Author Archive

From Dirty to Green–and the Sooner, the Better

by Editors @ Saturday, January 28th, 2012. Tags: , ,
Filed under Environment, Green Energy, Green Industry, Technology, militarism

The Essentials for the Necessary

Transition to a Renewable Energy Economy

By Jon Rynn
SolidarityEconomy.net via AlterNet.org

Jan 28, 2012 - Fossil fuels are going to disappear, whether we like it or not. Petroleum, natural gas, and coal are becoming scarcer, harder to extract and a greater danger to the global climate.

If we proceed with business-as-usual, energy companies will take advantage of increasing scarcity to dominate the world economy by vacuuming up more money from the 99%. They will be able to ally with military and financial institutions to construct an energy-military-financial complex that could eventually reduce most of the rest of us to a form of debt peonage.

On the other hand, if we could possibly elect a government that does what governments do best – build infrastructure – we can avoid a world of global warming and economic collapse by building enough wind farms, solar panels, and geothermal systems to power our economy and ignite a sustainable, broad-based period of economic growth. Of course, this will require a sea-change in the direction of the political system, along the lines of the Occupy movement, but there is too much at stake to throw up our hands in despair.

The unfolding energy drama presents progressives with several dilemmas. Some are suspicious that oil scarcity can be used as a ruse by the oil companies and speculators to spike prices. Roger Altman recently argued that a larger supply of fossil fuels will lead to less international tension. More generally, progressives sometimes fear that advocating for less oil use will be seen by the public as an attack on the American Dream of a car in every garage and a single family home for every family.

But in addition to problems of scarcity and extraction, fossil fuels are bringing us towards extremely dangerous climate change. We need to have some answers or else the Right will simply keep up with the chant of “Drill baby drill.” It's time to counter with, “Build, build, build!"

Dirty fuels Create an Unsustainable economy

The question of the future of the supply of fossil fuels is not an easy one to answer. Oil producing nations, for instance, are not at all transparent about their supplies. Technologies constantly change, and so do environmental hazards. However, if we look at the current state of fossil fuel industries, it should be clear that we are in trouble.

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Note to Obama: Apple Products—and Any Others for that Matter–Will Be Built in the U.S. when U.S. Workers Own and Run the Factories that Build Them

by Editors @ Monday, January 23rd, 2012. Tags: , , , ,
Filed under China, Economic Democracy, Globalization, Socialism, Unemployment, Youth

How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work

By CHARLES DUHIGG and KEITH BRADSHER
SolidarityEconomy.net via New York Times

Jan. 21, 2012 - When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.

Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays.

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City Solar: Steal This Idea for Your Town

by Editors @ Tuesday, January 17th, 2012. Tags:
Filed under Energy, Green Energy, Green Industry

Big New Solar Array For Green-Driven Raleigh

By Kristy Hessman
SolidarityEconomy.net via EarthTechling.com

Although North Carolina is the 10th most populous state in the U.S., it it ranks just 22nd in installed photovoltaic (PV) solar capacity, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. But don’t blame the city of Raleigh for that. Raleigh recently turned on a 1.3-megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic array. It’s said to be the largest utility-scale solar power project on government property in the state.

The solar array sits on a 10-acre site and is a coordinated effort between the city of Raleigh, Progress Energy Carolinas, Southern Energy Management and NxGen Power. The solar PV array is expected to generate an estimated 1.7 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. The system is also expected to decrease overall carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1,300 tons annually, the same amount of emissions from the use of about 140,000 gallons of gasoline, according to Southern Energy Management.

Sustainability efforts are taking place throughout the city of Raleigh, and not just in the solar sector. The city has identified a number of areas in which it can incorporate sustainable measures to provide a better place to live for future generations. Those initiatives include preparing for a variety of green transportation options like participating in Project Get Ready. The program prepares for the availability of electric plug-in and hybrid vehicles.

