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OpinionUS politicsThe biggest win for the working class in generations is within reachBernie SandersIf our budget passes, it would be one of the most important pieces of legislation since the New Deal. But we must fight for it Wed 21 Jul 2021 06.29 EDTLast modified on Wed 21 Jul 2021 14.38 EDTNow is the time.At a time when the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider, when two people now own more wealth than the bottom 40% and when some of the wealthiest people and biggest businesses in the world pay nothing in federal income taxes, the billionaire class and large profitable corporations must finally start paying their fair share of taxes.Now is the time.At a time when real wages for workers have not gone up in almost 50 years, when over half our people live paycheck to paycheck, when over 90 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, when working families cannot afford childcare or higher education for their kids, when many Americans no longer believe their government represents their interests, the US Congress must finally have the courage to represent the needs of working families and not just the 1% and their lobbyists.Now is the time.At a time of unprecedented heatwaves, drought, flooding, extreme weather disturbances and the acidification of the oceans, now is the time for the US government to make certain that the planet we leave our children and future generations is healthy and habitable. We must stand up to the greed of the fossil fuel industry, transform our energy system and lead the world in combating climate change.As chairman of the US Senate budget committee I fought hard for a $6tn budget which would address these and other long-neglected needs. Not everyone in the Democratic caucus agreed with me and, after a lot of discussion and compromise within the budget committee, an agreement was reached on a smaller number. (Needless to say, no Republicans will support legislation which taxes the rich and protects working families.)While this budget is less than I had wanted, let us be clear. This proposal, if passed, will be the most consequential piece of legislation for working people, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor since FDR and the New Deal of the 1930s. It will also put the US in a global leadership position as we combat climate change. Further, and importantly, this legislation will create millions of good-paying jobs as we address the long-neglected needs of working families and the planet.Why is this proposal so significant?We will end the days of billionaires not paying a nickel in federal income taxes by making sure the wealthy and large corporations do not use their accountants and lawyers to avoid paying the massive amounts that they owe. This proposal will also raise the individual tax rate on the wealthiest Americans and the corporate tax rate for the most profitable companies in our country. Under this proposal, no family making under $400,000 a year will pay a nickel more in taxes and will, in fact, receive one of the largest tax cuts in American history.We will aggressively reduce our childhood poverty rate by expanding the child tax credit so that families continue to receive monthly direct payments of up to $300 per child.We will address the crisis in childcare by fighting to make sure that no working family pays more than 7% of their income on this basic need. Making childcare more accessible and affordable will also strengthen our economy by allowing millions more Americans (mostly women) to join the workforce.We will provide universal pre-kindergarten to every three- and four-year-old.We will end the international disgrace of the United States being the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave as a right.We will begin to address the crisis in higher education by making community colleges in America tuition-free.We will address the disgrace of widespread homelessness in the United States and the reality that nearly 18m households are paying over 50% of their incomes for housing by an unprecedented investment in affordable housing.We will ensure that people in an ageing society can receive the home healthcare they need and that the workers who provide that care aren’t forced to live on starvation wages.We will save taxpayers hundreds of billions by having Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry and use those savings to cover the dental care, hearing aids and eyeglasses that many seniors desperately need.We will rebuild our crumbling roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater treatment plants, broadband and other aspects of our physical infrastructure.We will take on the existential threat of climate change by transforming our energy systems away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy.This effort will include a nationwide clean energy standard that moves our transportation system, electrical generation, buildings and housing and agriculture sector toward clean energy.Through a Civilian Climate Corps we will give hundreds of thousands of young people good-paying jobs and educational benefits as they help us combat climate change.We will fight to bring undocumented people out of the shadows and provide them with a pathway to citizenship, including those who courageously kept our economy running in the middle of a deadly pandemic.In the midst of the many long-ignored crises that this legislation is attempting to address, we will not have one Republican senator voting for it. Tragically, many Republican leaders in Congress and around the country are just too busy continuing to lie about the 2020 presidential election, undermining democracy by suppressing voting rights, denying the reality of climate change and casting doubts about the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccines.That means that the 50 Democrats in the US Senate, plus the vice-president, will have to pass this most consequential piece of legislation alone. And that’s what we will do. The future of working families is at stake. The future of our democracy is at stake. The future of our planet is at stake.Now is the time.
Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress
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On July 12, following an outburst of protest by Cubans responding to a raft of ills that plague the island, the White House issued US President Joe Biden’s message of apparent solidarity. “We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime.”
Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:
Clarion call:
The sound of a high-pitched trumpet calling troops to battle in the 14th century or, when evoked by a politician in the 21st century, the sound of a high-pitched ideologue pretending (but not necessarily intending) to go to battle in the name of a claimed ideal
Contextual Note
Whenever an American politician evokes the question of Cuba, one can be sure that clichés will abound. The Oxford Dictionary defines “clarion” as “A shrill-sounding trumpet with a narrow tube, formerly much used as a signal in war.” This sounds like an apt description of today’s US politicians. They know that to win elections they must always sound shrill and ready for war, in their intentions if not in their tone.
Biden uses the cliché of promising to “stand with the Cuban people.” He then invokes “the tragic grip of the pandemic,” but somehow forgets to mention the far more serious and tragic grip of a 60-year US blockade of Cuba that cut off the nation and its people from the global economy, forcing the regime to improvise a form of near autarchy in an increasingly interconnected world. For much of that time, Cubans depended for their survival on a lifeline from the Soviet Union (later Russia) and various assorted US enemies, such as Venezuela.
