There are always more ways to "skin a cat" than people think. One of the good things that has come about from the assault on progressive ideas, is that those who are thinking them have been challenged to think again. When I was a young fellow watching folks argue in the 70's, the folks I knew who were "progressive" were not very deep thinkers. They had no weapons to resist the various logical, sophist, and sophisticated arguments being developed on multiple fronts by conservatives. While conservatives had the advantage of money, prestigious institutions, and sometimes cutting logic.
That is finally beginning to change. Basically conservativism has shot it's wad. Ideas on environment? Conservatives would drill in Alaska and buy more nuclear power plants. Competition from abroad? Their answer is to allow US companies to form monopolies. They can't make up their mind on China, one half of them want to start a war with the Chinese out of fear of them becoming a superpower, while the rest of them salivate at all the cheap labor there. The threat of Al Qaeda? Unleash the "psy-ops" folks to use every means of forcible persuasion available and launch wars everywhere where Al Qaeda can sucker us into getting involved. Fresh thinking from any of these people? No.
And that's not to mention Social Security -- put it into the hands of the same people who have sunk pension funds from American Airlines to United and from Enron to MCI. Oh yes, and some of them would "solve" Social Security the way that Chile solved it's problems with Social Security. (Lyndon Larouche's group talks about this: http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/site_packages/ss_privatization/3150martinez_intvw.html") They don't tell you that Chile "solved" it's pension plans by creating a system in which there is practically no pension plan for the majority of the people. 50% of Workers aren't covered at all, and even more are covered so poorly that when they retire they can't afford to live on their pensions.
So what ideas should progressives have? Well, abroad the first thing we have to do is to define the enemy. Protecting our liberties while punishing such people isn't as hard as it seems. The US has always drawn a line between free speach and speach inciting violence -- or supporting people who incite violence. The US needs to pass laws defining what an enemy combattant is, how long they may be held, how they may be held, and what is permissible and what is not. Congress needs to tell the executive what to do here, because the abuses at Guntanamo, Abu Gharaib, and at home, tell us that otherwise they are going to do awful things and lie about it. Which is what they did.
Next, progressives need to push for new energy sources; more investment in solar-power, wind-mills, tidal water-turbines, methods to promote more efficient use of waste and recycling. Someday there could be a Chicken-shit King as famous as Frank Perdue -- with a little creative thinking on what to do with waste. As much as people don't want to face it, it's time to come up with new ways of "doing" nuclear energy as well too. Somebody could make money from, say, a power generator that was quiet, safe, and used fuel cell technology to burn say methane, and then also could run people's AC, etceteras.
There is no need for there to be a "either/or" "winner/loser" trade off when things are done progressively. The whole point of progressive thinking is to think outside the box and figure out ways to provide folks with better ways to do things. In the 70's folks figured out how to make cars that could make 30 miles on a gallon. We could make hybrid cars and cars that were more efficient. To do that doesn't take bankrupting GM or Ford, it takes a paradigm shift in the management of those companies and in the politicians and laws that either drive those folks crazy or enable them to do better. We have to chose to take the positivist, aggressive, "I have a dream" approach. Because the opposition has no dreams that can become reality. Their future would be the "Robocop" future of oppression and false advertizing; Robots and unemployment. We can chose a future of life and progress.
And progressives have to be better economicists. Ever since the 80's Democrats and progessives have been hearing straw arguments aimed at the progressive economicists of the Gailbraith and Keynesian eras. The math may make progressives eyes roll up, but they have to learn it. Supply side economics is simply a con, has been, and the con was exposed by none other than David Stockman himself; if anybody ever chose to pay attention. Of course economic systems have to balance their books over the long run. But there is economic horse sense from progressive economics. An economy that floats all boats makes the rich more secure, not less. If our rich are insecure and resentful, it's because for 40 years now they've been taking out their frustrations on the poor, the races, the "left", "liberals" and other targets of opportunity. That is a politics of "nattering nabobs of negativity" as one of their politicians once put it. And it goes nowhere except into conflict and repression.
Do we really worry more about what dirty words are used on HBO? Or do we concern ourselves with what dirty water we are sending downstream from our cities? Is it more Christian to impose the ten commandments and prayer on public schools or to clothe the naked and feed the poor? When did it become a progressive thing to fail to take advantage of medical advances?
So my advice to progressives? Sure, when outrageous things keep yelling! But also propose new ideas. And don't be afraid of ideas that come from "conservatives" either. Nixon and Moynihan were right about "work-fare" -- it's not fair to poor mothers to turn "welfare" into new chains on women and a tool to destroy families. "No Child Left Behind" was a good idea -- it just needs to be well funded.
It's not enough to defend a few privelaged working people who happen to be in Unions when the vast majority of people are outside the Union movement and don't even have the right to complain about poor working conditions. It's time to organize, recruit, figure out new ways to organize. Union organizers! Why do you guys wait until you have a confrontation to recruit members? Why not let people join Unions in an auxilliary capacity -- then when you have a majority then go to the owners and tell them you already represent a bunch of people. When did Unionism become a means to support Union Bureaucrats and not a means to look out for workers? Anyway, just a few ideas for todays blog.
Chris
Posted by cholte at July 24, 2005 10:40 PM