Michael James : Kids at Chicago's New True Vine Church, 1961

Kids at the New True Vine MB Church, Chicago, 1961. Photo by Michael James from his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James' Pictures from the Long Haul.

Pictures from the Long Haul:
Kids at the New True Vine Church  
in 1961 Chicago

I take their pictures, and I realize now that things are beginning to come together: people of different colors, poverty, photography, Chicago, and change. I am in the early stages of my own new true vine.

By Michael James / The Rag Blog / July 2, 2013

[In this series, Michael James is sharing images from his rich past, accompanied by reflections about -- and inspired by -- those images. This photo will be included in his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James' Pictures from the Long Haul.]

Early September 1960 and I'm out on the highway again, heading across Pennsylvania-Ohio-Indiana and into Chicago, then the "hog butcher to the World." This time I'm in a yellow and black 1957 Desoto convertible with my folks, Hal and Florence James.

Day breaks and we pull up to the Executive House on Wacker Drive. At noon we wind our way up Sheridan Road and I begin going through the final steps to be a college student; I'm a brand new freshman at the small Presbyterian-affiliated Lake Forest College just outside Chicago.

Incoming Foresters are given a red and black beanie with class of 1964 stitching. I was already partial to red and black, they being the colors of my earlier teen years passion, the Downshifters Hot Rod Club. Later I'll learn red and black are anarchist colors, a political stripe I have affinity with, though I end up being closer to democratic centralism in my street fighting and community organizing days.

Later I will reluctantly return to my early Democratic Party political roots; thanks Mom and Dad, and Go, Adlai Stevenson. These days I see involvement in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party as analogous to Mao working with Chiang Kai-shek to hold back the Japanese. There's a lot (!!!) to be desired about the Democratic Party, but stopping right wing Republicans and the rise of fascism is high priority.

I'm not about to wear a beanie, even when Dad says he doesn't think things have changed since his days at the University of Chicago. And I'm certainly not going to wear it after a guy from the Kappa Sig fraternity tells me to put it on. I'm all about school spirit but was voted "coolest" in my Staples senior class and I'm not about to compromise on this headwear.

After a goodbye to the folks it's on to meeting people and checking out the new scene. I have my first Commons aka cafeteria experience. On Monday I'm a walk-on and become a member of the Foresters football team. I'll develop good relations with the cafeteria workers. I have fond memories of running wind sprints in crisp fall weather at dusk, then words from the coaches, loving the hot shower, and loving even more extra plates of food in the Commons.

The football games and their bus rides take me to new places, playing schools previously unknown to me. We're talking Augustana, Carthage, Millikan, North Central, Illinois Wesleyan, Monmouth, Elmhurst, and Hamline. I will break four bones in my right hand when hitting a tree, on an angry spree, after returning from a game in Rock Island by bus and my girlfriend Lucia hadn't signed out for an overnight (with me).

In the fall of 1963 the University of Chicago is bringing back football, and we play their club team. My dad  played a year there under the legendary coach Alonzo Stagg. Wasylik, Hanke, and Triptow are my coaches. This game would be my last, following a halftime challenging-authority altercation with coach Nick Wasylik, who actually was a fine guy.

The world continues to open up for me. I discover sociology (or sociology discovers me); I thought that was how one became a social worker. A professor encourages me to think about the big picture and the social-economic-political forces and conditions that shape peoples' lives. I'll head off to University of California Berkeley on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in 1964 and on a return visit to LFC my professor-sociologist-hero Dr. Don Roos and I argue over the Vietnam War. I was so disappointed!

History professor Carl Perrini, who studied with UW Madison's William Appleman Williams (a founder of Studies on the Left), shows me the Autobiography of Big Bill Haywood; I read my first book about radicals, learning about the Western Federation of Miners and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

From Haywood I pick up a tip. When Rockefeller's Pinkertons and the FBI were after Big Bill it was the local cops who tipped him off. I've been friendly with local cops even during wild rebellious times. One was the late Maurie Daley of Chicago's infamous Red Squad. He harassed, spied-on and chased many a radical, but was certainly a more likeable Red Squad pig than the Eastern European dudes.

Maurie's kid also played football at LFC, a fact I learn while talking to Daley when I spot him sitting in a van on a drug stakeout. Earlier he had made contact after being transferred to the 24th District, leaving a message for me at the Heartland Café saying he was "Che Guevara's nephew!"

I develop admiration for many teachers at LFC. Gerry Gerasimo turns me on to issues of social class, status, and conflict; George Tomashevich introduces me to Africa's depth, the Ashanti, and African independence movements. Sculptor Helmut Van Flein transfers my hot rod welding skills into making sculpture.

Sam Pasiencier, mathematician turned spiritual guy, helps me develop my Mexico 1962 photos after I drive my Triumph motorcycle to Mexico. And Alan Bates tells me I need to rewrite, that my words aren't golden the first time out. He also turns me on to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and his way-cool Coney Island of the Mind.

Dr. Smucker is the College Chaplin and teaches a Christian Ethics class. He initiates my interest in Christian communal sects like the Amana Colonies and New Harmony, Indiana. A Mennonite and a wonderful guy, he returns a paper I had written on Gandhi that ended with an upbeat paragraph about truth and goodness triumphing in the end.

Donovan Smucker says: "not necessarily," and gives examples of unfortunate endings to human struggles. He calls me a "meliorist" and I confess that to this day I still believe conditions for people can and should improve. It's up to us to make it happen.

The class takes a field trip. We visit various housing sights in Chicago. We look at Lake Meadows and its' three large "integrated" buildings; the lower income building is 70% black, while the highest-rent abode building is 70% white. The midrange-rent building is 50% white and 50% black. And we visit the Cabrini Green Projects.

Now I had been in situations where I was one of a handful of whites among blacks -- on visits to the Apollo Theater in Harlem, going to see Mahalia Jackson, the Swan Silvertones, and the Dixie Hummingbirds et al at Madison Square Garden, Ray Charles at the Pan Pacific Auditorium in San Jose, and a high school graduation party in Norwalk, Connecticut.

However, being a white guy with a busload of white students, I find myself wandering behind the class. That's when I run into the kids outside the New True Vine MB Church. I take their pictures, and I realize now that things are beginning to come together: people of different colors, poverty, photography, Chicago, and change. I am in the early stages of my own new true vine.

[Michael James is a former SDS national officer, the founder of Rising Up Angry, co-founder of Chicago's Heartland Café (1976 and still going), and co-host of the Saturday morning (9-10 a.m. CDT) Live from the Heartland radio show, here and on YouTube. He is reachable by one and all at michael@heartlandcafe.com. Find more articles by Michael James on The Rag Blog.]

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Marilyn Katz : Guns? Don't Wait for Congress

Image from WorldMeets.US.
Or Godot:
Guns? Don’t wait for Congress

With gun enthusiasts stockpiling weapons in light of impending federal regulations, what is a concerned citizen to do?

By Marilyn Katz / The Rag Blog / January 21, 2013

With 300 million guns out there, the reality is that neither the laws passed by governments nor the most elaborate fantasies of the survivalists -- with police knocking down every door to unearth hidden arms stashes -- will eliminate guns or gun violence.

Three hundred million. That’s the number of guns, from assault rifles to pistols, in the United States today, with the numbers rising each day as gun enthusiasts arm themselves against the local, state, or federal actions being pushed for by gun control advocates. That’s one gun for practically each and every American alive today -- even though only a third of us own them.

President Obama has put forward a series of proposals aimed at curbing gun violence in the U.S., and urged Congress to reinstitute a ban on military-style assault weapons and to require universal background checks for gun purchasers. But with 300 million guns out there, the reality is that neither the laws passed by governments nor the most elaborate fantasies of the survivalists -- with police knocking down every door to unearth hidden arms stashes -- will eliminate guns or gun violence.

So, what to do, besides hope or despair? Despite the odds, quite a bit -- with or without congressional or state action:

• Face the facts. While 9,000 people were killed in gun-related homicides in 2011, another 19,000 used a gun to take their own lives -- in many cases the spouse, parent, or child of a gun owner. Men in homes with guns are twice as likely to be killed in a homicide, women three times more likely. Get rid of your guns -- you’re more likely to be a victim if you don’t.