Like Lewis Carrol’s Walrus about to eat the oysters he has befriended, Biden explains how he “deeply sympathizes” with the Cuban people. He offers Cuba’s leaders this advice: “The United States calls on the Cuban regime to hear their people and serve their needs at this vital moment rather than enriching themselves.” Does he seriously expect them to take on board his wise counsel? Can the president of a nation that made 638 attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro pretend to be someone who can be trusted to “hear their people and serve their needs?”
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The statement’s litany of clichés continues with the claim that this is a “vital moment.” Biden optimistically envisions a counterrevolution provoked by the intense suffering imposed on the Cuban people as a result of the combined force of a pandemic, an endless embargo and US sanctions. These have created a situation beyond any government’s control. Biden’s irony then intensifies with the implicit reproach, “rather than enriching themselves.” Spoken by the president of a recognized plutocracy and the father of Hunter Biden, this remark merits some serious laughs.
Biden clearly knows something about politicians enriching themselves and their families. A growing trove of evidence reveals that, during the years of Joe Biden’s vice presidency, his son Hunter demonstrated exceptional skill trading on his father’s name, apparently with dad’s complicity. Hunter Biden’s lifestyle alone bears witness to the moral vision of a family and a class culture with few scruples about pushing ethical and legal limits in the interest of “enriching themselves.”
Forbes states that Joe Biden’s net worth is “only an estimated $8 million.” That puts him above the poverty line but, in the eyes of most of the billionaire elite, classifies him as a loser. To maintain his image of “middle-class Joe,” Biden may have been motivated to seek ways of enriching his son, perhaps as a ploy to dodge inheritance tax. He even apparently relied on his son’s generosity to cover some of the domestic costs his $8 million fortune didn’t permit him to cover. Hunter’s net worth is unknown, but Newsweek says it “could be millions.” Such a paltry fortune for someone with his surname and admittedly illustrious career (drug addiction and adultery apart) may help to explain Hunter’s sudden need to sell his artwork at exorbitant prices.
CNN reports that “the White House has been forced to deal with ethics questions about people buying the artwork for huge sums as a way to curry favor with President Joe Biden.” That is not only a fair description of the context but fits with the whole pattern of Hunter Biden’s career. Wondering whether his art had value, CNN interviewed art critic Sebastian Smee, who judged that Biden’s “work has the feeling of an afterthought.” It didn’t need “to be made, except perhaps as a therapeutic exercise.” His work is now expected to command “prices ranging from $75,000 to $500,000.”
So how does this compare with Cuban politicians’ enriching themselves? The website Celebsblurb weighed in on the question of current president Miguel Diaz Canel’s fortune without providing a figure. “Being active in the political field since 1993, Miguel has earned a handsome amount of salary” the site claims. He enjoys “a lavish lifestyle with the aid of his enormous net worth.” Fidel Castro’s fortune was evaluated at under “about $900 million,” which is impressive, but he fell short of becoming a billionaire. According to the website Wealthy Persons, Fidel’s brother, Raul, who reigned for several years, reached $150 million, nearly 20 times that of Joe Biden.
Could Biden be expressing his jealousy when talking about Cuban leaders enriching themselves? They have certainly outpaced the American president. Running a communist country pays, especially if you’re good at preserving a precarious stability in the face of a permanent assault by a neighboring superpower. If you think of the Cuban people as the board of directors of Cuba Inc., their compensation scheme reflects their CEO’s performance. Another way of calculating Fidel’s claim to such a fortune could be by putting a price of $1.4 million on each foiled CIA assassination attempt. As ransoms of national leaders go, that is a very modest figure.
“Working-class Joe” seems to have secured a comfortable situation for his family, even if he can’t compete with “revolutionary Fidel.” But Castro’s fortune may have had less to do with personal greed than with a trend that affects all fragile developing nations — the need their leaders feel to secure the degree of financial autonomy that allows them to counter the inevitable initiatives of hostile superpowers to unseat them. In contrast with Cuba, US plutocracy has refined the art of spreading wealth around the entire oligarchic class. Politicians merit the millions they receive from the billionaires. That’s enough to ensure their loyal obedience. On the US political chessboard, the politicians are the pawns.
Historical Note
In the past week, US media outlets have expressed their hope that Cuba’s economic disaster may provoke the always desired outcome known as regime change. The current crisis in Cuba is attributable to the combined effects of a decades-long embargo, supplementary punitive sanctions imposed by Donald Trump and maintained by Biden, and a government with limited influence on the international stage and insufficient management skills. The overthrow of the current government thanks to pressure and assistance from the US would simply produce chaos and possibly a civil war on a scale similar to what Libya has experienced for the past 10 years.
Therein lies the biggest mystery concerning Biden’s Cuba policy: With all his experience dating back to the Vietnam War, including decades of sanctions, invasions and assassinations, Biden has seen enough history to understand that US wars and sanctions have produced mountains of tragedy and absolutely nothing to rejoice about other than pleasuring the military-industrial complex. The much younger Barack Obama seemed at least to have partially learned the lesson of history when he sought to open the dialogue with Cuba.
US democracy fatally and repeatedly produces the same consistent effect. In 2008, Americans elected Obama in the hope (his word) of ending the Bush administration’s wars. Obama maintained those wars and expanded them to at least three other nations. In 2020, the electorate voted to overturn Trump’s radical reengineering of US foreign policy (supposedly dictated by Russia). Americans voted in Biden to overturn Trump’s legacy. What has their champion done so far? He has prolonged it and, in some cases, intensified it. This is bad news for Cuba, but possibly even worse news for the US.
*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
