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Time for Team B - And a Movement
In the 1970s, the CIA appointed a "Team B" to challenge prevailing assumptions about national security. Since then, there have been other Team B exercises to question prevailing views.
This is a smart move. An in-group of experts often becomes an echo-chamber, reinforcing their own prejudices and excluding people with different views. If you are inside, you demonstrate your own loyalty by not frontally challenging the top people, no matter how disastrous. This, of course, is the road to foreign policy debacles like Iraq and Vietnam.
But the same thing happens in politics and domestic policy. As we've just seen, Obama's A-Team of political advisers did not exactly shine.
It's not that others failed to warn of the disaster in the making. Countless posts and articles in the past year have pointed out that Obama had no coherent narrative. That he failed to squarely place the economic blame on the Republicans. His own signature initiatives did not do enough to restore jobs and prosperity for him to credibly campaign on them. His health bill may have represented incremental progress on insurance reform, but it was a political albatross. And he got much too cozy with Wall Street at the expense of his credibility with Main Street.
Columnists like Frank Rich and Bob Herbert, public opinion experts like Drew Westen and Stan Greenberg, scores of bloggers, as well as labor leaders like Rich Trumka, have been flagging these problems since mid-2009. I've been known to argue something of the same. And you heard this complaint privately from many Democrats in Congress.
This failure spans policy, politics, and messaging. So here is an idea: Obama should do a Team B exercise. He should invite in about six or eight smart people who have a very different view of how he should be leading.
He should give them an extended opportunity to make their case, without his usual advisers in the room. Then David Axelrod, Pete Rouse, Jim Messina, Valerie Jarrett et al. should be given a chance to rebut.
But Obama needs to hear the B-Team views, directly, uncensored, without the team that failed him undermining the critique. Then we'd have a real Team of Rivals, and maybe save his presidency.
And that's not all. If any team was a bigger disaster than the political team, it was the economic one.
Larry Summers, now back at Harvard, and Tim Geithner have been fond of arguing that their strategy in early 2009 of propping up insolvent banks (and bankers) rather than cleaning them out was vindicated by events. It wasn't. The policy kept Wall Street rolling in profits, but bequeathed a Japan Scenario of prolonged stagnation to the rest of the economy -- and of course gave a huge political windfall to the faux-populist Tea Party.
So let's bring in an economic B-Team to do the same exercise: Nobelists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman; Rob Johnson of the Institute for New Economic Thinking; Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO; Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute; Jamie Galbraith of U Texas; Bob Reich of Berkeley; Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute; and Jane D'Arista or Robert Pollin of the Political Economy Research Institute, to name a few.
Even Paul Volcker, to whom the President turns only as a last resort, is an honorary B Team member. Several of these would make a better treasury secretary than Geithner, and Obama needs to hear their views unfiltered through appointees who have every reason to be defensive.
A final thought: I am weary of writing pieces whose theme is "Here's what Obama needs to do." Just between us, I'm not sure the man is paying attention.
So my next posts will be about what we need to do. And here is the general point: We need to build a movement--a movement that politicians and the media can't ignore.
If you are like me, you have been in dozens of conversations lately in which smart people ask each other, "How come there is no real grass-roots progressive movement?"
Among plausible answers I've heard are these:
Ordinary people are beaten down and fearful. Remember the expression, "a revolution of rising expectations"? This is a counter-revolution of depressed expectations.
Young people got their hopes sky high during the 2008 campaign. They built a movement. But then the Obama presidency extinguished O for A as an independent movement by bringing it under the Democratic National Committee, while Obama himself was far less inspiring as president than as a candidate. You think that's inevitable? Think Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan.
Young adults are so economically stressed that they don't have time for a movement. If you want to find a place where economically pummeled people logically should be organizing, look at community colleges. But there people are juggling work, family, and classes, and have no spare time go to meetings.
Young people who do have spare time think that volunteering for charitable causes is the same as movement building. It isn't.
Movements are passé. It takes an unpopular war plus a draft; or a once in a century cause like civil rights. Folks today are too busy being entertained with social networking.
And speaking of social networking, the internet, absent strong political leadership, is not the medium of a real movement though it can be tactically useful. MoveOn, in its prime, was the germ of something real. But progressives have too many parts, and no coherent whole. The Colbert-Stewart sanity rally was a hoot, but no movement.
The one enduring mass movement on the progressive side, the labor movement, is still feisty but because of corporate union-bashing it is a shadow of its former self.
There is a formidable immigrant rights movement, a model of progressive movement-building, but it speaks for only one segment of the economically vulnerable.
Okay, fine. But somehow, none of this stopped the Tea Party from working with Fox and Limbaugh on one side, and the billionaire Koch Brothers on the other, to organize a mass movement.
