Re: Organizing communities, on the left and right

Dear Ivan,

As usual, you are a voice of great clarity.

I think Tim Wise is right [Red-Baiting and Race: Socialism as the New Black Bogeyman] that there is an element of racism in some of the anti-Obama anger and fear that people are expressing in Town Halls and blogs.

But I also think there’s an element of classism in some of the scorn and fear that people on (what you’ve called, perhaps oxymoronically) the Mainstream Left are directing back. Folks are portraying the people turning out to these town halls as ignorant, irrational, stupid, crazy and violent; it’s disheartening to see the words “thug,” “goon,” and “mob” used so frequently. Obviously I disagree with the town-hallers’ point of view on health care (and on socialism), and I do think a lot of it is based on misinformation. Nonetheless, it’s exciting to see working people passionately organizing and effectively confronting their Congresspeople.

I think much of the middle-class Left fears and scorns working-class people, especially rural conservative working-class people. We saw that in this discourse about red states vs. blue states, in the joy people took in pointing out Bush’s grammatical errors, and in a lot of the anti-Palin discourse too. You know I think the conservative agenda does working people great harm — but I also think if we hope to build mass movements of working people it’s not enough to wring our hands and deplore how people vote against what we believe to be their interests. It’s more constructive, probably, to instead do some serious listening to where people are coming from and what they’re concerned about, and see if we can find some common ground. By which I do not mean compromise.

Both left and right are expressing fears of rising fascism, each scorning the other side’s fears as absurd. [E.g. Sara Robinson: Is the U.S. on the brink of fascism?, Tim Wise: Sick Heil] This could provide an opportunity for public conversation about who wields actual power in this country — President and Congress? CEOs and bankers? media? people with guns? I think it’s mostly an expression of fear, frustration, and a widespread sense of powerlessness.

The Town Hall events do provide an interesting case-study in what a difference a favorable press makes. You and I have certainly participated in many packed, angry public meetings, and and usually the press widely ignores them, rather than heralding them as the seeds of some massive populist uprising. The flurry of copycat actions and populist excitement that we are seeing with the Town Halls is exactly the kind of esprit de movement that I hoped for with these factory sit-ins at Republic, Hartmarx and Quad Cities… what I’m always hoping for, in fact, but rarely see. Is it just media hype that makes it feel like a movement? I don’t know, but I’d sure like to see what would happen if mainstream national coverage brought this kind of populist excitement to stories like Immigrant detainees staging hunger strikes to protest deplorable confinement or Strike at Stella D’Oro cookie plant, The Bronx, N.Y or Effort Takes Shape to Support Families Facing Foreclosure. I’m very interested in your further thoughts on what’s making this Town Hall organizing strategy as effective as it’s been at getting attention and looking big.

All that said, it’s a great shame that we’re not having anywhere near the right public conversation about health care. Even what the Dems want to do is unacceptably right-wing, but that conversation has been totally sidelined. All this talk of government death panels, and little talk of how profit-driven insurance companies make harsh rationing decisions right now. A recent headline in a Portland-area suburban newspaper says “Providence gives OK to lifesaving procedure for Lesly Foster.” The story is about a 9-year-old girl whose insurance company twice denied, then finally approved on appeal, her cancer treatment. How is that not a death panel?