PDA 2006 Election Video
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The tide has turned. There is an opening. Expect the counter-offensive.
Public opinion: 52 percent favor immediate withdrawal "even if that means abandoning President Bush"s goal of restoring stability to that country." [NYT-CBS Poll, Sept. 9-13]
Iraqi officials too: The Iraqi National Assembly Committee on Sovereignty has issued a report calling for a withdrawal timetable for the "occupation forces." (Knight Ridder report, Sept. 13)
Katrina costs $200 billion: "Cutting spending on Iraq is Americans' top choice for financing the recovery from Katrina" [Wall Street Journal poll, Sept. 15]
Beware: The Bush Administration, worried about 2006, could either escalate in Syria or Iran, or appear to de-escalate early next year with token troop withdrawals. The current status quo will be hard to sustain during 2006.
We must define the Progressive Democratic movement! We must begin to tell the world what being a Progressive Democrat means. On being a progressive democrat – some personal thoughts...
I believe in many paths to peace and justice, but politically I identify as a "progressive democrat". That means supporting PDA as an independent, catalyst to build and enlarge the force of progressive Democratic voters.
Of course I am not "only" a Progressive Democrat. The Democratic Party is too narrow to contain our vision and activism.
I believe first and foremost in democratic social movements which awaken public opinion to great injustices. When the movements lead, the political parties follow. I agree with what PDA calls its "inside-outside" strategy, although I would emphasize the outside as primary. The outside is shorthand for social movements and the rank-and-file of political parties.
But social movements without electoral strategies are missing major opportunities for impact. Movements need political – electoral – strategies and alliances, to broaden their base of support and available resources. We insist that candidates and officials bring our views into the mainstream of debate, thus legitimizing our causes. We demand that they defend our rights to organize and protest, to receive permits for our actions and be protected against police and government repression. We support independent candidates in primaries or third parties where they challenge the incumbent status quo and break the silence on important questions. We hope for electoral victories in districts which encompass progressive pockets of power, so that we can enact our visions into local programs that empower and aid the powerless. We also hope for a progressive majority that can elect a progressive governing coalition, as happened in the Thirties and almost happened in the Sixties.
I have changed about all this several times over the past 45 years, and may again. But here is the theory in a nutshell: movements arise from minorities at the margins, go through transformative moments, march to the mainstream where they eventually become majorities. As the movements enter the mainstream, the Machiavellians [the power elite of business, government, media and military] begin to divide between those who would ignore and repress the movement, and those who would incorporate its demands for reforms in exchange for restoring stability. At the same time, the wider movement begins to divide between those few who see that the whole system must be changed and the many who want immediate reform, i.e., passage of a civil rights law, end of a war, etc.
Politics becomes unavoidable. If the movement doesn't seek to be political, some politicians will seek the movement. We are reaching that point with Iraq.
Why say all this?
First of all, our country is the only advanced capitalist democracy that lacks a strong third party tradition on the Left. That makes us politically underdeveloped. We go from election to election without building permanent institutions with traditions of their own. Activists in other countries have a range of familiar traditions ranging from communist and socialist parties to newer green parties and what they call "extra-parliamentary opposition" forces ranging from non-governmental organizations to direct action activists to armed formations. In our country, activists are divided mostly into the limited binary choice of being "inside" or "outside", despite feeling uncomfortable with such either/or options.
The PDA approach is to give expression to, and fight effectively for, the vision of social movements within the party and electoral systems. Its function is to challenge the corporate and centrist forces which dominate the party, by helping elect progressives and becoming a thorn in the side of status quo incumbents. The PDA approach is neither a substitute for, nor competitive with, other approaches to social change. In fact, it rests in the strength of social movements.
I think of several issues where the PDA can be pivotal as a force within the Democratic Party. They are (1) Iraq – moving the party towards withdrawal, (2) trade – moving the party toward free trade and away from corporate globalization, (3) the environment – moving the party towards renewable resources and sustainable development, away from the corporate model, (4) issues of rights and equality – stopping the party s retreat, and (5) moving the party towards clean and free elections where every vote counts and is accounted for.
Let me explain what this means for Iraq, the demonstrations this week, and the next year.
I support the demand of the peace movement for "out now" or "immediate withdrawal", and continue to lobby groups like Move.on to embrace that stand. I reject the racist and illegitimate notion that we need to keep American troops in Iraq until it has been "stabilized" under our control. I believe that millions of people saying Out Now, or "enough", in surveys represent a political threat to which politicians must and will respond.
But for PDA and progressive Democrats the demand for Out Now requires more elaboration, what I call an exit strategy. When an activist goes door to door to reach out, when a citizen delegation lobbies a member of Congress, when a progressive runs for office, they are very likely to feel pressure to explain what Out Now means.
Imagine PDA supporting a candidate who knocked on thousands of doors and went to hundreds of house meetings on a platform of Out Now without further explanation. The opponent would seize first on the word "now" and demand to know if our candidate meant midnight or whether the withdrawal could be delayed until the morning. As Daniel Ellsberg has pointed out, the Bush Administration [and the centrist Democrats] are able to distort and dismiss the anti-war movement by focusing on the word "now]. Most activists realize this is a problem to address, but a large number actually believe that the Pentagon should literally order the troops onto transport planes within a 24 hour time frame, or as I used to say a couple of years ago, "they lied to get in, so let them make up a lie to get out."
Those of us with a political strategy know that these are not adequate responses to the huge opportunity ahead of us. First, we need to consolidate the near-majority of Democratic voters as a force in politics. Second, we need to elaborate a persuasive vision of ending the war and occupation. We cannot limit our view of the movement as simply providing "street heat" on politicians while assuming they will take care of defining a new policy in the Middle East. We are more than shock troops. We should be demanding a voice in the debate inside and outside the political institutions.
Ending the war is too important to be left to the conventional politicians. Most of them know nothing about Iraq, and they are subject to pressures from contributors to establishment thinkers calling on them to be "tough". Unless the war ends with the insurgents overrunning the Green Zone and defeating the US armed forces [possible, but not likely in the short term] its ending will require slow, painful, informed and serious debate - in civil society, the media and the halls of Congress.
That is why PDA needs to support an exit strategy. Because we need to shift the paradigm in Congress from discussing a "forever war" and "staying the course", to a conflict resolution model with the purpose of withdrawing and end of occupation.
Because unwinnable like this one are ended through diplomacy and negotiation abroad and politics at home, the peace movement – and Iraqi peace movement - must be part of the process.
Because an informed answer is required to the question of whether withdrawal will lead to greater violence and terrorism.
Because we need to talk not only about military withdrawal but how to end the occupation which benefits US contractors, and begin respecting the need for Iraqi nationalists to guide their own reconstruction, with our dollars.
What I am saying is that PDA has a particular role to play in the peace movement, the role of pressuring progressive politicians to wake up. This may not be a vanguard role, but it is not an unimportant one, for ending the war and creating greater space for political alternatives in the future. I hope this is helpful to internal debate and consensus-building.