BOOKS / Eric Boehlert's 'Bloggers on the Bus'

It's a very fast, entertaining read, and since it focuses (almost) exclusively on the liberal blogosphere it mostly avoids the sense of triumphalism you might get in a more partisan book.

By Kevin Drum

If you're interested in the political blogosphere and the netroots in general, Eric Boehlert's Bloggers on the Bus is a great read. It's built around potted sketches of some of the best known liberal bloggers (Atrios, Digby, Jane Hamsher, John Amato, Arianna Huffington, Glenn Greenwald, and others) and some of the blogosphere's greatest campaign hits during 2008 (the Obama MySpace debacle, the John Hagee meltdown, the Sarah Palin eruption, the great sexism debate), and Boehlert really does a terrific job of diving in and explaining how everything unfolded. I followed almost all of this stuff pretty obsessively in real time, but I still learned lots of details I'd never heard of before.

It's a very fast, entertaining read, and since it focuses (almost) exclusively on the liberal blogosphere it mostly avoids the sense of triumphalism you might get in a more partisan book. Which is a good thing since it ends with this:

The bad news for liberal bloggers was that as the Obama campaign unfolded, as his new commuhity-based coalition was being built and celebrated, it became obvious that bloggers were never really invited to the party. Liberal bloggers simply never became active partners with Obama in the way they had been with the Dean insurgency four years earlier, and the way they had been with scores of Democratic politicians in skirmishes throughout the Bush years. Why? Mostly because Obama didn't seem to want the bloggers around.

That's true, isn't it? For all the hype, the liberal blogosphere in 2008 had its biggest impact in state and local races, just as it did in 2004. It's true that it was much more successful in pushing stories into the mainstream media than it was four years ago, but in terms of being active in the Obama campaign itself, it wasn't. And that was primarily a choice made by Obama himself, who apparently felt that the raw partisanship of the blogosphere was something he wanted to keep at arm's length.

There were a couple of things missing from the book that struck me. The first is specific: the Jeremiah Wright firestorm, which begged to be included in any book about the 2008 campaign, but which Boehlert inexplicably never mentions. The second is more general: Boehlert does a good job of showing how the blogosphere managed to gain attention for stories that might otherwise have gone unnoticed, but at times his account feels too blinkered. The mainstream media played a pretty big role in all this too, and even in a book about the blogosphere this deserves a little more attention. At the very least, there should have been a chapter devoted to the relationship between blogs and the MSM.

But these are nits. If you're looking for a blog's eye view of Campaign '08, Bloggers on the Bus is a terrifically readable and carefully reported book. Highly recommended.

Source / Mother Jones / Posted May 5, 2009

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Frank Shepard Fairey: Grafitti Legend Claims Arrest Before Big Show is Political

Frank Shepard Fairey / Exopolis
Street artist Frank Shepard Fairey at Institute of Contemporary Art earlier this month. Photo by David L. Ryan / Boston Globe.
Police arrest Obama artist and 'Andre the Giant' tagger just before opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art

Frank Shepard Fairey: 'They are suppressing an artist's freedom of transformative expression.'

by John R. Ellement and Andrew Ryan / February 9, 2009

Artist Frank Shepard Fairey criticized Boston police today after he pleaded not guilty to graffiti-related charges, questioning the "motivation and the timing" of his arrest on Friday hours before his opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Police arrested Fairey at about 9:15 p.m. on Friday as he was heading to the "Experiment Night" event at the ICA, where more than 750 people were waiting for him to appear. The arrest was timed, Fairey said, "in a way that was designed to create as much inconvenience for me and the museum as possible."

Police have said that warrants for Fairey's arrest were issued on Jan. 24 for damage to property due to graffiti. A police spokesman did not immediately respond to a phone message when asked about Fairey's comments about the timing of his arrest.

An arrest affidavit filed today described Fairey as an "idol to members of the graffiti subculture" who has been defacing property in Boston since 1989. Fairey's signature tag is a stencil of the professional wrestler Andre the Giant and the words "Obey the Giant" or "Obey."

When Fairey returned recently to Boston for his show at the ICA, he allegedly "victimized new properties while defiantly stating in media outlets that he will not stop his unauthorized posting of his tag," according to the affidavit requesting a warrant for his arrest. "Suspect Fairey continues to engage in a constant and systemic assault on Boston Neighborhoods."

In media interviews leading up to his ICA show, Fairey admitted, according to the affidavit, "illegally tagging property ... recently in Boston."

Fairey, 38, has gained prominence for his "Hope" image of President Barack Obama, which has been hung in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. The Los Angeles-based artist is locked in a dispute with The Associated Press over whether he illegally used a copyrighted AP photo to create the poster. Fairey told reporters today that he filed a counter suit against the AP today in federal court in New York.

"They are suppressing an artist's freedom of transformative expression," Fairey said.

As Fairey appeared in courts in Brighton and Roxbury today, his defense attorney said that additional graffiti-related charges are being filed against the artist.

The defense attorney, Jeffrey P. Wiesner, referenced the new charges today as he criticized Boston police in comments made after Fairey appeared in Brighton District Court. Wiesner said that police exercised "bad judgment" when they arrested his client for allegedly pasting art without permission.

"And I think it is bad judgment that they are now seeking further charges," Wiesner said.

Boston police would not discuss any additional charges. "They have some other incidents in which the suspect has been implicated," said Officer Eddie Crispin, who declined to provide specifics. "The investigation is still ongoing."

According to the arrest affidavit filed today, Fairey has committed at least six acts of vandalism within the City of Boston. A hearing has been scheduled in Brighton on March 10 when a clerk magistrate will decide whether there is evidence to support additional charges, Wiesner said.

Fairey was released on personal recognizance after his brief hearings in Brighton and Roxbury. Dressed in a suit coat and dark collared shirt with no tie, Fairey appeared with four representatives from the ICA.

The Brighton charge dates to Sept. 16, 2000, when a police officer allegedly saw Fairey post a tag in Allston. At the time, Fairey was carrying "an 'excessive' amount of graffiti propaganda and stickers, according to the arrest affidavit filed today. Fairey never appeared in Brighton District Court to face the charge, which carries a possible fine of $100.

The case is Roxbury Municipal Court is much more recent. According to court documents, Fairey allegedly defaced a Massachusetts Turnpike Authority building at Massachusetts Avenue and Newbury Street. Fairey is accused of stenciling five images of a black-and-white face above the word "Obey." The charge carries a maximum sentence of two years in the Suffolk House of Correction and could force Fairey to pay restitution and lose his driver's license for year, according to his lawyer. Fairey has told the Globe he has been arrested 14 times.

© 2009 Boston Globe

Source / Boston Globe / Common Dreams

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The Real Bill Ayers Stands Up

I was cast in the 'unrepentant terrorist' role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the 'Two Minutes Hate' scene from George Orwell’s '1984,' when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing.

