Democratic Party Not Worthy of its Name
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Author Archives: Author: Bruce Berlin
Build a Mass Movement to Overcome Big Money & Revive Democracy
America is faced with many problems today: Gun violence, climate change, immigration reform, income inequality and terrorism, just to name a few.
However, one issue overrides all the others. That is, the power of Big Money to unduly influence the outcome of our elections and the formation of public policy. Seventy-five percent of all voters agree that it is necessary to get Big Money out of politics and fix our broken political system before anything can be done to solve these other important national issues.
For example, despite the fact that 92% of Americans support universal background checks for all gun purchases, Big Money has bought off Congress and prevented passage of a universal background check statute that would help protect millions of innocent Americans from gun violence.
However, there is a time-tested solution to this problem. As noted in Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America, “when vested interests have constructed seemingly insurmountable barriers to the people’s demands for a more equitable society, Americans have come together and overcome the obstacles…(by forming) mass movements.”
Like the Labor, Civil Rights, and Gay and Lesbian Rights movements, among others, now we must build a broad-based, grassroots Democracy Movement to remove the corrupting influence of money in politics and make the government work for all the people. Visit www.breakingbigmoneysgrip.com for how you can start working to revive democracy in America.
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Radio Interview on 101.1 FM
Thursday, March 17, 8 am, I’m on KFSR 101.1 FM, the Radio Cafe talking about Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America
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Reading at Books Inc, San Francisco, Thurday, March 10
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Meet author Bruce Berlin at a reading & discussion about his new book, Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America. Thursday, March 10 at 7 pm. Books Inc. 2256 Chestnut St, San Francisco. Call 415-931-3633 for more inforation.
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Public Events with Bruce Berlin, Author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America
I’m in California now. I will be giving two public talks and book signings this coming week. On Tuesday, March 8 at 6:30 pm, I will be at the Noe Valley Library, 451 Jersey Street, San Francisco. This event is sponsored by N. California Common Cause. Call 415-531-1744 or email hgriego@commoncause.org for more information and to pre-order Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America.
On March 10 at 7 pm, I will be discussing Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America and signing books at Books Inc., 2256 Chestnut Street in the Marina District of San Francisco. Call 415-931-3633 for more information.
Clearly this is a critical time for our country. While my presentations will examine how Big Money has corrupted our political system, they will focus on how we Americans can work together to build a nonpartisan, grassroots democracy movement. If you are in the Bay area, I hope you will come and join in the discussion to revive our democracy.
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The Bottom Line in the Democratic Primary Race
The bottom line in the Democratic primary race is: Do the American people want to continue to have a government run by the Establishment. Or, is it time we actually had a government of, by and for the people? That is really what Democratic primary voters will decide in the next few months. Who controls our government and who should be calling the shots?
Yes, there are real differences between Clinton and Sanders on policy issues. But, the big question is whether the Democratic Party will continue to be dominated by Big Money and centrist Establishment thinking, or will the rank and file members who know the system is rigged against them stand up and demand fundamental changes that will level the playing field and give regular people real political power.
In the recent New Hampshire Democratic debate Hillary Clinton claimed that big donors have never influenced her votes. While that may be true, big donors clearly have a lot more access to lobby her to adopt their positions on specific issues than average voters do. There’s no question that money buys access. You can bet that Goldman Sachs did not pay Clinton over $200,000 per speech just to hear her talk about her experience as Secretary of State. So, it’s not hard to imagine how Wall Street’s access to Clinton impacts her decisions; for instance, that a new Glass Steagall Act to rein in the big banks is not needed.
If the American people continue to allow this kind of high donor influence to control our government, then we will be complicit in the establishment of a government of, by and for Big Money and corporate America that will never meet the real needs and desires of the American people. Bernie Sanders is offering us the opportunity to end our corrupt campaign finance system and make our country a more equitable society. Call it revolution or call it democratic socialism. Whatever you call it, we’ll all be a lot better off if we actively work with him to revive our democracy.
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Where has the incrementalism that Establishment Democrats support gotten most Americans?
Before I try to answer this question, I apologize for my absence from this blog for the last few weeks. My father was in the hospital which required that my attention be directed first and foremost toward him. Now that he is back home and improving, I can deal with other issues like the one in the title of this piece.
The short answer to the question in the title is that the Democratic establishment’s support of incremental change has maintained the status quo and done very little for most Americans over the last 30 or more years. According to Slate.com, income for the top 20 percent of Americans has increased since the 1970s while income for the bottom 80 percent declined. In the 1970s the top 1 percent received 8 percent of total income while by 2007 they were receiving 18 percent. Now it’s an even greater amount. During the same period income for the bottom 20 percent had decreased 30 percent.
