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For the Left, This is Not the Time to Relax
Lest anyone misunderstand what we are about to say, let us make it perfectly clear that the election of Barack Obama and the strengthening of the Democratic majorities in Congress please us greatly. It will take all of the energy, strength, focus and determination demonstrated by President-elect Obama during the campaign and all of his enormous talent and capacity to inspire and encourage people of all stations in American life to begin to repair the horrendous damage done to our nation, our Constitution, our values, our reputation and our spirit by the eight years of sloth, cronyism, criminality and mendacity of the worst presidential administration in our national lifetime.
However happy we may be with election results and however great our relief at the end of our national nightmare, we, on the left, cannot for a moment relax in the comfort of this victory. We have much to do to bring this country out of our deep and serious economic plight, restore our liberties and achieve a high level of social justice that has been absent from our national agenda for decades. Our new president, a good, decent and patriotic man, will need vocal support when he acts to further progressive ideals. He will need firm reminders should he stray into political expediency. The Democratic Congress elected in 2006 was a grave disappointment to many of us. The new and (hopefully) better one just elected will need close watching.
We, whether we call ourselves progressives, liberals or socialists (or don't use any label at all), have both a duty and an opportunity to move our agenda forward. Now many Americans are, for the first time, questioning American capitalism as it has developed over the past 70 years (or more). Even more citizens challenge the propriety of our tax dollars being injected into the largest banks, insurance companies and Wall Street investment houses without any public control or meaningful ownership status. This money is not being used to provide credit or capital for new or struggling small business. Instead it is helping the largest financial institutions and big businesses to swallow up their competition and to establish a corporate oligarchy of those financial giants that will then be "too big to fail." Now is the time to ask our fellow Americans to think carefully about the type of nation we wish to be.
This is our opportunity to organize and fight for a national commitment to an economic justice agenda that establishes new priorities for our government and new hope for our people; an economic justice agenda that will:
No. 1 Rebuild equality of opportunity in the U.S. by restoring progressive taxation to fair and appropriate levels, and enacting massive cuts in wasteful defense spending;
No. 2 Ensure government resumes its appropriate roles by:
* Providing single-payer universal health insurance to guarantee health care based on need and not ability to pay and expanding public childcare, elder care, pension security, as well as primary, secondary and higher education;
* Regulating finance and investment (as the Glass-Steagall Act did), controlling interest rates, protecting elections, stopping pollution, improving workplace health and safety, guaranteeing non-discriminatory access to and use of the Internet, breaking up concentrated media ownership; and
* Investing in green jobs, clean and sustainable energy, clean water and air, public transportation, publicly financed election campaigns;
No. 3 Enact the Employee Free Choice Act - to restore the right of workers to organize unions and bargain collectively - as part of a broader effort to rebuild a labor movement able to achieve equity in the labor market and build broader social movements; and
No. 4 Implement a U.S. foreign and trade policy that promotes global institutions that advance labor, environmental and human rights, regulate transnational corporations and allow small farmers worldwide to earn a living in their own homelands.
More details are in "Toward an Economic Justice Agenda" by the Democratic Socialists of America, online at www.dsausa.org.
As stated in the agenda, "The corporate domination of U.S. politics and society has undermined ordinary people's living standards most egregiously over the past thirty years, most perniciously for those already beaten down. Only by democratizing the distribution of power in the United States can we restore the promise of the American Dream to those who have seen it taken away while extending that promise to those previously excluded from full membership in our society."
As the new administration prepares to begin to tackle these and other vital issues, please join with us to ensure that it hears clearly the voices of the progressive community.
Theresa Alt lives in Ithaca. Marty Luster lives in Trumansburg. This column was submitted on behalf of 11 other members of the Ithaca Local Democratic Socialists of America.
29 Comments so far
Show AllSo, How are "we" going to show all of the organized criminals that backed Obama and run this country that "we" want our rights back, as if we ever had them?? P
Please don't tell me anything that relate to contacting my bought off congress reps and sen. And hold off on the Saturday afternoon protest. Now what do we have left??
So, How are "we" going to show all of the organized criminals that backed Obama and run this country that "we" want our rights back, as if we ever had them?? P
Please don't tell me anything that relate to contacting my bought off congress reps and sen. And hold off on the Saturday afternoon protest. Now what do we have left??
Your congressperson is your major "person who has the power to decide." Writing that off is to concede defeat. But yes, you should probably skip the Saturday afternoon protest. Unless it is real organizing on your congressperson! See my newer comment.
Imagine, if these authors had begun their article by noting that McCain and Palin had won and the Republicans had regained control of Congress. They then had said they were "pleased" with these electoral results, that Republicans are high-minded individuals who really want to do right by the people. Still, there is much work to be done by the left to secure progressive public policies.
