Once you read books like Murray Bookchin's "The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy", you realize just how authoritarian and right wing nearly all of our political parties and movements are today. Bookchin is a well-known anarchist, an anarcho-socialist flavor similar to Kropotokin's work but with a much stronger emphasis on ecology and the need to create a sustainable economy, not just one that always grows.
Of course, as I discussed in my essay on Kropotkin's "The Conquest of Bread", the term "anarchy" can create a misunderstanding in modern audiences. It isn't the complete absence of rules, but rather the breakdown of hierarchical power in both government and business. In that context, terms like "libertarian socialist" might be a better fit for modern audiences, but even that can create confusion as the Libertarian Party is very different from the libertarianism Kropotkin or Bookchin advocate for. It is effectively an argument of right-wing libertarianism versus left-wing libertarianism.
In any case, Bookchin calls his philosophy of ecologically-focused anarchism "Communalism" to emphasize that it is distinct from typical calls for socialism or communism. Bookchin discusses the inadequacy of Marx's analysis to handle modern problems caused by capitaliss. Indeed, Marx was mostly focused on economic factors and envisioned economic strikes by workers at factories as generating the coming "socialist revolution". However, Bookchin points out this isn't realistic today as by far the large majority of today's workers are not technical workers in factories but rather workers in service jobs that are more easily replaceable. Bookchin also emphasizes that capitalism has hurt more than just our economic needs, but also contributes to racism, sexism, urban decay, and the destruction of the environment, all issues that Marx did not really address.
Bookchin's goal of communalism is to break down all authoritarian power in all spheres of life, not just economic. Hierarchical power structures are by their nature authoritarian since a small group (and sometimes a single individual) sits in a "position of power" over others, and this structure exists in both the private sector (executive board of directors and CEOs) as well as government (governors/president and legislature). Communalism instead calls for the elimination of these positions as positions of power and policy-making, and instead calls for citizen assemblies to make economic and government decisions as a direct democracy. The citizen assembly would debate and deliberate and directly vote on all issues affecting the community, and attempt to achieve consensus whenever possible.
Bookchin makes a distinction between local governments, which are direct democracy citizen assemblies that derive just power directly from the people, and nation-state governments (such as the state or federal government in the US) that can easily become authoritarian when allowed to make decisions on behalf of the people. Bookchin's solution is a combination of what he calls "libertarian municipalism" and "confederalism".
Libertarian municipalism is the concept that the local city government (or municipality, could be a neighborhood or small district within a mega city like New York City) is where all public decisions are deliberated and made. A municipal assembly makes decisions by consensus and direct democracy, the key factor being the municipality is small enough that the assembly can be held with face-to-face discussions. The municipal assembly would also debate economic policy, not just politics, and "own" public resources and industry. In the ideal, private ownership of business would be replaced by public ownership of the industry, democratically-run by the assembly made up of everyone in the community, not just the workers. After all, the effects of industry can impact the entire community, not just the workers themselves, as is the case of pollution and environmental damage.
These municipalities would band together into a confederal state, which is very different from today's state. Pennsylvania today elects representatives that make decisions -- that is, set public policy -- on behalf of citizens, and this often leads to authoritarian abuses of power and corruption. Instead, confederalism proposes that the municipalities vote on policy directly, and once the policy is approved, muncipalities elect representatives to carry out that policy. In effect, state representatives shift from policy-makers to becoming administrators that simply oversee implementation of the policy chosen by the people. These elected officials would be expected to follow the guidelines set by the municipal assembly, and if not followed, could immediately be removed from the role by the municipality. Should a municipality "go rogue" and harm human rights or the environment, the rest of the municipalities would be able to unite in a confederal assembly to take action against the rogue. The confederal assembly would effectively have a previously-agreed-on set of human and ecological rights, defined by popular assemblies and backed by the people. In some sense, it's a return to the original ideas of small government and democracy enshrined in the US's articles of confederation which would establish the basic human and ecological rights to be protected by the confederation.
Bookchin proposes that this set up remains the most democracy and decentralized while also respecting the need for interdependence. The idea that every community can be 100% self sufficient and never need anything from the outside is ridiculous. We definitely take strides to ensure our communities are very self-sufficient, particularly for basic necessities like food, but we also work within a confederal state of peers of set overall policy and share resources. Bookchin cautions against going to far with decentralized self-sufficiency, that it can be just as dangerous as being too centralized. Bookchin sees communalism as effectively the best balance of decentralization with the need to cooperate in larger structures.
Bookchin does however admit that the plan does have some risk. Decentralization to this disagree can easily turn bad if we do not have a majority of people on the same page with a goal of taking power back from hierarchy and using it toward humanitarian and ecological goals. Bookchin therefore emphasizes the need for education. Democracy on its own won't immediately bring out a moral, ecological society. He also criticizes political parties for being too centralized, saying most national parties including the Greens, Labour, and Socialist parties too often become hierarchical when focusing on nation-state politics. He points to the fact that the German Greens, for example, despite having won many parliamentary seats have not advocated for communities and cities with Green elected officials to have more democratic influence and autonomy. He instead advocates Greens to run for local office on a platform of making the local government more democratic, changing the institution and the minds of people to expect direct conversation with the mayor and community leaders and a direct vote in municipal affairs. He asks, rightly so I think -- how can one take down the capitalist system if one cannot reform one's own neighborhood to be more democratic? Rather than taking actions that prop up a capitalist and hierarchical government (in fact, efforts for affordable housing and parks without corresponding pushes for democracy might actually empower the hierarchy more by giving it a "friendly face" that can be used to justify that the system "works"), we need to keep the emphasis on democratic governments to preserve our planet and can build a movement around today's government and slowly overtake it. In fact, Bookchin speculates that this might be the only way for Leftist politics to win again in the face of a long-established hierarchical system that most people have grown used to.
Largely I find myself very strongly agreeing with Bookchin's call for communalism and a much more democratic system. While always wanting to support stronger action for a living wage, affordable housing, healthcare, and fights against imperialism and other issues, I find myself always drawn back to the idea that "if we had more democracy, this probably wouldn't be an issue..." Poll after poll shows the majority of Americans don't want more war. A majority want to raise the wages and ensure healthcare for all. If we had democracy, we would have voted for it, and it'd already be done. The reason we don't have it is precisely our lack of democracy. Our representative government is much more authoritarian and hierarchical than it sounds like, and that concentration of power into legislatures makes it prone to corruption and the interests of the elite rather than the interests of the population as a whole.
It seems clear to me that a major effort of the Green Party and other organizations seeking change must be towards establishing greater democratic control of government and the economy. We must assert the will and power of the people as a whole to get the change we seek from bottom-up movement, not top-down decision making. I think Bookchin's proposals for libertarian municipalism and confederalism are the goals the Green Party needs to set for future elections. We need to run more local candidates set on making this a reality for Pittsburgh and other cities and communities.
We'll have to think a little more on exactly what this looks like -- for example, I suspect the confederal assemblies would be chosen by proportional representation within the municipalities, or ranked choice for specific tasks. But the key idea is to invert what we have today -- we are not subjects being "ruled" by our elected political elite, we hold the power and elect representatives to serve us. Just educating others on that message I think would make a huge difference on our national political conversation.
Showing posts with label greens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label greens. Show all posts
Monday, May 14, 2018
Sunday, April 1, 2018
We Still Haven't Conquered Bread
Here we are more than 100 year's since Kropotkin's "The Conquest of Bread", and we still haven't conquered it.
Kropotkin therefore describes what he believes to be the successful formula to creating a sustained political and economic revolution. First, the revolution must ensure every citizen has food, shelter, and clothing. Kropotkin argued the revolution must be anarchist (or perhaps libertarian socialist is a better term in the modern era, as many misunderstand what anarchism means) in which the centralized state government is also abolished simultaneously with the capitalist ownership of private property. Citizen-led community organizations, democratically run by the citizens themselves, would essentially declare that the food belongs to the people and encourage communities to farm and grow food for themselves. They would next lead tallies to count the unused homes that lie vacant as banks and landlords sit on them, and simply declare that the homes are owned by the public now and move homeless people into them. Should the landlords attempt eviction, the community organizations would defend the new tenants and stop the eviction and refuse to acknowledge any "authority" outside of the democratic community organization. These community organizations would then declare that clothing factories belong to the people and ensure any person can have access to any clothing needed. In the end, food, shelter, and clothing are to be declared rights of all, available free of charge to all citizens in exchange for sharing in the manual labor of the community to maintain the farms and clothing factories.
Once the immediate needs are taken care of, Kropotkin spends a few chapters describing how important it is that the community sets up a self-sufficient economy consisting of decentralized, community-owned (not privately-owned) farms and industry. In his view, as long as the community relies on some other community or nation for its food and products, it will always be reliant on others and will be taken advantage of by capitalists, or even the centralized state. The community must become self-sufficient in order to remain free.
Kropotkin then makes a very human argument for why the decentralized, self-sufficient economy is necessary. He blasts not only capitalism but even Marxist forms of socialism for focusing too much on the "means of production" and worker wages when the economy is really based on consumption. He argues that workers are always exploited anytime they are paid wages -- even under a socialist system -- because wages by definition are sold labor that must be sold for less than it is worth, and so concludes wages in any form need to be completely abolished. He argues people's demands for a comfortable life are what really drive the economy, and when our basic needs are met, we can all spend more time enjoying our lives or working toward ways to create more comfortable and interesting lives. He particularly criticizes the idea of industrialized "specialization" that was brought about by capitalism (and in his view is still defended too readily by Marxist socialists), saying that our goal in life shouldn't be to maximize production of profit but instead to maximize our ability to enjoy leisure time. He foresees a socialist world of automation that would only require of workers perhaps 4 hours of work per day, allowing more free time to people to spend reading and learning, writing books, creating art, doing science, or whatever else makes sense, based on personal decision. He argues that the human psyche wasn't designed to do the same manual labor day in and day out for our whole lives. People aren't healthy unless doing a bit of both manual and intellectual labor and varying up daily tasks, and so he argues that a short necessary work schedule (assisted by automation) to take care of basic needs combined with free time to pursue intellectual hobbies produced the most healthy and normal life, and should be the ultimate goal of any revolution. Essentially, we must seek a balanced life of happiness.
I found Kropotkin's different vision of socialism and the revolution to be a very interesting read, since the narrative seems to always equate socialism with Marxism. Kropotkin's more decentralized vision is particularly appealing to me because of its strong emphasis on personal liberty but within a community, and I think it fits more neatly into the Green Party's platform and narrative that rejects both capitalism and centralized state socialism.
Wait, what? What does "conquest of bread" mean? Glad you asked.
