“We have a pathological liar as the president,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, told about 150 people Saturday at the McCreary Community Building in Perry.
Heads nodded and murmurs of agreement filled the MCB gymnasium in response to the claim of Sanders, whose message of economic and social justice has not changed since his last visit to Perry in January 2016.
Sanders still decries “the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality in this country” and imagines “an economy and a government that works for all of us and not just for the 1 percent.”
He cited statistics to support his “grotesque” claim: Three families own more wealth than the bottom half — 160 million people — of the country. The richest 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent of the U.S. population. Forty-nine percent of all income now goes to the top 1 percent.
“Our job is to complete the revolution that we started four years ago,” Sanders said. “I believe that the American people are profoundly disgusted with a corrupt political system that allows billionaires to buy elections as a result of Citizens United. I think they are disgusted about an economy in which the very, very rich get richer, and a hell of a lot of people in Iowa and Vermont are working two or three jobs. They are angry and apprehensive about an economy in which, everything being equal, our kids will have a lower standard of living than we do. We can do better than that and if the people in Iowa stand up and people all over this country stand up for economic justice, for social justice, for racial justice, for environmental justice, if people stand up and fight back, there is no limit to what we can accomplish.”
Sanders recalled previous popular movements in U.S. history that tried to “transform this country and our national priorities,” such as the rise of organized labor, the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement and the struggle for LGBTQ rights. Some of these fights are still being waged, he said.
“We see in state after state, including in your state,” Sanders said, “they’re working very hard to deny women the right to control their own bodies, and we’re going to change that.”
The planks in Sanders’ platform include a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage, equal pay for women, an energized labor movement, Medicare for all, free tuition at public colleges and universities, a “very substantially” reduced student debt and a serious effort to address global warming, which he called “an existential threat to our country and the entire world.”
Sanders said a worldwide war against global warming and transition of the energy system away from fossil fuels, waged under the proper leadership, could even help the human species overcome its own war-like traditions, but our “genius president,” who said wind turbines cause cancer, is not the leader needed.
He said Trump’s continual lies — “This guy lies so much,” Sanders said, “he can’t even tell the truth with regard to where his father was born. Can you imagine that?” — have degraded the office of U.S. President.
“I know this to be true,” Sanders said, “that the people of this country, no matter what your point of view is — you’re a conservative, you’re a progressive, you’re a moderate — very few people feel comfortable that we have a president that lies all the time and really has, what can I say? disparaged the role that a president of the United States is supposed to have in our democracy.”
Sanders said his 2020 campaign slogan — “Not me. Us.” — signifies that no one candidate can take on the billionaire class alone and no president alone can solve our problems.
“There is only one way we win, and that is together,” he said. “At the end of the day and as we go forward, please remember that the 1 percent, no matter how much wealth and power they have, which is a lot, they are 1 percent. We are the 99 percent and the last I heard, 99 percent is a lot bigger number than 1 percent.”
This man does well criticizing people who have worked hard, taken risks and made a lot of money and in doing so have employed a lot of workers, when he is a multi-millionaire and has NEVER held a job in his life. I just hope he told all those who wasted their time listening to him where he is going to find the Money Tree to pay for all of his free giveaways.