U.S. Congress Insider, A Personal Account – education and deconstruction.com

This Is What America Looks Like

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The Book of the Week is “This Is What America Looks Like, My Journey From Refugee to Congresswoman” by Ilhan Omar, published in 2020.

Omar was born in the early 1980’s in Mogadishu, Somalia. When she was about ten years old, her mother passed away of malaria, so her aunt served as a surrogate parent.

In 1991, her family suffered many hardships when they fled their homeland’s anarchy. She eventually launched her political career in Minneapolis, beginning with volunteering for the Democratic party, and then working for a City Council candidate.

In October 2013, her boss was subjected to smearing: “That’s when we were blindsided by these blogs he had written when he was an adolescent about such subjects as his drug and pornography use, cutting himself, and making rockets with explosive chemicals. It was bad.” When she showed up at a caucus despite receiving a menacing warning that she shouldn’t, she herself suffered a concussion in violence against HER.

In summer 2019, Donald Trump held a Greenville, North Carolina rally at which Omar-haters chanted, “Send her back [to Somalia]!” Xenophobia, racism and misogyny– among other abominations of angry human beings– have waxed and waned in American history.

Luckily, thus far, courageous, influential anti-haters have risked their lives to counter those immature people. Unluckily, America has reached another point in its evolution whereby the people have elected a PRESIDENT who embodies a hybrid of dictatorial behaviors, that includes such hatred, plus demagoguery, and excessive litigation as a plaintiff.

Luckily, his brain function is in decline, so his public appearances are waning, as is his influence!

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about Omar’s life and political career.

Oath and Honor – EXTRA BONUS POST

The Extra Bonus Book of the Week is “Oath and Honor, A Memoir and a Warning” by Liz Cheney, published in 2023.

As is well known, in November and December 2020, Donald Trump filed sixty-one lawsuits contesting the 2020 presidential election. He lost sixty of those lawsuits, even those decided by judges he himself had appointed. In connection with his political career, he was charged with ninety-one felony counts. Even if a third of all of those felony counts were truly legitimate, that is still a huge amount of criminality, compared to that of other white-collar criminals.

Liz Cheney served as Republican Conference Chair. In late December 2020 (before January 6, 2021), she contacted all former U.S. Secretaries of Defense she possibly could, to ask them to warn Trump that the U.S military was not to be used to bully the nation into an election do-over.

As a member of the January 6 Committee, Cheney held meetings, generated memos and reports, and conducted interviews and attempted to get Americans to understand the vice-president’s role, and what is supposed to transpire in the certification process of votes in a presidential election.

On January 6, specific individuals were permitted to object to the vote counts of any states they chose. A few Republican puppets of Trump did. If the objections had succeeded, the votes of all Americans in those states wouldn’t have counted.

Shortly after January 6, Steve Scalise, a Republican and House minority whip remarked publicly that apparently, Trump could no longer lead the Republican Party. Nevertheless, three and half years later, sufficiently powerful Republicans are keeping Trump in power.

Read this eloquent book to learn about Cheney and the January 6 Committee, and the extreme amount of work, blood, sweat and tears involved in explaining to laypeople– how Trump’s actions on January 6– were so very damaging and dangerous for American democracy. This book was on par with the Pentagon Papers.

Endnote: Eric Trump wrote in a recent mailing to American voters, “Biden’s wealthy Leftist puppet masters plan on spending more than $3 BILLION to defeat my father and keep Biden in the White House for four more years so they can continue destroying America with their Marxist agenda.”

Since Trump has stolen and twisted Reagan quotes, it is only fair to ask one of Reagan’s originals: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Eight years ago? How about sixteen years ago, when there was a Republican president in office, a crashed economy and two Republican-led, treasury-draining, America-involved wars? If Biden is draining the Treasury, it’s so more bridges won’t collapse, and more law enforcement officers won’t be injured by more Trump-influenced violence.

Here’s a little ditty explaining the current situation.

A DANGEROUS, EVIL MAN

sung to the tune of “A Well Respected Man” (Official Audio) with apologies to the Kinks.

Well, Trump GOT up on Jan. 6.
And he encouraged a violent time.
And his cult of personality,
AIDed his election crimes.

