I have been thinking about and looking for a way that would unite the nation and turn the tide against the right. I think there are three things to focus on, build a message around them and then start hitting that message home until it sticks. That's what they do to us. Lets use the tactic and see where it goes! It just might work.
What are the problems we face as a nation? We the common people? Simply stated, our issues are good jobs (including a wide range of middle and upper income jobs and lower wage jobs that pay at least a "living" wage), upward mobility (the American dream), and economic security.
So focusing on Jobs, the American Dream, and our Economic Security, what is driving the right to destroy these fundamental national priorities? It's their insatiable appetite for power and wealth. Theirs of coarse, not yours or mine. Everything they do is designed around and stems from their maniacal greed.
Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.
Reinhold Niebuhr
I've commented before (http://oneutah.org/2009/08/14/thoughts-on-leadership-a-flawed-process-undermines-the-outcomes/, http://oneutah.org/2009/09/07/...http://oneutah.org/2009/12/20/... and http://oneutah.org/2010/07/25/... about Adam Kahane's writing and ideas. Kahane is one of many people working on creating better models for public deliberation. His approach - grounded actually in corporate processes - asks us to engage in creating scenarios for social change; those scenarios must begin with present reality and can go in many directions from that. He describes using this approach in a variety of settings, applying insights from other authors like Joseph Jaworski and Otto Schwarmer.
This statement will come as no surprise to Open Left readers: People with power tend to use it for their own benefit. Of course, the explanations given for various actions are almost never: "We're doing because it's good for us and our friends." Instead, a variety of rationalizations are given which often seem to "make sense" if one doesn't ponder things for too long. How does this play out when considering policies affecting our youngest voting citizens, those aged 18, 19 and 20 years old?
Keep in mind that policy makers are, generally, old. The average U.S. Senator is 63. Representatives average a few years younger. Recent Presidents range from late 40s to about 70 with a mean in the late 50s.
These older (wiser?) men and women (a few) think it's just fine to send the youngest citizens to die in wars. In fact, 76.5 percent of U.S. casualties in Iraq have been soldiers younger than 30. The percentage for Afghanistan is 66.5. Rationalization: soldiers need to be in top physical condition, so the young must bear this burden.
But the greatest hypocrisy concerns 18-20 year olds. So far, 850 have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars this decade; 748 in Iraq and 102 in Afghanistan. Another 600 just turned 21 before they died in those countries. And yet, we prohibit 18-20 year olds from drinking alcohol. Why is this?
It's because old people would prefer that young people don't drink. Young people are, obviously, too irresponsible to drink. Give them an assault weapon or a tank but not a beer. It's a simple power play: we'd prefer you not drink so we won't let you and we'd prefer you go and die in wars but not us.
This is the point in the argument where the call for changing the drinking age is supposed to come but I'm not going to do that. Doesn't really matter that much. Instead, I'll call for this: change the age for combat to 40-65. Educate the young and let them start careers and families. Send the older citizens to die in war.
Added benefit: war policies might begin to change.
How do they do it? That is the question progressives should be asking right now. How do the insurance companies manage to kill health care reform in a supposedly democratic republic, where public support for health care reform, and I mean the kind progressives can get behind, is overwhelming?
In a word: leverage.
The insurance companies have leverage over politicians. Most of that leverage comes in the form of money. God do they have a lot of money. But they also have something else. They are loyal to no one and no party. They don't care if you're Democrat, Republican, or Green, as long as you can be sufficiently bought off, or sufficiently threatened into compliance.
There are after all only two forms of leverage in politics. Threat and reward. Or, more traditionally, carrots and sticks. The insurance lobby uses both to great effect. Progressives know all about carrots and sticks. Carrots for Democrats, sticks for Republicans.
But special interests like the insurance lobby aren't so choosy. And that's where they get their real power. They are just as happy, for the most part, to buy a Democrat as a Republican. And they are just as happy to run either out of town.
Progressives don't use this power because we know that using sticks on Democrats may result in Republican victories. So no matter what some Democrats do, the worst they can expect is a primary challenge which, as we saw with Lieberman, will probably fail.
So the end result is progressives have little or no leverage over Democrats. And, as a result, progressives are in a constant state of frustration. Sure, Democrats come crawling at election time. But one fundamental, yet unstated reality pervades: Where ya gonna go?
Some, in an attempt to remedy the situation, have advocated making the Democratic party more progressive by taking it over. "Be the party you want," they say. "Infiltrate."
