A New Era with New Problems, Solutions and Tools
When David sent me galleys of The Uprising, I only knew I loved the title and had no idea what to expect. And I had no idea this would be a honest to goodness page turner. I am glad he no longer lives in DC for I fear for his safety given the revolution from the ground he is encouraging (just half kidding).
The book raises important issues that we MUST address. You wont agree with everything but as we enter a new world order where we are no longer united by hatred of Bush we need to return to some basic questions.
The fact that virtually the entire progressive movement has become almost exclusively involved in electoral politics is a function of the terrible damage Bush and neocons have done to our country. But with the clear end of this era, we need to be thinking about the day after the presidential election.
What and how will progressives operate in a non Bush world.
And that means some damn hard questions about power, issues, the role of politicians, and the role of social movements.
It is not going to be pretty, it is going to be messy, but the case is made and I personally agree strongly that without a movement separate and apart from the political parties, no gain, no change.
We need to remember from the civil rights to labor to womens movements. They did not sit around pleading with some candidate to do the right thing. Nor did they spend all their time and resources raising money for 30 second spots as the answer to all problems.
It is a new day, it is a new era, there are new problems and new solutions and new tools.
David raises big issues in the book and "elections are means not an end" is the beginning point as we go forward into the non Bush world.
Lets debate and discuss the role of progressives in the new era, the role of progressives outside electoral politics, the role of progressives to create change by building social movement.
And yes building social movement is a complicated, difficult, challenging problem. No easy road maps. No clear path. But a critical job ahead.
Maybe this is just residual impacts from reading "Nixonland," but I've kind of liked seeing progressives being so closely involved in electoral politics. Particularly after the long DLC era, it feels good to see progressives finally seen as a political asset rather than a liability. I'd hate to see that jeopardized.
While it's true that the grassroots movements of the 60s were totally essential in producing real change, their often antagonistic relationship with traditional politics was ultimately counterproductive. Sixties liberalism ultimately gave us the apocalyptic backlash of Ronald Reagan, and has dogged every single remotely left candidate ever since.
And, not to be too contrarian, but many of the massive gains from that era can be attributed to a) a strong party-line voting bloc in the South, b) a big chunk of liberal Northern Republicans, and c) a long period of Democratic political dominance that had given us a liberal Supreme Court.
That's not to deride the influence of the civil rights movement and the other postwar grassroots movements -- they created the political impetus for change of course -- but it's important to note that their success was still linked to electoral issues. And of course none of those elements of institutional strength exists today. The only way that liberal policies are going to become law anymore is if the Democratic Party advances them. In that political context, a progressive movement that is intimately involved with electoral politics, and committed to being an asset rather than a stumbling block to Democratic politicians' political careers is essential.
None of this is to say that progressive movements should ONLY focus on electoral politics. But electoral politics have to remain a major part of the mix, don't they?
July 9, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
You shoot fast and quick in expressing that the 60's grassroots movement was often antagonistic. I became politically aware in that movement. Trust me, the antagonism was mutual. It wasn't only Republicans driving around with "America - Love It or Leave It" bumper stickers on their pickup trucks.
Much of what you have probably been taught was just antagonism from the grassroots movement was in intentional theater to attract the attention of the evening news cycle. Several of the riots I witnessed were intentionally antagonized by "Peace Officers", or, from my side of the fence at that time, "The Pigs".
The main thing you have correct is that it was a grassroots uprising in the truest sense of the term. It was without real organization but we all knew what the mission was without being told. There was a physical mass to the movement that could be felt. We felt it grow and grow until it became a force to be reckoned with yet; there was no single thing for the government to deal with. Therefore, those in power did what leaders in power have done for millennia when feeling threatened and paranoid. Rather than incorporate it, they tried to demolish it, which only fed it further. Even at the Democratic Convention, those in power tried to ignore it putting in place the other key component igniting that disaster.
After the 68 Democratic Convention, the movement was effectively over. It had run its course but the ideals became integrated into our lives today.
I understand that it is fashionable to bash the 60's, Hippies, Yippies, and the counter-culture of that time in general. In defense of my generation I want you, and everyone your age, to understand that the movement was rooted in idealism suspended within altruism.
