Pete Buttigieg burst on the national scene early this year as a new sort of presidential candidate. But it turns out he's a very old kind-a glib ally of corporate America posing as an advocate for working people and their families. That has become apparent this fall as Buttigieg escalates his offensive against Medicare for All.

A not-funny thing has happened to Buttigieg on the campaign trail. As he kept collecting big checks from corporate executives and wealthy donors, he went from being "all for" a single-payer Medicare for All system in January to trashing it in the debate last week as a plan that would kick "150 million Americans off of their insurance in four short years." The demagoguery won praise from corporate media outlets.

Those outlets have often lauded Buttigieg for his fundraising totals this year without scrutiny of the funding sources. They skew toward the wealthy-and toward donors with a vested interest in protecting the status quo.

"Of course, from a voter's point of view, what really matters is not how much financial support a candidate is getting, but who they're getting it from-because those supporters may not have the same interests as the voter," Jim Naureckas at the media watchdog FAIR pointed out this summer. "In the case of Buttigieg, the two main sources of funds seem to be the tech industry . . . and the financial industry, that traditional source of funds for corporate-oriented Democrats."

So far this year, Buttigieg has reported $27 million in contributions of $200 and above-accounting for 52.5 percent of his total dollars raised. Compare that to Elizabeth Warren at 29.6 percent and Bernie Sanders at 24.9 percent.

And major sources of Buttigieg's funding are in harmony with his recent hostility toward Medicare for All. "Pharmaceutical, health insurance, and hospital industry donors have flocked to Mayor Pete all year," journalist Alex Kotch reported last week. "As of mid-2019, he was second only to Donald Trump in overall campaign cash from donors in the health sector. Among Democratic candidates, he was second to former Vice President Joe Biden in terms of pharmaceutical and health insurance donations."

Reporting for the investigative website Sludge, Kotch wrote: "Over 100 individuals in leadership, legal, consulting, or financing roles in health sector donated $200 or more to Pete for America between July and September. These donors include pharmaceutical industry leaders such as the chief corporate affairs officer at drugmaker Pfizer, the president of Astex Pharmaceuticals, a state lobbyist for Biogen, a vice president of public policy at Novartis, and the deputy vice president at the nation's largest pharmaceutical trade association, PhRMA, as well as attorneys for AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck."

Buttigieg's reversal of avowed support for Medicare for All is classic opportunism. In early 2018, he was unequivocal via Twitter: "I, Pete Buttigieg, politician, do henceforth and forthwith declare, most affirmatively and indubitably, unto the ages, that I do favor Medicare for All."

Eight months ago, as The Hill noted, "Buttigieg also appeared to defend single-payer [Medicare for All] health insurance in a February 2019 interview on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe.'" But now, on its website, the Buttigieg campaign is engaged in a herculean pretzel effort at doubletalk, declaring that his "affordable public plan will incentivize private insurers to compete on price and bring down costs. If private insurers are not able to offer something dramatically better, this public plan will create a natural glide-path to Medicare for All."

Left unexplained is how Buttigieg is providing any sort of "glide-path" to Medicare for All by now deploying insurance-industry talking points to denounce Medicare for All. Buttigieg is trying to poison the well by conjuring up an effort to precipitously dump people off of health coverage and deprive them of "choice"-deliberately confusing the current "choice" of predatory for-profit insurance plans with the genuine full choice of healthcare providers that enhanced Medicare for everyone would provide.

"The efficiencies of a single-payer system would make universal coverage affordable and give everyone in the United States their free choice of doctors and hospitals," David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler wrote this month in The Nation. "But that goal will remain out of reach if private insurers are allowed to continue gaming the system."

Himmelstein and Woolhandler, who are professors of public health and cofounders of Physicians for a National Health Program, assessed the healthcare scenarios being touted by the two most prominent candidates now attacking Warren and Sanders: "Some proposals, including those by Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, would offer a Medicare-like public plan for sale alongside private plans on the insurance exchanges now available under the Affordable Care Act. These buy-in reforms would minimize the need for new taxes, since most enrollees would be charged premiums. But tens of millions would remain uninsured or with coverage so skimpy, they still couldn't afford care."

The sordid story of Buttigieg's about-face on Medicare for All was well-documented and deftly analyzed days ago by Jezebel writer Esther Wang under the headline "A Brief History of Pete Buttigieg Faking It on Medicare for All." She observed:

Buttigieg is not the only Democratic presidential candidate who has switched positions on supporting Medicare for All, or is just generally using the public and political confusion around the issue to undermine real efforts to move to a universal system. Kamala Harris, who co-sponsored Bernie Sanders' Senate bill, has consistently waffled, and has settled on a plan that continues to let private insurers play a role. But Buttigieg is the only candidate who is now making opposition to the Sanders- and Warren-backed Medicare for All a central focus of his campaign.

