Denver Diaries: Six Days of Organizing at the DNC

Day One - Getting Organized

We Push the
Basics of Organizing
In DNC's Denver



By Carl Davidson
Progressive for Obama

http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com

(Use the Paypal button there to help out)

I rolled into Denver about 3:30pm and Saturday, August 23 after a 1500 mile drive from Beaver County, Pa. A last minute safety issue had be leaving my truck camper "Progressives for Obama" mobile office in the shop, so I made do, loading tents, table chairs, mobile internet setup and everything else needed to survive for a week into the trusty little Madza.

The sky was threatening rain as I passed by 'Tent State" in the City of Cuernavaca Park. Hundred of tents, but no people. So I moved on to one of our first events, at the Cameron Methodist church in South Denver.

Tom Hayden is holding forth to about 100 people, going over all the upsides and downsides of the campaign. The crowd is most peace and justice activists, a few Democratic local officials, and young people, some skeptical of electoral politics. Tom is is good form, and explains the importance of the sheet going around you people to give their names and emails to our efforts, It get filled. His main points:


--The future is open. Take nothing for granted; everything we can do counts. Obama could lose it, especially due to the closeted racists who will used and excuse to depress his vote, plus those pushing his own centrism toward positions that demobilize his most active base.

And here is the rest of it.

--We can counter this through finding our issues, highlighting them—McCain's threatening resurrect ion of the draft, McCain's own corruption and elitism, and pressing both the campaign and the mainstream media to run with them.


--The most important task for us is to expand the electorate in the next six weeks. Several people note that they know many young activists who talk all the time bout the campaign.. "If you do nothing else," I say to the crowd, get them registered, and most important, get them to the polls. Keep a list. Don't take it for granted they will go, plus you need the list to press what will hopefully be and Obama White house in 2009."


Our message is well received. Everyone "gets it" that there's no contradiction betweem working the campaign, building the movements around our issues, and building the strength of our own grassroots organizations.

Next some is a house party and barbeque for progressive media activist organized by Laura Flanders. She had the brilliant idea of going on Craig's List and renting a house for a week. Her crew of young women bloggers, filmmakers, newspaper editors has a headquarters, and we walk in to a table full on six laptops with everyone writing and postng away. I make lost of new contact and meet old friends. We talk for hours over hot dogs and hamburgers in the back yard on ho to improve progressive media—TV shows, KPFK, In These Times and many more.

Give the darkenig sky and the emptiness of 'Tent State,' I hook up with Leslie Cagan and Judith LeBlanc of UFPJ, who found a gracious Quaker family, Eric Wright and Judy Danielson, in the city to house us. UFPJ has boxes of flyers promoting the 'Million Doors for Peace' campaign, where a coalition of a dozen groups will all doorknock on Sept 20, getting signatures on petitions, building new email lists -- all the work of basebuilding for an expanded movement. Their aim? Get the flyers in the hands of everyone in town and sign on the organizers. Quite a feat, and a good intervention for a group required by tax laws not to endorse and party or candidate.

When we show up at our hosts, a group from 'Military Families Speak Out' show up, with former Colonel Ann Wright with Vets for Peace, featuring 'Arrest Bush' T-Shirts and giving us a report on the city's extravaganza, with free food, fireworks and free rides in the amusement park for the mainstream media. I'm cynical things about Nero and 'Bread and Circuses,' but it's a political convention, after all, and far goofier things will go on around it. For now, we're working out a plan to cover some of the demos tomorrow.

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Day Two - Expanding Our Outreach

Debating Obama, Issues, Building Our Outreach

By Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama

http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com

Just before 9am we're head down Colfax though old Denver, reminding me of Kerouac's descriptions in 'On The Road', seedy bars, strip joints, greasy spoons and the like. Our first stop is the Capitol rounds, where the 'Recreate 68' group is preparing its march. They have only about 500, and clearly aren't going to cause a major ruckus.

We head for 'Tent State,' but the police super-control to the streets drives us nuts with their blockades and blocked off streets. We finally find a way in, and start setting up Right away the security team tells us 'No stakes' for the tents. Seems the cops think they're weapons. My tent requires stakes, so I use them anyway to get it up, then pull most of them out. Takes us longer, but we get it done, and get our signup sheets and books out. The tent is crucial because of the heat and sunburn.

The final touch is our 'Progressives for Obama' sign out the tent and our Obama yard sign. This crowd has a lot of anarchist-minded youth and Green types, and we're the only explicitly Obama tent among about 50 tents.

Right away the key tension arises. A couple of kids with green hair say 'Obama? Progressives? What do they have to do which each other?' Then thirty seconds later, a Black teenager on his skateboard, headed for the local skate park 50 yards away, slows down, reads our stuff, then give us a fist salute, asserting loudly, 'Obama Rules!'

I explore the grounds. The most powerful table and display by far are Iraq Vets Against the War. About 30 are there, earnestly engaged is all kinds of discussions, with each other and passersby. Military Families Speak Out are there, with AFSC. The 'Boots on the Ground display is going up near the entrance. I talk with the young organizers of Tent State. They're putting up a 'Resurrection City Free University' teaching classes all week. Thousand of youth are lining up for free tickets to the 'Rage Against the Machine' concert.

We're sharing our setup with UFPJ, so we take their leaflets on the 'Million Doorknocks for Peace' for base-building on Oct. 20 to everyone standing in lines for tickets. The kids 'get it' and snatch them up.

Then Medea Benjamin shows up with Code Pink's filming making crew. She wants an interview and asks good questions about how the left can pressure Obama. "Stand firm against the war in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan,' I conclude, 'then go out a register large number of new young voters and get them to the polls, but with your own groups. Politicians pay attention to organized voters. I do several more radio, TV and press interviews throughout the day.

Tom Hayden comes by with some friends, as does Leslie Cagan. We try to figure out what happened with the first march. 'No more than 1000,' says Leslie. 't
They got to the Pepsi Center and a few tried to push further, bust didn't do very well. Tom taks to the cops to see want they know. No major problems or arrests was the answer.

The Alliance for Real Democracy stages its marches in the afternoon from Tent State. They head to downtown Denver, but break up into four smaller groups of 100 or so, and basically engage passersby and Convention delegates into friendly discussions. "Almost every delegate I met was completely against the war,' reported one. They return in batches, in high spirits, although everyone wishes they had greater numbers.

I stayed behind to secure the site while talking to people. Two local Chicano guys stop by. 'Do I really think Obama will stop the war?, one asks. 'I think he's our best shot,' I reply, but you never win anything at the top you haven't organized from below. He nods agreement. "How's your Mayor?,' I ask, knowing he's a progressive Latino. 'He's OK, but you know politicians. But what's your goal here?" I tell him I'm trying to build organizations, independent, grassroots, they we can network, some we're have something to pressure the White House on the war no matter who's in it. ' I like that,' he says. 'I have some time. I can volunteer to help out. Really. Have your folks here call me' He writes down his number and info, as I thank him.

By 5pm we hut down the tent and get ready to head to the big welcoming party at the Progressive Democratic of America/ the Nation church they taken over for a week. They having dozens of panels and workshops every day for the delegates and activists on key topics.

About 500 pack the church, all in high spirits. PDA is new and had grown rapidly in four years. Several Colorado candidates speak, as do many top figures-Jim Hightower, John Nichols, Lynn Woolsey, Norm Solomon. Tom Hayden did a powerful job stressing linking the economy and the war, and that they had not only to aim their fire at the GOP right, but at some of the center Democrats doing their work for them. He not only fired everyone up; he also had everone offer up their e-mails for 'Progressives for Obama' to widen out outreach. Not bad for a day's work.

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Day Three - New Media

Getting Inside The DNC Gated Communities

By Carl Davidson
Progressive for Obama

http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com

Today I started off heading for the Progressive Democrats of America/The Nation sessions at the 16th and Sherman church downtown. The theme is 'Healthcare not Warfare'-the fight for single payer, with Tim Carpenter firing up the crown and Congressman John Conyers getting into a terrific speech.

But I get pulled aside by an old friend who offers an opportunity to get inside the highly secured Pepsi Center-dubbed 'the Can' locally-for an upscale lunch with progressive writers and editors. The affair is funded by Media Matters, a relatively well-heeled media monitor and fact checker operation that is very useful. I'll spare you the detail of how we got tickets, but my friend said, 'Hey, we're both progressive writers, we got books out, let's go for it."

So we're off to 'the Can,' and find a decent place to park close by. Then we head through various mazes, bridges and chained linked enclosures, meeting up with checkers at various points, flashing our stuff and getting waved through.

At one checkpoint I run into Todd Gitlin, the writer and sociologist as well as an old SDS friend, who's headed to the same event. We catch up quickly, and in turns out he's chairing the meeting. Once we get past the final check, and up the elevator, I'm in air-conditioned splendor, compared to the sweltering previous day at 'Tent State' eating beans out of a can with lukewarm water from a fountain. Now I've got a wonderful buffet, waiters, and fancy starched and folded napkins in the water glasses.

