| Submit your comments on this article |
| Bernie Shoots His Socialist Mouth Off |
| 2004-02-21 |
| Somewhat edited for length. Like most leftwingers, Bernie Sanders take a lot of writing to say so little... How do we build a political movement in this country that represents all of the people and not a handful of millionaires? Cut taxes and a bloated federal and state governments, that’s how. The middle class is collapsing, the people on top are making out like bandits, and the poorest people are struggling just to keep their heads above water. No, Bernie; your mind is collapsing in on itself... Too much jerking off about your hero, Karl... Today, the concentration of wealth and income in this country is not only greater than at any time since the 1920s, but it is far greater than in any other major country on Earth. ...Marxist ranting, long and incoherent... That’s not America, and we’re going to change that. You’re going to repudiate socialism and embrace capitalism? Goodie! Today, the largest employer in America is not General Motors. It is Wal-Mart, which pays people subsistence wages and minimal benefits. It is now being sued by workers in twenty-eight states because the company is not even paying the overtime it should be paying. But it’s not just Wal-Mart. It is the transformation of the American economy that Congress is not talking about, that the President certainly is not talking about, and that the media is not talking about. Maybe because your socialist ideas won’t work? Perhaps? In the last three years alone, we have lost over two-and-a-half-million manufacturing jobs that were paying people decent middle class wages. And when you talk about patriotism, and when you talk about the American flag, what is corporate America doing by throwing American workers out on the street, moving to China, moving to countries where people can’t even form a union or stand up for their rights? Let’s talk about patriotism. Let’s talk about investing in America and expanding the middle class. It’s called competition, Bernie. The American way. Corporate America essentially is saying the hell with the American worker, the hell with the United States of America. We will do anything we want in order to make more and more profits. Last I checked, the only folks who think there are two Americas are the ones who want to fracture it. Like you. And my friends, it is not only manufacturing jobs that are going abroad. If some of you say, "Well, I went to college, man, I know how to work that computer. I have a good job," think twice. They’re after your jobs, as well. If there’s a computer or a telephone job, it could be done any place in the world at a fraction of the wages that are paid in America. And that’s where corporate America is moving... The scandal of our time is that with all the explosion of technology and productivity the average American is not working fewer hours and making more money. We are not down to a thirty-hour week. The middle class is not expanding, and poverty has not been eliminated. On the contrary, it has increased. All the poverty programs, which did NOT work by the way, are a major factor for increasing poverty Because of the greed of corporate America, real wages in the private sector are 8 percent less than they were thirty years ago. And where has all of that accumulated wealth gone? It has gone to the people on top, who have seen a huge increase in the percentage of wealth and income they receive. There you go again. Trying to seperate corporations from everyone else. And profits are what make an economy go, not government programs you are so in love with. Let me say a word about those people. And it’s important that we talk about that because you’re not going to read about it in most newspapers or see it on television. It is very clear that these people have put their own greed ahead of the middle class and working families of this country. What they are now doing is living in guarded compounds. They don’t have to get on the airlines like you do. They fly in their Lear jets. They don’t get on crowded mass transit to get to work. They don’t have to worry about how their kids are going to go to college or high school because they have the money to send their kids to the best private schools in America; they have enough money to buy their way to get their kids into any college in America. That’s how they live--separate and segregated from what’s going on in this country. And our job is to tell them that if they don’t come back to America, then the hell with them. We’ll go forward without them. We’ll go further even faster with more tax cuts and cut in governments. And government supported mass transit are a bargain, but they usually don’t turn a buck, and they don’t make sense in a market economy. If the President of the United States were here today--and believe me, I wish he were here today, I wish he would come out and talk to ordinary Americans--he would tell you his greatest accomplishment is the tax breaks that he has given America. What he won’t tell you is that 40 percent of those tax breaks went to the richest 1 percent, the people who need it the least, and that millions and millions of Americans who really need those tax breaks are getting nothing or only a few dollars. What he will also not tell you is what’s really behind those tax breaks. The rich provide jobs and deserve to be rewarded for these investments through a better tax structure, but not according to you. The President of the United States represents, and works very hard for, the very wealthiest people in this country. And, just coincidentally, he is on his way to raising $200 million from these very same people for his primary campaign--and he doesn’t even have an opponent. So it doesn’t surprise us that when he gives out tax breaks, they mostly go to the rich and the heads of large corporations. That we can understand. It’s grotesque, but that’s politics. More money is flying into Congress in campaign contributions than you can believe. You’ve got to duck so you don’t get hit by the money. Amazing. You mean the blocking of court nominees, the awful ad hominem attacks, the treasonous statements by democrats and their leftist allies over the passed year; all this doesn’t count as an opponent? ...snip more incoherent bullsh*t... Our struggle, the struggle