If You Organize It, He Will Come: Lessons of the Chicago Factory Occupation

In the best show of support yet, Gov. Rod Blagojevich visited the factory today and publicly announced that Illinois would suspend all state business with Bank of America until they provided RW&D with the funds they needed to pay their workers.

The man's got chutzpah.

I love this--true grassroots, on-the-ground, real people. I think these people get Obama's attention much sooner than the Sirotas and the other left media that sit at computers, instead of standing in factories. Just my two cents.

While I was really stoked to see this, I was also somewhat unsurprised to see certain individuals managed to seep their way into the media spotlight surrounding this. We can't allow actions like this to be hijacked or controlled by those who care more about seeing themselves on TV than about people who actually work for a living. The truth is, if a community organizing effort is really solid and coming from the grassroots, there's no need for these people. Just like with the Prop 8 protests. We don't need national advocacy groups controlling the narrative, we don't need do-nothing activists praising us and telling us what to do, and hell, we don't even need impotent labor unions controlling the bargaining.

To this end, I'm really happy to see Obama stepping up and saying the right thing.

I'm heading up to Republic this afternoon to see this firsthand.  Any other Chi-city Field Hands interested in heading up as a group?

There's a thread on the Chicago Field Hands page about this, here.

The man's also got US District Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and his Federal investigators swarming all over his affairs at the moment, so I wouldn't go out of my way to play up that connection ;)

Of course, I applauded former Republican IL Governor George Ryan for taking action on a hopelessly flawed Death Row justice system.  Doesn't mean I endorsed or approved of the corruption (Licenses for Bribes) that landed him in Federal Prison - and locals generally believe "Public Official A" (Blago) is well on his way to joining Ryan.

Of course Al's point is that the President-Elect is showing us all what he means by "We are the change we have been waiting for".  Self-identified progressives who don't learn this lesson will be disappointed that an Obama administration doesn't move the agenda forward on their pet issues. Getting elected was the first step, but the people will need to do their part to prepare the political will to make things happen.

... Or we can sit back and let the politicians continue to run things as they are so used to doing, as evidenced by the letter to President Bush supporting a commutation of the remaining 6½ years on the unrepentant Ryan's 7½-year sentence, a letter written and submitted by IL Senator (and Majority Whip) Richard "Profiles in Cronyism" Durbin.

And Gov of Il tells state NOT to do business with BOA.

Yes We Can.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/08/illinois-governer-suspend_n_149...

Sandy - I've updated the piece above to send folks over to the Chicago Field Hands thread. Super. Do bring us some video if you can!

Also because of the change in tone I've noticed regarding how the involvement of the union.  As a European living here for a long time, I was always surprised at the disrespect I have heard from many to the entity of the union.

There was a diary at DKos today on this topic and it quoted from Obama's Labor day speech - note this paragraph:

It’s time you had a President who honors organized labor - who’s walked on picket lines; who doesn’t choke on the word "union"; who lets our unions do what they do best and organize our workers; and who will finally make the Employee Free Choice Act the law of the land.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/12/8/0186/14482/674/670540

KD

This union is a small and indepedent union that is being organized democratically.  As far as I know, it is not aligned with any political party and did endorse Obama or any politician. They organize outside the non-democratic (or only semi-democratic) unions which control most of the union agenda and are responsible for coopting workers.

This action is outside the scope of this so-called movement that obama is said to be creating.

They were lucky to get Obama to listen but it is NOT because of this Obama movement. They have every right to take over the factory completely and run it themselves. However, the second they attempt to do so (if they are brave enough to do so), I guarantee you that Obama won't be as approving.

Ha! Field Trips. Hope the designation sticks!

Jared - Before claiming to speak for the union or its workers, why don't you go ask them whether they see new opportunities or not since Obama's election.

Any and every hands-on community organizer in the United States - the ones doing the real work - knows plain as day that the context of what we can accomplish has changed radically by the election of a former community organizer.

Statements like "I can guarantee you that Obama won't be so approving" are filled with the whiny Eeyore-ism of that tendency known as "the barbiturate left."