As for Buttigieg's slippery slogan of "Medicare for all who want it," Rep. Ro Khanna pointed out that such a setup "won't bring the administrative costs down of private insurers or maximize negotiation with Big Pharma and hospitals." And: "This means higher premiums, higher drug costs, higher deductibles, and more denied claims for the middle class."

An in-depth report from the Political Economy Research Institute-"Economic Analysis of Medicare for All"-concluded that "Medicare for All has the potential to achieve major cost savings in its operations relative to the existing U.S. health care system. We estimate that, through implementation of Medicare for All, overall U.S. health care costs could fall by about 19 percent relative to the existing system."

Yet Buttigieg has joined with Joe Biden to open up a well-funded, double-barreled assault on Medicare for All.

"I am tired of seeing Democrats defend a dysfunctional healthcare system where 87 million people are uninsured or underinsured and 30,000 people die every year because they lack adequate coverage," Bernie Sanders wrote last Friday in an email to supporters. "So I was disappointed this week to see that Joe Biden used the talking points of the health insurance industry to attack Medicare for All and our campaign."

While Buttigieg is not strong in national polls right now, he's polling notably well in Iowa, where the first voting for the Democratic presidential nomination will occur in early-February caucuses. And with $23.4 million in the bank, he's got much more money in hand than Biden ($9 million). The only rivals with more money than Buttigieg are the two he's assailing for their resolute support of Medicare for All-Sanders ($33.7 million) and Warren ($25.7 million).

While I personally support Sanders, I'm equally appalled by Buttigieg's attacks on Warren. As part of a campaign strategy that aims to undermine both of his progressive opponents, the mayor continues to falsely characterize Medicare for All-no matter how much confusion and disinformation he creates along the way.

Whether or not Pete Buttigieg can win the nomination, he has certainly emerged as a sharp corporate tool.

(c) 2019 Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" and "Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State."

The British political philosopher, John Stuart Mill, was a man of many pithy phrases. Possibly his most widely quoted assertion is that "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."

This quote fits the Trump age perfectly. Where are you, Barack Obama? Obama is still polling higher than any other politician, active or retired. Instead of speaking out, he is making movies, maybe writing another book, and otherwise really enjoying himself.

Where are you Condoleezza Rice? She encouraged Rex Tillerson to be Trump's Secretary of State, but Tillerson was cast aside in 2018 by a sneering Trump, who pronounced him "dumb as a rock." Condoleezza is collecting honors and large speech fees and teaching at Stanford University (keep in mind that Rice was on the inside during the criminal Bush/Cheney war in Iraq, which she supported and defended).

Where are you General Colin Powell? Powell is another former disgusted high official still high in the polls. He thinks he is hated by the White House. He needs to speak up, as his formidable former Chief of Staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, has repeatedly done.

The list could go on and on. The former high officials or elected politicians, now retired, who do want to speak up, complain that they can't get any media attention. If that is true, they should organize into a collective force, with some staff, to help push for media attention. I'm sure they will be able to attract some enlightened large donors.

Not all former officials are AWOL. Some former officials write prominent op-eds in newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post. Some former Obama-era public servants started a podcast called Pod Save America. These efforts are, sadly, not enough to compete with Trump's onslaught.

It is imperative that these political figures speak out, stand tall, and push back against Trump's worsening outrages. Trump's brazen lies obscure his administration's secrecy and cover-ups; for his abysmal betrayals of workers, patients, consumers, communities; and for Trump's false pledges that he would help create a safe, healthy environment. Remember his nonsensical rhetoric about clean air, clean water, and beautiful, clean coal.

He still thinks evidence about climate disruption is a "Chinese hoax."

In his mass rallies - that screen out critical citizens - Trump knowingly lies with reckless abandon. For example, at his recent Dallas rally, Trump said that he has brought the "largest decline in drug prices in over 51 years." Actually, drug prices are soaring as deprived patients, insurance company executives, and Medicare officials know so well. So what does Trump add? He tells his believers that the reason they don't know about lower drug prices is that the media, which he calls "crooked," "corrupt," and "fake," isn't telling Americans the truth.

