D
For years and years, in corporate media, one heard the word oligarch
followed by the word Russian
. But oligarchs are not just a Russian phenomenon or a foreign concept.
No. The United States has its own oligarchy. When I started talking about this, many people did not understand what I wanted to say. Well, that has changed.
When the three richest men in the United States sit next to Donald Trump in their inauguration, everyone understands that these billionaires now control our government. They also understand that one of the main functions of government policy will be to make those incredibly rich people become even more rich and powerful.
When those same three men control any of the main media and informative distribution channels in the country, they all understand that the multimillionaire class today controls our means. They also understand that one of the main functions of the media owned by billionaires (think of Musk and Twitter) will be to manufacture massive amounts of misinformation and shameless lies.
When one of those men spent hundreds of millions of dollars to choose Trump and another used his power as a newspaper owner to deny Kamala Harris, everyone understands that the multimillion -dollar class also significantly controls our policy. They also understand that one of the main functions of our political system is to maintain the fiction that we are a true democracy when, in fact, the average citizen has less and less impact on what happens.
But they are not just Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. Today in the United States we have more income and wealth inequality than ever. We have a greater concentration of property in the financial services sector, health care, agriculture, transportation, food and housing energy than at any other time. We have greater consolidation of the media than ever. And we have an increasingly controlled political system by the multimillionaire class.
Let’s add all that and see a nation and a world that tend hard towards the oligarchy, in which a small number of billionaires exercises enormous economic and political power over all others. More and more, the government is just one more property of those forces of enormous power.
Thus, in the middle of this, where are we going from here?
First, we don’t have time for groans and regrets and to sink our heads into the sand desperately. Yes: many are furious and frustrated with the establishment of the Democratic Party, who continues to turn his back on the needs of the workers. But our work is not to look back, but go ahead.
Let me say it clearly. One of the functions that oligarchs use to maintain their position of power is to make it seem that true change is impossible, and that it is useless to oppose. They have the power, there is nothing we can do about it. This has been so and it will always be. Stop treating.
Fortunately, those masters of the universe are wrong. Very wrong.
What history has always taught us is that the true change never occurs from top to bottom. Always occurs from below. It occurs when ordinary people get fed up and disgust from oppression and injustice … and fight against them. That is the history of the foundation of our nation, of the abolitionist movement, of the labor movement, of the civil rights movement, of the movement of women, of the environmental movement and the movement for the rights of the gays. This is how we choose dozens of progressives to Congress and convert the progressive Board of Congress into one of the most important entities of the United States House of Representatives. That is the story of each effort that has produced a transformation in our society.
It will not be easy, but, together, we will educate, organize and build an unstoppable movement of bases around a progressive agenda that is based on the principles of justice and compassion, not of greed and oligarchy. Together, we will lead the struggle to create the nation and the world that we know we can build.
Sisters and brothers, we are now in the middle of a struggle between a progressive movement that mobilizes around a shared vision of prosperity, security and dignity for all people, and one that defends the oligarchy and the massive global inequality of income and wealth .
It is a struggle that, for us and future generations, we cannot lose. Let’s advance together.
* Independent senator by Vermont
Translation: Jorge Anaya