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Structural Reform: The Case for Public State Banks

by Editors @ Wednesday, January 4th, 2012. Tags: ,
Filed under Banks, Economic Democracy, Solidarity Economy, Wall Street

Meet Occupy Wall Street's Favorite Banker

By Ryan Holeywell
SolidarityEconomy.net via Governing Magazine

Jan 4, 2012 - Try to find a bank president that’s beloved by supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It’s not impossible. You’ll just have to travel to North Dakota.

Meet Eric Hardmeyer, who bears the unlikely distinction of being perhaps the only banker in America who, in addition to being embraced by Wall Street protesters, has been exalted by the likes of Michael Moore, Mother Jones magazine, and the Progressive States Network, among other progressive stalwarts.

That’s because Hardmeyer heads the Bank of North Dakota (BND), the country’s only publicly-owned state bank. The institution, located ironically enough in a solidly red state, has become the darling of progressives who have become frustrated with corporate banks they say helped cause the financial crisis and resulting credit crunch.

Now, state lawmakers nationwide are pushing for the North Dakota model to be replicated in their home states. Since 2010, state lawmakers in at least 16 states have introduced bills to create a state bank, something similar, or study the issue, according to a study by the National Conference of State Legislatures. So far, momentum is slow. The movement has yet to produce another Bank of North Dakota, but advocates are hoping to raise the issue again in 2012 legislative sessions. Their pitch: publicly-owned banks can help create jobs, generate revenue for the state, strengthen small banks, and lower the cost of borrowing for local governments by offering loans below market rate.

 

Hardmeyer, who was named bank president in 2001, hasn’t always been such a well-known figure. But his profile has been raised over the last year – including in Bloomberg BusinessWeek -- and now he regularly fields calls from state lawmakers and other officials inquiring about his institution. “There hasn’t been a big push anywhere that I’m aware of until recently,” said Hardmeyer in a late December interview with Governing.  “They’re interested in how it works, why it works, [and] what the roadblocks are.”

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New Hybrids: Paths to 21st Century Socialism on the Micro Level

by Editors @ Wednesday, December 21st, 2011. Tags: , , , , ,
Filed under Economic Democracy, Green Industry, High Road Economics, Marxism, Socialism, Solidarity Economy

Workers at the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry in Cleveland

Worker-Owners of America, Unite!

By GAR ALPEROVITZ
SolidarityEconomy.net via NYT Op-Ed

Dec 14, 2011, College Park, Md.- THE Occupy Wall Street protests have come and mostly gone, and whether they continue to have an impact or not, they have brought an astounding fact to the public’s attention: a mere 1 percent of Americans own just under half of the country’s financial assets and other investments. America, it would seem, is less equitable than ever, thanks to our no-holds-barred capitalist system.

But at another level, something different has been quietly brewing in recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops, worker-owned companies and other alternatives to the traditional capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system, something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism, without anyone even noticing.

Some 130 million Americans, for example, now participate in the ownership of co-op businesses and credit unions. More than 13 million Americans have become worker-owners of more than 11,000 employee-owned companies, six million more than belong to private-sector unions.

And worker-owned companies make a difference. In Cleveland, for instance, an integrated group of worker-owned companies, supported in part by the purchasing power of large hospitals and universities, has taken the lead in local solar-panel installation, “green” institutional laundry services and a commercial hydroponic greenhouse capable of producing more than three million heads of lettuce a year.

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High Design: Two Birds with One Stone in New Infrastucture and Energy

by Editors @ Monday, December 12th, 2011. Filed under Energy, Environment, Green Industry

Building a Bridge to Renewable Energy

By Darren Quick

SolidarityEconomy.net via Gizmag.com

Bridges are generally exposed to the elements, meaning they generally get a nice dose of sunlight often coupled with some fairly strong crosswinds. For these reasons this “Solar Wind” bridge design would seem to make a lot of sense. The proposed bridge would harness solar energy through a grid of solar cells embedded in the road surface, while wind turbines integrated into the spaces between the bridge’s pillars would be used to generate electricity from the crosswinds.

