Sanders writes: "Jane and I want to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very healthy and happy new year."
Bernie Sanders at a November rally on Capitol Hill for economic and social justice. (photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
An Agenda for 2019
01 January 19
ane and I want to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very healthy and happy new year.
It goes without saying that 2019 will be a pivotal and momentous time for our country and the entire planet. As you know, there is a monumental clash now taking place between two very different political visions. Not to get you too nervous, but the future of our country and the world is dependent upon which side wins that struggle.
The bad news is that in the United States and other parts of the world, the foundations of democracy are under severe attack as demagogues, supported by billionaire oligarchs, work to establish authoritarian type regimes. That is true in Russia. That is true in Saudi Arabia. That is true in the United States. While the very rich get much richer these demagogues seek to move us toward tribalism and set one group against another, deflecting attention from the real crises we face.
The good news is that, all across this country, people are getting politically involved and are fighting back. They are standing up for economic, political, social and racial justice.
In the last year we saw courageous teachers, in some of the most conservative states in the country, win strikes as they fought for adequate funding for education.
We saw low paid workers at Amazon, Disney and elsewhere undertake successful struggles to raise their wages to a living wage � at least $15 an hour.
We saw incredibly courageous young people, who experienced a mass shooting in their school, lead successful efforts for commonsense gun safety legislation.
We saw diverse communities stand together in the fight against mass incarceration and for real criminal justice reform.
We saw tens of thousands of Americans, from every walk of life, take to the streets and demand that politicians respond to the global crisis of climate change.
As we enter 2019, it seems to me that we must mount a two-pronged offensive. First, we must vigorously take on the lies, bigotry and kleptocratic behavior of the most irresponsible president in the modern history of our country. In every way possible, we must stand up to the racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and religious intolerance of the Trump administration.
But fighting Trump is not enough.
The truth is that despite relatively low unemployment, tens of millions of Americans struggle daily to keep their heads above water economically as the middle class continues to shrink.
While the rich get richer, 40 million live in poverty, millions of workers are forced to work two or three jobs to pay the bills, 30 million have no health insurance, one in five cannot afford their prescription drugs, almost half of older workers have nothing saved for retirement, young people cannot afford college or leave school deeply in debt, affordable housing is increasingly scarce, and many seniors cut back on basic needs as they live on inadequate Social Security checks.
Our job, therefore, is not only to oppose Trump but to bring forth a progressive and popular agenda that speaks to the real needs of working people. We must tell Wall Street, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial complex, the National Rifle Association and the other powerful special interests that we will not continue to allow their greed to destroy this country and our planet.
Politics in a democracy should not be complicated. Government must work for all of the people, not just the wealthy and the powerful. As a new House and Senate convene next week, it is imperative that the American people stand up and demand real solutions to the major economic, social, racial and environmental crises that we face. In the richest country in the history of the world, here are some (far from all) of the issues that I will be focusing on this year. What do you think? How can we best work together?
Protect American democracy: Repeal Citizens United, move to public funding of elections and end voter suppression and gerrymandering. Our goal must be to establish a political system that has the highest voter turnout in the world and is governed by the democratic principle of one person - one vote.
Take on the billionaire class: End oligarchy and the growth of massive income and wealth inequality by demanding that the wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes. We must rescind Trump's tax breaks for billionaires and close corporate tax loopholes.
Increase Wages: Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, establish pay equity for women and revitalize the trade union movement. In the United States, if you work 40 hours a week, you should not live in poverty.
Make health care a right: Guarantee health care for everyone through a Medicare-for-all program. We cannot continue a dysfunctional healthcare system which costs us about twice as much per capita as any other major country and leaves 30 million uninsured.
Transform our energy system: Combat the global crisis of climate change which is already causing massive damage to our planet. In the process, we can create millions of good paying jobs as we transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy.
Rebuild America: Pass a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. In the United States we must not continue to have roads, bridges, water systems, rail transport, and airports in disrepair.
Jobs for All: There is an enormous amount of work to be done throughout our country � from building affordable housing and schools to caring for our children and the elderly. 75 years ago, FDR talked about the need to guarantee every able-bodied person in this country a good job as a fundamental right. That was true in 1944. It is true today.
Quality Education: Make public colleges and universities tuition free, lower student debt, adequately fund public education and move to universal childcare. Not so many years ago, the United States had the best education system in the world. We much regain that status again.
Retirement Security: Expand Social Security so that every American can retire with dignity and everyone with a disability can live with security. Too many of our elderly, disabled and veterans are living on inadequate incomes. We must do better for those who built this country.
Women's rights: It is a woman, not the government, who should control her own body. We must oppose all efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade, protect Planned Parenthood and oppose restrictive state laws on abortion.
Justice for All: End mass incarceration and pass serious criminal justice reform. We must no longer spend $80 billion a year locking up more people than any other country. We must invest in education and jobs, not jails and incarceration.
Comprehensive immigration reform: It is absurd and inhumane that millions of hardworking people, many of whom have lived in this country for decades, are fearful of deportation. We must provide legal status to those who are in the DACA program, and a path to citizenship for the undocumented.
Social Justice: End discrimination based on race, gender, religion, place of birth or sexual orientation. Trump cannot be allowed to succeed by dividing us up. We must stand together as one people.
A new foreign policy: Let us create a foreign policy based on peace, democracy and human rights. At a time when we spend more on the military than the next ten countries combined, we need to take a serious look at reforming the bloated and wasteful $716 billion annual Pentagon budget.
In the New Year, let us resolve to fight like we have never fought before for a government, a society and an economy that works for all of us, not just those on top.