Attendees are top writers and editors from the New Yorker and the Nation, influential academics like Cass Sunstein and Samantha Power, multimedia people and donors.

The goal of the meeting is very worthy. It's launching a new enterprise, the Progressive Book Club, designed to counter the Conservative Book Club, influential on the right and elsewhere as well.

Gitlin opens the discussion with a challenging question: Is the era of conservative right dominance over? This brings a range of responses showing that the book club is only the tip of the iceberg. The broader agenda is creating and/or building a new progressive cultural and progressive infrastructure for a new politics for the 21st century.

I chime in by noting that in my study of the right over the years, that the brightest of them actually used some of Antonio Gramci's notions of working in cultural and civil society to counter a perceived hegemonism, even if a decadent one, of the liberalism of the late 1960s. It's way past time for us to oppose their 'running it in reverse' and turning it around to build real popular democracy.

Others add to this, and soon we're off discussing whether there really are new progressive solutions out there to the whole range of political, economic and cultural concerns. There's no consensus on that point, but everyone is fired up on the initial concern. All agree it was a good meeting, and new contacts and projects are tosse around as we bring it to a close.

Now that I'm well fed, hydrated and cooled off, I head back to our radical makeshift tent city along the Platte River. Fighting a stiff breeze, I get the 'Progressives for Obama' tent in order and its signs and literature out. I'm open for business.

Soon enough about five young anarchists and radicals show up, some complete in black clothing and bandanas. They're not too hip on voting for anyone, let along Obama, but one figures out that I'm the author of the 1966 'Toward a Student Syndicalist Movement' paper, and the discussion gets far ranging and lively-ranging from Zen, to Beat poets, and election tactics in 1968 and 1972.

Then one kid whips out something looking like a Blackberry and makes a call. "Here, let's do an interview for our radio show." He presses a few buttons, then tells me, 'just pretend it's a mike, and speak into it as I ask you questions." It goes on for 15 minutes, and I lay out our approach, while he adds questions with his spin.

It's a good interview. "Give me your card. We'll have it on the air and one the net in a few days, and I'll let you know where to find it on the dial or how to I-Pod it."

As one of the authors of 'Cyber-Radicalism: A New Left for a Global Age,' I feel like a proud parent. The younger crew here have picked up on things we merely talked about in the future tense, and they now are making them part of their daily lives.

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Day Four - Arrests, Debates, Alliances

Exposing Rove, The 'Big Tent', Beat Poets, Vets And Denver Streets

By Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama

I start the morning by heading straight for the church hosting the week-long series of panels organized by Progressive Democrats of America and The Nation magazine. It's quickly turned into an intellectual headquarters and meeting place for leftists and progressives working the election in various ways, inside and outside the Obama campaign and the Democratic party.

A large crowd is gathering early. The buzz is all about the 100 or so young people busted and dispersed the night before by encirclement by an overwhelming police force combined with tear gas. Most of the city's citizens, let alone those just here for the DNC events, are more than tired of the massive police presence on what seems like every other corner. Add to it traffic foul-ups caused by blocked streets and triple cordons around critical spots, and the most common unifying words you hear are 'unnecessary', 'police state,' and 'overkill.'

I'll wait for the dust to settle for a fuller assessment of the bust. The deeper question is why the radical youth turnout was far less than anyone's expectations-despite a myriad of other well-attended progressive happenings around town. There are probably less than 4000 at the outside, not counting the 17,000 plus locals who signed up for the ticket lottery for 'Rage Against the Machine.

But it still needs to be said, off the bat, that the radical bunch last night had fallen into some serious 'Custerism', as in General George Custer. In planning their action, they billed it, quite openly, as an effort to crash and disrupt a Dem fundraising party at one of the hotels. But they had very few allies for such an endeavor, and were vastly outnumbered by the rather well-informed cops with all their new 'Homeland Security' toys. Needless to say, the only thing that got disrupted was their own project and a little nighttime street traffic.

Back to the opening session at the church.

It began with a fascinating and disturbing speech by Don Siegelman, Alabama's Democratic governor (1999-2003), who was defeated in 2004 by Karl Rove and friends having him indicted on false charges a month before the election, then tried and convicted in rigged trials, haul off to a maximum security prison-"Alabama's worse," he says-where he is locked up in solitary for nine months. He's finally released only after nearly 50 states attorneys general sign an appeal to a higher court not dominated by Rove cronies, where everything is dismissed.

It's a fabulous introduction to the next speaker, Greg Palast, author of 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.' He not only exposed the fascist machinations of Rove, he went on to offer an excellent exposure of election-stealing in general. His advice? Get ourselves well-trained so we can 'steal our votes back' and get an honest count.

Next is an 'Out of Iraq' dialog between Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Tom Hayden. Mc Dermott was an early opponent of the war, and offers insider advice of how to bring pressure to bear on your Congressman. Hayden expands on his remarks from the day before on how the left-progressives need to take issues like McCain's recent suggestions for a return to the military draft, and press it publicly in a way for the Obama campaign to take it further, to further isolate and expose McCain. Otherwise, he suggests, Obama could lose, since things are very tight.

Hayden has also been passing around sign-up sheets for Progressive for Obama's email group at every appearance. I keep an eye on the sheets, gather them up, and this morning we get another 250 or so.

At the break I decide it's time to hit the streets of Denver.

I want to check out 'The Big Tent', a site near the Pepsi center equipped for 1000 bloggers. It's literally a circus tent over a parking lot, but next to a complex of high-tech 501C3 organizations. Google is a sponsor, as are other third wave firms, and there's some serious money here-plus as a long-time 'cyberMarxist,' I want to be up on these things.

But I decide to walk the distance and take in the sights. Right off the bat, I run into dueling demos and bullhorns. Side by side are the 'Christian' theocrats denouncing abortion, gays and a long list of other violations of the Book of Leviticus, along with the 'World Can't Wait' kids with signs like 'Support Life, Smash Christian Fascism.' Both the local and tourists seem amused, and are snapping photos with their cell phones.

Further along I run into dozens of local African American button and T-Shirt sellers, all doing a brisk business with the widest variety of Obama mottos and slogans I have ever seen. Both DNC delegates and local Black workers seem to be the main customers.

Then comes a contingent of a dozen youth, dressed in black with bandanas, each carrying their own Red Flag, chanting, 'Revolution, the Only Solution! The looks range from bored to quizzical to amused-and the cell phone are snapping pictures again.

Finally I hit the 'Big Tent,' get credential and go inside. Google is offering free ice-cold smoothies in eight flavors-plus they have a machine that will put a free recharge on you cell phone or Blackberry batteries. And inside, indeed, are about 1000 bloggers working away on tables with free WiFi hookups. The implications for the future have my head spinning.

But rather than wait in line, I head for the nearest Starbucks for a large iced coffee, a favored addiction. I see two women, one whose face is familiar, so I wave her over to share the last remaining table. It turns out she's the Beat poet, Anne Waldman, old friend of Allen Ginsburg and now a professor of poetics at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetry at Naropa University, up in the mountains not too far away. We have a great time discussing Kerouac's sojourns in Denver, and she leaves me with a recording of her own poems. How's that for serendipity!

As evening arrives, I get a call offering passes to a skybox in Coors Field rented by the Council for a Livable World and VETPAC. It's aim is to offer support and interviews with about six Congressional candidates who are both Iraq vets and supporters of Obama. So I go and talk to several candidates, along with some Military Families Speak Out people. When they get done with shredding McCain's betrayal of recent veterans legislation, there's nothing left. If these guys get their message out, it will help a great deal. It's all very real, down-to-earth and a good end to the day.

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Day Five - Rage, Vets, Antiwar

A DNC Victory: For the Iraq Vets And 'Rage Youth'

By Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama

I start the day early loading leaflets and joining Leslie Cagan, Judith LeBlanc and five other United for Peace and Justice volunteers headed to the Denver Coliseum on the North Side of town before 9:00AM.

We're going to the 'Rage Against the Machine' benefit for Iraq Veterans Against the War, organized by the Tent State kids and their allies, and we're expecting about 10,000 young people. It's a beautiful day-sunny, not too hot, blue skies with a few clouds, and the first range of the Rockies clear on the horizon. The concert is to be followed by a mass march to the Pepsi Center, led by the vets, to press their antiwar demands on the Democrats. Since there's no permit, and the Pepsi Center is restricted with 'protest pens' no one intends to enter, there's a sense of tension in the air.

Our UFPJ leaflet has a simple message: Join us Sept. 20 to knock on a million doors for peace. Get signatures on petitions, get to know your neighbors, get outside your 'comfort zones' into new neighborhoods and help us double the size of our movement with new names, addresses and emails.

Since the lines are long and organized, we quickly get out thousands of flyers. A brief rap, and most people say, 'Oh, this is cool. I can do this.' Some don't want to be bothered, interested only in the bands, and a few kids are rather spaced out early since no intoxicants other than the music are permitted on the grounds.

