[This letter from prominent progressives, including many Greens, is noteworthy. In my eyes, calling for a protest movement falls short of the moment. I think we need to be putting our vision out there and engaging people in a discussion of alternative visions, in addition to full-throated critique. The Tea Party has shown the success of visible dissent, but WTF do they stand FOR?]
This letter is a call for active support of protest to Michael Moore, Norman Solomon, Katrina van den Heuvel, Michael Eric Dyson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Thomas Frank, Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher Jr., Jesse Jackson Jr., and other high profile progressive supporters of the Obama electoral campaign.
With the Obama administration beginning its third year, it is by now painfully obvious that the predictions of even the most sober Obama supporters were overly optimistic. Rather than an ally, the administration has shown itself to be an implacable enemy of reform.
It has advanced repeated assaults on the New Deal safety net (including the previously sacrosanct Social Security trust fund), jettisoned any hope for substantive health care reform, attacked civil rights and environmental protections, and expanded a massive bailout further enriching an already bloated financial services and insurance industry. It has continued the occupation of Iraq and expanded the war in Afghanistan as well as our government’s covert and overt wars in South Asia and around the globe.
Along the way, the Obama administration, which referred to its left detractors as “f***ing retarded” individuals that required “drug testing,” stepped up the prosecution of federal war crime whistleblowers, and unleashed the FBI on those protesting the escalation of an insane war.
Obama’s recent announcement of a federal worker pay freeze is cynical, mean-spirited “deficit-reduction theater”. Slashing Bush’s plutocratic tax cuts would have made a much more significant contribution to deficit reduction but all signs are that the “progressive” president will cave to Republican demands for the preservation of George W. Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy Few. Instead Obama’s tax cut plan would raise taxes for the poorest people in our country.
The election of Obama has not galvanized protest movements. To the contrary, it has depressed and undermined them, with the White House playing an active role in the discouragement and suppression of dissent – with disastrous consequences. The almost complete absence of protest from the left has emboldened the most right-wing elements inside and outside of the Obama administration to pursue and act on an ever more extreme agenda.
We are writing to you because you are well-known writers, bloggers and filmmakers with access to a range of old and new media, and you have in your power the capacity to help reignite the movement which brought millions onto the streets in February of 2003 but which has withered ever since. There are many thousands of progressives who follow your work closely and are waiting for a cue from you and others to act. We are asking you to commit yourself to actively supporting the protests of Obama administration policies which are now beginning to materialize.
In this connection we would like to mention a specific protest: the civil disobedience action being planned by Veterans for Peace involving Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Joel Kovel, Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern, several armed service veterans and others to take place in front of the White House on Dec. 16th.
Should you commit yourselves to backing this action and others sure to materialize in weeks and months ahead, what would otherwise be regarded as an emotional outburst of the “fringe left” will have a better chance of being seen as expressing the will of a substantial majority not only of the left, but of the American public at large. We believe that your support will help create the climate for larger and increasingly disruptive expressions of dissent – a development that is sorely needed and long overdue.
We hope that we can count on you to exercise the leadership that is required of all of us in these desperate times.
Best Regards,
Sen. James Abourezk
Michael Albert
Tariq Ali
Rocky Anderson
Jared Ball
Russel Banks
Thomas Bias
Noam Chomsky
Bruce Dixon
Frank Dorrel
Gidon Eshel
Jamilla El-Shafei
Okla Elliott
Norman Finkelstein
Glen Ford
Joshua Frank
Margaret Flowers M.D.
John Gerassi
Henry Giroux
Matt Gonzalez
Kevin Alexander Gray
Judd Greenstein
DeeDee Halleck
John Halle
Chris Hedges
Doug Henwood
Edward S. Herman
Dahr Jamail
Louis Kampf
Allison Kilkenny
Jamie Kilstein
Joel Kovel
Mark Kurlansky
Peter Linebaugh
Scott McLarty
Cynthia McKinney
Dede Miller
Russell Mokhiber
Bobby Muller
Christian Parenti
Michael Perelman
Peter Phillips
Louis Proyect
Ted Rall
Cindy Sheehan
Chris Spannos
Paul Street
Sunil Sharma
Stephen Pearcy
Jeffrey St. Clair
Len Weinglass
Cornel West
Sherry Wolf
Michael Yates
Mickey Z
Kevin Zeese
Please sign the Open Letter to the Left Establishment.