The brainchild of Italian designers Francesco Colarossi, Giovanna Saracino and Luisa Saracino, the Solar Wind concept was designed for the Solar Park Works – Solar Highway competition that asked entrants to modernize sections of a decommissioned elevated highway stretching between Bagnera and Scilla in Italy.

The road surface would replace traditional asphalt with 20 km (12.4 miles) of “solar roadways” consisting of a dense grid of solar cells coated with a transparent and durable plastic coating providing 11.2 million kWh per year. The designers say this system, combined with the 26 wind turbines integrated underneath the bridge generating 36 million kWh per year, would provide enough electricity to power approximately 15,000 homes.

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High Design: Oceans of Renewable Energy

by Editors @ Wednesday, December 7th, 2011. Filed under Green Energy, Green Industry

New Wave of Ocean Energy to be

Trialed off the Coast of Australia

(Click Drawing to see how it works)

By Ben Coxworth
SolidarityEconomy.net via Gizmag.com

Dec 5, 2011 - Anyone who has ever been scuba diving in a bull kelp forest will tell you - the stuff does not stand still. The marine aquatic plant consists of a long skinny-but-tough stem (or stipe) that is anchored to the sea floor and topped with a hollow float, from which a number of "leaves" (or blades) extend to the surface.

The result is a seaweed that extends vertically up through the water column, continuously swaying back and forth with the surging waves.

The researchers at Australia's BioPower Systems evidently looked at that kelp, and thought, "what if we could use that swaying action to generate power?" The result was their envisioned bioWAVE system, which could soon become a reality, thanks to a just-announced AUD$5 million (US$5.1 million) grant from the Victorian Minister for Energy and Resources.

At the base of each bioWAVE system would be a triangular foundation, keeping it anchored to the sea floor. Extending up from the middle of that foundation would be a central column, topped with multiple blades - these would actually be more like a combination of the kelp's blades and floats, as they would be cylindrical, buoyant structures that just reach to the surface. The column would join the foundation via a hinged pivot, allowing it to bend or swivel in any direction.

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New Breakthough Coming in Wind Energy

by Editors @ Wednesday, December 7th, 2011. Filed under Energy, Green Energy, Green Industry, High Road Economics

Higher Altitude ‘Tethered Wing’ Doubles Output

PBS Report on Wind Energy Innovation

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Taking on the Military Keynesians

by Editors @ Sunday, November 27th, 2011. Filed under Economy, High Road Economics, Marxism, Unemployment, militarism

War: The Wrong Jobs Program

By Mark Engler
SolidarityEconomy.net via Foreign Policy in Focus

More than 40 years ago, long before anyone had ever heard of Barack Obama, before the collapse of Bear Stearns, and before contemporary debates about bailouts and debt ceilings, two authors, Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, considered a tricky problem. In times of downturn, the government must spend to stimulate the economy. Yet getting the political establishment to agree on one particular program of spending seemed nearly impossible.

Baran and Sweezy phrased the conundrum as a question: "On what could the government spend enough to keep the system from sinking into the mire of stagnation?"

After assessing the political realities that steer America's power elite, they could find only one response. It was not what typically comes to mind when we think of economic stimulus or government-led job creation.

Their answer: "On arms, more arms, and ever more arms."

The authors did not approve of military spending as a strategy of economic development.

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The ‘Red Plot’ in a Green Trojan Horse

by Editors @ Saturday, November 26th, 2011. Tags: , ,
Filed under Climate, Economic Democracy, Energy, Green Energy, Green Industry, Socialism

Capitalism vs. the Climate

By Naomi Klein
SolidarityEconomy.net via The Nation, Nov 9, 2011

 

There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row.

He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland’s Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually “an attack on middle-class American capitalism.” His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: “To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine?”

Here at the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren’t going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is.

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who specializes in harassing climate scientists with nuisance lawsuits and Freedom of Information fishing expeditions, angles the table mic over to his mouth. “You can believe this is about the climate,” he says darkly, “and many people do, but it’s not a reasonable belief.” Horner, whose prematurely silver hair makes him look like a right-wing Anderson Cooper, likes to invoke Saul Alinsky: “The issue isn’t the issue.” The issue, apparently, is that “no free society would do to itself what this agenda requires…. The first step to that is to remove these nagging freedoms that keep getting in the way.”

