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Sam Smith
The 2008 presidential campaign has already revealed the slim odds that
anyone elected to the White House from either party will help bring
America back to life, back to its constitution, back to its ideals, back
to sanity and back to reasons for enthusiasm and pride in being an
American.
The job thus remains a largely non-electoral one, much as it was the
first time around and during periodic revivals such as the abolition
movement, populist era and the 1960s. The mainstream politics were
there, but mainly a reflection of powerful movements that had reached
into American hearts and communities and developed a constituency for
the politics that followed. As John Adams put it, the American
Revolution "was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in
the minds and hearts of the people . . . This radical change in the
principles, opinions, sentiments and affections of the people was the
real American Revolution."
It is such a communal revolution that is so strikingly missing from the
hearts of America today. It is certainly not to be found in Democratic
Party front groups like Move On and the Center for American Progress,
but it is also missing from the anti-war effort, the healthcare issue
and attempts to control assaults on our civil liberties. There are, to
be sure, groups dealing with each of these issues but they function
often more like traditional Washington lobbies than as forces of broad
inspiration. And they lack either the will or the skill to merge their
cause with different but compatible efforts, leaving a battlefield that
looks more like a series of information booths at a demonstration rather
than a united force for good.
Part of the problem is organizational, part a lack of common symbols,
part stems from the absence of a common and clear agenda, and part
reflects a vacuum of values that are easily identified and shared.
There also needs to be a far greater consciousness of the degree to
which traditional American constitutional standards, political agendas
and social values have been destroyed. We need to admit that the First
American Republic is over and as we flail about in whatever one wishes
to call the interregnum - I sometimes call it an adhocracy - our true
task is to design, test and produce America 2.0. What follows are some
suggestions for the Beta version of a new America.
ORGANIZATION
The liberal and progressive effort is largely dominated by groups
modeled on the classic Washington or state lobby, groups that purport to
represent a particular interest but do so in a limited fashion, notably
excluding effective mass participation.
These groups compete with one another for funding, achieve that funding
through niche rather than holistic programs and have little vested
interest in joining diverse coalitions. For example, the development
director of one such state group described to me the troubles he faced
in fund raising because his organization had joined others in opposition
to a tax proposal. Some funders clearly did not like this detour from
the group's stated focus. You don't need too many experiences like that
before you learn to mind your own business. Good for the bottom line;
lousy for an effective movement.
There is also the problem that so much funding comes from centrist
foundations that use their financial power to tame the groups they
support. A covert trade of soul for dollars has increasingly been part
of the American liberal story.
Further, the staffs of these groups are part of a professional
subculture with its own career rules accompanied by rewards or penalties
for observing or ignoring them. While this is no different than any
profession, it clearly has an effect on how these groups go about their
business, an effect that may be quite at odds with what the organization
is supposed to be about.
Finally, unlike the liberal non-profits, corporate lobbying groups are
not expected to manufacture pharmaceuticals, run TV stations or drill
for oil. They only represent these activities in the political world.
Liberal and progressive lobbyists, on the other hand, are expected to
carry the whole load, and end up creating the illusion of making
something when they are really only marketing it.
Just as our government often reduces the citizen to a mere customer of
the state, so such political organizations typically reduce their
participants' role to merely signing something or writing a check.
This is not to say that these organizations are wrong or useless.
Especially given the complexities of getting legislation and budgets
passed, something of this sort is essential. It is only to say that they
should be a far less important part of something that is far greater.
Two ways to deal with this problem come to mind. One is an alternative
political party. Of late, the most successful attempt has been the Green
Party, but as one of those who helped it get going, I confess to serious
sadness over its limitations and effectiveness. These failures include:
- An inability to merge politics with organizing and a grassroots
movement along the lines of earlier American socialists and populists.
The Greens are not unique with this problem. I have, from time to time,
asked candidates who are admirable but unlikely to win what they plan to
do when they lose. The question tends to shock or annoy, but it is
essential to a successful strategy. For example, a campaign that may
only attract 5-10 percent of the vote can easily raise notice for
various issues that can expand after the election. It can help build
strength in communities that might be hard to reach outside of a
campaign. It can, in short, serve not just as a traditional campaign but
as an alternative form of organizing and one that does not end with
election day.
- An inability to make politics a part of the social culture of one's
supporters. Television and other technological developments have badly
damaged politics' former role as a integral element of community life.
Some years back, I tried to address this once in a talk at a conference:
"I rise to interrupt your proceedings - logical, thoughtful, and well
constructed though they are - to suggest something oddly subversive:
that people only get involved in politics in large numbers when it
becomes more than politics, when it is more than a logical, thoughtful
and well constructed process, when it is more even than a ideology. They
get involved when politics becomes a normal, convivial, exciting and
satisfying part of their social existence."
