Newshoggers Comments
I love it. As I've said before like a stinking broken record, one of my main interests in a third party is pulling the Dems back to the Left. That's how the New Deal got done. We need to learn from our own history.
Wow.
OK, that said, there needs to be some hardcore organizing done and the pyramid needs to start somewhere.
Could George Soros be our(?) Scaife? Sure, and I think that there are a lot of people out there with enough (efyou) money that could join.
I see it, at that point, as a united vision problem and having enough people running things under the surface that believe and push for that vision. Hammering that vision/message into every media outlet possible over and over and over.
Again, a great post and wonderful ideas.
Hey C
Great Post!
You know how I love those 3rd parties and the idea of coalition government. Go man Go!
Cincinnatus over at the Jeffersonian had this interesting observation on this topic:
“Believe it or not, we took the Colorado state legislature precisely using this kind of thinking. The state's progressive groups came together and divided zones of responsibility. Then they created two political organizations to support the efforts of Democratic candidates -- one which supported the efforts of candidates who met the entire progressive checklist, and the other for candidates who were less "perfect". That way, NARAL never had to put a dime into a district in which the Democrats was anti-choice. Labor didn't have to help out in districts where the Democrats was hostile to their interests. And so on.
And it worked. The umbrella group running the operation targeted 16 Republicans in the Colorado House and won 15 of the races. It was an exercise in movement building, not myopic single-issue focus. And while there are Democrats in the Colorado House that are less than optimal on any number of progressive issues, the entire movement benefits from having a friendly party in control.”
These kinds of tactics might end the fratricide usually practiced by Democrats during the primaries without requiring all candidates to head for the mushy middle to prove their electability.
As for as Soros being the savior: Just say No! GS is a champagne liberal. The rich despise and resent the middle-class. They occasionally pander to the workers to prove their nobles oblige. But should that “Nobles’ part become threatened, the “Oblige” part will head straight out the window. Big money is always tainted and invariably comes with hidden strings. For the better part of a century wealthy trusts like the Ford and the Rockefeller foundations funded Left wing organizations and what did it get you? More rhetoric, more lattes and precious little progress. When push comes to shove the rich side with the rich despite their rhetoric to the contrary.
A real Progressive revival will come from the bottom up with funds provided by people with a material stake in the success of that revival. Neither the wealthy nor the Initeligencia will ever be the source of working class empowerment. Such forces will always subvert the cause of Justice to serve their own, often hidden, parochial interests.
Again, great post. Go Cernig go!
Ciao
L
A real Progressive revival will come from the bottom up with funds provided by people with a material stake in the success of that revival.
I have to agree with you there, Lib.
Actually, I need to step in to rebut, however slightly, Libertas' assertion that monied interests have no role.
While I think he's exactly right that such people can't be counted on for consisted support of radical ideas, the progressive movement of the early 20th century benefitted at key times from the rather faddish interest of the rich.
JP Morgan's lesbian daughter, a Vanderbilt heiress, and number of other wealthy feminist elites found it in their interest to join in a series of labor strikes around 1911, for instance. The striking garment workers were women.
Again, this isn't to say that the purpose of a left coalition should be to court Soros money, but only to note that when important changes are happening, even the vanguard of the rich can be swept away by the fervor.
(Supporting Libertas' thesis however is the fact that the rich generally abandoned the garment workers movement when labor organizers were painted--fairly, in many cases--as socialists and suffragists.)
I have a response that answers some of these questions at: http://quinnell.us/#1454
Interesting post, Kenneth. Needless to say I disagree with at least half of it but its going to take another post to do your arguments the justice they require. Tomorrow then, I hope.
Regards, C
I don't customarily regret being old or poor. After reading your post, I do. I wish I still had a lot of youthful vigor to pour into your efforts. And I wish I had scads of money to pour in right behind it.
Marvelous ideas...why in the name of God would we want to model ourselves on the GOP "just to win"? Isn't what the GOP is and stands for exactly why we don't want THEM in office? Wny would we want Demo clones in their place?
Failing youth and riches, despite my antiquity and less than good health, I can still manage a pretty raucous, "Go, Team!"
So, GO, TEAM!!!!
I have been thinking that if the Left could unify around a charismatic progressive congressman or senator, then that politician could propose a progressive agenda and threaten to leave the party (and hopefully take others with him/her) if the agenda wasn't adopted. In this way the Greens or a new third party could take off with momentum and vision.
