Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont spoke this morning (10/18/13) at a union hall in Atlanta, to
an enthusiastic full house. The points he made in his talk and the
town hall-like Q & A, though pretty wide-ranging, highlighted a
couple items: extremist republican ideologues look around and
realize, hell, we can't ask people to vote for us so we can gut
social security, medicare-medicade, veterans benefits, ship U.S. jobs
to China and cut taxes for the wealthy. The people in poll after poll
show that the country is united by large majorities in favor of these
programs, want them protected, and oppose tax-cuts for billionaires
and corporations. Even the tea party opposes social security cuts,
individual members, not the billionaire-funded “leadership”. So,
how can we divide them, they say, and get them to vote against their
own interests? The best they can come up with, and it has been
working so far, are the issues of gay rights and abortion.
Now, Bernie says, we can
agree to disagree and argue about gay rights and abortion, but when
it comes to social security, medicare-medicade, we are together and
we shouldn't let them divide us. And that message will resonate with
voters. That of course is why you don't hear it in the corporate
media. Bernie holds a press conference with the president of the
AFL-CIO, a union representing 12 million workers. No coverage. Yet
billionaire-funded thinktanks are consulted everyday for their
manufactured opinions. One person pointed out that though people are
often opposed to Obama-care they support the Affordable
Care Act, (one and the same of course) a testament to the
effectiveness of corporate, right-wing propaganda. Bernie's opinion
is that the Right's hysteria comes out of a fear that the Act might
actually work and be popular. That would send the wrong message, from
their point of view, that government can actually benefit working
people. In Georgia, the governor is refusing to participate in a
program that would cost the state zero funds and provide health care
for hundreds of thousands of people. Is denying gay rights worth
trading for health care? Obviously they have to frame that one in a
way that exploits people's prejudices or ignorance.
And here is the
indictment of the extremist agenda: they actually believe that there
should be NO minimum wage, NO social security, NO veteran's benefits,
NO environmental protection, NO regulation of banks or corporations,
NO free education, No healthcare, and NO taxation for the wealthy
class. This ideology comes from the billionaires who spread it by
funding right-wing think tanks and exploiting discontent to create
The Tea Party, funding buyable candidates and opponents of
non-buyable politicians. The Supreme Court's Citizen United
decision has made this anti-democratic effort even more effective.
When someone has more
money than they, and even their heirs, could spend in a lifetime,
what drives them to want more and to push policies that impoverish
everyone else? To Bernie, this is a mystery but we, the progressive
community, are, to use a football metaphor, on the ten-yard line
trying to prevent their greedy and ghoulish goal.
How did a socialist get
elected to the senate in Vermont? They have the money and the
influence that can buy elections, stack the courts, own the media and
so control the discussion but we have the grass roots. Sanders
said that he knocked on every door in Vermont and that's what it
takes, that kind of organizing. He'd go into homes, sit down, say
shut off the TV and let's talk... talk about those issues that unite
us, jobs, social security, fairness. We are all mostly workers and we
are being screwed. 95% of the profits that have come from increased
productivity over the last ten years have gone to the 1%. 38% of the
wealth in the U.S. is in the hands of the 1% while only 2% is owned
by the bottom 60%. Many workers are making less in wages than they
were making twenty years ago, with longer hours, less benefits, less
pay, more work. We've got to stop sending people to congress who will
perpetuate these inequalities. Bernie's trip south is an attempt to
defy the status-quo assumption that the south is “red” and
jump-start a movement to reverse the march backward towards a pre-New
Deal nation, and the third-worldization of the whole world.
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