ELECTION 2016

Noam Chomsky: Bernie Sanders Isn't Radical, He's Popular! The Public Agrees With Him on Healthcare & Taxes

Chomsky said Sanders’ positions on taxes and healthcare are supported by a majority of the American public—and have been for a long time.

By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now!

April 28, 2016

Photo Credit: Duncan Rawlinson/Wikimedia

During an event Tuesday night, Noam Chomsky was asked about Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and said he considered him more of a "New Deal Democrat" than a radical extremist, as some have portrayed him. Chomsky said Sanders’ positions on taxes and healthcare are supported by a majority of the American public, and have been for a long time. He added that Sanders has "mobilized a large number of young people who are saying, 'Look, we're not going to consent anymore.' If that turns into a continuing, organized, mobilized force, that could change the country—maybe not for this election, but in the longer term."

Chomsky is a world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and institute professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than half a century. He spoke at the Brooklyn Public Library at an event hosted by Live from the NYPL.

The event also featured Greece’s former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis. He discusses his role in the country’s financial crisis in his new book, "And the Weak Suffer What They Must?: Europe’s Crisis and America’s Economic Future."

Watch: Noam Chomsky discusses the Bernie Sanders campaign. Transcript below.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, Bernie Sanders is an extremely interesting phenomenon. He’s a decent, honest person. That’s pretty unusual in the political system. Maybe there are two of them in the world, you know. But he’s considered radical and extremist, which is a pretty interesting characterization, because he’s basically a mainstream New Deal Democrat.

His positions would not have surprised President Eisenhower, who said, in fact, that anyone who does not accept New Deal programs doesn’t belong in the American political system. That’s now considered very radical. The other interesting aspect of Sanders’s positions is that they’re quite strongly supported by the general public, and have been for a long time. That’s true on taxes. It’s true on healthcare. So, take, say, healthcare. His proposal for a national healthcare system, meaning the kind of system that just about every other developed country has, at half the per capita cost of the United States and comparable or better outcomes, that’s considered very radical. But it’s been the position of the majority of the American population for a long time. So, you go back, say, to the Reagan—right now, for example, latest polls, about 60 percent of the population favor it. When Obama put through the Affordable Care Act, there was, you recall, a public option. But that was dropped. It was dropped even though it was supported by about almost two-thirds of the population.

You go back earlier, say, to the Reagan years, about 70 percent of the population thought that national healthcare should be in the Constitution, because it’s such an obvious right. And, in fact, about 40 percent of the population thought it was in the Constitution, again, because it’s such an obvious right. The same is true on tax policy and others. So we have this phenomenon where someone is taking positions that would have been considered pretty mainstream during the Eisenhower years, that are supported by a large part, often a considerable majority, of the population, but he’s dismissed as radical and extremist. That’s an indication of how the spectrum has shifted to the right during the neoliberal period, so far to the right that the contemporary Democrats are pretty much what used to be called moderate Republicans. And the Republicans are just off the spectrum. They’re not a legitimate parliamentary party anymore. And Sanders has—the significant part of—he has pressed the mainstream Democrats a little bit towards the progressive side. You see that in Clinton’s statements. But he has mobilized a large number of young people, these young people who are saying, "Look, we’re not going to consent anymore." And if that turns into a continuing, organized, mobilized—mobilized force, that could change the country—maybe not for this election, but in the longer term.

Amy Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is the co-author of The Silenced Majority, a New York Times best-seller.

In These Times




Bernie Sanders supporters at a recent rally in San Diego. (thisbrokenwheel / Flickr)

WEB ONLY / FEATURES » APRIL 26, 2016

Why Bernie Sanders Will, Should and Must Refuse To Drop Out Against Hillary Clinton

It’s only the keepers of the established order who want him to bow out now.

BY JIM HIGHTOWER

Sanders is the oldest candidate in the race—yet, politically, he's the youngest candidate, exuberantly putting forth an FDR-sized vision and agenda to lift up America's workaday majority.

Surprisingly, this week's prize for “Stupidest Political Comment in the Presidential Race” doesn't go to Donnie Trump or Ted Cruz.

Rather, the honor goes to the clueless cognoscenti of conventional political wisdom. These pundits and professional campaign operatives have made a unilateral decision that Bernie Sanders must now quit the race for the Democratic nomination. Why? Because, they say: “He Can't Win.”

