Appointees by Clinton and
Wasserman Schulz resoundingly reject numerous proposals put forth by Sanders
surrogates
Despite its claims to want to
unify voters ahead of November's election, the Democratic party appears to be pushing
for an agenda that critics say
ignores basic progressive policies, "staying true" to their Corporate
donors above all else.
During a 9-hour meeting in St.
Louis, Missouri on Friday, members of the DNC's platform drafting committee voted
down a number of measures proposed by Bernie
Sanders surrogates that would have come out against the contentious
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),
fracking, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. At the same time, proposals
to support a carbon tax, Single Payer healthcare, and a $15 minimum wage tied
to inflation were also disregarded.
In a statement,
Sanders said he was "disappointed and dismayed" that representatives
of Hillary Clinton and DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz rejected the proposal
on trade put forth by Sanders appointee Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), despite
the fact that the presumed nominee has herself come
out against the 12-nation deal.
"Inexplicable" was
how Sanders described the move, adding: "It is hard for me to understand
why Secretary Clinton’s delegates won’t stand behind Secretary Clinton’s
positions in the party’s platform."
The panel also rejected
amendments suggested by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, another Sanders pick,
that would have imposed a carbon tax, declared a national moratorium on
fracking as well as new fossil fuel drilling leases on federal lands and
waters.
"This is not a political
problem of the sort that we are used to dealing with," McKibben stated
during the marathon debate. "Most political problems yield well to the
formula that we’ve kept adopting on thing after thing—compromise, we’ll go
halfway, we’ll get part of this done. That’s because most political problems
are really between different groups of people. They’re between industry and
environmentalists. That is not the case here."
"Former U.S.
Representative Howard Berman, American Federation of State, County, and Muncipal
Employees executive assistant to the president, Paul Booth, former White House
Energy and Climate Change Policy director Carol Browner, Ohio State
Representative Alicia Reece, former State Department official Wendy Sherman,
and Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden all raised their hands to
prevent a moratorium from becoming a part of the platform," noted
Shadowproof's Kevin Gosztola.
According to Gosztola's
reporting on the exchange, Dr. Cornel West lambasted the aforementioned panel
members, particularly Browner, for "endorsing reform incrementalism"
in the face of an urgent planetary crisis.
"When you’re on the edge
of the abyss or when you’re on that stove, to use the language of Malcolm X,
you don’t use the language of incrementalism. It hurts, and the species is
hurting," West said.
Other progressive policies
were adopted piecemeal, such as the $15 minimum wage, which the committee
accepted but without the amendment put forth by Ellison that would have indexed
the wage to inflation.
The panel did vote unanimously
to back a proposal to abolish the death penalty and adopted language calling
for breaking up too-big-to-fail banks and enacting a modern-day Glass-Steagall
Act—measures that Sanders said he was "pleased" about.
According
to AP, the final discussion "centered on the Israel-Palestinian
conflict."
"The committee defeated
an amendment by Sanders supporter James Zogby that would have called for
providing Palestinians with 'an end to occupation and illegal settlements' and
urged an international effort to rebuild Gaza," AP reports, measures which
Zogby said Sanders helped craft.
Instead, AP reports, the
adopted draft "advocates working toward a 'two-state solution of the
Israel-Palestinian conflict' that guarantees Israel's security with recognized
borders 'and provides the Palestinians with independence, sovereignty, and
dignity.'"
Citing these "moral
failures" of the platform draft, West abstained
during the final vote to send the document to review by the full Platform
Committee next month in
Orlando, Florida.
"If we can't say a word
about TPP, if we can't talk about Medicare-for-All explicitly, if the greatest
prophetic voice dealing with pending ecologically catastrophe can hardly win a
vote, and if we can't even acknowledge occupation... it seems there is no way
in good conscience I can say, 'Take it to the next stage,'" West declared
before the assembly.
"I wasn't raised like
that," he said. "I have to abstain. I have no other moral option, it
would be a violation of my own limited sense of moral integrity and spiritual
conscience," adding, "That's how I roll."
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