Idealism may be in some disrepute these days, but I never met any cynicism that could hold a candle to the courage of humanistic convictions.
More than a week after visiting the congressional district where Rep. Raul Grijalva -- and many hundreds of active supporters -- are in a massive struggle to send him back to Congress, I still think of his comments to a crowd of volunteers in front of campaign headquarters in Tucson.
"A human face to a human face -- talking, neighbor to neighbor -- is the most powerful grassroots tool that this campaign has or any other campaign has," Grijalva said.
That’s what Get Out The Vote means to progressives. Corporate flacks and their functionaries have the money to buy plenty of Astroturf; we’ve got to be all about the grassroots.
Some races -- we don’t know which -- will be decided by just a few votes on Tuesday. As frustrating as the electoral process is, it requires us to redouble our efforts as the finish line comes into view.
In Grijalva’s district, the xenophobes are on the march. A few months ago, he called for a boycott of Arizona when the governor signed an anti-immigrant law (now tied up in court) that orders police to engage in racial profiling.
The right wing went nuts. The likes of Grover Norquist and Sen. John McCain set in motion an attack that has sent hundreds of thousands of dollars into the district to defeat Grijalva.
The Congressman nailed it the night I heard him speak in Tucson. "We’re in this fight because we want to be in this fight," Grijalva said. "Decency demands of us and of all of the people here that we fight on. . . . The values of this country are at stake."
We want to be in this fight -- because there’s no decent alternative while the forces of bigotry, corporate power and the warfare state are on the march. Across the country, in electoral arenas, the Republican Party has managed to distill what is worst about the United States of America. Our task is to mobilize for what is best.
Time to go beyond defeatism.
What blends despair with passivity is apt to present itself in many forms. People get frustrated and angry. They want improvements and see deterioration. The world is not cooperating with vision. So, that about wraps it up.
There’s more than a bit of that in the air this fall, lingering into the last hours before Election Day. Sometimes stated directly with rage, sometimes almost ineffable, a dubious defeatism is riding some ill winds, claiming -- directly or tacitly -- that elections are a waste of time.
Such claims depend on assumptions that may as well be openly stated and scrutinized. For instance:
Elections are a waste of time if you figure the U.S. government is so far gone that it can’t get much worse.
Elections are a waste of time if you’ve given up on grassroots organizing to sway voters before they cast ballots.
Elections are a waste of time if you think there’s not much difference on the Supreme Court between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, or Sonia Sotomayor and Samuel Alito.
Elections are a waste of time if you’re so disgusted with Speaker Pelosi that you wouldn’t lift a finger to try to prevent Speaker Boehner.
Elections are a waste of time if you don’t see much value in reducing -- even slightly -- the extent of injustice and deprivation imposed on vulnerable people.
Or, if you see the organizing of protests, community groups, unions and the like as "either/or" in relation to working for the election of better candidates.
Or, if you think the goal of those who struggled and suffered for the right to vote -- seeing the ballot as an essential component of democracy -- is outdated and rendered moot by present-day frustrations and outrages.
Elections are a waste of time if you think corporate power has grown so immense that state power has become irrelevant.
Or, if you see the raising of political awareness as an alternative to -- rather than intertwined with -- the building of progressive electoral power to challenge corporate power.
Elections are a waste of time if you don’t realize or care that the powerful forces behind Wall Street are thrilled if progressives retreat from electoral battles.
Elections are a waste of time if you conclude -- due to chronic suppression of electoral democracy -- that the ideal of electoral democracy should be discarded rather than pursued.
Elections are a waste of time if you think progressives should opt out of electoral struggles for government power, leaving it to uncontested dominance by the heartless and the spineless.