In New York, Sawant Calls for Energy Corporations to Be Nationalized

Alex Garland

While in New York City for the big climate change march, Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant shared a table with Senator Bernie Sanders (too far right to be pictured). Also at the table with her, from left to right: Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Brian Lehrer, and Bill McKibben.

"Sisters and brothers," Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant said to an appreciative crowd at All Souls Unitarian Church in Manhattan, "history is calling on us."

She was at a table fit for a Last Progressive Supper—Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Brian Lehrer, and Bill McKibben at her left, Bernie Sanders at her right—and she spoke for about 20 minutes, interrupted regularly by cheers.

She talked of Seattle's civil disobedience against oil and coal trains ("This growing threat of climate disaster on wheels," she called them). She expressed doubt that much short of socialist revolution can stave off climate change: "How else can this be done except by bringing the giant energy corporations into public ownership?" She laughed as she said the name "Hillary Clinton" (she hopes Bernie Sanders runs as an Independent) and she criticized Democrats in Seattle as "the political servants of business." In closing, she paraphrased Rosa Luxemburg: "The future will either be one of socialism or barbarism."