The Greens are ideally situated to revive the non-political side of
politics. They are local, sensitive to non-political values and concerns
and start with humanistic bias towards their work. But traditional
politics is so powerful that it influences how even the non-traditional
view their efforts.
- The Greens have over-emphasized presidential politics at the cost of
missing numerous local opportunities. While this obsession is
understandable, it is not a particular smart way to spend your time and
money when you're as small and weak as the Greens - even if it does
allow you to bask in the nearly obscene hatred of Democrats for Greens
having the gall to act as though they live in a constitutional
democracy. After all, the madness of others does not necessarily confirm
one's own course.
- The Greens have been unduly rigid in both their approach and their
tone, thus making it easy for others to view them as self-righteous
prigs. High on the list of good political traits is being nice to
others, welcoming them to your cause, making them feel at home. I have
suggested, unsuccessfully, that the Greens make it clear that they are
not just a party but a home and a salon des refuse for all those trying
to make a better world, especially those young who are uncomfortable
with the archaic manifestations of liberalism.
- To loosen this rigidity - real or perceived - the Greens could
deliberately welcome part-timers, half-wayers and other stragglers on
the true path. When I was invited to my first Green meeting in 1993, my
instant reaction was, "But I'm not good enough to be a Green." The host,
John Rensenbrink, replied like a Tammany Hall pro, "That's all right
Sam, there'll be a libertarian there, too." Later, I would describe
myself as the chair of the Big Mac caucus of the Green Party because,
even with my participation in the birthing, I didn't always feel
completely at home.
The rigid image could be altered relatively easily. There could be
various subgroups such as, say, the Two Thirds Greens (who still vote
Democratic for president or senator but agree to support Greens further
down the ticket) or the Backyard Greens (who spend their time tending to
the substantial local potential for the party, leaving the presidential
fracas to others).
If this seems to dilute the Green cause, consider this from the
Socialist' own history:
"From the beginning the Socialist Party was the ecumenical organization
for American radicals. Its membership included Marxists of various
kinds, Christian socialists, Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewish socialists,
foreign-language speaking sections, single-taxers and virtually every
variety of American radical. On the divisive issue of "reform vs.
revolution," the Socialist Party from the beginning adopted a compromise
formula, producing platforms calling for revolutionary change but also
making "immediate demands" of a reformist nature. A perennially
unresolved issue was whether revolutionary change could come about
without violence; there were always pacifists and evolutionists in the
Party as well as those opposed to both those views."
If the Socialists could be that wishy-washy it would seem the Greens
might loosen up a bit.
I mention these problems as indicative of what can happen when one
pursues the third party route. There is nothing irreversible in any of
this. At its best a third party in our grossly unfair electoral system
can still be the place where the better of the dominant parties
eventually go to steal some new ideas, as was true with the Populists,
Socialists and Progressives. Certainly the Green Party is well
positioned in this regard; on issues like the war and health care, the
Greens are much more typically American than the Democrats.
But a truly broad movement would have to include not just Greens, but
Democrats, independents and the politically alienated or apathetic. The
Green Party would be an important part of America 2.0 but only a part.
If you step back from the issues involved and consider just organizing
skill, a remarkable fact emerges. The groups most effective at
organizing large groups of people in America these days are not
political at all, but churches.
Even discounting for the carrot of promised salvation, a serious
organizer can find much to admire and emulate in the way churches go
about their business. This is not a new phenomenon. I once heard a
public radio account of how a 1920s labor organizer arriving in Arkansas
found only two groups that understood how to organize: black Baptists
and the KKK. So he used them both in his efforts.
An Alinsky-trained organizer would understand this but the average
liberal or Green would be shocked. What the union activist understood
about politics is that it's not where you come from, but where you're
willing to go that counts. And even the average church is kinder to
sinners than your typical political purist these days.
What is the secret of the church approach to organizing, again leaving
aside the not insignificant come-on of heaven?
To begin with, at their best, churches are congregations and not merely
organizations. Our society has become so bureaucratized that we hardly
recognize the difference, but there is a big one. An organization is a
carefully constructed pyramid, a congregation is far less clearly
defined. One is a bureaucratic system, the other a social one. One is an
artificial construct; the other is a voluntary gathering, a swarming in
modern terms, around common values and goals.
Finally, organizations pride themselves on adherence to a specific
mission; congregations see their role as far more holistic including the
spiritual, the political, the therapeutic and caring for those in need
even if they are not a part of the group.
Part of the secret of mega-churches, for example, is that they serve as
a substitute for both government welfare and normally socially
disconnected charities.
