Andrew Yang's big donors swamp of racist Trump supporters and corrupt financiers

Now that presidential candidate Andrew Yang has openly welcomed Super PAC money to help his campaign, he will be susceptible to influence from ultra-rich donors who will now have the power to give Yang unlimited bribes through the newly formed Math PAC dedicated to supporting his campaign. Undoubtedly, much of these oligarch donors will be sourced from Yang’s supporters who backed his previous career in venture capital and technology startups. Some of these backers of Yang’s company, Venture For America, include unsavory characters ranging from staunch racist Trump supporters to highly abusive employers to corrupt financiers.

Dan Gilbert: Racist billionaire Trump supporter who loves his tax cuts

One of these unsavory Yang backers is Dan Gilbert, Chairman and Founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. Gilbert provided $1.5 million of funding to Yang’s firm in 2013. He once found himself in the midst of controversy after his slave owner-like mentality was on full display in his remarks regarding Lebron James in 2010.

Gilbert also has a close relationship with President Donald Trump and his family, donating $750,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund. President Trump personally considers Gilbert to be “a great friend.” For sure Gilbert understands the power and influence he has as a political donor and has used this power for material gain. Following his donation to the Trump inaugural fund the areas of downtown Detroit in which Gilbert has heavily invested in was chosen as opportunity zones under Trump’s tax law, giving Gilbert massive tax breaks, despite the fact that these particular areas of Detroit did not meet the poverty requirements. This is problematic because these tax breaks were meant to go to impoverished communities, but instead were gifted to a right-wing Trumpist oligarch.

After secretly donating who knows how many millions of dollars to Math PAC, one might be a bit worried about what type of tax policies Gilbert may be suggesting to Yang in their private phone calls between one another.

Tony Hsieh: Corrupt venture capitalist, abusive employer

Another problematic character within Yang’s group of corporatist tech oligarchs is Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos and former head of Las Vegas-based incubator The Downtown Project. Hsieh was a corrupt and abusive employer and as head of his entrepreneurial incubator he pressured employees to lie to city officials regarding the nature of the incubator, skirt city permitting processes and bypass city zoning laws. The pressure on employees to operate in this corrupt and dishonest fashion proved to be too much for many. One employee, 24-year-old Ovik Banerjee, eventually committed suicide in January 2014 by jumping from his apartment in downtown Las Vegas due to the psychological pressure of having to act against his principles of honesty in order to appease the power lust of an immoral and corrupt supporter of Yang.

This was, in fact, the second suicide within the tight-knit entrepreneurial community which operated almost like a college dormitory with venture founders living together in what was essentially a village of gentrifiers. The first suicide, before Banerjee, was Jody Sherman, 48, an entrepreneur who worked from The Downtown Project. He shot himself in his car in January 2013. Following Banerjee’s suicide, another entrepreneur working from The Downtown Project, 50-year-old Matt Berman hung himself in his home in May 2014. The first suicide sent psychological and emotional shockwaves throughout the tight-knit, almost village-like, community of around 300 entrepreneurs at The Downtown Project. However, Hsieh mostly went out of his way to keep the suicide as secretive as possible and completely neglected to offer any type of grief counseling to the venture founders at The Downtown Project. There were not even any type of large scale gatherings for community grieving organized at The Downtown Project. Hsieh was more interested in maintaining an image of success and supposed happiness, than taking care of his employees and fellow entrepreneurs.

It would be easy to imagine Hsieh donating to Yang’s campaign the amount of, let us say, $1 million, the exact amount Hsieh was able to easily afford to pledge to Yang’s Venture for America. One may wonder how much influence over Yang’s policy choices that amount would buy for Hsieh. Perhaps Hsieh may not be the best advocate for the need for mental health in Yang’s vague healthcare plan which currently has plenty of room for details to be filled in. Hsieh certainly would not be the best advocate for employee rights as he uses his tech-hipster money to shape Yang’s labor policies. Undoubtedly, Hsieh would favor loose regulations for real estate developers to make it easy to streamline the gentrification process like he did in the Las Vegas incubator project.

Sam Altman: Pathetic tech bro with fragile Twitter ego, similar to Trump

Another Yang big donor whose behavior many may find undesirable is Sam Altman, chairman of Y-Combinator and co-chairman of OpenAI, who is now actively raising funds for Yang’s campaign through big dollar elitist fundraisers. Altman is hosting a fundraiser for Yang in San Francisco in November 2019 with tickets going for a minimum of $2,000 and a maximum amount of $5,700. With seat prices like those, this is obviously not a grassroots campaign powered by everyday people. This is a campaign for and by the elite corporatist oligarchs which have supported Yang throughout his entire venture capital career.

Not only is Altman helping turn Yang’s campaign into less of a people-powered movement than it already was, Altman is also a thin-skinned bully who cannot handle criticism and believes in attacking the press, just like Trump. In 2017, Altman had banned journalist Sarah Lacy from a Y-Combinator event due to a single critical piece written for Pando. He even went on to libel Lacy’s and Pando’s reputation after Lacy posted a series of Tweets detailing misogyny she witnessed in the tech world. Altman claimed Pando was bias due to his competitor supposedly being the publisher’s only advertiser, which was proven patently false.

There can be little doubt that the conversation between Altman and Yang at the upcoming elitist fundraiser dinner will not be helpful in pushing Yang towards protecting press freedom.

Robert McCann: Chairman of corrupt bank and Wall Street insider

Speaking of elitist, there are not too many things more elitist than Wall Street and its culture of corruption. Robert McCann, chairman of one of the more corrupt banking firms on Wall Street, UBS, arranged for his bank to invest $1.2 million into Venture for America in 2013. This is a serious issue now that McCann and UBS will be able to donate unlimited amounts of money to help Yang’s campaign through Math PAC. UBS was fined $1.5 billion for rigging Libor as well as other benchmarket interest rates.