Sure, the Tea Party phenomenon is partly a fake but it's also partly real. There is a lot of anger out there, and the right is capturing it. The right is more demagogic, more disciplined, more in synch with its media messaging, more relentless.
So all of the alibis on the progressive side are only partial truths. In circumstances like these, it is possible to build a movement. The Tea Party proves it, and what's doubly galling is that most of these people are voting against their own economic self-interest.
Given that reality is on our side, where's our movement?
More on all this next week. Comments welcome.
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Show AllThe "movement" needs to include either a national party independent of the Dems or at least State Dem parties acting in defiance of the DLC and national party. That would be a change from every "progressive" or left movement since the '60s.
Maybe another change would be that it wouldn't largely fail like all of those did.
-matti.
The state Democratic parties are a place to organize.
See at the site below, at the top, a link to over 19 state progressive caucuses. If you have one in your state, grow it. If not, start one. I and some others, less than 20, started one of them, the one in Kansas, in 2004.
See the list of them here:
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?SectionID=7&ParentID=0&SectionTypeID=2&SectionTree=7
AND support independent progressive parties such as the Green Party, and others.
Plus there are several initiatives for constitutional change such as freespeechforpeople.org, movetoamend.org, and callaconvention.org.
Plus there is pdamerica.org. And many more groups to join and support.
Thanks for the links Earthian, any body here who considers themselves "progressive" or "Naderite" or Green, should at least check this stuff out IMHO.
To expand on my first post a bit: I see the only way for an "Inside the Dem Party" progressive "movement" to have any positive effect is for the Progressive Dems to finally recognize themselves as and reoorganize themselves to be a REBEL FACTION within the current State and National Dem Parties. To often today, they act as merely an ENLIGHTENED MINORITY when it comes to vote-time. This goes for the Prez elections and State Primaries of course, but also for most intra-Party business at the local and State levels.
It is high time for the Progressives in the Dem Party to utilize their State- and Nation -wide caucus power to target specific local Dem organizations for take-over and specific electoral districts (Federal, State, and City/County/Municipal) for Progressive candidates. These things must be done in full knowledge that the Progressives are in a form of peaceful CONFLICT with the State and National leadership. Progressives need more than the pathetic "threat" of whining at elected Dems after they vote for them. They need the plausible threat of toppling the Dem Party from within if it does not steer in their direction!
I have yet to see any progressive Dem caucus act like this, which is why I tend to advocate a Party-based movement OUTSIDE of the Dem Party (and would advocate the Greens if they weren't so generally hopeless).
Thoughts?
a real movement should not bother with the ballot box till it has already shown what it is about in real, tangible terms. The biggest problem in this country is that people think that voting should be the climax of a movement. Living should be the climax of any real movement.
The article asks for a movement, and disparages a movement. Which is it?
When I see hundreds of thousands of Americans gather on the mall, because they smell the vaguest hint of progressive talk of change, or a return to sanity, or the rejection of the mainstream dialog,
When I see millions of Americans ready to gather and stand up for their outrage, who then are co-opted by race-baiters, socialist-fear-mongers, flat-earthers and corporate shills, and yet the movement still gathers momentum and takes seats in congress,
Then I KNOW there is the valid momentum, and the numbers to get a progressive movement going – among the youth, among the intelligentsia, among the well-heeled and famous, and the generally morally aware of the American populace – that will make the Tea-baggers look like the silly Koch-bros. puppets on a string that they are. And btw, MoveOn are sellouts.
And by suggesting that this movement should expect anything but resistance from the Obama administration is naive beyond the point of argument. So unless you're offering something else, something specifically OUTSIDE the Democratic party, I'll pass on the 'More on all this next week', thank you.
If Team Obama has proven anything beyond the shadow of a doubt during the past two years it is that they are not about hope and change, rather, they hope there is no change and work tirelessly to not only preserve, but to enhance the fortunes of the status quo at ever greater expense to the rest of us.
I think that you are deriving the correct lesson form the Tea Party movement.
As for "outside", what are you thinking? the Greens? something more like the Tea Party? or something entirely different?
I find the "grand purpose" to be lacking in the "left" or "progressives" in the U.S..
Could such a purpose be found in the example of the recent successes by the "left" in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador? Would the idea of a new Convention, a more just Constitution (i.e. one written for the 21st century not the 18th!) and a reinvigoration of democracy be the spark that lights the progressive fires in the U.S. as it lit the "left" in those countries?
I think maybe. ;)
"As for "outside", what are you thinking? the Greens? something more like the Tea Party? or something entirely different?"
I believe a wide coalition of true-left/progressive/liberal forces is the only thing that can challenge the false-frame of the mainstream establishment order. It will take all components, from the Greens, to non-militant Socialists, to left-leaning Libertarians, true-progressives (Obama is NO progressive) and activated, yououng Liberals rallied by trusted older Liberal voices from the more well-heeled Liberal establishment (i.e. the Moores, Mahers, Penns, Goodmans and Huffingtons out there).