• Address the reality on the streets. Inner-city violence, especially among youth, is undeniable and tragic. Guns are the leading cause of death for black men under 25, and “leadership decapitation,” or police targeting gang leaders, may have unintentionally escalated rather than decreased violence. Pastors, parents, and police might instead resurrect the old strategy of forging a no-gun policy accord among gangs. The gangs might not go away, but the up-close and personal knife fights of West Side Story are preferable to the drive-by shootings of today.


• Make it personal. In irresistible films and shows from Batman to Reservoir Dogs, Dexter, and The Sopranos, in the computer games we play where an enemy’s death improves one’s score, and even in the nightly news, the message that violence can solve problems permeates our culture and is far more pervasive and consistent than our chosen intentional moral teachings. Whether or not you are raising children, you might consider banishing these “entertainments” from your home and your life. Organize a sports league, take up dancing, read a book -- you’ll be more literate and fit.


• Reexamine what society considers “normal.” Those turning 12 this year have grown up with constant war, exposed to daily death counts from faraway places and casual discussions comparing drone killings to assassinations to outright hand-to-hand combat. Anyone under the age of 80 has experienced only one decade in which our nation was not at war. And our country’s military budget is not only the biggest in the world -- it’s greater than the sum of the next 13 biggest military budgets combined. If we want to phase out homicide as a means of resolving conflict, we might insist our nation lead by example.


• Reconsider the “other.” Ironically, even as our nation becomes more diverse, we are ever more economically segregated, with our images of the “other” too often drawn from films, TV and the news rather than from life. Our image of cities and the lives of their residents are informed by The Wire or Treme, our images of Muslims by Homeland or Glenn Beck. This is not without effect. From the slaughter of churchgoers in Wisconsin to the New York subway platform deaths of innocent citizens, to the "arming of America" in light of the Obama election and reelection, demonization of the “other” has a real cost. While we may not be in favor of censoring media, other measures such as restoring civility to political debate and seeking out more diverse life experiences would seem useful correctives.


• Follow the money. Guns are not simply lethal; they’re lucrative. According to The Wall Street Journal, manufacturers like Freedom Group, which makes the Bushmaster and Remington, saw their profits soar last year, with Freedom Group earning $237.9 million in the third quarter alone. Another big winner was Wal-Mart, which in 2011 began selling guns at more locations, as part of its attempt to recover from a severe slump. Now, with guns available in 1,800 of its 3,800 stores, Wal-Mart is the nation’s leading seller of firearms and ammunition, and gun sales were up 76 percent last year. With 90 percent of Americans living within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart, I’d make a suggestion: Consider doing your grocery shopping at a retailer where you can’t pick up semi-automatic weapons along with your cereal.

History is pretty clear: If we want change, we have to make it. From women’s suffrage to civil rights, from the establishment of the eight-hour day to pesticide control, our legislators have always responded to citizen action. As always, the future is in our hands.

This article was cross-posted to In These Times.

 [An anti-war and civil rights organizer during the Vietnam War, Marilyn Katz helped organize security during the August 1968 protests at the Democratic National Convention. Katz has founded and led groups like the Chicago Women’s Union, Reproductive Rights National Network, and Chicago Women Organized for Reproductive Choice in the 1960s and 1970s, and Chicagoans Against War in Iraq in 2002. The founder and president of Chicago-based MK Communications, Katz can be contacted at mkatz@mkcpr.com. Read more articles by Marilyn Katz on The Rag Blog.

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Bill Fletcher, Jr. : 'Flip the Script': Jobs over Deficits

Image from The Fiscal Times.
The Republican lock on Congress
means a strategy for the cities

If we are to fight it out on the economy, this will not happen in the Republican Congressional Districts. It is a fight that we will have to take up in cities around the country. It means social protests which are disruptive.

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. / The Rag Blog / January 9, 2013

There is a strategic question that faces progressives, one that is receiving increased attention. Due to the 2010 elections and the Republican domination of state legislatures, Congressional Districts have been gerrymandered in order to guarantee a lack of any significant electoral challenges. In other words, these Districts have Republican Congresspeople who are not worried about opposition.

As we saw in the lead up to the "fiscal cliff" negotiations/resolution, most Republicans felt no internal pressure to compromise. It is quite likely that they will feel little pressure in their districts for at least 10 years. As a result the sort of pressure that they must feel must transcend their districts and actually be more at the societal level.

What this means is that while progressives absolutely need an independent electoral strategy that builds locally-based organizations capable of successfully running candidates for office -- both inside and outside of the Democratic primary system -- that is insufficient.

In fact, it is the Occupy Movement that pointed us in the direction of the other leg of such a movement. What the Occupy Movement accomplished, among other things, was to change the social discourse. Despite every effort by the mainstream media to dismiss the Occupy Movement, it not only grew but forced the country to start to address the question of economic inequality.

In the current context the implications should be clear. If, for instance, we are to fight it out on the economy and specifically on unemployment, this will not happen on the basis of fights in the Republican Congressional Districts. It will be a fight that we will have to take up in cities, including but not limited to state capitols, around the country. It means social protests which are disruptive.

In order for this to happen we must actually re-train many social movement activists and thinkers in the lessons of the 1930s labor movement, the 1950s-1960s freedom movements (including but not limited to the Civil Rights Movement), the movement against the Vietnam War, and the work of the early environmental movement.

Occupy, in that sense, was onto something. We must carry out a fight for space as part of the fight for power. Land occupations, eviction blockades, boycotts, as well as mass demonstrations, are all critical. [Note: in fact, we need, right now, a series of REALLY mass marches for jobs.] In other words, the sort of pressure that needs to be brought about must be something that Republicans AND Democrats feel, and in fact, becomes a serious source of concern.

Before we find ourselves wallowing in self-pity as we worry about the Republican "lock," let’s rethink our strategy and tactics. We may be able to flip the script, and sooner rather than in the distant future.

This article was originally published at billfletcherjr.com and was distributed by Progressive America Rising.

[Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a racial justice, labor, and international writer and activist. He is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum, an editorial board member of BlackCommentator.com, the co-author of Solidarity Divided, and the author of They’re Bankrupting Us: And Twenty other Myths about Unions. He can be reached at billfletcherjr@gmail.com. Read more articles by and about Bill Fletcher on The Rag Blog.]

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Harry Targ : In Times Like These

"In Times Like These" performed by Arlo Guthrie.
In times like these:
Give peace a chance

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / December 19, 2012

In times like these when night surrounds me
And I am weary and my heart is worn
When the songs they’re singing don’t mean nothing
Just cheap refrains play on and on...

When leaders profit from deep divisions
When the tears of friends remain unsung
In times like these it’s good to remember
These times will go in times to come
I see the storm clouds rise above me
The sky is dark and the night has come
I walk alone along this highway
Where friends have gathered one by one

I know the storm will soon be over
The howling winds will cease to be
I walk with friends from every nation
On freedom’s highway in times like these.

-- Arlo Guthrie, “In Times Like These.”

All year we have been celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Woody Guthrie. “This Land is Your Land” has become the new national anthem, particularly for the 98 per cent of the population, mostly the American working class.

Singers now sing the forbidden verses challenging the rights of private property and choruses of cheering people, young and old, black and white, straight and gay, join in. It is a song of struggle, pride, and recognition that this world belongs to everybody.

Although the song has inspired us all as we sing it, sometimes we forget that the trajectory toward progressive change is not smooth. Guthrie’s friend and voice of our times, Pete Seeger, reminds us that “it is darkest before the dawn.”

Perhaps the anthem of these times, after hundreds of domestic instances of violence from Columbine to Newtown, from Trayvon Martin to Jordan Davis, to the streets of Chicago, is most poignantly articulated by Arlo Guthrie. And it is an anthem that peace activists should sing as we struggle against bombings, drones, economic blockades, covert interventions, assassination lists, killer teams, wars on drugs, huge appropriations of human resources to kill, violent video games, war toys, endless television shows and films that portray and normalize killings, as well as the tragedies such as at Newtown.