Kropotkin's main argument in his book "The Conquest of Bread" is that, paraphrased and in the words of Bill and Ted, we should "be excellent to each other" and make sure every person has bread (or whatever food type you prefer) so as not to starve. Kropotkin cites several failed revolutions, notably the French revolutions of the 1800s, and suggests that the major reason each failed was not because the initial uprising failed -- the uprisings actually worked rather well at getting rid of royalty -- but ultimately failed because the revolutionary leaders didn't know what to do after they had removed the royalty. Revolutionary leaders quickly installed themselves into government in the same positions vacated by the old royalty and government leaders, set up the same power structures and form of government, and quickly became a type of royalty or political elite themselves. More time was spent first fighting over more abstract concepts like political rights and how government would be structured instead of setting a priority of feeding the poor and getting them the bread they need. As such, the poor only tolerated the revolution for a short period of time before growing disillusioned. According to Kropotkin, the wealthy were each time able to take advantage of the situation: "What has your revolution brought? You are still hungry! If you go back to work for me, you can end this and start receiving wages and food again." The poor grumbled and went back to their jobs, and revolutionaries were executed as traitors as the wealthy came back into power. Any revolution quickly fails and returns back to the status quo by not putting the needs of the poorest citizens first.
Kropotkin therefore describes what he believes to be the successful formula to creating a sustained political and economic revolution. First, the revolution must ensure every citizen has food, shelter, and clothing. Kropotkin argued the revolution must be anarchist (or perhaps libertarian socialist is a better term in the modern era, as many misunderstand what anarchism means) in which the centralized state government is also abolished simultaneously with the capitalist ownership of private property. Citizen-led community organizations, democratically run by the citizens themselves, would essentially declare that the food belongs to the people and encourage communities to farm and grow food for themselves. They would next lead tallies to count the unused homes that lie vacant as banks and landlords sit on them, and simply declare that the homes are owned by the public now and move homeless people into them. Should the landlords attempt eviction, the community organizations would defend the new tenants and stop the eviction and refuse to acknowledge any "authority" outside of the democratic community organization. These community organizations would then declare that clothing factories belong to the people and ensure any person can have access to any clothing needed. In the end, food, shelter, and clothing are to be declared rights of all, available free of charge to all citizens in exchange for sharing in the manual labor of the community to maintain the farms and clothing factories.
Once the immediate needs are taken care of, Kropotkin spends a few chapters describing how important it is that the community sets up a self-sufficient economy consisting of decentralized, community-owned (not privately-owned) farms and industry. In his view, as long as the community relies on some other community or nation for its food and products, it will always be reliant on others and will be taken advantage of by capitalists, or even the centralized state. The community must become self-sufficient in order to remain free.
Kropotkin then makes a very human argument for why the decentralized, self-sufficient economy is necessary. He blasts not only capitalism but even Marxist forms of socialism for focusing too much on the "means of production" and worker wages when the economy is really based on consumption. He argues that workers are always exploited anytime they are paid wages -- even under a socialist system -- because wages by definition are sold labor that must be sold for less than it is worth, and so concludes wages in any form need to be completely abolished. He argues people's demands for a comfortable life are what really drive the economy, and when our basic needs are met, we can all spend more time enjoying our lives or working toward ways to create more comfortable and interesting lives. He particularly criticizes the idea of industrialized "specialization" that was brought about by capitalism (and in his view is still defended too readily by Marxist socialists), saying that our goal in life shouldn't be to maximize production of profit but instead to maximize our ability to enjoy leisure time. He foresees a socialist world of automation that would only require of workers perhaps 4 hours of work per day, allowing more free time to people to spend reading and learning, writing books, creating art, doing science, or whatever else makes sense, based on personal decision. He argues that the human psyche wasn't designed to do the same manual labor day in and day out for our whole lives. People aren't healthy unless doing a bit of both manual and intellectual labor and varying up daily tasks, and so he argues that a short necessary work schedule (assisted by automation) to take care of basic needs combined with free time to pursue intellectual hobbies produced the most healthy and normal life, and should be the ultimate goal of any revolution. Essentially, we must seek a balanced life of happiness.
I found Kropotkin's different vision of socialism and the revolution to be a very interesting read, since the narrative seems to always equate socialism with Marxism. Kropotkin's more decentralized vision is particularly appealing to me because of its strong emphasis on personal liberty but within a community, and I think it fits more neatly into the Green Party's platform and narrative that rejects both capitalism and centralized state socialism.
What can we as Greens learn from Kropotkin's analysis? Are there lessons for Greens as we develop strategy for the next few years? I take three key points from Kropotkin.
First, we must not forget the struggles and needs of the poorest among us. Sometimes we have a tendency to open philosophical dialog and debate some of the finer points of ideas. This is very commendable and even necessary as we navigate the growing philosophical and ethical quandries facing us with a growing technological world in the 21st century -- but I think it is important to remember that isn't the first priority for many people in the country. Too many still worry how they will put food on the table tonight, and that needs to always be our first priority in public. We need Green activists and candidates to put a heavy emphasis on establishing and protecting human economic rights: a right to life, to food, to water, to shelter, to basic clothing, to healthcare. Healthy food and water and modern medicine quickly lead into questions of sustainability, pollution, and climate change, so we aren't taking away from environmental arguments by focusing on human rights, but in fact, enhancing them. These issues are inseparable. Greens need to be the modern evolution of these concepts that take into account such sustainability questions that older philosophers and economists like Marx and Kropotkin didn't fully consider or understand.
Second, once we get past these basic human rights and environmental action, we need activists and political candidates talking about a positive future for humanity. "Let's fix this... so we can work harder!" is not exactly a rallying cry. Humans are not robots: we have emotions, feelings, hopes, dreams, interests, hobbies, and it's time our political policy acknowledged that. At a minimum, this means establishing a right to education and public resources like libraries, so that we all can satisfy our intellectual curiosity. But I think it is more than this. Similar to Kropotkin, I think we must not be afraid of technology and automation, but embrace it. We need to talk a vision where we all labor for our basic needs significantly less, and instead can follow our dreams. Develop hobbies, interests. Do science experiments, or explore the world. In a nutshell: tell people it's ok to be human, it's ok to have time off of work, it's ok to enjoy your life. We don't need to all be working 24/7, we don't need to "keep ourselves busy", our goal need not be to maximize production or profits. Humanity's goal should be to maximize time, something we all have precious little of in life, to spend that time with friends, family, and on interesting hobbies and projects. It's not like technology will stop progressing -- some people will do it as a hobby, and in fact, before the modern era, a lot of science and technology was done as a hobby by the wealthy that had free time from work (for a modern example, one only need look at the "open source" movement of thousands of programmers that in most cases donate their time freely to write software for other people to use, just for the fun and challenge of it). I don't think we often enough talk about that side of being human -- probably in part because so many lack the basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, but I think we need to articulate that positive vision of the future sooner rather than later in order to give hope to why we even bother fighting for basic needs. I sympathize with those that feel powerless: if you're going to be required to work a job you hate 8+ hours per day for the rest of your life no matter whether it is owned by a capitalist or socialists, what difference does it make to your life whether the capitalists or the socialists are "in charge"? Any political vision must include a better life for us all, one where we can look forward to reaping the benefits of community and technology. We can do it when we create a socialist society rather than allowing only the wealthy to benefit from automation, and that must be the message.
Third, we need to better articulate how decentralized government works. As it turns out, decentralization seems to be a very foreign concept to many Americans, even those that associate themselves with "small government" or socialism. The knee-jerk reaction is to assume changes come top-down, that a leader of some kind sets the vision and makes it happen. What we're fighting for is the opposite: opening up the process to everyone, letting everyone take their turn at being leader instead of waiting for change to happen from others. As I've said before in past essays, this is a point of contention between Greens and Democrats that we must highlight more often as I think many progressive-minded voters don't entirely understand the difference (myself being one of those people in the past!). Our goal isn't for Greens to simply "replace" Democrats within this same structure. Our goal is to be the "anti-party party" that breaks down the barriers to participating in democracy: makes it easier to vote, easier to participate, by taking the power out of political parties and corporations and returning it directly to the people. Democratic government shouldn't be funneled through a few "representatives" or "superdelegates" that have more powers than the people, we should do everything we can to get decision-making out of the halls of Harrisburg or Washington DC and into the hands of communities themselves. In a nutshell: it's time we very strongly challenged the misconception that "we're a republic, not a democracy!" that many repeat as if it is a good thing. The decentralized approach favors more democratic assemblies made up of people in the community whom the action will impact, giving everyone a voice. We strive to put decision making at the smallest level that makes sense. Some wide-reaching decisions, such as what to do about global warming, are probably best handled at the large nation-state or international levels where we can all agree on a single method that doesn't step on others' toes or even inhibit the plan, but most decisions can and should be handled directly at the community level as a discussion and vote by the local stakeholders. The idea of capitalist-owned private property is problematic precisely because it violates this rule -- a rich capitalist who has never set foot in the community can suddenly own large tracts of land and resources in that community. Why should someone who has never lived in or even visited the area be able to have so much sway over those that currently live there, some for generations? The decision must be made democratically by all those impacted, with all voters as equals, not by a small group of councilmembers, representatives, or CEOs and shareholders. Anything else is a power imbalance that favors wealth over the poor.
If we can integrate these three ideas into activism and campaigns, I think the Greens will make significant ground over the next few years. People are itching for a change, they recognize the problems, but don't have a full clear idea of where to go next. Greens must lead the way with the vision and empower others to build on that vision.
First, we must not forget the struggles and needs of the poorest among us. Sometimes we have a tendency to open philosophical dialog and debate some of the finer points of ideas. This is very commendable and even necessary as we navigate the growing philosophical and ethical quandries facing us with a growing technological world in the 21st century -- but I think it is important to remember that isn't the first priority for many people in the country. Too many still worry how they will put food on the table tonight, and that needs to always be our first priority in public. We need Green activists and candidates to put a heavy emphasis on establishing and protecting human economic rights: a right to life, to food, to water, to shelter, to basic clothing, to healthcare. Healthy food and water and modern medicine quickly lead into questions of sustainability, pollution, and climate change, so we aren't taking away from environmental arguments by focusing on human rights, but in fact, enhancing them. These issues are inseparable. Greens need to be the modern evolution of these concepts that take into account such sustainability questions that older philosophers and economists like Marx and Kropotkin didn't fully consider or understand.
Second, once we get past these basic human rights and environmental action, we need activists and political candidates talking about a positive future for humanity. "Let's fix this... so we can work harder!" is not exactly a rallying cry. Humans are not robots: we have emotions, feelings, hopes, dreams, interests, hobbies, and it's time our political policy acknowledged that. At a minimum, this means establishing a right to education and public resources like libraries, so that we all can satisfy our intellectual curiosity. But I think it is more than this. Similar to Kropotkin, I think we must not be afraid of technology and automation, but embrace it. We need to talk a vision where we all labor for our basic needs significantly less, and instead can follow our dreams. Develop hobbies, interests. Do science experiments, or explore the world. In a nutshell: tell people it's ok to be human, it's ok to have time off of work, it's ok to enjoy your life. We don't need to all be working 24/7, we don't need to "keep ourselves busy", our goal need not be to maximize production or profits. Humanity's goal should be to maximize time, something we all have precious little of in life, to spend that time with friends, family, and on interesting hobbies and projects. It's not like technology will stop progressing -- some people will do it as a hobby, and in fact, before the modern era, a lot of science and technology was done as a hobby by the wealthy that had free time from work (for a modern example, one only need look at the "open source" movement of thousands of programmers that in most cases donate their time freely to write software for other people to use, just for the fun and challenge of it). I don't think we often enough talk about that side of being human -- probably in part because so many lack the basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, but I think we need to articulate that positive vision of the future sooner rather than later in order to give hope to why we even bother fighting for basic needs. I sympathize with those that feel powerless: if you're going to be required to work a job you hate 8+ hours per day for the rest of your life no matter whether it is owned by a capitalist or socialists, what difference does it make to your life whether the capitalists or the socialists are "in charge"? Any political vision must include a better life for us all, one where we can look forward to reaping the benefits of community and technology. We can do it when we create a socialist society rather than allowing only the wealthy to benefit from automation, and that must be the message.
Third, we need to better articulate how decentralized government works. As it turns out, decentralization seems to be a very foreign concept to many Americans, even those that associate themselves with "small government" or socialism. The knee-jerk reaction is to assume changes come top-down, that a leader of some kind sets the vision and makes it happen. What we're fighting for is the opposite: opening up the process to everyone, letting everyone take their turn at being leader instead of waiting for change to happen from others. As I've said before in past essays, this is a point of contention between Greens and Democrats that we must highlight more often as I think many progressive-minded voters don't entirely understand the difference (myself being one of those people in the past!). Our goal isn't for Greens to simply "replace" Democrats within this same structure. Our goal is to be the "anti-party party" that breaks down the barriers to participating in democracy: makes it easier to vote, easier to participate, by taking the power out of political parties and corporations and returning it directly to the people. Democratic government shouldn't be funneled through a few "representatives" or "superdelegates" that have more powers than the people, we should do everything we can to get decision-making out of the halls of Harrisburg or Washington DC and into the hands of communities themselves. In a nutshell: it's time we very strongly challenged the misconception that "we're a republic, not a democracy!" that many repeat as if it is a good thing. The decentralized approach favors more democratic assemblies made up of people in the community whom the action will impact, giving everyone a voice. We strive to put decision making at the smallest level that makes sense. Some wide-reaching decisions, such as what to do about global warming, are probably best handled at the large nation-state or international levels where we can all agree on a single method that doesn't step on others' toes or even inhibit the plan, but most decisions can and should be handled directly at the community level as a discussion and vote by the local stakeholders. The idea of capitalist-owned private property is problematic precisely because it violates this rule -- a rich capitalist who has never set foot in the community can suddenly own large tracts of land and resources in that community. Why should someone who has never lived in or even visited the area be able to have so much sway over those that currently live there, some for generations? The decision must be made democratically by all those impacted, with all voters as equals, not by a small group of councilmembers, representatives, or CEOs and shareholders. Anything else is a power imbalance that favors wealth over the poor.
If we can integrate these three ideas into activism and campaigns, I think the Greens will make significant ground over the next few years. People are itching for a change, they recognize the problems, but don't have a full clear idea of where to go next. Greens must lead the way with the vision and empower others to build on that vision.
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
A Break for Work
Social media is a very powerful force, allowing people from various geographic locations and cultural backgrounds to find each other and communicate. We can learn so much from each other. I truly think it is moving us toward a more peaceful and just world, as we learn more about each other and that we have much more in common -- even across continents and cultures -- than we do differences.
However, social media is a double-edged sword and can also be used to reinforce "bubbles". Rather than seeking out new ideas, people can block anyone different from themselves, and create an "echo chamber" of thought. By following only people you agree with, you get exposed only to reinforcement, never disagreement, and it's easy to begin to think you are correct and that "everyone" agrees with you.
Social media also has the effect of sapping time away. While a powerful force for quick organizing, mobilization, and information sharing, it also becomes a black hole quickly, into which energy is spent just hitting "refresh" so you have up-to-date news. Sharing posts and quick thoughts on the news become more of a task than actually doing things that make the news in the first place. Having previously criticized others for exactly that problem, I feel myself slipping a bit into that addictive cycle. I'm not a reporter or journalist, and if I'm not going to be those things, what do I accomplish other than taking up my time and filling others' feeds?
Therefore, I have decided to -- at least, temporarily -- suspend the Progressive Pittsburgh twitter and this blog. However, I am not stepping away from politics, but rather, gearing up for the next phase of involvement.
I have more directly joined my local Green Party and am actively working toward growing the party. I encourage any followers I have to instead follow the Green Party of Allegheny County on twitter and facebook (@AlleghenyGreens) to keep up to date with party announcements. That will be a much better source of progressive news in Pittsburgh than I am alone, and you'll be learning how to get more directly involved in bringing the Green New Deal to Pittsburgh.
Recent experiences have shown me the strong need for Pittsburgh and the surrounding region to get some new, progressive leadership and for many reasons I don't expect the Democratic party to be a leader. The Democratic establishment continues to focus on fundraising more than people's needs, and still challenge progressives every chance they get -- even going so far as to back an independent candidate in the District 8 special election because their hand-chosen person didn't get the Democratic nomination!
But I don't want Greens to be "leaders" handing down dictates either. I am a Green because I want communities to decide for themselves. We've had enough top-down decision making; it's time for bottom-up. It's time to empower communities and give them the tools and resources to make their own destinies. It's time to break up "good ol' boys" organizations and parties that feel entitled to make decisions on their own on your behalf while simultaneous ignoring your opinions or even becoming downright hostile to outsiders (often with excuses like: "I've lived in this neighborhood longer than you, I know better", or "That's how we've always done it, you just don't know," or the ever-popular "Do you even own property here? Because I do" that implies you don't matter if you don't own a house).
In lieu of social media, I will be focusing my attention on taking this message to others and building the party. Look for Green blog posts, pamphlets, events, and more, over the coming months; there will be a good chance that I wrote or contributed to some of it! I hope you will join me in the Green movement.
However, social media is a double-edged sword and can also be used to reinforce "bubbles". Rather than seeking out new ideas, people can block anyone different from themselves, and create an "echo chamber" of thought. By following only people you agree with, you get exposed only to reinforcement, never disagreement, and it's easy to begin to think you are correct and that "everyone" agrees with you.
Social media also has the effect of sapping time away. While a powerful force for quick organizing, mobilization, and information sharing, it also becomes a black hole quickly, into which energy is spent just hitting "refresh" so you have up-to-date news. Sharing posts and quick thoughts on the news become more of a task than actually doing things that make the news in the first place. Having previously criticized others for exactly that problem, I feel myself slipping a bit into that addictive cycle. I'm not a reporter or journalist, and if I'm not going to be those things, what do I accomplish other than taking up my time and filling others' feeds?
Therefore, I have decided to -- at least, temporarily -- suspend the Progressive Pittsburgh twitter and this blog. However, I am not stepping away from politics, but rather, gearing up for the next phase of involvement.
I have more directly joined my local Green Party and am actively working toward growing the party. I encourage any followers I have to instead follow the Green Party of Allegheny County on twitter and facebook (@AlleghenyGreens) to keep up to date with party announcements. That will be a much better source of progressive news in Pittsburgh than I am alone, and you'll be learning how to get more directly involved in bringing the Green New Deal to Pittsburgh.
Recent experiences have shown me the strong need for Pittsburgh and the surrounding region to get some new, progressive leadership and for many reasons I don't expect the Democratic party to be a leader. The Democratic establishment continues to focus on fundraising more than people's needs, and still challenge progressives every chance they get -- even going so far as to back an independent candidate in the District 8 special election because their hand-chosen person didn't get the Democratic nomination!
But I don't want Greens to be "leaders" handing down dictates either. I am a Green because I want communities to decide for themselves. We've had enough top-down decision making; it's time for bottom-up. It's time to empower communities and give them the tools and resources to make their own destinies. It's time to break up "good ol' boys" organizations and parties that feel entitled to make decisions on their own on your behalf while simultaneous ignoring your opinions or even becoming downright hostile to outsiders (often with excuses like: "I've lived in this neighborhood longer than you, I know better", or "That's how we've always done it, you just don't know," or the ever-popular "Do you even own property here? Because I do" that implies you don't matter if you don't own a house).
In lieu of social media, I will be focusing my attention on taking this message to others and building the party. Look for Green blog posts, pamphlets, events, and more, over the coming months; there will be a good chance that I wrote or contributed to some of it! I hope you will join me in the Green movement.
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Petra Kelly and Lessons from the German Greens
Recently I read a short book titled "Thinking Green!", a collection of essays written by Petra K. Kelly, one of the founders of German Green Party and the European Greens. She was a recommendation to me by a fellow Green to learn more about what exactly Green values and philosophy consists of, and it was an enjoyable read that helped affirm those values.
Petra shares an interesting take on the Berlin Wall and fall of USSR and East Germany that I hadn't heard anywhere else. As a long-time activist, Petra describes making routine visits to East Germany for humanitarian aid and to help grow local activist groups in East Germany. She describes a growing group in East Berlin that favored Green values and ideals -- democracy, peace, social justice -- and a general trend toward decentralized democratic socialism against the statist form of "communism" pushed by Russia.
As the wall came down, the East German activists rose to take positions within the government vacated by the old Soviet-backed politicians that left when they saw what was coming. For a short time, Petra describes parades and marches in the street as the East German socialists, with the backing of the West German Greens, begin cleaning and rebuilding East Berlin.
However, Petra describes how that changed very rapidly as the American-backed West German government came in a few weeks later. The West Germans forced closing of all community banks in areas, and forced businesses to switch to West German currency for transactions. This had the effect of forcing East Germans to go to West German banks to get money, where the exchange rate was poor and fees were charged. For-profit private banks quickly moved into the neighborhoods, and with West German backing, used their financial power to put pressure on the socialist community organizations in favor of capitalism from American-backed West German businesses that suddenly flooded the city. Those same businesses and West German politicians began backing the unification narrative and used the nationalist (read: Neo-Nazi) element in East Germany as a way to oppose the Green-backed socialist organizations that were pushing for an independent state. With the sudden influx of money and power, the capitalist side won the struggle with the help of the nationalist organizations, and as Petra describes, the socialist marches and parades were quickly replaced with nationalist parades focused on pride in being unified German citizens, complete with huge German flags everywhere. Petra was one of the early members of the unified German parliament -- since elections in Germany use proportional representation, Greens have a good amount of seats and influence in Germany -- and describes seeing politicians in the parliament repeating German nationalist ideas and speeches that echoed some of Hitler's speeches. The West Germans were using that deep nationalist rhetoric to win votes and oppress the resistance as they profited from the switch to capitalism. I bet this doesn't sound familiar at all.