His world is BUILT on amassing power.
It never fails.
‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

And he holds his scheming meetings,
while his lawyers play his games.
And he stirs up crowds with hatred,
while trashing his enemies’ names.

And he influences courts
as well as bills
WHEN-ever he can.

‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

And he boosts his own resorts.
And he embraces dictators the best.
‘Cause he’s more powerful than the rest.
But others’ money smells the best.

And he hopes to grab more of this nation’s-loot
when democracy passes on.

‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

And he plays the RNC.
And he goes to Davos and CPACs.
He TRAINS the girls next door
to recruit more political hacks.

But billionaires know
best about, PRESidential stakes.

‘Cause he’s oh so thuggish.
And he’s oh so coarse.
And he’s oh so wealthy
with GOP candidates to endorse.

He’s a dangerous, evil man
still around,
appealing to the LOWest GOP constituency.

The Price of Empire

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The Book of the Week is “The Price of Empire” by J. William Fulbright, with Seth P. Tillman, published in 1989. In this volume, given his time and place as a Democratic senator (and boastful alpha male, at that) from Arkansas from 1945 to 1974, Fulbright expressed his views on the Cold War in terms of major historical events and hot wars.

Fulbright’s narratives deserve special scrutiny because they were written before the fall of the Berlin Wall– before historical revisionism and 20/20 hindsight. He also expounded some, on the main reason he appeared to be racist: In the Postwar Era, government leaders from Southern States wouldn’t have a long political career if they favored civil rights for African-Americans (case in point– Carl Elliott, Representative from Alabama).

The author presciently asserted that in waging its anti-Communist campaigns, the United States had as its goal, because it knew it had superior technology: to bankrupt the Soviets via attrition in an arms race. But in so doing, the U.S. has damn near bankrupted itself!

Fulbright wrote, “The winners, present and prospective are the bystanders, in Europe and Asia, whose resources are committed to making their societies work.” He contended that the detente school of thought (in which the U.S. and Russia agreed to coexisting peacefully rather than fomenting hatred against the other; crowded out by greedy politicians) turned out to be superior economically, not to mention societally.

The United States is now paying the price for that. As is well known, politics cannot be divorced from economics. That is why top government leaders desirous of getting reelected have always harped on job growth— bragging about their own, and smearing their opponents’ lack thereof.

In 20/20 hindsight, workers who were making expensive war toys (many of which were wasted one way or another) for the military-industrial complex in the Postwar Era, could have been engaging in more constructive, productive, progressive endeavors in the areas of education and environmentally-friendly vehicles and infrastructure. Oh, well.

Be that as it may, (according to the book, which appeared to be credible although it lacked a detailed list of Notes, Sources, References and Bibliography), in 1946, in connection with trying to counter the adverse effects of the nation’s war-making, Fulbright made lemons from lemonade. He established a scholarship program for Americans to study abroad in barter transactions. War-impoverished countries would supply education because they could not pay (in the form of currency, due to crushing war debt) for the American military supplies such as blankets, food, drugs and trucks they used on their respective battlefields during WWII.

Read the book to learn a boatload of additional history which the author made, witnessed, and by which he was shaped.

Heart of Fire – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “Heart of Fire, An Immigrant Daughter’s Story” by Mazie K. Hirono, published in 2021.

Hirono’s mother was born in Hawaii but moved back to live in a snowy, mountainous region of Japan, and suffered with an abusive husband who was also a drinker and gambler. It took months for her to make numerous visits to the United States embassy in Tokyo on an overnight train to do the necessary paperwork to move herself and two of her three surviving children, the oldest of whom was Hirono, to Hawaii.

Hirono was born in November 1947 in rural Japan. She spent four years of her early childhood living with her grandparents, who were landowners of rice paddies, vegetable gardens and fruit orchards, and a farm that had chickens and goats.

In the 1900’s, people from various Asian countries populated Hawaii: Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos and native Hawaiians. But many of them worked for Caucasian sugar-plantation owners, and could not become naturalized American citizens under Hawaiian law until Hawaii became a state in August 1959.

In the summer of 1968, Hirono and nine other volunteers counseled at-risk youths in a special program in a homestead (high-crime, downtrodden neighborhood). They were out of their depth in attempting to stem the gang violence, crime, drug addiction and sexual assault.

