The Bumpy Road Ahead:
New Tasks of the Left Following Obama's Victory
By Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama
http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/wB4jSQWqMVluFwOwQg1tyTcEk6MIPIEMD8bZ2Z3aughKak_bW77kxxzQFTxGQ9FeiQ8KxkCSnGavGMOBTkId9FSkd69Vg5Zgpqnq4mQ/The%20Bumpy%20Road%20Ahead.pdf
American progressives have won a major victory in
helping to defeat John McCain and placing Barack Obama
in the White House. The far right has been broadly
rebuffed, the neoconservative war hawks displaced, and
the diehard advocates of neoliberal political economy
are in thorough disarray. Of great importance, one
long-standing crown jewel of white supremacy, the
whites-only sign on the Oval Office, has been tossed
into the dustbin of history.
The depth of the historical victory was revealed in the
jubilation of millions who spontaneously gathered in
downtowns and public spaces across the country, as the
media networks called Obama the winner. When President-
Elect Barack Hussein Obama took the platform in Chicago
to deliver his powerful but sobering victory speech,
hundreds of millions-Black, Latino, Asian, Native-
American and white, men and women, young and old,
literally danced in the streets and wept with joy,
celebrating an achievement of a dramatic milestone in a
400-year struggle, and anticipating a new period of
hope and possibility.
Now a new period of struggle begins, but on a higher
plane. An emerging progressive majority will be
confronted with many challenges and obstacles not seen
for decades. Left and progressive organizers face
difficult, uncharted terrain, a bumpy road. But much
more interesting problems are before us, with
solutions, should they be achieved, promising much
greater gains and rewards. for the America of popular
democracy.
To consciously build on the gains of this electoral
victory, it's important to seek clarity. We need an
accurate assessment of strengths and weaknesses--our
own, as well as those of our allies and our
adversaries.
The Obama campaign, formal and informal, was a wide
undertaking. It united progressive forces, won over
middle forces, then isolated and divided the right. It
massed the votes and resources required the win a clear
majority of the popular vote and a decisive majority of
Electoral College votes.
At the base, beginning with the antiwar youth and peace
activists, Obama awakened, organized, mobilized and
deployed an incredible and innovative force of what
grew into an army of more than three million
volunteers. At the top, he realigned a powerful sector
of the ruling class into an anti-NeoCon, anti-
ultraright bloc. In between, he expanded the electorate
and won clear majorities in every major demographic
bloc of voters, save for whites generally; but even
there, he reduced McCain's spread to single digits, and
among younger white voters and women voters, he won
large majorities.
Understanding the New Alliance
It is important to understand the self-interests and
expectations of this new multiclass alliance. If we get
it wrong, we will run into the ditch and get bogged
down, whether on the right or 'left' side of that bumpy
road, full of potholes and twists and turns.
The Obama alliance is not 'Clintonism in blackface' or
'JFK in Sepia', as some have chauvinistically tagged
it. Nor is it 'imperialism with a human face,' as if
imperialism hasn't always had human faces. All these
make the mistake of looking backward, Hillary Clinton's
mistake of trying to frame the present and future in
the terms of the past.
The Obama team at the top is comprised of global
capital's representatives in the U.S. as well as U.S.
multinational capitalists, and these two overlap but
are not the same. It is a faction of imperialism, and
there is no need for us to prettify it, deny it or
cover it up in any way. The important thing to see is
that it is neither neoliberalism nor the old corporate
liberalism. Obama is carving out a new niche for
himself, a work in progress still within the bounds of
capitalism, but a 'high road' industrial policy
capitalism that is less state-centric and more market-
based in its approach, more Green, more high tech, more
third wave and participatory, less politics-as-
consumerism and more 'public citizen' and education
focused. In short, it's capitalism for a multipolar
world and the 21st century.
The unreconstructed neoliberalism and old corporate
liberalism, however, are still very much in play. The
former is in disarray, largely due to the financial
crisis, but the latter is working overtime to join the
Obama team and secure its institutional positions of
power, from White House staff positions to the behind-
the-scenes efforts on Wall Street to direct the huge
cash flows of the Bail-Out in their favor.
How the Obama Alliance won: Values, Technology and
Social Movements
The Obama alliance is an emerging, historic counter-
hegemonic bloc, still contending both with its pre-
election adversaries and within itself. It has taken
the White House and strengthened its majority in
Congress, but the fight is not over. To define the
victorious coalition simply by the class forces at the
top is the error of reductionism that fails to shine a
light on the path ahead.
What is a hegemonic bloc? Most power elites maintain
their rule using more than armed force. They use a
range of tools to maintain hegemony, or dominance,
which are 'softer,' meaning they are political and
cultural instruments as well as economic and military.
