Changes: Turn and Face the Strain

Complex and thought provoking, in addition to reminding about what we were all doing two years ago - and what we wanted to happen from being a part of the eventual 13 million.

...there's anybody out there that doesn't recognize the musical reference in this essay, here's a 62-years-young David Bowie singing Changes last year:

- a

And that post was the stupidest thing Bowers ever said.

"MyIQ2xU" - Thank you so much for providing a picture perfect example of why folks like you lost the argument, every battle and the war!

Bowers writes a thoughtful and honest self-reflection and your idea of a counter argument is simply to call him a "moron" and rail, without contributing any information at all to the discussion, about some vague concept of "stupidest."

I'm glad folks like you are adversarial to me. You appear to love to lose! You think calling folks names, devoid of making any case to back up said name-calling, passes for political argument.

If you haven't noticed, I don't allow folks like you near my foxhole. You self-sabotage every cause you ever touch. (I merely approved your comment here because it offers such a precious example of why you lose and lose and lose and wouldn't know a victory if it bit you in the ass.)

Unable or unwilling to get out there and organize among real people, you think posting insults on the blogosphere constitutes political "activism." LOL. Gawd bless you and those like you. You do half our job for us by pushing all reasonable people away from your position!

Boy, do I agree with this! As I was watching President Obama speak to the Democratic House members on the Saturday before the final Sunday vote on HCR I remember thinking, Now he is community organizing them. He is reminding/showing them how THEY can take control of their own political lives and in doing so, leave a really important legacy for future generations. Always reminds me of Patrick Buchanan saying during the election, " . . . What we don't need is a community organizer!" Just one more thing he got wrong!

This has been a profoundly interesting piece. In fact I was quite amused by the comments on Chris Bower's site and how they all miss the point about why the left blogosphere lost the debate to Pres. Obama. They seem to have settled on such easy claptrap explanation of Pres. Obama's legislative win versus the blogger left's loss as "triangulation", "triumph of corporatism" "cult of personality" "progressive sellout to glib but winning messaging."

But none of them answer Chris Bower's basic question about why the left blogistan lost in not convincing people to follow them. As you say, it is a fine question that Chris himself cannot answer. The blogs lack shoe leather activism. Simple.

Had they gotten off their keyboards and into communitties who back this president they would have found the answer to their puzzlement.

I was amused by the anger of Chris' commenters at even dkos suddenly falling in line. Little do they realize that the shoe-leather activists are also part of the blogworld simply came back online in droves briefly after a hiatus from the nasty "primary Obama" left-blogistan wars of last fall and winter, to record their approval for the passage of this legislation.

Now look where we are. Meep meep (Road runner)

I learned that as a union organizer.  People are a lot smarter than they are frequently given credit for.  To earn their support, they need convincing answers to relevant questions.  Obama had the best answer to the best question:

Q: How will you accomplish transformative change?

A: By taking over the executive branch of the US government.

It really is all about the Hope -- and the Audacity!

Zizi - I have to laugh at so many of the comments over there on Bowers' post, both for what you raise - that they don't "get" at all the concept of having to do things better - and also for this:

It's a regular social phenomenon when members of any "problem club" realize that one they thought was their own actually no longer shares the same problem. Like the hostility among some single folk when their friend gets a girlfriend or boyfriend (or, conversely, among some married folk when their friend gets a divorce), or if a crackhead leaves the crack house, or if a recovery group member suddenly has a drink... it almost doesn't matter what the "problem" is, but that the individual is thinking for himself that folks find so threatening and maddening.

It would be the same here if one day I suddenly say, "you know what, folks, community organizing doesn't work anymore, here is something better." (You can exhale, everyone, as I don't really anticipate that coming in our lifetimes, but I say it just to make a point.)

Basically, bloggers, writers, journalists, communicators, we tend to reap what we sow. And just like that foreign policy supertanker I mention up above, Chris is going to have a big job now to turn the course of his blog, and its comments sections, around. But that will come if he stays the course: Chicken Littles will migrate elsewhere, and organizers will migrate toward him. It takes time, persistence, no small amount of patience, and solid belief that one's opinions are authentic, another skill set that could be learned from the basketball player-in-chief.

Al--

You write:

The sheer innovation, for example, of having the single-largest government-ordered redistribution of wealth in US history be administrated by private sector insurance companies (for that, kind readers, was the magic trick of the new Health Care Law), was the kind of three-point shot that characterizes the cleverness of the basketball player-in-chief.

