Bernie Sanders Fights On: The Rolling Stone Interview

[imagine2015]

ROLLING STONE

Bernie Sanders Fights On: The Rolling Stone Interview
A defiant candidate on what he's trying to achieve
By Tim Dickinson
May 31, 2016

Even at this late date, with the threat of a Donald Trump presidency looming, Sanders pulls no punches against Hillary Clinton. His stump speech links her to a "rigged economy" – highlighting "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in contributions to the Clinton campaign by a member of the Walton family, whose Wal-Mart fortune, Sanders says, is richer than the combined wealth of the "bottom 40 percent" of the American people. Transforming jeers into cheers, Sanders demands of the billionaire clan, "Instead of making large campaign contributions to Secretary Clinton, pay your workers a living wage!"

Offstage, out of the spotlight, there's little glamour to a grassroots presidential campaign. Late in the evening following the Salem rally, Rolling Stone met up with Sanders at his hotel – a no-frills La Quinta behind a Costco near the municipal airport, where rooms start at $89 a night. Pulling up a chair near the make-your-own-waffle station of the hotel's breakfast bar, Sanders is dressed in a rumpled blue dress shirt and gray slacks. The senator is plainly worn down from the grind of the day: At times during the interview he seems to rest his chin against his chest, as he peers intently over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses.

His body may be out of gas, but Sanders' mind is fiery and cantankerous. In the course of our 45-minute conversation, he blasts Trump as a "phony" and a "dangerous man." He also details his long-shot paths to the nomination, which he still believes he can win; his ambitious agenda to transform the Democratic Party into a people-funded movement for the working class; the challenges of having had to run a campaign "by the seat of our pants"; and why he feels sorry for Hillary Clinton – almost.

Read the Rolling Stone interview at:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bernie-sanders-fights-on-the-rolling-stone-interview-20160531?page=2

[pmorlan1]

1. I read this earlier today

it was a good interview.

[imagine2015]

2. It was a fair and objective interview. I hope a lot of Hillary supporters here read it, not just us

[pmorlan1]

3. I do too

but I doubt it. Maybe some of the ones who don't post in GDP but the ones who do rarely click on anything that a Bernie supporter posts.

[CrowCityDem]

4. Bernie continues to be a walking contradiction.

How many ways can he say the super delegates should act? From sentence to sentence, he can't keep his own thinking straight. It isn't a surprise that he stumbles over a subject he has no real argument for, but it's embarrassing to watch himself flail away for anything he thinks might work.

[hootinholler]

5. Thanks for posting this!

Great interview.

[RazBerryBeret]

6. the man is a brilliant man-of-the-people

definitely the closest we've come to a Populist Movement in my lifetime.
And the best Presidential candidate of my lifetime. (and I'm old...)

[seabeyond]

7. He isn't fighting on, he lost. He is throwing a tantrum and will continue to the convention.

[imagine2015]

8. Apparently you don't know what a tantrum is. Let me help you.

A tantrum is "a violent demonstration of rage or frustration; a sudden burst of ill temper."

In what part of the interview did Senator Sanders exhibit a temper tantrum?

Now you'll have to read the interview if you intend to answer the question.

[seabeyond]

9. Ya, I raised a couple and raised a few more that weren't mine. I am well versed in tantrums.

Sanders does it so well, it leads me to believe it is something he never let go of.

[Waiting For Everyman]

10. Terrific interview! More length than we usually see.

Do you have any closing thoughts?

Yeah. And that is the American people are prepared to support real change. The difficulty that we have is not just the objective crises that we face – the disappearing middle class, income and wealth inequality, crumbling infrastructure, lack of universal health care and paid family and medical leave – the whole list of those things. That's not the major problem. The major problem is that we have an establishment that works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, led by a corporate media, which tries to condition the American people not to believe that we can accomplish those goals – or to even consider that those goals can be part of what American society is about.

...

But what we have managed to do in this campaign is, they can't avoid somebody (like me). Tonight, we were on CNN – I spoke for a while, for seven minutes. They gotta put us on a little bit. And suddenly people are hearing things they never heard before. And that's changing consciousness. So what we have got to do is to redefine who we can be as a nation. In a sense, what we are entitled to. What rights we are entitled to as humans. That's the struggle. And we're making a little bit of progress.

We didn't get to the moon in the 1960s by incremental change. Sometimes what's needed is a worthwhile goal and vision, in a big way.

[GreatGazoo]

11. good perspective

[bigwillq]

12. Kick (nt)

[Uncle Joe]

13. "Do you have any closing thoughts?"

Yeah. And that is the American people are prepared to support real change. The difficulty that we have is not just the objective crises that we face – the disappearing middle class, income and wealth inequality, crumbling infrastructure, lack of universal health care and paid family and medical leave – the whole list of those things.That's not the major problem. The major problem is that we have an establishment that works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, led by a corporate media, which tries to condition the American people not to believe that we can accomplish those goals – or to even consider that those goals can be part of what American society is about.

You might think that there would be a lot of discussion about why the United States is the only major country on Earth not to provide health care to all people. People might say, "Look at the French system: It stinks, it's terrible. The Canadian system is terrible; that's why we don't want to do it." But you don't have that discussion. Why is it that the United States, which spends far more per capita on health care than other nations, why don't we have a national health care system? Have you seen that debate once in your lifetime? On television?

Not outside the context of your candidacy.

(snip)

And my guess is that the majority of the American people do not even know that we are the only major country on Earth without a national health care system. They don't know that we're the only major country without guaranteed paid family and medical leave. No one tells them that you've got 20 people owning more wealth than the bottom half of America, 150 million people. They don't know that. Somehow CBS doesn't have that special. I don't know why.

You see, that's what the campaign is about. Our major success so far is in laying out a broad progressive agenda, and forcing ourselves – the media doesn't want to hear what I have to say. Do you know how many endorsements we have gotten from major media in this country? [Holds up hand forming a zero] They're much more interested in Trump. For a whole variety of reasons. And if he attacks Hillary Clinton, calls her a bad name, that becomes a major story. If I talk about the disappearing middle class? Not exactly what CNN is interested in hearing, right? OK.

But what we have managed to do in this campaign is, they can't avoid somebody [like me]. Tonight, we were on CNN – I spoke for a while, for seven minutes. They gotta put us on a little bit. And suddenly people are hearing things they never heard before. And that's changing consciousness. So what we have got to do is to redefine who we can be as a nation. In a sense, what we are entitled to. What rights we are entitled to as humans. That's the struggle. And we're making a little bit of progress.


http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bernie-sanders-fights-on-the-rolling-stone-interview-20160531?page=11

Thanks for the thread, imagine2015.