By William Ayers / December 5, 2008

IN the recently concluded presidential race, I was unwillingly thrust upon the stage and asked to play a role in a profoundly dishonest drama. I refused, and here’s why.

Unable to challenge the content of Barack Obama’s campaign, his opponents invented a narrative about a young politician who emerged from nowhere, a man of charm, intelligence and skill, but with an exotic background and a strange name. The refrain was a question: “What do we really know about this man?”

Secondary characters in the narrative included an African-American preacher with a fiery style, a Palestinian scholar and an “unrepentant domestic terrorist.” Linking the candidate with these supposedly shadowy characters, and ferreting out every imagined secret tie and dark affiliation, became big news.

I was cast in the “unrepentant terrorist” role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the “Two Minutes Hate” scene from George Orwell’s “1984,” when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing.

With the mainstream news media and the blogosphere caught in the pre-election excitement, I saw no viable path to a rational discussion. Rather than step clumsily into the sound-bite culture, I turned away whenever the microphones were thrust into my face. I sat it out.

Now that the election is over, I want to say as plainly as I can that the character invented to serve this drama wasn’t me, not even close. Here are the facts:

I never killed or injured anyone. I did join the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s, and later resisted the draft and was arrested in nonviolent demonstrations. I became a full-time antiwar organizer for Students for a Democratic Society. In 1970, I co-founded the Weather Underground, an organization that was created after an accidental explosion that claimed the lives of three of our comrades in Greenwich Village. The Weather Underground went on to take responsibility for placing several small bombs in empty offices — the ones at the Pentagon and the United States Capitol were the most notorious — as an illegal and unpopular war consumed the nation.

The Weather Underground crossed lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense. Our effectiveness can be — and still is being — debated. We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism, and the attacks on property, never on people, were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war.

Peaceful protests had failed to stop the war. So we issued a screaming response. But it was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends.

I cannot imagine engaging in actions of that kind today. And for the past 40 years, I’ve been teaching and writing about the unique value and potential of every human life, and the need to realize that potential through education.

I have regrets, of course — including mistakes of excess and failures of imagination, posturing and posing, inflated and heated rhetoric, blind sectarianism and a lot else. No one can reach my age with their eyes even partly open and not have hundreds of regrets. The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long.

The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.

We — the broad “we” — wrote letters, marched, talked to young men at induction centers, surrounded the Pentagon and lay down in front of troop trains. Yet we were inadequate to end the killing of three million Vietnamese and almost 60,000 Americans during a 10-year war.

The dishonesty of the narrative about Mr. Obama during the campaign went a step further with its assumption that if you can place two people in the same room at the same time, or if you can show that they held a conversation, shared a cup of coffee, took the bus downtown together or had any of a thousand other associations, then you have demonstrated that they share ideas, policies, outlook, influences and, especially, responsibility for each other’s behavior. There is a long and sad history of guilt by association in our political culture, and at crucial times we’ve been unable to rise above it.

President-elect Obama and I sat on a board together; we lived in the same diverse and yet close-knit community; we sometimes passed in the bookstore. We didn’t pal around, and I had nothing to do with his positions. I knew him as well as thousands of others did, and like millions of others, I wish I knew him better.

Demonization, guilt by association, and the politics of fear did not triumph, not this time. Let’s hope they never will again. And let’s hope we might now assert that in our wildly diverse society, talking and listening to the widest range of people is not a sin, but a virtue.

[William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of “Fugitive Days” and a co-author of the forthcoming “Race Course.”]

Source / The New York Times

Thanks to Jim Retherford / The Rag Blog

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Obama and a Brave New World : Governing a Netroots Nation

Obama addresses journalism convention in July, 2008. Photo by Jennifer Dronkers / Unity News.
'Obama isn't just trying to make government more transparent by posting online videos of himself or his transition team's doings. He is attempting to organize his campaign supporters into a political force that he can tap in tough times.'
Joe Garofoli / November 24, 2008

During the campaign, the Obama team showed how new media tools can be used to win the White House. Now, the president-elect's advisers and allies are previewing how they intend to use the power of online organizing to govern.

The effort gained national visibility when President-elect Barack Obama started posting YouTube videos of his weekly national address, and it accelerated as the transition team and others solicited supporters' ideas on what to do next with their "movement."

Analysts say Obama isn't just trying to make government more transparent by posting online videos of himself or his transition team's doings. He is attempting to organize his campaign supporters into a political force that he can tap in tough times - like when he needs to go around Congress and the mainstream media for direct citizen support.

"Just like people hadn't used the Internet in campaigning to this extent before, they haven't really used it to govern before," said Peter Daou, Internet strategist for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. "The challenge here is trying to figure out how to use something that was used mostly for campaign advocacy - and use it in a way to advance policy."

That's tricky. A campaign runs on an adrenaline rush fueled by a deadline (election day), a person to rally against and the rush of daily polls. Shepherding policy through Washington is not as sexy, and now the candidate is president of all Americans - not just his supporters.

So on the grassroots level, the legions of Obama supporters who self-organized on social networking sites are reconvening to figure out what to do. Meanwhile, the incoming administration is trying to figure out how to engage its supporters and solicit their ideas - and continued support.

"Where they meet in the middle somewhere is where the energy will come from," Daou said.

Those efforts intensified last week when Obama campaign manager David Plouffe asked the estimated 11 million members of Obama's e-mail list what new ideas they had for the administration. Before asking supporters to complete a brief survey, Plouffe wrote, "Your hard work built this movement. Now it's up to you to decide how we move forward."

The survey asked supporters "how they would like to be engaged" and to rank the importance of "goals for this movement" such as "Helping Barack's administration pass legislation through grassroots efforts" and "training volunteers in the organizing techniques we used to elect Barack."

MoveOn's efforts

The efforts extend beyond the official Obama organization.

On Thursday night, MoveOn.org - whose members supported Obama - held more than 1,200 offline "Fired Up and Ready to Go" parties. The point of the gatherings, according to an invitation from MoveOn: "We'll launch a new campaign to help Barack win big changes - like health care and clean energy." The group will follow Thursday's meetings with a day of personal lobbying on Capitol Hill and in congressional district offices Jan. 21, the day after Obama is sworn in.

The 5 million-member liberal online hub has seen its membership transformed this year. MoveOn gained 2 million new members in the past six months - 55 percent of them are not white. (Membership was 85 percent white before.) At least half of the newcomers are under 35, said executive director Eli Pariser.

Unlike past political campaigns, where voters returned home after casting their ballots and waited for politicians to deliver results, many Obama supporters are looking for ways to continue to provide their input and offer help.

"It's clear to MoveOn members that they want to continue to focus on a few core issues," Pariser said.

