Paul Jay says that corporate media thinks billionaires are the only ones that make history, but The Real News knows that’s not true
Story Transcript
Hi, everybody. Paul Jay at The Real News Network.
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The billionaires think they make history. And along with their political representatives, they think everybody else doesn’t have much to say or do about it. In fact, they think most people are kind of subhuman compared to them. Well, at The Real News Network we know that’s not true. Everywhere, people are organizing to democratize the economy, which we think means more than just more equal distribution of wealth. It also means change in who owns stuff. And it also means democratizing politics. It means using the ballot box, but it also means organizing in the streets and in the communities to change who actually controls government, who actually has power.
We believe these are the real newsmakers, and at The Real News we want to strengthen our reporting on these movements, enrich our work covering the search for effective solutions, and focus on reaching working people, who rarely hear about the big picture from corporate news.
The Real News reports on the forces gathering to fight for a Green New Deal, like our coverage of the Sunrise Movement; climate activists on Capitol Hill who are calling for a select committee to hold hearings that will lead to effective legislation.
We also feature those that say such a deal should include converting military funding and manufacturing into a driving force of a sustainable green economy. If you don’t demilitarize it’s going to be very difficult to actually face up to climate change. The two things are completely linked.
In our recently aired Reality Asserts Itself series with former nuclear war planner Daniel Ellsberg, he warned of the very real danger of accidental nuclear war and called for dismantling the “doomsday machine.” Nuclear winter will end life on earth, yet it’s never discussed on corporate news outlets, even though more than a trillion dollars will be spent on upgrading the American nuclear arsenal—that’s about 1/18 of the GDP; it’s the size of the whole military budget for a year—in order to build more nuclear weapons.
A Green New Deal and demilitarization are obvious and rational plans. The billionaire class, their media, and their political representatives in both major parties won’t support such a transformation, even though the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Why can’t the ruling elites deal with the systemic threats of climate change, global war, and financial crisis—dangers to the future of their own system, the system that made them billionaires? Because they are in the middle of an orgy of profit-making. They can’t believe their good fortune. These are the people that control American politics, as they throw unlimited funds at political campaigns.
The threat of climate crisis? The elites believe, if they actually think beyond their private jets and yachts, that they will be okay. Their kids and grandkids will be okay. And then? Après moi le déluge. After me come the floods, said Louis XV. The deluge turned out to be the French Revolution, and in 1793 Louis XVI lost his head.
Those individuals within the elite who do see what’s coming and are trying to sound the alarm—and there are more than a few—are marginalized.
Our job at The Real News is to tell people the whole truth as best we can. And that truth is the billionaire class is not fit to rule.
In the upcoming year, The Real News Network will redouble our efforts to build and fortify our Climate Crisis Bureau. Our Capitol Hill Bureau will expand our coverage of international affairs, and expose how U.S. policy is largely driven by the interests of arms manufacturers and the fossil fuel industry.
We’re building our Baltimore Bureau, connecting the daily struggle for a safe and more equitable city to the systemic reasons for chronic poverty and unemployment, always with our eye on what effective solutions look like.
We are also reporting from southern Pennsylvania, where we cover issues of concern to working people and focus on those who voted for Trump, engaging them in a search for real solutions.
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