“If My Thought Dreams Could be Seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine” — Bob Dylan, “It’s All Right Ma”, 1965.
Look at the picture here. This is Fox news. What does it say, and how does it say it?
The way fascist Republicans and Clinton-Lieberman-DNC Democrats have targeted new, young, elected leaders like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is unbelievable! And even though CNN aired the interview with her (click on the link above), in general, corporate media is blasting the Bernie Sanders line of humanism, and without any objective analysis, making Democratic Socialism synonymous with communism.
And U.S. people are falling for that, because to them, anything remotely connected to socialism is “Godless communism.” For decades, since the Era of McCarthyism, American powers and media have successfully made the concept of equality, peace and justice an evil. They have cut off the global knowledge base, and made Americans blind and deaf about what’s going on across the civilized world.
So, what are leaders like Sanders and Alexandria talking about that’s so loathsome and repulsive to some working-class Americans?
(1) That unlike the rest of the developed, capitalist world, USA has an out-of-control wealth and income disparity, and we need to narrow the gap, to make the middle class stronger.
(2) Unlike the rest of the developed, capitalist world, American people pay an obnoxious, outrageous amount of money for health care and education, and we must make them affordable, because health care and education are rights and not privileges.
(3) Unlike the rest of the developed, capitalist world, American corporations have caused havoc to the environment, and we must clamp down on them — fossil fuel corporations in particular — to save the earth from destruction.
(4) Unlike the rest of the developed, capitalist world, USA’s three topmost industries are arms (and gun) industry, drug industry, and sex industry, along with the prison industry, and we must move away from these industries, to bring peace and sanity to ourselves and our children.
Democratic Socialism is not communism. And Fox and other such media are purposefully scaring the American people. Reject their fear mongering and lies.
I have worked for many years, intensely, first with the right wing and then with the left wing. After almost fifty years of activism in the two biggest democratic countries in the world, I am convinced that unless we work together — making a serious effort to bring the 99% together — on a common platform of equality, peace, social justice, environmental justice, and affordable education and health care for all, we can’t save the world from the clutches of neoliberal corporate pushers and Trump-Modi-type fascists.
Americans with intelligence and political acumen must wake up now, and seize the new opportunity, recognizing the groundswell. Stop fascists and neoliberal corporate politicians from destroying this nonviolent revolution that’s sweeping across America.
Intelligent and progressive people in India can follow this new, surging young America, if they want. It’s your call.
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Partha Banerjee
Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partha_Banerjee
Long Island, New York
August 11, 2018.
Humanity College 