SIDELINE ARGUING OR EXERTING POWER?
Much of the progressive media focus relentlessly on Obama’s flaws which are all too real (eg., backtracking on support for single-payer health care, ambiguity on policies that foster outsourcing of jobs, etc.)
It’s almost as if progressives are delighted in finally having a relatively liberal head coach that they can argue with, after 16 long years of the triangulator Bill Clinton and then Wall Street’s pet poodle George W. Bush.
But confining ourselves to arguments on the sidelines–while the real action is occurring in Congress and the streets of America–condemns progressives to irrelevance.
Yes, we must continue to hold Obama accountable for appointing the likes of Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithener and refusing to contemplate nationalizing the banks.
But Blue Dog Democrats and the ultra-conservative Republicans are slowing down Obama’s progress toward goals which progressives share with him, like a strong stimulus bill focused on creating high-paying jobs in America.
So it is vital that we not allow ourselves to be preoccupied with sideline disputes with Obama while the Blue Dogs and obstructionist Republicans are systematically pursuing their corporate agenda on the real field of play.
To the extent that FDR’s New Deal failed to achieve all of its objectives, much can be attributed to the inability of FDR and his allies to isolate and eliminate the reactionary "Dixicrats" who protected both corporate interests and Southern apartheid. We should not make the same mistake with the Blue Dogs.
So I would sress the following:
1)HOUNDING THE BLUE DOGS & GOP
If we want Obama to be more progressive, we need to focus much more of our energies on pressuring the sell-out Blue Dogs and ueber-reactionary Republicans. That means media work to expose their corporate allegiances, and splashy, militant protests in their home districts and home offices by the unemployed and other groups.
2)INDEPENDENT STREET HEAT
As during the 1930’s, the importance of "street heat"–independent protests that threatened to fracture the Democratic coalition, such as blocking foreclosures, factory takeovers, protests at Merrill Lynch and the Bank of America and other TARP recipients–cannot be over-estimated. (I highly recommend Cloward and Piven’s Poor People’s Movements on this point)
Yet we hear very little about efforts by the Left to organize such activities, with the exception of the Republic Windows and Doors takeover in Chicago. President Obama–as well as the Blue Dogs and GOP troglodytes–must be made to feel the widesapred "Where’s OUR bailout?" sentiment roiling among ordinary Americans.
I'm teaching in Labor Studies at Penn State and the University of Illinois in on-line classes. I've been continuing with my work as freelance writer, with my immediate aim to complete a book on corporate media coverage of globalization (tentatively titled The Giant Sucking Sound: How Corporate Media Swallowed the Myth of Free Trade.) I write frequently for Z, The Progressive Magazine's on-line site, The Progressive Populist, Madison's Isthmus alternative weekly, and a variety of publications including Yes!, The Progressive, Foreign Policy in Focus, and several websites.Ā I've been writing a blog on labor issues for workinginthesetimes.com, turning out over 300 pieces in the past four years.My work specializes in corporate globalization, labor, and healthcare reform... I've been a progressive activist since the age of about 17, when I became deeply affected by the anti-war and civil rights movements. I entered college at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee just days after watching the Chicago police brutalize anti-war demonstrators at the Democratic Convention of 1968. I was active in a variety of "student power" and anti-war activities, highlighted by the May, 1970 strike after the Nixon's invastion of Cambodia and the massacres at Kent State and Jackson State. My senior year was capped by Nixon's bombing of Haiphong Harbor and the occupation of a university building, all in the same week I needed to finish 5-6 term papers to graduate, which I managed somehow. My wife Carolyn Winter, whom I met in the Wisconsin Alliance, and I have been together since 1975, getting officially married 10/11/81. Carolyn, a native New Yorker, has also been active for social justice since her youth (she attended the famous 1963 Civil Rights march where Dr. King gave his "I have a dream speech"). We have two grown children, Lane (with wife Elaine and 11-year-old grandson Zachary, who introduced poker to his classmates during recess)Ā living in Chicago and Rachel (who with her husband Michael have the amazing Talia Ruth,5, who can define "surreptitious" for you) living in Asbury Park, NJ. My sister Francie lives down the block from me. I'm a native of the once-heavily unionized industrial city of Racine, Wis. (which right-wingers sneeringly labeled "Little Moscow" during the upheavals of the 1930's), and both my grandfathers were industrial workers and Socialists. On my father's side, my grandfather was fired three times for Socialist or union activity. His family lost their home at one point during the Depression. My mom's father was a long-time member of UAW Local 72 at American Motors, where he worked for more than 30 years. Coming from impoverished families, my parents met throughĀ a very low-cost form of recreation: Racine's Hiking Club.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate
