dagblog - Comments for "On Progressives and Power"

Great--thank you, Anonymous.

AmericanDreamer — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 03:29:32 +0000

In reply to www.TheWorkSite.org is up and

Great--thank you, Anonymous.

www.TheWorkSite.org is up and

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 01:38:33 +0000

In reply to AD, I clicked on the link to

www.TheWorkSite.org is up and operating if anyone wants to check it out

Mr Bloomberg's style strikes

moat — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:36:58 +0000

In reply to I was looking at the Walker

Mr Bloomberg's style strikes a sharp contrast with Mr. Walker's. Bloomberg is doing austerity the old-fashioned way: firing people (or preparing to). Walker wants to change the terms in which employees argue for compensation.

Like Nancy reminded us, you could always just say no.

Whatever Walker's motivations or his supporters' may be, having the government restrict the terms of negotiation was never supposed to be necessary in the Reagan Future. Against this measure, Walker is a Socialist, expanding the range of State power.

Your discussion of Reagan/Democrats downthread makes me wonder if the contradiction galls them.

For some reason it still

AmericanDreamer — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 20:39:35 +0000

In reply to Thanks.So that inspires me to

For some reason it still strikes me that this thread is a bunch of people basically thinking they agree with each other when they really don't at all.

I laughed when I read that. Do you really believe there is any danger of a bunch of people here either agreeing with one another, or even thinking they agree with one another? Having been at this site for awhile and "knowing" many of the regulars as you do?

Already I see some signs of what may be individual preferences in outlook and activity-orientation, both for and against. For example we've already had one mini-spat over further investment in the Democratic party. In cmauk's thread "Power to the People" it looks to me as though we have a mini "go small", "go *around* the corporations" caucus forming. And then we appear to have an "I'm more morose than you, and I woke many of you up, and I've been trying to wake everyone up longer than you have" caucus as well.

None of which means individuals fit or will fit neatly into any new set of descriptive "boxes". A re-calcification of thought under a different set of rigidly descriptive labels hardly seems helpful.

I wasn't seeing disagreement registered in the thread so far with the core point I was trying to make: that, regardless of whether one wants to see the current rightward dynamics merely stopped or reversed back to some status quo ante considered to be acceptable, or one wants to push a(n unspecified, and also a subject of disagreement) progressive/left agenda, neither is likely to be possible without one or more strong institutions to supply the political muscle to do that. Individual action clearly can and does have an impact. But it will need to be supplemented with more effective collective/collaborative action in order to have a chance of stopping or reversing the current dominant trends.

Agreement on these points does not logically require a commitment to pursuing a "left/progressive" program. Practically, it may. But I'm not sure about that. I tend to want to resist high-stakes "with us or against us" thinking. Others seem to prefer it.

Attitudes at this site are predictably diverse on whether unions, in more or less current form, or in changed form (if many people decide to join unions and the union movement grows, it will change, count on that--the question, as always, would be how it would change, whether for the better or worse. There would be a lot of competition to define a new reality.), are a) on balance a good thing and b) one possible response to the counterweight need. Or whether an effective counterweight function can only be fulfilled (if it is) by one or more institutions other than unions, either existing or yet-to-be-invented.

AD, I clicked on the link to

AmericanDreamer — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:36:48 +0000

In reply to AD, I clicked on the link to

AD, I clicked on the link to TheWorkSite.org and it says the account has been suspended. Is the link address right?

Thank you, Ramona. Yes, that was the correct link provided. I contacted the person from whom I received the bulletin and was told that they're aware of the problem and that it will be fixed by their hosting service "within the next day or two." Tough time to be having technical difficulties.

You offer a bit of a strawman

SleepinJeezus — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:03:03 +0000

In reply to Is that a really rhetorical

You offer a bit of a strawman when you say the leftist/doctrinaires believe liberalness will emerge if legitimate campaign finance reform could somehow be enacted.

Like acanuck, I do not pretend to speak for the "leftist/doctrinaires." But I can tell you that you have not presented MY argument against corporate financing of elections.

First of all, I do not invest any currency in the natural liberalness or conservativeness of the people. I always kinda figure it will fluctuate as needed, with people like me pulling from one end of the spectrum and others like Grover Norquist & Co. pulling from the other in a political marketplace of ideas.