So, yes, like the Tea-Party, but with an actual platform that makes sense. Like the Tea-Party, but a with a true understanding of what the original Tea-Party represented. Like the Tea-Party, but not a *false 'counter' movement* that really just serves Republicans and entrenched corporate interests – A real movement, based on our unique American values, as epitomized by FDR and the NEW DEAL. A movement not for extremes of the left OR right, but for a balance that serves all decent Americans. A party that serves Only 'We The People', not 'we the corporate entities' of the U.S.A.
It's 'Radical Centrism' that I personally promote:
"the American "radical" centrism of today is simply the adamant pursuit for a return to the once-mainstream political principle of New Deal economic progressivism coupled with a moderate cultural conservatism."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_center_%28politics%29
"I find the "grand purpose" to be lacking in the "left" or "progressives" in the U.S.."
This is our 'grand purpose' in my mind: Not to lose the country entirely to int'l corporate destruction of our national sovereignty, or to lose our identity in a sweeping revolution that replaces our Liberal Democracy with unrecognizable socialism. Our grand purpose is to realize the hopes and aspirations of our enlightened, liberal founders, modernized by the New Deal, and bring America back to its former glory, only now both in deed, and in rhetoric, instead of only the latter.
" Would the idea of a new Convention, a more just Constitution (i.e. one written for the 21st century not the 18th!) and a reinvigoration of democracy be the spark that lights the progressive fires in the U.S. as it lit the "left" in those countries?
The Constitution was intended to be able to be reformed, and I'm for its continued improvement, but not its replacement. However, adoption of the ideals seen at work in Central and South America are important steps. I for one whole-heartedly support the idea of adopting/embracing the "Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth" as a central platform of a party standing in opposition to the Tea-Party, and the right in general.
ss......if a third party basis itself on the "universal declaration...etc." it will simply be a weak out post on the other side of the bell curve. it will appeal to lovers of gaia, and will invite the calumny of the "core".
sir, i value your voice....the voice of a POWERFUL third party however has to understand the power of NUMBERS!
it should not be that difficult to tell the truth and to tell it straight without calls to belief in the earth as a "BEING". it's superfluous AND counter productive.
the bankers are thieves, the politicians are bought off, the nation is bankrupt and it's getting worse. both parties suck. pretty simple. everyone gets it. peace....
Perhaps I overstated the placement of the Declaration "at the core" of the movement. Or better yet, my meaning my have been 'at the core' but deep, and not necessarily overtly at the center of our discourse.
I am highly cognizant of the need for a platform that embraces, and doesn't alienate popular sentiments, but I also am confident that ecological conservation IS a big part of popular sentiment in the world today.
But again, point taken. The central platform, at least in terms of central rhetoric, should revolve around reform that speaks directly to people's immediate interests, while our long-term, indirect interests should never distract from that message.
ss.....like you, i'm hoping the third party movement becomes viable. when i think of pollution of the planet, and i think of it in practical politics, or third party messaging, i can't help but think about the people i've always rubbed shoulders with.
it was said at onetime that the #1 sport in america was fishing. it would not be pandering to tailor or dove tail the pollution question with the mercury in fish(and that very real danger to the fisherman's family) as well the diminished fish population in rivers and streams (which is a diminishment to his pleasure).
nobody enjoys an al gore lecture on global warming, even if its true. it just isn't pertinent or understandable to my 'ol buddy joe. you know what i mean...peace (i'm trying to supplant lakoff)
Although Kuttner touched on the work/finance issues keeping the young from mobilizing, he didn't even mention how it is that the Tea Party Movement wins so much FREE advertising from Fox added to Hate Radio. Where does the Left get anything similar?
This article is a variation on the theme of holding Obama's feet to the proverbial fire. Sure. That'll do the trick!
"Siouxrose"
On a different note. The other night I was shown a video called "Who Does She Think She Is?" about artistic women and some individual struggles to create and some historical references to "the Goddess". It made me think of you.
Thanks.
Sioux:
If it was just FOX that was giving the Tea Party boatloads of free advertising I would be less concerned.
Nearly every network from NPR to NBC gives the tea party free advertising 24/7, while pretending that third party and marginalized duopoly candidates don't exist.
Birdbrain Alley: I saw the film, "Who Does She Think She Is?" My parents used to say that same thing to me when I was growing up in Iowa. I thought the film was excellent, and as a woman, I certainly related to the stories that were presented within the film.
BIRD: Thank you for the reference, and/or thinking of me! I have not seen that film, although I've certainly heard the expression.
RAY: Excellent point! I should have said that the media birthed this entity by giving it so much "free" play! As if we ever see Chomsky, Nader, Chris Hedges, David Korten, Glenn Greenwald, or Michael Parenti, to name a few, given anywhere NEAR that level of coverage. Imagine the educational benefits if equal time was mandated as the premise of "Fair and Balanced" suggests.
