There is a Progressive Infrastructure (We Just Don’t Know About It)

Most people are not aware that the powerful infrastructure of conservative media, think tanks and advocacy organizations, which dominate the American political and policy-making landscape in 2009, did not always exist. In the 1960s, for example, it was the Left in its varying shades in the political spectrum that had the upper hand in capturing the imagination of the public at large. Enter the Powell Memo in 1971.

In 1971, Lewis F. Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell's nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell's legal objectivity. Anderson cautioned that Powell "might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice...in behalf of business interests."

Though Powell's memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration's "hands-off business" philosophy.

Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building.

Most people who are aware of the Powell Memo, however, may not know that there is a Progressive counterpart – Democratic operative Rob Stein’s Powerpoint Presentation (from the New York Times) (from Alternet) called the “Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix” which lays out the inter-connections between this network of right wing institutions and calls for the creation of a Progressive counterpart.

All good right? One thing that baffles me about Rob Stein’s Powerpoint is that I’ve never seen it. It exists and has an almost mythical quality about it in Democratic circles. But the last time I heard Stein was only showing it around the country in 2004 to a select circle of liberal venture philanthropists like George Soros. Apparently this effort has led to the creation of the Democracy Alliance and New Progressive Coalition organizations which fund various Progressive organizations such as Progressive Majority, Center for American Progress, the Air America Radio Network among others.

But the Democracy Alliance tries to keep a low profile and its wealthy donors prefer anonymity. According to published reports, organizations funded by Democracy Alliance are asked not to reveal the funding (this is from SourceWatch). So as much as I’d like to comment on the creation of a Progressive Infrastructure, the only existing attempt to make it happen seems to be a secretive one where you have to be a member of a select inner circle of people to view the Powerpoint.

I’m a Progressive and I am all for the creation of something on our end that will serve as an effective counterpoint to the massive and highly effective conservative infrastructure. But all this secrecy isn’t really helping to rally people like me to the cause. I mean, how on earth am I going to support something that I’ve never even seen?

C’mon Rob Stein, make the infamous Powerpoint available in the Internet and let us—the Progressive rank and file—see it and chew on it. Perhaps, even get our feedback on making it better and adapting it to our day-to-day work as activists, bloggers and engaged citizens. We’re supposed to be a network of people who share common political goals, right?

We Are Not a Movement?

Interesting article over at the Open Left blog which makes the observation that:

In their articles today on how "the left" is failing under the Obama administration John Judis and Glenn Greenwald decry the lack of a mass popular movement agitating all political actors, including President Obama, to enact a specific policy agenda. However, the decentralized, self-producing, public sphere multiplying reorganization of our society brought on by the self-publishing, network neutral Internet is in direct contradiction with the vision of a discrete, hierarchical organization working to enact specific policy agenda. That just isn't going to happen anymore...

As such, even mass membership institutions themselves will be variable in how, and why, they continue to operate. Their goals will be vague, and even those vague goals will not be fixed. This is less comment on the state of the American Left than it is a comment on broader changes in our largest cultural institutions. There is simply no way for the sort of left-wing movement implied by Judis and Greenwald to come into existing given our larger societal trends.

An interesting take on social movements in the Internet Age -- basically, the type of hierarachical, top-down organizations such as a political party or a membership organization (like the NAACP) will become less relevant for Progressive political action and a diffused, decentralized network will take (or has taken) its place.

I am taking the discussion out of Open Left and bringing it here to MOA to get a feel for how a more racially diverse and politically independent audience might see this argument. Do you agree? Is "movement" obsolete for Progressive politics and activism is best channeled via a decentralized, diffuse network? Can such a diffuse, amorphous network of people be effective in enacting policy changes and forcing political parties to take it seriously if it is not organized in a way traditional organizations are organized?

It Takes a Movement

Hat tip to Progressive Majority for this breaking info:

Did you see last night how Sarah Palin fired up the conservative crowd at the Republican convention? Did you notice that she was poised, strong and clear?

It was no coincidence. While many are mocking the "Mayor of What?" who became governor and now VP pick, we here at Progressive Majority understand Sarah Palin's rise to power - and why the right wing has responded to her so well.

Sarah Palin is a GOPAC graduate.

GOPAC is the leading candidate recruitment and training operation for the conservative right - and our direct competitor when it comes to who controls government.

GOPAC was founded in 1978 by conservatives who knew they were going to have to work outside the Republican Party to take it over. They knew they would have to recruit their own kind to run to wrest control of government from the Democrats. They knew they needed a long-term plan to build their "farm team".

They went to work and Newt Gingrich took over the organization in the 1980s. You see, Gingrich wasn't satisfied with the election of Ronald Reagan. He wanted to see conservatives in control at the local, state AND national levels - even if it took a generation. Under Gingrich's leadership, GOPAC stepped up its candidate recruitment efforts, sought out "movement conservatives" and taught them how to run campaigns and talk about issues in a way that galvanized the far right base while not completely alienating moderate voters.

It worked. During the next 20 years, they took over the majority of state legislatures and governors. They singlehandedly led the "Republican Revolution" that took over Congress in 1994. They elected George W. Bush.