That would be ludicrous, would it not? No less ludicrous, I would argue, is the way they DID start their article by their implication that the Democrats in the White House and Congress are really progressives at heart who need just a little (or a lot) of boost from the grassroots. When you say Democrats in Congress, you must not be thinking Harry Reid nor Nancy Pelosi nor Stony Heyner (their "leaders") nor the array of neo-cons and neo-libs from the Reagan, Bush I and II and Clinton administrations that are ready to move into the White House as the leaders of the Obama administration--nor the pro-corporate globalization, anti-anti-war, pro-Zionist Rahm Emanuel who (along with Joe Biden of the same ilk) are Obama's first "selections" to join his administration.
That "agenda" of the Democratic Socialists is great, but I feel there is far too much tendency of progressives to under-estimate the daunting dimensions of our task, and too little understanding that there's not just "work left to be done" but a whole re-building effort that will very likely require the taking down of the "Democratic" side of that Democratic Socialist equation. To work from any less "radical" a premise is to anticipate the folding back of progressive action into that pathethic oxymoronic entity known as the "Progressive Democrats of America."
By "left", you could be talking about Stalinists or liberals. Why not just say liberals?
Why not say Progressives?
Saying 'left' means that there is a 'right' that is just as relevant. Is that what we want to mean?
Saying 'liberal' means that there are 'conservatives'.
Saying 'Progressives' means that the other side are 'Regressives', those who don't want to make progress or who want to go backwards.
When are we ever going to change the paradigm, the wording, to our advantage?
"Why not say Progressives?"
Because many conservatives consider themselves progressives, like the ones who started alcohol prohibition. To them, that was going forward.
The difference between liberals and progressives could be that one allows us to go forward and the other can tell us where to go. That's what conservatives have been doing to liberals for decades.
It's important to rescue the word "liberal" from conservative's demonizing, not hide behind "progressive".
There they go again...health INSURANCE! Let's throw more money into the pockets of insurance companies. How abouut free health care? What the hell is so difficult about that?
The absence of national healthcare in America is the leverage capitalism has over its workers. Citizens are simply held hostage by Wall Street.
Keep working you mfkrs, or you'll die.
Oh come now. The so-called "Left" in Washington has been relaxing and giving Bush everything he wanted the last two years so why expect anything different? You can't keep reelecting the same stooges and expect a different result for the better next time around. When the "Left" is finished squandering their opportunities away and get drubbed by the "Right" for pandering to the "Right", then they'll get serious. Until then, the "Left" will just sit back, relax, and continue to watch America do a few more nose-dive crashes !
Right on Marty and Theresa!
I wrote the same thing on href="http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/lindorff/167">Buzzflash and on my webside ThisCantBeHappening.net.
Dave Lindorff
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
"Lest anyone misunderstand what we are about to say, let us make it perfectly clear that the election of Barack Obama and the strengthening of the Democratic majorities in Congress please us greatly," which is why I won't read another line. I don't have time for this Obama worship. The Obama worship during the campaign was bad enough. The orgy of Obama worship that climaxed with his election and which has hardly abated is not something I have any desire to run toward. On the contrary...
Was it David Sirota who said it, on Democracy Now and elsewhere recently? Conservatives hugely framed Obama as being far left on issues. For example, he was labeled a socialist, and is widely believed to be one. He wasn't any of this, of course! He also won, of course! Anyway, now a large segment of the public believes were in for a major swing to the left. It's no longer unthinkable. Also a lot of voters are mobilized. A bunck of African Americans say the win was beyond their dreams! Also the world expects big things, expects this to be about the biggest election ever. People who know these and other facts and how they could potentially affect U.S. politics know that articles like this showld not be written ouff on the grounds suggested by Arby.
Organizing progressives is like herding cats, but historically it has been possible, and if anything at all is going to made of this meager opportunity we'd better start purring in sync.
joshuafalchion
An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
Mohandas Gandhi
Well from the comments we can see that progressive, liberal and socialist infighting is alive and well. Maybe it will once again prevent us from bringing the change needed to those who are voiceless faceless and don't participate in our inside discussions.
Regardless of what you all intend or maybe just vent - there are those of us who will work with everyone who cares about the opportunity Mr.Obama's election has brought to us - it is not a mandate but an opening for us to help others by making the changes mentioned in the article. You all may have time to snarl and swipe at one another but I plan to make the most of it and push for economic rights and human rights until I can push no longer.
Yes, now is an excellent time for action.
But what to do. Obviously we see here, in the comments, a big dose the frustration, cynicism and despair of those who have been unsuccessful. The left doesn't know what to do. Socialism, in particular, doesn't seem to make any headway. It's still being bashed in major political campaigns. Ok, it didn't take, that's a major plus. But isn't that because nobody knows what it is any more? Isn't that because of Socialism's political failures? I've seen a few committed socialists here who show up at other peoples events to set up info tables, but I haven't seen growth in the movement.
Isn't there a belief that growth in leftist movements isn't possible until the powers that be allow it? Aren't we seeing that regular progressives, being less leftist, see a lot of hope in the Obama moment. I agree with the article that there is, in part because of perceptions in some circles that Obama is a progressive extremist, and socialist, or more accurately, many would not say so extreme. Of course, Obama's take on the farm bill commodity title isn't up to the anti dumping standards of Reagan, or Nixon with Ag Sec. Butz., and those were horrible by the standards their time or any sensible standards. And so for other issues.
