Really. Why Aren't Progressives Organizing?

[Bullet1987]

I just watched the program on Youtube called "White Power America." It originally aired on Al-Jeezera Network. It's shocking and really not all that surprising as a 22 year old Black man who knows his history. The American media clearly jumped the gun after Obama was elected by saying we live in some fantasy post-racial country. That'll never exist as long as there are people in power like Beck who are pushing these people. There are over 900 White Nationalist groups currently in America. The vast majority of them are non-violent, but for how long? How many hate crimes will it take before the American media realizes we have a homegrown terrorism problem? Another Oklahoma City Bombing?

900 groups is a LOT! Now, I understand that a lot of this growth is due to the fact that they're supported by politicians and a certain segment of the US Media (FOX News). Progressives aren't NEARLY as crazy as the far right, but we get no support from politicians (as can be seen by Progressives caving on HCR) and the media still treats us as if we've been wrong all of these years and our views aren't given much thought. Yes, Maddow, Big Ed, and Olbermann are a step in the right direction...but they're all on one network and they're the exception not the rule. Liberal is STILL a dirty word. Being real...where is our support outside of the internet and TYT's and Thom Hartman? We need to build our infrastructure and fight back. Change IS coming to America, and it may not have been the change we wanted. People are going crazy for a whole host of reasons. The Banks/Wall Street/Big Pharma/Insurance Industry are getting away with highway robbery, and on the other side we have maniacal pro-White revolutionaries recruiting more and more every month. Liberals need to wake up and organize or we won't have a voice when we need one the most.

[valerief]

1. Big money organizes the right. There's no big money for the left.

Big money wants to protect big money by not sharing it with the public.

[struggle4progress]

16. It's possible to organize without big money: just rely more on donated volunteer time

and use the limited available money intelligently

[KoKo]

23. Big Money and Big Media in bed together. Media in bed with Government

Money in bed with both. Then there's the Military Industrial Complex...in bed with everyone.

They will televise TeaBaggers...because of big money. They won't televise anything those on the Left do. Without Media reporting there's no visibility. Biggest demonstrations against Iraq Invasion were organized by ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice. Media considers them Communist/Socialist...so no coverage that mattered. Smaller demonstrations like Cindy Sheehan and David Swanson has organized are brushed off by both the Media and even our own Democrats who scoff.

So...what to do? We need funding. And, more funding for indy media. I had hoped Obama's FCC would do some Anti-Trust work on Big Media. So far it's crickets. Even PBS hasn't had their funding increased by Congress so they take money for ads and from Think Tanks that aren't always in the ordinary persons best interest. Why is that?

[valerief]

26. Yep, it's a totally rigged game, and religion catches any strays.

How come we're not blinded by their propaganda? Must be something in our genes that makes it difficult to swallow mental horseshit.

[Juche]

31. There is big money on the left

Believe it or not. Big money comes from wealthy liberals, unions and small donors (a million small donors each giving $20 a month as an example).

There is money to organize and work on the left (the true left, not the DLC). Just not from corporations. But then again, the right gets no money from unions.

[villager]

2. who the hell unrecs something like this? It's a great starting point for discussion

...and a good question...

[Bullet1987]

3. An a-hole?

No really though it's an honest question. I disagree with Obama VERY much so on HCR, but that White Power program made me feel very defensive for him. He doesn't deserve that no matter how much I disagree with his decision-making skills lol.

[CakeGrrl]

8. Someone who thinks it's Obama's sole responsibility to

give them a reason to go to the polls?

And if that's the attitude, how do those who are so deeply disappointed in him propose to mount a primary challenge for 2012? By clicking their heels three times?

[sudopod]

4. What the hell happened to the Obama campaign?

That shit was military-grade orgainzed, then it suddenly disappeared. My gf went to a meeting a month or two ago and the leadership wouldn't do anything except try to get people to make phone calls. It's like they forged an Excalibur, then after the election the took off the grip, drilled some holes in it, and used it as a lawnmower blade.

[Bullet1987]

6. The DLC happened

I think it's clear he was never going to use his organization from the campaign during his Presidency. Which is a shame because it may not be as strong in 2012 the way things are going.

[treestar]

9. People complained that they were still getting asked for money

[DrToast]

24. Obama became President

[unc70]

29. Still there, protecting the O brand, keeping lid on critics, protecting agendas of backers

The Obama campaign operation left little to chance and anticipated almost every possible issue or problem that might cause them damage, taking pre-emptive actions early on -- usually with a carefully crafted simplified explanation/cover story which was sufficient to keep most people from giving it any further thought.

If Obama and those behind his campaign were not relatively OK with how things were going in DC and needed to push things in a different direction, I have no doubt that all that structure and organization would magically reappear.

I see no other explanation, do you?

[OHdem10]

5. Money is not the reason. Money helps. However, the Right

is much more intense than the Left. Just look how
far to the right Obama has moved.

You are correct. The Left rolls over to the right and
accept whatever is dished out.

The Media treat the Left the way they do because the Left
accepts the way the Media treats them. The Right is in
their face if they do not like something.

