Former US Presidential Candidate and current US Senator for Vermont Bernie Sanders is no stranger to controversy. Nor is the fact that he is openly and proudly jewish controversial. (1)
What is controversial about Sanders is the tension between his avowedly socialist beliefs (2) and the simple fact that he is a millionaire with no financial worries whatsoever.
Although the claim that Sanders bought a $172,000 Audi A8 are false as far as I can see. (3)
The truth is not far off.
In 2015 Bernie had a $200,000 income, which placed him in the top four percent of the US population and on which he paid a tax rate of a mere 13.5 percent. (4)
This is hardly the kind of income that a self-avowed socialist should have. Since Bernie could work for less as jewish billionaire Michael Bloomberg did when he became the Mayor of New York City. (5) Despite professing himself to be a believer in the socialist maxim of ‘from each according to their ability and to each according to their need’. Bernie appears to think that he ‘needs’ $200,000 a year when he could easily live – like many of his followers do – on less than $40,000 a year.
Time and Fortune have also both calculated that Bernie has a $1 million nest egg in annuities that he is sitting on. (6) So he really doesn’t need the money.
Oh and did I mention that Bernie made $1 million alone in 2016? (7)
Hell he is even still making over two thousand dollars a year on the sales of an obscure album of folk music that he produced in 1987! (8)
Having just literally joined the one percent that he is supposed to be fighting against; Bernie also displays a level of avariciousness that would make Bernie Madoff feel uncomfortable.
He owns three homes, (9) including a beachfront vacation property in the Lake Champlain Islands that he purchased for a whopping $600,000 in 2017. (10)
Not exactly slumming it in the Projects or Suburbia with the 99 percent now is he?
This ruthless acquisitiveness isn’t limited to Sanders himself either. Since his wife Jane O’Meara Sanders got a $200,000 golden handshake for agreeing to quietly leave her position as the President of Burlington College in 2011 and it was subsequently revealed that her financial mismanagement lead the institution to collapse in 2014. (11)
Unsurprising the FBI began investigating her for corruption in early 2016, (12) which she is desperately trying to fight against by claiming that the investigation is motivated by ‘sexism’ not by any potential wrongdoing on her part. (13)
Bernie has not only failed to distance himself from his wife’s conduct, but has actually endorsed it by defending her and claiming that she has done nothing wrong. (14)
All this rather indicates that Bernie is not part of the ‘people who have ignored and been left behind’ who he is supposed to be the champion of, but rather a corrupt hypocrite who mouths socialist platitudes, but fails to even put the rudiments of his political philosophy into practice.
Bernie’s motivation for being a socialist then is not likely to do with righting economic inequality and building a more egalitarian society, but rather in his jewishness. As Bernie declared in a 2017 talk in Brooklyn; he ‘implored the graduating Bulldogs to stand up to hateful rhetoric, as someone whose own childhood was shaped by his family fleeing anti-Semitism and the Holocaust’. (15)
So in other words; Bernie’s socialism is less a dedication to righting the economic wrongs and injustices that abound in America and the world more broadly, but rather a way to fight against ‘anti-Semitism’ and prevent a repeat of the so-called ‘Holocaust’.
He wants to do this by ‘fighting racism’ and flooding the United States and Europe with immigrants to promote ‘diversity and tolerance’, (16) which achieves the goal by eliminating the ability of nationalism to rise once again among European peoples to threaten the jewish people by modifying the racial demographics of the population to make such political parties unelectable.
That Bernie’s socialism is merely a modified form of jewish nationalism (which can be broadly equated with Zionism) is suggested by the fact that he routinely defends Israel from criticism. (17)
The difference between Bernie and the louder right-wing Zionists is that Bernie isn’t interested in expropriating any more Palestinian land or getting involved in military adventures in Gaza and the West Bank. (18) Since while he appointed anti-Zionists such as James Zogby and Cornel West as part of his official campaign staff; (19) he quietly got rid of anti-Zionist activists – such as Simone Zimmerman - who worked on his day-to-day operations of his campaign at the behest of the Israel Lobby. (20)
This suggests that Bernie isn’t really opposed to Zionism per se, but yet wants to imply that he is as it is necessary sop to his left-wing and strongly anti-Zionist activist base. Rather Bernie supports Israel and Zionism, but doesn’t want to expand Israel any further and wishes to leave the Palestinians alone unless they directly threaten the jewish state’s existence and integrity. Hence Bernie’s continual defence of Israel in the media, while condemning its actions in regard to the Occupied Territories.
Any other explanation simply doesn’t make sense.
Thus we can say that Bernie isn’t some ‘anti-Semite’ who wants to reopen Auschwitz as FrontPageMag likes to claim, (21) but rather a corrupt Zionist and fake socialist.
References
(1) https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bernie-sanders
(2) http://www.brooklyndaily.com/stories/2017/22/all-bernie-sanders-brooklyn-college-commencement-2017-06-02-bk.html
(3) http://www.snopes.com/bernie-sanders-audi-8/; https://www.truthorfiction.com/bernie-sanders-drives-170000-audi-r8-sport-car-fiction/
(4) http://www.cnbc.com/2010/12/14/Where-The-$200,000+-Crowd-Lives.html; http://www.dailywire.com/news/15614/bernie-sanders-rich-people-shouldnt-own-too-many-ben-shapiro
(5) http://business.time.com/2013/07/16/how-to-make-a-buck-in-america/
(6) http://time.com/money/4235986/bernie-sanders-millionaire-finances/; http://fortune.com/2016/02/28/bernie-sanders-socialist-finances/
(7) http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/06/bernie-sanders-made-over-1-million-last-year-and-has-joined-the-1-percent.html
(8) http://forward.com/fast-forward/373829/bernie-sanders-made-2-521-in-royalties-from-that-1987-folk-album-last-year/
(9) http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bernie-sanders-just-bought-a-third-home.-tell-that-to-the-99-percent./article/2598973l; http://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-criticized-twitter-users-having-three-houses-587721
(10) http://www.dailywire.com/news/15614/bernie-sanders-rich-people-shouldnt-own-too-many-ben-shapiro
(11) http://www.dailywire.com/news/5767/burlington-college-closes-because-crushing-weight-hank-berrien
(12) http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/16/jane-sanders-cries-sexism-in-bank-fraud-accusations-as-gop-hits-back.html
(13) Ibid.
(14) http://forward.com/fast-forward/375803/bernie-sanders-fires-back-at-pathetic-probe-into-his-wife/
(15) http://www.brooklyndaily.com/stories/2017/22/all-bernie-sanders-brooklyn-college-commencement-2017-06-02-bk.html
(16) Ibid.
(17) For example: http://www.timesofisrael.com/why-bernie-sanders-defending-israel-on-al-jazeera-is-a-big-deal/; https://unitedwithisrael.org/in-blow-to-anti-israel-movement-sanders-speaks-out-against-boycotts/
(18) http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-video-bernie-sanders-says-occupation-must-end/
(19) http://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-vs-israel-1464389180; http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2016/05/27/zoa-appalled-sanders-dem-platform-choices/
(20) http://forward.com/news/345937/simone-zimmerman-breaks-silence-on-bernie-sanders-the-democrats-and-israel/; http://forward.com/opinion/338811/getting-simone-zimmerman-suspended-from-bernie-sanders-campaign-is-a-great/
(21) http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266994/bernie-sanders-jewish-problem-discover-networks