Yang benefiting from money donated by UBS will certainly have an influence on Yang’s willingness to implement any type of banking reform to protect the American people.

Corporations and oligarchs have wreaked havoc on American democracy. Candidates, like Yang, who happily accept the help of big dollar donors from corporate elites are furthering the corrupting influence money has in politics and should be shunned by all who believe in a free and fair democracy in America.

Andrew Yang abandons progressives, sides with corporatist oligarchs

Andrew Yang has garnered the support of many voters who consider themselves politically progressive during his current bid to win the 2020 presidential election. Much of this has stemmed from his supposed embrace of several key progressive values: Medicare For All, rejecting Big Money and progressive taxation. However, it turns out that Yang has recently backtracked on all three of these fronts, putting his alleged progressive credentials into question.

Yang rejects Medicare For All, supports private insurance corporations

Yang, after claiming to support Medicare For All throughout his campaign is now stepping away from the two progressive Medicare For All bills currently in the House and the Senate which eliminates the private insurance industry’s ability to control the market for vital and basic medical services everyday Americans need to live a truly free life. He made this clear when he was asked if he supports the Medicare For All bill proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders, also running for President, in the Senate. Yang responded by saying, “I support the spirit of what Bernie’s trying to accomplish. I do think that outlawing private insurance in a very short period of time is a bit too disruptive and I would not do it.”

This statement finally clarifies whether Yang sides with progressives, such as Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal or with the centrists, such as Presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden when it comes to reforming the American healthcare system. Rather than taking the progressive position of Medicare for All, Yang seems to be tilting more towards centrism. This means that Yang favors retaining the influence private insurance corporations have over the healthcare market by advocating for a less comprehensive and less ambitious healthcare plan.

These centrist plans, such as Beto O’Rourke’s preference, Medicare for America, or Buttigieg’s “Medicare for all who want it” will continue to allow the private insurance corporations to offer coverage to compete with a public option. This leaves the door wide open for the insurance corporations to later sabotage healthcare gains through the courts as well as through lobbying lawmakers. Also, these centrist-leaning plans would likely result in private insurance corporations pushing less healthy individuals onto the public option while keeping all of the profits from premiums paid by healthy individuals who require less healthcare services, essentially pushing the bulk of costs onto the American taxpayer. In a Jacobin opinion piece, Adam Gaffney described this as “essentially subsidizing the private insurance industry by socializing larger health risks.”

Yang denounces Big Money in politics, except for his own campaign

In another betrayal of the progressive agenda, Yang is now reversing his position on rejecting Big Money in politics by accepting support for his presidential campaign from a new Super PAC. Will Hailer, a former DNC operative, is now managing Math PAC, a super PAC dedicated solely to promoting Yang’s presidential campaign. This flies in the face of what most progressives consider to be an essential value to pledge to not accept super PAC money for electoral campaigns. This became a pillar of progressive politics and oftentimes a litmus test for progressives following the Sanders presidential campaign in 2016.

Now, some Yang apologists may counter that Sanders himself also benefits from the actions of super PACs. However, this argument is disingenuous and lacks nuance. The PACs which support Sanders, Our Revolution and National Nurses United for Patient Protection, are issues-based PACs which do not support only one candidate, unlike Math PAC. This is a key distinction for most progressive activists, including President of End Citizen’s United, Tiffany Muller who said, “The first day a candidate accepts the help of a single-candidate super PAC in the Democratic primary is the last day their campaign is truly a grassroots movement.” Additionally, the PACs which support Sanders are made up almost entirely of small individual donations, maintaining consistency with the Sanders campaign theme of being powered by the people and not the powerful elite.

On the other hand, many Yang supporters continue to make excuses for their candidate by saying that Yang cannot control those who unilaterally decide to start super PACs in order to promote Yang’s campaign agenda. Although it may be technically true that Yang has no direct control over the actions of these supporters, he does have the option of denouncing these actions and requesting they stop as Sanders did during his 2016 presidential campaign. However, instead of rejecting Big Money, Yang decided to embrace it when he said, “If it’s the case that we have the rules that we have, and people want to support my message and my campaign, given the system we have right now, they’re free to do so.” The problem is this will likely lead the way to the billionaires who had supported Yang during his venture capital career to influence his politics through unlimited contributions to Math PAC.

Yang’s UBI uses regressive taxation scheme

Although many progressives may be attracted to Yang’s UBI proposal due to its allegedly progressive redistributive intentions, the actual result of Yang’s plan would be detrimental to the most vulnerable in society due to the plan’s regressive taxation scheme. The Value Added Tax (VAT), the funding mechanism for Yang’s UBI program would be wide open to corporate avoidance, while the costs would be disproportionately felt by impoverished communities. Additionally, Yang’s proposal to not allow inmates to receive the UBI benefit would result in further racial inequality, due to an unequal criminal justice system that disproportionately targets people of color.

Yang exposed as corporatist oligarch

Not only does Yang’s reversal on these three key progressive pillars show that he is not a genuine progressive, it also betrays his allegiance to oligarchical and corporate powers. Backing tracking on Medicare For All benefits the private insurance corporations. Reversing on his no Big Money position opens Yang up to the influence of large corporate-linked billionaire donors. Regressive taxation policies, such as Yang’s UBI proposal, will exacerbate wealth inequality, ensuring the continued rule of oligarchy in America. For true progressives, there is no way supporting Yang for President can be an option.

