Site
Administrator
|
Some quotes from this far-out radical who many feel is a danger to the US -
*********************
"We spend three times as much per capita on health care as the UK, and 48 million Americans have no health insurance."
"Our system is designed to make money, not to provide quality health care."
"The revelation that the president authorized the release of classified information in order to discredit an Iraq war critic should tell every member of Congress that the time is now for a serious investigation of how we got into the war in Iraq, and why Congress can no longer act as a rubber stamp for the president."
"So somebody decides, for example, that the Michael Jackson trial is terribly important, or the kidnapping of an attractive woman deserves to be on the front pages every single day. Meanwhile, huge issues that affect tens of millions of Americans get very, very little coverage. For example, the most significant domestic issue facing the American people is the collapse of the middle class – the fact that in the last thirty years, 90% - the bottom 90% of American workers – have seen a decline in their real wages, despite an explosion of worker productivity and technology. The gap between the rich and the poor is now wider today than it has been since the 1920s. The poverty rate has increased by four million in the last four years."
"I think Katrina is one more indication of how inefficient and corrupt this Administration is, and indicates the absolute lack of seriousness that Bush has in making the government respond to the needs of the people. He is there primarily to give tax breaks to billionaires, to do the service of large corporations. This is just one more powerful, dramatic, painful example of the incompetence and lack of concern of this Administration. They are so separated from the lives of normal, low-income people that it never occurred to them that if you’re poor and have no money, no car, that you can’t leave. You don’t just get in your SUV and go to a nice hotel a few miles away."
"We have to develop a strong economic message which says every American is entitled to health care through a national health care program. And we’re not going to allow these large corporations to push through trade agreements which allow them to throw Americans out on the street and run to China. We’re not going to give tax breaks to billionaires and then cut back on the needs of our elderly or poor or kids or education. We’re not going to privatize Social Security—in fact, we’re going to strengthen it."
About the then upcoming 2006 election -
"I don't mind really if millionaires vote against me. They probably should."
----
On November 8, 2006, Sanders was asked what his answer was to Iraq -
"Well, that's not an answer that can be given in 30 seconds. I think the bottom line is that the people of Iraq, when asked what they believe is best for their country, amidst all the violence and the chaos, what they say is they think they would be better off if American troops came home. So I think we should respect the wishes of the people of Iraq. I think we should bring our troops home soon. By that, I mean within the next year."
----
"When US leaders extol the virtues of the ''American Way'' to foreign leaders in overseas economic gatherings, they should keep in mind that at least 11 other countries rank ahead of the United States in terms of the pay and benefits their workers receive. In all of those countries, every worker is guaranteed health care, superior parental leave benefits, free or inexpensive college education for their children, and far more vacation time."
"The truth of the matter is that in the ''booming economy'' of this, the richest country on earth, 30 percent of American workers earn poverty or near-poverty wages because the minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation and we have lost millions of decent-paying manufacturing jobs. Low-wage American workers are now the lowest-paid in the industrialized world. In this nation of ''family values,'' more than 20 percent of our children live in poverty."
"Moreover, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were 25 years ago. In 1973, the real (inflation-adjusted) hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers averaged $14.09. By 1998, that wage had fallen to $12.77. Even more alarming is that young entry-level workers without a college education saw their real wages fall by more than 20 percent between 1979 and 1997. While workers' wages have risen in the last few years, millions are still behind where they or their parents were a generation ago."
"According to a recent report from the International Labor Organization, employees in the United States have surpassed the Japanese and now have the dubious distinction of working the longest hours of any workers in the entire industrialized world. Our workers put in 234 more hours every year than the Canadians, 410 more than the Germans, and 567 more than the Norwegians. The number of Americans who work more than one job increased 92 percent between 1973 and 1997, and 37 percent of Americans now put in more than 50 hours a week."
"The confusion over the state of the ''booming'' economy rests with the fact that some Americans are doing extremely well. In fact, the richest people in the country have never had it so good. With an explosion in the number of billionaires in recent years, and with the CEOs of major corporations now earning 419 times more than their employees, the United States has, by far, the most unfair distribution of wealth and income of any major nation. The richest 1 percent of the population now owns as much wealth as the bottom 95 percent of all Americans combined."
************************
Yeah, he and his ideas are dangerous...but not to me and not to most Americans
|
