Huffington Post has really gone into People Magazine mode. But, looking around including the Daily Kos, I see that movement building has been forgotten in a flood tide of popularity contests, complaining for the sake of out-doing other complaints, or various displays of ego over all other concerns.
I really object to the punditry that supposedly represents progressives.
These people do not seem to have ever really been involved in actually trying to organize people in a community to work between elections as well as in election campaigns, to achieve progressive policy. They seem to be the same sort of pundits that the MSM is burdened by. Mainly clever at the keyboard, they substitute style for substance.
I have a long perspective. I worked for some 20 years in community
organizing and political efforts aimed at policy at the city council level
in Austin, Tx during the 1980s and 90s. I have since lived in the
Seattle, Wa area, the Navajo Nation and Albuquerque, NM. I have been
working lately to reflect on what the experience I have means and how
best to put it to use going forward.
I have been tinkering with a diary series on Political Literacy which I
might actually launch after the New Year.
My formative years in Austin are still central to me. The larger issues of
the time are still issues for the nation. The municipally owned electric
power utility had been operated under a rate system that favored the
large industrial power users. The greater the usage, the cheaper. This
was the era of the "All Electric Home."
It disadvantaged the working poor to advantage the development emphasis
on growth promotion. Turning that rate scheme on its head and creating
an emphasis instead on conservation that favored less usage, was a
seemingly impossible task. It required obtaining a majority on a city
council historically dominated by development interests who could put
really big money into election campaigns to maintain that dominance.
I got on the merry go round in the election campaign of 1981. That was
an adventure, but mainly it was 'round the clock hard work. Oddly, it
worked for us because we had no money and no skills. One retirement
age woman in an Ann Richards upswing grey hairdo showed up at our
hopeless headquarters with a shoebox. Being a young, typically arrogant
person, I thought, "What is she going to do?"
Her husband sat with her. His job was to ward off anyone who wanted
to distract her by engaging her in conversation. Pretty seen there were
a few more grey haired women with shoeboxes. After a while, the
place was humming. Money was coming in. Material was being
printed. Literature drops were being organized. Volunteers were
coming in. We ended up with 400 volunteers and a landslide victory,
along with gaining a near majority in that election and a true majority
in the next and the next and so on.
Once elections were won, however, the next task had nearly the same level
of impossibility: Creating a subsidy program that could help homeowners
with insulation and weatherization that increased efficiency of power
use and the need for greater power plant capacity. This was supposed
to make getting re-elected impossible, but the fact that the policy was
the foundation for saving the city a billion dollars for not having to build
a new generating plant sold the fiscal conservatives on joining with
progressives in a majority coalition.
Spin offs from this include what is now called "Green Building," along
with accomodating changes in municipal zoning codes. This sort of
oversimplifies the entire panoply of progressive policies that were
made possible by this coalition, but it is the gist of it.
That was the centerpiece then and it actually has informed national
policy through quiet backchannel discussions about balance sheets
and economics at municipal governance conferences and in trips by
leaders of this effort to consult on policy and technical practices.
That was not based on throwing tantrums, but on skillful organizing,
negotiating and a brilliant grasp of the realities and strategy.
Now, national policy in energy and many other issues is possible,
because of the work that has been done by people on the local level
in communities across the US.
Pundits who only know about the surface appearance of politics
tend to think that policy is moved in some direction through some
kind of protest, tantrum throwing or spectacular drama because that
is all they see and all they know about.
Alternatives to the media really ought to be better than that. The
MSM has been a huge disservice to the national debate because it
has very severely limited the information available. It has especially
been destructive to progress in denying the existence of real work done
by real people out of the limelight who achieve progressive policy.
The concept of writing about politics we seem to be stuck with is
from the tradition of sports writing. We don't seem to be conscious
of the entire concept of communication to foster movement building
and inspiring policy direction. We protest the MSM, but emulate it.
Progressive coalitions that work have been built by local people
working to achieve policy that makes sense in a 21st century
America, since the 1970s without any media attention, by and large,
for all this time.
Thus, many can be forgiven for thinking that they are the very
first progressives to organize to achieve public policy reform
and they therefore can speak with authority for experience they
are not aware of.
The impetus for seeking progressive energy policy was the oil
embargo of the mid-1970s along with a long range grasp of the
dynamics described by those looking at the larger questions of
planetary resource usage in the next century. (key word:
sustainability)
This outlook should be guiding a progressive vision of the future
as we look to what policy directions ought to be taken by the
nation now.
There was a lesson learned by the progressive grassroots
organizers of the FDR era that informed the successful political
action of the 80s and 90s:
If you want to be progressive you have to mean business and
you can't afford to be stupid.
Pretty cut to the bone and direct, the way old fashioned country
people talk. But the truth.
Those who are not aware of their history are doomed to repeat it.
Not just a cute quote.