Andrew Yang's UBI terrible on wealth inequalty, criminal justice

The robots are taking over! That is the ongoing issue that Democrat Andrew Yang is focusing on in his campaign for President. Basically, the problem is that increasing automation is taking away jobs and pushing down wages. His main proposed solution for this problem is Universal Basic Income (UBI) which would be a universal stipend which every American citizen would receive on a monthly basis. Under Yang’s plan everybody, no matter what income and wealth level, would receive $1,000 every month. Now, this all sounds great, except when one starts digging into the details of the potential economic outcomes of the policy. It turns out, instead of addressing wealth inequality, as Yang claims it will, it would actually exacerbate wealth inequality. Additionally, Yang’s UBI policy would be disproportionately detrimental to communities of color.

Regressive policy

One of the main problems with Yang’s proposed policy is the method which it would use to fund the UBI program. Yang proposes to use a Value-Added Tax (VAT) which would tax a product at each phase of the supply chain starting from production to purchase by the American consumer. Unfortunately, this method of funding the program would actually create even more wealth inequality. In other words, “it would probably be regressive—that is, it would be more burdensome for individuals and families with fewer economic resources than it would be for those with more resources. Because lower-income families generally consume a greater share of their income than higher-income families do, the distributional effects of a VAT would depend on its impact on consumer prices," according to the Congressional Budget Office. Essentially, the tax would be passed onto the consumer via higher prices, which is more detrimental to families who are already struggling.

Progressive VAT? Doubt that.

On the other hand, Yang counters this criticism of his policy by saying that under his proposal the VAT would be targeted more towards luxury goods items which are more commonly purchased by the wealthy. One problem with this aspect of his proposal is that enforcing the tax can be challenging since fraud is a common issue with other countries that have implemented a VAT system. “The stock-taking of the existing quantitative and theoretical literature with regard to VAT evasion and fraud, shows that VAT evasion is a well-recognized phenomenon, and the most recent estimates of the VAT gap put the revenue loss for EU countries to a (wide) range of some 2 to 30 percent of potential revenues, with an overall average of about 14 percent,” reported the International Center for Public Policy (ICPP) in a study released in 2012.

This means that there will be, on average, potentially 14 percent less revenue from taxing the wealthy than expected. In some cases the ICPP found that number to reach as high as 30 percent of loss tax revenue for social benefits. Even assuming the average of 14 percent, that is still more loss revenue than every single type of income tax with the exception of farm revenue currently being levied by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), according to The Brookings Institute. In other words, even if the UBI concept can actually be implemented in a progressive fashion, the way Yang proposes to do it is not the most efficient taxation method available. Income tax is clearly a more progressive method of redistribution.

The one percent will fight back

Another problem with a VAT focused on luxury goods is that those who would be mostly affected by luxury goods taxation, the wealthy and large corporations invested in producing these goods, will definitely do whatever is in their power to rollback the luxury goods VAT. They will likely do this through a variety of means, including litigation as well as legislation. The meaning of what exact goods should be classified as “luxury” under Yang’s proposal will be attacked through the courts, just like conservatives have used the courts to attack the protections provided by the Affordable Care Act. Also, the wealthy and the large corporations, who are well-resourced, will lobby conservative politicians and lawmakers to introduce legislation to rollback the VAT aimed at luxury goods.

Blowing up the social safety net

It is important to note what Yang’s stated ultimate goal is for his UBI policy proposal, which is to completely eliminate the U.S. social safety net, which would disproportionately harm underprivileged communities. He made this point quite clear in his interview with right-wing talk show host Dave Rubin when he agreed with Rubin’s idea to “blow apart the social safety net.” This Libertarian-like tendency to want to eliminate social programs can also be seen in some of the specifics Yang has offered regarding his version of a UBI program.

One specific aspect of Yang’s proposal which illustrates this tendency is his plan to slowly eliminate Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits. Yang’s plan would force those already receiving SSI and SSDI to choose between receiving the benefits they already need for various reasons, such as coming from a historically oppressed community or being disabled, and receiving the $1,000 monthly UBI benefits plus SSI. This basically affects just about every disabled individual receiving SSDI, since those people usually also receive SSI. The ultimate goal of this, as Yang says in the interview with Rubin, is to lure more and more people to opt out of these social safety net benefits and eventually eliminate these benefits altogether.

Opt-out is a cop out

The problem with forcing those already receiving SSI and SSDI, or any other social welfare benefit for that matter, to choose, is that opting out of those benefits in favor of UBI will not eliminate the original reasons that caused these people to need these social benefits in the first place. This means while everybody else who does not currently require these benefits automatically receives the UBI stipend, those who have to choose between UBI and SSI, no matter what their choice, will still have to deal with those originating societal disadvantages which required them to seek SSI or SSDI in the first place. Those disadvantages, being disabled or coming from a historically oppressed community, will continue to cost these individuals financially. These costs can come in the form of less economic opportunity due to growing up in an impoverished community or direct financial costs associated with paying for management of a disability via medical bills or other expenses related to being disabled. In many cases both of these factors are at play.

The problem with this is that while everybody else has $1,000 extra per month to spend on goods and services that they were not able to before, those less fortunate individuals having to choose whether or not to opt-in or opt-out of SSI will not have nearly as much extra buying power. The extra UBI benefits pumped into the system, creating more spending, will increase demand which exerts upward pressure on prices for consumers. However, those who had to choose between opt-in or opt-out will not have that extra $1,000 per month that everybody else does to make up for the increases in consumer prices, diminishing their comparative buying power and exacerbating wealth inequality.

Competition and consumer prices

Yang attempts to address this critique of his UBI policy that it will essentially cause inflation by simply stating on his website that “competition between firms will keep prices in check.” Although it is true in a basic economic sense that competition provides downward pressure on consumer prices, this has always been true. However, with the extra UBI money being pumped into the economy, it will require additional competition beyond what is out there in the market now, to provide the necessary downward pressure on prices to prevent inequality exacerbating inflation.

