BERNIE
SANDERS’ REAL ‘POLITICAL REVOLUTION’ COULD HAPPEN THIS FALL: Sanders, Green
Party’s Presidential Candidate?
[ Here extracts. At the end my
suggestions & in brackets some additions.]
Vermont senator has battled Clinton to almost a draw, down by only
some 319 delegates with nearly 900 to go (not counting the corrupt “super
delegates” chosen for their fealty to party leaders, not by primary or caucus
voting.)
By doing this well, as a proudly declared “democratic
socialist” who on the stump has been denouncing the corruption of both the US
political and economic systems, and as a candidate who has refused to
take corporate money or money from big, powerful donors, instead successfully
funding his campaign with only small two and three-digit donations from his
supporters, Sanders has exposed not just his opponent, Hillary Clinton, but the
entire Democratic Party leadership and most of its elected officials as nothing
but hired corporate tools posing as progressive advocates of the people.
Sanders knows that barring some major surprise
like a federal indictment of Clinton, a market collapse, or perhaps a leak of
the transcripts of Clinton’s highly-paid but still secret speeches to some of
the nation’s biggest banks, [plus the possible already
paid electronic fraud for Nov 4.] he is not
going to win the Democratic nomination.
Will he walk away and return quietly to Vermont? Or does he
instead continue to fight for his “political revolution” by another route? .. A Sanders endorsement of Clinton at this
point would be a pathetic betrayal [to his declared
principles] and betray of all the energy and money that his fired-up
backers have poured into this extraordinary campaign, and it would send a
message that fighting against the nation’s ruling elite is impossible, at least
through the ballot box. It would also be pointless. Some
25-30 percent of Sanders backers, according to pollsters, have made it clear
that they will not support Clinton no matter what — including if Sanders were
to endorse her. That in itself could be enough to doom her
candidacy.
Furthermore, after
all his well-grounded attacks on the corrupt funding of her campaign, and of
her horrific record as senator and secretary of state, any
endorsement he made would be seen as a joke. [People
will ask him] if he “takes back” the things he had said about her crooked
speech fees from Goldman Sachs and other big banks, her default advocacy of
disastrous wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, etc. Most seriously, endorsing Hillary after all that heartfelt campaigning would
be a huge blow to his millions of backers and his “movement.”
Just shutting up and going home, with no endorsement for
Clinton, would be almost as bad, leaving his movement leaderless and
thoroughly demoralized, and he’d still be besieged by journalists seeking to
have him either diss or endorse Clinton.
The third option Sanders has thought is to continue his run
for president, but not as a Democrat. And that option could be
explosive and even revolutionary this election year, depending on how he did
it.
Most states have deadlines for candidates seeking to get a
ballot line as an independent candidate that are earlier than the
Democratic convention in July, so running as an independent would be
impossible. And a write-in campaign would be even more hopeless. But
there is another option: Running as the presidential nominee of the
Green Party, which already has a ballot line on 25 states and which doesn’t
hold its nominating convention until August, after both the Democratic and the
Republican conventions are over.
Could Sanders run as a Green? Some of his supporters are
already talking about the idea. So, it turns out, are members of the
Green Party. Apparently even Dr. Jill Stein, a past presidential candidate of
the Green Party and its likely candidate this year, as well as Kshama Sawant,
the hugely popular socialist city councilwoman in Seattle who led that city’s
activists’ successful fight to pass a $15/hour wage law, are writing a letter
to Sanders inviting him — urging him — to enter into discussions with the Green
Party about running as its presidential candidate. Stein is apparently even willing
to step aside or perhaps run as his vice presidential running mate if he were
to do so. (Sawant has made an excellent
argument [1] for why Sanders and the Greens should do this. She
also has a petition
on line for people to join in the call. It already has over 17,000 signatures.) [2]
WILL SANDERS SEIZE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO CONTINUE THE FIGHT? If he is serious about inspiring a political
revolution, he must.
More importantly, the public this year 2016 is clearly sick
of the two major parties, and disgusted, to an extent not seen since at
least 1968, and maybe longer, by the undemocratic nature of the primaries.
Incredibly, both Trump and Clinton, the likely winners
of those primaries, represent the two most unpopular and disliked candidates in
memory, with some 65 percent of Americans saying they dislike Trump and
another 56 percent saying they dislike Clinton.