They seek a social base in the population, and draw
them into partnership and coalitions through
intermediate civil institutions. Keeping this bloc
together requires a degree of compromise and
concession, even if it ultimately relies on force. The
blocs are historic; they develop over time, are shaped
by the times, and also have limited duration. When
external and internal crises disrupt and lead them to
stagnation, a new 'counter-hegemonic' bloc takes shape,
with a different alignment of economic interests and
social forces, to challenge it and take its place.
These ideas were first developed by the Italian
communist and labor leader, Antonio Gramsci, and taken
up again in the 1960s by the German New Left leader,
Rudi Dutschke. They are helpful, especially in
nonrevolutionary conditions, in understanding both how
our adversaries maintain their power, as well as the
strategy and tactics needed to replace them, eventually
by winning a new socialist and popular democratic
order.
As a new historic bloc, the Obama alliance contains
several major and minor poles. It is composed of
several class forces, a complex social base and many
social movements which have emerged and engaged in the
electoral struggle. There is both class struggle and
other forms of struggle within it. There are sharp
differences on military policy, on Israel-Palestine, on
healthcare and the bailout. From the outside, there are
also serious and sustained struggles against it. And
some forces will move both inside and outside the bloc,
as circumstances warrant or change. It is important to
be clear on what the main forces and components are,
and their path to unity. It's also important to
understand the relation and balance of forces, and how
one is not likely to win at the top what one has not
consolidated and won at the base, nor is failure in one
or another battle always cause for a strategic break.
Obama obviously started with his local coalition in
Chicago-the Black community, 'Lakefront liberals' from
the corporate world, and a sector of labor, mainly
service workers. The initial new force in the winning
nationwide alliance was called out by Obama's early
opposition to the Iraq war, and his participation in
two mass rallies against it, one before it began and
other after the war was underway. This both awakened
and inspired a large layer of young antiwar activists,
some active for the first time, to join his effort to
win the Iowa primary. The fact that he had publicly
opposed the war before it had begun distinguished him
from Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, his chief
opponents. These young people also contributed to the
innovative nature of his organization, combining
grassroots community organizing with the many-to-many
mass communication tools of internet-based social
networking and fundraising. Many had some earlier
experience organizing and participating in the World
Social Forum in Atlanta 2007, which energized nearly
10,000 young activists. Those who came forward put
their energy and innovation to good use. Had Obama not
won Iowa, it is not likely we would be talking about
him today.
The Iowa victory quickly produced another major
advance. Up until then, most African-American voters
favored Hillary Clinton, and were dubious of a Black
candidate's chances. But Iowa is one of the 'whitest'
states in the country, and Obama's win there changed
their minds. In short order, Obama gained wide unity in
Black communities across the country, inspiring even
more young people, more multinational and more 'Hip-
Hop,' to emerge as a force. Black women in their
churches and Black workers in their unions joined with
the already-engaged younger Black professionals who
were seeking a new voice for their generation. The
internet-based fundraising was bringing in unheard-of
amounts of money in small donations. A wing of trade
unions most responsive to Black members came over,
setting the stage for Obama's next challenge, winning
the Democratic primaries overall against Hillary
Clinton.
Defeating Clinton and the corporate liberals backing
her was not easy. Hillary's main weakness was her
inability to win the antiwar movement. Obama had mainly
won the youth and Blacks, and through them, many young
women and many Black women, but he had tough
challenges. Clinton still rallied much of the liberal
base and the traditional women's movement. But it was
not enough, nor was she able to deal with all the new
grassroots money flowing his way. Her last reserve was
the labor movement, most of which was still supporting
her. She tried to keep it with a fatal error: playing
the 'white worker' card in a racist way against Obama.
It only moved more progressives to Obama, plus won him
wider support in other communities of color, who saw
the move for what it was. Even with her remaining base
in a sector of the women's movement and a large chunk
of organized labor, after a fierce fight, he narrowly
but clearly defeated her.
Now it was Obama versus McCain, and the Republicans
were in the weaker position. Some think McCain made a
mistake picking Sarah Palin as his VP choice, but
actually it was his smarter and stronger card. To
defeat Obama, he had to both energize the GOP core
rightwing base, plus win a large majority of the 'white
working class.' Palin's proto-fascist rightwing
populism was actually his best shot, especially with
its unofficial allies in rightwing media. The Fox-
Hannity-Limbaugh machine, and its allies in the right
blogosphere, escalated their overtly racist,
chauvinist, illegal immigrant-baiting, red-baiting,
terror-baiting, anti-Black and anti-Muslim bigotry to a
ceaseless fever pitch. The aim was to manipulate the
significant social base of less-educated, more
fundamentalist, lower-income white workers who often
seek economic relief through being tied to the military
or the prison-industrial complex. They threw
everything, from the kitchen sink to the outhouse, at
Obama, his family and his movement. They whipped their
crowds into violent frenzies. The Secret Service even
had to ask them to tone it down, since assassination
threats were coming out of the woodwork with each rally
like this.