Major targets of violence and murder are educational institutions and particularly students. It is ironic that it is in these institutions that some of the most creative debates ensue around direct, or physical, violence and structural, or economic, sexual, and racial, violence.

After World War II, scholar/activists concerned about atomic war, arms races, and war on poor countries introduced Peace Studies into university and public school curricula. Educators and activists had studied and advocated for peace for hundreds of years, but in the environment of the Cold War distinguished academics demanded that the tools of modern research and education be applied to war, the social cancer of our time.

Peace Studies programs since the 1950s have taken many forms. Some concentrate on the “war problem” and engage it through studies of philosophy, social theory, and theology. Others, using modern statistical techniques, gather data on war and other forms of violence and test hypotheses about causes.

And finally, others, the “radical peace educators,” argue that research and teaching should use all available techniques to study violence. In addition, we should include in our study of violence, the violence of exploitation, discrimination, the prerogatives of institutionalized power, and the manipulating of minds as well as bodies.

These latter peace research/educators also argue that a connection needs to be made between theory and practice, reflection and action, studying causes and working to eliminate them.

Today there are some 250 peace studies programs. Some emphasize one or another or all of the three approaches. Despite efforts of rightwing political forces to eliminate Peace Studies programs, they persist. They persist because university alums, professors, teachers, and students remain committed to addressing the problems of violence in the 21st century.

So researchers continue to learn more about the problem of violence, teachers (kindergarten through college) try their best to develop curricula that celebrate the preciousness of all human beings, and activists continue to struggle to eliminate institutions and cultures of violence.

In sum, in the midst of our deep sorrow, we remember Arlo Guthrie’s words. “In times like these,” despite the emotional energy and time spent achieving some electoral, labor and Occupy victories, we get weary and our “heart is worn.” While we see the “storm clouds rise above,” we should remember that “the storm will soon be over.” Why? Because “I walk with friends from every nation, on freedom’s highway in times like these.”

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical -- and that's also the name of his book from Changemaker Press which can be found at Lulu.com. Read more of Harry Targ's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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ELECTION 2012 / Harry Targ : 'Vote Today, Organize Tomorrow'

Graphic by Favianna Rodriguez / favianna.com.
Assessing the election:
'Vote today, organize tomorrow'

In the months ahead, progressive forces need to reexamine the history of social change in America, conceptualizing movement possibilities everywhere...

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / November 12, 2012

The commentaries on the 2012 presidential election are rolling in. Over the next several days and weeks progressives will be discussing the meaning of the 2012 elections for “Where do we go from here?” The desperate need is for us to resume rebuilding America and planting the seeds for a vision of  “21st century Socialism.”

So for now here is a list of some of the issues progressives and radicals should begin to discuss all across the nation.

First, MSNBC commentator Chuck Todd emphasized from the outset of election night commentary that the demographic changes in American society are and will continue to transform politics and the prospects for change.

By 2050, a National Journal report predicted “minorities” -- that is Black and Brown people -- will constitute a majority of the population of the country. In the presidential election just completed 24 percent of the voters were African Americans and Latinos. Also youth as a proportion of these populations is growing.

Finally, women are a segment of the voting age population that is growing and motivated in part by a rejection of political ideologies and theologies that prohibit their control of their own bodies.

Second, in addition to race and gender, the 2012 election results point out emphatically that class matters. There is no question that the labor movement, including public employees, and grassroots workers’ organizations revitalized after 2010 in the industrial heartland, was instrumental in facilitating a Democratic “ground game” in states like Ohio, Wisconsin, and even Indiana.

Working people are fired up, angry, and possibly ready to become a “class for itself.” And, in those states where labor made a difference, activists readily articulated connections between workers’ interests and interests of women and people of color.

Third, big money gives enormous advantage to the one percent as they select and promote candidates and issues. Big money also facilitates voter suppression and it pressures the mass media to give unwarranted attention to their claims about the society.

All the mainstream media, including the more liberal MSNBC, exaggerated the Romney debate bounce, claims about changing momentum, the closeness of the elections, claims derived from multiple and endless polls, and a hyped cognitive airspace about an alleged appeal that Romney/Ryan had.

While much of the election hype was driven by the competition for viewers, there is no doubt that the Koch brothers, the Bradley Foundation, and the millionaire super PACS were able to project their vision well beyond the proportion of those in the society who endorse it.

Even though the power of money should not be dismissed, this election shows, once again, the power of the people. The unsung heroes and heroines were the millions of people who stood for hours to vote in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, California, New York, New Jersey, and all around the country, despite the best efforts of state governments and Tea Party groups to discourage voting.

It would be a great mistake in the future to demean voting, even voting for one of the two major parties. It remains the symbolic hallmark of real democracy. As articulate spokespersons, such as Nina Turner, Ohio State Senator, and Georgia Congressman John Lewis eloquently expressed it, people put their bodies and lives on the line to secure the right to vote. That must never be ignored.

What progressives need to work for is a society where that vote can be clearly cast for those who support the people’s interests.

Fourth, building a movement all around the country matters. In 2008, the Democratic Party crafted a 50-state strategy. Resources were channeled into campaigns in states and communities that heretofore had only small progressive movements.

But in 2008 that changed and in unlikely places such as Tippecanoe County in North Central Indiana, an overwhelmingly red county, Barack Obama carried the area and Indiana went blue. The same experience occurred elsewhere in states like North Carolina.

After 2008, such communities were written off because they were not communities in “swing states.”

Subsequent to 2008, activists in the industrial heartland, some of the western states, and the South were seen as beyond mobilization again. In some places, such as Central Indiana, Eastern North Carolina, and even Ohio and Wisconsin, those who had mobilized in 2008 remained so despite being written off by the Democratic National Committee (and many progressive groups).

The 50-state strategy had the potential for developing into a nationwide social movement. After 2008, the Democratic Party moved away from this approach and some of the Left returned to focusing on progressive politics on the coasts.

In the months ahead, progressive forces need to reexamine the history of social change in America, conceptualizing movement possibilities everywhere, while recognizing the particularities of history, culture, politics, and organizational potentials in different geographic locales.

Finally, progressives need to examine political outcomes in states and communities. Preliminary data indicate that while progressive constituencies rose up angry against reactionary candidates in various state and local races as well as national campaigns, the most right-wing sectors of the one percent control state governments in almost half of the 50 states (where Republicans control both legislative assemblies).

And it is these state governments since 2010 that have imposed right-to-work legislation, attacked collective bargaining for public employees, defunded Planned Parenthood, built private schools and voucher programs that will destroy public schools as we have known them, resolved to impose anti-science subject matter in school curricula, and have systematically ignored environmental hazards. The national government moved “blue” in 2012 while it remains blood “red” in many states.

Progressives need to address many, many more issues in the coming months: the “fiscal cliff,” military spending, drone warfare, climate change, and expanding the health care system for example. The key point is to begin to change now. As one wonderful graphic urged on Facebook election day, “Vote Today, Organize Tomorrow.”

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical -- and that's also the name of his book from Changemaker Press which can be found at Lulu.com. Read more of Harry Targ's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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ELECTION 2012 / Jonah Raskin : A View from California

"California Dreaming." Art by Tom Horner / Dribble. Inset image below from San Francisco Sentinal.
A view from California:
Which way the wind blows

Obama’s reelection is only the beginning. The hard work of transforming the nation lies ahead

By Jonah Raskin / The Rag Blog / November 8, 2012

SANTA ROSA, California -- Watching national politics from the coast of California, where I live, and where nearly everyone votes for Democrats, feels weird. It felt especially weird on the evening of Election Day as I waited and watched to hear whether Obama would be reelected or Romney would waltz into the White House along with Paul Ryan and Karl Rove.

Whomever Californians chose for president didn’t seem to matter at all. It was all decided before the vote was counted in my own state, and almost all of the attention was focused on what the media calls “swing states.”