Indeed, Clinton, not favored by almost half of Democrats, is so disliked outside the
Democratic Party that there’s a strong likelihood — and a fear even among
Democratic leaders — that she could lose to Trump or another Republican nominee
all by herself, with or without a Sanders endorsement.
Meanwhile, the most liked candidate this year continues to be
Sanders, who continues to poll better against all possible Republican
candidates than does Clinton.. With numbers like that Sanders, if he
continued to build his movement and continued to bring in new voters as he has
demonstrably done in the primaries, could even contemplate winning such a
general election race. He has also demonstrated his ability
to attract tens of millions of dollars a month in online contributions. Running
in a three-way race, he’d surely collect even more money, making him fully
competitive with the two widely-loathed big-party candidates.
Given Sanders’ already proven popularity, it would be
impossible for the corporate media to deny him a lectern at any general
election debates, as was always done to Green Party candidates and
independents like Nader in the past. Sanders and his ardent supporters, in
other words, have a unique historic opportunity to shatter the asphyxiating
two-party duopoly of two pro-corporate parties that has been the Bermuda
Triangle of progressive politics for over a century.
SO HERE’S A CALL TO ACTION:
If Bernie Sanders is reluctant to make the jump to running as
a Green, he needs to be pushed by his supporters. [ This means that
we should start now the mobilization of people to
streets announcing the third option in alliance with the Green Party]
He needs to be shown that it can be done, and that his would not be a quixotic
campaign, but rather a serious effort to win the White House. How can that
pushing be done? Well, think about it a minute.
By the time this primary season ends in early June, Over nine
million people, and maybe more, will have cast votes for Sanders. Many many
more who support him passionately were denied the right to vote for him by
restrictive primary rules in states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and
elsewhere, rules that limited voting in Democratic primaries to people
registered as Democrats (in NY you had to make that decision back in October,
2015 before Sanders was even being considered a serious candidate!). In fact, where the primaries have been open to
independent voters, Sanders has usually won. Even last Tuesday, the four
primaries that Sanders lost, in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and
Connecticut, were closed, but in Rhode Island, which was open to
independents, Sanders won by 10 percent, a crucial difference not mentioned in
most corporate news reports). Obviously in the general election, independents
will be voting.
IMAGINE if even a fraction of those millions who
back Sanders — his voters and those who were barred from voting for him — were
to descend on Philadelphia for the July Democratic convention, which will be
held on July 25-28 – [ with banners against Hillary’
FRAUD and failed policies .. imagine them chanting GO
SANDERS GO, UNITED WE WILL WIN!! .. GO SANDERS GO , THIRD
OPTION, WE WILL WIN … PEOPLE, UNITED, WILL
NEVER BE DEFEATED .. DOWN with THE 1%... DOWN!! .. DOWN THE 1%.. DOWN!! ].
Imagine those Bernie
backers filling the streets of this city where the nation was founded, armed
with signs saying “NO HILLARY ENDORSEMENT!” and “GO GREEN BERNIE!” And REMEMBER,
inside that aptly named convention center there will
also be hundreds of elected Sanders delegates, who would be demanding the same
thing of him.
How could Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old activist veteran of
so many popular movements over the years, refuse such a rousing call to action?
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Links:
[1] http://www.socialistalternative.org/2016/04/17/kshama-sawant-petitioning-bernie-run-independent/
[1] http://www.socialistalternative.org/2016/04/17/kshama-sawant-petitioning-bernie-run-independent/
….
….
MORE SUGESTION FOR NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION : from
Hugo Adan
1. ACTIONS DEFINE
POLITICS: This mobilization of people to streets & public places
across nation should start now. Cells & grass root org in every neighborhood
should take the initiative. On line manuals for nonviolent DIRECT action can
provide guidelines. Here some of them:
…
2- WE SHOULD MOTIVATE OUR LEADER NOT TO ATTEND THE
DEM CONVENTION
His elected delegates should abandon the place at the beginning
of this event.
…
3- Sanders should run all Dem
primaries (special focus on CA) and avoid pro-Hillary media
…
4- The Convention for the Green Party-People’s Front
to present the VP should be carefully organized and scheduled
….
GO SANDERS GO, UNITED WE WILL WIN!!
NO HILLARY ENDORSEMENT!” .. NOT!!
“GO GREEN BERNIE!”, UNITED
WE WILL WIN!!
….
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