This is the one year anniversary of Barack Obama's historic and incredibly exciting election as President of the United States. I was proud of our country that day, that after slavery, Jim Crow, the terrible treatment of Native Americans, and the nasty anti-immigrant laws and rhetoric of our history, that we could elect an African-American son of an immigrant, a man with an African Muslim name, to be President of these United States. The fact that he was the first Democratic Presidential candidate elected with a clear majority of the vote since 1964 made it especially sweet.
I had been a financial contributor, an occasional advice giver, an endorser in the primary fight, a steady blogger about the race, and a frequent doorknocker for the campaign, so I felt like I had contributed in a variety of ways. And when I was asked to lend a hand helping out the transition team, I was honored to do so, and happily volunteered a great many hours to the effort. This combination of things made me feel fully excited and invested in the Obama Presidency, and greatly looking forward to his first term.
As fate would have it, I also had a book that came out in January (The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be)) that told the story of what I called "Big Change Moments" in American history, and the progressive political and movement leaders who had brought them about. I went around the country on my book tour spreading the message that if progressives helped President Obama with the big change on his political agenda, that this would be another era of major, history making progressive change in this country.
A year after that incredible moment when people in America were literally dancing in the streets in elation, and one year from the crucial 2010 elections when the American people will register their first big judgment on what Obama has delivered them, I find myself genuinely torn about how this Presidency is going, conflicted in a number of ways. While I am more optimistic than pessimistic, I also find myself troubled about some important things a year after that momentous Election Day.
So my boyfriend and I took a walk down to check out the National Equality March this afternoon and take a walk in it for awhile. Lots of cheer, good spirit, diversity of age, which is great. Lots of people I know wouldn't be caught dead doing any kind of "activism" who were holding handmade sides. Very encouraging.
The event itself was poorly managed- probably the result of throwing this together essentially at the last-minute, and on a shoestring budget (more about the history of the March here). Poor speaker equipment, lack of videoscreens, etc. Plus, it intermingled with a large breast cancer walk, so any numbers you'll see (I've heard Capitol Police are estimating 150,000, while March organizers are claiming 200K, so it's probably something in the middle) are likely to be a bit inflated with crowds mixing. Congrats to organizers on an event that looked pretty good, considering they way it was put together.
But I want to stop short of "a success" and think about that for a minute.
I was fascinated by how many friends of mine who work in the LGBT movement and have opposed the March for months as a poor use of resources that was poorly put together, were on Twitter, e-mail listservs, etc. today gushing about how brilliant, awe-inspiring and successful it was. Some are doing it out of complement to organizers, some caught up completely in the moment.
I think being complementary is warranted to some extent, but there is a difference between success as an event and success as a venture. What is the definition of success here? I put together over 60 events on a national book tour for The Progressive Revolution, nearly all of which were called "successes" by attendees and in my own opinion. But I would be the first to tell you the book was not a smashing success in the sense that it was on the NYTimes bestseller list or anything. That is not to say it wasn't a success in terms of a venture, and wasn't worth doing, as a tiny percentage of all books get on the NYTimes list, but that it wasn't equal to the gushing enthusiasm I saw at our events.
The same gushing enthusiasm is being outpoured to the March by some of its harshest critics, who are quick to call it a success. I will call it a success as an event, sure. I will wait to call it a success, and worth doing again, in terms of what it actually does. It's fun to come to DC and party at clubs, shout at tall white buildings the next day, then go home. Success for our movement is a lot different. And it's difficult to quantify what makes this a success, the way historians attribute civil rights legislation in part to Dr. King's 1963 march. We'll have to wait a good while to see whether this made a huge difference in terms of getting our movement equal rights.
Until then, let's call the event a job fairly well done, remember not to use the way in which it was done as a model for the future, and exercise wisdom and patience in thinking about whether it's worth doing it in the future based on what it gets us.
As many of you know, I organized the book tour for Mike's book, The Progresive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be. Several of those events were house parties from close friends of ours. We did a swanky one in NYC, a relaxed and groovy one in Lawrence, KS with the local college community, another one with really excellent political conversations and a view of the Golden Gate Bridge out in San Francisco. But what I loved most about them were that people were opening their homes to promote progressive politics and dialogue. The people who came didn't just have good food, drink and conversation- they helped sell books and push a message out there. And the hosts did it in their own homes, which I think is one of the greatest contributions anyone can make to a cause you believe in.
I'm telling you all this because a good friend of mine, Greg Taylor, saw how many of you generously contributed to send me to Maine Oct. 14-23, and decided to throw open his doors and do his part to raise a little coin. So, we're having a shindig.
