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How The People's Movements Fueled the Sanders Candidacy--TRNN
Interesting Interview with a Long Time Activist, Professor Frances Fox PivenProf. Frances Fox Piven says movements bring up issues that politicians left to themselves would ignore - and it's the movements like Fight for 15 and Black Lives Matter that make Bernie Sanders a credible candidate - February 26, 2016
Partial Transcript Follows the You Tube:
Full Transcript, Here:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15747
On Thursday night, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was put in the hot seat by Chris Matthews of MSNBC. They discussed foreign policy, the Black Lives Matter movement, and income inequality. Let's take a look.
BERNIE SANDERS: You and I look at the world differently. You look at it inside the beltway. I'm not an inside the beltway guy. I am an outside the beltway guy.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: But the people who vote on taxes are inside the beltway.SANDERS: And those people are going to vote the right way when millions of people demand that they vote the right way. On this issue I have no doubt that as president of the United States I can rally young people and their parents to say that if Germany does it, Scandinavia does it, countries around the world do it, we can do it. And yes, we bailed out Wall Street. It is Wall Street's time to help the middle class.
DESVARIEUX: Now joining us to give us her take on last night's discussion is Frances Fox Piven. She's a distinguished professor of political science in sociology at the graduate center of City University of New York, and the author of many books, including Poor Peoples' Movements, and Why Americans Don't Vote, and Why Politicians Like It That Way.
Thank you so much for joining us, Frances.
So Frances, in the clip we just saw Chris Matthews was questioning Bernie Sanders on whether or not his goals are realistic, we often hear that term, asking him to name senators who would vote in favor of his policies. Do you think of Sanders is elected his hands will be tied to make real reforms once he's in the White House?
PIVEN: Well, yes. People will try, insiders in the Beltway, certainly the Congress of the United States, will try to block his initiatives, because he is, as he says he is, he's challenging the tycoons of the American political economy.But what Sanders is saying in response to Chris Matthews is that people are going to rise in protest at the effort to make gridlock the tune of the day. And that because people will be rising, they'll be marching, they'll be striking, they'll be clamoring, that the opposition in the Beltway will have to give way. And that may be true.
DESVARIEUX: Okay. If people are going to rise up, the question always is why haven't se seen them do it already? I mean, there are protests, but usually they're in the hundreds, thousands, maybe. But we're not really seeing hundreds of thousands of people out there in the streets. What would you suggest? You've worked with a lot of movements, and grassroots organizations. How do people take that energy, who might become politically conscious during this election cycle, and really transform that into a movement?
PIVEN: Well, I think there are movements that are unfolding right now in the United States and elsewhere in the world. You know, neoliberal capitalist economics is not good for people. It breaks the promises that they've come to expect. And so people are rising up in protest. We're in a protest era, actually. Again with Wisconsin, remember all of the students and workers occupying the state capital. It spread to Occupy. Occupy took place in hundreds of cities across the United States, and it had tremendous impact on the way Americans discuss politics. And then there was Black Lives Matter which, again, has sprung up in city after city, and the Fight for $15. The Fight for $15 is a movement, and it's unfolding among workers in retail and fast food establishments everywhere.So I don't know what you think a movement is, but it's not like an army. It isn't all coalesced. People are not marching in battalions. It springs up here and there, and people rally for it.
DESVARIEUX: How do you get more people, though, in the mix, though? I mean, the numbers are significant, but they could be more. I mean, if you compare it to the '60s and those kind of eras of protests, how do you reach that tipping point where it's really a mass, mass movement?
PIVEN: The movements are going to enlarge. And partly they will enlarge because they get a kind of encouragement from the election campaign itself, and particularly Sanders' contribution to the election campaign. I don't think that if it had been Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley that we would have the same kind of intensity about the election, and that spreads to the movements. The movements here are a kind of echo of their own grievances in the voices of national politicians. I mean, notice how Sanders has pushed Hillary to the left. She may not stay there if she actually wins the nomination. But she has so far been pushed to the left.
So I think movements energize electoral politics. They bring up issues that politicians left to themselves would ignore. And it's the movements, in a way, that make Bernie Sanders a credible candidate. Sanders didn't do it by himself, as the Congressman and then the senator from Vermont. He's been around for a very long time. And now certainly he's blossoming, he's become a kind of national hero. And that's partly due to the way the movements are at his back. They're pushing him and they're also energizing him, and they're creating a kind of audience for the issues he is raising.
Partial Transcript Follows the You Tube:
Full Transcript, Here:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15747
On Thursday night, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was put in the hot seat by Chris Matthews of MSNBC. They discussed foreign policy, the Black Lives Matter movement, and income inequality. Let's take a look.
BERNIE SANDERS: You and I look at the world differently. You look at it inside the beltway. I'm not an inside the beltway guy. I am an outside the beltway guy.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: But the people who vote on taxes are inside the beltway.SANDERS: And those people are going to vote the right way when millions of people demand that they vote the right way. On this issue I have no doubt that as president of the United States I can rally young people and their parents to say that if Germany does it, Scandinavia does it, countries around the world do it, we can do it. And yes, we bailed out Wall Street. It is Wall Street's time to help the middle class.
DESVARIEUX: Now joining us to give us her take on last night's discussion is Frances Fox Piven. She's a distinguished professor of political science in sociology at the graduate center of City University of New York, and the author of many books, including Poor Peoples' Movements, and Why Americans Don't Vote, and Why Politicians Like It That Way.
Thank you so much for joining us, Frances.
So Frances, in the clip we just saw Chris Matthews was questioning Bernie Sanders on whether or not his goals are realistic, we often hear that term, asking him to name senators who would vote in favor of his policies. Do you think of Sanders is elected his hands will be tied to make real reforms once he's in the White House?
PIVEN: Well, yes. People will try, insiders in the Beltway, certainly the Congress of the United States, will try to block his initiatives, because he is, as he says he is, he's challenging the tycoons of the American political economy.But what Sanders is saying in response to Chris Matthews is that people are going to rise in protest at the effort to make gridlock the tune of the day. And that because people will be rising, they'll be marching, they'll be striking, they'll be clamoring, that the opposition in the Beltway will have to give way. And that may be true.
DESVARIEUX: Okay. If people are going to rise up, the question always is why haven't se seen them do it already? I mean, there are protests, but usually they're in the hundreds, thousands, maybe. But we're not really seeing hundreds of thousands of people out there in the streets. What would you suggest? You've worked with a lot of movements, and grassroots organizations. How do people take that energy, who might become politically conscious during this election cycle, and really transform that into a movement?
PIVEN: Well, I think there are movements that are unfolding right now in the United States and elsewhere in the world. You know, neoliberal capitalist economics is not good for people. It breaks the promises that they've come to expect. And so people are rising up in protest. We're in a protest era, actually. Again with Wisconsin, remember all of the students and workers occupying the state capital. It spread to Occupy. Occupy took place in hundreds of cities across the United States, and it had tremendous impact on the way Americans discuss politics. And then there was Black Lives Matter which, again, has sprung up in city after city, and the Fight for $15. The Fight for $15 is a movement, and it's unfolding among workers in retail and fast food establishments everywhere.So I don't know what you think a movement is, but it's not like an army. It isn't all coalesced. People are not marching in battalions. It springs up here and there, and people rally for it.
DESVARIEUX: How do you get more people, though, in the mix, though? I mean, the numbers are significant, but they could be more. I mean, if you compare it to the '60s and those kind of eras of protests, how do you reach that tipping point where it's really a mass, mass movement?
PIVEN: The movements are going to enlarge. And partly they will enlarge because they get a kind of encouragement from the election campaign itself, and particularly Sanders' contribution to the election campaign. I don't think that if it had been Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley that we would have the same kind of intensity about the election, and that spreads to the movements. The movements here are a kind of echo of their own grievances in the voices of national politicians. I mean, notice how Sanders has pushed Hillary to the left. She may not stay there if she actually wins the nomination. But she has so far been pushed to the left.
So I think movements energize electoral politics. They bring up issues that politicians left to themselves would ignore. And it's the movements, in a way, that make Bernie Sanders a credible candidate. Sanders didn't do it by himself, as the Congressman and then the senator from Vermont. He's been around for a very long time. And now certainly he's blossoming, he's become a kind of national hero. And that's partly due to the way the movements are at his back. They're pushing him and they're also energizing him, and they're creating a kind of audience for the issues he is raising.
CONTINUED Read at:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15747
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