By Jerry D. Rose
Political pundits and garden variety political junkies (like me) are still poring over the results of Tuesday’s election, which appears on its face and may be underneath the skin as well to have been a terrible beating for the progressive cause in America. Angry and upset Americans have endured a campaign in which their understandable alienation from “government” as they have experienced it has led them to regressive political choices (GOP and Tea Party) that will only make worse the conditions from which they are suffering. The people have been the victims of bad government (imperialistic and corporate-dominated) not those governmental actions so sorely needed to address their problems.
So how are progressive activists to respond to this debacle? Well, if they are true activists, they will respond actively, seeing the electoral results as actually an opportunity to return to their true vocation of advocating for the people rather than allowing themselves to become an adjunct of either branch of the oligarchic duopoly of what we call our two-party “system,” That system simply rotates the parties in power without really changing changing conditions in our country and our communities, just as we might regularly change our socks without changing our wardrobes.
As I see it, we really have only a small window for that opportunity to engage in people advocacy before we are swept up in yet another “choose your side or remain a spoiler” round of elections in 2012. In this window might exist a chance for a moratorium (say about a year) on electoral striving that will give us some space to put aside our differences as Democrats or third partyists or independents, as pro- or anti-Obama, and come together to work on the needs of the people: for decent employment and wages and health care, progressive taxation, environmentally safer conditions, justice for all minorities, a foreign policy in the mold of “good neighors,” not the school yard bully expressed in the policy of “full spectrum dominance.” In due course of time we’ll “choose sides” again (though next time there may be more than 2 sides from which to choose) but for now let us work within the progressive consensus of battling the dominance of tea party know-nothingism and coffee party complacency.
I’m hereby calling for the nationwide establishment of a “People’s Caucus” in every state, region and community in the United States, for adjunct groups of interested people throughout the world. The services of Campaign Corner will be put to this task, as it shifts gears from electoral campaigns to those campaigns devoted to the advancement of various progressive causes and reforms. There are Facebook contacts of the Corner and these will be solicited to have people to be “convenors” of a Caucus in every state (and in local communities in some cases, like Chicago or Houston or New York City): giving like-minded people a chance to meet one another if they can and to correspond if they can’t—all with the purpose of people trying to find for themselves what they can do about depressing conditions in their communities, their states, their countries and the world. Interested people who are not contacted through Facebook can find appropriate information about the project at the Corner’s website.
A preacher in the church I attend, after the benediction following his sermon, always ends proceedings by saying: “now that the worship is over, let the service begin,” and I’m saying: “now that the election is over, let the politics begin.”
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Jerry D. Rose is the founding editor of The Sun State Activist and Campaign Corner . He can be reached at sunstateactivist2@yahoo.com
Please leave a comment here. I want to know what you think about this. Thanks, Jerry
You are correct that there needs to be a very active people’s caucus, to show up at all public hearings and meetings and suing that those not public be made so. And Included in this is the need for a public information system that will be the public record that will never show up in the local papers.
But there is one thing more and one that Democrats do so far very badly and that is to provide the correctly framed reality and instant Response to the often bizzare logic that is the well orchestrated Gang Of Pirate’s Grand Wurlitzer.
Unless Socialized Values (empathy, empowerment, accountability, and reality) are the default values that people think of when even the word values is mentioned then we will continue to be out flanked and shellacked in every Florida election and probably the country..
Jerry, the Democrats got beat because young people checked out on this election.
14 million young people phoned it in.
The Republicans have the country’s money. Or should I say, they have their hand in the
pockets of Corporate America. We just had the first election where anyone could give money
to support these elections. For all we know, China just pumped in millions to elect Republicans.
Who knows.
Getting people organized is admirable. I’ve thought how to do this productively.
I’ve followed the Coffee Party, but I still think they keep showing up to Republican gunfights carrying
flowers.
Look, many of us are sick of Democrats. We’re sick of their wishy-washy nature. We’re tired they won’t fight back except for a few ( Wasserman, Grayson, the guy in NY who’se name alludes me right now. )
But your right, we need a real grass roots movement not supported by the Koch brothers.
Yes, we need a movement that puts the value on people at the forefront.
I don’t know how you create jobs right now if companies won’t hire. There is only one alternative for people. Start a business or fade into tentville. We need jobs.
The energy issues in this country and looking at peak oil are going to be ignored as the Republicans suck up to the oil companies.
We all know the fact is the Defense department needs it’s budget cut by a couple a hundred billion a year to invest that money in alternative energy so we can get to the point as a nation we can give OPEC the bird and stop sending them billions of dollars for oil and spending billions of dollars protecting their oil fields.
That’s going to take a Manhattan plan and infrastructure build out of the country to put mass transportation projects into place in all major cities, electric cars, promotion of work policies that encourage people working 4 days a week instead of 5 or working from home 2-3 days a week, etc.
Whether that is job creation or health care for all. I’m so pissed off at Democrats for scrapping the public option that I almost sat at home this year. And to think they stretched out most of the health care bill for several years makes me wonder if they we’re serious about health care reform in the first place.
Getting people organized into an independent caucus that is independent of the Democrats and GOP is the first real step.
1. We all need to get off of Facebook and start organizing ourselves in a way that makes sense …. sharing critical contact info in DATABASE format.
Facebook is actually DISABLING any effective movement by the design of its policices. Think about how much more networking we could be doing if we only had access to the data. ( i.e. WHO is sharing your posts and who they are sharing them with )
2 We need to be INDEPENDENT of *ANY* political party. We need to learn how to network and grow a movement without corporate or party money. This is GRASS ROOTS.
3. We need to be creating email lists of media, politicians and activists.
Email works. Posting something on your Facebook “wall” doesn’t get the word out sufficiently to make things happen.
4. Get a free phone number from Google and use it solely for activism. It can be set up to ring multiple phones. It’s pretty cool. Go to:
http://google.com/voice
5. Send me an email at steve@stevemoyer.us and I’ll facilitate networking with others who do the same. Yes, I will share your email address. Again, get “out of the box” of thinking you are better off by being secretive about your phone or email address. You aren’t better off … you are DISABLED. Get another EMAIL address from Google mail
( http://gmail.com ) just for the purpose of activism and send me that address. You can selectively forward email messages to your REAL address from Gmail.
Think smarter. Work smarter. Live smarter!
My email address is steve@stevemoyer.us
Please join my group on Facebook as well: http://facebook-sn.nodes.net
Thanks,
Steve Moyer
I think it’s a mistake to make a blanket statement of why the elections went the way they did. Young people not turning out may have been a major cause in one area while areas made up predominantly of disaffected seniors could be the reason elsewhere. And lets not forget the disdain for all things Democrat, Incumbent, Harry Reid, Obama, Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi, etc. To try to put our finger on a singular cause is to overlook the multiple issues people wrestled with during this election.
The bottom line I think needs to be targeted is the question: Are we better off than we were two years ago? I believe the answer to be In some areas, yes; in other areas, no. The reasons for both should be the reasons we address as we go forward. And they should be the same issues we hold our elected officials’ accountable to, especially those who claimed they’ve been held hostage and now stand at the helm.
Democrats have been weak, no question about it. And the Tea Party and the Republicans are willing to use tactics that they know we are not, Furthermore, they know we know that about ourselves and still, won’t fight back.
I am a Democrat and find it to be somewhat of a moral conundrum. This peace and love stuff ain’t for sissies, especially when you have to fight for it.
Hey,
I’m a democrat, I want solutions.
Throw rocks at me!
David
Jerry, thanks for all the work you did providing a forum for progressive candidates. As the candidate for US Senate of the fledgling Progressive Party of Oregon, I was too busy to take full advantage of the infrastructure that you had set up, but I think you are on the right track of what we have to do next.
I was unsucessful at breaking through the corporate media blockade during the campaign, but I am going to continue to try and get my message out through a variety of means. That message is that all progressives must work together on a unified theme, the abolition of corporate personhood through Constitutional amendment.
The disaffection of youth for politics is understandable. Their parents have rejected politics in recognition of the fact that the two-Party duopoly is dependent on corporate dollars and therefore put their interests over those of the People. Whil we all have heroes within the current and historical Democratic Party, the truth is that Party leadership has failed us. Our youth, having not experienced how a less corrupted Democratic Party once stood for us, undersandably equates all politicians with corruption.
I hope that progressive Democrats will learn the ony lesson that can be drawn from this debacle: If the Party does not represent the People, then it is anything but democratic and does not deserve our support. The entire progressive agenda depends on one thing alone, the abolition of corporate personhood. This is an issue that affects all progressive activists, regardless of what other causes they champion.
Do you really expect any career politician to risk his or her job to introduce a Constitutional amendent that will be a litmus test for all future races, putting the jobs of their colleagues on the line if they refuse to support it? The fact that even Bernie Sanders declined to consider it should answer the question. It is time to form a fusion third Party ticket to run real progressives in 2012.
I agree that people need to organize and speak up against the insanity and corporate control. I found during my campaign for gov that many youth will be with us on that. Ralph points out that only 7% of the voters made the difference in this election, that’s only 3% of total voters, the rest voted as they did in the previous election while 28 million voters stayed home. Makes the GOP “Tsunami” look more like a ripple. A voters revolt would be good and would help expose the enormity of the problem because our elections are controlled by the corporate monopoly. Getting the message out will be the challenge even with the internet. We will need an enthusiastic IT crew.
A number of excellent comments here; please keep em coming. I myself have “checked out” for a few days as I battled a fast-developing (thankfully now quickly-disappearance) illness. I’ll definitely try to do better in responding to comments. Jerry