Actually, he already has. Sanders' vivid populist vision, unabashed idealism and big ideas for restoring America to its own people have jerked the presidential debate out of the hands of status quo corporatists, revitalized the class consciousness and relevance of the Democratic Party, energized millions of young people to get involved and proven to the Democratic establishment that they don't have to sell out to big corporate donors to raise the money they need to run for office.

Bernie has substantively—even profoundly—changed American politics for the better, which is why he's gaining more and more support and keeps winning delegates. From the start, he said: “This campaign is not about me”—it's a chance for voters who have been disregarded and discarded to forge a new political revolution that will continue to grow beyond this election and create a true people's government.

From coast to coast, millions of voters have been “Feeling the Bern.” That's the campaign slogan that grassroots supporters created to express their passion for the unconventional presidential run being made by Bernie Sanders.

Yes, passion—an outpouring of genuine excitement that is (as we say in Texas) “hotter than high school love.” All this for a 74-year-old Democratic Socialist who is openly taking on the corporate plutocracy that's been knocking down the middle class and holding down the poor. Sanders is the oldest candidate in the race—yet, politically, he's the youngest candidate, exuberantly putting forth an FDR-sized vision and agenda to lift up America's workaday majority. And, guess what? It turns out that workaday Americans really value democracy over plutocracy, so that's where his passionate support comes from.

Need I mention that the moneyed powers—and the politicians hooked on their money—hate this affront to their cozy politics-as-usual/ business-as-usual system? Especially shocking to them is that Sanders' supporters have found their way around the usual Wall of Big Money that the establishment always throws us to thwart populist campaigns. This time, though, a counter-force of common folks has created a widely-successful campaign fund of their own to support their Bernie Rebellion. How successful? A whopping $182-million has been raised in millions of small donations. How small? They average $27 each.

That's a revolution, right there! Every revolution needs a slogan, so here's one that used to be on the marquee of a vintage, locally-owned motel just down the street from where I live in Austin: “No additives, No preservatives, Corporate free since 1938.” That perfectly sums up the unique people's campaign that Bernie-people have forged for themselves.

The keepers of the Established Order fear this grassroots uprising by no-name “outsiders,” and they know that this year's Democratic nomination is still very much up for grabs, so they're stupidly trying to shove Sanders out before other states can vote. But Bernie and the mass movement he's fostering aren't about to quit—they'll organize in every primary still to come, be a major force at the Democratic convention, and keep pushing their ideals and policies in the general election… and beyond.

As Sanders puts it: “I run not to oppose any man or woman, but to propose new and far-reaching policies to deal with the crisis of our times… It may be too late to stop the billionaire class from trying to buy the presidency and congress… But we owe it to our children and grandchildren to try… We need to face up to the reality of where we are as a nation, and we need a mass movement of people to fight for change.” That's what real politics should be—not merely a vacuous campaign to elect a personality, but a momentous democratic movement fighting for the common good.

JIM HIGHTOWER

Jim Hightower is the author of six books, including Thieves in High Places (Viking 2003). A well-known populist and former Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, he currently writes a nationally-syndicated column carried by 75 publications. He also writes a monthly newsletter titled The Hightower Lowdown, and contributes to the Progressive Populist.

Why Bernie Sanders' movement is much larger than this election

The Guardian

Why Bernie Sanders' movement is much larger than this election

A political evolution can't be built in a single election cycle. What matters is that the election continues after the election - whether or not he wins.

Tony Karon

 ‘This is not a win-or-go-home presidential bid.’ Photograph: Ali Smith for the Guardian

The US media and political establishment insist on reading Bernie Sanders’ presidential run as a Don Quixote story – an underdog’s doomed, if poetically heroic, challenge to an immutable status quo that offers little hope to the poor.

But Sanders’ performance and prospects can’t be assessed by the metrics of traditional electoral politics, because he has always set the goals of his campaign on terms that defy the yardsticks of campaigning as we know it.

Despite the “Bernie” thing, Sanders presents his persona as no more than the sum of the ideas and principles he puts before the electorate in pursuit of a “political revolution” against a political system in thrall to corporate cash. It’s a project he hopes will outlive his candidacy, and even his person. Like Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, he is inviting any citizen running in local, state or nationwide elections – or waging local-level citizen campaigns – to be Bernie Sanders.

That’s not a win-or-go-home presidential bid.

“A campaign has got to be much more than just getting votes and getting elected,” he told an interviewer soon after launching his run. “It has to be helping to educate people, organize people. If we can do that, we can change the dynamic of politics for years and years to come.”

