Sen. Bernie Sanders responds to a caller on Washington Journal who feels, as I'm sure a lot of often do, like throwing his hands up in the air and giving up when looking at the terrible direction this country has been headed for so long now.
Sanders: Mike you know, dispair is really not an option. If you're saying to me that our friends on Wall Street who's greed and wrecklessness and illegal behavior plunged this country into the recession that we're in right now, and that want to go back to the way they used to be and give themselves huge bonuses and so forth and so on, and you're telling me that the heads of the insurance companies and the drug companies have enormous power are fighting for their own interests and their own profits at the expense of everybody else, you're absolutely right. That is the reality.
But dispair is not an excuse. You can't say you give up. We can't give up. I've got four kids and six grandchildren -- beautiful kids all of them. I can't give up. You can't give up. What we have to do -- this is tough stuff -- is figure out how did we get to where we are right now.
Was it a wonderful idea as Alan Greenspan told us, as President Bush told us and some Democrats told us that we want to deregulate everything, let Wall Street do whatever they want... is that a good idea? Is it a great idea that the Supreme Court recently said corporations are people and they can contribute as much money as they want to the political process? Is that a good idea? It's a horrendous idea, but reality is clear. We don't talk about it terribly much in Congress or on T.V.
A small number of people who have incredible wealth and power control a lot of what goes on in America. That's the simple reality. But throwing your hands up and saying it's too much; I can't deal with it, or you can say, this is tough stuff. This is tough stuff and how do we once again bring ordinary people into the political process. How do you create a government that works for the middle class rather than the wealthy. It ain't easy. But giving up is not an option.
