Whither One Nation?

By Mark Solomon

Published by Portside

The October 2, 2010 "One Nation Working Together" rally
at the Lincoln Memorial was a successful expression of
the working class and multiracial foundation of the
progressive majority. The large turnout of labor
unions, African Americans and other communities of
color provided a solid start for building a broadly
based national coalition to urgently address the crisis
of unemployment and inseparably related crises in
education, health care, housing, militarism and the
environment. While the imperative issue of peace and
the ending of Washington's wars was not insistently
stressed (except for Harry Belafonte's inspired speech
and the strong words of Bob King of the UAW), the peace
movement was a large, highly visible and indispensable
presence whose major role in the coalition cannot be
questioned.

Since October 2, there has been little or no visibility
of "One Nation Working Together."  Such a lack of
evident activity is fairly typical of coalitions that
often fall prey to inertia after initial bursts of
engagement. That is largely due to the pull upon
participating organizations to address their own
agendas and constituencies while organizational and
financial commitments to the larger coalition fester.

However, while such inertia is not atypical, it is not
an option: not when the depth and urgency of multiple
crises compel the existence and activism of the
broadest and most inclusive coalition of nearly fifty
major national organizations. Inertia is not an option
in the face of right-wing control of the House of
Representatives. It is not an option in the face of an
impending right wing assault on Social Security and
Medicare aimed at destroying all vestiges of the
historic social safety net. It is not an option when
there is no end in sight to the hopeless Afghanistan
war. It is not an option in light of finance capital's
remorseless and disgraceful class war against the vast
majority while it continues the reckless practices that
plunged the country into deep recession in the first
place. It is not an option in the face of brutal
roundups of undocumented immigrants that threaten the
constitutional rights of all. The compelling need for
an inclusive and powerful coalition to stem the
accelerating environmental crisis, to launch urgent and
related "green jobs," to shift resources from military
spending and unconscionable tax breaks for the rich to
the rescue of bankrupted states and municipalities - is
a task that is shunned at the price of unprecedented
painful social dislocation.

As if those threats and challenges were not enough to
reactivate "One Nation," the horrific killing and
maiming in Tucson punctuate the need for a strong
organized progressive majority to challenge the right
wing's growing impact on the nation's political
culture. Pleas for media and politicians to tone down
inflammatory rhetoric will be short lived while pleas
to the gun lobby to scale back its corrosive influence
will fall on deaf ears. The greatest promise for
countering the present climate of violence and coercion
clearly resides not in dependence on those controlling
the media and politics, but in the unified strength of
a progressive social movement able to positively
influence and change the political culture.

There is a consensus among progressives that a national
social movement is needed; that the movement must be
independent of the two parties; that its posture
towards the present Administration must be to galvanize
grass roots pressure upon it to consistently address
the needs of the nation's majority; that the movement
must address all aspects of the many-sided crisis - the
economy, the wars, the environment. In acknowledging
the inseparability of issues, it must build cooperation
and mutual support among various single issue-oriented
groups; it should have a strong, highly visible
national center to give sharp focus to the issues while
encouraging affiliate grass roots coalitions; its
decisions should be transparent and based upon
democratic input from the local and national
participating organizations.

Some on the left have criticized the October 2 One
Nation rally for being tepid, for being too deferential
to the Obama administration, for not encouraging a more
active presence (such as a march and rally). Some of
those criticisms are justified. But that criticism has
to be balanced against the potential of a movement that
embraces the broadest and most influential
organizations of left and center. In addition, the
active participation of national, local and regional
groups, including peace activists, can have a
constructive and democratizing effect on the
functioning of the coalition.

There has been considerable discussion lately on
strategies for building a national progressive
alliance. But that discussion has tended to ignore "One
Nation Working Together," a framework that already
exists and already embraces major organizations such as
the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the National Council of La
Raza, US Students Association, Green for All, The
Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights and dozens
of other organizations.

The task of regenerating One Nation has to come from
the grass roots. At this crucial political moment,
action by individuals and organizations is needed to
press the leadership of One Nation to urgently convene
a transparent national meeting. That gathering should
reactivate the coalition, establish a national
structure, recruit staff, develop programmatic ideas,
set up media relations and assign personnel to work
with groups at the regional and local levels.

Groups and individuals should contact the principal
organizers of One Nation (
www.onenationworkingtogether.org): Benjamin Jealous of
the NAACP, George Gresham of SEIU Local 1199, Richard
Trumka of the AFL-CIO, Randi Weingarten of the American
Federation of Teachers and Bob King of the United
Automobile Workers. Phone calls, letters, email, faxes,
etc. should respectfully and supportively urge the
activation of One Nation to meet the urgent challenges
of the moment (contact information can be conveniently
found on Internet websites). That action can be
completed in minutes and can have an impact on
activating, organizing and mobilizing the progressive
majority. This is the moment to re energize One Nation
Working Together.
________________

Mark Solomon is past national co-chair of the
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and
Socialism (CCDS) and is currently Sheila Biddle Ford
Foundation Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for
African and African American Research at Harvard
University.

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