Feel The Bern- Bernie Go- Is That Liz Warren In The Back Row-What The Hell She Has Taken Everything Else From His Program

By Frank Jackman

Everybody knows or should know that military veteran Ralph Morris and supporter Sam Eaton both peace activists have since the first of the year (2019) been part of a committee to help elect Vermont Senator Bernie (“feel the bern”) Sanders President of the United States in 2020 on the Democratic ticket against POTUS Don Trump. Should also know that like me these two guys have before the Age of Trump been steadfast in their devotion to issues of war and peace and social justice and not to electoral politics. Now though, in the time of the great fear, the rise of hard-core white nationalism led from the top by the POSTUS and the rampant corruption and destruction by the greed-heads we are in too much trouble to let the prospect of four more years of Trump unleashed with nothing to lose trample the land. Trample our Republic and republican values.      

Once the 2018 mid-term elections were over a number of us, including Sam and Ralph gathered in the working class, multicultural Dorchester section of Boston to discuss who to support for the Democratic nomination for president. That group included older military veterans, union organizers, civil rights activist and socialist justice workers (see photograph below) who feared for the fate of the Republic and other reasons. It was fairly easy, despite the growing array of candidates throwing their hats into the ring to come up with the name Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Some of us, including me since my Army days, have called ourselves socialists, others have been drawn to various programs Bernie has fought for all his political life like veterans rights, LGBTQ issues, immigration (especially appropriate for a son of an immigrant father), Medicaid for All, college debt forgiveness, college for all and the like, and few from the 2016 campaign.

After the first of the year we formed a committee, Bernie Vision 2020 Boston (which would later affiliate with the umbrella group Ma4Bernie) to work the campaign in Ma and in NH critical to victory. We also linked to the national campaign one of whose first requests was to host “kick-off” parties in April to truly launch the Sanders campaign. That we did and gathered our growing forces for a social event and to hear National’s expectations going forward.     

Strangely, or at least strangely to me at first sight, was the appearance of Liz Warren, Massachusetts Senator Warren, at the event (see photo). Especially since she had very early on announced her own candidacy for POSTUS. Thinking about it later though it made perfect sense for her to be there since most of her “wonkish” programmatic points were “stolen” (no criminal charges though) from Bernie’s long-held agenda like Medicare for All, college debt forgiveness, free public college and vocational school, and a plethora of others. Welcome aboard Senator Warren we will not hold the Janie-come-lately charge against you-too much