The issue of the Koch Brothers and the corporations and the influence of their overwhelming ability to fund political campaigns has to do with the corruption of that "marketplace of ideas." First, there's the obvious "money is speech" conundrum, wherein he with the most money gets the most speech. In this, the wealthy will always be heard at much greater volume than the poor.

But far more sinister is the way in which present corporate financing of campaigns establishes their importance within all camps in the discussion. It is assumed that we have a two party system of government, wherein each party basically represents separate constituencies. Each party has its "base," and it is expected that the party will promote the agenda of its base to the full extent the political realities of the day will allow.

Thus, for example, if you are in the midst of a health care reform effort and there exists overwhelming support for a public option (or dare I say single payer health care?), you pursue it with vigor and claim it as a victory.

Unless, of course, it doesn't fly with your campaign contributors who - in large part - happen to be the same guys funding the other side. You instead express a desire for such a measure to be passed, but fail to take a lead on getting it done. You pull a Palooka, and take a fall for those who have placed their money on the line.

In this, the corporations and their money represent the fox in the henhouse of our public discourse and our politics. We will never get any more reform or advancement of liberal initiatives than these monied interests will allow for so long as they retain ultimate control over both sides of the effort.

You can argue the need for incremental change all you want, and it is a valid consideration. But if the limiter on the amount of change allowed is always defined as "Only that which meets the approval of the corporate interests," it's difficult to see how we ever arrive at destination wherein the needs of the people themselves is deemed paramount.

I always thought that democracy was supposed to be all about government of, for, and by "We, the People." Tough to imagine we can ever know such a reality for so long as corporations own the process. And THAT is the reason I see campaign finance reform as being an over-arching issue that must be addressed if we are ever to know real democracy in America. I'm more than willing to take my lumps in the marketplace of ideas. But let's make it a fair fight.

AD, I clicked on the link to

Ramona — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:58:43 +0000

In reply to Questions similar to ones

AD, I clicked on the link to TheWorkSite.org and it says the account has been suspended. Is the link address right?

This is a great discussion, and the link to Coates' piece just solidifies it. We are partisans, but fractured in ways that are becoming more and more destructive. If there is one message we should all be able to agree on, it's that the main battle needs to be focused against those who have forced this country to its knees. Our jobs aren't gone because the unions and the workers were so selfish. Our deficit hasn't grown to bursting proportions because Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security pays out too much. Public education isn't drifting because our teachers make slightly better than a living wage.

Sending jobs overseas, maintaining two wars, and cutting taxes on many of the same people who put us in this mess. . .not a liberal idea among them. And yet we're blamed for all of it and a fair percentage of voters believe it enough to cut off their own noses rather than join us in the fight.

So yes, we need to change out game plan, and discussions like this will go a long way toward figuring out our next move.

Excellent questions here that

SleepinJeezus — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:19:27 +0000

In reply to Questions similar to ones

Excellent questions here that offer a bit of a summary notion of "where to from here?"

Coates' essay is excellent, dealing with "message." It deserves to go viral, and you do a real service by continually linking it to this discussion.

"Bi-partisanship" is an admirable objective. But it is one which, as we have seen, can easily be corrupted into a wholesale surrender of Progressive principles as we allow the discussion to be framed by others.

A Keynesian response to our economic recession has been all but abandoned in favor of budget cutting "austerity." There is no longer any discussion of actual job creation or reducing unemployment or easing the pain for those millions most adversely affected by the collapse of our financial industry. Nor is there any appetite expressed for holding accountable those who irresponsibly - and even criminally! - participated in the collapse, at great benefit to themselves and the misery of so many others. Indeed, the discussion now is to hold harmless from the effects of this crisis those banksters who had such a key role in creating it in the first place. Incredibly, the only way we will ostensibly "recover" from this crisis is to reestablish the dominance and wealth of the banksters, letting their victims be damned.

In another example, the human rights abuses of an Imperial Presidency are now established as legitimate subjects for policy discussions due to our effort to "not look back, but forward." This misplaced desire to somehow remain "civil" in our politics has created a situation wherein we now have open debates on the TeeVee regarding "How much torture is too much torture?" and "Should ALL U.S. Citizens be protected from targeted assassination authorized in secret by our President?"

Coming out of 2008, we rightly had the Republicans on the ropes for all their abuses of power and the failures of their policies, both foreign and domestic. Yet, our pursuit of "bi-partisan friendliness" invited them to frame the narrative on their past abuses and define the discussion going forward. We never really seized the initiative on promoting "Change You Can Believe In" but instead remained on the defensive in the message wars. We saw how all THAT worked out in 2010, eh?

