“That is what movements do. Movements keep power in check, and as any good anarchist will tell you, power is always the problem, no matter who holds it,” he continued.
“The cost of running the primaries is paid for by the taxpayers,” Hedges said. “And yet, the primary rules are determined by the Democratic Party, so that they can manipulate a system as they did in Nevada, to steal the vote.”
He concluded that Sanders would have won the nomination if independents weren’t excluded from the process, and super PAC’s and super delegates weren’t so domineering of the outcome. He even went so far as to say that there is “palpable evidence that democracy within the United States is a fraud.”
Other activists, authors and thinkers offered their reflections on the current state of American political affairs as well.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an activist involved with the Black Lives Matter Movement and Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, said, “Police are an invasive species that are unleashed by the capitalist class to maintain social control… and to maintain the disorder that is this society.”
Meanwhile, Kshama Sawant, who sits on the Seattle City Council member and is a member of the Socialist Alternative, stated, “Obama may have similar skin color to me and Keeanga but he’s not on our side because he’s not of our class, he’s not fighting for us.”
Other prominent speakers included Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian philosopher, and Dr. Jill Stein, presidential candidate for the Green Party, among many others.