This now put organized labor in the critical position.
Even though they represented only a minority of workers
generally, they had wider influence, including into the
ranks of the white working-class families who were for
Clinton, and leaning to McCain. But both national
coalitions, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, did the
right thing, and in a big way. They knew McCain was
their 'clear and present' danger. So they mobilized
their resources and members into the streets,
especially in the 'white working class' battleground
areas in critical electoral states, and among Latino
voters in the West. They won a wide majority of union
households. They won among women and younger workers,
as well as Latinos and other voters of color. Although
they still did not get a majority of white working
class voters for Obama, they brought the spread down to
single digits. In many areas, they did better with
Obama than Kerry had done four years earlier. It was
enough to put Obama over the top.
There are books to be written about many other aspects
and components of the Obama alliance. But these five:
insurgent antiwar youth, a united African-American
community, Latinos and other communities of color,
women with a grasp of the importance of reproductive
rights and health care, and organized labor-these form
the major elements of the social base of Obama's
historic bloc against neoliberalism and the right. Add
these to the disgruntled progressive-to-liberal regular
Democratic voters in the suburbs and elsewhere, and it
brought the era of the conservative right's dominance
in the White House and Congress to an end.
The Obama Alliance From Below and Within
The alliance was also diverse in terms of political
organization. At the very bottom grassroots, in the
final months, there were often four campaigns,
overlapping to one degree or another, united to one
degree or another, but not the same by a long shot.
First, the local Obama offices were mainly run by the
Obama youth, twenty-somethings, many of them young
women, who worked their hearts out, 16-hours-a-day,
seven days a week, months on end. They were deployed in
a vast array of 'neighborhood teams,' with old teams
often generating new ones, connected via the social
networking of their own blogs, email, cell phones and
text messaging. Each team knocked on hundreds, if not
thousands of doors, and tracked it all on computers.
The full-time leaders were often 'parachuted in' from
distant states, skilled mainly in mobilizing others
like themselves. But add up dozens, even hundreds of
teams in a given county, and you're making a serious
difference.
Second, the Black community's campaign was more
indigenous, more traditional, more rooted, more deeply
proletarian-it made use of the Black church's social
committees, tenant groups and civic organizations, who
widely united. Many day-to-day efforts were in the
hands of older Black women who knew everything about
everybody, and had decades of experience in registering
and getting out the vote. In some parts of the country,
there were other nationalities working this way-Latino,
Asian, Native American-and they found the way to make
common cause with the African American community,
rebuffing GOP efforts to appeal to anti-Black racism or
narrow nationalism as a wedge. Some of the older people
in these communities learned how to use computers, too,
and sent regular contributions to Obama via PayPal in
small amounts. But multiply one of these experienced
community-based women organizers by 50,000 or 100,000
more just like her in another neighborhood or town, and
something new and serious is going on. They always
faced scarce resources, and there was friction at times
with the Obama youth, who were often mostly white or
more of a younger 'Rainbow.' They worked it through,
most of the time.
Third, organized labor carried out its campaign in its
own way. They had substantial resources for meeting
halls, phone banks and the traditional 'swag' of
campaigns-window signs, yard signs, buttons, T-shirts,
stickers, banners, professionally done multi-colored
flyers directly targeted to the top issues of union
members and the wider working class. They put it
together as an almost industrial operation, well
planned with a division of labor. Top leaders of the
union came in, called mass meetings, and in many cases,
gave fierce no-nonsense speeches about 'getting over'
fear of Black candidates and asserting the need to vote
their members' interests. The central offices produced
walking maps of union member households and registered
voter households, political district by political
district, broken down right to how many people were
needed for each door-knocking team to cover each
district or neighborhood. They printed maps with
driving directions. They had tally sheets for
interviewing each voter, boxes to check, to be scanned
and read by machines when turned in. Hundreds of
member-volunteers from that ranks came to each hall,
raffles were held for free gas cards, and when you got
back and turned in your tallies, free hot dogs and
pizza. Sometimes busloads and car caravans went to
other nearby states, to more 'battleground' areas. They
often shared their halls with the Obama kids, and tried
not to duplicate efforts. It was powerful to see, and
it worked. There's nothing to replace a pair of union
members standing on the porches of other working-class
families, talking things over.