KAY: Glad to see you posting.
S.S. I think your ideas have passion and purpose. I am not sure if "radical centrist" is the most compelling use of wording. When I think of centrist, I think of Bill Clinton; and many people are repelled by the very thought of anything radical. It is an interesting play on words; but I am unsure if it's the play that will attract adherents?
You will be interested to know that Virginia's Senator Mark Warner, former governor of Virginia too, ran for election proudly referring to himself as a "radical centrist." I wish I was making this stuff up, but it's true. I should mention Warner has presidential aspirations.
"Where does the Left get anything similar?"
Certainly not from all the so-called "progressive" media that's out there. As i have intimated before the folks whose feet we need to hold to the fire are those "progressive" media folk who fail to feature, support and give multiple, continued exposure to those who would challenge Dems at the polls. They need to give FREE advertising to "our" side ....
I was recently visiting California and tuned into Pacifica Radio (94.1 in the SF Bay Area) and was pleased with the progressive programming.
Are we to assume that this Team B is going to tell Obama something that he doesn't already know or something different from what everyone else is saying? No. This is just more of the old white guy club writing tabloid stuff to keep liberals entertained. Read Chris Hedge's article below.
Hoa binh
Last night on 60 Minutes Obama admitted that the only way he could pass Obamacare was to rebrand a "Republican version of health care reform".
Unfortunately I had to repeat that statement to the Obamabots who were watching the show with me since they somehow never let the content of Obama's speeches and conferences take precedence over Brand Obama cheers.
Not that it mattered what I said since Obamabots are still blaming Dubya for everything and are insisting that Obama needs more time to "work things out".
They'd be saying the same thing if it was the last day of Year Eight.
I heard part of this "60 Minutes" interview on NPR. All I kept thinking, yeah, right, Obama -- you could have taken it to the people and said "You know that great program your older relatives like so much called Medicare? Well, I'll tell you what. What is want is every American to have an improved Medicare for All. You'll never lose your home to medical costs, you'll never lose medical care if you lose your job, you'll never have to stay in job you don't like to get medical benefits, you can take the risk and start a business and now worry about not having medical care." He could have put the Repubs to shame -- he didn't need them anyway, we all know that.
But that would have taken guts, and that part of the interview I heard didn't sound like man with any guts.
New ideas are of paramount importance, but, oh, goodness, "Team B" is a horrible example. "Team B" was composed of neoconservatives (including a young, and even then, dumb-as-a-brick Joe Isuzu named Paul Wolfowitz) who used irrational and false interpretations of the raw data to politicize the intelligence analysis process.
Yeah, give points for new ideas, but, dump the moniker. It's awful.
Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals and the Franklin Stove. Then someone else invented no-line bifocals, and wood stove technology has gone way beyond the Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin's greatest invention, the democratic national government, was a landmark for its time, the only democracy on earth, and it worked. However, the old system was always prone to corruption and mudslinging as early as the election of 1800.
My ultimate plan B is to restructure all governments starting at the neighborhood level, then at the town level, and working up to the Federal level.
We need more honest forms of decision-making that don't waste as much of our time and that don't insult our intelligence. Online decision-making might (or might not) work better.
Local Gov'ts are just as corrupt in many cases as the State and Nat'l ones. I agree we need a better form of governance, our 18th century model is worn out.
The same pattern holds true at all levels of society. Those with more money are presumed to have a "right" to dominate those with less money, just as at one time those born top certain families were presumed to have the "right" to dominate and control others. So long as that is not challenged, nothing will change. Since most politically active people. most liberals and conservatives, are dominant, or are striving to be, any criticism of this system is pretty rare and mercilessly attacked whenever it does appear. You could not attack and remove the ills of slavery while refusing to question slavery itself. You cannot expect people who benefit from the system - those with greater status and success - to question the system or tolerate it being questioned. That is the case among progressives, where a surprisingly large number of the most dominant people in the discussions are themselves owners, bosses, landlords, trust fund babies, investors etc. They dominate the discussions just as they dominate things everywhere, and in the same way. Most of the debates are about who would be the better masters over all of us, not about whether or not we should have any masters over us at all.
There is intense interest and excitement among the winners to debate who gets the spoils, whose ideas will triumph, which faction will be in power, who is better suited to rule - Republicans or Democrats or tea party or green or progressive. It is not so interesting or exciting to the other 90% of the population, and that is why there can never be a progressive mass movement. So long as we have a set of social arrangements by which a few are winners and the many are losers, you cannot build a mass movement of, by and for the winners.
The only part of this article which has merit is the part about the need for a "movement".
