My political entry into the left (and by this I mean the real left, beyond the Democratic Party) came a little more than twenty years ago in New Orleans, when, as a college student I became involved in the fight against U.S. intervention in Central America. In particular, the groups of which I was a part sought to end military aid to the death squad governments in El Salvador and Guatemala, and to block support for the contra thugs our nation was arming in Nicaragua, who by that time had already killed about 30,000 civilians in their war with the nominally socialist Sandinista government.

It was the first place where I came into contact with folks who defined themselves as radicals (I had grown up in Nashville, after all, where at that time, even finding “out” liberals was sometimes a challenge), and where I got to experience all the fascinating permutations of Marxism that the left had to offer. In addition to unaffiliated socialists (which I considered myself to be at the time), there were Trotskyites, old-line Leninists, Maoists, and even some bizarre Stalinists in the bunch. Excluding from consideration those among this number who turned out to be FBI spies, there were still plenty of real and interesting ideologues who had valuable insights to offer, even for those of us who didn’t swallow their particular party line.

But despite being interesting, these folks also managed, at least for me, to demonstrate one of the key problems with the left in the U.S. Namely, for the sake of ideological purity few within the professional left expressed any joy about life, or any emotion whatsoever that wasn’t rooted in negativity. They were like the political equivalent of quaaludes: guaranteed to bring you down from whatever partly optimistic place you might find yourself from time to time.

This was never so evident as the day I hopped into a car with one of the Stalinoids (a member of something called the Albanian Liberation League, which viewed the brutal regime of Enver Hoxha as a worker’s paradise), and headed downtown for a rally to protest Contra aid. Once in the car, I asked about the music playing from his stereo. What was it? I wanted to know. He quickly explained that it was Albanian folk music, and the only music he listened to. I made some joke about how strange it was to be living in one of the greatest musical towns on Earth and yet to restrict oneself to a single genre of music (especially that favored by Albanian sheepherders), to which my revolutionary friend responded with a grunt and a scowl. Of course, because Comrade Stalin never much liked jazz.

The humorlessness of the far left–to which I remain connected ideologically if not organizationally–has always struck me as one of its greatest weaknesses. People like to laugh, they like to smile, they like to be joyful, and an awful lot of hardened leftists seem almost utterly incapable of doing any of these things. It’s as if they have all taken a pledge that there should be no laughter until the revolution, or some such shit. No positivity, no hope, no happiness so long as people are still poor and exploited and being murdered by cops, and victimized by United States militarism, or performing as wage slaves for global capital, or eating meat, or driving cars. And they wonder why the left is so weak?

Now, in the wake of Barack Obama’s victory these barbiturate leftists are back in full effect, lecturing the rest of us about how naive we are for having any confidence whatsoever in him, or for voting at all, since “the Democrats and Republicans are all the same,” and he supports FISA and the war with Afghanistan, and all kinds of other messed up policies just like many on the right. Those of us who find any significance in the election of a man of color in a nation founded on white supremacy are fools who “drank the kool-aid,” unlike they, whose clear-headed radical consciousness leads them to recognize the superior morality of Ralph Nader, or the pure “scientific wisdom of chairman Bob Avakian,” or the intellectual profundity of their favorite graffiti bomb: “If voting changed anything it would be illegal.” Yeah, and if body piercings and anarchy tats changed anything, they would be too, and then what would some folks do to be “different?” (Note: there is nothing wrong with either type of adornment, but getting either or both doesn’t make you a revolutionary, any more than voting, that’s all I’m saying).

