Debate over Obama, Rice & Hardball vs, Dems

Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Revolted but unsurprised 27 Jan 2005

Yup, that's right. Barak Obama, the darling of the liberal set, voted with the Republocrats in confirming Condi Rice as the new ambassador of U.S. imperialism.

For what it's worth, Illinois' 'senior' senator Dick Durbin voted against this venal shithead's appointment. What's wrong with this picture? Everything. What's surprising? Nothing, since in his first official senate vote, Obama voted to certify the November 2 electoral college votes -- including in Ohio, New Mexico and Florida, where massive irregularities are increasingly being cited as having wrongly tipped those states to Bush.

Even 'opposition' pro-war candidate Kerry mustered the spine to vote against Condi ... but not Barak. Wonder if he'll continue his pattern of craven administration support by putting meat on his pre-election bone of contention with Iran, when he asserted in a television interview that he had no problem with a 'pre-emptive strike' against same. He sure as hell is not building a track record that suggests that he'll be anything but a Democratic Leadership Council stooge.



Comments Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by marat 27 Jan 2005

Well, it looks like many of the "peace voter" types who lined up uncritically behind Obama as the best hope for the future have been taken to the cleaners once again -- this time by a slick political huckster with long range ambitions, renewed ties to the Democratic Leadership Council and few scruples -- particuarly when it comes to bamboozling local progressives.

Most Chicagoans generally expect to wade knee deep through the manure spread by aspiring politicians on the make in an election year. But that's a far cry from actually buying the campaign hype. PT Barnum was right.

With the full Senate confirmation vote on Alberto 'Torture's Okay Dokey By Me" Gonzales as Attorney-General looming next week, maybe it's time to take up a public collection to help Senator Obama buy a spine.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson

Are we shocked that Obama is a liberal? He hasn't sold out to the liberals, he's been one all along, and you'll noticed that liberals divided and waffled on the Condi vote, as they do on a good number of things. That's why they're liberals.

There is one point that needs to be made, though. How would it look to his core base for the only Black man in the Senate to vote against the first Black woman to be Secretary of State? It might be easy for while radicals or even a few white liberals, but politicians, first and foremost, know how to count...

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out by argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jesus Christ Carl Davidson...What does it take for you to give up your irritating and annoying boot licking and excuse making for the Democratic Party. Enough!!! What's next your apologies for why Jan urged the schoolboard ahead with turning Senn into a military outpost...rationaliing Obama saber rattling directed at Iran...raationalizing Hillary Clinton's speech this week about reaching out to Pro Lifers...enough from the likes of you. Your shilling for the Dems is pathetic. and clearly you have learned nothing from this past election. Stop making excuses and start building the fucking movement

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by assdfg

27 Jan 2005 i am a black man and i am pissed that he voted for condi. get over your paternalistic bullshit with black people carl.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson

27 Jan 2005 I'm glad Senators voted NO on Rice as a repudiation of the war, and I urged Obama to do so, too. And likewise urged Schkowsky to oppose the Naval academy at Senn. I'm just say you have to analyze things a bit in context. Your allies don't always do your exact bidding; that's why they're allies of your camp, and not part of your camp itself. That's why we maintain our independence, and criticize and pressure them as needed. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. But I still would have voted for Obama, if for no other reason than to put a dent in the lily-white Senate. Call it patronizing or anything you want, but it was better than voting for Keyes or not voting at all.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Egads 27 Jan 2005

I am baffled. By Carl's logic, Blacks should vote for Blacks, women should vote for women, Latinos should vote for Latinos, GLBT people should vote for out queers (or maybe closeted ones, for that matter)... and maybe Germans should vote for Germans, Serbs should vote for Serbs, and the Romani should vote for nobody, because they never have candidates. Maybe Asians in the U.S. shouldn't vote either, since not too many Asians run for electged office, although there was a South Asian fellow who ran for the Republican slot in the governor's race, on an unbelievably reactionary economic platform that included the usual short shrift for immigrants. Should Asians have voted for that guy, or only South Asians?

By this logic, Barak Obama should never have run against Bobby Rush for congress. Come to think of it, he shouldn't have run against Rush anyway, since Rush remains far less odious as an elected official than Obama in his short tenure in the Senate.

Come on, Carl. Since when have we jumped on the 'tokenism' bandwagon in abeyance of all of our political principles? Oh, wait. I forgot. The regime currently in power has been masterful at tokenism, seeking always to appoint cabinet loyalists who don't look like pink people, but back policies that are embued with the most pernicious characteristics of white supremacy.

My friend, it's ok to admit that you mistyped and want to retract the atrocious suggestion that Obama just couldn't bring himself to vote against a Black woman -- despite the fact that that willing token fuckhead clearly has complete contempt for the core interests of Blacks and just about everybody else on this planet.

The core assumption in an assertion like that is that Black people are dumbasses, too stupid to distinguish between a vote against a Black woman and a vote against a person who happens to be Black and female who stands against the interests of both of those constituencies.

What a great fucking way to encourage people of color to renew their alliegance to the Democratic Party...not.

What the fuck.


Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by curious

Just curious Carl. Exactly what would it take for you to stop pandering to the Dems--"liberal" wing and all??? What have your liberals done to show they are our "allies". This ally business, as far as you are concerned, seems to be a one way street. You make all the excuses and they give us nothing in return. Your liberal friends in the Dems have sold us out on gay marriage, on ending the occupation, on abortion rights. No betrayal from your liberal Dems seems too much for you. Do you have a line that you draw when you stop supporting the other war party. Just curious.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by two questions

hmmmm. you counseled Obama to vote against Condi. You counseled JAn to vote against the Navy at Senn. Looks like you are losing your influence around town. And how exactly are you planning on "pressuring" Obama and Jan??? You have exposed yourself repeatedly in this last election that you don't really have any standards and that you'll vote for a democrat before you do anything else. So how are you going to pressure them when on softball issues, ie vote against the war monger who told us that if we didn't go iinto Iraq there would be muchroom clouds; and isolate the liberal who says she's against the war but wants Senn to be turned into a navel academy????What are you not going to vote or stump for them. Fogive us if we don't beleive you.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by J.27 Jan 2005

I don't know, Carl. I mean, as a leading African-American, the impact of him voting against Rice would have been tremendous. Bush, to a certain extent, is engaging in the worst sort of tokenism with Rice (much worse with Gonzales.) Obama was uniquely situated to vote against Rice.

It wouldn't have hurt him with his base in the African-American community. They know the difference between someone who shares their concerns, and someone who merely shares their skin color. And Obama's vote against Rice would have given cover to some of the white politicians who voeted for Rice because they didn't want to be seen as opposing the advancement of an African-American.

Sadly, I think Obama's vote here is better understood as an effort to broaden his base, beyond what he gets in Illinois. It's sort of like Kerry's vote for the war -- he figured that was the safe thing to do if he wanted to run for President. Obama's aiming for higher office, and is willing to move to the center to do it. It would have cost him little to vote against her, and it would have done a lot.

Another good progressive sacrificing what he believes in for personal advancement. It happens all too often.

Don't get me wrong. I'll almost certainly vote again for Obama again, whatever he runs for. But this is a disappointment, and bad sign for his future as a progressive.

There was no good reason for Obama to vote for Rice.



Obama and Condi
by marat


Sorry, Carl but it won't wash. Folks in the African American and Latino communities recognize the Bush ploy with Rice and Gonzales for what it is - a transparent attempt at tokenism that is fundamentally racist to the core.

As for Rice, check out the latest edition of the Black Commentator at: http://www.blackcommentator.com/ for their take on her appointment.

BTW, the BC was the publication that first outed Obama for his membership in the Democratic Leadership Council.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Egads 27 Jan 2005

You know, unlike some of my anarchist purist friends, I am not catagorically opposed to playing in the electoral sector. I am, however, catagorically opposed to allowing misguided souls with a painfully long learning curve like Carl Davidson to play in same.

Why? Because folks like Carl just don't get it. Obama didn't vote for Condi in order to pander to sentiments in the Black community, except perhaps for the rare conservative wingnut like paid Bush apologist Armstrong Williams. Those pro-Condi sentiments don't exist in the community. No, to understand why Obama has set himself on this voting trajectory, you need to do one thing: follow the money...and by default, plot his political ambitions for higher office.

Obama has no compunction about going against Black politicians -- including relatively progressive Black politicians like Bobby Rush. That was a great scenario for the up-and-comer. Do da mare a favor by punishing the candidate who had the audacity to challenge his hold on the kingdom of Chicago, and cut a bunch of side-bar deals to grease the wheel for mayoral support in Springfield and points beyond.

Obama is in many ways no different than another 'liberal' sell-out, Carol Mosely Braun, who as a one-term loser, by the way, ultimately paved the way for Obama’s rise through the ranks. And he's looking to secure his current AND potential donor base, largely from the class of corporate heavies that tend to back Democratic Leadership Council candidates and don't think an expanded empire in the Middle East is necessarily a bad idea.

The problem with all of this, of course, is that delusional 'thinkers' like Carl believe that eager stooges like Obama may occasionally throw the rest of us a bone. Not lately, and increasingly on the crucial issues, not ever if you look at the voting trajectory of the vast majority of Senate Democrats.

My father, a hardline New Deal Democrat, used to have a saying. How do you tell a Democrat from a Republican? The Democrats will occasionally throw you a bone, while the Republicans will pick your bones. Sadly, increasingly, that's not even true, as corporate Democrats chase their corporate Republican comrades down the path to the corporate trough.

At the same time, misguided apologists like Carl continue to believe that somehow, somewhere, we are not playing a zero sum gain game. Carl believes that we can sway the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians by directing mass opinion â€" and voter support â€" their way. But Democratic politicians know that, in the end, 'we'll' vote for them because ‘we’ have no choice. It's like tic-tac-toe. The only winning move is not to play that game.