You can ignore or bemoan Obama or his movement all you like. Folks who say things like you say seem to want it to do nothing, to fail, to sell out, if only to prop up your own narratives that nothing good can ever come out of electoral organizing. But you know what? Those of you exclusive to non-electoral organizing in the US have utterly and completely failed to change anything in forty years. And it is precisely because of the whiney politically-correct tone that is reflected in your comment. That tone alienates the working class in the US, especially because of the arrogance of claiming to speak for us.

And I say this as one that has reported and walked aside the successful non-electoral movements in Mexico, Venezuela, Bolivia and elsewhere. The Obama movement more closely resembles those movements, and their successes, than the sorry-ass circle jerk that has posed as "activism" in the US in recent decades.

I dare you - I absolutely dare you - to get a bus ticket to Chicago and ask those workers what they think, before you claim to speak for them. It will be a rude awakening for your prejudices and preconceptions.

This is from a press release - and Jared, I'm talkin' to you - from the union's political action committee from last spring, during the Democratic presidential primaries:

THE REAL DEAL Obama has inspired supporters with his popular style, and has capitalized on the fact that he is not a longtime Washington, D.C. insider. He has motivated large numbers of young and disenchanted voters with his positive approach. On the key issue of our failed trade policies, Obama supports "amending" NAFTA, although he has supported a number of smaller job-exporting free trade deals, most recently the deal with Peru. His campaign has attracted a massive grass roots fundraising base, and has won the support of many traditional politicians who are fearful of another disastrous Clinton presidency. Obama has shown a qualitative growth during the campaign, but his popular style and his lack of Clinton political baggage are so far his strongest points. Check him out for yourself ... 

All UE members - especially those who live in Pennsylvania - are strongly urged to take the time to investigate both the Clinton and Obama records before the important April 22 primary election. While there are many similarities between the two, there are many differences as well. Clinton prefers to harken back to the totally unproductive regime of her husband as some sort of positive example for what her administration might look like, while Obama paints an upbeat picture of where he sees his administration taking our nation... 

Better to listen to the workers than claim to speak for them.

First of all, I never once claimed to be speaking for or know what the workers actually believe. Rather, I had said quote: " As far as I know, it is not aligned with any political party and did endorse Obama or any politician." What I clarely meant by this is that as far as the brief research I had done on the union showed, it did not endorse Obama.  Obviously, I stand corrected as your research shows.  But the point is that I qualified my statement with 'as far as I know' because I never claimed to be an expert on that union and I definitely never claimed to speak for that union.  (And I agree completely that I should never speak for them just like no one should be speak for them. They should speak for themselves).

Secondly, I read a lot of your articles - Al i'm talking to you - because I appreciate your opions and think you often have a lot of interesting things to say.  However, I think your rudeness is unfortunate. While I disagree with you about Obama, I do not think you are an asshole and think you are flexible enough to engage people. Please dont prove me wrong here.

Finally, as much as i'd love to take a bus ticket to chicago, there are no buses from here (south africa). But I will be following the issue as much as possible from here because I find it very interesting just as I find the land invasions and forclosed home occupations in Miami interesting.

Oh and by the way, dont assume things about me as an individual. Dont define me as part of a so-called " barbiturate left" when you don't know much about me at all.  For instance, in terms of politics, Bolivia is (in part) an example of electoral organising and its something I am much more supportive of. If Evo 'sells out', I have much more faith that the 'movement' would call him into account.  The difference I see between Obama and Evo is that Obama controls his movement whereas to a much larger extent, the social movements in Bolivia control Evo (though the extend of this I am not sure because I am unable to check it out with my own eyes).

Anyways, the point is that you are a good journalist and it would be great if you dialogue with your readers in a respectful manner rather than attack.

I've been waiting for something like this.

There is a nice interview with the Republic Window sit-down strike leaders here:

http://www.archive.org/details/RepublicWindowsWorkersOccupyFactory

The interviewer has a blog here:  http://pilsenprole.blogspot.com/

The latests post indicates that UE is calling for the factory to be re-opened under new management.  Apparently, the company was planning to move it to Iowa and operate non-union.  The particular union, for those who don't know, has a long history of militancy and rank-and-file democracy.