This story of American-backed capitalists forcing unification and stopping an independent socialist state from forming is obviously a part of the story I had never heard before. It was a very interesting read. By itself that story is worth a read, but there were other great essays.
Other essays included non-violence and "non-violent social resistance" as a way of fighting oppression and power without the need for violent war, and how the German Greens were influenced by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi's work. She talks the need to respect the environment and put global warming (climate change) at the forefront of all issues. She also writes about the need to elevate more women into leadership roles, and how Greens must always support social justice and human rights. She seems direct participatory democracy as a requirement to address human rights and the environment.
One interesting aspect was that the essays also somewhat criticized the German Greens. On several issues, one strong example in particular being the Chinese violence against the Tibetan people, the German Greens had stayed relatively silent as a whole, and Petra was not happy. She criticized the German Greens for losing their identity and values as they tried to become too mainstream and too much like the other parties in German. Some German Greens were worried coming out too strongly against China or for Tibet, for fear of causing waves and potentially losing votes in the upcoming elections. In other words, as is often the case, the influence of money and power had corrupted even some of the German Greens. She cautions other Green parties around the world from the same fate, and to ensure that as we grow our activism and political influence that we always keep our eye toward our goal: decentralized democracy and power so that we can further human rights and protect the environment.
Keep in mind this book was written in the 1990s, so I'm not sure how much of the criticism of the German Greens at the time still applies today. However, it is still a powerful lesson.
Our goal as Greens is not take power for ourselves or become the next "major party" that simply replaces the Democrats. Our goal is to remake our political and economic system to be more free, fair, and just, to all people. If you want to learn more about Green values and what we can do to stay true to them as we fight the good political fight, Petra Kelly's book is a great one.
Petra shares an interesting take on the Berlin Wall and fall of USSR and East Germany that I hadn't heard anywhere else. As a long-time activist, Petra describes making routine visits to East Germany for humanitarian aid and to help grow local activist groups in East Germany. She describes a growing group in East Berlin that favored Green values and ideals -- democracy, peace, social justice -- and a general trend toward decentralized democratic socialism against the statist form of "communism" pushed by Russia.
As the wall came down, the East German activists rose to take positions within the government vacated by the old Soviet-backed politicians that left when they saw what was coming. For a short time, Petra describes parades and marches in the street as the East German socialists, with the backing of the West German Greens, begin cleaning and rebuilding East Berlin.
However, Petra describes how that changed very rapidly as the American-backed West German government came in a few weeks later. The West Germans forced closing of all community banks in areas, and forced businesses to switch to West German currency for transactions. This had the effect of forcing East Germans to go to West German banks to get money, where the exchange rate was poor and fees were charged. For-profit private banks quickly moved into the neighborhoods, and with West German backing, used their financial power to put pressure on the socialist community organizations in favor of capitalism from American-backed West German businesses that suddenly flooded the city. Those same businesses and West German politicians began backing the unification narrative and used the nationalist (read: Neo-Nazi) element in East Germany as a way to oppose the Green-backed socialist organizations that were pushing for an independent state. With the sudden influx of money and power, the capitalist side won the struggle with the help of the nationalist organizations, and as Petra describes, the socialist marches and parades were quickly replaced with nationalist parades focused on pride in being unified German citizens, complete with huge German flags everywhere. Petra was one of the early members of the unified German parliament -- since elections in Germany use proportional representation, Greens have a good amount of seats and influence in Germany -- and describes seeing politicians in the parliament repeating German nationalist ideas and speeches that echoed some of Hitler's speeches. The West Germans were using that deep nationalist rhetoric to win votes and oppress the resistance as they profited from the switch to capitalism. I bet this doesn't sound familiar at all.
This story of American-backed capitalists forcing unification and stopping an independent socialist state from forming is obviously a part of the story I had never heard before. It was a very interesting read. By itself that story is worth a read, but there were other great essays.
Other essays included non-violence and "non-violent social resistance" as a way of fighting oppression and power without the need for violent war, and how the German Greens were influenced by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi's work. She talks the need to respect the environment and put global warming (climate change) at the forefront of all issues. She also writes about the need to elevate more women into leadership roles, and how Greens must always support social justice and human rights. She seems direct participatory democracy as a requirement to address human rights and the environment.
One interesting aspect was that the essays also somewhat criticized the German Greens. On several issues, one strong example in particular being the Chinese violence against the Tibetan people, the German Greens had stayed relatively silent as a whole, and Petra was not happy. She criticized the German Greens for losing their identity and values as they tried to become too mainstream and too much like the other parties in German. Some German Greens were worried coming out too strongly against China or for Tibet, for fear of causing waves and potentially losing votes in the upcoming elections. In other words, as is often the case, the influence of money and power had corrupted even some of the German Greens. She cautions other Green parties around the world from the same fate, and to ensure that as we grow our activism and political influence that we always keep our eye toward our goal: decentralized democracy and power so that we can further human rights and protect the environment.
Keep in mind this book was written in the 1990s, so I'm not sure how much of the criticism of the German Greens at the time still applies today. However, it is still a powerful lesson.
Our goal as Greens is not take power for ourselves or become the next "major party" that simply replaces the Democrats. Our goal is to remake our political and economic system to be more free, fair, and just, to all people. If you want to learn more about Green values and what we can do to stay true to them as we fight the good political fight, Petra Kelly's book is a great one.
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Anatomy of Democrats' Meaningless Statements
This recent piece of fluff written by current Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Tom Perez perfectly sums up how the Democratic Party still resists change while pretending to stand up for progressive values. They've done a pretty good job at mastering doublespeak, on the one hand saying the words that make people feel comfortable while on the other doing so in a way that is so vague that it is meaningless. Certainly, continuing actions by the Democrats speak louder than words: the DNC has recently purged progressives from top leadership roles, Democratic leaders in Congress have supported Donald Trump's plans for increased war and military spending and were even urging Trump to change the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, all while resisting Bernie Sanders' calls for single payer medicare for all, tuition-free college, and other domestic programs.
The CNN article above continues the trend of saying words that sound nice on the surface but are not backed up by anything when you read into it. Let's go through and see exactly how weak and uninspiring this article really is.
An "apology" is not an apology if you can't own up to what you did wrong. These words are meaningless.
Again, no apology, more generic words about unity. They're more interested in winning elections to retain power rather than standing up for what's right, and implying if they don't win, it's because *YOU* didn't organize and work hard enough for them. They push any blame onto progressives rather than acting like leaders and owning up to problems.
What they leave out is that Democrats have continued for the past year to ignore progressive candidates and races. Some of those wins were due to DSA support, not the Democratic Party, but they are of course perfectly happy to take credit for the wins (this is one of many reasons I encourage DSA members to put that effort into building the Green Party, not giving Democrats a free ride!). Democrats still support establishment candidates and races. Of course they do. This isn't new and not unexpected. What's needed is evidence that they will support progressive candidates, which they're not providing.
Up to this point they still have not owned up to any wrongdoing or given specifics. And "re-litigating the past" is another jab at progressives that have still not received answers for the problems with the 2016 elections. Of course they want to move on from the past and cover it up.
But maybe I'm being too harsh. Let's see if the second half of the article has more specifics, now that they want to talk about particular proposals.
Good sentiment, but how do you ensure this? No specifics. If they can't even discipline the last DNC chair that was strongly biased -- in fact, they defended her as Clinton made her an honorary chair of her campaign once she resigned from DNC chair -- what evidence do we have that it will change? Also, while it sort of implies that past officers weren't neutral, it does not come out and say it or apologize. This is a sentence specifically constructed as a sort of a "dog whistle" politics, designed to get a message to progressives without admitting any problems for people that don't know the story. It's a way of covering up what happened from the general public without being too obvious.
The debates were mostly scheduled in advance in 2016 already, problem was Clinton's campaign was allowed to direct DNC decisions way back in 2015 and so Clinton was the one deciding the debate schedule in advance! So this proposal is completely worthless and doesn't fix anything.
The CNN article above continues the trend of saying words that sound nice on the surface but are not backed up by anything when you read into it. Let's go through and see exactly how weak and uninspiring this article really is.
...we must focus on ensuring that voters across the nation trust our party...
...rebuilding trust with those who share our progressive vision for America and by addressing concerns many have raised in recent years...Notice not once in these opening paragraphs do they acknowledge what the complaints actually are. The accusations -- first released by Wikileaks more than a year ago and later confirmed by several sources, most recently Donna Brazile in her book -- were that the primary was rigged by allowing Hillary Clinton and her campaign to control the Democratic party and effectively lock out challengers. That arcane election laws made it difficult or impossible for voters to register in time to participate in closed primaries. That state party funding was siphoned to Clinton's campaign rather than supporting down-ballot candidates.
An "apology" is not an apology if you can't own up to what you did wrong. These words are meaningless.
Democrats can win big if we're united, and we know that can only happen by healing divisions that still linger from last year's bruising presidential nominating contest.
...
Republicans are leading a coordinated, nationwide effort of voter suppression and partisan gerrymandering...Also notice that jab about remaining "united" at the end there, followed by a quick segue into the bad things Republicans are doing. Again, rather than admitting wrongdoing, they're talking down to progressives and treating their legitimate grievances as overreaction. "You have complaints, but does that really matter when Republicans are also bad?". It's lesser-evil-ism all over again. Yes, Republicans are doing bad things, but what are YOU going to do to fix it? Trading one evil for another isn't much of a win.
We believe Democrats can win everywhere if we organize and lead with our values.
Again, no apology, more generic words about unity. They're more interested in winning elections to retain power rather than standing up for what's right, and implying if they don't win, it's because *YOU* didn't organize and work hard enough for them. They push any blame onto progressives rather than acting like leaders and owning up to problems.
We made historic investments in Virginia, New Jersey, and in mayoral and legislative races that helped pay big dividends with our major victories last month
What they leave out is that Democrats have continued for the past year to ignore progressive candidates and races. Some of those wins were due to DSA support, not the Democratic Party, but they are of course perfectly happy to take credit for the wins (this is one of many reasons I encourage DSA members to put that effort into building the Green Party, not giving Democrats a free ride!). Democrats still support establishment candidates and races. Of course they do. This isn't new and not unexpected. What's needed is evidence that they will support progressive candidates, which they're not providing.
We will not win the future by re-litigating the past. But we do have to learn from our past mistakes.
Up to this point they still have not owned up to any wrongdoing or given specifics. And "re-litigating the past" is another jab at progressives that have still not received answers for the problems with the 2016 elections. Of course they want to move on from the past and cover it up.
But maybe I'm being too harsh. Let's see if the second half of the article has more specifics, now that they want to talk about particular proposals.