I get a 'workfare' pass into the concert with terrific seats. This means I'm on the security team for IVAW inside the concert and along the line of march. We get our special chartreuse armbands and blue wristbands, a quick training in nonviolent methods in dealing with problems. Then we're into the cavernous space, with a local Denver band, Flobots, which is decidedly left and high-energy hip-hop. IVAW speakers appear between numbers and keep the politics of the day clear and focused.

They have three demands: 'Out Now,' full benefits for returning vets, and reparations for Iraq. They have no great love for the Democrats who keep voting to fund the war, they're angry with Obama for not taking a harder line, but they see McCain as more dangerous, both to the world and to vets. They want militancy, but they insist on nonviolence for the day, and demand a resolute respect for their leadership and ground rules.

When "Rage" comes on the stage and gets itself and the crowd wound up, one thing becomes crystal clear. If you're interested in radical and democratic social change from below, here is one powerful engine for it. You dismiss, ignore or demoralize the high energy and critical force of these young people at your peril. This is a multiclass, multinational force of youth, and on this day, they are accepting the lead of the working class, even if it's taking the form of the politics, militancy, organization and discipline of the Iraq vets.

The beautiful thing is how well it all worked.

The vets marched in formation with cadence at the front, dozens of them in uniform, some in full dress with a chest full of medals. They wanted us to keep a short space for media behind them, then everyone else another few yards back behind a large banner supporting GI resistance to the war. No breakaways and no nonsense. If arrest situations came up, we had our instructions on how to keep those who didn't want to risk arrest still involved, but out of the immediate reach of the police.

I'd guess that at least two-thirds of the 10,000 Rage fans joined us, then we picked up other youth, a few workers, and even Convention delegates along the way. The banners and signs and costume were colorful, the chants imaginative and militant, and the energy infected everyone, even the crowds of bystanders, many of whom broke into applause.

I had one of the harder jobs, keeping people from breaking the front ranks and jumping the banner. But with the vets leadership, we kept the spirit both upbeat and disciplined. Denver's overkill police presence was everywhere, but everything remained civil. Some even felt some sympathy for them, sweltering on a hot sunny day in their new Black Ninja Turtle outfits, which must have been unbearable.

It was a long march, nearly five miles. One problem was keeping everyone hydrated, but cases of water kept showing up at critical points. The best energy was downtown Denver, with the cheering and applause from Convention delegates. But we all knew there were trouble spots ahead.

Denver's security rules meant you couldn't get closer to the Pepsi center than several hundred yards, and then you were to be put in fenced 'protest pens.'

The vets would have none of it. They hadn't risked their lives, supposedly defending the Constitution, to be treated this way. They were going to march until they were stopped and then we'd seen what would happen. As we got closer to the skirmish line, they stopped several times, and the vets took turns giving heart-rending stories to the press, which, by this time, was everywhere, and driving us nuts trying to keep them to respect our lines and discipline.

At the final stopping point, a decorated Marine told the cops they would get no violence from us, and we expected none from them. The three demands were read to Obama's campaign and the Democratic Party. The vets demanded a response, and were determined to wait for one.

So now we had the problem of keeping thousands of people, encircled by police and barricades, in an upbeat, but patient and calm state of mind.

One young Black kid from Denver of our security team rose to the occasion. He starts doing his raps, and those of others as well. The crowd loves it, especially when he gets on their case for not being too good at 'call and response.' So he starts an on-the-spot workshop on how we can all become better rappers.

Next two young African American women start softly singing an old church-based civil rights song 'Those Who Love Freedom..." The lyrics are simple and lyrical, and soon hundreds are singing it, over and over. For me, powerful memories come up from my days on Freedom Marches in Mississippi, when we sang this same song in the face of the Klan and cops. When I start to sing along, my eyes fill with tears from long-buried emotions. To hell with it, I decide, let the tears flow, and I sing along.

Finally, we get the word. The other side blinked. The Obama campaign's top veterans affairs people ask the Vets to send two reps into the Pepsi center to discuss their demands. Moreover, they want an ongoing series of discussions to make sure all veterans concerns are heard and dealt with. That's enough for IVAW to call a victory, even if a partial one, and work out a way to bring the day to a close. It's decided that we part the crowd down the middle, opening a path. The vets do an about face, march in formation though the crowd, and as they pass, to many cheers, we fall in behind, get back to the downtown area, and go our various ways.

I find a way to get to my car, then back to 'tent city' to secure our display in preparations for leaving. I meet up with my team in a Taco joint, where they, along with some of the new media people working with Laura Flanders, are watching Joe Biden's speech. I'll have to read it tomorrow, because given everything we've been through, right now it seems rather trivial.

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Day Six - Making Connections

Why the DNC Is Like Going To High School

By Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama

http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com

This is my last day in town, and all the talk around the breakfast table is how and where everyone will watch or listen to 'The Speech', Obama's premier performance at Invesco Field. I decide not to waste time hassling long lines or working connections for tickets, since I can watch it on TV in nearby Boulder, where my partner is staying with family.

So I head for the church hosting 'The Nation' and Progressive Democrats of America. On arrival, I've just missed Rev. Jesse Jackson, but Ron Kovic of 'Born on the Fourth of July' fame and early member of Vietnam Vets Against the War is holding forth on his mistreatment at a past GOP convention. He then reports on yesterday's powerful five-mile IVAW and youth march. He did the entire length in his wheelchair. He can't praise the organizers highly enough, acknowledges that Obama did the right thing, but says to keep pushing on. He ends by asserting that we can't let the right have a monopoly on patriotism, so long as we remember we're also 'citizens of the world.' He gets a standing ovation.

I decide to walk the streets again. I want to take it all in, and reflect at little on what major party conventions are all about.

First stop is the lobby at the Sheraton. For a veteran organizer like me, working away on a variety on fronts for 45 years, all I have to do is stand there for 15 minutes and someone I know will show up. Sure enough, someone calls my name, and it's Brian Kettenring from ACORN, now one of their top organizers. I first met him when he was a young student ACORN worker in Chicago. He's been on the West Coast for years, but introduces me to ACORN activists from Pennsylvania, now my base area.

Brian tells me he's headed for ACORN headquarters in DC, where, half-joking, half serious, he tells me he wants them to let him set up a 'Department of Socialism' to discuss 'bigger picture things'. I tell him I've working on just the thing for him, the newly formed 'U.S. Solidarity Economy Network,' with an upcoming conference early in 2009. My trend in SEN is based on David Schweickart's 'After Capitalism' with 'Economic Democracy' as a 'successor system' enroute to a fuller blown socialism. It'll challenge ACORN, but it starts on the ground, where they are. He's very interested, and we decide to stay in touch on it. Plus I now have a new contact in Philly.

So there's lesson number one. Conventions are about horizontal networking. Completely apart from the official goings-on, this stuff happens everywhere. Multiply my short example with Brian by 100, and you get the idea.

From the Sheraton, I take an elevated walkway and run into a building with an inviting, postmodernist display on ecology, energy and related topics. It's aimed at DNC delegates and put up by a high-tech design outfit called 'Partly Sunny: Designs to Change the Forecast. Inside are dozens of displays of green and solar construction materials and firms to build the homes and offices of the future. When a young guide offers to help, I ask 'are any these outfits worker or community coops?' Some are, she answers, and shows me how I can find out more. This gets me thinking that almost all of these firms are what we call 'high road capitalists' and thus some of them possible candidates to pull into our solidarity economy networking.

Now 'Partly Sunny' is just one of thousands of corporate displays, presentations and parties going on all week. While this one is a small, relatively progressive example, all of them, bad guys and good guys, are going all out in the DNC events to draw the country's political class upward and into its orbit of influence.

Thus we have lesson number two. Conventions are about vertical networking and its more aggressive cousin, cooptation. There's a constant influx of newer and younger delegates, candidates, elected officials and party workers to be recruited. If you've been to college, think fraternity and sorority 'Rush Week', and you'll have the right idea.

I head back to the church because I want to catch PDA's summary sessions. Along the way, I run into a dozen people I know wanting to know if I know where they can get tickets (I don't) or telling me about the hoops they went through to get them.

This is lesson three. Conventions are about discovering the pecking orders in the various cliques, and how to turn them to your advantage, for good reasons or otherwise.

So I what do I conclude? Major party conventions are really a lot like high school and the socialization process we all experience in and through them. Learning all the cliques, all the pecking orders, where you can best fit in and suffer least, having a good time in the coolest clubs and extracurricular activities. You know, all the important stuff that goes on everywhere except the classroom. At the DNC, all the important stuff these days goes on everywhere EXCEPT on the convention floor and the 'big night' speeches. These latter events are actually, for better or worse, carefully scripted infomercials mostly far beyond our reach.

A corollary lesson: You can accomplish a lot here, but you better come in with a very clear idea of your core values, your own platform and your strategic orientation. If you don't, you'll wind up being part of someone else's platform and strategy. But if you do, you can make major gains.

PDA is a case in point. As I arrive for the final sessions, Dennis Kucinich is pressing impeachment, whipping out his pocket copy of the Constitution. Next, Steve Cobble, Leslie Cagan, Jaime Raskin (State Senator, Maryland) and Rep Keith Ellison, the Congressman from Minnesota who is also a practicing Muslim, and caused a flurry in the press when he was sworn in using Thomas Jefferson's personal copy of the Koran--all of them are on the platform, ready to follow up and discuss what it means to defend the Constitution and democracy in even broader terms.