Sanders won’t be involved in politics for “years and years to come”, of course. Nor does he need to win the Democrats’ nomination to validate his campaign’s investment in political education and organization. A “political revolution” can’t be built in a single election cycle.

Sanders’ campaign looks more like an extension of the extra-electoral politics of phenomena like the Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Fight for $15 and Dreamer movements, small-d democratic citizen activism bypassing political institutions beholden to narrow, moneyed interests. Those movements are based outside the Democratic party – as was Sanders himself before he decided to seek its nomination – but through grassroots activism they have forced their issues on to the party’s agenda. Sanders has taken that same disruptive spirit into a national campaign to restore the Democrats’ New Deal values, and reverse their capitulation to the Republican fiscal agenda that began with the presidency of Bill Clinton.

He grounds his campaign in the time-honored tradition of America’s progress towards social justice – whether on race, women’s equality, labor rights and LGBT equality – being driven not by elected politicians, but by the willingness of ordinary women and men to take action that eventually compels political elites to respond. He’s not promising to solve problems himself, as much as to use the White House as a bully pulpit to mobilize citizens against the forces that keep the status quo intact.

“You have to develop grassroots organizations,” he told an interviewer questioning how he’d deliver with so little support for his positions on Capitol Hill. “You have to bring the grassroots in much closer to what’s happening in Congress.” Elsewhere, he noted: “We can elect the best person in the world to be president, but that person will get swallowed up unless there is an unprecedented level of activism at the grassroots level.”

Barack Obama also rode the crest of a mass movement seeking progressive change to win the nomination and the election in 2008. But he just as quickly demobilized it and governed as a centrist technocrat. In Sanders’ own telling, Obama’s biggest mistake was that “after his brilliant campaign in 2008, he basically said to the millions of people who supported him: ‘Thanks for getting me elected – I will take it from here.’ I will not make that mistake.”

A “movement” campaign for a “movement” presidency, then, in the tradition of America’s social justice history of which Sanders was a part, as a young activist against segregation and war.

These goals are generational, and achieving them isn’t dependent on winning the Democratic nomination. We won’t know whether the campaign succeeded or failed in this longer game for many years to come. But given its movement-building goals, we know that it will not necessarily have failed if he doesn’t secure the Democratic party nomination.

The scale of support Sanders drew in a hastily conceived presidential bid launched less than a year ago is evidence of wide and deep enthusiasm for his ideas, not his persona. It’s a relatively safe bet that the next time the Democratic party has to chose a nominee, that person’s ideas will be closer to Sanders’ than to Clinton’s.

The key, for Sanders, is his belief that the grassroots activism of his campaign has to continue after the election – whether or not it puts him in the White House. The metric of his campaign’s success is not simply whether voters in the primaries or in November “feel the Bern”. He has made clear all along that, win or lose, it’s the after-Bern that counts.

Bernie Sanders giving up after New York? That's not what revolutionaries do

The Guardian

Bernie Sander giving up after New York?

That's not what revolutionaries do.

Lucia Graves

Don’t expect Bernie Sanders to embrace Hillary Clinton any time soon. Photograph: Sean Simmers/AP

The moment the Democratic establishment has been waiting for has finally arrived. After an impressive string of victories in smaller states, Bernie Sanders lost the New York primary on Tuesday night and with it, his best shot at closing the yawning delegate gap between him and Hillary Clinton.

Now is the time insiders say Sanders should start lining up behind Clinton. Will Sanders offer up the olive branch and throw his support to Clinton in the interest of beating Trump? Or will he continue with the increasingly aggressive approach his campaign debuted in the lead-up to New York?

How he handles the race in following days could determine the course of the primary.

For operatives reading the smoke signals, early signs aren’t promising for would-be uniters. Sanders shows no signs of dropping the tough talk, despite the increasingly difficult delegate math, the dwindling number of states and the large margins by which he’d have to win. And that’s because, with regard to being aggressive, Bernie Sanders is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. 

Sure his path to the presidency is increasingly narrow. Sure he’d have to do better than the polls are projecting and probably win three of the five primaries next week and more in the weeks to follow. Sure a win looks increasingly impossible. And yet, he’s not ready to give up on his revolution because as soon as he throws his support behind Clinton, the movement he’s fought for is over.

So instead, he’s blasting out statements about winning through adversity. He’s decrying the politics of closed primaries and talking up his chances in the upcoming primaries of Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland. He’s unleashing his campaign manager on national television, to say things like that they’ll fight all the way to the Democratic convention in July, working to flip superdelegates rather than unite behind the Democratic nominee.