But it's not just a skill of evangelicals. You can find it among
Unitarians, at Quaker meeting or in a synagogue - the sense that the
group represents not only common faith, but a shared community and an
obligation to each other. It was also typical of the old political
machines such as in the Chicago's 24th ward as run by Jacob Arvey. Said
a contemporary: "Not a sparrow falls inside the boundaries of the 24th
Ward without Arvey knowing of it. And even before it hits the ground
there's already a personal history at headquarters, complete to the
moment of its tumble."
What if we were to use secular congregations as one basis for building
America 2.0? What if we were to form these congregations just as many
churches started: in somebody's living room, around a table or a
fireplace? What if we stopped seeking so hard for a structural or
ideological solution and developed instead thousands of small
congregations of those sharing both national and local, political and
personal concerns?
Another aspect of churches is that they have preachers. While churches
do have bureaucracies, these tend to be less important than the typical
modern corporate or government bureaucracy thanks to personal
leadership.
Some may regard this as highly undemocratic, but the fact is that
churches tend to be more stable politically than many political
organizations. In choosing a minister, the congregation gives its common
interests and values a face and not merely an organization or a mission
statement. The democracy comes from whether you show up on Sunday, fall
away or move on to another church.
When I think back over all the political organizations with which I have
been involved, far and away the most impressive in its work, the most
emotional in the attachment it attracted and the most moving in its
memories was the civil rights movement.
I strongly suspect that a major reason for this was that the movement -
consciously and unconsciously - used the church as a model.
This went beyond the large number of ministers involved in the cause or
the regular use of churches as meeting places. It affected the language,
the music and the rhythm of the movement. And it was a movement in which
you recalled its leaders as easily as its organizations. The power lay
in that special relationship between a congregation of common believers
working with someone they trusted for as long as that trust lasted.
To be sure, liberalism has some of the ritualistic characteristics of a
church, but it is more that of a closed sect or a cult than of a
welcoming congregation and it lacks the communal network, hospitality
and sense of mutual obligation. There are a few contemporary models of
secular prachers - Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan come to mind - but they
are rare just as the sort of spirit, symbolized by rows of people
holding hands in common accord and common voice is also rare today.
At that early 1993 Green meeting, we ended standing in a circle and I
found myself holding hands with the pony-tailed mayor of Cordova, Alaska
feeling a hope I have seldom felt since.
It can happen again, these secular congregations led by prophetic
voices, but you don't get them with a grant proposal or some new
carefully contrived structure. You have to do it, believe in it, find
others who agree, and settle on a place to make it happen.
SYMBOLS
I recently visited the Clearwater Festival with my family. Over 90
performers were there on the Hudson River bank - ranging from Blues and
Funk to Cajun and Zydeco. And with the revival music was a clear message
of reviving the earth.
I was prepared to be bored, like going to one more political antique
show. Instead, I found myself in a place of magic, surrounded by happy,
decent and lively people. I felt good about America as I watched a woman
singing "Union Maid" and clogging between the verses - as I
rediscovered the almost forgotten notion of activism and joy bound
together.
You don't find it much in modern politics. There's a stiffness, an
artificiality and the assignment of potential activists to a passive
seat in the audience. A few elite performers instead of large numbers of
unskilled voices. A message rather than conversation. Watching Live
Earth on TV rather than wandering around the Clearwater Festival.
Symbols are more than marketing or PR. The symbols we use define not
just a cause or its image but signal our relationship to it. Among the
missing:
- Even with a broadly despised war, there is no simple icon like the
1960s peace symbol.
- There is no hand greeting like the "V" sign or a special hand clasp.
- There is no color associated with supporters of a new America.
- There is a stunning silence. The disappearance of easily recalled
tunes in popular music has taken sound away from our collective lips,
leaving a silence that "like a cancer grows."
- There is a lack of art of literature that clearly reflects the
collapse of the First American Republic, or our present political
purgatory - what Eric Budon of the Animals has called "the
endarkenment."
We are in a terrible moment of our history yet we have left its
iconization to the same forces that caused all the trouble in the first
place. As we start to think about America 2.0, retrieving control of our
symbols should be near the top of the list.
AGENDA
One has to go back to the Great Society to find a time when Democrats
knew what they were doing and how to describe it. The Greens have an
agenda, but it is complex and undifferentiated. Meanwhile, the GOP has
happily gone about oversimplifying life to God and gays, abortion and Al
Qaeda, and the left still can't figure out why it's losing.
Quick: describe the progressive agenda in a few sentences.
If we can't do it, how the hell is the media and the public meant to
know?
The point here is not to define the list, but to argue the need for one.
It might be both broad as:
- Changing our foreign policy so fewer people want to kill us for it
- Adding morality to our commercial affairs and restoring economic
progress to all Americans, not just for those at the top
- Providing single payer healthcare
- Saving the planet from further ecological destruction
And it might be as specific as:
- Instant runoff voting
- Ending credit card usury
- Shifting public budgets from cars and planes to buses, bicycles and
trains
I might not even agree with these lists tomorrow, but it only took 70
words and you already have a pretty good idea of where I'm coming from,
which is more than you can say of the major Democratic presidential
candidates.