No party officer should be allowed to support, endorse or favor any candidate in the primary process.
Good sentiment, but how do you ensure this? No specifics. If they can't even discipline the last DNC chair that was strongly biased -- in fact, they defended her as Clinton made her an honorary chair of her campaign once she resigned from DNC chair -- what evidence do we have that it will change? Also, while it sort of implies that past officers weren't neutral, it does not come out and say it or apologize. This is a sentence specifically constructed as a sort of a "dog whistle" politics, designed to get a message to progressives without admitting any problems for people that don't know the story. It's a way of covering up what happened from the general public without being too obvious.
The debate schedule is decided in advance, instead of negotiating it after all our candidates have entered the race.
The debates were mostly scheduled in advance in 2016 already, problem was Clinton's campaign was allowed to direct DNC decisions way back in 2015 and so Clinton was the one deciding the debate schedule in advance! So this proposal is completely worthless and doesn't fix anything.
Any and all joint fundraising agreements will be transparent and available to all official campaigns.
This is implicitly referring to the joint agreement with the Clinton campaign that allowed her campaign to secretly work with DNC and appoint her campaign staff to DNC leadership positions. Again, not admitting that or apologizing.
However, the deep root of the problem here isn't transparency -- though transparency is of course very important for any democratic organization -- but rather the content of those agreements. The DNC used this agreement to siphon money through state parties to Clinton's campaign, which made it easier for DNC to collect money around campaign finance laws. It broke the spirit of the law if not the letter of the law. Nothing here admits to that or describes how they are against it. So I read it as "I guess we'd be OK with making agreements with ANY candidate willing to help skirt campaign finance laws".
Notice also they say the agreements are available to all "official campaigns". What is an "official" campaign? That's a weasel word there. DNC can define what they mean by "official", and they can make it so that Bernie's campaign doesn't count as "official" if they want to. But even if they don't directly exclude Bernie, it only says such agreements will be transparent and available to campaigns, not the general public.
If they really wanted transparency, they'd put all of this out in the public eye. But that's not what they want. My guess is that they'll set a rule that the DNC only recognizes a campaign as "official" if you sign non-disclosure agreements and what not, so they can use legal pressure to keep details of agreements secret in future. It's an attempt at strong-arming candidates and campaigns, not really about being transparent.
If they really wanted transparency, they'd put all of this out in the public eye. But that's not what they want. My guess is that they'll set a rule that the DNC only recognizes a campaign as "official" if you sign non-disclosure agreements and what not, so they can use legal pressure to keep details of agreements secret in future. It's an attempt at strong-arming candidates and campaigns, not really about being transparent.
we must work with states to implement policies that make it easier to vote, including vote-by-mail laws, automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, expanded access to the polls and more robust voter protection efforts
These are good steps mostly, but the elephant in the room is the closed primary process itself. Having a commitment to open primaries would be better. A commitment to ranked choice voting or proportional representation would be even better.
But it's also vague. What is "more robust voter protection efforts"? They don't have any specific ideas or stories to share?
it's critical that the Unity Reform Commission provide recommendations that acknowledge the grass-roots benefit of the caucus process while also finding ways for those who have been excluded on caucus nights to have their votes counted
What does this even mean? What do they propose to do to fix it? If they can't articulate a plan here, I very much doubt they have one. A statement just for show. Likely nothing will change.
The real solution is to establish voting holidays and ranked choice voting so everyone has a chance to vote and their vote actually matters in the process. This is what Greens support.
provide for a significant reduction in the number of unpledged delegates
So in other words, they'll reduce it a bit to seem like they're doing something, but they will ultimately retain superdelegates that are unbound to votes and can vote as they please. Without a strong commitment to grassroots democracy and complete elimination of superdelegates, this is a worthless gesture. It says they still want to retain top-down control over the party as much as possible.
Greens do not have superdelegates, we believe in participatory democracy, not top-down party leadership dictating views. Why is it so hard for Democrats to say that? We know why, which is why this action means nothing. They haven't change their opinion, just trying to hide it better.
If we want Democrats to win and stay in power, we have to reform our party in ways that rebuild it from the ground up. A unified Democratic Party is a party that understands that every ZIP code counts and there's no such thing as an off-year. We've already begun making new investments in our state parties and down-ballot races
Oh, is that all of their policy proposals already? That was pretty weak and non-specific. They're just back to repeating themselves on talking points now. Yet again, pushing "unified" without addressing the concerns is an insult to progressives. Also again, investing in state parties and down-ballot races is meaningless, of course they're going to do that for establishment candidates they back, what we want to see is reform that doesn't shut progressives out of the process.
we changed our rules in October to ban corporate donations from political action committees whose goals conflict with our platform
So they still accept super PAC money, just as long as it matches their platform. What's in the platform? Read it yourself. But I can tell you what's missing from the platform: most progressive requirements, such as single payer healthcare, tuition-free college and student debt relief, ending the wars and reducing defense spending. Even when they sort of adopt progressive principles like a living wage, they do what they're doing in Pittsburgh -- slowly phase in $15/hr over the next *7* years. Families can't wait 7 years for better wages, and by then, inflation will make $15 worth less and still be a poverty wage. Democrats platform puts rights of business and corporations over people. Only accepting money from people they agree with will only exacerbate that problem, not fix it.
Plus, from their very own platform: "Big money is drowning out the voices of everyday Americans, and we must have the necessary tools to fight back and safeguard our electoral and political integrity.... We need to end secret, unaccountable money in politics by requiring, through executive order or legislation, significantly more disclosure and transparency—by outside groups, federal contractors, and public corporations to their shareholders. We need to amplify the voices of the American people through a small donor matching public financing system. We need to overhaul and strengthen the Federal Election Commission so that there is real enforcement of campaign finance laws. And we need to fight to eliminate super PACs and outside spending abuses."
I don't have a lot of hope they will even honor this rule when their platform says they want to eliminate big money and super PACs, and yet never talk about that. Their platform is just words to them, not a code of conduct to live by. Actions speaker louder than words. They're not even trying to work toward these goals within their own party, what evidence do we have they'd actually push for it in government?
Contrast with the Green Party, which already today requires that ALL of its candidates refuse all corporate and super PAC money. We walk the walk because we believe strongly in it.
The DNC has come a long way since the 2016 election, but we know we have much further to go to earn the trust of voters and bring more people into the electoral process. We have our values and the support of the vast majority of the American people by our side. And when we lead with those values, we win.
Actually nearly half of all Americans are registered independents. Independents make the majority of Americans. They're fed up with the two party system. If you really wanted to earn the trust of voters, you'd talk about why the Democratic party has lost millions of voters, why the independents are growing, and what you'd do to win them back. But not a peep.
But aside from that, what has the DNC done to earn the description of "come a long way"? They certainly didn't provide any specific policies or evidence in this article. They didn't even do a great job explaining their values, even though they supposedly "lead" with those values.
Hopefully this deconstruction of their statement has been helpful. Democrats continue to play this game, saying just enough to convince people to stay in the party but never producing real meaningful change. Democrats hate their progressive base, but sort of know they need them to win, so use this doublespeak to keep the party together. But they have no interest in becoming progressive, or letting progressives win. Their goal is to retain control of the Democratic party as a major political party, and control as much as government as possible to enrich their checkbooks.
The Green Party meanwhile has been a progressive party since its very inception. So why are you donating your money, time, and effort to a party that has done everything it can to lessen your voice while still demanding your vote? I invite you to put that energy toward building the Green Party instead. We win when we have candidates, we just need more to join the cause and run for office as a Green. I've spoken with many voters that are Democrats only because they don't feel they have an option yet, but spoke highly of Greens and said they'd switch in a heartbeat if Greens ran more candidates.
We have the support of many Americans behind us, we just need to continue to grow. Remember that statistics about nearly half of voters being independents: there are way more of us than corporate establishment Democrats. They control the party structure and can squelch progressive voices within their party organization easily and legally. But they cannot stop progressives coming together outside the system. They cannot stop a strong Green Party. A strong Green coalition could easily overtake the Democratic party in terms of size, because their membership is 22% of voters and falling. That's not an impossible climb to reach 10-15% of voters and challenge the size of Democrats if we keep spreading the message and stop falling for Democrats' tactics designed to "keep us in line" rather than reform. At that point, with a strong Green challenger, Democrats MUST reform or be replaced. Working outside the system rather than in it is, in my opinion, the best and only way forward.
Sunday, November 12, 2017
Be Careful Labeling 2017 Democratic Elections as "Wins"
Initial analysis of 2017 seems to show that many high profile races resulted in democratic socialist candidates winning, even in districts that previously voted for Trump or GOP in past elections. Here in PA and Pittsburgh in particular, we saw an independent candidate Mik Pappas win against an incumbent establishment Democrat (who held the office for 24 years!), as well as Our Revolution and DSA candidate Anita Prizio also winning a seat on the county council. But independents, progressives, socialists, and Greens won races across PA and the nation yesterday. Greens have been elected to more than 44 local offices just this year so far. More ran for office, with some like Jabari Brisport in New York City receiving some of the highest third party votes in decades. In fact, the Green "success rate" (percent of all Green candidates that won their races) was something like 27%, which is pretty impressive for a smaller third party that rejects corporate cash and relies solely on small individual donors in a strongly unfair electoral system.
This is a great start for progressives, and I think shows an upward trend for third party candidates. Imagine what we can do as the Greens grow with more volunteers and candidates! While we should definitely celebrate some early wins against the establishment, I think we also need to pause and be wary about how we interpret these events.
The media is already reporting this as a "blue wave" of Democrats and trying to co-opt the movement. Ex-Clinton campaign staff are already out saying Democrats are winning and that Bernie should be a Democrat or get out of the party because they don't need him. And to some degree, they're right: despite the strong showing from Green/DSA progressive candidates, many more corporatist right-wing Democrats have been elected solely on an anti-Trump agenda. As Draft Bernie points out, the media has been focusing on a few Democrats: Ralph Northam, a conservative that voted for George Bush in past elections, and Phil Murphy, a former Goldman-Sachs executive. As is typical, Democrats think that catering to conservatives and financial elite is OK since they'll get elected anyway just for not being Trump.
We need to watch these newly elected officials, because we've seen this behavior before. Remember a "blue wave" swept Obama into his first term with a majority in Congress, which Democrats then squandered and made sure very little of the progressive agenda was actually accomplished. In fact, some of Obama and the Democratic Congress's first acts were to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich, expand war in the Middle East, and pass a right-wing health insurance plan that relies on for-profit insurance to deliver care (Obama quickly dropped his earlier proposals for a public option once elected). And in fact he was willing to cut social security and other programs to get a deal, and pushed on that idea throughout his presidency. None of that is progressive at all, and it's really par for the course with Democrats. They (at best) sound progressive on the campaign trail, but as soon as elected, the donors pull the strings to get what they want. The needs of the people come last, every time.
