June, 10 2016, 12:00pm EDT
Petition Launches: "Let It Bern. Continue to the Convention."
WASHINGTON
RootsAction.org has launched a petition today urging Senator Bernie Sanders not to end his campaign. The petition with a count of signers, and comments added by many of them, is here: https://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=12302
The petition reads, in part:
Your campaign has clearly stood for democratizing the United States, while insisting that democratic principles must apply to the Democratic Party. We believe that every vote should count -- including on the convention floor. That should mean a roll call vote on the nominee for president as part of an official process, including the nominating and seconding speeches.
It remains significant that neither candidate will win the 2,383 pledged delegates necessary to secure the nomination, and -- contrary to the misleading media reports -- neither candidate can do so until the superdelegates vote at the convention in Philadelphia.
You have said, and we have cheered as you've said it, that you will carry this campaign to the convention. We urge you to maintain that position, despite the massive top-down pressures from the corporate media and Democratic Party establishment to prematurely end the campaign.
We reject the idea that democracy weakens a political party named for democracy. We have worked for constructive debate at the Democratic National Convention, and we look forward to hearing it.
RootsAction.org co-founder Jeff Cohen said, "The historic, youth-propelled Bernie campaign disrupted what the Democratic Party establishment hoped would be a coronation, not a competition. In Philadelphia, Bernie's nearly 2,000 delegates are unlikely to settle for a stage-managed coronation; they want a convention. A fair and democratic convention could help build alliances against the Trump menace."
"Powerful Democratic Party politicians and big media outlets are insisting that Bernie should get out of the way of the Clinton machine," RootsAction co-founder Norman Solomon added on Friday. "But vast numbers of people who voted for him surely want Bernie to stand his ground on all the major issues where he strongly differs with Clinton. The national convention should be a place to air those differences, not sweep them under political rugs."
Solomon, a Californian who was elected as a Bernie Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention, added that he thinks the new petition reflects the views of most Sanders supporters: "Our voices should be heard inside the convention hall in Philadelphia. The Bernie campaign didn't get this far by deferring to the powerful, and there's no good reason to start now. As Bernie said earlier this week, 'The struggle continues.'"
RootsAction.org is an online initiative dedicated to galvanizing Americans who are committed to economic fairness, equal rights, civil liberties, environmental protection -- and defunding endless wars. RootsAction is endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, Frances Fox Piven, and many others.
RootsAction is dedicated to galvanizing people who are committed to economic fairness, equal rights for all, civil liberties, environmental protection -- and defunding endless wars. We mobilize on these issues no matter whether Democrats or Republicans control Washington D.C.
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The Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025, unveiled by congressional negotiators this past Saturday, still needs approval from the Senate, which is expected to vote next week. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that he plans to vote no and spoke out against the military-industrial complex.
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