The tiny, corseted waist of the Americas is indeed a menagerie of financial deviance. taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens.”īernie was asking the right questions.
economy… why would we be considering a stand-alone free trade agreement with Panama, tiny little country? Well, it turns out that Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and large corporations to evade U.S. “Panama’s entire economic output about two-tenths of 1 percent of the U.S. In 2011, Bernie went off about a proposed trade deal with Panama: We believe that candidate is Bernie Sanders. We have a despicably racist justice system.įor young people, for creatives, for artists, for the freelance generation – we have a chance to turn the page on the 90’s, to cast a vote for a candidate that reflects a more compassionate alternative, to acknowledge that as capitalism continues its relentless march forward, the system can only go so far. We cobble together entire careers of 1099 gigs that offer no benefits, then owe thousands come tax day. For many of us, over half of our income goes to rent. We beg just for access to a healthcare system where everything is still absurdly expensive, where if you get cancer you need to set up a page just to not die.
Whether it was the freedom to get rich or the freedom not to care, we were pitched individual liberation in lieu of shared responsibility, and we bought it.Īfter Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, Snowden and Chelsea Manning, after the election of Barack Obama, after two wars and the finally realized battle for transgender rights – taken together these agitations represent a call to reject that exclusionary, individualist model of capitalism in favor of something broader – something we all have a stake in. “Tough on crime” Democrats who helped pack prisons to avoid seeming weak. Deregulation, a weakening social safety net, the deterioration of unions, ballooning CEO pay and falling capital gains taxes. The Clintons, celebrities for our time – flawed, glamorous, aspirational – were the perfect embodiment of the American dream.Īs they passed welfare reform and repealed Glass-Steagall, the Clintons sold us on the warm bath of incrementalism, even as the punishing vision of capitalism ushered in by Reagan was digging in its heels. In the Clinton Era, we left the artifice of the 80’s and embraced an empowering, blasé cool, a world of cell phones, gay people and possibility.