That the HCR law starts to reverse the ever-growing income gap between rich and poor that began with the Reagan administration is a huge, watershed achievement, IMHO, and little appreciated amongst all the shouting.  And including the federal student loan reform in the reconciliation bill was genius.  Getting that done as a standalone bill would have been hailed as a great victory in its own right.

Good insights all around. 

Thanks as well for the Bowie reference.  You cleared up a lifelong "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy" "There's a bathroom on the right" issue for me by transcribing the chorus that I always heard as "turn the faces strange."

But it is your masterful smackdown of myiq1/2u that just earned you a $100 donation to the Fund for Authentic Journalism!

Thank you, dear Al, for the excellent encouragement you continually offer to those of us that have decided to "turn and face the strain".

After I get home from my 3rd part time job for the day (so grateful to have work), I will be working on my comments to share at our state OfA Health Care Celebration tomorrow night.  I get to put my talents to use for the cause.  My family, encourages me to keep going, to be the change that we seek.

I'm one of the punks he was singing to.  I thank Neil Young, David Bowie and The Who for helping me keep my angst in check...teenage wasteland...out here in the field.

Can't wait for the 10 year Celebration!

You said: "That’s how the human race evolves: one individual at a time." It seems that we have indeed found ourselves in the grip of evolution; a process which typically occurs slowly and over time... typically. But these are not typical times, and it seems we have landed in the vortex of a rapid evolution which feeds the wild hysteria coming from the right (and maybe from certain of the left).

The Center for Rapid Evolution at Univ. of Wisconsin states:

"Many serious problems currently facing human societies and the environment are occurring on rapid time scales. Such problems include global warming, extinctions of species, invasions of alien species, evolution of infectious diseases, and threats to agricultural livestock and crop species from diseases and inbreeding. The study of rapid evolution is critical for gaining the tools to address such problems." I would suggest that the period of social evolution in which we are currently engaged is also a rapid evolution; through these lens we can make a little more sense of the drama and hysteria driven by the mere presence, let alone successes, of our Community Organizer-in-Chief.

Thanks for the post-victory booster shot/reminder that we are in a process that is unfolding around us and somewhat difficult to discern in real-time. The responses to Bowers' apprehension of his own limits that Zizi points to--it's all "triangulation", "triumph of corporatism" "cult of personality" "progressive sellout to glib but winning messaging"--those rhetorical terms (just words) flourished by commentators, diarists, journalists, and pundits are rather bland attempts not at explanation so much as MadLibs-like narrative-construction. So often, amongst the commentating class, it is better to sound right than to be right. And the sounding is all about the words themselves coupled with the force of sheer volume as the inevitable stand-in for real authority or savvy. This sounding-business is also hubristic; thus, Bowers' humility (momentary or sustained hardly matters) is the problem. As so manyhere affirm the absent term in Bowers' piece (community organizing), I would suggest that it is not just in the tactics of doing that that practice (and phrase--community organizing) is important, but in the strategic value of admitting the value of real contact with the ground beneath our feet--wherever those feet happen to tread. Such contact is humbling--always--because it reminds us that we are more than just words (much as I personally love them) or abstractions (ditto). As important and useful as theory ("triangulation," etc.) is, what is moving us forward is a flood-up and a trickle-down sense that all these political not to mention policy concerns impact lived lives (as well as life itself) here and now. [Ray LaHood's statement about no longer privileging motorized transport exclusively is a profound example of a domestic policy agenda that is serious about staying in contact with the ground beneath our feet.]

Al, this particular passage caught my attention:

The sheer innovation, for example, of having the single-largest government-ordered redistribution of wealth in US history be administrated by private sector insurance companies (for that, kind readers, was the magic trick of the new Health Care Law), was the kind of three-point shot that characterizes the cleverness of the basketball player-in-chief.

Can you expand on that a little more?  It is an intriguing choice of words and a point I'd like to be able to use when debating the merits of the new law.  Specifically, the "redistribution of wealth" aspect. 

Thanks so much for your excellent insight on this issue.  I had some doubts about the bodies of legislature being able to close ranks and get it done, but as soon as you wrote your first post explaining the why and how we'd get reform, I knew it would happen!

Jeanne - In past eras, efforts to redistribute wealth in the US have been executed directly by the government: the New Deal, the Great Society, progressive taxation, etcetera.