Wishing you a wonderful new year,
Bernie Sanders
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Is that ship still turnable? Really?
But "you are always on [our] mind." Wendell Berry and Willie Nelson--you ought to record something together maybe with some of his poetry. Good luck, my man.
In 2006 the UN said "The cow is the world's top destroyer of the environment. Rapidly growing herds are a threat to wildlife, forests and climate, and help create acid rain." The pressure is on to raise yet more food animals (more and more via cruel factory farming methods, never mind the sweet talk) because of the rising population forecast. If you can control yourself by eating less or no meat, you control corporations. Eat and buy local, walk to shops if you possibly can. And avoid GM foods!
Enact local legislation prohibiting the sale public property & natural resources or used as collateral.We must always retain local public ownership to protect the right of life & liberty.
Return property rights to the owners. In many states mineral & water rights don't belong to or don't transfer to the property owner. In all states they are not reimbursed for utility & pipelines that traverse their property as part of the right of way.
This is how big oil & gas makes mega billion in profit without paying land owners a royalty for extracting their natural resources. Oil, gas & water reservoirs & pipelines cover millions of under ground acres across the entire USA.
Capitalist, 1% have stolen the wealth of the nation keeping profits that could fund health care, education, agriculture & infrastructure labeling as socialist anyone who fights for property rights & the peoples share of their underground wealth.
Our government (Ambassador) sues European countries in behalf of Monstrosity (Monsanto) because they REFUSE to buy GM corn- or other GM products- (Franken-Foods)
Check out "What in the World Are They Spraying Up There" --free online..
What are we going to do about it...........We ll, thankfully as it turns out, many individuals and organizations have been working for decades on this very issue. They have researched soil reclamation and revitalization. What they advocate would best and most simply be understood as organic and bio-dynamic systems that are best deployed in small diverse farms. They have calculated the potential outputs and have discovered that small farms producing highly nutritive crops appropriate for humans can exceed the current output of industrial farms growing depleted and unhealthy plants and animals. The agribusiness model requires inputs of more and more poisons to attempt to control the pests that become resistant in their attack of the unhealthy plants. The animals we try to raise from such feed require more and more antibiotics and medicine to stay alive until we can eat them. The poisons and medications accumulate in our water and body tissue and contribute to our epidemic degenerative diseases we are already susceptible to from being deficient from eating food grown on depleted soil.
Meanwhile, I'm living a comfortable modern life off grid in 300sqft and growing most of my food.
We need to look at some "established facts" like the great 'need' for protein: THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A SINGLE RECORDED CASE OF PROTEIN DEFICIENCY. This idea was spread widely for the last century by the meat and dairy industries. Turning edible grains to animal product for consumption is very wasteful and inefficient (besides being the sole source of cholesterol)
Many lands can be reclaimed. Nature has her own wisdom and can educate us better as to what is possible than what is impossibly promised by men in suits.
I hope you do not mind if I use your analogy of the Narrow Corporate Control of the food industry in America today, using Media as 'FOOD' for thought, to stake my claim here that the sane point you make about the Food Industry also very much applies to the EXTREMELY NARROW GLOBAL CORPORATE CONTROL OF ALMOST ALL MEDIA ENTERPRISES IN AMERICA .
And that the control of it too should be broken up into thousands of bits and much more useful pieces for the sake of OUR collective health and Well Being.
To end the misreporting of events as recently occurred in Fox News & CNN's reporting of the Russian protests. Fox's video was of Greek protests not Russian & CNN video was protest over soccer not politics. Thousands of Russian complaints forced retraction. Unfortunately as Iran is painfully aware once something has been broadcast the erroneous information remains available in its original form without correction. Therefore corporate punishment for misleading the people must be included in any reforms governing the use of the peoples airwaves. BTW: corporation use & profit from the peoples airwaves without charge. Instead of doing there job as government watch dog protecting democracy they have become complicit with government spreading lies, misrepresenting facts fabricating events continuing to enforce the decades of fear propaganda & brainwashing.
It's time to end corporate & government influence on news reporting
The current State of Media Affairs in America is tantamount to having decided that Free Speech, a Free Press, Truth and all Information are always and forever mere commodities in America to buy and sell and accumulate and manipulate as if it all becomes personal property through transaction to do with as one pleases because the ''BUSINESS MODEL'' now supersedes EVERYTHING.., including Our Republic and Constitution it is supposedly built upon.
Thanks for a very impressive and articulate article. Here in Oregon we are pushing for a state bank similar to North Dakota's. It will be up for a vote in February, the idea being to keep our money in state, providing loans to Oregon farmers and small businesses rather than having it "outsourced" by the big banks. Agribus gets subsidized by "we the people" six ways to Sunday while their CEOs complain in the clubhouse about "welfare queens." Thanks for "occupying" this site and "keep on, keepin' on!
Good words from Mr Willie, who has been holding benefits and walkin' the talk on behalf of farmers for decades.
We absolutely have to get off the fossil fuels, and our entire economy, including our food system, is bound up in them.
That's a problem at the very bottom--it can't be ignored. How to figure it out? I don't know, but convservation and carpooling or mass transit or SOMETHING must be done. Because it literally can't continue. Yet there is so little yelling about this, even in alternative press. I'd really like to see more stories on this.
So glad W.N. is so alert to the dangers of trading in pork belly futures on Wall St! He's right on target as to what OWS is all about. He would be a much better president than Reagan was or the Wall St. water boy has been.
The only time I feel sane these days is when I'm listening to music.
You're the real spirit of Texas. Thanks.