Letter to the editor: Wealth inequality breeds tyrants, kills dreams

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To the editor:

For the past 40 years in this country, our great middle class — once the envy of the world — has been disappearing. All over America, people are working two or three jobs, scared to death about the futures of their children, while almost all new income goes to a small number of people at the top.

But this is not a uniquely American phenomenon.

All over the world, people are seeing that same tendency. Today, in the global economy, the top 1 percent owns more than the bottom 99 percent, and a handful of billionaires own more than the bottom half of people around the world — that’s 3.7 billion people.

That is the reality. People in our own country, and around the world, are angry, and they feel that nobody is listening to their pain.

And one of the results of that reality is that in Europe, in Russia, in the Middle East, in Asia and elsewhere we are seeing movements led by demagogues who exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances to achieve and hold on to power.

And while these regimes may differ in some respects, they share key attributes: hostility toward democratic norms, antagonism toward a free press, intolerance toward ethnic and religious minorities and a belief that government should benefit their own selfish financial interests.

These leaders are also deeply connected to a network of multi-billionaire oligarchs, motivated by greed and power, who see the world as their economic plaything.

This trend certainly did not begin with Trump, but there’s no question that authoritarian leaders around the world have drawn inspiration from the fact that the leader of the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy seems to delight in shattering democratic norms.

Other authoritarian states are much farther along this kleptocratic process. In Russia, it is impossible to tell where the decisions of government end and the interests of Vladimir Putin and his circle of oligarchs begin. They operate as one unit.

Similarly, in Saudi Arabia, there is no debate about separation because the natural resources of the state, valued at trillions of dollars, belong to the Saudi royal family.

In Hungary, far-right authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán is openly allied with Putin in Russia.

In China, an inner circle led by Xi Jinping has steadily consolidated power, clamping down on domestic political freedom while it aggressively promotes a version of authoritarian capitalism abroad.

So the question is: Where do we go from here?

To effectively oppose right-wing authoritarianism, we cannot simply go back to the failed status quo of the last several decades. In order to fight this trend, we need to strengthen the global coalition of progressive democrats.

While authoritarians promote division and hatred, we will promote unity, inclusion and an agenda based on economic, social, racial and environmental justice.

Governments of the world must come together to end the absurdity of rich and multinational corporations stashing over $21 trillion in offshore bank accounts to avoid paying their fair share of taxes and then demanding that their respective governments impose an austerity agenda on their working families.

It is not acceptable that the fossil fuel industry continues to make huge profits while their carbon emissions destroy the planet for our children and grandchildren.

It is not acceptable that a handful of multinational media giants, owned by a small number of billionaires, largely controls the flow of information on the planet.

It is not acceptable that trade policies that benefit large multinational corporations and encourage a race to the bottom hurt working people throughout the world as they are written out of public view.

It is not acceptable that, with the Cold War long behind us, countries around the world spend over $1 trillion a year on weapons of destruction, while millions of children die of easily treatable diseases.

In order to effectively combat the rise of the international authoritarian axis, we need an international progressive movement that mobilizes behind a vision of shared prosperity, security and dignity for all people and that addresses the massive global inequality that exists — not only in wealth but in political power as well.

Such a movement must be willing to think creatively and boldly about the world that we would like to see.

We must take the opportunity to reconceptualize a genuinely progressive global order based on human solidarity, an order that recognizes that every person on this planet shares a common humanity, that we all want our children to grow up healthy, to have a good education, have decent jobs, drink clean water, breathe clean air and live in peace.

Our job is to reach out to those in every corner of the world who share these values and who are fighting for a better world.

In a time of exploding wealth and technology, we have the potential to create a decent life for all people. Our job is to build on our common humanity and do everything that we can to oppose all of the forces, whether unaccountable government power or unaccountable corporate power, who try to divide us up and set us against each other.

We know that those forces work together across borders. We must do the same.

Thank you for reading.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders
Burlington, Vt.