Tim Carpenter, PDA's tireless chief organizer and John Nichols of the Nation are setting up the crowd. Tim is explaining how PDA has grown, in just four years, from a few dozen in 2004 to now over 140,000 members all across the country. Mimi Kennedy and Jodie Evans are also there, and add in on how the persistent and audacious pursuit of their 'inside-outside' strategy has succeeded and the turnouts to all the sessions this week shows they've made even greater gains.

PDA, of course, is hardly the only player in the progressive movement. I like much of what they do, and work closely with them back in Beaver County, Pa. But there's also room for improvement and other approaches and organizations, too. My point here is that groups ignoring and avoiding the political events and activities surrounding elections--and you don't have to support any candidate or platform to be engaged in them--are only shooting themselves in the foot.

I'm hardly a believer that basic social change is achieved by elections. But I'm a firm believer that change on this order must proceed THROUGH them, in the long march through all the institutions of our society, building the strongholds we need for the popular power and economic democracy that can take us even farther down the road. With that thought in mind, I'm headed back to Beaver County, Western PA, where I hear Obama and Biden are making a bus tour around the state. It's a very tight race there, and we'll soon see if this helps.

Read more!

Battleground Choice: Lesser Evil or Positive Good?

Photo: Antiwar Action in Chicago

Obama on
the War and
National Security

By Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama

The broad base of Obama supporters, particularly its insurgent antiwar and youth contingents, are both mobilizing and being mobilized to create a firewall between their candidate and all the forces of 'rightward drift' that could sabotage Obama's candidacy.

Parts of the 'forces of rightward drift' are the attack ads of the GOP and the right that have little to do with Obama's platform. Part comes from the DLC 'Blue Dogs' and the corporate lobbyists who have compromised the party into defeat time and again. But still another part resides in some flawed and conflicted thinking within the positions of the candidate himself.



Nowhere is this more evident than around the question of Iraq and national security. To his everlasting credit, Obama opposed this war before it began. As he has often said, it was an 'unnecessary' war and a 'dumb' war.

But it was also an unjust war, meaning it can only be prolonged with greater injustice. And that also means there is no painless way to bring it to an end, even as we must end it. That illusion is best set aside. Obama has yet to grapple with this in a clear and decisive way.

Most Americans at the grass roots understand, to one degree or another, the need to decisively stop the war, from activists at the left end of the political spectrum to the ordinary voters at the center and center-right. All the complex 'triangulated' caveats are meant for the beltway national security wonks and pundits, not for them. When Obama campaigned in Western Pennsylvania, he drew his longest, loudest standing ovations from working-class crowds-economically progressive, socially conservative--when he asserted, with an authentic voice, that he would end this war in 2009.

That's how Obama will continue to win voters, and how he will win the election. If he does otherwise, he's in trouble.

Here in Western Pennsylvania where I am, the race is very tight. But the key to winning it is expanding the electorate, organizing and mobilizing large numbers of new younger voters, a task which requires the high energy and commitment for a youthful, antiwar base and core of organizers. The DLC option has been to distance Obama, and other candidates, from this core, to 'diss' it and thus demobilize it, at least substantially-all for the sake of appeasing smaller and smaller numbers of 'undecideds' on the center right.

If the DLC option wins out, Obama becomes simply one more in a long historical string of negative 'lesser evils' that stir much less enthusiasm. If they don't, then Obama remains a positive good for peace voters, and many more besides.

That's what's 'at risk' here. Tom Hayden spelled this danger out clearly in his July 4 article, 'Barack, Iraq and Risk,' which, with his permission, I quote considerably here:

"From the beginning, Obama's symbolic 2002 position on Iraq has been very promising, reinforced again and again by his campaign pledge to "end the war" in 2009.

"But that pledge also has been laced with loopholes all along, caveats that the mainstream media and his opponents [excepting Bill Richardson] have ignored or avoided until now. As I pointed out in Ending the War in Iraq [2007], Obama's 2002 speech opposed the coming war with Iraq as "dumb", while avoiding what position he would take once the war was underway. Then he wrote of almost changing his position from anti- to pro-war after a trip to Iraq. He never took as forthright a position as Senator Russ Feingold, among others. Then he adopted the safe, nonpartisan formula of the Baker-Hamilton Study Group, which advocated the withdrawal of combat troops while leaving thousands of American counter-terrorism units, advisers and trainers behind.

"That would mean at least 50,000 Americans, including back up forces, engaged in counter-insurgency after the withdrawal of combat troops, a contradiction the media and Hillary Clinton failed to explore in the primary debates. To his credit, Obama said that these American units would not become caught up in a lengthy sectarian civil war, leaving the question of their role unanswered….
Finally, it has taken the pressure of the general election to raise questions about whether his parsed and lawyerly language is empty of credible meaning. Consider carefully his July 4 statements:

"The first one, promising a "thorough reassessment" of his Iraq position later this summer:

"I've always said that the pace of our withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability" - two conditions that could justify leaving American troops in combat indefinitely. "And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies" - another loophole which could allow the war to drag on.

"Then there came the later "clarification":

"Let me be as clear as I can be" [not, "let me be absolutely clear"].

"I intend to end this war." [intention only].

"My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war - responsibly, deliberately, but decisively." [ Sounds positive, but "decisively" can mean by military threat in the worst case. And it's pure theatre, borrowed from Clinton, since the plans most likely will be drafted and finalized immediately after the November election.]

"And I have seen no information that contradicts the notion that we can bring our troops out safely at a pace of one or two brigades a month..." [but what if the military commanders on the ground assert that it is too dangerous to pull out those troops?]

"Obama's position, which always left a trail of unasked questions, now plants a seed of doubt, justifiably, among the peace bloc of American voters who harbor a legacy of betrayals beginning with Lyndon Johnson's 1064 pledge of "no wider war" through Richard Nixon's "secret plan for peace" to Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal and the deep complicity of Democrats in the evolution of the Iraq War.

"It is difficult to understand Obama's motivation. Perhaps it is his lifetime success at straddling positions and disarming potential opponents. Perhaps it is a lawyer's training. Perhaps being surrounded by national security advisers who oppose what they call "precipitous withdrawal", and pragmatic Democrats distinctly uncomfortable with their antiwar roots.

"What is clear is that Obama is responsive to pressures from the grass-roots base of a party that is overwhelmingly in favor of a shorter timetable for withdrawal than his, and favoring diplomatic rather than military solutions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At a time that public interest in the war is receding before economic concerns, it is time for the strongest possible reassertion of voter demands for peace.

"The challenge for the peace and justice movement is to avoid falling into Republican divide-and-conquer traps while maintaining a powerful and independent presence in key electoral states, including Congressional battlegrounds, between now and November. There should be at the least:

"- A demand that Obama talk to legitimate representatives of the peace movement, not simply hawkish national security advisers.

"- A Democratic platform debate and plank that is unequivocal in pledging to end the war and avoid military escalation elsewhere.

"- An energized antiwar voter education campaign that builds towards a clear November peace mandate to end the military occupation and shifr to political and diplomatic approraches.

"- An organizational strategy to widen the base of the antiwar movement through the presidential campaign in preparation for a massive peace mobilization in early 2009.

"Grass-roots people power is the only force that can keep alive the astute sense of pragmatism that led Obama to criticize the coming war in 2002. The stakes are higher now, and the enemies far shrewder, wishing to rip asunder the Obama coalition. The peace movement assumption should be that there is no one in Obama's inner circle of advisers to be counted on, no mainstream columnist to catch his eye with a persuasive column favoring withdrawal. They never have. Only the voice of the peace voters - and the countless activists who have volunteered on his behalf - can command his attention now."

It is important to be clear about what Hayden is saying here. 'Progressives for Obama', of which Hayden is a founder, has understood from the beginning that Obama would be speaking to and from the center of American political life. Obama is not a leftist, anti-imperialist, or even a consistent progressive, a point we have made since the beginning of this project, when we said the upcoming problem of 'rightward drift' was why we were forming this independent pole and network of forces.

That is now being played out. Both the far left and the right, for their own reasons, are doing all they can to drive a wedge between progressive Obama voters and moderate-center Obama voters. How much some in the campaign itself capitulate remains to be seen. In our view, the task of organizing and energizing new and younger voters, expanding the electorate, is more important than making energy-sapping concessions to unlikely breakaways from the conservative camp.

But the fact remains is that it will take both blocs voting for Obama to defeat McCain, and we will work to expand and maintain that broad and necessary unity.

It's well known the Obama has some points of agreement with McCain, such as support for the death penalty. There are more where that one came from. It's also well known that they have sharp differences, such as Roe v Wade and a woman's right to chose. There are also many others. After all, McCain is a Republican conservative and Obama has the most liberal voting record in the Senate, which is notable, but from a left and progressive perspective, still leaves a lot to be desired.

