Tag Archives: Bernie Sanders

Jonathan Klett’s documentary films ride the crest of anti-authoritarian activism

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The Federal Building in Milwaukee. Midwest Wanderer

It was high noon on April 6, as 9,000 protesters jammed Wisconsin Avenue in front of the Milwaukee Federal Building, still a circuit courthouse. This is grand Romanesque architecture, but today its tall central bell-tower brings to mind Notre Dame Cathedral during the post-Revolution era when the restored Bourbon monarchy was toppled in 1830.

So, no, Victor Hugo’s hunchback bellringer Quasimodo doesn’t swing down from the pealing heights. But Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera Milwaukee, ends her fiery and incisive speech indicting the Trump and Musk administration’s fascist infiltration of American democracy with the exhortation, “Si se puede! Si se puede!”

This translates as “Yes, you can!” — the motto of the United Farmworkers since Cesar Chavez uttered it in 1972. The phrase was born during a famous 25-day fast Chavez undertook to inspire farm workers to believe that their fight for better wages and conditions was possible.

Why does Chavez’s cry resonate today? History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it often rhymes, as Mark Twain once said.

That’s why belief in the power of people rising to fight the corrupted powers is a force that echoes across generations. It’s a potent way to keep the idea and energy burning, and political action alive. This so-called “Hands Off!” protest was one of 1,400 in locations across all 50 U.S. states, drawing up to an estimated three to five million participants nationwide, according to the demonstration organizers.

Neumann-Ortiz was captured by rising Milwaukee filmmaker Jonathan Klett, who will have a short film debuted at the Milwaukee Film Festival, May 1 and 3.

Here’s his film of her speech with some reaction shots from the crowd:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIlu3kAumjR/

As Jonathan aptly quotes Christine from her speech:  “We know that resistance is our duty, and we will not let history repeat itself. That we will stand united, and we will beat back fascism and we’re gonna come out of this better than when we started!”

Jonathan adds, “Christine and Voces invite you to join them on May Day (May 1) in a national day of protest and strike. All workers unite.”

Voces de la Fronteras leader Christine Neumann-Ortiz speaks to a crowd on May Day Protest in 2022 in front of the Milwaukee Federal Building, where a “Hands-Off!” protest on April 6, 2025 drew 9,000 people. She invited that crowd to another May Day protest this May 1. Photo: Isiah Holmes, The Wisconsin Examiner

Voces de la Fronteras leader Neumann-Ortiz coudn’t have been a more appropriate speaker, given that Latin-American immigrants are the primary focus of Trump’s largely illegal deportation efforts.

Remember his notorious presidential-run announcement speech in 2015: “ When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

Lately Trump’s rhetoric has stooped to, “They are emptying out insane asylums into the United States.” Can you believe this blathering fool?

My thanks to Jonathan Klett for filming and sharing this. He has spent the bulk of his still-burgeoning career as a gifted video journalist and filmmaker rising in visibility by searching out important fights for justice and humane truth.

 

New Milwaukee 3rd District Alderman Alex Brower. Courtesy Milwaukee Leader

At that April protest, Klett also documented the searing speech of Alex Brower, whom I’m proud to say is the new alderman of my own Third Milwaukee district. Brower is also union president of the Milwaukee Substitute Teachers Association, and executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans.

He claims to be “the first socialist” in local government since the famously efficient Milwaukee “sewer socialists,” like Mayor Daniel Hoan, of the 1930s. Brower is loaded with ideas, energy and, I think, vision, including plans to replace We Energies with a collectively-owned power organization. He rang my Riverwest doorbell on election day afternoon, still stumping door-to-door several hours after I voted for him.

Klett also captured Brower’s speech: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIzL8f1R1yE/?igsh=MWlxNG9kN3dvNHlheg%3D%3D

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A bit of full disclosure: Jonathan is the oldest son of this writer’s longtime friends, John and Mary Klett, so if you perceive a certain bias here, so be it.

But I’m trying hard to apply my critical powers to his work and comment accordingly.

He’s got the documentary chops, the commitment and drive. He works for noted reporter and pundit Laura Flanders, and he recently traveled with and documented the hugely popular, cross-country “Fight Oligarchy” tour of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Part of his footage was telecast on PBS.

Check out some of this doc work and an interview with Bernie Sanders on Jonathan’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Bob.Ross.Lives

Next up for Klett is the Milwaukee Film Festival. He got a short film placed in the international array of cinema on his first-ever entry. The Thin Blue Wave covers the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last year, and recent labor and community efforts, and will run at 3 p.m. this Thursday, May 1 at The Downer Theater and 1:15 p.m. Saturday, May 3 at the Oriental Theater, in Milwaukee.

On both days Klett’s The Thin Blue Wave will open for WTO/99, “an immersive archival documentary that reanimates the 1999 ‘Battle of Seattle’ – a clash heard round the world between the then-emerging World Trade Organization (WTO) and the more than 40,000 people who took to the streets of Seattle in protest.” WTO/99 is described as a still-timely “meditation on the environment, human rights and labor 25-plus years on in a new moment for activism.”

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A still from the short film “The Thin Blue Wave” by Jonathan Klett. Courtesy Jonathan Klett

Here’s a link to tickets to The Thin Blue Wave and WTO/99: https://mkefilm.org/events/mff25/wto-99 

And here’s a link to Klett’s personal website: https://www.jonathanklett.com/

Protest crowd at Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Photo by Mustafa Hussain/ NBC News

These Klett films are all preludes to his first major feature documentary, The Sacred and the Snake, which he’s been working on for some years. The forthcoming film covers the long seige of protest by Native Americans and allies against the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The oil company decides to build right through the reservation, threatening its Missouri River water supply, sacred sites, and the region’s ecological balance. It focuses on a Lakota matriarch, a “Jicarilla Apache/Dine two-spirit person,” and a Cheyenne youth leader who “each discover their power within a movement that echoes worldwide.”

