THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW BERNIE SANDERS
Kelley, Kevin J.
THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW Bernie Sanders A socialist runs for Congress BY KEVIN J. KELLEY More than half a century has elapsed since an independent socialist without major-party affiliation has...
...This nation isn't going to change as a result of some backroom deal in a committee of Congress but because ordinary people will stand up and say, "Wait a minute, it's absurd that I don't have decent housing when the richest people are being given $350 billion in tax breaks...
...Sanders: I don't come out of any heavy political background, where my parents, say, were committed socialists...
...Maybe we can do the same sort of thing in Detroit, in California, in New York City...
...What the hell is going on there with the election of an independent socialist to Congress...
...capitalism...
...A disappointing run for governor in 1986, when he received a bit less than 15 per cent of the vote, has not blunted Sanders's determination to take his brand of plain-spoken, pragmatic socialism beyond Burlington...
...It means creating a nation and a world in which all human beings have a decent standard of living.' in that way are revising the doctrine or the practice in some pretty fundamental ways...
...I support totally the concept of bringing together all kinds of activists, but I also disagree with Jesse Jackson about the wisdom of linking that coalition to the Democratic Party...
...I suppose that those people who did see the Soviet Union in that way are having some big problems these days...
...Q: How did you come to your radical politics...
...It's not a perfect society, I grant, but there aren't children there going hungry...
...Basically, though, my main role would be to speak out to the millions of Americans who have utter contempt for the two-party system and for politics as usual...
...By establishing a formidable political base in working-class neighborhoods and among the state university's student body, he has since been re-elected three times by increasingly comfortable margins...
...But I'm not even a little bit tolerant of idiots who criticize me by saying, "Well, Bernie, you've been mayor for sevan years and there's still poverty and inadequate housing in Burlington...
...Q: Do you ever feel any doubts about your commitment to socialism...
...Do you ever wonder whether socialism is unworkable, that people just don't want to live under that kind of economic system...
...Socialism, to me, has to mean individual freedom...
...Even if you're successful, you'll just join 434 individuals who, at best, aren't going to take you seriously and, at worst, will ridicule you as a political lunatic...
...Bernie Sanders: Every human being is going to die, so we all assess what it is we want to do while we're still alive...
...The community surrounding the university, the Hyde Park area, provided a lot of my political education, much more than I ever got at school...
...It's ridiculous that I can't afford basic health care when some huge corporations don't pay any taxes at all...
...Q: Isn't it inevitable, then, that a victory by you in November opens up the immediate possibility of a third party in Vermont and maybe beyond...
...How is it a waste of time when someone like Jesse Jackson can speak to 100 million Americans on prime-time television and tell them things that the media never mention otherwise...
...People in this country don't honestly believe they have control over their government and its policies...
...But take small countries like Norway or Sweden...
...Some people publish magazines, some sell shoes...
...In this interview, conducted in early August, Sanders talked about his personal motivations in running for Congress, his refusal to work within the Democratic Party, and his assessment of the prospects of socialism in the United States...
...they'll vote outside the two-party system if you give them a good reason to do so...
...We've got to strive to improve the dignity and quality of human life rather than seeing people as things to be exploited...
...Why is it pointless for me to get elected mayor of Burlington where I can help set up a sister-city relationship with Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua and with Yaroslavl in the Soviet Union...
...One of the really exciting developments now is the Rainbow Coalition...
...This year, however, Bernie Sanders, the four-term mayor of Burlington, Vermont, is making an effort to attain that extraordinary distinction...
...They're truly representatives of the business community...
...Sanders, a forty-seven-year-old native of Brooklyn, New York, was first elected mayor of Vermont's largest city in 1981...
...The beliefs of someone like Eugene Debs seem to me to be just as valid and relevant today as they ever were...
...The real question is not why do I try to do that, but rather why do so many people remain so docile, so indifferent in the face of possible nuclear annihilation or environmental destruction, which would mean the death of their own children...
...things don't necessarily work out the way we hope they will...
...I was active in the Student Peace Union at the university and in CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality...
...Sanders: I don't have any illusions about what I can achieve as one individual...
...Kevin J. Kelley is a free-lance writer in Burlington, Vermont...
...Sanders: What I've learned here in Burlington is that there's no important difference between the Republican and Democratic parties...
...Q: But apart from the Soviet Union, it seems that in more democratic countries—France, Spain, Italy—socialist parties in power are almost indistinguishable from conservative administrations...
...There's no magic formula for building socialism...
...Why the hell would I want to be in the same party as Lloyd Bentsen or all the others who think it's just fine that we finance the murder of Nicaraguan civilians...
...At the same time, I do think my victory in November would cause people around the country to scratch their heads and say, "We thought Vermont was a conservative, rural state...
...The nomination of Lloyd Bentsen is just another indication of the pathetic political nature of the Democratic Party...
...I grew up in a part of Brooklyn where probably 90 per cent of the people voted Democratic...
...Q: Specifically in the House, though, where the Democrats have been in control for thirty years, how can a single independent socialist possibly have an impact on a system that's so entrenched...
...I do have tolerance for critics who say, "Given the context in which you operate—with a hostile state legislature, court system, and national administration—you've not done enough...
