Here at Irregular Times, we often give harsh criticisms of the failure of supposedly progressive members of Congress to stand up against Republican efforts to create a regressive, corporate-controlled economy that serves the interests of the extremely wealthy and exploits the rest of us. A few tough liberal voices remain on Capitol Hill, however. One of those voices comes from Senator Bernard Sanders.
This week, Senator Sanders issued a rallying cry from the left in defiance of the economic assault upon working Americans by the Republicans and too many weak Democrats. Sanders did not use hesitant language to describe the crisis. He called it a war:
“There is a war going on in this country, and I am not referring to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. I am talking about a war being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country against the working families of the United States of America, against the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country.
The reality is, many of the Nation’s billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end, and apparently there is very little concern for our country or for the people of this country if it gets in the way of the accumulation of more and more wealth and more and more power.”
On America’s dependence on outsourced manufacturing, Senator Sanders said,
“There are corporate leaders out there, and many Members of Congress, who not only want to continue but they want to expand our disastrous trade policies. My wife and I went shopping the other day – started our Christmas shopping – and we looked and we looked, and virtually every consumer product that was out there in the stores was China, China, and China. We seem to be a country in which we have a 51st State named China which is producing virtually all of the products we as Americans consume.
Our trade policy has resulted in the loss of millions of good-paying jobs as large corporations and CEOs have said: Why do I want to reinvest in America when I can go to countries where people are paid 50 cents, 75 cents an hour? That is what I am going to do; to heck with the working people of this country. So not only are we saddled with this disastrous trade policy, but there are people who actually want to expand it.”
Sanders spoke on other economic subjects as well, including income distribution, health care and social security. Read the senator’s entire speech, if you’re ready to get fired up.
i think “fired up” is over-rated. Nothing is being done about any of the issues Sanders speaks about. No prosecutions for bank fraud or mortgage fraud, no jobs bills, no environmental leadership or even concern, health-care is a joke, wages have been and continue to decline for most people while the cost of living continues to rise, and on and on. So what do we do besides sit here and carp about it. We’ve signed petitions, regularly call our congresscritters and still the standard of living goes down, jobs disappear and there is no justice or change in policy (foreign or domestic) to benefit the many rather than the few. States and cities are broke and cutting budgets – eliminating MORE jobs and freezing government workers pay. Short of armed revolution (which we know isn’t going to happen), nothing is going to change for the better any time soon so get used to austerity.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/2058-qwhy-arent-you-dead-yetq-the-enlightened-war-policies-of-the-peace-laureate.html
Hey, hey…Bernie Sanders isn’t a Democrat! He’s actually an elected independent, loosely affiliated with the Progressive Party of Vermont, and he’s a democratic socialist!
While disappointing in some respects, if we had 100 (or 5 or 10) Senators as honest and progressive and independent as Bernie Sanders, we’d be in a much better place as a nation.