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Chris Hedges on Bernie Sanders' Presidential Campaign (Letters and Politics, 5/19/15)

by transcript
"Everything now must be geared toward the health and the growth of popular movements and if we can run a Third Party Socialist candidate, who is primarily building those movements rather than terminating their work at the end of an election cycle, then it's worth it, but I worry that Sanders isn't going to do that."
ch.jpg
(~11:36)

CH: "This is the mistake of Sanders, to run as a Democrat, I mean, the Democratic Party is part of the problem and essentially [he will] lend legitimacy to the Democratic Party. He's not going to get into the debates unless he makes a commitment to endorse the nominee, which, unless we're terribly lucky, will be Hillary Clinton. And I worry that he's just going to funnel energy back into a dysfunctional political party and a dysfunctional political system.

I think we need Third Party candidates. I, of course, have supported and worked for Ralph Nader, wrote several of his policy speeches for him in 2008, and being close to Ralph I understood all of the mechanisms that both parties, but primarily the Democratic Party, throw out to make any kind of a Third Party challenge from the Left impossible.

Sanders is acutely aware of that. We did a couple of events together, including with Kshama Sawant, the Socialist City Council woman from Seattle, and Sawant was pushing him to run as an Independent, and he said 'I don't want to end up as Nader.' Well I get it. I know what they did to Ralph. At the same time, I think we need a viable Socialist Third Party candidacy on a national level.

But what happens with Sanders is that once the primaries are over next April, he's essentially a spent force. And what we need to do is build a Third Party movement that doesn't end with election time, but feeds and sustains a popular movement, the same way that Syriza did in Greece, ten years ago when they were only polling about 4%.

Everything now must be geared toward the health and the growth of popular movements and if we can run a Third Party Socialist candidate, who is primarily building those movements rather than terminating their work at the end of an election cycle, then it's worth it, but I worry that Sanders isn't going to do that.”

MJ: “Do you think there's legitimacy to the argument that Bernie Sanders, through the Democratic Primary, will bring the candidates more to the Left, in the process?”

CH: “Well, rhetorically he will, so you'll have Hillary Clinton, as she already is, running around and sounding like a populist, but it doesn't make any difference. I mean, she is as beholden to Goldman Sachs as Barack Obama.

So in many ways it gives her a kind of legitimacy as a candidate, that I don't think she should have.”
https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-may-19-2015/
by John de Clef Piñeiro, Esq. (inyuan [at] nyc.rr.com)
Hey, whoever said the truth is supposed to sound pretty? CH scores on so many real levels that the euphoria many have felt about a Sanders candidacy takes on a more realistic dimension.

Ultimately, Sanders isn't and has never been a Democrat and would certainly not be acceptable, as Bernie, to the party mandarins and bank-rollers, let alone the party faithful, who have a fatal attraction to HRC.

We know what O-bots are, and they are not about to be inherited by Sanders in this lifetime.

So, when Sanders tells us, as he has, that he will call it quits if he doesn't prevail in the primary, then that really isn't the Sanders America needs as an icon and leadership role model for a grassroots progressive movement that will outlast the 2016 elections and remain mobilized thereafter for the common good.

When he says he'd quit and would not run an independent campaign (which, by the way, is what he would need nationally anyway to support him as a primary challenger), either he shows that he doesn't know his own mind or that he knows too well that he really can't be the undeterred standard bearer for social progress in the U.S.

Either way is a crucially important preview message from Bernie of things to come that many will, no doubt, ignore, discount or try not to think about for fear of dampening their hopes for a real champion for the better.

The only game-changer would be if grassroots American voters surprisingly wake up and mobilize broadly as never before to create a populist momentum powerful enough to demonstrate a national consensus on a focused progressive agenda that makes clear to everyone that the GOP and the decadent neo-liberalism of recent Democratic administrations are headed for extinction by election day next year.

Sounds pretty, doesn’t it?
He is the most successful highest office holding socialist politician in the U.S. He's in elections to win them, but he does educate folks a lot along the way.

It also has to be pointed out that while Bernie didn't do it himself, his election campaigns were very instrumental in the formation of the Vermont Progressive Party, which is by far the most successful left-wing state party in the country. Bernie has supported VPP and they have supported him. Could such a development be replicated on the national level?

When Bernie endorses Clinton, or whichever pro-corporate Democrat wins the nomination (as he twice endorsed Pres. Obama), I will say that he made a mistake and I disagree. To my mind, it will be a betrayal of Bernie's stated goal of fighting the control of the corporations and billionaires. Endorsing a candidate representing the pro-Democrat wing of the corporations and billionaires is incompatible with Bernie's stated crusade.

Bernie knows endorsing a pro-corporate Democrat for President is a contradiction. He's decided it's one he is willing to live with. I won't do that. So, I support Bernie's primary challenge, but as soon as he endorses Clinton, I'm jumping ship.

I will back some third party candidate in the general election, probably the Green Party candidate, unless a better one emerges.

If folks are looking for some kind of pure savior, Bernie isn't the one. On the other hand, if you value an extremely talented politician who knows how to communicate populist economic politics to mainstream folks, whom is bringing the label of socialist in from the cold, and whom is proposing some excellent reforms, then Bernie's your man. For the primary season, that is.
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