by James M. Wall
Bernie Sanders went to Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, Thursday, and delivered a policy speech in the same academic setting that brought former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, to Fulton, 71 years ago, March 5, 1946.
Churchill’s historic “Iron Curtain” speech. is seen as the opening salvo in the Cold War. This week, Bernie Sanders had a different focus.
The 2016 Democratic primary candidate who opposed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, came to Fulton to lay out a U.S. foreign policy not for war but for peace and equality.
The Nation magazine editors commented:
[Sanders] reminds us that hundreds of millions live in poverty, dying of preventable diseases, while arms makers rake in trillions from weapons of war. He reminds us that America’s history of interventions—from Iran to Chile to right now in Yemen—have a habit of having devastating results.
It was a different time when Churchill spoke in 1946. The U.S., Great Britain and its allies had just emerged victorious from World War II. The Soviet Union, the U.S. and Great Britain were pawing the ground like two bull moose eager to fight.
The Churchill speech March 5, 1946, is remembered by historians as “one of the most famous orations of the Cold War period”. In his famous oratorical style, the former Prime Minister etched these words into history:
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”
It was a call to a war-oriented future.
In his speech at Westminster College, Senator Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, drew “a direct link between the United States’ foreign policy and his own longstanding message of economic equality”.
He stressed that “the planet will not be secure or peaceful when so few have so much and so many have so little.”
Foreign policy must take into account the outrageous income and wealth inequality that exists globally and in our own country. There is no moral or economic justification for the six wealthiest people in the world having as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population, 3.7 billion people.
Churchill was bellicose; Sanders pleaded for equality. One pointed to future wars; the other called for peace.
Jason Hancock wrote in the Kansas City Star:
The goal of Sanders’ speech was to lay out a progressive vision for foreign policy that focuses on international collaboration, humanitarian concerns and the promotion of democracy. The key must be building partnerships, he concluded, not just between governments, but between people.
“Our safety and welfare is bound up in the safety and welfare of people throughout the world,” he said. “Every person on this planet shares a common humanity. … Our job is to build on that common humanity and do everything we can to oppose the forces who try to divide us up and set us against each other.”
Far too often, the use of American military power has resulted in incalculable harm, Sanders said, pointing specifically at the war in Iraq. America must not recede from the world stage, Sanders said, but it must rethink its priorities.
“The goal is not for the United States to dominate the world. Nor is our goal to withdraw from the international community and shirk our responsibilities under the banner of ‘America first.’ Our goal should be global engagement based on partnership rather than dominance,” he said.
Aware that he was speaking from the site of Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech, Sanders said:
The United States’ actions during the Cold War in supporting “murderous regimes” around the world continue to make the nation less safe. Fast forward to the Iraq War, which Sanders said was a huge mistake, and he said it’s clear that U.S. aggression helped create Islamic State and other threats that are still bedeviling the nation.
Even today, Sanders said, America’s support of “Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen” dramatically undermines “America’s ability to advance a human rights agenda around the world.”
That also means the United States cannot only preach its values, he said. It must live its values.
“If we’re going to expound the virtues of freedom and democracy abroad, we need to practice those values here at home,” Sanders said. “That means continuing the struggle to end racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia in the United States.”
How good was the speech? Fox did not like it. Not surprising.
John Nichols, in The Nation, called it one of Sanders’ finest speeches. Nichols wrote: “Borrowing from the wisdom of great American legislators such as Wisconsin’s Robert M. La Follette, Nebraska’s George Norris, and California’s Barbara Lee, Sanders spoke for the view that America leads best when it leads as an advocate for peace and justice rather than as a bully”:
It was 71 years after Winston Churchill’s speech that Sanders said:
The goal is not for the United States to dominate the world. Nor, on the other hand, is our goal to withdraw from the international community and shirk our responsibilities under the banner of “America First.”
Our goal should be global engagement based on partnership, rather than dominance. This is better for our security, better for global stability, and better for facilitating the international cooperation necessary to meet shared challenges.
Do I hear an amen on that?
The picture above is a screen shot from Westminster College