Struggle forward together.
Submitted by Aardvark on Wed, 11/09/2016 - 1:41am
Everyone get together and get past the theater of the United States elections and its government.
Disengage, collaborate, and make change happen locally.
Build on the ground the movement we want to see in five or ten years.
This is the kairos, the opportune time. This election has handed progressives the greatest gift: the self-destruction of a party of criminals, and the rise of a party which is naked in its intentions.
We must use this clarity to cement gains at the grass-roots level.
We must leave no one behind, even those who would hate us.
Great optimism awaits, if we can smith a movement free of identity, guaranteeing control of the destiny of each human being of good will.
For the life of the world.
Peace and love be with you, reader.
Comments
Indeed Aardvark, indeed!
I'm feeling this vibe. May take a few of us some time but ultimately this is what we must discover as human being together.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Only forward
never returning to the setting of the past, a world which no longer turns, its brain rotted away, a many-limbed savage thrashing as it falls into its own Tartarus.
Billions want to throw off the yoke of their subjugation. Human nature remains constant, it is the dross that must be slagged off and the thirst to put an end to a worm-ridden elite that must be slaked.
We start, arm in arm and around the corner, struggling through exchanging greater for greater until we all emerge together into the world we want to see.
Peace and love be with you, reader.
Two-pronged approach
Although the Democratic Party hierarchy is unsalvageable, the Democratic Party as a legal entity is still useful -- the two-party system is deeply engrained, so much so that the actual party names appear in election rules. So...one side of the pincers is, take over the Democratic Party. Perhaps the eventual purge at the DNC level might bring in some useful folks, but a more certain route is to take over from the ground up, as that path is baked into state party rules. In Washington State, where there are significantly more Sanderistas than Clintonians, a whole lot of Sanderistas ran for Democratic PCO this August. We were out being good Democrats these past month -- doorbelling, staffing events, doing grunt work. In December, there will be the biennial reorganization meeting. Many Sanderistas will be running for state and local Democratic Party offices, and all those new Sanderista PCOs will vote for them. I give it two reorganization election cycles before we have hold of the state party. This may be a longer-term process in other states, especially if folks weren't already planning for it and getting into the entry-level party positions, or if the process of selecting party officials is less, er, democratic.
It may be that the Democratic Party isn't salvageable, or we fail to take it over. So, the other pincer...is new organizations. In particular, the new organizations that are already up and running -- Our Revolution (http://ourrevolution.com) and Brand New Congress (http://brandnewcongress.org/) -- and the very large mobilization organizations like MoveOn (http://moveon.org/) and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (http://boldprogressives.org/). And besides, with these organizations, we don't have the preliminary task of completely reforming them -- they're pretty good to go as-is.
(An aside, but not one to get hung up on... Yes, I know about the kerfuffle about the Our Revolution board. But recall what the kerfuffle was about -- *campaign methodology*. It was about whether TV advertising or social media was more important. Weaver is old-school, and thought TV ads were the way to go. Others disagreed...and blamed Weaver for "losing" the primary. But even commentators like Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report defended Weaver's emphasis on TV ads. Mike said that TV ads were important in reaching older voters who may pay more attention to traditional media formats. Young voters were already being reached by Sanders' message -- it was older Democrats for whom outreach was needed. Full disclosure -- I'm an older Democrat. Fuller disclosure -- I'm a counterexample to Mike's postulate -- don't own a TV, don't have a cable subscriptions, if I do watch traditional media, it's online. In any case, if one organization doesn't suit, there are the others.)
These parties are shams.
Only a party which seeks to look into the future can actualize the demands for justice and self-determination of the billions of human beings who are oppressed throughout the world.
It must begin locally through personal contact. That is why these parties are shams, controlled by those who wish to rape and plunder, and wreck any true movement of solidarity. It is only through the coming together of local initiatives of persons of goodwill that the future can be bent toward the needs of those who are disenfranchised.
Anything else reflects a world that exists only in propaganda.
Peace and love be with you, reader.
You are on a roll, Aardvark.
I happily second everything you're writing.
Start building little "new worlds" in our own neighborhoods to show people how things could be. Forget electoral politics beyond the city or county limits. Do politics face-to-face, although sharing ideas online can be useful.
With you, face to face,
arm in arm, ever faithful, ever struggling to victory.
Peace and love be with you, reader.