Eight Lessons From Bernie Sanders’s New Book

[basquebromance]

1. The Capitalist Economic System Is the Proble​

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Here is the simple, straightforward reality: The uber-capitalist economic system that has taken hold in the United States in recent years, propelled by uncontrollable greed and contempt for human decency, is not merely unjust. It is grossly immoral.​

2. Demand More, Demand the World​

3. The Problem of Inequality Is Systematic​

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The fight against American oligarchy — and the plutocratic arrangements that foster it — has nothing to do with personalities. Inequality isn’t about individuals; this is a systemic crisis.​

4. Medicare for All Is a Central Demand of Our Time​

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Too often, Americans lack the sense of safety and belonging that people enjoy in countries with a robust health care system that, in every case, is based around a universal health care program. No wonder so many of us succumb to diseases of despair.​

5. You’re Either on the Side of Workers or You’re on the Side of Their Bosses​

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Which side are you on? These days, corporations like Starbucks and Amazon don’t hire gun-toting thugs. Instead they hire anti-union consultants and pollsters and politically connected lobbyists — many of them Democrats — to thwart union organizing. But the fundamental premise remains: you’re either on the side of workers and organized labor, or you’re not.​

6. New Technology Won’t Solve the Old Problems of Ownership and Control​

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The machinery may have changed, but the imbalance between economic elites and the working class has not. Nor has the injustice that extends from that imbalance.​

7. A Democratic Society Demands Equal Education for All​

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Historically, progressives were at the forefront of education debates, battling to establish free public education, to open schools to all students, to build great schools in urban and rural areas, and to fully fund them. There was a forward motion to our activism.​

8. There Is No Middle Ground in the Struggles to Come​

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There is not a middle ground between the insatiable greed of uber-capitalism and a fair deal for the working class. There is not a middle ground as to whether or not we save the planet. There is not a middle ground about whether or not we preserve our democracy and remain a society based on equal protection for all.​

 

[jotathought]

Let me get this straight .. Bernie Sanders, a millionaire, used the capital system to sell his book and sold tickets to attend his book tour in a rented venue ... is complaining that the capitalist system is evil? How did Sanders become a millionaire? (hint ... real estate, books, investments ... and evil capitalism).

 

[basquebromance]