Fourth, the actual ongoing structures of the local
Democratic Party did things their way. In many cases,
the local regular Democratic leaders were very good,
and took part personally in all three of elements of
the campaign described above. But frequently, there was
no 'mass' to the local Democratic organization. The
mass member groups of the old Democratic Party were
just history. (It was a problem, but also an opening
for new independent mass progressive groups, like
Progressive Democrats of America, to grow). Each
incumbent, moreover, had their own staff and core of
donors and loyalists, lawyers and media consultants,
and guarded their own turf. Some were Obama
enthusiasts, some more low-key, but more than a few
avoided any responsibility to win Hillary voters to
Obama. They capitulated to 'Democrats for McCain'
elements in their base, elements who worked informally
with the GOP right. This latter group was called 'the
top of the ticket problem.' They worked their campaigns
as independent operations, but avoided identification
with the 'top of the ticket' or those working locally
for it.
The Core Message of Change
While all four of these sub-campaigns were united by
the central message and 'change' theme from the top,
each also carried out the 'change' message in its own
way. One issue linking at least three of them, save for
a few 'Blue Dog' incumbents, was the need for a rapid
end to the war. From Obama's personal appearances on
down, whenever a speaker forcefully made this point to
a crowd, it got the loudest applause, if not a standing
ovation.
The people in these crowds constitute a new component
of the antiwar movement. It needs to be understood,
however, that they have a different character than the
traditional left-led antiwar rallies. Demands to end
the war here are deeply connected with supporting our
troops, getting them home and out of harm's way,
supporting veterans across the board, expressions of
patriotism, and a view of the war as an offense to
patriotism. They hate the waste of lives of people from
families they know; and they hate the waste of
resources and huge amounts of money. Ending the war is
stressed as the way to lower taxes and revive the
economy by spending for projects at home, People will
denounce oil barons, but you'll hear very little put in
terms of anti-imperialism or solidarity with various
other liberations struggles around the world. 'We were
lied to getting us into this', and 'we have our
problems to solve here'-that's the underlying themes
and watchwords. There are a few incumbents who will
take positions to the right of Obama on the war, trying
to stake out various nuanced and longer 'exit strategy'
processes, or who just don't mention the war at all.
But at the base, most just want to troops rapidly and
safely out, while a few cling to the right's calls for
'victory.' But there's not much in the middle.
The other components of 'change' at the base are, first
and foremost, new jobs and new industries. People are
especially motivated by practical plans for Green Jobs
in alternative energies and major infrastructural
repair, health care for everyone, schools and support
for students, and debt relief and other protections of
their economic security in the face of the Wall Street
crash. In fact, the Wall Street crash was the major
factor in many older voters rejecting McCain and going
for Obama. Regarding health care, many unions and local
government bodies are signing on to HR 676, Single-
Payer health care, but some will accept many other
things, wisely or not, as a step in that direction or
an improvement over the current setup.
The Nature of Rising Hegemonic Blocs
Within the Obama historic bloc, there are at least four
contending trends regarding 'change' and political
economy-two major and two minor. The two major ones
come mainly from the top, while the two minor ones come
from below.
At the top, the Obama White House will be pulled in two
directions. The first is the 'tinkering at the top'
approach of traditional corporate liberal capitalism,
mostly concerned with securing the major banks by
covering their debts and reducing the deficit through
'shared austerity' cutbacks. The emphasis will be on
greater government-imposed efficiencies in entitlement
programs, tax reform and adjustments in global trade
agreements. Some of their favored programs, like
pressing businesses to provide more 401K plans for
employees, may be set aside because of the stock
market' volatility.
The second direction is Obama's own often-asserted
'High Road' green industrial policy capitalism, which
wants to restrict and punish pure speculation in the
'Casino Economy' in favor of targeted government
investment in massive infrastructure and research,
encouraging the growth of new industries with 'Green
Jobs' in alternative energy sectors. Since resources
are not infinite, there will be a major tension and
competition for funds between two rival sectors--a new
green industrial-education policy sector and an old
hydrocarbon-military-industrial sector. It's a key task
of the left and progressive movements to add their
forces to uniting with and building up the former,
while opposing and weakening the grip of the latter.
This is the 'High Road' vs. 'Low Road' strategy widely
discussed in progressive think tanks and policy
circles.
>From below, Obama is being presented with a plethora
of redistributionist 'New New Deal' plans, including
Rep Dennis Kucinich's 16 Points, to Sen. Bernie Sanders
4 Points, to the Institute for Policy Studies
'Progressive Majority' plan. One outlier 'Buy Out, Not
Bail Out' proposal, David Schweickart's Economic
Democracy option, goes beyond redistributionism, and
proposes deep structural reforms of public ownership in
the equity of financial firms in exchange for the
bailout, in turn directing capital into community
investment banks to build worker-controlled options
within the new wealth creation firms of green
industries.
