Last week I turned 38.
The date was 02-20-2020
In so many ways, it feels like
a transformational year.
Like many of you, I’ve spent my adult life fighting for peace, justice, and the liberation of life. These fights will continue, and I continue to hold hope that the largest and most connected generation in human history, will see them through.
For many years, I saw movement building, as fundamentally separate from electoral politics. In movement building, we can unite around the shared ideals of what ought to be, and make demands that are fundamentally just and true. In contrast, electoral politics always felt like the place of compromise and deception. Where good ideas met a power structure, unwilling to acknowledge even basic truths regarding the nature of profitable violence, colonialism, patriarchy, war, and the degradation of mother earth.
Then in 2015, I was introduced to Senator Bernie Sanders. Bernie is hardly the perfect candidate. He often lacks the smoothness with which we have come to expect politicians to speak with us. He is often rough around the edges, in the same way the old ranchers and cowboys that mentored and raised me, often were. In the same way my Jewish family from the Bronx and Queens, often are. But in all the centuries of American politics, I dont believe we have ever had a more honest choice for President.
Bernie tells the truth. It may not be said with poetry, and it may not be said in a way that moves the cinematic needs of each of us living in this advertising age. But if you pay attention, to the best of his ability, he tells the truth. Every single time.
Bernie was the only person on the debate stage to call what happened in Bolivia, a coup. He has consistently been the only person to demand basic human rights for Palestinians. He has consistently been the only person to acknowledge the long track record of CIA interventions and assassinations, of democratically elected leaders, all over the world. He has been the only person to vote against Trump’s excessive military budgets, and the trade deals that consistently support multinationals, rather than workers. He is the only person to repeatedly call out the war-machine - and the banks, weapon manufactures, and industries of extraction that fuel it. And he is the only person to demand an end to endless war, in the hopes that those resources can be used instead, to protect the planet for generations to come, and ensure a basic level of dignity for every human being, at every level of income and wealth within our society.
He is not a perfect candidate. He could go much further on reparations here at home, and reparations for imperialism outside our borders. He could go much further on debt forgiveness for the developing world and the fundamental transformation of the IMF and the World Bank. He could go much further on transparency of global supply chains, fair-trade, international justice, and peace building around the world. Could go much further in support of indigenous sovereignty, the protection of waterways, and the inherent rights of all living beings.
But when the largest gathering of indigenous people in human history came together at Standing Rock, only he and Tulsi showed up. It wasnt Elizabeth Warren, who claimed native ancestry for most of her life. It wasnt Obama, who so many of us wanted to be a voice for justice and reconciliation. It was Bernard Sanders. He offered his support unequivocally, as he has so often done for those on the front lines.
So whether you're ready to fight for racial justice, or climate justice, or native sovereignty, or peace and the end of profitable war, or the rights of life itself, I believe you will find a friend in a Sanders Administration. It wont be perfect; it has never been and it never will be. But it will be far more honest, and decent, and compassionate toward the struggles that weave their way throughout our planet, than anything we've seen before.
I hope you’ll vote for him on Tuesday, and support him in the years to come. For more than fifty years, he has worked to be on the right side of history, and demand a world that is more peaceful, just and equitable. His priorities have not always been mine, just as im sure they have not always been yours. But the fight for human dignity is a fight worth fighting. A fight worth taking far beyond his lifetime, and indeed our own.
Whether he is elected or not, the work of movement building will continue. For the generations to come, let us forever work toward unity among humanity, peace for all people, and protection of the living world.
Love yall,
Sean