Unfortunately, Yang fails to provide any type of mechanism in his UBI policy to create this essential increase in competition. He just assumes that competition will increase, or maybe does not realize that competition must increase in order for his policy thesis to work. In any case, the current trend shows that wealth inequality and the rate of entrepreneurship are correlated. This means that with the current levels of wealth inequality at historic highs, there is very little reason to bet that rates of entrepreneurship will increase as long as wealth inequality, which will be exacerbated under Yang’s UBI, remains at these elevated levels.

Criminal justice and Yang’s UBI

One often forgotten aspect of Yang’s UBI proposal is how it intersects with the criminal justice system. It may also be the most regressive aspect of Yang’s policy proposal. In Yang’s UBI proposal, those who are incarcerated will not receive the $1,000 per month that everybody else does, according to Yang’s interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. This results in the same dynamic described earlier with SSI and SSDI, in that those not receiving the UBI dividend will continue to fall behind the rest of society. With a justice system that disproportionately incarcerates people of color, Yang’s UBI proposal will dramatically exacerbate racial inequality by decreasing the comparative buying power and wealth of communities of color.

Although UBI as a concept may prove to be a worthwhile pursuit at some point, the way Yang has proposed to implement the program will only create a less equitable society and increased human suffering.

A New Society: How to evolve beyond capitalism through worldwide cultural revolution

Although many of us are preoccupied, and rightfully so, with the current election cycle and the minutiae of parsing the various candidates and policies to support in the short-term, it is still important to keep a larger view perspective in mind when it comes to positive change for the future. This will help us identify the larger structural problems of society worldwide which will in turn help us identify potential solutions from a larger political, cultural and economic perspective.

The Problem

Runaway capitalism, through the sole motive of accumulating capital without regard to the impact on human suffering, wealth inequality, and environmental consequences, is causing society worldwide to move closer to nuclear apocalypse or environmental disaster or both. Either way this will leave the Earth completely uninhabitable which would likely result in the extinction of the human species. Therefore, it is necessary for us to begin tackling the problem as soon as possible.

The Solution

The economic structure of world society needs to evolve into the next phase beyond capitalism, taking away the motive of profit accumulation and moving into motive based upon the good of humanity as a whole as well as preserving the planet.

Capitalists, industry and the working class

Capitalism functions by industry exchanging people’s labor and time for money. That money is then spent by the working class on goods and services provided by industry which in turn takes that money and reinvests it into better efficiencies of supply chains and production models. Capitalists, seeing the growth potential of industry, also invest money into industry to further those aims with the final goal of obtaining profit via capital gains. These increased efficiencies, with a pure profit motive, spawns advancements in technology and robotization of jobs, leaving more and more of the working class without means of employment and ability to maintain housing for families and put food in mouths.

Imbalances of supply and demand of labor caused by runaway capitalism

Soon the increasing wealth inequality worldwide begins to cause serious social and political unrest and rebellion among the working class. And with the supply of labor steadily increasing while the demand for labor continues to decline due to increasing supply chain efficiencies, it is necessary in a “free market” capitalist system that supply and demand rebalance one way or another. Obviously, industry and capitalists have no incentive to actually decrease efficiencies for the sake of the workers, therefore the only option is to decrease supply, which actually means increasing the rate of death among workers in order to maintain social stability necessary for the market to function and serve the profit motives of the capitalists, industrialists, elites and oligarchs. This results in national systems in which basic healthcare is denied to those without the means to pay, crumbling infrastructure of marginalized communities (i.e. Flint, Michigan) which results in deteriorating health which further speeds up the rate of death. At times, the tension created via the supply/demand imbalance causes outright war and military actions resulting in mass deaths in the name of creating profit for the military-industrial complex, the ultimate tool for quickly rebalancing supply and demand for human labor. Also, supply chain efficiencies without conscience will wreak havoc on the environment, increasing the rate of death.

Eliminating profit motive

As you can see, it really is the profit motive that is the driving engine behind runaway capitalism. Profit motive for workers, capitalists and industry is what propels the market machine which in and of itself has no conscience or morality. Therefore, we must stem the profit motive to the point where profit potential is no longer worth the time and effort in and of itself. People will start to seek other alternative payoffs for the work they do and the investments they make.

These alternative payoffs would be:

• Social impact
• Positive environmental impact
• Self-fulfillment and fulfillment of others
  • Artists, musicians etc
  • Intellectuals, philosophers, scientists, teachers

With these “alternative payoffs” in play and the profit motive eliminated, technological science will continue to create supply chain efficiencies, but only now with the goal of creating positive social and environmental impact to benefit society as a whole. Therefore, technology and robotization wouldn’t result in mass starvation of unemployed workers, it would bring about the liberation of society from the need to work in order to avoid death. However, in order to bring about this massive change in societal attitudes and systems it will require a total evolution of humanity worldwide culturally, philosophically and spiritually in order to accept the steps necessary to bring about this vital change.

Mass mobilization

In order to eliminate the profit motive the masses will need to be educated on the systems underlying their everyday lives. Alternatively, from a propaganda perspective, we can also begin to challenge the very notion of “work as a virtue,” which is pervasive and highly influential in Western civilization as well as many Asian cultures. The millennials have already begun to lay the groundwork for this with their cultural emphasis on consumer products which take social impact into consideration. Millennials also choose investment opportunities based upon social and environmental concerns, probably because they either consciously or subconsciously realize that the zero hour is approaching and the point of no return is near. Therefore, the shift of “work for profit” is now heading towards work for social and environmental impact. We are currently experiencing this shift right now.