Under the new Health Care Law, a huge chunk of the Gross National Product (that spent on doctors, hospitals, medicines, etcetera) is being redistributed so that the 31 million poorest Americans receive the benefits and those in the upper classes (including corporations) are charged to pay for a greater share of it.

Although the redistribution comes not exclusively via lower or higher taxes for the corresponding classes, it comes through services, medicines and access to health insurance, yet the total dollar value of the benefits being redistributed is bigger than any progressive taxation or other program before in US history.

What confused a lot of people is that the Health Care Law has the private sector (insurance companies) administrating that redistribution of wealth. That's what led some to accuse that this was somehow a give away, or surrender of resources, to big insurance. And yet the same plan taxes big insurance to subsidize the workers and the poor, the elderly and the children, the previously uninsured.

Hope that's helpful.

Great piece.

You may also want to read In Health Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality for more about this.

Al, I am very grateful for this website. Thanks for your level-headedness and consistent support for our president.

I have done a good deal of volunteer work in my community, but haven't really gotten that involved in political work. That changed in 2008 and I'm taking it up a notch this year.  I am blessed to live in Tom Pierello's congressional district and I will do whatever I need to do to help that courageous man get re-elected. The amazing thing is that I really believe that, contrary to all the Washington conventional wisdom, he will get re-elected. I wouldn't have this conviction were it not for the work that you and so many others have done.

By the way, I am a Christian and I support Barack 100%. I only say this to underline the fight for common interests and goals, the public spiritedness that is only possible through the efforts you support. People of diverse backgrounds and beliefs can be brought together. 

Cable TV and talk radio and the hysterical bloggers and commenters on both extremes are constantly trying to undermine the unity and teamwork that is possible among us. They want to suffocate our hope with anger because if we don't hope, we won't take the effort to go outside our comfort zone. We'll "plug in", addicted to the rage and the cathode tube.

 On the contrary, if we're out on the streets, we won't listen to their nihilistic drivel anymore. 

God bring us closer to such a time.

Booman has a great post that is also inspired by Chris Bowers. Key summary:

For me, 'progressive' means 'committed to progress' which may be incremental or sweeping, but which doesn't get bogged down in ideological roadblocks. There is no such thing as 'noble failure' when failure means that the current incarnation of Republicans is restored to power. A wise president works with what he's got and doesn't add more burden than the beast can bear. That's different from triangulation. Triangulation is passing your opponent's agenda on your terms and then taking credit for it. Obama is passing his agenda on the terms the system will bear. And that is progressive enough for me. And I don't care who gets the credit.

There are so many progressive changes that are not being hearlded, I found this at Kevin Smith's blog - a story from the  nation.

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/03/can-hilda-solis-revive-labor-d...

....[Labor Solicitor Patricia Smith is] known especially for her insight that, as Retail union organizer Jeff Eichler, who worked closely with Smith in New York, says, "to impact an entire sector had to involve working with groups outside the bureau." She used labor unions, churches and immigrant groups as her eyes and ears on the ground; they organized plaintiffs, served as liaisons with state investigators and translated big enforcement fines into long-term gains for workers by means of union contracts or sector-wide employer manuals.

In fact, it was these efforts to use community groups as a force multiplier that triggered a furious campaign by business front groups to block her nomination. Senator Enzi obtained reams of e-mails to produce an alarmist forty-page report about one small pilot program Smith had launched, Wage Watch, which trained community members to report wage violations. Conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Limited Government piled on, the latter issuing an alert that if her concept went national, "it could turn tens of thousands of 'community organizers' into raving vigilantes." Nonetheless, at the new DoL, community partnerships are fast becoming standard operating procedure.

Actually, I sort of like the idea of roving bands of vigilantes turning in employers who mistreat their employees. Sounds like Solis and Smith are on the right track here.

Well, as someone who's being paid to do community organizing, I've been a big fan of Al's on this point. His admonitions to watch the field organizing and ignore the overheated blog/cable cycle kept me from worrying too much about health care. Whatever crappy kind of non-single-payer bill we have in law now, (which is a huge step forward, even if not what I wanted personally) the fact is CLEAR that the Right DID NOT WANT this. As Al said - they got rolled on this one!

What I wonder about, as I try to fit Obama etc into my understanding of history, is how much this is and is not like FDR's time. The reason being, as I am aware of ground forces and real movements, back then FDR had a sometimes-revolutionary, ususally-socialist, definitely militant labor movement creating huge pressures on the left. The reason FDRs Labor Secretary turned out to be 'a big deal' was that the labor movement was being that big a deal.