These are people who think being agitators is about pissing people off more than reaching out to them. So they pull out their “Buck Fush” signs at their repetitively irrelevant antiwar demonstrations, or their posters with W sporting a Hitler mustache, because that tends to work so well at convincing folks to oppose the slaughter in Iraq. But effectiveness isn’t what matters to them. What matters to them is raging against the machine for the sake of rage itself. Their message is simple: everything sucks, the earth is doomed, all cops are brutal, all soldiers are baby-killers, all people who work for corporations are evil, blah, blah, blah, right on down the line. It’s as if much of the left has become co-dependent with despondency, addicted to its own isolation, and enamored of its moral purity and unwillingness to work with mere liberals. In the name of ideological asceticism, they spurn the hard work of movement building and inspiring others to join the struggle, snicker at those foolish enough to not understand or appreciate their superior philosophical constructs, and then act shocked when their movements and groups accomplish exactly nothing. But honestly, who wants to join a movement filled with people who look down on you as a sucker?

If we on the left want those liberals to join the struggle for social justice and liberation, we’re going to have to meet people where they are, not where Bakunin would want them to be. For those who can’t get excited about Obama, so be it, but at least realize that there are millions of people who, for whatever reason, are; people who are mobilized and active, and that energy is looking for an outlet. Odds are, that outlet won’t be the Obama administration, since few of them will actually land jobs with it. So that leaves activist formations, community groups and grass-roots struggles. That leaves, in short, us. Just as young people inspired by the center-right JFK candidacy in 1960 ultimately moved well beyond him on their way to the left and made up many of the most committed and effective activists of the 60s and early 70s, so too can such growth occur now among the Obama faithful. But not if we write them off.

At some point, the left will have to relinquish its love affair with marginalization. We’ll have to stop behaving like those people who have a favorite band they love, and even damn near worship, until that day when the band actually begins to sell a lot of records and gain a measure of popularity, at which point they now suck and have obviously sold out: the idea being that if people like you, you must not be doing anything important, and that obscurity is the true measure of integrity. Deconstructing the psychological issues at the root of such a pose is well above my pay grade, but I’m sure would prove fascinating.

The simple fact is, people are inspired by Obama not because they view him as especially progressive per se (except in relation to some of the more retrograde policies of the current president, and in relation to where they feel, rightly, McCain/Palin would have led us), but because most folks respond to optimism, however ill-defined it may be. This is what the Reaganites understood, and for that matter it’s what Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement knew too. It wasn’t anger and pessimism that broke the back of formal apartheid in the south, but rather, hope, and a belief in the fundamental decency of people to make a change if confronted by the yawning chasm between their professed national ideals and the bleak national reality.

In other words, what the 60s freedom struggle took for granted, but which the cynical barbiturate left refuses to concede, is the basic goodness of the people of this nation, and the ability of the nation, for all of its faults (and they are legion) to change. Look at pictures of the freedom riders in 1961, or the volunteers during Freedom Summer of 1964 and notice the dramatic difference between them and some of the seething radicals of today–whose radicalism is almost entirely about style and image more than actual analysis and movement building. In the case of the former, even as they stared down mobs intent on injuring or killing them, and even as they knew they might be murdered, they smiled, they laughed, they sang, they found joy. In the case of the latter, one most often notices an almost permanent scowl, a dour and depressing affect devoid of happiness, unable to appreciate life until the state is smashed altogether and everyone is subsisting on a diet of wheatgrass, bean curd and tempeh.

Hell, maybe I’m just missing the strategic value of calling people “useful idiots,” or likening them to members of a cult, the way some leftists have done recently with regard to Obama supporters. Or maybe it’s just that being a father, I have to temper my contempt for this system and its managers with hope. After all, as a dad (for me at least), it’s hard to look at my children every day and think, “Gee, it sucks that the world is so screwed up, and will probably end in a few years from resource exploitation…Oh well, I sure hope my daughters have a great day at school!”

