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Natasha McKenna's Death Shows the Need for Prison Reform |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=36093"><span class="small">Jamiles Lartey, Guardian UK</span></a>
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Saturday, 12 September 2015 08:46 |
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Lartey writes: "It is true that sometimes people experiencing mental health crises can present a real danger to themselves and to others around them. Sometimes restraints are needed. But so too, is restraint on the part of caregivers."
A prison. (photo: Thinkstock)
Natasha McKenna's Death Shows the Need for Prison Reform
By Jamiles Lartey, Guardian UK
12 September 15
My father spent time working with boys with mental health issues. His experience taught me the importance of approaching people with compassion
 t is true that sometimes people experiencing mental health crises can present a real danger to themselves and to others around them. Sometimes restraints are needed.
But so too, is restraint on the part of caregivers. So too is a certain type of attitude to the work and a clinical understanding of how people in crisis are likely to respond to displays of overwhelming force and demands for perfect compliance. There are mountains of evidence to suggest that stress – like the stress of being in jail, being forcibly restrained, and facing criminal charges – can trigger and exacerbate symptoms of mental illness, like schizophrenic episodes.
So when the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office released video of Natasha McKenna’s violent final hour in the county’s jail – a de facto holding site for people with severe mental health problems requiring legal interventions – I thought about my father’s stories.
Growing up, my father worked at a residential home for at-risk boys, including those with mental health issues. He was a crisis intervention counselor, the calm and peaceful guy to whom kids in crisis could talk – and who had a battery of restraint holds in his repertoire, if the need arose.
As I watched officers try to move McKenna, who was schizophrenic and had spent chunks of her final days in restraints, I saw none of the resourcefulness and humanity that I remembered from my dad. Instead I saw police officers apparently unable to understand how to talk to and interact with small, unarmed woman seemingly in the middle of a psychiatric episode – and who treated her as a body on whom to enforce the law rather than a person who needed help.
The video opens with a young deputy’s monologue about why McKenna is being moved, and why the officers are taking the precaution of wearing full Hazmat suits. “She’s been non-compliant with orders [and] she’s created a major biohazard incident in the cell”, he said to the camera. The footage then cuts to five jail officials wearing hazmat suits with tactical-looking helmets, one of whom was carrying a riot shield. Four officers in regular uniforms are also in the hallways around her holding cell.
My father often recalls the time a student threw excrement, spit at him and physically threatened him. He was alone, and the boy was big, so he responded by pulling a gymmat from under him, rolling him up in it like a taquito, and sitting down, delicately, on the student – letting him know that when he was calm and ready to talk, he would be let out.
When the officers open the door to McKenna’s cell, she makes no aggressive, violent or sudden moves. She shuffles out – fully nude – and immediately, presciently, reminds the staff that, “you promised me that you wouldn’t kill me.”
I thought about the many times students harbored the same mortal fears about my father, and how, rather than tackle them, he would show them his hands from at least an arm’s distance and calmly assure them that he was there to help.
In response, the jailers trap McKenna between the shield and the door, taking her to the ground as the pleas begin for her to “stop resisting”. McKenna is handcuffed already, and there’s a strap running from the cuffs, through a slot in the door, and into one of the jailer’s hands, in full control of her upper body.
The Hazmat-clad officials pile on to McKenna and lament: “She’s not going to hold still!” Their escalation of force is seemingly connected to her lack of compliance – her failure to cede to their authority and demands – not to any threat she is presenting to their safety.
I thought about the boy who walked away from camp while other school officials berated him to “get back right now”, speaking only on sternness and consequences, and how each request returned only an earnest “fuck you!” How police arrived and offered to tase the boy, and how my father declined, instead shadowing him until he eventually decided he was ready to come back, without force or threat.
“Stop resisting”, thee Fairfax officers tell McKenna again and again, seemingly unaware that in a paranoid mental state, perfect stillness is not a reasonable or appropriate response to five bizarrely dressed strangers pinning you to the ground, binding your limbs and threatening electrocution. “If you keep resisting, you’re going to be tased”, they warn her as she gasps like she is fighting for her last breath.
