Thank you Bernie
Thank you to all people - near & far / past, present & future - struggling from the local to global levels for ‘a different global human order that is necessary and possible’
What a great salute. Folks in Burlington, Vermont, driving by the home of Bernie and Jane Sanders, honking, hooting and hollering their thanks, even in these times of Covid19.
Thank-you Bernie indeed. Actually, thank-you Jane Sanders and Bernie’s entire family, and the entire Sanders team over the past four years (and more) that got this far and this close to the presidency of the United States, the richest and most powerful, most exploitative and violently interventionist country on the planet.
It is no small thing to challenge the status quo and power holders of any community of humans, in any country, in any time, let alone in the richest and most powerful country.
This is saying a lot. There are other rich, powerful, violent countries - but the U.S. is at the top of the list, in this era.
The greatest legacy of Bernie’s run, I hope and believe, is the empowerment of present and future generations.
Bernie’s run has shown just how many US citizens openly and passionately share all or most of the policies and plans of the Sanders campaign, and are ready to work as hard as they can – in a heavily weighted and still corrupted electoral system – to try and elect, for the first time in US history, a president and government that would take power not just to tinker with and shift a few policies of the previous administrations, but a government truly dedicated to changing course in a wide range of important facets of life. A government that would – over the course of its time in office – plan and begin to implement fundamental and lasting changes.
Despite the weighted and still corrupted electoral system, despite the predictable role of most of the establishment media in not giving Sanders’ polices and plans remotely even-handed coverage, look how close the Sanders campaign got to ousting the establishment’s Democratic candidate.
For me, this is a tribute to and proof of how many US citizens – past and present – are yearning, working and fighting, on an on-going basis, for real change, from the local to state and federal to global levels.
Thus, as I thank Bernie, his family and team – which I full-heartedly do – the folks I really want to salute and thank are people - past, present and future - inside the US, and even more so, beyond the US borders, that suffer daily, yearly and inter-generationally injustices and inequalities caused significantly by US policies and actions (inside and beyond its borders), ‘justified’ mostly, in one way or another, by much of the US media and ‘intelligentsia’.
These injustices and inequalities are related fundamentally to endemic, systemic wealth and poverty fault lines inside the US and, more so, beyond its borders; related to racism and discrimination inside and beyond US borders, that compound and worsen the wealth and poverty fault lines; and related to the as-yet-never-ending deadly and destructive US ‘regime change’ invasions and interventions across the planet, and the resultant maintaining or worsening of the timeworn wealth and poverty fault lines.
In times of Covid19, these fault lines of wealth and poverty, and of racism are even more on display for anyone concerned to look honestly at how Covid19 is playing itself out across the planet.
Adding my own honking, hooting and hollering thanks to Bernie, his family and team, I thank all people, near and far, past, present and future, who work and struggle daily, yearly and generationally – from the most micro-local level to the macro-global levels - for a different global human order that is necessary and possible.
(Grahame Russell has worked with Rights Action since 1995. grahame@rightsaction.org)
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