Fatherhood hasn’t made me any less radical in my analysis or desire to see change. In fact, if anything, it has made me more so. I am as angry now as I’ve ever been about injustice, because I can see how it affects these children I helped to create, and for whom I am now responsible. But anger and cynicism do not make good dance partners. Anger without hope, without a certain faith in the capacity of we the people to change our world is a sickness unto death. It is consuming, like a flesh-eating disease, and whose first victim is human compassion. While I would never counsel too much confidence in far-right types to join the struggle for justice–and there, I think skepticism is well-warranted–if we can’t conjure at least a little optimism for the ability of liberals and Democrats to come along for the ride and to do the work, then what is the point? Under such a weighty and pessimistic load as this, life simply becomes unbearable. And if there is one thing we cannot afford to do now–especially now–it is to give up the will to live and to fight, another day.

November 10, 2008

“In the long run, Americans have good reason to be confident in our economic strength. Despite corrections in the marketplace and instances of abuse, democratic [sic] capitalism is the best system ever devised.” - George W. Bush, September 25, 2008

“The fundamentals of the economy are strong.” - John McCain, September 15, 2008

You’ll hear lots of politicians, CEO’s, and media pundits using similar language in the days ahead. The economy is “strong”. capitalism is the “best system possible.” Or, perhaps more bluntly, they’ll say what they really mean: there is no alternative.

Fundamental crises like these, where the government has to step in to prevent the market system from literally collapsing and sending us into a depression, are proof enough for the average onlooker that market capitalism is a deeply flawed and profoundly undemocratic system.

Right-wing politicians like Bush and McCain, who claim to favor “small government”, have been exposed for who they really are. While social programs have been cut over the last four years, our national debt has skyrocketed to nearly  $11 trillion dollars. Small government? Ha! While bipartisan politicians and Wall Street CEO’s rob taxpayers of money to fund an unpopular regional war in the Middle East and bailout criminal corporate robber barons, millions of Americans can’t afford to travel to work, buy food, or pay their rents and mortgage.

While the climate crisis is spiraling out of control, with the north pole becoming an island - detached from all surrounding continents - for the first time in 50,000 years, the Washington-Wall Street racket is spending $3 trillion dollars - and killing millions of people - on a fossil fuel drilling expedition in Iraq.

McCain and Obama’s answer to the crisis? Slightly different programmatic positions, but McCain articulated their commonality best: “Drill Baby, Drill.” The gas prices issue leads to their common (non-)solution: “energy independence”. What’s the term really mean? Read: having a backup plan should imperialist endeavors in the Middle East fail. While leaders like former Vice President Gore are calling for 100% clean energy by 2019, advocating young people utilize civil disobedience to achieve it, Senator Obama - the Democratic Party candidate for President - advocates “energy independence” by 2020. Climate change is a global crisis and should not be turned into sell-out slogans to pick up votes and gain the presidency. The two presidential candidates should grow a spine and take a real stance on the issue. Unfortunately the American people will have to force them to do so.

So why exactly are Bush and McCain bringing out the “there is no alternative” (TINA) argument when both the economy and climate are in deep crisis? Hmmm. I wonder. What we have are two crises that exist, largely due to the chaotic nature of market economics. Costs of production and consumption on humans and the environment aren’t figured into market transactions. The government is forced to use hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to bailout corporations that have caused the economic spiral towards recession.

So why all the talk about “capitalism being the best system ever devised”? Its simple, because none of these problems would exist in a democratic economy. Go figure.

When much of the Left trains its ideological sights on the campaign of Barack Obama, it is found wanting:

1. He is not a socialist (or an anarchist).

2. He is not an anti-imperialist.

3. He does not have a plan for immediate withdrawal of US troops and advisors from Iraq.

4. He has said nothing in his campaign in critique of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.

5. He is too close to University of Chicago free-market economists.

6. His does not call for a single-payer health insurance plan.

7. His message implies that our biggest political problem is largely one of political communication; he claims that he can unite Democrats and Republicans and transcend political partisanship; he seems to be avoiding and denying the reality of strong differences in American politics

8. He tried for too long to avoid issues of racial justice so he will not be perceived as a “Black” candidate; and when forced to discuss race he marginalized Jeremiah Wright’s legitimate concerns.