The jail officials went go on to shock McKenna four times with a Taser, to secure her in a restraint chair and, when she became unresponsive, to unsuccessfully administer CPR.
Watching this, I thought about how my father always treated people as humans who needed help, not a threat to be neutralized and managed. He did this work without a Taser, Hazmat suit, and with many students who were as teenage boys, quite a bit stronger and bigger than Natasha McKenna. He was able to do so because he never forgot that they were under his care and needed his help and his compassion.
A jail isn’t the same thing as a boy’s home, and tactics may not always translate. But my father’s stories reminded me that, while the treatment of mentally ill people in crisis and in institutional settings won’t always be pretty, they can be abundantly more thoughtful and humane than what we see on this tape.
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Hillary Clinton Goes to Militaristic, Hawkish Think Tank, Gives Militaristic Hawkish Speech |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=29455"><span class="small">Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept</span></a>
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Friday, 11 September 2015 14:18 |
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Greenwald writes: "Leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton this morning delivered a foreign policy speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington. By itself, the choice of the venue was revealing."
Hillary Clinton. (photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Hillary Clinton Goes to Militaristic, Hawkish Think Tank, Gives Militaristic Hawkish Speech
By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
11 September 15
 eading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton this morning delivered a foreign policy speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington. By itself, the choice of the venue was revealing.
Brookings served as Ground Zero for centrist think tank advocacy of the Iraq War, which Clinton (along with potential rival Joe Biden) notoriously and vehemently advocated. Brookings’ two leading “scholar”-stars — Kenneth Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon — spent all of 2002 and 2003 insisting that invading Iraq was wise and just, and spent the years after that assuring Americans that the “victorious” war and subsequent occupation were going really well (in April 2003, O’Hanlon debated with himself over whether the strategy that led to the “victory” in his beloved war should be deemed “brilliant” or just extremely “clever,” while in June 2003, Pollack assured New York Times readers that Saddam’s WMD would be found).
Since then, O’Hanlon in particular has advocated for increased military force in more countries than one can count. That’s not surprising: Brookings is funded in part by one of the Democratic Party’s favorite billionaires, Haim Saban, who is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Israel and once said of himself: “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.” Pollack advocated for the attack on Iraq while he was “Director of Research of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.” Saban became the Democratic Party’s largest fundraiser — even paying $7 million for the new DNC building — and is now a very substantial funder of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. In exchange, she’s written a personal letter to him publicly “expressing her strong and unequivocal support for Israel in the face of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement.”
So the hawkish Brookings is the prism through which Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy worldview can be best understood. The think tank is filled with former advisers to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, and would certainly provide numerous top-level foreign policy officials in any Hillary Clinton administration. As she put it today at the start: “There are a lot of long-time friends and colleagues who perch here at Brookings.” And she proceeded to deliver exactly the speech one would expect, reminding everyone of just how militaristic and hawkish she is.
The context for her speech was the Iran Deal, which Clinton supports. It would be virtually impossible for her not to do so — there is no way anyone could win the Democratic nomination while opposing a key foreign policy legacy of the sitting Democratic president — but, regardless of the motives, she has the right position on that. But that deal is vehemently opposed by AIPAC and of grave concern to the hawkish foreign policy circles on which she has long depended, and so the core purpose of the speech was to assure those nervous precincts that, despite the Iran Deal support, she’s still the same aggressive, war-threatening, obsessively Israel-devoted, bellicose hawk they’ve grown to know and love.
To achieve that, Clinton repeatedly invoked the Netanyahu-cartoon image of Iran as a Grave and Evil Terrorist Menace. This was her formulation of the issue she seeks to address: “how to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and more broadly, how to protect ourselves and our allies from the full range of threats that Iran poses.” She even compared the country to the Supreme Villain of the Moment: “Iran, like ISIS, benefits from chaos and strife.”