As it turned out, Obama won the swing states, including Ohio. He lost the South big, lost the heartland -- from North Dakota to Texas -- and lost the white male vote over the age of 50. But he won the rest: the urban vote, the black vote, the Latino vote, and the vote of the 47% that Romney abused in a campaign speech that came back to bite him big time.

It seems clear that the future of American politics belongs to the Democratic Party, which is now clearly the party of youth, Latinos, women, and the working class. (Hey and a few liberal millionaires, too.)

It’s also the party of students with loans, families who love Obamacare, same sex couples, both married and unmarried, and marijuana smokers who voted to legalize weed in Colorado and Washington.

If the Obama victory signals anything it signals the continuing wave of the cultural revolution that began in the 1960s, spread in the 1970s, took a beating under Reagan in the 1980s, and again with Bush I and Bush II, and that came back strong in 2008.

Obama’s reelection in 2012 is a victory for grassroots democracy of the kind that appeared in the streets and in the parks of Chicago in 1968 during the Democratic National Convention and that literally took a beating from Mayor Daley’s police. That old Democratic Party is gone.

The Occupy Wall Street Movement played a crucial role in the reelection of Obama because it made Americans aware of social, economic, and political inequalities and injustices. It helped us to see that Romney belonged to the party of the 1%, the party that would like to cut social security, go back to the greed feed of the Bush years, and let citizens fend for themselves without government help in the wake of unemployment, storms such as Sandy, and human-made disasters, too.

Watching it all unfold from California felt pretty good on Election Day. We may not tip the scales, or count in the political balance of things, but we know how to vote, whom to vote for, and we don’t swing back and forth. We want Obamacare; we want legal weed; we want same sex marriages to be lawful; we want the government to help the poor, the needy, the homeless and the hungry, just as Roosevelt’s government helped Americans in the Depression of the 1930s.

In fact, Californians voted for Governor Jerry Brown’s measure to increase the state sales tax and to levy higher taxes on people making over $250,000 a year. The funds are earmarked for education where they’re definitely needed.

I don’t know if California is the dog that wags the tail of the nation, or the rest of the country is the dog and California the tail it wags. Do we start trends or do we finish them? It’s not clear, though I hope that the rest of the country begins to like and to accept the idea of taxing the rich and the super-rich. It’s about time.

Obama’s reelection is only the beginning. The hard work of transforming the nation lies ahead. We’ve got to stop war, stop Wall Street greed, stop corporations from funding politicians, stop old conservative white men from bullying and beating up their own sons and daughters, nephews and nieces.

Hey, there’s as much of a generation gap now as there was in 1968, though today it’s clearer which way the winds are blowing, and clearer, too, that history is on the side of youth and change, not on the side of the Mitt Romney’s and the Karl Rove’s of the world.

[Jonah Raskin is the author of American Scream, The Radical Jack London and Rock ‘n’ Roll Women and a frequent contributor to The Rag Blog. Read more articles by Jonah Raskin on The Rag Blog.]

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RAG BLOG DEBATE / David P. Hamilton and Jay D. Jurie : Electoral Politics and the Left

"Citizens United Carpet Bombing Democracy." Cartoon by DonkeyHotey / Flickr Commons.
A Rag Blog debate:
Electoral politics and the left

David Hamilton argues that the U.S. federal elections in 2012 don't merit being the focus of our attention, while Jay Jurie contends that they still offer worthwhile opportunities for progressives and that the electoral arena should not be abandoned to the Right.

By David P. Hamilton and Jay D. Jurie / The Rag Blog / July 10, 2012

The following exchange between David Hamilton and Jay Jurie began on The Rag Blog's email discussion group, a lively forum in which Rag Blog contributors and followers debate issues of the day with, shall we say, great vigor!

Being a presidential election year, the left in the U.S. is locked into its recurring debate on how to relate to the federal elections. There are always those who decide that the Democratic Party candidate is good enough or the Republican candidate is bad enough that it is essential to support the former -- with one's vote, if not with one's enthusiasm.

Then there are always those who declare that the Democratic Party candidate is essentially subservient to the same corporate interests as the Republican and that we shouldn't be associated with either. When this position involves a third party candidate such as Ralph Nader, the discussion can become bitter.

Here David Hamilton argues that the U.S. federal elections in 2012 don't merit being the focus of our attention, while Jay Jurie contends that they still offer worthwhile opportunities for progressives and that the electoral arena should not be abandoned to the Right.

David P. Hamilton:
The corruption of U.S. electoral politics.

U.S. federal elections are corrupted by capitalist class money to the point that further participation by the Left primarily lends credence to a charade hiding the continuing evisceration of American democracy.

• In 93% of races for the House of Representatives and 94% of races for the Senate, the candidate with the most money wins. In 98% of the races where the incumbent has the most money, the incumbent wins. The obvious strategy for a candidate is to have the most money; to have your own and/or cater to moneyed interests. For the moneyed interests, the obvious strategy is the way Reagan defeated the Soviet Union in the arms race, by making continued participation financially crippling if not impossible.


• Presidential election spending is increasing geometrically.
  Total spending on U.S. presidential elections:
  1992 - $ 192.2 million.
  1996 - $ 239.9 million, up 25%.
  2000 - $ 343.1 million, up 43%.
  2004 - $ 717.9 million, up 109%
  2008 - $ 1,324.7 million, up 85%
  2012 - Estimates of total expenditures by all candidates in federal elections go over $5 billion. A conservative estimate is for a 100% increase in expenditures of all candidates in the presidential race over 2008, reaching a total of roughly 13 times more than 20 years ago. It is logical to expect this process of expenditure growth to accelerate markedly in the wake of the “Citizens United” decision.


• In 2008, small contributions ($200 or less) provided 9% of the funding for House Democrats and 14% for House Republicans. Those percentages are historically declining. The rest comes from the 1% in the form of large contributions, PAC money and self-financing.


• Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin won his recall election 53 to 47 while spending a record amount of money (over $50 million), outspending his opponent over 7 to 1 and receiving over two-thirds of his money from big out-of-state capitalist donors, specifically the Koch brothers.

In a capitalist hegemony such as in the U.S., all things of social value become commodified, especially political power. The strategy of the capitalist class, that richest less than 1% who own and control the major corporations, is to own the federal government by commodifying elections, largely because the federal government funnels hundreds of billions to them annually and protects their economic privileges.

A crucial part of their strategy is to increase the price of elections as much as possible so that elections must be bought at a price only they can afford. As their money increasingly dominates elections, democracy increasingly diminishes, the principle political objective of the capitalist class.

For the Left to participate in this electoral charade is to give it credibility it does not disserve. Whatever benefits might once have derived from participation now pale compared to the legitimacy the Left stands to gain by leading the denunciation of the system’s inherent corruption. There is no inside-outside strategy, because you don’t have that very expensive entrance ticket and the event is sold out.


Jay D. Jurie: 
Electoral politics: A path to the future or a road to ruin?

That money shapes elections is undeniable. National, state, and even most local elections cannot be won without enormous cash infusions.

As of April 30, the Obama campaign had raised nearly $217 million while the Romney campaign had raised more than $98 million. In the Ohio senatorial race, incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown had raised over $12 million by March 31, while Republican Josh Mandel had raised over $7 million. Graphically depicting the funding disparities, Independent Scott Rupert had raised some $2,000 (Source: opensecrets.org).

Some contend that grossly disproportionate amounts of spending have made participation by progressives in the electoral process meaningless. However, there are other aspects that must be considered. One would be not just the amounts of money, but its sources.

While the U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission decision (2010) opened the floodgates to money, that includes cash from labor unions and civic organizations as well as corporate donors. In addition, individual contributors remain a significant factor. For example, the top five contributors to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, included four labor unions and a citizens association. Of the nearly $5.4 million his re-election campaign has raised so far in the present electoral cycle, over $3 million came from small contributors, that is, those contributing less than $200 (Source: opensecrets.org.)

Although for-profits and wealthy donors have deeper pockets, funding from not-for-profit sources and small contributors may be significant, as shown in the Sanders example. Also illustrated by the Sanders example is the particular candidate or party involved.