Party for Marriage
Saturday, October 10th
7-11 PM
Elberon Palace
1111 Columbia Road NW Apartment 1
Here's a Google map $25 contribution on our ActBlue page (preferred) or check/cash
Please RSVP on Facebook
Joe Sudbay from AMERICABlog, a Maine native, will be talking about the latest intel from on the ground (he went up last weekend). Some other good friends of mine who work in progressive politics in DC are also stopping by, as well as some cool LGBT blogger friends just in town for the National Equality March. So I guarantee some good conversation. And I'll even be making my world-famous (or at least DC-famous) hot mulled cider with rum.
I haven't met many of you in person, but I'd be delighted to finally do so. Hope to see you there to support a good cause.
One of the people I spent the most time discussing in my book on the history of the American political debate, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came To Be, was a man named John C. Calhoun. I went so far as to call him the founder of modern conservatism, and the events of this year, including Joe Wilson's offensive outburst on the floor of Congress, Wednesday night, have added strong evidence to my argument.
Although discussions about the relative power of the states and the federal government had been around since the days of the Articles of Confederation in the 1780s, Calhoun was the South Carolina politician who fused a particularly extreme view of states' rights with a patriarchal and violent conservatism. Calhoun argued that states could come and go into and out of the Union, whenever they wanted to; that they could secede from the Union at any time and for any reason; and that even if they stayed in the Union they could nullify any law they wanted, again at any time and for any reason. He was also violently opposed to the idea of democracy itself, say that they growing population of the North had no power whatsoever over slavery or any other thing the southern states chose to do, and in fact believed that the Bill or Rights only applied to what the federal government couldn't do-that the states were free to eliminate freedom of speech and religion and other civil liberties. (In fact, most southern states had done exactly that by the time of the Civil War.)
Calhoun was ready to start a Civil War in 1832 when he and Andrew Jackson disagreed over a policy that would hurt Calhoun's beloved plantation economy. He resigned as Jackson's Vice President, and encouraged the state to secede and raise an army right then and there. It was a protégé of Calhoun who beat abolitionist Charles Sumner almost to death with a cane on the floor of the Senate in 1856, and protégés of Calhoun who led South Carolina to be the first state to secede from the Union in 1861 after Lincoln's election, and be the first state to fire on Union soldiers at Ft. Sumter. Calhoun's states' rights theories were used to justify Jim Crow in the South and oppose integration after the Civil War all the way into the 1960s. Today we are seeing Calhoun Conservatism spreading throughout the Republican party and the right wing movement. Joe Wilson's thuggishness on Wednesday night and the conservative movement's embrace of his action yesterday are just the latest examples. Some highlights from the last year:
• John McCain picks a Vice Presidential candidate who husband was a seven year member of a far right secessionist party with ties to the racist neo-confederacy movement. Palin had gone to at least one of the party's conventions herself, and had done a warm welcoming video for their most recent convention, telling them she shared their values.
• Texas Governor Rick Perry suggested that Texas might have to consider seceding from the United States.
• One of the Congressional sponsors of a right wing rally on the Capitol steps, the "9/12 movement," which will be attended by Wilson and several other Republican members of Congress, is an organization advocating secession and the violent overthrow the United States. See this remarkable clip of Rachel Maddow talking about this group.
• Just yesterday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a likely Republican presidential candidate, said he would consider asserting "state sovereignty" to keep Minnesota from participating in a health reform passed by Congress. (State sovereignty is what Calhoun used to call the right for state to nullify and generally ignore Federal laws.)
Maybe you thought the victory of the Union at Appomattox settled these kinds of issues for good. Or the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Or the defeat of Jim Crow in the South in the 1960s. Not so much. Conservative Republicans, birthers, militiamen toting their assault weapons to town halls, Congressmen screaming insults at the top their lungs during a Presidential speech-they are united in wanting to refight the battles of the Civil War all over again, perhaps literally. These people are extremist to the core, and progressives have had to defeat their crazy political theories again and again in American history. But, hey, I guess we can be thankful for some things-at least Joe Wilson didn't try to cane anybody Wednesday night.
It is an obvious point that the most moving part of the President's speech was the part about Ted Kennedy's letter. With Teddy's death so recent, and his family there to hear the historic speech, it was truly a special moment. And reading the full text of Kennedy's letter to the President this morning turned me into a weeping basket case. But the importance of the letter, and the point President Obama made about it in his speech, goes far beyond sentimentality. The letter was a handoff, and in his speech Obama seemed to accept the baton.
