'Organizing for America' Means Fighting for Human Rights Worldwide

So now we
know the fate of Team Obama's thirteen-million strong e-mail list, that
unprecedented netroots force that used social networking and new media
technologies to put a one-time community organizer in the White House.
President Obama is banking on the continuing support of his online constituency
through the creation of "Organizing
for America."

This initiative
is essentially a lobby, intended to "build
grassroots support for the administration's agenda," according to Virginia
Gov. Tim Kaine, who heads the Democratic National Committee
where Organizing
for America will be housed
.

You can't
blame President Obama for wanting to harness the power of that giant email list
and maintain the momentum of his campaign. But is the new flagship of "Obama
2.0" the best tool for moving a progressive agenda?

So far, most
of the President's initiatives seem designed to get us through this economic
crisis and then back to business as usual. Yet, this moment holds the potential
for so much more. In fact, 2009 is shaping up to be what historians call a
transformational moment. At home, the election was a referendum on the economic
policies long-favored by the super-rich. They lost. Abroad, acceptance of the United States'
stint as the world's only superpower is evaporating. A critical mass of people
in the US
agree that the country needs a new game-plan. All of this makes 2009 a year
when big changes can happen in a short time.

Those of us
who have been working to advance women's human rights around the world are
optimistic about winning progressive changes in 2009 and beyond. But doing so will
depend on progressives being able to mobilize effectively. "Organizing for America" may be
enough to move the president's agenda; but it won't be enough to move
ours.

After all,
think of what we're up against: on the foreign policy front alone, we're
looking at a Secretary of State who believes that the president has the right
to invade any country he views as a threat; a Vice President who rolled out the
single scariest solution for Iraq (partition); and a Defense Secretary
pre-approved by George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Even so, progressives
have got at least three good reasons for optimism. First of all, let's not
forget that this new bunch-most of all Barack Obama himself-is a vast
improvement over Bush and his team. Second, and more importantly, the two
strongest political forces that have obstructed women's human rights over the
past eight years-namely religious fundamentalism and market fundamentalism-are
both in crisis right now.

Under Bush,
the religious right dominated US
representation at international conferences and used US family planning and
HIV/AIDS policies to pursue their reactionary social agenda. With the change of
administrations, those people are out. It may have been maddening to have to
listen to Rick Warren at the inauguration, but he won't be making policy.

We can't
say the same for the corporate surrogates in government, but their biggest
claim-that unregulated markets are the solution to everything from poverty to
climate change-is now badly discredited. It's plain to people all over the
world that the ideology of the free market, pushed to its logical extreme, has
brought on a massive global recession. To paraphrase FDR, we always knew that
unrestrained capitalism was bad morals. Now, everyone knows it's bad
economics.

Cultivating Critical Cooperation

This second
reason for optimism is worth exploring because it brings us to the question of
political strategy. That both religious
and free market fundamentalism are loosening their stranglehold at the same
time is an enormous opportunity to advance women's human rights, and maybe even
lock in progress for the long-term.
Pushing Congress to finally ratify CEDAW (the UN Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) would be a good
start. To be effective, we'll have to figure out how to relate to an
administration that is our ally on some issues, but not on others.
Historically, US progressives haven't had to grapple much with this question,
but it has just become paramount.

Progressives
can't continue to act as though the White House is the enemy of all things
feminist and human-rights oriented just because they don't support our whole
agenda. If we do that, we forfeit a
tremendous chance to engage and push for real change. And we will disconnect
ourselves from a groundswell of people who recognize that this is, in fact, a
moment of opportunity for progressives.

But we also
can't simply be cheerleaders for the new administration. Uncritical
participation in initiatives such as "Organizing for America" can become an exercise in cooptation.
It would be a big mistake for us to allow that to happen. So let's dump the
"Obama's Army" metaphor, with its implied obedience and passivity. It
might have worked for getting our candidate to the White House. It won't work
for getting him to do what we need once he's there.

Instead, we
can cultivate an approach of critical cooperation. That means supporting every
positive move that the administration makes while demanding improvements to any
US
policy that doesn't uphold human rights. Our opposition, when it's warranted,
will be essential to Obama if he is to keep the promises that originally gained
our support-and if we're going to expand that list of priorities. Let's not
back-peddle on what we know is right just because there's someone in the White
House who may meet us partway.

And the Top Reason for Optimism in
2009...

The number
one reason to be optimistic about advancing human rights under President Obama
has little to do with what the president wants or who he appoints to his
cabinet. That's because the most important thing about the 2008 election was
not Barack Obama's victory. It was the emergence of millions of newly-engaged
and re-engaged people in communities across the US. The possibility of those people
staying engaged is our number one reason for optimism.

It's time
now for all of us who put Barack Obama in the White House to evolve from
serving in his "Army" to building a pro-democracy movement; one that
can transform free-floating calls for "change" into the concrete
policies we need. Progressives in Latin America
are way ahead of us on this and can offer some useful lessons on what to do
when your candidate actually wins.

The
challenge is to move effectively between participation and protest. If 2009 is
to be a truly transformational year, it will depend on whether progressives can
jump on the opportunity not seen in our lifetimes to advance our vision of a
world where human rights are a reality for all people.

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