Clinton proclaimed that she “too [is] deeply concerned about Iranian aggression and the need to confront it. It’s a ruthless, brutal regime that has the blood of Americans, many others and including its own people on its hands.” Even worse, she said, “Its political rallies resound with cries of ‘Death to America.’ Its leaders talk about wiping Israel off the face of the map, most recently just yesterday, and foment terror against it. There is absolutely no reason to trust Iran.” She repeated that claim several times for emphasis: “They vow to destroy Israel. And that’s worth saying again. They vow to destroy Israel.”
She vowed that in dealing with Iran, she will be tougher and more aggressive than Reagan was with the Soviet Union: “You remember President Reagan’s line about the Soviets: Trust but verify? My approach will be distrust and verify.” She also explicitly threatened Iran with war if they fail to comply: “I will not hesitate to take military action if Iran attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon, and I will set up my successor to be able to credibly make the same pledge.” She even depicted the Iran Deal as making a future war with Iran easier and more powerful:
Should it become necessary in the future having exhausted peaceful alternatives to turn to military force, we will have preserved and in some cases enhanced our capacity to act. And because we have proven our commitment to diplomacy first, the world will more likely join us.
As for Israel itself, Clinton eagerly promised to shower it with a long, expensive, and dangerous list of gifts. Here’s just a part of what that country can expect from the second President Clinton:
I will deepen America’s unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security, including our long standing tradition of guaranteeing Israel’s qualitative military edge. I’ll increase support for Israeli rocket and missile defenses and for intelligence sharing. I’ll sell Israel the most sophisticated fire aircraft ever developed. The F-35. We’ll work together to develop and implement better tunnel detection technology to prevent arms smuggling and kidnapping as well as the strongest possible missile defense system for Northern Israel, which has been subjected to Hezbollah’s attacks for years.
She promised she “will sustain a robust military presence in the [Persian Gulf] region, especially our air and naval forces.” She vowed to “increase security cooperation with our Gulf allies” — by which she means the despotic regimes in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar, among others. She swore she will crack down even further on Hezbollah: “It’s time to eliminate the false distinction that some still make between the supposed political and military wings. If you’re part of Hezbollah, you’re part of a terrorist organization, plain and simple.”
Then she took the ultimate pledge: “I would not support this agreement for one second if I thought it put Israel in greater danger.” So even if the deal would benefit the U.S., she would not support it “for one second” if it “put Israel in greater danger.” That’s an unusually blunt vow to subordinate the interests of the U.S. to that foreign nation.
But when it comes to gifts to Israel, that’s not all! Echoing the vow of several GOP candidates to call Netanyahu right away after being elected, Clinton promised: “I would invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House during my first month in office to talk about all of these issues and to set us on a course of close, frequent consultation right from the start, because we both rely on each other for support as partners, allies and friends.” She then addressed “the people of Israel,” telling them: “Let me say, you’ll never have to question whether we’re with you. The United States will always be with you.” For good measure, she heaped praise on “my friend Chuck Schumer,” who has led the battle to defeat the Iran Deal, gushing about what an “excellent leader in the Senate” he will make. What’s a little warmongering among friends?
Just as was true in her book, she implicitly criticized Obama — who boasts that he has bombed seven predominantly Muslim countries — of being insufficiently militaristic, imperialistic, and violent. She said she wanted more involvement in Syria from the start (though did not call for the U.S. to accept any of its refugees). In a clear rebuke to the current president, she decreed that any criticisms U.S. officials may utter of Israel should be done only in private (“in private and behind, you know, closed doors”), not in public, lest “it open[] the door to everybody else to delegitimize Israel to, you know, pile on in ways that are not good for the — the strength and stability, not just of Israel.” About Russia, she said, “I think we have not done enough” and put herself “in the category of people who wanted us to do more in response to the annexation of Crimea and the continuing destabilization of Ukraine.”
