Wisconsin Democrat says free enterprise has set the world on a ‘path to destruction’
Alana Goodman • September 14, 2022 5:00
Wisconsin Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes has argued on the United Nations that the USA should “thwart capitalism” in an effort to battle local weather change, arguing that the free enterprise system has despatched the world on the ” path of destruction,” in accordance with a video. obtained by the Free Washington Beacon from the archives of the United Nations.
Barnes, talking as Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor on the 2019 United Nations Local weather Change Convention in Spain, was requested what policymakers ought to be doing to deal with local weather change. Barnes blamed the USA and its financial system.
“The easy reply is to take cash out of politics,” Barnes stated. “The second reply is to thwart capitalism as it’s in America.”
Barnes goes on to supply a searing critique of American capitalism that’s far stronger than any statements he made on the marketing campaign path. The unearthed remarks could possibly be a roadblock for Barnes as he strives to distance himself from the far-left insurance policies he has championed throughout his decade-long political profession. His speech – which was first reported by Empower Wisconsin however has but to be launched on video – blamed local weather change, in addition to gun violence, on widespread greed in the USA.
“How grasping can humanity be? The explanation we’re on this mess is the pursuit of greed. That is capitalism gone mad, which is why we’re on this predicament now,” Barnes stated. “It is the identical purpose gun violence is so endemic in the USA of America, it is the identical purpose we’re coping with all these different points which have frequent sense options.”
“For thus lengthy, the thought course of has been so short-term. It is like, ‘How are we going to make the following greenback subsequent yr?'” he added. “We have to reverse that form of pondering. And once more, till cash is much less of a difficulty, we will proceed down this path of destruction.”
Barnes didn’t reply to a request for remark.
A spokesman for Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), the incumbent Barnes hopes to overthrow, stated Barnes’ statements are “un-American” and out of contact with mainstream voters.
“It is the form of anti-American, socialist discuss that turns into the form of terrible liberal politics that crushes Wisconsin households daily,” Johnson spokesman Ben Voelkel stated. “Mandela Barnes would make us much less affluent, much less safe and fewer free, all as a result of he’s decided to basically remodel
Barnes’ feedback are just like positions taken by left-wing activist teams that assist his marketing campaign. Folks’s Motion, an activist group that has backed Barnes, stated its “long-term agenda” was to “construct a brand new economic system and a brand new society” in the USA.
As we remodel our economic system, we are going to rebuild sustainability and make investments first in communities which have suffered probably the most devastating results of environmental destruction and financial exclusion,” the group says. Platform.
Barnes has supported progressive vitality insurance policies all through his political profession and praised the Biden administration final yr for revoking permits for the Keystone XL pipeline. As lieutenant governor, he led a fee on local weather change that proposed eradicating state pension funds from fossil fuels, instituting a carbon tax and requiring colleges to show a race-based local weather justice agenda.
However he has not too long ago taken pains to minimize his involvement in far-left politics and activist actions. He not too long ago instructed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he is “not operating for the Senate to hitch the group” — a reference to a high-profile group of progressive Democrats together with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.), whom he has congratulated. He additionally distanced himself from the “defund the police” marketing campaign, regardless of partnership with the leaders of the motion throughout his tenure.