>From the other side, the unreconstructed rightwing
neoliberals will be out of positions of executive power
but not without positions of influence. Centered among
the House GOP and allied with the rightwing media
populists and anti-global nationalists, with Lou Dobbs
as a spokesman, they will remain a powerful opposition
force. They are likely to try to sabotage Obama, as
best as they can without their own mass base, suffering
from the crisis, turning against them. This was the
role they played in the rightist opposition to the
corporate liberal bailout plans stirred up by the far
right Human Events journalists.
The key point here is shaping the exact nature of what
Obama unfolds as 'change.' What will bring about any
progressive reform and protect 'Main Street' and the
'Middle Class' against 'Wall Street' is still open and
not fully formed. In fact, it will be a focus of
intense struggle both internally at the top and on the
part of mass social movements defending and advancing
their interests from below. Class struggle will unfold
within the bloc, to be sure.
The Bankruptcy of the Ultraleft
This is where the questions facing the left and an
account of its tasks become critical. What is our role?
Who are our friends and allies? Who are our
adversaries, of various sorts? What is our left
platform within broader proposals for growing and
uniting a progressive majority? What is our strategy,
tactics and orientation for moving forward? All these
need to be re-examined in this dynamic and new
situation.
We have to start by acknowledging the real crisis
across the entire socialist left for some time. While
some progress and innovation has been made by some in
recent years, no one is surging ahead with major growth
and breakthroughs. What this election, its outcome, its
battles and ebb and flow, and the engagement of the
masses, has especially done is reveal the utter
bankruptcy of almost the entire anti-Obama Trotskyist,
anarchist and Maoist left, save for a few groupings and
some individuals. The crisis was not nearly as deep
among the wider left-those hundreds of thousands
working among trade union activists, community
organizers and our country's intellectual community,
but often not identified with a given socialist group
or anarchist project. Whatever their problems, most of
them understood this election and what to do, even if
their efforts were limited. They 'got it right', even
if they lacked the organizational means to advance the
socialist project.
But among those belonging to organized socialist and
anarchist groups with enough resources to put out their
views, most got it dead wrong. On the election, only
the CCDS (Committees of Correspondence for Democracy
and Socialism, cc-ds.org, ) the Communist Party USA,
cpusa.org, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization
(FRSO, freedomroad.org) got it mostly right, mainly
because they have some grasp on the importance of
racism, elections and mass democracy. But we know these
three groups, even if well situated, are rather small
and not growing in any major way. Next was DSA which at
least saw the importance of defeating McCain and
backing Obama, even though they only managed to put out
a rather wimpy pro-forma statement without once
mentioning race. The other 10-to-15 groups, with the
larger majority of organized US socialists, communists
and Marxists in them, failed miserably, whatever the
subjective feelings and views of their individual
members. Besides broadsides against Obama and those
backing him, they had nothing new or relevant to say,
and some of them didn't bother to say anything,
especially among the anarchists. Go to the sixty or
more Indymedia sites, and you hardly see anything
useful said besides macho bluster and shit-talk against
the few pro-voting-for-Obama postings put up.
This is the face of this crisis: While there was an
upsurge of millions of Obama volunteers in one of the
most critical elections in our history, a true
milestone, which was combined with direct engagement
from a united Black community and the best elements of
labor, from precisely the sectors all of them have been
claiming to try to reach for decades, and almost all
they could was bark at them: 'You're deluded!' You're
Obamaniacs! 'You're wrong!' 'Obama is a capitalist!'
'Don't Drink the Kool-Aid! Obama is the more dangerous
warmonger because he's the new 'Uncle Tom' Black face
of imperialism!'
If the question of the day was immediate working-class
mass action on seizing power from the capitalist class,
for reform vs. revolution, socialism or capitalism NOW,
they might have had a point. But it's not. Even with
the financial crisis, it's not even close. Besides
getting troops out of this or that country, they don't
even have a package of demands or structural reforms
worthy of the name being put forward. Worse of all,
they don't think any distinction between revolutionary
and non-revolutionary conditions is all that important.
What that means, in turn, is that it's almost
impossible for them, as groups and as a trend, to
correct their course.
It's not a matter of being critical of Obama. Everyone
engaged in his movement had criticisms and alternate
positions of all sorts. Some made them public, some did
not-but all these did so in a way designed to help him
win, not to take him down, to add votes to his totals,
not to subtract them.
As mentioned, the wider left, the left that defines
itself as more than liberal but not necessarily
socialist, did relatively well. These are the union-
based organizers, community organizers, campus
organizers, and the readers of Portside, The Nation,
Black Commentator, Huffington Post and DailyKOS. For
the most part, they were fully engaged for Obama in
this election. Comparing the online commentary in these
media voices and outlets with that of the Indymedia
anarchists and the socialist papers of the far left was
as revealing as the difference between noon and
midnight.
