November 3, 2014

From the transcript at Moyers & Co., where Bernie Sanders makes his usual incisive points:

BILL MOYERS: Well, that’s interesting. Because, you know, I’ve seen you quite recently on television. It’s always the same questions and always the same five headlines. What’s the story that the corporate press is not letting you tell?

BERNIE SANDERS: Oh, my God. You see, this is the issue. I mean, I’ve been on a million of these shows. They say, ‘Here’s the story of the day. What do you think about the Secret Service? What do you think about this? What do you think about Ebola?’ All of those issues are important.

But the issues that impact ordinary people, is they’re asking why, despite all of the productivity, people are working longer hours for lower wages. Have we had that discussion, Bill? Have you ever heard anybody talking about it? They’re asking how come we’ve had this unfettered free-trade policies that have resulted in the loss of millions of good-paying jobs and you got both parties still saying, well, that’s pretty good.

And this issue of income and wealth inequality, wow. One percent owning 37 percent of the wealth in America. Bottom 60 percent owning 1.7 percent. One family, the Walton family of Wal-Mart, owning more wealth than the bottom 40 percent. Do you think we should be talking about that issue? You can’t get the discussion going on TV.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

BERNIE SANDERS: Because it’s not in the interest of the corporations who own the networks to actually be educating the American people so that they are debating the real issues. It’s much better to deflect attention away from those issues and get into the story of the day.

There was some guy who was a football fan who walked halfway across the country. Boy, that’s a really big story. Or, Chris Christie yelled at somebody. History will certainly remember this as one of the important issues of the 21st century.

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