Who is Bernie Sanders?

by Frank Blenz

[This article published on Dec 9, 2021 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=78753.]

Public figures, specifically leading politicians, are probably perceived particularly intensively because they are massively put in the spotlight by the leading media. These influential people, just look at Trump and Macron, at Merkel, now at Biden and Scholz, are actually representatives elected by the people. The media do their job for these alpha people. They present the powerful politicians as if they were doing good. However, the applause of the people is limited in view of the transparent actions of the aforementioned personalities, who prove time and again that they are not the people's representatives. What would it be like if the media were to focus on people who are not established, as opposed to the politicians mentioned above? Would this gradually change the personnel of the political elite and thus the political content? With so much Biden and Macron and Merkel and Scholz, etc., here's a question: Do you know Bernie Sanders? This politician, senator in the USA, has been doing enormously important work in his country for years and currently with a desperate drive for action. Here follows a list of quotes from Sanders and the inevitable conclusion: Bernie for President. And yes, there are many Sanders in the world, alone, you don't let them in power. By Frank Blenz

The question is why a man like Bernie Sanders (Democratic Party) is not U.S. president, but his colleague Joe Biden is. It will probably be because he says such sentences:

Our government must work for ordinary Americans, not for the top 1%. That shouldn't be a radical idea.

We need to build an economy that works for all Americans, not just billionaires and big corporations. Period.

It is long past time to rebuild the union movement in this country.

119.That's how many days of paid leave new mothers are guaranteed in Canada.

Do you know how many days of paid leave are guaranteed in the United States? Z-E-R-O. What a shame.

Let's get this straight. The problem is not the worker who got a small raise & a ,400 check 7 months ago. The problem is corporations making record breaking profits while 700 billionaires got trillion richer during the pandemic. We need an economy that works for everyone, not the 1%.

What if instead of helping billionaires fund their space hobby, we invested in working people here on Earth?

The Republican idea of democracy is voter suppression, extreme gerrymandering, and billionaires buying elections.

While working people struggle with high gasoline prices at the pump, Exxon made .8 billion in profits last quarter and Chevron made .1 billion. We must stop the profiteering and monopoly behavior of giant oil companies. American consumers deserve better.

While the Saudi government continues to wage its devastating war in Yemen and oppress its own people, we should not reward them with more arms sales.

In the last 12 months, over 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses. That is the highest ever in a single year and a 30% increase over last year. We are now living through a nationwide crisis of deaths of despair. Our people are in distress, and their government must respond.

These quotes (somewhat bumpily translated from the site into German) are all from Bernie Sanders' Facebook page from recent weeks and months.

While his boss, President Biden, once just announced not to travel to China at the opening of the Winter Games, Bernie Sanders is fighting in the Senate to reduce arms exports.

LIVE: The Saudi government is waging a devastating war in Yemen and oppressing its own people. We should not reward them with more weapons of war. I am NOW in the Senate to block an arms sale to this regime.

My simple question is, why on earth should the United States reward a regime that has caused such pain in Yemen with more weapons? The answer is, we shouldn't.

And Bernie Sanders makes no bones about how the country is in the stranglehold of the Military-Industrial Complex.

When it comes to improving the lives of our people, I hear, "Oh my God, Bernie! The deficit! The national debt!" When it comes to military spending, "That's okay, no problem. "

The hypocrisy is extraordinary.

When it comes to justice, Bernie Sanders has clear announcements:

"Let me say it again. You can't be a political party that talks about the wealthy paying their fair share of taxes and then get a bill that gives millionaires big tax breaks. You can't do that. The hypocrisy is too strong. It's bad policy, it's bad politics."

If the founder of Starbucks can get richer by nearly 2 MILLION during the pandemic, yes, Starbucks can afford to pay its workers a living wage.

In the richest country in the history of the world, mothers should have the right to spend time with their newborns. We need to enact paid family and medical leave NOW.

This is obscene. Last week, 8 investors in Pfizer and Moderna got billion richer as news spread about the Omicron variation. It's time for these drug companies to share their vaccines with the world and start controlling their greed. Enough is enough!

Back to the military.

When it comes to the needs of the military industrial complex: no problem!

When it comes to the needs of working people: too expensive.

I've had enough. We need to get our priorities straight.

In fact, the highest defense budget in the U.S. was recently passed, Sanders voted against it:

I vote NO on the 8 billion defense spending bill. I am now LIVE on the floor of the Senate explaining why.

No. Congress should not give Jeff Bezos a billion handout for space exploration as part of the defense spending bill. Unbelievable.

Many of my colleagues talk day after day about how concerned they are about the deficit and the national debt. They tell us that we simply do not have enough money to expand Medicare, guarantee paid family and medical leave, and address the climate crisis

Yet tomorrow, the U.S. Senate will vote on an annual defense budget that costs 8 billion - billion more than President Trump's last defense budget and billion more than what President Biden has asked for.

Isn't it strange how, even though we are ending the longest war in our nation's history, concerns about the deficit and national debt seem to be melting away under the influence of the powerful military industrial complex?

Moreover, it is likely that Senate leadership will attach to the National Defense Authorization Act the so-called "competitiveness bill," which includes billion in corporate welfare, with no obligations, for a handful of extremely profitable microchip companies.

The combination of these bills would push the bill's price tag to over a trillion dollars - with very little oversight. In the meantime, we have debated month after month whether we can afford to protect the children, the elderly, the sick, the poor, and the future of our planet.

We need to get our priorities straight. I will vote "NO" on the National Defense Authorization Act.

U.S. Senator Sanders speaks passionately, at times angrily. And yet he always remains factual, tidy, and respectful of his political opponents in his remarks.

P.S. How the state of the USA, which Bernie Sanders does not give up striving for towards a better country, is perceived in normal life, perhaps explains a personal episode.

Some years ago I was able to talk to a contemporary witness, a friend, who lived in the USA for a longer period of time. He is an interested, open-minded person and observer, who regularly gave me examples about the enormous inequalities in the land of unlimited (im)possibilities. Here wealth that is unabashedly displayed and excessively lived out, there blatant poverty, people en masse lying in the dirt of the street. And not only that, even in society recognized people in good jobs can not even afford a small apartment, they sleep in the car. Another phone call my good friend took as an opportunity to talk about the dilapidated public space. In Florida (where he lived) a busy bridge had collapsed (there were also deaths) - because it had simply not been repaired for years for lack of public funds. We both winced, we were speechless for a moment. I then asked him how it could be that the rich don't care or are completely fearless, they could also be victims of a bridge collapse. His answer: "They don't care, they fly over it in their private jet or helicopter."