We have to break decisively with this ultra-left, semi-
anarchist perspective. While the hard core of this
trend is small, it reach is wider than some might
think. It's not a matter of purges; it's a matter of
emancipating the minds of many on the radical left from
old dogma. There's no way forward under these new
conditions if we don't. We have to break with it not
only in our own ranks, the groups working with
'Progressives for Obama', where it's not that
influential, but across all the mass democratic
organizations of the wider social movements as well. We
have to spotlight it, stand up to it, isolate it and
defeat it. It's not that we are demanding a split. The
split has already taken place over the past two years,
in real life and in actual battles. Many of us, for
instance, stood up to the rightwing media's racist
attacks on Obama, his family and his movement; others
from this corner of the left added fuel to the
fascists' fires and fanned the flames. We are sharply
divided. We are as far apart in practice as we can be.
What we have to do is acknowledge it, sum up its
lessons, and warn others of its dangers, and try to
unite all who can be united on a new path forward.
Charting Our Path Forward
So what is our path? Again, we start by getting clarity
on where we are. We were in an alliance with Obama and
the forces and movements that brought him to power
against the NeoCon neoliberals and the far right. If we
assess things accurately, we'll see that we are still
in this alliance, although its nature is changing. We
are part of a new emerging counter-hegemonic bloc in
our country, an historic multiclass alliance. The Obama
forces at the top are in turn linked to the multipolar,
multilateralist sector of global capital. A new bloc on
this higher, global level is both trying to consolidate
its power against its rivals and maintain a degree of
both unity and struggle among the contenting poles and
centers of power within it. Our task is to grow the
strength of the left, the working class, and broader
communities allies within it, to secure strong points,
and to win, step by step, the 'long march through the
institutions' until we emerge with a new counter-
hegemonic bloc of our own, in an entirely different
period.
From the beginning, the Obama alliance brought
together left-progressive forces, along with moderate
center and center-right forces, from the grass roots
level through middle-layer institutions to the top. No
one or even two of these voting blocs was enough to win
alone. It took the entire coalition to win-and driving
out any one part of it may have made defeat far more
likely and risky. We were part of a left-progressive
pole in a broader sub-bloc comprised of social
movements, primarily antiwar youth, minority
nationality communities and organized labor. While we
were the most numerous of the blocs, we were not
necessarily the most powerful.
A political pole or sub-bloc's power in electoral
campaigns is a combination of three things-first, an
organized platform of ideas appropriate to solving the
problems of the day that, second, is in turn embodied
in organized grassroots voters and, third, those
organizations have readily available amounts of
organized money. We can take part in an alliance
without some or even all of these things, but we
shouldn't then expect much clout.
Let's look at each of these three elements from the
perspective of left-progressive activists.
What was our platform? First, we stressed an end to the
war in Iraq and a prevention of wider wars, even if
Obama talked of going into Afghanistan in a bigger way.
Second, we were demanding 'Healthcare Not Warfare,' and
in many cases, pressing HR 676 Single-Payer even if
Obama opposed it. Third, we stressed Green Jobs and New
Schools, and Obama eventually pushed these in a big
way. Fourth, we stressed Alternative Energies over
dirty coal, offshore oil and unsafe nuke plants, even
if Obama waffled. Fifth, we wanted Expanded Democracy
and Fair Elections, and Obama pressed voter
registration and early voting in a big way.
The Obama volunteers in the official campaign often
couldn't put things out exactly like this. Their
messaging was more controlled from the center. But
nothing stopped either organized labor or independent
forces like PDA, MDS or other local groups connected to
'Progressives for Obama' from exercising our
'independence and initiative within the broader front.'
We simply did what we thought best, but in a way that
still maintained solid unity among local allies.
The Importance of Independent Mass Democracy
How did we organize voters? Many progressives simply
worked through the local Obama campaign, registering
and identifying voters with the neighbor teams. This
was fine, especially if you spent some time in a mutual
education process with the young staffers. But some of
us were looking for something more independent and
lasting. So we joined with groups like PDA, or set up
'voters for peace' groupings based on local coalitions,
or worked through union locals. The idea was for the
information gained--voter lists, donor lists,
volunteers lists, contacts and such-to remain in the
hands of the new grassroots formations, to grow them in
size and scope, so as to help further struggles down
the road.
To be sure, our influence, compared to the incredibly
sophisticated, well-funded and innovative Obama
campaign, was relatively minor. That didn't matter so
much; what was important was that we weren't simply a
tail on the Democratic machinery, but that we were
building our own independent strength for the future.
In nearly every major city, independent blogs or
clusters of blogs went up to serve as a public face and
organizing hubs of these grassroots forces. Case in
point: The local Obama offices are now all closed, but
our local groups or coalitions have doubled or tripled
in size, we now have news blogs getting thousands of
hits, and our efforts are ongoing and more connected
with labor and community allies.