“Work as virtue” must be challenged

However, even when this shift fully takes place, “work as a virtue” will still be intact. Therefore, people will continue to find ways to create “work” for themselves and with the profit motive still systemically intact, this will continue the runaway capitalist machine towards eventual dystopian apocalypse, albeit slower than before. At this point, educating the masses regarding the capitalist system becomes much more essential and impactful in that it will seize upon the already existent challenge to “work for profit” and bring about the realization that “work for impact” must necessarily result in the elimination of the profit motive through system changes. People will then realize that political mobilization is required to create this kind of change in policy.

Some of these policy initiatives aimed at eliminating the profit motive will include:

• Universal healthcare for all
• Housing as a right of all humans
• Education as a human right
• Freedom from starvation as a human right

Of course in order to implement these policy initiatives it will require a massive amount of money and resources to be invested. Therefore, a mass redistribution of wealth is required via aggressive and progressive taxation. Capital gains tax and income tax at the highest echelons must eventually reach 99% in order to make the profit-motive, after a certain point, not worth the additional effort, therefore opening the door to the “alternative payoffs” for work and investment. Only a mass movement from the bottom up can strike enough fear into politicians to cause them to break free from the grips of industry, capitalists and oligarchs in order for them to implement the necessary redistributive policies.

Cultural movements, initiatives and actions which help to educate and reveal the inner workings of the capitalist system must be supported by us who understand the broader problems of societal frameworks presented in this writing. Culture, which includes the arts, causes the necessary emotional and visceral appeal to propel the common man to take action. You can see this with the Bernie Sanders campaign of 2016 where not only were his policy ideas heard but his very persona was elevated into cultural iconography. Alternatively, you can also see this with the Donald Trump campaign of the same year which resulted in a regression of society and a regression of the goals stated in this writing. Therefore, it is imperative that leftists engage in the cultural sphere, via art, music, literature and film, in order to capture the hearts and minds of the masses in the long run.

Centrist healthcare proposal sabotages Medicare for All, protects insurance industry influence

Medicare for All has now become a mainstream platform for Democratic candidates following Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign which injected the possibility of such a policy into the American political psyche. However, it would be foolish to think the for-profit health insurance lobby would just stand by passively while progressive lawmakers pass the Medicare for All bill currently in the House, which would effectively end the private insurance industry as it is today. This is why industry-funded Democrats are beginning to fall in line with a new centrist health insurance bill which is designed to sabotage the Medicare for All movement while ensuring the medical insurance industry continues to hold power over American politics, all in the name of profits and greed.

Centrist healthcare bill would maintain insurance industry power over policy

The Medicare for America bill would automatically enroll those currently uninsured into Medicare while allowing those who have employer-sponsored insurance or other private insurance to choose to enroll into Medicare if they wish. The bill, which expired last year, is likely to be re-introduced in the current Congress. The problem with Medicare for America is that the plan would leave the for-profit insurance industry intact, unlike Medicare for All. This is problematic because this means the for-profit insurance industry will continue to have a financial interest in making sure Americans do not receive healthcare without insurance corporations also making a profit.

Insurance industry will still have incentive to rollback healthcare gains

The for-profit insurance industry, as it has in the past, will use these profits to lobby for lawmakers to dismantle whatever gains Medicare for America would garner for working Americans. The nation has recently witnessed this dynamic in the Republican attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA) via the American Healthcare Act, otherwise known as Trumpcare. In fact, the Republicans are continuing their fight to dismantle the ACA right now via the court system. Of course, this comes as no surprise since the GOP has historically garnered more political donations from the insurance industry than Democrats.

Corporatist Democrats will back Medicare for America

On the other hand, Democrats are not immune to this type of influence from the insurance industry. Centrist Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke was the top recipient of donations from the Insurance/Finance/Real Estate sector out of all candidates on both sides of the aisle during the 2018 election cycle. O’Rourke also happens to be the first presidential candidate in the current electoral cycle to include Medicare for America as a part of his platform. One can be sure that other centrist and corporatist Democrats will come around to backing Medicare for America in an attempt to appease their insurance industry donors, while also sabotaging progressives fighting for true universal healthcare coverage.

Medicare for All: midterm campaign promises must be kept

It seems like establishment Democrats have finally realized what has been obvious to progressives and leftists for quite awhile now, Medicare for All is a winning platform. During the the recent midterm election an unprecedented number of Democrats, from centrists to far left candidates, ran on Medicare for All, single-payer, universal healthcare or at the very least the expansion of Medicare. This is notable since just as recently as the last presidential electoral cycle of 2016, the Democratic party's presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said that single-payer will “never, ever” happen.

Medicare for All was electoral success for Democrats

However, due to Bernie Sanders's unwavering progressive platform during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary election, the idea and possibility of some type of universal healthcare system, such as Medicare for All has permanently entered the American political zeitgeist. It is clear that many Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterms also recognized that Medicare for All can be their ticket to electoral success. Some of these candidates have now been elected as congressional representatives. For instance, Mike Levin campaigned on Medicare for All in California's 49^th congressional district which helped him capture a long-held Republican seat previously occupied by Darrell Issa. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ran an unapologetic democratic socialist campaign in New York's 14^th congressional district with Medicare for All as an integral part of her platform.

Hold them accountable

Now that the midterm elections are over, it is up to voters to hold these newly elected representatives to their promises during the campaign trail. Representative Keith Ellison is currently sponsoring a Medicare for All bill in the House which already has 123 co-sponsors. Constituents of the newly elected congressional representatives who had previously campaigned on Medicare for All must continue to be proactive in pressuring these incoming congressional representatives to sign on as co-sponsors of this important legislation.