Instead, if we MUST play in the electoral sector as one strategy amongst MANY, we should be boosting grassroots candidates who see a bid for office as a chance to shake things up on behalf of a base to whom they’re accountable, instead of running as a career move. Increasingly, that means backing truly independent candidates, because this inside/outside strategy is doomed to fail. Look at the changes in the core dynamics of the Democratic Party, for pity's sake. The left HAS no option in the Democratic Party, or hadn't you noticed, Carl. Instead, we should be running truly insurgent campaigns designed to hurt the people that hurt us -- and that means the fucking Democratic Party infrastructure, which has in the last three decades shut us out of even a minority voice in its conventions, and increasingly marginalized and taken for granted its base constituencies in its quest to out-corporate the Republicans.

Elected office has always been a career and a springboard for even higher office for Obama. He's never been the people's man, and his voting record to date in the Senate, as abbreviated as it is, underscores that. There ARE a few alternatives that remain in the DP, but very few. A notable example is Cynthia McKinney, who ran an insurgent grassroots campaign to seize back her congressional seat -- as much from the Democratic Party operatives who sold her out as from the Republican who defeated her two years ago.

Over the longer term, however, we need a new party and a party with a platform and some fucking principles. And we really, really, really need to refuse to allow naive player wannabee's like Carl to misdirect our energies into the electoral sector bait-and-switch, and instead ratchet up resistance through street actions, boycotts, LOCAL electoral work against Republicrats like King Daley, and increasingly aggressive popular campaigns against those who would step up our growing disenfranchisement. Not every campaign is an ˜electoral campaign. Where might we be if thousands of local activists hadn't followed the liberals' appeal to peel back from public protest and instead focus on a presidential and congressional election -- within a larger strategic framework that was doomed to fail? At least our fucking movement would be stronger. Instead, playing the loser electoral game has simply weakened, misdirected and undercut what had been a burgeoning anti-war movement that increasingly drew core connections between our misadventures in Iraq and the larger imperial agenda of the plutocrats who back the Bush regime.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

By Carl Davidson 27 Jan 2005

My goodness, my little point about why Obama might have voted for Condi Rice seems to have stirred up a hornet's nest. Why not just ask the man his reasons?

But what disturbs me--maybe I'm just old fashioned--is the pure venom that's spewed by white radicals against Black liberals in these discussions.

One of the things I learned from Lenin in studying the "national question" back in the 1960s during the Black Revolt was that the beginning of wisdom was to make a distinction between oppressor and oppressed nationaties--and that there was a "division of labor" between the radicals of the oppressor ( read white) nation and those of the oppressed (read Black) nation. The white radicals were to aim their main fire at their own "white chauvinists." If they did a good job at this, it made it easier for the Black radicals to take on the opportunists or backward nationalists in their own community in a way that helped multinational unity.

Lenin especially warned that for the radicals of the dominant nationality to make it their business to attack non-radical or opportunist elements in the oppressed community, whatever their class standing, was not only ineffective, but made matters worse, not only for the Black radicals, since coming from the whites, it would be seen by many in the oppressed community as chauvinism with a left veneer, even if well intentioned. Multinational unity would be undercut.

Does this mean that Condi shouldn't be taken on? Of course not. Only that as whites, we have to have some sensitive restraint in how we put things. But more important, the better job we do taking on Bush and his neocon cabal, the more effective it is for folks like the Black Commentator to take on Condi and others like her with tough polemics within the Black community.

And whoever thinks Condi has no sympathy in the Black community better go and talk to some people. I teach computer literacy to CHA residents, all Black working class folks 30-50 years old. I took a straw poll one day. Out of a class of 10, 8 women strongly admiring and supporting Condi, one guy undecided and one guy against--and they were all opposed to the war.

Inconsistent? Yes, but the point, especially for WHITE radicals, is to be sensitive to these things, especially when the dominant order is white supremacy, white monopolies and white exclusiveness. Remember your part in the "division of labor."

That why I cringe whenever I hear WHITE radicals running off at the mouth about Uncle Tom here or Aunt Jemima there, or even worse language, about Black leaders.

It has nothing to do with the Democratic Party (which I would like to replace as much as anyone) but everything to do with right and wrong on "the national question."

It's an old lesson, but sometimes new generations unfortunately have to learn it all over again.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

By marat

From Davidson's last post, it's apparent he didn't bother to actually read what the Black Commentator had to say about Condi Rice.

It figures. Why would he? After all, it's simply much easier to retreat into a discussion of the classics - Lenin on the national question - than actually have to react to what real live Black progressives are saying about Condi's absymal role in the Bush Administration. And much less problematic as well...since their views don't exactly jibe with his paternalistic view of what the Black community actually thinks. So given a choice between BC's insightful commentary and analysis and Carl's pithy observations about opinion in the African American community - formulated from a position of relative privilege - a white instructor polling his students - sorry folks, but I'll take the Black Commentator hands down.

Still, Davidson's point about taking on white chauvinism in the progressive movement is on target. White radicals do have a responsiblity to confront this head on. And one of the first things they need to do is listen to what progressive voices from oppressed communities are actually saying. Would that Davidson take his own advice.

Here's one place to start:
http://www.blackcommentator.com/123/123_cover_rice.html

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by egads 28 Jan 2005

Unbelievable. One shouldn't criticize Obama and his already deplorable senate voting record if one is white -- that's effectively what Carl Davidson is saying. And he backs this up with his 'vox populi' straw poll of students in his class, Blacks who Carl says deeply admire Condi.

Huh. Sorry, but in my own informal straw polls, I've never met a Black person who supports Condi's politics or political allegiences. That's very different than asking people if they 'admire' her for getting ahead in a nation that is racist to the core.

If we extend Carl's logic, poor Clarence Thomas really did get the shaft for being called out on his sexism, even if it was a Black woman who called him out, because, dammit, whites can't criticize that particular Black man's politics either.

I have to say that I don't think I've ever seen such a cynical exploitation by a white man -- Carl Davidson -- of the race card on this newswire. All this so Carl can continue to try to mount some defense of his pal Obama. Carl, let me ask you -- just when is Obama going to take a vote that's not about screwing the rest of us, Black, white, Latino, men, women, children? And while we're at it, how about the call in an earlier comment to take on local republicrats like Daley? Where do you stand on that, buddy? Or is that grooving a little too close to a local gravy train for you?

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by bac ho 28 Jan 2005

Another telling benchmark will be Barak's vote during the full Senate confirmation session on Alberto "Torture Boy" Gonzales as Attorney-General next week.

The leading Latino civil liberties organization MALDEF has openly condemned this nomination, along with the NAACP, the full Black Congressional Caucus, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups. Will Obama stand with these groups -- and his own Latino constituents -- or vote with the Senate Republican majority?

Anybody wanna lay odds?

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

By Carl Davidson
28 Jan 2005

I guess I have to repeat things several times before they get through here. I wonder why.

1. I support those who voted against Condi Rice and the war in her Senate confirmation. I wish the whole damn Senate voted against her, including Obama.

2. I'm for criticizing any and all politicians of whatever nationality, except that when whites take on minority politicians, they have to be sensitive to white exclusiveness and privilege in how they put things, and that their main task is to take on white opportunists or white adversaries. If you think that's paternalism, I plead guilty.

3 I will and have supported any decent canditate against Daley. It seems Jesse Jr is getting a challenge together. Are you guys on board, or is he to much of a sellout liberal for you?

4. I have no illusions about reforming the Democratic party; it has to be replaced with a real progressive electoral alliance, but in a way that weakens rather than strengthens the far right at the same time. I also believe in not voting or 'lesser evil' voting from time to time; I never voted for Clinton, but did vote for Kerry over Bush. If that makes me a shill for the Democrats, then I also plead guilty.

5. I read every issue of the Black Commentator and have posted their stuff to our web site, solidarityeconomy.net in past 'articles of the month.' It's a fine publication with view much in tune with my own. I suggest you read their stuff on Dan Swinney's work and see if you're in tune.

6. There are a good number of DSA types or reform Democrats who do have the politics you are attacking. If you want to do polemics with that line, why not do it with them? If you want to do polemics with me, I've got plenty of documents out there that actually state my real views, why not take them on instead of playing 'gotcha' with straw men? Doing so reveals your weaknesses more than mine to anyone who really bothers to think about it...

7. Finally, I think the politics of the Black community are a lot more complicated than any of us think. I present some counter examples to some of the more outrageous claims that seems to think they're all in tune with the far left. I'm neither in a position, nor have the ability or desire to try to represent the views of the Black community as a whole. I'm just urging radicals to actually talk with a wider variety of people in their actual diversity so our own views aren't based on wishful thinking.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by marat

OK, Carl, what did you think about the BC editorial, now that we've received public assurances that you've actually read it? You might consider forwarding it on to Barak as well.

While we're on the subject of white activists relating supportively to the black liberation movement, let me point out that one of BC's gifted writers is Chicago's own Bruce Dixon - former Black Panther Party member and community housing organizer, with literally decades of experience working in the Chicago electoral arena - including Harold's campaign. It was Dixon - who currently lives in Georgia - who researched the expose that first revealed Obama's ties to the DLC, and forced the candidate to fess up contritely in a public letter to the BC and their readers.

Dixon's BC article was also republished here on Chicago Indymedia, which BC editors gave a nice heads up to -- praise indeed coming from such a great publication.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by clarifying the record

Carl, this debate erupted because you suggested that Obama may not have wanted to go on record as a Black man voting against the appointment of a Black woman, suggesting that to do so might have alienated his base in the Black community.

Specifically, you said: "How would it look to his core base for the only Black man in the Senate to vote against the first Black woman to be Secretary of State? It might be easy for while radicals or even a few white liberals, but politicians, first and foremost, know how to count..."

Well, increasingly, politicians don't need to count. Recall the sweeping strategy of voter suppression in states like Ohio last November, as well as Florida, New Mexico -- and even the south side of Chicago, where lines were much longer and problems in the polling places were much greater than in bastions of white conservative voters in many DuPage County precincts. Barak Obama chose note to vote against the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Black voters, in his first official senate vote.

Republocrats like Daley have used the tactic of voter suppression effectively forever. People tout the 'huge margin' by which Daley won his last election -- but they forget to point out that actual voter turnout was in the tank, and that Daley got fewer actual votes than in any previous election.