How to devise such a list on a mass basis is an interesting problem
worth discussion and consideration. During the last presidential
campaign I suggested a major conference of progressive organizations to
devise a short agenda but with so many groups looking so inwardly at
their own roles and budgets, this may prove impossible.
Another way would be a common polling system on progressive web sites
and blogs or surveys by standard polling organizations.
Whatever the system, a brief, clear and strong consensus is essential
and long overdue.
VALUES
Just as progressive goals are lost in the mush, the same could be said
of values. In fact, there may be less consensus possible than one might
imagine. How do you get the Manhattan liberal to worry about and respect
the drought-stricken Montana farmer? How do you get well-off gays to
concern themselves with the urban poor? How do you get women's groups to
recognize the degree to which non-college educated young men are the
ones really in the rear these days? How do you blend the liberal, the
populist, the civil libertarian and the green?
One thing is for certain: we don't know because we haven't tried. One
way to start is to commence talking about it, finding common ground,
testing who we really are and what we have in common.
A few questions to start the discussion:
- Can urban progressives find common ground with non-urban Americans?
- Why have the values of populism and civil liberties become less
important among liberal agenda?
- How do we form debates so the door is open to gather supporters and
not chase them away?
- Why isn't community - including local control - more important to the
progressive movement of the day?
- How do we foster the idea of reciprocal liberty - I can't be free
unless you have your freedom - rather than having freedom defined by
purists on either the left or the right?
Ten years ago in my book, The Great American Political Repair Manual, I
outlined some values that I thought were central to what I called a
cooperative commonwealth, such as:
- We seek to be good stewards of our earth, good citizens of our
country, good members of our communities, and good neighbors of those
who share these places with us.
- We reject the immoderate tone of current politics, its appeal to hate
and fear, its scorn for democracy, its preference for conflict over
resolution, its servility to money and to those who possess it, and its
deep indifference to the problems of ordinary Americans.
- We seek a cooperative commonwealth based on decency before profit,
liberty before sterile order, justice before efficiency, happiness
before uniformity, families before systems, communities before
corporations, and people before institutions.
- We should tread gently upon the earth and leave it in better condition
than we found it.
- The physical and cultural variety of human beings is a gift and not a
threat. We are glad that the world includes many who are different from
ourselves by nature, principle, inclination or faith.
- We must protect the right of others to disagree with us so we shall be
free to speak our own minds.
- Our national economic goal is the self-sufficiency, well-being and
stability of our communities and those living in them.
- Ecological principles should determine economic policies and not vice
versa.
- The first source of expertise is the wisdom of the people.
- Individuals possess fundamental rights that are inalienable and not
contingent on responsibilities assigned by the state. These rights are
to be restrained only by a due concern for the health, safety, and
liberty of others and are not to be made subservient to the arbitrary
and capricious dictates of the government.
- Citizens should participate as directly as possible in our democracy
- The media should inform citizens and provide a means by which citizens
may address government rather than serving as a vehicle by which members
of the government and elites tell citizens what to think.
- Power should be devolved to the lowest practical level.
-The Bill of Rights and other constitutional provisions have deep
permanence and are not to be manipulated or abridged for political gain.
- Politics dependent on corporate financing and lobbyist influence is
corrupt, anti-democratic and unacceptable.
- Simplicity, conservation and recycling should be central to our
economy, our politics and our lives.
- Individual privacy is paramount and not to be subservient to the needs
of the state.
- Individual rights are manifestly superior to any granted corporations.
- Our elected officials are servants and representatives, not rulers.
- We need more community more than we need more things.
- We are citizens and not merely taxpayers.
- We own our government and are not merely its consumers.
Change it, rewrite it, scrap it, but put something down that explains to
us and others what it is we value.
GETTING DOWN TO IT
One thing is certain: the major political parties, their lobbying groups
and think tanks are not going to be of much help. These groups will
subvert any new dream and drag it back to the establishment's agenda
much as the Democratic Party and groups like Move On have done with
health care or the Brookings Institution has done with smart growth.
And just concentrating on necessities - such as ending the Iraq War or
stopping Bush's assaults on the Constitution - won't lead to a new
America either, essential as these issues may be. We must learn to
distinguish between survival and creation and give each its due. These
days we seriously shortchange the latter.
Finally, we must remember that change does not require a license. It
traditionally has come from the unanointed, the unprotected and the
unexpected. We need to create thousands of secular congregations,
charettes for a new America and communities of hope and invention - and
then bring our discoveries to others so they can share.
In the end, the only solution to a failed America is a new America. And
there's nobody who can do it but us.