Sanders has carefully constructed a base, and has such name recognition, that he may be very difficult to unseat in Vermont. In cases such as these, stepping away from the electoral arena would be self-defeating, it would only abandon turf that has already been won.

An aspect of vital importance is the campaign message, and how effectively it's packaged and delivered. Particularly in swing elections, or districts, a well-crafted campaign message is an essential complement to campaign finance. Without a message that captures the mindset of the voters, or when running a scandal-ridden candidate, a monetary advantage may not suffice.

Depending on circumstances, timing may outweigh money. Since there is effectively a two-party system in the U.S., the only way people have to "punish" those in power is by voting "for the other guy." Due to their displeasure with the George W. Bush regime by 2008, the Republicans took a beating. Two years later, the Democrats under President Obama took a "shellacking," as he expressed it.

Most would likely agree that saturation of the media with campaign ads is the primary concern raised by the Citizens United decision. Those without the funding to outspend their opposition with ads usually understand they must rely instead on a ground game; going door to door, driving voters to the polls, and so on.

A good ground game can sometimes beat a well-financed corporate campaign. In 2004, the Florida branch of the now-defunct ACORN organization caught corporate interests off balance and got a minimum wage added to the state constitution.

Although the leadership of the Democratic Party functions as the junior partner of big business, there is no doubt that the Republicans are the senior partner. Historically, both parties have viewed it as important that some differences be maintained so as to preserve overall system legitimacy. So long as this Janus-style duality exists, the doors to moderation and a certain level of change have not been slammed shut.

For instance, it would be better for Sherrod Brown to remain in the Senate than for him to be beaten by Josh Mandel. If the playing field is abandoned to the far right, then so are appointments to the courts. Participation in electoral politics guarantees neither a rosy path to the future nor a road to ruin, but it remains part of a long journey that has to be taken.

There is no question but that campaign finance reform must be at the top of the list on any meaningful electoral reform agenda. Though it will take considerable pressure from outside the system, ultimately, this sort of change cannot be brought about without recourse to the electoral system. For those who want to participate in such an effort, go here to get involved with overturning Citizens United.

For more about why elections are an imperative component of a comprehensive social change strategy, see this excellent article in The Nation magazine:


David P. Hamilton's response:

“[I]n political science terms, if you are outspent... the way that Republicans can outspend Democrats with unlimited corporate money, the Democrats are going to lose.” -- Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

“The system is totally gamed.” -- Chris Hedges on Truthdig.

“I most certainly do believe the patient is critically ill, but... I haven't given up hope entirely.” -- Jay Jurie on Facebook.

Though admitting that the system is “critically ill," Jay Jurie’s apologia for the existing electoral system would have us continue putting our energies into life-support mechanisms. He fails to mention that the patient is terminal.

There remain instances where participation in electoral politics continues to make sense, but the point is that with the onrushing tide of corporate money in politics, these instances are rapidly diminishing and those that remain are almost always restricted to supporting the less horrible of the two options presented to you by the 1%.

The idea that the financial support from non-profits can meaningfully mitigate the advantages of the for-profits ignores the existing wide disparity of financing and the actual record of overwhelming success enjoyed by better-financed corporate candidates.

The point is that when campaigns become more costly, as is happening now at a very rapid pace, the advantages of the wealthy increase. Jurie fails to acknowledge this dynamic or its implications for the future.

Sometimes electoral opportunities do arise on a local level that call for our commitment, but these are increasingly rare and don’t happen outside isolated constituencies. Bernie Sanders is a perfect example of such an aberration. He represents Vermont, which has the second smallest population of any state. There are more registered voters in the city of Austin than there are in Vermont.

Sanders ran statewide four times during the 1970’s without ever getting more than 6% of the vote. Finally, in 1981, Sanders won a mayoral race in Burlington, a college town with less than 40,000, by a 10-vote margin with four candidates running and the Democrats divided. Being the great guy he is, he won three more terms as mayor, but was defeated twice more before winning his first statewide office (on his seventh attempt) with his election to Congress in 1992.

He has consistently been reelected ever since and is now a U.S. Senator. That.experience was unique in time and place, little liberal Vermont in the late 20th century. I cannot conceive of a similar scenario occurring in any other state henceforth.

The capitalist hegemony is growing quickly. What Bernie Sanders once accomplished in Vermont, however laudable, is not a model that is very relevant today.

Leftist cadre should have more fundamental concerns than the devotion of their attention and political energy to helping elect Democrats. It is more important to focus on the rapid diminution of democracy that is concurrent with the rising power of corporate capitalist money, now dominating the electoral arena. The death of meaningful democracy given this power inequality is the principal issue of politics in the U.S. today.

Jurie’s argument essentially boils down to another rationalization for supporting Democrats, relying on their strongest argument, that the other guy is worse. This might be acceptable if you limit your political ambitions to marginal gains one might potentially achieve within the confines of identity politics.

Were gay rights my overriding goal, I would be more supportive of Obama. If your political horizons stop at verbiage in support of marriage equality, the right to fight in the imperial army, or the preservation of the Roe decision, you might be happy with the Democrats. But Obama is living proof that identity politics are innately reformist and do not significantly impact issues involving class relationships.

Capitalist hegemony can accommodate the civil rights of non-whites, women’s equality, and gay rights. It can live with legal pot and abortions. But it will not accept reforms that effect their class privileges, existing wealth and income inequality. Progressive taxation, taxing capital earnings the same as wages, estate taxes, wealth taxes, financial transaction taxes, uncapped social security taxes, widespread worker ownership, promotion of union membership, or the provision of good social services to the entire population are forbidden.

The capitalist class abhors democracy, a public sector devoted to social well-being for all, and the protection of the environment, all of which diminish their power and bottom line. It cannot tolerate the diminution of U.S. militarism or the end of a drug war, because it profits by tens of billions annually from each. Our electoral system is now incapable of impinging upon these core economic interests of the capitalist ruling class or their ownership of the political processes.

In response to this condition, Jurie recommends support for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision. This effort is doomed because it ignores of the fact that such an amendment would require the vote of two-thirds of each house of the Congress, plus majority passage by three-fourths of the state legislatures, all already densely populated by politicians on the payroll of the capitalist class and likely to soon become more so.

One might reasonably ask why a very large majority of these legislators, being corrupted fronts for the capitalist class, would vote against the class interests of their benefactors and themselves on a matter so grave as a constitutional amendment to reduce their power.

The Left, at least those to the left of the Democratic Party, has the opportunity to champion democracy. There is already widespread awareness of the rampant economic inequality and the rapid erosion of political democracy that has resulted from the growing influence of corporate money.

It was reflected in the instant popularity of the OWS themes. It is reflected in the lowest voter participation in the developed world. Anti-bankster consciousness is even common among Tea Party adherents and Ron Paul fans. It remains a consciousness without organized leadership. The Left can fill that breech.

But besides advocacy of both economic and political democracy, this leadership challenge requires a thorough critique of the advanced state of corruption of U.S. politics, maintenance of a steady focus on the overall system’s inherent undemocratic defects and rejection on principle of participation in all but the least corrupted electoral venues.

Jurie’s argument is trapped in the “duopoly” of conventional American two-party politics. Those who want fundamental change must escape that duopoly. Leftist leadership has more important things to do than support marginally better candidates trying to pass themselves off as reformers while hiding their corporate affiliations.

The electoral system engenders adherence to its norms, rewarding candidates who accommodate. It will increasingly operate in the interests of the capitalist class as the commodification of the electoral process continues unrestrained. To play in this rigged game is like being an old slot machine junkie living in a Vegas casino.

There is scant opportunity for an inside-outside strategy when there is no room available inside except at a price you cannot imagine.


Jay D. Jurie's response:

"A revolutionary dialectic of the correct transitions must regard the 'long march through the institutions' as a practical and critical action in all social spheres. It must set as its goal the subversive-critical deepening of the contradictions, a process that has been made possible in all the institutions that participate in the organization of day-to-day life." -- Rudy Dutschke, German New Left leader, 1968.