Hirono did not have sufficient life experience and confidence in her abilities until much later, when she was elected to political office and became vocal in taking an active role in changing the world. Prior to that, she explained, “…I was still under the sway of a cultural triple whammy– I was a woman; I was of Japanese descent; and I had been raised in the nonconfrontational atmosphere of the Island I called home [Hawaii].”

Read the book to learn much more about Hirono’s life experiences.

The Way It Was With Me

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The Book of the Week is “The Way It Was With Me, A personal and political memoir, told with relish and laced with dire truth” (sic) by Senator Glen H. Taylor, published in 1979.

Born in 1904 in rural Idaho, Taylor quit high school to financially support his family. In the backs of bars, he was a singer of “illustrated songs” (good old American classics, accompanied by a slide show, a piano and a three-piece orchestra). He appeared onstage as the last act after showgirls and burlesque in Western states. Later, thanks to his older brother, he traveled with an acting troupe, competing with movies that featured sound.

Taylor first ran for office in 1938, on a shoestring budget as an Idaho Democrat for the U.S. Congress. He wasn’t the first choice of the local political machine. He lost. American politics has hardly changed in centuries (never mind eighty years ago), in terms of dirty tricks and backroom deals.

Because he was a showman, when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1942, Taylor adopted the shtick of riding a horse to campaign stops; a total distance of five hundred miles. He was doing his rationing bit for the war effort. He handed out postcard-sized campaign cards with his picture and name. The newspapers knew that human-interest articles (translation: tabloid stories) sold more papers than discussion of the issues by the candidates, and they all behaved accordingly. Taylor lost again.

When Taylor finally won an election, he was shown around Congress by a megalomaniacal alpha male who abused his power. Taylor, on the other hand, committed political suicide for his principles, defending Henry Wallace (about whom president Truman made an unfortunate remark that gave rise to vicious red-baiters such as Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon to do their things). In campaigning for Wallace, Taylor refused to bow to the rules of segregation at a church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1946. Bull Connor had thugs haul Taylor off to jail for being a “radical integrationist Commie.”

Read the book to learn many additional details about Taylor’s life– how it contained the kinds of characters who: would appear in a Mae West movie, populated Vaudeville and politics; how he made a small contribution to electoral politics in Idaho (hint: he went door-to-door to verify a vote count because Idaho election law was silent on voting-recounts), and how he satisfied his entrepreneurial bent, finally striking it rich.

Politics of Conscience

The Book of the Week is “Politics of Conscience, A Biography of Margaret Chase Smith” by Patricia Ward Wallace, published in 1995.

The author wrote,

“Or perhaps it was that after four years, the nation had witnessed his unseemly bullying, insulting, and humiliating tactics for too long…”

of Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI). In the spring of 1954, the U.S. Army held hearings in order to give McCarthy a taste of his own medicine.

Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) took over her deceased husband’s U.S. Senate seat when he died, and was reelected in 1940. She received special treatment from Bangor Daily News columnist May Craig, in that Craig was assigned specifically to favorably cover Smith, but hardly ever, any other politician.

Smith was best known– aside from her gender, along with six other senators– for issuing a “Declaration of Conscience” in June 1950, that took McCarthy to task (even though she and he were both Republicans) for his dictatorial methods in rooting out accused Communists.

After Smith delivered an accompanying speech on the Senate floor, her group took no follow-up actions, ingenuously thinking that that one act of protestation would convince the rest of the government and ordinary Americans that McCarthy was violating people’s civil rights in capitalizing on Cold War hysteria. He retaliated against her, (as politicians of his ilk will) by pressuring senate-committee-leaders to deny her membership and assignments she wanted.

In 1952, the book U.S.A. Confidential was published. It was full of lies and smears against all parties who were automatically treated as guilty of associating with Communists (many through only the most tenuous of connections), or who were automatically Communists by virtue of a simple accusation (by their enemies, of course) against them, whether unfounded or not.

Smith sued the book’s authors and publisher for libel, as several of the book’s pages mentioned her. The defendants used every possible tactic to delay litigation, but finally agreed to settle the case in autumn 1956. It was a hollow victory for Smith.

In the 1950’s, some members of the United States government galvanized citizens to turn their fears of nuclear war into hatred of one enemy: the former Soviet Union. Nowadays, fears and hatreds are scattered between or among all kinds of groups, absent the threat of nuclear war.