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Yes to your point in general, no to it in the specifics here. I see this letter mainly as a gambit to attract national media attention to the populist left (its addressed to personalities and media types anyway). I don’t think its possible for “The Open Letter to the Professional Left” and its calls to action to be a vehicle for positive visions and discussion, at least immediately. But that may not be your point and we may actually be in agreement.
On such a large scale you are lucky to get a few phrases, images, and soundbites in, if anything at all. Getting enough individuals and groups together also depends on lowest common denominator agreement, in this case 1) Opposition to or disagreement with Obama’s agenda 2) Shared experience in militant protest/civil disobedience 3) Self-identification as Left.
I think this is about sticking a wrench visibly into Obama’s policy agenda and into the gears of the 24 hour news cycle with a left-wing populist message (short and simple hopefully). Militancy alone will not accomplish that, so they are asking for major progressive and leftist figures to talk it up with their media. They want “credible militancy, protest you can believe in”. And then hope it has a viral effect, creates copy cats, boosts their own organizing, and creates a situation where politicians start to react to them rather than the other way around.
The site points to the protest movements in Europe as the model, light a fire and scare the elite a bit.
The problem for the Left is that unlike the Right it does not have wealthy ideological donors (like Koch brothers, Scaife, etc) and well-endowed ideological institutions to back them. The Tea Party could have consisted of a dozen people and it would still get magnified and exaggerated into a mass movement by the echo chamber of right wing public relations, media, and advocacy organizations. And the Tea Party has shown what they stand for (even if the message is contradictory): Lower taxes, less government, no bailouts, smaller deficit, and a vague sense of “taking America back”. Its a message that proved itself suitable to win elections and water-down legislation in the interest of corporations and the wealthy.
The sheer diversity of the Left, while ultimately a strength, also hinders its ability to come to substantive agreement and take concerted, disciplined action on behalf of itself as a whole, rather than just on specific issues or policies. You have to please millions of donors and supporters (with thousands of opinions and viewpoints) rather than like 5 rich white guys. Those 5 bastards can hire a professional army and prepare a long siege, the Left is a badly paid volunteer force that needs to constantly keep morale up with crumbs to prevent itself from being obliterated. The Left wins some battles, but it is sure to lose the war with its current strategy.
Constructive work and conversation I think can to take place on a more manageable scale, mainly locally and regionally. Where setting up a table, an event, a street canvass, or planning specific targeted rallies can actually provide something more akin to a conversation. Where you can work on concrete projects that teach people the possibilities of alternative politics (like some of the examples you have brought up around worker cooperatives, Transition Towns, etc). Can these be united into a national movement that will actually get popular attention? Maybe. Should everyone keep talking to each other and sharing ideas from around the country and world? Yes.
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Wow. So the Counterpunch crew want Katrina and the knaves to endorse some “civil disobedience” that will be 90% white, 75% over 50, and 99.9% ignored. Yeah. THAT’LL show ’em.
I believe Eli’s right. Rahm had a point in calling progressives “fucking retards,” in that they’re becoming their very own party of no. And they’re beginning to sound as shrill as the far right.
First point: stop blaming Obama. He doesn’t have the freaking votes. I’m trying to figure out what Tariq Ali would do in the White House. The problem is the blue dogs. And that ain’t gonna change, because fact is, we DO live in a democracy, and one hell of a lot of people actually disagree with us. Unlike Patrick, I don’t think they’ve all been duped. I think a lot of Tea Party types have come to their conclusions as honestly as we have ours. I believe we’re disingenuous in constantly attributing the opinions of others to their being misled by Sinister Forces. The individualistic/communitarian tension has been with us since the republic began-actually, since before-and it’s a good, healthy tension.