In seeking a straw man for debate, David Hamilton has mischaracterized my position on electoral politics. For instance, my initial statement made it abundantly clear that I am acutely aware of the corrupting influence of money in politics, especially in the wake of the Citizens United decision.

My primary emphasis is on the construction of a vibrant grassroots movement that can challenge not only corporate power in the electoral arena, but replace capitalism itself with a system that, on a far more inclusive and democratic basis, serves the needs and aspirations of society as whole.

This would necessarily involve both electoral and non-electoral means. Not only would Hamilton abandon the electoral field of battle to corporate interests, so also would he leave millions in the lurch. Hundreds of thousands have fought for, and some have died, to secure the right to vote in this country over the past two and a half centuries. Most often the deck was stacked against them, but they put their shoulders to the wheel, built movements and slowly rolled society forward.

Electoral politics and social movements have had a reflexive relationship. Movements have made gaining wider public access to the ballot box possible, and use of the ballot has brought about important social changes. By way of example, the Civil Rights movement began after World War II and some 20 years later, resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 Since that time, African-Americans have not only experienced far greater access to accommodations and elected thousands of their own representatives to office, but have experienced access to numerous other opportunities, ranging from education to employment to fair housing.

To proclaim "game over" as Hamilton has done, denies all this history and those who not only fought for these gains, but for better or worse, those who still believe participation in the electoral process has some potential. To tell progressive constituencies such as labor, minorities, women, gays, or seniors that such participation is meaningless smacks of white upper middle class privilege, and will surely be regarded that way.

If the process doesn't work, if it's overwhelmed with money, and dominated by a duopoly, which it is, then as Rudi Dutschke informed us, all the more reason to be involved. There are a multitude of ways the present system can be confronted, challenging it to greater openness, responsiveness, and representation.

Again, the weight of history is behind this type of approach, and turning away from it does nothing to challenge the inherent contradictions. Exploiting these contradictions would eventually open the door to class conflict, or if not, at least help spark a legitimacy crisis.

Worse yet, while repudiating electoral participation, Hamilton provides nowhere else to turn. While he vaguely argues we should "champion democracy," he doesn't specify what that means. If change cannot be brought about through voting, then what else does Hamilton propose? He essentially urges a boycott of the polls in return for nothing to show for such an effort. This is a "bargain" very few will likely accept.

Hamilton's position would be far more persuasive were he to propose a non-electoral strategy that might be viewed as feasible and capable of actually "making a difference."

This reply is dedicated to the memory of Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore, who in 1951 gave their lives, in part, in the struggle to secure suffrage for everyone.

[David P. Hamilton, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin in history and government has been an activist since the Sixties when he was a contributor to the original Rag. Jay D. Jurie, a resident of Sanford, Florida, has been involved with social change for several decades. He researches, writes, and teaches in the areas of public policy, public administration, and urban planning. Read articles by David P. Hamilton and Jay D. Jurie on The Rag Blog.]

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Betsy Leondar-Wright : Class and the Political Moment

Protester in Olympia, WA, February 16, 2010. Image from the Washington State Wire.
Five well-known leftists, five strong opinions:
What’s needed at this political moment?

I was struck by how openly they disagreed [and] by how passionate all five of them are about creating a more just society.

By Betsy Leondar-Wright / The Rag Blog / June 21, 2012

Betsy Leondar-Wright and Gail Leondar-Wright will be Thorne Dreyer's guests on Rag Radio, Friday, June 22, from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin and streamed live on the web. Betsy and Gail will discuss their marriage, the gay marriage and LGBT movements in America, and the larger issues of class and progressive social change. The show will be rebroadcast on WFTE-FM in Scranton and Mt. Cobb, PA, Sunday, June 10, at 10 a.m. (EDT). After broadcast, all Rag Radio interviews are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.

[The following article by Betsy Leondar-Wright was first published on June 12 at ClassismExposed, a blog published by Class Action, a nonprofit organization that was set up to provide a framework "for people of all backgrounds to identify and address issues of class and classism." The Working-Class Studies conference was organized by the Center for Study of Working Class Life at Stony Brook University in New York.]

At the Working-Class Studies conference on Friday, June 8, I heard an amazing dialogue Friday, June 8, about class, race, and movement-building by five progressive journalists and activist scholars: Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!, Frances Fox Piven, Bill Fletcher Jr. of Blackcommentator.com , and former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert of Demos, with conference organizer Michael Zweig, author of The Working Class Majority moderating.

I was struck by how openly they disagreed with each other in front of us 200 listeners, by how passionate all five of them are about creating a more just society, and by what vast depth of experience they brought to the panel. Here are some highlights:


Juan Gonzalez: We have to start saying “working class” again. When politicians say “the middle class,” their purpose is to exclude poor and immigrant labor from the American people. The key responsibility of progressives is to reject this concept of the middle class.

Frances Fox Piven: The Citizens United Supreme Court decision (allowing corporate personhood and unlimited secret spending on elections) raises the problem of propaganda in the U.S. We’ve always had corporate and elite propaganda, but now the problem is much worse. The complexity of the financial crisis makes populist organizing difficult. The Citizens United decision is responsible for the defeat of the Wisconsin recall vote (to remove anti-union Governor Scott Walker); we are watching the downfall of representative democracy. A disruptive movement is needed.

Bill Fletcher: Just as in the movie When Worlds Collide, in which only a few people can escape a collision of planets, the capitalist class senses an impending disaster -- and the disaster is all of us! They learned from Obama’s election and the Wisconsin recall (47% is a lot of people) that they can no longer rule through electoral politics, and they are debating among themselves what other means they should turn to. That’s the implication of the Citizens United ruling. The chickens are coming home to roost on unions’ failure to educate their own members.

Bob Herbert: The U.S. is in much worse shape than the media reveal. My next book is called The Wounded Colossus. 100 million people are poor or near poor, one-third of the U.S. population. Even the solidly middle class are in deep trouble, heading towards poverty, with the cost of college, homes under water, debt, health care costs, and no job security. We already were not a functioning democracy before Citizens United. President Obama won’t even say the word “poor,” only “the middle class.” There’s no way to replace 14 million lost jobs.

Frances Fox Piven: To revive working-class movements, don’t start with existing unions.

Juan Gonzalez: Latin America has broken free of the U.S. and gone in a different direction; so have parts of the Arab world, charting their own course. U.S. capitalists are desperate and are turning to re-conquering Europe by taking away its social progress. Immigrants are the most progressive portion of the U.S. working class. Think about the Republic Windows and Doors occupation!

Bill Fletcher: Economically precarious white people must come to see that Mitt Romney is not their champion. How can that happen? The difficulty in building working-class solidarity is race. Saying “middle class” symbolizes escape from the bottom, from poverty. It’s not about tactics; first we have to re-shape the concept of unions by re-defining class.

Bob Herbert: There’s no coherent message, no definition of “working-class.” The one unifying issue is employment. If you don’t address race you’re lost from the jump. If people aren’t educated about divide and conquer tactics, about how their interests coincide, about the common interests of all who work, we won’t be able to fight back against divide-and-conquer.

Michael Zweig: If we buy into the idea that “most Americans are middle-class, except for the poor and the rich,” we’re buying into a racialized concept, because “middle-class” is presumed white and “poor” is presumed black. It’s wrong: two-thirds of the poor are white, and three-quarters of African Americans are not poor. In New Orleans, John Edwards stood in the Ninth Ward [a mostly black neighborhood] to announce his “Two Americas” campaign, but there are more poor whites than blacks in Louisiana. When you allow that to stand, then poor whites say, “What about me?”

Bob Herbert: That’s an intellectual argument that won’t persuade white racists. Some whites don’t want to be associated with poor blacks. Just talk about jobs for all.

Frances Fox Piven: Bob says the two unifying issues are jobs and avoiding divide-and-conquer -- but jobs have long been the Right’s issue; stressing them will lead to President Romney. We over-rely on jobs, but we do care about what kind of jobs, paying how much, producing what, how ecologically. Pay more attention to race. When the Tea Party members yell “Take it back!,” they mean take it back from people of color. We have to have a dialogue on race to get solidarity across race.