[mrcheerful]

7. Could be a number of reasons, 8 years of being hid from media and political events

burn out. Or did folks forget that when progressives did organize they were kept far from the event and the media ignored them. Unlike when whacky OT and her 3 protesters showed up at Fox News head quarters. Then you have the gun crazy tea baggers to deal with, bringing a peace sign to a gun fight isn't a good ideal, especially when the gun carriers are a dozen cards short of a full deck. Or maybe folks are going to wait and see what the final bill will be when it gets past the houses. Or maybe because of last summers nut show and the result it caused people really don't care anymore and want to hear more about Tigers numerous mistresses.

[Phx_Dem]

10. They're too busy whining and bitching to organize a trip to the grocery store.

[truedelphi]

11. The Progressives that I know are now talking about really getting busy and

Organizing.

Of course, we are out in this lovely rural area, without the mayhem of more intensely urban areas, so maybe the change will have to start here in the boonies and travel inward and outward to the bigger cities.

Plus many fine people have been those progressives tackling the health reform matters, like the Nurses associations, and PHIMG (or whatever that group is) are already very involved.

[old mark]

12. Those people are not the "big money" right, they are the "kill the liberals" right.

Liberals spend their efforts criticizing each other for not being liberal enough. It's time we got together to win some more seats in the election in November, and get serious about moving the US back to the left, closer to where it was in the '70's.
We are too fucking polite to the RWers, as if we expect them to see the light and become good people.
They are not and never will be anything but haters.

mark

[boppers]

13. Three words:

Circular Firing Line

[PuraVidaDreamin]

14. We are

http://peaceoftheaction.org/

And this is not just anti-war-
It's about the MIC- because it is so deeply rooted intertwined into all of big business-

We start this spring!

[Better Today]

15. We did organize, and we got the first African-American president

elected. He's letting us down. Hence, some of us believe that our work organizing was betrayed and we are a bit gunshy at this point of trying again or more.

[struggle4progress]

17. So? Organize again and lean on him. Equally important, lean on Congress and

push moveable congressfolk in a positive direction

[Better Today]

18. Yeah, we've been doing that for a year, and we've not faired well.

I'm sorry but I just don't see it working for progressives. It's been made clear that no matter, we don't matter.

[struggle4progress]

19. Wow! A whole year! The movement for an eight hour work day began in the 1830s; it

didn't become federal law until about a hundred years later in 1938, with the Fair Labor Standards Act; the 1886 May Day actions supporting it took two years to organize

The ANC was founded in 1912; Mandela was imprisoned from 1962 to 1990; South Africa didn't have multiracial elections until 1994

The UMW first tried to organize WV coalminers in 1892; go read some WV history about what happened between then and the coming of the New Deal that finally gave them a clear shot at organizing in the state

The nuclear test ban movement dates back to the 1950s; the US still hasn't ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

[Better Today]

20. Fair enough, but it is way disheartening when we aren't supposed

to be in the same position we were 180 years ago, or the same as a South Africa, or the coalminers 110 years ago. We aren't supposed to still be that country, as liberals we have to fight for every f'ing thing. Half of which gets reversed by conservatives, within a few administrations.

I'm glad you still have the drive, but for now, I don't. I need to see Congress and the Admin get some serious changes made before I will again.

[struggle4progress]

21. ... Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human

liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both ... http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress

[Better Today]

22. You must be young. Good luck with all that energy.

You're not educating me. I know all of this. However you also aren't "listening." Have a lovely day!

[struggle4progress]

27. My Back Pages

... Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull. I dreamed romantic facts of musketeers foundationed deep, somehow ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsfashDI6vU

[DrToast]

25. Yes, a whole year! Or: Exactly how long he's been President!

Your sarcasm sucks.

[Festivito]

28. Human nature to not want to organize so someone else can take credit.

Thievery, on the other hand, pays well and only needs a small investment by the thief, that is a small amount when compared to the results of that investment. Buying think tanks requires huge expenditure, but the resulting gain is tremendously huge.

DU administrators get admiration, but that doesn't buy lunch each day.

What would be nice is if someone at sometime bothered to give us governance with representation that depended on an egalitarian voting system. But, I dream.

[Juche]

30. How do you organize?

I guess part of it is despondency. Progressives did organize in 2006 and 2008. We donated money, voted, volunteered, wrote letters, talked to politicians, etc.

We did help elect dems in landslides, but once those dems got into power they blew us off.

The only time I've seen progressive activism really pay off was when Color of Change encouraged a boycott of Glenn Beck for saying Obama is a racist. That was awesome. I was part of that boycott (I wrote to a few companies) and that was the only time I've seen progressive activism really pay off. Tons of people did things like call politicians for a public option, or call for impeachment, and it went nowhere.

However, for some reason, when the right wing did the tea party and the town hall meetings (doing the same thing we were doing, confronting politicians) it was mainstream news.

So

1. How do we organize
2. What are effective forms of organizing? Talking to politicians is nice and all, but they seem to blow us off and ignore us. Are primaries from the left and boycotts of private companies the best way to organize and actually be effective?


It seems the left is at a disadvantage when it comes to politics because we are not taken seriously. Millions rallying against the war in Iraq is ignored, but thousands of tea party goers is front page news. Us calling in for impeachment or a public option is ignored, but them confronting politicians in town halls is front page news.

So I guess we have to find truly effective ways to influence politicians and the public. But what are they?

Primaries from the left? Boycotts? What else?

[struggle4progress]

32. You get together with a bunch of local folk for some political result. Then you try something to

get that result. When it doesn't completely work, you try to get more people involved and try something different. When that doesn't completely work, you try to get still more people involved and try something else different ...