First off, there is all this delusional fantasy about a need for a "plan B". The underlying message being that Obama and the democrats just need another chance, that what has happened in the past two years has just been a mistake. Aww Shucks!
Then, we are given a dose of Obama coulda, Obama shoulda, Obama coulda, again. This then, is wrapped in sentimental rubbish about how it all went wrong AFTER the election os 2008 and we are then given a dose of how tired the author is of writing such drivel. Golly gee!
The truth is that those who voted for Obama and Democrats Unlimited Inc. were fools who willfully ignored the blatant corruption by ODU Inc. preceding the election because they were and are desperate for illusions.
The problem is not primarily the tea party and their stupidity. The bigger problem is the people who keep enabling the corruption because they will not hold the democrats accountable for expanding the corporate agenda of greed, warmongering, lies, and the gutting of civil rights.
Everytime Obama speaks he makes it perfectly clear to me that he will continue on his rightward trajectory.
In each speech, Obama also patronizes his base by saying that he will try to do a better job of explaining things to them.
Surely ye jest, Mr. Kuttner.
The Labor Party, founded in Cleveland in 1996, was the embryo for the movement called for in this piece I don't know what Kuttner's view was at the time but major union leaders refused to leave the Democratic Party, thus dooming the LP's chances of success.
Burned into my memory is Dr. Flowers out in the cold of Lafayette Park while the insiders conferenced on the legislation that excluded Single Payer and even a watered down public option. Obama saying he welcomed any responsible ideas about health care reform while Flowers held a sign in front of the Republican Caucus that Obama was visiting. Obama has said things like this before but he is in his bubble. Forget about appealing to Obama. It's foolish to think he wants our advice. Whatever changes we want to make will have to be done without Obama and probably without the Dems either.
I think progressives need to interpret and inject the term "monopolies" into the political dialogue. It's not "Wall Street," it's monopolies; it's not "the business community," it's monopolies; it's not "big business," it's monopolies; it's not "corporate interests," it's monopoly interests. "Monopoly" has a heavily negative connotation and I would argue that it should be interpreted as Adam Smith might have done, by that organization that controls 5% or more of any market.
For instance my home town of Los Angeles is divided into several neighborhoods and within each neighborhood there are major thoroughfares zoned for retail businesses. What most people do not know is that in each neighborhood, one company, representing one individual, owns the land on each thoroughfare along one side, and another individual owns the parallel strip on the other side within that neighborhood. These owners do not compete for prices and amenities to attract customers since that would reduce their incomes. It is in their interest to cooperate instead. None of these companies would be large by Wall Street standards, yet in the market of real estate for such-and-such neighborhood of Los Angeles, they are monopolies and behave as such.
Capitalism always creates monopolies. It is inevitable.
You can't bake things in a freezer. If you made enough modifications to a freezer so that it would bake things, it wouldn't be a freezer anymore. It would be an oven.
If there were some people somewhere claiming to be trying to bake things, yet they refused to abandon using a freezer - saying that it was not freezing that was the problem, but rather "shock" freezing, or "disaster" freezing, or "unregulated" freezing, or "corporate" freezing, or "monopoly" freezing - at some point we have to conclude they are not seriously interested in baking anything, and that they were deeply committed to the idea of using a freezer. If those people then expressed surprise again and again when their baked goods came out frozen rock solid, we might suspect that they were liberals and progressives.
I agree that capitalism inevitably produces monopolies, but it is not inevitable that government permits monopolies to arise, or shrinks from breaking them apart after they do arise. My point is that to bring issues to our side, we need to insist on use of the term "monopoly" instead of the "business" euphemism that is usually employed.
Lenin in analyzing the current situation of capital in his day almost always used a term that was officially translated as "monopoly capital."
Free-as-possible-Market Capitalism is a way of describing Capitalist forces that propel a market to peak efficiency, but do not exclude the market-regulating forces that are necessary to 'put on the brakes' when monopolistic practices begin to cause the ship-of-state to veer out of control. What I never understand is why it can't be established that an unregulated Capitalist market is a lethal force, but regulation renders this force beneficial, far beyond the benefit removing it entirely bestows.
The evil is NOT Capitalism, but deregulation, monopolies, and the fascistic practices that arise from these.
Similarly but conversely, over-regulation of markets, forced social constraints (you can't sell this, its not intended for the greater good!) and limitations on competition also are lethal forces that lead to artificial market conditions imposed by the socialist gate-keepers which, like fascism, result in authoritarian governments who must use oppression, violence and intimidation to keep the order going.
"Efficiency" means extract the maximum value from workers. Why would we want to "propel a market to peak efficiency" or see that as a good thing?
You are confusing sales, trade and markets - all of which existed long before Capitalism - with Capitalism itself. You are confusing the standard propaganda line about certain supposedly failed states with Socialism itself. That is no more logical than it would be to cite Hitler as proof that Capitalism is dangerous. I am certain you would strenuously object to that.
You are arguing fundamentalist "free market" conservative economics with this post. Not that this makes you bad or wrong, but rather I would like to establish that there are credible grounds for countering your thesis, and that such opposition should be considered and not dismissed out of hand, as too often happens.
Clever - your association of the words "gate keepers" with the word "Socialist," as is your insertion of the words "oppression, violence and intimidation" into a sentence about Socialism, and your attempt to equate fascism with Socialism.
I fail to see how red-baiting and the promotion of Reaganomics can be reconciled with "progressive" politics.
Defending this mythical "middle of the road" is to defend the existing power structure, the existing conditions.
RE: "Efficiency" means extract the maximum value from workers. Why would we want to "propel a market to peak efficiency" or see that as a good thing?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident"
You're welcome to attempt to counter my thesis – I'll even restate it for any interested:
Socialism, and Capitalism are suited best to dwell *syncretically* within a dynamic 2-tiered system which takes advantage of the best each system has to offer, 1. for universally recognized social needs/essential goods and 2. individually recognized private wants/non-essential goods.
RE: "I fail to see how red-baiting and the promotion of Reaganomics can be reconciled with "progressive" politics."
I am not 'red baiting. Republican-style straw man.
RE: "Defending this mythical "middle of the road" is to defend the existing power structure, the existing conditions."
Another Republican-style straw man.
Trade, barter, and sales existed long before Capitalism. Capitalism is not necessary to have "individually recognized private wants/non-essential goods." Clearly, there was art for example - "non-essential goods" - pre-Capitalism. Clearly there were "private wants" fulfilled before there was Capitalism.
Ergo, your thesis that it is necessary to have some "blend" of Capitalism and Socialism in order to have "universally recognized social needs/essential goods" and "individually recognized private wants/non-essential goods" is false.
The "dynamic 2-tiered system" you imagine is what we already have. It is the result of an ongoing struggle. There is a battle between the few, trying to satisfy their individual needs and amassing wealth, and the many who not only are denied "social needs/essential goods" bur also "private wants/non-essential goods." We don not have a "blend" but rather we have many areas where the wealthy are winning or have won, and a few areas where the working class people have won - fewer and fewer.
If you start negotiations with what you would settle for, especially against a motivated and powerful opponent, you are certain to get much less than you would settle for. Why would any working class person (you may not been you may be independently wealthy) advocate a starting position of compromising halfway with our opponents? What evidence is there that the needs of working class people being half fulfilled - if that is even possible to achieve - is "best."
What on earth does "we hold these truths to be self-evident" have to do with this discussion? How can people have "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" when those things depend upon who has the most money? They cannot. Why would we advocate shooting for only getting halfway there?
Misrepresenting and fear-mongering against the left is red-baiting.
Defending this mythical "middle of the road" is most definitely defending the existing power structure, the existing conditions. It would be like going into an athletic contest shooting for a tie. You may get the tie, but you certainly cannot win and most likely will lose. That approach would help your opponent, of course. Therefore advocating a middle ground between the desires of the wealthy and the needs of the rest of us is advocating going for a tie and does help the wealthy. They ant to keep the power structure and the conditions unchanged.
When the purpose of the government is to promote and defend and protect Capitalism - as is most certainly the case - then the government is inevitably going to permit (promote and protect) monopolies as much as it can - within the confines of not allowing the general public to see that too clearly or to become too restive.
Why not go after the root cause rather than a symptom? What is it we are trying to protect or retain by weakening our position? Why compromise? The system whereby one person is presumed to have the "right" to control and dominate others by virtue of having greater access to capital is the root cause that inevitably leads to monopolies everywhere over all things at every level of society.
Everyone playing the game called Capitalism is playing to win, and winning means gaining control and domination over others - over everyone and everything" sellers, buyers, markets, resources, the environment. That means monopoly - sole control, through the mechanism of sole possession, which is the tool by which one person controls others. Those losing the game, or not playing it will be controlled and dominated, and will starve to one degree or another, be enslaved one way or another, will be denied full participation in the social arrangements, will suffer and will be poisoned.
"I can hire one-half the working-class to kill the other half."
--Jay Gould, Gilded Age rail tycoon and real estate developer
God, is this Kuttner guy naive. Either that or he's part of the "professional" DLC McLeft making too much money from his cushy media gig abetting DLC neo-liberalism to really call a tick-turd by its name.
Robert Kuttner, you should understand "team B' a bit better before you propose it as a model. the "team B" lead by Richard Pipes was pure nonsense, calling up demons from their imagination. I know that is not what you had in mind.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1207-26.htm
Speaking of "movements", i know how to get one going - Ex lax works pretty well, so i hear. Let's slip a bit of that into the polls. Maybe all Congress needs is a good high colonic ...... wipe, then flush ....
Reminds me of a bumper sticker
Politicians and Diapers should be changed frequently for the same reason.
A "grassroots progressive movement" is a contradiction in terms and impossible to expand any more. We have seen just how far progressive politics can take us. For 40 years people have building this progressive movement. It has peaked, and all of the energy was folded into the Obama campaign and dissipated. It has failed.
"Progressive" means the enlightened and knowledgeable few and will always remain the few. It is no basis for a mass movement.
Listening to progressive talk radio the last couple of days. Stephanie Miller, Tom Hartmann et al. Most of it was blah blah about people voting against their own interests, how insane the tea party people are, how stupid and ignorant the general public is, how wonderful we enlightened progressives are.
A guy called in to the station during this panel discussion with 4 or 5 progressive commentators - talking like a normal person and not in the smug and adolescent way progressives talk, with a southern accent - and was talking about the FedEx versus UPS Labor situation. He did a good job explaining it.
"At issue is a bill approved March 5 by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that could take away a key advantage FedEx has over UPS. Because Memphis-based FedEx was formed in the 1970s as an airline, it came under the jurisdiction of the railway act, which was written decades earlier to limit commerce-crippling strikes at railroad companies. The law complicates union organizing by requiring company-wide employee votes on labor representation."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123791678454427343.html
He was saying that Congress needs to pass the bill during the lame duck session.
Miller kept trying to interrupt him, and then finally cut him off saying "that guy doesn't come up for air." Then she said "listen, a lot of people have their pet issues that are really, really important to them - they are single issue voters. We have to look at the big picture and there are a lot of concerns, a lot of things that are threatened by the Republicans." Then they went back to mocking Palin and all of their cutesy little phrases and inside jokes.
Progressive politics are completely severed from the Left now, and progressive politics were always about "we, the beautiful enlightened yuppies" and always designed to herd people back into an ever more gentrified Democratic party. The whole thing has run its course over the last ten years - increasing through the Bush years and then steeply declining since Obama was elected. The high water mark has been reached and is behind us now. None of the leading progressive voices much care. They are happy to be in the minority and infective, so long as they are "right." Being right (and therefore superior) is the goal.
I agree.
So, as the man wrote, "What is to be done?"
(Not asking you to come up with an entire Revolution on your own here, just wondering what you think.)
Thanks.
We don't know. We can't know. After each step, everything looks different and a new set of options appears.
Organized Labor in Europe has shifted over to "low intensity disruption" now, with rolling strikes throughout the country and a program of class defiance and withdrawal (according to a communication from a contact on the ground there today.)
Here, we have no Left for all practical purposes, and while most of the working class people well know that the battle is between the haves and the have-nots - and accurately perceive that the liberals and the conservatives are merely two factions of the haves, or shills for the haves - very few politically active people do. Although I would guess that 9 out of 10 people here only identify with the liberals and progressives because they think they have no other choice, and of course the dominant few keep aggressively insisting that they have no other choice. Anyone suggesting breaking the hold of the haves over progressive and liberal politics is immediately attacked, usually personally attacked.
Excellent analysis.
When things get bad enough, I think your last sentence will be of less importance. At some point, we will be willing to withstand the attacks. As a third party candidate, I've experienced the attacks, none of them physically damaging, but was well aware that if the country was flooded with third party candidates the attacks would increase in both number and intensity.
Perhaps in the first few go-rounds, those of us over fifty could offer ourselves as sacrifices.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
No "grassroots progressive politics" was not historically always an oxymoron and
no, progressive politics were not always about "we, the beautiful enlightened yuppies."
God, doesn't anyone know any actual history anymore?
The history of American progressivism regarding legislation and government programs in benefit of the general public dates back to the earliest populists in Texas in the 1860s, the latter populists all across the midwest, to the era of young Eleanor Roosevelt's works in the tenement slum areas of New York City to some of the earliest civil engineering projects and public health programs; to the hard won labor struggles of the 1920s and 1930s. This encompassed everything from some of the earliest banking regulation on farm loans; to eliminating price gouging by railroad trusts of farmers and livestock sellers trying to move produce and food animals by rail to the cities; to the rise of the public school system (the pride of this nation from the 1880s until the mid-1960s because it was open to children of all classes); to public sewage systems, public garbage collection, public vaccination programs, the first elevator, food and drug inspection laws, and a subsequent host of other safety oversight laws (all replaced with corporate foxes minding the regulatory hen house and crumbling civil infrastructure since the advent of Reaganomics), and every labor law still on the books (enforced or unenforced). These early and proud, successful progressive accomplishments were all PRACTICAL, overall society-enhancing PROGRESSIVE IDEAS turned into PROGRESSIVE LAWS AND GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS. The vast majority of the Civil Rights marchers were very young social progressives that had nothing to do with "beautiful enlightened yuppies." The 1960s women's lib movement WAS generally a yuppy-driven movement but the 1960s anti-nuclear/anti-war movement was not yuppy driven, nor was the 1960s environmental movement. The yuppification of the "environmental movement" happened over the course of the 1980s as did the yuppification and neo-liberalization of the Democratic Party's leadership.
Thanx, metal, good stuff .....
I am talking about modern progressives, of course. I am quite knowledgeable about the history of the Progressive movement from 100 years ago.
I was involved in the struggles in the 60's. I know who drove them, and who co-opted and gentrified them. The radicals drove them, the liberals neutered them.
The gains of the New Deal were the result of a militant and radical Left, not progressives and liberals. You can't just take everything from the past that was good and say "that's progressive!" and then be "for" it.
I always liked this from the Progressive era:
Tramp Circular
L. D. Lewelling
Source: Topeka Daily Capital, 5 December 1893
In the reign of Elizabeth, the highways were filled with the throngs of the unemployed poor, who were made to "move on," and were sometimes brutally whipped, sometimes summarily hanged, as "sturdy vagrants" or "incorrigible vagabonds." In France, just previous to the revolution, the punishment of being poor and out of work was, for the first offense, a term of years in the galleys, for the second offense, the galleys for life. In this country, the monopoly of labor saving machinery and its devotion to selfish instead of social use, have rendered more and more human beings superfluous, until we have a standing army of the unemployed numbering even in the most prosperous times not less than one million able bodied men; yet, until recently it was the prevailing notion, as it is yet the notion of all but the work-people themselves and those of other classes given to thinking, and whosoever, being able bodied and willing to work can always find work to do, and section 571 of the general statutes of 1889 is a disgraceful reminder how savage even in Kansas has been our treatment of the most unhappy of our human brothers.
The man out of work and penniless is, by this legislation, classed with "confidence men." Under this statute and city ordinances of similar import, thousands of men, guilty of no crime but poverty, intent upon no crime but that of seeking employment, have languished in the city prisons of Kansas or performed unrequited toil on "rock piles" as municipal slaves, because ignorance of economic conditions had made us cruel. The victims have been the poor and humble for whom police courts are courts of last resort - they can not give bond and appeal. They have been unheeded and uncared for by the busy world which wastes no time visiting prisoners in jail. They have been too poor to litigate with their oppressors, and thus no voice from this underworld of human woe has ever reached the ear of the appellate court, because it was nobody's business to be his brother's keeper.
But those who sit in the seats of power are bound by the highest obligation to especially regard the cause of the oppressed and helpless poor. The first duty of the government is to the weak Power becomes fiendish if it be not the protector and sure reliance of the friendless, to whose complaints all other ears are dull. It is my duty "to see that the laws are faith-fully executed," and among those laws is the constitutional provision that no instrumentality of the state "shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." And who needs to be told that equal protection of the laws does not prevail where this inhuman vagrancy law is enforced? It separates men into two distinct classes, differentiated as those who are penniless and those who are not, and declare the former criminals. Only the latter are entitled to the liberty guaranteed by the constitution. To be found in a city "without some visible means of support or some legitimate business," is the involuntary condition of some millions at this moment, and we proceed to punish them for being victims of conditions which we, as a people, have forced upon them.
I have noticed in police court reports that "sleeping in a box car" is among the varieties of this heinous crime of being poor. Some police judges have usurped a sovereign power not permitted the highest functionaries of the states or of the nation, and victims of the industrial conditions have been peremptorily "ordered to leave town."
The right to go freely from place to place in search of employment, or even in obedience of a mere whim, is part of that personal liberty guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States to every human being on American soil. If voluntary idleness is not forbidden; if a Diogenes prefer poverty; if a Columbus choose hunger and the discovery of a new race, rather than seek personal comfort by engaging in "some legitimate business," I am aware of no power in the legislature or in city councils to deny; him the right to seek happiness in his own way, so long as he harms no other, rich or poor; but let simple poverty cease to be a crime.
In some cities it is provided by ordinance that if police court fines are not paid or secured the culprit shall be compelled to work out the amount as a municipal slave; and "rock piles" and "bull pens" are provided for the enforcement of these ordinances. And so it appears that this slavery is not imposed as a punishment, but solely as a means of collecting a debt.
Such city ordinances are in flagrant violation of constitutional prohibition. The "rock-pile" and the "bull pen" have only been used in degrading the friendless and poor, and are relics of the departed auction-block era cease to disgrace the cities of Kansas.
And let the dawn of Christmas day find the "rock-pile," the "bull-pen" and the crime of being homeless and poor, obsolete in all the cities of Kansas governed by the metropolitan police act.
It is confidentially expected that their own regard for constitutional liberty and their human impulses will induce police commissioners to carry out the spirit as well as the letter of the foregoing suggestions.