Wendy’s social media smackdown, Part Three…
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Monday, May 20, 2019
Wendy’s social media smackdown, Part Three… Coalition of Immokalee Workers
This problem is a GLOBAL problem Bernie Sanders
This problem is a GLOBAL problem
Alfred -
One of the great crises facing the global community today is that democracy, the right of ordinary people to control their own lives, is on the defensive while authoritarianism is growing stronger.
And at its root is the fact that a handful of incredibly wealthy people are exerting enormous economic and political power over the planet. Unbelievably, in the global economy today, the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 99 percent, and a handful of billionaires own more than the bottom half of people around the world — that’s 3.7 billion people.
That is the reality.
People in our own country, and around the world, are angry and betrayed, and they feel that nobody is listening to their pain.
And one of the results of that reality is that in Europe, in Russia, in the Middle East, in Asia and elsewhere we are seeing movements led by demagogues who exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances to achieve and hold on to power.
Next week, Donald Trump is set to welcome one of those leaders into the White House: Hungary’s far-right authoritarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán.
Now, I have always found it very strange that Trump has such a hard time getting along with leaders of the world’s major democracies but feels very comfortable with authoritarians like Orbán, Putin, Xi Jinping, Bolsonaro and Mohammad bin Salman.
But the truth is, while they all differ in some respects, they share a number of key attributes: hostility toward democratic norms, antagonism toward a free press, intolerance toward ethnic and religious minorities, and a belief that government should benefit their own selfish financial interests.
This trend certainly did not begin with Trump, but there’s no question that authoritarian leaders around the world have drawn inspiration from the fact that the leader of the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy seems to delight in shattering democratic norms.
Other authoritarian states are much farther along this kleptocratic process. In Russia, it is impossible to tell where the decisions of government end and the interests of Vladimir Putin and his circle of oligarchs begin. They operate as one unit. Similarly, in Saudi Arabia, there is no debate about separation because the natural resources of the state, valued at trillions of dollars, belong to the Saudi royal family. In Hungary, far-right authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán is openly allied with Putin in Russia. In China, an inner circle led by Xi Jinping has steadily consolidated power, clamping down on domestic political freedom while it aggressively promotes a version of authoritarian capitalism abroad.
So the question is: Where do we go from here?
To effectively oppose right-wing authoritarianism, we cannot simply go back to the failed status quo of the last several decades. In order to fight this trend, we need to strengthen the global coalition of progressive democrats.
While authoritarians promote division and hatred, we promote unity, inclusion, and an agenda based on economic, social, racial, and environmental justice.
The people of the world must come together to end the absurdity of rich and multinational corporations stashing over $21 trillion in offshore bank accounts to avoid paying their fair share of taxes and then demanding that their respective governments impose an austerity agenda on their working families.
It is not acceptable that the fossil fuel industry continues to make huge profits while their carbon emissions destroy the planet for our children and grandchildren.
It is not acceptable that a handful of multinational media giants, owned by a small number of billionaires, largely control the flow of information on the planet.
It is not acceptable that trade policies that benefit large multinational corporations and encourage a race to the bottom hurt working people throughout the world as they are written out of public view.
It is not acceptable that, with the Cold War long behind us, countries around the world spend over $1 trillion a year on weapons of destruction, while millions of children die of easily treatable diseases.
In order to effectively combat the rise of the international authoritarian axis, we need a global progressive movement that mobilizes behind a vision of shared prosperity, security and dignity for all people and that addresses the massive inequality that exists, not only in wealth but in political power as well.
Such a movement must be willing to think creatively and boldly about the world that we would like to see.
We must take the opportunity to reconceptualize a genuinely progressive global community based on human solidarity, that recognizes that every person on this planet shares a common humanity, that we all want our children to grow up healthy, to have a good education, have decent jobs, drink clean water, breathe clean air, and live in peace.
Our job is to reach out to those in every corner of the world who share these values and who are fighting for a better world.
In a time of exploding wealth and technology, we have the potential to create a decent life for all people. Our job is to build on our common humanity and do everything that we can to oppose all of the forces, whether unaccountable government power or unaccountable corporate power, who try to divide us up and set us against each other.
We know that those forces work together across borders. We must do the same.
