Last call for comments on "This Life"

I've added a late DQ, and an addendum to an earlier one, if any of you would care to comment:

• Have you read Naomi Klein? Is she on the right track? Is Hagglund's critique fair? (I have a particular interest in this question, I've used This Changes Everything and other books by Klein in Environmental Ethics in the past, and will use her latest book this Fall.)
• I know Ed thinks Hagglund should have omitted the late chapters and his advocacy of democratic socialism, perhaps you agree; but I really like the last paragraph. "We only have a chance to achieve democratic socialism [or anything important, really] if we grasp that everything is at stake in what we do with our finite time together. We only have a chance to make it a reality if we help one another to own our only life. This is how we overcome and how we move forward..." COMMENT? I hear an echo of this sentiment in what Bernie Sanders said in his exit speech yesterday (quoting Nelson Mandela) about what it takes to effect large-scale change in any society...

Good morning and thank you very much for joining me. I want to express to each of you my deep gratitude for helping to create an unprecedented grass roots political campaign that has had a profound impact in changing our nation.

I want to thank the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who knocked on doors, millions of them, in the freezing winters of Iowa and New Hampshire, and in the heat of Nevada and in South Carolina, and in states throughout the country.

I want to thank the two million Americans who have contributed financially to our campaign and showed the world that we can take on the corrupt campaign finance system, and run a major presidential campaign without the wealthy and the powerful. Thank you for your 10 million contributions, averaging $18.50 a donation.

I want to thank those who phone banked for our campaign and those of you who sent out millions of texts. And I want to thank the many hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been to our rallies, town meetings and house parties from New York to California. Some of these events had over 25,000 people. Some had a few hundred. Some had a dozen. But all were important. And let me thank those who made these many events possible.

I also want to thank our surrogates, too many to name. I can’t imagine that any candidate has ever been blessed with a stronger and more dedicated group of people who have taken our message to every part of this country. And I want to thank all of those who made the music and the art an integral part of our campaign. I want to thank all of you who spoke to your friends and neighbors, posted on social media, and worked as hard as you could to make this a better country.

Together we have transformed American consciousness as to what kind of nation we can become, and have taken this country a major step forward in the never-ending struggle for economic justice, social justice, racial justice and environmental justice.

I also want to thank the many hundreds of people on our campaign staff. You were willing to move from one state to another and do all the work that had to be done. No job was too big or too small for you. You rolled up your sleeves and you did it. You embodied the words that are at the core of our movement — not me, but us. And I thank each and every one of you for what you’ve done.

As many of you will recall, Nelson Mandela, one of the great freedom fighters in modern world history, famously said, “It always seems impossible until it is done.” And what he meant by that is that the greatest obstacle to reach social change has everything to do with the power of the corporate and political establishment to limit our vision as to what is possible and what we are entitled to as human beings. (continues)