Arts & Events

Earlier this week, political blogger, columnist and cartoonist Ted Rall dropped by Berkeley's University Press Bookstore to flog his new book, Bernie, a 200-page "bio-graphic novel" about the insurgent presidential candidate from Vermont.

Like Bernie Sanders, Rall is an independent, anti-establishment crusader and critic. He's also a two-time winner of the Robert F. Kennedy journalism award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His syndicated cartoons—and trenchant political commentaries—appear across the board, from the New York Times to the Village Voice and he's recently turned to producing full-length cartoon treatises on subjects ranging from election theft to controversial public figures. Before Bernie, his previous book profiled Edward Snowden.

Rall told the bookstore crowd that he sees his role as "filling a gap in coverage" and allowed that the "ideal audience" for his politico-graphic comic books is "a smart 12-year-old."
 

That said, Bernie is a great polemic for all ages—providing a critical re-examination the last 60 years of American politics before introducing readers to the personal saga of the rumpled rebel from upstate Vermont. Author and cartoonist Ted Rall is a self-admitted storyteller. He loves the Moth Radio Hour and indulges in tail-spinning contests at neighborhood cabarets. So it's no surprise that, when we arrive at the University Press Bookstore across from the UC Berkeley campus for a 6 PM reading of Rall's new book about Bernie Sanders, the author was already knee-deep in a story. 

Role was relating details of an encounter he had with the Los Angeles police sometime ago that apparently resulted in his being detained, handcuffed and eventually fired by his employers at the Los Angeles Times. Being fired by the LAT, Rall noted, amounted to a "burn notice" when it comes to future employment. Rall wound up fighting this mini-encounter-turned-epic-battle for years. 

The LAPD claimed they had and audiotape of the encounter and insisted Rall had "lied" about what happened. "I didn't lie!" Rall insisted. It took a great deal of effort to wrest a copy of the allegedly incriminating audio from the LAPD. When it arrived, it turned out the tape was inaudible—just a hissing pack of electronic static. After Rall paid to have the tape enhanced, it was possible (just barely) to make out a woman's voice in the background yelling, "Remove his handcuffs!" With this exculpatory evidence, Rall is now asking the Times for damages under, among other things, California's anti-blacklisting laws. 

It was a great tale, told with gusto and relish. But the real purpose of Rall's Berkeley visit was to flog his new book, Bernie, a 200-page "bio-graphic novel" about the insurgent presidential candidate from Vermont. 

Like Bernie Sanders, Rall is an independent, anti-establishment crusader and critic. But he also is a two-time winner of the Robert F. Kennedy journalism award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist whose syndicated cartoons—and trenchant political commentaries—appear across the board, from the New York Times to the Village Voice. Rall recently has turned to producing full-length cartoon treatises on subjects ranging from election theft to controversial public figures. Before Bernie, his previous book profiled Edward Snowden. 

Rall told his fans at the bookstore gathering that he sees his role as "filling a gap in coverage" and he allowed that the "ideal audience" for his politico-graphic comic books is "a smart 12-year-old." 

That said, Bernie is a great polemic for all ages—providing a critical re-examination the last 60 years of American politics before introducing readers to the personal saga of the rumpled rebel from upstate Vermont. 

In Bernie's introductory historical primer, Rall subjects the Democratic Party apparatus to an unvarnished shellacking. In squinty-eyed retrospect, Rall charts the Democratic Party's regression from a people-centered politic to in an institution so wracked by compromise that it has become (by comparison to its New Deal past) a neo-Republican shadow party of the GOP. 

While the New Left managed to find a voice in the Democratic Party of the 1960s, that ended after George McGovern was trounced by tricky Dick Nixon in 1973. In the shocked aftermath, the party's destiny was seized by a group of centrists—the Coalition for a Democratic Majority—that wrenched the political machine sharply to the right. 

As Bernie Sanders himself has pointed out: "In the 1970s, the Democratic Party became more dependent on corporate money. If you need money, you go to wealthy people." 

Jimmy Carter became the first modern Democrat to abandon the party's signature "big government" programs designed to address suffering and inequality in the US. Ronald Reagan ushered Carter out of the Oval Office and commenced the "Reagan Revolution," cutting and poverty programs that had been in place since FDR's administration. While slamming Reagan for a budget-busting military buildup that included the ludicrous Star Wars defense system, Bernie pauses to point out that the military splurge actually began under Jimmy Carter's watch. 

Once again on the outs under Reagan, center-right Democrats seized even more influence inside the party. "There has been no Democratic poverty plan since LBJ's Great Society," Rall told the bookstore crowd. "Roosevelt's WPA (Works Progress Administration) created millions of jobs for Americans," Rall noted. "Obamacare is not a poverty program," he continued. "A real poverty program would be one that puts money in people's pockets." 

"We are living in The Age of Vague," Rall lamented, but he's doing his part to illuminate the sharp edges of a benumbed society. In one example from Bernie, Rall has enshrined in ink this stinging comment from Ralph Nader: "The only difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock." 

