Building the Institutional Foundation of the Progressive Movement

A call to build the institutional foundation of the Progressive Movement

We are part of a progressive movement that, in its simplest terms, advances a vision for a society whose institutions serve all its citizens rather than only the few, democracy rather than oligarchy, freedom rather than fascism. What does our opposition have that we don’t? They have the resources that come from powerful institutions. In addition to all our other worthwhile efforts, such as service and education, we need to build up the organizations and community groups that have historically served as the institutional base of our movement.
Labor According to John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, union household members accounted for 26% of the voters at the polls and 70% of them voted for progressive candidates that supported our issues. Not to mention the organizational and rank and file support that has been shown in the most recent anti-war movement and the struggle for economic justice both globally and locally. The importance of labor is no better expressed than by the ruthless attack of the right wing on workers and their right to organize. As a movement we need to develop concrete ways to provide economic, political, and moral support to workers trying to organize and defend their rights. We need to work to built up the organizations and unions that support them.
Religious Community Religious communities have been a natural ally in the progressive struggle from the time of Saul Alinsky and FIGHT to today’s Labor-Religion Coalition. Harnessing the power of progressive minded religious communities has been a major priority for a number of reasons. Obviously, Religious organizations have resources such as facilities and money that are necessary to build a movement. Religious communities are established and respected organizations that people will turn to when trying to understand the impact of political events. Religious communities can serve as focal points of support for our efforts. In addition to all this, religious principles, depending on how they are interpreted by community members, can provide the ideological framework for defending progressive issues as well as provide motivation and commitment for the people in a faith community to engage in the hard work and sacrifice required. We need to support the creation of social justice committees in our local progressive congregations.
Electoral We get the candidates we earn. Or rather the candidates we allow other people to put in front of us. Progressives need to develop the structures necessary to elect progressive candidates as well as hold them accountable once they’re in office. The elite now running both major parties will not elect progressive candidates. Progressive candidates will have to be elected through the hard work of progressive activists and they can only be elected through the organizing and mobilizing of the grassroots of our community who share our values. Money buys access to voters through mass media such as television. Grassroots electoral organizing is the peoples’ answer to elections dominated by money. The electoral work necessary will have to include successfully reaching underrepresented constituents, who when engaged, historically have supported progressive issues. These constituencies include people of color and the poor. There are three strategies, which I will present here. While there are advantages and disadvantages to each, I believe they can be executed simultaneously and effectively. The first would be the third party strategy of building a new party structure to contend with the old. The second would be the fusion strategy used successfully by the Conservatives and Working Family’s Party to shape the platform of major party candidates by mobilizing significant numbers of voters who care about progressive issues. And finally a progressive caucus strategy of building up democratic committees with progressive delegates in order to control the ability of the party to designate candidates and determine the platform of the party.
Citizen Organizations Civil Society has been described in the New York Times as the “Second Super Power”. This statement best explains why it is so important to build the organizations that maintain a strong civil society.
Citizen organizations represent many different groups of people and can serve many roles is the movement. Organizations that educate people develop the widely held support for progressive issues. Organizations can fight and win legislative campaigns that further the progressive agenda. They can apply economic and public pressure on executives and bureaucrats who threaten the rights of citizens.
The market sector of our society applies a increasingly powerful pressure on all levels of government. So much so that Noam Chomsky has described our government as a shadow of the market. In order for our citizen organizations to be strong and build enough power to apply a countervailing pressure on the government they need to have active members that support these organizations both financially and physically. We need to build these organizations, join them, and contribute to them. So join Metro Justice, volunteer, speak out and become a leader.
Hopefully, we will encourage future articles from leaders in our community who can further develop these ideas.
But, we know all to well that this is not just about competing ideas to be chosen by the powerful. This is about a survival that needs to be won by a people willing to do the hard work, make the sacrifices and compromises, and to struggle for the right to determine how they will live their lives. The choice to work harder, take more risks, and sacrifice more is a simple one, as simple as the choice between democracy and fascism, freedom and slavery, desperation and prosperity, destruction and creation, and finally between existence and death. We must be prepared to make that choice.