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Sam Smith
The 2008 presidential campaign has already revealed the slim odds that
anyone elected to the White House from either party will help bring
America back to life, back to its constitution, back to its ideals, back
to sanity and back to reasons for enthusiasm and pride in being an
American.
The job thus remains a largely non-electoral one, much as it was the
first time around and during periodic revivals such as the abolition
movement, populist era and the 1960s. The mainstream politics were
there, but mainly a reflection of powerful movements that had reached
into American hearts and communities and developed a constituency for
the politics that followed. As John Adams put it, the American
Revolution "was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in
the minds and hearts of the people . . . This radical change in the
principles, opinions, sentiments and affections of the people was the
real American Revolution."
It is such a communal revolution that is so strikingly missing from the
hearts of America today. It is certainly not to be found in Democratic
Party front groups like Move On and the Center for American Progress,
but it is also missing from the anti-war effort, the healthcare issue
and attempts to control assaults on our civil liberties. There are, to
be sure, groups dealing with each of these issues but they function
often more like traditional Washington lobbies than as forces of broad
inspiration. And they lack either the will or the skill to merge their
cause with different but compatible efforts, leaving a battlefield that
looks more like a series of information booths at a demonstration rather
than a united force for good.
Part of the problem is organizational, part a lack of common symbols,
part stems from the absence of a common and clear agenda, and part
reflects a vacuum of values that are easily identified and shared.
There also needs to be a far greater consciousness of the degree to
which traditional American constitutional standards, political agendas
and social values have been destroyed. We need to admit that the First
American Republic is over and as we flail about in whatever one wishes
to call the interregnum - I sometimes call it an adhocracy - our true
task is to design, test and produce America 2.0. What follows are some
suggestions for the Beta version of a new America.
ORGANIZATION
The liberal and progressive effort is largely dominated by groups
modeled on the classic Washington or state lobby, groups that purport to
represent a particular interest but do so in a limited fashion, notably
excluding effective mass participation.
These groups compete with one another for funding, achieve that funding
through niche rather than holistic programs and have little vested
interest in joining diverse coalitions. For example, the development
director of one such state group described to me the troubles he faced
in fund raising because his organization had joined others in opposition
to a tax proposal. Some funders clearly did not like this detour from
the group's stated focus. You don't need too many experiences like that
before you learn to mind your own business. Good for the bottom line;
lousy for an effective movement.
There is also the problem that so much funding comes from centrist
foundations that use their financial power to tame the groups they
support. A covert trade of soul for dollars has increasingly been part
of the American liberal story.
Further, the staffs of these groups are part of a professional
subculture with its own career rules accompanied by rewards or penalties
for observing or ignoring them. While this is no different than any
profession, it clearly has an effect on how these groups go about their
business, an effect that may be quite at odds with what the organization
is supposed to be about.
Finally, unlike the liberal non-profits, corporate lobbying groups are
not expected to manufacture pharmaceuticals, run TV stations or drill
for oil. They only represent these activities in the political world.
Liberal and progressive lobbyists, on the other hand, are expected to
carry the whole load, and end up creating the illusion of making
something when they are really only marketing it.
Just as our government often reduces the citizen to a mere customer of
the state, so such political organizations typically reduce their
participants' role to merely signing something or writing a check.
This is not to say that these organizations are wrong or useless.
Especially given the complexities of getting legislation and budgets
passed, something of this sort is essential. It is only to say that they
should be a far less important part of something that is far greater.
Two ways to deal with this problem come to mind. One is an alternative
political party. Of late, the most successful attempt has been the Green
Party, but as one of those who helped it get going, I confess to serious
sadness over its limitations and effectiveness. These failures include:
- An inability to merge politics with organizing and a grassroots
movement along the lines of earlier American socialists and populists.
The Greens are not unique with this problem. I have, from time to time,
asked candidates who are admirable but unlikely to win what they plan to
do when they lose. The question tends to shock or annoy, but it is
essential to a successful strategy. For example, a campaign that may
only attract 5-10 percent of the vote can easily raise notice for
various issues that can expand after the election. It can help build
strength in communities that might be hard to reach outside of a
campaign. It can, in short, serve not just as a traditional campaign but
as an alternative form of organizing and one that does not end with
election day.
- An inability to make politics a part of the social culture of one's
supporters. Television and other technological developments have badly
damaged politics' former role as a integral element of community life.
Some years back, I tried to address this once in a talk at a conference:
"I rise to interrupt your proceedings - logical, thoughtful, and well
constructed though they are - to suggest something oddly subversive:
that people only get involved in politics in large numbers when it
becomes more than politics, when it is more than a logical, thoughtful
and well constructed process, when it is more even than a ideology. They
get involved when politics becomes a normal, convivial, exciting and
satisfying part of their social existence."
