Sanders on Ukraine and Globalism

 

There must be no ambiguity in acknowledging that what the whole world is seeing from Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is nothing less than a blatant violation of international law and human decency.

This war, in which a large powerful nation invades a smaller neighbor, has already killed thousands of innocent people, including many children. A large number of cities throughout the country are being leveled by long-range Russian missiles while others are under siege as people are running low on food, water and much-needed medical supplies. In the first week of the war alone, more than a million refugees crossed borders into neighboring countries. Some estimates now put the number of refugees at more than 3 million while many more have been displaced from their homes within Ukraine. 

This has been a humanitarian disaster for the people of Ukraine, but it is much more than that. The Russian invasion threatens global energy and food supplies, is contributing to greater economic instability and the rising prices we see everywhere. And oh, by the way, this is all happening at a time when the world is already struggling with a global pandemic that has killed millions and the devastating impacts of climate change which threaten the very existence of the planet.

That is the bad news. And it cannot be sugar-coated. It is very bad.

But, in the midst of all this horror, there is some reason for optimism.

All across the world, people are waking up to the fact that there is a global struggle taking place between autocracy and democracy, between oligarchy and an economy that works for all, between authoritarianism and the right of people to freely express their views. There is also the beginnings of a new progressive global order that recognizes every person on this planet shares a common humanity and that all of us, no matter where we live or the language we speak, want our children to grow up healthy, have a good education, and live in peace.

We not only see this vision from people in the allied countries who are defending Ukraine and are speaking out against Putin's war, but from people within Russia as well. 

It is extraordinary that in the autocracy that is Russia today, many thousands of incredibly courageous people have been out on the streets demanding an end to the war and speaking out against Vladimir Putin, knowing that it’s illegal to do so and that they will likely be arrested and punished. Putin recently referred to them as "traitors," a frightening term coming from a dictator. 

Here in America, rising gas prices are waking people up to something we have long known, and that is that moving quickly to renewable energy is not just an environmental issue. It is a matter of national security.

Yes. Our reliance on fossil fuels will continue to mean more drought, more crop failures, scarcer drinking water, rising seas, extreme weather events, climate refugees, and more disease. In fact, climate change threatens the very wellbeing of the entire planet. But equally important, we must break our dependence on fossil fuel not only to save the planet, but to end the hold that billionaire dictators like Putin and the autocrats in the Middle East have over the entire global economy. This is a profound national security issue. 

Sisters and brothers, we have long said that we are in the midst of a global struggle with nothing less than the future of the planet at stake.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made that more clear than ever. 

It is a global struggle between those who believe in democracy and the rule of law versus those who believe government exists to rob the people they purport to serve in order to make the billionaire rulers even richer. 

It is a struggle between those who believe information should be open and accessible to all versus those who believe the flow of information should be controlled by the government and a small number of oligarchs.

It is a struggle between those who believe we should choose peace and international cooperation versus those who support xenophobia and massive amounts of military spending. 

It is a struggle between a progressive movement that mobilizes behind a shared vision of prosperity, security and dignity for all people, against one that defends massive global income and wealth inequality. 

And, in the midst of these difficult times, our job going forward is to build upon this global awakening and do everything we can to oppose all of the forces, whether unaccountable government power or unaccountable corporate power, who try to divide us up and set us against each other in order to advance their own power and financial gain.

We know that those forces have long worked together across borders.

We must do the same.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

The End of Globalism ?

The End of Globalism: The world economic and financial system will never be the same.ts

Biggest Oil Giants profits,

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/15/biggest-oil-giants-made-eye-popping-205-billion-profits-2021-report

WILL UKRAINE WRITE THE ALT-RIGHT’S EPITAPH?

Most of the leaders of the alt-right are scrambling to distance themselves from Vladimir Putin. It might be too late.

By John Feffer | March 16, 2022

 

https://fpif.org/will-ukraine-write-the-alt-rights-epitaph/

Poor People's Campaign Planning

Announcement

PPC co-chairs to join the Western Region Convening Sunday Mar. 13, 3pm | RSVP This Sunday, California PPC is hosting an online Western Region Convening to officially launch our mobilization campaign: the Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington D.C. and to the Polls. We’re excited to announce that Rev. Barber and Rev. Theoharis will be speaking, along with national PPC policy director Shailly Gupta Barnes, local testifiers and advocates and leaders from throughout the western states. In addition to hearing the speakers, we’ll sing, chant and make art together. Please join us to learn more and get inspired to carry out the work ahead.

