It’s OK to be Angry about Capitalism by Bernie Sanders – Thoughts
Prior to reading this, I did not like Bernie Sanders. After reading this, I fully do not trust him at all and believe he’s a scumbag who’s in the uniparty.
This book really doesn’t provide much of a solution to what Sanders poses as “uber-capitalism” until about the last 10 pages. This was primarily about him, his influence in the 2020 election, how great he does by reaching such a diverse range of Americans (that he really, REALLY needs to let you know whenever he talks about his voter demographic), and his main talking points (climate change, healthcare for all, hatred for billionaires, and his desire to raise taxes). Basically. There are some more talking points that I don’t remember hearing previously from him, but I still think he’s full of shit because you can look at his social media and it’s currently all about climate change. I’ve been curious how many politicians and celebrities have NOT discussed the movie Sound of Freedom and the disgusting amounts of child trafficking that are happening in our country. And that the US is the biggest consumer of child porn. I additionally didn’t appreciate the desire to emulate other countries’ stances on health care, taxes, etc.
Here are some of my responses to the problems Sanders discussed [like a politician].
“We must also oppose the reactionary and neo-fascist forces in this country that are undermining American democracy and moving us toward authoritarianism and violence as they scapegoat minorities and attempt to divide us based on our race, our gender, our sexual orientation, or our ethnicity.”
Other factors affected that aside from capitalism itself. He’s a part of the division with race and gender.
“We can have a guaranteed jobs program that puts people to work at livable wages addressing the enormous unmet needs of our society. And we can move toward economic democracy in which workers have more and more power over the jobs they perform so that they no longer have to function as unhappy cogs in the machine.”
So if he wants to get rid of billionaires and CEOs, where are these jobs coming from?
“‘If we don’t believe that we are entitled to live in a world that has a clean environment and is not ravaged by climate change, we will continue to see more drought, floods, rising sea levels, an increasingly uninhabitable planet.’”
Maybe the gov’t should have a better garbage program. Maybe they shouldn’t have allowed the plastic production to explode as it has and should implement better recycling programs. We’re paying enough in taxes, we’ve sent Ukraine enough money – the money’s there, they just don’t care about their own citizens. Aside from that, the climate of the earth has been naturally changing since the earth has been here. In all honesty, how do we know that the planet hasn’t been through weather and natural disasters at the scale that they’re occurring at today? He discusses that “we literally see ‘100 year’ events occurring year after year,” yet does not provide any evidence for this.
“Wars and excessive military budgets are not good.”
The US is involved in Ukraine right now and the cost if living if the highest that it’s ever been. But his IG doesn’t seem to have any posts saying that we need to pull our money from Ukraine.
“Purdue Pharma knew about ‘significant’ abuse of OxyContin in the first years after the drug’s introduction in 1996 and concealed that information.”
Yet, no discussion of the vaccines from Big Pharma in the 2020 pandemic. He pushes that covid was such a horrible pandemic.
“Trump is the ugliest expression of a growing phenomenon in which billionaires in the United States and around the world are not only delivering massive amounts of campaign cash to the candidates and parties they support; these billionaires are actually running for office – and winning.”
That’s not a growing phenomenon. Money in politics has been happening for thousands of years.
In response to the Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act, what would the govt actually do with all of that extra money?
“[Democrats] should be inspired by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who explained in 1935, ‘the duty rests upon the government to restrict such incomes by very high taxes.’” Fuck him and his high taxes. The government should not be taking this much of our money.
Health care
Comparison of the US healthcare system to Canada and the UK. Some of those countries can’t see their dying patients for years, so should we really be looking at them for healthcare system changes?
“In 2021 we lost over 100k people to drug overdoses, while suicide, alcoholism, depression, and anxiety are rising.”
You contributed to that to “save lives” in lieu of covid.
“There are now entire counties in America where there are no doctors, and where primary care is effectively unavailable.”
Which counties in which states don’t have enough healthcare professionals? Why wouldn’t Bernie help with this if healthcare is so important to him? He’s been in politics long enough, but he hasn’t accomplished anything regarding this issue? Can he help personally if not through legislation?
Health discussion from Denmark policies – Dan Jorgensen literally says that Denmark is a welfare state. “‘It’s true that we do pay a lot in tax…if something happens to you, if you lose your job, you get social security. If you get sick, you’ll get health care…for the top 1 percent of people, it might be better to live in the United States.”
IF – paying for things that might not even happen. And this is coming from a politician, of course he’s going to say that the people of his country are happy while he reaps the benefits of their asinine amounts of taxes.
“Under Medicare for All, there will no longer be insurance premiums, deductibles, or co-payments. No more worrying about whether you can afford to see a doctor, etc.”
Who pays for this? Will there be waitlists, with the shortage of doctors and nurses he just discussed a couple of pages ago? What about people who don’t take care of themselves? Will they be prioritized or ignored? Who decides when and which patients will be seen?
“The Medicare for All bill…would save the health care system $650 billion a year, beginning in 2030, while covering every man, woman, and chile with no premiums, deductibles or co-payments. These savings include a $14 billion reduction in administrative costs and a $508 billion reduction in payments to health care providers and pharmaceutical companies – offset by $272 billion in additional spending as a result of an increased use of the healthcare system.”
How will the doctor’s offices and hospitals pay for everything? If there’s no moneg coming in, there are still bills to pay – utilities, realty space, equipment, staff income
Working Class
“To ease the immediate pain of working-class Americans: create a full-employment economy in which every worker is entitled to a decent job.”
Define a decent job. How do you determine why people are entitled to decent jobs? What about the workers who don’t actually put in the work?
“Amazon has become the face of uber-capitalism.”
Why did you close so many small businesses? What did you think was going to happen when you told small businesses they had to stop how they made a majority of their money and there was a pre-established online seller for a majority of goods that people consume in the US?
Discusses “corporately owned networks like CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and of course, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News”
Yes, those are owned by corporate companies but those companies are paid off by the government to discuss certain topics.
“Workers, not CEOs, must determine the future of work in America.”
Why should workers determine the future if they didn’t have the ideas or the drive to begin a business in the first place? The world needs intrapreneuers as well, but they don’t have the mind to run a company.
Discusses a 4 day work week proposed by a UK Labour Party parliamentarian, John McDonnell. As all the quotes and summaries previously, my response is below
- Less money for workers
- 1 less day to accomplish things for business
- Will there be productivity level fluctuations?
- Expenses will increase
- Business hours and business days will surely change
Overall,
My take on Sanders’ policies is this: yes, we have to rework the health care system in this country and Big Pharma should not profit as much as they do. No, the answer to America’s issues are NOT socialism in any form. Socialism leads to communism. The same people who are telling us that socialism is a good idea are the ones who won’t be losing anything, they’ll only be gaining.
My thoughts of the point of this book are the following:
- A smear campaign against Trump that just happened to be published before the indictment trial
- A distraction from his “good friend” Biden not functioning at all
- A push for his socialist agenda
Read on.
Alessandra is reading... 
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