However, now that Wellstone is dead, I am not sure that there is a carismatic congressman who is progressive enough to consider such a move. The only ones I can think of are from the CBC or Barbara Boxer, and many of the Black Caucus are tied to a previous generation's vision of loyalty to the democratic party. Ohio congressman Kucinich is not charismatic enough in my view to rally a serious challenge to the power structure.
So for now it remains an unlikely rhetorical possibility.
Hi Simon,
Why does the Left need a charismatic leader as the beginning and fulcrum of its efforts- and moreover one that already is known to the public? You are getting trapped in the Clinton charisma-factor and the wrong-way-up pyramid I quoted Bill Bradley on in the post. Make the Movement and the leaders will come from it.
That's got to be the worst of all reasons I've heard for not trying.
Regards, C
I think it won't be long until the the growing global pool of SLAVE LABOR and SUPRESSED WORKER RIGHTS led by UNCHECKED CORPORATE GREED and the GOVERNMENTS IN CORPORATIONS' POCKETS who together are HOLLOWING OUT DEMOCRACY AND OUR MIDDLE-CLASS at breakneck speed, and/or China's undenyed status as a global world power results in SOMETHING not unlike the GREAT DEPRESSION - or WORSE.
Do you know a former middle-class, middle-aged person who lost his/her career the past few years and remains unemployed or underemployed? YOU WON'T FIND those folks VISITING DOCTORS, taking vacations, buying Christmas gifts, toys for their kids, new cars, houses, clothes, cameras, etc - or anything else that fuels the GNP. At some point it'll be crystal clear we can't afford to buy, or CHARGE THINGS anymore. Then - thanks to the NEW BANKRUPTCY LAWS - we'll all loose everything to what will become a feudalistic society of serfs and lords - MOSTLY SERFS. A stock market crash from this isn't unlikely.
I had to change something in my computer the other day. Most - if not all the hardware - is stamped with symbols that look like Chinese to me. If SONY CAN HIDE ROOTKITS in CDs - Communist regimes can embed the same or worse in computer chips. Doesn't China MAKE MICROCHIPS for the guidance systems in some of our smart bombs?
Did you notice that the big, giant pillar of Amer
I think you need to pull left out of it because you've got a losing faction. You talk about organize.
How many MacDonalds or Walmarts have the unions organized? In the sixties they ignored it because the AFL-CIO had become the CIO, but now they talk about workers as some abstraction, but they don't get out and do it.
You can't tell me it's tougher than the 19th century or the first part of the 20th century.
And "leftists" do bring baggage, there are lots of positions that don't bring much suport, but their advocates regard as central, animal rights, extreme gun control, each takes away a bit and encourages dogmatic attitudes.
The Republican party is reaping the consequence of absolutists dogmatists and people who can only rn against rather than four.
In the sixties and the early seventies many leftists wanted vouchers because communities could make their own schools, many poorer people now are angry at the system defended by the teachers unions and they don't see these unions advocating real plans. Why don't they devise a strategy and campaign their canidates for school boards.
People see a dependance on a larger bureaucracy that they dislike even if they depend on it.
Republicans have tapped into these populist themes. They work their communities. Leftists don't want to go out on the street and build some cred to make poorer people realize that when you have no power even the little bit given by the vote is a big improvement and besides that poor people voting scares the fat cats. No they just want to run nice safe cosmetic voter drives.
So you face groups like religions whose members tithe ten percent or more to their institutions and organize and provide social support all the time.
Any movement that actually went out among the people would be pragmatic and radical because even solving small problems is change.
But your "left" is reactionary. Because elites manage to protect the game and they want image not reality of change. Take Hollywood and rock musicians. Most of them align with an industry which wants to put programs in your computers to destroy them if they fnd uncopyrighted information, which works with "ownership society' advocates tio hinder the revolutionary flow of information that the new technology can offer. They flash life styles that even the really rich find ridiculous, limos and clubs with bouncers to keep out the uncool. They visualize themselves as a royalty and if they take on a fashionable leftism, in the final analysis class interests drive them.
We need a leader who is fearless. Who has a very clean record. Someone who has no family that these scumbags can attack. Someone who is honest, fair, just and who hates repubiclans. Also that someone needs lots of money. Anyone know of someone like that, who wants to run for president?
Why think small? Why not a coalition of the right and the left, all who believe in the constitution? That would be the common ground. We are all patriots now. Of course, both sides would have to give up some positions: the right would have to accept choice, the left the 2nd amendment. Any ideas?
you've got a great idea!!
have you checked out the Rockridge Institute?
they are all about reframing today's issues in terms of progressive ideas.
i guess they would be considered the base of a growing progressive pryamid.
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