It is the altruistic component that seems to be missing now. The idealism is there but, given that Obama came of age during the Disco period, I reserve judgment with respect to the extent of altruism in his motivations. I like him a lot and will vote for him regardless, but he is a product from the first incarnation of the ME generation.
July 9, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good basic question. Progressives, like me, probably each have the one overriding social issue that brings them to the movement. For me, it's the separation of church and state. From my perspective, all other progressive issues are a result of the fact that this basic principle has been attacked and compromised over and over by nearly 1/3rd of our population. This is true for, all minority rights, security, foreign policy, tax and economic issues. Other progressives see things largely in the same way though the perspective may flow from say, Equal Eights or Health Care.
I think your article is right on the mark as it appears that it would be easy for the movement, after gaining the political power to actually accomplish some goals, to inadvertently disintegrate into fighting over whose progressive goal is most important to accomplish first. This progressive viewpoint is the right one; while that one isn't so it should be ignored.
Avoiding this will take real and honestly brokered leadership. It sounds doable to me; right up to the point I remember that this is all supposed to happen in Washington. Then I lose some of the optimistic feelings.
July 9, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
My issues are now mainly economic rather than social. I deeply disapprove of the way our society is organized economically: I want a maximum wage law; I want democratically deliberated national strategic economic planning; I want more demanding corporate regulation and a drastic attenuation of corporate power; I want serious redistributive policies that make hundreds of billions, or trillions, available for public investment; I want a revived and expanded labor movement; I want socialized medicine; I want to shrink the military industrial complex and and the ruthless, acquisitive, expropriating, imperial state it both feeds and is fed by. I want massive improvements in early childhood education, especially for our most needy citizens. I want a major transformation of the way we generate the energy we do need, and a transformation in the way we live so that we need a lot less energy. I want rational population policies; I want a reformed way of life that rejects the rampaging capitalist exploitation of everyone and everything, and puts far fewer demands on the natural world. And I want to live in a real, honest-to-goodness community - not an atomized huddle of narcissistic, deracinated, competition-driven and lonely pleasure seekers.
And I want to pursue these aims in solidarity with all those around the globe who are pursuing similar aims. It's not all about one country.
I can still get worked up from time to time about abortion rights, church and state, and same sex marriage - above all abortion rights since I see them as vital to economic equality and liberation. But the social stuff doesn't really do it for me as much as it used to.
July 9, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really do agree Dan.
Social issues, while important on their own, are dwarfed by the daunting economic issues that face us. And in some cases solving the economic issues will resolve some of the social issues at the same time.
The rapidly growing global population is straining our resources, affecting the climate which in turn leads more and more people to live in poverty. Poverty leads to desperation, then bitterness and then either terrorism or wars between sovereign states.
The root cause of most of the global problems is an economic one. It is easy to isolate the problem but much more difficult to devise a course of action to fix it. I know one thing though the wealthy won't share the wealth they have looted without putting up the mother of all fights.
July 9, 2008 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Awesome fucking rant!!! I wouldn't want to be tasked with getting elected on it but, HOLLY SHIT, that had to feel good.
July 10, 2008 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Given how badly progressives have been hornswaggled by the corporate capitulationist Democrats in Washington who have achieved nothing since returning to power in 2006 it is quite clear that it will take powerful movements among the citizenry to force real solutions to the nations urgent problems and to address the real needs of the people. Obama is another great example of what a bad position progressives find themselves today after supporting him with no understanding of what was expected of and from him. They got behind him, they fueled his money machine, they bought into "hope" and then the moment he wrapped up the nomination he began disassociating himself with substantive change and singing the same old corporate Democratic tune of centrism, half measures and "compromise" aka surrender to right wing demands. It's clear that for Obama, he feels no obligation whatsoever to progressives to pursue genuine and meaningful change on any of the issues that attracted progressives to his candidacy.
So now what? Many are now consoling themselves with thinking that "once he gets in things will be different." But they won't. Once he gets in, things will get even worse in terms of the centrist policies and the refusal to stand up to the right wing's extremist demands on defense spending, the budget and more. I often wonder how much disrespect and betrayal progressives will have to endure before they understand that mealy mouthed centrists will never be there when it counts?
July 10, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah oleeb, I hear you.
As a progressive who has no other viable option but to support the D's. I often feel like Charlie Brown in the cartoon strip Peanuts. Specifically the one where Charlie Brown has Lucy hold the football so he can kick it. And every time he is gonna try, after she says 'trust me I'll hold it', she pulls the ball away at the last second and he ends up missing the ball and ending up flat on his back. Know the strip I am talking about?
Well anyways that is what I feel like more times than not supporting the D's. And this is the time that once he gets in it will be different...right?
July 10, 2008 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see anything new about Obama, except skin color. He's the same act Bill Clinton won the White House with by playing the middle ground to the annoyance of all of us on the extremes. I like Dan's list of Progressive goals, and only feel a need to simplify and prioritize. First I want the war over and that will keep this movement galvanized, and in solidarity till the last troop comes home. As a Progressive I want at least the amount of Social Security that I'm currently being promised when I get those SSI letters in the mail. We need an alternative energy infrastructure, which I think can just take off once we all realize how easy it really is to generate electricity. Those electric companies should be paying all of us money for adding electricity tot he grid, and not the other way around. Let's shoot for not a single American city turning lights on with coal energy by 2030. Others might want Socialized medicine closer to the top, but its a big one for me too. The final priority that probably should also be closer to the top is to get this movement to continue to sweep out that Congress of beltway riff-raff. They are so totally useless and as we've learned from 2006, the work isn't over after the election. We still got to make these political whores understand that they are our bitch, and let's not let them forget that.
July 10, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
With the 2006 Congress thankfully near its dissapointing end; What's left for a progressive to believe in? God?
That's not very promising.
July 10, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Progressive Movement has to adopt a "Both/And" approach following a hopefully successful 2008 election. As to Electorial Politics, we have much more to be concerned with other than the Presidency -- there will be elections in 2010, not only House and Senate, but the State Legislatures that will do the next redistricting. If we don't like the Bush variety of up-sized Presidency, Unitary Governing Principles and all that --- we have to act like it, and get down in the weeds of political offices and elect promising progressives for the future at all levels.
Should he win, yep, Obama should be able to control the DNC -- nominate the Chair, use the national party to support his programs. But Hopefully, Howard Dean's work in building the 50 State Parties can be carried forward in all the states -- because we need strong state parties for state political purposes, many of which are of little concern to DC. Part of taking some power away from the Beltway Consultants and Lobbyists is relocating that power in the State Parties. Post Election we should be fully focused on this -- let Obama worry about the DNC, Progressives should build strong state parties that can fully participate in selecting nominees for House and Senate (take that away from the DNCC and the DSCC and the funding lobbyists).
I disagree with the characterization of the Civil Rights Movement (and the 60's) as something that was essentially in the streets -- just a movement that grew. I say this from experience, as someone who was in my 20's in those days, and who worked on the lobby side of passing all that legislation, and who got my education about doing it from people who had been engaged in the effort for a lifetime. Many were old timers who went back to the Labor Movement of the FDR years, and who brought to the Civil Rights Legislative table all the details of strategy, knowledge of legal precident and all that could be put to good use writing major legislation in the few years we had a window for passing it.
In the case of Civil Rights, we had an older organization called the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights -- which had about a hundred and fifty national organizations as members. To pass the legislation, the Conference adopted a fairly detailed set of principles -- goals if you will, that all member organizations agreed to support. For over a year the Conference met on a DAILY basis just off Capitol Hill -- anyone who had been to a hearing, or just in conversation with members reported -- it was agreed that there were to be no back-room deals, and all member organizations would accept assignments given their individual strengths and assets.
The Progressive Movement is going to need something like the Leadership Conference for all the issues that concern us -- a National Effort that has the resources to maintain a presence on the ground in DC that can organize very diverse groups around the country, allowing each to contribute from its own assets and strengths to a common end. The Alternative Energy folk need one Conference, the Health Care folk another. Be glad Al Gore invented the Internet -- back when we did Civil Rights, we used mimeograph machines and the US Mail.
July 10, 2008 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink