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Beyond Symbolic Politics Prepared RemarksAt "Back to Basics:

Daily newsbrief journal for April 2007, also see http://www.usdemocrats.com/brief for a global 100-page perpetual brief and follow twitter @usdemocrats


Beyond Symbolic Politics Prepared RemarksAt "Back to Basics:

Postby admin » Sat Jan 28, 2012 11:40 am

Beyond Symbolic Politics Prepared RemarksAt "Back to Basics: A Conference on the Future of the American Left"Chicago, IllinoisOctober 9, 1998 Thank you Jim Hightower, for that kind introduction. I may have left teaching for a while, but I have not stopped assigning as required reading your book "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos." And it's all still true. And let me thank and commend Holly Sherman and the other organizers of this conference. There's never been a better time for progressives to assess how we can develop a broader and more-relevant role in American politics. This conference can make a real contribution. But before we immerse ourselves in thoughts of the long run, let us not lose sight of the 4 weeks just ahead. For the next 4 weeks hold a tangible threat to the American people. Pay attention: The elections November Third could bring the most sweeping transfer of power in half a century. At risk is nothing less than turning back the clock on half a century of social justice. The elections for the House and Senate in just under 4 weeks are critically important. I know that all here care deeply about social progress. Let me tell you, the work of leaders like you is more indispensable now than ever. And the people will owe you a debt of gratitude for what you do to motivate and mobilize progressive voters to vote in November! And that brings me to today's wider theme. How can we broaden progressive politics? How can we turn the tide on this vapid, selfish breed of right-wing Republicans? How can we breathe fresh life into the spirit of progressive leadership? The answer to these questions rests, like a stool, on three separate legs. The three essential supports for progressive renewal are: electoral politics, grass roots organizing, and policy direction. If we neglect any of these three, that on which we rest will fall. Let me take each leg in turn. First, electoral politics. If we consign ourselves merely to the poetic, utopian discussion of what should be and neglect the prosaic, practical work of the electoral politics that is, we doom ourselves to the margins of political life. And as much as increasing numbers appear to question the value of voting, most Americans still view elections as the means by which we achieve change in this country. Even absent scandal, turnout in midterm elections has sunk to dangerously low levels. When only 36 percent vote, turnout, more than reason, determines our future. As much as the times themselves, who came to the polls determined the Democrats' loss of 52 House seats and 8 Senate seats in the last midterm election. If the Democrats' goal is turnOUT, then the Republicans' goal is surely turnOFF. A recent Washington Post-ABC poll showed that registered voters favored Democrats for Congress 49 to 44 percent, but that likely voters favored Republicans 49 to 46 percent. And Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, found that primary voting this year continued to decline. He found that overall average turnout of eligible voters in this year's primaries with contested statewide races dropped to 17 percent from 19 percent in 1994. Since 1966, Republican turnout dropped 32 percent, but Democratic turnout dropped fully 52 percent. Were it not for a boost in voting in California, Democratic turnout would have fallen below Republican turnout for the first time in at least 70 years. Progressive electoral participation has reached catastrophically low levels. To succeed in electoral politics, in turn, we need grass roots organizing to motivate our most-loyal voters. Failing that, too many will not be moved to vote. All too often, modern politicians have reduced electoral politics among even the most committed to no more than the simple act of voting and maybe sticking a bumper sticker on the back of the car. We are falling into mere "bumper-sticker politics." When politicians barely scratch the surface of voter feeling, when leaders scarcely stir the people's awareness, when we fail to challenge them to action, it is no wonder that their commitment is shallow. That level of conversation with voters yields the bond of a channel surfer to a television station. There is no substitute for the hard work of getting people out, calling Democratic voters on the telephone, and driving voters to the polls. The affluent will always have a greater stake in preserving the status quo. We must convince those who share our ideal of change that they, too, have an immense stake in each and every vote. But you can't blame the dire predictions of electoral catastrophe this November entirely on the current Washington scandal. It's not just demoralization of our core constituency and low turnout, although they certainly add to the problem. The real key to nonparticipation and demobilization of the our electorate is that lately, in all honesty, progressives have had precious little to say. And that is why we must devote the main body of our attention to our program, our policy, our ideas, our language, in sum, our direction. Part of the difficulty we have hearing our message is that, these days, the sheer volume of dollars in campaign finance overwhelms even a sincere message. When out-of-state interests dump millions upon millions of dollars in soft-money expenditures on a state of a few million people, as is happening in more than one state this autumn, it simply engulfs and smothers legitimate candidate competition. That is why our ultimate reform concern still must be electoral reform. Too many Democrats have lost their way. The financial imperative -- the need to raise big money and to bend policy in aid of that pursuit -- has neutered the party. Progressives need to be talking about what is not