of millions of people for 150 years, has been for basic human dignity. It has been a struggle to create a country that belongs to all of us and not just the people on top, and that is our struggle of today. Wealth created can belong to all of us. Just cut taxes and government, as well as regulations and you will see a better society. Sometimes progressives say, well, you know, we’re right, but we’re really kind of fringe. Our views are not reflective of a vast majority of the people. After all, Bush, well, was almost elected, and there is rightwing control of the House of Representatives, led by a gentleman named Tom DeLay. There is rightwing control of the United States Senate. Very few people in the media reflect our point of view. So they must be representing the majority of the people, and we’re just a smart minority of the people. You mean the socialist viewpoints I get bombarded with on a routine basis on NPR is actually a paranoid delusion? I want you to disabuse yourselves of that notion. You represent mainstream America. We are the majority. Go out on Main Street, stand at the corner, and ask people a simple question. Tell them you’re doing an informal poll, and ask them if they want 40 percent of the tax breaks, hundreds of billions of dollars, to go to the top 1 percent, or whether those breaks should be spread around more fairly and be used for education or lowering the deficit. Then tell me who is "fringe." Ask them if we should maintain our disintegrating health care nonsystem or establish a universal health care system that guarantees health care for all. Then tell me who is "fringe." Ask them if we should continue to let polluters destroy our environment, or move to safe, sustainable energy. Then tell me who is "fringe." Of course they will take the soak the rich scheme. Then they will spend their money on HD TV and beer, and will not create jobs for anyone. So how do the rightwingers get elected if they have nothing to say about the most important issues facing the American people? That is the central question of modern American politics. And the answer is that they work day and night to divide the American people against each other so that they end up voting against their own best interests. That is what the Republican Party is all about. Republican Party, as far as I am concerned is about three things: Guard the coasts, deliver the mail and leave me alone. They tell white workers their jobs are being lost not because corporate America is downsizing and moving to China, but because black workers are taking their jobs--because of affirmative action. White against black. Just a hint, Bernie: You just played a race card. If you turn on talk radio, what you will hear, in an almost compulsive way, is a hatred of women. And they’re telling working class guys, you used to have some power. You used to be the breadwinner. But now there are women running companies, women in politics, women making more money than you. Men against women. The only place I hear that is on NPR. Which talk radio are you talking about? And they’re turning straight people against gay people. The homosexuals are taking over the schools! Gay marriage is destroying the country! Straights against gays. You mean folks who behave conventionally against those who love themselves so much, they must have sex with someone of their own gender, right? And if you’re not for a war in Iraq waged on the dubious and illegal doctrine of "preemptive war," you’re somehow unpatriotic. And those of us who were born in America are supposed to hate immigrants. And those of us who practice religion in one way, or believe in the separation of church and state, are supposed to be anti-religious, and trying to destroy Christianity in America--and we get divided up on that. And on and on it goes. I have always said that once the debate is over and the vote taken, you live with the results and let the troops do the mission with EVERYONE’s full support. The Republican leadership does all of this in an incredibly cynical, poll-driven way, because they know when you lay out their program about the most important economic issues facing America, it ends up that they are representing the interests of 2 percent of the population. You can’t win an election with the support of 2 percent. So they divide us, and the result is that tens of millions of working people vote against their own interests. Again, Bernie; You are doing the dividing with this screed. We know, that come election time, they will have huge sums of money that we will never come near to having. But we also know something else: that we are the vast majority of the people. We are the middle class and working families, and there are a hell of a lot more of us than there are of them. To be effective politically, we cannot talk only to people who agree with us. That’s easy. The hard part is going out and talking to people in the working and middle classes who don’t yet agree with us. And we have to understand that on some issues there will be differences of opinion. But if we focus on the basic economic issues--and we explain to people that when they cast their votes solely on issues like abortion, or gay rights, or any other single issue, the rich and the powerful are laughing all the way to the bank--we will be successful in bringing people together and winning elections. Well, Bernie you know as well as anyone gay rights is a non-starter at the ballot box. The judicial system may abdicate their common sense and morals, but the voters haven’t. Now what are some of the issues? Let me just list a few. The middle class is collapsing, and we need a fundamental alternative to trickle down economics and unfettered free trade. Which is socialism: doesn’t work here. We’ve got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. Which has the capacity the cause even more job losses... We’ve got to put people to work building affordable housing, schools, mass transportation, and a sustainable energy system. The market determines housing and what companies will build which housing. Mass transporation is usually a boondoggle, and a ’sustainable energy policy’ means wrecking our energy infrastructure. Our national priorities are backwards. Instead of giving huge tax breaks to the rich and large corporations, we should provide for the middle