Yeah politics are complex in the Black community. They're comlex in every community. It would just be so great if the liberal tendencies in the anti-war movement would actually recall this the next time they ask their base to sit on their hands while they shill for a pro-war candidate like Kerry and then wonder why more of their people didn't turn out to vote for their guy.

One of those 'complexities' comes from both Blacks and whites who supported Obama, and now wonder why he didn't stand up for disenfranchised Black voters in states like Ohio when the electoral college results were certified -- unlike members of the Black Congressional Caucus, who mounted vigorous objections to the Republicrats' voter suppression strategies but were barred by congressional rules from voicing their opposition with a vote...unlike their lone Black compatriot in the Senate.

When will Obama stand up for progressive initiatives? He's had plenty opportunity so far, and has failed on every count. Why do you persist in reaching for rhetorical florishes (grounded in paternalism) to justify Obama's support for Condi, when progressive groups throughout the Black and Latino and white communities in this nation are condemning support for her? Why, Carl? Why?

And re your crack about whether progressives would support Jesse Jr. in a prospective bid for the mayor's seat against Daley -- well, duh, yeah, people would support his bid. I have yet to hear one credible peep about a serious bid from Junior to throw his hat in the race. He'd certainly ratchet up his political stock across a range of constituencies if he'd throw in his hat, but I'd be stunned if he would. There ARE a number of rock-solid progressives who are considering a bid against Daley -- and who would be strong, viable candidates. Will you support them? Would the ABB -- anybody but Bush -- strategy apply to a local race against a Republicrat like Daley, or is that a strategy you reserve only for national races that pit two pro-war candidates against one another?

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson
28 Jan 2005

Clarifying says: 'When will Obama stand up for progressive initiatives? He's had plenty opportunity so far, and has failed on every count. Why do you persist in reaching for rhetorical florishes (grounded in paternalism) to justify Obama's support for Condi, when progressive groups throughout the Black and Latino and white communities in this nation are condemning support for her? Why, Carl? Why?'

First of all, I am not 'justifying' Obama's stand on anything; I speculated about what might have been one of his reasons. To get more reasons, read Lynn Sweet's piece today or call him up and ask him yourself, or go to one of his consituent meetings and ask.

In the end, he may very well end up with both feet in the DLC camp; right now he's playing footsie with them.

The man claims he's making veterans benefits his first main target. How long has the man been in the senate? A month? Let's see a bit more of what happens before you dump him in the garbage can.

By the way, Jan Schkowsky is now campaigning for the Congress to vote against Bush's new war appropriations. Can we now drag her back out of the garbage can?

This is all getting rather tiresome. As I said in the beginning, these are liberals, and they waver and don't agree with us on many things. But if this day and age, we need, along with other forces, some liberal allies, however wavering, if we are ever going to bring this war to an end and defeat the right. Is that so complicated?

Finally, you don't think Jesse Jr is gearing up for a run? We'll see...

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by cripes, Carl
28 Jan 2005

Cripes, Carl, you miss the point completely. If we must play in the electoral sector -- one movement strategy among many -- we have to play hardball, as does the opposition. That means extracting real costs and benefits from elected officials when we offer them our sweat equity and valuable support in campaign mode.

That means holding them to some minimum standards on core political points. If Schakowski supports a military academy at Senn, then the portion of her base that opposes this decision needs to let her know, by their voices and their votes. This is the essence of power politics, and while I am not a fan of Alinsky-style organizing, it has been deployed to great effect by Alinskyite groups like National People's Action, which played a core role in the passage of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) -- the latter which has directed an estimated $117 billion into community reinvestment over the years.

NPA's done this by employing a range of tactics: providing congressional testimony, lobbying elected officials, organizing in local neighborhoods -- and putting their people on the streets to kick the shit out of the assholes that oppose their goals. They are not a direct democracy group, but they are deeply grounded in the strategy of direct action -- and historically they've sure as hell understand how to mobilize against the opposition, whether that means picketing the homes of federal cabinet members or tarring their elected 'friends' when they go soft on their agenda. While ultraleftists may write off their strategies as reformist, this approach has won some powerful legislation...which of course the current administration is eviscerating as quickly as possible.

There is often great utility in working the inside/outside strategy. So, as an insider yourself who moves in highly leveraged insider Democratic Party circles, I'm wondering what sort of steps you and your cohorts have taken to register your acute disapproval to Obama of his pro-Condi vote, and his anti-enfranchisement vote when he supported certifying the electoral college results. How will you hold his feet to the fire?

This is not a rhetorical question. When Black Commentator correspondent Bruce Dixon outed Obama nationally for playing footsie with the Democratic Leadership Council before the election, Obama rushed to publicly distance himself from the scumsucking fuckwads in the DLC. Now you note that he's playing footsie with them once again. Can we not again employ the strategy of public outing -- and public outrage -- to redirect the man's interests?

Smart campaign volunteers are not automatons. But locally, it seems our liberal pals in projects like CAWI have simply forgotten that when you throw down the resources in time and effort, you get to ask for -- and yes, when necessary, demand -- payback for those efforts. And when it's not forthcoming, why, you make the sucker sweat. That's the core of organizing.

But I fear that CAWI's leadership -- but not CAWI's base -- may have forgotten this. I was stunned to see your response to the notice for this Saturday's organzing meeting about staging a local protest this March on the two-year anniversary against the war. (See link here: http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/51730/index.php). Basically you wrote that CAWI feels outnumbered by more militant progressive voices at these meetings, reducing you-all to mere 'observer' status. Jesus, Carl, have you ever heard of fucking organizing? Could CAWI not come up with 20 people from their base who could participate in this discussion, or are you and Marilyn Katz the only people empowered to dictate CAWI's policy. I would LOVE it if more CAWI people would come to these meetings, because I thoroughly dispute your assertion that your base is not on the same page as the 'left'. Far from it. CAWI's base -- if not CAWI's leadership -- has always turned out for anti-war events, including those staged by those uppity radicals who support a connect-the-dots approach to the issues and don't think politicians are sacred cows. I think every one of CAWI's base members should come to this meeting. Maybe they'd like the experience of organizing democratically amongst themselves instead of being handed marching orders by their 'leaders'.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out by C. J. Laity (No verified email address) Current rating: 0
28 Jan 2005 Here's what obama voted for:

http://www.kontraband.com/show.asp?ID=1843

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out
by Carl Davidson
28 Jan 2005

CJ Laity:

All I can say is take a look at CAWI's noiraqwar listserv on yahoogroups.com You'll see plenty of action by our folks getting on the case of Jan, Barack and plenty of others.

We criticize and pressure them as best we can; we just avoid throwing them into the trashcan of history at every wrong turn.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by C. J. Laity Jan 2005

Hey, take a chill pill, Carl, don't know who you are or what you stand for, and wasn't trying to make any kind of statement about you, all I was saying (with a link) was that this is what Obama and all those other toothless, sell-out, back-stabbing, two-faced, spineless, weak, jargon talking, rhetoric flinging, selfish, wheeling and dealing Democrats voted for.

Jan Schakowsky Can Stay in the Trash Can
by Bob Schwartz
28 Jan 2005

I was present when Jan Schakowsky intoned that she was "our peace representative in Washington" but that she backed the naval base at Senn HS. Funny, but that was what Boss Daley and his minions Mary "Admiral" Smith and Arne Duncan wanted, and the object of Dick Durbin's largesse.

Jan (and Obomb'em for that matter) continue to back the Israeli terror regime. But Carl's camp has never had much of a problem with that.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Anne 28 Jan 2005

In the final analysis, Chicago voters will measure Barak by his voting record, and not the image the DNC spinmeisters want to manufacture. And right now, that voting record looks pretty dismal.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by up the ante against the dems (
29 Jan 2005

we gotta play hard ball with the dems and make them realize that their are consequences for betraying the left.sure we can play the electoral game a bit, but if they do something we don't agree, they have to feel pain and political pressure for it. They are not our allies.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson
30 Jan 2005

So the far left is going to play "hard ball" with the Dems? How, pray tell? Not that someone can't, but how can you folks do it?

You've never voted for them, at least openly, or publically urged anyone else to vote for them. In fact a good bunch of you are against bourgeois elections altogether. So there's no threat there.

You say there's no difference between them and the Republicans, and it doesn't matter if they lose to Republicans? No threat there either. At best, you tell people who mostly don't vote anyway not to vote, which hardly has them quaking in their boots.

You can disrupt their public meetings, I suppose, or demonstrate outside their offices, but since you don't consider yourself their constiutents, it doesn't much matter to them. In fact, it might build more sympathy for them among the liberals or the center who are among their constituents. Not much threat there.

You are not building any independent electoral organization that might challenge them or, heaven forbid, even the GOP right, and usually oppose the efforts of those who do as revisionist or Stalinist sellouts, so you're no threat there either.

So where's the "hardball?" More street actions denouncing all politicians surrounded by ninja turtles and occaisionally breaking through and disrupting traffic, over and over, until we have the mythical general strike? (But let's make sure there are no left 'authoritarian' or 'vanguardist' political parties to lead it)? I suppose there's some threat to public order and the Bush regime here--which is not a bad thing and worth supporting--but not much that will specifically hurt the Dems. In fact, many of them will backhandly support it and some even openly.

Campaign for a Green or Socialist party that aims its main 'class line' fire against the Dems and capitalism? You might get 1% to 5% of the vote, most of which wouldn't have voted Democratic anyway. Not insignificant if you can pull it off, but still not much of a threat. Even if you do get ballot status, not much of a threat here either unless you can reform the electoral system first, which is probably too reformist for you to work on with the rest of us sellouts. So there's another fizzle.

Your biggest threat, such as it is, is backhandedly helping to elect more Republicans, but the DLC is already doing that to the Dems all by themselves. Your help won't add that much, but it will certainly isolate you even more from the progressives who do vote Democratic or the few progressives who run and get elected as Dems. So you can both be furious with each other out on the margins while the GOP and the Christian right rule the roost.

Sorry folks, but your far left "hardball" amounts to little more than nasty rhetoric on indymedia, nasty leaflets and little newspaper articles that are usually barely readable, and nasty remarks in speeches to people who mostly already agree with you.