Keeping a scorecard of either serious matters or less serious 'gotcha' points from statements by the two candidates is fine. But far more important is making an assessment of the deep divisions in our ruling establishment over Iraq, and Iran as well. Then assess how these forces have grouped and regrouped themselves, and finally, what conflicting outcomes they are working for in this election.

Next comes making an assessment of the forces at the base in motion in this campaign, both the new progressive insurgencies and the retrograde trends of racial and religious bigotry. Then you decide who are your friends and who are your adversaries, and you deploy what limited forces you have to strike at the main danger while helping the more progressive forces, as best as you can, prepare for battles beyond the elections and in the streets and all the institutions of civil society.

There is some turmoil right now, but it's not too hard to figure this out and sty on course. You need a clear head, a clear idea of the main task today, and a clear idea of the main danger today. But if you don't, you get tangled up in demobilizing cul-de-sacs. Our slogan to keep a laser-like focus between now and November: Stop McCain, stop the War, Vote Obama 2008. Let's give Obama some heat, and prepare for more in Denver and beyond.

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Battle Plans: Getting 'Clout' with Obama

Photo: Key Issue to Press on Obama

Progressives
And 'Clout’
in Elections

By Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama


[This is a reply to important questions from David Hamilton (MDS, Austin, TX) posed last week on our ‘Progressives for Obama’ yahoo group email list. -Carl Davidson, webmaster, 'Progressives for Obama, ' http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com]

How do progressives and antiwar voters increase their influence within the Obama campaign?

The place to start is where you are, by working on expanding your own influence among local voters, building or creating new local grassroots groups, and winning these voters to take part in them or be in communication with them in various ways. The rule here is that most politicians, including Obama, pay attention mainly to organized voters and organized money. Since the later isn't our forte, work on the former. Then let the local campaign know what you're doing, cooperate in some ways, but still keep your own independence and initiative.

All the basic ‘How To’ Documents for doing this are posted as the first documents on http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com



The local Obama staffers will often start asking you for "advice" right away. I usually tell them things like, "the better and more detailed line you take for new green industries and new green jobs, the more votes you'll get around here. It you want the more conservative white workers to listen, this is what you need to be saying' or 'the harder and clearer you come out for getting out of Iraq in 2009, no pussy-footing around with smaller groups of troops left behind, the more votes you will get, and the harder we'll work for you.' You have to speak for a group, and you have to frame a position that adds votes for Obama, rather than subtracts votes, or at least adds more than it subtracts, and you have to have something to back it up. Then you have to do it over and over.

Remember, we're not interested in making him into a leftist or anti-imperialist. He has never been either, or claimed to be, and there's no electoral majority for that platform in 2008 in any case. But we are interested in seeing him doing better than he sometimes does in putting together a stronger left-progressive-center coalition vs. the right

I'd also stress the importance of a laser-like focus on our main task, between now and November, Stop McCain, Stop the War. All considerations of wrangling within the campaign, or with friends and allies outside of it, are secondary to that.

One way would be go grow ProgressivesforObama…

Yes, but 'Progressives for Obama' is mainly a national web and media project at this point, with a small but growing grassroots network. We have 10,000 or so visitors and a little under 2000 people who have signed on to our various groups so far, some of them well known and influential. We get reposted and discussed everywhere, with about 50,000 Google hits.

This is only a good start on the national level. It's far from being a major player, save for some of the contributions of some of our more influential figures. More important is what we're developing on the city level. This is usually mainly centered on a local blog or two that becomes a communication center for a local nonpartisan alliance of progressive groups and individuals inside and outside of the local Democratic party and the local Obama campaign (those two are most often different). As we get more of these in more areas and states, and they get networked nationwide, then a great deal more clout flows upward to 'Progressives for Obama.' So grow the base locally to strengthen the national voice, and then we'll feed the political capital we gain back to you to grow the base more, and so on.

But if we get thousands and thousands of people on the list service, we all get thousands of emails every day. And how would that be different from MoveOn?

If you multiplied what we've done by 100,000, you'd get something close to the MoveOn model, minus the fundraising apparatus. Even that is not exactly right, since we want to put far more emphasis on the grassroots base. What 'MoveOn' calls its 'meetups', we want to see our local formations as full-fledged local coalitions and alliances with their local online voice. The more email addresses you can get on our well-moderated listservs, the wider pool you have to draw in the most active individuals and groups.

Do we all go to work for the local Obama campaign?

That's up to you. It's the most immediate way to have daily connections with their volunteers. It's certainly better than doing nothing, and we should have some connection with it in any case, so we each know what's going on. But most important, from our core perspective, is to build organizations of your own that do the work of the campaign, but do it in our own way. For instance, on your tables, you may want to push single-payer 'Health Care not Warfare' petitions. And you want to be sure to keep all the lists gathered and resources gained for yourselves, for our use long after the official campaign has folded up. That's the difference between a liberal approach and a more grassroots, participatory democracy approach. This way, no matter what happens with the campaign, you grow your own strength on the wider playing field of the 2008 campaign.

Can Tom Hayden get inside the organization and bring along friends? We have to maintain a critical perspective, but we also have to be on the inside. Does ProgressivesforObama have contacts inside now?

Hayden has some connections, as do our other signers, but more important is the fact that we have a number of elected and appointed delegates, mostly with Progressive Democrats of America, one of the allied groups at our launching, but also a few who are just 'Progressives for Obama' members who are also delegates. They already have a decent antiwar plank submitted, with about 50 Congressmen signed on, to wage a floor fight. We need more, so if you know local delegates in our camp, or are in a position to get a position, do so right away, and let us know.

We should be very influential because, of all the reasons Obama won the nomination, support from antiwar voters was probably the most crucial. Probably 80% of the voters in the Democratic primaries were against the Iraq War. When the campaign for the Democratic Party nomination began, there were a bunch of men who were all against the Iraq War and there was Hillary Clinton who no one trusted to be against it because of her vote authorizing it and her refusal to renounce that vote. The antiwar forces eventually congealed around Obama and that's the main reason he won. So, the antiwar forces deserve influence and the question is how to we exert and maximize that influence.

You're absolutely right. But there's a big difference between what 'should be' and what is. Representing a mass of atomized individuals, even if they number in the millions in a huge movement, counts for something, but not enough. Then consider that a sizable minority of antiwar groups are hostile to Obama, and elections generally, while others are constrained from any coordination with any candidate by their tax status, and our influence is weaker than it could or should be. The antiwar movement, and especially its affording Obama the venues to define himself as the one with the judgment to oppose the war in the beginning, was critical to his success, especially against Clinton. But we weren't the only factor. The African American community, and the wider youth upsurge, were also powerful. We can claim the former, but not the latter two. So again, the key is to get our voice ORGANIZED at the base, and press for what is due us--on constructive grounds, to our advantage, and with a little restraint. We want him mainly to speak to and for the anti-war majority of the population, not simply as a voice of the antiwar coalitions, which are considerably to the left.

Finally, there's another high priority, and which actually doesn't require that much organization (although more organization is always better). That's defending Obama from right-wing attacks on our issues and positions, especially from the mainstream media.

So, for example, in just the last week the Washington Post ran an editorial trashing Obama for supporting a "precipitous" withdrawal from Iraq, essentially attacking in the person of Obama the views endorsed by a majority of the American people, the majority of Congress, the majority of Iraqis, and the majority of Iraqi parliamentarians. Of course, the WP editors didn't acknowledge these four other groups of people. Then yesterday the WP ran a hit piece attacking Obama for wanting to talk to Iran without preconditions, citing unnamed European officials.

One of our members, Robert Naiman, posted a sharp reply to it via Huffington Post, which was in turn passed on widely. Part of the virtue of doing this is that even if the Obama campaign doesn't appear to notice, it will still have a positive effect - reducing pressure from the right is as good as adding pressure to the left.

I'm sure there are more ways to grow and deploy our political influence. Free free to add your suggestions into the hopper, and we'll grow this memo into a regular handbook.

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Battle Plans: Election Organizing 101

Photo: GOTV Team in Maryland

'How-To' for Leftists and
Progressives Allergic
to the Democratic Party
but Who Want to Back Obama

By Carl Davidson

Start where you are.

I’m assuming a neighborhood-based group. In you are not in a neighborhood based group, then join one or start one, around peace and justice issues.

Most of the people in your group will have little or no experience working an election. That’s OK, they’re going to use this election to train themselves. Also, the people in you group will know bits and pieces about the neighborhood, but not systematically, and most of the neighborhood won’t know them, either. That’s OK too, because you’ll use this election to gain more systematic knowledge, and get yourselves known, too.

Hold a meeting and make a plan. Assign someone to get precinct maps and registered voter lists. Assign someone else to find out how to become a deputy voter registrar, and then have a bunch do it. Have someone become a notary public, if no one is. Have someone else see what it takes to be a pollwatcher and election judge. Assign some people to volunteer for these posts and get trained for them. Have someone else find out who else is doing voter registration in the neighborhood. Check the churches and union halls, and introduce yourselves.