Bob Herbert: It’s not going to happen. Racism is too entrenched. The evil-doers are too well-funded. Blacks will get more by fighting for themselves, like in the 1950s and ‘60s. We have a black president who won’t even say the word “black”! Cross-race solidarity won’t happen.

Bill Fletcher: A militant African American movement is not inconsistent with working-class solidarity. When blacks are passive, racism and division increases. When blacks are active, they chip away at racism. A majoritarian block won’t include all whites, but will include some. To deconstruct the racial myth held by so many whites, we need a strong left, not wishful thinking about a “kumbaya moment,” but really dealing with the class divide.

Bob Herbert: They are still two separate issues: a militant black-initiated movement for racial justice and a working-class movement. If you focus on race, whites will bolt; they won’t enter.

Audience member: There were several historical moments when many whites stood up for black rights, in the 1930s, the 1960s.


Bob Herbert: I vehemently disagree. Most whites voted against Barack Obama. Look at the voting rights attacks now, and the police doing stop-and-frisk in New York City.

Juan Gonzalez: The persistence of racism is amazing. It used to be that the U.S.was segregated in two homogeneous worlds, white and black. Today’s young people are different, even young whites; they live mixed-race lives. But the ruling circles need those divisions. We fail to understand the critical role of the mass media, the absence of working-class perspectives in the media. What newspaper is waging a campaign against inequality? We need independent media. Democracy Now! is a phenomenal success, but it’s just one show.


The discussion after the panel was heated, with lots of arguing about racism, unions, and movement-building strategy.

I noticed that the most pessimistic panelist, Bob Herbert, was also the one with the least activist experience; the most hopeful panelists were those who have been social change practitioners as well as political observers.

For myself, my reaction was to agree with Bill Fletcher and Frances Fox Piven that the solutions won’t be found just in electoral politics and existing unions; change will come primarily from movement-building and strategic campaigns of (nonviolent) disruptive direct action.

[Betsy Leondar-Wright is the Project Director of Class Action. She is the author of Class Matters: Cross-Class Alliance Building for Middle-Class Activists and the co-author of The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Boston College.]

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Harry Targ : Take a Deep Breath!

Image from The Blog of Progress.
Take a deep breath:
How do we build our movements?

The response of 2011 was spontaneous, passionate, daring, and electric in its transformational possibilities.

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / April 25, 2012

Over the last 14 months we have observed Arab Spring, the Wisconsin uprising, labor ferment throughout the American Heartland, and the formation of Dream coalitions. In addition Occupy movements last fall spread like wildfire all across the country and with the arrival of spring are resuming.

Most recently anti-racist mobilizations have occurred in response to the execution of Troy Davis and the murder of Trayvon Martin.

In response, socialist and progressive organizations, single issue groups, political party activists, and visible pundits have called for or organized rallies, marches, conferences, and other mobilizations in Washington D.C., Chicago, New York, and elsewhere.

Grassroots activists, motivated by a passion for change, and sometimes a sense of desperation, are on the move.

While these are exciting times for progressives and lifetime organizers, it makes sense to take a deep breath, reflect on the concrete situations of struggle we face, and ask ourselves how best to channel (and preserve) our energies and resources.

Particularly, three questions need to be addressed and readdressed as political contexts change:

• How do we build our movements?
• What do we want to achieve?
• How do we decide what to do?

Building our movements

It still is the case that movements are built out of a complicated array of forms of activism. Obviously there are no easy answers or mathematical formulae but several tools are regularly used in our work.

First, education, propaganda, calls to action, and programmatic visions are communicated through the innovative use of various media. Print publications such as newspapers, pamphlets, books, and flyers have been staples of organizers since the printing press was invented. There are some communities, including my own, in which progressive newspapers are printed regularly and distributed.

Various progressive presses, such as Changemaker, have published books and edited materials not readily available to the left reading public. In some communities alternative radio and television programs tell the story of activism on a regular basis. I know of regular progressive radio shows in West Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Texas, and Oregon.

And, of course, 21st century electronics have added a broad array of blogs, listservs, Facebook and websites to the tool kit of radical communication. For all its flaws, and there are many, the Internet has dramatically democratized and made cheaper the ability to communicate messages near and far.

Second, political events provide a way of communicating to and educating audiences of potential activists. In virtually every community where progressive politics is alive and well, groups sponsor public lectures, films, concerts, and picnics and other social gatherings. The idea is to bring people together to listen and talk about key issues, hoping that such activities will recruit new members

Third, activists organize rallies, marches, sit-ins, leafleting campaigns, petition drives, and other public actions that are designed to educate and mobilize activists at the same time. These actions can make the movements more visible, if they receive media attention, and, at least, catch the eye of passersby who are concerned about the issues raised and have not yet committed to organized work to bring about change.

Fourth, organizers generally believe that the most effective but yet the most demanding work involves interpersonal interactions: door to door campaigns, tabling at public events, organizing study groups, and holding meetings that address substantive issues as well as organizational business.

Obviously, each of these forms of activism is vital to the construction of progressive groups and mass movements and if we reflect on the work that we do, all of the four forms are used. In addition, the first three forms can occur at regional or national levels as well as in local communities. The fourth, however, requires work in face-to-face communities, or in what we call the grassroots.


What do we want to achieve?

Most progressive movements are motivated by a variety of goals. Of necessity, most of the goals are short or medium range, while in the end most progressives and/or socialists are committed to the construction of a humane, democratic, and socialist society; one in which the basic needs and wants of every person are met.

Progressives want to educate. That is, they want to communicate and convince a large group of people that particular policies and the general vision of a more humane society are desirable and achievable.

Education involves presenting a compelling analysis of the nature and reasons societies are failing to meet the needs of the people, presenting an alternative vision of society that can meet peoples’ needs, and offering some explanation as to how we can move from here to there.

Progressives want to mobilize large numbers of people to their cause. The forces of reaction have vast economic resources, are positioned in the apex of powerful political and economic institutions, and oftentimes have access to the repressive apparatuses of the state. Social movements throughout history have been effective to the extent that they have been able to assemble their one potential resource, large numbers of people.

While “people power” is a slogan, it also is a fact. Again, from Tahrir Square, to Madison, Wisconsin, to Occupy Wall Street, it has been large numbers of loud, militant, and angry people who have forced their resistance on the public stage.

Progressives want to use people power to deliver demands to those who administer the state. The wealthy and powerful can communicate their wishes to policymakers in the corridors of power. The people can communicate primarily by delivering demands.

While small groups of progressives have been able to make their demands visible through bold actions that find their way sometimes into the media, we have learned over and over again that masses of people, delivering demands, have a greater likelihood of being heard and mobilizing others to the cause.

Many progressives believe that electoral work remains a powerful tool for educating, mobilizing, delivering demands and, on occasion, successfully transforming their passions into policies. In a society like our own in which “politics” is defined by most people as elections, progressives need to engage in that arena (along with other venues).

It is because of elections that activists can knock on doors, talk about single payer health care, convince people that wars in Afghanistan and other places are ill-advised, and communicate to people that the rights of workers, women, and people of color must be protected.

All of these goals require raising money and signing up new members. Organization building is both a goal and a means to achieve other goals. One of the enduring dilemmas for today’s progressives is that on the one hand vast majorities of people support progressive change when asked but only tiny minorities step forward to work to create that change.

Further, there are traditions among political activists that claim that organization-building is antithetical to political change. And, many of those who are readily available to protest, sit-in, and generally raise hell are resistant to attending meetings, debating strategy and tactics, entering names of new members on computer lists, and all the other necessities of organization building that are frankly boring.

In certain circumstances, progressives feel a need to bring institutions to a halt. Tactics such as the strike, the occupation, and the work slowdown take on a life of their own as activists seek to bring the institutions of oppression and exploitation to a halt, at least for a time.

Such actions are themselves a goal and a tool for achieving other goals. In each of the path-breaking campaigns listed at the outset, dramatic actions stimulated the creation of mass movements. Oftentimes the actions themselves spark the construction of movements for fundamental change.