These are not the noises of a man or campaign preparing for a hearty and imminent embrace of Hillary Clinton. And for an above-the-fray issues guy, Sanders has spent a surprising amount of time devoted to complaints about process. Heading into the New York primary, for instance, his campaign took issue with everything from the debate schedule, to the closed primary, to Clinton’s joint fundraising with the DNC.

Over at Vox, Ezra Klein has written about how risky, if personally strategic, Sanders’ attack on primary politics really is. “It’s one thing, after all, to see your candidate lose,” writes Klein. “It’s another to see the election stolen, and that’s increasingly how Sanders supporters are understanding the race.”

Perhaps he needn’t be so worried. After all, the majority of Democratic primary voters will still probably support her in the general – 85% of New York primary-goers are still expected to do so. And perhaps a best-case scenario is still possible for liberals where Sanders succeeds in pushing Clinton as far left as possible without damaging her in a general. Perhaps he’ll still do an about face and get behind her.

Clinton has been desperately trying to pivot toward the general, but at this critical juncture anyway, Sanders seems utterly unconcerned with helping her do that. And while it may be a bad look for Democrats, that’s hardly been Sanders’ concern. Until he ran for president, he wasn’t even a Democrat. In fact, throwing her his support would be at odds with the ideological purity he stands for. 

Sanders prefers not to get nasty, but he’ll go there to defend his revolution. Before, he didn’t have to be aggressive to stay relevant. Now being nasty is a matter of survival; when he puts down the sword, it’s over. He knows this better than anyone else, and that’s why he shows no signs of giving up: he wants his message and influence to survive as long as possible.

Some would argue he’s already been heard. That he’s already pushed Clinton left on everything from Keystone to trade policy and the minimum wage. That he’s already helped fire up a grassroots movement that will continue to push for his message long after he’s ceased to be a viable candidate. But Sanders still isn’t satisfied. It’s part of his charm, and also, why he’s so dangerous for Clinton and the party – he’ll never, ever be satisfied.

He’s a good revolutionary that way.

An Open Love Letter to Bernie Sanders on Turning His Campaign Into a Movement

In These Times

Bernie Sanders has spurred a movement and, no matter the results of the election, it doesn't have to end. (Phil Roeder / Flickr)

WEB ONLY / FEATURES » APRIL 13, 2016

An Open Letter to Bernie Sanders on Turning His Campaign Into a Movement

If Bernie’s campaign is going to become the catalyst for long-term transformation that many hope it will, some changes are in order.

BY ERIK FORMAN

Let’s commit to staying in the fight together, making global change through local organizing. Whether we get you elected or not, the struggle will only have just begun.

Dear Bernie,

We are amongst the millions of donors and hundreds of thousands of activists who have pushed your campaign forward against seemingly unbeatable odds. What can we say? We love you. Some of us have felt this way for years, as we watched your long march from maverick Mayor of Burlington, Vt., to solo socialist in the U.S. Senate. Some of us were only more recently smitten by your bolt-from-the-blue presidential campaign, which has injected life and hope, and a small bird, into the lifeless and hopeless American political landscape. This is a happy moment for our relationship. We are slowly turning the tide against the liberal machine in the primaries, riding high on a surge of popular support.

Things are good right now, but we want to talk about the future. We want something long-term, we want to make something together that is built to last. We want to talk about how we can turn this moment into a movement.

This is a hard conversation for many of us to have. We’ve been hurt before. Many of us have developed a deep and healthy mistrust in electoral politics, moving to workplace and community organizing to build popular power. There is a reason for this. Many of us poured our hearts into the presidential bids of the Rainbow Coalition, or the long-shot campaigns of Ralph Nader and other Green Party candidates. Many of us turned out to put Obama in the White House on the backs of what was until then the largest grassroots mobilization in a presidential election in history.

Whether they won or lost, all of these electoral campaigns left little behind but broken hearts, and in the most recent and notable case, broken promises. On a deeper level, we feel that the changes we seek cannot simply be voted into existence — we want to bring participatory democracy to life in all spheres of society. For many of us, participation in electoral politics feels like an abusive relationship.

We want this time to be different. Let’s build something real together. Let’s make not just a political revolution, but a social and economic revolution by building not just a campaign for president, but a lasting movement.