Even when the Dems you hate so much are speaking on the same platform with you, like Joe Moore or Jan Schkowsky, do you think your rhetoric hurts them much? Do you really think that you're conferring legitimacy of them before the masses? If you do, you're more deluded that even I imagined. If anything, they give legitimacy to you. So not much of a threat here, either...

We can develop a serious hardball strategy, and I'll willing to work with anyone who's serious, but not this way. Been there and done that, and it goes nowhere....

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by still curious
30 Jan 2005

Look Carl you can get indignant if you'd like, but if you think your strategy is winning I think you are the one who is deluded. You have yet to explain how your strategy is effective. While you lament about the lack of influence the left has because we don't vote democrat in the first place--what influence do you and people like you have. For all of your influence the Dems ran the most conservative Democrat they could have--opposed to gay marriage, for the war, against immigration, et al. Moreover, the liberals you keep referring to as our allies don't even attempt to offer our side a bone. In fact most of the time in the last election period the left was told to shutup about gay marriage, the war and any other thing that could have held Kerry accountable. Those of us who supported Nader as aan alternative to the prowar antics of the Dems were denounced summarily by liberals like you and others on the left.

You condemn the left as being hopelessly utopian for arguing against the Anybody But Bush strategy and yet it seems that your strategy of "pressuring" the Democrats into being progressive is the most utopian of all. Can you describe to us a period in the history of this country where the left has been able to cajol the Democrats--or even in your logic the "good" Democrats--into doing the right thing? Moreover you are proposing that the Dems will shift in a period in which there is no social movement to put pressure on them to "do the right thing." That is utopian at best naive and silly at its worst.

Instead of making a caricature out the left--from my knowledge only tiny sects call for general strikes out of nowhere and revolution out of nowhere--you should take what other sections of the left are saying seriously. Namely that leftwing and progressive forces will never break out in an influential way in this society until we are truly independent of the Democratic Party. We cannot continue to afford to put the movement on hold every four years so we can elect a Dem who is not as bad as the sitting Republican or GOP running. The past year was a shame. When we had all the moment of 10 million people around the world protesting Bush's bloody war it was all put on the back burner because of ABB. You argued the movement was being made stronger because so many people were being activated on a local level because of voter registration. You argued that these people were going to be right back on the streets on Nov. 3rd. Once again Carl you and your strategy were wrong. In fact, people were deeply demoralized by hte election. Not just because Bush won, but because people like you spent months telling the rest of us that a Bush victory was tantamount to fascism becoming the rule of law. This was supposed to be the most crucial election of our lifetime--and still more than 60 million people didn't vote. That is demoralizing to people. As demoralizing as telling Blacks to vote for Kerry when he refused to mention any issues critical to Blacks; telling gays to vote for Kerry when he refused to come out and support gay marriage, etc...So far from millions of people hitting the streets on Nov. 3rd. Two attitudes prevail because of the collapsing liberals in this country. One, we have to wait and see. You have already expressed this--Obama has only been in office for a month. REally Carl, what bold positions do you expect Obama to take anytime soon and what are you basing htat hope on. And so people are now expected to give these folks the benefit of the doubt and wait. The second is the idea we can't do much until the next election or at lest spend the next few years trying to get a Dem in. And so the vicious cycle continues of thinking the elections are the main thing that matters. That is clearly what you think as you degrade and minimize the attempts of activists to organize protest and look for some other political vehicle than the hopeless Democratic Party.

Carl, it is you who are the utopian.



Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out
by Wrong again, Carl
30 Jan 2005

Carl, it is a mistake to paint with a broad brushstroke every person who is horrified by Obama's vote for Condi. You suggest that people comnplaining about that vote on this thread are mouthpieces for the usual suspects who opt out of electoral politics anyway.

Wrong. Many of the posters to this thread have done and continue to do electoral work, as one tactic among many. And millions of voters, actual and prospective -- peace protesters, 'minorities', advocates of women's control over their bodies, et al -- are turned off more and more each day by an 'opposition' party that increasingly stands for nothing except their own security as corporate-sponsored elected hacks.

40% of the eligible electorate did not show up at the polls on November 2. At least thousands of those 'non-voters' tried to vote, but were denied that right in states like Ohio. That's OK with your boy Obama. Surely millions among those non-voters didn't show up because they fail to see the choice between a pretty-pro-war candidate and a very-pro-war candidate, both of whom are deeply dependant on the corporate power that bankrolls both their election funds.

The root problem here is that you have little confidence -- and apparently great contempt -- for the growing number of Americans who are revolted as much by the Dems' craven lack of spine as the Republicans' craven agenda. Bush won by a margin of roughly 2 million votes -- the extremist Christian rightwing voters who did NOT turn out four years ago. What platform, what program did the Democratic Party and its lead candidates present to bring out similarly estranged Democratic Party-leaning voters? And when those voters did turn out to vote and were turned back, the Dems totally failed to support them in the Senate by refusing to certify bogus results in states like Ohio and New Mexico.

Projects that you support like CAWI have been arguing for some years now that the anti-war movement is too militant, and that the message and the strategies need to be sanitized and dumbed down to appeal to a greater 'mainstream, middle-of-the-road mass.' BUT YOUR OWN BASE came to a city-wide open planning meeting this weekend and voted democratically in huge numbers not to cave into the City's attempts to ghettoize the upcoming March 19 protest to the second anniversary of the war to some empty sidestreet.

You're out of touch with your own base. How can you possibly presume to have the political wisdom to speak for the rest of us -- and please note that the 'rest of us' are not a handful of anti-electoral 'militants', but a growing number of your own base who are as disgusted by Obama as the militants. Read the Black newspapers and the Black commentators, for crying out loud. They're not giving Barak Obama a pass on his deplorable vote for Condi. Why the fuck should the rest of us?

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by
30 Jan 2005
Oh, and Carl, your assumption that everyone posting against your opinions here is necessarily white is wrong. Just FYI.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by marat 30 Jan 2005

Davidson writes " Sorry folks, but your far left "hardball" amounts to little more than nasty rhetoric on indymedia, nasty leaflets and little newspaper articles that are usually barely readable, and nasty remarks in speeches to people who mostly already agree with you".

LOL.

Carl, you might take a look at what well known and widely respected Chicago black activist Bob Starks had to say about Obama's vote on Condi in the latest edition of InDigo. ( not quite a 'little newspaper article that is barely readable' but one of the most popular mainstream journals read in the Black community. )

Very interesting commentary from someone who has done considerable local electoral organizing in this town...most notably around the Harold Washington campaign. You might learn something here.


Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson
30 Jan 2005

Goodness, from what this "Davidson" guy sounds like, I'm against him too!

He's supposedly for pressuring, shifting and refoming the Democrats, looking to them every four years as our saviours, and so on.

Well, I'm also against all those delusions!

I'm for replacing the Democratic party, but in a way that strengthens the progressive forces rather than strengthening the GOP and the right. Do you hear that? REPLACING not "reforming, etc."

So how do you replace it? You have to build independent organizations from the grass roots upwards and network them nationally and internationally. Who do you do it with? Progressive grassoots forces inside and outside of the parties, united around core values and an independent program, not only stating what you are against, but stating how you would run things so they serve the masses of people, rather than low-road parasites.

What are the necessities? Changing the electoral laws, state by state, to allow for instant runoff, fusion, proportion representation, etc. Until you can do that you still are stuck, on a case by case basis, with lesser evilism, to defeat the worst with the less worse from time to time.

You also have to encourage progressives in the Democratic party to sharpen differences and build their own organizations in anticipation of when the party implodes. That means you might help some of their candidates from time to time as an ally with that candidate or grouping, but not the entire party. That way you have something for your independent organization to merge with, at the appropriate moments, to create a larger force to defeat the main danger on the right.

It's called buiding a counter-hegemonic bloc by waging both a war of position and war of manuver with the most dangerous of you enemies, and defeating them in a way that strengthens the self-rule capacities of the progressive and moderate popular forces at the grassroots, the working class and its allies especially.

If all you can do is throw around slogans and dogmatic rules--"never vote for a Democrat"--you might find all this a little to rough going for your mode of thinking. But if you can emancipate your mind from dogmas a bit, its's not so hard to figure out.

Indepdendent of the Democrats? I've got news for you. The radical left already independent of the Democrats; it already has no real connections or influence with them. So that should put you in great shape to forge ahead with your plans! What's more, the radical left is practically independent of the entire electoral process altogether. Except for a few scattered Greens, it doesn't have any elected officials anywhere.

And you're worried about being co-opted by Democrats? You should be so lucky as to be suffering from that danger. Right now, there's nothing in the way of ongoing electoral organization or voting blocs you have that's worth co-opting.

By the way, Obama is not "my boy", as one of you put it above, and I hope we're aware why we shouldn't refer to Black leaders of any sort as the "boys" of anyone. That's what I meant a few posts back about needing to be sensitive about how you put things when criticizing positions taken by Blacks or other minorities, and here's a fresh example of what I was talking about.

I voted for Obama because he spoke out against the war and to end the lily-white monopoly in the Senate. I'd do it again, even though he's a liberal-to-center politician, rather than a left progressive like, say, Kucinich. Hopefully, he'll stick with us on the war on the key votes, and we'll do what we can to make it happen. CAWI's folks in Hyde Park already took out an open letter ad to him in the local press on the issue, and others have contacted him in other ways.

But if you're someone who thinks the main danger is liberalism and the Dems, rather than the Bush regime, the neocons, the corporate low-roaders and the right, then we're not on the same page. Except for tactical moments around this or that action, we don't have much common ground, and probably should not waste each others time until we can get on the same page.

Also, I'm not hot on the gay marriage issue, even though I'll give it critical support, because my belief is that everyone, gay or straight, should equally get the same CIVIL UNIONS and benefits at City Hall. If any couple wants the sacrament of marriage, they should go to a church that offers it to them. The government should not be in the marriage business for anyone, gays or straights. That's a real secular left position, but unfortunately, no one is fighting for it, having been co-opted by the more reformist gay marriage option.

There are a number of good starting points for building the grassroots nonpartisan alliance agaist the right--the Walmart campaign, ending the war in Iraq, school reform, economic development projects to grow jobs, and so on. As I said, serious people are working on them, and anyone else who's serous is welcome to get involved. But leave the left posturing behind...