In addition to posting the president-elect's weekly addresses on YouTube, the Obama transition team is posting snippets that describe the activities of some of its transition groups. A three-minute video titled "Inside the Transition: Energy and Environment Policy Team" that recently appeared may not sound like scintillating viewing, but it does give viewers a peek into the mind-set of the incoming government.

"He doesn't have to wait for CBS to use four seconds of one of his speeches as a sound bite in a story. He can send his full comments directly to his supporters - and everyone else," Pariser said.

But Obama's early efforts on YouTube have not been in the two-way spirit of new media communication - comments are not accepted, although people can repost the videos or embed them elsewhere and start their own conversation threads.

"I'm not sure of the strategy behind that," said Steve Grove, YouTube's head of news and politics. "They're probably trying to feel out how it will work."

If the Obama administration is anything like the Obama campaign, Grove predicts it will produce a prolific amount of video. He wouldn't be surprised if Cabinet officials and other top administration leaders began posting videos, too. And, even though "day-in-the-life" videos may be hackneyed, Grove said there would be an audience for such a behind-the-scenes peek at the White House.

Obama's YouTube channel had more than 1,800 videos during the campaign, and they were viewed 110 million times. Many posted after September were seen upward of 50,000 times each and more than a dozen were seen at least 1 million times.

"Their user base has come to expect a certain level of accessibility," Grove said. "But the challenge will be to find that sweet spot now that they're governing. There has to be a certain imprimatur and gravitas when the president of the United States is involved."

'Craigslist for service'

There's no shortage of other ideas on how to engage people online. During the campaign, Obama officials talked about ways to create a "Craigslist for service" - where people interested in doing some sort of public service or volunteering could be connected with a need in their community. Others have spoken about video streaming all open government meetings. Daou said to expect a lot of "trial and error over the next few months as the White House sees what works."

"What's most important is that he makes government more transparent," said Raven Brooks, executive director of Netroots Nation, the annual conference of bloggers and online activists that grew out of the popular DailyKos political blog.

Brooks' idea: He would love to see Obama - or more likely an aide - use the social networking tool Twitter to update citizens on what he is up to throughout the day. "He wouldn't have to be giving away state secrets or anything, but maybe something like, 'I just met with Paul Volcker and we talked about monetary policy.'

"Now, the average voter is not a political junkie, and may not be interested in that level of minutiae, but I think a lot of people would appreciate the effort to communicate," Brooks said.

A spokesman for the Obama transition team said of its new media strategy, "Unfortunately, we're not ready to discuss further details at this time."

Perhaps the details will be posted first on YouTube.

Source / SF Gate

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Seeing Purple : You Mean McCain DIDN'T Win Florida?

Purple America / Contested South. Graphic from Facing South.
Emerging demographic trends differentiated Florida, Virginia and North Carolina from the rest of the south sufficiently to overcome any 'Bradley Effect' and shift them into the Democratic column.
By Jay D. Jurie / The Rag Blog / November 22, 2008

On November 3rd I sent out an e-mail predicting that McCain would narrowly take Florida (see below). As we've seen, Obama took not only Florida, but also Virginia and North Carolina.

Emerging demographic trends differentiated these three states from the rest of the south sufficiently to overcome any "Bradley Effect" and shift them into the Democratic column.

An article entitled "A New South Rising" on the Institute for Southern Studies Facing South blog [see below] does a good job analyzing the trends, including: urbanization, young white southerners with a different outlook than previous generations, stronger minority voter turn-out, and a growing Latino population.

Other southern states are experiencing these trends. Given the region's high population growth, the political significance of the south will increase.

I am glad to have been wrong about the election outcome.

My email:

Not to rain on anyone's parade, and I hope otherwise, but my prediction is that McCain is going to win Florida.

It'll be close. Maybe not as close as the 2000 election, but very close.

Based on a Mason-Dixon poll, this morning's Orlando Sentinel shows Obama slightly ahead: 47% to 45%, an error margin of 4%, and 7% undecided. This is a fairly large "undecided" factor with early voting well under way in Florida. 84% of the 7% undecided are white, and I think this is where the so-called "Bradley effect" is hiding.

There are still voter intimidation and suppression shenanigans which may play out on Tuesday as well.

Obama has been waging a very strong and effective campaign in Florida, much stronger than either Gore in 2000 or Kerry in 2004. If Obama loses the state, it won't be his fault. We'll see.

A New South Rising
2008 proved that the South is politically competitive and growing in importance. But the pundits are telling a different story.

On the day before Election Day -- that final moment when candidates decide where they want to make their last case to the voters they want to win the most -- Barack Obama chose to visit three big battleground states: Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.

Since 1968, these Southern states had voted Democratic for president only six times between them. And president-elect Obama was about to ask voters in these states -- all members of the old Confederacy -- to vote the first African-American ever into the White House.

Obama's Southern Strategy worked: the states went blue, and history was made.

But just as Southern Democrats were clinking glasses of sweet tea in celebration, the powerhouses of political punditry -- especially in the North -- made a bizarre move: They turned against the region that had just given one-third of its Electoral College votes to the President-elect.

Ignoring McCain's dominance in, say, the Great Plains and Upper Mountain states -- Obama's most crushing defeats came in Idaho, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming -- legions of commentators instead curiously trained their guns on the South, dismissing the region as politically irrelevant, a bastion of red-state conservatism uniquely out of touch with national trends.

Read all of this article here / Facing South: The Online Magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies.

Also by Jay D. Jurie on The Rag Blog: Orlando Homeless Win Big Victory in Federal Court / Sept. 27, 2008

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Carl Davidson : Bumpy Road Ahead: Obama and the Left

This is a time of great opportunity for progressives in America. The big question facing us is where to go next, and how to get there.

It is a question we plan to devote much attention to here on The Rag Blog. The following article by Carl Davidson, is, I believe, an important one and a major first step in the process. We urge you to read this article carefully and share your ideas with us, utilizing the "Comments" link below.

Carl Davidson is webmaster for and a prime mover behind Progressives for Obama. He was a major leader and thinker in the sixties New Left and has continued over the years as an influential writer and organizer for progressive causes.

Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / November 18, 2008

'Now a new period of struggle begins, but on a higher plane. An emerging progressive majority will be confronted with many challenges and obstacles not seen for decades.'
By Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog / November 18, 2008

American progressives have won a major victory in helping to defeat John McCain and placing Barack Obama in the White House. The far right has been broadly rebuffed, the neoconservative war hawks displaced, and the diehard advocates of neoliberal political economy are in thorough disarray. Of great importance, one long-standing crown jewel of white supremacy, the whites-only sign on the Oval Office, has been tossed into the dustbin of history.

The depth of the historical victory was revealed in the jubilation of millions who spontaneously gathered in downtowns and public spaces across the country, as the media networks called Obama the winner. When President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama took the platform in Chicago to deliver his powerful but sobering victory speech, hundreds of millions-Black, Latino, Asian, Native-American and white, men and
women, young and old, literally danced in the streets and wept with joy, celebrating an achievement of a dramatic milestone in a 400-year struggle, and anticipating a new period of hope and possibility.

Now a new period of struggle begins, but on a higher plane. An emerging progressive majority will be confronted with many challenges and obstacles not seen for decades. Left and progressive organizers face difficult, uncharted terrain, a bumpy road. But much more interesting problems are before us, with solutions, should they be achieved, promising much greater gains and rewards. for the America of popular democracy.

To consciously build on the gains of this electoral victory, it's important to seek clarity. We need an accurate assessment of strengths and weaknesses--our own, as well as those of our allies and our adversaries.

The Obama campaign, formal and informal, was a wide undertaking. It united progressive forces, won over middle forces, then isolated and divided the right. It massed the votes and resources required the win a clear majority of the popular vote and a decisive majority of Electoral College votes.

At the base, beginning with the antiwar youth and peace activists, Obama awakened, organized, mobilized and deployed an incredible and innovative force of what grew into an army of more than three million volunteers. At the top, he realigned a powerful sector of the ruling class into an anti-NeoCon, anti-ultraright bloc. In between, he expanded the electorate and won clear majorities in every major
demographic bloc of voters, save for whites generally; but even there, he reduced McCain's spread to single digits, and among younger white voters and women voters, he won large majorities.

Understanding the New Alliance

It is important to understand the self-interests and expectations of this new multiclass alliance. If we get it wrong, we will run into the ditch and get bogged down, whether on the right or 'left' side of that bumpy road, full of potholes and twists and turns.

The Obama alliance is not 'Clintonism in blackface' or 'JFK in Sepia', as some have chauvinistically tagged it. Nor is it 'imperialism with a human face,' as if imperialism hasn't always had human faces. All these make the mistake of looking backward, Hillary Clinton's mistake of trying to frame the present and future in the terms of the past.

The Obama team at the top is comprised of global capital's representatives in the U.S as well as U.S. multinational capitalists, and these two overlap but are not the same. It is a faction of imperialism, and there is no need for us to prettify it, deny it or cover it up in any way. The important thing to see is that it is
neither neoliberalism nor the old corporate liberalism. Obama is carving out a new niche for himself, a work in progress still within the bounds of capitalism, but a 'high road' industrial policy capitalism that is less state-centric and more market-based in its approach, more Green, more high tech, more third wave and
participatory, less politics-as-consumerism and more 'public citizen' and education focused. In short, it's capitalism for a multipolar world and the 21st century.

The unreconstructed neoliberalism and old corporate liberalism, however, are still very much in play. The former is in disarray, largely due to the financial crisis, but the latter is working overtime to join the Obama team and secure its institutional positions of power, from White House staff positions to the behind-the-scenes efforts on Wall Street to direct the huge cash flows of the Bail-Out in their favor.

How the Obama Alliance won:
Values, Technology and Social Movements

The Obama alliance is an emerging, historic counter-hegemonic bloc, still contending both with its pre-election adversaries and within itself. It has taken the White House and strengthened its majority in Congress, but the fight is not over. To define the victorious coalition simply by the class forces at the top is the error of
reductionism that fails to shine a light on the path ahead.

What is a hegemonic bloc? Most power elites maintain their rule using more than armed force. They use a range of tools to maintain hegemony, or dominance, which are 'softer,' meaning they are political and cultural instruments as well as economic and military. They seek a social base in the population, and draw them into partnership and coalitions through intermediate civil institutions. Keeping this bloc together requires a degree of compromise and concession, even if it ultimately relies on force. The blocs are historic; they develop over time, are shaped by the times, and also have limited duration. When external and internal crises disrupt and lead them to stagnation, anew 'counter-hegemonic' bloc takes shape, with a different alignment of economic interests and social forces, to challenge it and take its place. These ideas were first developed by the Italian communist and labor leader, Antonio Gramsci, and taken up again in the 1960s by the German New Left leader, Rudi Dutschke. They are helpful, especially in nonrevolutionary conditions, in understanding both how our adversaries maintain their power, as well as the strategy and tactics needed to replace them, eventually by winning a new socialist and popular democratic order.

As a new historic bloc, the Obama alliance contains several major and minor poles. It is composed of several class forces, a complex social base and many social movements which have emerged and engaged in the electoral struggle. There is both class struggle and other forms of struggle within it. There are sharp differences on military policy, on Israel-Palestine, on healthcare and the bailout. From the outside, there are also serious and sustained struggles against it. And some forces will move both inside and outside the bloc, as circumstances warrant or change. It is important to be clear on what the main forces and components are, and their path to unity. It's also important to understand the relation and balance of forces, and how one is not likely to win at the top what one has not consolidated and won at the base, nor is failure in one or another battle always cause for a strategic break.

Obama obviously started with his local coalition in Chicago-the Black community, 'Lakefront liberals' from the corporate world, and a sector of labor, mainly service workers. The initial new force in the winning nationwide alliance was called out by Obama's early opposition to the Iraq war, and his participation in two mass rallies against it, one before it began and other after the war was underway. This both awakened and inspired a large layer of young antiwar activists, some active for the first time, to join his effort to win the Iowa primary.

The fact that he had publicly opposed the war before it had begun distinguished him from Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, his chief opponents. These young people also contributed to the innovative nature of his organization, combining grassroots community organizing with the many-to-many mass communication tools of internet-based social networking and fundraising. Many had some earlier experience organizing and participating in the World Social Forum in Atlanta 2007, which energized nearly 10,000 young activists. Those who came forward put their energy and innovation to good use. Had Obama not won Iowa, it is not likely we would be talking about him today.

The Iowa victory quickly produced another major advance. Up until then, most African-American voters favored Hillary Clinton, and were dubious of a Black candidate's chances. But Iowa is one of the 'whitest' states in the country, and Obama's win there changed their minds. In short order, Obama gained wide unity in Black communities across the country, inspiring even more young people, more multinational and more 'Hip-Hop,' to emerge as a force. Black women in their churches and Black workers in their unions joined with the already-engaged younger Black professionals who were seeking a new voice for their generation. The internet-based fundraising was bringing in unheard-of amounts of money in small donations. A wing of trade unions most responsive to Black members came over, setting the stage for Obama's next challenge, winning the Democratic primaries overall against Hillary Clinton.

Defeating Clinton and the corporate liberals backing her was not easy. Hillary's main weakness was her inability to win the antiwar movement. Obama had mainly won the youth and Blacks, and through them, many young women and many Black women, but he had tough challenges. Clinton still rallied much of the liberal base and the traditional women's movement. But it was not enough, nor was she able to deal with all the new grassroots money flowing his way. Her last reserve was the labor movement, most of which was still supporting her. She tried to keep it with a fatal error: playing the 'white worker' card in a racist way against Obama. It only moved more progressives to Obama, plus won him wider support in other communities of color, who saw the move for what it was. Even with her remaining base in a sector of the women's movement and a large chunk of organized labor, after a fierce fight, he narrowly but clearly defeated her.