This feels more like the Progressive era at the opening of the last century, although I don't know why. What's on the ground? The Community Organizing World (of non-profits) where I am is OK but small. There's no 'independant political force of the working class' like the WSWS keeps talking about.

Just wondering. But one thing is clear - the skinny kid from Chicago can make it happen, like none other. No wonder they're freaked out.

And total Bowie win. Listen to Fashion sometimes, replace the word Fashion with the word Fascism.

Thank you, Al, for taking the time to further outline the concept of wealth distribution within HCR.  In all the overheated debate and mostly ridiculous rhetoric about it, nobody is really talking about these interesting finer points.

And Laura, thank you for the link.

I read Open Left often during the campaign, and then got completely turned off during the transition phase.  But I started reading again as the health care reform process wound down.

On reflection, there are two reasons to read Open Left: Chris Bowers and Mike Lux.  Both offer sober criticsms of Obama; more importantly, both are not allergic to reason and self-reflection.  I still disagree with Chris much of the time, but at least he engages in some honest debate.

Other of the front-page commentators offer little more than cynicism and knee-jerk thinking.  Chris at least understands that there are limits to what any president can do.

In the meantime, what Obama has accomplished this year I think will eventually be acknowledged by historians as pretty impressive, even if not understood by many contemporaries.

"Whatever crappy kind of non-single-payer bill we have in law now, (which is a huge step forward, even if not what I wanted personally) the fact is CLEAR that the Right DID NOT WANT this."

The reason the right didn't want this, is because part of the American right is absolutely batshit insane and has little actual political purpose, and the other, less insane part, simply figured that opposing this law is good politics.

On the substance however, there really isn't that much that offends the right in this law. If let's say, a hypothetical Republican president Romney or McCain would have tried to push through health care reform, a law largely similar to this one would have sprung up (a ban on the practice of rejecting people on the basis of pre-existing conditions, a mandate, subsidies, medicare cuts,...). The only difference would be that a number of Republicans would support it, and a number of Democrats on the left would oppose it, for not going far enough.

President Obama declared today Cesar Chavez Day on what would have been his 83rd birthday.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/31/living-legacy-cesar-chavez

I agree HCR was a centrist bill, now law.  But if the Republicans had passed it, do you think it would be funded in part by a hugely progressive increase in Medicare taxes on high-earners, a tax which even includes taxation of investment income?  When you look at who pays for the increase in  health care coverage (mostly the wealthy) and who benefits from increased coverage (mostly the poor and working classes), you can see why the guardians of wealth and privelege were against it.  In terms of income redistribution, this is the most progressive piece of legislation since the Reaganauts began systematically dismantling social safety nets and shifting the overall tax structure to favor wealth over labor.

You say that there are two parts of the Republican party - OK so far.

The first, you say, is batshit insane.

Some of the things Al calls people out for, I don't see. I don't see how campaigning on the left for better healthcare reform, or worrying, like Bowers did, about appointments is all that awful. What I DO see is bad analysis, and cheap analysis, of our opposition, and that's what you're doing.

People in politics do what they do for very intentional reasons. They might get caught up in mob mentality (post 9-11) but they are not just crazies. I live next to Michelle Bachmann's district, so I have a ringside seat to one of the nation's prime 'crazies.'

The far right is using hysteria and fear to drum up their base. The far right is out of power and they don't like it, and they'll use any means they can lay their hands on to prevent their opponents from successfully doing anything. Drumming up hysteria and fear means you leave consensus reality behinds as you harp on conspiracies and create straw communists. It means adding dog-whistles for racism and violence, because just like the Nazis, who started with brownshirts breaking shit in the streets, they will do that when they need to. This totally has political purpose, and it's not very small-d democratic, and if you call it insane and write it off you're missing some very important signs.

Second, the health care plans of Republicans are the plans they pass when they have to, or when they think they can get over. They need a plan to fend off better plans, but they don't love their own plans. Do you think President Romney would be spending his political capitol insuring 30+ million people who don't have insurance already? I don't find your hypothetical convincing, I guess.

and already this is amazing piece, with all of the media attention on the "speech-giver in cheif" or cries of "teleprompter!" even a raving O-bot like myself sometimes forgets how amazingly well Obama communicates. Beyond just talking at crowds though, he has shown time and again that he has the capacity to trip over new arguments or unexpected hang-ups and use them to his advantage in the next round (and with Obama, there is ALWAYS another round).

