Bernie and AOC's Big Lie about Oligarchy

Bernie Sells Socialism Like Soda Pop

Bernie Sanders is undergoing some deserved ridicule for his lame excuse for flying private jet on his “Fighting Oligarchy Tour,” but that’s the least of the hypocrisy involved in his highly-publicized multi-state junket with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Simply stated, socialism/communism— in whatever quasi-democratic form the two wish to disguise it— is far more fecund ground for the worst excesses of oligarchy than the unfettered capitalism they disdain.

Oligarchy, to be clear, is defined as “a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution.”

Unfortunately, this is a worldwide phenomenon to one degree or another.

But evidence that it thrives more easily under socialistic governments where there is little or no public oversight or input comes from the world’s second most populous country with its second largest economy — China.

Ever since Deng Xiaoping—the man who overthrew Maoism and famously opined “I don’t care if a cat is black or white, only that it catches mice”— became the supreme leader of the People’s Republic (1978), that country has been open to private business in a highly-controlled manner, usually defined as membership in the CCP or fealty to the same.

In other words, despite whatever Marxist rhetoric that comes and goes, today’s China is close to a pure oligarchy and, to be honest, a reasonably successful one judged on the numbers lifted from poverty via their heavily-managed capitalist system. (It can be argued that oligarchy is the natural final form of communism that saves it from economic failure.)

China is further a totalitarian monstrosity with freedom restricted and minorities oppressed, sometimes violently, also fiscally dishonest while imperialistically attempting to take over the world through its Belt and Road Initiative.

Bernie and AOC would of course deny it, but this form of oligarchy is in essence what the two are selling on their tour, what they have on offer for their evidently enthusiastic fans beguiled by a utopia that can never exist..

Bernie has been doing this for many decades in an unwavering manner, long before his well known marital celebration in the Soviet Union. I can’t remember the first time I heard him speak but can recall several times thereafter and it was always the same, cliché after cliche, never examined. (Tom Hayden during the SDS days at least did it with some originality.) Few people go through life with such rigorous consistency.

Bernie is at base a traveling salesman of socialism. He is in the Socialism Business, much as others are in soda pop. This could be seen as his best excuse for flying those private jets. That’s exactly what a Coca Cola executive would do. And like that executive, he ignores the dangerous side effects of his product.

He either implies or assures directly his vision of socialism will remain democratic despite the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Nasser’s Egypt, Gaddafi’s Libya and on and on that began with similar assurances. This time it will work. It’s hard to think he actually believes that.

As evidence of that skepticism (playing both sides against the middle), Bernie has been one of the larger beneficiaries over the years of what may be the worst of all American oligarchies, Big Pharma, to the tune of $1,965,000. His “benefit” is just shy of Mitch McConnell’s ($2,032,241) who is allegedly a conservative.

Profiting from being a senator is big business, and will remain so as long as there are no term limits. Sanders and McConnell, both in their eighties, have been senators virtually in perpetuity and have amassed some nice change.

Bad as soda is for your health, it may be a more honest way to make a living.

AOC is Bernie’s junior, soon to be senior, partner. She is talked about to be the next Democrat presidential candidate. Will she be outdoing herself at a forthcoming Met Gala? On her last outing she wore a very expensive décolleté outfit with a back reading “Tax the Rich!”

I have a suggestion for her next one: “Long Live Oligarchy!”