4 COMMENTS

  1. There is so much here to talk about. Basically, in order for Bernie to make his ideas palatable despite socialism’s many failures of the past, he has to do two things: 1. Make socialism sound humane by appealing to emotions; 2. Demonize “the other side” through clever word and phrase associations that he knows have been used now for decades by liberal-controlled academia, media and Hollywood and have been seared into many peoples’ low-information psyches.

    Want to learn more? Read on.

    Left Wing vs Right Wing.
    I’ll start with a little history lesson on where “right wing” and “left wing” came from. Back in 1789, when the French National Assembly was meeting to draft a constitution, some people were “anti-king revolutionaries” who did not want the king to have lots of authority. They sat on the left side of the presiding officer and became known as “left wing”. So “left wing” became associated with “less authority concentrated in one person or one location”. Others in the assembly were more supportive of authority being concentrated with the king. They sat on the right side of the presiding officer and became known as “right wing”. So “right wing” became associated with “more authority being concentrated in one person or one location”.

    So you might ask, “How is it, then, that Constitutional conservatives, who hate the idea of the central (federal) government having too much authority over citizens’ lives, got labelled ‘right wing’ when Constitutional conservatives are for individual liberty and free market choice and a limited federal government with limited authority–i.e.: the authority only designated to it by the Constitution?

    “And how did liberal progressives, who love the idea of the central (federal) government controlling nearly every facet of individuals’ lives; who love the idea of authority being concentrated in one location (the federal government and a federal bureaucracy); who love the idea of State control of industry; who preach in our public universities against the ideals of individual liberty and free market capitalism and individual property rights as promoted in the Constitution (things that the king also hated by the way). How in the world are these people labelled ‘left wing’?”

    If you want to know the answer, read “The Big Lie” by Dinesh D’Souza. You’ll learn a lot of truth.

    The left is great at word phrase manipulation. They know that conservatives are “on the right,” so if they can somehow get control of the phrase “right wing” and associate that phrase with evil actions or evil people, they will have successfully demonized an innocent word–conservatism. Read “The Big Lie.”

    The left control academia, media and Hollywood, and through those three megaphones of society have successfully twisted and bastardized the idea of conservatism through clever little phrases like “right wing authoritarianism.”

    This is what conservatism stands for: The Constitutional conservative wants to conserve the ideals of individual liberty; conserve free market capitalism; conserve individual property rights; conserve the idea of limited government; conserve the idea of American sovereignty; conserve the idea of individuals choosing who to be charitable to, how much to give to charity, and how often; and conserve the idea of authority being concentrated with the individual CITIZEN in society through a Constitutional Republican system of government that operates under our current Constitution as written. By the way, our system of government is called a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy, for a reason. There is a difference. And these are the very ideals that President Trump supports.

    Want another history lesson? Why are states that vote Republican called “red states” and states that vote Democrat called “blue states”? It used to be that red represented Democrats and blue represented Republicans. In the United States, blue first became the color of Republicans during the Civil War, when it came to represent the anti-slavery Republicans. By the time of the 1888 presidential election, blue had become the standard color of the Union and Abraham Lincoln’s Party, while red was assigned to the left-leaning, pro-slavery northern state and southern state Democrats, as can be seen when you look at an image of the primarily red Confederate flag. Wait. You didn’t know? Yes, Republicans were anti-slavery and Democrats were pro-slavery. Here’s a fact you may not know: In 1860, all 4,000,000 slaves in the United States were owned by Democrats. Not one Republican owned a slave in 1860, one year before the Civil War started. (See “The Big Lie” by Dinesh D’Souza.)

    But I’m getting off-task, so back to the colors…

    Red was also the primary color associated with the Soviet Union and Communism and socialism and left-leaning parties internationally in the 1970’s and 1980’s. When TV was invented, this information was black-and-white. It wasn’t until 1972 that CBS used colors to denote Republican and Democrat. It made sense to use red for Democrat-voting states from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, although it became a color liberals did not like to be associated with for obvious reasons stated above.

