Once More into the Future

I have frequently urged the creation of progressive perspective to provide progressivism  with a developmental coherency, which in my judgment, it currently lacks and that should also function as a motivational rallying point for progressives as does the concept of “freedom,” misused as it is, for conservatives.

The closest effort in this direction that I have seen so far is a multi-topic article in the American Prospect magazine titled A Strategic Plan for Liberals.”

This document was published in the Nov./Dec. issue of the American Prospect magazine and is intended to be a “the road map for a progressive future.” It is meant to do for progressives what the Lewis Memo, written in August 1971, did for American business. Corporate attorney Lewis Powell wrote this memo to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce a few months before his appointment to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon. In the memo Powell lamented the loss of influence American business had suffered under the New Deal and argued that to regain its influence (by which it is clear he meant dominance) it must become far more political. He laid out a number of things that business had to do, among them use the media much more effectively to influence public policy. To this end he suggested the creation of think tanks to create reports promoting business interests, hence, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute. The Chamber adopted Powell’s suggestions enthusiastically and has been putting large amounts of money into the effort ever since. The project has been a huge success, eventuating in making government an enemy of the people, to be curtailed as severely as possible by transferring its functions to the for-profit private sector. It has also used and subverted government to capture resources and create markets to further its insatiable lust for profit.  It has, by the resultant propaganda and corporate control of the media, convinced many Americans that business is more efficient than government, despite a Social Security department that puts the private sector to shame. It even portrays government as the enemy of freedom. For those, like me, who are unfamiliar with this episode in American history, I strongly recommend reading the above cited article in the American Prospect.

The Strategic Plan For Liberals is intended to do for progressivism what the Lewis Memo has done for conservatives. It consists of a collection of articles written by various authors addressing various issues often by way of specific proposals such as creating a million federal jobs to deal with unemployment.

Despite many important suggestions, the              strategic Plan is, in my judgment, mainly a hodgepodge of suggestions that have merit on their own, but offer little as a progressive perspective on the major dilemmas people face in this age of monumental economic, cultural, ethnic, and other conflicts. We need a view on how to maximize human potential and create a  world in which the human beings and their  society are the fundamental concern.

A few points in what I would call a Progressive Perspective follow.

·      Do not let wealth accumulate to any individual or organization beyond identified need. Wealth is power and great wealth is great power and, as such, is a major threat to democracy. Speculative wealth is the worst because it is tied to no need and is, hence, a major source of mischief running from depression to war. Controlling wealth by taxation will divert it to societal improvement for all. The argument that great wealth is needed to stimulate creativity and innovation is falsified daily by the creativity of scientists in the employ of universities and government. The single most influential innovation of the late part of the 20^th century is the Internet, a product of government.

·      Identify and make viable a defined and motivating criterion for the progressive movement. I suggest survival of our species. This will entail making clear the degree that said survival is now at risk and how the threat to our survival is likely to develop. We must make repeated demonstrations about the consequences of resource depletion, pointing out how the latest war or famine is an expression of this depletion. Resource depletion is at the root of much of current conflict, especially oil. Many of the issues in the world today, from drone attacks to bloated military budgets to ecological disasters, are products of oil depletion alone. Let us put it all together as a consummate threat to human survival.

·      Finally, for this short list, our value systems must move substantially from the individual to the societal. As E. O. Wilson, the famed social biologist has pointed out in his book The Social Conquest of Earth, the most successful and enduring species in the history of evolution have been socially based. Put another way, we sink or survive as a species. Let us use our natural assets   of reason and empathy to create our path to survival.

Bob Newhard

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Nader's Hope for 2016: An "Enlightened" Billionaire with Progressive Vision Article  headline from Common Dreams for June 23, 2013

It is doubtful that our country has seen any more dedicated, effective, intelligent, and knowledgeable  progressive than Ralph Nader. Nader has bucked corporate America, been threatened by them, and has seen federal laws written as a result of his efforts over the last nearly 50 years. Long ago Nader began pointing out that there was no substantial difference between the two major political parties. They both got money, which some have called the life blood of politics, from the same corporations. Nader now rests his hope for Progressivism in an enlightened billionaire. This kind of change in some one as thoughtful and knowledgeable as Nader must provoke the most serious self-reflection among progressives that they have yet had to face.