We thought of four ways that our relationship could go to the next level:

1. Build our own lists. The conflict with the DNC and NGP-VAN shows us that we can’t trust the Democratic Party machine with our organizing infrastructure. We need our own membership lists that they don’t control.

2. Let us become members and organizers. Change will not happen with one election or one politician. We need a social movement. Social movements are made up not of one politician speaking out on stage against the establishment, but of millions of individuals standing up and working together. Create a pathway to membership in your campaign, which would bring with it more responsibility and a long-term commitment.

If your five million donors became members, we would be larger than any labor union in the United States and on par with the NRA, which has more effectively held a gun to the head of the government than any political organization in US history. If we provide training to help members become organizers, there is no reason why we couldn’t double or triple the size of your base, large enough to make the political revolution permanent and pervasive—and extend it into workplaces and communities as an economic and social revolution.

3. Practice democracy. What sets your campaign apart is the promise of democracy. Let’s make that promise real inside the campaign. Allow us to become not just donors, voters, or consumers of Bernie, but producers of this political revolution. Formalize a democratic process for campaign members to decide on campaign planks and plan actions.

This will allow you to outflank Hillary’s latest gambit to market herself as the “intersectional” candidate by giving an open invitation to labor, racial justice, feminist, environmental, LGBTQ, anti-war, and other social movements to become not just talking points or staff positions, but full coalition partners in the campaign. It will also reassure those of us who have been hurt by politicians in the past that this will remain a relationship of equals, and you won’t forget about us when we get you elected. And it will help turn the political revolution into a revolution of everyday life—where democracy becomes something we practice every day in our neighborhoods, workplaces, unions, and community organizations, not just every few years at the ballot box.

4. Take the fight local. You’re a fighter. That’s what we love about you. Let’s commit to staying in the fight together, making global change through local organizing. Whether we get you elected or not, the struggle will only have just begun. If you are in office, you will need a massive grassroots apparatus to unseat Republicans and pressure or remove moderate Democrats to see through the political revolution, and extend it into an economic and social revolution. If the centrist machine steals the election, then we can work together to pressure the government for our demands directly or elect democratic socialist representatives at lower levels of government.

And no matter who wins the election, we need to organize for change in our workplaces and communities—making a political, economic and social revolution through organizing at the local level. So let’s keep the campaign offices open (as many as we can afford to, at least) after the election, and turn them into hubs for organizing. If we build an organization capable of campaigning beyond the election cycle, and in workplaces and communities as well as in the political sphere, we can’t lose.

What do you say, Bernie? Can we make this work?

The last year has been magical. Let’s keep the magic alive, let’s give our campaign a future we can believe in.

Love,

Your Supporters

You can see the full list of signatories, which has now reached over 1,000, and sign on to the letter yourself, here.

ERIK FORMAN

Erik Forman has has led labor organizing workshops and trainings in 22 countries for the IWW and other unions. Research on strategies for union renewal has now taken him to Montréal, where he is studying the Quebec student strikes of 2005 and 2012. Follow him at twitter.com/_erikforman.

CNN politics

Occupy Wall Street rises up for Sanders

By Gregory Krieg, CNN

Updated 1:06 PM ET, Wed April 13, 2016

(CNN)The forces of Occupy Wall Street, splintered and faded in the aftermath of their 2011 demonstrations, are getting the band back together to boost Bernie Sanders ahead of next week's critical New York primary.

Nearly five years since Occupy was evicted from Zuccotti Park, blocks from the New York Stock Exchange in lower Manhattan, a coalition of organizers, labor leaders and progressive activists who lined up under the banner of "the 99 percent" are renewing their efforts in pursuit of a more traditional cause: Getting voters to the polls on April 19.

That begins with traditional canvassing, but will extend to what is expected to be a large pro-Sanders, Occupy-inspired march on Saturday in Manhattan.

"This is the place where the message of income inequality resonated across the country and across the world -- it's where it really began," said "People for Bernie" co-founder and Occupy activist Winnie Wong. "He's bringing it back home."

In Sanders and in his campaign, the more mainstream elements of Occupy Wall Street have found an ideological ally. The Vermont senator's laser focus on economic issues are a big draw, local organizers said, but they also delight in his affection for the shoe-leather activism of past generations.

"Canvassing and using apps to get people to vote and all that microtargeting stuff, that's important, but so is marching in the streets," said Charles Lenchner, who joined with Wong after efforts to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren into the presidential race fell flat. Their "People for Bernie" popularized the "Feel the Bern" hashtag, a potent organizing tool and, nearly a year after its launch, a world-famous meme.