on the table in Washington's policy discussion. Campaign finance is one of the issues that Washington has left off of the table. To me, it's frustrating to see the progressive economic justice movement standing so separate and apart from advocates of electoral reform -- the clean money-clean politics movement. For from my vantage point, the two goals are inseparable. We need to work together. People working for progressive economic reform need to work for electoral reform, as well, or they will never see their goal. Don't be misled into believing that campaign finance reform is just some good-government, goo-goo thing. As Bill Moyers argued eloquently in a speech he called "The Soul of Democracy," campaign finance reform is central to reinvigorating a community of citizen patriots. Progressives can and should embrace a new citizen democracy. People feel locked out by the current political system. That's why the clean money-clean elections movement around the country is so essential. If we do not change the current mix of money and politics, it will surely dilute and deflate the entire economic justice agenda. Even the strongest flame cannot burn in a drenching downpour. And how bright is the Democratic flame? How great is the difference between the sales pitch for the current menu of policies and the ability of those policies to deliver? Too much of the current Democratic message seems to be traveling on hype, as if the lingering fumes of what is in reality a timid policy will be enough to propel us into the future. Even though the Great Society achieved more than any government program since the New Deal, some still talk about its (quote) "failure" because they hold President Johnson to the full value of his admittedly immoderate promises. And if, in the fullness of time, the program of a President, who for all his faults, was as great a legislator as Lyndon Johnson fades when compared to its advertisements, what pray tell can be the legacy of the vast gulf that now exists between rhetoric and reality? With the aid of Dick Morris, President Clinton has been the master of bumper-sticker politics, of the manipulation of symbols to shape the most ephemeral of swing-voter moods. They sold school uniforms as if they were the answer for education; they sold V-chips as if they would eliminate youth violence. This hype of little things as if they were big things merely guarantees failure and disillusionment, and drives home the point to far too many that policy doesn't make a difference, after all. This is merely symbolic politics. Progressives need to move beyond symbolic politics and embrace changes that have real effects on people's lives. We need to progress beyond the era of changes the size of school uniforms, and move ahead to a bold agenda that affects people lives. Traditional progressive bread and butter economic issues are the heart of the solution. It's about ensuring decent jobs with a good wage. It's about ensuring a free public education in all the communities of America, whether they are in the shiny new affluent suburbs or the crumbling old schools of the older suburbs and cities. It's about ensuring a system where all Americans have access to health care, instead of a steadily declining share of our population. And we need to be talking about those issues that are not on the table: We live in an era awash in special interest campaign money, and the Congressional majority does their bidding to block campaign finance reform. We live in an era of increasing monopolization, but the Congressional majority speaks as if antitrust law were abolished. We live in an era of a frighteningly global economy, which has in the space of the past few weeks plunged millions of Asians from the middle class into poverty, but the Congressional majority clings to their laissez-faire orthodoxy. William Greider has written excellent pieces on this last subject this month in "The Nation" and "The Washington Post." Those are the issues to which Democrats need to return. In the current atmosphere of frightened Democrats, some may say that this agenda is unrealistically liberal, but I simply say, I'm here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic party! In reality, my prescription is not really about left or right. Most people in the diners and cafes of America don't think in terms of left, right, and center. No one ever asks me that. They're not at all interested about disputes between DLC-Democrats and progressives. They don't care about the packaging and positioning of the Democratic Party. For most people, politics is much more connected and personal. One of our great strengths as progressives, if we communicate it correctly, if we speak so that we connect, is our bond with real people. It's not about a ten-point program, or the latest Washington angst. No, it's actually about bread-and-butter, kitchen-table economic justice and opportunity concerns that really affect people. My last point is about inspiration. The worst thing about the current scandal in Washington is that it is turning off so many young people. Imagine if the current view of Washington were the only one that you had ever seen. And things like Larry Flint's advertisement, promising up to a million dollars in return for stories about Congressmen's sex lives, just fuel the flames of hypocrisy. My message to you is: Don't be afraid to talk about moral leadership and values. That ten-point program just won't do the job. People like you and meetings like this can transform the politics of apathy into the politics of values. We need to restore democracy, reclaim the American promise of economic and educational opportunity, and revitalize moral leadership in our country. We need to restore the leadership of values that brought us the civil rights movement and the women's movement. And we need a new leadership of values that can build a nation where no child is left behind. A nation where not only the economy grows, but the quality of life grows for all Americans. The Republicans argue that when it comes to the most pressing issues in people's lives, starting