The Greens are ideally situated to revive the non-political side of
politics. They are local, sensitive to non-political values and concerns
and start with humanistic bias towards their work. But traditional
politics is so powerful that it influences how even the non-traditional
view their efforts.
- The Greens have over-emphasized presidential politics at the cost of
missing numerous local opportunities. While this obsession is
understandable, it is not a particular smart way to spend your time and
money when you're as small and weak as the Greens - even if it does
allow you to bask in the nearly obscene hatred of Democrats for Greens
having the gall to act as though they live in a constitutional
democracy. After all, the madness of others does not necessarily confirm
one's own course.
- The Greens have been unduly rigid in both their approach and their
tone, thus making it easy for others to view them as self-righteous
prigs. High on the list of good political traits is being nice to
others, welcoming them to your cause, making them feel at home. I have
suggested, unsuccessfully, that the Greens make it clear that they are
not just a party but a home and a salon des refuse for all those trying
to make a better world, especially those young who are uncomfortable
with the archaic manifestations of liberalism.
- To loosen this rigidity - real or perceived - the Greens could
deliberately welcome part-timers, half-wayers and other stragglers on
the true path. When I was invited to my first Green meeting in 1993, my
instant reaction was, "But I'm not good enough to be a Green." The host,
John Rensenbrink, replied like a Tammany Hall pro, "That's all right
Sam, there'll be a libertarian there, too." Later, I would describe
myself as the chair of the Big Mac caucus of the Green Party because,
even with my participation in the birthing, I didn't always feel
completely at home.
The rigid image could be altered relatively easily. There could be
various subgroups such as, say, the Two Thirds Greens (who still vote
Democratic for president or senator but agree to support Greens further
down the ticket) or the Backyard Greens (who spend their time tending to
the substantial local potential for the party, leaving the presidential
fracas to others).
If this seems to dilute the Green cause, consider this from the
Socialist' own history:
"From the beginning the Socialist Party was the ecumenical organization
for American radicals. Its membership included Marxists of various
kinds, Christian socialists, Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewish socialists,
foreign-language speaking sections, single-taxers and virtually every
variety of American radical. On the divisive issue of "reform vs.
revolution," the Socialist Party from the beginning adopted a compromise
formula, producing platforms calling for revolutionary change but also
making "immediate demands" of a reformist nature. A perennially
unresolved issue was whether revolutionary change could come about
without violence; there were always pacifists and evolutionists in the
Party as well as those opposed to both those views."
If the Socialists could be that wishy-washy it would seem the Greens
might loosen up a bit.
I mention these problems as indicative of what can happen when one
pursues the third party route. There is nothing irreversible in any of
this. At its best a third party in our grossly unfair electoral system
can still be the place where the better of the dominant parties
eventually go to steal some new ideas, as was true with the Populists,
Socialists and Progressives. Certainly the Green Party is well
positioned in this regard; on issues like the war and health care, the
Greens are much more typically American than the Democrats.
But a truly broad movement would have to include not just Greens, but
Democrats, independents and the politically alienated or apathetic. The
Green Party would be an important part of America 2.0 but only a part.
If you step back from the issues involved and consider just organizing
skill, a remarkable fact emerges. The groups most effective at
organizing large groups of people in America these days are not
political at all, but churches.
Even discounting for the carrot of promised salvation, a serious
organizer can find much to admire and emulate in the way churches go
about their business. This is not a new phenomenon. I once heard a
public radio account of how a 1920s labor organizer arriving in Arkansas
found only two groups that understood how to organize: black Baptists
and the KKK. So he used them both in his efforts.
An Alinsky-trained organizer would understand this but the average
liberal or Green would be shocked. What the union activist understood
about politics is that it's not where you come from, but where you're
willing to go that counts. And even the average church is kinder to
sinners than your typical political purist these days.
What is the secret of the church approach to organizing, again leaving
aside the not insignificant come-on of heaven?
To begin with, at their best, churches are congregations and not merely
organizations. Our society has become so bureaucratized that we hardly
recognize the difference, but there is a big one. An organization is a
carefully constructed pyramid, a congregation is far less clearly
defined. One is a bureaucratic system, the other a social one. One is an
artificial construct; the other is a voluntary gathering, a swarming in
modern terms, around common values and goals.
Finally, organizations pride themselves on adherence to a specific
mission; congregations see their role as far more holistic including the
spiritual, the political, the therapeutic and caring for those in need
even if they are not a part of the group.
Part of the secret of mega-churches, for example, is that they serve as
a substitute for both government welfare and normally socially
disconnected charities.