Next, divide up the precincts, and prepare for step one, ‘IDTV,’ identify the vote. You want to find out, on every block, who’s registered and who’s not, who’s against the war and who’s not, and who’s for Obama and who’s not. You make up some flyers with your take on things to take with you. The you TALK TO PEOPLE, call it the ‘mass line’ or whatever, but get outside your comfort zone. In addition to finding like-minded souls to join you, your goal is to divide the people on every block into three–those with you (pluses), those against you (minuses) and those in between (zeros).

Next step, RTV, register the vote. You don’t register everyone this time, but focus on registering the pluses and zeros who are not registered. Never tell anyone you won’t register them, though. Pay attention to younger voters especially. Do this door to door, set up tables, whatever.

Next step, ETV, voter education. Hold a public meeting, invite the new contacts, have speakers run out your view of things, and well as some with other views. Have friendly debates. Sell literature. Recruit to study groups.

Next step, close to election day, GOTV, get out the vote. By now the size of your group should be double or triple in its core. Make calls to all your pluses, then all your zeros, telling them where and when to vote. Make an election day team with ‘watchers,’ ‘runners’ and ‘passers.’ Watchers’ are in the polling place with a list of all your pluses, minuses, and zeros, and check them off as they come in. ‘Runners’ get on the phone or go to the doors on those who haven’t shown up yet, ‘passers’ stand outside the poll with little reminder cards, but mainly to make sure the other side doesn’t intimidate anyone into not voting. ‘Watchers’ are also trained in what to watch for to make sure no one is rigging the count.

Next, PTV, protect the vote. This is for pollwatchers and judges, of which you should have several. They stay with the count to make sure it’s reported properly. Finally, CTV, consolidate the vote. Have a victory party, bring speakers, literature, get new tasks to new members, preparing them for mass action to make sure whoever gets elected stops the war, and so on.

Here’s the point.

Your local group is now much larger. It’s more experienced. The neighborhood knows you. You have new allies in other groups you’ve worked with. You now not only know how to hold demos in the streets, you know how to work elections. Your knowledge of 'the masses' is several levels higher than anything you’ve done before. You’ve created a building block of what could become a component of a mass party of the people. You now don’t just talk about politics, you have something to do politics WITH. And you haven’t even had to have anything to do with local Democrats unless you chose to, and every gain you’ve made belongs to you, not to them.

In brief, you’re far more empowered than before you started–and that’s the whole point. Naturally, this isn’t the only way. Some people may just want to jump into whatever Obama group is at their school, whatever their union is doing, or whatever the local Dems are doing. Those all have something to be said for them, but that’s not the main thing those of us with a more strategic view are advocating.

In any case, doing something is better than doing nothing. At least you’ll have some practice to bring to the table when it comes to summing up experience.

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Report from Beaver County

Mill in Old Aliquippa

Bitterness, Hope
And Obama
In Western PA

By Carl Davidson

When I heard Hillary Clinton and John McCain claiming, against Barack Obama's recent observation, that there was no 'bitterness' among working-class voters in Western Pennsylvania, I burst out laughing, 'they've got to be kidding!'

Unfortunately they weren't, and now the cable news punditry and right-wing talk radio has a new diversionary cause of the week to dump on Obama in lieu of serious discussion of policy and programs.
I'm born and bred in Beaver County, Western PA, which, in 1960, was the most blue-collar county in the entire country-steel, strip mines, and everything related to both. My grandfather died in the mill, Jones & Laughlin Steel, crushed by a crane, and another cousin met the same fate a few decades later. My parents are both in the Pennsylvania Bowlers Hall of Fame (and Barack would do well to stick to basketball!). After a long stint in New York City and Chicago, which were irresistible in my youth, I'm now back home, living in Raccoon Township.

Take it from me. There are a lot of bitter voters in these mill towns and the townships outside them. If they don't express it to the coiffured media, they do to each other. It's easy to see why. The towns are mostly empty, ravaged by deindustrialization. And the brown fields where the mills once stood are so poisoned grass won't even grow. After sitting empty for years, the first new structure to go up not too long ago on one near here was a new prison.





Does this mean it's a clear path for Obama? Not at all, it's a rough climb, full of difficulties. But he's doing better than anyone expected. None of the polls are that trustworthy, because some tell the pollsters the 'right' answer, while others, such as new youth voters with only cell phones, are hard to find. Obama's closing on Clinton, now by a five point spread. The more people see him, the more they like him. But both Democrats run neck-to-neck against McCain in November. This is not a 'safe state' for anyone, anytime.

'White male identity politics' is the unpredictable elephant in the room. I've talked with older blue collar voters who claim John Edwards was their runaway favorite, but are now leaning to John McCain, in spite of their hatred for the war. White workers generally split three ways, roughly proportional, between the three candidates.

Younger working-class voters, male and female, white or Black, are not so caught up in it, and they are Obama's ace-in-the-hole. If his campaign can get them to the polls in droves, he can win it. That's the long and short of it, and if you can get here to help, please do so. Everything counts.

The bitterness runs deep, favors no single candidate, and comes in several varieties. Retired steelworkers here had their pensions stolen by speculative capital, winning only part of them back by hitting the streets. There's also another kind of bitterness in Pennsylvania's demographics. It's now one of the oldest population areas in the country. My young nephews and nieces, even with some local college degrees or courses behind them, have a hard time finding work. Many young people have moved away to Florida or California, leaving older relatives behind.

Here in Raccoon, they're now shutting down the elementary school, claiming 500 pupils doesn't justify the expense to keep it open. It means an hour on the bus for youngsters from a perfectly good school, and, yes, many parents are bitter.

Aliquippa is the nearest town to me, known as home of Mike Ditka and Tony Dorsett. In my youth, it was a bustling blue-collar town of 20,000-some 10,000 workers in the mill, a mixture of Serbs, Italians and African-Americans. Now it's down to 6000, mostly poor and Black. They were the hardest hit of all, lacking the rural family homesteads to fall back on. Now joblessness, crime and addiction take a very bitter toll on the families still there, with nowhere to go.

Does this mean it's all bleak? No, not at all, although Hillary Clinton is just dissembling, or worse, to assert that there's no bitterness, only resilience and hope, in these towns. People here like to pull themselves up independently whenever they can, like the Scots-Irish and Germans who predominated here in the 1800s. Their class solidarity means they'll accept a hand-up, and offer one, too.

But they don't like hand-outs at all, unless you're at death's door, which is why their anti-'Fat Cat' populism also contains antipathy to some features of liberalism. It's also why Obama gets a standing ovation when he tells college students he'll help, but challenges them to give back, with community service work.

This blue-collar populism runs the political gamut-left, center and right. You can get colorful examples in the hot debates in the interactive pages of the online edition of the largest daily paper, the Beaver County Times. Pick any topic or candidate-you'll get fierce denunciations of the rich man's war for oil, combined with warnings against Hillary' 'socialism', claims that Obama's a secret Muslim, and despair that McCain's a clone of Bush.

In this lively public square, Obama or any candidate would do well to discern the main themes. Don't get me wrong. People here are open and friendly. They don't expect you to agree with them, or vice versa. But they do expect authenticity, so when you get out organizing, speak from the heart, and don't put your head higher than anyone else's, and expect the same in return.

At the top of their list is stopping the war now, since it's preventing any solutions to anything else. Next, do something about health care-single payer is best, but either Obama's or Hillary's plan rather than nothing. Then debt relief and fuel prices, although no miracles are expected here.

Finally there's creating new jobs and new wealth. This is probably most important strategically, but people have been spun so many promises, they're cynical, and Obama was right to point it out. Still he should look deeper here, and more often.

What gets people's attention are 'high road' programs like the Apollo Alliance, new 'green' industrial jobs building the infrastructure of energy independence. All those wind turbines and wave generators and whatnot have to be built somewhere, and what blue collar Pennsylvania, white and Black, knows how to do very well is build things that create high value and new wealth.

This is what gets people's attention, not rebates, handouts and McJobs. Obama's a natural on this subject, and he'd best spend less ad money on how's he's not in thrall to lobbyists, and spend more as an advocate of green industrial policy that would give these mill towns real hope for change.

[Carl Davidson is a peace and justice activist, a 'Solidarity Economy' organizer, and webmaster for 'Progressives for Obama' at http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com.]

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Taking the War to the Election

Getting Voter
Guides Out in
Zelienople, PA



By Carl Davidson

Last weekend a handful of us decided to take our message about the war and the election to Zelienople, PA, figuring if we could do it there, we could do it anywhere.

Zelienople, or 'Zelie' as it's affectionately called around here, is one of those hundreds of 'little towns that time forgot' scattered across Pennsylvania. It's tucked away in the rolling hills and hollows bordering Beaver and Butler counties in the Western part of the state on the Connoquenessing Creek. (Say that fast and properly, and you're better than me, and I grew up here!) Population is 4000 or so, mostly working class and 98 percent white. Once rich in iron ore, the businesses now mainly service local farms.

This month all these places are in the national media spotlight as battleground areas in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary April 22.