There will be elements of capital and industry, such as the health insurance industry, which will lobby these incoming representatives to convince them to abandon their promises to support some type of universal healthcare system. Therefore, it is imperative that activists begin contacting these incoming representatives, even before they have been sworn in, to let them know that the American public will not forget their campaign promises. We the people expect these promises to be kept.

Corporations fear worker-centric progressive movement

Democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders is tired of government handouts. Sanders is seeking to finally end entitlement bailout programs for corporations which help them keep worker wages at starvation levels while the American taxpayer is left holding the bill. Last month Sanders introduced legislation that would tax corporations with 500 or more employees a 100 percent tax on the amount of government benefits received by their workers. Congressman Ro Khanna had already introduced a similar bill in the House last summer. Since then Sanders has been on a tear criticizing big corporations in a PR campaign that seems to be yielding results.

Corporate welfare

The introduced bill is titled the Stop Bezos ACT, which is a jab at Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos who has often been criticized for consistently paying rock bottom starvation wages to his workers, forcing them to seek government benefits in order to make ends meet. Despite being a $1 trillion company the corporation has thousands of workers who are currently relying on food stamps to survive due to their low pay. Amazon and other similar low-paying large corporations are essentially being subsidized by taxpayer money to allow them to pay workers literal starvation wages, all the while making extremely large profits for themselves, executives and shareholders.

Corporations fear the Bern

It turns out Bezos was listening to Sanders and that he is afraid of the brewing progressive movement focusing on the rights and interests of workers over corporations. After continued criticism from Sanders following the introduction of the bill which names Bezos via acronym in the bill's title, Amazon announced, due to the political pressure, it is raising its minimum wage to $15 per hour. Amazon is also calling on other large corporate employers to follow suit.

McDonald's is next

Shortly after Amazon announced that it is succumbing to political pressure to raise its minimum wage Sanders immediately continued his tireless efforts on behalf of the interests of workers. Sanders is now calling on McDonald's to follow suit and raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour just like Amazon has done. McDonald's, like most other corporations which benefitted from President Donald Trump's corporate giveaway plan, known as the GOP tax cut plan, used most of the tax cut money on stock buybacks and dividends for shareholders. “If McDonald's can afford to give its shareholders $7.7 billion, it can afford to pay all of its workers $15 an hour,” wrote Sanders in a letter to McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook.

Federal jobs guarantee both bold and smart

With the American economy on a steady recovery since the Obama presidency and the unemployment rate at record lows, fiscally, it would be the perfect time to introduce a federal job guarantee for every American. This particular point in the American economic recovery would be the least costly time for the Federal government to implement such a program which would super charge the American economy while eliminating significant amounts of unnecessary human suffering.

Bold and smart

That is why Bernie Sanders’ recent call to introduce a federal job guarantee for every American, with a $15.00 an hour minimum wage and accompanying supplementary health benefits, is both bold and smart for the long-term economic health of the United States.

Prepare for future economic crisis

Trump’s recklessness and impulsiveness is well-known. While some parts of the economy are in a relatively reasonable state, how long before any of the economic hand grenades that he loves to toss around (think tariffs, roll-back of Dodd-Frank or the tax plan) explodes big time? The economic crisis of 2008 could quite easily come back for an encore any time soon. Therefore, it is best to build the infrastructure for this important social and economic program while the American economy is strong.

Minimizes hiring discrimination

A jobs guarantee also allows for those workers who struggle in the private sector, notably non-whites, a more level playing field when it comes to being hired without the spectre of discrimination hanging over them.

Raises wages for all workers

In addition, the private sector, notorious for keeping a lid on wages for as long as possible, would be forced to address how much it paid its employees if the public sector is paying $15.00 an hour to its employees. Put another way, why work for $9.00 an hour in the private sector when you could be working for $15.00 an hour in the public sector? With the current labor shortage being exacerbated by Trump immigration policy in key economic sectors, such as construction, this can be a compelling catalyst for companies to finally begin raising wages in order to compete for workers.

Revitalizing American infrastructure

Further, it is no secret that the infrastructure of the United States is in disrepair. The job guarantee offers a way to tackle that decay as public works can be focused upon as the government would be able to target areas for improvement that the private sector generally avoids. With a stronger infrastructure, the economy becomes healthier, generates more tax revenue and more investment can be made.

Political support for jobs guarantee steadily growing

A federal jobs guarantee has been an idea that has been in the outer orbit of regular Democratic thinking for years now. The established mainstream of the party has traditionally had an aversion to this, opting instead for public-private partnerships. However, this is starting to change as many begin to realize a fundamental rethink is needed and that a federal jobs guarantee is a bone fide way to ensure future economic growth and stability.

Sanders is not the only voice calling for a federal jobs guarantee. Support is growing, with Senators Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand pledging their commitment to the idea. And recent New York congressional primary winner Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fully subscribes to the idea as well. Also, former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich supports the policy.

A federal jobs guarantee is no longer fringe-thinking. It is time for liberals, progressives and Democrats to embrace the concept.

Stopping Trump agenda in November essential for real progressives

On the morning of November 9, 2016 we woke up to a nightmare. Somehow, despite poll after poll showing Hilary Clinton was headed to the White House, Donald Trump took the prize. Not only that, but his Republican party enablers had hung onto both the House and the Senate. A trio of GOP misery was well and truly upon us. Countless Americans were worried and fearful, as they remain now.

Since then, three things have been very noticeable.

First, Trump’s behavior, entirely predictably, has become worse and worse and he is clearly not fit to be President.

Second, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan’s Republican party have put on a Vichy style display of acquiescence and indulgence of Trump’s aberrant behavior simply to hold on to power – and for no other reason than that.

