Bernie Sanders: they are “Hell bent on destroying the middle class and creating an Oligarchy”, Daily Kos, July 26, 2010, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Class War 101. Bernie Sanders is THE MAN.

Senator Bernie Sanders calls it what it is, fabulously wealthy families and their multinational corporations are hell-bent on destroying the middle class and determined to create an Oligarchy.

. . . While the middle class disappears and poverty increases the wealthiest people in our country are not only doing extremely well, they are using their wealth and political power to protect and expand their very privileged status at the expense of everyone else. This upper-crust of extremely wealthy families are hell-bent on destroying the democratic vision of a strong middle-class which has made the United States the envy of the world. In its place they are determined to create an oligarchy in which a small number of families control the economic and political life of our country.

TheNation.com

Bold text and italics added by the diarist

Crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com

More from Bernie Sanders . . .

The truth is that working families have been experiencing a decline for decades. During the Bush years alone, from 2000-2008, median family income dropped by nearly $2,200 and millions lost their health insurance.

Today, because of stagnating wages and higher costs for basic necessities, the average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. The average American today is underpaid, overworked and stressed out as to what the future will bring for his or her children. For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.

TheNation.com

Bold text and italics added by the diarist

The average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. And the rich are richer than ever. Anyone guess why? Because when the rich get richer, the EVERYBODY ELSE gets poorer. There is only so many ways you can slice a pie, and if a few people get most of it, everyone else must go hungry.

And, as Bernie Sanders so points out, the richest 400 families in America are richer than ever. Under Bush they raked in the cash while the average media American family saw their income drop by nearly $2,200 a year while the social safety net was slashed and defunded. And why? So very rich people could pay less in taxes and shirk their civic duty to their nation.

Now, I would argue that we already have an Oligarchy now, but certainly Bernie Sanders is already aware of that. I think Senator Sanders is alluding to something worse, like an Oligarchy on steroids. Citizens United fueled, out of control, a Too Big to Fail Oligarchy that would recall to my mind these words written by George Orwell.

So what happens when a few people have more money than medium sized countries? I mean that literally, what happens? Or better, what is happening?

From Forbes.com, where Billionaires are applauded as the Randian heroes they imagine themselves to be.

George Lucas, the famed Hollywood director behind the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and ILM, the world’s most bankable special effects shop, has a $3 billion fortune, making him worth as much as the GDP of Guyana.

Forbes 400 members with net worths just under $1 billion still possess fortunes that could operate the economies of significant fractions of the globe. Gary Magness, who owns water rights in Colorado through his ranch holdings, has a net worth of $990 million, which barely exceeds Vanuatu’s GDP ($988.5 million).

If this year’s three poorest Forbes 400 members were to combine their wealth (a combined $2.9 billion), their amassed fortune would be worth more than the workings of Belize’s entire economy.

George Lucas? WOW! But George Lucas is a storyteller who brings joy to the world, where as investor John Paulson is worth twice as much as Lucas (6.8 Billion) and all he had to do is profit off the real estate bubble and then short sell the subprime market. John Paulson’s wealth equals all the wealth in Montenegro. And these guys aren’t even in the Top Ten wealthiest people in America. If a few people have wealth equivalent to entire nations is it not possible that a few wealthy people can bribe and manipulate entire nations, thus circumventing and overthrowing the Democratic process? Of course! Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Here is yourTop Ten wealthiest plutocrats in America circa 2009

1   William Gates III 50,000 Million   (Microsoft)
2   Warren Buffett        40,000 Million   (Birkshire Hathaway)
3   Lawrence Ellison 27,000 Million   (Oracle)
4   Christy Walton & family 21,500 Million   (Wal-Mart)
5   Jim C. Walton        19,600 Million    (Wal-Mart)
6   Alice Walton        19,300 Million    (Wal-Mart)
7   S. Robson Walton 19,000 Million    (Wal-Mart)
8   Michael Bloomberg 17,500 Million    (Bloomberg)
9   Charles Koch        16,000 Million    (Energy, FreedomWorks, finances Tea Parties)
9   David Koch         16,000 Million   (Energy, FreedomWorks, finances Tea Parties)
11   Sergey Brin         15,300 Million    (Google)

Did anyone notice that the owners of WALMART are 4 of the top 10 richest people in America? Did Walmart eat the middle class? Is Walmart Too Big To Fail? Looks like it.

