Will Sanders challenge the billionaires?
2016 2016-02Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 7 →
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“Wall Street’s Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)” is my friend Larry Shoup’s latest book (2015) describing in great detail this ruling-class institution and its multi-billionaire corporate, banking and intellectual membership. It was founded in 1912 by the world’s richest man, David Rockefeller of the Chase Manhattan Bank fortune. Shoup lists vir tually all the U.S. ruling class’s multi-billionaire fami lies. This elite .01 percent, or perhaps .001 percent, make virtually all decisions in the U.S. regarding criti cal economic and political questions.
Not surprisingly, Shoup demonstrates that the U.S. ruling class is bipartisan, with both Democrats and Republicans partaking in the decision-making institu tions that formulate ruling-class policy. Indeed, a few years ago The New York Times famously noted that President Bill Clinton, a CFR member along with Hill ary, was “the best representative corporate America ever had.” Both Clinton and President Obama, to name but two examples, received more funds from Wall Street and corporate America for their campaigns than their Republican Party opponents.
To really understand what we’re debating tonight, I ask you to, at least for the moment, suspend your imagination and have a look at life in capitalist Amer ica through two different lenses. Lens number one is created for us by the corporate media. We have a democratic choice, we are told, Bernie or Hillary? Or Bernie v. Trump? Or Hillary v. Trump? or Hillary v. Cruz, or Rubio, or Jeb Bush or some other reactionary Republican.
The “rebel” Bernie stands for a “political revolu tion” against the billionaire class, against Wall Street, against the one percent. He is against “most” impe rialist wars, although our Sanders debaters tonight honestly state that Bernie is somewhat “weak on for Socialism means making health care truly afford able by making it free for all people. The military-industrial complex and the Pentagon war machine, votepsl.orgwith its 1,000 bases around the world, are not for ‘defense’ but for Wall Street’s global empire. It should be dismantled. Massive military production is a complete waste and should be con verted to useful civilian production.” n eign policy issues.” But Bernie is against racism and poverty, for women’s rights, for LGBT rights, for free public college tuition, for single-payer health care, and against the environmental destruction associated with global warming. He is for taxing the billionaire class. “Unprecedented,” we are told.
Are we for or against these intelligent, well-spoken, progressive, sane and caring Democratic Party human beings or are we for the racist bigot, warmongering misogynist, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant billionaire moron, Donald Trump, or his ilk? Isn’t Hillary the prime recipient of corporate capitalist America’s fi nancial largess? Isn’t Bernie the only candidate whose funds come in relatively tiny amounts from working people?
All of the above is the projected image of Bernie Sanders looking at politics through the lens of the world created for us by the corporate media and its pundits. For you movie buffs, you might recall the Jim Carrey film called “The Truman Show.” Carrey plays the part of a working man living on an island where, unbeknownst to Carrey’s character, Truman, the en tire population of his fake community are Hollywood actors. Truman is the only person on the island, who, has no idea that his entire life, including his wife and friends, bosses, and hundreds more are actors, script ed by a Hollywood-type director, who molds Truman’s life, including his phobias and values, and broadcasts it 24 hours daily on a television show.
To a significant degree, don’t we all live in a “Truman (continued on page 8, in “Defeat the two-party system”)