Views » May 19, 2003
The War at Home
By Joel Bleifuss
The battlefield is mapped: tax cuts, military spending, environmental deregulation, booming prisons, a health care crisis, curtailed liberties ...
The battlefield is mapped: tax cuts, military spending, environmental deregulation, booming prisons, a health care crisis, curtailed liberties …
It is a first step to demonstrate on a weekend afternoon, directing anger and ridicule at an emperor who would be naked were it not for media costume managers. But where do we go from there?
The Democratic primaries are one place to begin. Candidates who opposed the war, including Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Carol Mosely Braun and Al Sharpton, should be supported. Kucinich, while great on the issues, has failed to inspire with lackluster debate appearances. No one I know supports former Sen. Mosley Braun, who has burned bridges to her once fervent supporters. Sharpton carries the burden, fairly or not, of having promoted Tawana Brawley’s lies. Which leaves Dean. Straight-talking, progressive and personable, he is a candidate who could galvanize the progressive electorate.
The Democratic primaries are the one national venue where progressives can put their issues on the nation’s agenda. Imagine if Ralph Nader had challenged Al Gore’s centrism in the Democratic primaries in 2000. For the first time in years, Americans would have been exposed to a debate around a common-sense progressive agenda.
But while the primaries have potential, any organizing done around Democratic candidates must dovetail with efforts to build lasting electoral organizations at the local, state and congressional district levels. Models for this exist in Minnesota, where the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is supplemented by a statewide coalition, Progressive Minnesota, and is pressured by a vibrant Green Party of Minnesota. In Massachusetts, the state’s Neighbor to Neighbor organization has made itself a key player in several congressional districts. And rumors are floating that Robert Reich, Clinton’s labor secretary and a 2002 gubernatorial candidate, is organizing a Massachusetts-wide progressive Democratic organization.
Such strategies face several obstacles.
Few models for effective party organization exist. In Europe, ideologically based political parties are integrated into civil society and connect the individual to electoral politics. In the United States, the Democratic Party has for the past 25 years eschewed popular participation in favor of an oligarchy of office holders, rich donors and corporate contributors. The result: the Democratic Leadership Council, an organization whose political philosophy is sustained not by a principled winning strategy, but by the fact that it has the financial (corporate) clout to confer electoral success or failure, and thus set the Democratic agenda.
This lack of effective democratic political parties is compounded by a progressive movement that has evolved into a feudal system that makes coalition-building difficult. In effect, national organizations pursue narrow single-issue mandates under the leadership of executive directors who have an interest in consolidating their organizational fiefdoms and guarding their foundation funding base. Coalition efforts thus threaten them on both counts. Further, like the Democratic Party, most of these organizations are not accountable to their members, if they have them. (The Sierra Club stands out as a notable exception.)
Finally, we are plagued by an electoral structure that is crippled by two defects. First, a campaign finance system that lets anyone run for office but ensures that only candidates who can raise big money will be taken seriously. Proposals for publicly funded elections being promoted at the state level by Public Campaign address this inequity. Second, our winner-take-all system of electing leaders disenfranchises those who don’t vote with the majority. Systems of proportional representation, which ensure that minority viewpoints gain representation, as championed by the Center for Voting and Democracy, would solve this problem.
Those are the obstacles, but with collective effort and smart organizing, they are not insurmountable.
Joel Bleifuss is the editor of In These Times, where he has worked as an investigative reporter, columnist and editor since 1986. Bleifuss has had more stories on Project Censored's annual list of the "10 Most Censored Stories" than any other journalist.
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Appeared in the June 9, 2003 Issue
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