The speech wasn’t all heinous. As I indicated, she did advocate for the Iran Deal and criticized GOP candidates for vowing to tear it up. More impressively, she offered a rare but needed admission that much of the world’s extremism comes not from Iran but from the U.S.’s second most cherished ally in the region: “Much of the extremism in the world today is the direct result of policies and funding undertaken by the Saudi government and individuals. We would be foolish not to recognize that.” That tracks Tom Friedman’s column from this week in which he admitted that “the title greatest ‘purveyors of radical Islam’ does not belong to the Iranians. Not even close. That belongs to our putative ally Saudi Arabia.”
But overall, the picture that the stern Iraq and Libya war advocate painted of herself was as clear as it was unsurprising and alarming: She resides on the hawkish, militaristic end of the Democratic Party when it comes to most foreign policy questions. But the real significance is this: If Hillary Clinton is already this hawkish and war-threatening while trying to fend off Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party primary while bolstering her liberal credentials, imagine what she’s going to be doing and saying about all of this once she’s the Democratic nominee running against a Republican in the general election and, even scarier, once she occupies the Oval Office and, as far as the U.S. military is concerned, assumes the title of Commander-in-Chief.
Two words that did not come out of Clinton’s mouth during the entire event: “Palestinians” (do they exist?) and “Libya” (that glorious war she supported that was going to be the inspiring template for future “humanitarian interventions” before it predictably destroyed that whole country).
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FOCUS: Despite 14 Years of the US War on Terror, Terror Attacks Have Skyrocketed Since 9/11 |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=35143"><span class="small">Paul Gottinger, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Friday, 11 September 2015 11:44 |
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Gottinger writes: "Terror attacks have jumped by a stunning 6,500% since 2002, according to a new analysis by Reader Supported News."
A U.S. soldier secures a landing zone for a Black Hawk helicopter in the Shigal district center in Kunar province, Afghanistan. (photo: Getty)
Despite 14 Years of the US War on Terror, Terror Attacks Have Skyrocketed Since 9/11
By Paul Gottinger, Reader Supported News
11 September 15
 error attacks have jumped by a stunning 6,500% since 2002, according to a new analysis by Reader Supported News. The number of casualties resulting from terror attacks has increased by 4,500% over this same time period. These colossal upsurges in terror took place despite a decade-long, worldwide effort to fight terrorism that has been led by the United States.
The analysis, conducted with figures provided by the US State Department, also shows that from 2007 to 2011 almost half of all the world’s terror took place in Iraq or Afghanistan – two countries being occupied by the US at the time.
Countries experiencing US military interventions continue to be subjected to high numbers of terror attacks, according to the data. In 2014, 74 percent of all terror-related casualties occurred in Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Syria. Of these five, only Nigeria did not experience either US air strikes or a military occupation in that year.
The data also show that the number of terror attacks around the world jumps up significantly shortly after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. In 2002, there were only 208 terror attacks, but by 2005 that figure had jumped to 11,000. There is no public data available on the number of terror attacks in 2004.
The State Department produced 2004’s terrorism data in its Patterns of Global Terrorism report from that year, but the report came under heavy criticism from the Bush administration for showing terrorism was at a 19-year high. These findings flew in the face of the Bush administration’s assertion that terrorism had declined in 2003, and as a result the 2004 data was never released.
The Bush administration ended the State Department’s annual report on terror, and instead issued a new report, which listed no methodology and withheld statistics on incidents of terrorism. The 2004 terrorism estimates in the table below are taken from CIA figures.
RSN’s analysis of the impact of 14 years of the US War on Terror seem to verify what the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index found last year. That report stated, “The rise in terrorist activity coincided with the US invasion of Iraq.” The US occupation, the report continues, “created large power vacuums in the country allowing different factions to surface and become violent.”
This so-called “Iraq Effect” has been reported by British intelligence, as well as in the US government’s own reports, which stated that “the war in Iraq has become the cause célèbre for jihadists” and that the war is “shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.”
On October 7, the US war in Afghanistan will hit its 14th year. In one estimate, the US War on Terror may have killed between 1.3 and 2 million people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. This count doesn’t include deaths that have resulted from the drone wars in Somalia and Yemen, air strikes on Libya in 2011, and the current US bombing and military involvement in Syria.