Back to Eli’s point: have to offer alternatives. And they have to be substantive. That’s why I kept yelling about my own pet notion of “for every no, a yes” when the casino debate was the argument du jour. Don’t want casinos? Fine, so long as you show me you can create 7k jobs in my region over the same amount of time and at the same cost to the state. Don’t like charters, testing, etc? Me neither. But explain how you’re going to hold teachers and administrators accountable (and stop cowtowing to their damn union). Cape Wind a hoax? Maybe. So, what’s the GRP plan for low-cost renewable energy plan? Not idea–plan.
I think we can–maybe–do that. But it means less ideology, waay less buzzwords, and workable, pragmatic plans. Patrick suggests tables, events, canvases, rallies. No go. Not unless you have the blueprints in hand for a WORKABLE alternative. Otherwise, you’re just delivering the same stale message to the same tired cohorts of progressive activists (another reason why I find reference to a Green summit so damn dispiriting–how many hundreds, thousands, of conferences and conventions and social forums and summits has the left held this decade? And where the hell have they gotten us? Will we ever, ever get tired of talking to each other and maybe start LISTENING to the fucking electorate?)
And even THEY don’t want anything to do with us.
It also means–just like any other bunch of grown-ups–working WITH people you don’t like. Getting behind good, solid Democratic bills and pushing them (like CORI). Look at the history of GRP and campaign statements–endlessly critical, non-stop Democrat bashing. Yes, they’re bad, evil, totally corrupt, good for absolutely nothing. Deval Patrick is a monster, a fascist puppet. THAT’s sure proved to be a winning strategy. Where’s the call for supporting and mobilizing the good stuff? Where’s OUR plan for educational reform, for protecting our fisheries (and I mean the fishermen as much as the damn fish), etc? In fact–where’s our actual plan for single payer? Have we actually written a bill? Because without these plans, we’re asking people to take what we say on faith. And people these days, they don’t have much faith in rainbows and unicorns.
And who, in the GRP, is actually going to devote the time and energy to this kind of work? It’s more fun decrying the flaws in the healthcare bill than actually writing one. It’s way cooler to talk about relocalization than to write the business proposal needed start a CSA. It’s sexy, talking about working locally and how we’re all going to bicycle ten miles home from our jobs in our revitalized downtowns (when there’s a foot of snow the ground in February), but the reality is that we need a plan for funding the money-drain that is the MBTA. Now. (And if you want peace, explain post-occupation Iraq and Agfhanistan and a Pakistan free to do as it wills. Not saying you can’t. Just that, you know, it never seems to come up in the leftist critique of the war. The adults in the room actually have to take that kind of thing into consideration, and it ain’t easy. Much easier to chant slogans in the streets than to have to deal with the possibility of Mumbai going up in a mushroom cloud).
I don’t always see that kind of seriousness of purpose.
And that, to no small extent, is why we’re not taken seriously. By anyone who doesn’t have a serious jones for the sixties.
People outside of some extremely tiny circles aren’t real interested in theories, or even ideology. They don’t give a damn whether we adhere to an ecological paradigm or whether we ensure gender balance as we WASTE TIME playing endlessly creative games ensuring diversity on committees that don’t even fucking exist to ensure we’re upholding some wildly outdated bit of 60s PC. They want to see pragmatic, practical, businesslike PLANS that lay out both the costs and benefits to their communities in pursuing specific projects.
Most re-assuring line I’ve read since I don’t know when: “We can not be bound by the formal structures of a party in decline.”
No gainsaying that.
And yet–I’m still here. Because I’m going to stick around–for a bit–to see if we are, as a party, willing to be serious, grown up, and realistic. But I don’t consider myself in any way “bound by the formal structures of any party.” Far from being “the imperative,” which has an unhappy cultish ring to it, rather like christians noting that “there’s ONE way to salvation,” The Green Party–and the Green Rainbow Party–is a young experiment, and should be treated as such. Comes a time, when the results are neither what were anticipated nor hoped for, when serious consideration as to the nature of our ongoing failures, deficiencies and decline need to be considered, not under of the rubric of “how, this time around, shal we save this sinking ship?,” but rather–maybe it’s time to jettison the damn thing and build a new boat.