Thank you for reading.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
In this campaign, we are taking on very powerful interests who will do and spend whatever it takes to stop us. Can you please chip in to help us close the gap on Trump’s massive fundraising advantage before the next FEC deadline comes to a close?
Paid for by Bernie 2020
PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402
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Alfred -
One of the great crises facing the global community today is that democracy, the right of ordinary people to control their own lives, is on the defensive while authoritarianism is growing stronger.
And at its root is the fact that a handful of incredibly wealthy people are exerting enormous economic and political power over the planet. Unbelievably, in the global economy today, the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 99 percent, and a handful of billionaires own more than the bottom half of people around the world — that’s 3.7 billion people.
That is the reality.
People in our own country, and around the world, are angry and betrayed, and they feel that nobody is listening to their pain.
And one of the results of that reality is that in Europe, in Russia, in the Middle East, in Asia and elsewhere we are seeing movements led by demagogues who exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances to achieve and hold on to power.
Next week, Donald Trump is set to welcome one of those leaders into the White House: Hungary’s far-right authoritarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán.
Now, I have always found it very strange that Trump has such a hard time getting along with leaders of the world’s major democracies but feels very comfortable with authoritarians like Orbán, Putin, Xi Jinping, Bolsonaro and Mohammad bin Salman.
But the truth is, while they all differ in some respects, they share a number of key attributes: hostility toward democratic norms, antagonism toward a free press, intolerance toward ethnic and religious minorities, and a belief that government should benefit their own selfish financial interests.
This trend certainly did not begin with Trump, but there’s no question that authoritarian leaders around the world have drawn inspiration from the fact that the leader of the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy seems to delight in shattering democratic norms.
Other authoritarian states are much farther along this kleptocratic process. In Russia, it is impossible to tell where the decisions of government end and the interests of Vladimir Putin and his circle of oligarchs begin. They operate as one unit. Similarly, in Saudi Arabia, there is no debate about separation because the natural resources of the state, valued at trillions of dollars, belong to the Saudi royal family. In Hungary, far-right authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán is openly allied with Putin in Russia. In China, an inner circle led by Xi Jinping has steadily consolidated power, clamping down on domestic political freedom while it aggressively promotes a version of authoritarian capitalism abroad.
So the question is: Where do we go from here?
To effectively oppose right-wing authoritarianism, we cannot simply go back to the failed status quo of the last several decades. In order to fight this trend, we need to strengthen the global coalition of progressive democrats.
While authoritarians promote division and hatred, we promote unity, inclusion, and an agenda based on economic, social, racial, and environmental justice.
The people of the world must come together to end the absurdity of rich and multinational corporations stashing over $21 trillion in offshore bank accounts to avoid paying their fair share of taxes and then demanding that their respective governments impose an austerity agenda on their working families.
It is not acceptable that the fossil fuel industry continues to make huge profits while their carbon emissions destroy the planet for our children and grandchildren.
It is not acceptable that a handful of multinational media giants, owned by a small number of billionaires, largely control the flow of information on the planet.
It is not acceptable that trade policies that benefit large multinational corporations and encourage a race to the bottom hurt working people throughout the world as they are written out of public view.
It is not acceptable that, with the Cold War long behind us, countries around the world spend over $1 trillion a year on weapons of destruction, while millions of children die of easily treatable diseases.
In order to effectively combat the rise of the international authoritarian axis, we need a global progressive movement that mobilizes behind a vision of shared prosperity, security and dignity for all people and that addresses the massive inequality that exists, not only in wealth but in political power as well.
Such a movement must be willing to think creatively and boldly about the world that we would like to see.
We must take the opportunity to reconceptualize a genuinely progressive global community based on human solidarity, that recognizes that every person on this planet shares a common humanity, that we all want our children to grow up healthy, to have a good education, have decent jobs, drink clean water, breathe clean air, and live in peace.
Our job is to reach out to those in every corner of the world who share these values and who are fighting for a better world.
In a time of exploding wealth and technology, we have the potential to create a decent life for all people. Our job is to build on our common humanity and do everything that we can to oppose all of the forces, whether unaccountable government power or unaccountable corporate power, who try to divide us up and set us against each other.
We know that those forces work together across borders. We must do the same.