These figures dwarf the roughly 3,000 people who tragically died in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The US invasion of Iraq destabilized Iraq and Syria, creating the conditions for the emergence of ISIS, which now controls large parts of the two countries. The invasion of Afghanistan has not been able to wrestle large sections of the country from the Taliban, leaving Afghanistan in state of perpetual war. And the air war to oust Muammar Gaddafi has left Libya in a state of chaos.
The instability caused by these wars, along with the atrocities perpetrated by US-led forces, which can be exploited for terrorist recruitment, have played a significant role in the increase of terrorism worldwide.
As we commemorate the tragic events of September 11, 2001, let us also reflect on the even larger tragedies, the staggering number of people who have died as a result of the US War on Terror, and the fact that the US effort has only increased the specter of terrorism, which now haunts millions around the world.
Terror attacks around the world. (photo: US State Department)
Paul Gottinger is a staff reporter at RSN whose work focuses on the Middle East and the arms industry. He can be reached on Twitter @paulgottinger or via email.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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FOCUS: The Summer of the Bern |
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Friday, 11 September 2015 10:32 |
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Galindez writes: "As the end of summer approaches, we find Bernie Sanders with the wind at his back building a political revolution that has the establishment starting to get nervous."
Senator Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane O'Meara Sanders march with supports at the Independence Day Parade in Waukee, Iowa. (photo: Arun Chaudhary)
The Summer of the Bern
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
11 September 15
 s the end of summer approaches, we find Bernie Sanders with the wind at his back building a political revolution that has the establishment starting to get nervous. We have Hillary Clinton attempting to stall her downward spiral by offering a public apology for conducting State Department business on her private email server. We also have Joe Biden gearing up to rescue the party from Bernie’s growing movement.
When I arrived in Iowa in February the story was “Will Elizabeth Warren run?” Everyone thought she was the only one with a chance to challenge Hillary Clinton, the most prohibitive frontrunner in modern politics. Most progressives, including myself, loved Bernie Sanders but weren’t sure if he could overcome the “S-word.” That’s why so many of us held out for Elizabeth Warren, whom we thought was more electable.
Looking back, I still think Warren would have been a great candidate, but she doesn’t have the track record that “Bernie” has had in the progressive movement. She may be the rising progressive star, but she has a long way to go to match Bernie’s credentials.
Some are calling this the summer of discontent. Many point to Donald Trump and claim he is an anti-establishment candidate. Outsider? Trump is one of the people who own the establishment. The only anti-establishment candidate is Bernie Sanders.
Authenticity
Now we have a Democratic field that is for the most part trying to sound like Elizabeth Warren, except for Bernie. Bernie Sanders was fighting Wall Street and the banks long before Elizabeth Warren entered the political fray. It will be pretty hard for any of the Democratic candidates to out-progressive Bernie Sanders.
Hillary Clinton is sounding all the right themes, but when it comes down to specifics she tries to strike a balance for her corporate supporters. It is also hard for her to make the case that she will take on Wall Street while they pour money into her campaign coffers. The Clinton campaign recently promised The New York Times that “this fall the public would see the sides of Mrs. Clinton that are often obscured by the noise and distractions) of modern campaigning.” They said the rope lines would be gone, and she would take responsibility for the email crisis. They also promised there would be efforts to showcase Clinton’s “humor” and her “heart,” and “to bring spontaneity to a candidacy that sometimes seems wooden and overly cautious.”
I don’t know about you, but I think it’s impossible to “try” to be more authentic. And how do you plan to be spontaneous? As if she were on script, she teared up the next day and learned a new dance on Ellen.
Martin O’Malley is the traditional liberal, savvy Democratic politician who reminds one of the old-school labor Democrats like Dick Gephardt. But the voters are seeing through the package: they see the teleprompter and can tell he is rehearsed.
