We discuss the current election environment in the context of the movement: how the movement has impacted the campaigns and the political parties and what a political revolution means. Our guests discuss their ideas for continuing the momentum beyond this election season and for having an impact on whomever is elected.
Listen here:
Relevant articles and websites:
Why Bernie Sanders Should Stay in the Race – And How He Can Win by Patrick Walker and Kevin Zeese
Political Revolution will continue Long After the Sanders Campaign by Ethan Corey
Guests:
Patrick Walker is a veteran anti-fracking and Occupy Scranton, PA activist, currently a co-founding member of Revolt Against Plutocracy (RAP) and co-creator of RAP’s Bernie or Bust pledge, which spawned the nationwide Bernie or Bust movement. He is delighted to announce that by the time of his Clearing the FOG interview, the pledge will almost certainly have garnered its 100,000 th signature.
Patrick considers the anti-fracking movement his ideal, if belated, way to break into political activism, since the undemocratic conquest of Pennsylvania, his native state, by the fracking industry was based on precisely the rampant corruption of politicians by corporate money now vitiating U.S. (and global) politics. His whirlwind years as a PA anti-fracking activist (2010-12) included his family’s central role in the 2010 PA Homeland Security scandal, a successful protest he organized against former U.S. Homeland Security chief turned fracking shill Tom Ridge, a brief stint as Harrisburg spokesperson for Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, and his wife’s appearance in film maker Josh Fox’s anti-fracking movie Gasland 2.
Patrick’s focus on the underlying problem of political corruption naturally interested him in the Occupy movement, where he unsuccessfully tried to spread his conviction that Occupy should adopt the Green Party as its political arm. Believing no useful transformation of U.S. politics will come unless voters show zero tolerance for candidates corrupted by corporate money, Patrick, along with Victor Tiffany, eagerly seized on Bernie Sanders’ insurgent candidacy to create Revolt Against Plutocracy, strategic hub of the Bernie or Bust movement. He’s excited that Bernie or Bust recently partnered with Popular Resistance, hoping to create the potent fusion between movement activism and insurgent electoral politics he sought to create with Occupy.
A University of Scranton graduate, with bachelor’s degrees in English lit and philosophy, Patrick now resides in the Buffalo, NY area with his wife, daughter, and three Sheltie dogs. His activist writings haveappeared in OpEdNews, Nation of Change, CounterPunch, and Dissident Voice.
Debbie Lusignan is a vlogger at The Sane Progressive. She launched this project in 2015 to put out an alternative narrative to the corporate media lies and manipulations of the American people.
JackRabbit Pollack is a founding member of Interoccupy.net – a communications working group of Occupy Wall Street that continues to operate in limited capacity. In 2012 he participated in the grassroots disaster relief to hurricane Sandy known as Occupy Sandy. He has provided logistical support for groups fighting for racial justice such as SURJ, Ferguson Action, and Movement for Black Lives.
In April of 2015 he began work as one of the core members of People for Bernie with whom he worked through July.
Along with partner Shana East, Jackrabbit started The People’s Revolution, but put the project on hold to begin Illinois for Bernie with Ms. East. Illinois for Bernie is a grassroots group autonomously supporting Bernie Sanders’ primary run for the presidency.
Most recently, Jackrabbit and Ms. East have returned to organizing as the People’s Revolution to convene a gathering in Philadelphia the weekend before the DNC called the People’s Convention – an attempt to organize the insurgent energy surrounding the presidential election into a cohesive force for progressive change.