Now it was Obama versus McCain, and the Republicans were in the weaker position. Some think McCain made a mistake picking Sarah Palin as his VP choice, but actually it was his smarter and stronger card. To defeat Obama, he had to both energize the GOP core rightwing base, plus win a large majority of the 'white working class.' Palin's proto-fascist rightwing populism was actually his best shot, especially with its unofficial allies in rightwing media. The Fox-Hannity-Limbaugh machine, and its allies in the right blogosphere, escalated their overtly racist, chauvinist, illegal immigrant-baiting, red-baiting, terror-baiting, anti-Black and anti-Muslim bigotry to a ceaseless fever pitch. The aim was to manipulate the significant social base of less-educated, more fundamentalist, lower-income white workers who often seek economic relief through being tied to the military or the prison-industrial complex. They threw everything, from the kitchen sink to the outhouse, at Obama, his family and his movement. They whipped their crowds into violent frenzies. The Secret Service even had to ask them to tone it down, since assassination threats were coming out of the woodwork with each rally like this.

This now put organized labor in the critical position. Even though they represented only a minority of workers generally, they had wider influence, including into the ranks of the white working-class families who were for Clinton, and leaning to McCain. But both national coalitions, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, did the right
thing, and in a big way. They knew McCain was their 'clear and present' danger. So they mobilized their resources and members into the streets, especially in the 'white working class' battleground areas in critical electoral states, and among Latino voters in the West. They won a wide majority of union households. They won among women and younger workers, as well as Latinos and other voters of color. Although they still did not get a majority of white working class voters for Obama, they brought the spread down to single digits. In many areas, they did better with Obama than Kerry had done four years earlier. It was enough to put Obama over the top.

There are books to be written about many other aspects and components of the Obama alliance. But these five: insurgent antiwar youth, a united African-American community, Latinos and other communities of color, women with a grasp of the importance of reproductive rights and health care, and organized labor-these form the major elements of the social base of Obama's historic bloc against neoliberalism and the right. Add these to the disgruntled progressive-to-liberal regular Democratic voters in the suburbs and elsewhere, and it brought the era of the conservative right's dominance in the White House and Congress to an end.

The Obama Alliance From Below and Within

The alliance was also diverse in terms of political organization. At the very bottom grassroots, in the final months, there were often four campaigns, overlapping to one degree or another, united to one degree or another, but not the same by a long shot.

First, the local Obama offices were mainly run by the Obama youth, twenty-somethings, many of them young women, who worked their hearts out, 16-hours-a-day, seven days a week, months on end. They were deployed in a vast array of 'neighborhood teams,' with old teams often generating new ones, connected via the social networking of their own blogs, email, cell phones and text messaging. Each team knocked on hundreds, if not thousands of doors, and tracked it all on computers. The full-time leaders were often 'parachuted in' from distant states, skilled mainly in mobilizing others like themselves. But add up dozens, even hundreds of teams in a given county, and you're making a serious difference.

Second, the Black community's campaign was more indigenous, more traditional, more rooted, more deeply proletarian-it made use of the Black church's social committees, tenant groups and civic organizations, who widely united. Many day-to-day efforts were in the hands of older Black women who knew everything about everybody, and had decades of experience in registering and getting out the vote. In some parts of the country, there were other nationalities working this way-Latino, Asian, Native American-and they found the way to make common cause with the African American community, rebuffing GOP efforts to appeal to anti-Black racism or narrow nationalism as a wedge. Some of the older people in these communities learned how to use computers, too, and sent regular contributions to Obama via PayPal in small amounts. But multiply one of these experienced community-based women organizers by 50,000 or 100,000 more just like her in another neighborhood or town, and something new and serious is going on. They always faced scarce resources, and there was friction at times with the Obama youth, who were often mostly white or more of a younger 'Rainbow.' They worked it through, most of the time.

Third, organized labor carried out its campaign in its own way. They had substantial resources for meeting halls, phone banks and the traditional 'swag' of campaigns-window signs, yard signs, buttons, T-shirts, stickers, banners, professionally done multi-colored flyers directly targeted to the top issues of union members and the wider working class. They put it together as an almost industrial operation, well planned with a division of labor. Top leaders of the union came in, called mass meetings, and in many cases, gave fierce no-nonsense speeches about 'getting over' fear of Black candidates and asserting the need to vote their members' interests. The central offices produced walking maps of union member households and registered voter households, political district by political district, broken down right to how many people were needed for each door-knocking team to cover each district or neighborhood. They printed maps with driving directions. They had tally sheets for interviewing each voter, boxes to check, to be scanned and read by machines when turned in. Hundreds of member-volunteers from that ranks came to each hall, raffles were held for free gas cards, and when you got back and turned in your tallies, free hot dogs and pizza. Sometimes busloads and car caravans went to other nearby states, to more 'battleground' areas. They often shared their halls with the Obama kids, and tried not to duplicate efforts. It was powerful to see, and it worked. There's nothing to replace a pair of union members standing on the porches of other working-class families, talking things over.

Fourth, the actual ongoing structures of the local Democratic Party did things their way. In many cases, the local regular Democratic leaders were very good, and took part personally in all three of elements of the campaign described above. But frequently, there was no 'mass' to the local Democratic organization. The mass member groups of the old Democratic Party were just history. (It was a problem, but Progressive Democrats of America, to grow). Each incumbent, moreover, had their own staff and core of donors and loyalists, lawyers and media consultants, and guarded their own turf. Some were Obama enthusiasts, some more low-key, but more than a few avoided any responsibility to win Hillary voters to Obama. They capitulated to 'Democrats for McCain' elements in their base, elements who worked informally with the GOP right. This latter group was called 'the top of the ticket problem.' They worked their campaigns as independent operations, but avoided identification with the 'top of the ticket' or those working locally for it.

The Core Message of Change

While all four of these sub-campaigns were united by the central message and 'change' theme from the top, each also carried out the 'change' message in its own way. One issue linking at least three of them, save for a few 'Blue Dog' incumbents, was the need for a rapid end to the war. From Obama's personal appearances on down, whenever a speaker forcefully made this point to a crowd, it got the loudest applause, if not a standing ovation.

