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Date: 2025-08-22 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028014

US DEMOCRATS SENATOR BERNIE-SANDERS Bernie Sanders Dismantles Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos Oligarchy PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btdY7eFvlNM Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
Bernie Sanders Dismantles Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos Oligarchy electron media group inc. Feb 11, 2025 73.9K subscribers • Trump and Elon take Reporters Questio... During remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) accused President Trump and the billionaire 'oligarchs' such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, of leading the United States to ‘authoritarianism’. Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more... Join this channel to get access to perks: / @electronsinc Transcript 0:07 president the senator from Vermont uh are we in a quarum call here we are not okay Mr President we are living in a extremely dangerous time and future Generations will look back at this moment what we do right now and remember whether we had the courage to defend our democracy against the growing threats of oligarchy and authoritarianism they will remember whether we stood with President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg who in 1863 looking out over a battlefield where thousands of people had died th thousands of soldiers 1:00 died in the fight against slavery and he stated that quote this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that a government of the People by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth do we stand with Lincoln's vision of America or do we sit idly by and allow this country to move into a new vision and that is a government of the billionaire class by the billionaire class for the billionaire class but it is not just oligarchy that we should be concerned about not just the reality that today three people own more wealth than the 2:00 bottom half of American society 170 million three people more wealth than the bottom 170 million Americans it is not just that the gap between the very very rich and everyone else is growing wider and it is not just that we have more income and wealth in equality today than we have ever had on top of all all of that the reality is that today we are moving rapidly under President Trump toward authoritarianism more and more power resting in fewer and fewer hands Mr President as we speak right now Elon Musk the wealthiest man on the planet is attempting to dismantle major 3:00 agencies of the federal government which are designed to protect the needs of working families and the disadvantaged these agencies were created by the US Congress and it is congress's responsibility to maintain them to reform them or to end them it is not Mr musk's responsibility what Mr musk is doing is patently illegal and unconstitutional and must be ended Mr President two weeks ago president Trump attempted to suspend all federal grants and Loans an outrageous and clearly unconstitutional act and as I hope every sixth grader every kid in the sixth 4:00 grade in this country knows under the Constitution and our form of government the president can recommend legislation he can support legislation he can veto legislation but he does not have the power to unilaterally terminate funding passed by the Congress it is Congress the house and the Senate who control the P string but in this move toward authoritarianism it is not just the Congress that is being attacked it is our Judiciary this weekend the vice president of the United States a graduate of Yale law school who clerked for a Supreme Court Justice said that and I quote judges aren't allowed to control the executives legitimate power 5:01 end quote really I thought that one of the major functions of the federal courts is to interpret our Constitution and when appropriate serve as a check on the unconstitutional power of the executive that's not just what I believe that is what I suspect every legal scholar and lawyer in America understands to be the case further Mr musk meanwhile has proposed and I quote that the worst 1% of appointed judges be fired every year end quote and he demanded the impeachment of Judges that have blocked him from accessing sensitive Treasury Department files no doubt under Mr musk's rule it will be be him and his billionaire 6:01 friends who determine who the worst judges are and no Mr musk I must tell you you don't impeach judges who rule against you here in the United States you may or may not know this Mr musk but under the US Constitution we have a separation of powers brilliantly crafted by the founding fathers of this country in the 1770s and it has worked pretty well throughout our country's history we have an executive Ranch we have a legislative Ranch and we have a Judiciary Mr President what we are seeing now is not just an organized attack on the power of the Congress 7:00 and the responsibility of the Judiciary Mr Trump and his friends are not just trying to undermine two of the three pillars of our constitutional government Congress and the courts they are also going after the media in a way that we have never seen in the modern history of this country trust me that every member of Congress will tell you that the people working in the media and media organizations are not perfect we have all had our experiences with the media media like everything else makes mistakes every day but I do hope that every member of Congress understands that you cannot have a functioning democracy 8:00 you cannot have a free flow of information you cannot have the pursuit of truth without an independent press a press not intimidated by presidents of the United States but a president who write it who writes it and sees it the way they understand it to be and in that regard I want to mention to my colleagues what president Trump has done just in recent months Mr Trump has sued ABC and received a $15 million settlement he has sued meta the parent company of Facebook and Instagram and received a $25 million settlement he has sued CBS and its parent company paramont and is right now in negotiations over a settlement he ass sued the de Mo register for a poll results that he didn't like and his FCC is now 9:00 threatening to investigate PBS and NPR major news outlets in our country in other words we have a president of the United States who is using his incredible power and the power of His agencies to go after media in this country who are saying and doing things he does not like how are we going to have an independent media if journalists are looking over their shoulders fearful that their reporting will trigger a lawsuit from the most powerful executive in the world Mr President in the midst of all of this I think that now is the time to ask a very very simple question something I think that is on the minds 10:00 of millions of Americans what do Mr musk Mr Trump and their fellow billionaires really want now it's not really taking over Greenland the Panama Canal all that stuff the real question is what is their endgame what is their goal what are they striving for and in my view uh the answer really is not complicated it is not not novel it is not new it is in fact exactly what ruling classes throughout history have always wanted and have always believed to be their right their right and that is more power for themselves more control for themselves and more wealth for themselves 11:01 and in their pursuit of more power more control and more wealth they are determined to not allow democracy and the rule of law to get in their way for Mr musk and his fellow oligarchs the needs the concerns the pain the ideas the dreams of Ordinary People are simply an impediment to what they the oligarchs are entitled to and that is really what they believe they are entitled to all of the wealth and the power they have and they are determined to stop anyone who gets in their