As I point out in my book, Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America, “between 2009 and 2012 the incomes of top 1 percent of citizens climbed 31.4 percent — or 95 percent of the total gain –while incomes of the other 99 percent grew only .4 percent.”
Since members of the Democratic establishment, for the most part, are in the top 20 percent which have seen their incomes increase over these last 30 years, they don’t feel an urgency for bold initiatives like Sen. Sanders proposes to reorder a system that has served them well. Like Secretary Clinton, they are fine with incrementalism. While many of them recognize various degrees of unfairness in the status quo, they don’t want to rock the boat too much for fear it might spring a leak or even capsize, causing significant harm to their relatively safe positions.
As Brent Budowsky writes for The Hill, it is Sanders’ growing popularity that seems to have ignited the establishment’s backlash against him: “Virtually the entire Washington and Wall Street establishments are now in a state of panic about the possibility of a [Sanders] victory in the Iowa Democratic caucus next Monday,” Budowsky writes. “What the insider Washington Democratic establishment fails to understand is that the issues Sanders raises have great appeal to the broad nation.” Moreover, the establishment’s pushback exposes their lack of conviction for a truly fair and just society.
The great majority of Americans who represent “the broad nation” and are on the lower decks of our economic ship feel they are in danger of drowning as their financial boat takes on more water. Incrementalism will not save them or their children. Sen. Sanders’s calls for strong measures to redirect America’s economic and social policies gives them hope that they can yet land on solid ground.
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A Big Boost for Sanders and a Huge Blow to Clinton
In case you missed it, a few days ago 170 of America’s leading economists endorsed Sen. Sanders’ plan to reform Wall Street. Here’s some of what they said:
In our view, Sanders’ plan for comprehensive financial reform is critical for avoiding another ‘too-big-to-fail’ financial crisis. The Senator is correct that the biggest banks must be broken up and that a new 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act, separating investment from commercial banking, must be enacted….The only way to contain Wall Street’s excesses is with reforms sufficiently bold and public they can’t be watered down. That’s why we support Senator Sanders’s plans for busting up the biggest banks and resurrecting a modernized version of Glass-Steagall.
In addition, these leading economists noted: Secretary Hillary Clinton’s more modest proposals do not go far enough. They call for a bit more oversight and a few new charges on shadow banking activity, but they leave intact the titanic financial conglomerates that practice most shadow banking. As a result, her plan does not adequately reduce the serious risks our financial system poses to the American economy and to individual Americans. Given the size and political power of Wall Street, her proposals would only invite more dilution and finagle. (See http://www.politicususa.com/2016/01/14/170-economists-bernie-sanders-plan-reform-wall-st-rein-greed.html)
These economists couldn’t be more clear. If Americans do not want to risk another financial crisis like the 2008 meltdown, the candidate that will provide the best protection against such a calamity is Sen. Sanders. And the reason is quite obvious. Unlike Secretary Clinton, Sen. Sanders is not tied to Wall Street. Many of Hillary Clinton’s biggest donors are investment bankers. She cannot both satisfy their interests and safeguard the American people at the same time. When a future President Clinton is dealing with critical financial issues facing our nation, can we trust her to make decisions that are in the public’s best interests over those that favor the Big Money that helped her get elected, and she will need for her re-election?
We all know the answer to that question. Hillary Clinton is part of the Establishment that uses its money and influence to get what it wants from Washington at the expense of the American people. Her Wall Street reform proposals don’t go far enough because she cannot afford to bite the hand that feeds her. But, we, the people, cannot afford more establishment politics that serve Big Money and provide little benefit for the rest of us. We need the strong leadership that Sen. Sanders offers on this and many other issues. And, we will only get that leadership if we all go out and work to ensure his election.
For more on the problem of Big Money in politics, visit http://www.breakingbigmoneysgrip.com and read Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America.
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2016 – This is Our Time
It’s a new year with so much on the horizon. And, so much uncertainty. Who will win the Republican presidential nomination? As the actual nominating process is about to begin in earnest, it seems five or six candidates are still viable contenders. In fact, we may not know until their national convention next summer who will actually be the Republican standard bearer.
While the media and the Democratic establishment believe Hillary Clinton has the nomination all but wrapped up, Bernie Sanders’ campaign continues to build momentum and support. So, it’s quite possible Sanders could pull a populist upset and not only win the nomination, but also be our next president. (See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/bernie-sanders-will-be-sworn-in-as-americas-45th-president_b_8909356.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592.)