But Zelie also has a gourmet coffee house called Beechers that serves as a public square, and they invited my brother, Howard Davidson, and his Pittsburgh Songwriters Circle, to perform. They're a mixture of bluegrass and blues artists, and if you got any more grassroots, you'd be down there in the dirt with the grubs.

'Do an antiwar song to give me a hook, and I'll bring some leaflets, voter guides on the war,' I said to him when he invited me to go along. 'No problem, I always do an antiwar song anyway,' he replied.

We get there just as he comes on stage. The place is packed, about 50 people, greying boomers for the most part, but younger families with small children, too. It's standing room only on Friday night in Zelie.

'I'd like to welcome my family,' say Howard at the close of his self-introduction. That's my brother, the peacenik, back there with the stack of leaflets about Obama, all the other candidates and the war.' I wave my clipboard. Everyone smiles, one or two tables cheer.

In all the four acts in the Songwriters Circle, everyone does songs written by themselves, with content plucked from the local air people breathe here, with both their hopes and their troubles. He does a plaintive ballad, 'Bring Him Home,' from the viewpoint of a soldier's wife, followed by a livelier 'Where is Pete Seeger Now That We Need Him.' He ends with a song the circle gave him to write, as an assignment, about 'decisions.' 'Decisions, you know, like on election day. Don't forget my brother back there with his leaflets.'

Next up is the 'Lonesome No More' band doing a terrific bluegrass rag that reminds me of Country Joe and the Fish. A few people are leaving, so I work the door. Howard grabs a stack of our voter guides and works the room, and in five minutes, everyone has one and every table is reading them. He joins the band as their bass player, and I hear a fierce and poignant song about Northern Kentucky, not too far down the Ohio from here.

I get only favorable comments from people going out at the end. 'Thanks for bringing these Obama leaflets,' one lady says, taking some more. 'They're actually nonpartisan,' I explain. 'They simply rate all the candidates on the war, and he does rather well,' 'That's fine,' she relies, 'We'll spread them around here.'

By 10pm it's all over, as the sidewalks roll up early in Zelie. But we got our message out, and a good time was had by all. Now just to keep at it, over and over, every way we can, until we end this horrible war.
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Engaging the Peace Voters

Obama Links
War & Economy
in Beaver County

By Carl Davidson

Senator Barack Obama spoke this morning, March 17, to a full house of 1700 residents of Western Pennsylvania in the athletic 'Dome' of the Beaver County Community College, one of the largest venues in the area.

It was a good day for Obama and Beaver County, both of which are embroiled in the hotly contested presidential primary.

It was also a good day for those of us working on the 'Voter Engagement' project of UFPJ and Peace Action.

When we arrived, the local Obama team had already set up a Voter Registration Table. I approached the guy in charge, a retired member of the local teacher's union, and said we were going to distribute voter guides against the war. "Against the war? You mean against the INVASION, don't you?" and added some colorful terms for President Bush. It set the tone-we were very welcome to get on with our project.

There was a last minute rush to get in, and thorough-going security, and we just made it in time.

Inside, waiting for the speech, we made a point of talking with the reporters from the Beaver County Times, one of whom we had had a relationship with on earlier stories. We discussed the debate on the war in the editorial pages, noted that this was very new for Beaver County, and agreed to talk at length later.

The crowd was obviously self-selected and mostly pro-Obama. But it was still a cross-section of the county's demographics-mostly working class (the young volunteer who opened the day used the term 'working class' like it was the most normal thing in the world, and his crowd did, too), Italian-American, Serbian-American, African American, union jackets and veterans, young and old, men and women.

The youth were lively, multinational and kept trying to get 'the Wave' going in the stands, but the old folks weren't cooperating too well. Still, they got the rhythmic chants going, 'Ba-Rack!, O-Bam-A!, It Can Be Done! It Can Be Done!'

Obama was warmly greeted, and got into his regular speech, but said he would be short. He wanted to field questions. He stressed some economic issues, since the area is a poster child for the ravages of deindustrialization. He knew who he was talking to.

But it was when he condemned the war, and declared he would end it in 2009, that he got his first and loudest ovation, followed by another, when he stressed the need not to abandon veterans on their return. This was clearly an antiwar crowd, from young high school kids to grey-haired Vietnam vets. The economy was important, as was health care, prisons, and education, but Obama himself linked them to the war, and was cheered every time.

We left quickly at the end, to position ourselves outside, with our stacks on Voter Guides. 'Make the Election about Ending the War! Take one and pass them on!' Most people snapped them up, and a few came back for more. A few, mainly African American, were dubious, and wanted to know more. 'It rates all the candidates on the war, and your guy does very well.' That would click, and they would ask for extra copies.

One group of about a dozen students was standing together reading it. We joined in, and got a good number of e-mails on the sign up sheets on our clipboards. One of the kids claimed to be a Republican. Interestingly enough, the sidebar article in the Beaver County Times later in the day was on a student who said he changed his registration to Democrat that morning, so he could get behind Obama.

Make no mistake. McCain is strong here, even if people hate the war. But we had a good day-we got our message out, we formed some positive ties on voter registration, we renewed some ties with the local media, and got a list of new youth contacts we didn't have before. Not bad for a morning's work.

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Fidel's Turning of the Wheel...

Report from Cuba on Fidel's Transition

[Note from CarlD: This is a down-to-earth report on the closing on an era. Fidel has been the leader of Cuba for my entire political life, and the very first demonstration I went to was a 'Hands Off Cuba' vigil of twelve of us at Penn State during the Cuba missile crisis.

Later, representing SDS, I had a chance to meet with Fidel. At the Cultural Congress of Havana in 1968, Dave Dellinger, Tom Hayden and I were whisked away to a safe house, were we sat up with Fidel late into the night, discussing everything under the sun. He wanted to know our opinion of McGovern, Dellinger wanted to know about Che and Regis Debray, Hayden and I asked to start what became the Veceremos Brigade, and Fidel bugged me to explain 'hippies' to him, and I tried my best.

He is a remarkable man, with a photographic memory, wide knowledge and keen insights. Cuba will change after him, though, as brother Raul is already looking into the socialist market economy in China and Vietnam, but will undoubtedly make any reforms 'in the Cuban way.' We should all wish Fidel and Cuba well, and double our voices against the blockcade.]


By Marc PoKempner
Havana, Cuba


Subject: Castro's resignation

I thought you all would be interested in a bit of news from Cuba. I have read some of the US reports and, understandably given the bias, they don't get it right---though they have captured some of it.

There was no "police presence" that I detected whatsoever. Everything was completely normal. The so-called "independent journalists", supported by the US and Journalists Without Borders, have been floating a lot of totally fabricated stories lately about arrests, etc.

So be skeptical of all such sources, and keep in mind that one of the express strategies of the Bush administration is to destabilize Cuba from within. The most ridiculous of these was a report last week by an "independent journalist" that a young student was yanked from his home in Las Tunas after criticizing the government in a meeting at the university. Nothing of the kind ever took place. He stood up in a meeting and voiced some concerns and criticisms in an auditorium in a meeting presided over by Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly. The meeting was taped and broadcast internally to the entire university. Nothing happened to the boy and he appeared on Cuban TV to debunk the story.

The news of Castro's had enormous impact, but also wasn't exactly a surprise. Some people may have thought that Castro would be re-elected, but most people did not given his health. The emotional impact of the announcement before the parlaimentary session next Sunday came mainly from three aspects: 1) it is an historical moment in Cuba---whatever the US media says, Castro is the respected Commander in Chief and loved or revered by the majority of Cubans. Younger Cubans may want change, which is natural, but most have respect for Castro who has shown himself to be a brilliant leader, even if they chafe under some of the overarching controls; 2) he resigned with dignity. Most of the people I spoke to praised the content of the message as fitting of a great leader; 3) there is also sadness, not so much that he is resigning---which was to be expected---but because he was not able to be president when the US finally lifts the blockade. That is, he won't be president residing over the final triumph over the US.

If there was muted response on the street, it is because Castro has been ill for a long time and the resignation was just a matter of time. But also, people have been waiting during this transition period to see what changes and improvements will be made, what direction will the country take now to solve its problems. Since there are no easy answers, it wasn't as if Castro's announcement meant dramatic changes or chaos. So, the response to the announcement was quiet and reflective.

Cubans do want some changes. Life has been hard since the 90s, and I expect there to be some reforms. But no one expects an opening to a free market economy, even if some market mechanisms are introduced and even perhaps some kinds of cooperatives in the service economy (carpentry, construction, plumbing) and perhaps even light, small-scale manufacturing (furniture, clothing, leather goods, etc.).

US policy continues to weigh heavy on Cuba's potential for development. I could write pages about the harshness of the impact. And so there aren't any easy ways leading to dramatic economic improvement (and where in the world today are there such ways). Most Cubans do not expect dramatic improvements, but they do want to see some new strategies and some problems solved.

I do expect that the requirement of "exit permits" will be lifted, but that won't solve most Cubans desire to travel since most countries do not give Cubans visas easily and most Cubans don't have the $ to buy tickets, etc. If and when that control is lifted, I doubt many countries will give asylum so easily to Cubans who use travel as a way to leave Cuba.