Claiming that climate change is a plot to steal American freedom is rather tame by Heartland standards. Over the course of this two-day conference, I will learn that Obama’s campaign promise to support locally owned biofuels refineries was really about “green communitarianism,” akin to the “Maoist” scheme to put “a pig iron furnace in everybody’s backyard” (the Cato Institute’s Patrick Michaels). That climate change is “a stalking horse for National Socialism” (former Republican senator and retired astronaut Harrison Schmitt). And that environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather (Marc Morano, editor of the denialists’ go-to website, ClimateDepot.com).

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Learning from China Is the Better Path

by Editors @ Wednesday, November 9th, 2011. Tags: , ,
Filed under China, Energy, Green Energy, Green Industry, Technology

Solar: Smart Policies, not Trade War

By Adam Browning and Jigar Shah
SolidarityEconomy.net via Politico.com

Nov 8, 2011 - The German company SolarWorld recently filed a trade complaint against China. The claim: China’s government has unfairly supported its domestic solar industry, and the U.S. solar industry can’t compete.

If there’s wrongdoing afoot, it should be addressed. But it is important to remember the big picture—the solar industry exists in a globalized market, and solar’s market growth depends on continuing to bring down costs. A trade war with China could close off America’s $1.9 billion net solar exports, raise prices for local solar markets (reducing U.S. solar demand) and hurt consumers and the more than 5,000 U.S. companies that support solar installation.

Countries around the world have cumulatively invested tens of billions of dollars in solar energy over the last five years — a tremendous increase over the previous decade. That’s true of China — just as it’s true of Spain, Taiwan, Malaysia, India, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S. This investment has paid off in spades — global manufacturing capacity has soared. In the United States, solar is the fastest growing energy source.

It’s true that the U.S. share of solar investment lags behind China’s. Sadly, Uncle Sam’s investment in solar also falls far short of its support for fossil energy resources — which have a century-long history of continuing federal support. U.S. government subsidies for nuclear, oil, coal, gas and fossil fuels add up over $380 billion over the next five years, according to the Green Scissors report. Historically, fossil fuels receive annually about 13 times more than incentives going to all renewables, according to a recent report by DBL Investors.

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Noam Chomsky Speaks to Occupy Boston:

by Editors @ Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011. Filed under Economic Democracy, Global Justice, Organizing, Unemployment, Youth

If We Want a Chance at a Decent Future, the

Movement Here and Around the World Must Grow

By Noam Chomsky
SolidarityEconomy.net via AlterNet.org

Nov 1, 2011 - It's a little hard to give a Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture at an Occupy meeting. There are mixed feelings that go along with it. First of all, regret that Howard is not here to take part and invigorate it in his particular way, something that would have been the dream of his life, and secondly, excitement that the dream is actually being fulfilled. It’s a dream for which he laid a lot of the groundwork. It would have been the fulfillment of a dream for him to be here with you.

The Occupy movement really is an exciting development. In fact, it's spectacular. It's unprecedented; there's never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations that are being established at these remarkable events can be sustained through a long, hard period ahead -- because victories don't come quickly-- this could turn out to be a very significant moment in American history.

The fact that the demonstrations are unprecedented is quite appropriate. It is an unprecedented era -- not just this moment -- but actually since the 1970s. The 1970s began a major turning point in American history. For centuries, since the country began, it had been a developing society with ups and downs. But the general progress was toward wealth and industrialization and development -- even in dark and hope -- there was a pretty constant expectation that it's going to go on like this. That was true even in very dark times.