Upcoming meetings

Jubilee Policy Platform study group Today! Mar. 10, 12pm | RSVP Hosted by the California Policy and Political Education Working Group, this monthly meeting focuses on the Jubilee Platform: a document that the campaign uses to put forward a policy agenda that addresses the interlocking injustices. The study group gathers to discuss what the document means to our work at the state and local level.This month we’ll be discussing PART V. PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE: REPRIORITIZING OUR RESOURCES; 1. End the culture of war. The meeting will be closed captioned.   Speaker training working group: Beyond Vietnam Tuesdays, 3:30pm RSVP Come join us each week to practice or even just hear Dr. King’s words spoken. The Speaker Training Working Group is offering practice sessions for those who are participating or thinking of participating as readers for the April 4 Beyond Vietnam events. Come join us at 3:30pm any Tuesday in March.

 

How Blackrock-Vanguard dominate the World.

How Blackrock and Vanguard dominate the economies.

https://portside.org/2022-03-08/how-blackrock-vanguard-and-ubs-are-screwing-world

 

Moral policy = Good economics: Lifting up poor and working-class people—and our whole economy

Moral policy = Good economics: Lifting up poor and working-class people—and our whole economy: This article is a collaboration between the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival—a moral movement rooted in the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that is organizing around the needs and demands of the 140 million in 45 states—and the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)—an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that uses economic research and analysis to understand and improve the economic conditions of workers and their families. In this article, we evaluate the public policies that shaped the preexisting conditions of the pandemic, policies that were by no means accidental or morally neutral, and lay out the policies that we need to counter and reverse the status quo, including the heightened suffering from the pandemic.

Statement on Ukraine

 Statement of DSA North Star Steering Committee on Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an unprovoked act of aggression, the deed of an authoritarian regime and revanchist imperial power seeking to subjugate by force a weaker neighbor. It is the waging of war that can only result in needless death and devastation on a massive scale.

 

The justifications offered by the Russian despot Vladimir Putin for this flagrant violation of international law – such as the offensive claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a Jew whose grandfather was wounded twice while fighting in the Red Army against the Nazis and whose three great uncles were murdered in the Shoah, is a “neo-Nazi” – are nothing more than fantastical propaganda.

 

In this moment of their trial, we stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine . We join with them in saying: this attack on the independent and sovereign nation of Ukraine must end, and Russian armed forces must immediately withdraw from all Ukrainian territory. Our internationalist duty as democratic socialists and anti-imperialists requires that we make this call our first and primary demand. If Russian peace and democracy activists can risk their freedom and safety by protesting the invasion on the streets of St. Petersburg, Moscow and other Russian cities, there is no excuse for those us in relative safety from doing our best to ensure that this war of aggression does not prevail.

 

Diplomatic negotiations and meaningful progress toward a lasting peace cannot take place at the point of a gun, so powerful pressure must be brought to bear against the Russian regime to end its invasion. To this end, we support the levying of stringent diplomatic and economic sanctions that target the Russian state and the Russian oligarchic elite who are responsible for this war of aggression. We endorse the statements of the four DSA members of the House of Representatives and of Senator Bernie Sanders in favor of such sanctions, as well as their calls for the U.S. and NATO to accept refugees from the fighting in Ukraine. We would oppose military intervention by the U.S. or other NATO nations inside Ukraine, were such a step to be seriously contemplated, as a dangerous escalation which could lead to world war. 

 

It is precisely because we oppose outside military intervention that we have an obligation to advocate for other means to compel a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, and sanctions are the only other means that could conceivably produce such a result. In our view, to oppose sanctions is to surrender to the Russian invasion, a betrayal of the Ukrainian people and working class.

 

In this moment of international crisis, we are moved by the courageous Ukrainians defending their homeland against much stronger Russian armed forces and by the courageous Russians demonstrating against the war of aggression undertaken by the dictatorial regime which rules their nation. Their example motivates us to act on their behalf.

Some Things Must Change. “The fundamental question at the bottom of all politics”

Some Things Must Change.

“The fundamental question at the bottom of all politics”: a conversation with David Sirota

By Anand Giridharadas Feb.21.2022.