Bernie Sanders earns first endorsement from current senator

For Lenchner and many of his peers, the Sanders candidacy represents a logical extension -- and validation -- of the original movement.

"Occupy was a reaction to the financial collapse, to what happened because of Wall Street's power to destroy the economy, and Bernie's campaign is the one that has been consistently focused on the role of the '1 Percent,' large corporations and financial institutions," he said. "It's a very natural connection."

The Occupy-Sanders mind meld

A public show of electoral solidarity -- and a sign of things to come -- came last month, when prominent Occupy organizer Beka Economopoulos led a phone-banking effort for Sanders from Zuccotti Park. "It was another one of those moments that helped solidify the connection between the folks who had been part of Occupy and the Sanders campaign," Lenchner said.

Occupy Wall Street as a coherent political project had already begun to fray by the time the New York Police Department, acting on orders from the city's then-mayor, Michael Bloomberg, cleared the park, arresting more than 240 protesters nearly two months after the "occupation" had begun.

Many of the more pragmatic activists had become baffled or frustrated by the avant-garde in their midst, and had largely soured on the spectacle. Questions about the immediate direction of the movement could not be settled.

Despite the inner tumult and outside mockery, aspects of the animating message behind the Occupy protests -- which eventually spanned more than 1,000 locations across the country -- have become part of the current political discussion.

"Occupy Wall Street helped create the political climate that helped Bernie's message to resonate so widely, simply by shining a spotlight on issues of Wall Street greed and income inequality," Sanders spokesman Karthik Ganapathy told CNN.

The Sanders campaign is now seeing various elements of the old Occupy coalition working together to build momentum ahead of what could be a make-or-break contest in the primary battle against Hillary Clinton.

"We've been able to tap into the energy of (Occupy) and channel that into something tangible and concrete and forward-looking," Ganapathy said. "They're here [working on the campaign]. I see them, I see a lot of them volunteering, making phone calls, knocking on doors. It's a natural fit."

Occupy's laundry list of economic grievances largely mirrored Sanders' own, and in 2011 he emerged as one of the movement's earliest defenders.

"I applaud them," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer at the time. "They are speaking to the real anger and frustration that millions of Americans feel at a time when the middle class is collapsing, poverty is increasing, the people on top are doing phenomenally well."

What the movement can do for Sanders

Now, they are returning the favor -- and their effort is transcending routine "get-out-the-vote" activities.

The independent journalists and activists who helped write the free "Occupied Wall Street Journal" in fall 2011 are now poised to produce 500,000 bilingual broadsheet newspapers, as part of their crowdsourced "Battle of New York" project. The special edition, which they hope to begin printing on Wednesday, will feature essays, art and -- in a clear pivot to the mainstream -- a direct call to vote for Sanders next week.

The blitz will continue on Saturday, when a coalition led by the Millennials for Bernie group launches a "March for Bernie." Their preliminary route is slated to take supporters north from Foley Square in Manhattan's financial district to Union Square, a path familiar to those who joined the demonstrations five years ago. Organizers expect as many as 15,000 people to attend.

Opinion: Sanders, Reagan and the spirit of '76

"It is unique in itself that a presidential candidate has sparked people to use the protest tactic of marches, which isn't very typical in our electoral politics," said Heather Hurwitz, a post-doctoral fellow at Barnard College who is studying social movements like Occupy Wall Street.

She said that while the march's lead organizers weren't directly involved in Occupy Wall Street five years ago, there is "an inspiration from Occupy and training and strategies that people have gained."

Sanders is also expected to receive significant rank-and-file labor support in the days leading up to the New York vote. Clinton remains the clear leader in overall endorsements, but Sanders will be counting on battle-hardened unions like the Communications Workers of America to help drive turnout.

CWA political director and Working Families Party co-chair Bob Master believes Verizon workers, who were caught in a tense contract fight when Occupy took root in 2011, benefited from the spirit surrounding the demonstrations. Those same workers are, once again, without a contract and thousands began a strike Wednesday morning on the East Coast. Sanders joined some of the Verizon employees on a picket line in Brooklyn on Wednesday.

Now, the CWA is working as part of a familiar coalition to help win New York for Sanders.

"Bernie's campaign -- like the de Blasio campaign (for NYC mayor in 2013), like the Warren campaign (in 2012) -- are lineal descendants of Occupy," Master told CNN. "These campaigns, and Sanders most dramatically, are Occupy Wall Street translated into electoral politics. This is the revolt of the 99%."