    Why did the colors suddenly change?? Who made that decision? It’s interesting that as mainstream media CEO’s became more and more liberal and progressive in their thinking and gained more and more control of media in this country in the 1990s and beyond, the colors suddenly changed. Another little way to try to bastardize any positive connotation of the word conservative.

    So every time I hear a liberal progressive like Bernie say, “far right authoritarian” and “right wing authoritarianism” in one paragraph–purposely trying to demonize any person who might claim to be conservative (because conservatives are “on the right,” you know), then blame other magical entities like “unaccountable government power” or “unaccountable corporate power” for “trying to divide us up and set us against each other,” it makes me want to throw up.

    Bernie, you and every person like you who uses those phrases are dividing us and setting us against each other because, like the liberal mainstream media in this country, you cannot help but attempt to demonize the other side in order to “save your argument.” If you argued the merits of your ideology alone without the clever demonization of the other side, you know you’d fail because your socialistic ideology has been tried many times in the world and has failed. And the idea that your ideas could be implemented with a current federal debt of $21 trillion is absolutely mind-boggling.

    On the other hand, the United States tried an experiment that had never been tried before–a Constitutional Republic based on absolute truths and ideals hinted at in the Declaration of Independence. And it was wildly successful and has allowed us to be the most charitable and generous nation this planet has ever known in human history.

    Enough lies. Your ideas do not work.

    For those who want to hear more truth from a young, up-and-coming conservative, google “Candace Owens videos,” and listen to Candace Owens. You’ll hear what’s happening. People are waking up to the Big Lies. Big time.

  2. Sean, please focus on one subject, and make a cogent conclusion. Bernie Sanders is not a socialist and neither is his agenda. “Comrade Bernie” is a joke to those who really are socialists. Sanders is more behind the idea of a welfare state in which corporations and banks pay enough in taxes to fund government-operated social programs and still have more than enough in the way of net profits to pay their shareholders. Outright socialism is when the people themselves ultimately control the resources and means of production. Greens, Social Democrats and most liberals and progressives have no intention of doing away with private enterprise and private property. They just want the capitalist money-and-power brokers to be less powerful than they are and to answer to government and not vice versa. We want to set limits to their power and authority over us rather than let them control our lives. You can either have rule by big government or by big corporations. Give me big government any day. Be reminded, Sean, that if you comment here, you’re interacting with informed adults. Nothing personal but your tone suggests here suggests otherwise.

  3. Uncle Bernie wants to replace right-wing authoritarianism with left-wing authoritarianism. Any government able to give you everything you want has to be powerful enough to take everything you have. Don’t fall for the siren song of socialism. Get an education. Work hard. That’s the ticket to success.

  4. James Smithson, Sanders is not a socialist. He’s an independent. Real socialists poke fun at “Comrade Bernie.” I thought I explained that. You’re really stretching things when you talk about left-wing authoritarianism. By the way, our current system already enables not just the government but also corporate interests to steal everything you’ve worked for. It’s always been that way in one form or another. In one form or another, it will always be that way. As far as I’m concerned, being bankrupted by insurers and medical bills is also a form of theft. Universal health care would have all that spelled out and settled to begin with. You wouldn’t be reduced to penury over a medical emergency. Your taxes would be a little higher, but you’d still have something left over to show for your labor. Yes, the more affluent show off the brand new car they wind up with annually so as to encourage us to work harder. That way they can buy another nicer vehicle the next year. The operative term here is wage slavery. You make it sound as if the choice is between right-wing authoritariansism and left-wing authoritarianism, and you choose right-wing authoritarianism because you prefer to be dominated by unaccountable corporate capitalists than by a government over which you have in theory some measure of control. Well, there might be other options than are implied in your either-or scheme of things. And your cracker-barrel advice to stay in school and work hard is a truism valid in all circumstances, which is to say that you right-wingers have not cornered the market on personal responsibility and individual initiative. That’s part of your conservative mythology, as if the lefties are all lazy moochers and you right-wingers are the only true, hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding real Americans. That might get you cheers from your right-wing amen corner, but the real conversation has moved well beyond all that.

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