As was true in FDR’s first campaign back in 1933, this is not the time for fear and half-measures.
By Mark L. Taylor
The Commoner Call (2/24/20)
Weird times bring forth weird players. For example, there is the failed, bankruptcy-bouncing, scamming real estate hustler and off-and-on Democrat who jumps from reality television to become the Republican president of the United States. Now, in the midst of the Democratic primary scrum for the 2020 presidential election a long-time, hardcore Wall Street Republican renounces all but his name to campaign for the party’s nomination.
And nobody can deny that Facebook is one of the weirder landscapes in the American political junk yard. The announcement of former — Republican — Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s multi-mega-million dollar campaign blitz for the Democratic nomination has brought forth a lot of weirdness on the progressive Facebook pages I tend to follow. Somehow, a number of usually stalwart progressive types have — apparently — forgotten Bloomberg’s long history of pushing and funding some of the most retrograde policies of the Republican agenda and corporate state as quickly as he has.
WHOOSH… Out With The Old, In With The New
Never mind Bloomberg’s truly fascist police state “stop and frisk”, which he now claims he regrets, merely inherited from the Guiliani administration and, besides — the pitch goes — he ended it himself. Actually, he didn’t. A federal court brought it to an end. Bloomberg is certainly comfortable in nomination conventions — Republican conventions. In fact, in the 2004 GOP convention Bloomberg gave a rousing speech, declaring of George W. Bush: “The president deserves our support. We are here to support him. And I am here to support him.”
We are confronted by a rapidly evolving fascist state and no billionaire pooped out by such a system will rescue us. We — as citizen voters, activists, and free people — are the ones to rescue us.
Bloomberg continues to support the disastrous, long-failed Cheney-Bush Iraq War, which — of course — his privileged class has not had to send their children off to be killed, maimed and emotionally scorched.
In recent years, Bloomberg billions have been used to compromise and purchase selected silence from a number of lefty organizations, which has undermined the left wing political landscape.
Bloomberg millions have been used to purchase the Republican-led Senate, which just conducted a sham trial and perfunctory exoneration of Trump’s crimes related to the Ukraine situation. That Constitutional travesty of Senate malpractice was brought to us by Bloomberg billions.
Bloomberg himself had — just last year at the swanky Bermuda Forum — waved away rumors of a run for the democratic nomination explaining:
“It’s just not gonna’ happen on the national level for someone like me, starting where I am. Unless, I was willing to change all my views and go on what CNN calls an apology tour.”
And one-by-one over the past month or so, we have seen Mike Bloomberg attempt to peel away from Mike Bloomberg; to re-cast himself as some kind of progressive folk hero. It’s been as comical as it is contrived, except for the fact that in addition to the corporate dems, some progressives actually are welcoming Bloomberg — and his billions — with open arms.
Daddy Warbucks & Nevous Nellies
Apparently, the fear of a second round of Trump has rattled a number of “Anybody but Trump” nervous Nellies willing to torch political principle — and common sense — for a supposedly ‘woke’ Wall Street Daddy Warbucks to rescue them from the Orange Menace.
But here’s the truth about Bloomberg’s BS: No billionaire will ever get behind the deep, widespread, top-to-bottom reform needed to bring humanity and sanity to the brutal corporate system that has jacked him into billionaire status. Ain’t gonna happen.
Our tax, economic and political systems are mired in bipartisan graft, corruption and soul numbing hypocrisy. With more and more Americans sliding into the despair of poverty and a spreading climate catastrophe brought about by a system granting more wealth to three men than the bottom half of the nation, we are light years beyond a little creative wonky tweaking and tuning.
The myth of the self-made man (and, no, no millionaire/billionaire in our corrupt system ‘earned’ that money) combined with an assumption that the wealthy are somehow better, more enlightened, intelligent, worthy beings is apparently as widespread among some progressives as your average country club Republican … or country-club DNC Democrat.
As was true in FDR’s first campaign back in 1933, this is not the time for fear and half-measures. We are confronted by a rapidly morphing fascist state and no billionaire pooped out by such a system will rescue us. We — as citizen voters, activists, and free people — are the ones to rescue us.
Buck up, and boot the billionaire.
*****
Convenient Conversion: Many Candidates Change Positions Over Time. Mike Bloomberg Did It Almost Overnight
The billionaire has fully or partially reversed himself on stances he took as recently as 2019.
When Michael Bloomberg appeared at a forum hosted by the Bermuda Business Development Agency in March 2019, he explained that his then-recent decision to not run for president was based on a desire to not have to alter his positions to appeal to Democratic Party voters.
He was unwilling to “change all of my views and go on what CNN called an apology tour,” Bloomberg said, referencing Joe Biden’s numerous apologies as the former vice president was gearing up his candidacy.
“Some of these people, they were for-it-before-they-were-against-it, and they’re with you as long as they can be and things like that,” Bloomberg said. “And that’s just not me. My charm is that I say what I believe and I do it.”
But Bloomberg changed his mind about running, announcing a bid for the Democratic Party presidential nomination last November. And in line with his critique of others, he has released a steady stream of new Bloomberg policies that either totally or partially contradict his past stated views ― some that he declared as recently as 2019. …
Read The Rest And 1+-Minute Audio
*****
Hey, Dems, Is It Trump Or Bloomberg? Take Our Little Quiz
By Arwa Mahdawi
The Guardian (2/22/20)
Just a few minutes into Wednesday’s Democratic debate, Elizabeth Warren spectacularly threw down the gauntlet.
“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against,” the senator said. “A billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians’. And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.”
The comments Warren cited come from a 1990 booklet called The Portable Bloomberg: The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg, which the businessman’s colleagues put together for his 48th birthday. An editor’s note by the Bloomberg company’s former chief marketing officer Elisabeth DeMarse reads: “Yes, these are all actual quotes. No, nothing has been embellished or exaggerated. And yes, some things were too outrageous to include.”
A few quotes that weren’t considered “too outrageous to include” in the booklet:
- “If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they’d go to the library instead of to Bloomingdales.”
- “What do I want? I want an exclusive, 10-year contract … And I want [oral sex] from Jane Fonda. Have you seen Jane Fonda? Not bad for 50.”
- “I know for a fact that any self-respecting woman who walks past a construction site and doesn’t get a whistle will turn around and walk past again and again until she does get one.”
- “The [British] Royal family – what a bunch of misfits – a gay, an architect, that horsey faced lesbian and a kid who gave up Koo Stark for some fat broad.”
- Bloomberg computer terminals “will do everything, including give you [oral sex]. I guess that puts a lot of you girls out of business”.
- On being asked to name a sport that doesn’t use balls: “Lesbian sex.”
Bloomberg’s alleged “Wit and Wisdom” has come back to haunt him throughout his political career. Whether the introduction to the 32-page booklet is correct and he actually said everything included in it is disputed. The Washington Post notes that “Bloomberg has given varying responses over the years when asked about some of the quotes … In 2001 his spokesman conceded ‘some of the things he might have said’ and Bloomberg apologized to ‘anyone that was offended by the comments’.”
More recently, Bloomberg’s spokesman told the Washington Post that “Mike simply did not say the things somebody wrote in this gag gift.” However, Bloomberg’s spokesman went on to admit that: “Mike openly admits that his words have not always aligned with his values and the way he has led his life and some of what he has said is disrespectful and wrong.”
“Disrespectful and wrong” is one way of putting it. “Sexist, racist, and Donald Trump-esque” is another. …
- Cenk Uygur’s Brokered Dem Convention Predictions: Link To 9-Minute Video
(Commoner Call cartoon and column by Mark L. Taylor, 2017/2020. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )
