If teacherken writes it, I'll usually read it.
This morning he has a thoughtful (as usual) diary on the rec list (as usual). The subject is the apparent dearth of mass movements in American politics that are sufficiently powerful enough to push Obama in a more progressive direction.
I started this as a comment to his diary, but it's evolved far beyond that, hence my own diary. This is not well organized, but I hope it adds something meaningful to the discussion.
I want to first pick up on Harold Myerson's op-ed.
Here's an excerpt teacherken did not include, but I think it's worth looking at:
The reasons for the stillbirth of the new progressive era are many and much discussed. There's the death of liberal and moderate Republicanism, the reluctance of some administration officials and congressional Democrats to challenge the banks, the ever-larger role of money in politics (see reluctance to challenge banks, above), the weakness of labor, the dysfunctionality of the Senate - the list is long and familiar.
I think we can agree on the death of liberal and moderate Republicanism. By now that shit is all but extinct. We see this in the rise of the Tea Party movement. However, as an indication of how weak the Democratic Party and American liberalism is, many progressives are cynically cheering the Tea Partiers because, it is hoped, they might split the conservative vote (as Perot did in 1992) and ensure Democratic victories by default. Given the complete and obvious failure of U.S. militarism and U.S. state-capitalism, and the hunger for real change, this is beyond depressing.
Myerson refers to "the reluctance of some administration officials and congressional Democrats to challenge the banks" and "the ever-larger role of money in politics." This is our system: elected officials are more than willing to challenge working people, women, and people of color (in other words, 80% of the population) - indeed, they are praised as having "political courage" when they do this - but they are "reluctant" to challenge the banks and corporate power. That tells us everything we need to know, I think. We are a business-run society. I think it was John Dewey who said (paraphrasing) "Government is the shadow cast by business over society," meaning corporate power controls the government. We can try to make changes to the shadow (government), but it won't affect the substance (corporate power).
"The weakness of labor." No kidding. The parallels to the 1920s are obvious: a low percentage of unionized workers, the few large unions like the SEIU are power hungry and divisive, the agencies who are supposed to support the rights of workers regularly undermine them, and since we are in a period of a "flexible labor market" - economist-speak for workers being scared shitless of standing up for themselves for fear of being fired - recent years have seen the lowest number of work stoppages on record.
We've also seen the limits of organized labor - while we were moved by the sit-ins over a year ago at Republic Doors and Windows in Chicago, many were disappointed by the meager goals of the workers. Why were the goals limited to receiving back pay - why not take over the factory and run it themselves, as has been done in hundreds of cases in Argentina? Also, in my hometown of Detroit, the UAW strike at American Axle failed when UAW leadership refused to cooperate with Mexican workers who were willing to strike at American Axle suppliers in Mexico in support of their fellow workers in Detroit. This effort would have likely swung the conflict in favor of the UAW, yet they refused and soon capitulated to the company. So labor has some serious problems.
"The disfuntionality of the Senate." You think? An institution designed to favor the interests of the wealthy and slaveowning states?
I think Myerson is far too mild, but at least is pointed in the right direction.
We do not need a Glenn Beck. Repeat: we do not need a Glenn Beck. I think teacherken's remarks are right on regarding the futility in hoping for a similar impact from Olbermann and Maddow.
We don't need to mimic the right. What we need is a new kind of politics, and we cannot look to the Democratic Party or liberals for it. It has to come from us.
teacherken asks:
Do we need a movement? Or rather, do we need multiple movements? Is going to the streets going to be effective? Do we have existing structures that can function as did labor unions and civil rights organizations in the past? Do we need to organize new movements?
Yes to all of these, although going to the streets is not very effective as anything other than a tool for continued networking. In the same way that it helps us emotionally and mentally to be around other people committed to change, street protests serve a small purpose. But they won't effect real change unless those street protests turn into radical, revolutionary action (such as barricading a bridge, shutting down a bank, and so on). We have many organizations, including labor and media, that are organized and waiting for our support, and we also need to organize new movements.
