Bernie Sanders Takes Aim at 'Ruling Class' of Corporations and Wealthy
(snip)
“I wanted to tell the American people that politics is more than polls. It’s more than dumb things that politicians say, of which there are many, including from myself,” he said. “It is asking what you might think is an easy question, but really is not and that is, ‘What’s going on in American life? Who’s winning?’”
Sanders said the winners are those in what he called “the ruling class.”
“When you have three people in America owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society; when we have massive concentration of ownership in sector after sector where a handful of large corporations control what goes on in agriculture, health care, transportation and financial services; do we have a ruling class in America?” he said. “Yes.”
(snip)
“The people on top have enormous power. Not only economic power, not only enormous political power, they also have enormous media power,” Sanders said. “They define what we are allowed to get upset about and outraged about and more or less what we’re not allowed to talk about. So what the book is about trying to break through all of that and talk about reality.”
(snip)
https://news.virginia.edu/content/bernie-sanders-takes-aim-ruling-class-corporations-and-wealthy
= new reply since forum marked as read
There is no reason they had to put "ruling class" in quotes in the headline. It's not so-called; it's a reality. We're ruled by an oligarchy, much like Russia.
Don't take my or Bernie's word for it. Jimmy Carter said it, in 2015 (even BEFORE the Trump years). He said the US is an oligarchy. From Rolling Stone:
"FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY Carter had some harsh words to say about the current state of America’s electoral process, calling the country “an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery” resulting in “nominations for president or to elect the president.” When asked this week by The Thom Hartmann Program (via The Intercept) about the Supreme Court’s April 2014 decision to eliminate limits on campaign donations, Carter said the ruling “violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system.”"
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-63262/
from the Congressional Budget Office, hardly a radical institution:
?itok=fh64bNke
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58533
The wealth of the ruling class TRIPLED in 30 years, while the majority stayed flat. $40 trillion to $120 trillion. You can barely see the majoirty on that scale.
THIS is the real "wealth redistribution" - upwards. The oligarchs did not earn this through work. They stole our labor. And our lives.
Wealth is power. The oligarchs run our lives.