How did we raise money? To be frank, we didn't raise
that much independently. This is a fault, not a virtue.
Some groups in the African-American community went into
the T-shirt and button business, making a range of
campaign items, selling them to raise stipends, gas
money and donations to Obama, then turning some over to
make more T-shirts and buttons, and so on. In some
places, we relied a good deal on the resources supplied
at local union halls-meeting space, phones, and printed
materials. 'Progressives for Obama' kept itself alive
from a few initial startup donations from individuals,
then from its two blogs and listservs on the Internet
via PayPal in small amounts.
But to return to our platform of issues and demands,
the key underlying principle was segmenting the
business community into productive versus speculative
capital, rather than asserting an all-round anti-
capitalist or anti-corporate perspective. We want to
see mills reopened with new companies we can support
that would make wind turbines via Green Jobs, while we
oppose the Casino gamblers on Wall Street or insurance
company parasites blocking universal health care.
People can and will denounce every sort of corporate
crime or outrage to make a point. But when it came to
the platform of reforms for uses of our taxes dollars,
we were much more focused on what kind of businesses we
wanted to see grow, and how we wanted them to relate to
their workers and surrounding communities. This
approach did very well in getting many rank-and-file
workers to take us seriously, especially in areas where
many people suffer more from the lack of business than
its presence.
The main point is that we now have mass democratic
organization anchored in many communities, workplaces
and schools, and that they have a basis to expand. PDA
is a good example. Starting with only a few dozen
people in 2004 with an 'inside-outside' independent
view of dealing and working with Democrats, they have
grown to some 150,000 people scattered across the
country in every major city, with most of that growth
taking place in the context of the last campaign to
defeat the GOP and McCain. At the Democratic
convention, together with The Nation magazine, PDA
delivered a week-long series of panels and workshops
that drew thousands of activists and hundreds of
delegates, establishing itself as the 'Progressive
Central' mobilizing and organizing pole for the week in
Denver. Many PDA local chapters mobilized members that
became the backbone of the Obama campaign offices, as
well as boosting local labor mobilizations. The PDA
chapters built their credibility by advocating
Healthcare Not Warfare and backing local progressive
candidates down the ticket. They helped unite
progressives within the various trends of the Obama
campaign with local unity events.
On a smaller scale, Movement for a Democratic Society
groups did well, too Austin, Texas is a great example,
where they combined with 'The Rag' blog, which is now
getting over 25,000 hits a month. On campuses, where
the New SDS was able to make a break with anarchism and
relate to the Obama youth, they also report successes
and growth.
The Critical Priority of Organization and the Relative
Importance of Socialist Tasks
What the heart of this says is that for left-to-
progressive activists, organization-building trumps
movement-building in this period. The movements are
very wide and diverse, and in front of our noses. But
the current wave has just peaked, and will now ebb a
bit. In situations like this, it's more important than
ever to consolidate the gains of mass struggle,
including electoral struggle, into lasting
organizations, either expanding earlier ones or
building new ones. The same goes for coalition-building
of local clusters of organizations, then networking
them across the country, horizontally and vertically,
via the internet. We need organizers now, more so than
activists and agitators.
What about the 'socialism' part of the socialist left?
Up to this point, I've mainly addressed the mass
democratic tasks we share in common with the non-
socialist left and progressive activists generally.
Fortunately or unfortunately the Wall Street financial
crisis combined with the right wing's red baiting of
Obama as a 'Marxist' and 'socialist' has given the 'S'
word far wider circulation and interest than it's had
in decades. Unfortunately, in the mass media, it's
mainly discussed in a one-dimensional, cartoonish way
as 'socialism for the rich' or 'sharing the wealth.'
No matter. This expanded media buzz serves to
underscore the main aspect of our socialist tasks in
today's conditions. Our work here is mainly that of
education, theoretical work, and the development of
program and policy options. We need our own think tanks
and networks of study groups developing our policies
and platforms for deep structural reforms that serve as
transitional levers to a new socialism. Before we can
fight for it, we better have a fairly clear idea of
what it is in this country in today's world-both among
ourselves and the wider circles of the best left and
progressive organizers with whom we want to share this
learning process and socialist project.