That Trump has lied over ten thousand times to the American people is itself, given their many ramifications, a "violation of the public trust," which Alexander Hamilton described as an impeachable offense. Trump lies more in a month than other presidents do during their entire four year term.

Many of the influential people who are silent about Trump's abuses have no economic worries. They are sufficiently or extravagantly well-off. They have no concerns over the need for future jobs, being in their sixties or seventies. Retired lawyers who see Trump trampling on our constitutional and legal frameworks should be particularly incensed.

If some billionaire would fund the creation of a Secretariat to promote the views of Trump's critics, a small experienced staff and these influential people together could create a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts.

Former lawmakers and executive officials, when acting together and assisted by a support staff, can multiply their efforts. Former Senators Lowell Wiecker and Gary Hart; former EPA chiefs, such as William Ruckelshaus; and former governors of New Jersey, Thomas Keane and Christine Todd Whitman are all critical of Trump's misbehavior. Trump ravages people and lies about a variety of serious matters without rebuttal. As we know from history, an unchallenged lie, repeated over and over again begins to sink in. It is imperative that accomplished people who challenge Trump's lies gain public credibility. Just consider the "nicknames" Trump assigns to his adversaries, without any nicknames being successfully applied to him. "Crooked Donald," "Decadent Donald," "Draft-dodging Donald," "Disgraceful Donald," "Lying Donald," and so forth. He has used such monikers, and worse, to slander opponents and these insults have been repeated by the mass media. Trump's victims are not afforded a chance to respond to his invectives.

A few media critics, notably Margaret Sullivan from The Washington Post, have chided their editors for allowing such defamatory Trumpian soliloquies. To avoid being his bullhorn, Sullivan argues, the media should not report such abuses. At a minimum, those who are attacked by Trump should be offered the chance to respond. Rebutting bullies is the first step in balancing the public stage. This would be particularly effective for a nasty, thin-skinned bully like Donald Trump.

The Lords of Capital commission their politicians and media servants to spin lies all day long, because every fact of capitalist life demands the overthrow of the system.

Late stage capitalism is eating US society alive, dissolving all bonds between peoples and savaging every human right that has not already been put on the "market" and made buyable. The rule of the super-rich makes all the rest of us super-small. Relations among individuals, classes and even workers doing exactly the same job on the assembly line are distorted and deformed to further enrich the likes of Jeff Bezos ($114 billion), Bill Gates ($106 billion) and Warren Buffett ($80.8 billion), who have grasped more wealth in their personal clutches than is held by the entire bottom half of the U.S. population. One out of five Americans owe more than they own, rendering them negative beings in U.S. society.

The pace of plutocratic reordering of society quickens with each passing year, as the rich deploy their wealth-power to erase every impediment to the absolute dictatorship of the moneyed class. They control the only two political parties that are allowed to govern, and every means of communication among those who are subject to that government. Thus, every attempt at insurgency against the plutocrats is organized through the various spectrums of plutocrat-owned media, and overheard by their Deep State apparatus. The plutocracy's hegemony is so pervasive, even brand-name Black Lives Matter activists depend on them for funding, and constrain their politics accordingly. The revolution will not be subsidized.

The ethnic whiteness of this plutocrat class (in the U.S.) is both historically inevitable, given the racialized nature of the rise of capitalism - and politically immaterial, since the very existence of this class smashes all claims to humanity for the rest of us. A theoretical "diversification" of the plutocracy -- peppering it with Black and brown billionaires and sweetening the mix with women -- will make no difference whatsoever in the system's social consequences, except to further delude the many-hued and -gendered classes and peoples at the bottom.

The plutocrats and their minions have stolen the people's language, to facilitate the theft of everything else. Thus, the things we fight for - "jobs," "freedom," "security," "homeland" - have been redefined to the point of nullification. What is a "job"? In the plutocrat-ruled USA, employment no longer entails any obligation of the business owner to the worker. These "gig," "contract" and variable part-time arrangements are not "jobs" at all, in the previously understood sense. Yet Google, the premier corporation of the high-tech capitalist sector that, we are told, is creating the infrastructure of the future, has a workforce that is 54 percent "gig" workers -- temporary, contract and part-time employees.

Ninety-five percent of the "jobs" created under President Obama in the post-meltdown period were gig "shit-jobs," transforming the United State into a "shit-hole" country. The new, reorganized General Motors, bailed out by federal funds and union give-backs in the post-meltdown era, introduced four "tiers" of "jobs" that entail exactly the same sweat and toil but with widely varying pay, workdays, and pension and employment security - with devastating effect on worker and union solidarity, as is playing out in the current strike. The corporation, headed by a $22 million a year CEO, insists on retaining "flexibility" to shut down plants, export jobs and shuffle the surviving workers for maximum profit to shareholders. Workers rights, and the very definition of employment, itself, must therefore be "flexibly" defined out existence. This is the real stuff of capitalist restructuring.