The article you cite asks an important question: "Can a movement against the Wall Street agenda be led by the existing progressive institutions, or are they too busy fighting for crumbs for their individual constituencies?"

This is key. For so long as the other side - the "Wall Street" side - can keep us struggling for the specific "crumbs" we seek, they can retain hold of everything of importance to them that allows them to maintain power over us all. They will allow "compromise" on the crumb-giving enough to maintain a pretense of democratic action, yet they will draw a line in the sand against anything that might actually tip the balance of power against them. Thus, we are allowed to have our "Health Reform," but only insofar as it doesn't include anything like single-payer or even a public option that might actually attack their indefensible throttle-hold on "Your healthcare as my for-profit business."

We've got to get away from the pursuit of crumbs if we are ever going to successfully stand against the powerful interests that wish to destroy the middle class in America. Instead, we need to pay much closer attention to the message we present in opposition to them. And, at last, we need to arrive at a very fundamental jumping-off point that allows us all to fight back with a unified perspective and a keen understanding of what we are up against and the consequences if we lose.

Warren Buffet is right. World Wide Work is right. This is Class War. And in considering every move by our politicians and every message presented and every initiative offered, it becomes important to analyze it first and foremost within the fundamental context of "Which side are you on?"

Questions similar to ones

AmericanDreamer — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:33:21 +0000

In reply to On Progressives and Power

Questions similar to ones raised in this and Dan Coates' "Diluting the Tea Party" thread http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/diluting-tea-party-importance-supping-long-spoon-9146., along with some different ones, are asked in the following intro to a free bulletin I receive, World Wide Work. It is published by the American Labor Education Center, an independent nonprofit founded in 1979.

WORLD WIDE WORK

As Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, has written, "If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning." The attacks on working people and on public services in Wisconsin and other states raise many important questions:

Can a movement against the Wall Street agenda be led by the existing progressive institutions, or are they too busy fighting for crumbs for their individual constituencies? In the 1960s, the civil rights sit-ins and anti-war protests in the streets were led by young people who went beyond the tactics and goals the liberal establishment was ready for. Is the same kind of youth-led revolt possible today?
Can a progressive movement catch fire if it does not have a clear agenda that stands in contrast to the Wall Street agenda? The corporate-funded Right, including the Tea Party, has an understandable and consistent program – cut taxes and slash budgets and somehow that will boost the economy. Responding by saying “don’t cut this program” or “don’t cut this group’s benefits” is not the same as offering an alternative vision for how to create sustainable good jobs, affordable health care, retirement security, and reliable public services for everyone.
Is it possible to promote a People’s Budget without challenging both major political parties on military spending and on tax cuts and subsidies for corporations and the rich? Without talking about why money is tight for human needs, progressives are left arguing over which worthy program should be cut at the expense of others.
Is it possible for progressives to build support for funding public services without also leading on issues of quality and efficiency, such as cutting waste and duplication in government or improving what is taught and how it is taught in the public schools?
Can progressives develop the same long-term commitment to change that the corporate-funded Right has demonstrated for decades, rather than expecting the next election to provide salvation?

A free subscription to occasional email bulletins, mostly consisting of "new and worth noting" films, books, and music, is available at TheWorkSite.org, which also provides "free, adaptable tools for grassroots education and organizing". They indicate that they do not share their email list with anyone.

I will make this as short as

tmccarthy0 — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 02:24:18 +0000

In reply to Is that a really rhetorical

I will make this as short as I can. I take a much longer view when it comes to the evolution of the democratic party. So it isn't just a matter of, "it is what it is", and there is nothing we can do about it. The fact is over the past 230 or so years, the democratic party has had much of the same problems you see right now. You might pin the emergence of that in the politically tumultuous antebellum years and it continued on well into the 1850's. Even then democrats were employing strategies to capture a wide swath of the population, trying to attract the same kind of voter today, which includes immigrants, the irish catholics back then, while the Know-nothing movement and those like it were appealing to a more xenophobic, strident individual. And the results for the Know-nothing movement were incredible. They controlled Massachusetts, if only for a short time. They made huge inroads in controlling the Maryland legislature and Louisiana. It is incredible to see the ads of the times. I will post some later. They are cool and are indicative of how the parties have always attracted a certain kind of participant. I actually do have sources and more in-depth information. I will write more about all of This after I am finished reading the books I have on the subject.