I have to agree that a change of tone from above means a lot.  Rank and file still have to stick their necks out--which they are doing.  But now they aren't having their heads chopped off.  More cover for the next group.

Those of you exclusive to non-electoral organizing in the US have utterly and completely failed to change anything in forty years.

Ever heard of the Global Justice Movement?

If the story of the global justice movement tells us anything it’s that the moment there appears to be any sense of an opening, the imagination will immediately spring forth. This is what effectively happened in the late ‘90s when it looked, for a moment, like we might be moving toward a world at peace. In the US, for the last fifty years, whenever there seems to be any possibility of peace breaking out, the same thing happens: the emergence of a radical social movement dedicated to principles of direct action and participatory democracy, aiming to revolutionize the very meaning of political life. In the late ‘50s it was the civil rights movement; in the late ‘70s, the anti-nuclear movement. This time it happened on a planetary scale, and challenged capitalism head-on. These movements tend to be extraordinarily effective. Certainly the global justice movement was. Few realize that one of the main reasons it seemed to flicker in and out of existence so rapidly was that it achieved its principle goals so quickly. None of us dreamed, when we were organizing the protests in Seattle in 1999 or at the IMF meetings in DC in 2000, that within a mere three or four years, the WTO process would have collapsed, that “free trade” ideologies would be considered almost entirely discredited, that every new trade pact they threw at us—from the MIA to Free Trade Areas of the Americas act—would have been defeated, the World Bank hobbled, the power of the IMF over most of the world’s population, effectively destroyed. But this is precisely what happened. The fate of the IMF is particularly startling. Once the terror of the Global South, it is, by now, a shattered remnant of its former self, reviled and discredited, reduced to selling off its gold reserves and desperately searching for a new global mission.

From Hope In Common by David Graeber.

Dylan - I'll give you the anti-nuke movement's successes. I was part of them. But I'll change my "40 years" to "25" and reassert the rest.

The suggestion that the "global justice movement" (the milieu of activism that came out of Seattle 99) "achieved its goals so quickly" (ending capitalism? uh, last I checked...) is problematic both for its revisionist history of what the goals were and for the way that, once again, privileged college educated mainly white activists from the United States are apparently taking credit for accomplishments of: A. The indigenous Zapatistas of Mexico (who in 1994 created the language of opposition to globalization that the 1999 Seattle demonstration and subsequent actions adopted), B. The Bolivarian movement in Venezuela (who turned that stance into governance and C. a whole collection of movements across the globe. It's offensive that there are gringo activists that seek to steal credit for that, but also typical.

The suggestion that the post-Seattle milieu made itself obsolete because it succeeded and that's why it went away so fast is ridiculously self-aggrandizing. That's not what happened. What happened is that almost immediately after Seattle 1999 a group of college educated overly politically-correct activists who could afford to spend their times in long meetings seeking "consensus" decisions pretty much immediately alienated the union, worker, African-American and Hispanic organizations that had participated in Seattle 99 and became almost overnight a white elitist playground, jet-hopping from Davos to Cancun to World Social Forum to economic summit, replicating the same tactics they had used before, and continued to do so long after State power had perfected its marginalization and cooptation of those quickly stale tactics.

That milieu imposed a rootlessness upon American and European activism, uprooting it from community organizing and prioritizing action that required people (those few thousand who could afford it) to travel far from their communities to participate for the repetitive "actions" in long off cities.

And while it fetishized the Zapatistas (right down to the kerchiefs and ski masks) and other developing world movements, it didn't learn the most important lesson of them: Local organizing is the basic building block of any successful movement. Ironically, as they denounced the corporate media, their actions were more aimed at getting press coverage from it, but that too soon had diminishing returns.

So, yes, I'm not impressed by the post-Seattle milieu (or the way its failed tactics got applied to the anti-war in Iraq movement, making that an "epic fail" too).

thanks to Dylan for the best joke of the day/week? "the World Bank hobbled" - oh, really?? IMF no longer powerful? on what planet?