Thank you for reading.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
Paid for by Bernie 2020
PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402
This email was sent to alfredjohnson34@comcast.net. If you need to, unsubscribe here. You can also sign up to receive fewer emails. We hope you'll stay, because emails are such an important part of how we organize and how we raise money. In fact, there is no single greater source for our campaign's fundraising than emails like this one. And that's important, because no one person, not even Bernie Sanders, can take on Trump and the billionaire class alone.
Before you go about the rest of your day, help power our fight against the billionaire class by making a contribution today.
Submit this form to update your contact information.
Climate change is an existential threat to our country and the entire planet Bernie Sanders
Climate change is an existential threat to our country and the entire planet
Alfred -
We are custodians of the earth, and it would be a moral disgrace if we left to future generations a planet that was unhealthy, unsafe, and uninhabitable.
Last night I joined my friend Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others to speak about climate change at an event sponsored by the Sunrise Movement.
And what I told the crowd was that climate change is an existential threat to our country, to the entire world, and that if we do not act boldly and aggressively to transform our global energy system away from fossil fuels within the next few years, there will be irreparable harm done to the planet.
What significant temperature increases will mean is more drought, more crop failures, and more famine. Drinking water, already a precious commodity in many areas, will become even scarcer. Millions of people will be displaced by rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and flooding. Tropical diseases like malaria, dengue, and yellow fever will spread into parts of the world where they don’t currently exist.
All of this will likely lead to increased human suffering and death, but the results will be even more dire than that. The growing scarcity of basic human needs could well lead to perpetual warfare in regions around the world, as people fight over limited supplies of water, farmland, and other natural resources.
I want to stress something I was laughed at for saying during the 2016 campaign, and that is that climate change is the greatest national security threat facing our country today.
And if we are going to be honest about combating climate change, it is necessary for us to understand that we have an economy that is rigged and a political system that is profoundly corrupt.
In other words, we have a small number of incredibly powerful billionaires who exercise enormous influence over the economic and political life of the country.
There are a lot of parallels between what the fossil fuel industry is doing today and the tobacco industry of 50 years ago. Decades ago, large profitable corporations denied that cigarette smoking causes cancer and other diseases. Today, the fossil fuel industry, making billions every year, denies what carbon emissions are doing to our planet. They lie, lie and lie, and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy politicians who echo their lies.
In the last decade alone, the oil and gas industry has pumped more than $700 million worth of campaign contributions into federal, state and local elections. In that same time, they spent more than $1.5 billion lobbying in Washington, D.C.
The fossil fuel industry has been well rewarded for their spending. An IMF report found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015.
Maybe providing massive support to an industry that is destroying our planet makes sense to some people, but it damn well does not make sense to me.
And here is even more. As a result of Trump’s tax cuts, nearly half of the Fortune 500 companies that paid zero in taxes last year were in the fossil fuel and utility industry.
Let’s be clear: it is time to end all subsidies and tax breaks for the oil and gas companies.
These companies lied to the American people about the very existence of climate change and committed one of the greatest frauds in the history of our country.
And just as the tobacco industry was ultimately forced to pay for the fraud they committed – the fossil fuel industry must be forced to do the same.
They cannot destroy this planet with impunity.
So here is the major question that we must answer: How do we take on an industry with unlimited power and resources?
And here in my view, is the answer.
We need a political revolution. We need millions of people from one end of this country to the other to stand up and fight back to create environmental policy that works for all of us and not just the one percent.
We have got an enormous amount of work in front of us. We’ve got to educate. We've got to organize. And we’ve got to fight for political power.
The one percent has unlimited wealth and influence, but at the end of the day they are just one percent. And if my arithmetic is right, there are a lot more people in the 99 percent than in the one percent.
Let’s bring our people together. Let’s transform our energy system and let’s save the planet.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
Paid for by Bernie 2020
PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402
This email was sent to alfredjohnson34@comcast.net. If you need to, unsubscribe here. You can also sign up to receive fewer emails. We hope you'll stay, because emails are such an important part of how we organize and how we raise money. In fact, there is no single greater source for our campaign's fundraising than emails like this one. And that's important, because no one person, not even Bernie Sanders, can take on Trump and the billionaire class alone.
Before you go about the rest of your day, help power our fight against the billionaire class by making a contribution today.
Submit this form to update your contact information.
The rejected are getting together Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II and Reverend. Dr. Liz Theoharis
The rejected are getting together
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