It's even harder to believe that Democrats will change much from this election when you consider these progressives are being swept into a larger party that is still set up to squelch progressive voices. DNC chair Tom Perez is fresh off of kicking progressives out of leadership roles in the party and is still out repeating Clinton campaign talking points. Donna Brazile's truth-speaking about the stolen Democratic primary is now being called Russian propaganda, among other things. Most disappointingly perhaps, even Bernie Sanders has dialed back his expectations for the Democratic Party, with a recent email to supporters saying he wanted the DNC to "reduce" the number of super-delegates in the party, rather than previous calls to eliminate the undemocratic super-delegates all-together. The local candidates that won office today are only a few small voices within a giant political machine that is continuing to do as much as it can to crush those progressive voices, and I worry those local candidates will quickly find themselves frustrated by party leadership.
While we celebrate some local wins, let's also be careful not to get too excited about the overall Democratic Party victories as a sign of progressives winning. While progressives certainly had some encouraging victories, they haven't taken the party yet, and Democratic leadership thinks 2018 will be an easy win because of Trump; not only do I think that is a dangerous attitude to have (as we saw in the losses of 2016), but the 2017 elections reaffirm Democratic beliefs that there's no need to change the party because they still win votes by default by simply not being Republicans. I think progressives are really shooting themselves in the foot when they donate their time and energy into the Democratic party by running as Democratic candidates. Exactly as we're seeing, even when progressives win, the Democratic Party machine simply uses it as an excuse to support its agenda and attack insurgent progressives even more. You're emboldening your enemy the more you try to play nice with them and think you need to follow their rules. Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s non-violence movement wasn't to work with the oppressors within the system, it was to peacefully build a new coalition outside of the system that would force the needed cultural changes.
Power never gives up power for free. You generally can't appeal to power's "sense of fairness", because it has none. Democrats will not give up their power, their rich donors, their corporate influence in the party until forced to do so. They will continue to attack progressives and rig elections because it has worked in the past for them. Democrats have to lose big time and see their voter base dry up before they will make changes; only when the voters leave and Democrats are no longer a "sure thing" will the donor money dry up too, and it will take hitting their bottom line before they get the message. Whether you believe we need a whole new party or believe Democrats can be reformed, both strategies I think require a strong Green Party challenger to the Democrats to win some high profile elections and force Democrats to re-think their position in politics.
I'm looking forward to the opportunity for the Green Party and progressive movement in general in 2018. I hope you'll join the Greens too and help us run more candidates and expand our movement.
This is a great start for progressives, and I think shows an upward trend for third party candidates. Imagine what we can do as the Greens grow with more volunteers and candidates! While we should definitely celebrate some early wins against the establishment, I think we also need to pause and be wary about how we interpret these events.
The media is already reporting this as a "blue wave" of Democrats and trying to co-opt the movement. Ex-Clinton campaign staff are already out saying Democrats are winning and that Bernie should be a Democrat or get out of the party because they don't need him. And to some degree, they're right: despite the strong showing from Green/DSA progressive candidates, many more corporatist right-wing Democrats have been elected solely on an anti-Trump agenda. As Draft Bernie points out, the media has been focusing on a few Democrats: Ralph Northam, a conservative that voted for George Bush in past elections, and Phil Murphy, a former Goldman-Sachs executive. As is typical, Democrats think that catering to conservatives and financial elite is OK since they'll get elected anyway just for not being Trump.
We need to watch these newly elected officials, because we've seen this behavior before. Remember a "blue wave" swept Obama into his first term with a majority in Congress, which Democrats then squandered and made sure very little of the progressive agenda was actually accomplished. In fact, some of Obama and the Democratic Congress's first acts were to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich, expand war in the Middle East, and pass a right-wing health insurance plan that relies on for-profit insurance to deliver care (Obama quickly dropped his earlier proposals for a public option once elected). And in fact he was willing to cut social security and other programs to get a deal, and pushed on that idea throughout his presidency. None of that is progressive at all, and it's really par for the course with Democrats. They (at best) sound progressive on the campaign trail, but as soon as elected, the donors pull the strings to get what they want. The needs of the people come last, every time.
It's even harder to believe that Democrats will change much from this election when you consider these progressives are being swept into a larger party that is still set up to squelch progressive voices. DNC chair Tom Perez is fresh off of kicking progressives out of leadership roles in the party and is still out repeating Clinton campaign talking points. Donna Brazile's truth-speaking about the stolen Democratic primary is now being called Russian propaganda, among other things. Most disappointingly perhaps, even Bernie Sanders has dialed back his expectations for the Democratic Party, with a recent email to supporters saying he wanted the DNC to "reduce" the number of super-delegates in the party, rather than previous calls to eliminate the undemocratic super-delegates all-together. The local candidates that won office today are only a few small voices within a giant political machine that is continuing to do as much as it can to crush those progressive voices, and I worry those local candidates will quickly find themselves frustrated by party leadership.
While we celebrate some local wins, let's also be careful not to get too excited about the overall Democratic Party victories as a sign of progressives winning. While progressives certainly had some encouraging victories, they haven't taken the party yet, and Democratic leadership thinks 2018 will be an easy win because of Trump; not only do I think that is a dangerous attitude to have (as we saw in the losses of 2016), but the 2017 elections reaffirm Democratic beliefs that there's no need to change the party because they still win votes by default by simply not being Republicans. I think progressives are really shooting themselves in the foot when they donate their time and energy into the Democratic party by running as Democratic candidates. Exactly as we're seeing, even when progressives win, the Democratic Party machine simply uses it as an excuse to support its agenda and attack insurgent progressives even more. You're emboldening your enemy the more you try to play nice with them and think you need to follow their rules. Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s non-violence movement wasn't to work with the oppressors within the system, it was to peacefully build a new coalition outside of the system that would force the needed cultural changes.
Power never gives up power for free. You generally can't appeal to power's "sense of fairness", because it has none. Democrats will not give up their power, their rich donors, their corporate influence in the party until forced to do so. They will continue to attack progressives and rig elections because it has worked in the past for them. Democrats have to lose big time and see their voter base dry up before they will make changes; only when the voters leave and Democrats are no longer a "sure thing" will the donor money dry up too, and it will take hitting their bottom line before they get the message. Whether you believe we need a whole new party or believe Democrats can be reformed, both strategies I think require a strong Green Party challenger to the Democrats to win some high profile elections and force Democrats to re-think their position in politics.
I'm looking forward to the opportunity for the Green Party and progressive movement in general in 2018. I hope you'll join the Greens too and help us run more candidates and expand our movement.
Sunday, November 5, 2017
DNC Revelations
There have been some interesting revelations this past week regarding the Democratic Party. ... sort of.
In reality, Donna Brazile's allegations regarding DNC corruption & the Clinton campaign's takeover of the party are nothing new to Bernie Sanders fans. I even wrote a blog post last year arguing Bernie should join the Greens after suspicious voting problems surfaced in the primaries. There were reports more than a year ago of voter purges (recently confirmed by the NYC board of elections). Now, Brazile is confirming that the DNC did in fact have a bias toward Clinton -- because Clinton campaign and the DNC signed a contract allowing the campaign to effectively control all DNC decisions!
It feels to me a bit like posturing. Perhaps Brazile and some of her allies want to have the "tell all" in order to either get their 15 minutes of limelight as they retire. But I lean toward thinking that Brazile and others know that the DNC is on a bad path, voters are angry, and they don't want to receive the full blame. Brazile is probably hopeful she can retain her cushy job in the DNC by being the "whistleblower", for example; I have not seen any story so far mention that she was recently appointed to the DNC's rules committee, meaning she is one of the members that sets the rules for the 2020 primaries. As far as I know she has't resigned from the post, and it would now look super suspicious if Tom Perez fired her after these allegations came out, so she probably feels fairly "safe" in her position of power within the party now. Voters are angry, fundraising is way down, the party is doing terribly, and she doesn't want the blame, she wants to sneak in as a "well I never supported the corruption, I'm the whistleblower!". Don't fall for it, she hasn't changed and magically become more progressive, she's fighting to save her source of income.
So that said, what is the next step from this revelation?
I think many will likely use this as an opportunity to "rally the troops" to take over the DNC with more progressives. That is, Justice Democrats or similar organizations will say "we have the corporate DNC on the ropes, support us and we'll win and take over the party!". DON'T LISTEN TO THEM. This doesn't change anything, it just further exposes how fundamentally corrupt the DNC organization is and how they will never change.
The DNC chair is still a corporatist. He appointed corporate lobbyists to most positions of power and purged the progressives. They still back corporate-funded candidates over grassroots-funded progressives. They still have superdelegates to control who wins the party nomination. Party primaries are still done under party rules, meaning they don't legally have to uphold any sort of fair nomination process for any level of office -- and Brazile and others involved in this scandal are working right now to set the primary and debate rules for 2020! Do you think they'll make rules that favor a progressive winning? (Look at the DNC's recent resolution that specifically said Bernie and other independents should join the Democratic party -- they know he won't, but they will use it say he isn't qualified to run for office in 2020, mark my words) And they're working harder than ever to shift their platform to the right and court more right-wing voters and, in particular, rich donors. With the GOP self-destructing under Trump, they want to step in and basically be the "new" right-wing party.
A few Democrat officials will be thrown under the bus, fired from their jobs as a sacrifice to "save" the party in its current form, but make no mistake: the corporate influence is not gone. Just because the influence has potentially turned against Clinton doesn't mean it decided to give up and go home. Power gives up nothing when it doesn't have to. This just means the power and influence has decided Clinton is a liability, and is looking at other candidates and leaders for future elections, and you can bet those new leaders won't be progressive. Oh they might appoint a mild progressive to some ceremonial position with no power (as they did to Keith Ellison), but there is no way corporate donors will let a real progressive that threatens their influence on the party into any position of power within the party.
These allegations show how deep the corruption runs. Those that run the DNC let Clinton basically have the party so they could make more money from her. They filled up the DNC budget with "consultants" that got big paychecks that didn't pay off when Clinton lost an election that should have been easily winnable. That's why this is coming out. Not because they're changing strategy, but simply that they're changing the face of the party.
We cannot fight corporate Democrats on their terms. When we play their game and run in Democratic primaries, we lose, often in that election but even if a progressive sometimes wins, we lose the long game. They can suppress primaries, as we've seen. They can work against progressives. And in the off chance a progressive wins a race, they can use the party machinery to crush dissent and make the progressives "compromise" or smear them. Even with progressives within the Democratic party, they're fighting a corporate platform trying to blend into the party instead of proudly pushing for a true left-wing agenda with a party that supports them.