Speaking of Seattle, I just found out yesterday that they've already made a Hollywood movie about the 1999 protests. It's a docudrama staring Susan Sarandon as the intrepid reporter with a heart of gold and a sympathetic ear to the protesters. I'm not even kidding! Sad and hilarious all at the same time.

Al, it's clear that you are excited about Obama and the "movement" of his supporters.  Fine.  Your blogging is interesting, that's why people read it.  Why you've become so dismissive and impatient with people who don't necessarily share that excitement, who are simply more skeptical, perhaps because of years of reading Narco News reporting on the power of neoliberalism and non-electoral resistance to it, is beyond me.  It's really, really off-putting and demoralizing.  Jared is right to take offense.  I thought authentic journalism was about listening.

And what about all the local community organizers you're always talking about who don't engage with electoral politics?  Have they achieved nothing?

Your attack here on the anti-globalization movement, or whatever you want to call it, seems a far cry from what you wrote just four years ago:

"On November 30, 1999, those ideas and the people who believe in them surprised the world with a strong North American flank when 75,000 protestors shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle. From there, an international series of protests and movements popped up, and put the brakes on what had been widely considered an inevitable, uniform, global economic policy. The savage capitalist dream of imposing a sameness on all economies everywhere – thought to be as inevitable as, well, drug wars a few years ago – turns out to be dead on arrival, thanks to the networking and people power of a new kind of globalized movement."

"Whether one agrees with some or all of the goals of the so-called anti-globalization movement, nobody denies that it has won battles and already defeated the sense of hopelessness that “nothing can be done” against gigantic financial interests and their plans for the world."

Now what?

The UE press release you quoted is by no means in an endorsement of Obama, obviously.  We won't know what just what the workers there think about him until someone asks them.  It is cool that he spoke in support of holding the companies accountable to the workers.

Ansel - Yes, I did support that movement. You might even say I was part of it in terms of providing journalistic support for many of its works. Which makes my critique even more informed: the few who appropriated that cause into an ever shrinking homogenous group of North American activists wasted my time and goodwill and that of many other people in the end.

I think people who know how to read and write, who own computers and video cameras and such, who have been able to attend higher education, who can afford to hop on an airplane to attend a World Social Forum in Brazil or a protest in Cancun, have privileges that most of the people I see and work with on a daily basis in Latin America do not.

And yet time and time again, while I've watched the responsibility, the precision, the always-striving to win and to be better at it among so many Latin American change agents, it's given me a yardstick to judge what I see as the self-indulgent, protagonist, academically-misinformed, politically-correct, careless and unconcerned-with-winning acts of political masturbation on the part of so much of the "activist" community in the United States.

And yes, this is addressed to any and all who failed to organize on the local level (obviously I'm not rapping the knuckles here of the few that did do that work, so please don't try and take credit for them and assign it to the dominant tendency that I'm taking to task here), who never learned or cared to listen to African-Americans, Hispanics and other people different than them and thus failed to make a multi-racial movement, who dismissed community organizing choosing what they called "activism" over the hard work on the local level... the Obama campaign just showed all of them how it can and should be done. They should be learning from it. But instead so many think they have something to tell it or teach it. And that's part and parcel of their over-educated arrogance. That's what universities in the US teach them to think: that they have the answers for the poor unwashed of this earth. 

It's precisely because I - one that supported them - is saying it that it hurts. And it should. Despair is the first step toward evolution and change. US activists of those tendencies need to look in the mirror and under their own hood and get back on a winning track - which means cutting like ballast their old and tired ways - and learn from the movements down south in lieu of fetishizing them, and, yes, learn from the Obama movement too. After all, it won.

I'm not trying to take credit for anything, not sure why you've implied that.  I've straight up never participated in an anti-globalization protest.

I understand the thrust of your critique and I probably agree with elements of it, but you're speaking so generally it's difficult to draw any concrete conclusions.   Obviously you weren't so disillusioned when you wrote that piece in 2004.  The anti-globalization movement WAS effective for a period of time, then?  Surely up through Miami in 2003?  Who are these "few who appropriated the cause"?  When did they do so?  And why, if it's a minority of privileged activists who messed up the movement(s), did you appear to be dismissing movements as a whole?  (Were you speaking out about this appropriation at the time?)

