This is such an excellent article by Norman Solomon! There is an imperative — follow the money, follow the money, follow the money!! And then fight back!
This great struggle that is unfolding shines glaring light on the powerful who are fiercely fighting to hold on to their power and refuse to give a damn about the horrifying and heartbreaking consequences to our nation and the planet.
It’s coming to me that this class of the most wealthy .01% whose addictions to accumulation, greed, power, and domination need to be called the Psychopath Class because it is pure psychopathic insanity to work so relentlessly, not just to cause the unfathomable suffering and death of billions of people and species, but with the end result of bringing on the extinction of us all. This is utter madness. And evil.
This greatest struggle for the soul of our country and the very lives of our children and all species everywhere asks of each of us to roll up our sleeves and get involved — educate ourselves through non-corporate independent media, learn how to follow the money, speak the truth and share what we’re learning, contribute everything we can financially (I contribute several times monthly to Bernie Sanders and monthly to independent media), put out our bumper stickers and lawn signs, become part of the movements that are fighting to dismantle the power of the most powerful and transform our nation and world, stand with the young people, show up at rallies, support those who are putting their bodies on the line, phone bank and go door to door, gather and collaborate with other activists, speak the truth over and over and over again, and on and on.
No one will do all of this. However, and given that we’re in the fight for our lives, these times ask of each of us to explore what our contribution is to our country and the world and to our children and all of the children of all of the species alive today and yet to be born.
A new world is trying to birth herself and we’re all needed. May we nourish ever growing consciousness and our own individual and collective evolution. A humane society is possible. It’s up to us to unite behind this higher good and truly and deeply be on the right side of history.
Please also note that I’m refraining from using the names of political parties. Our struggle is not with democrats or republicans. It’s with the oligarchs and the domination-oriented narratives and cultural stories which have embedded themselves in our brains and what we’ve been indoctrinated to believe.
May we courageously work together to recognize this worldview for what it is and transform ourselves so that we may become empowered wisdom keepers capable of acting out of consciousness of the highest good for us all.
Another world is possible. — Molly
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| Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. |
For many decades, any politician daring to fight for economic justice was liable to be denounced for engaging in “class warfare.” It was always a grimly laughable accusation, coming from wealthy elites as well as their functionaries in corporate media and elective office. In the real world, class warfare — or whatever you want to call it — has always been an economic and political reality.
In recent decades, class war in the USA has become increasingly lopsided. The steady decline in union membership, the worsening of income inequality and the hollowing out of the public sector have been some results of ongoing assaults on social decency and countless human lives. Corporate power has run amuck.
Now, the billionaire class is worried. For the first time in memory, there’s a real chance that the next president could threaten the very existence of billionaires — or at least significantly reduce their unconscionable rate of wealth accumulation — in a country and on a planet with so much human misery due to extreme economic disparities.
In early fall, when Bernie Sanders said “I don’t think that billionaires should exist,” many billionaires heard an existential threat. It was hardly a one-off comment; the Bernie 2020 campaign followed up with national distribution of a bumper sticker saying “Billionaires should not exist.”
When Elizabeth Warren stands on a debate stage and argues for a targeted marginal tax on the astronomically rich, such advocacy is anathema to those who believe that the only legitimate class war is the kind waged from the top down. In early autumn, CNBC reported that “Democratic donors on Wall Street and in big business are preparing to sit out the presidential campaign fundraising cycle — or even back President Donald Trump — if Sen. Elizabeth Warren wins the party’s nomination.”
As for Bernie Sanders — less than four years after he carried every county in West Virginia against Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary — the state’s Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin flatly declared last week that if Sanders wins the nomination, he would not vote for his party’s nominee against Trump in November 2020.
Some billionaires support Trump and some don’t. But few billionaires have a good word to say about Sanders or Warren. And the pattern of billionaires backing their Democratic rivals is illuminating.
“Dozens of American billionaires have pulled out their checkbooks to support candidates engaged in a wide-open battle for the Democratic presidential nomination,” Forbes reported this summer. The dollar total of those donations given directly to a campaign (which federal law limits to $2,800 each) is less significant than the sentiment they reflect. And people with huge wealth are able to dump hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars at once into a Super PAC, which grassroots-parched AstroTurf candidate Joe Biden greenlighted last month.
The donations from billionaires to the current Democratic candidates could be viewed as a kind of Oligarchy Confidence Index, based on data from the Federal Election Commission. As reported by Forbes, Pete Buttigieg leads all the candidates with 23 billionaire donors, followed by 18 for Cory Booker, and 17 for Kamala Harris. Among the other candidates who have qualified for the debate coming up later this month, Biden has 13 billionaire donors and Amy Klobuchar has 8, followed by 3 for Elizabeth Warren, 1 for Tulsi Gabbard, and 1 for Andrew Yang. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders has zero billionaire donors.
Please continue this article here: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/billionaires-have-declared-all-out-war-on-sanders-and-warren/
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