If you’re on the left and if you’re doing serious
political work, coalition politics, building a united front effort or doing some kind
of mass work today you are encountering lots of liberals, and perhaps a few
libertarians as well. If you’re doing good work you are engaging with liberals
and liberal-minded people and trying to move them leftward. Perhaps you have
decided that working with people who are politically engaged and moving them in
our direction is the right path, or perhaps you’re more focused on the
disengaged folks and trying to politicize them. This post is intended more for
people in the former category than in the latter, but all solidarity goes out to
people working with the disengaged!
Prior to the election I had a number of run-ins with
liberals who were strong on Clinton and quite opposed to Sanders. These were
frustrating conversations and I lost a few contacts and friends as the
arguments deepened. Looking back, I could have done much differently and better,
but the liberals I was talking to were dogmatic, often less than honest and
absolutely convinced that their candidate was a genuine progressive and certain
to win. Today many of them are at the front lines, and some are moving
leftward, but they continue to blame us for their failures.
This is a problem on both sides. We didn’t grasp the
essence of united-front politics and methods, which is our responsibility as a left.
They operate in a top-down context which has real practical and pragmatic
limits by inhibiting their work and putting distance between themselves and the
working-class. We couldn’t find a way to serve the people and put aside our
baggage. They couldn’t hear even mild criticism of Obama and their candidate.
Neither side knew how to correctly assess Obama and the Democratic Party and
build from the positives while correcting the negatives. I hoped that after the election we could coalesce around a progressive set of ideas based on the great work done by the Sanders campaign, but locally we have not seen a unifying program emerge from the Sanders folks and the local Democratic Party establishment remains largely in place. We entered the presidential campaign without programatic clarity and we ended it without clarity. The left owns these setbacks. Today liberals are an absolutely
essential component of any united-front strategy, but it’s likely going to be
up to us to build that strategy and invite them in and then on them to accept
the invitation or not.
The cost of not building a united-front fightback against
the right with a strong socialist component at its heart is deepening barbarism. The right-wing probably gets this and will use a strategy and tactics to divide the people and
isolate the left. Provocations are likely and may be happening now. Under these
conditions liberals and liberalism become almost contested terrains. I have put
aside my “Socialism or barbarism” pin because a few people have commented that
they favor barbarism and have assumed that I do also.
This post is occasioned by a number of conversations and
e-mail and Facebook encounters I have had lately with local liberals and
libertarians and by attending rallies and meetings daily in our community. Liberals
are often at the center of these conversations and activities, but they come to
the present moment in crisis. I do not believe that the full measure of this
crisis can yet be seen. It is not inevitable that this crisis will move people
leftward. The hard work of patiently talking to people, organizing and
mobilizing and engaging people for the long haul is in our hands, but we have
competition. Some of that competition comes from the liberal establishment,
some from the “hard right” and some from the libertarians.
Progress in the Mid-Willamette Valley is uneven. A rally goes
wrong but a School Board meeting knocks the ball out of the park. A racist City
Councilperson is unseated but an incompetent libertarian steps up to take his
place. A Black candidate running for the City Council position could run and
win on a progressive platform, but he is a restaurant owner who doesn’t support
a higher minimum wage. The “progressive” candidate in the race comes out of the
establishment and doesn’t work here. Right-wing hate radio spins a fantasy of a
local left-wing conspiracy but the cashier at the supermarket wants to talk to
me about protest strategies and tactics. The immigrant rights and people of
color movements advance but white progressives don’t always learn from them. These
oppressed immigrant and people of color communities and their leaders need allies,
but where are the allies? The ridiculous third bridge idea gets trounced but
moves ahead anyway, and a Starbucks with a drive-through goes in on a downtown
corner where traffic accidents seem certain to occur---and the attention
remains on downtown Salem while our neighborhoods suffer. The state is facing
another budget crisis, Kate Brown arrives late to the table on immigration and
environmental issues and Tobias Read goes off on his own on the Elliott State
Forest.
The following notes are not in good order and reflect
this uneven progress. The intention here is to help people talk about things
that matter and mobilize and organize.
* Gut check yourself before you start having
conversations or debates with liberals and libertarians. Are you having the
discussion or argument in order to win people over, neutralize them or score
points? Can you have the talk or argument without making it about you and your
particular problems? Can you make the case that it is the system which needs to
go?
* Do criticism and self-criticism constantly with others.
Discuss what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. Take guidance from
the people you’re in solidarity with; don’t speak on their behalf or do things
for them, but work from a place of humble solidarity alongside of them.
* Show up. Be at those community meetings, get there
early and hang-out afterward. Know the people. Love the people.
* Make every conversation an organizing conversation with
liberals. What can engage people at the base and hold their interest and create
involvement? It’s right to debate issues, but it’s also right to challenge
values. At some point we need to need to say, “Look, we both believe in (issue
or cause). Will you join us in (action)? If you can’t do that, what will you do
to help?” Follow up with people later. And at some point challenging
values---your own values and the values of others---has to be dramatic in order
to be effective. It’s okay if the person leaves angry after you have tried to
engage on equal, non-authoritarian terms around their values and yours.
* Forget trying to find common ground with the right and
with the libertarians. The left should not be about defusing conflict,
peacemaking while injustice is institutionalized, abstract love and getting
along. Our strong suit should be in principled unity, confronting injustice
directly, organizing for power and demystifying and overcoming oppression and
decolonizing ourselves and our communities and workplaces.
* Don’t be afraid of believing and saying that there are
rights and wrongs, correct and incorrect ideas, things which can be rationally
and productively debated and things which don’t merit discussion. Fascism, for
instance, cannot be rationally debated. Racial, ethnic or national superiority
cannot be rationally debated. Misogyny cannot be rationally debated.
* Encourage others when they get it right and encourage
yourself when you get it right. We all have a great deal to learn. If you have
been involved in organizing and mass work, you have a responsibility to teach
as well.
* We hear more often now that arguments are for the
benefit of people watching or listening, not for the people arguing. That may
be true, but in a wide audience you don’t know everyone or what will move them.
Stick to your principles without being dogmatic or sectarian. Our left-wing,
socialist tent should be big and have a wide-open door with a welcoming
committee of every group committed to the working-class and the people in line.
* Understand the contradictions. Liberals are in crisis
and the Democrats are caught between competing tendencies. The libertarians aren’t
fascists, but their theory and actions open the door to authoritarian rule. One
wing of capital backs authoritarianism and fascism, another uses a neoliberal
framework. Be familiar with the liberal and libertarian contexts, be able to
anticipate their arguments and refer to the theories they’re operating from.
To be continued...
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