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by gay
30 Jan 2005

Wow Carl, gays and lesbians of Chicago will be glad to hear that you're not "hot" on gay marriage. Stop the fucking presses, CArl Davidson's not hot on gay marriage. For one its not up to straights like yourself to define the agenda or political tactics of GLBT people. Gays have made equal marriage the centerpiece of our struggle in the coming months and year. Civil unions were a radical position a few years ago, now we are not interested. We want full marriage rights. Should the government be involved in teh marriage business--no,but they are and if you are GLBT you have to deal with reality and not with what should be. The fight for GLBT rights is centered around equal marriage and that's where people who genuinely support equal rights for gays ;should be lined up as well.

Davidson your response is troubling to say the least. But it does provide a little more clarity into your support for Kerry and the Democrats.

You are truly a pathetic excuse for a progressive.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

By db
31 Jan 2005
To Carl:

I got a question, since we're REPLACING the Dems with something completely different than the Dems, do we still have to call them Dems? Can't we replace those fuckers with socialists or something new? I mean, if they're so fucked up that we have to replace them, who the fuck needs them?

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson
31 Jan 2005

Reply to 'Gay':

Since you agree with me that government shouldn't be in the marriage business, but as long as they are, we have to go the equal gay marriage route, we're actually on the same page, depite your hyperbole. I just wish we had made getting the government out of the marriage business, and strictly in the civil union business, part of the battle, which it's not.

Reply to DB:

You can call them, the Dems, whatever you want, but for clarity's sake, both they and ordinary people call them the Democratic Party. What I want to replace them with is an electoral alliance that includes, at the core of its program, Economy Democracy, the variant on market socialism outlined in David Schweikart's book, 'After Capitalism,' a review of which I posted here a few months back and you can also look up at www.solidarityeconomy.net It's a long term project with a number of intermediate steps, but now is a good time to start.



Read more!

The Road Ahead: NonPartisan Alliance vs Right

THE ROAD AHEAD AFTER 2004:
BUILDING A BROAD NONPARTISAN ALLIANCE
AGAINST BUSH AND THE FAR RIGHT

By Carl Davidson & Marilyn Katz

We have been through a hell of a battle with the Bush regime in 2004. Each and every one of us engaged in this unprecedented electoral insurgency did all that we could to defeat him. But, by hook and by crook, George Bush narrowly pulled through. We didn’t win it, but losing by slightly less than three points is still no mandate for the Bush agenda, however they try to spin it.

We have nothing to be ashamed about. We gave Bush and the hard right a good fight, discovered some of our weaknesses, but also gained important strengths for the struggles of the future.

This is not to say that the Kerry Campaign, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) shouldn’t be called to account. Relying on a formula that has lost elections over and over again for the last quarter century (It is now 0 for 8! They didn’t even really win Clinton’s race; he won the first time out because Ross Perot was in the race.), the Candidate and the Party lacked compelling vision, discernable message and significant organization. The Republicans, on the other hand, skillfully combined an organizational apparatus built on fundamentalist churches with a message that brought out their core voters in larger numbers than expected.

Green activist Medea Benjamin put it well in an interview in the current issue of Progressive Magazine:

‘Kerry lost because he never provided a clear message or an inspiring vision about the direction this country should take. And we have to admit that Bush’s fear mongering and gay-bashing worked. Bush kept on message, while Kerry didn’t. On Iraq, Kerry had a terribly mixed message. It was very confusing to people to understand where he stood on that issue.’

Or as we have often said: It’s hard to be a pole of attraction if you don’t stand for something. Over the next months there is sure to be great debate within the, DNC and DLC about ‘notes for the next time’, but there is an equally important discussion for those of us who came to the elections from a peace and justice perspective – a discussion of plans for our future.

From Protest to Politics – A Look at What Has Been Gained

Very early on, when Chicagoans Against War and Injustice (CAWI) first started our electoral work, we knew the country was sharply and narrowly divided. We told our people, ‘Look, we may or may not win this election. Obviously we believe that unseating Bush is critical for the well-being of the world, but winning that prize is not the only important thing. If we do it right, whatever the outcome, we will gain new skills, new strengths and new organization.’ And it appears we were correct.

The 2004 election, from a national perspective, was remarkable for the new and creative forms of self organization that emerged throughout the country. While some of the unprecedented organization was directed by old elites, and while most was poorly utilized by the Kerry Campaign, there was an extraordinary flowering of mass participation and organizing, much of it generated independently, with few resources but great imagination. For example:

The ‘Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.’

This was the rallying crying of the Howard Dean campaign, which energized a large number of new campaign workers motivated mainly by opposition to the war in Iraq and the need for national health care. Based mainly among young people and the service worker unions, the ‘Deaniacs’ served as an opposing pole to the center-to-right DLC within the Democratic Party. After losing the primary and then backing Kerry, Dean is now working to regroup these forces into a new formation, Democracy for America. Added to the fact that a majority of the delegates to the Democratic Convention were antiwar, this sets up an explosive conflict within the Democratic Party which, if properly developed, could provide an important ally to the overall peace movement.

Kucinich and the Progressive Caucus.

Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Barbara Lee (D-CA), Co-Chairs of the 54-member Progressive Caucus in Congress, played a critical role in getting 125 votes against the 2002 $87 Billion appropriation for the war in Iraq. As a presidential candidate, Kucinich continued campaigning, long after it was clear he would not win, mainly to build the mass base of the caucus and continue the opposition to the war within the party. Immediately after the Democratic Convention, Kucinich teamed up with a number of Dean Campaign activists and other left progressives to support the formation of a new organization, Progressive Democrats of America. This organization already has key connections with activists from the Green Party and other political independents outside the Democratic Party.

Leading independent Democrats like Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Ann Richards of Texas and many more, who committed to anti-war and anti-racist, pro-democracy principles and actions, continued to argue within the party for a more progressive, grass-roots based approach. Employing this outlook is what gave Schakowsky vote tallies in the 70s instead of the 40s. Their political wing within the party, while ignored by the DLC, continues to show it knows how Democrats can win.

Moveon.org, ‘Meetups’ and the Internet.

Organized by a small core of internet-savvy progressive Democrats, Moveon.org gathered millions of activists to its email lists. It brought in nearly $50 million in small donations to its PAC, which it distributed to Democratic candidates independently of the national leadership of the party. Through its decentralized network of local Moveon.org ‘meetups,’ it helped mobilize mass actions against the war and brought in an estimated 400,000 new voters. The meetups are a new decentralized form, facilitated by a central web site that enabled local supporters of every candidate to find each other in local areas, and poll each other to determine the time and place of local face-to-face meetings. Every candidate and every issue had one, promoting a vast increase in grassroots participation.

Mass Actions in an Electoral Context.

Early in 2004, over one million protestors, mainly women, turned out for the DC ‘March for Women’s Lives’ aimed at the Bush Agenda. In August 2004, over 500,000 turned out for the United for Peace and Justice ‘The World Still Says No to War’ march, also aimed at the Bush Agenda, at the GOP Convention in New York City. While not officially endorsing Kerry, these were powerful events that fueled the grassroots electoral insurgencies.

America Coming Together (ACT) and other ‘527’ Groups.

Set up to conform with the new campaign finance laws, these groups gave a way for traditional electoral players--trade unions, corporate elites and wealthy individuals—to channel large sums of money into campaign activity separately from regular party channels. ACT, for example, received millions from George Soros, SEIU and the Teamsters. Working in tandem with the League of Conservation Voters and others, ACT was able to finance large volunteer organizations in the ‘battleground states,’ including fielding 40,000 ACT workers on Election Day itself. While the right wing squawked about liberal 527 money, in the end the conservative 527 groups still managed to get more in total dollars than those aligned with liberal causes. In a backhanded way, the 527s also revealed a weakness in the Democratic leadership. As Benjamin explained:

‘The Democrats have really lost touch with their base. In this campaign, the ones who were out there going door to door for Kerry were the 527 groups….While these organizations galvanized thousands of activists, I witnessed a lot of duplicated efforts and wasted money by bringing in a lot of volunteers from out of state. Whereas when you look at the Republicans, they were more organized, united under a `central command’ in the party, and rooted in community through church networks. The Republicans emphasized local volunteers.’

Cities for Peace and against the Patriot Act.

In a new development, more than 190 city councils, including large urban centers and many small ‘blue dots’ in seas of ‘red states,’ passed resolutions against the pending war in Iraq before it started. Later, a similar number took a stand to change the worst anti-civil liberties features of the Patriot Act. This helped establish a network of local elected officials that found ways to work together with those organizing voter registration drives and mass actions in the streets.

And that’s just the national list. In cities throughout the nation, creative groups emerged, such as New York’s Sunday In the Park Without George, or Runners Against Bush or the Swing (state) Sisters in Chicago. These involved thousands of people, many for the first time, in political action where they work, study, live and play.

How did this play out for progressives on our local level?

In Chicago, as we went into this campaign, we were initially a largely spontaneous movement that had popped up all over the place. While focused on the invasion of Iraq, we were made up of all kinds of people--people who were upset about the war, people who were upset about the Patriot Act and its threat to civil liberties, people angered by the rise in chauvinism towards immigrants, and a range of other issues. We represented a wide span of political views--leftists, progressives, liberals, even a few moderate Republicans. Some of these people formed citywide groups, while others formed groups in neighborhoods. Our citywide group, CAWI, especially encouraged the formation of these neighborhood-based groups—in the city, in the suburbs and in the surrounding counties. Along with promoting mass action in the streets, we also utilized these groups to succeed in our city council resolution work. Thus the ‘grassroots base community’ was an important concept, and it was the way we tried to grow.

That’s where we stood when we started our ‘Regime Change Begins at Home’ voter registration campaign. We began by recruiting people to become deputy registrars. Each time CAWI activists, together with the city and county officials working with us, had a session of 50 or so people to train, we would ask how many people in the room had worked in an election. Maybe two or three hands would go up. The vast majority had never worked in an election before. They had never registered voters before; they had never gone into a precinct and worked it, but they were clearly fired up and militantly enthusiastic to do so now.