Nader, in effect, is saying that the people can no longer successfully challenge money. He is saying, in effect, democracy is dead. If he is right, what then?

I surmise that Nader sees the power of global wealth and the system of global capitalism and sees no way that ordinary people can prevail against the monster that our country is largely responsible for creating. Around the world from Europe to the Middle East to Southeast Asia  and South America we see massive resistance by millions of ordinary citizens against the economic  and social environment that global capitalism has produced. We also see the masters of that system ignore or seek to destroy that resistance.

Progressives must now ask themselves whether global capitalism has in fact defeated democracy. If we say no, we must say, with the same candor as Nader, why not. If we say yes, we must begin to articulate how, if at all, Progressive values can be restored and maintained in the political, economic, social and  cultural milieu that now define the world we live in.

For my part, I still have some confidence that mass resistance can still overcome centralized power, even in this technologically advanced global environment.

Global corporations have a significant advantage over other forms of human organization including political institutions such as nations. Large multinational corporations have faster means for decision making. They have the ability to deploy resources very quickly and to subordinate individuals, nations and organizations to their objectives. Political decision making is frequently slow, especially in a democracy, which, I suspect, is one reason the Obama administration has become increasingly authoritarian and secretive.

To successfully oppose such a controlling entity people must use their numbers to, in effect, render themselves useless to this human-based corporate monster whose only source of income is, ultimately, other humans. Without a market, capitalism goes nowhere. Historically masses of humanity have overcome wealthier, better organized and technologically advanced opponents. For example, the Soviet Union, barely out of feudalism, was able to defeat the Nazi military by throwing huge numbers of human beings against them and suffering huge losses in the process, but the human mass prevailed. Organized labor was able by its sheer numbers to shut down General Motors by sit-ins, now called occupying, in the 1930s. John L. Lewis and his coal miners defeated the power of the coal companies in the 1930s. Nader, obviously, believes this can no longer be done. I suspect the power of global capitalism is, in his mind, too great to defeat by mass resistance.  (He may also think that such a solution, given the military technology of the corporate state, would lead to massive, perhaps societal-destroying, violence.) I think, however, that the fact that people are toppling powerful regimes in the Middle East and South America, regimes which have frequently deployed advanced military technology against them, evidences that a determined people in their large mass can bring organized, advanced power to its knees. The people of Greece, Spain, Portugal, etc. are forcing European states to reconsider their cozy relationship to big banks and wealthy investors. The European Union is considering a transaction tax on the trillion-dollar-a-day trading in currency and other financial instruments. This has been the fiscal home of the very rich. Similarly, the tax havens of the wealthy are undergoing tighter controls to insure that the wealthy pay their taxes on this sequestered wealth. Much of this is happening because people in their numbers are in the streets energetically demonstrating that they know why they are suffering economic deprivation. People may yet prevail over the instruments of their oppression.

What I have written above is premised on non-violent protesting. If this, in the context of a winner-take-all global economy, is not possible then the horrors of carnage to exhaustion will descend upon us. This is the consequence that, in my opinion, prompted Nader to opt for salvation through well-motivated wealth.

 There is a natural progression in human consumption-based economies from need to want to greed. This progression is not only out of control in capitalism, it is enshrined. In a time of decreasing resources and increasing population we must obviously find a better economic system.

Protests are highly emotional things in which reason gives way to categorical thinking and ideological irrelevance. The massive protests in Brazil are already confronting the all too pervasive divide between middle-class and working/poor class groups. An account of the efforts to bridge this gap, titled Brazil’s Left Is Eager to Lead the “Swarm”, may be found at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/06-0

All I value has been created by human beings.  That their marvelous capabilities should be crushed in a multi-dimensional excess that they are incapable of controlling, challenges the depths of sorrow and despair we humans can feel. But, as Pete Seeger says in his song My Rainbow Race, I will give it one more try.

Bob Newhard