Third, the Republicans have taken repeated beatings in any number of local, state or congressional elections since Trump’s victory.

One of the most recent was a state Senate seat in Wisconsin where a Democrat won big, overturning Trump’s 2016 margin of 18 points.

That was the first time that a Democrat had won that seat in over 40 years.

The much vaunted “Blue Wave” is being touted in advance of the forth-coming mid-terms in November of this year. Poll after poll has shown how anti-Trump and anti-GOP resentment has been boiling up for 18 months now. This is though where the opposition, the resistance, however you want to call it, needs to be careful that the Blue Wave stays as one and doesn’t fragment into smaller, much less effective waves.

If the Democrats can secure the mid-terms, flip the House and the Senate, Trump is in a much more precarious position. No longer will he be able to rely upon a dog-whistle Republican party with puff-pastry for a spine. His nefariousness can be checked more frequently and yes, the prospect of impeachment (and never was there a President that that word was so designed for) becomes a more realistic possibility.

The Democrats absolutely cannot afford to splinter the anti-GOP vote come November. If your preferred candidate doesn’t make it through a primary, take the hit. Because if you don’t, stay-at-home liberals and progressives translate into Republican electoral wins – it’s that simple.

Waking up on Wednesday November 7, 2018 and finding that the House and the Senate are still in Republican hands would be Groundhog Day style horrific. The only thing that would be worse would be finding out that Trump had secured a second term in November 2020, which would make implementing any actual progressive policy difficult, if not impossible, on a national level.

Progressives need to understand that these two nightmare scenarios are intrinsically linked. Break the first one and the second one has less chance of occurring. And more importantly, it will greatly increase the potential for the progressive agenda to become actual policy.

Voting is not about a purely performative expression of the “purity” of your political views, but rather a social mechanism which results in actual material consequences for people in real life. Having your candidate make it through the primaries is great. However, if they don’t, they are still very likely part of the broad spectrum of anti-GOP, anti-Trump alliance.

Stopping the Trump agenda is an essential part of the overall progressive agenda. Therefore, genuine progressives who are serious about achieving material progress which can affect people in real life, should not stay home in November even if their favored progressive candidate did not make it into the general election.

Collapse of the American Political Spectrum (Part 3 of 3)

Written by Igor Goldkind

Continued from Part 2 of 3

I don't applaud or even support all the actions and ideologies of the left. Many suffer from self-delusion, self-righteousness, intolerance and just as nefarious intent as the right; e.g. the 2106 Democratic primary (that is, only if you're so right wing do you consider Democrats as equivalent leftists). Mainly I despise the current progressive left for being so far up their own digestive tracks as to permit the election of an unqualified, incompetent candidate! Jill Stein? No, this is well beyond left or right; this is about whether or not you understand and advocate for the U.S. Constitution or whether you adhere to contradicting the Constitution by imposing dictates like the Ten Commandments and the irresponsibility of unregulated market capitalism.

Like most things, disdain is born of ignorance. The left has always been viewed in measure to how close to Marxism it drifts on our traditional spectrum. But that has mainly to do with a basic misunderstanding of Marxist rhetoric on the part of most Americans. For example, Marx’s Das Capital is not a blueprint for revolution regardless of whether revolutionaries from Lenin through Mao to Castro took it as such. Marx was never a revolutionary or even, strictly speaking, political. Karl Marx was a socio-economist, interested in scientifically tracing the origins and causes of his current social system, in both England and France where he studied everything from the Paris Communes to the British miner’s union.

His work is a critique and a warning against the dangers of unbridled Capitalism, not a prescription for its replacement. It was Lenin and Mao Tse Tung that decided that they knew what to replace their respective monarchical systems with. They were merely following the first American and then French models of revolutionary severance in an emerging industrial society where the rule of Capital was quickly replacing the seat of power and oppression held by the monarchy and the church. Remember that Fidel Castro first appealed to the U.S. to support his democratic revolution and only turned to Soviet-style Communism when his entreaties were rejected by us. Castro had read the U.S. Constitution and mistakenly thought that a nation built on the foundation stone of revolution would sympathize and support his struggle against the dictator Baptista. Boy, was he going to get a wake up call!

This is all summarised by the very first international convention on Marxism attended by scholars, writers and politicians from all over the world. The keynote speaker at the end was to be an aged Karl Marx himself! After listening to hour upon hour of dissertation and speech on the tenets of Marxism by every leading self-described Marxist in the world, when Karl Marx was ushered to the podium to the thunder of a standing ovation, for Marx was clearly the patron saint of all of them, he paused. Karl Marx leaned into the microphone and after the long pause pronounced: “Thank you everyone, thank you very much but after I’ve heard everything I’ve heard today, I want you all to be very clear about one thing: I am not a Marxist!”

It's really that simple.

Don't be distracted by the false claims of partisanship so often paraded by the right. And use anything you find useful here to pursue this argument with those supporting the extreme Right.

Donald Trump isn't right wing, he is simply and indisputably a betrayer of the U.S. Constitution.

So let's put aside our redundant spectrum labels, let's renounce our own affiliations and denounce all politics up till now whilst at the same time re-examine the history of our nation's founding. Let us enter into debate and discussion with our fellow citizens and engage in disagreement and persuasion based not on whether a political leaning fits your particular style or mood, but whether the issue, the organization, the person or the principle being examined either supports or contradicts the founding ideology of our (already), great, democratic republic.

The only way we are going to rise above the rubble of our political spectrum is to dig deep into the original American values upon which this country is founded. Not closure or exclusion but hope, promise and progress. We are a nation founded on reason and reason is what we all desperately need to return to or we will cease to be the nation our forefathers and fore-immigrants dreamt of. 