It is that authenticity that O’Malley and Clinton will never have that will lead Bernie Sanders to victory. When you listen to Bernie, you can hear the passion. He believes in his soul that the billionaire class has rigged the economy and the political system. When he says enough is enough, you believe him. You know he is not adapting to the latest poll numbers – he hasn’t even hired a pollster. That’s right, a presidential candidate without a pollster. The candidates with pollsters are talking about income inequality, student debt, climate change, etc. The country has finally caught up to Bernie Sanders. These have been his issues his whole career.
The other draw is that when Bernie says the campaign is not about him or any other candidate, you believe him. Bernie Sanders is not running a campaign against individual politicians. Bernie Sanders is running against a rigged political and economic system that the American people are fed up with. The pundits and the pollsters have not figured out why a self-described Democratic Socialist is drawing the biggest crowds and surging in the polls. Let’s take a closer look at why they don’t get it.
Grassroots
I have been an activist involved in many grassroots campaigns for over 25 years. I have heard the term grassroots thrown around every election. What many called grassroots were really top-down campaigns with grassroots rhetoric. We hear about the great grassroots campaign run by Barack Obama, but it was all rhetoric. Obama ran a great campaign, but it was a top-down campaign, and his organization continued to be top-down after the election. The Sanders campaign has both a top-down structure successfully running the official campaign and many separate grassroots operations working outside the campaign. It is a phenomenon that no other campaign has had. There have always been interest groups that organize specific communities, like Latinos for Hillary, or Labor for Obama, but they always answered to the official campaign. Those types of groups exist in the Sanders campaign as well, but there are also groups organizing independently from the campaign.
One of those groups, People for Bernie Sanders, was started by veteran Occupy organizers. They hold events around the country and coordinate with national conference calls every two weeks. The hashtag #feelthebern comes from this group’s substantial social media effort. What they bring to the table is a network of experienced organizers around the country who are organizing in communities that the campaign is not spending resources in yet.
Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) was the first group organizing for Bernie. Veterans of many political campaigns, PDA was the group that organized Ready for Bernie, the draft effort that pre-dated Ready for Warren. When the Wisconsin Democratic Party held a straw poll at its state convention, it was PDA that was on the ground organizing for Bernie. Their efforts led to a surprisingly close result, with Bernie getting 41% to Hillary’s 49%. It was one of the first signs that the Sanders campaign was connecting. That took place in June in the beginning of the Summer of the Bern. PDA is continuing its efforts. They even have an office in Phoenix. The group has strong connections in the Hollywood activist community, with Mimi Kennedy chairing the organization’s board and Tom Hayden as a board member.
These are just examples of some organized grassroots organizations that are organizing for Bernie. When you move to social media you will find an even more organic grassroots effort underway.
Social Media
The Bernie Sanders social media phenomenon is just that, a phenomenon. You will see a lot of reports about how the campaign hired many from the Obama campaign’s social media team. It was money well spent – the campaign’s official Facebook and Twitter pages are thriving. When the campaign announces an event on its Facebook page and emails its supporters in that area, the RSVPs come pouring in. The campaign rarely spends resources promoting events; their online presence is all they need to draw huge crowds. But the official campaign presence is only part of the story.
There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Facebook pages for Bernie. There is a YouTube channel called Bernie2016tv that tries to live-stream all of his events. They also have live shows where they discuss the campaign and show videos produced by independent sources. The Reddit page is a traffic magnet. Every state has multiple pages giving anyone the opportunity to post their views and feel like a part of the campaign. There are different types of moderation: some pages with no moderation, some with dozens of moderators keeping the discussion focused.
I have liked many Bernie Facebook pages, so I receive constant notifications. Not a minute goes by without a message being posted to Facebook about Bernie Sanders. I’m not very active on Twitter, but I hear the same is true about the Sanders Twitter presence. Just go on social media sites and search for Bernie Sanders, like a few pages, and see for yourself. You can post every now and then or jump in feet first and find yourself becoming active in the political revolution. It’s only a few clicks of the keyboard away.
