Part One:

WHO IS MICHAEL BLOOMBERG?

We welcome Bob Hennelly, writer for The Chief/Leader, a union newspaper in NYC, as well as for Salon.com and StuckNation. He has reported for the Village Voice, Pacifica Radio, WNYC, CBS, and other outlets. Today Bob shares his analysis and commentary about Michael Bloomberg, with whom Bob spent 12 years of quality time while Bloomberg was mayor of NYC.

While he recognizes some good things that Bloomberg did while mayor, Hennelly highlights not only Bloomberg’s wealth and financial dealings but also his total lack of transparency about them. Even as mayor of NY, Bloomberg refused to disclose his tax returns or his companies’ financial information. He argued that the voters’ need for openness and transparency had to take a back seat to Bloomberg’s own business interests: because to disclose his taxes might put his business competitors at an advantage.

Between his first run for mayor and now, Bloomberg’s wealth has skyrocketed from $5 billion to $55 billion, an 11-fold increase! He has benefited from the financialization of the planet and the dominance of global capitalism. In 2020, human beings fleeing violence in their home countries have trouble negotiating the US border. But big money can seamlessly and stealthily pierce any attempts by the US to “secure” our borders; it can hide in dark sites in the Caribbean, Switzerland and elsewhere.

Now it is 2020. Bloomberg has chosen not to run in the first group of presidential primary states. He is not asking the voters in those states even to consider the merits of his candidacy. Instead, he’s spending hundreds of millions of dollars of his own amassed profits and buying huge national media ads. Bloomberg is trying to inundate voters with his own message (as savior of the Democratic Party) instead of paying attention to the substance of what his competitors are discussing — with real voters, in real time, on the ground — about their positions on issues that actually matter to the lives of ordinary voting families.

More troubling, Bloomberg is receiving media coverage and tacit support from a lot of mainstream Democratic politicians. They seem to be telling us that “we have to save capitalism” and that “Michael Bloomberg is the firewall.” Who is going to save American democracy?

Part Two:

SHOULD WE FEEL SORRY FOR IOWA, OR ANGRY AT THE POWERS-THAT-BE IN THE MEDIA AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY?

Once again, we connect with “Dr. Politics,” Steffen Schmidt, professor of political science at Iowa State University. We commiserate about his beloved state’s humiliation amid the chaos of Tuesday’s caucuses. We also share his anger at the way our democratic processes have been so utterly subverted. How can the Iowa state democratic party be so inept at counting and reporting the results? How can there still (3 days later) be unexplained errors in precinct reports (to the extent that one precinct reported that Deval Patrick won several delegates from that precinct when, in fact, he hadn’t received any from the entire state)? Why do we still face these nonsensical problems when the gorilla is still in the room glaring at us: big money and the power that it wields, including its ability to interfere with and sway the outcomes in our elections (not to mention Russian bots and Trump’s dirty tricks squad).

We also discuss the mainstream media’s failure to cover the real issues in the presidential race, instead dumbing down any debate, refusing to confront candidates with any “uncomfortable” facts or with any political compromises that might be required (in the real world) if they hope to implement any of their proposals. Sure, it’s easier for the media (and their corporate sponsors) to simply regurgitate the candidates’ press releases, and to accept glib, superficial “answers” without follow-up or fact-checking. But why don’t at least some members of the media dig deeper and probe the candidates’ analyses, rather than allow themselves to be diverted by sleight-of-hand and outlandish false claims?

Schmidt is not optimistic about seeing improvements in our electoral system. Both of the national political parties have become merely empty organizations which allow savvy people to hijack the organization, choose candidates (whether or not they’re competent or ethical), and run hostile campaigns to lead our country. Our democracy has been subverted by big money which, like PacMan, gobbles up everything in its way. The only way to restore American democracy is to get big money out of politics and to restore — as the driving force in our election system — the supremacy of every person’s vote.