with how we care for the people we love, there is simply nothing that we can or should do as a society. I call them the "New Isolationists." They are isolationist not in terms of international affairs, but in terms of human affairs. They believe in aloneness as a kind of virtue. They seek to cloak greed and selfishness behind the mantle of "individual opportunity." The credo of the New Isolationist may as well be: "Buddy, you're on your own!" The New Isolationism is a great philosophy if you're a corporation. It's a great philosophy if you are a multi-millionaire. With our current campaign finance system, those kinds of people can make the big political contributions that get them big attention in Washington. But it is completely wrong for the vast majority of Americans. That's what's so often backwards about what people say at college graduations. Too often, people tell the graduates, you've been to a great school, now it's time for you to make it on your own. That's wrong. That's turned around. It wasn't independence that got those graduates to the proud moment they face, but interdependence. Their interdependence with family, with teachers, with fellow students, those are the values that got them to that proud graduation day, and those are the values that will sustain them later in life. And too many Democrats think that it is, for purely short-term expediency reasons, politically important to favor tax cuts, and to oppose real solutions because (quote) "we cannot afford them." But real solutions are what we stand for. We must stand for the proposition that we can and should place a priority on funding those goals -- of education, health and good jobs -- that truly matter in people's lives. I don't mean to say that we have to seek a Federal Government solution for every problem. The dispute is not about big government versus small government. It's about good government, and smart government, and humane government. Progressives can and should embrace an empowerment agenda for communities and states and local districts. Americans don't want a top-down solution for every problem, and they don't need one, either. Michael Shuman makes the case convincingly in his article in "The Nation" this month called "Going Local" and his book of the same name. Lisbeth Schorr, in her book "Common Purpose," chronicles 22 pioneering social programs that successfully counter difficult problems because the they are close enough to communities to be, in her words, "comprehensive, flexible, responsive, and persevering." And it's not just about growing the economy. People aren't stupid! It's about growing the quality of people's lives. As Robert F. Kennedy observed 30 years ago, the well-being of the American people is not described by the Gross Domestic Product. The economy in which most Americans live -- that measured by family income, by individual opportunity, by the fulfillments of social life, by security for families and expectations for children -- that economy is not doing nearly as well as it should be. Progressives need to talk about an economy where parents can do the best by their kids and raise children of whom they can be proud. That is how we think as families, and that is how we should think as a nation. In our families, we highly treasure values like caring, nurturing, and concern for others. Why aren't the values we say are good for the family good for the nation, as well? And in the same way, we on the left must not abandon the value of spirituality in public life. If we seek a higher good in our relations with our brothers and sisters, we cannot bar the search for a higher good from our public discourse. Progressives should not be afraid to talk about moral leadership. A living wage, that's a family value! Affordable health care, that's a family value! Quality education, that's a family value! Adequate nutrition for children, that's a family value! Curbing domestic violence, that's a family value! These are our family values. And progressives never have to be ashamed to fight on the field of what's moral and what's right and what's good for the American family. The narrow self interest that the New Isolationists espouse has never been the key. Self interest does not inspire our soul. More importantly, Americans are and always have been moved by the desire simply to do that which will make us proud of its doing. Wasn't that what Franklin D. Roosevelt meant when he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"? Wasn't that the message when John F. Kennedy said, "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country"? Wasn't that the brilliance of Martin Luther King, when he said, "I have a dream today"? Wasn't that what Robert F. Kennedy asked of us when he said, "Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: To tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world"? What has always defined the great leaders of history is that they have been able to move people. And to do that, progressives need to provide people with a vision of what is decent, and right, and good. Let us paint for America the picture of a Country and a government of which its citizens can be proud. Let us paint the picture of a Country where Americans want to know what it is they can do to make it better. Let us paint the picture of an America that has nothing to fear from working together. Let us paint the picture of an America that still dreams. And let us paint the picture of an America where every family and person can indeed make gentle the life of this world. And when we do, we will move beyond merely symbolic politics to values that truly affect people's lives. And when we do, instead of turning people off to politics, we will turn them out to vote. And when we do, we will broaden progressive politics. And when we do, we will turn the tide on this vapid, selfish breed of right-wing Republicans. And when we do, we truly will breathe fresh life into the spirit of a progressive movement that, at the beginning of a new century, has only a brilliant future ahead.
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