The title image from Klett’s forthcoming full-length documentary “The Sacred and the Snake,” about the two year-long protest against the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Courtesy Jonathan Klett

The protests eventually drew thousands of sympathetic supporters and involved confrontations with law enforcement, security personnel, and construction crews, with protesters facing violence and intimidation. In response to the campaign, President Barack Obama’s administration stopped the pipeline’s construction, but this decision was reversed after President Donald Trump took office, and construction was finished in 2017.

Dakota Access Pipeline protesters on their knees before police guard. The protest spurred considerable police bruality, including extensive spraying of mace. Photo by Jonathan Klett from “The Sacred and The Snake.” 

However, the Standing Rock protests raised significant awareness about Indigenous land rights, environmental concerns, and the impact of fossil fuel infrastructure on communities.

Klett’s film carries on that consciousness-raising and uplifting of activism. It tells a heroic story, as gritty and soulful as it is cinematic and dramatic.

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Why Elizabeth Warren may still catch and ride the big wave, if Bernie slips

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Illustration by Ricardo Santos; photographs by T.J. Kirkpatrick, Jordan Gale, Demetrius Freeman, and Allison Farrand for The New York Times.

Want some political meat to chew on, as you decide what Democratic candidate is most palatable and digestible in November?

Here are three articles that address why one Democratic candidate remains in the lead pack, but needs more spotlighting of her quality and viability as a winning candidate, and as a the best president for America, right now. Yes, I’m talking about Elizabeth Warren, who has really taken fewer arrows than any other candidate in the current Democratic infighting. Partly that’s because she’s not the targeted front-runner. But it’s also because few have much of substance to complain about her as a flawed candidate. She’s clearly the best equipped, almost comparable to Hillary Clinton in terms of serious credentials and leadership chops. But she’s a better candidate than Clinton to ride out the long test. Warren is behind Bernie but still capable of catching the same big wave he rides without the baggage, real or perceived, that sank Clinton in the final inside maneuvering of the Electoral College.

One of The New York Times’ most prominent liberal opinion columnists, Michelle Goldberg, makes a sterling new case for Warren as the best can-do president to fix what ails America and its economic system, here:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/opinion/sunday/elizabeth-warren-2020.html

Note that Goldberg addresses how Warren has the most compelling personal success story of any presidential candidate, one which should speak to ordinary Americans struggling to get by. People need to pay attention to her, to realize what an inspiring candidate she could be in the general election..

This leads me to the other two articles, by political scientist Melanye Price. The first, from January, address the perceived “electability” factor which has assumed out-sized focus in this crucial election. The first article shows how Warren foiled Bernie Sanders on the alleged “woman can’t be elected president” trope. Sadly there’s substance to the reality of American sexism, especially in presidential politics. But If Warren can continue to fend off that notion smartly, as she did in the January debate, she can alter perceptions in the various corners of the worrying electorate who are afraid to support her. Here’s that piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/opinion/warren-sanders-debate.htmlhttp://

The other article by Price, from November, 2019, took a larger view of the current electorate, and still seems to still hold up as an analysis of the dominant dynamic in this race, and a projection of how things could play out. Her big-picture argument about the youth vote clearly buoys Bernie Sanders at this point. But is he really more electable than Warren in a general election? Wait till Trump starts piling on the easy “socialist radical” albatross which may be signified, in effect, by Bernie’s shoulder hunch. Ram-rod erect Warren has much of the same vision, but less ideologically and more pragmatically, with her cleansing-and-reinventing capitalism depth of planning and credibility. And she’s long been a superb debater, who recently demonstrated how she can deliver combination punches and body blows in debate, while having a natural affinity for the high road, and thus coming out looking good.

Is this enough to break the stubborn-but-clearly-aging “glass ceiling” of American misogyny?

Price makes it quite plausible. And here’s where both her recent “electability” article and her bigger-picture take can read as one whole scenario. Warren has plenty of work to do to become the nominee, but she still holds strong potential. Price’s combined arguments help explain why Warren remains the relatively unscathed Dem candidate “waiting in the wings.”

To my pleasant surprise, her persuasive analysis from last November ends up seizing on the two presidential candidates at the time, whom I think would be the best Democratic ticket for coalescing a strong, broad, diverse coalition: Warren (as president in my book) and Julian Castro (my choice for her running mate). That team is already in the cards as Castro, since dropping out of the presidential race, has become a primary surrogate for Warren and an obvious bridge builder to the growing Latinx and minority electorate. These Seven Million Young People Can Beat Trump

Because Warren clearly needs help these are also reasons why now’s the time for those who do and can believe in all she brings to the table need to step up as citizens in the election and actively supporting her. That’s what I’m doing.

The primary race might feel like Bernie’s to lose right now, but could he lose? I mean really lose? I think he’s a much more viable November candidate than a similar lefty — and doomed — darling, George McGovern, was in 1972. Times have changed in plenty of ways since then, but history always holds echoes for us to perk an ear to, and reconsider in the light of the present.

These are reasons why my mantra, left over from the 2016 campaign, now takes on new meaning: “Run, Liz, run!”

Read up these pieces and see what you think.