So where are we at now?

In the end, CAWI alone deputized and trained nearly 1000 registrars in Chicago and the suburbs; and, working with some close allies, brought in nearly 20,000 new voters. Hundreds of CAWI members and affiliates traveled and made phone banking calls to other states – gaining valuable skills and experience. Additionally, we were able to form strong alliances with other youth, Black and Latino activists—all new relationships that could be built on in the future.

All of these people now know how to go door to door on the issues; they know how to work their precincts and identify inclinations of the voters. They have thousands of new people on their mailing lists. They also know how to get out their voters and protect their votes, and know how to build alliances with new people and other groups. They found that they couldn’t mount a credible campaign alone; they had to go out and find other people and groups in their neighborhoods they hadn’t known before and make alliances with them, not only for this election, but for other struggles as well.

So look back at where we started from and where we are now. It is a very different world, in terms of how well organized we are and the experience that we have gained. We have moved some distance from all these small anti-war circles that we initially started with, to the kinds of experience, connections, alliances and the consciousness of the battle that we have now.

The level of political consciousness is also an important factor even if it’s harder to measure. One sign, for instance, following the election, is the discussion and activity on the internet and in other media, among hundreds of thousands of people outraged about how the election was stolen, or manipulated, or whatever.

There is a lot truth to it. Some of us older, more hardened hands, when we heard people say, ‘The Republicans did this! The Republicans did that!’ we often replied, ‘Yes, well, so what else is new?’ But for a lot of people, for whom this was the very first election they worked in, they were shocked by the shenanigans of business-as-usual elections.

CAWI sent hundreds of people out to Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, and Iowa. It was a radicalizing experience for them because they came up against Republican goons who were out there doing this ‘depress the vote’ stuff. They met up with the GOP intimidation of young, poor and minority voters first hand, and to counter it and protect the vote, they quickly had to learn the tactics of counter-intimidation. It was quite a learning experience.

So we are now in a very interesting political space.

These changes in consciousness and organization are the fruits of the struggle. Even though we narrowly lost removing Bush from the Presidency, we still have all these fruits.


Bringing in the Harvest

What is the most important thing about fruits? We have to harvest them. If we don’t harvest them, if we just leave them in the fields or on the ground, shame on us! If we don’t consolidate these gains, all of our ultraleft critics who opposed the election as a big diversion will be largely correct. If we allow all these gains to slip through our fingers, we will have been little more than a tail on the Democratic Party.

We have to find new ways to consolidate these gains into new and stronger forms of organization.

We have a good start in Chicago, because we were community-based to begin with and the work we did during the elections just strengthened that base. We used the opportunity of the elections to enhance peoples’ organizing skills – and there’s nothing like door-to-door leafleting or doing voter registration on the issues to sharpen those skills. Our deputy registrar trainings, development of voter lists, even our coalition work added to mailing and phone lists, which in turn were used to recruit people to participate in everything from antiwar rallies and voter registration to trips to neighboring states. And in fact CAWI’s consistent identification with both the issues and the elections meant that at our first post-election meeting, we had nearly 40 new people in our core group. We are clearly a pole of attraction in our area.

But if we are going to consolidate our gains and move forward, we also have to be bolder and more visionary about our prospects for the future. We especially have to be creative in fashioning new instruments and programs for social change. In Chicago – and we hope elsewhere, we think it is time to build on what we have done and create a new organization – one that is:

1) Rooted in the anti-war politics that spurred the creation of CAWI (and other entities) and will continue to give it energy, but over time manages to develop a more holistic vision;
2) Committed to grass-roots organizing on issues, particularly the war, but with a willingness to work both within and outside the electoral arena, recognizing that there is strength in ‘walking on both feet’.
3) Value-based and nonpartisan by design, with a willingness to work with progressive issues and candidates within and outside of the Democratic Party, the Greens and others.
4) Local in origins but aggressively works to create a national federation of groups with similar interests and strategies.
5) A poll of attraction and center for people whatever their level of activity. Activists may be at its core, but our experience tells us that it is important to create spaces where people can participate at their own level.

This is the context of both our electoral work and our prospects for mass direct action. How, then, do we build the new forms of organization appropriate to the tasks at hand? Here’s how we would elaborate on the key points:

We need to be value-centered.

Our starting point is the idea of expanding the core values of peace, justice and democracy in the political, economic and social spheres. We are not candidate-centered, single-issue centered or party-centered. Our commitment is to finding the ways to translate our core values into effective programs, sustainable policies and life-enhancing changes here and around the world. We are not anti-capitalist, anti-socialist or even necessarily anti-corporate. We understand that meaningful and gainful employment, the anchor of a decent livelihood, requires the high-road expansion of high-value, high-skill productive industry and wealth creation, even as we oppose the race-to-the-bottom rapaciousness of low-road corporate raiders and polluters. We thus seek allies in all classes in society.

We need grassroots participation.

Our organizations must be community-centered. They must be neighborhood based, workplace based, faith based and school based. We need thousands upon thousands of local activists and supporters. They must be independent with their own finances, donors and resources. It is not sufficient simply to make ‘coalitions of letterhead advisory boards’ that represent millions of people on paper but can’t get more than a hundred or so folks in the streets or a handful of volunteers at events. This requires a practice of mass action in the streets as well as electoral activity. It also requires a commitment to diversity, tolerance, non-sectarianism, and a democratic style of working with people who agree on some issues but disagree on others.

We need to be nonpartisan and seek broad alliances.

Just ending the war in Iraq will require a tremendous mobilization of progressive forces, winning over of moderate forces and isolating Bush and his Neocon hegemonists. It will also require the defeat of pro-war forces in both major parties. Likewise, electoral reform is going to require the participation of Greens, Libertarians, Progressive Democrats, Civil Libertarian Republicans, the fledgling Labor Party and other minor parties and political independents.

Nonpartisan alliances are not new to American politics. In the early part of the 1900s through the 1920s, the Nonpartisan Leagues were formed throughout the Midwest, from Wisconsin to the Rockies. They rallied the rural population against the Robber Barons and railroad owners by running their own candidates, as well as running slates of NPL candidates in both Democratic and Republican primaries. They managed to take over several state legislatures and win important reforms as a result.

Today, the GOP rightists are pursuing their own broad ‘encirclement’ alliance of uniting the rural areas, winning over the suburbs, and dividing the urban centers by appealing to a new version of ‘white male identity politics.’ We need to oppose it with a counter-hegemonic, broad alliance of our own that exists as a new organization. We can call it the Progressive Nonpartisan Alliance of Illinois, Progressive Illinois, the Network of Peace and Justice Voters of Illinois, or whatever. The concept is what is important, but serious workers and serious funding must be found to start growing it now. Finally, by starting it here, we will be in the best position to use it as an example or ally of similar efforts across the country. In this way, we can prepare for 2006, where we can selectively work to defeat pro-war candidates and elect antiwar candidates.

We need to keep our ability to focus.

We can connect and relate to a wide range of issues, but we need to keep our focus on the critical issues that brought us into being in the first place. This is primarily ending the war in Iraq, opposing wider war elsewhere, and opposing the impact of war, especially its racist and chauvinist threats to democratic rights, on the home front. We are most effective as a broad front against Bush and the policies of his War Party, rather than as an anti-imperialist bloc that equally takes up every conflict or issue against all Republicans and Democrats.

David Frum, one of Bush’s top speechwriters, has an interesting piece in the Nov 9 Wall Street Journal in this regard. He fretted about ‘ferocious partisan dissension’ hurting the war effort; but if we are wise tactically, we are in a good position to expand this dissension, and likewise oppose all the ‘bipartisan reaching out’ and ‘healing the wounds’ rhetoric coming from the DLC types. Frum’s also upset about Bush’s opponents possibly taking advantage of the ‘inevitable mistakes’ in war; but we are also in a good position to do just that. Finally, he worried about ‘partisan wrangling’ when much of the Patriot Act come up next year; but we have the ability to encourage ‘partisan wrangling’ over the Patriot Act and work to change and repeal at least some of its worse features.


The Shape of Future Battles

What would this organization – locally, and together with others, nationally, do? It would address the issues at hand – from the particulars of the War in Iraq and other new follies of Empire, to the consolidation of power of the far right, and even to changing the electoral system itself.
Bush and the far right believe they have a mandate. They believe it even though the GOP margin of victory was slim and their support is disproportionately based on an unstable insecurity among white male voters. They are not likely to stop with Iraq. They have their eyes on Iran and a lot of other places. They have this incredible delusion that they are going to bring democracy throughout the Islamic world by using the Special Forces and the 82nd Airborne as instruments of social change.

In the real world, American GIs are finding themselves fighting urban guerilla war against people who claim to ‘love death more than life’ when it comes to fighting ‘the infidel’. This is not going to be a cake walk. This is not going to be Grenada. Bush and his Neocons are not going to get their victory on the cheap. This is going to be a horrible, drawn-out and unjust struggle. The longer it goes on, the worse it will get. What is more, the hard right will be pushing its ‘culture war’ on the home front, trying to repeal the 1960s, taking aim at civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights and many other progressive programs.

On the Fight against War and Occupation

In regard to the war, Tom Hayden recently summed up our tasks as well as anyone. In a piece published on Alternet.org, ‘How to End the War in Iraq,’ he prescribes a focused ‘Plan of Action’ for us. Here is a shortened version:

‘One, the first step is to build pressure at congressional district levels to oppose any further funding or additional troops for war. If members of Congress balk at cutting off all assistance and want to propose ‘conditions’ for further aid, it is a small step toward threatening funding. If only 75 members of Congress go on record against any further funding, that’s a step in the right direction - towards the exit.

‘Two, we need to build a Progressive Democratic movement which will pressure the Democrats to become an anti-war opposition party. The anti-war movement has done enough for the Democratic Party this year. It is time for the Democratic leadership to end its collaboration with the Bush administration - with its endorsement of the offensive on Fallujah, the talk of ‘victory’ and ‘killing the terrorists’ - and now play the role of the opposition. The progressive activists of the party should refuse to contribute any more resources - volunteers, money, etc. - to candidates or incumbents who act as collaborators.

