His campaign has sparked so much wonderful enthusiasm and activism, especially among young people, for his critique of corporate power, wealth and income inequality, the high cost of college education, the lack of a serious climate change policy, the lack of a serious infrastructure/jobs policy, etc.But it's hard to see how these programs are affordable when most of our country's discretionary spending goes to the military

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My guest today is Jeff Cohen, co-founder of RootsAction.org and director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College.

JB: Welcome to OpEdNews, Jeff. RootsAction.org recently organized a petition directed at Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is running for President in the upcoming election. What can you tell us about it?

JC: It's a petition offering critical support for Bernie's campaign and urging him to speak out against one of the major effects of corporate supremacy -- and that's militarism/perpetual war. His campaign has sparked so much wonderful enthusiasm and activism, especially among young people, for his critique of corporate power, wealth and income inequality, the high cost of college education, the lack of a serious climate change policy, the lack of a serious infrastructure/jobs policy, etc. And increasingly -- after some prodding from Black Lives Matter activists -- Bernie has been more centrally addressing racial injustice and criminal injustice.

But he has generally avoided the problems of U.S. foreign policy. So anyone can go to RootsAction.org and sign the petition urging Bernie to speak out -- as Martin Luther King Jr. did so eloquently in the last year of his life -- against what King called "the madness of U.S. militarism." Bernie is running on a thought-out and popular-with-voters program of providing healthcare to all, college education to all, a jobs program to help our society transform to a renewable economy. But it's hard to see how these programs are affordable when most of our country's discretionary spending goes to the military (as the National Priorities Project has shown). Billions of dollars in military spending need to be redirected to these pressing domestic needs that Bernie has so eloquently delineated. Signers of the petition want Bernie to make this argument about transformation central to his campaign.

JB: What a great idea! How's the petition drive going so far? Do you have a number you're shooting for before sending it off to Bernie?

JC: After a few weeks, the petition had been signed by more than 26,000 people -- surpassing the goal of 25,000 signers. And people are still signing it, and adding their own comments to the petition. As they should feel free to. On Aug 27, after the goal of 25,000 was reached, RootsAction formally submitted the petition (with the names and comments accumulated up to that point) to the Sanders campaign. The campaign was told that any response from Bernie or the campaign would be forwarded to all petition signers. So far, no response has been received.

JB: That's a lot of concerned citizens. Is it unusual that a candidate wouldn't include his/her position on US militarism in the platform? Can we read anything into that oversight, if that's what it is?

JC: As RootsAction.org co-founder Norman Solomon wrote in an important column, "Bernie Sanders should stop ducking foreign policy" 8/5/15, there is almost no mention of foreign policy on Bernie's campaign website. Many domestic issues are fully dealt with, but foreign policy is ignored. Bernie is more comfortable addressing domestic policy. Though he once had a critique of U.S. foreign policy (from Vietnam to Central America), he seems to have let it slip away. And that's a shame.

A critique of U.S. foreign policy today would raise questions about whether the "war on terrorism" has made our country more or less safe. The same goes for drone strikes that have killed so many innocent civilians and the policy of repeatedly sending massive arms flows to factions and governments in the Middle East and the policy of 100% support for whatever Israel does in Gaza and the West Bank.

Most U.S. progressives know that along with widening social inequality and increasing corporate control of our society, another major problem that has worsened in recent decades is militarism and endless war -- diverting billions of dollars from social needs to "national security"/mass surveillance/military intervention.

That's why our petition to Bernie pairs his photo with a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. King went to his grave decrying that the billions spent on bombs aimed at Vietnam could be better spent on rebuilding America's inner cities and other social needs. King denounced Congress in 1967 and 1968 for its "hostility to the poor" -- appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity" but providing "poverty funds with miserliness." Bernie has made a similar critique in the past and in the margins today.

What's exciting about Bernie's campaign is that it has electrified voters with a platform of domestic uplift and rebuilding. Domestic uplift requires billions of tax dollars. Bernie talks about taxing Wall Street transactions, which is great. And adding revenue by fairer taxation aimed at the wealthy. Also great. But cutting military spending and reducing the interventionist power of "the military industrial complex" (as Republican President Dwight Eisenhower labeled it) are essential to being able to afford Bernie's domestic agenda. It would also be good for world peace if U.S. foreign policy stressed material aid and diplomacy and human rights rather than military adventurism.

JB: Does RootsAction.org have plans for Bernie beyond the petition and are you targeting other candidates as well? If not, why not?

JC: RootsAction.org has about 600,000 online activists and is growing (anyone can join up on the homepage at www.RootsAction.org). Keep in mind that it's a departure for us to focus much attention on elections and candidates. We generally focus our campaigns on issues. We're one of the only online activism groups that is independent in championing peace and justice, the environment and civil liberties no matter whether a Republican or Democrat inhabits the White House. That distinguishes us from some big liberal online groups that went soft or silent on issues of perpetual war or mass surveillance when Obama continued or expanded some of Bush's worst policies.

We took this departure to petition Bernie to put forward a progressive foreign policy agenda because 1) he's clearly the progressive among those running in the Democratic primaries 2) his presidential campaign has caught on with huge numbers of activists, including our base, and 3) our issues work in support of single-payer Medicare For All and expanding Social Security and taxing Wall Street often put RootsAction side-by-side with Bernie's legislative agenda as a senator. That might explain why we were, your word, "targeting" Bernie.

For all our concerns about Bernie's failure to clearly challenge our country's militaristic foreign policy, it's important to remember that, according to various insider accounts of the Obama administration's first four years, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was usually on the hawkish side of internal debates.

Our main focus will be less on candidates than on targeting those in power -- and we're well known for resisting President Obama on issues such as his war on whistleblowers and his championing of the corporatist Trans-Pacific Partnership and his Arctic drilling plan, which Al Gore labeled as "insane."

JB: I didn't really know anything about RootsAction.org before we began talking. Thanks for filling me in. I like that a Democratic label does not confer immunity from accountability. I'm sure that will appeal to many of our readers at OpEdNews. What else would you like to talk about before we wrap this up?

JC: You phrased it well. No "immunity" for Democrats. RootsAction is an independent, progressive online force that sticks firmly to principles of social justice, civil liberties, etc., no matter whether Republican or Democratic officeholders are doing the infringing. Our activists expect that kind of principled independence from us.

My final point, and I speak as an activist who has spent more than 45 years working for social change since the civil rights/anti-Vietnam War era of the late 1960s: Don't ever give up or get cynical about change. Join organizations. Join movements. Despite my criticism here of Bernie -- who I've known and respected since he first went to Congress -- people should consider working in his campaign and spreading the word about economic justice and transformation to a jobs-oriented, renewable-energy economy. Bernie is calling for a nonviolent "political revolution." That's what our country needs. And the process will continue long after the Sanders for President Campaign is over, no matter how that campaign ends up.

Were miracles to happen and Bernie Sanders were to become president, we would need strong, independent social movements outside the White House to keep him honest and pressure him toward peace and justice policies in the face of massive corporate pressures he would be subjected to.

JB: Thanks so much for talking with me, Jeff. It was great to learn about RootsAction.org and what you are up to!

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LINKS:

RootsAction.org

RootsAction petition: "Bernie Sanders, Speak Up -- Militarism and Corporate Power Are Fueling Each Other"

National Priorities Project: "Military Spending in the United States"

Jeff Cohen & Norman Solomon: "The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV"

Official Bernie Sanders for President Campaign website

Norman Solomon: "Bernie Sanders should stop ducking foreign policy"

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.