If you only have a vague sense of Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders’ interests and policies this book is a great place to learn what he’s about.
Sanders is of the same ilk as US consumer and environmental activist, Ralph Nader, and filmmaker Michael Moore. Both of whom have been cultural forces in calling out corruption and unfairness.
Sanders’ positions are sound in terms of publicly funded health care and education, trade unionism, the concentration of wealth into ever-smaller hands, among others. He applies statistics about poverty, healthcare, tax evasion by the rich and his other policy interests, to chapters on different aspects of American life. These same ideas are repeated, almost ad nauseam throughout the book. By the end you’ll be intimately familiar with how many Americans are homeless or how much more the US spends on health care per citizen than other countries, despite still falling short.
Cynical readers will remind themselves he’s an idealist and unlikely to realise his dreams. Many have tried and failed to promote working class interests. Sanders admits that each time he’s introduced a bill that would bring about real change for the people who need it, the monied classes and their lobbyists have rendered it ultimately ineffective.
He rightly points out that America can afford to make the changes it needs to put a decent living in everyone’s hands. He’s not shy about putting the boot into the uber-capitalist class for being worth unimaginable fortunes while their workers are on starvation wages.
It’s OK to be Angry About Capitalism is galvanising reading and – while we spend most of our time fascinated with riches like billionaire space flights and the Academy Awards – it will indeed make you angry.
Reviewed by Drew Turner
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bernie Sanders is a US Senator from Vermont. In 2006, he was elected to the US Senate after 16 years as Vermont’s sole congressman in the House of Representatives. Bernie served his third term in the US Senate after winning re-election in 2018 with 67 per cent of the vote. Born in Brooklyn, New York, and after graduating from university he moved to Vermont where he worked as a carpenter and documentary filmmaker. In 1981, he was elected as mayor of Burlington, the state’s largest city, by a mere 10 votes.
As mayor, Bernie’s leadership helped transform Burlington into one of the most exciting and livable small cities in America. Under his administration, the city made major strides in affordable housing, progressive taxation, environmental protection, child care, women’s rights, youth programs and the arts.
In Congress, Bernie has fought tirelessly for working families, focusing on the shrinking middle class and growing gap between the rich and everyone else. Bernie has been called a ‘practical and successful legislator’ and he was dubbed the ‘amendment king’ in the House of Representatives for passing more amendments than any other member of Congress. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Bernie worked across the aisle to ‘bridge Washington’s toxic partisan divide and cut one of the most significant deals in years’. In 2015, Democratic leadership tapped Bernie to serve as the caucus’ ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee.
Bernie lives in Burlington, Vermont with his wife Jane. He has four children and seven grandchildren.
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