One way American governmental authorities are again attempting to galvanize the people against one enemy is to direct it against a disease, through controlling the population in various ways.

And yes, the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 is soon to arrive, bringing with it threats to national security. But the government has known this anniversary would arrive, for the last twenty years; the most recent administration, for the last eight months. Just a thought.

Read the book to learn much more about Smith’s career, life and times.

Let the Glory Out

“Yet because of his gargantuan inheritance from one of America’s richest fortunes, permissible by our faulty tax laws, there he sat as chairman… a frequent guest at the White House… Many politicians, too equated money with brains and esteem.”

-written about early 1960’s economic royalist Henry Ford II

The Book of the Week is “Let the Glory Out, My South and Its Politics” by Albert Gore, Sr., first published in 2000 [but written in 1972]. The author (father of former vice president Al Gore), a U.S. senator from Tennessee, described his experiences in politics. Sadly, the nature of some politicians’ behavior has changed little since the 1950’s and 1960’s.

As is well known, the 1950’s saw several landmark U.S. Supreme Court Civil-Rights Movement cases. [As an aside, charter schools are the modern-day version of “separate but equal” situation in American education– when compared to the private schools attended by children of wealthy parents (See the second-to-last paragraph of this blog’s post “Vernon Can Read”)].

Anyway, Congressman E.C. Gathings of Arkansas thought that the move toward racial integration was a Communist plot (!) Other American politicians weren’t so zealous in spreading anti-Communist propaganda, but they did fight integration tooth and nail. These included among others, Strom Thurmond, Harry Byrd and Richard Russell. They wanted to maintain the then-status quo of white supremacy and States’ rights.

Read the book to learn many more ways in which the same political issues keep rearing their ugly heads again and again and again, because some people (such as those in the CDC [Centers for Disease Control]) under political pressure, will say anything in order to secure funding for, and/or keep their jobs at, their organizations. Along these lines, here’s a lamentation on the CDC of late:

CDC

sung to the tune of “Maybelline” with apologies to the estate of Chuck Berry.

CDC, is what you say true?
Oh CDC, is what you say true?
You flip-flop on all you advise us to do.

As the pandemic lockdown was a go
I saw CDC contradictions grow.

When deciding on a mask mandate for all,
you made a really confusing call.

On closing schools you went against the grain.
Partly why the country went insane.

CDC, is what you say true?
Oh CDC, is what you say true?
You flip-flop on all you advise us to do.

Well with orders, guidelines and mandates,
you influenced govs ruling our states.

You got cloudy on immigration.
You crossed boundaries, causing irritation.

The stress from your waffling affected neighborhoods.
We knew you were doing propagandists good.

CDC, is what you say true?
Oh CDC, is what you say true?
You flip-flop on all you advise us to do.

Well, the country calmed down, deaths went down.
We heard more of your untrustworthy sound.

Your messaging looked like politics again.
Who knows what your real motive was then?

We’re not listening, not sittin’ still.
We’re living our lives. You are a pill.

CDC, is what you say true?
Oh CDC, is what you say true?
You flip-flop on all you advise us to do.

Fighting For Common Ground – BONUS POST

PLEASE READ THE POST BELOW THIS ONE, AS BUGGY SOFTWARE PUBLISHED IT OUT OF CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.

The Bonus Book of the Week is “Fighting For Common Ground, How We Can Fix the Stalemate in Congress” by Olympia Snowe, published in 2013.

Born in Augusta, Maine in 1947, the author was of Greek extraction. In the mid-1970’s, when she ran as a Republican for the state Senate in Maine, she rode a bicycle around to personally knock on doors to get votes. In the mid-1980’s, the NIH was still (!) providing federal funds for medical research only on men. In 1987, the Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health and the Environment acknowledged this abomination. Finally in 1993, the author and others pushed through legislation that created an office of the NIH that conducted research on women, that spurred additional research on women at other organizations.

The author wrote that in the early 2000’s, Karl Rove proposed an evil plan involving five issues, with the goal of keeping the Republicans in power indefinitely. In George W. Bush’s second term, the Republicans pushed for and got a federal education mandate, but the other four initiatives were never fully implemented (fortunately): a Christian agenda, privatization of Social Security and healthcare accounts, and some immigration reform.