It is a good time, however, to expand this work in a
serious way. One small example: in the context of the
initial wave of reaction to the Wall Street crash, and
the first round of progressive proposals to deal with
it, 'Progressives for Obama' asked David Schweickart,
one of our country's foremost proponents of socialist
theory, to write up his take on it. He wrote not only
his account of why the crisis happened, but also
briefly contrasted today's capitalism and its downturn
and crash with the socialist alternative. His own
'successor system theory' of Economic Democracy,
however, is designed to be a bridge to socialist
options. If we, the public, are to buy up the bad debt
of failed banks and firms, why not demand equity in the
stock and public seats on the board, or buy them out
entirely. Instead of simply paying off debt and
providing the wherewithal for big bonuses and Golden
Parachutes, why not do more than simply restrict or
forbid this? Why not use these now-public resources to
launch local community-owned investment banks to
partner with labor and local government and
entrepreneurs to build the new worker-owned factories
of green industries and alternative energies?
These are excellent take-off points. Schweickart's
article was widely circulated as an authoritative
piece, commented on across the political spectrum. In
several cities, leftists in and around the Obama
campaign even set up study groups to go over it. This
shouldn't be exaggerated, but it does show the
possibilities and frames our socialist tasks more
accurately.
Both Immediate and Transitional Programs
But the more pressing task for us as part of the left
is sharply and concretely outlining our immediate and
transitional programs and their platforms. The
immediate program of demands, like Kucinich's 16
Points, are basically redistributionist programs aimed
at taking wealth from above and spreading it around
below. Given the vast inequalities of our society, that
is both pressing and desirable. As a stimulus, it also
spurs the generation of new wealth. The transitional
program of deep structural reform, like Schweickart's
Economic Democracy, takes public resources to generate
new wealth, but in a way that alters power relations in
favor of the working class and broader public.
Some of the best proposals and projects on the table
combine both of these. The Apollo Alliance, where
steelworkers and environmentalists come together, put
forward a range of recession-busting programs. Van
Jones' Green Jobs programs for inner city youth do the
same, as does HR 676 Single-Payer health care. The
Blue-Green Alliance is still another.
Our task is to put flesh on these in a way that melds
with our local conditions. We start by uniting antiwar
Obama youth, community and labor locally, then build
outwards and upwards from there. We start with an
understanding of the critical role of a united African-
American community, the most consistent defenders and
fighters for a progressive agenda in the country,
especially when it works in alliance with Latinos and
other minority nationalities. We also grasp the
significance of women and labor, and the overall
intersection of race, gender and class in defining our
policies, seeking out allies, and setting priorities.
We design a package of critical local reforms, whether
in rebuilding Ohio River locks and dams, constructing
high-speed rail in California, or delivering single-
payer healthcare everywhere. Then we make the fights
for these a centerpiece to unite the entire area, win
over all the public officials that we can, and then, in
turn, take it to an Obama administration, demanding an
end to the war and war making, in order to fund it and
make it happen. It's really the only way out of this
mess.
Our great victory in this election, finally, is that
efforts and programs like this won't fall on deaf ears.
The challenge to Obama is that to get it done, he has
to end the war, avoid wider wars and cut the military
budget in a major way. If he does, he can be a great
president. If he doesn't, he'll have hell to pay.
Summary
Here are the key points, once again:
1. We have won a major victory, now consolidate its
gains.
2. Start where you are, and build mass democratic
grassroots groups bringing together the best local
activists from the Obama campaign and others like it.
3. Build a coalition with local partners in labor,
campus and community groups that did the same.
4. Start local left-progressive blogs to have a public
face, and link it to others.
5. Develop a program of deep structural reform and
immediate needs for your area, and take it upward and
outward through the elected officials and government
bodies, all the way to the top.
6. Break decisively with the ultraleft mindset, in order to deepen and broaden left-progressive unity.
7. Prepare the ground for mass mobilization to end the war this spring, and to prevent wider war. Link this battle to the economy. Green Jobs over War Jobs, New Schools, Not More Prisons, HealthCare Not Warfare, Peace and Prosperity, Not War, Greed and Crisis. You get the idea.
8. Study socialism seriously, the version for today, and bring it to bear in developing policy and uniting the most advanced fighters for the whole, not just the part, and for the future, not just the present.
[Carl Davidson is the webmaster for Progressives for Obama. He is a field organizer for the Solidarity Economy Network, a national steering committee member of United for Peace and Justice, and a member of the National Coordinating Committee of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS).
In the 1960s, he was a national secretary of Students of a Democratic Society, and a freedom marcher in Mississippi, and a national leader of the Vietnam antiwar movement.
Davidson is the founder and executive director of Networking for Democracy. A longtime community technology advocate, Davidson first launched NFD back in 1988, and served as an initial national board member of CTCNet, the nationwide network of CTCs, for three years, and also as a founder of CTCNet Chicago. Today, when not on the road, he resides in Raccoon Twp, Western PA, where he originally grew up and his family still lives. ]
[If you liked this article, go to http://progressivesforobama.net, and offer
some support by using the PayPal button. Other writings by Carl Davidson are available at http://carldavidson.blogspot.com and contact him for speaking engagements at [log in to unmask] ]
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