The day after a “yuge” Bernie Sanders rally at Washington Square Park in Manhattan, wife Jane Sanders took to the radio airwaves to discuss the campaign, the issues, and ways to make political change, past and present.
Last week, host John Kane of Let’s Talk left the Brooklyn WBAI-FM studio on his weekly trip home upstate. On this day, he stopped at a Bernie Sanders campaign office and asked for a radio interview with Bernie’s wife Jane. The campaign responded affirmatively. Yesterday, John Kane spent over an hour in a conversation with Jane Sanders about many issues with a particular focus upon Native American issues.
HOW WILL BERNIE SANDERS ACHIEVE CHANGE?
Jane Sanders described how Mayor Bernie Sanders was able to get things done after a short time of total opposition in Burlington, Vermont, then explained how a similar process would play out in Washington DC.
When he was mayor, he won by ten votes. The whole city council was against him. He had to appoint a shadow cabinet who — all of us were volunteers working on behalf of the city because they wouldn’t let him even hire a secretary, let alone make his mayoral appointees. A year later he had doubled voter turnout because the people of Burlington, Vermont saw that government could work for them.
Three people on the city council out of six that were up for election were kicked out, and our people were put in — which meant he had veto power. The next year because again of what he was doing, he won three more seats and ended up having a majority on the city council — and was able to transform Burlington into an unbelievably wonderful city. It’s named one of the most livable cities in the United States since Bernie was mayor. So that shows that politics is not a zero-sum game…
Right now we have a Republican Senate and a Republican House. If Bernie wins, we believe very strongly that we will have brought in more people into the process, and the Democrats will regain the Senate and do better in the House. And then, in two years, when it’s up again, we will retake the House because we will show the country what a government of, by, and for the people actually can do to improve the quality of life of the average American…
WHO WILL BERNIE SANDERS PLACE INTO KEY POSITIONS?
Jane Sanders takes on the “revolving door,” insisting that the cabinet of Bernie Sanders would not be filled with industry representatives. “No, no, they’re not gonna have a place in Bernie’s cabinet,” Jane said, then continued:
When you have somebody who is really interested and has a history of dealing with regulating Wall Street, having an economy that works for all of us instead of having Wall Street executives being — heading the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, that will make a difference. When you have somebody who is an environmentalist and is interested in protecting the planet being the head of the EPA as opposed to again chemical companies and fossil fuel industries in there, that will make a difference. Bernie’s cabinet will not only look like the diversity of America, it will carry out in principle the ideas that he espouses. He’s not one to ever say, ‘Okay, well that cant be done.’ If he’s talking about it, he means it, and he will do it…
Listen to the full hour-plus length interview here.