I think, however, the bigger question is: What will you and I do to help determine the outcome of this pivotal election? Over our lifetime, whether you are 18 or 80, the prevailing trend in American electoral politics has been that fewer and fewer people participate in the process of selecting the leaders of our government, the people who control our lives and our country in very significant, even critical, ways.
Of course, we have many good reasons for not participating. Our political system is corrupt. Our votes don’t matter. It’s a waste of time and energy. It’s fixed. The establishment always wins. Why bother?
I must admit: It’s hard to argue with someone who holds that point of view. But this year just could be different. The anti-establishment contingent may be so big in 2016 that the old order finally gets thrown out. Trump and Cruz appear to have captured the majority of Republican primary voters. And, the Sanders campaign claims to have more individual financial supporters, over than 2.5 million, than anyone in the history of American politics. The voters are very upset.
Since I came of age in the early Sixties, we have witnessed one American tragedy after another. From the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations to the catastrophic blunders of the Vietnam and Iraq wars. As if that wasn’t enough, millions of people lost their jobs and/or their homes in the Great Recession of 2008 due to Wall Street fraud and irregularities. And, if that wasn’t enough, our government bailed the big bankers out with out tax money. Still, if that wasn’t enough, we stood by and let them get away with it. Today, those bankers are doing better than ever while most Americans have a difficult time just holding their own. The voters are very, very angry.
I saw “The Big Short” the other day. I highly recommend it. The movie clearly lays out exactly how Wall Street and the big mortgage lenders knowingly and fraudulently created a housing bubble that had to burst. Their greed and disregard for their fellow Americans threw the country into the biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression. “The Big Short” should be required viewing for all Americans.
But, perhaps the greatest tragedy is we, the American people, did not demand that those fraudulent bankers be prosecuted and held responsible. Just like we did not demand that the Bush Administration be held to account for the lies that got our country into the costly, needless Iraq War.
What is wrong with us? Are we Americans so weak, helpless or apathetic that we will allow Big Money to overrun our government and do anything it damn well pleases regardless of the consequences for our country and the rest of us? Are we too afraid? Do we have no self-respect?
Yes, Big Money is a powerful force to overcome. But are we going to succumb to serving its interests to the great harm of most Americans without a fight for what we know is right? Millions of Americans have fought and died since our country was born so that, as Lincoln vowed at Gettysburg, “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
This is Our Time. We cannot allow a plutocracy by and for the very wealthy to destroy democracy during our watch. Working together we can revive democracy in America. Read Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America and visit http://www.breakingbigmoneysgrip.com for how you can help.
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Can Sanders Beat Hillary?
If you depend on the nightly network news for information about the 2016 presidential campaign, you might not even know that Bernie Sanders is running for president. For the first nine months of 2015, Hillary Clinton received 80% of the time while Sanders got 6% of the evening news devoted to the Democratic race.
According to a recent study, Donald Trump received 234 minutes of coverage on the three network, evening news shows compared to 10 minutes for Sanders. ABC, for example, had 261 minutes devoted to election campaigns this year. Sanders received less than one minute of that time.
Clearly, corporate America is working for the Clinton campaign and against Sanders. The pundits say that Sanders can’t win. But, by and large, they also work for corporate America, who doesn’t want to see Sanders in the White House. This is just another glaring example of why we need to break Big Money’s grip on America. (Visit breakingbigmoneysgrip.com for what you can do to take control away from Big Money.)
Nevertheless, in the last seven months or so, Sanders has gone from 1% to 32% support among non-white voters. He leads Clinton in New Hampshire by 14%, while Hillary leads in Iowa by only 5% according to a recent CBS survey. In South Carolina, on the other hand, Clinton’s lead is more than 30 percentage points. Consequently, Sanders still has an uphill road to the Democratic nomination.
However, there is a bright light ahead for Sanders. Western Illinois University has been conducting a mock election one year before the national election ever since 1975. They have chosen the winning candidate every time, including people who were still very dark horses at the time like Jimmy Carter (for the 1976 election) and Barack Obama (for the 2008 election).
In fact, in 2007 when they held their mock election, Hillary Clinton was beating Obama in the polls by as much, if not more, than she is now ahead of Bernie Sanders. Yet, Clinton lost the Democratic nomination to Obama just as the Western Illinois mock election had predicted a year earlier.
The university held its mock election for next year last month. But even though Clinton is now leading Sanders in the polls, she didn’t win the mock election. The next president, according to the mock election, will be Bernie Sanders.
Breaking Big Money's Grip on America 