A Call For 'Revolution' To Counter The Middle-Class Collapse

On "Meet the Bloggers [1]" Friday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said that there is a "collapse" of the middle class and that nothing short of a revolution will be needed to reverse it.

"What we really need is a political revolution in this country," Sanders said, beginning with countering the corporate media spin on what is happening in the economy.

Sanders indicted the media for not probing what is happening to working people on a consistent basis. "We need to raise the consciousness of the public" so that more Americans will ask such basic questions as why America is the only industrialized nation without universal health care or why the disparity between working-class families and the wealthy are at record levels.

Sanders, in the Meet the Bloggers interview, cited these statistics as evidence of what he's calling the middle-class collapse since President Bush has taken office:

• 5 million people in middle-class households have slipped into poverty
• Household median income for working families has declined on average $2,500
• 3 million people have lost their pensions
• 8 million people have lost their health insurance coverage
• Almost 20 percent of children are living in poverty, the highest poverty rate for children in the industrialized world.

To move Washington to solve these problems and overcome the roadblocks set up by corporate interests and conservative ideologues, Sanders said we need to force a discussion in the media of these issues and "we need a strong, grassroots political movement to fight for progressive change, to take on the big-money interests."

Watch the full interview, which features a discussion between myself and Amanda Logan of Center for American Progress.