Good read for anyone that would like to get a better understanding of Bernie Sanders' candidacy, above and beyond the usual, superficial reactions bandied about here and elsewhere. There is a huge difference between Bernie and Hillary, this covers it pretty well....
Robert Reich Makes The Case For A Sanders Presidency
http://reverbpress.com/politics/economics/robert-reich-makes-the-case-for-a-sanders-presidency/
The headline in today’s New York Times blares “Democratic Race Will Test Where the Left Stands,” followed by an article contrasting Bernie’s “New Deal-style liberalism” and “broad-based tax increases” with Hillary’s “mainstream Democrat” version containing a “sensible, achievable agenda.”
If you’ll permit me to say so, this framing of the contest is utter baloney. The real contrast is between Bernie’s vision of a government responsive to the vast majority, and Hillary’s vision of a government very much like the one we have now.
Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and in that time scored some important victories for working families – the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example.
But they’ve done nothing to reverse the worsening cycle of wealth and power that has rigged the economy for the benefit of those at the top, and harmed most Americans. In some respects, Democrats have been complicit in it.
Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements, for example, without providing the millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs any means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.
They also stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class. Clinton and Obama failed to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violated them, or enable workers to form unions with a simple up-or-down votes.
In addition, the Obama administration protected Wall Street from the consequences of the Street’s gambling addiction through a giant taxpayer-funded bailout, but let millions of underwater homeowners drown.
Both Clinton and Obama also allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify – with the result that large corporations have grown far larger, and major industries more concentrated.
Finally, they turned their backs on campaign finance reform. In 2008, Obama was the first presidential nominee since Richard Nixon to reject public financing in his primary and general-election campaigns. And he never followed up on his reelection campaign promise to pursue a constitutional amendment overturning “Citizens United v. FEC,” the 2010 Supreme Court opinion opening the floodgates to big money in politics.
What happens when you combine freer trade, shrinking unions, Wall Street bailouts, growing corporate market power, and the abandonment of campaign finance reform? You shift political and economic power to the wealthy, and you shaft the working class.
Another Democratic administration would be far, far better than a Republican one. But unless we change the structure of power in America, the terrible trends of widening inequality, declining real wages for most, and oligarchical politics will only worsen.
