{"id":2625,"date":"2016-06-26T17:32:10","date_gmt":"2016-06-26T21:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/?p=2625"},"modified":"2016-06-28T09:12:34","modified_gmt":"2016-06-28T13:12:34","slug":"wings-over-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/?p=2625","title":{"rendered":"Wings over Philadelphia!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe art of war is to gain time when your strength is inferior.\u201d
\n\u2014 Napoleon<\/em><\/h4>\n

\"01bluebird\" Our strength is inferior?\u00a0 I already hear the cries of \u201cBlasphemy!\u201d\u00a0 But if blasphemy it be, so be it.<\/p>\n

To put it most simply, we in the Sanders movement are up against a Democratic Party Establishment backed by Wall Street, funded by corporate America, entrenched in the corridors of power. \u00a0Their bullshit is blasted out night and day from every nook and cranny.<\/p>\n

Are we therefore powerless?\u00a0 Far from it.\u00a0 We have had an astonishingly effective grassroots campaign organization.\u00a0 But a campaign organization is a very fragile and unwieldy beast.\u00a0 It is designed to (obviously) run electoral campaigns.\u00a0 It is not designed for doing much else.<\/p>\n

The key to our campaign\u2019s effectiveness is that we have been riding the crest of an angry mass movement that would challenge that Establishment\u2019s very existence through a Political Revolution.\u00a0 But movements \u2014 in the absence of effective organization \u2014 are very fragile entities (see \u201cMass consciousness and its discontents<\/a>\u201d), rising and falling with every turn of events, surging forward upon victory, shriveling upon defeat.\u00a0 Like Woody Guthrie wrote in \u201cPastures of Plenty\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the edge of the city you’ll see us and then,
\nWe come with the dust and we go with the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the organizational front, we are badly outgunned.\u00a0 It is not enough that our strength is as the strength of 10 because our hearts are pure.\u00a0 What holds the DNC Establishment together during the low tides is its exceedingly deep infrastructure.\u00a0 Their trenches are manned by hundreds and thousands of Democratic Party elected officials, both elected and appointed, from the White House down to the farthest precincts.\u00a0 It is unions, it is identity organizations, environmental and community organizations.\u00a0 It is an infrastructure that they own and control.<\/p>\n

\"02gone

Starring Robert Redford as Bernie Sanders.<\/p><\/div>\n

We reach out to these organizations and their entrenched leadership cuts us off at the pass (e.g., SEIU, CBC).\u00a0 Our coffers are drained from the campaign.\u00a0 We simply lack that organizational depth.\u00a0 This is neither surprising nor blameworthy.\u00a0 It just is.\u00a0 We have come very far and very fast in one year.\u00a0 They have had over a century.\u00a0 We have had to piggy-back on relatively friendly elements of the Establishment structure out of necessity.\u00a0 As a result, some of our support has been soft, preferring Sanders himself, but not on principle opposed to neoliberalism at home nor neocon adventurism abroad.\u00a0 Political Revolution means different things to different people.<\/p>\n

Those who contend that we are on the cusp of victory due simply to the sheer number of registered independent voters and progressive Democrats are oblivious to that reality.<\/p>\n

Wings over Philadelphia.<\/h4>\n

Still, the big equalizer has been our movement, still alive and well.\u00a0 Whether it remains so is the key question.\u00a0 Our movement from the beginning has had two wings, as it were:<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sanders Democrats; and
\n(2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sanders Independents.<\/p>\n

As the June 6 Atlantic<\/a> explains of the Democratic presidential primaries:<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross the 27 exit polls, voters who identify as Democrats have cast exactly three-fourths of the ballots in the primaries, according to new figures provided by CNN Polling Director Jennifer Agiesta. \u00a0Those Democratic voters have preferred Clinton over Sanders by a cumulative margin of 64 percent to 35 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndependents and Republicans have comprised 22 percent of the total primary electorate. \u00a0Among those voters from outside of the Democratic Party, the results are almost exactly reversed: \u00a0they have backed Sanders by an equally emphatic 64 percent to 34 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Note that the Democrats had only 22 states with open primaries, in which independents could even vote at all.]<\/p>\n

We now have two windows of opportunity to begin narrowing the infrastructure gap:<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 between now and the Philly convention; and
\n(2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 between the convention and the November election.<\/p>\n

Remember that we don\u2019t have to completely close that gap.\u00a0 Rather we need to reach a self-sustaining organizational critical mass that can continue the struggle beyond November.<\/p>\n

