Thread by @JYSexton

Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are bought and sold and hold hostage investments that could save lives and the planet on behalf of the wealthy and powerful.

We're watching a desperate battle to free government from their grasp before it's too late.

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jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/the-best-sen…

Coverage of Joe Biden trying to sell Manchin and Sinema on his agenda continues to neglect to mention the real battle taking place to dismantle a government for the wealthy and powerful FOR the wealthy and powerful.

That's what's happening.

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These are the very real stakes.

Either we free government from the control of the wealthy and powerful, or we face declining conditions for our people, including growing inequality and a looming climate catastrophe that could exacerbate all our crises.

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There's no appealing to Manchin or Sinema's consciences. They have been bought and sold so many times over it's almost impossible to know who owns them.

They are representations of a government that has been handed over to the wealthy and powerful intentionally.

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Manchin, who enjoys a fortune based on coal, is so owned by the fossil fuel industry that its lobbyists brag openly that they have unlimited access to him.

He doesn't represent West Virginia. He represents ExxonMobil.

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Even as our media likes to portray Manchin as a contemplative budget hawk, what they're ignoring is that he is an exceedingly wealthy man who ignores the lives of his constituents in favor of the corporate lobbyists who pay his ticket to Washington.

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One of the most open secrets in DC is that Sinema is open to almost any special interest who'll bring out their checkbook. She has served joyfully as a check on any legislation that might actually help people or improve lives.

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This current moment is most reminiscent of the early 20th century, when Robber Barons who controlled the burgeoning infrastructure held almost complete sway over government.

Our halls of power are bought and sold. We must recognize how we arrived here if we're to get free.

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Every conversation about our current crisis and dismantled government must start with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher ushering in the era of Neoliberalism, which turned power completely over to the market, corporations, and disgustingly wealthy individuals.

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We are suffering through the collapse of the myth of Trickle-Down Economics, or the neoliberal idea that the wealthiest should be aided by government.

This was a complete lie that has revealed unbelievable cruelty and left us in tatters.

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So-called "Reaganomics" was a gift-wrapped present to the wealthy and completely handed over power in totality.

Reagan's election ushered in this new system and ensured this present moment of suffering and exploitation.

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Like the corporate shill he was, Reagan sold the idea to the American people without so much as a clue as to what it meant or whether it worked.

Even those pushing it knew it was a scam and essentially a redistribution of wealth from the bottom up.

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Neoliberalism took advantage of the stagflation crisis of the 1970's and the seeming failure of the post-New Deal economic consensus.

It gave the pro-corporate aristocracy an opportunity to reconfigure society completely to their liking.

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The New Deal was a solution to fix an economic crisis, to reconfigure an environment of hypercapitalism that was inherently unstable and left Americans suffering.

It was managed capitalism with a safety net. Immediately, the Right wanted it destroyed.

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In fact, the Red Scare was an attempt to unravel the New Deal, portraying its advocates as socialists and communists and laying the foundation for future Right Wing attacks on any effort to actually control hypercapitalism or make peoples' lives any better.

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Reagan's electoral success was based on his ability to merge hypercapitalism with the mythology of American Exceptionalism.

His mandates so frightened Democrats that they came to believe there was no competing with his politics or economic plan.

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Faced with Reagan's continued popularity, Democrats like Bill Clinton embraced Neoliberalism and promised "Reaganomics With A Human Face."

There emerged a new consensus that the government should tailor policy to the benefit of the market and the wealthy.

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In many ways, Clinton's agenda carried out the plans that Reagan and H.W. Bush had in place before his election.

The global capitalist structure in the post-Cold War environment set loose corporations and made the wealthy grow to unparalleled heights.

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This is how corporations grew to their current size: by being unleashed from national borders so they could exploit inhumane labor, circumnavigate regulations, and duck tax responsibilities.

Soon, corporations grew to dwarf the very governments which birthed them.

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This is how we reach a point where individuals can fund their own space programs. The governments of the world were wired to redistribute OUR WEALTH into their pockets.

Meanwhile, the wealthy increasingly took over government and bought and sold representatives.

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What's largely being ignored is that Joe Biden played a role in this rightward turn for the Democrats as they created this consensus.

Now, as president, Biden seemingly recognizes the neoliberal agenda not only failed, but has to be rolled back if we're to survive.

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This is a pretty stunning development, and incredibly telling as the Neoliberal agenda collapsed into human suffering and absolute gridlock.

His fight to actually get government back into the business of helping people, and his battle with Manchin/Sinema, is telling.

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Manchin and Sinema represent the enduring Neoliberalism that infects our systems.

Their opposition to investment isn't on behalf of their states. It's to keep the corporate aristocracy and redistribution of wealth via Reaganomics in place and continuing unabated.

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The truth is that we have to dismantle Neoliberalism in its entirety. It never worked as claimed and served only as a total takeover of our government and lives by corporate and monied interests.

If we're to survive, if we're to have better lives, it must come down.

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Our literal future depends on reconstituting a government for the people and by the people. We have to dislodge corporate and monied interests, including stooges like Manchin and Sinema, and return government to serving our interests and livelihoods.

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If you want to read more on how this exploitative, inhumane system of inequality was constructed and how our government and lives were sold out on behalf of corporate and monied interests, the full history is in my book AMERICAN RULE.

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penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/a…