I don't know if anyone will listen, but it's time that we all just get over ourselves. It's really time that we stop all this blaming of each other and yelling (into the wind) at each other and all of these other stupidities. Let's put this energy toward something productive, whatever that means for you individually.
I believe that one of the fundamental problems at work here is that many people in the Netroots have become convinced, at least apparently from what they write, that electoral politics is the only venue for change, when that is far from true. In fact, a strong social movement is necessary - and probably the right place for radicals like myself - for significant change in electoral politics.
If you haven't been following Bill Moyers Journal lately, you should know that this is one of the primary sources for my thinking. Of all of his recent shows, and there have been many, emphasizing the need for some kind of progressive social movement, none has captured this idea better than his interview with organizers George Goehl and Heather Booth.
You can watch the segment here, and I encourage you to do so, although here are a few highlights:
HEATHER BOOTH: In our view, it's at this sort of two part approach. One part is working this working the system and moving for legislation that is moving for concrete change. And this legislation is moving through Congress right now. And that legislation wouldn't have been there if there wasn't the leadership that President Obama's providing. But it also won't get through unless there's a grassroots support that George and other organizations are doing around the country. And focusing on the banks and the largest banks and the role they're playing.
GEORGE GOEHL: This is an incredible opportunity to turn a tragedy into something good. So, if we can get it together, and I really think is not about the Congress. This is not about the President. This is about the people watching this show and other Americans saying, 'Enough is enough.' And I'm going to move from my seat out into the streets, from fingers on a keyboard, boots on the ground, and get out there." Whether that means calling the Members of Congress. Whether it means organizing a little protest in front of a bank. Whether it means making a YouTube video and cutting up your credit cards and posting it and sending it out to your friends. If people get engaged, we can win this fight. And that's happening. There are actions planned all across the country in 25 states over through the end of the year. And then as next year comes around, you'll start to see more events like the showdown in Chicago.
And finally, a few suggestions for how to take action like this, at least on the financial front:
BILL MOYERS: How can people watching find out how to be in touch with you? What how can they know what you're doing?
GEORGE GOEHL: Sure, they should go to the website, ShowdownInAmerica.org. Which will give them ideas around what's happening around the country. And ways that they can plug in and be a part of this movement.
BILL MOYERS: And Heather, how do they reach Americans for Financial Reform?
HEATHER BOOTH: OurFinancialSecurity.org is our website. And also they can link up with various organizations that really are in every state, whether it's National People's Action or U.S. Action or Center for Community Change. Whether it's their trade union. Whether it's their religious institution. There are ways that we can combine altogether. The Civil Rights organizations. And be much stronger together in this gathering storm.
This is simply not about Obama. It is about something much bigger than Obama - it is about justice on a nationwide (or with many issues, worldwide) scale. And if we do not organize for justice, if we simply sit here typing away, it will not come. Personally, I am joining Progressive Democrats of America, I am helping a friend run for city council as a Green against a corrupt Democratic opponent (which could turn into more of a movement than an electoral campaign, depending on how it comes out), I am starting a community garden at my school, once my life calms down a bit I'll be getting involved in the fight for statewide single payer in Pennsylvania, and I've joined the mailing list of many organizations like those in Bill Moyers' interview so that I will know if there's anything I can do with them, among other things.
As I said in a previous diary, "Time to Get Our Hands Dirty,"
For those of you who are skeptical of what I'm saying because I'm not a huge fan of Obama's and I was protesting the escalation and now I'm saying we need more push back against Washington, hear me out. I am not saying this so that we can have some kind of continual opposition to the president, that would be ridiculous. Like Robert Kuttner said, social movements need to kind of "dance" with the president. Martin Luther King met with Lyndon Johnson and supported him when it made sense for civil rights, but he also organized people against government policies and made it possible for Congress and Johnson to create the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
We cannot be afraid to get our hands dirty and, yes, possibly piss some people off. Perhaps RLMiller said this better than I can:
I'm slowly coming to appreciate the virtue of clarity of people that I might have previously labeled extremists, and been frustrated with their extremism. When the extremism springs from a profound, immoveable, and true principle, it gains moral authority. The best historical example of this is the abolitionism movement.
The healthcare movement lost 90% of that authority when it lost the insistence on single payer, and the rest of it with the public option. What's left of the bill now may be a good thing, as some famous names tell me, or it may be a bad thing, as some other famous names tell me, but it's no longer about Right and Wrong.
I'm not saying we need to be "extremists" or completely uncompromising in everything we do, yet at some point we must recognize that what we are currently doing is not working. We do not have as much power as we rightfully should, given our numbers and the huge amount of Americans that don't necessarily identify as progressive but still agree with us on many issues. Again, I'm emphasizing the point that we need to be both well organized and independent from existing political structures that have their own interests.
And do not confuse what I am saying with calls for a third party. I am saying that we must organize independent of any political party or existing political structures. With respect to health care, maybe this means a real movement for single payer (and not just signing Dennis Kucinich's petitions...) after the national health care bill is passed. With respect to climate change, this can already be seen to a certain extent through ongoing civil disobedience, political organizations, and other parts of the movement. I am saying that I would like this mindset of loyalty to a set of policies rather than a party or politician to take hold, and I would like the progressive movement to act on that mindset.
Many times electoral politics just isn't the right place for radicals. We like to be dramatic sometimes and we like to see dramatic change. That often comes easier at the local level or through social movements or through other similar things, rather than at the national political level, which is (somewhat sadly) the focus of 99% of the political content of this and many other blogs.
And to conclude, I give you the words of Roxpert in a very recent diary, in which he tells us rightly that it's not about Obama, "It's the Corrupt System, Stupid!"
So, fellow progressives, stop obsessing about the man and his disappointing decisions. Start focusing on the system itself and its inabilty to allow for true change. The forces aligned against progressive change are rich, powerful, and only interested in the maintanence of their gravy trains and the status quo. That's it in a nutshell. Progressives have to realize that we play into their hands when we openly fight with each other...
You ready to fight back? Then fight against the SYSTEM, for goodness sakes, and quit with these immature and shortsighted internal struggles that do nothing but weaken progressive resolve. I hope people start to come to understand the true enemy from within, and its not coming from progressive forces, that's for sure.