Bernie visits Newport

by Joseph Gresser

 

NEWPORT — The world situation is bad, but not hopeless, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders told a crowd of just under 100 people Wednesday afternoon. His visit to the Gateway Center was his first Newport stop in two years.

“If anybody here is concerned about this moment in history or anxious and you get depressed.  Guess what?  You’re not alone,” he said.  “In my judgment, this is probably the most difficult moments in our lifetimes.”

Senator Sanders laid out some of the difficulties people have faced in recent years, including COVID and the resulting economic challenges, climate change and the recent floods that hammered Vermont, and what he termed a health-care crisis.

That last, he said, involved a lack of trained professionals such as doctors, nurses, and dentists, as well as exorbitant charges for medication.  Those charges he said are caused by a greedy pharmaceutical industry that is able to keep prices for some essential medications many times higher in the U.S. than in other countries.

Senator Sanders spoke of work that has been done to deal with some of these problems, but said much more remains to be done.

He counselled against despair, noting that there are many issues on which people of different political persuasions agree, and said those issues should be the ones tackled first.

Senator Sanders concluded by telling people that he didn’t mean to get them depressed.

“I think at the end of the day, the problems we face are serious, but they are solvable,” he said.  “I don’t want you to think that they’re not.  We can solve them.  It’s going to take a lot of work on the part of all of us.”

 

…to read a full account of Senator Sander’s Newport visit, pick up a copy of the August 30 issue of the Chronicle on the newsstands Wednesday or subscribe now to access our e-version or to have it delivered to your home weekly by selecting a link below:

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