For more writing by the author go to:

https://igorgoldkind.wordpress.com/

 

The Collapse of the American Political Spectrum (Part 2 of 3)

Written by Igor Goldkind

Continued from Part 1 of 3

America is a melting pot goes the cliche, but it’s not a melting pot of people and cultures. Instead, America is a melting pot of people’s idealization of America. A merging of hopes and aspirations from all four corners of the world. All of the immigrants who came to America for whatever reason, imagined what this country represented, my Russian grandfather included. As a youth, he had posters of Hollywood film stars pasted on his walls. He had always dreamed of escaping the Jewish pogroms and escaping to America, the land of the Free, where people could work hard and prosper. He imagined the land where he wanted to live, to escape to, long before he had touched feet on American soil. It was his desire to pursue his dream, his optimistic illusion that moved him. So it was with the Irish, the Germans, the Russians, the Italians, the French, the English, the Spanish, the Indians, the Vietnamese, the Japanese, the Chinese and so forth. Wave upon wave of immigrants arriving literally on the wings of a prayer: that there might be a better life here for them and their families.

From the onset immigrants wanted to conform, to fit into this culture. When people are diverse, they strive to be the same and when people are the same they strive to be distinguished. Immigrants want to become American as fast as possible, or at least they want their children to be as a natural progression. When I asked my grandfather to teach me Russian he refused telling me that it was the language of the old country and best forgotten along with the victims of the Cossack pogroms he and my grandmother had left behind. This was the land of their aspirations and embraced whatever culture they could touch. More often than not, it was the aspirations of the previous generation of immigrants they embraced, that still lingered in the atmosphere like the scent from a million flowers. It was within this churn of dreams that America was invented.

This was the living, breathing American idealism that seamlessly overlapped the original Anglo-Protestant American idealism of the post-Enlightenment both confirming and revitalizing the ideal of America. What America really is, what it really represents is refreshed and reinvigorated with each and every new wave of immigrants. Refugees come here escaping war and tyranny because until this past year, this nation was the safe harbor of Liberty. This is why immigrants are so vital to our democracy and why Trump is so horrifically wrong to hinder their entry. It is optimism of the immigrant, their aspirations, their idealism, that refreshes our democracy and reminds us what is truly great about America and Americans. Not our jingoism (every nation state has that), but our openness to the other we may not first understand and our willingness to change and be changed by the world turning round.

The Black Panthers, the usual right wing's bugbear, at their worst fought for the right to bear arms (as provided by the Second Amendment) and to not be harassed by the Oakland police. They armed themselves to protect their civil rights and to protect themselves from racist police brutality. Don't believe me? Read your history and read the works of Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton and Malcolm X. All were fighting for their American civil rights as provided by and guaranteed in the text of the U.S. Constitution, the highest law of the land.

Even the destruction of property isn't prohibited by the Constitution but by other more localized laws. However, constitutional law trumps federal law, state law, county law and city law. If it's not spelt out in the Constitution then it has been down to the legal tradition to work it out through the enforcement of lower court decisions all the way to the Supreme Court, if need be. But those laws of governance and the rights of man are spelt out, such as the right to free speech, the right to dissent, the right to pursue one's happiness without deterrence and the right to practice any religion without harassment; it stands above any other law that has been passed locally or otherwise.

The U.S. Constitution (and its accompanying Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence), are by their very existence if not definition, progressive documents. They were all written, argued about and voted on to progress us beyond a decadent monarchy, church and systems of government that had existed for a millennium at least previously (with perhaps the exception of the short-lived English Civil War). They were also the rules of governance, not anti-government, but an equitable governance that assured the democratic representation of all citizens, documented or not.

If, on the other hand, you are terrified of change, resistant to progress and always proclaim the past as superior to the present, then you are conservative, but no longer of the right. If you were successfully transferred to the distant past, you would have been a Tory resisting the radical, never before tried, severance from the King and the religious establishment. You would have gone as far as to collude with our foreign enemies, like Benedict Arnold and Donald Trump did to undermine our democratic institutions and betray the Constitution that both had sworn to protect.

So much clarity is lost when we succumb to counterfactual history. In this case, “counterfactual” meaning, not only backward looking narratives that are factually inaccurate, but contrived narratives that actually defy and contradict the tenets they are meant to illustrate. Examples include the right wing attempt to reattach church and state with the preposterous notion that our history is Judeo-Christian just because a lot of Christians live and practice here. As well they should as the first amendment guarantees the right to worship anyway you want but NOT deny others the right to practice their religion or even lack of belief. Again, the United States was founded on the basis of reasoned judgement NOT faith and superstition.

This is exemplified in the malicious rewrite of history that forgets that most, if not all references to God in our founders documents were added later by Christian legislators. The credo ‘In God We Trust’ was actually added to our currency in the mid-20th century, to distinguish us from Communist atheism.

It's time for American patriots to start calling a spade a spade (as in pointed shovel, not a racial slur) if you oppose the general welfare of the American people, you stand against the Constitution. If you oppose every American's unqualified entitlement to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," you stand against the Constitution. If you favour the introduction of prayer into schools and the Christian faith above all other religions in our laws and institutions, then you stand against the Constitution. And if you favour or excuse the gerrymandering of political precincts for the sake of political advantage or to disenfranchise the right of all U.S. citizens to vote regardless, or invite a foreign power to interfere with a U.S. election, you stand against the Constitution.

If you collude with a foreign power to receive stolen information detrimental to your political opponent for political gain; not only do you stand against the Constitution. You're a traitor to it.

Continue to Part 3 of 3

For more writing by the author go to:

https://igorgoldkind.wordpress.com/