I mentioned the 1920s earlier. The wonderful thing about the 1920s is they contained the seeds of the radical organization and activism of the 1930s, which flew far under the radar of the so-called establishment. There were articles written in the late 1920s praising the decline of labor unions, and dismissing them as a thing of the past - everyone now accepted free-market capitalism (which has never existed - did you know that?) as the only real way forward. At that same time, labor organizing was on the rise, and continued to skyrocket through the 1930s (the National Labor Relations Act was passed in response to this wave of unionization, as an effort to calm it down - hence the restriction on the right to strike).
I think we are in a similar position to the 1920s. That means that Obama is Herbert Hoover. That may not be a good or apt historical parallel to draw, but the man sure as hell ain't FDR. So can we make Obama do what we want, as FDR challenged progressives in the 1930s?
I don't think we can, and I honestly don't think we should work with that goal in mind. If we achieve meaningful change, it will be in spite of government, not because of it. It will be because we recognize that our democratic system is a fraud, and we will start - like our radical ancestors from the 1930s - to build new systems. We have to start organizing and moving under the assumption that our government and our elected officials will not help us. We have to do the work ourselves. When they see that we don't need them, they will panic, and try to do something to get our support, like they did in the 1930s and 1960s. But we can't start from the perspective of "please help us." We have to start, and continue, from the perspective of "to hell with you all. We are all leaders, and we'll do it ourselves." Top-down systems, whether fascist (on the right) or Soviet-style communism (on the left) are not the answer.
Which brings us to Myerson's title: "Without a Movement, Progressives Can't Aid Obama's Agenda."
This title presumes that progressives are in favor of Obama's agenda, and have some interest in aiding it. As has been hotly debated on DailyKos, there is a question about whether Obama's agenda is indeed something progressives can rally around (Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, improved U.S. image abroad, stabilizing the current system of U.S. state-capitalism, positive rhetoric), or if it is something to fight against (sellouts to pharmaceutical and health insurance companies, no meaningful efforts to help labor despite winning with labor support, continued war and expansion of the military, and stabilizing the current system of U.S. state-capitalism).
I'm gonna leave all those alone. Let's just say he has a mixed record, and on this site, a lot of people who support what he's done, and many others who are disappointed. But I don't think our goal should be to aid Obama's agenda, whatever we imagine or hope it to be.
We sometimes get so comfortable in our surroundings we forget there are other perspectives - they don't appear on MSNBC or Air America.
For example, many progressives and radicals had no faith in Obama from the beginning - not anything against him personally, but simply because he is functioning within an unjust system.
For them, there is no surprise that Obama seems to be acting in the interests of the financial establishment, and there are no hard feelings about it. After all, what can we expect when these are the people (much more than labor) who helped him get elected? When our electoral system is funded by corporate power, why should we expect the system to reflect, in a meaningful way, any interests other than corporate power? This is not a conspiracy theory, it's a logical institutional analysis.
Obama is militaristic. Not because he personally believes that violence and terror are the way to solve our problems, but because he is in charge of a system that has been developed and maintained through militarism. He can't change that system, no matter what he believes.
Here's another way to look at it: how many of us expected that prison would cease to reflect racial hierarchies, since Obama is not a white supremacist ? No one with half a brain, because we recognize that whatever Obama may be, the institutional systems maintaining white supremacy, including prison, are far too entrenched for any one elected official to change.
Given Myerson's op-ed, and teacherken's analysis and questions, let us consider that maybe the right goal for progressives is not to aid Obama's agenda. Maybe the right goal is to move from progressive to radical, and seek to build something new.
Myerson also wrote
But if there's a common feature to the political landscapes in which Carter, Clinton and now Obama were compelled to work, it's the absence of a vibrant left movement.
He's wrong. It's happening in my hometown of Detroit, with the best urban gardening movement in the country, with democratic movements within labor unions, with radical organizing around immigrant's rights, the coming of the United States Social Forum, and efforts everywhere at building a new kind of politics. It may not be on the news, or highlighted on DailyKos, but it is there.
Maybe we should seek to destroy institutions built on profit motives, racial and gender hierarchies, and property rights, and in their place build networks and organizations rooted in justice, equality, and community.
That doesn't come from a president or a government, and it never has. It comes from us.