But it's not just a skill of evangelicals. You can find it among
Unitarians, at Quaker meeting or in a synagogue - the sense that the
group represents not only common faith, but a shared community and an
obligation to each other. It was also typical of the old political
machines such as in the Chicago's 24th ward as run by Jacob Arvey. Said
a contemporary: "Not a sparrow falls inside the boundaries of the 24th
Ward without Arvey knowing of it. And even before it hits the ground
there's already a personal history at headquarters, complete to the
moment of its tumble."
What if we were to use secular congregations as one basis for building
America 2.0? What if we were to form these congregations just as many
churches started: in somebody's living room, around a table or a
fireplace? What if we stopped seeking so hard for a structural or
ideological solution and developed instead thousands of small
congregations of those sharing both national and local, political and
personal concerns?
Another aspect of churches is that they have preachers. While churches
do have bureaucracies, these tend to be less important than the typical
modern corporate or government bureaucracy thanks to personal
leadership.
Some may regard this as highly undemocratic, but the fact is that
churches tend to be more stable politically than many political
organizations. In choosing a minister, the congregation gives its common
interests and values a face and not merely an organization or a mission
statement. The democracy comes from whether you show up on Sunday, fall
away or move on to another church.
When I think back over all the political organizations with which I have
been involved, far and away the most impressive in its work, the most
emotional in the attachment it attracted and the most moving in its
memories was the civil rights movement.
I strongly suspect that a major reason for this was that the movement -
consciously and unconsciously - used the church as a model.
This went beyond the large number of ministers involved in the cause or
the regular use of churches as meeting places. It affected the language,
the music and the rhythm of the movement. And it was a movement in which
you recalled its leaders as easily as its organizations. The power lay
in that special relationship between a congregation of common believers
working with someone they trusted for as long as that trust lasted.
To be sure, liberalism has some of the ritualistic characteristics of a
church, but it is more that of a closed sect or a cult than of a
welcoming congregation and it lacks the communal network, hospitality
and sense of mutual obligation. There are a few contemporary models of
secular prachers - Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan come to mind - but they
are rare just as the sort of spirit, symbolized by rows of people
holding hands in common accord and common voice is also rare today.
At that early 1993 Green meeting, we ended standing in a circle and I
found myself holding hands with the pony-tailed mayor of Cordova, Alaska
feeling a hope I have seldom felt since.
It can happen again, these secular congregations led by prophetic
voices, but you don't get them with a grant proposal or some new
carefully contrived structure. You have to do it, believe in it, find
others who agree, and settle on a place to make it happen.
SYMBOLS
I recently visited the Clearwater Festival with my family. Over 90
performers were there on the Hudson River bank - ranging from Blues and
Funk to Cajun and Zydeco. And with the revival music was a clear message
of reviving the earth.
I was prepared to be bored, like going to one more political antique
show. Instead, I found myself in a place of magic, surrounded by happy,
decent and lively people. I felt good about America as I watched a woman
singing "Union Maid" and clogging between the verses - as I
rediscovered the almost forgotten notion of activism and joy bound
together.
You don't find it much in modern politics. There's a stiffness, an
artificiality and the assignment of potential activists to a passive
seat in the audience. A few elite performers instead of large numbers of
unskilled voices. A message rather than conversation. Watching Live
Earth on TV rather than wandering around the Clearwater Festival.
Symbols are more than marketing or PR. The symbols we use define not
just a cause or its image but signal our relationship to it. Among the
missing:
- Even with a broadly despised war, there is no simple icon like the
1960s peace symbol.
- There is no hand greeting like the "V" sign or a special hand clasp.
- There is no color associated with supporters of a new America.
- There is a stunning silence. The disappearance of easily recalled
tunes in popular music has taken sound away from our collective lips,
leaving a silence that "like a cancer grows."
- There is a lack of art of literature that clearly reflects the
collapse of the First American Republic, or our present political
purgatory - what Eric Budon of the Animals has called "the
endarkenment."
We are in a terrible moment of our history yet we have left its
iconization to the same forces that caused all the trouble in the first
place. As we start to think about America 2.0, retrieving control of our
symbols should be near the top of the list.
AGENDA
One has to go back to the Great Society to find a time when Democrats
knew what they were doing and how to describe it. The Greens have an
agenda, but it is complex and undifferentiated. Meanwhile, the GOP has
happily gone about oversimplifying life to God and gays, abortion and Al
Qaeda, and the left still can't figure out why it's losing.
Quick: describe the progressive agenda in a few sentences.
If we can't do it, how the hell is the media and the public meant to
know?
The point here is not to define the list, but to argue the need for one.
It might be both broad as:
- Changing our foreign policy so fewer people want to kill us for it
- Adding morality to our commercial affairs and restoring economic
progress to all Americans, not just for those at the top
- Providing single payer healthcare
- Saving the planet from further ecological destruction
And it might be as specific as:
- Instant runoff voting
- Ending credit card usury
- Shifting public budgets from cars and planes to buses, bicycles and
trains
I might not even agree with these lists tomorrow, but it only took 70
words and you already have a pretty good idea of where I'm coming from,
which is more than you can say of the major Democratic presidential
candidates.