Bernie explains how the culmination of the Dems "politics of triangulation" peaked with the election of Bill Clinton, a southerner with the charm of radical scamp but a decidedly pro-business bias that soon saw him channeling billions of dollars of incentives toward the private sector. Clinton put more police on the streets at the same time he was cutting poverty programs that put even more poor Americans back on those streets. 

Clinton, a Democrat-in-Name-Only, went on to DINOmite Somalia, Afghanistan and the "welfare state" with equal zeal. The Democrats' liberal and labor base was left to wither. 

It only got worse with election (strike that: the Supreme Court-appointed installation) of George W. Bush. In 2008, the moral travesties of the W's administration— illegal wars, immoral resorts to abductions and torture—were swept aside by the election of Barack Obama. But instead of things getting a whole lot better, "Change we can believe in" quickly began to morph into a lot of "same old, same old." 

In Rall's wry assessment, "The victory of Barack Obama marks the high watermark of the centrist counterrevolution." There were no progressives or liberals in Obama's Cabinet. Obama hyped Bush's War on Terror and expanded the Pentagon's global reach to the point that Rall now places him "to the right of Richard Nixon when it comes to foreign interventions." 

Obama increased military spending (even reversing his vow to rid the world of nuclear weapons). He expanded Bush Jr.'s killer drone program to include the murder of US citizens. He favored Wall Street's criminals with a $7.77 trillion Big Bank Bailout and an $814 billion "stimulus package" (read: taxpayer-funded handouts). Under Obama, the earnings gap actually widened while college students forced to apply for Federal loans found themselves saddled with unpayable debts. (Debts that, under bank-friendly congressional legislation, could never be discharged through bankruptcy protection). 

Bernie does not spare the other Democratic candidate. "To me," Rall says, "Hillary has always been a Republican—in contrast to [New York Mayor Michael] Bloomberg who has always been a Democrat." Clearly, Hillary is Wall Street's candidate and her war-mongering days at State won her many friends in Military-Industrial circles. "In Libya," Rall told the bookstore throng, "she took a first-world nation and reduced it to a failed state in a year." 

Driven from the co-opted "party of the people," liberals, progressives, people of color and youth no longer had a gathering space in the nation's halls of power. The only places left to occupy were the streets and parks. 

It was becoming clear that "only an outsider can change the system from the inside." 

At this point (page 74 in the book), Bernie devotes 20 pages to recapping Sanders' maverick political career—a consistent and enduring howl of indignation against the powerful and wealthy. Increasingly, Bernie's message was resonating across generations of America's political outcasts. Today, all eyes turn toward the east as Bernie rises—all fiery rhetoric and thundering admonitons—and begins to blaze a new path across the American landscape. 

Unlike the rest of the country's fair-weather politicians, Bern' is as authentic as last winter's hiking boots. He's a rumpled mensch, a white-maned Messiah whose Sermon on the Mounting Debt boils down to: "We should be tough on Wall Street! The wealthy should pay their fair share!" 

Halfway through his book, Rall schedules some personal face time with Bernie Sanders in an attempt to answer the question: "Who is this guy and why was he uniquely situated to address people's anger over income inequality, while the rest of the political establishment remained clueless?" 

"What did you think of Bernie when you finally met him?" one of the bookstore crowd asks Rall. 

"I found him to be warm… and awkward." Rall recalls. He flips to the inside back cover of his book and points to a photo of the author with the candidate. "When I asked if I could take a selfie, he just gave this big exasperated sigh!" Bernie's not a "selfie" kinda guy. 

The remainder of the book is devoted to rousing affirmations of "Feel the Bern'" campaigning. But the applause-worthy slams against entrenched wealth and all things GOP and Hillary are sprinkled with some honest caveats. Sanders has not been a firebrand when it comes to opposing certain brands of firearms. He's OK with the US using drones to kill people in foreign lands. And the temperature of his expressed alarm over Israel's oppression of Palestinians has only been lukewarm. 

Still, Rall gives Sanders the last word. Bernie's final quote reads: "I think I am as good a candidate as any to carry the torch." 

In the afterword, Rall notes there are two routes for problem solvers. One is to take the path of the rebel; the other is to assume the role of the reformer. 

Edward Snowden is clearly a rebel. "He took risks for integrity," Rall says. Sanders is a reformer, hoping to pull off what Rall calls "this sneaky end run around revolution." 

Rall's conclusion is wary: "It is tougher, in some ways, to try to effect change from the inside. Push too hard… and you'll certainly be alienated and marginalized by the gatekeepers of the mainstream media. Fail to push hard enough and you won't get the job done." 

Rall is concerned that the one-party nature of America's so-called "two-party system" has lead to one of the world's lowest voter turn-outs. Countries with parliamentary elections see much more vigorous voter engagement. 

"If Bernie ran as an independent," Rall believes, "he could win against Hillary or Trump. This is the year of the outsider. It's either Trump or Bernie." 

The 2016 election, however it turns, will be pivotal. If Sanders and his revolution win the right to stand up to power and reclaim the tethers of democracy it will be good news for the country, the continents, and the planet. If we lose this one, Rall fears, we may well have lost it all. 

Rall's book is a rallying cry for our last, best hope.