‘Three, we need to build alliances with Republican anti-war conservatives. Non-partisan anti-war groups (such as Win Without War) should reach out to conservatives who, according to the New York Times, are ‘ready to rumble’ against Iraq. Pillars of the American right, including Paul Weyrich, Pat Buchanan and William F. Buckley, are seriously questioning the quagmire created by the neoconservatives.

‘Four, we must build solidarity with dissenting combat veterans, reservists, their families and those who suffered in 9/11. Just as wars cannot be fought without taxpayer funding, wars cannot be fought without soldiers willing to die, even for a mistake….Groups like Iraqi Veterans Against the War deserve all the support the rest of the peace movement can give. This approach opens the door to much-needed organizing in both the so-called ‘red’ states and inner cities, which give disproportionate levels of the lives lost in Iraq.

‘Five, we need to defeat the U.S. strategy of ‘Iraqization.’ ‘Clearly, it’s better for us if they’re in the front-line,’ Paul Wolfowitz explained last February. This cynical strategy is based on putting an Iraqi ‘face’ on the U.S. occupation in order to reduce the number of American casualties, neutralize opposition in other Arab countries, and slowly legitimize the puppet regime. In truth, it means changing the color of the body count…There is no sign, aside from Pentagon spin, that an Iraqi force can replace the American occupation in the foreseeable future. Pressure for funding cuts and for an early American troop withdrawal will expose the emptiness of the promise of ‘Iraqization.’

‘Six, we should work to dismantle the U.S. war ‘Coalition’ by building a ‘Peace Coalition’ by means of the global anti-war movement. Groups with international links (such as Global Exchange or other solidarity groups) could organize conferences and exchanges aimed at uniting public opinion against any regimes with troops supporting the U.S. in Iraq. Every time an American official shows up in Europe demanding support, there should be speakers from the American anti-war movement offering a rebuttal to the official line.

‘In short: pinch the funding arteries, push the Democrats to become an opposition party, ally with anti-war Republicans, support dissenting soldiers, make ‘Iraqization’ more difficult, and build a peace coalition against the war coalition. If the politicians are too frightened or ideologically incapable of implementing an exit strategy, the only alternative is for the people to pull the plug.’

On the Prospect of Right Wing Consolidation
and an Ever-More-Repressive State at Home

Many are nervous about the prospects of a fascist state emerging in the U.S. The remarks made by former AFL-CIO Education Director and current CEO of TransAfrica, Bill Fletcher, at a recent antiwar conference in Connecticut, are probably a better estimate of reality:

‘What we do not see, at least at this moment, is a mass movement that is attempting to end the party-system and end bourgeois democratic capitalism. What we do see, is a highly repressive State that is overseeing massive wealth redistribution from those at the bottom to those at the top, reducing civil liberties, tolerating limited terms of resistance and which is supported by a well-funded and highly organized, reactionary, theocratic movement. This reactionary, theocratic movement is grounded in a form of right-wing populism and as such could probably evolve into fascism, but at this juncture there is no indication that the capitalist class is in the midst of a political crisis that they believe that they cannot resolve through existing means and mechanisms.

‘This should NOT make us feel warm and fuzzy....What is particularly dangerous is that this authoritarian-theocratic state is seizing upon the broad insecurities of the population, but particularly the white section of the population. We must keep this in mind since the November elections were not only a victory for political reaction in general, but also for racial politics.

‘The insecurity much of white America feels is, in my opinion, not simply or solely about terrorism. Terrorism, in some respects, has become the focal point for the societal anxieties felt by white America as their world collapses--the collapse of the American Dream, the collapse of the notion that the lives of our children will improve over our own, the collapse of the bubble of ignorance that has surrounded us and within which we all too often found comfort.

‘And while we forge an alternative vision and entity that hopes to address positively the insecurity from a progressive point of view, it is clear that all organizations that emerge, must battle to preserve civil rights, public space, women’s rights, gay rights and fight against the tide of racism, sexism, homophobia and jingoism that is inherent in the Bush agenda and critical to the Rove strategy.’

On Reforming the Electoral System Itself.

Here is the basic starting point of the American political battleground that we have to deal with: Until now, we have been stuck with the two-party system. There is nothing in the Constitution that says we have to be limited to a two party system. It is not chiseled in legal stone that we must have a two party system, but we nonetheless have it for a reason. It didn’t used to be this way; we used to have the Populist Party, the mass Socialist Party of Eugene Debs and lots of other popular tools for change. During hard times, people made use of a variety of tactics like fusion and nonpartisan voting to build insurgent parties and candidacies and win a substantial number of elections. But the ruling class of this country was threatened by these expansions of democracy. That’s precisely why they rewrote and changed the electoral laws, state by state, to make it difficult for the broader people’s voice to be heard.

Electoral law biased towards two parties has rotten consequences. Every two years for the last 40 years we have been involved in politics, the discussion goes this way: ‘How can you work with the Democratic Party- these people will sell you out! Work with the Democratic Party is the death of the mass movements!’ Then the other side says ‘Third parties are diversions, irrelevant and marginal! The best thing you can do is become a spoiler and elect somebody worse!’ Here’s the rub: both sides of this argument are absolutely right about each other! So how do we get out of that bind?

There is only one way to get out of it. We have to change the election laws. We have to build a massive grassroots citizen’s initiative, state by state, to change our election system from an anti-democratic polyarchy to a popular participatory democracy.

The election law has to be reformed to allow for instant runoff, preferential balloting, fusion tactics and other measures encouraging broader participation. These are not weird ideas. In every industrial democracy in the world, except this one, this is the normal way they do things. It is the American system that is weird! In nearly every state, there are already groups and committees dedicated to this work, but they usually have only a handful of people and allies working with them. This has to change. We have to take the energy and anger from 2000 and 2004 and get busy working with them in a big way, especially in the periods between elections.

It can make a significant difference. For example, in New York City, they have the left-progressive Working Families Party, which has won a number of local seats now. The reason why it’s having the impact it has is because in the state of New York, fusion is legal. Fusion means your party can cross-endorse and vote for somebody on another ticket - like the Working Families Party put Hillary Clinton on their ticket as their Senate candidate when she was running against a Republican. People could vote the Working Families ticket and, for better or worse, also vote for Hillary. But they also had their own local candidates, and in that way they could show and grow their strength. That is what fusion means. That way you do away with the spoiler effect. Fusion used to be legal throughout the whole Midwest; the Populist Party and the Socialist Party both used it to build themselves. That’s precisely why the ruling class took it away, and that’s why we have to fight to get it back.

Nor is fusion necessarily the main or even the best reform in the arsenal we need to gather. Preferential balloting, which now operates in San Francisco, made a huge difference in the last mayor’s race, where the Greens nearly defeated the Democrats and moved the entire political climate and debate in a progressive direction. Even non-partisan voting, like we have in Chicago in the City Council races, makes independent organization more feasible than otherwise. There are other simpler measures that can also increase participation, like same-day registration or having elections on a weekend.

One thing is certain. It will be an incredibly tough fight, since both the Republican right incumbents and the Democratic center-right incumbents have every reason to oppose election-law reform. Still, our next steps are clear-cut: Consolidate the gains of the election battles by forming new organizations, energize the grassroots by a wide range of decentralized local actions against the war and the Bush agenda (there are many events planned already for the holiday season), build a major protest around the Bush Inauguration, and come together as a newly organized network of activists from cities and towns throughout the nation.

History is not static. The United States is a changing landscape, with the young, Latinos, Blacks, immigrants and women becoming an ever-increasing majority in the nation. The demography of the nation points towards a progressive politics – but it will become dominant only if we have the vision, the breadth, and the energy to crystallize and organize it.

If the election of 2004 has demonstrated anything, it is that there is no one to do what needs to be done other than the millions of us who fueled the energy of the anti-war movement and the grass-roots activities the past 18 months. Sustaining that moment and movement may well determine the future of the nation. The task is daunting, but the alternative is not acceptable.

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Carl Davidson and Marilyn Katz are Co-Chairs of Chicagoans Against War & Injustice (www.noiraqwar-chicago.org). Davidson heads up Networking for Democracy, a group working on ‘digital divide’ issues in the inner city; Katz is the president of MK Communications, a public policy consulting group. Both live in Chicago and have a long history in the peace and justice movements going back to the 1960s. Email at CarlD717@aol.com or MarilynMKC@aol.com.



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Socialism for Today: Economic Democracy vs Neoliberalism

THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE:
SOME NOTES ON READING
‘AFTER CAPITALISM’
BY DAVID SCHWEICKART

Published by:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2002
PB: $23.95; 193pp.


Reviewed By Carl Davidson

In this short book, building on his earlier work, ‘Against Capitalism,’ David Schweickart has given us an excellent breakthrough in finding the road to a new socialism for the 21st century. Using both practical and ethical arguments, his main objective is to take on the ‘TINA’ argument—‘There Is No Alternative’—of the neoliberals. He convincingly shows there is at least one alternative, a ‘successor system’ that he calls ‘Economic Democracy.’ His critics will find it hard to dismiss his ideas lightly.

First, Schweickart’s Economic Democracy alternative is a working hypothesis, and not a rigid or doctrinaire model. While rooted in historical materialism, Schweickart’s Marxian notions of science are more in tune with the ‘open systems’ and critical instrumentalism of modern pragmatism. He casts a wide net to draw lessons from practice—from the failed Soviet-led command economies, to the ongoing surge of China’s market socialism, to the new smaller and more tentative projects in Spain’s Mondragon Cooperatives and Brazil’s Worker’s Party projects. He uses all these as resources, but he returns to American soil to work out his basic ideas and proposals.

‘Successor-system theory’, Schweickart explains, ‘is meant to be theory with practical intent. If it cannot offer a plausible projection as to how we might get from here to there, successor-system theory remains an intellectual exercise in model building—interesting in its own right, perhaps, and capable of providing a rejoinder to the smug apologists for capital, but useless to people trying to change the world.’

So what is ‘Economic Democracy’? The core idea is that the workers themselves democratically elect the managers of their firms. They also share the wealth they create by sharing the profit among themselves. They make their money the old-fashioned way: by finding consumer needs, meeting those needs with decent products, and selling them to satisfied customers at reasonable prices.