We must fight on OUR terms. We do that with a two-pronged approach:
1. Join the Green Party. Don't compromise on ideals. Greens have a strongly progressive platform, much more progressive than even Bernie Sanders. Greens are more accurately referred to as "eco-socialist". We must not settle for compromise with Democrats; we must take our agenda straight to the Americans people and convince them of the need for a strongly socialist platform. We must not let Democrats unilaterally set what the "moderate" or "centrist" or "compromise" viewpoint is; who appointed them in charge of defining those terms, defining what Americans want? I think most Americans actually want a Green agenda if they only knew what it was! I think the Green platform *is* the centrist, *is* the compromise agenda. The Democrats are a largely right-wing platform, moving further and further away from Americans' ideals every year, and it's time to start treating it that way. Joining the Green Party, supporting Green candidates, and running for office as a Green gets you a platform to talk about a real progressive eco-socialist agenda instead. You can proudly speak your mind knowing the party is behind you, rather than angry.
2. Many objections to Greens boil down to "the system is rigged against them, so we have to run as a Democrat". Think about that for a second: the system is so rigged that no other candidates even have a chance, and yet you think Democratic primaries are not rigged and can be won by the opposition? Those two statements are fundamentally opposed, and I encourage you to reflect on that strategy and ask if primary opponents will really work better long run than running in general election.
I personally believe that, while there is definitely corruption within the major parties and their processes such as their primaries, our election and justice system on the whole still work reasonably well. Most Americans have a sense of fairness and do not share the attitude of party leaders. Most elections (even primaries) went smoothly, it was only some districts that had problems. While court is complex and costly and needs reform, it does still work, and was the preferred method of getting justice for activists such as Martin Luther King, Jr.
So I say we run candidates as much as possible. When corruption and problems surface, we attack them in court. We can win court battles to make a more fair system. Jill Stein, the 2016 Green presidential nominee, already did this in Pennsylvania: her lawsuit last year got a state law struck down that required any candidates not in the two major parties to go through extra hoops to get on the ballot that Republicans and Democrats didn't have to do. For example, Greens would need thousands of signatures to be on the ballot, but Republicans and Democrats only would need 500. How is that fair? It wasn't, and a court struck down that law. We won, which is why we're seeing more Greens this year running for office, and I hope to see even more in future years.
While the presidential elections are high profile and so the most complex and corrupted (and so need a lot of work!), we're seeing a lot of progress at the local and state level. So we need to be running more candidates at those levels, and filing lawsuits as necessary to continue to pave the way for future elections. Those campaigns, even when they don't win, help educate voters and the general public about these sorts of issues, so it's even more critical to run for office -- hopefully you win, but even if you don't, it's a very important voter education task that needs done anyway.
Now I'm saying Green here as it is the largest party that I feel shares my values, but we see others popping up that may also work. Socialist Alternative, Progressive Independent Party, "Draft Bernie" (not sure if they made a better name yet, People's Party?). Choose whatever party best interests you. I encourage you to join the Greens because we're growing and I think have the most momentum, but do what makes sense for you and your area. Let's also get all of these parties together to talk how we can form a coalition.
Third parties are the only way to truly break the spell of corporate rigged elections and capitalism. If we want fair elections, grassroots democracy, and a more socialist economy, we MUST fight in a new party, because the two major ones will always be against us. Fighting from within puts us at a disadvantage. While fighting as a third party is also difficult and uphill, victories we gain will be long-lasting victories that change the national discussion on our own terms, which is really what our ultimate goal is. It is worth the fight. I hope you'll join us.
In reality, Donna Brazile's allegations regarding DNC corruption & the Clinton campaign's takeover of the party are nothing new to Bernie Sanders fans. I even wrote a blog post last year arguing Bernie should join the Greens after suspicious voting problems surfaced in the primaries. There were reports more than a year ago of voter purges (recently confirmed by the NYC board of elections). Now, Brazile is confirming that the DNC did in fact have a bias toward Clinton -- because Clinton campaign and the DNC signed a contract allowing the campaign to effectively control all DNC decisions!
It feels to me a bit like posturing. Perhaps Brazile and some of her allies want to have the "tell all" in order to either get their 15 minutes of limelight as they retire. But I lean toward thinking that Brazile and others know that the DNC is on a bad path, voters are angry, and they don't want to receive the full blame. Brazile is probably hopeful she can retain her cushy job in the DNC by being the "whistleblower", for example; I have not seen any story so far mention that she was recently appointed to the DNC's rules committee, meaning she is one of the members that sets the rules for the 2020 primaries. As far as I know she has't resigned from the post, and it would now look super suspicious if Tom Perez fired her after these allegations came out, so she probably feels fairly "safe" in her position of power within the party now. Voters are angry, fundraising is way down, the party is doing terribly, and she doesn't want the blame, she wants to sneak in as a "well I never supported the corruption, I'm the whistleblower!". Don't fall for it, she hasn't changed and magically become more progressive, she's fighting to save her source of income.
So that said, what is the next step from this revelation?
I think many will likely use this as an opportunity to "rally the troops" to take over the DNC with more progressives. That is, Justice Democrats or similar organizations will say "we have the corporate DNC on the ropes, support us and we'll win and take over the party!". DON'T LISTEN TO THEM. This doesn't change anything, it just further exposes how fundamentally corrupt the DNC organization is and how they will never change.
The DNC chair is still a corporatist. He appointed corporate lobbyists to most positions of power and purged the progressives. They still back corporate-funded candidates over grassroots-funded progressives. They still have superdelegates to control who wins the party nomination. Party primaries are still done under party rules, meaning they don't legally have to uphold any sort of fair nomination process for any level of office -- and Brazile and others involved in this scandal are working right now to set the primary and debate rules for 2020! Do you think they'll make rules that favor a progressive winning? (Look at the DNC's recent resolution that specifically said Bernie and other independents should join the Democratic party -- they know he won't, but they will use it say he isn't qualified to run for office in 2020, mark my words) And they're working harder than ever to shift their platform to the right and court more right-wing voters and, in particular, rich donors. With the GOP self-destructing under Trump, they want to step in and basically be the "new" right-wing party.
A few Democrat officials will be thrown under the bus, fired from their jobs as a sacrifice to "save" the party in its current form, but make no mistake: the corporate influence is not gone. Just because the influence has potentially turned against Clinton doesn't mean it decided to give up and go home. Power gives up nothing when it doesn't have to. This just means the power and influence has decided Clinton is a liability, and is looking at other candidates and leaders for future elections, and you can bet those new leaders won't be progressive. Oh they might appoint a mild progressive to some ceremonial position with no power (as they did to Keith Ellison), but there is no way corporate donors will let a real progressive that threatens their influence on the party into any position of power within the party.
These allegations show how deep the corruption runs. Those that run the DNC let Clinton basically have the party so they could make more money from her. They filled up the DNC budget with "consultants" that got big paychecks that didn't pay off when Clinton lost an election that should have been easily winnable. That's why this is coming out. Not because they're changing strategy, but simply that they're changing the face of the party.
We cannot fight corporate Democrats on their terms. When we play their game and run in Democratic primaries, we lose, often in that election but even if a progressive sometimes wins, we lose the long game. They can suppress primaries, as we've seen. They can work against progressives. And in the off chance a progressive wins a race, they can use the party machinery to crush dissent and make the progressives "compromise" or smear them. Even with progressives within the Democratic party, they're fighting a corporate platform trying to blend into the party instead of proudly pushing for a true left-wing agenda with a party that supports them.
We must fight on OUR terms. We do that with a two-pronged approach:
1. Join the Green Party. Don't compromise on ideals. Greens have a strongly progressive platform, much more progressive than even Bernie Sanders. Greens are more accurately referred to as "eco-socialist". We must not settle for compromise with Democrats; we must take our agenda straight to the Americans people and convince them of the need for a strongly socialist platform. We must not let Democrats unilaterally set what the "moderate" or "centrist" or "compromise" viewpoint is; who appointed them in charge of defining those terms, defining what Americans want? I think most Americans actually want a Green agenda if they only knew what it was! I think the Green platform *is* the centrist, *is* the compromise agenda. The Democrats are a largely right-wing platform, moving further and further away from Americans' ideals every year, and it's time to start treating it that way. Joining the Green Party, supporting Green candidates, and running for office as a Green gets you a platform to talk about a real progressive eco-socialist agenda instead. You can proudly speak your mind knowing the party is behind you, rather than angry.
2. Many objections to Greens boil down to "the system is rigged against them, so we have to run as a Democrat". Think about that for a second: the system is so rigged that no other candidates even have a chance, and yet you think Democratic primaries are not rigged and can be won by the opposition? Those two statements are fundamentally opposed, and I encourage you to reflect on that strategy and ask if primary opponents will really work better long run than running in general election.
I personally believe that, while there is definitely corruption within the major parties and their processes such as their primaries, our election and justice system on the whole still work reasonably well. Most Americans have a sense of fairness and do not share the attitude of party leaders. Most elections (even primaries) went smoothly, it was only some districts that had problems. While court is complex and costly and needs reform, it does still work, and was the preferred method of getting justice for activists such as Martin Luther King, Jr.
So I say we run candidates as much as possible. When corruption and problems surface, we attack them in court. We can win court battles to make a more fair system. Jill Stein, the 2016 Green presidential nominee, already did this in Pennsylvania: her lawsuit last year got a state law struck down that required any candidates not in the two major parties to go through extra hoops to get on the ballot that Republicans and Democrats didn't have to do. For example, Greens would need thousands of signatures to be on the ballot, but Republicans and Democrats only would need 500. How is that fair? It wasn't, and a court struck down that law. We won, which is why we're seeing more Greens this year running for office, and I hope to see even more in future years.
While the presidential elections are high profile and so the most complex and corrupted (and so need a lot of work!), we're seeing a lot of progress at the local and state level. So we need to be running more candidates at those levels, and filing lawsuits as necessary to continue to pave the way for future elections. Those campaigns, even when they don't win, help educate voters and the general public about these sorts of issues, so it's even more critical to run for office -- hopefully you win, but even if you don't, it's a very important voter education task that needs done anyway.
Now I'm saying Green here as it is the largest party that I feel shares my values, but we see others popping up that may also work. Socialist Alternative, Progressive Independent Party, "Draft Bernie" (not sure if they made a better name yet, People's Party?). Choose whatever party best interests you. I encourage you to join the Greens because we're growing and I think have the most momentum, but do what makes sense for you and your area. Let's also get all of these parties together to talk how we can form a coalition.
Third parties are the only way to truly break the spell of corporate rigged elections and capitalism. If we want fair elections, grassroots democracy, and a more socialist economy, we MUST fight in a new party, because the two major ones will always be against us. Fighting from within puts us at a disadvantage. While fighting as a third party is also difficult and uphill, victories we gain will be long-lasting victories that change the national discussion on our own terms, which is really what our ultimate goal is. It is worth the fight. I hope you'll join us.
