Two Democracies - Similar Problems!
Bernie Sanders, a Democratic candidate for President of the United States, talks about real issues facing America today!
He raises issues of enormous consequences that neither politicians nor media want to discuss! It is a very inspiring speech, articulating issues you never heard before! He is also proposing equally radical solutions to these problems!
- There is more income and wealth inequality in US than any other major country on earth!
- Top 1/10th of 1% owns as much wealth as the bottom 90% of the population.
- 58% of all income generated in this country is going to the top 1%.
- In the last two years, 15 wealthiest individuals saw their wealth increase by $150 billion.
- Real unemployment in USA is 10%.
- Unemployment among graduate youth - White 31%; Latino 36%; African American 51%!
- Consequently 5.5 million kids hanging out on the street corners courting trouble!
- US has more people in jail than any other country (even China).
- This is at a cost of $80 billion a year to the tax payers!
- It is lot less expensive to send the kids to universities than to lock them up!
- There are 100,000 bright kids who cannot get into college for lack of funds!
- Include colleges as part of free public education.
- Generate $70 billion required for this purpose with a tax on Wall Street speculation!
- We have people in jail -
- People who sold marijuana
- But not people who wrecked the US economy!
- Campaign financing system is corrupt and undermining America's democracy!
- Koch brothers alone will be spending more money in this election cycle than either of the two major political parties. (David and Charles Koch, the incredibly rich owners of Koch Industries in USA)
- This is not democracy; this is oligarchy (government by a few number of people)!.
- Recommends public funding of elections; instead of begging to wealthy people for campaign contributions!
- We have one of the lowest voter turnouts than any other country!
- We have a moral responsibility to leave this planet healthy and habitable for our kids and grand children!
- But the greed of the billionaire class is destroying the nation!
- There are 11 million undocumented people in America.
- Provide legal status to all undocumented people as soon as possible!
- Use the power of Executive Orders of the President if the Republicans won't cooperate in this effort!
- We need to deal with institutional racism and a broken criminal justice system.
- Gun control legislation is difficult but must be implemented.
- We need to provide affordable mental health treatment to thousands of suicidal and homicidal people walking the streets.
- We should bring a political revolution to ensure that US Government represents ALL the people of the nation and not just a handful of billionaires.
- We need a political system and an economic model that work for the majority of the people in a country.
Real bottom up change can happen if we do not allow us to be divided up on the basis of religion, color, gender, sexual preferences, etc.
What is interesting about this speech is that whatever Bernie Sanders says about USA are equally relevant and applicable to today's India!
Comments
Post a Comment