...My feeling is that it ought to be an independent political movement because, frankly, I don't see any real prospect of progressive change coming about through that particular institution...
...And what about Cuba...
...Senate...
...Nationally, no, I don't think my election to Congress will cause millions of Americans to suddenly wake up and say, "Hey, Bernie Sanders won in Vermont, let's start a third party...
...As a member of Congress, I'd join with other progressives there—and a few do exist, Ron Dellums, John Conyers, Ted Weiss—to do whatever can be done within that institution...
...But when I came to Vermont almost twenty years ago, I had no real desire to get involved in politics...
...When I went to the University of Chicago, I began to understand the futility of liberalism...
...What purpose is there to life, if not to try to make the world a better place for ourselves and for those who come after us...
...Sanders: I've never said elections are all there is, that serious people can only be involved in electoral work...
...Congress as presently constituted, they're dead wrong...
...On the other hand, when someone says electoral politics is a total waste of time, that strikes me as a patently absurd statement...
...And since capitalism essentially assumes that all human motivations are based on competition and greed, does that promote real freedom...
...More and more countries that describe themselves 'To me, socialism doesn't mean state ownership of everything...
...It's been more successful than almost any other developing country in providing health care for its people...
...Q: Why do you want to go through all the trouble of running for Congress...
...Maybe in the end socialism won't work exactly as I envision, but I'm still proud to call myself a socialist...
...So are they genuinely free...
...In fact, the most bitter opposition we've encountered has come from Democrats who pretend to be something they're not...
...Socialism doesn't seem to be working in those countries either...
...Why the hell would I want to be in the same party as Lloyd Bentsen or all the others who think it's just fine that we finance the murder of Nicaraguan civilians?' Q: So do you see yourself helping to build si third party...
...The truth is, of course, that if anyone thinks fundamental change will be brought about by the U.S...
...Give them credit for creating decent health-care systems, decent housing for their citizens, good educational opportunities, media that are of an appreciably higher quality than our own...
...But I do believe I can still make a difference because I'm not part of that system...
...That kind of criticism I can understand and address...
...How much emphasis should be placed now on electoral strategies...
...Because of corporate control of the media and of the entire country, they don't begin to understand how governmental policies affect their lives...
...History has often rewarded those who stood up for the right things with abuse, ridicule, even jailing or death...
...For several years now, I've been trying to do what I can to make life a bit more bearable for my fellow human beings...
...What we have proven in Burlington—and I hope will prove statewide in November—is that people aren't stupid...
...Sanders: Sure, if I get elected to the House and if we retain progressive control over Burlington City Hall, then there's definitely an opening for a statewide third party...
...Q: Obviously, you're not the kind of leftist who considers electoral politics unworkable and a waste of time...
...In terms of my being attacked by opponents, so what else is new...
...It was a real hotbed of socialism and communism in the 1930s and 1940s, and that tradition was still alive when I was there...
...What has to happen is that we must involve the 50 per cent of Americans who don't even bother to vote at present...
...THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW Bernie Sanders A socialist runs for Congress BY KEVIN J. KELLEY More than half a century has elapsed since an independent socialist without major-party affiliation has won election to the U.S...
...But what does freedom mean within the context of U.S...
...To me, socialism doesn't mean state ownership of everything, by any means...
...It happened quite by accident...
...Still, there's no doubt in my mind that the value system in this country needs to change in a fundamental way...
...Since I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat, I'll have the freedom to speak out honestly on all the issues that affect poor people, working people, minorities...
...Clearly, though, I wouldn't have gotten elected mayor without the name recognition and the level of political consciousness that Liberty Union helped bring about...
...Fewer and fewer people believe the Democratic Party is capable of contributing to meaningful social change...
...House of Representatives...
...Starvation and economic misery don't have to exist anywhere today...
...It may get even better...
...Sanders: I'm not a communist, so no one has ever heard me defend the Soviet Union, for example, as any kind of model for other countries...
...Jackson says the Democratic Party is too important to leave to traditional, conservative Democrats...
...And the Cuban revolution is only thirty years old...
...I went along to a meeting of the Liberty Union Party, which was a small third-party formation here, and I walked out of it as the Liberty Union candidate for the U.S...
...It means creating a nation and a world in which all human beings have a decent standard of living...
...Sanders: Fair enough...
...So I worked with Liberty Union for about six years and ran on their ticket for statewide office four times—twice for the Senate and twice for governor...
...Of course, there are real limits on what can be achieved through the electoral system...
...Can't the Democratic Party in effect be transformed into a progressive third party...
...The reason millions of people are starving to death in the world now is not, in my view, the result of drought or agricultural failures...
...That may not fit some definitions of socialism, but it's a significant improvement over what exists in the United States, isn't it...
...You must be a sell-out or a phony...
...It's because of economic and political decisions made by powerful and unaccountable forces...
...Sure, I'll be criticized and maybe derided by others in Congress, but so what...
...Clearly, for change to occur in this country we need unified mass movements that work inside and outside the electoral system...
...I dropped out in 1976, not so much because of political disagreements but because Liberty Union wasn't expanding its small base of the early 1970s...
Vol. 52 • November 1988 • No. 11