The author spent a large portion of this book lamenting about how gridlocked Congress has become due to the hostility between America’s two major political parties. Republicans had traditionally believed in maintaining a balanced budget, but that went out the window with the uncontrolled deficit spending in the George W. Bush years.

In early August 2011, Congress members went on their summer recess, shirking a boatload of important business. As a result, America’s national debt rating was downgraded by Standard and Poor’s for the first time in history.

Read the book to learn about the author’s recommendations on how to change the Senate’s protocol and rules in order to improve its functioning, civility and ability to compromise to achieve consensus.

A Fighting Chance – BONUS POST

The death toll is rising among all kinds of Americans in connection with illegally acquired firearms. See ENDNOTE at the bottom of this post.

And now, a non sequitur: The Bonus Book of the Week is “A Fighting Chance” by Elizabeth Warren, published in 2014.

Born in 1949, Warren spent her childhood in Oklahoma, but later lived in Texas, and various cities on the Eastern Seaboard.

In a rare achievement for a female of her generation, she earned a law degree. With her daughter, she wrote a book about how Americans’ spending habits changed between 1971 and 2001. After meticulous research and numerical analyses, the authors explained why Americans are actually getting poorer with every generation. The answer is that even with accounting for inflation– wages haven’t risen in value; and housing, healthcare and education costs have soared.

Warren was appointed to a task force that investigated the big-bank bailout of 2008. She thought of the task force’s mission as bipartisan, but early on, Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R.-TX), had an us-versus-them mentality and wanted to make sure the Republicans on the task force got the same resources that the Democrats did in their investigation.

The task force hired expert auditors to check and re-check whether taxpayers got their money’s worth, since taxpayers were the ones fronting the money. But for the task forces’ calling the financial institutions’ bluff on their claims, taxpayers would have been financially punished even worse.

Warren wrote that it was fortunate that in 2011 the media helped publicize the lies of the big financial institutions (the credit unions and community banks weren’t to blame) in the mortgage and foreclosure scandals– because regulators were, out of willful ignorance or incompetence, not doing their jobs.

Warren recounted her stressful experiences running for a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts in the 2012 election. Here is a parody that sums it up:

ELECTION BLUES

sung to the tune of “Electric Blue” with apologies to Icehouse.

If I had a chance

to run for office like you,

are you gonna hate from the start,

smear and lie with your crew?

Are you spying somewhere behind my lines?
I just cringe with every wrong that you do me.
You get away with it, too.
Election blues.

No privacy. I need to raise money.

Tell me what can I do?

Election blues.

Oh, you dealt me a low blow.

Voters believed it was true.

Oh, I would give anything just to defeat you.

Are you spying somewhere behind my lines?
I just cringe with every wrong that you do me.
You get away with it, too.
Election blues.

At great expense,

traveling all over as I’m briefed on issues.

Election blues.

I can sense, sense that the media

are plugging for you.

Election blues.

I’m so tense, I need to get votes.

Tell me, what can I do?

Election blues.

ENDNOTE: Warren told an anecdote in which she met with a religious minister to pray for victims of gun violence (after the fact!), instead of suggesting a way to prevent it. Her areas of expertise are obviously law, economics and finance, but it appeared that she was told not to talk about “gun control” because her mouth had gotten her in trouble on another issue earlier in her campaign.

It seems America’s current leaders think GUN CONTROL is a dirty phrase, pandora’s box, not worth fighting for, or for some, it is too lucrative to even mention.

As is well known, Third World countries (!) have black markets in firearms. The United States likes to think it is more civilized than them. But in recent decades, that point has become more debatable.

In the second half of the 1970’s, the nation suffered both psychological and physical “malaise” of various kinds. Forty years or so ago, even though there was no political lockdown imposed to try to stop the spread of severe flu– there was intense political pressure put on president Gerald Ford to do something. So a swine flu vaccine was developed in 1976. There were also two (!) assassination attempts via firearms on president Ford.

Then, in March 1981, president Ronald Reagan was shot by someone who had acquired a gun illegally. Fortunately, he survived to turn the country around psychologically. No one wants shootings to ever happen again. But the ones involving illegally acquired guns are a reasonably preventable occurrence!

