[Mb-civic] Elephants, the Perfect Storm, and the New Covenant

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Submitted to Portside
November 26, 2004

Elephants, the Perfect Storm, and the New Covenant

A Contribution to the Discussion of What Happened in the
Election and Where We Go From Here

By Jack Kurzweil

This small commentary originally was part of the post
election discussion in the Wellstone Democratic Renewal
club in Oakland - Berkeley, California.

A great discussion has ensued about why George W. Bush
won reelection, with some substantial number of his
supporters voting against their own economic self
interests. Many different explanations have been offered
ranging from the ignorance of the electorate, the
manipulation by the media, the inexplicable hold on the
electorate by fundamentalist Christianity, the idea of
"values", the stealing of the election through voting
machine skullduggery, the fears generated by 9/11, and
much more.

The flip side of this has been the problem of why Kerry
lost. The reasons advanced are similarly multiple. And
each of the reasons generates its own solution. Those
who believe that Kerry lost on 'values' advocate moving
more to the 'center'. Those who fault Kerry for the lack
of an adequate program call for moving to the left.
Politically active people who have email have seen
scores of analyses and many proposals for action. Most
of these are very insightful and useful.

But placed together, they invoke the fable of the
blindfolded men and the elephant. You remember that one.
The guy who feels the leg thinks of the elephant as a
tree, the one who feels the ear imagines a bird, and the
trunk reminds yet another of a snake. If we are to more
accurately apprehend the elephant, we should at minimum
combine the observations and, better yet, remove the
blindfold and look at the whole thing.

So I want to try to look at the whole thing, or at least
as much of the whole thing that I can see. And I'd like
to try to do it so that pieces of the whole thing that I
haven't seen can be added to the concept of the whole.

I think that that there is an underlying structural
change that has framed the development of this crisis:
the transformation of the world economy that began in
the 60's. We all know about this process:

- the revolution in automation, computerization,
communication, and transportation; - the accelerating
application of science to industrial processes including
in medicine, agriculture, and biotechnology; - the
transformation of the American economy from
manufacturing based to service based; - the export and
outsourcing of manufacturing jobs and all sorts of other
things like that.

The social consequences of this transformation are
equally well-known. Let's list a few:

- trade unions in the private sector have been decimated
and with that the weight of class based organization in
key sectors of society have been undermined; - wage
levels have decreased significantly, forcing married
women into the workplace in a process that has been
quite autonomous from the feminist upheaval, in turn
leading to considerable stress in the traditional
notions of family (please note that I am describing) -
although much new wealth has been created, social
mobility has decreased as the income and ownership gap
has increased - consumerism and its culture,
simultaneously repellant and attractive, has made its
way into the fabric of American life and has a powerful
impact on values and behavior

Now were this happening in isolation from other social
and political upheavals, it would be difficult enough.
But look at the other things that have been happening
alongside:

1. The Civil Rights Movement and the fundamental changes
in the social structure that resulted. 2. The spread of
that movement to Latinos, Asian-Americans, and Native
Americans 3. The powerful rise of the Women's Movement
and the assertion of the place of women in society. 4.
The assertion of the sexuality of gays and lesbians and
their demand for civil rights. 5. The rise of a powerful
middle-class based environmental movement.

All of these have been powerful emancipatory movements
and we wouldn't have missed them for the world - but
each one of them sent a shock to the system and together
they interacted with the growing economic dislocations
in ways that give new meaning to the term synergy.

Arising from and added to that mix is a new religious
and spiritual Great Awakening in American life. From its
beginnings, our nation has gone through a succession of
fundamental social transformations, each of which has
been accompanied by a Great Awakening. And we are in the
middle of such a Great Awakening right now. The very
First Great Awakening is dated from 1730-1760, with
successive ones from 1800-1830 and 1890-1920. These
awakenings didn't so much correspond to times of purely
economic crisis (there was none in the Great Depression)
but to periods of transformation of all of society.