But how are things like costs, prices, new products and production goals determined? Here Schweickart departs from traditional socialist conceptions; he affirms the primary role of the market rather than relying on nationally centralized planning. What to produce is shaped mainly by consumer demand; what to charge for products or services is determined by competition for market share with other worker-controlled or private enterprises; and what to pay the workforce is limited by what’s left over after total costs are deducted from total sales.

What about ownership? Each Economic Democracy plant or workplace is controlled by each respective group of workers, but the firm is not owned by each particular group. The firms are socially owned by the public at large. Because of this public ownership, the local workers are also required to meet the cost of paying into two funds: a depreciation fund, to be used locally by the firm for capital expenditures, and a government-controlled capital investment fund. This latter payment is in the form of a capital assets tax also added to the firm’s costs. In a sense, the workplace is leased by the workers from the government. But what’s left after all the costs are met, the profit, the workers divide among themselves as they see fit. The depreciation and capital assets taxes that the government takes in is used to finance new enterprises, to maintain and develop infrastructure projects, and other costs spread across the whole of society.

That’s the bare-bones model. Naturally, it has further implications and raises many more questions, not the least of which is how we get from today’s globalized capitalism to the ‘successor system’ of Economic Democracy . In the course of the book, Schweickart addresses a good deal of these problems; but for some issues, he has only hints or open possibilities.

Here are some of the critical implications of his theory:

1. Labor is not a cost, as it is under capitalism. Rather, labor gets its return from the local profits. This means there is no pressure to keep the workers’ compensation low. Just the opposite: the pressure is for the local workers to produce good quality, desired products efficiently, since that is the best way to gain better profits and a thus a better share for each of them.

2. Firms are under no pressure to ‘expand or die’, as they are under capitalism. If the workers produce and sell to a share of the market that gives them a comfortable living, all they need to do is maintain it over time. If the firm grew its market share simply by adding more and more workers to produce more and more products to sell, it would just mean that the resulting greater profit would be divided by a greater number on workers. Each worker would still receive about the same. Economic Democracy’s tendency, then, is to maintain small and medium-sized firms supplying more local and regional markets, rather than to expand into larger firms reaching a global scale.

3. Worker-controlled firms do have an incentive for technological innovation, but differently than under capitalism. They will want to increase productivity per worker, but not to eliminate workers, expect perhaps through attrition. They will, however, want to eliminate drudgery, but in a way that enhances and upgrades the skills of all workers, and/or in a way that shortens the working hours per worker. But they will not want to enhance profits via automation at the expense of themselves, as the current system works now.

4. Inequality will exist in worker-controlled firms, but not to the degree of the huge inequalities between CEOs and production workers under capitalism. To keep especially good or skilled workers and managers, or to account for the difference s between new and older workers, the factory council will likely give some categories a greater share in compensation or benefits. Otherwise a competing firm may lure them away. But the varying compensation packages will be set by a process of one vote per worker in the enterprise. This creates a different and more restricted dynamic than the current setup, where decisions are made by management arbitrarily or by stockholders with one vote per share of stock, with vast differences in the amounts of shares held per voter.

5. Entrepreneurship will encouraged under Economic Democracy, but in a different way. Groups of individuals with projects for new products or enterprises could apply to the government’s capital investment fund and its subsidiaries, rather than relying on venture capitalists. If approved as risk worthy, socially appropriate and capable or generating new wealth, the project would be funded with a grant, not a loan. The grant, however, would become part of the new enterprise’s capital assets and hence taxed over time, assuming the project is successful. The creators of a successful project could pay themselves a startup fee for launching a successful enterprise, but afterwards would only be compensated if they were a worker or working manager. Straight-up capitalist entrepreneurs can apply to the capital assets fund, or even raise money privately, and make money from their ventures (subject to being taxed, of course). Under Schweickart’s model, however, a capitalist firm, when sold, must be sold to the state.

6. All information about a firm and its finances is open to all workers in the firm, unlike the many restrictions on information needed for decision-making under capitalism. This way, workers can make informed decisions via direct democracy in periodic assemblies, or through the managers they choose to hire or fire as their representatives. Workers can also still have their unions to settle problems with management and to work on larger social issues.

Schweickart offers only a brief concluding chapter about the strategy and tactics of getting from the present order to economic democracy. Briefly it is quite flexible and open, but he mainly discusses two possibilities:

1. A political party of popular and economy democracy could win a majority of the electorate, and take a majority of seats and positions at all levels of government. The new administration would decree economic democracy by passing laws and executive orders that would nationalize stock and redefine corporate charters with varying degrees of compensation.

2. Economic democracy, including its firms and political groupings, could be grown over time as an expanding counter-hegemonic community within the existing order. Step-by-step, it would demonstrate its superiority to the old way of doing things, competing over a longer period within a mixed system, but as a growing force that ultimately would supplant capitalism.


There is also a third option. While Schweickart doesn’t directly mention it, there is nothing in his perspective that would prohibit it, and it’s worth pointing out:

3. A political party of popular and economy democracy could take power through revolutionary insurrection at a time of severe crisis brought on by war, fascism or ecological and economic disaster. Economic democracy would be organized as the way to resolve the crisis and put the country on its feet again.


Apart from these three projections, I have stressed only the economic aspects of Economic Democracy. What about the broader political and social reforms that would accompany Economic Democracy? First off, no particular set of political reforms are strictly required by Economic Democracy , even though winning a wide range of structural reforms under the existing order would be both helpful and desirable. But Economic Democracy can develop, to a certain extent, even under an authoritarian regime with little in the way of a social safety net.

Schweickart is very clear on the implications of the structures of class privilege on democracy. He defines democracy as existing where ‘suffrage is universal among adults’ and ‘the electorate is sovereign.’ A sovereign electorate, he adds, requires open information and public education, but especially that ‘there exists no stable minority class that is privileged,’ i.e., ‘it possesses political power at least equal to that of elected officials and unmatched by any other stable grouping.’
Systems with these elite privileged groupings Schweickart calls ‘polyarchies.’ Since that accurately describes our existing order, Schweickart bluntly states ‘we do not live in a democracy.’

Economic Democracy, however, has a built-in political bias towards radical political democracy. By dampening great inequalities in wealth and diminishing the role of corporate lobbyists and PACs, Economic Democracy enhances the prospect for public financing of political campaigns and reduces the role of private wealth in politics. It thus opens the door to reforms like preferential ballots, instant runoff, and proportional representation. The practice of participatory democracy in the workplace—which is usually punished in today’s world—would likely stir political participation and a multiparty system in the political realm of the broader society.

Economic Democracy thrives where social well-being and social capital are widely generated. It is especially enhanced by access to life-long learning for all who want to learn, and by access to universal single payer health care. Having these social costs born by general revenues is a spur to the successful launching of new enterprises and sustaining those that may have temporary difficulties.

Schweickart stumbles a bit, however, on the ‘safety net’ issues of guaranteed full employment and the guaranteed annual income—’Jobs or Income Now’ as the old slogan declared. One problem is that these reforms often receive substantial opposition within the working class itself. ‘Guaranteed Jobs’ is often seen as ‘make work’ that creates nothing of value and drains public resources. ‘Guaranteed Income’ is only supported for the physically disabled, but opposed as a subsidy for slackers and freeloaders.

One alternative solution to these reforms, as well as the minimum wage, is the concept of the ‘social wage.’ Here anyone who creates social value would be able to obtain a subsistence level of financial support-say $18,000 per year. The idea is that value for society can and is created in realms that reach beyond the job market. Students learning in schools, for instance, create value in the form of their skills; caretakers of young children create value in raising the next generation of producers and creators; teaching sports in the parks creates value in the form of public wellness and health, and so on. Third sector nonprofits can set the base standards for what constitutes social value, but the social wage package would be low enough and on a sliding scale to always reward regular part-time or full time employment. Since full employment is not naturally built into Economic Democracy, this would be an important supplement to regular employment.

Finally, how does Schweickart relate Economic Democracy to the broader problems and conflicts of globalization? Our country, after all, exists in a world of savage inequalities between North and South, and a reverse flow of wealth from South to North.

Schweickart points out, first of all, that since Economic Democracy has no ‘expand or die’ dynamic, it has better conditions for a more progressive and democratic foreign policy. If anything, it has a bias toward promoting Economic Democracy elsewhere. One fascinating passage in the book is a long list of alternative foreign policy decisions that could have been made if the organizing principle for U.S. policy was democracy rather than anti-communism over the last six or seven decades.

Schweickart goes on, moreover, to promote a number of measures to help reduce the North-South divide that have been around for a few years—the Green Tax to price commodities at their true social and environmental impact costs, Carbon Taxes to deal with pollution, stock transfer taxes on the global financial transfers, etc. Even if petroleum alone were priced at its true cost, it would change the price differentials between North and South due to the higher or true cost of transport. ‘Free Trade’ is often riddled with hidden subsidies.

Schweickart, however, offers a new and controversial solution that he calls ‘socialist protectionism.’ Here, our government would put a tariff on U.S. importers to raise the price of imported goods to be competitive with goods produced here. Nothing new here, but what Schweickart wants to do is to remit the tariff, not to the US treasury, but to the country of origin to improve conditions there--hence ‘socialist’ protectionism.

It’s an interesting idea, as it transfers some wealth from North to South. But the devil is in the details. Who would get the remission? The Third World governments? The local unions or NGOs? The workers themselves?

In any case, Schweickart has provided us with a fine piece of theoretical and political analysis, as well as ethical and visionary thinking. It’s a relatively easy read, and an excellent starting point and organizing principle for both socialists and radical democrats. It’s already having an impact in the academy; it’s a good time to bring it the wider audience of global justice activists.

[David Schweickart is professor of philosophy at Loyola University in Chicago, and hold Ph.D’s in both Philosophy and Mathematics. He is also the author of ‘Against Capitalism’ (1993), and ‘Capitalism or Worker Control? An Ethical Economic Appraisal’ (1980). He is also the coauthor of ‘Market Socialism: The Debate among Socialists.’ (1998).]






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