Progressives and leftists don't know what to do. Some are correctly (thankfully!!!) pointing to congress, not cars driving by on the street. I put United for Peace and Justice in this category. But the strategies are weak, not real organizing. They call for letters to be sent. Nader is also calling on action in every congressional district. Excellent! But what is his method?
I recommend Roger Fisher's books, Beyond Machiavelli, Coping with International Conflict and his older one, International Conflict for Beginners. But these also don't call for the group approach of organizing, so use Shel Trapp's books, Dynamics of Organizing and Basics of organizing, which are online.
Hey folks, "don't just do something, organize." Learn how to do "real organizing," and do it, those of you who haven't given up. And don't be mislead by everyone who wants to call what they do "organizing." Real organizing. As always, it can be done. You don't have to wait for the powers that be to allow you to do it.
.It is amazing to me how many call themselves members of the left wing of American politics, even socialists now, yet preach an adherence to the status quo and centrism....
There must come a time when such as these authors understand the need to tear it down and build it better. That figurative rather than literal proposal reflects my wishes for an end to the two party duopoly that rules us and panders to the corporations. Until so-called left wingers understand what it really means to preach from the left rather than stay safely in the center there will be no progress.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
First thing Obama needs to do is get rid of Rahm Emanuel and Biden too. These two are right wing Democrats, warmongers for Israel, and more such choices by Obama, like Colin Powell, a war criminal, is already the betrayal of the people.
If he can't get rid of them, fire them, then at least put them on ice by putting in Michael Rattner from CCR to be his attorney general and prosecute every war criminal and corporate criminal to bring back sanity and accountability. He needs progressive economists in there to help him with his FDR moment or else he will go down as another Clinton failure.
.Please consider that Obama chose them in the first place, Emmanuel only days ago. Then consider that your continued loyalty might very well be to the myth and not the man....
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Prosecutethem: Interesting idea of Michael Ratner for AG.
There is no LEFT in the US--there has been none since the end of the 1960s.
.We are out here, separate, disorganised, insulted at every turn but we are still struggling on.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
The best way to end this endless circular firing squad behavior is to find an uncompromising activist organization and get involved.
Maybe I'm spoiled a bit where I live, but in the major city where I live, there have never been a shortage of uncompromising left organizations to get involved with - both issue oriented groups, and broad umbrella groups ranging from christian-pacifist to anarchist. Their only problems is a shortage of participants - resulting in compromised groups, like the PDA or MoveOn dominating the discourse.
I suspect that most poeple who claim there is no left in the US live in the suburbs or exurbs, and are suffering from the enormous social isolation that suburbia engenders. Spend more time in the city where, in some neighborhoods, you'll find flyers and posters announcing meetings for a good leftist cause on practically every utility pole and traffic light control box.
The organizations I'm talking about, notably the anarchists and anti-hierarchy-type organizations, which you can find in any big city, are quite left.
.I cannot wrap my mind around MoveOn as a left wing group, sorry. Eli and Joan were bored internet millionaires who decided to form a group that owes allegiance solely to the Democrats. Along the way they found out that they liked access to power and "stardom". Much like Markos they succumbed to the allure of money and power that is America's best weapon against real change.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
As a Canadian having watched US politics and the current election with much interest, I find Theresa Alt and Marty Luster's 4 point summary article of next steps a very positive instructive article.
However as important as these points are, I find that the reasons why there is such a huge gap between what the people WANT and what the elected DO is entirely missing from this and many other's analyses.
Simply put, "The Democratic Congress elected in 2006 was a grave disappointment to many of us...."
When some 70-80% of Americans voted for Democratic representatives who said they were against the war but as soon as elected supported Bush's "surge" this is but one of a long list of gaps between what the people want and the elected do.
The problem is that our election system using a single-mark ballot when there are more than two candidates is a recipe for the elite to divide and conquer the majority so that the democratic illusion is created that not the majority supported candidate is sought out, but simply the one with "more votes than any other".
Leaving the entire presidential election system aside, but focusing on the Senate and House of Representative elections, the US system and Canada's system is identical and a vote 1, 2, 3... ballot and appropriate count instead of your and our current single-mark ballot would go a long way towards electing candidates who more willingly would do what the people want.
As an example of how to get these elections to be more democratic now already without any law changes I would encourage a review of "taking back our democracy" at http://ereform.eduardhiebert.com/v123p.htm
Eduard Hiebert
North of 49 but way south of Alaska
Eduard: Noam Chomsky calls it the democracy gap: the gap between what the people want (shown by polls)and what the gov't does,which was really bad in the Bush administrations.
I suggest to you that the gap is quite simply explained by pointing out that the people don't actually vote for what they want but for what they are told by both the MSM and, sadly, the so-called "progressive" media is the most they can get.