I don’t associate “decline” with “inevitable failure” any more than Eli did in writing that. But I think too many in the party are actually comfortable with the clubby atmosphere, are perfectly content yelling smugly from the sidelines. Are more than happy having earnest conversations with other “progressives.”
But I’m not out to change the character or the soul of the Party. I’m watching to see if it is willing to make some serious leaps forward, to jettison some of the horseshit and add some of the pragmatism I believe is necessary. I know some locals are getting real active, I know there’s some fresh young energy, and I wish it were given free-er expression. . (And I’m hoping that all that can be encouraged, but I also can’t help but feel that the lightest, deftest touch, and that, only where necessary, on the part of officers and so-called “leaders,” is best. Let these groups, too, not be overly concerned with the “formal structures.” Maybe, left to their own devices, they can lead is down strange new paths).
As you can tell, I’m at a crux here. But I know that the two people who’ve already contributed to this thread are, at least, willing to acknowledge, with open eyes, the place where we’re at, and that, at least, is reassuring. Now–how far are you–am I–are we willing to go to toss the baggage that weighs us down, and how far are all we all willing to go in giving people, not slogans, not utopian fantasies, and not critiques, but something real that they can sink their teeth into?
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Now have Tea Party supporters been duped? No, and I never said they were. What I said was that conservatives have an ideological infrastructure that is better planted into our politics and culture than what the liberal/left has. Over the past 40 years conservatives have had better public relations and better means of disseminating it, while liberal/left groups have been weakened by political, electoral, and economic defeats (i.e. decline of organized labor, rise in income inequality, deregulation, out-sourcing, weakening of campaign finance laws, etc). To make up for those defeats they have had to move to the center to remain politically relevant (like many labor unions fighting for what benefits industry rather than workers, enviro groups like Environmental Defense Fund actively seeking corporate contributions and support, civil rights groups reacting to events and being patient rather than being proactive and ahead of the curve).
Many more people of my generation (18-30) think “socialism” is better than “capitalism”, near a majority, according to public polling, but this has no political impact because there is no organization or infrastructure strong enough to make this opinion politically relevant. With the Tea Party such an infrastructure exists (like Fox News or Freedom Works or the dozens of other conservative media or think tanks), so the 15% or so who agree with their views have more ample opportunity to organize, be visible, and have an actual political impact. That was my point.
This is what I actually said in relation to forms of local and regional outreach. My examples are examples, they are not the be all and end all, and the context suggests that. The point is that you need to build local infrastructure in order to give legs to national political movements.
But let me defend the forms for a second. Tabling facilitates membership and visibility no matter how unrefined the message you have is. The presence matters. You have conversations and share information about your group. Follow-up can persuade or commit people to action.
Well planned or advertised events bring new people into the fold. This is broad enough to include everything from a potluck, to a music concert, to an art show, to a lecture, to a movie screening, to a party, etc.
Street canvassing brought Mark Miller into the party. And he got a percentage of the vote higher than almost any other Green state legislature candidate in the US. Such canvassing was the basic means of collecting signatures for candidates and ballot initiatives. Continued street canvassing is the quickest and easiest way to register people into the Green-Rainbow Party.
Targeted rallies work. Apolitical people properly agitated will come to a rally or protest, and the experience will reinforce their commitment (there’s actually social psychological data on this). Plus its a convenient way to get some level of media attention, and to motivate your supporters. Several organizations I have belonged to or been involved in have used targeted rallies to good effect in attracting new people and motivating people already on board.
Doing these things has another beneficial side, it enables the persons engaged to communicate and listen to people, to get feedback on their message and means, and learn better the art of persuasion and political conversations.