I guess you didn't mean that thing about all the non-electoral activists of the past forty years being having achieved nothing, then?

You talk about seeing the shortcomings of North American activists in light of the methods of organizers in Latin America.  For all your reporting on the Zapatistas, it occurs to me that your discourse, your rhetoric at times seems so very unlike theirs.  You're a knowledgeable reporter and I think you can express this frustration in more effective ways than you've done at the start of this thread and in other places.  Not everybody shares your confidence that Obama has brought his community organizing values or methodology with him to the White House.  That's all.

Ansel - To the contrary, I've watched Zapatista civilian leaders and even the Subcomandante dress down visiting observers and activists time and time again for their self-indulgent behavior. You can read plenty of that in their communiques too. My critique here, frankly, is mild compared to much of that.

You write:

"Not everybody shares your confidence that Obama has brought his community organizing values or methodology with him to the White House.  That's all."

Well, it's as if you didn't read the statement above by Obama supporting the occupying workers that began this thread.

To repeat such a lame slogan when the evidence to the contrary is right here under your nose is an example of the kind of tendency I'm smacking down these days, and with gusto!

To willfully ignore what happened on Sunday - and the results it inspired on Monday (to the point where even the national media followed his lead and began to portray the workers sympathetically, with nary the use of the words "trespassing" or "illegal") is to be willfully ignorant of the sea change that has already occurred.

Yes, I get it. You don't want Obama to succeed. You don't want the country to become better. Because then you fear you'll have nothing to complain about. You shouldn't worry so much: there will always be injustice to fight and wrongs to be righted. But the misplaced projection of it upon a father figure is one of the things that has infantilized too much of the North American left.

Are you serious?  Not a helpful response.  The corporate media were sympathetic to the workers from day one.  Read the coverage.  It's unusual, but they were not attacking the workers like they do other unions.  You can't attribute that to a few sentences from Obama.  If anything, he fell in line with popular sentiment.  But I give him credit for making a supportive statement, something I already said and you must have missed in a previous comment in this thread. That single statement doesn't prove anything, in my view, about whether he's brought community organizing to the presidency.  I don't know yet.  You're calling me willfully ignorant just because I don't have the same analysis.  No different than your average self-righteous blogger.  Nice.

Plus you're making simplistic assumptions and generalizations again.  I don't want Obama to win?  Wtf does that mean?  Does it mean investing in community infrastructure or moving towards universal healthcare?  Yeah, I want him to win those things.  I'll support him.  Does it mean "winning" the war in Afghanistan by expanding the war there?  Does it mean putting 50,000 more cops on the street, as laid out in his platform?  No, in those cases I don't want him to win.  Don't pigeon-hole me, or the other skeptical folks commenting here for that matter, into some pre-conceived beef you have with other privileged lefties.  You don't know me.  And you're not listening.

Ansel and Daniel from DC - Both of your comments are so filled with multiple statements of "fact" that are complete fiction. No wonder neither of you can seem to see the forest from the trees.

Like Jack the Ripper, I'll take them in parts:

Ansel says: "That single statement doesn't prove anything, in my view, about whether he's brought community organizing to the presidency."

If you've read anything of what I've written before and after the election, I've told folks not to look to Obama to create change for us, but to use his entrance as an opening to organize for ourselves. Your statement is thus absurd: Who ever argued that he should or could "bring community organizing to the presidency?" What does that even mean? It means absolutely nothing! What would that even look like?

Man, I was an organizer long before I was a journalist, and as the latter I've organized journalists alongside social movements. And I've won more battles at it than I've lost. And that, for more than three decades. I'm not speaking of something I don't know about, but I'm getting the sense that I'm speaking with a couple of guys that don't have experience winning battles at political organizing and therefore don't have a clue as to how it works or is done. Is that the case? Am I wasting time arguing with people that can't understand it because they opine loudly about something (winning) that they've never done? Let's hear, pretty please, what makes you such an astute judge of what works? Tell us, by all means, of the battles you've won. And if you don't have much to show for it, maybe you should consider your prejudices to be counterproductive to winning. I just don't know how to discuss this with someone who thinks that "bringing community organizing to the White House" (strange language that I've never used) is what we've been discussing here. It's not. So I'm not going to argue with a straw dog.