Anand Giridharadas is the author of Winners Take All: the Elite Charade of Changing the World. 2018,

Today I have for you a thought-provoking interview with David Sirota. David is a man of diverse talents and projects. He has been a muckraking journalist, a speechwriter for Senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive pugilist on TV and Twitter, a very successful dabbler in film (as with “Don’t Look Up,” the recent blockbuster he co-wrote with Adam McKay), and the creator of a newsletter called The Daily Poster, which quickly established itself in official Washington as a fount of scoops at the nexus of money and power, illustrating the nitty-gritty reasons why so many political dreams die.

David had a lot to say about this political moment of crisis and stasis, and some practical advice for President Biden. But before we get to that, I want to make sure you’re covered on all fronts. 

ANAND: In Washington, your newsletter, The Daily Poster, has become a real fixture. And something perhaps unexpected that happened, given the very different politics that you have as a progressive and Joe Biden has had historically, is that a lot of the case you’re making isn’t against Joe Biden’s agenda. It’s in favor of that agenda, but pushing back against the dilution of that agenda and the lack of will to fight to rescue that agenda.

DAVID: I think that there’s a difference between the stated goals of the Biden administration and what they’re willing to fight for. It reminds me of the old saying from Paul Wellstone: “If we don’t fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don’t really stand for them.”

I certainly think what the Biden administration has put forward rhetorically is — I wouldn’t call it idealism, I wouldn’t call it unrealistic, but it is certainly a relatively robust set of proposals.

The problem is, in my view, it hasn’t been really willing to muster much of a fight at all for those priorities. The White House has an enormous amount of power that it doesn’t appear to be using at all, except maybe to try to pressure the progressive caucus, for instance, to fall in line and vote for whatever piece of paper they can wave around as a “deal.”

I do think Joe Biden fetishizes the idea of getting a deal, no matter what is in the deal. The danger of that is that, whereas people in Washington fetishize deals, the average American is much more interested in what is actually in the deal, whether the actual details of the deal do something to improve their lives.

The role I try to play is following the corruption, the trail of money that tends to explain the gap between rhetoric and the reality. It explains the gap between telling the public you want something and then not actually fighting to do those things, because fighting to actually do those things would require you to have a confrontation with the donor class and with donor-sponsored members of your own party.

And this is where the Biden administration is mirroring the Obama administration: the absolute aversion to having any kind of conflict between the president and the conservative, corporate side of the Democratic Party. Just an absolute refusal to have that fight, which I would argue is absolutely the most necessary thing to have an appetite to do in order to actually get things passed.

Look, I don’t want to idealize FDR too much, but FDR had that battle with the right wing of his party. He ran primaries against members of his own party who weren’t supporting the New Deal. LBJ had those battles with the right wing of his party regarding the passage of Medicare.

History bears out that if you’re not willing to have a battle with the right wing of your party as a Democrat, then you’re not necessarily going to secure transformative legislation. You can go out and say you’re for transformative legislation, but you’re not really going to end up actually delivering because, as the old adage goes, power concedes nothing without a demand.

ANAND: If you are a geriatric millennial like me, you have never actually seen a president do the thing you’re describing. So I understand those FDR and LBJ references, but can you describe what the kind of fight you would want to see from Joe Biden would look like? Given the stalling of his agenda, what might a revival of it look like?

DAVID: Before I get into what Biden could do — not to idealize this, I’m not saying this exactly is what you want to do — but Donald Trump showed what having a battle with his party could be as a president. I mean, he constantly went after members of the Republican Party when he perceived them as getting out of line. Now, I don’t agree with his tactics. I obviously don’t agree with his ideology and the policies he was pushing, but that’s a very recent example of a Republican president willing to essentially go to war with members of his own party. Sometimes it was successful for him; other times it wasn’t.

So what does it look like for Joe Biden? Let’s take the Build Back Better Act. You can go to various states and various districts where you have recalcitrant corporate Democrats threatening to take down the bill. You can go, and you can campaign there for that agenda, and, either in an explicit way or at least a muted way, say that you expect and you demand the votes of those members of Congress whose districts or states that you’re in. And you can ask the public, the Democrats who turn out at your rallies, to contact their House members and Senators and tell them that they need their Democratic legislators’ support of that agenda. You can activate your social media network, your email list and the like, to do the same.