8 BERNIE SANDERS’ POLICIES You Just GOTTA Love

Whenever I hear people fuming or fretting over Bernie Sanders’ policies from now on, my retort will be, “Please tell me: What part of ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people’ offends or frightens you?” Then I’ll wait to hear the answer, respectfully.

 

Now that Bernie Sanders’ march toward the Democratic nomination looks impregnable and very close to inevitable, my response to people mocking or pondering him will change.

 

Instead of trying to educate low-information voters about the difference between Bernie’s Democratic Socialism (something we already have plenty of right here in the United States), Communism and Mussolini/Stalin-type Socialism–which enough people are doing online–my goal now is to get them to take a breath and simply take a closer look at, and listen to, the person who may well be our next President. Because the prospect is no longer a far-fetched pipe dream, people are beginning to focus on him as a real possibility. So, this is our chance to welcome them to explore what he’s proposing and see how it sits with them.

 

It’s simply  a matter of getting those who have heard worrisome things about him to listen to him instead of to the corporate talking heads on both sides who are arrayed lockstep against him.

 

When they do, they will discover that Bernie Sanders is talking about their concerns, just as he has been for the entire time he has held public office.

 

His slogan, “Not me. US!” covers his philosophy in its entirety.

 

Why the Powers that Be are Losing their Shit

 

Bernie’s candidacy may appear to be a power grab to those in power, but it’s not. It’s a power modifier, so that the rest of us factor into the machinations of powerful people. Rich people will still be rich. They just won’t be the only people our government listens to. The rest of us will have a real voice and real choices and chances to better our lots in life.

 

Chris Matthews of MSNBC wasn’t bemoaning Bernie as a Nazi; he was bemoaning the reality that the DNC’s carefully crafted  stranglehold on who gets the nod to run for President has been throttled. Matthews has clearly seen the writing on the wall.

 

The rich and corporate DEMS in the DNC ranks are just as much against what Bernie has in mind as the GOP is.

 

Our battle isn’t DEM versus GOP. It’s politician-corrupting corporations versus we the people.

 

Bernie doesn’t believe in stacking the deck against the working people in this country.

 

Every one of his policies will loosen the shackles that employers and corporations have on workers.

 

Medicare For All will free workers to leave jobs where they’re treated poorly or jobs they hate so they can find employment that floats their boats. Medicare for All will follow them wherever they go, and if they get laid off, it will still be there for them. No one will go bankrupt because they or a family member gets sick ever again.

 

Tuition-free higher education in all public colleges and universities will give everyone the ability to pursue information and skills that will help them earn higher wages and make better decisions for their lives. It will also limit the number of low-information voters who vote the way they do (against their own interests) because they’re afraid and systematically misinformed by the people who are keeping them collared in that way.

 

Universal child care for all children from infancy to five years of age will allow mothers to keep most of what they earn and get ahead instead of putting what they earn into paying for the child care that frees them to work.

 

A $15 minimum wage will ensure that no one who works for a living will be existing so far below the poverty line that they have to go on the federal dole to keep their heads above water.

 

Kicking health insurance and pharmaceutical companies off their greedy pedestals will free up literally trillions of dollars that can go toward helping sick people and other federal programs that help people instead of saddling them with mountains of additional debt.

 

Getting the money out of politics will put lobbyists out of business and the American people back on the front burner, since their votes will matter for the first time in some forty years.

 

Putting people on the Supreme Court who aren’t going to curtail long-cherished rights (birth control, Roe v Wade, voting rights, human rights, etc.) will ensure that totalitarian scoundrels won’t be gumming up the works.

 

Enacting a Green New Deal will help ensure that we’ll begin doing everything possible to turn around the disasters that await us if we continue to pretend Climate Change isn’t very real and an existential threat to every species on the planet, including our own.

 

The list goes on.

 

What Bernie is espousing to bring about is government of, by and for the people instead of of, by and for the oligarchs and plutocrats who are riding roughshod on us now. They have enough ill-gotten money. They need to start divesting from fossil fuels and other exploitation and start spending their money on stuff that benefits the planet and instead of  buying votes and subsidies.

 

If we can keep these issues front and center, Bernie’s coattails will be long and he will help sweep in many more progressives who believe in a future worth fighting for.

 

So, these are my self-imposed marching orders from now until Election Day in November: Don’t talk about Donald Trump. Talk about Bernie’s vision for America and the world. Unless we turn the corner this time, there is very little hope we will ever turn out with a “happily ever after.”

 

Time is short and the water rises.  These are perilous times.

 

Bernie’s answers are the ones that resonate with unafraid Americans who know we need to get back to the business of creating an America and a planet that sustains everyone.

 

If we fail in this, the plutocrats and oligarchs will lose, too. They and their heirs can’t outrun or outsmart planetary disaster. Maybe it’s time they figured that one out, too.