I wasn’t “Bernie or Bust” until the New York Debate. One exchange sealed it.

April 15, 2016 James Schlarmann

Sometimes I know when I’m going to write something that will anger a lot of people. As a comedian, those are some interesting times. Because my first instinct is to make you laugh, and it’s hard to make people laugh when they hate your guts. Although Dane Cook seems to be doing just fine and everyone hates him.

Wait. What?

This is one of those times. There are going to be a lot of angry responses on Facebook, and maybe in the comments on this piece, telling me I’m helping Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or anyone the GOP decides to pick at its contested convention, win the presidency. They’re entitled to their opinions, and I expect the vitriol.

I’m now, officially, “Bernie or Bust.”

I have plans to put out a little “listicle” of six reasons why I came to this decision, but I thought a decision like this warranted me going in-depth as to what finally pushed me over the edge. If not for those of you out there who ultimately don’t give a fuck what my opinion on this subject is, than for myself.

Once I’m done voting for Sanders in my state’s primary I will re-register as an independent. If he doesn’t win the nomination, I will not vote for Hillary Clinton, because I cannot in good conscience do so after hearing and watching the exchange she and Sanders had on Israel’s abhorrent 2014 air strikes against Hamas that left approximately 2,100 Palestinians dead. All Hillary would have had to do to satisfy me — not that she’s required to of course — would be to say what Sanders did. Essentially, that Israel of course has a right to defend itself from terrorism, but that the response they gave was way, way over the line.

Hillary instead kept pushing out talking points about Hamas, where they put their bunkers and weapons caches, and essentially arguing like a neocon would that Israel just had to initiate air strikes in a way that they knew would cause massive civilian casualties. To me, that sounds like utter bullshit. But more importantly, it solidifies in my mind that Hillary would be no different than an 80’s or 90’s era Republican on foreign policy, and “an eye for an eye” still leaves everyone blind.

There can be no doubt in anyone’s minds that Hamas is an agitator. They are a terrorist organization, and they should be rooted out and brought to justice to face trial for their crimes. But to defend an Israeli response that left 2,100 noncombatants dead is just repugnant to me, on any level. Clinton gets so much right about so many other issues, and I am not a one-issue voter, but I cannot in any way justify voting for someone who can’t at least be honest with Benjamin Netanyahu and tell him he went too far.

That exchange spoke to my biggest “beef” with Clinton.

I love her views on things like women’s health — when she’s not saying she’d compromise if she got something out of it. I love her views on the environment — when she’s not pushing fracking world-wide when we know for a fact there are major environmental concerns with it. Her triangulation is maddening. I don’t want to vote for someone who I know going into it is so politically cynical that she’s been on nearly every side of every issue.

Had 2,100 terrorists perished in the strikes and much, much fewer civilians had it would be a little different. Still wrong to someone like me who believes in bringing criminals to justice and trying them in court. But at least she wouldn’t be boldly defending a policy that left over 2,000 innocent people — many of them women and children — dead. She can’t possibly think that’s good policy right?

And yes, like Ms. Clinton said last night, Hamas does intentionally put their shit where they know collateral damage will be greatest. My question is why she thinks that excuses Israel playing right into the terrorists’ fucking hands by attacking those places in the most heavy-handed, hyperbolic methods imaginable.It seems like Hillary is defending the fact that Israel decided to swat a fly with a bomb. It makes no sense to me.

The kinds of foreign policy initiatives Clinton believes in dump billions of dollars into defense contractors’ coffers. But isn’t that funding that could go to many of the programs progressives want but she says are too much to ask for because we “can’t afford them?” Everywhere I turn, I find problems with Hillary’s foreign policy, and that in the end, it’s too much for me in good conscience to vote for her. And the thing is — Bernie’s thoughts aligned better with mine, and I think he spoke the truth — Israel has a right to defend itself, but it doesn’t have the right to do things that had they been done by terrorists some would have been calling for blood in the streets.

How many civilians died on 9/11? How many died in the 2014 Gaza attacks? Maybe now you see my point?

I didn’t write this to convince anyone else to go Bernie or Bust. If you’re in a swing state and you don’t want Republicans picking the next Supreme Court Justice, maybe you shouldn’t risk it. But I don’t live in a state like that, and that does give me the privilege of using my vote more symbolically. And at the end of the day — no one gets to tell me how to vote, and no one will bully, taunt or tease me into voting a way I don’t feel comfortable doing so.

