John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Sanders launches his campaign with a blast of demagogy
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders kicked off his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination with rallies on Saturday in Brooklyn, New York and on Sunday night in Chicago. At both rallies, he delivered speeches presenting a Sanders presidency as the most ambitious effort to reform American society since the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt, more than 80 years ago.
Sanders’ speech was an exercise in political demagogy, because there exists no relationship between even the limited reforms he envisages and any realistic strategy for their implementation.
Sanders promised to “finally create an economy and a government which works for all of us not just the 1 percent.” He continued, clearly referring to the presidency of Donald Trump, “The underlying principle of our government will not be greed, hatred, and lies…. It will not be tax breaks for billionaires, and efforts to throw millions off the health care that they currently have. This campaign is going to end all of that.”
Sanders claimed that under his
administration, “We will no longer tolerate the
greed of corporate America… greed which
has resulted in this country having more
income and wealth inequality than any other
major country on earth.”
The candidate outlined a series of socioeconomic reforms, including guaranteed health care for all under a single-payer plan; a $15 an hour minimum wage; creating 13 million decent-paying jobs through a program to rebuild US infrastructure; quality, affordable childcare; tuition-free public colleges and universities and a reduction in student debt; raising Social Security benefits; and transforming the energy system away from fossil fuels as part of an effort to fight climate change.
These proposals will no doubt attract considerable popular support, just as Sanders did in the 2016 campaign, when he received more than 13 million votes in Democratic primaries and caucuses.
Missing from his speech were the words “capitalism,” “private property,” “profit system,” “imperialism” and the notorious S-word, "socialism."
Sanders invokes a “political revolution.” But this “revolution” will supposedly be achieved under the leadership of the Democrats, the oldest modern capitalist party, and will not touch the institution of private property that is the bedrock of capitalist inequality.
Revolutions, fundamentally, involve the transfer of political power from one class to another. However, Sanders does not call for the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalists. Instead, the septuagenarian will give speeches and the citadels of the ruling elite will presumably crumble like the walls of Jericho.
Does Sanders really believe that in America, the heart of world reaction, the world’s most ruthless capitalist oligarchy will simply give way to this “political revolution” and hand over trillions of dollars in social benefits to the working class, without a shot fired?
No, he does not. And therein lies his dishonesty. In New York, Sanders invoked his own biography, declaring, “I know where I came from.” By rights, he should have acknowledged where he has ended up: from humble beginnings, he has become an expert in demagogy and a purveyor of illusions.
Sanders appeals to the deeply-felt sentiments of hundreds of millions of workers and young people. He works to channel these sentiments into a political program that cannot achieve anything he promises.
In 2016, Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton, who he had been repeatedly exposed as a Wall Street stooge, betraying the aspirations of his supporters and setting the stage for the fascistic Donald Trump to become president.
Once again, as he begins his campaign for the presidential nomination in 2020, Sanders is attempting to divert all political opposition into the blind alley of the Democratic Party, even as this party itself opposes him and has no intention of implementing anything he proposes.
Sanders’ speech draws heavily on the “Second Bill of Rights” proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his State of the Union Address in 1944. Seeking to appease the militancy of a working class that would not accept the return of Depression-era conditions when World War II came to an end, Roosevelt declared:
"We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. 'Necessitous men are not free men.' People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
"In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed."
Roosevelt proposed a series of vaguely-defined economic reforms that included the "right" to "a useful and remunerative job," the "right to earn enough," the "right of every family to a decent home," the "right to a good education," and the "right to adequate medical care."
But, even at the zenith of the United States’ power, at the very end of World War II, Roosevelt's vision of a somewhat more humane version of American capitalism was dead in the water. Roosevelt died in April 1945, and the war was followed by a wave of political reaction that culminated in McCarthyism. Twenty years were to pass before, in the mid-1960s, President Lyndon Johnson's administration, under pressure from the mass civil rights movement and riots in major American cities, introduced his Great Society program. This was a heavily watered-down version of Roosevelt's "Second Bill of Rights," whose reforms fell far short of the social democratic measures that were commonplace in Western Europe.
In any event, the brief episode of capitalist reformism during the Kennedy-Johnson years soon gave way to the vicious social counterrevolution over which both Democratic and Republican presidents have presided for the past 40 years. The result has been the degeneration of the United States into an oligarchical society, characterized by staggering levels of wealth concentration in the richest 10 percent, while the remaining 90 percent experience economic hardship and outright poverty.
Sanders never gives a single explanation for how any of this came to pass. The policies he is denouncing are those that have been the stock-in-trade of the Democratic and Republican parties for decades. And these policies have been, and are, characteristic of capitalism throughout the world in a period of relentless assaults on the working class.
Sanders has no explanation for any of this because there is only one explanation: The one Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels gave in the Communist Manifesto: that capitalism impoverishes the masses for the enrichment of the capitalists. That capitalism is the cause of war, inequality and every social evil Sanders claims to oppose.