The people in these crowds constitute a new component of the antiwar movement. It needs to be understood, however, that they have a different character than the traditional left-led antiwar rallies. Demands to end the war here are deeply connected with supporting our troops, getting them home and out of harm's way, supporting veterans across the board, expressions of patriotism, and a view of the war as an offense to patriotism. They hate the waste of lives of people from families they know; and they hate the waste of resources and huge amounts of money. Ending the war is stressed as the way to lower taxes and revive the economy by spending for projects at home, People will denounce oil barons, but you'll hear very little put in terms of anti-imperialism or solidarity with various other liberation struggles around the world. 'We were lied to getting us into this', and watchwords. There are a few incumbents who will take positions to the right of Obama on the war, trying to stake out various nuanced and longer 'exit strategy' processes, or who just don't mention the war at all. But at the base, most just want to troops rapidly and safely out, while a few cling to the right's calls for 'victory.' But there's not much in the middle.

The other components of 'change' at the base are, first and foremost, new jobs and new industries. People are especially motivated by practical plans for Green Jobs in alternative energies and major infrastructural repair, health care for everyone, schools and support for students, and debt relief and other protections of their economic security in the face of the Wall Street crash. In fact, the Wall Street crash was the major factor in many older voters rejecting McCain and going for Obama. Regarding health care, many unions and local government bodies are signing on to HR 676, Single-Payer health care, but some will accept many other things, wisely or not, as a step in that direction or an improvement over the current setup.

The Nature of Rising Hegemonic Blocs

Within the Obama historic bloc, there are at least four contending trends regarding 'change' and political economy-two major and two minor. The two major ones come mainly from the top, while the two minor ones come from below.

At the top, the Obama White House will be pulled in two directions. The first is the 'tinkering at the top' approach of traditional corporate liberal capitalism, mostly concerned with securing the major banks by covering their debts and reducing the deficit through 'shared austerity' cutbacks. The emphasis will be on greater
government-imposed efficiencies in entitlement programs, tax reform and adjustments in global trade agreements. Some of their favored programs, like pressing businesses to provide more 401K plans for employees, may be set aside because of the stock market' volatility.

The second direction is Obama's own often-asserted 'High Road' green industrial policy capitalism, which wants to restrict and punish pure speculation in the 'Casino Economy' in favor of targeted government investment in massive infrastructure and research, encouraging the growth of new industries with 'Green Jobs' in alternative energy sectors. Since resources are not infinite, there will be a major tension and competition for funds between two rival sectors--a new green industrial-education policy sector and an old hydrocarbon-military-industrial sector. It's a key task of the left and progressive movements to add their forces to uniting with and building up the former, while opposing and weakening the grip of the
latter. This is the 'High Road' vs. 'Low Road' strategy widely discussed in progressive think tanks and policy circles.

From below, Obama is being presented with a plethora of redistributionist 'New New Deal' plans, including Rep Dennis Kucinich's 16 Points, to Sen. Bernie Sanders 4 Points, to theInstitute for Policy Studies 'Progressive Majority' plan. One outlier 'Buy Out, Not Bail Out' proposal, David Schweickart's Economic Democracy option, goes beyond redistributionism, and proposes deep structural reforms of public ownership in the equity of financial firms in exchange for the bailout, in turn directing capital into community investment banks to build worker-controlled options within the new wealth creation firms of green industries.

From the other side, the unreconstructed rightwing neoliberals will be out of positions of executive power but not without positions of influence. Centered among the House GOP and allied with the rightwing media populists and anti-global nationalists, with Lou Dobbs as a spokesman, they will remain a powerful opposition force. They are likely to try to sabotage Obama, as best as they can without their own mass base, suffering from the crisis, turning against them. This was the role they played in the rightist opposition to the corporate liberal bailout plans stirred up by the far right Human Events journalists.

The key point here is shaping the exact nature of what Obama unfolds as 'change.' What will bring about any progressive reform and protect 'Main Street' and the 'Middle Class' against 'Wall Street' is still open and not fully formed. In fact, it will be a focus of intense struggle both internally at the top and on the part of mass social movements defending and advancing their interests from below. Class struggle will unfold within the bloc, to be sure.

The Bankruptcy of the Ultraleft

This is where the questions facing the left and an account of its tasks become critical. What is our role? Who are our friends and allies? Who are our adversaries, of various sorts? What is our left platform within broader proposals for growing and uniting a progressive majority? What is our strategy, tactics and orientation
for moving forward? All these need to be re-examined in this dynamic and new situation.

We have to start by acknowledging the real crisis across the entire socialist left for some time. While some progress and innovation has been made by some in recent years, no one is surging ahead with major growth and breakthroughs. What this election, its outcome, its battles and ebb and flow, and the engagement of the masses, has especially done is reveal the utter bankruptcy of almost the entire anti-Obama Trotskyist, anarchist and Maoist left, save for a few groupings and some individuals. The crisis was not nearly as deep among the wider left-those hundreds of thousands working among trade union activists, community organizers and our country's intellectual community, but often not identified with a given socialist group or anarchist project. Whatever their problems, most of them understood this election and what to do, even if their efforts were limited. They 'got it right', even if they lacked the organizational means to advance the socialist project.

But among those belonging to organized socialist and anarchist groups with enough resources to put out their views, most got it dead wrong. On the election, only the CCDS (Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, cc-ds.org, ) the Communist Party USA, cpusa.org, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO, freedomroad.org) got it mostly right, mainly because they have some grasp on the importance of racism, elections and mass democracy. But we know these three groups, even if well situated, are rather small and not growing in any major way. Next was DSA which at least saw the importance of defeating McCain and backing Obama, even though they only managed to put out a rather wimpy pro-forma statement without once mentioning race. The other 10-to-15 groups, with the larger majority of organized US socialists, communists and Marxists in them, failed miserably, whatever the subjective feelings and views of their individual members. Besides broadsides against Obama and those backing him, they had nothing new or relevant to say, and some of them didn't bother to say anything, especially among the anarchists. Go to the sixty or more Indymedia sites, and you hardly see anything useful said besides macho bluster and shit-talk against the few pro-voting-for-Obama postings put up.

This is the face of this crisis: While there was an upsurge of millions of Obama volunteers in one of the most critical elections in our history, a true milestone, which was combined with direct engagement from a united Black community and the best elements of labor, from precisely the sectors all of them have been claiming to try to reach for decades, and almost all they could was bark at them: 'You're deluded!' You're Obamaniacs! 'You're wrong!' 'Obama is a capitalist!' 'Don't Drink the Kool-Aid! Obama is the more dangerous warmonger because he's the new 'Uncle Tom' Black face of imperialism!'

If the question of the day was immediate working-class mass action on seizing power from the capitalist class, for reform vs. revolution, socialism or capitalism NOW, they might have had a point. But it's not. Even with the financial crisis, it's not even close. Besides getting troops out of this or that country, they don't even have a package of demands or structural reforms worthy of the name being put forward. Worse of all, they don't think any distinction between revolutionary and non-revolutionary conditions is all that important. What that means, in turn, is that it's almost impossible for them, as groups and as a trend, to correct their course.