Saturday, July 30, 2016
Why the Democratic Party is Conservative, not Progressive
In a previous entry, I talked about what I believe it means to be a true Progressive, and gave some personal analysis of the Political Compass's way of grouping political thought. Today I'd like to talk more about why the Democratic Party has not always been a great home for Progressives, and especially not recently with candidates like Obama and Clinton.
In order to understand this, we need to look a little more at the history of the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party grew out of the Democratic-Republican party of Thomas Jefferson and others, which was Anti-Federalist. That's right, the Democratic Party in most of its history was actually for weak federal government, states' rights, and very pro-business. In many ways they were similar to modern Republicans, but perhaps a little more left-leaning than today's GOP.
The big change to the modern Democratic party was essentially during the civil rights movement. Southern Democrats were largely very conservative and still in favor of those original Democratic-Republican ideals -- pro-business and states' rights, which they used to argue against civil rights for African Americans. Civil rights legislation was finally pushed by a few Democratic presidents, leading up to Lyndon Johnson's signing of civil rights into law.
At this point, there was a mutiny -- thanks to the "Southern Strategy" of the Republican Party at the time, the Republicans quickly snatched up a large amount of Democrats that were unhappy with the expansion of civil rights and government programs under Democratic presidents. Meanwhile, African Americans that traditionally voted Republican (due to their loyalty to the party that freed slaves under Lincoln, and other reforms) strongly switched to vote Democratic in support of this legislation. By the '80s, the two parties were completely different, and oddly enough, essentially traded places in their platforms views. The Republicans, that were once founded on ideals of a strong federal government and civil rights, became the modern GOP that is very pro-corporate and states' rights focused. Meanwhile, the Democratic party that at one time was strongly against federal government expansion now supported expanded programs in an effort to establish civil rights and help the poor.
So the modern idea of a "liberal" Democratic party has only really existed since maybe the '80s (Gen X and Millennials, not for the Baby Boomers). Is it any wonder why there's such a split between the generations, with most millennials voting for Bernie but baby boomers voting for Clinton? Many older Democrats that are still loyal to the party still come from the era when Democrats were very pro-corporate and pro-states'-rights -- in essence, "conservative" as we understand it in the modern era. Considering Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas starting in the early '80s, we can conclude he was a Democrat in the old sense of the term; in his younger days when he joined the party, particularly in the south (like Arkansas), the Democratic party was much closer in ideals and platforms to today's GOP. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, as a young college student had campaigned for Barry Goldwater as a Republican. Goldwater was a controversial figure, but in summary, he was very strongly conservative in our modern sense of the term, and was one of the influential figures that changed the GOP from its old roots to today's pro-business conservative party. Hillary shortly afterward was talked into joining the Democratic party, likely because it was the "conservative" party at the time in the South and would have matched her stances.
So what we see in today's Democratic party, that was very much alive at the convention, was a fight between two factions in the Democratic party. One, is the Progressive faction, that wishes to keep alive the progressive ideals of New Deal Democrats and the Progressive Republicans of history. FDR and Teddy Roosevelt come to mind, with the expansion of social programs and busting of trusts and banks that became too big. This is the platform that has evolved over time and wants to take over the party. Meanwhile, the other faction is the Conservative faction, that still holds mostly true to its original roots as a conservative pro-business party, that largely wants to de-regulate and minimize federal government influence on business. At one point this faction formed the Blue Dog Democrats, a caucus of conservative Democrats in Congress. We see this conservativism in action as the Clintons are largely pro-fracking, pro-banking (did not support breaking up banks and in fact argue for less regulation), and pro-TPP (which is a trade agreement written with large amounts of business influence, that gives businesses a lot of authority over US government laws and regulations). Obama initially campaigned on a large amount of Progressive promises, but in office (especially his second term), he has continued many of the policies first instituted under Bush and the Republicans -- he's prolonged wars, he worked on "Obamacare" which was the Republican healthcare plan from the '90s (Romneycare, anyone?) and removed the public option from his fight, has deported more immigrants than Bush, and has cracked down on federal government whistleblowers more than past presidents. When all is tallied up, Obama and the Clintons are pretty moderate and even leaning conservative on some issues, particularly economics and business; don't let them fool you into thinking they're progressive. Being Progressive is about more than just supporting women and transgender rights (while those are great goals, there's more to being Progressive than just those issues), and even if they are more moderate than today's GOP, that doesn't make them Progressive, that just means our whole political system has shifted too far to the right.
So Progressives don't really have a home anymore. Initially, the Republicans were fairly Progressive, with Teddy Roosevelt even forming the Progressive Party at one point when he was unhappy with the direction of the Republican Party. Then, Democratic presidents such as FDR carried the Progressive torch when they implemented the New Deal, expanded social programs and civil rights. But now, with both the Republican and Democratic Parties moving to the right, what are Progressives to do?
We vote for an actual Progressive, that's what we do. Dr. Jill Stein is Progressive and wants to expand those Progressive ideals of the New Deal with what she calls the Green New Deal -- continue social programs, transition to clean energy, abolish student debt and break up the banks. The Green Party is a home for Progressives in today's era. And much like Lincoln helped establish the Republican Party (factoid: the GOP was actually a 3rd party against the dominant Whig and Democratic-Republican parties of the 1800s!) due to failures in our party system, I think the time has come for a new party to be established. I think that party is Green, and I support Dr Jill Stein. I hope Bernie Sanders also joins us in the Green party, for that is truly his home. We can't be afraid anymore, we can't keep propping up parties that move more to the right as the younger generations yearn to move to the left. If we all vote Green this fall, we will win. As Jill Stein says, if everyone with student debt voted for her, we'd be a winning majority. So let's make that happen in November.
In order to understand this, we need to look a little more at the history of the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party grew out of the Democratic-Republican party of Thomas Jefferson and others, which was Anti-Federalist. That's right, the Democratic Party in most of its history was actually for weak federal government, states' rights, and very pro-business. In many ways they were similar to modern Republicans, but perhaps a little more left-leaning than today's GOP.
The big change to the modern Democratic party was essentially during the civil rights movement. Southern Democrats were largely very conservative and still in favor of those original Democratic-Republican ideals -- pro-business and states' rights, which they used to argue against civil rights for African Americans. Civil rights legislation was finally pushed by a few Democratic presidents, leading up to Lyndon Johnson's signing of civil rights into law.
At this point, there was a mutiny -- thanks to the "Southern Strategy" of the Republican Party at the time, the Republicans quickly snatched up a large amount of Democrats that were unhappy with the expansion of civil rights and government programs under Democratic presidents. Meanwhile, African Americans that traditionally voted Republican (due to their loyalty to the party that freed slaves under Lincoln, and other reforms) strongly switched to vote Democratic in support of this legislation. By the '80s, the two parties were completely different, and oddly enough, essentially traded places in their platforms views. The Republicans, that were once founded on ideals of a strong federal government and civil rights, became the modern GOP that is very pro-corporate and states' rights focused. Meanwhile, the Democratic party that at one time was strongly against federal government expansion now supported expanded programs in an effort to establish civil rights and help the poor.
So the modern idea of a "liberal" Democratic party has only really existed since maybe the '80s (Gen X and Millennials, not for the Baby Boomers). Is it any wonder why there's such a split between the generations, with most millennials voting for Bernie but baby boomers voting for Clinton? Many older Democrats that are still loyal to the party still come from the era when Democrats were very pro-corporate and pro-states'-rights -- in essence, "conservative" as we understand it in the modern era. Considering Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas starting in the early '80s, we can conclude he was a Democrat in the old sense of the term; in his younger days when he joined the party, particularly in the south (like Arkansas), the Democratic party was much closer in ideals and platforms to today's GOP. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, as a young college student had campaigned for Barry Goldwater as a Republican. Goldwater was a controversial figure, but in summary, he was very strongly conservative in our modern sense of the term, and was one of the influential figures that changed the GOP from its old roots to today's pro-business conservative party. Hillary shortly afterward was talked into joining the Democratic party, likely because it was the "conservative" party at the time in the South and would have matched her stances.
So what we see in today's Democratic party, that was very much alive at the convention, was a fight between two factions in the Democratic party. One, is the Progressive faction, that wishes to keep alive the progressive ideals of New Deal Democrats and the Progressive Republicans of history. FDR and Teddy Roosevelt come to mind, with the expansion of social programs and busting of trusts and banks that became too big. This is the platform that has evolved over time and wants to take over the party. Meanwhile, the other faction is the Conservative faction, that still holds mostly true to its original roots as a conservative pro-business party, that largely wants to de-regulate and minimize federal government influence on business. At one point this faction formed the Blue Dog Democrats, a caucus of conservative Democrats in Congress. We see this conservativism in action as the Clintons are largely pro-fracking, pro-banking (did not support breaking up banks and in fact argue for less regulation), and pro-TPP (which is a trade agreement written with large amounts of business influence, that gives businesses a lot of authority over US government laws and regulations). Obama initially campaigned on a large amount of Progressive promises, but in office (especially his second term), he has continued many of the policies first instituted under Bush and the Republicans -- he's prolonged wars, he worked on "Obamacare" which was the Republican healthcare plan from the '90s (Romneycare, anyone?) and removed the public option from his fight, has deported more immigrants than Bush, and has cracked down on federal government whistleblowers more than past presidents. When all is tallied up, Obama and the Clintons are pretty moderate and even leaning conservative on some issues, particularly economics and business; don't let them fool you into thinking they're progressive. Being Progressive is about more than just supporting women and transgender rights (while those are great goals, there's more to being Progressive than just those issues), and even if they are more moderate than today's GOP, that doesn't make them Progressive, that just means our whole political system has shifted too far to the right.
So Progressives don't really have a home anymore. Initially, the Republicans were fairly Progressive, with Teddy Roosevelt even forming the Progressive Party at one point when he was unhappy with the direction of the Republican Party. Then, Democratic presidents such as FDR carried the Progressive torch when they implemented the New Deal, expanded social programs and civil rights. But now, with both the Republican and Democratic Parties moving to the right, what are Progressives to do?
We vote for an actual Progressive, that's what we do. Dr. Jill Stein is Progressive and wants to expand those Progressive ideals of the New Deal with what she calls the Green New Deal -- continue social programs, transition to clean energy, abolish student debt and break up the banks. The Green Party is a home for Progressives in today's era. And much like Lincoln helped establish the Republican Party (factoid: the GOP was actually a 3rd party against the dominant Whig and Democratic-Republican parties of the 1800s!) due to failures in our party system, I think the time has come for a new party to be established. I think that party is Green, and I support Dr Jill Stein. I hope Bernie Sanders also joins us in the Green party, for that is truly his home. We can't be afraid anymore, we can't keep propping up parties that move more to the right as the younger generations yearn to move to the left. If we all vote Green this fall, we will win. As Jill Stein says, if everyone with student debt voted for her, we'd be a winning majority. So let's make that happen in November.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)