And as for the people who work for Walmart and earn just enough to go into debt for the rest of their lives, well, it doesn’t seem that anyone is worried about them does it? If they lose their jobs they are called lazy by rich people who never break a sweat or worry about homelessness, if they keep their jobs and struggle to survive and ask for help they are chided for wanting “handouts”.

For the people who work for Walmart and other huge Corporations the American dream has become a nightmare according to Bernie Sanders, and as someone who has lived that nightmare all my life, I entirely agree with him. The game is rigged, rigged for rich people, and if rich people NEVER lose money, everyone else can never earn enough to prosper.

We must level the paying field and STOP giving a huge advantage to the super rich and multi-national corporations. One way our Democratically elected officials can do this is by progressive taxation. And Bernie Sanders has a plan.

That is why I have introduced the Responsible Estate Tax Act (S.3533). This legislation would raise $318 billion over the next decade by establishing a graduated inheritance tax on estates over $3.5 million retroactive to this year. This bill ensures that the wealthiest 0.3 percent of Americans pays their fair share of estate taxes, while making sure that 99.7 percent of Americans never have to pay a dime when they lose a loved one. It also makes certain that the overwhelming majority of family farmers and small businesses never have to pay an estate tax.

This legislation must be passed because, with a $13 trillion national debt and huge unmet needs, we cannot afford more tax breaks for millionaire and billionaire families. But even more importantly, it must be passed because the United States must not become an oligarchy in which a handful of wealthy and powerful families control the destiny of our nation. Too many people, from the inception of this country, have struggled and died to maintain our democratic vision. We owe it to them and to our children to maintain it.

TheNation.com

Bold text and italics added by the diarist

So who is lazy? The person struggling to find a job after free market corporatists shipped their jobs overseas? Or the person who inherits millions of dollars from a dead relative without earning that money and then refuses to pay taxes on it?

The Responsible Estate Tax proposed by Senator Sanders may not seem much, but it is a start. More importantly, it frames the debate in a way that Progressives can win. Because the truth is, billionaires and all of their wealth are the cause of our societies economic problems, not immigrants or unemployed people or Government spending. All of that is a strawman, they shrieks of anguish over “socialism” is a red herring, designed to shift the conversation away from the fact that this form of multi-national corporate capitalism is driving 95% of the world’s population into poverty, and the few who prosper have enough wealth to corrupt the Democratic process in such a way that they are, in reality, an Oligarchy.

Whether we can curb their absolute power and preserve the notion of a Democracy of a majority of The People, and not a Oligarchy based on who controls the majority of the wealth, is what is at stake. Will we starve and exploit our fellow man for profit, or allow all people to prosper? That is the question. What is your answer?

Because I know what the Billionaires, the “Economic Royalty” as F.D.R. named them, I know what they want. It is obvious if you know where to look, and look hard enough.

Greed is NOT good. Greed is destroying America.

Listen to the Chilling words of Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko:

Gordon Gekko: "Greed is Good!"

And Greed is all the Conservative movement has, greed and hate and lies and fear.

Because they serve the Oligarchy and themselves and no one else.

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

~ George Orwell, 1984

And so we must FIGHT BACK, and the truth is your greatest weapon.

Peace and love to all.

You can follow me on Twitter @JesseLaGreca Thanks to Ministry of Truth for allowing Evans Liberal Politics to republish his works on an ongoing basis.

See Pres. Obama: On issue after issue, we try to move forward and they try to take us back, Daily Kos, July 26, 2010, by Blackwaterdog: about the DISCLOSE Act vote in the Senate tomorrow. Watch President Obama: Limiting the Influence of Special Interests.

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