This is a pipe dream. The entire structure of the two party system is designed to prevent that from happening. There will be no crashing of the gates. No progressive Democratic revolution. I explained the pipe dream in more detail here. But long story short, almost every bought out, sold out, corrupt Democrat in Washington started off trying to crash the gates.
The truth is, both parties are controlled by the same monied interests. This way, as the late Carroll Quigley observed, when an election occurs, real power doesn't change hands.
The Democratic party is not designed to represent the common people. It is designed to contain us. To create the illusion of representation so that we don't revolt.
So in lieu of the pipe dream, I was asked recently what I recommended. The answer is simple politics 101: I recommend doing precisely what every powerful interest group in Washington does. I recommend using leverage.
But that is risky is it not? I mean, if we use sticks on Democrats in general elections, we could lose our majority in Congress. The White House. Right?
You don't have a fucking majority in Congress. Or the White House. Please figure that out. Your majority is an illusion. We don't have Democrats and Republicans. We have "in-the-pocket-of-big-oil" and "not-in-the-pocket-of-big-oil". We have "in-the-pocket-of-big-pharma" and "not-in-the-pocket-of-big-pharma." Those are the real parties.
Please figure this out: Parties are illusions that only start to become real when you get to the bottom of the food chain. In the Senate, they are almost all illusion. It's all about what interest you serve. And that's all about the money. The rest is a sideshow.
Only when we realize this, and use our leverage accordingly, will we gain real political power. The only leverage a politician understands is the power to make him or her LOSE.
You want a more progressive Democratic party? You have to be willing to lose. It's that simple. Sure, it may cost them their "majority", but they will never fuck with us again.
This is how you get "better" Democrats. This is we change this country. THis is what our enemies have long understood. There is no other way. Leverage.
On health care, Obama's willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party's liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.
My response to this quote is more value neutral than most other bloggers. The progressive netroots and other supporters of the public option will only be "kicked to the curb" if kicking us to the curb is the most politically expedient option available for the White House. By contrast, if the White House does not feel it is possible to kick us to the curb on health care and still maintain what it considers an acceptable level of political viability, then we won't be kicked to the curb. To put it another way, we will only be kicked to the curb if we can be kicked to the curb.
There is no reason to expect that people who have managed to rise all the way to the White House will stick by their ostensible policy allies just out of principle. It would be nice if that were the case, but it isn't. Don't expect people who have risen to perches of extreme power to give up that extreme power just to be nice to you. That might be the sort of thing you expect from family members, or your best friend. To think that an elected official will do the same is to mistake that elected official for a family member or best friend.
I wish it wasn't all about too many politicians being more concerned with maintaining acquired power than with following through on principles, but oftentimes it certainly seems to be. For decades, throwing progressive under the bus has consistently proven be the most expedient option for Democratic elected officials. This is why it keeps happening. If all we can do is sit around and worry about whether or not Democratic leaders will throw us under the bus, then it is guaranteed we will keep being thrown under the bus. However, if doing this to progressives consistently causes an unacceptable level of political damage to elected Democrats, then it will stop happening almost immediately.
I don't like talking about politics this way, but progressives often get walked over because they can get walked over. By contrast, Moneyed interests and large corporations don't get walked over because most politicians don't think they can walk over them. That is a power dynamic we need to reverse.
Sometimes you don't find out who your friends are until the bear in the woods hits the Pope's fan.
In the last year We, the People have been finding out who our friends are and aren't. (Actually mostly just aren't.) We especially have been finding out what the priorities are and where the power lies. And lies and lies.
Since the financial crisis began we have been seeing as clear a display of raw power being used against the interests of the people as I imagine can be seen. We were given hours to put up all of the money we have to bail out a few large financial institutions because they were "too big to fail," but we did nothing about how big they were -- and still are! We allowed the use of our tax money to pay incredibly fat paychecks and bonuses while more and more of the rest of us have been laid off, lost our retirement, houses, etc. We complained about the use in these bailed out companies of private jets by a select few and their families because it "looked bad" but not because of what it was. Who is this "we" anyway? I didn't want those things to happen, but "we" let them happen.
(Here's a provocative idea about how we might substantially change online organizing. In the wake of the Soapblox meltdown a couple of weeks ago, I had some ideas of my own I'll be writing about this weekend. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Chris and Natasha announced a new project recently in which the netroots would organize to systematically track, influence, push, and block legislation introduced into the new Congress this year. Their larger motivation for this project, at least as they communicated it that day, was that they were tired of being in a reactive position, constantly fighting against bad Republican or Bush Dog legislation, against anti-progressive or just plain wrong media narratives, and against a political system in which the two main centers of gravity are a pro-elite "center" and a reactionary Right. They expressed a desire to act proactively, with initiative, pushing for positive progressive change.
Even more recently Matt announced that he is leaving the blogosphere for a job in the House. The centerpiece of his announcement was a problem he called the "rootsgap": a disconnect between what activists want and want to help deliver, and what the party representing them believes is possible and cares to achieve. He argued that much recent political history can be explained by the fact that conservative activists took control of their party in the 70s, while progressive activists have had very little control over their party since then. Thus we have one right-wing party, and one mainstream party, with progressives trying to influence what the mainstream party does.
Both these moves share in common the realization that a progressive force is missing on the national stage....
(Difficult questions, at a very knitty-gritty level. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Another progressive democratic dream is that of a multicultural community of free dialogue. Instead of conflict between different groups, all in their own spaces, why can't we simply come together to collaborate? Every participant could value the myriad differences of each member, learning from each other's unique capacities. Together we could create spaces where everyone could participate as equals.
Research indicates, however, that spaces of free multicultural collaboration are very difficult to create. Monocultural, monoclass, etc. groups and communities actually work together much better than diverse ones. Ironically, diversity actually tends to reduce social trust and the likelihood that participants will engage with each other as whole persons.
These findings have important implications for community organizing efforts that seek to generate power across different groups. This research seems to support arguments I have made earlier that some separation between different cultural, class, racial, etc., groups is likely more productive for long term social action efforts.
Although the general election campaign informally started weeks ago, after Senator Clinton's endorsement of Senator Obama last week, it has officially begun.
We are consistently told, from the media and from both campaigns, that this is a "change" election. Obama in particular has been able to mobilize and energize millions of people either disillusioned or newly political, and bring them onboard his campaign.
After 9/11 George W. Bush put the country on a permanent war footing and created a new role for himself--The Decider. In so doing he revitalized his presidency and greatly expanded and solidified his political base. His most rabid supporters now saw little difference between Osama bin Laden and Harry Reid. They were both enemies of Bush and needed to be defeated by any means necessary. In this domestic war confrontation was unavoidable and to be welcomed. His base demanded it, and Bush was happy to oblige. It was the source of his power.
In the wreckage of the Bush presidency Barack Obama has pursued a different means of obtaining power. He would end the political wars and declare himself The Uniter. In this role confrontation is his enemy and must be avoided. (This does not apply in Obama's current struggle with Hillary Clinton because she is seen as a Divider. She and her supporters just don't get it. Once they are disposed of, Obama can begin bringing us together.)
President Obama will be under tremendous pressure from his base to fulfill his role as a uniter. They trust him to worry about the details and are unlikely to push him in any particular direction. On policy Obama's path of least resistance will be to the right. Confrontation will sap his power. (The media will also provide a check on Obama's liberal impulses. For them Republican rule is the natural order of things. Democrats must be bipartisan.)
Premeditated capitulation will likely be the legislative strategy of the Obama administration. This helps account for Obama's disturbing language on health care and Social Security.
Time for a bit of a rant. I listened in on the Edwards campaign's press call this morning where they launched a new website called AmericaBelongstoUs2008.com, asking voters to sign a pledge "not to vote or caucus for a Democratic presidential candidate that accepts campaign contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs."
Edwards' top advisers Joe Trippi and Jonathan Prince were on the call, making much of how our broken political system is dominated by lobbyists and special interests, and trying to distinguish their candidate from the other Dems for not taking contributions from DC lobbyists.
But here's what offended me--and I'm sorry if this is going to sound like an attack on the Edwards campaign, because it's not. It's just that with Edwards making the biggest and boldest claims to be a change agent, my expectations are higher.
When my colleague Josh Levy, who was also on the call, asked the Edwards folks how they were going to use the list of pledge signers (they're aiming to get 1 million names by Feb. 5th), Trippi and Prince basically punted, mumbling something about going after lobbyists.
Look guys, don't treat us like we're dummies. Clearly this is a list-building exercise (and a way to earn some media coverage). After someone signs the America Belongs to Us pledge, they're taken to a sign-up and donation page for the Edwards campaign. And that's it.
Now, there's nothing wrong with political campaigns trying to build up their email lists. Nor is there anything wrong with doing it by riding the news and connecting their campaign priorities to voters' concerns.
But what bothers me is the hollowness of the exercise.
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