It’s what you don’t know that leaves you stuck in neutral

“Fear is incomplete knowledge” - Agatha Christie

In Wednesday night’s Democratic Debate in Nevada, perhaps the cheapest shot of any candidate was taken when billionaire Mike Bloomberg referred to Bernie Sanders position as a Democratic Socialist as communism.  “We’re not going to throw out capitalism”, Bloomberg said. “We tried that. Other countries tried that. It’s called communism, and it just didn’t work.”  It was the same message that Donald Trump has used against Sanders and in a very real since it gives credence to Elizabeth Warren’s claim that if Bloomberg gets the nomination we might be swapping “one arrogant billionaire for another.”

Sanders retaliated with a quote that in various forms has been used by Martin Luther King, Andrew Young, Gore Vidal and Joseph P. Kennedy II.  “There's socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for everyone else,” Sanders retorted, explaining how it’s the corporate welfare in this country that threatens income insecurity, not the policies Sanders proposes that will enable the lowest income earners to rise above the debt created by low wages and rising health care costs

Other wealthy individuals like JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon want  to portray Sanders as someone that undermines our freedom when the truth is that wealthy capitalist like Dimon want a form of socialism that solely benefits the wealthiest people in this country.

“Jamie Dimon wants socialism for himself”, says Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute and author of Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.  “[He and his wealthy friends] want to use the government through lots of different ways to create a legal framework where he is in control, his friends are in control, and we the people are not.” 

According to Stoller, Fortune 500 companies are trying to create a narrative that portrays these wealthy capitalist as a means to solve the countries social problems as opposed to government and democratic institutions.  Stoller says that this narrative “creates a soft autocracy underneath the happy rhetoric” of these wealthy corporations and private financial entities.

The other criticism by Bloomberg, Dimon and Trump on Bernie’s own millionaire status is a weak criticism that ignores how Sanders earned his wealth.  Bloomberg and Trump have yet revealed their true wealth, while Sanders’ Financial Disclosure Report is on file for all the public to view.  Unlike Trump who inherited his wealth from daddy or Dimon who helped rigged the system with other members of an elite financial sector, Sanders got “rich” by proceeds almost entirely from the sale of 3 books that raised serious concerns about how the income inequality in this country arose and how it threatens to replace our democracy with an oligarchy

The concept of a free market espoused by laissez-faire capitalist is pretty much a myth in today’s world and one that is propagandized by wealthy individuals to create that illusional American dream that leads people to believe they too can be a millionaire if they just work hard and play by the rules. It’s that starry-eyed illusion that fostered John Steinbeck’s observation back in the 1930's  that "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

Sanders and others who have exposed the income inequality in this country scare people like Jamie Dimon because as Matt Stoller notes they want to use their influence now to offset the momentum Sanders has generated “by acquiring and centralizing more power where they can take away what freedom we have left instead of letting us take away their liberty to control us.”

No Dr. Burgess. The National nightmare is not over.

“In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.” ― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Congressman Michael Burgess informed us that “our months long national nightmare” is over.  Apparently an observation with blinders firmly in place he suggested “America watched as House leadership forced a partisan impeachment investigation at the expense of putting the country first.”  Did Burgess not see this very thing happening when the GOP leadership in the Senate forced through a trial process without calling in any fact witnesses.  Something polls showed a strong majority of Americans wanted. 

The Democratic House managers had laid out a compelling brick by brick case demonstrating Trump’s attempt to blackmail the President of Ukraine by withholding approved security funds to an ally fighting our common enemy, Russia.  Yet Senate Republicans chose to capitulate to Trump’s dictum and denied the manager’s request for further witnesses and documents that would either solidly validate the charges brought up in the impeachment articles or, as their leader in the White House claimed, would exonerate him.

For Mr. Burgess to assert that this nightmare is over is typical of people who have their heads so far up Trump’s derriere that nothing passes through them that isn’t a part of the president’s gastrointestinal system. 

What dream like state do our GOP representatives in Congress see where they forfeit their constitutional powers as a co-equal branch of the government to an immature, self-serving autocrat?  Most of them were disparaging of this serial philanderer and an unconscionable blowhard prior to his nomination.  What changed after he blustered his way into the White House that would now have them violate their oath to the Constitution?

Burgess and his GOP cohorts are willing to disparage Speaker Pelosi’s act of tearing up Trump’s fact-challenged SOTU speech while ignoring his vindictive disrespect as he turned away from the Speaker’s hand in a gesture of civility.  They applauded and cheered Trump’s choice to receive the coveted Medal of Freedom for a hate-baiting, fear-mongering radio talk show host and drug abuser whose career vilified almost every human being who was a not a white American, conservative christian male.

They gave quiet consent the next day at the National Prayer Breakfast as Trump rebuked the Christian core value of loving your enemies, demonstrating that he’s incapable of moving forward as an adult to put this “national nightmare” behind us.  Gandhi once said, “A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”

No Congressman Burgess, the nightmare has just begun and will continue until the voters reject this venal man.  His incompetence has isolated us from our allies and endangered our national security.  His affinity for white nationalists emboldens those who would use violence against people of color and non-Christian religions.

His implications of personally effecting an expanding jobs market is baseless while expanding the income inequality between the wealthiest 1% and and lower 50% of income earners with his tax cuts. 

Where are the deficit hawks Mr. Burgess you claimed to be part of?  Where is your career advocacy to “do no harm” as a physician when your Party blocks or eliminates those needed efforts to provide health care coverage for those least able to afford it?   And finally, what happened to the outrage you displayed against a Democratic president you claimed was usurping the powers of Congress with unchecked Executive orders?

Your acquiescence to this president’s shameful behavior towards the press and our governmental institutions is similar to the actions of those who elevated Hitler from Chancellor to dictator by cancelling out many civil liberties and stacking courts with obedient jurists. 

Our founders gave us a Republic, “if we could keep it,” Benjamin Franklin informed a woman who inquired about the Constitutional Convention’s outcome in 1787.  The Party of Lincoln who helped preserve that Republic a little over 7 decades later is now the Party of Trump.  A man-child who reflects the complete opposite character of the adult who passionately embraced a nation of, for and by the people.