I also expect that some of the restrictions on Cubans access to tourist hotels will also be lifted. These restrictions were first adopted to try to stem the explosion of prostitution in the 90s when the economy hit rock bottom. Prostitution has diminished dramatically since the end of the 90s, but there is still a notion of equity that keeps the regulation in place. That is, it is hard to swallow the growing differences in income between those who earn hard currency (artists, musicians, tourism workers who get tips) and those who get money from families abroad. So, seeing these people enter the hotels when ordinary Cubans do not have the funds is problematic in an egalitarian society.

The current generation seems to be willing to accept some deviance from egalitarianism as long as there is social justice. That is, everyone has equal access to health care and education, social services and housing are improved, and everyone has access to work that pays a living wage (i.e., wages have sufficient purchasing power). This cannot be accomplished with a free-market capitalist system. The government must maintain a strong hand in the economy and development of the society.

Next Sunday, the National Assembly will meet and elect the new president of the Council of State, which I assume will be Raul Castro, and the other members of the Council. This will be an important signal of who is in the inner circle of leadership--kind of like the cabinet. Raul will undoubtedly remain Commander in Chief of the armed forces, but there could be a new minister of the armed forces.

Marc PoKempner, photojournalist http://www.pokempner.net ph: 773.525.4567 cel: 773.505.4568 Chicago, Illinois, USA Member: ASMP - American Society of Magazine Photographers

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What Is A Knowlege Worker?

ECONOMISTS STRUGGLE
WITH RUSTY TOOLS
IN TODAY’S WORLD

By Alvin and Heidi Toffler

Economists around the world are belatedly admitting out loud that much of what they have been telling governments, businesses,
investors and students has been increasingly mistaken and misleading.

For some, this is old news, especially for economists themselves,who have long made fun of their errors. Their forecasts are so bad that Robert Reich, an economist and secretary of labor during the Clinton presidency, has suggested that "economic forecasters exist to make astrologers look good."

What is new is their increasing willingness to admit that the tools
they have been using for a century or more – theories and assumptions originally designed for probing smokestack economies – are becoming more and more irrelevant or useless for analyzing today's knowledge-hungry, no-longer-industrial economies.

With the U.S. in the lead, Asian countries racing to catch up and
Europe struggling to keep pace, advanced economies are shifting from
the reliance on Second Wave assembly lines and muscle power to Third
Wave brain power. This transition is typically symbolized by computers,
the Internet, mobile phones, digital production lines, networks,
ad-hocratic organization, heavy investment in research and development
and other knowledge-intensive tools and methods.

Put all these changes together with corresponding changes in
institutional boundaries, and the roles of managers, employees,
consumers and prosumers, and it is evident that we are inventing
something new on the face of the earth – a revolutionary wealth system.

Economists first caught sight of this as far back as 1962 when
Fritz Machlup of Princeton published a prescient book called "The
Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States." It
showed that even then the U.S. economy was becoming more and more
dependent on knowledge.

In the 1960s, the polymathic Kenneth Boulding and a small number of
other economists began showing an interest in the economics of
knowledge. But within their profession these leading minds were
intellectual outriders whose ideas were usually pooh-poohed or ignored.
As a result, even as many economies grew more and more dependent on
knowledge, conventional economists continued to rely on industrial-age
measures, models and notions.

In the 1970s and 1980s, we, along with other futurists and
economists, repeatedly called attention to the growing gap between the
emerging revolutionary economy and the obsolescence of mainstream
economics. Yet little was done to correct the problem.

In consequence, as knowledge – admittedly hard to measure – grew
more and more important, the picture of reality presented to
businesses, governments and key international organizations – right on
down to the World Trade Organization and the U.N. – grew more and more
detached from reality, reaching a point at which the discrepancy could
no longer be ignored.

The gap is now so wide that Business Week recently devoted a
lengthy cover story to it, detailing many of the distortions and
mischaracterizations of trade, unemployment and fiscal and monetary
policy that result from continued reliance on wildly out-of-date
theories and data. Nor is the problem just an American phenomenon.
Similarly poor numbers and models are used by economists in most of the
rest of the world, too.

A key reason why economics has not kept up with the changing
economy is the sheer difficulty of properly defining and measuring
knowledge and knowledge work. Who, for example, is a "knowledge
worker"?

Many estimates about the workforce, present and future, for
example, focus on the most easily quantified employee categories. The
result is a very narrow notion of who is, and who is not, engaged in
knowledge work.

A widely propagated categorization scheme suggests that to be a
knowledge worker one needs to be a scientist or an engineer, a
mathematician, an information technology specialist, a teacher or a
member of one of the professions. The assumption is that if we tally
these up, we have identified the "knowledge labor force." From that, it
is presumed, we can calculate their contribution to gross domestic
product and many other variables.

But this is crude at best and misleading at worst, radically
underestimating the extent of knowledge work in the real economy and
the number of workers doing knowledge work, as we'll see next.

Part 2:

Many economists are belatedly struggling to catch up with the increasing importance of knowledge in advanced economies.

Even among the most sophisticated, the true role of knowledge in
the creation of wealth is still, for the most part, underestimated. And
economists still don't grasp the often-hidden aspects of knowledge
work.

Economists will have to subdivide knowledge into subtypes. Not all
knowledge is the same or has the same potential for creating wealth.
And building a knowledge economy doesn't require that every worker,
today or tomorrow, will need the cognitive or analytic skills of the
proverbial "rocket scientist."

Thus, economists must recognize that even many jobs categorized as
low skill – and therefore not counted in the "knowledge work" category
– have, in fact, a knowledge component. By ignoring that component, the
amount of knowledge work in the economy is radically underestimated.

Car mechanics may still install a new tire or a windshield wiper.
But, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, their work has changed
"from mechanical repair to a high technology job. As a result, these
workers are now usually called 'technicians.' . . . Technicians must
have an increasingly broad base of knowledge about how vehicles'
complex components work and interact, as well as the ability to work
with electronic diagnostic equipment and computer-based reference
materials." What percentage of these jobs consists of knowledge work?

What about farmers? Even the poorest peasants in history have
always needed knowledge about seeds, soil and weather. Today, in the
U.S., various agriculture organizations representing corn, cotton and
soybean growers have teamed up with the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration to teach "precision farming" made possible by data from
satellites and high-flying aircraft.

According to NASA, the farmers learn "where fertilizers are needed
– and where they're not needed. They discover pests – and spray only
infested areas. It's a remarkably 'green' approach to farming."
Precision farmers use GPS receivers, farm equipment with computerized
controllers and other digital equipment. As one farm-equipment dealer
puts it, today "it would help to have a college education just to
figure out the benefits in running the tractors."

Are farmers knowledge workers? Full-time or part-time?

Many other classes of employees also do part-time knowledge work.
Waiters punch orders into a computer, which not only sends instructions
to the kitchen, but provides data useful for purchasing, scheduling and
many other purposes. It has even been suggested that golf caddies are
"a simplified example of a knowledge worker" because "good caddies do
more than carry clubs. . . . A good caddie will give advice to golfers,
such as, 'The wind makes the ninth hole play 15 yards longer."'

If the definition of knowledge work is realistically broadened to
encompass part-time knowledge work, the role of knowledge in the
overall economy becomes far more important than current statistics
suggest.

The extent of knowledge work in advanced economies would be still
further enlarged if economists recognize that there are many
economically essential forms of knowledge. These include tacit
knowledge, personal insight, the ability to care for the ill or elderly
with warmth and gut intelligence, a talent for leadership, persuasive
expression, adaptability, a gift for timing and many other skills that
are primarily social, cultural and psychological. These skills were
seldom required for repetitive tasks on yesterday's assembly line but
are extremely valuable, especially in tomorrow's service sector.

Not all of these carry the same weight or have the same effect on a
company's bottom line or on the national economy, and they are even
harder to define and quantify.

Yet another way of categorizing knowledge work is according to
whether it is being generated, stored, exchanged or transformed. Or by
the different degrees of abstraction required by different jobs – from
data entry all the way up the abstraction ladder to research scientist,
financial "quant" or corporate strategist.

Knowledge workers in the same firm also perform different
functions. Some are good "knowledge importers" – they bring knowledge
from outside the firm, from customers, critics, competitors and others.
They are good gatherers. Others are "knowledge exporters" – they bring
data, information and knowledge to the outside world from inside the
organization. They might be publicists or salespeople, for example.
Others are "knowledge relayers" – they pass data, information and/or
knowledge back and forth within the firm. Still others can be regarded
as "knowledge creators."

Our knowledge about knowledge is so poor that we all – not just
economists – are unprepared for what lies ahead. One forecast that is
reasonably safe is that economists, trying to answer questions like
these, will devote more and more attention to the work being done in a
new branch of their own profession – neuroeconomics, the study of how
the brain itself works when making economic decisions.

With or without help from that quarter, however, until economists
understand all these dimensions of knowledge work, they will continue
to drastically underestimate not only the contribution of knowledge
work to the money economy, but the role it plays in the truly
revolutionary wealth system emerging on the planet.

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