Let us not be snide or clever about these awakenings.
The First Great Awakening produced both religious
ecstasy and the quality of independence from traditional
authority that lad the basis for the War of
Independence. The Awakening of 1800-1830 gave us
abolitionism and women's rights as well as pro-slavery
Southern Baptism, Mormonism and Manifest Destiny. And
the current Awakening has given us Bhuddism, Rajneesh,
Sojourners, Spirited Action, Michael Lerner,
environmental sensibility, and organic food as well as
Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Branch Davidians, the
rapture, scientific creationism, and the Promise
Keepers. We are observing and participating in the
spiritual complexity with which the United States
responds to profound social transformation

Religious fundamentalism is not a new phenomenon in
American life. It has been there from the beginning of
our history, sometimes in the background, sometimes in
the foreground, but always there. And with Great
Awakenings, fundamentalism comes into the foreground.
The fundamentalist response to profound social
transformations has been well analyzed by Karen
Armstrong in "The Battle for God". She illustrates that
it is a revolt against secular modernity when that
modernity is connected to social upheaval and does not
hold out the promise of a viable future.

I'm sure that I've left things out and I invite others
to add to the complexity, but what we have here is the
makings of a Perfect Storm.

Enter the combination of powerful sections of capital
that opposed the legacy of both Roosevelt's and the most
reactionary sections of the Christian Right, as noxious
a collection of crypto - fascists that this fair land
has ever seen. These guys are smart and ruthless and
they spend decades building organization and program,
always looking for ways of building unity in their very
diverse forces. Understand that the corporate types who
fund Bush likely don't give a rat's ass about abortion
and homosexuality, but the tax cuts and the destruction
of the regulatory process make acquiescing to that
agenda very comfortable.

As powerful as these forces are, their power would not
have reached it s current level were it not for the
politics of race. The electoral map tells it all. The
states of the old Confederacy contain half of the
African American population of the country and, with the
exception of Florida, were all considered firmly in the
Bush camp and left uncontested by the Democrats. Put
that together with the continuing Republican program of
disenfranchising minority voters, who are the most
reliable of Democrats, throughout the country with and
you have a formidable combination.

So the organized Right has a far better collective
understanding of the Perfect Storm than does the left or
the mainstream Democrats. And it has a language and a
program to deal with that storm. The language is 'family
values' and the program is the 'free market'. It doesn't
really matter that the anti-union Marriott Hotel chain
is the biggest seller of pornography in the United
States or that the free market impoverishes ordinary
workers or that small government means expensive health
care and education. There are problems and there are
"solutions". What matters is that the "solutions" are
clearly articulated, have internal coherence, and are in
relation to a set of emerging cultural constructs.
George Lakoff has been very useful in helping us to
understand this process.

There has not yet been any kind of coherent response to
this period of social transformation from the left.

Certainly there is a list of demands, reforms, and the
like coming from the various sections of the labor and
progressive movements, but that list does not make for a
coherent response and certainly not a vision of the
future.

(I think that the collapse of socialism both as a vision
and as a system has something to do with this. Certainly
the Cold War and the global victory of capitalism must
be added to the mix, but I can't quite come up with how
to do that. Others may be more productive in following
this line of thought.)

The New Democrats have embraced globalization,
privatization, and deregulation as inevitable and
desirable processes. There should be no surprise in
that; their primary loyalties are to finance capital.
Robert Rubin as the DLC economic guru tells the tale on
that one. And these are the guys that gave us NAFTA and
WTO.

Recall that Clinton and Gore proudly announced that the
"era of big government is over" at exactly the moment
that it had become utterly clear that it was necessary
for government to be a primary mover in addressing the
cumulative dislocations caused by globalization and the
fraying of the New Deal inspired social safety net. At
the top, the Democratic Party leadership has been
promoting and accelerating the very economic and
regulatory policies that advance the economic
dislocations of our country. So the Democratic
Leadership Council distances itself from working class
and African American voters because it has distanced
itself from the economic and social welfare issues
(jobs, health care, education, child care, and the like)
that are most important to those constituencies. So it
shouldn't be a surprise that so many of these very same
workers either respond to right wing politics or abstain
from elections. After all, as they are displaced from
trade unions, the only class based organizations in
their lives, and shunned by the party that purports to
represent them, where else do you suppose that they will
go.

By adopting some of the program of the environmental and
women's movements and by orienting itself so exclusively
toward the New Economy, the New Democrats have also
helped widen the class divide in the traditional base of
the Democratic Party. This helps to understand why the
charge of the elitism of the Democratic Party gets
traction in working class and socially conservative
communities.

The thing that white progressives should try to
assimilate is the stubbornness with which African
American voters refuse to walk away from their authentic
interests and the equal stubbornness with which the New
Democrats refuse to elevate progressive African
Americans to leadership positions.

