Another report on Sawant & Hedges meeting

Seattle city council member Kshama Sawant, the most prominent socialist in America, spoke in Oakland last night. She spoke along with the noted left journalist Chris Hedges. Also speaking was former left mayor of the city of Richmond CA, Gail McGloughlin.

Hedges

Hedges really gave the best speech of the evening. He opened by posing the age-old alternative that we see more clearly every year: “Socialism or barbarism.” Deeply felt, he ripped the “war machine” as he called it – the military industrial complex, and nearly his entire speech was devoted to this theme. Although he did not offer much that was new, he did make some important points, including that there will be no “progress” as long as the domination of the “war machine” is unbroken. He attacked “a bankrupt liberal class”, and named Hillary Clinton and Obama among them. When this writer shouted out “Sanders”, Hedges agreed. “Yeah, I don’t support Sanders either,” he said. (And why should he? Sanders never mentions the military budget and on almost every important foreign policy question he is in lock step with Obama & co.)

Kshama Sawant

Sawant spoke about the rising mood to fight back, from the Arab Spring to the struggles in the US (Wisconsin, Occupy, etc.). She said that was really lacking in the US – the reason for the low mood – was that the victories have been few and far between in recent years. In this regard, she pictured both her election of two years ago as well as the ‘victory” of a $15/hour minimum in both Seattle and at Seatac as being such victories. In this light she went on to talk about her present election campaign and the importance of her winning the upcoming election.

“Question and Answer” Period

Following the speeches there was a “question and answer” period. In the old days of Labor Militant – Socialist Alternative’s predecessor – we used to pitch this as a discussion period to make sure that people felt free to not only ask questions but make comments. In an indication that Socialist Alternative knows it’s on shaky political ground, in this case, the chair did her level best to not call on anybody she thought was going to raise anything controversial. To no avail, though. After she announced the end of the “question” period, somebody from the Spartacist League stood up and objected to what he correctly called the “political censorship” and insisted on having a comrade of his speak. After some resistance from the chair, the Spartacist did get to speak. He commented on Sawant’s having “supported” the newly appointed chief of police in Seattle. (As is typical of the Spartacists, they either didn’t know the full facts or are incapable of seeing the subtleties, or both, as we will see in the reply.)

After he finished, this writer also stood up and said he wanted to speak and the chair felt unable to refuse me. I explained how I had donated to her first campaign and had been very enthusiastic about it. I referred to her having commented on being “bold and defying the pundits” in Seattle and said that that was what 15 Now Tacoma was doing – that they were the only ones who were fighting for a $15/hour minimum wage now, not in 5 or 7 years from now. You have corporatized union leaders like Adam Glickman who are refusing to support the initiative there because, as he said, he “prefers to work with the business community.” Isn’t it time to break with these corporate union leaders and support 15 Now Tacoma? was the question. Then, on the national level, the reference was made to Hedges’ very moving attack on the “war machine”. Given that Sanders supports Israel, supports drone warfare, and has never attacked the military budget, shouldn’t she be attacking Sanders as one of the representatives of that war machine?

These remarks got scattered applause throughout the audience.

Final Remarks

The final remarks was where it really got interesting.

Hedges went first. He started by apologizing for Sawant. She “is in a delicate situation because she’s running for office, but I’m not running for office,” he said. In other words, he was admitting that Sawant was making political compromises because she’s trying to get votes. He then continued to once again attack the “war machine”. “We can talk about income inequality all we want,” he said. None of the reforms on these issues will happen “until we break the back of the war machine… Sanders doesn’t confront the war machine….”

Funneling Into the Democratic Party

One comment, among others really stood out and all supporters of Sanders, especially those who claim to stand for the need for a real alternative to the Democrats, should bear it in mind: “Bernie will go out and funnel all that energy and passion back into a dead political system, not attacking the Democratic Party.” That is exactly the point, and all the calls in the world on him to break with the Democrats are like calls for god to come down from heaven and rescue us. It will not happen because it cannot happen; Sanders cannot lead a break from the Democrats. Period.

Disingenuous

Sawant spoke last and to call much of what she said disingenuous is being charitable.

She denied having supported the new police chief, which is technically correct since she voted against her, but at the same time she was very friendly towards her in her speech. Sawant pointed out that she’d voted against the new youth jail in Seattle, but she forgot to mention the support she gave to the liberal Democrat Larry Gossett, who supported that jail. Other comments on the police were quite incredible, coming from a socialist: Instead of attacking the racism and brutality of the police in no uncertain terms, she went on to talk about crime in the black community. Her comments were almost close to those right wingers who excuse the police by talking about “black-on-black crime.” She claimed she and Socialist Alternative had supported Black Lives Matter (BLM) in Seattle. This is flat-out untrue. The local equivalent to BLM was a group called Outside Agitators. In one instance, Socialist Alternative all but prohibited their members from participating in an Outside Agitators march, and they preferred to work with the more conservative elements like the NAACP.

15 Now Tacoma

Sawant completely ignored the question of supporting 15 Now Tacoma and a real battle for 15 Now. (See leaflet below.) In so doing, she in effect admitted that she’s going to continue to align herself with the corporateized union leadership.

Bernie Sanders

Her defense of her and SA’s position on Bernie Sanders was most interesting. She defended herself by pointing out that she’d urged Sanders to run as an independent some months ago in New York. But she ignored the view that he cannot run as an independent, because he’s part and parcel of the Democratic Party. She didn’t deny that; she just didn’t comment on it.

Read more here: http://oaklandsocialist.com/2015/09/20/sawant-and-hedges-speak-in-oakland/