"A Future to Believe In" by Sarah Slamen
A piece on the recent revelations from behind the scenes in Senator Sanders' 2016 campaign. Well worth a read, written as it is by someone who worked hard for Senator Sanders, but was betrayed by his organization, and whose story is very illuminating.
A Future to Believe In
https://medium.com/sarahslamen/a-future-to-believe-in-95208e8ce792
Two years ago today, I was scrambling to find myself municipal election work after being abruptly pushed out of a job as the first state organizer for Texas at Our Revolution. It was an anxious and depressing turn right after the hellish general election results of 2016. Over Christmas break in 2016, I was told that I had to report back to work under the supervision of a man who had screamed at me, lied about me and written threatening emails about me to our national board and state committee members. The same committee members had sat in a meeting with me while this man berated me for attempting to do my job. Except for one person who attempted to interrupt him, they sat there one by one and looked on while this White, elderly, male screamed at me and asked who I thought I was to introduce an organizing plan. I thought I was the state organizer. And I thought they were all social justice and labor leaders from my great state.
The run-up to that meeting had included weeks of disorganization and bad faith between the national board and staff from Our Revolution and my state organizing committee (SOC). The SOC was not a board, had not been elected, but had been hand-picked by a CWA friend of Senator Bernie Sanders and national board member, Jim Hightower. The man who screamed at me and accused me of never reporting to the SOC (I had emails of reports and had met with them three times in a month) was allowed to choose over 50 people who would be exclusively allowed to “convene” and start the Our Revolution Texas Chapter. He had proposed that members could only vote on chapter and regional committees if they paid money to the organization. He wanted the entire Texas donor list from Friends of Bernie Sanders. (He and his wife emailed that list without the consent of members on at least one occasion.) All of these demands and actions were the opposite of what we had fought for and what the Senator had claimed he stood for. A poll tax? Hand picked conveners who hadn’t all been volunteers or dedicated to Bernie 2016? Ultimately, I was abused in that final meeting in front of my peers for presenting a version of the national organizers’ plan that tried to incorporate some of the state-specific work the committee wanted to achieve. After the incident, I was berated by this man in one email for also recommending that one person should not be one of the original “conveners”. A year later, the person I singled out stepped down from a Congressional primary campaign because of sexual harassment allegations from multiple women. I didn’t have magical foresight. I just happened to know what happened on the ground in Texas since I had been a staffer on the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign in Texas, Louisiana and New York City.
...
It’s 2019. There has been some rearranging of chairs on the Titanic that is Bernie 2020 but a lot remains the same. I’m writing this a little before midnight in Texas. Thirteen hours ago, I got an email from a former scheduler on the 2016 campaign asking for my information to arrange travel for a meeting in two days that many of us have known about for awhile. A lot of people like me who reported to the press after being ignored for years had been excluded from the initial planning of this meeting but after some demands from others, I guess we got added to a list. I responded early this morning with my information, curious about what would happen next, curious to see if the boss had become less “busy”.
...
For a future to believe in, learn from the past and present. Senator Sanders and his friends do not have you in mind. Demand more than easy platitudes about economic inequality. Demand a candidate who will treat the women and men who sacrifice months and years of their lives with some respect. Demand a candidate who has time to appoint leaders with substantial grassroots experience and the know-how to plan a wage grid or schedule flights. Senator Sanders is not that candidate.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Turning on him full of passionate resentment and personal grievances hardly indicates, though, that she understands what she herself did wrong, both specifically in supporting many dishonest and dishonorable, even anti-democratic, actions through 2015-2016 and overall in her part in assisting the Republican takeover.
Gotta admire her for her ability and commitment to activism; but without sufficient probity and judgement to first do no harm, it might be better if she focused on raising her child.
And now with Republicans now tearing our nation apart nationally she's gone to NY, where she imagines the liberal, progressive Democratic principles and goals she herself betrayed will help protect her and her child.
Ironic, but sure hope they continue to do so of course. I feel like fleeing to a blue state these days myself, though it wouldn't be half so righteously with people (like you) staying and fighting in place what she helped do to all of us.