There is even an effort for a March on Washington that has over 100,000 RSVPs. At this point the campaign itself is not involved, it’s a grassroots effort that is just getting organized. They have had a few conference calls and have reached out to the campaign. They realize that the campaign is focused on identifying supporters and getting them to the polls and will not spend money on a March on Washington, but the message they are getting from the campaign is build it and Bernie will come. The organizing will all be grassroots, but it’s likely that Bernie will be there if they organize it.
The old-school pundits are evaluating campaigns based on how many staff members and offices a campaign has. They see Bernie’s crowds, but they look at Hillary’s organization and think it’s too formidable for Bernie. They don’t understand the power of the grassroots movement and the social media explosion yet. They will start to believe soon, though. Remember that in October of 2007, Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama 50% to 21%. She has a smaller lead in the latest national polls.
Organization
Last week Bernie opened his 16th office in Ottumwa, Iowa. He is catching up organizationally. Hillary had the money to put staff on the ground first, but what she didn’t generate was the excitement for that staff to work with. With Bernie’s crowds come volunteers that they can turn loose. They admit they are still trying to catch up with the pace of the people’s response to the campaign. Their support is growing faster than they can staff up to handle the demand. It is a good problem! They have plenty of time to build their organization and turn out the voters that that the huge rallies are identifying.
Clinton and O’Malley with their Super PACs have more paid staff, but the grassroots energy is making up for the lack of staff, and in some ways has become more powerful than all of the organization built by Clinton and O’Malley. Bernie says he has money and will do many traditional things but he will also invest in the grassroots.
Momentum
Following his latest swing through Iowa comes news that Bernie Sanders not only leads in New Hampshire, but also leads the latest poll in Iowa. The poll gave Sanders a 78 to 6 percent favorability rating. Likely Democratic Caucus-goers say 86 to 4 percent that he is honest and trustworthy, and 85 to 5 percent that he cares about their needs and problems. Voters say 76 to 9 percent that he has strong leadership qualities and 65 to 15 percent that he has the right temperament and personality to handle an international crisis, according to the poll by Quinnipiac University.
The poll’s director compared Sanders to Eugene McCarthy, saying it remains to be seen if he can seize the momentum and move forward to victory. I am sick of seeing the so-called experts tell us that Bernie is just another Howard Dean, or Bill Bradley, or even Gary Hart. How about another Barack Obama? They constantly point to Sanders’ weak numbers with minorities. There are five months to go before the first caucus. In 2007 Hillary Clinton had a firm grip on the African American vote until Barack Obama pulled what they called an upset in Iowa. Bernie is trending up and Hillary is trending down. The national polls don’t hold as many answers as the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. Voters in the early states are paying attention. They are seeing the candidates. Clinton commercials are filling the airways in Iowa but seem to be having no effect on her decline in the polls. Let’s say it, let’s admit it – Bernie Sanders is the frontrunner for the Democratic Party nomination. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is in trouble.
Anatomy of the Surge
The first time I saw Bernie Sanders in this election season, my eyes were opened. It was in Iowa City at a bookstore. It was a standing room only, overflow crowd. Bernie connected with the crowd and I took notice. Two days later in Ames, Iowa, he spoke at the Story County Democrats’ annual soup supper. Hundreds were in attendance and again he connected, this time with the party activists. This Iowa win was in February, and it was the beginning of the surge.
After he announced his candidacy in late May before 5,000 people in Burlington, Vermont, the real head-turning events began. Two days later in Davenport, Iowa, 800 people packed a ballroom at a local college. The overflow crowds continued over the next few days, and the real eye-opener came in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The campaign booked a union hall in Minneapolis and within hours they knew it wouldn’t be big enough, so they moved the event to a gymnasium at the American Indian Center. It turned out to be too small. Thousands had to listen to the event on speakers set up outside as 5,000 people turned out to hear Bernie.
The surge continued in Denver, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles. The pundits continued to dismiss Bernie, comparing the crowds to those for Howard Dean, even though they were three times the size.
Even as Bernie pulled ahead in New Hampshire polls, they made excuses. Now that Bernie has pulled ahead in Iowa maybe, just maybe, the talking heads will realize that Bernie can win.
Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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