The handoff I am referring to is not mainly a generational handoff, as the youngest of his legendary Kennedy generation passing the baton to another inspiring young President. Much more than that, it was a philosophical handoff rich in history and in symbolism, not only on health care but on the broader progressive mission.
Kennedy was writing about health care, but also about more fundamental principles of the progressive philosophy.
This is because of the great support y'all and folks I've met across the country have given the ideas in the book and created the buzz to convince our publishers that it's worth putting out there in audio.
I'd appreciate it if you'd help me spread the word. You can download the book on Amazon via Audible.com by clicking here, or you can get it at the iTunes store and put it on your iPod, iTouch, Zune, burn it to a CD, or listen from your computer. It also makes a great gift for those too busy to read.
I wanted to let y'all know that not only will I be at Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh this year, but I will be returning to the OpenLeft pub trivia team with several of our other front-pagers, ensuring our sound victory. Obscure questions about the 1884 election FTW.
The second is that I'll be discussing the financial system and economic crisis with Ian Welsh and my friends Digby and Bob Kuttner, moderated by Jay Ackroyd. Not one to miss. Saturday August 15th, 3-4:15 in room 318.
We'll also be doing an OpenLeft caucus, date/location TBA.
I'm looking forward to meeting many of y'all in person. Click here to register.
I have two more updates on the Pacific NW trip front:
1. Matt Singer and the great folks at Forward Montana have kindly booked me to speak at Fact and Fiction in Missoula on Thursday, July 23rd. All the details are here. Come on out for a lovely evening of discussion and the latest news from DC.
2. Adam and the good people at the Oregon Bus Project have expanded the fun of just me into me + Steve Novick + Carla Axtman = This Is Your Brain On Politics, a rousing discussion of creating change out of our existing tools. But never fear, it's still at Bipartisan Cafe, the venue that most fits my personality and message.
All the details are here, and the invitation is below the fold. Sunday, July 19th in Portland. Come on out and spread the word.
As I have written before, nothing makes me happier in politics than being attacked, because you know by the reaction you are getting that you have hit paydirt with what you are doing. When Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) took the ideas from my book The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be and used them in a floor speech in Congress, and the reaction from far-right-wing Congressman Steve King from Iowa was a bitter, rambling tirade about socialism, I knew we were winning the argument. And yesterday, when my post about the July 4th holiday being the embodiment of the progressive values of equality and democracy, three different conservative bloggers (here, here and here) saw fit to attack. That's a very good sign.
What bothers these conservatives so much is the idea that progressive values are at the heart of the American idea. They love wrapping themselves in the flag, and going on and on about the founding fathers, and really hate the idea that anyone else might lay claim to that history. Their arguments- that the issues were very different then, that classical liberalism has a different definition than modern liberalism, that American revolutionaries must have hated big government because they hated King George, etc.- mask the fact that the fault lines in American history, from 1776 on, have always been about expanding equality and democracy, and that progressive-minded thinkers have always been for that, and conservatives have always been against it.
Conservatives have always argued that tradition should be revered and change should be feared. They have always argued that too much democracy is a dangerous thing. They have always opposed expanding the idea of equality- to blacks and women and the poor, to immigrants and migrant workers, now to GLBT individuals. They have always argued these things, and they still do. And progressives from Jefferson and Paine to those of today have always fought for more democracy, more equality of opportunity, more investment in regular people as opposed to giving everything to the elite and letting them run things.
When Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address, he argued that this nation was "dedicated o the proposition that all men are created equal" and that our government was founded on the idea that it should be "of the people, by the people, for the people." His speech stirred great controversy at the time with conservatives outraged at the idea that, as the Chicago Times editorialized, Lincoln "misstated the cause for which they died and libel the statesmen who founded the government." Those ideas of equality before the law and equality of opportunity for all of us, of government of, by, and for the people instead of government of, by, and for the wealthy elites have always been progressive ideals, and will always be opposed by conservatives.
On this holiday celebrating the courage of America's brave revolutionary founders, all Americans can celebrate. But progressives should take special pride in this holiday, for it was the ultimate achievement of progressive values that brought us this day.
As I discuss in my book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, the Tories who opposed American independence were the conservatives of their day. They revered tradition, and proudly followed orders from the king and the aristocracy in London. They hated and feared the idea of democracy, and thought the idea of equality was laughable. As Tory Samuel Seabury, the first Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, argued:
"If I must be enslaved, let it be by a king at least, and not a parcel of upstart lawless committeemen. If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin.
In a letter to the editor of a British newspaper, another American Tory argued that the colonists had shown:
...an extravagant zeal for liberty without considering...that nothing is as essential as a due obedience to the government they live under.
The Tories valued tradition over justice, feared the unintended consequences of change, and hated the idea of being "gnawed to death by [the] rats and vermin" of democracy.
Our progressive revolutionary founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine argued that we should "make the world new again." Paine's pamphlet Common Sense lit a fire under the American people, reaching working class and poor people as well as the elites, and fundamentally changed the debate. Before Common Sense was published, most Americans were debating how they could best claim their rights as Englishmen. Afterwards, the debate was about revolution itself.
And make no mistake: the ideas we take for granted today were truly radical in 1776. Before our revolution, every country on earth was ruled by some kind of king and aristocracy. Ideas like democracy and equality were shocking and terrifying to the conservatives of the day. Even among the brave leaders who came together in Philadelphia, their list of grievances with the king and Parliament were pretty basic. But in Jefferson's stunning opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, he blew away thousands of years of assumptions about government - the divine right of kings, citizens owing obedience to whatever government they lived under, adherence to tradition, rule by aristocracy. And he set the stage for an American debate about the progressive values of equality and justice that have inspired our debates ever since.
Listen to the words again with fresh ears. Think about how radical they were then, and how their values should inform our modern debates:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.
Those ideas are progressive ideas. Those values are progressive values. So as we are fighting today's battles - to expand our definition of equality to all of our people, to protect our rights as free citizens, to make sure all of the children growing up in a great country have a legitimate chance at their own pursuit of happiness - let's remember and embrace that history.
I've been out of town for a wedding since late last week, sorry it's been quiet on my front. Will have a bunch of thoughts the rest of this week on multiple fronts.
Wanted to tell all here that I'll be headed out to Oregon, Washington, and Montana in late July to talk about The Progressive Revolution, financial system reform, and lots of other stuff. Plus, we'll get to see Glacier National Park, which my wife and I are pumped about.
The first event is in Portland on Sunday, July 19th. Adam and our friends at the Oregon Bus Project have gotten a kick out of booking us at the Bipartisan Cafe, which in 26 cities we've been to has to be the most hilariously ironic name. I'm looking forward to it. Details here.
We'll also be in Seattle on Tuesday, July 21st to hang out with Goldy and the good people at Drinking Liberally. Details here.
We'll also be heading to Missoula, MT, planning still in the works on that.
Tomorrow, Thursday at 6:30 pm, I'll be speaking to the DC for Obama happy hour (free) about successful grassroots organizing strategies that impact folks in the White House and OFA 2.0, based on what I saw when I served. And a little bit about The Progressive Revolution.
It's at Hawk 'n Dove, the Hill bar at 329 Pennsylvania SE near the Capitol South & Eastern Market Metro stations.
I'm headed later today down to Raleigh/Durham for what will be the last book trip for quite awhile (and it'll be fun to celebrate my birthday tomorrow in a great town). I chatted with Matt Comer yesterday, a good friend of Adam's and the editor of Q-Notes, the Carolinas' LGBT newspaper, to discuss the upcoming trip and prospects for LGBT rights in the next several years.
I'll be speaking at the NC Policy Watch "Crucial Conversations" luncheon tomorrow at noon (lunch served at 11:30). They've had some pretty excellent programs and speakers in the past, including Rep. Brad Miller recently, so I'm pumped. You can RSVP for lunch (cost is $10) here.
Tomorrow night I'll be speaking at Regulator Bookshop in Durham at 7 PM, sponsored by Traction, the Durham-based political social networking group (they used an interesting model- fun- for social engagement, and quite successfully). You can check them out here. Our friends Lanya Shapiro and Cara Wittekind of Traction (who did me the great honor of doing a lot of the research for the book while interning here in DC), are very kind to have us down there.
As the author of a book on the history of the American political debate, this new ad out by the DNC makes me laugh very hard. I make the point in The Progressive Revolution that all the Republican ideas and rhetoric are the same ideas and rhetoric conservatives have been serving up for 230 years, but it's increasingly obvious that not only are their ideas and rhetoric really old, but their actual leaders and spokespeople are really old as well.
In my new book (The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be), my speaking tour about the book, and my blog posts over the last several months, I have been arguing that the stars are aligned for another Big Change Moment: an era like the 1860s, early 1900s, 1930s, and 1960s where a lot of big transformational changes happen in a very short period of time. The polling is clear that the American people are ready for big progressive change, the progressive movement is stronger and more cohesive than it has been since the 1970s, and there are big problems which can only be solved by big ideas and bold change.