It's not a matter of being critical of Obama. Everyone engaged in his movement had criticisms and alternate positions of all sorts. Some made them public, some did not-but all these did so in a way designed to help him win, not to take him down, to add votes to his totals, not to subtract them.

As mentioned, the wider left, the left that defines itself as more than liberal but not necessarily socialist, did relatively well. These are the union-based organizers, community organizers, campus organizers, and the readers of Portside, The Nation, Black Commentator, Huffington Post and DailyKOS. For the most part, they
were fully engaged for Obama in this election. Comparing the online commentary in these media voices and outlets with that of the Indymedia anarchists and the socialist papers of the far left was as revealing as the difference between noon and midnight.

We have to break decisively with this ultra-left, semi-anarchist perspective. While the hard core of this trend is small, it reach is wider than some might think. It's not a matter of purges; it's a matter of emancipating the minds of many on the radical left from old dogma. There's no way forward under these new conditions if we don't. We have to break with it not only in our own ranks, the groups working with 'Progressives for Obama', where it's not that influential, but across all the mass democratic organizations of the wider social movements as well. We have to spotlight it, stand up to it, isolate it and defeat it. It's not that we are demanding a split. The split has already taken place over the past two years, in real life and in actual battles. Many of us, for instance, stood up to the rightwing
media's racist attacks on Obama, his family and his movement; others from this corner of the left added fuel to the fascists' fires and fanned the flames. We are sharply divided. We are as far apart in practice as we can be. What we have to do is acknowledge it, sum up its lessons, and warn others of its dangers, and try to unite all who can be united on a new path forward.

Charting Our Path Forward

So what is our path? Again, we start by getting clarity on where we are. We were in an alliance with Obama and the forces and movements that brought him to power against the NeoCon neoliberals and the far right. If we assess things accurately, we'll see that we are still in this alliance, although its nature is changing. We are part of a new emerging counter-hegemonic bloc in our country, an historic multiclass alliance. The Obama forces at the top are in turn linked to the multipolar, multilateralist sector of global capital. A new bloc on this higher, global level is both trying to consolidate its power against its rivals and maintain a degree of both unity and struggle among the contenting poles and centers of power within it. Our task is to grow the strength of the left, the working class, and broader communities allies within it, to secure strong points, and to win, step by step, the 'long march through the institutions' until we emerge with a new counter-hegemonic bloc of our own, in an entirely different period.

From the beginning, the Obama alliance brought together left-progressive forces, along with moderate center and center-right forces, from the grass roots level through middle-layer institutions to the top. No one or even two of these voting blocs was enough to win alone. It took the entire coalition to win-and driving out any one part of it may have made defeat far more likely and risky. We were part of a left-progressive pole in a broader sub-bloc comprised of social movements, primarily antiwar youth, minority nationality communities and organized labor. While we were the most numerous of the blocs, we were not necessarily the most powerful.

A political pole or sub-bloc's power in electoral campaigns is a combination of three things-first, an organized platform of ideas appropriate to solving the problems of the day that, second, is in turn embodied in organized grassroots voters and, third, those organizations have readily available amounts of organized money. We
can take part in an alliance without some or even all of these things, but we shouldn't then expect much clout.

Let's look at each of these three elements from the perspective of left-progressive activists.

What was our platform? First, we stressed an end to the war in Iraq and a prevention of wider wars, even if Obama talked of going into Afghanistan in a bigger way. Second, we were demanding 'Healthcare Not Warfare,' and in many cases, pressing HR 676 Single-Payer even if Obama opposed it. Third, we stressed Green Jobs and New Schools, and Obama eventually pushed these in a big way. Fourth, we stressed Alternative Energies over dirty coal, offshore oil and unsafe nuke plants, even if Obama waffled. Fifth, we wanted Expanded Democracy and Fair Elections, and Obama pressed voter registration and early voting in a big way.

The Obama volunteers in the official campaign often couldn't put things out exactly like this. Their messaging was more controlled from the center. But nothing stopped either organized labor or independent forces like PDA, MDS or other local groups connected to 'Progressives for Obama' from exercising our 'independence and initiative within the broader front.' We simply did what we thought best, but in a way that still maintained solid unity among local allies.

The Importance of Independent Mass Democracy

How did we organize voters? Many progressives simply worked through the local Obama campaign, registering and identifying voters with the neighbor teams. This was fine, especially if you spent some time in a mutual education process with the young staffers. But some of us were looking for something more independent and lasting. So we joined with groups like PDA, or set up 'voters for peace' groupings based on local coalitions, or worked through union locals. The idea was for the information gained--voter lists, donor lists, volunteers lists, contacts and such-to remain in the hands of the new grassroots formations, to grow them in size and scope, so as to help further struggles down the road.

To be sure, our influence, compared to the incredibly sophisticated, well-funded and innovative Obama campaign, was relatively minor. That didn't matter so much; what was important was that we weren't simply a tail on the Democratic machinery, but that we were building our own independent strength for the future. In nearly every major city, independent blogs or clusters of blogs went up to serve as a public face and organizing hubs of these grassroots forces. Case in point: The local Obama offices are now all closed, but our local groups or coalitions have doubled or tripled in size, we now have news blogs getting thousands of hits, and our efforts are ongoing and more connected with labor and community allies.

How did we raise money? To be frank, we didn't raise that much independently. This is a fault, not a virtue. Some groups in the African-American community went into the T-shirt and button business, making a range of campaign items, selling them to raise stipends, gas money and donations to Obama, then turning some over to make more T-shirts and buttons, and so on. In some places, we relied a good deal on the resources supplied at local union halls-meeting space, phones, and printed materials. 'Progressives for Obama' kept itself alive from a few initial startup donations from individuals, then from its two blogs and listservs on the Internet via PayPal in small amounts.

But to return to our platform of issues and demands, the key underlying principle was segmenting the business community into productive versus speculative capital, rather than asserting an all-round anti-capitalist or anti-corporate perspective. We want to see mills reopened with new companies we can support that would make wind turbines via Green Jobs, while we oppose the Casino gamblers on Wall Street or insurance company parasites blocking universal health care. People can and will denounce every sort of corporate crime or outrage to make a point. But when it came to the platform of reforms for uses of our taxes dollars, we were much more focused on what kind of businesses we wanted to see grow, and how we wanted them to relate to their workers and surrounding communities. This approach did very well in getting many rank-and-file workers to take us seriously, especially in areas where many people suffer more from the lack of business than its presence.

The main point is that we now have mass democratic organization anchored in many communities, workplaces and schools, and that they have a basis to expand. PDA is a good example. Starting with only a few dozen people in 2004 with an 'inside-outside' independent view of dealing and working with Democrats, they have grown to some 150,000 people scattered across the country in every major city, with most of that growth taking place in the context of the last campaign to defeat the GOP and McCain. At the Democratic convention, together with The Nation magazine, PDA delivered a week-long series of panels and workshops that drew thousands of activists and hundreds of delegates, establishing itself as the 'Progressive Central' mobilizing and organizing pole for the week in Denver. Many PDA local chapters mobilized members that became the backbone of the Obama campaign offices, as well as boosting local labor mobilizations. The PDA chapters built their credibility by advocating Healthcare Not Warfare and backing local progressive candidates down the ticket. They helped unite progressives within the various trends of the Obama campaign with local unity events.

