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I love socialism, in the broad sense of the term. I’m not a huge fan of communism, though I don’t think it’s necessarily evil; if it works for certain countries — perhaps at a certain stage of their evolution or during a crisis — then up with communism. I certainly don’t think communism is worse than free market capitalism, which is killing the planet.

To summarize the opening paragraph, I love socialism, and I actively support it. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who did more to support Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Fidel Castro is another of my heroes, and Che Guevara was perhaps the ultimate political rock star. Kudos to Chavez’ Latin American allies, to Chile’s Salvador Allende and the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba.

So why don’t you hear me cheering for Bernie Sanders and Seattle’s Kshama Sawant?

The answer is simple: They aren’t socialists.

Sorry, I don’t have time to offer an exhaustive investigative report supporting my claim. As a veteran political activist, I can smell those clowns a mile away. But for newcomers to the political arena, I’ll offer a few observations.

First, you really should run for public office some day; it’s a very educational experience. You’ll discover that the election process is even more corrupt than you thought. You probably know the media are corrupt — so why do you vote for candidates who have been endorsed by the corporate media (including the so-called alternative media), candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Kshama Sawant? And why would they even deign to attend media endorsement interviews when they should be blowing the whistle on the media?

I’ve been a candidate for three offices, the Seattle School Board, the Washinton State Superintendent of Public Insruction and Washington State Governor. I speak from vast experience when I tell you that getting elected to the lowly Seattle School Board is probably more difficult than climbing Mt. Everest barefoot. A combination of establishment corruption and public apathy and stupidity ensures that only people vetted by corporations will be (s)elected to the School Board.

But elections aren’t just about getting elected. I’ve continued to run for office against all odds, partly because it’s an educational experience — for both me and the relatively people who listen to what I have to say. And I once again speak from vast experience when I tell you the establishment does everything in its power to silence you. When I run for office the media spend about 5% of their time insulting me, the other 95% of the time ignoring me.

And it gets worse. My websites and even my laptop have been hacked. I’ve been widely censored on the Internet. I’ve even received death threats.

So how much harder must it be to get elected to the Seattle City Council, where Sawant now sits? Getting elected to state office is harder still, and do you really think the plutocrats who control our government would allow a genuine reformer to get one tenth as much publicity as Bernie Sanders has received?

Not convinced? Let’s take a closer look at Bernie Sanders, Kshama Sawant and a mystery socialist, Mary Martin.

Bernie Sanders

There’s an infamous video of Bernie Sanders “grilling” Alan Greenspan that says it all. I haven’t watched the entire video; I simply hit a brick wall when Sanders suddenly stops the grilling and says “You’re an honest person — I think you just don’t know what’s going on in the real world.” (You can hear his words at about :40 in this video.)

If you have a brain, it shouldn’t be hard to understand my disgust. Greenspan served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades. During that time, he must have read newspapers and magazine articles. He probably watched himself on TV many times. He probably fielded thousands of questions and tirades from the public. And he didn’t know what was going on?

It’s worth noting that Greenspan and Sanders are both Jews. That isn’t a crime by itself, but the scope of Jewish influence on the U.S. government is frankly frightening.

The Federal Reserve was created by Jews. If you don’t understand the significance of that bit of information, don’t feel bad; it was many years before I finally got it.

If you visit Bernie Sanders’ website @ berniesanders.com, you’ll discover that he tackles quite a few issues. That’s an obvious plus. But if you take a closer look, you might find a few question marks.

In 2007, a firebrand named Obama made a lot of promises — promises that were quickly forgotten after he got elected. So how much of Sanders’ commentary is just empty rhetoric?

Sanders says, “The U.S. must do everything it can to make certain that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, that a nuclear Iran does not threaten Israel, and to prevent a nuclear arms race in the region.”

So what does Sanders have to say about Israel’s nuclear weapons? And what about Israel’s continuing threats against Iran? And where’s Bernie’s proof that Iran is building a nuclear bomb?

Sanders certainly doesn’t meet my standards for activist websites. He doesn’t have anything similar to my Politix 101 series, and his site isn’t particularly well organized. Nor does Sanders sound the alarm on the corporate media or other enemies of the republic political newbies should be warned about.

If you take the time to do a little research, you can find plenty of holes in the Bernie Sanders myth. Though I haven’t fact-checked all their claims, the articles Bringing together criticism of Bernie Sanders and The Myth of Bernie Sanders (CounterPunch) are a good beginning.

And, no, I don’t really consider CounterPunch a reputable website. It’s an example of the alternative media that work hand-in-hand with the corporate media. Yet the alternative media are typically a better source of information, and they have to get at least some of their facts right in order to perpetuate the illusion that they’re truthmongers. Ironically, the alternative media are generally Sanders’ biggest supporters. So read the article and draw your own conclusions.

Kshama Sawant

The most apathetic, stupid and self-centered people on the planet live in Seattle. I learned that lesson after I transformed from a mild-mannered teacher into a political activist and candidate for public office. “Deal with it” should be the city’s official motto.

It’s so bad that I long ago gave up on ever finding intelligent life in this wretched metropolis of corporate pigs and homeless victims.

Yet every few years, the media start pumping out exciting news about the latest political activist to light up the political scene, and the stupefied populace goes wild.

I remember the night I was on my way to work when I heard horns honking and wild cheering in celebration of Obama’s election. “Clueless idiots,” I muttered to myself as I continued on my way.