9. He has had little criticism of the size of the military budget.

There is truth in these critiques and Obama, like any other leader, should not be exempt from criticism and pressure from the left. All leaders need to be called to account. (I will leave it to others to discern the limitations of American election campaigns and what progressive candidates are limited in saying to avoid political marginalization and retain some chance of electability.)

But if we leave matters here, I believe will be missing the moment. Why then should the Left be open to and supportive of the Obama Presidential candidacy?

First and foremost, Obama has tapped into and publicly articulated that something is deeply wrong with the current state of American politics and that something big has to change. And he is not doing this, as is typical in current American politics, from the mad-dog right. This is the root cause of Obama-mania. He poses an alternative to right wing demagoguery and Clintonian Democratic Leadership Council “Republicans with a human face” politics. He has not only confounded the pundits, but he has opened up room for real discussion of important political issues, such as, in his words, “the mind set” that produced the Iraq war. In his “Toward a More Perfect Union” speech on race relations, whatever its shortcomings, he elevated the discussion of race in American politics to a new level. He allows for and promotes real talk about significant issues, sorely lacking in mainstream political discourse.

Secondly he has energized young people. I have a friend who has been a leading antiwar activist for many years. He told me that he has had more meaningful talks about the war in Iraq in a few weeks of working on the Obama campaign than he had in the years since the Iraq war began. The awakening of the young to political activity is a momentous accomplishment that the Left has reason to envy. Obama doesn’t chastise the young for their apathy and cynicism; he inspires them to participate.

Thirdly, Obama has inspired, not just a campaign, but a significant mass movement that can outlast the campaign season. In his Feb. 19 speech in Houston he called for continuing grass roots activity: “And if we win that election in November, then we are going to need your help and your time, your energy, your enthusiasm, your mobilization, your organization, and your voices to help us change America over the next four years.” When was the last time a candidate called for extra-parliamentary activity that wasn’t anti-abortion or homophobic? The Left in America can profit from an unorthodox Democratic Administration. There will be more openings, less marginalization of the Left, a wider debate, and an atmosphere where ‘politics as usual’ will be suspect. None of this is likely under a continuation of the Clinton dynasty which favors “triangulation” by which it attempts to co-opt Republican issues and disdains social movements in favor of ‘focus groups’.

I must admit, that as a tired old leftist that I am moved by a politics “advocating the audacity of hope” to overcome the cynicism that passes for wisdom in American political commentary. Certainly there is a danger of empty, hollow words, but an energetic Left could take advantage of an opportunity to push for its understanding of necessary change on a wide range of issues: single-payer health insurance, equitable education, affordable housing, humane immigration policy, enforcement and expansion of labor rights, environmental justice, and anti-racist and anti-imperial policy.

If we, as a Left, are content to smugly and dismissively critique the Obama phenomenon, we trade self-fulfilling sectarianism for the chance at political impact. A victory for Obama will not only be a boon for the African-American community and for people of color, it will offer a unique opportunity for the development of an organized and aggressive Left movement that retains its independence at the same time that it is willing to risk everyday involvement in the strange world of American politics. If we just critique, we will miss a moment that may not come again for a while. If our politics are meaningful, effective, and get to the root of problems, we should put them to the test in political work that connects to large numbers of people struggling to find direction in an increasingly dangerous world. Something wonderful is happening. We must be alive to it. I hope we can figure out how to relate to it effectively before we consign ourselves to continued marginalization.

From: The Pirate Caucus, the Blog of Revolutionary Democracy

by Keith Joseph

I know Jeremiah Wright… Well, I never met him, but I know his ideas, he is a part of the American political left. Nothing he said outraged me, or even upset me. I agreed with a lot of it, and disagreed with some of it. If we were to meet in person I imagine we would get along just fine, and we probably could do some good work together. Obama had to distance himself from his pastor in order to remain a viable candidate — a smart move. Gary Wills, writing in the May 2008 NY Review of Books, pointed out that Abe Lincoln, who Obama invoked when announcing his own candidacy, was associated with John Brown and the “radical” abolitionists. Like Obama, Abe had to distance himself in pubic from the “extremists.” But the abolitionists remained the left wing of Lincoln’s coalition, and although he publicly disavowed them (gently) he was secretly and indirectly connected to them.

