It's been a long journey to reach that conclusion. Please hear me out.
My journey started in Beirut, where I grew up in a brutal civil war. Violence and injustice everywhere.
But today's America alarms me more than Beirut...
In America today, children are stolen from their parents, locked in freezers, caged, gunned down in schools.
Billionaires get richer while children go hungry, homeless, and without healthcare.
A society that brutalizes children is BROKEN...
When I quit my music career to become an anti-Bush activist at the turn of the millennium, it stunned me to see the Democratic Party, my party, largely go along with Bush's assault on civil liberties. Torture. War based on lies. Patriot Act...
When I was invited into the Democratic Party as a progressive liaison, advising party stalwarts like Kerry and Clinton, I really believed this musician from Beirut could bring a progressive mindset into the heart of the D.C. establishment...
I was naive to think I could change an entrenched system. Still, when Obama took office with a Dem majority, I was as hopeful as anyone. Then Dems continued Bush's worst policies: droning babies, indefinite detention, extrajudicial killings...
During the Obama years, I saw a Dem majority squandered. There were good policies, sure. But the promise of true change never materialized.
Still, when Hillary Clinton ran in 2016, I thought we could elect the first woman president...
In 2016, I fought tooth and nail to elect Hillary. In the process, I alienated many of my progressive friends from Bush years, people I'd been in the streets marching alongside. And I fought bitterly with #Bernie supporters. It was horrible...
How long would I support a Democratic Party that pretended a midpoint between justice and injustice is ok? How long would I watch Dem leaders cave and cower to the GOP, pandering to "bipartisanship" and "civility" while the right took power...
So I set aside my 2016 anger and gave #Bernie a second look. And I saw the ONE candidate calling for root-level systemic change, a candidate who has sparked a massive grassroots movement, who unapologetically calls for a political revolution...
My wife @leeladaou and I joined the #NotMeUs movement and began advising progressive congressional challengers who are running to overhaul the Democratic Party.
Our mission:
FIX THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO FIGHT FOR PEOPLE, NOT THE POWERFUL...
Bottom line: If you reject the status quo, reject a system that cages babies, oppresses working people, enriches oligarchs, makes endless war, and ravages the earth...
THE MORAL CHOICE IS #BernieSanders.
#IowaCaucuses #Iowa #IowaForBernie