Joan Baez Endorses Bernie Sanders
I've had conflicting
feelings as to whether or not I should officially endorse Bernie Sanders as the
Democratic nominee for President of the United States. I would be making this
decision for only the second time in my life. The first time was for Barack
Obama, the master of the spoken word whose brilliance (and smile) brought
people together and ignited our spirits for the first time in decades.
Aside
from endorsing Barack Obama, I have refused to step into the arena of party
politics. My choice, from an
early age, has been to engage in social change from the ground up, using the
power of organized nonviolence. A distrust of the political process was firmly
in place by the time I was 15. As a daughter of Quakers I pledged my allegiance
not to a flag or a nation state but to humankind, the two often having little
to do with each other.
Ideally, both Obama
and Sanders could have used their unique gifts to build a grass roots movement,
sidestepping the Oval Office and going directly to the streets to organize from
the sidewalks, street corners, living rooms and churches. Gandhi himself
refused to be part of the newly formed Independent India government after he
led the country to independence, and remained committed to nonviolent
opposition.
Can a true political
revolution ever start from within the party system? It does seem like an
insurmountable contradiction. And to imagine that more than a fraction of
Bernie's agenda could ever come to fruition is probably setting expectations
too high.
Yet Bernie has won my
heart. He supports causes in which I have been personally involved for decades.
I take great strength from his firm stance against the death penalty,
(amazing!) his belief that Palestinians should have a place at the bargaining
table, (unheard of!) his understanding that the prison system must transform
its agenda from punishment to rehabilitation, his desire to treat immigrants as
human beings, and of course by his grass roots funding and astonishing refusal
to sell himself to the devil on Wall Street, or anywhere else for that matter.
I am profoundly moved by this elder statesman, his compelling honesty, and his
ability to engage young people.
Why am I not spending
my time trying to woo Bernie into grass roots organizing? For the moment I'm
going with my heart, which I mentioned, he has won. I am not sold on "the
system" and never will be. I’m sold on the guy from Brooklyn.
I've learned a lot
while writing this piece. I know that I am ambivalent about supporting someone
who will be thrown to the lions if he wins. He is a lion in his own right, and
I want to see him win. Not just to conquer the growing evil in the other party,
but also to see what he can do to bend the system towards a less corrupt and
more generous country than we are at present.
I joyfully and
wholeheartedly endorse Bernie Sanders to be the nominee for the Democratic
Party in the 2016 Presidential Election.
-Joan Baez