About 100 hundred years later, in 1968, Robert Kennedy’s candidacy for president represented a similar coalition. His brother, John Kennedy’s election marked the achievement of full citizenship for Catholic (Irish and Italian) workers (that’s why Kennedy’s picture hangs in all those Irish bars). Bobby Kennedy continued to lead those “white” workers and he was bringing them into an alliance with the Civil Rights Movement (Kennedy was meeting and marching with two of its most prominent leaders, Dr. King and Caesar Chavez). In other words, Kennedy’s campaign was a next phase in the Civil Rights struggle. But the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965 and the FBI repression of the left made it difficult for a left wing to get into that coalition and soon King and Kennedy would also be murdered.

These assassinations sent most left wing forces in the United States into a disorientating tailspin that we have yet to recover from. If it were 1968, Hilary would be Hubert Humphrey, McCain would be Nixon, and Obama would be Bobby Kennedy. Some of our friends on the left have asked us to “Recreate ’68.” Yes, but let’s not repeat the blind rage, instead let’s do it over and send Humphrey and Nixon packing. So, we must build a John Brown, Malcolm X, Jeremiah Wright bloc— a left bloc allied to but independent from Obama’s campaign.

Malcolm X drew center-left forces like King closer to himself and led them, but after Malcolm’s assassination left wing forces pushed liberals and center-left forces away and into the hands of the right. Obama’s campaign is the potential rebirth of the Kennedy-King Coalition. And it is time for the radical left to do what Malcolm would have done—get into the coalition as an independent force, consolidate a left wing and build a liberal and left coalition to stomp the war loving right wing in this country while building our own independent left movement.

We have a couple of immediate basic tasks: Obama must be the Democratic Party candidate—By Any Means Necessary. We should plan to camp right outside of Denver during the Democratic Party’s Convention and hold anti-war demonstrations and our own left convention. If right wing Democrats try to force Hilary-Herbert Humphrey-Clinton on us we march on the convention and make sure Obama gets the nomination–By Any Means Necessary. In November, we must make sure Obama defeats the war criminal John McCain. And finally, after the election, we must be prepared to convene anywhere in the country (Florida, Ohio etc.) to make sure that the Supreme Court does not decide the contest.

Some of our fellow leftists have been very critical of Obama. The problem with their criticism is that they want Obama to be a leftist. He is not a leftist, he is a representative of the progressive, democratic wing of the capitalist class and he is making an appeal to workers of all nationalities to support him. Obama is a liberal. He is a center-left candidate. He is a part of the mainstream of the Democratic Party. We are the left! It is time we got back in the game.

My friend Noah from Columbia University directed me to an article in today’s Los Angels Times:

“WASHINGTON — New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, campaigning for president in a neighborhood of Philadelphia so rough the mayor said, “Osama bin Laden wouldn’t last here,” pitched a $4-billion-a-year anti-crime package today that would put 100,000 new police officers on the streets and help stem the tide of repeat offenders back into the country’s prisons.”

A Surge didn’t work in Iraq. It won’t work in American cities.

Here’s what will: start addressing the roots of the problem, instead of putting band-aids on them. In his new slideshow presentation given at TED on the climate crisis and necessary urgency of addressing it (which is great by the way), Al Gore pointed out that when an addict’s veins collapse in their arms and other parts of their body, they finally start injecting themselves in their toes. The American economy and government, he posited, are at the point where we’re injecting ourselves in the toes - we are clinging to old ideas, old norms, and old frameworks. We’ve reached the end of the era where our innovation can actually lead to progress within existing frameworks of social organization.