Daniel - Oh, that's sweet. Hide the upper class destructiveness of so many college educated US activists by claiming it's a police talking point. Ha ha. That's just stupid. Another rich kid excuse not to engage in class struggle anytime it cuts close to home!

How much time have you spent talking with "the people of Argentina" or "the Zapatistas" etcetera, y ¿verdad que hablas bien el español?

Or did you just read that crap in a book written by... voila! one of those academic North American activists? 'cause that's what it sounds like to me. You have no idea how most of the social movements that I've reported over the past decade-plus from Latin America view their gringo activist counterparts (here's a hint: with cynicism, and never looking to them for guidance as to how to do it, because they can't show real results). Sure, they'll be friendly when you come: Your a source of income, too, at Social Forums and the like! And those resources are much needed. But don't delude the magnitude of your roles in grandiose fashion.

And I've certainly never defended the tired tactics of US anti-Iraq war movement in its first phase (Seattle-aping marches) or its second (MoveOn) - that was my point, after all. You're speaking of the second phase as if the first phase never happened. Well, if the first phase had worked, perhaps the second would not have been done either. Both were ineffective.

Again, neither of you boys seem at all interested in listening and learning. You have all the answers, do you? Well go out and organize and come back here with results and victories under your belts, before you try to lecture me or anybody else about how to win. I don't need your lectures. I win already. A lot. And if you don't care about winning these battles, I don't care what you think. I want people that want to win in my foxhole, and nobody else near it.

Back to Obama. What scares me (and I really hope I am wrong and you are right Al because that would make the Obama movement really exciting. Still i doubt it) is that it mirrors some of what has happened here in South Africa.  When Mandela came to power, it was based on a huge movement. This movement was extremely democratic and grassroots. It was community organising to its fullest.  However, the ANC, when coming to power, diverted the energy of the movements towards electoral organising. The United Democratic Front, the South African Civics Organisation, COSATU, the street committees and neighborhood committees, etc; they were all coopted into the ANC electoral/party machine.  However, this electoral movement quickly became controled by the ANC and has made grassroots organising into a top-down process. Communities and leaders get money now only when they follow the ANC line. They get government grants for their daycare centres only when it is affiliated with the ANC agenda.

What has happened since 1994 in SA is the near complete destruction of non-electoral organising - that is until 2001 when the Anti-Eviction Campaign and Landless Peoples Movement came into being.

But its still a challenge. Every political party in SA follows this 'grassroots oranising' approach that you are speaking of with regards to Obama. Even the right wing Democratic Alliance has street committees, marchs and campaigns.  And they are extremely effective because it coops people into focusing on parties and leaders rather than the actual issues.

You say you've been an organiser in the past, well (and I speak as a community organiser myself) then the first rule of community organising is to talk about the issues that is close to the communities' hearts. That is, talk about the issues, not about any ideology, not about any leader and definitely not about any party.

Now, i'm not saying that the US and SA are the same - obviously.  But i am saying there is a parallel between Obama and Mandela here.

I'm saying that grassroots community organising in the US needs to move away from party politics and NGOs if it is every to be successful.  Communities need to organise on a community level. But they need to organise themselves. And they need to organise based on the issues.  I agree with you that the Seattle stuff was not long lasting because it was not community organising.  But the second community organising starts idealising a politician, it no longer becomes democratic and no longer allows communities to think for themselves. Instead, they look directly to their leader (Obama). This is highly problematic. This is very undemocratic. This is counter everything community organising stands for.

There is a reason why the Zapatistas rejected Obrador. There is a reason why they have refused to work with Latin American leaders such as Chavez and Morales. Its because they are community organisers. They organise on the issues not based on leaders and politicians such as Chavez, Morales, Obrador and Obama.  That does not mean that the Zapatistas are barbiturate leftists because they dont support Obrador and it does not mean that they reject the outpouring of support that Obrador received when he brought millions to the street.

As we say here in SA:
"Kuyabanda phezulu; kushushu ezantsi" - Xhosa Proverb translating as "Its cold up there; its warm down here".

Obama is 'up there' but his supporters are 'down here'. Lets stay with the issues that are important to these supporters.

In case you missed it, the workers occupying Republic Windows were successful in their aim to make the company and its bankers pay what was owed them.

According to a UE News release and other reports, pressure at multiple levels on Bank of America forced the banks into negotiations that resulted in the creation of a third-party fund that will administer the pay out of employee wages and benefit costs (i.e., not administered by the company). The union also announced the creation of a "Window of Opportunity" fund (name chosen by the workers), based on donations gathered during the occupation, with the goal of reopening the plant.

Some might say this is a minor, incremental victory that does not fundamentally alter the political terrain.  And in many ways this is true--one factory, one town.  But we often forget the obvious: that a movement builds momentum on victory, not on defeat.  This event, I think, does more to explain to the public at large what is a progressive response to the economic crisis than the many, many excellent blog posts out there.

Whether Obama is "really progressive" is beside the point.  Franklin Roosevelt was not all that progressive (in our terms) when he entered office in 1933 at the deepest depths of the Depression.  The first laws he passed to legalize unionization were weak.  But they resulted in a long strike wave that pushed the New Deal farther to the left.   Maybe this is too obvious for everyone reading this blog (I've just finished teaching 1st year college students, and it isn't obvious to them): movements build not simply from the ground up, but in dynamic between grass roots activism and the various levels of the state.

Al:

This is what happens when you take a comment out of context.

I've said over and over in other work that when I refer to the movement, I'm referring to something started by the Zaps, developed through PGA (formed largely by the EZLN, MST in Brazil, and KRSS in India), that the real death-blow to the IMF was struck by social movements in Argentina, etc etc. I suppose the remark about Seattle might have implied otherwise but there I was talking about my own subjective experience: I don't know what time-frame people in Karnataka were thinking in when they destroyed that Kentucky Fried Chicken branch, for example, but I do know that organizers in the US were thinking it was going to take a decade to achieve what was achieved in the US in a couple years. You might want to look at the piece The Shock of Victory, easily locatable various places on the web, to see the whole argument, which is that one reason the movement didn't get all that far in abolishing capitalism (well, so far), is that we achieved our medium-term goals so quickly - those very specific goals that I specify concerning the FTAA, WTO, etc. And by the way, yeah, I did say "we". I think the North American branch of the movement played a relatively minor role—though the Seattle and DC mobilizations were important for purely symbolic reasons—but we (US participants) were part of it, and have just as much right to be proud of what we (the movement as a whole) accomplished as everyone else.

For a bunch of white kids in Europe and North America to claim credit for things done mainly by people in the Global South is obviously obnoxious. There are some who do that - they're assholes. Sure. But cut a guy some slack! Even if you'd read the whole "Hope in Common" piece this is extracted from (a mere 2000 words) you'd have noticed that when I list actual hopeful developments in the world I give virtually no examples from Europe or North America. 

As for the point about community organizing: actually I agree completely. (Well, if I get your argument right.) For obvious tactical or even legal reasons Obama can't actively sponsor radical left-wing organizing efforts either from the government or the democratic party. What would the media say if they were able to claim the government was giving people money to engage in civil disobedience - let alone anything more radical! He'd be crucified. On the other hand it's obvious (to me at least) he's sending strong signals he'd really like a radical movement to his left, if only to increase his own bargaining position. This provides the kind of opportunity we haven't had in ages, since any such movement would therefore have to be self-organized and open to Zapatista-style approaches.

Or, well, I'm an optimist. But you never get anywhere by not trying.

David

David - Everything you say in your comment makes very good sense.

Your out-of-context quote didn't appear here by my hand, but, rather, by someone using your words to argue triumphalism on the part of the US anti-globalization movement.

Since I agree with pretty much everything you say putting it in context, it probably turns on those that were using your words to make an argument you didn't intend to make to consider some self-correction.

And, yes, optimism is itself revolutionary. 

best,

Al

Much appreciate your gracious response to my perhaps somewhat intemperate post. 

In solidarity

  David