Hillary will make an okay president if she’s elected. She’s well-qualified. But this election is about more than R’s and D’s. It’s about the direction we want this country to go in. And I, a silly fucking clown who loves to mock the powers that be, think we should move the goalposts away from regime change, and away from a rubber stamp approval of everything Israel does.

That’s just one douchebag’s opinion though. You’ll find plenty more douchebags’ opinions that disagree with me out there too.

Why Elders Matter, Including Bernie Sanders

Bernie Journal

Why We Need Bernie Sanders For President

Why Elders Matter, Including Bernie Sanders

Much coverage has been given, and rightly so, to the wonderful way in which America’s youth has responded to Bernie Sanders’ clarion call for active participation in the healing of a broken nation and ailing planet. I applaud these young folks with all my heart, and am especially proud of one young member of my family who has been phone banking and organizing for the Sanders campaign for several months now. But support for a Sanders administration is not confined to the youngsters in my family or in my community, and today, I’d like to share why the voice of our elders is the one most worthy of our attention and honor.

Yesterday on Twitter, I saw a marvelous photograph of a woman holding a homemade Bernie Sanders sign which stated that he was the best candidate she had seen for President in her 97 years of life. And that’s what it all comes down to: time. Our elders have seen decades of history and have been able to draw wisdom from this experience that those of lesser years have yet to attain. And yet, in a culture which draws its adjectives of praise from the corporate world, elders are often undervalued because they are no longer economically ‘productive’. As though we were living on a factory assembly line instead of in a human society. As though the only purpose of people is to keep busy.

And the problem with falling off the production line in America is that you can then fall quietly into poverty with no one noticing. If it is your parents or grandparents telling you they don’t turn on their heater in winter because they can’t afford to, that they need to get over to the local food pantry because they’ve run out of groceries, or that they are cutting their medicines in half to make a prescription last longer, then both you and your family’s senior members are already struggling with great anxiety over this crisis, and your own anxiety may be worsened by the fact that your own wages are too low to offer meaningful relief to parents or grandparents.

But even if the elders in your family are fortunate enough to live in reasonable comfort, please take a minute to imagine how you would feel to think of them being cold, hungry, sick and afraid, and then please spend a few minutes more watching Bernie Sanders’ excellent video on why we must expand Social Security.

The elders in my family – including my mother, father, mother-in-law and father-in-law – are all Bernie Sanders supporters. Almost every day, my mother fires up YouTube to see if anyone is livestreaming the latest Sanders rally and then we get on the phone to discuss what Bernie said and how big the crowds were that day. My mother-in-law has signed up for Clinton’s email list so that she can ‘spy’ on what the opposition is doing! My father gives us his time and wisdom to explain how this presidential campaign compares and contrasts to the many others he has witnessed and hopes that a genuine political reform movement is taking place, and my father-in-law calls the Republicans ‘a bunch of clowns’ and says ‘Go Bernie!’. Another of my elders, a favorite aunt who has known both homelessness and hunger in her life, is telling everyone at her church food bank that she’s voting for Bernie and is excited when the well-to-do ladies who staff this charity tell her they’re in the Sanders camp, too!

Out on the town, I’ve talked with elderly ladies who have Bernie 2016 signs decorating their front porches and have chatted with other older men and women who are running the local campaign headquarters with great vigor. And I am truly thankful every time I hear of any report of grandchildren and grandparents attending primaries and caucuses together, united in their support for this once-in-a-lifetime candidate.

Our elders, in their wisdom, are voting for Bernie Sanders because they care for our future and for all of us. Their generation is the very one that created Bernie Sanders – an elder with a venerable mountain of experience and sagacity to share.

When you see him standing at the podium, shoulders slightly bent in concentration, eyes twinkling like old stars and hair like wisps of cirrus clouds crowning his energetic form, do you think of your father or grandfather, and how they would express the seriousness of our country’s situation and the moral obligation to face and solve its problems?

Elders matter because they know things that the rest of us have yet to encounter and learn, and their examples of compassion, responsibility and honesty are what we younger ones should strive to emulate. And, as some of the most vulnerable members of our society, older men and women deserve our protection in the form of both legislation and cultural recognition. Our vote for Bernie Sanders isn’t just a vote for one man – it’s a vote to honor and protect all elders and to heed the counsel of the wisest among them.