\"03gears\"tick, tick tick \u2026<\/h4>\n

In the immediate window, we need to consolidate the momentum of the campaign organization and retool it into a more stable formation that can last beyond this electoral season.\u00a0 Doing so lays the foundation for the stretch between the end of July and November.\u00a0 My fear is that the first window is being frittered away.\u00a0 This takes various forms:<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We don\u2019t know that Sanders won\u2019t be the nominee.<\/strong>\u00a0 Sorry, he won\u2019t.\u00a0 He knows that and is indicating that.\u00a0 So Bernie has stated, and Jeff Weaver has said, \u201cI am no longer trying to flip superdelegates.\u201d\u00a0 That is NOT the same as saying the fight is over by any means.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Maybe the superdelegates will flip themselves?<\/strong>\u00a0 Maybe the massive fraud and disenfranchisement will be overturned by the courts?\u00a0 You know, the corporate-owned legal system that has already colluded in the massive fraud.\u00a0 No, they won\u2019t send themselves to prison.<\/p>\n

(2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe Sanders will run as an independent?<\/strong>\u00a0 Not a chance.\u00a0 He has given not the slightest indication of doing so.\u00a0 Furthermore, 26 ballot access deadlines will have passed by August\u00a02, and the remaining 24 states require 319,461 signatures.\u00a0 Such an operation is merely talk, and is not being operationalized.<\/p>\n

(3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Form a new party?<\/strong>\u00a0 There is a lot of talk along such lines, but nothing on a scale that would bear fruit in time for the November election.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t make the floor at the June 17 \u2013 19 People\u2019s Summit in Chicago, which represented the Democratic Party wing of the Sanders campaign.\u00a0 An independent run is anathema to the leadership of that crowd.<\/p>\n

(4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sanders run as the Green nominee?<\/strong>\u00a0 Per the Green Party itself:\u00a0 No.\u00a0 \u201cThe Green Party has its own nomination process.\u00a0 Bernie has not participated in that process and has not responded to communications from the Green Party inviting him to consider running as a Green. He has repeatedly pledged to support the Democratic nominee \u2026 The Green Party will support its own Green nominees for president and vice president. The Green Party of the United States doesn’t support other parties’ candidates or independents.\u201d<\/p>\n

(5)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe Sanders will pull a rabbit out of his sleeve?<\/strong>\u00a0 Stands as good a chance of options one to four.<\/p>\n

Clinging to these illusions has already cost us too much valuable time.\u00a0 Better off hoping to draw to an inside straight.\u00a0 A favorite slogan of the campaign has been \u201cIt\u2019s Not Me.\u00a0 Us!\u201d (or \u201cWe\u201d)\u00a0 Sanders himself has staunchly fought to keep the focus on the issues, and the centrality of building the movement, not his own glory.\u00a0 Yet there has developed a cult of personality.\u00a0 Understandable, certainly.\u00a0 But it leads to further paralysis.\u00a0 Sanders has made it clear that he cannot lead us to the Promised Land.\u00a0 And even if he could, it would be anathema to his entire philosophy.\u00a0 It\u2019s us.\u00a0 He really means it.\u00a0 He is right.\u00a0 A cult of personality is an unstable foundation for a Political Revolution.<\/p>\n

Sanders looks into the abyss \u2026<\/h4>\n

\"04abyss\"Look at his own words from his June 16 livestream address.\u00a0 First, well-deserved praise for our many accomplishments.\u00a0 Then a restatement of our values.\u00a0 But regarding moving forward:<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe major political task that we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly.\u00a0 And I personally intend to begin my role in that process in a very short period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

(2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWe need to start engaging at the local and state level in an unprecedented way.\u00a0 Hundreds of thousands of volunteers helped us make political history during the last year.\u00a0 \u2026\u00a0 Now we need many of them to start running for school boards, city councils, county commissions, state legislatures and governorships.\u201d<\/p>\n

(3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI recently had the opportunity to meet with Secretary Clinton and discuss some of the very important issues facing our country and the Democratic Party.\u00a0 It is no secret that Secretary Clinton and I have strong disagreements on some very important issues.\u00a0 It is also true that our views are quite close on others.\u00a0 I look forward, in the coming weeks, to continued discussions between the two campaigns to make certain that your voices are heard and that the Democratic Party passes the most progressive platform in its history and that Democrats actually fight for that agenda.\u00a0 I also look forward to working with Secretary Clinton to transform the Democratic Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspiring — as far as it goes.\u00a0 But we should consider what is NOT said.<\/p>\n

It was not determined what the focus of all this multi-level involvement is to be.\u00a0 Throwing everything into the hopper is no answer.\u00a0 To date, the campaign has been sharing funds, per Sanders\u2019 regular appeals, with candidates who have actually endorsed him.\u00a0 Hopefully our support will never come cheap.\u00a0 Support Sanders Democrats, do not disperse our resources to the politicians who have not supported us.<\/p>\n