The reason so man in the middle like my mother, a lifelong Texas Republican, were brought into the fold of the Obama 2008 coalition was that he doesn't just shout talking points, he is having a conversation with the American soul. Even now I'm helping her with talking points about the recent legislation so she can tell her friends why it isn't the "Armegeddon" they were told about, and she is constantly stopping me with "wow, he did what?" kind of statements. I grew up Republican, am now an independent, but could see myself becoming an "Obama Democrat" before this is all said and done.

I have denied being a blogger in the past, put that was mere self-effacement. I am not an organizer and that is simple fact. But recently here in Chicago one of our aldermen, Joe Moore,  has begun an experiment in "Participatory Budgeting". His ward is adjacent to mine and one that I lived in until they moved me out by redistricting. So I was no stranger either to him or his ward.

I was instantly impressed with his decision to hand off $1.2 million of his "menu" money to his ward citizens to decide for themselves how to spend. I posted an enthusiastic  blog piece on it and I immediately dove into the process as an participating observer. I attended meetings and joined discussions and offered my own proposals as well as blogging it.

That is what I mean when I say that bloggers are not "journalists". Journalists are not allowed to participate in the stories they write about. Now I have put the word "journalist" in quotes because of your, Al, use of the concept of "Authentic Journalist". I haven't followed it closely enough to understand all of its nuances. So I'll leave it at that.

What has all that to do with Chris Bowers? Chris Bowers and the crew at OpenLeft have made and still make attempts at "organizing".  When some of us started a local community blog here in Illinois, Chris added us to the list of state blogs that they promote in their blogroll. We certainly appreciated it as it gave us a bit of legitimacy within the blog world.

But honesty I have never felt "organized" by him. By that I mean that there is not much contact nor is there any real communication betweenst him and OpenLeft and us the local state blog. The only leadership offered is that of leading by example. And to some extent there is a vague "organized" effect sometimes amongst the various blogs. I believe there to be a political vacuum in that way. It's a vacuum waiting to be filled.

Another attempt by a blogger to organize has been Al, your own attempt with your "Fieldhands" organization. I myself joined up right away.  But nothing has come of it. At this point is is simply a idea that generated some energy but not self-sustaining energy.  It too is lacking. I can't say lacking what but I certainly appreciate the effort and value whatever lessons are learned by the effort.

One of the things Joe Moore said to me was that people were very excited by the energy and effort put into the Participatory Budgeting process but that he wished "that it would get some media attention." It might yet get some fake "journalistic" attention that he craves. But the real success or failure of the effort will be measured by and within his ward community. The final voting on what projects are to be funded will happen on the 10th (12th?) of April. I will blog it one more time before the voting and again then again after.

So perhaps, just as Joe Moore awaits a sense of validation of his efforts by someone other than a participant blogger, those local bloggers of us await being organized by something other than blogging organizer.  Could OFA be that something other? I don't know but not so far.

Anyway, Al thanks for the respect paid to Chris Bowers. It helps me validate my own respect for both you and him.

I appreciate the information concerning Joe Moore and citizen budgeting in a Chicago Ward. Sounds interesting.  Keep us posted, please.

I live in STLMO.  I've been sued by an Alderman because, as neighborhood association president, I questioned his authority, got nowhere with him and organized a recall.  He's been out of office for 5 years.

May I say that my connection with OFA is in large part because of Al and fellow co-publishers here.  As I have said in previous comments to the many posts by Al, about OFA, I am continually challenged to talk face to face, with my neighbors, family, friends, folks in line at the store, etc..

The grass roots experience and growing strength of Organizing for America is exciting to be part of.  I am getting a real understanding of the future of OFA and how people like me are part of it.  I find the National nature of OFA a safe harbor concerning local and state politics. The fact that OFA is a "special project" of the DNC, with the name barackobama.com still attached, keeps me growing as an Organizer.  Things for me, with OFA, have opened up.  They need people to step up and help.  They will always need people to be involved.  We have the need for some of our campaign organizers and neighborhood leaders to get involved again.  The opportunity to utilize my knowledge of local/state stuff with OFA, is shaping up.  I am speaking at events because I have been asked.

I am not a politician.

I am an organizer.

I love authentic journalism.  I support the Fund.

One more thing:  This will be my second Celebration with Al et al in NYC area.  Face to face conversation, a shot of nice Tequlia and community gives this organizer a solid base of truth through-out the coming year.

Organizing for America.  That's what I've been doing.  Somewhere in a place...