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practically and strategically, to create a powerful, meaningful leftist movement?
I'm more into the practical mechanics of our power as a people--transparent vote counting. I think the "trade secret" code vote counting, by fascist corporations, is blockading reform. This is the most fundamental protection and stability of democracy--our abilty to alter the nation's course, to "throw the bums out." If that is not working, no amount of street protests, organizing, or any other form of people power or civic activsim can get anywhere. Our leaders are deaf to us. I think this is why. They are no longer beholden to us. This began, of course, with the filthy money in the campagn system. But if fact the grass roots has shown that it can match the fascist money machines, dollar for dollar. We did it in 2004, again in 2006, and Obama supporters are doing it today. We can also overcome the corporate media with word of mouth and the internet--and showed that we could do this way back in early 2003, just before the Iraq invasion, when--unknown to most of us--FIFTY-SIX PERCENT of the American people opposed the Iraq War (Feb. '03, NYT poll; other polls, 54-55%). People were getting information from SOMEWHERE. The American people were RESISTING the war propaganda--and that number has now grown to a whopping, epochal 70% antwar majority. And still we cannot get our leaders to stop on the war.
It's the voting machines. That's the most logical and obvious explanation for the people being 70/30 against the war, and the so-called Democratic Congress being almost the exact opposite, around 65/35 FOR the war.
We need to change laws. We need to initiate investigations We need to bust the corporate news monopolies. We need to change the tax structure. We need to cut the military budget by 90%, down to a true defensive posture (no more wars of choice!). We need to "pack the Supreme Court." We can't do anything that needs to be done without the ability to elected REAL representatives of the people.
Secret corporate vote counting is not the only thing that is wrong with our political system, by any means. But voting is the seat of our POWER. It IS our power. Without this power, we are slaves.
And that is our condition right now. So, a rant about how bad, or disorganized, or unfocused, or compromising, the left is, is just...more abuse. Haven't we been abused enough by the fascists and corporatists who rule over us? We need PRACTICAL, STRATEGIC advice. What the hell do we DO about it?
A lot of people have been activated. That is the great value of the Obama campaign, for instance--a passionately activated citizenry, who are demanding a president who is accountable to the people. Whether Obama will be accountable or not, once in office, I do not know. But the kind of activism that has rallied around his campaign is the key restoring our democracy, and to the pursuit of social justice and peace.
So that's something. That's very important--that the grass roots has not been flattened and destroyed by repeated stolen elections. They seem very energized. There is a new spirit in the land. Then there is the election reform movement--thousands of people, and new organizations, fervently working to restore transparent vote counting. These two forces may converge, if the election is stolen from Obama. Then we'll really see something, in my opinion. American Revolution II is boiling beneath the surface. That would bring it to a head.
One of the first big signs that the left (the real majority) was not dead in the U.S. was the Seattle '99 protest against the WTO. I have never seen, or participated, in a more awesome protest. Labor groups. Environmental groups. Religious groups. Human rights groups. All came together--50,000 of us--with 10,000 of us committing civil disobedience (laying down in the streets), and bringing the WTO to a halt.
We sent the corporate news monopolies--and even some leftist publications--into a vicious tizzy of marginalization and slander. And to this day, most people in the country don't realize that that protest was entirely peaceful, and extremely effective, until the Darth Vader police forces that were assembled had been brutally attacking seated, peaceful demonstrators all day long. At that point some unruly youngsters (the black-masked kids) began burning trash cans and kicking in a few windows downtown. And of course that was what was featured on corporate TV. Meanwhile the cops were rampaging against the peaceful demonstrators and invading Seattle neighborhoods that were not involved. They even brutalized a city councilman. But they didn't arrest the vandals. It was a police riot. A one-sided war. Further, their treatment of arrested demonstrators was brutal (18 hours in a bus, with no water, no food, no toilet, etc.). (It all came out later, in Seattle city hearings, but those were never publicized.)
That was the spark of the anti-"free trade" consciousness in the U.S., which has grown so big now. But few could have predicted what would happen in the U.S. next: the Bush Junta, the invasion of another country and slaughter of 1.2 MILLION innocent people to get their oil, the shredding of our Constitution, the spying, the blackmail, the fear, the massive looting of our treasury, and the near collapse of any political opposition. 1999 seems a long time ago. But it did illustrate the potential of the U.S. left. And bear in mind that that was at the height of the Clinton administration, prior to bursting of the tech bubble. Even then, even with a Democratic president, and in the midst of apparent prosperity, the leftists who organized the Seattle protest did exactly what this article says we should be doing--being the nation's conscience, being the champion of the workers and the poor, not compromising, not playing political games and seeking power and privilege.
I think maybe we've all been so stunned by what has happened since that we're only just getting back on our feet--both the leftist movement, and the American people in general. Seattle '99 didn't stop the government from pursuing "free trade" and global corporate predation. But it certainly got into the consciousness of the people. With corrupt, lying corporate news media, it takes time for word to get around. Few Americans realize, to this day, that 56% of us opposed the Iraq War from the beginning. 56%! A significant majority. That majority was nowhere reflected in corporate news and opinion. It was buried. And "trade secret" vote counting was fast-tracked all over the country, to keep it buried--to provide the ILLUSION of support for the war, to confuse us, to divide us, to make us feel demoralized and disempowered.
Do you know where that 56% came from? It came from the Vietnam War, 30 years before. That leftist movement--to expose and stop the Vietnam War--was still alive. It created a widespread consciousness about the horrors of the war, and skepticism about war, that never died.
I don't feel critical of the left. I don't feel critical of the American people. I think we are all struggling to understand what's happened to our country, and many are trying to figure out what to do about it. I think that the American people have been amazingly resistant to the 24/7 warmongering and fascist propaganda that they have been subjected to. I think that they will find the solutions. And I think that they will create the leftist movement that they need--whether around election reform, or "free trade," or unjust war, or some other galvanizing issue.
Today, in Paraguay, the leftist Fernando Lugo overturned 60 years of corrupt, entrenched, fascist rule, and was elected president of Paraguay. The leftist sweep of elections in South and Central America now includes Paraguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua and Guatemala (and would have included Mexico, but for a stolen election). This leftist tide is an awesome, historic development. It represents decades of work on democratic institutions, and tremendous struggle and endurance. While Latin America has been achieving democracy, we have lost it. We have much work to do, just to restore the basic mechanisms of democracy. That should be our focus--so that the people can rule here once again, as it should be. The leftist ideas and focus that are needed will emerge from the people. It is nothing we activist leftists need to worry about too much. Empower the people, and they will determine what they need.
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