And, yesterday, one of their own accepted the Republican nomination for vice president of the United States.

If you're a conservative, that's how you go from being mayor of a small town to governor to the very top of the ticket.

Liberal Arts Dude sez:

Sarah Palin is a direct recruit from the conservative movement’s political farm team. Most voters do not know about organizations such as GOPAC. I consider myself a fairly politically aware person and I did not know about them until this notification from Progressive Majority.

Win or lose this election, the conservative movement has the infrastructure in place to keep coming again and again election after election. Democrats, Progressives, third-party supporters, independent progressives -- anyone who believes the conservative movement as exemplified by politicians such as John McCain and Sarah Palin are your philosophical and ideological foes – better take notice. Even if the McCain and Plain ticket loses this election that doesn’t mean the conservative movement is going to go away. They’re in it for the long haul and have been in it for at least four decades already.

This is why it is so important that the Progressive movement develop organizations and political farm teams similar to GOPAC. Thank goodness we already do have a start with organizations like Progressive Majority and Democracy for America. One can say what one will about them being farm teams solely for the Democratic Party (which is a criticism that I have made myself in the past). But the fact is, they are the only ones out there that are organized enough to be doing what they are doing.

It’s time to seriously discuss the infrastructure of a Progressive Movement, folks. It is not enough to elect Obama and Biden in November. We have to be in this on the local, state, municipal, city, school board level for the long haul. It doesn’t matter if the latest polls and statistics indicate that the majority of Americans actually agree with Progressives on most issues. If there is no political counterpoint to the conservative movement that exists to challenge them on every level, there is no vehicle to carry the will of this electorate.

It’s time we pay close attention to these words by Adolph Reed. I know a lot of pro-Obama folks don’t like him but he’s a brilliant guy who makes a really good point:

It’s a mistake to focus so much on the election cycle; we didn’t vote ourselves into this mess, and we’re not going to vote ourselves out of it. Electoral politics is an arena for consolidating majorities that have been created on the plane of social movement organizing. It’s not an alternative or a shortcut to building those movements, and building them takes time and concerted effort. Not only can that process not be compressed to fit the election cycle; it also doesn’t happen through mass actions. It happens through cultivating one-on-one relationships with people who have standing and influence in their neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, families, and organizations. It happens through struggling with people over time for things they’re concerned about and linking those concerns to a broader political vision and program. This is how the populist movement grew in the late nineteenth century, the CIO in the 1930s and 1940s, and the civil rights movement after World War II. It is how we’ve won all our victories. And it is also how the right came to power.

Trinity UCC's Palm Sunday Statement

Hat tip:Prometheus6:

From the NYTimes.com:

While Senator Obama has distanced himself from the incendiary remarks by his former pastor, including comments about how the United States brought on the Sept. 11 attacks by its own actions abroad, the Chicago church’s current pastor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, issued this statement on Palm Sunday.

Nearly three weeks before the 40th commemorative anniversary of the murder of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.

Dr. Wright has preached 207,792 minutes on Sunday for the past 36 years at Trinity United Church of Christ. This does not include weekday worship services, revivals and preaching engagements across America and around the globe, to ecumenical and interfaith communities. It is an indictment on Dr. Wright’s ministerial legacy to present his global ministry within a 15- or 30-second sound bite,” said the Reverend Otis Moss III, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ.

During the 36-year pastorate of Dr. Wright, Trinity United Church of Christ has grown from 87 to 8,000 members. It is the largest congregation in the United Church of Christ denomination.

“It saddens me to see news stories reporting such a caricature of a congregation that has been such a blessing to the UCC’s Wider Church mission,” said the Rev. John H. Thomas, UCC general minister and president, in a released statement. “ … It’s time for us to say ‘No’ to these attacks and declare that we will not allow anyone to undermine or destroy the ministries of any of our congregations in order to serve their own narrow political or ideological ends.”

Trinity United Church of Christ’s ministry is inclusive and global. The following ministries have been developed under Dr. Wright’s ministerial tutelage for social justice: assisted living facilities for senior citizens, day care for children, pastoral care and counseling, health care, ministries for persons living with HIV/AIDS, hospice training, prison ministry, scholarships for thousands of students to attend historically black colleges, youth ministries, tutorial and computer programs, a church library, domestic violence programs and scholarships and fellowships for women and men attending seminary.

Moss added, “The African American Church was born out of the crucible of slavery and the legacy of prophetic African American preachers since slavery has been and continues to heal broken marginalized victims of social and economic injustices. This is an attack on the legacy of the African American Church which led and continues to lead the fight for human rights in America and around the world.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached the Christian tenet, “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Before Dr. King was murdered on April 4, 1968, he preached, “The 11 o’clock hour is the most segregated hour in America.” Forty years later, the African American Church community continues to face bomb threats, death threats, and their ministers’ characters are assassinated because they teach and preach prophetic social concerns for social justice. Sunday is still the most segregated hour in America.

We talked with Angela Faison, a spokeswoman for the church, just moments ago, who verified the statement from the Reverend Moss. We asked her if Senator Obama or his campaign cleared the statement, and she asked: “Why would we do that? We are two separate entities.”