class and working families of this country. Higher education and child care should be available to all Americans--regardless of income. Our veterans should not be placed on waiting lists for the health care they were promised. The national disgrace of the United States having the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world must be eliminated. We must expand and protect Social Security, not privatize it. Now, I may be wrong, but the last person to employ me wasn’t poor OR middle class Environmental degradation is threatening the wellbeing of our planet. We must move to sustainable and nonpolluting forms of energy as well as energy conservation. Think about how many decent-paying jobs we can create as we move this economy off of fossil fuel. ’Sustainable’ is Liberalspeak for wrecking the infrastructure of our society. We must work for world peace, and not U.S. imperial power. The United States must work with the United Nations and the international community to stabilize Iraq so that the Iraqi people can control their future. We must bring U.S. troops home as soon as feasible. I guess Dubya’s two visits to the UN was a paranoid delusion. Today, we are honoring Bob La Follette. We’re remembering one of your other great members of Congress, Victor Berger. We remember your fellow Midwesterner Eugene Debs. And we remember all of those people throughout history, some of them whose names we don’t know, people who struggled for workers’ rights, for public education, against racism, sexism, homophobia. Some of them died in their struggle. Many of them suffered. What they had in common was a vision they fought for, and we’re very grateful that they passed that vision on to us. Racism and sexism is practiced by socialists and their democratic sllies. And now, we have heterophobia. And that vision is not the vision of George Bush, which basically says it’s every person for himself or herself, that we don’t have to worry about the children, we don’t have to worry about the poor, we don’t have to worry about the old, we don’t have to worry about working people. We’re all going to go out and get it for ourselves, to hell with the environment, to hell with future generations, to hell with anybody else. That’s Bush’s vision. No, that’s the socialist vision. The vision that La Follette and others have given us is something that we appreciate very much because it makes us all better human beings. In this great country, we can create an economy that provides for a decent standard of living for every man, woman, and child. We can have social justice and end discrimination based on race, gender, and sexual orientation. We can move toward harmony with the environment, not a war against the environment. Social justice: See racism, sexism and heterophobia... We are part of an American community and a world community. And we are not going to be going to war whenever the President of the United States says it’s a good idea. We’re going to work with the international community, with the United Nations, to create a world where we eliminate war and eliminate poverty. Did the United nations turn into an investment bank while I wasn’t paying attention? Oh, you must mean the UN’s version of investments: Palestinian refugee camps which, under the watchful and encouraging eyes of the UN enables genocide against Israelis, or how’s about the prostitution rings on Bosnia? Is that the investment and ’working with the UN’ you are talking about? But to do this, we have to understand that politics is not just an anti-war demonstration. It’s not just coming out on a given day to express concerns about the environment, or racism, or whatever the single issue may be. Politics is a 365-day-a-year struggle. We have to have the courage to knock on doors even if some people may disagree with us. We’ve got to get on the telephone and start making calls. We have to be in touch with our local radio and television stations and the local newspaper. And when we do that, there is no doubt in my mind that not only will we win the next election, but we will create an America that Bob La Follette would be very proud of. Your socialist comrades have to get passed folks like me first. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #8 FYI: La Follette's Progressive Party (Socialist, 1920's) platform called for government takeover of the railroads, elimination of private utilities, direct subsidies by giovernment owned and operated banks for farmers, the mandatory right of workers to organize unions, increased protection of "civil liberties", an end to "U.S. imperialism" in Latin America (i.e. the end of the Monroe doctrine), and a plebiscite before any President could again lead the nation into war (i.e. mob rule, and the hamstrining of the ability fo the US to act militarily). Tells you where this asswipe is coming from if he holds up such a guy as an exemplar. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-2-22 12:15:31 AM |
| #7 The "Every person for himself"--that's more Libertarian but the GOP has jumped on that bandwagon! These comments are obviously those of a deranged ditto head--lay off the Oxycontin Badanov--wanting a better America does not make one a Communist! And for those of you agreeing just because you have a couple hundred K in your 401K doesn't make you a "Bush League" player |
| Posted by: NotMike Moore 2004-2-21 11:12:03 PM |
| #6 The funnny (sad really) thing is that communists like this guy (and make no mistake, he is a communist) were responsible for the deaths of about 100 million people in the last century. His utopia always winds up being a death camp. Asshat. |
| Posted by: Remote Man 2004-2-21 9:28:34 PM |
| #5 Note to hE. Leafe a quart of bear bonds next to the St. Marks lite. We will remit your bong via UPS as soon as the bear bonds float. |
| Posted by: Napoleon VII 2004-2-21 7:19:44 PM |
| #4 Good grief. What a depressive putz. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-2-21 6:25:51 PM |
| #3 They have good leafes. I fear Dr. Dean snatched my hammer. |
| Posted by: halfEmpty 2004-2-21 5:30:23 PM |
| #2 The Gov. used to be Howard Dean. Nuff said. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-2-21 5:05:34 PM |
| #1 Who's the Governor in this guy's state? Is he as craxy as this guy? |
| Posted by: Mr. Davis 2004-2-21 5:00:04 PM |