On November 21st of 2003, in an inspiring display of grassroots democracy, a rarely-seen committment to democratic processes and responsiveness to membership, thousands of MoveOn members took part in an online vote to help establish the organization's main concerns over the next four years, The leadership of the organization allows its course of action to be determined by membership, and
membership doesn't wait around for charismatic preachers to tell us what to do.
The results were tallied, in descending order, as follows:
Election reform.
Media reform.
The War on Iraq.
The environment.
The Supreme Court.
And Civil liberties.
I didn't agree. I was in a minority. As I so often am.
Noam Chomsky pointed out recently that "overwhelming majorities favor expansion of … healthcare…aid to education and Social Security". These people can and should form a natural, sizeable and very real electoral majority in this country. And it is on matters like these, in my view, that our hopes should hinge, and on which we should be focusing, in order to build that working majority.
So I'm faced with a dilemma. 'Cos I also happen to believe that it is incumbent on me and on other dissenters to get on-board, for the sake of democratic processes, to be sure, but also for the sake of a Movement's internal discipline: we've all seen from our political opponents just how scarily effective being On-Message can be…
If it can be safely concluded, as I think it can, that we cannot begin to harbor hopes of resisting the Right Wing agenda, let alone of transforming our country into a society that cherishes -- to use the admirable phrase seen right under this paper's banner -- Common Community, until we are able to persuade those many many people who are under economic stress, nickel-and-dimed or downright poor, that what the Right is doing is deeply harmful to them, or that it's even worth voting, then it follows that we have got to start having an honest national conversation in this country about economics, about economic fundamentals, about economic justice. About Bread and Butter.
Let us suppose for a moment that these crucial issues have been your main concerns as well. To me prioritizing these concerns over all displays a characteristic weakness in the thinking of many middle-class Liberals and "centrists". For what do those 6 priorities have in common? On the surface at least, none of them are about economics.
A case can be made, of course, that they are. And we need to talk about them as such to the country at large, lest our priorities continue to seem to be abstractions, seem to be elite concerns unconnected with those day-to-day pocket-book concerns and worries about the physical quality of life of most of our fellow citizens.
Come to think of it, there aren't too many issues that don't in some way have an impact on our physical lives. Test that proposition yourselves sometimes. But let's start with those six for now.
Here then are some Talking Points:
1. Election reform
Accounts to supply and manage voting machines go to Republican donor
companies who promise to "deliver" for Bush. A company is under a legal
obligation to profit its shareholders, not the consumer. If Bush and Co. are
seen as the more likely crowd to bring profits to these companies, why not
engage in massive fraud on their behalf if they're not going to get caught? This
insidious connection between business and government in no way can be said to
benefit the voting public. It's your money… and your vote.
2. Media reform
The attention paid in the corporate news media to political process at the
expense of talk about substance, under the guise of objectivity, serves the
advertisers and their clients well because the public is kept in the dark about
issues that might adversely affect their bottom line if they were actually discussed
seriously.
As for the supposedly liberal media, you might point out that it is highly unlikely
for millionaire TV Talking Heads to support with any fervor a steeply-progressive
tax structure to replace regressive payroll or sales taxes, say, or how unlikely
it is that the multi-national conglomerates who own the news divisions will hire
reporters who might seriously cast doubt on the right of those companies to
act with impunity. It's in your interest to have a wider spectrum of
opinion represented on the channels you watch so you can make your own
choices. The airwaves have been entrusted to the broadcasters but they have
long belonged to YOU.
3. The War on Iraq
While there may still be people out there who need to be asked to imagine
screaming hot metal ripping through flesh and bone and leaving human
beings in the desert dust with the life draining out of them along with their
blood, we may want to talk about other costs too.
The huge drain on the nation's treasure, of course, prevents money from
being spent on people: on education, on health care, on roads, you name it.
It's also pretty clear who's making money from this war. Look at the list of
Bush Family friends and Republican supporters who are profiting from the
war to see where your tax money is going. Isn't that corruption by definition? Isn't
that war profiteering? By definition?
4. The environment
It is more costly for a company to stop its chemicals from polluting your child's
air and water than it would be if our government forced it, under severe
penalty, to clean up its poisons. Your health care costs will go up with the
increased poisons in your air and your water ($242 million was just slashed from
water cleanup), and who will benefit from that? It's your money.
5. The Supreme Court
This is a harder one for me off the top of my head, help me out. How about
asking people you're talking to to think about how easy it is already for big
business to get away with tearing up workplace safety standards, or locking out
health watchdogs at chicken-processing plants, or punishing whistleblowers by
battling them into bankruptcy or or or…? How easy is it already for Right Wing
judges to find reasons and precedents to rule against punitive damages in law
suits…or pick Presidents?
6. Civil liberties
This category of course would seem by definition to preclude talk about the
pocket-book. Besides which, many or even most Americans associate these
cherished liberties with the very notion of "democracy", so it shouldn't be so hard
to reach out on this one. Conversations about the Right's use of fear to
consolidate its power at the expense of our freedom might hit home, though
they've been pretty good at it so far.
And those bread and butter connections are less obvious. Howsabout pointing
out that the erosion we've seen of habeas corpus, a legal principle that some
people think of as the bedrock of democracy, dates back at least to 13th Century
England, can mean the disappearance into a legal black hole of a family's
breadwinner for months or more at a time.
On top of all that, we often forget those other civil liberties enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There's the right to free assembly. The
right to organize. The right to "just and favorable conditions of work", to a
"reasonable limitation of working hours", to "protection against unemployment"...
You get the gist. The point is to make the connections. These issues too are about our physical well-being.
So let the gentle battle of ideas be joined. Always remembering who the real villains are. And who just might become our life-long friends.
See you on the barricades. Or at the kitchen table.
© January 2004
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