Larry Hamm & Danny Glover discuss how to carry Bernie Sanders’ progressive agenda forward

larry hamm, danny glover
Source: democracynow.org
In a Democracy Now! interview, Larry Hamm and Danny Glover share their thoughts on how to carry forward the progress Bernie Sanders’ made during his presidential campaign toward swinging the Democratic Party back to a progressive political agenda (which it lost touch with some time ago).

And by the way, both gentleman plan to vote for Hillary Clinton in November.

LARRY HAMM: Yes. I’m going to follow the guidance of the standard-bearer Bernie Sanders, and I’m going to vote for Hillary Clinton. It’s a choice between neofascism, Donald Trump, and neoliberalism, Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump must be defeated, and not just defeated, he must be defeated decisively. There must be a repudiation of these ultra-right-wing and fascist tendencies that are supporting him and that are in his movement. The struggle against neoliberalism, which has been going on for the past 40 years, will continue after November the 8th.

And the Bernie Sanders movement is at a critical stage. Bernie Sanders did something that was tremendous in the political arena. He widened the space for progressive politics. But more than that, he proved that there is a critical mass of people in the United States that will support progressive, even radical, politics. And the challenge at this point is for all of those forces—because there’s one force. There’s the Bernie Sanders movement vis-à-vis the Democratic Party and the establishment and corporate leadership of that party, but within the Bernie Sanders movement itself, there are many tendencies. The question is: Are those tendencies going to be able to resolve their contradictions to the point—not eliminate them, but at least modify them to the point that they can hold together and keep this movement going? Or are they going to explode, explode and that movement go the way of the Rainbow Coalition movement, of which I was a part, after the Jesse Jackson campaign of 1988?

This is a very critical movement. The progressive genie—the genie of progressive politics is out of the bottle. There are powerful forces that want to put that back in. They want Bernie Sanders and his movement to go away. They want to return as business as usual. And our job is to make sure that that does not happen.

DANNY GLOVER: Yeah, I mean—

AMY GOODMAN: Danny Glover?

DANNY GLOVER: Larry said it perfectly, in the sense, what we do beyond the 9th of November is the most important thing that we’ll do in our lives right here. The work that we do, the way in which we nurture new leadership, the way in which we use progressive politics and get progressive leaders elected to local, regional government, national government, that those are the things that we’re going to do, in a sense.

But we have to really continue to understand the dialectics that we’re dealing with, and understanding that the dialectics are always changing in this situation. We’ve got to find a way. And as we bring this movement forward, it also uses its insight and imagination in the idea of transformation. Dr. King always talked about transformation and the need for not only us to transform the institution which govern us, the institution, but to transform ourselves. What does that transformation look like? What does it look like? What does it look like when we talk about environmental racism? What does it look about when you talk about the planet itself? What does it look like? What are all the things that we have to be talked about?

Read or listen to the full interview.

8 Replies to “Larry Hamm & Danny Glover discuss how to carry Bernie Sanders’ progressive agenda forward”

  1. I don’t move in typical lefty circles. I move around in minority communities – Latino, Black, even Arabic. I have regular but limited contact with white progressives since we see eye to eye on so little and their knee-jerk Jew hatred drives me completely crazy.

  2. I wish I was as much of a lefty or an “American Jew” as you think I am. I hate Trump because he is and ugly, offensive hater and a fucking mega-ton thief. Plus he treats people with disgusting disdain. And he’s childish to boot.

    I’m never going to judge a politician for first and foremost, the way he feels about Israel. Plus, you think Trump will support Israel? Well, if it suits him he will. That madman is completely unpredictable. Let 1 single Israeli say Save America From Trump has tiny hands and all bets will be off.

  3. IDK how many people you’ve spoken to, to believe that. I’ve spoken to thousands and this is my conclusion: most people dislike, or even hate, Jews. For sure the left does hate. Although interestingly enough I know plenty of Arabic Muslims who feel strong brotherhood with Jews.

    Hillary certainly is disgusting. But DT is disgusting, stupid and ignorant.

    BTW the bigot v racist statement is not my own, and it’s simply a definition. Supplied by the Anti-Racist Alliance.

    1. I knew you weren’t saying the bigoted minorities can’t be racist thing. You are bound to meet loads of Jew haters because you move in very lefty circles. I also know many Arabs who have either an ambiguous feeling towards Jews, but with a sense of kinship and some who are great Zionists with a strong sense of kinship – but antisemitism is disproportionately high in muslim communities – at least in Europe, and it is predominant in most muslim majority countries (maybe not Indonesia)

    2. You may not like a lot of things about Trump but he is clearly not stupid – I know as an American Jew you are not voting only on his stance on Israel but what is perceived as “progressive’ values are fairly solid now but America is at a crucial time in it’s relationship with Israel if there was a president that genuinely supported Israel real steps could be made towards peace right now…

  4. Apparently, only dominant race individuals can be racists and others must content themselves with being bigots.

    These guys both supported Sanders. Is Sanders groupies don’t want to vote H but even an iguana is better than Trump.

    PS Sham, haven’t you noticed that most people dislike Jews?

    1. I think it is racist to suggest someone can’t be something because of their race – so “non-dominant race individuals” can be racist – to say otherwise is discriminatory and racist. An iguana may be better than Donald J. Trump (though I don’t agree) but either Donald J. Trump or an iguana are way better than Clinton. And though Jew hatred is rampant amongst the regressive left and Muslims thankfully I don’t think it is most people

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