best post-election analysis/plan of action yet, from Michael Ventura

[villager]

His recent column in the Austin Chronicle:

Letters at 3AM
Dancing in the dark

BY MICHAEL VENTURA

Joe Hill was a labor organizer executed on trumped-up charges in Utah in 1915. The night before his murder he telegrammed his comrades: "Don't waste your time in mourning. Organize."

I once shook the hand of a man who shook his hand. In the spirit of passing that handshake on, here are some thoughts the day after the election:


It's after a defeat that you find out what you're made of. Cry if you must, cry it all out, but don't let the bastards sap your vitality.

In 1964, arch-conservative Barry Goldwater was crushed at the polls. Everybody thought conservatism was forever politically dead in America. But conservatives regrouped, rethought, and organized patiently from the ground up; when fundamentalist religion became a force in the mid-Seventies, they were ready to take advantage of it. In 1980, they elected Reagan. Dig: It took them 16 years. American progressives seriously started mass-scale organizing only about a year ago. In just one year we came within reach of victory.
That's remarkable. Now is no time to quit.


Iraq is a mess and it'll get worse. Our military is way overextended. To keep present troop levels, Bush will renege on his promise and institute a draft – probably next spring, so that he can recover by the midterm elections. Rural poor are already fighting this war; a draft won't change their vote (though continued failure in Iraq might). But the conservatives of the middle class will be hit hard by a draft; that will change the present equation considerably. Progressives must stay organized and ready to help them. Reach out to save their kids – and ours.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said recently that he sees a 75% chance of "financial catastrophe" within five years. That's his polite Establishment way of saying that an economic shitstorm is on the horizon and could hit anytime. Any mix of oil hikes, credit trouble, unemployment, interest hikes, etc., could set it off. Also: The European Union, China, and Southern Asia have been hanging back, hoping we Americans would clean our own house and vote Bush out. We failed. They can't afford to hang back any longer. The U.S., thrown into heavy debt by Bush, now depends on these powers to buy our bonds. Their collective hand is on our financial spigot and they'll start turning it slowly toward "off." They'll do it carefully, but they'll do it, because it's the only check they have on Bush America. They needn't cut their investment much to make us hurt. Combine the two – our internal weaknesses and dependence on foreign financing – and we're in big trouble. Bitching about that won't be enough, as this election proved. Progressives must offer an analysis and alternatives, and present them in a way that badly educated people can understand.

<snip>

Let's say this loud: THE ISSUE OF GAY MARRIAGE DID NOT DOOM THIS ELECTION. You may measure the unhappiness of heterosexual marriage by the ferocity of the opposition to gay marriage. Listen to the country music that rural red counties listen to: The hits are about the failure of males and females to get together. In trailer park or penthouse, half the marriages end in divorce and many that don't are shameful compromises. Marriage, in America, is in a state of unbridled panic. That panic, not gay rights, helped doom this election – the panic of people trying to hold on to something that really isn't there anymore. Progressives must stand passionately with all who seek their fair share of the Bill of Rights.

<snip>

Remember: We've only been organizing on a mass scale for about a year, and we almost won. If more of the poor, the endangered, and the young had voted, we would have won. We must keep those we organized and reach out to those we failed to organize. The poor and the endangered don't have many computers; they're not on the Net. Politics is still local. Organizing from the ground up means from the ground up, face to face, speaking words that people can understand, showing them how they can have a chance to change things and helping them take that chance. It's only a chance, but it's not a delusion. Election Day is not set in stone. Our world is in ferocious flux. In that flux, in the very thing that frightens us most, is our chance.

Just one more thing: Nothing is less appealing or more boring than solemnity. The old-time lefties who gave us Social Security, the civil rights movement, the 35-hour week, and the original (now shredded) social safety net – they partied, sang, danced, feted, all the damn time. They were famous for it. These are dark days and they're going to get darker, but the dark side of the day has always been my favorite time for dancing.

The whole thing at: http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2004-11-...

[freedom_to_read]

1. link is broken

i would love to read this article in its entirety!

[villager]

2. thanks for letting me know... try this:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/columns/lettersat3am.html

it's the column archive -- you can click on "Dancing in the Dark" at the top of the list...

[StClone]

3. Kick

Kick



Best article I have read and it echos my thoughts and fears even beyond what I have considered.

[nashville_brook]

4. We DID win. and ignoring this fact will doom us.

We are an army -- an army of smart, thoughtful people with solid, damning evidence. Now is the time to exercise this power.

How do we do that? We have no voice in DC. We have no voice on k-street. Monied interests run the show. Does this mean we give up?

No -- this is where it gets interesting. This is where we take it to the streets. This is where we take the only weapon we have -- vote fraud -- and swing it like there's no tomorrow.

[villager]

5. yes, but that isn't this column...

He's writing about ways to bridge the seemingly un-bridgeable gulf between "us" and the "red staters." He's writing about staying sane in dark times...