few days, and suddenly you're playing massive catch-up.

Lately I've started becoming more comfortable with the prospect of being a Socialist.
I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment.
Especially after forty-plus years of it being treated like a curse word in my country, and as a result the scales of political balance becoming so UN-balanced in favor of business that they've pretty much fallen off the table.

Unfettered capitalism is nothing more or less than the pursuit of money (capital), without regard for human rights, safety, or the needs of anyone other than the one pursuing the money. Without oversight of an objective, enforcing legal body, capitalism is just a monetary equivalent of bestial eat-or-be-eaten instinct.

Of course, what American corporate capitalists have managed to do is buy out the supposed-to-be-objective legal body, and completely run roughshod over laws designed to protect the average person from exploitation, to say nothing of writing some new laws designed not only to exploit the average person, but prevent any kind of future oversight.

They've used their control of mass media to create a massive chunk of the American population who willingly shoot themselves in the foot again and again by supporting the corporatists, having been convinced that part of being a "real American" is acting against one's own and one's children's best interests, and these people are also indoctrinating their children with this idea.

Which is the truly insidious part.

I grew up in what I thought of at the time as a "very conservative" home.
Adulthood and Internet access has moderated that description to "fairly conservative," at least in the American sense of the term.

The older I get, the more Leftist my opinions become, especially due to the United States not truly possessing a hardline Leftist party.
The Democrats (at least, those who actually hold to their party's original standards and are not simply corporatist toadies in sheep's clothing) are basically Centrist compared to the rest of the world, especially as the Republicans continue to plow toward the cliff at the Rightwing end of the political spectrum.

Between the above state of things and the fact that pretty much everyone in the American federal government is wealthy beyond the dreams of the average person, there doesn't seem to be anyone to represent me and mine at the top of the heap.

And then there's Bernie Sanders.
Bernie's the longest-sitting Independent in the history of the United States Congress.
And he's a self-identified Socialist.
Which kind of confused me at first, being from a notch in the Bible Belt and seeing hundreds of posts online from frothing-at-the-mouth American conservatives swinging the term like a blunt instrument against anyone they didn't agree with.

The more I examine his actions as a Congressman and his stated opinions, the more I find myself agreeing and sharing them on Facebook, even as a voice in the back of my head seems to whisper "But that's really, reeeally Leftist".

But that's okay.

I think the only reason that voice is even still around is because I've spent so many years trying to avoid political labels and examine every issue and argument from as many sides as possible to avoid being pigeon-holed.
...not that it's been completely successful, especially since some people online will try to stamp you with a label of their choosing the moment your opinions clash with theirs.
This is especially true of self-identified "Christians" who can't help but No True Scotsman all over the place the instant they realize that another self-identified Christian is fighting against them.

I've always endeavored to find a balancing point between "Left" and "Right" as we Americans call them, because a great mentor of mine told me that pushing too hard on one side of a scale or the other makes you miss out on something the other side had to offer.

But as a country, we've tried it the hardline "Conservative" way for decades, and we're in a shambles as a result.
Time to overthrow and try it the hardline "Liberal" way for once.