I'm just old enough to remember the Great Depression. After the first few years, by the mid-1930s, although the situation was objectively much harsher than it is today, the spirit was quite different. There was a sense that we're going to get out of it, even among unemployed people. It'll get better. There was a militant labor movement organizing, CIO was organizing. It was getting to the point of sit-down strikes, which are very frightening to the business world. You could see it in the business press at the time. A sit-down strike was just a step before taking over the factory and running it yourself. Also, the New Deal legislations were beginning to come under popular pressure. There was just a sense that somehow we're going to get out of it.

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Save Those Mountaintops! Close Out Those Coal mines! Wind Energy in West Virginia

by Editors @ Tuesday, November 1st, 2011. Tags: , , , , , ,
Filed under Energy, Environment, Green Energy, Green Industry

Cool Energy-Storage Projects Popping up; Expect a Lot More

AES\'s Laurel Mt. Wind Farm

By David Roberts

Grist Magazine

Oct 28, 2011 - Tracking the politics of clean energy can be a surreal and dispiriting experience. D.C. is so swamped in fossil-fuel money, fossil-fuel lobbyists, and fossil-fuel-owned pols that the conventional wisdom is absurdly pessimistic about clean energy: It's unreliable, it costs too much, it can never work, blah blah.

Meanwhile, out in the real world, costs are plunging and the intermittency problem (insofar as it's actually a problem and not a talking point of the fossil crew) is being solved.

There are two ways to solve it: one is connecting more renewables over a wide geographic area, which generally requires more transmission lines and grid upgrade (for intriguing news on that front, see here); the other is adding energy storage, so solar and wind plants can provide power even when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. That's what today's post is about.

I give you the Laurel Mountain wind farm, in West Virginia, (in the picture above):

That's 61 1.6-MW wind turbines, for a total of 98 MW. And here is the massive bank of lithium-ion batteries that the wind farm will be connected to:

AES\'s lithium ion battery farm on Laurel Mt.

That's the world's largest lithium-ion battery farm -- 32 MW worth of storage, courtesy of A123 Systems. The AES power company just announced yesterday that the wind/storage power system is up and running in full commercial operation. All told, it will feed 260,000 MWh a year into the power market along the Eastern seaboard. (For details, check out the full story at Forbes.)

It won't be the world's largest for long, though. Some time late next year, Duke Energy will switch on a 36-MW battery storage system, the world's (new) largest, attached to the company's 153-MW Notrees Windpower Project in west Texas. The storage system will use the proprietary dry-cell battery technology of a very cool company called Xtreme Power. The systems contain both dry-cell batteries and sophisticated power control technology, so they not only store power, they enhance grid reliability. As the CEO explained it to me a few years back, the storage system basically presents itself to the grid like a highly dispatchable power plant.

The energy-storage industry is still in its infancy. Over 99 percent of the energy storage installed globally is made up of pumped hydro, whereby surplus power is used to pump water uphill and then the water flows down, turning turbines, when spare power is needed. That's a solid, reliable way of doing things, but its efficiency isn't that great and it faces some geographic limitations. Tons of new and alternative technologies are coming online as we speak, though: compressed air, flywheels, molten salt, and several different kinds of batteries, including the distributed batteries in electric vehicles.

Discussions on storage often end with, "for now it's too expensive." In most cases, that's true, but it's misleading to treat the affordability question as though it's a binary switch, as though someday storage will flip from being too expensive to affordable. Right now, some forms of storage are cost-effective in some applications given some markets and regulations and some accounting methods. (See above!)

What will happen is, that small pool of affordable storage applications will grow larger, not only because the technology will advance but because accounting methods will change (full lifecycle cost accounting over extended time periods makes storage look a lot better), regulations will change, markets will change, and the engineering culture inside power utilities will change.

All this will happen, I predict, much faster than even the most optimistic projections now have it. Even as a kind of resigned fatalism-bordering-on-nihilism has gripped the political conversation, out in the world, clever people are doing ambitious, exciting things. Don't let politics fool you: This is an amazing time to be involved in clean energy.

David Roberts is a staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.