Further, Americans’ First-Amendment right to peaceably assemble has been severely restricted as an alleged COVID prevention measure. It is also obvious that keeping large numbers of people from gathering in one place, makes deaths from gun violence less likely. The fact that professional athletes, some politicians and VIPs have had their right to assemble restored with no disease-prevention measures, shows that keeping people apart was not actually a disease-prevention measure.

It seems America’s leaders should pass federal legislation on ILLEGAL-gun control, in order to restore the rights of ordinary Americans to peaceably assemble, as assembly is a Constitutional (federal) matter. If they have the courage. One last thing– a question for the ages: After all he’s been through, how can Steve Scalise live with himself?

Outsider in the White House

The Book of the Week is “Outsider in the White House” by Bernie Sanders with Huck Gutman, published in 1997, with an afterword added in 2016. This was a combination bragfest / rant of a political-career memoir.

In 1981, Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont. He was a member of the Independent party. The then-board of aldermen (equivalent to a city council) consisted of eight Democrats, three Republicans, and one Citizen Party member. They outvoted him at every opportunity. Nonetheless, he was able to get rid of sweetheart contracts, and establish:

competitive bidding;
a Little League;
a tree-planting initiative on city streets;
a summer concert series;
a Progressive Coalition that helped get board-of-aldermen candidates elected, who would help him. [In 1982, three of six Wards of Burlington won their elections. But the Coalition never did get a majority on the board];
community-oriented entities (such as the Burlington Women’s Council, and a Youth Office that included a Teen Center, to implement local initiatives such as Operation Snow Shovel); and music and cultural events.

Sanders improved city services in law enforcement, firefighting and sanitation. He secured programs for TRULY affordable housing (unlike in New York City). Although he was the mayor of a city, he delved into the foreign-policy issue of then-president Ronald Reagan’s wasting of taxpayer dollars in Latin America. For, those dollars could have been better spent taking care of U.S. citizens in his city.

In 1988, Sanders ran as an Independent candidate from Vermont for the U.S. House of Representatives, against a Republican and a Democrat. He nostalgically reminisced that they ran “… civil, issue-oriented campaigns. The debates were respectful and there was no negative advertising, no desire to ‘destroy’ the other person.”

As a Congressman in the 1990’s, Sanders attempted to legislate raising minimum wage, and blocking the elimination of a subsidy for home heating for the poor. He actually sponsored legislation to:

help dairy farmers in his state;
block a raise in pay (compliments of American taxpayers) given to the Lockheed-Martin board of directors and CEO;
create more affordable housing; and
stop insurance-company discrimination against the poor.

In 1996, Sanders wrote that Republican leaders went hog-wild in bashing: gays, immigrants, affirmative action, abortion and welfare. On that last issue, they made serious cutbacks which resulted in savings that were STILL less than an increase in military spending of about $60 billion over a six year period.

Sanders considers himself a socialist. His political philosophy toward economics seems to harken back to a 1940’s term that ought to be used more often–a label given to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.: “NCL” or Non-Communist Left. Sanders wrote not one word about his views on any Soviet dictator. There was no indication whatsoever that he espoused the political system of Communism.

Schlesinger summed up NCL thusly: “The welfare state, I observed, did not at all mean direct government control over the economy. It was perfectly compatible with the free market. It meant simply the establishment of basic national standards of living for all citizens… The electoral process offered the means by which noncapitalists– farmers, workers, intellectuals, minorities– could invoke the state to defend themselves against capitalist exploitation.” Such process “… brought about a relative redistribution of wealth that defeated Marx’s prediction of the immiseration of the poor…” which leads to class resentments that boil over into violence when dissatisfaction reaches critical mass.

Read the book to learn more about Sanders’ political career. The following parody sums up Sanders’ description of the American political culture of the 1990’s and early 2000’s, just as the original theme song from the TV show “All in the Family” fondly recollects American popular culture of the 1930’s and 1940’s.

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

sung to the tune of “Those Were the Days” with apologies to the Estate of Gene Raskin.

Boy, the way Bill Clinton played.

Bills for war, tax cuts and trade.

Guys like Bush, they had it made.

Those were the days.

And you were told what you were then.

The Apprentice, Idol, Seinfeld, and Friends: made us long for a man like Ronald Reagan a-gain.

GOP smeared the welfare state.

Social media squelched real debate.

Gee, our online lives ran great.

Those were the days.