On Thu, Nov 4, 2010, Robert Naiman wrote: > Rather than play Biblical Exegisis on the word "divisive," let me just > point out what the political context is here. > > The overwhelming majority of progressive doers in the United States > are "Democrats," either in the sense that they self-identify as > "Democrats," or that electorally, they function as Democrats: they > vote in elections, and when they vote, they overwhelmingly for > Democratic candidates.
I still don't know what a "progressive" is, but let's ignore that. I don't think we can make too much of the fact that most of this category identify themselves as "Democrats." That's because they're people dealing with a rigged electoral system where the only choice is to support the lesser of two evils in elections dominated by fund-raising (especially getting funds from the rich through various explicit and implicit deals). (These people are not dumb. They likely know that any "third" party effort is bound to fail, because of legal reasons created by the duopoly parties to entrench their power and the resulting fear of "spoiling" the election, which allows the greater of two evils to win. So they clamp their noses shut with power vices and vote for the DP. If they have political principles, they're not happy with this.) What I'm saying is that we shouldn't identify people by the party that they have little choice but to vote for. It's a mistake force people into categories that they may not be very happy with. (Just because someone goes to AA meetings doesn't mean that they want to be thought of as an alcoholic outside those meetings.) They should instead be thought of as people who may be sympathetic to our principles and the sides we take on various issues. (I'm deliberately keeping the cause being pushed on a very abstract level.) We should aim to pull them in our direction. If they want to vote for the lesser of two evils on a cold day in November every other year, that's their right to do so -- even if it expresses profound powerlessness and is most often a waste of time. The electoral game is rigged. It's only pressure from the outside that can change the rigging so it's more favorable to the "left" (whatever that is). To remember the case I use too often, the movement to end the Vietnam war came from _outside_ of the DP and was in many ways was _against_ the DP. That movement -- including its divisiveness and sometimes downright destructiveness -- then lead to profound (if temporary) changes in the DP. The same is true of the gay rights movement, the African-American civil rights movement, the feminist movement, etc. It's also true of the Teabaggers, who successfully pulled the GOP in their direction, while it's hard to see them as eschewing divisiveness. > So, that's the universe I was focused on in this piece: the > progressive doers of America, more than 95% of whom are > "Democrats." > > Among that group of people, it's a serious fault to be "divisive" if a > likely consequence of that "divisiveness" is to significantly increase > the probability of a Republican victory in 2012. If that is their concern, it's interesting that the DP's left is more concerned with "divisiveness" than are the so-called Blue Dog Democrats or the GOPsters. (It would be interesting if Limbaugh avoided divisiveness. His ratings would plummet.) Maybe that's one basis for the repeated demonstrations that the DP lacks backbone: even a major element of the DP's rank and file is scared of their shadows. Frankly, I'd guess that many or even most "doers" or "progressives" instead care much more about the issues they're working on than they do about avoiding rocking the DP yacht. I can imagine they'd rather have key initiatives pass instead of preserving the current DP establishment (which is one thing that avoiding divisiveness entails). Some might _favor_ divisiveness if it had the effect of shaking the DP the way the Teabaggers shook the GOP. > That's why I wrote the piece the way that I did, so as not to turn > those people off from the get-go. > > When I was in high school, I read Saul Alinksy's book "Rules for > Radicals." He wrote: I am not religious, but I do not go into an > Orthodox Jewish community as an organizer eating a ham sandwich. If following the Rule involves never criticizing the DP, its many sell-outs and crimes, and its established leadership, then why not just _ignore_ the useless donkey? Skip electoral politics altogether. Focus instead on the causes we want to promote. Didn't Alinsky do that? If there's enough support for our side, the DP will bend in our direction. After all, the professional politicians are professional opportunists who decide on what to back and what positions to take using the modern equivalent of a diving rod (polls, focus groups). Even then, much of their siding with our causes is only rhetorical, so the pressure has to be kept up. Following Alinsky's analogy, if you want to convince people in an Orthodox Jewish community to be on your side, you don't directly attack Orthodox Judaism (in theory or action) but instead argue for your cause. (In any event, if people want to be Orthodox Jews, it's they're right.) It may be something the rabbis don't like, but it may be something that the congregations are interested in. It's the latter that counts. (BTW, I am not saying that Jewish orthodoxy (or any other religion) is flawless. But to have any good effect, the best place for criticism of Orthodox Judaism to come from is from the inside, not from goyim such as myself.) -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