But every day there's another reminder that we are not there yet, that- as in all other Big Change Moments in our country's history- big change will not come without a big fight. As Frederick Douglass said in perhaps the greatest single quote in American history:
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will... men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get.
It took the horrors of a civil war to finally end slavery.
It took 90 years of mockery and civil disobedience and organizing to get women the right to vote.
It took a banking panic, 25% unemployment, and sit-down strikes to get New Deal reforms.
It took children dying in church firebombs, and having German shepards and firehoses set on them, to end Jim Crow.
And we struggle today against the power of massively wealthy special interests- big oil, big insurance and pharmaceutical companies, big banks- to make big change. The struggles aren't always as dramatic as they were in past times, but the nature of those fights is very much the same. We don't have the same level of physical violence, but the economic and political violence is just as real as in those historical struggles.
You want specifics? I'll give you specifics:
The defeat of banking legislation that would have let 1.7 million homeowners restructure their mortgages
The warnings of Arlen Specter and Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe- and, of course, the health insurance lobby- against including a public health plan option in health care reform
The complaints- by some Democrats!- against being able to pass health care reform measures with 51 votes in the Senate
The trouble Obama's energy/climate change legislation is already running into in both the House and the Senate
Complaints against Obama's plan to help students get better deals on college loans at the expense of lenders
Complaints from some Democrats about Obama's plan to tax overseas investment and outsourcing of American jobs
The powers that be, who have bestowed millions of dollars in campaign contributions to their friends in the House and Senate, are fighting big change with everything they have.
I'm glad we have a President who is fighting for big change on most of these issues (in spite of my periodic complaints about his banking policies), and I'm glad the Democratic leadership in Congress is on the right side of most of these issues. What we need now is some more Senators who will stand on the right side of history, and who will say yes to big change. And we need a progressive movement that rises up and battles the powers that be every inch of the way.
I just came to the end of my last extended (11 day) leg of my book (The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, for those of you who haven't been following along) tour. From here on in, I will be doing some quick 2-3 day trips to specific places (next week - Austin, the week after that - Raleigh/Durham), or occasional speeches at conferences.
Some fun photos Adam took of this leg are up at our Flickr page here.
This last big leg was a fascinating, exciting, and exhausting tour that included 12 different book events in 8 different cities, along with 6 media interviews, 4 receptions (where I didn't speak about the book), and 12 meetings with various activists/politicos/bloggers/donors. The 8 cities we spent time in were Boulder, Denver, Sacramento, Sonoma, Palo Alto, San Francisco, San Diego, and LA. Our events included progressive organizations hosting receptions, bookstore talks, county and state Democratic party gatherings, a Drinking Liberally party (at which I saw my esteemed colleague Paul Rosenberg), a lecture at an elite law school, and a fancy downtown luncheon club. 14 different organizations, wildly diverse in nature, co-sponsored the events. I learn an enormous amount from being out on the road like this. Through all the diversity of cities, formats, co-sponsoring groups, and the demography of the participants, certain common things keep coming through over and over again.
I just got back from a long book tour swing, thoughts about which I'll have up shortly, but wanted to let OpenLefties from Austin know I'll be heading down there this Wednesday, May 6th at 7:30 to speak at Book People, one of my favorite indie bookstores in the country (up there with Stacey's (RIP) in SF, Boulder Bookstore in Boulder, and Tattered Cover in Denver, among others). If y'all are around, come on by to hang out. I'm having some really intense discussions about the state of things in DC and around the country, particularly on banking, which I find fascinating.
If you're in the LA area tonight, David Dayen (dday) and the good people at Drinking Liberally are hosting me at the bar Trip, at 2101 Santa Monica Blvd near Pico. Stop on by and share an Amstel. 7 PM until we shut the place down.
If any of y'all are in the Denver area, I'm headed there tomorrow for two events to discuss my new book, the history of movements for progressive change, and today's political climate.
I was planning on using my last few calm days at home this weekend to write some stunningly brilliant new blog posts, as well as go to the DC rally sponsored by A New Way Forward. But I got stuck home by the stomach flu, and did very little besides reading and watching TV.
Tomorrow, though, I'm forcing this grumpy old body back on the road for a second book-related trip to NYC, and a much anticipated first visit to Buffalo(!), the home of OpenLefter and book tour director Adam Bink. I'll try and do some writing while I am on the road.
Come and see us at the following places over the next few weeks. You can get more information and RSVP if necessary via the hyperlinks:
