After watching the contenders for the Democratic Party's nomination for the office of President last Tuesday, I was convinced that the consensus would be that Bernie had won it. It was clear that Hillary had done well, but the senator had been stellar. Now, we've had several days of the corporate media loudly proclaiming a Clinton victory. What gives?
The easy, and correct, answer to my rhetorical question is obvious: Hillary Clinton is the favored candidate of corporate mass media and corporate interests in general. If you look at a list of the largest donors to Clinton's campaign, they are mostly large corporations. If you look at contributions over her career, you'll see names like Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Time-Warner. Who are Bernie's big contributors? Teachers' unions, unions in general, teachers at the University of California, more unions and a handful of progressive organizations. And, did I mention unions?
If you're looking for corporate influence, Bernie's biggest donor is Google Inc. They gave to Hillary, too, but even though they gave her over four times as much as they gave him, Google is way, way down her list of top donors. Actually, that's the most important point here. Corporate donations are huge and their largess dwarfs what non-commercial organizations can shell out. There's no parity whatsoever. Bernie is the champion of unions and working people in general, but even though Hillary's support from non-corporate donors is substantial, it pales in comparison to what she hauls in from the big money interests.
When it comes to corporations' favoring one Democrat over another, there's no question about who they are going to back. All polls about who had "won" indicate that Sanders was the winner by consensus. It wasn't even close. So, it's not only outrageous for corporate media pundits to say that Clinton did better, but blatant favoritism. There is no denying that corporate news media are pulling out all the stops to advance Hillary and quash Bernie. There is no mystery about why they are doing this. Follow the money! Let's delve a little deeper than simply refuting the false claims that Clinton "won". She did not, and we all know that.
What few people are paying much attention to is why what Bernie said resonates better than than what Hillary said. On substance, they are pretty close, or at least it seems so on the surface. They both want health care, paid maternity leave, environmental action, gender equality, LGBT rights parity, gun safety reform, higher pay, fairer taxation, education, financial reform, peace, immigration reform and an end to governmental gridlock. Duh. What else should you say to Democrats? But, for some reason, people liked the way Bernie said it better, or perhaps just believed him more.
For me, and the main reason I prefer Sanders to Clinton, is that on every issue Bernie was clear, forthright and free of sophistry. Hillary did speak that way on the easy issues, those that do not impinge on the ability of corporations to suck as much money as possible out of the world economy. She got a lot of applause and deservedly so. On "delicate" issues, she danced around, recited one of her pat answers, and generally conveyed the idea, "Trust me. I'll handle it." There were lots of these, and each time she did it, I screamed something like, "Weasel!" When Bernie croaked out one of his no-nonsense answers to the same question, I exclaimed, "Yes!" I don't recall them all, but three instances of blunt honesty confronting slick talk stick out in my mind.
1. Health care Bernie said several times that it was a "national embarrassment" how the USA does not provide medical care for everyone within our borders when it is needed. He drives that home by stating that every other developed country does, but we still don't. You can't get any clearer than that. He used the phrase "single payer," which means that the government pays for everything. Health care has to be paid for by general taxation or the poor will not get it. It's that simple.
Hillary said something about health insurance, which is essentially the Republican idea that that the market has a vital role in providing health care. This is the same cowboy capitalist crapola that we've heard all our lives. No matter how you slice it, with a private, for-profit system, the more money you have, the better health care you get. If you're not filthy rich, any serious illness will break you financially. If you're poor, a bad cold can mean that you starve, become homeless or even die. Anyone who focuses on health care as a national issue can easily see that a Clinton presidency will not mean any significant progress on this issue. After putting us off about health care for everyone, Hillary sidestepped and rattled on some more about maternity leave, Planned Parenthood and abortion rights. These are good issues and I'm with her on them, but they are not the same thing as universal health care. The way she answers any question about health care for everyone show that she is a corporate tool who wants to "go slow" on health care, which means not in our lifetime. I'm already on Medicare, but you younger people should take note. Hillary will not do much to get health care for you and may even impede it.
2. Financial reform Bernie flatly stated that the big banks should be broken up. The reasons given were that the banks are bigger than they were before the meltdown in 2008, they caused the crash by actions that were illegal under Glass–Steagall, no one went to jail and the people had to bail out the banks. He could have added that bailout funds essentially paid the banks back for the money they had stolen and that surviving banks were larger because they had absorbed their smaller competitors who had been wiped out by the large banks' misdeeds, but he felt he had said enough. For most people, he did.
Hillary talked about how she had marched into the offices of the Wall Street banks as a U.S. Senator from New York and said, "Cut it out!" Swell. Did they listen? We know that they did not. And, that was the end of it. Shortly after that, she became Secretary of State and hasn't make a peep about financial issues since. She deftly shifted the topic to something else, but I can't remember what it was. This was by design. All she wanted to do was stop talking about breaking up the banks. She knows where her bread is buttered.
3. Paying for higher education Bernie wants the government to pay tuition and fees for public higher education. This means that no matter how poor you are, if you're smart enough, you could get a college degree from a state school without crippling debt. Sounds good to me. This was pretty much the case a half century ago in California when I graduated from high school. Reagan became governor shortly after that and started hiking tuition at state schools, which had been negligible for in-state students. (It was $65 per quarter at University of California campuses, less at California State University campuses, and free, just like high school, at community colleges. I'm not kidding.) All he's calling for is a return to publicly financed higher education throughout the country. It's not "radical" or "prohibitively expensive" in the least. As Sanders often says, it's the norm in Scandinavia and much of Europe. Still, he has a lot of trouble convincing ordinary people that education is an investment, not "welfare".
How does Hillary address this issue? All she is willing to advocate is debt restructuring of existing student debt and some kind of government action to keep the interest rates on student loans down. Beyond that, all she wants to do about providing education to the people is jawbone colleges and universities about "keeping costs down." You know what that means, don't you? She doesn't want to do anything at all!
If I were a mentor to a young person preparing to enter college, I would advise them to learn German and go to Germany to attend university for free. With Hillary as President, one would still have to be fairly well-to-do to afford higher education in the United States. You wouldn't be much better off with regards to education than you would with a moderate Republican.
Ordinary people can see that Bernie's stance is better for them than Hillary's on a lot of issues, and that's why they overwhelmingly say that he "won" the debate. They think that because they could understand what he was saying and there was no ambiguity about what he meant about anything. He's my man and I'm solidly for him because he never disappoints. He's as brutally honest as Dennis Kucinich without coming off like a crank.
Hillary exhibited far too much of the fast-talking, slippery, intentionally vague rhetoric her husband taught her. He's still the best talker on the national scene even though he looks like he's going to drop dead of another heart attack any minute. While most of the distrust of Mrs. Clinton is the result of Republican propaganda, the closer she gets to the White House, the more I'm beginning to become wary of her true intentions. I'll vote for the nominee of the Democratic Party whoever it is, but I sure would be pleased if it could be Bernie Sanders.