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OWS: Tactics in Search of Strategy

by Editors @ Tuesday, October 25th, 2011. Filed under Marxism, New Left, Organizing, Urban Problems, Wall Street, Youth

How to deal with the police is a point of dispute between Social Democratic Anarchists and Communist Anarchists (photo: Thomas Good/NLN, Creative Commons)

'Social Democratic Anarchists',

'Communist Anarchists' and the

Occupy Wall Street Movement

By Left Eye on Books

SolidarityEconomy.net via lefteyeonbooks.com

Oct 23, 2011 - A division exists within the leaderless communities at the heart of the Occupy protests. I would describe this as a split between Social Democratic Anarchists and Communist Anarchists.

I use these two terms provocatively, knowing that most of those I refer to would not describe themselves as either. Neither the terms Social Democrat or Communist are especially popular in the U.S., and the latter is often associated with small left-wing sects that those I describe as Communist Anarchists have a low opinion of.

It also lately seems that the term “anarchist” is becoming unfashionable again. The terms are meant to indicate both continuity and rupture with the historical left. Since 1917, Social Democracy and Communism referred to two different paths of change. Social Democrats believed in reforming capitalism, so that its benefits would be shared more equitably. Communists believed in overthrowing capitalism. Both created disciplined, bureaucratic organizations to achieve their goals. Both believed attaining state power was crucial, either through elections — usually the path of Social Democrats — or armed struggle — more associated with Communists. Although they often vituperatively denounced each other, they could sometimes work together, as was the case in the 1930s in the U.S., when New Deal reformers, who closely resembled Social Democrats, were strengthened by the organizing efforts of Communists.

Today, we see similar splits, in the U.S. and all over the world, in the context of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and related movements.  Some — undoubtedly the majority of participants in the U.S. — wish to reform capitalism. Others would like to destroy capitalism.

However, in two crucial respects the participants in the movement–reformers and revolutionaries alike — differ from the old left. They all eschew bureaucratic forms of organization in favor of leaderless modes of organizing. And they all believe that building power from below is more important than strategizing about how to attain and exercise state power. That is why I describe them as “anarchists”, even if they might not adopt that label themselves. Over the next five to ten years, some of these movements may develop electoral wings, but it is difficult to imagine them attaching to these wings the same lofty hopes and dreams that characterized the old left.

So how do these divisions play out in the current movement?

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Sanders: Our Red in the Senate

by Editors @ Monday, October 24th, 2011. Filed under Elections, Socialism, Wall Street

Bernie Sanders: America's #1 Socialist

Makes His Move into the Mainstream

Vermont senator, for years a political exile, insists his left-wing beliefs chime with Americans far more than people think

By Paul Harris
SolidarityEconomy.net via Guardian.co.uk

Oct 15, 2011 - Bernie Sanders sits in his Senate office and reflects on another unexpected twist in his already unusual political life. As the only self-proclaimed socialist to sit in the US Congress, Sanders is long used to surviving in the political wilderness. But Sanders is now having to get used to a different environment altogether: the mainstream.

His constant slamming of Wall Street, his critiques of big business and the excesses of money in politics, as well as his call for a defence of American jobs, have become hot issues in US politics. The senator from Vermont is now a regular on American TV screens and rapidly becoming a fixture of US politics and a hero to many on the left.

The white-haired and irascible Sanders, 70, who is famed for his blunt outspokenness, almost became bashful at the thought that his exile from the mainstream appears to be ending.

"It's, you know, nice to know that positions you have been advocating for years are now getting out to Main Street, and that millions of people are beginning to say: enough is enough," he told the Guardian.

Is this, at last, his political moment? "Yeah, it is," he said, and then he details why, in a typically long, passionate, Sanders-style explosion of stream-of-consciousness explanation.

"If you were to speak to any audience in America and you say: there's something wrong with our system when the crooks on Wall Street, through their recklessness and criminal behaviour, are able to cause a recession, which has resulted in so much suffering to people, and then they get bailed out by the American people and then three years later end up making more money than they ever have before: people go nuts!"

He pauses for breath to think about the situation. "The short answer to your question is: 'Yes'," he says.

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