On a smaller scale, Movement for a Democratic Society groups did well, too. Austin, Texas is a great example, where they combined with The Rag Blog, which is now getting over 25,000 hits a month. On campuses, where the New SDS was able to make a break with anarchism and relate to the Obama youth, they also report successes and growth.

The Critical Priority of Organization
and the Relative Importance of Socialist Tasks

What the heart of this says is that for left-to-progressive activists, organization-building trumps movement-building in this period. The movements are very wide and diverse, and in front of our noses. But the current wave has just peaked, and will now ebb a bit. In situations like this, it's more important than ever to consolidate the gains of mass struggle, including electoral struggle, into lasting organizations, either expanding earlier ones or building new ones. The same goes for coalition-building of local clusters of organizations, then networking them across the country, horizontally and vertically, via the internet. We need organizers now, more so than activists and agitators.

What about the 'socialism' part of the socialist left? Up to this point, I've mainly addressed the mass democratic tasks we share in common with the non-socialist left and progressive activists generally. Fortunately or unfortunately the Wall Street financial crisis combined with the right wing's red baiting of Obama as a 'Marxist' and 'socialist' has given the 'S' word far wider circulation and interest than it's had in decades. Unfortunately, in the mass media, it's mainly discussed in a one-dimensional, cartoonish way as 'socialism for the rich' or 'sharing the wealth.'

No matter. This expanded media buzz serves to underscore the main aspect of our socialist tasks in today's conditions. Our work here is mainly that of education, theoretical work, and the development of program and policy options. We need our own think tanks and networks of study groups developing our policies and platforms for deep structural reforms that serve as transitional levers to a new socialism. Before we can fight for it, we better have a fairly clear idea of what it is in this country in today's world-both among ourselves and the wider circles of the best left and progressive organizers with whom we want to share this learning process and
socialist project.

It is a good time, however, to expand this work in a serious way. One small example: in the context of the initial wave of reaction to the Wall Street crash, and the first round of progressive proposals to deal with it, 'Progressives for Obama' asked David Schweickart, one of our country's foremost proponents of socialist theory, to write up his take on it. He wrote not only his account of why the crisis happened, but also briefly contrasted today's capitalism and its downturn and crash with the socialist alternative. His own 'successor system theory' of Economic Democracy, however, is designed to be a bridge to socialist options. If we, the public, are to buy up the bad debt of failed banks and firms, why not demand equity in the stock and public seats on the board, or buy them out entirely. Instead of simply paying off debt and providing the wherewithal for big bonuses and Golden Parachutes, why not do more than simply restrict or forbid this? Why not use these now-public resources to launch local community-owned investment banks to partner with labor and local government and entrepreneurs to build the new worker-owned factories of green industries and alternative energies?

These are excellent take-off points. Schweickart's article was widely circulated as an authoritative piece, commented on across the political spectrum. In several cities, leftists in and around the Obama campaign even set up study groups to go over it. This shouldn't be exaggerated, but it does show the possibilities and frames our socialist tasks more accurately.

Both Immediate and Transitional Programs

But the more pressing task for us as part of the left is sharply and concretely outlining our immediate and transitional programs and their platforms. The immediate program of demands, like Kucinich's 16 Points, are basically redistributionist programs aimed at taking wealth from above and spreading it around below. Given the vast inequalities of our society, that is both pressing and desirable. As a
stimulus, it also spurs the generation of new wealth. The transitional program of deep structural reform, like Schweickart's Economic Democracy, takes public resources to generate new wealth, but in a way that alters power relations in favor of the working class and broader public.

Some of the best proposals and projects on the table combine both of these. The Apollo Alliance, where steelworkers and environmentalists come together, put forward a range of recession-busting programs. Van Jones' Green Jobs programs for inner city youth do the same, as does HR 676 Single-Payer health care. The Blue-Green Alliance is still another.

Our task is to put flesh on these in a way that melds with our local conditions. We start by uniting antiwar Obama youth, community and labor locally, then build outwards and upwards from there. We start with an understanding of the critical role of a united African-American community, the most consistent defenders and fighters
for a progressive agenda in the country, especially when it works in alliance with Latinos and other minority nationalities. We also grasp the significance of women and labor, and the overall intersection of race, gender and class in defining our policies, seeking out allies, and setting priorities. We design a package of critical local reforms, whether in rebuilding Ohio River locks and dams, constructing high-speed rail in California, or delivering single-payer healthcare
everywhere. Then we make the fights for these a centerpiece to unite the entire area, win over all the public officials that we can, and then, in turn, take it to an Obama administration, demanding an end to the war and war making, in order to fund it and make it happen. It's really the only way out of this mess.

Our great victory in this election, finally, is that efforts and programs like this won't fall on deaf ears. The challenge to Obama is that to get it done, he has to end the war, avoid wider wars and cut the military budget in a major way. If he does, he can be a great president. If he doesn't, he'll have hell to pay.

Summary

Here are the key points, once again:

1.) We have won a major victory, now consolidate its gains.

2.) Start where you are, and build mass democratic grassroots groups bringing together the best local activists from the Obama campaign and others like it.

3.) Build a coalition with local partners in labor, campus and community groups that did the same.

4.) Start local left-progressive blogs to have a public face, and link it to others.

5.) Develop a program of deep structural reform and immediate needs for your area, and take it upward and outward through the elected officials and government bodies, all the way to the top.

6.) Break decisively with the ultraleft mindset, in order to deepen and broaden left-progressive unity.

7.) Prepare the ground for mass mobilization to end the war this spring, and to prevent wider war. Link this battle to the economy. Green Jobs over War Jobs, New Schools, Not More Prisons, HealthCare Not Warfare, Peace and Prosperity, Not War, Greed and Crisis. You get the idea.

8.) Study socialism seriously, the version for today, and bring it to bear in developing policy and uniting the most advanced fighters for the whole, not just the part, and for the future, not just the present.

[If you liked this article, go to Progressives for Obama, and offer some support by using the PayPal button. Other writings by Carl Davidson are available at Carl's website and contact him for speaking engagements at carld717@gmail.com.]

Also see Thorne Dreyer : Our Progressive Opportunity / The Rag Blog / Nov. 20.

This post includes links to additional feature articles recently published on The Rag Blog that deal with this subject matter, by such writers as Paul Buhle, David Hamilton, Tim Wise, Ron Ridenour, Bill Ayers and Robert Jensen.

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