At the base, the Democratic Party has been only a little
better. We have a collection of interest based groups,
some bigger and some smaller: Labor, Environmentalists,
Health Care Advocates, Civil Libertarians, NAACP, etc.,
with only the most occasional common planning and the
absence of common program.

The basic rule in life is that you can't fight something
with nothing. And the Right had spent 40 years
developing something and the Democrats had spent almost
the same period running away both from their failures in
Vietnam and their successes in Civil and human rights.
So you can have this ridiculous 2000 Presidential
election where Gore hands the election, politically and
procedurally, to Bush.

And if that's not bad enough, we then get Osama bin
Laden, 9/11, the war in Iraq and, with those, the
Perfect Storm. Bush had a framework and a message. Kerry
had confusion, absence of a clear alternative, a
politically and programmatically divided campaign, lots
of polling data and a staff that thinks politics to be a
form of marketing. Were it not for the labor movement,
African American organizing, and the 527s, can you
imagine the results?

What I find optimistic and reassuring is how many
Americans saw through the Bush malarkey in 2004 with
precious little help from the leaders of the Democratic
Party and figured out new ways to organize and mobilize
themselves. I won't tell you where it comes from, but
the quote is "The reaction against Reaction has begun".

There is no question that we're going to pay big time in
the next four years and how we fight back is going to
determine how much longer than that we're going to have
to pay.

So what is required is a New Covenant for America and
progressives should try to figure out what it takes to
become Covenant Democrats (a label of my making - it
already has been pointed out to me that the Covenant is
a right wing, racist, armed militia based in Idaho - but
what the hell, if it sounds good, wear it.)

At the center of a New Covenant is a progressive
economic and social program that can point the way
through the current economic dislocations. Framing this
covenant is the positive role of government in promoting
appropriate economic development, providing an
institutional framework that makes it realistic for
people to be optimistic about their future and the
future of their families, and reconstructing a social
safety net.

I think that the development of such a program is the
job of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. And
this requires coalition politics.

It also requires some new thinking about the South. I
have no idea just how this can be accomplished or just
what forms it can take, but the progressive movement has
to figure out how to pay attention to the South.
Conceding the South to the Republicans, not even
struggling to make it contested terrain would continue
to guarantee the Republicans a secure stronghold of more
than 100 electoral votes.

Parenthetically, I think that language and framing are
very important in this process. I also think that there
has to be a program and vision about which language and
framing are being developed.

We need a national re-groupment of the organizations and
movements that came together around the Democratic
campaign and at least the beginnings of the development
of common agenda. We need local organizing and conscious
efforts at the development of local coalitions, local
agendas, and local victories. And there has to be a
connection between the two.

There were some very smart things said at the Wellstone
Club Meeting last Tuesday night. Among them were:

1. The need to be mindful that racial minorities, but
particularly African Americans, are at the core of a
progressive coalition.

2. The idea of a progressive coalition without the labor
movement is self deceptive.

3. Principals in progressive movements have to be in
constant contact with each other in order to learn each
others agendas and concerns. Common agendas don't come
without work and trust.

4. Progressive communities of trust have to transcend
class, race and gender as well as spiritual orientation;
engaging and working with differing viewpoints and
perspectives is crucial.

5. A progressive movement in the Democratic Party has to
operate at all levels, from the national to the local
and vice versa.

6. Building a progressive movement in the Democratic
Party is realistic, taking it over is not.

The coalition work of the Wellstone Club in this
election has been good, but very elemental. We
registered more than 7000 voters in predominantly
minority and working class communities and made credible
efforts to get them to the polls. We did make a
significant contribution by very publicly have a
registration campaign among people on probation and
those off parole. Our poll watching efforts helped to
demonstrate the inadequacy of the election process even
in a progressive congressional district. Although we
developed some relationships with labor and minority
communities, it is only a beginning. Our relationships
with the health care, housing, and environmental
communities have not yet begun to take shape. Nor are we
connected to issues surrounding education. These things
will happen if club members take initiatives and if the
club welcomes and supports these initiatives.

At the very moment that the Presidential elections are
still raw in our feelings, the 2006 California election
appears on our plate. There will be a powerful effort to
extend the Shwarzenegger coup into a major Republican
advance in advance in California. On the other side, we
have the opportunity to be part of the process of
advancing candidates and initiatives that will help to
crystallize a progressive majority.

_______________________________________________________

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