Some advice, written on 11/3, for the young, committed, and disenheartened from someone who was in the trenches the last time we got our brains beaten out. I write about the mistakes we made in the hope that we don't make them again. Plus a word or two about why the Good Fight is still worth the effort.
We do still believe in the ultimate rightness of our cause, in the fundamental belief that social justice will someday prevail because a free people will choose to live in a society that reflects their values. Not the values of any one religion or any one party, but the values that progressives believe to the core of their being: that humanity is humane, and people are inherently good. And Americans, perhaps, have a knack for expressing that powerfully when given sufficient motivation.
That's our faith, our religion, whatever else we may choose to believe. If we did not, we would not fight for them.
November 3, 2004
An Open Letter to Progressive Activists
Today's the day we decide what we do next.
My name is Jeff Porten, and I've been a left-wing, or liberal, or progressive activist since the late 1980s. It's been my pleasure and privilege to meet and work with many amazingly accomplished and inspiring people, all striving for the furtherance of peace issues and social justice, and many of whom have been doing so for their (much longer) lifetimes.
In 1993, I moved to Washington DC, and found myself in the middle of a great wave of progressive resurgence. We thought that we had our Kennedy in the White House, and with the Cold War over, we would start a great movement to reshape the world. I need not reiterate what our goals were -- they were as multitudinous then as the needs are today, and if this message gets to the audience I'm hoping to reach, then it is safe to say that the causes you work for now were included then.
That your work is still necessary is a stark reminder that our movement for a progressive majority was a dismal failure.
First we were blindsided by the Gingrich Revolution. Then the policies of Bill Clinton made it difficult for some of us to support him; the colossally stupid things he did in his private life made it still harder. This is not to say that our purposes were at one with the Democrats, because they never were -- but the difficulties of our allies in power extended to splinter our movement. We fought amongst ourselves, dissipated our energies on ideological arguments, and failed to work together.
Today, while many of those same people continue to fight the good fight, most of the groups and movements we founded no longer exist. We began at a time when we did not truly comprehend how steep the climb would be, and the many losses along the way took their toll.
Now you are facing much the same situation. But while we thought we were starting from a position of strength, you started with the knowledge that you were well behind. It is my belief that this past year saw the beginning of the second great progressive movement of my time. MoveOn.org and Michael Moore entered the national conversation, and even if they did not win the debates they sparked about their causes, they at least succeeded in putting the progressive agenda on the table.
As of today, the fight will be far harder. The Supreme Court will likely block our path for the next generation. We may spend a lifetime convincing our nation of the folly of war, and that we have diverged from the path of the patriotic ideals of progressives and of history: the conviction that America can be a great force for spreading democracy and liberty, not through military conquest, but through the power of our ideas.
Our opponents claim they've won because God is on their side. But many of us work for our causes because of our own faith in God. We don't claim, as they do, to know the will of God -- but we do still believe in the ultimate rightness of our cause, in the fundamental belief that social justice will someday prevail because a free people will choose to live in a society that reflects their values. Not the values of any one religion or any one party, but the values that progressives believe to the core of their being: that humanity is humane, and people are inherently good. And Americans, perhaps, have a knack for expressing that powerfully when given sufficient motivation.
That's our faith, our religion, whatever else we may choose to believe. If we did not, we would not fight for them.
That faith is being tested, and it is all the more difficult because our faith, unlike some others, is not regularly attested to and confirmed. In the coming weeks, there will be an active campaign to demoralize you, to weaken your resolve, to tell you that America has spoken and you are wrong. Our enemies will crow triumphantly, and it will be impossible to remain informed about the world without also being subjected to their attempts to crush your spirit.
Therefore, there is a decision to be made. It was made unconsciously in the 1990s by our first movement, and it left you to start again largely from scratch. What you do today will determine what will happen next. Perhaps you will spend the next ten years fighting losing battles. Perhaps all you can do is ameliorate the damage. Perhaps the best you can do is lay more fertile soil for the third movement of 2016. That is not for nothing.
But perhaps we are correct in our faith, and there will come a day when the opportunity arises to turn our opponents into our supporters. Perhaps we will be vindicated in our belief that hope is more powerful than fear, that social justice is more powerful than military force, that education is more powerful than ignorance, that love of humankind expressed through actions is more powerful than empty words. If all of this, there is historical precedent.
If that day should come, it will be a landslide. Our opponents have already proved that such landslides are possible, and that it takes decades of work. But it is also true that we must build towards and be ready for the opportunity. We must stop blindly trusting that one day America will wake up and see the rightness of our argument. Time is not on our side, for the momentum is theirs, and our losses will continue to mount until they are countered. We must work pragmatically, incrementally, and ruthlessly to strategize, win small victories, and build on them. That is how they have defeated us. We must learn the same methods.
Honestly, as I write this, I too am demoralized, and I do not have faith. But the reason I write this is that I have already seen that the impossible is possible. I have visited Moscow. I have visited Berlin. I have visited Tokyo and Hiroshima. In all these places I was there as an activist, and in all these places I have been welcomed as an American.
I believe this is because these former enemies still strive to see the better angels of our nature. They will be looking to us for proof those angels still exist. It's up to you what they see next.
Best regards, and best of luck,
Jeff Porten