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eridani

(51,907 posts)
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 07:12 AM Oct 2015

Bernie Sanders: He’s Not Black, But He May be Your Brother

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/28/bernie-sanders-hes-not-black-but-he-may-be-your-brother/

Bernie Sanders is in no cloud of ideological obscurity comparable to Hillary’s nor is he a self-indulging dilettante whose “art of the deal” is no more than a swindler’s, deceitful art. Sanders’s views emerge from a surveying of the American scene: capital vanquishing labor, an illusionary personal autonomy that obviates social and political responsibilities, a financialized capitalism’s mad rush to quick returns, and a resulting wealth gap that has eroded egalitarian democracy. In Sanders’s view, there is no way that the Neoliberal doctrine of what Paul Krugman succinctly describes as “the sovereign importance of low taxes on the rich” will ever do anything good for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. There is no way that those caught on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans, can find their way upward by believing that eventually this collusion of Neoliberals and financialized capitalism will “raise their boats.” What we saw with Hurricane Katrina was that poor African Americans were left stranded on rooftops and only the rich got out on copters, boats and cars, none of which were owned by African Americans. “Get in your car and drive out of there” made as much sense as asking African Americans to “just start a business.”

Bernie Sanders is attacking the root of the distress the “bottom” 80% of the population feel, namely an untamed, rabid form of capitalism operating with a full licensing of both political parties. We also witness a mindboggling acquiescence to this destructive status quo by many of its victims. No more than the top 1% and about a 20% professionalized, gentrified class that serves them are feeling no pain as dividends and interests compound while that “bottom” 80% is lost in a dark abyss of anxiety, confusion, illusion, anger, frustration, fear and loathing, and acquiescence. The Neoliberal genius has been to turn all of that in the direction of Liberals who join with Neoliberals in obscuring the fundamental flaws of our financialized capitalism with cultural issues. It didn’t matter during the South’s enslavement of black Africans if those shackled slaves were gay and permitted to marry or whether a woman had a right to abort or if they were Muslim or Christian, or whether slaves were legal or illegal immigrants. Under the historic circumstances of slavery, only a fool would fail to give full attention to the evil of enslavement itself.

Bernie Sanders sets out to show that what he proposes is an ejection of profit from places where profit should not be our primary consideration and a rebalancing of our economic inequities so that middle class economic power and regained economic mobility from the bottom up can push plutarchy back to equitable democracy. He’s not mumbling his socialist critique but Liberals are shy of supporting it while Neoliberals feel they’ve demonized such a critique in the American cultural imaginary to the extent that they have no fear of Sanders.
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Bernie Sanders: He’s Not Black, But He May be Your Brother (Original Post) eridani Oct 2015 OP
Very good article. One of the most descriptive I've read. Ed Suspicious Oct 2015 #1
He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother..... dae Oct 2015 #2
Thanks artislife Oct 2015 #3
Bernie Sanders never superiorially says "My fellow Americans . . ." DrBulldog Oct 2015 #4
 

DrBulldog

(841 posts)
4. Bernie Sanders never superiorially says "My fellow Americans . . ."
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 10:15 AM
Oct 2015

He always humbly says "Brothers and Sisters . . .". THAT says it all.

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