Finally, some progressives have acted on the belief that alternative institutions can and should be built within the old order. Progressives learn by doing, engage in trial and error institution-building, and provide visible models for those who have not yet joined the movement. Sometimes the alternative institutions fulfill a need irrespective of the effectiveness the alternatives served in building a mass movement.


Deciding what to do

This is the perhaps the most difficult issue to address. The year 2011 was an extraordinary time in social movement history. After a long drought in America (and perhaps around the world) masses of workers, women, people of color, youth, the elderly, and people from faith communities stood up and said “no” to dictatorship, attacks on workers’ rights, the war on women, violent racism, and further destruction of the air, water, and natural landscape.

The magnitude of the uprisings probably matches the thirties or the sixties in the United States. Paradoxically, despite the long years of grassroots activism and important work done by national organizations, progressives were caught by surprise.

As a result of the shock waves of 2011 we should reflect upon the issues that need to be addressed, prioritizing work on them based on available resources. Progressives should make decisions about prioritizing short and/or long term policy and structural changes and the question of the location of venues for action at given times.

For some (I am one) politics begins at the base; that is in the communities in which activists are located. For others, coalition building at the national level must be prioritized.

What seems clear is that the forces of reaction in the United States and elsewhere are organized. They have enormous resources. They have been planning for a long time to reconstruct economic and political institutions to shift power and wealth back to the few.

Since the 1980s at least ruling elites have sought to return America to the “gilded age,” the post-civil war era when bankers and speculators ruled America without cumbersome government provisions of some rights and resources to the vast majority of people.

The response of 2011 was spontaneous, passionate, daring, and electric in its transformational possibilities. But now, progressives need to reflect on where we are, what our resources are, how to use them effectively, what priorities in action need to be developed, and how we might most effectively empower people.

Spontaneity and reflection represent two dimensions of a successful social movement. One alone will not create the kind of humane society most of us are working to achieve.

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical -- and that's also the name of his new book which can be found at Lulu.com. Read more of Harry Targ's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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Van Jones : What Went Wrong in the Age of Obama

Van Jones. Photo by Bill Pugliano / Getty Images.
The Age of Obama:
What went wrong (and how to fix it)

By Van Jones / Progressive America Rising / April 3, 2012

[This article is adapted from Van Jones' new book, Rebuild the Dream.]

The 2008 campaign was a campfire around which millions gathered. But after the election, it was nobody’s job or role to tend that campfire. The White House was focused on the minutiae of passing legislation, not on the magic of leading a movement. Obama For America did the best that it could, but the mass gatherings, the idealism, the expanded notions of American identity, the growing sense of a new national community, all of that disappeared.

It goes without saying that clear thinking and imaginative problem solving are easier in hindsight, away from the battlefield. I was in the White House for six months of 2009, and I was outside of it afterward. I had some of the above insights at the time, but many did not come to me in the middle of the drama and action. Most are the product of deeper reflection, which I was able to do only from a distance.

Nonetheless, the exercise of trying to sort out what might have been and trying to understand why nobody was able to make those things happen in real time has informed this book and shaped my arguments going forward.

I say Obama relied on the people too little, and we tried to rely on him too much.

Let me speak personally: looking back, I do not think those of us who believed in the agenda of change had to get beaten as badly as we were, after Obama was sworn in. We did not have to leave millions of once-inspired people feeling lost, deceived, and abandoned. We did not have to let our movement die down to the level that it did.

The simple truth is this: we overestimated our achievement in 2008, and we underestimated our opponents in 2009.

We did not lose because the backlashers got so loud. We lost because the rest of us got so quiet. Too many of us treated Obama’s inauguration as some kind of finish line, when we should have seen it as just the starting line. Too many of us sat down at the very moment when we should have stood up.

Among those who stayed active, too many of us (myself included) were in the suites when we should have been in the streets. Many “repositioned” our grassroots organizations to be “at the table” in order to “work with the administration.” Some of us (like me) took roles in the government. For a while at least, many were so enthralled with the idea of being a part of history that we forgot the courage, sacrifices, and risks that are sometimes required to make history.

That is hard, scary, and thankless work. It requires a willingness to walk with a White House when possible -- and to walk boldly ahead of that same White House, when necessary. A few leaders were willing to play that role from the very beginning, but many more were not. Too many activists reverted to acting like either die-hard or disappointed fans of the president, not fighters for the people.

The conventional wisdom is that Obama went too far to the left to accommodate his liberal base. In my view, the liberal base went too far to the center to accommodate Obama. The conventional wisdom says that Obama relied on Congress too much. I say Obama relied on the people too little, and we tried to rely on him too much.

Once it became obvious that he was committed to bipartisanship at all costs, even if it meant chasing an opposition party that was moving further to the right every day, progressives needed to reassess our strategies, defend our own interests, and go our own way. It took us way too long to internalize this lesson -- and act upon it.

The independent movement for hope and change, which had been growing since 2003, was a goose that was laying golden eggs. But the bird could not be bossed. Caging it killed it. It died around conference tables in Washington, D.C., long before the Tea Party got big enough to kick its carcass down the street.

The administration was naïve and hubristic enough to try to absorb and even direct the popular movement that had helped to elect the president. That was part of the problem. But the main problem was that the movement itself was naïve and enamored enough that it wanted to be absorbed and directed. Instead of marching on Washington, many of us longed to get marching orders from Washington. We so much wanted to be a part of something beautiful that we forgot how ugly and difficult political change can be.

Somewhere along the line, a bottom-up, largely decentralized phenomenon found itself trying to function as a subcomponent of a national party apparatus. Despite the best intentions of practically everyone involved, the whole process wound up sucking the soul out of the movement.

As a result, when the backlash came, the hope-and-changers had no independent ground on which to stand and fight back. Grassroots activists had little independent ability to challenge the White House when it was wrong and, therefore, a dwindling capacity to defend it when it was right.

We need a president who is willing to be pushed into doing the right thing, and we need independent leaders and movements that are willing to do the pushing.

The Obama administration had the wrong theory of the movement, and the movement had the wrong theory of the presidency. In America, change comes when we have two kinds of leaders, not just one. We need a president who is willing to be pushed into doing the right thing, and we need independent leaders and movements that are willing to do the pushing. For a few years, Obama’s supporters expected the president to act like a movement leader, rather than a head of state.

The confusion was understandable: As a candidate, Obama performed many of the functions of a movement leader. He gave inspiring speeches, held massive rallies, and stirred our hearts. But when he became president, he could no longer play that role.

The expectation that he would or could arose from a fundamental misreading of U.S. history. After all, as head of state, President Lyndon Johnson did not lead the civil rights movement. That was the job of independent movement leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer.

There were moments of conflict and cooperation between Johnson and leaders in the freedom struggle, but the alchemy of political power and people power is what resulted in the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As head of state, Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not lead the labor movement. That was the job of independent union leaders. Again, the alchemy of political power and people power resulted in the New Deal.

As head of state, Woodrow Wilson did not lead the fight to enfranchise women. That was the role of independent movement leaders, such as suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Ida B. Wells. The alchemy of political power and people power resulted in women’s right to vote.

As head of state, Abraham Lincoln did not lead the abolitionists. That was the job of independent movement leaders Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman. The alchemy of political power and people power resulted in the emancipation of enslaved Africans.

As head of state, Richard Nixon did not lead the environmental movement. That was the job of various environmental organizations, such as the Sierra Club, and other leaders, like those whom writer Rachel Carson inspired. Once again it was the alchemy of political power and people power that resulted in the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency

The biggest reason for our frustrations and failures is that we have not yet understood that both of these are necessary -- and they are distinct. We already have our head of state who arguably is willing to be pushed. We do not yet have a strong enough independent movement to do the pushing. The bulk of this book makes the case for how and why we should build one.

[Van Jones, a former adviser to President Obama and a former contributing editor to YES! Magazine, is the co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, a platform for bottom-up, people-powered innovations to help fix the U.S. economy. He is also the co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and Green for All. This article was adapted by Jones for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions, from his new book, Rebuild the Dream. It was first published at YES! Magazine and was also published at and distributed by Progressive America Rising.]

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