But Sanders does not support ending capitalism. He is appealing to the aspirations of his supporters only to betray them.
Socialism can be achieved only through the mass mobilization of the working class to conquer state power, as part of a revolutionary movement of the international working class, and to carry out the expropriation of the capitalist class and the establishment of public ownership over the means of production. This is the perspective that the Socialist Equality Party fights for
According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s 2017 report, illegal immigrants, and their children, cost American taxpayers a net $116 billion annually -- roughly $7,000 per alien annually. While high, this number is not an outlier: a recent study by the Heritage Foundation found that low-skilled immigrants (including those here illegally) cost Americans trillions over the course of their lifetimes, and a study from the National Economics Editorial found that illegal immigration costs America over $140 billion annually. As it stands, illegal immigrants are a massive burden on American taxpayers.
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AMERICAN POVERTY and the LA RAZA MEXICAN WELFARE STATE on AMERICA’S BACKS.
"Congress must prioritize four repairs for the immigration system before contemplating any DACA-style amnesty negotiation, said Brat:
1. Ending chain migration and the visa lottery;
3. Construction of a southern border wall; and
4. Interior enforcement of immigration law."
REP. DAVE BRAT
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MEXICAN ANCHOR BABY FACTORIES FOR WELFARE IN AMERICA’S OPEN BORDERS
ROBERT RECTOR:
THE STAGGERING COST OF MEXICO’S INVASION, OCCUPATION AND EVER
EXPANDING WELFARE STATE
FACTS ON THE “REAL LATINO AMERICA” IN MEXICO’S SECOND LARGEST CITY OF LOS ANGELES:
(these are highly DATED stats)
This is another "fact" spun from the 2004 op-ed by Heather Mac Donald, whose article refers to a single Los Angeles gang and the conjecture of an unnamed federal prosecutor.
1. "40% of all workers in L.A. County are working for cash and not paying taxes. . . . This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants working without a green card." The Mexican tax-free economy in Los Angeles County is estimated to be in excess of $2 billion dollars a year.
2. "95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens . . . "
3. "75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens."
4. "Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers." The County of Los Angeles hands Mexico’s anchor baby breeders more than a BILLION DOLLARS a year in welfare.
5. "Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally." California has the largest and most expensive prison system in the country. Half the inmates are now Mexicans. Half the murders in California are by Mexican gangs.
6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
7. "The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border."
8. "Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal."
immigrants.
9. 21 radio stations in L. A. are Spanish speaking.
10. In L. A. County 5.1 million people speak English, 3.9 million speak Spanish.
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THE NEW PRIVILEGED CLASS: Illegals (unregistered democrats)!
This is why you work From Jan - May paying taxes to the government ....with the rest of the calendar year is money for you and your family.
Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, with his fake Social Security number, he gets an "earned income credit" of up to $3,200..... free.
He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.
He qualifies for food stamps.
He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care.
His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.
He requires bilingual teachers and books.
He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.
If they are or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI.
Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare. All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense.
He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.
Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.
He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits.
Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after Paying their bills and his.
The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up.
Cheap labor? YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people!
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LA RAZA AMERICA: A Mexicans welfare state
MEXICO INVADES, OCCUPIES, PLUNDERS AND VOTED DEM FOR MORE!
There is also financial and political carnage perpetrated against our nation:
(FIGURES ARE HIGHLY DATED AND GOING UP EVERY WAVE OF INVASION)
1. $11 Billion to $22 Billion is spent on welfare to illegal immigrants each year by state governments (CALIFORNIA SPENDS $30 BILLION PER YEAR IN SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS. LOS ANGELES COUNTY CHIPS IN A BILLION PER YEAR FOR THE LA RAZA ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS).
*
2. $22 Billion dollars a year is spent on food Assistance programs such as
food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal immigrants.
*
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal immigrants.
*
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on Primary and secondary school
education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of
English!
*
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for Education for the American-born
Children of illegal immigrants, known as Anchor babies.
*
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal immigrants.
*
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison Inmates are illegal immigrants. Nearly half the inmates in CA are Mexicans.
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8. $130 Billion Dollars a year is spent on Illegal immigrants for Welfare & Social Services by the American taxpayers.
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9. $400 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal immigrants.
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10. In 2006, illegal immigrants sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their Countries of origin.
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11. The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes committed By Illegal Immigrants In The United States.
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12. From $40 to $60 billion hauled back to Mexico from heroin sales!
JOE LEGAL v LA RAZA JOSE ILLEGAL (registered Democrat voter)…
Which do you think has it much, much, much better in America’s open borders?
You should know! Your taxes are paying for his anchor baby welfare even as Jose Illegals enjoys a tax-free underground economy. Hey, Jose voted Democrat for more!