Chicago, like every other U.S. city, restructures itself according to the dictates of its resident ruling class - the same guys that made Barack Obama a viable Democratic presidential contender. And, as in every other American metropolis, restructuring means creating an urban environment hostile to Black life. Heroic teacher union activists transformed their union to meet the corporate onslaught, with Black teachers in the lead. Striking teachers and support staff propose a people's version of restructuring, funded by higher taxes on the rich and corporations, that allows the Black and brown populations to continue to live in the city while providing their children a quality education. This requires an affirmation of RIGHTS: to housing, to be free of police repression and the classroom-to-prison pipeline, and decent wages and working conditions for school personnel. On that, there can be no "flexibility," because these are human rights. The fact that these rights are antithetical to the plutocratic capitalist order, simply means that capitalism must go, and that the struggle for Black self-determination and dignity is inseparable from the fight to defeat the Lords of Capital.

The plutocrats and their servants are not super-smart -- the billionaire buffoon in the White House has shown the whole world that some oligarchs are idiots - but they have vast powers of obfuscation and have given their official and media agents full license to lie as a matter of daily course. As the contradictions of their roller-coaster rule multiply, the corporate narrative of unfolding events becomes more and more fantastical, divorced almost wholly from facts and history. An almost comic example is the corporate Democrats' insistence that Medicare for All will "take away" people's private health insurance - as if folks are losing anything but a huge monthly bill that fattens a totally unproductive, parasitical industry. An extremely unfunny lie, is the universal corporate narrative on Syria and Libya that erases Washington's longtime alliance with al Qaeda. U.S. aggression against Haiti has always been shielded by a wall of corporate lies. The corporate media don't tell too many lies about the U.S. military occupation of Africa, or the six million dead Congolese victims of U.S. Africa policy, because corporate media seldom report on Africa. On foreign affairs, truth is almost never on the corporate menu.

Russiagate is the "Game of Thrones" of lies, a never-ending CIA-signature saga.

It is beyond the people's capacity to correct the daily avalanche of corporate lies - although publications like BAR do try, and are punished with rigged Google algorithms for our efforts. The people must make their own facts on the ground, in confrontation with the oligarchs, and then build a body of knowledge and a fighting culture on those struggles. The system will implode of its own contradictions at unknown future junctures, but if people are not organized and aware of the causes of collapse, the consequences will be far more deadly.

Black liberation/self-determination, by any definition, is wholly incompatible with the emerging imperial nightmare order, and can only be forged in a struggle for socialism - with or without effective white U.S. allies. The climate crisis makes every argument for socialism much more urgent. For the first time in human history, there is a deadline for the people's victory - the creation of species-saving energy production and use structures for global humanity - which cannot possibly occur under the current dictatorship of capital.

As George Bernard Shaw noted, "You don't make progress by standing on guard, but by attacking, and getting well-hammered yourself."

That certainly has been true of progressives in our country. It has been audacious American rebels who've incrementally advanced our democratic possibilities by defying the repressive laws of the authoritarian order. That's what the revolutionaries of 1776 did, and so have subsequent generations of abolitionists, suffragists, unionists, populists, and other grassroots activists.

Now, add to them a team of bold environmental advocates. On September 12, to confront the looming global crisis of industrially induced climate change, 11 members of Greenpeace were suspended on static lines a couple hundred feet above the water from a huge bridge that spans the Houston Ship Channel, temporarily shutting down Big Oil's largest US outlet for climate destroying petrochemicals.

Unfortunately, they quickly found themselves suspended in an even more precarious way. Their Constitutional freedoms of speech and assembly were suspended by a new, little-known law passed at the behest of the very same corporate powers they had dared to protest. Unbeknownst to the general public, oil giants and other multinational corporations have quietly been colluding with state officials to pass a series of autocratic laws that criminalize our right to protest at the sites of what corporations call "critical infrastructure."

Each of the 11 Greenpeace activists involved in the ship channel protest, along with 20 others that were also arrested, now face years in prison and a permanent criminal record for "interrupting" Big Oil's operations for 18 hours. So rather than protecting our fragile environment and Constitutional rights, America's power elites are defending corporations... from us!