We need new forms of social organization. The veins of society’s current institutions are collapsing - like the veins of a dying addict. The era of capitalism and its poverty, authoritarian government and its tyranny, and racial, sexism, and homophobia and their vast inequalities - economic, political, and social - are coming to an end.

Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, is well-known for infamous quote about global capitalism: “There is no alternative.”

If that were indeed true, I would have to admit that revolutionaries would do well in enjoying the rest of their lives, and doing something a little less stressful than trying to dismantle the dominant institutions of oppression.

But Thatcher’s claim doesn’t hold to more than a few minutes of careful and creative scrutiny.

We’ve seen that there are alternatives to market capitalism. The problem is that we just haven’t yet seen many good alternatives to it. So Thatcher’s claim that “there is no alternative” (TINA), was actually a claim of “there is no better alternative” (TINBA). While this seems small, it isn’t.

I re-posted Michael Albert’s essay “There Is An Alternative” a few days ago. If you want to see a (very) brief description of an alternative, just, democratic economy, I’d encourage you to read the post and explore more (it has links to where you can read more about participatory and democratic economics)s.

In term of poverty (and the “crime” poverty causes), the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and many environmental justice groups propose, some variant of “green path ways from poverty to prosperity” (green pathways out of poverty, green pathways to prosperity, green collar-jobs, solar cells not jail cells, etc…). Here’s the idea: global climate destabilization and environmental crisis are a planetary problem that require planetary solutions. We need to embark on a generational quest to save humanity and the planet. As Al Gore said, “we need another hero generation.” So what can we do about it? Well, we need a green economic revolution. We need an Apollo Project or Manhattan Project scale program, and a Civil Rights Movement scale struggle to bring it about.

And we can learn from the past too. We can wage our struggles for a clean, green economy in such a way that it uplifts those currently under-served by our society. Green Pathways From Poverty to Prosperity can be the defining attitude of a new movement which is fighting for a new social contract, on our way to an entirely new society.

Finally, I should add one more point, that I haven’t said explicitly enough, often enough.

An environmentally-sustainable, participatory, democratic, just, and poverty-free economy, is a democratically-planned economy. Market competition discouraged the type and level of innovation (I’ll be elaborating on this more soon, but copyrights, patents, and trade-secrets are some of the most common “innovation spreads rapidly in a market economy” myth-debunkers) we need to bring about a sustainable society. And the drive to accumulate and make profit/power is directly at ends with the drive to protect humanity and the world we live in. A democratic economy is a planned economy.

I disagree with lots and lots of Obama’s proposed policies - especially his foreign policies. But his language is superb - something that radical democrats need to learn from and use if we are to build a truly transformative movement. Here’s Obama talking about race, religion, unity and contradictions in America. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a mainstream politician - let alone someone running for president - talk in this way. Certainly not someone who could be our next president. To win we must first learn how to communicate our values to all of America.

Just like will.i.am’s first video for Obama, this one is super powerful.

If progressives want to build a mass movement of millions of people, we need to be this inspiring on a regular basis. That means vision and talking about hope and change - instead of complaining, criticizing, and talking about bad things constantly. In the current issue of Rolling Stone, in which the magazine endorsed Barack Obama, Jann S. Wenner, who wrote the endorsement, said that GOP strategists had refused to campaign against him calling him a “Walking Hope Machine.” Obama’s portrait was on the front cover which carried the words: “Barack Obama: A New Hope”. There were at least two articles in the issue - the endorsement entitled “A New Hope”, and a longer piece about Obama’s campaign called “The Machinery of Hope.” Th fact that the Left can’t yet do this on a regular basis, is a pretty good sign of our weakness. We should learn from Obama’s language and the tone of his campaign and supporters and then build a real mass movement which can implement lasting institutional change in America - and beyond.

Anway, here’s the video: