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1 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Ashland New Plays Festival seeks out most interesting story telling ... 'It's about living' ... North Mountain Park Preschool Puppet Theatre ... Ashland New Plays Festival seeks out most interesting story telling ... 'It's about living' ... North Mountain Park Preschool Puppet Theatre ... GUEST OPINION Guest Opinion: The pathology of Wall Street Democrats Comment By Andy Seles DailyTidings.com By Andy Seles Posted Jan. 7, 2016 at 12:01 AM By Andy Seles Posted Jan. 7, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News In a recent column, Froma Harrop offered a thin apology to Bernie Sanders for a piece she wrote, saying, “Perhaps I overdid it.” She concludes her “apology” with a question shared by many liberals: What would happen if Sanders did win the presidency? Her own answer reflects the pragmatic cynicism of many liberals. For all of Sanders’ “solid thinking,” she says hyperbolically, he has “never been able to work with others in Washington, and we’re not just talking about Republicans.” Harrop’s thinking belies the enervation of the Democratic Party, which lost its moral compass during the Clinton administration and, under President Obama, has continued its devolution. In a 2014 Salon article, “My Party Has Lost Its Soul,” Bill Curry, one-time counselor to Bill Clinton, sums up the party’s sell-out. Curry documents the rise of neoliberalism that has infected the Democratic Party beginning with the election in 1980 of a freshman House Democrat named Tony Coelho. Coelho took over the party’s fundraising. Curry explains: “Coelho set Democrats on an identity-altering path toward ever closer ties to big business and, especially, Wall Street.” He reminds us that it was Clinton and Gore who founded the Democratic Leadership Council forging closer ties to big business. In terms of deregulation, the new Democrats out-Reaganed Reagan. The 1996 Telecommunications Act subverted anti-trust principles going back to Woodrow Wilson authorizing, as Curry states, “a massive giveaway of public airwaves to big business and ended the ban on cross ownership of media. The resultant concentration of ownership hastened the rise of hate radio and demise of local news and public affairs programming across America.” The 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act deep-sixed Glass-Steagall, inevitably leading to bank failures in 2008. Many Democrats rationalize that the party needed cash after Reagan weakened the labor unions, historically the Democrats’ biggest donors. But supporting the WTO, NAFTA and a host of other so-called “trade deals” outsourcing millions of jobs and offshoring thousands of factories took that poor excuse to another level. After the 2010 Citizens United decision Democratic politicians are more addicted than ever to corporate cash. Catering to their Wall Street benefactors, Washington’s legislators continue to offer voters a simple choice of deficit reduction or increased national debt, imposing no financial cost upon the top one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans who own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Mainstream media, owned by five huge corporations, provides “news” in perfectly orchestrated kabuki theater designed to keep us divided and distracted from noticing that “the emperor has no clothes.” At best, these outlets are echo chambers providing 24/7 uninterrupted confirmation bias. They will not report that our economy is host to the disease of capitalism that, like a cancer, bears no responsibility to its host … a disease whose malignant cells masquerade as representatives of a healthy market while benefiting only a handful of monopolistic, global corporations. After decades of drinking neoliberal Kool-Aid, many Democrats console themselves with Orwellian “doublethink” that capitalism’s global reach will create a better world despite the “cellular” damage we experience in massive resource extraction, climate change, health and wage degradation, wars, displacement of whole populations and collective moral malaise. Harrop’s “report card” assessment that Sanders “has difficulty working with others” is accurate only when one accepts the “others” are owned by corporate overseers who care more about bottom lines than national sovereignty. Many Democrats are either ignorant of their party’s long tryst with Wall Street or in a state of denial, consoling themselves with their party’s stance on divisive social issues (abortion, gun control, immigration, etc.). Given their cognitive dissonance it’s not surprising that many think Sanders suffers from terminal integrity. This election year voters are offered the false populism of Donald Trump and the pragmatic cynicism of Hillary Clinton, both candidates beholding to the neoliberal economic policies that created our current dysfunctional wealth-concentrating system, rewarding the few at the expense of the many. We must address the systemic pathology before it ignorantly devours its host. Electing Bernie Sanders for president would be one step toward reviving the national sovereignty, spurring a political revolution promoting a moral market economy that serves both individual and community. Andy Seles lives in Ashland. By Andy Seles DailyTidings.com By Andy Seles Posted Jan. 7, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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