way Mr President this process this phenomenon that is going on right now is not the first time that we have seen this in our country's 12:01 history as I think many Americans understand in pre-revolutionary America before the 1770s before the creation of the United States and the writing of our constitution the ruling class of that time governed through a Doctrine called the divine right of kings the belief that the king of England was an agent of God that God appointed him and that he was not to be questioned by mere mortal human beings he was appointed by God in modern times we no longer have the divine right of kings what we now have is an ideology being pushed by the 13:00 oligarchs which says that as a very very wealthy group of people often self-made often the masters of revolutionary new technology and as high IQ individuals it is their absolute right to rule in other words the oligarchs of today are our modernday Kings Mr President it is not just power that they want the despite the incredible wealth that they currently have they want more and more and more their greed has no end today Mr musk is worth $42 billion dollar Mr Zuckerberg is worth 252 billion and 14:04 Mr Bezos is worth 249 billion with combined wealth of 93 billion these three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society 170 million Americans and not surprisingly since Trump was elected their wealth has soared musk has become $138 billion richer Zuckerberg has become 49 billion richer and Bezos has become 28 billion richer since election day in November meanwhile Mr President while the very rich become much richer 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck 85 million Americans are uninsured or 15:01 underinsured in terms of health care 25% of our seniors in this country are trying to survive on $115,000 a year or less $800,000 Americans are homeless and we have the highest rate of childhood Poverty of almost any major country on Earth and real inflation adjusted wages for the average American worker has not gone up in 50 years does anyone really think that the oligarchs give a damn about ordinary trust me they don't musk's decision to dismember us Aid means that tens of thousands of the poorest people in this world will either 16:01 go hungry or die of preventable diseases tens of thousands of people but it's not just us Aid and what's happening abroad here in the United States mark my words if we do not stop them they will soon be going after the health care nutrition housing and educational programs that protect the most vulnerable people in our country all so that they can raise the money they need to provide huge tax breaks for themselves and for other billiones as modern-day Kings who believe they have the absolute right to rule they will sacrifice without hesitation the well-being of working people in order to protect their power and 17:03 their privileges further they will use the enormous media operations they own to deflect attention away from the impact of their policies while they entertain us to death Mr musk owns Twitter Mr Zuckerberg owns meta which includes Facebook and Instagram and Mr Bezos owns the Washington Post and twitch further they and their fellow oligarchs will continue within our corrupt campaigned Finance system to spend huge amounts of money to buy politicians in both major political parties bottom line the oligarchs with their unlimited amounts of money are waging a war on the the working class of our 18:00 country and it is a war that they are intent on winning now I'm not going to kid anybody the problems that our country faces right now are enormously serious and they are not easy to solve our economy is Rigg the rich get richer poor get poorer and the middle class struggles our campaign Finance system is totally corrupt billionaires can now pour as much money as they want into both political parties and climate change is ravaging our country and the world with unprecedented levels of extreme weather disturbances among many other crises our country faces but Mr President in the midst of all of these 19:00 crisis this is what I do know and this is what I do believe and that is that the worst fear of the ruling class of our country is that the American people whether they are black or white or Latino whether they are Urban or rural whether they are young or old gay or straight whatever the fear of the world ruling class is that the American people come together to demand a government that represents all of us not just the people on top the oligarchs nightmare is that we will not allow ourselves to be divided up by race religion sexual orientation or country of origin and will come 20:02 together and have the courage to take them on will this struggle be easy no it will not and one of the reasons that it will not be easy is that the ruling class of this country will constantly remind us that they have the power they control the government they own the media but our job right now in these difficult times is to go back and remember the great struggles and sacrifices that millions of Americans have waged over the centuries in difficult times to create a more democratic just and Humane Society think about all of the sacrifices and the 21:01 struggles that Americans went through to create a more democratic just and Humane Society and think about trying to put yourself to where they were in those times of Crisis think about what was being said at those times think about the 1770s overthrowing the king of England the most powerful person on Earth the British Empire to create a new nation and have self-rule here in the colonies impossible so many people thought it could not be done establishing universal suffrage the right of all people whether they were wealthy or not to vote imagine that what a radical idea expend extending the right to vote to 22:01 poor people impossible couldn't be done but it was done ending slavery and segregation taking on all of the power of the slaveholders impossible but it was done granting workers the right to form unions and ending child labor taking on the power of big business impossible but it was done giving women control over their own bodies taking on sexism taking on the powers that be couldn't be done impossible but it was done passing legislation to establish Social Security Medicare Medicaid a minimum wage clean air and water standards impossible it couldn't be done but it was done in other words Mr President I think back to what Nelson Mandela told us and 23:02 he said everything is impossible until it is done so in these difficult days when we find ourselves a raid against the wealthiest people in the world the most powerful people in the world people who want to expand the power of the oligarchy people who want to move us toward authoritarianism I know I know that people get discouraged that we can't take them on that we cannot create a government that works for all and not just the few that we cannot do what every other major country on on Earth does guarantee Health Care to all people as a human right that we cannot raise the minimum wage to a living wage so that tens of millions of people do not earn starvation wages 24:00 that we cannot make sure that all of our kids get the quality education that they deserve that we can't expand Social Security to lower the poverty rate among seniors I know that in this moment people say well that's an Impossible Dream can't be done but I think if you look back on American history you will find that in very difficult and dark days when people came together they did be impossible so this ain't going to be easy we're taking on enormously powerful people who really do not believe in democracy or the rule of law but if we stand together we're going to win this fight and not only will we save American democracy we're going to create the kind of nation that I think most of us know we should become with that Mr President I yield the floor thank you

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