Today, Seattleites’ eyes glaze over when they hear the magic name BERNIE SANDERS. Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid spawned its biggest rally in the city of dim bulbs.

But Sanders has competition from another self-advertised socialist, Kshama Sawant. Actually, they support each other.

Widely promoted as a “firebrand,” Kshama popped up out of nowhere several years ago and got elected to the Seattle City Council.

Sawant is the first socialist elected to public office in Seattle since Anna Louise Strong was elected to the Seattle School Board in 1916. Strong’s colleagues organized a recall campaign, which ended her political career. But don’t expect a similar ending to the Sawant charade.

The logical place to search for information on Kshama Sawant is the Internet, and what better place to begin than her website?

In fact, her campaign website was located at www.kshamasawant.org. Unfortunately, the site is now as vacant as her supporters’ brains. I thought it would be fun to buy the domain kshamasawant.com and use it to ridicule Sawant. However, I discovered that she owns it. Click on this link and see what happens: www.kshamasawant.com

That’s right; you’re redirected to www.kshamasawant.org. Two websites without a shred of information.

Of course, you can always check her official City Council page. Click the “Welcome” link and you’ll see a whopping four paragraphs of rhetoric. The first and last paragraphs emphasize Sawant’s support of the $15 minimum wage. More about that shortly.

There’s also a link to an official City Council blog, where you can find an ongoing stream of rhetoric and propaganda.

OK, what about that $15 minimum wage? Exactly: What about it?!

The $15 minimum wage isn’t a particularly complex or divisive issue. You probably could’t find a single elected official in Seattle who’s against. In fact, simple logic dictates that it couldn’t have been enacted unless a majority voted for it. So why is Kshama being singled out for all the praise?

She was simply looking for a lame issue to hitch her wagon to — similar to Bill Gates’ eternal claim that he wants to help education.

Speaking of Bill Gates, don’t expect Kshama to defy the local taboo against criticizing Seattle’s Godfather, especially when her ex-husband works for Microsoft. Kshama herself is a former software engineer. (That may explain why she doesn’t have a credible personal website.) Oh, yes — she’s from India, the source of much of Microsoft’s labor. A conspiracy theorist might suspect that Bill Gates himself appointed Kshama Sawant to the Seattle City Council.

I read somewhere that Sawant called for the break up of Microsoft. What a daring statement!

But it was just empty rhetoric. There’s little or no mention of Microsoft on her City Council site and no information at all on her two personal websites.

Sawant could point out that she wasn’t endorsed by the all powerful Seattle Times. A conspiracy theorist could then counter that it was planned that way, because such an endorsement would make her look like an insider. In fact, Sawant was endorsed by the Zionist tabloid The Stranger.

Check out the The Stranger’s search page. I’ve run for office ten times and am by far Seattle’s most vocal political activist. But if you type my name into the search box (as of May 28, 2016), you get 25 hits, all of them either insults or comments posted by me. Type in Kshama Sawant, and you get 2,200 hits.

This suggests that if I dropped all my issues and began campaigning for a $15 minimum wage instead, The Stranger might support me. The only problem is that Sawant has dibs on that issue.

Mary Martin

Our third mystery socialist is Mary Martin, who is currently running for the office of Washington State Governor. She apparently ran for the same office in 2012, though the details are as sketchy as Kshama Sawant’s personal website.

The article Why Mary Martin (SWP) Will Never Win the Washington Governor’s Race says it all. No one knows what Mary Martin’s issues are. No one knows what she looks like. She’s a member of the Socialist Workers Party, and that’s all the voters need to know.

Game’s up!

Let me explain what’s going on.

The corporate media and associated scum are playing two games. First, they want disenfranchised Americans to think they’re actually represented in government. So they recruit some dirtbags to pose as socialists. They’re actually examples of controlled opposition (aka fake leaders).

At the same time, they don’t want socialism to really catch on, so they recruit people like Mary Martin to play bizarre games. But it isn’t just Mary Martin; corporate interests have infiltrated most political parties, just as they’ve corrupted all our unions. (That reminds me of a photo I saw on Sawant’s City Council page that shows her posing with teachers carrying signs advertising the Seattle Education Association, which I can only describe as a parasite.)

So, please, don’t let people like Bernie Sanders, Kshama Sawant and Mary Martin sour you on socialism. In the broad sense of the term, socialism is cool. Only a fool would prefer free market capitalism to regulated capitalism, a so-called mixed economy or some economic system that somehow incorporates elements of socialism.

I am a socialist, and I would love to take on Sanders, Sawant and Martin to a debate. I’d take all three on at the same time.

Of course, they’d never accept my challenge. Will you?

P.S. To learn about socialism, please visit www.geobop.com/socialism. If it isn’t online yet, it will be soon.

Would you like to comment on my campaign, the election in general or some political issue that interests you? This is the place to do it.

The rules are pretty logical. I’ll handle obscenities and “hate speech” on a case by case basis. I place far more value on intelligence and intent.

If you’re interested in promoting reform, supporting the revolution or having an intelligent conversation, welcome aboard. If you’re a right-winger or a Seattle liberal who just wants to broadcast your stupidity, go away.

If you just want to insult me, apply for a job with the Seattle Times, the Seattle Weekly or The Stranger.

And don’t cry censorship if I don’t publish your comment. I can’t count the websites that have censored me and even banned me. This is MY forum, and I make the rules.