How to devise such a list on a mass basis is an interesting problem
worth discussion and consideration. During the last presidential
campaign I suggested a major conference of progressive organizations to
devise a short agenda but with so many groups looking so inwardly at
their own roles and budgets, this may prove impossible.
Another way would be a common polling system on progressive web sites
and blogs or surveys by standard polling organizations.
Whatever the system, a brief, clear and strong consensus is essential
and long overdue.
VALUES
Just as progressive goals are lost in the mush, the same could be said
of values. In fact, there may be less consensus possible than one might
imagine. How do you get the Manhattan liberal to worry about and respect
the drought-stricken Montana farmer? How do you get well-off gays to
concern themselves with the urban poor? How do you get women's groups to
recognize the degree to which non-college educated young men are the
ones really in the rear these days? How do you blend the liberal, the
populist, the civil libertarian and the green?
One thing is for certain: we don't know because we haven't tried. One
way to start is to commence talking about it, finding common ground,
testing who we really are and what we have in common.
A few questions to start the discussion:
- Can urban progressives find common ground with non-urban Americans?
- Why have the values of populism and civil liberties become less
important among liberal agenda?
- How do we form debates so the door is open to gather supporters and
not chase them away?
- Why isn't community - including local control - more important to the
progressive movement of the day?
- How do we foster the idea of reciprocal liberty - I can't be free
unless you have your freedom - rather than having freedom defined by
purists on either the left or the right?
Ten years ago in my book, The Great American Political Repair Manual, I
outlined some values that I thought were central to what I called a
cooperative commonwealth, such as:
- We seek to be good stewards of our earth, good citizens of our
country, good members of our communities, and good neighbors of those
who share these places with us.
- We reject the immoderate tone of current politics, its appeal to hate
and fear, its scorn for democracy, its preference for conflict over
resolution, its servility to money and to those who possess it, and its
deep indifference to the problems of ordinary Americans.
- We seek a cooperative commonwealth based on decency before profit,
liberty before sterile order, justice before efficiency, happiness
before uniformity, families before systems, communities before
corporations, and people before institutions.
- We should tread gently upon the earth and leave it in better condition
than we found it.
- The physical and cultural variety of human beings is a gift and not a
threat. We are glad that the world includes many who are different from
ourselves by nature, principle, inclination or faith.
- We must protect the right of others to disagree with us so we shall be
free to speak our own minds.
- Our national economic goal is the self-sufficiency, well-being and
stability of our communities and those living in them.
- Ecological principles should determine economic policies and not vice
versa.
- The first source of expertise is the wisdom of the people.
- Individuals possess fundamental rights that are inalienable and not
contingent on responsibilities assigned by the state. These rights are
to be restrained only by a due concern for the health, safety, and
liberty of others and are not to be made subservient to the arbitrary
and capricious dictates of the government.
- Citizens should participate as directly as possible in our democracy
- The media should inform citizens and provide a means by which citizens
may address government rather than serving as a vehicle by which members
of the government and elites tell citizens what to think.
- Power should be devolved to the lowest practical level.
-The Bill of Rights and other constitutional provisions have deep
permanence and are not to be manipulated or abridged for political gain.
- Politics dependent on corporate financing and lobbyist influence is
corrupt, anti-democratic and unacceptable.
- Simplicity, conservation and recycling should be central to our
economy, our politics and our lives.
- Individual privacy is paramount and not to be subservient to the needs
of the state.
- Individual rights are manifestly superior to any granted corporations.
- Our elected officials are servants and representatives, not rulers.
- We need more community more than we need more things.
- We are citizens and not merely taxpayers.
- We own our government and are not merely its consumers.
Change it, rewrite it, scrap it, but put something down that explains to
us and others what it is we value.
GETTING DOWN TO IT
One thing is certain: the major political parties, their lobbying groups
and think tanks are not going to be of much help. These groups will
subvert any new dream and drag it back to the establishment's agenda
much as the Democratic Party and groups like Move On have done with
health care or the Brookings Institution has done with smart growth.
And just concentrating on necessities - such as ending the Iraq War or
stopping Bush's assaults on the Constitution - won't lead to a new
America either, essential as these issues may be. We must learn to
distinguish between survival and creation and give each its due. These
days we seriously shortchange the latter.
Finally, we must remember that change does not require a license. It
traditionally has come from the unanointed, the unprotected and the
unexpected. We need to create thousands of secular congregations,
charettes for a new America and communities of hope and invention - and
then bring our discoveries to others so they can share.
In the end, the only solution to a failed America is a new America. And
there's nobody who can do it but us.
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