Posted by rflacks on: Tue 17th Nov, 2009

I ended my last blog with a plea for movement. Today, I want to point to some signs of how a movement dynamic may be beginning.

One trigger for mass movement can come from locally based direct action that contages and inspires. The classic case was the sit-in by four black students on February 2, 1960 in Greensboro, NC. One could make a case that the entire upsurge of the 60s came from that act, which was contagious throughout the south in the weeks after, and then provided the foundation for the organization of SNCC, for non-violent direct action for civil rights and peace, for a sense among a lot of us young at the time that small groups of seemingly powerless youth could actually make change.  I don't mind romanticizing that little act of defiance by 4 teenagers-it seems a valid lesson about powers of the weak and the few. Such seemingly small and symbolic acts by previously unknown folks over and over again have helped trigger social movements (and we of course should see that Rosa Parks' refusal to move, 4 years earlier was at least equally consequential),

 Of course it is not simply the individual act that makes history, but the context in which it occurs and the ways in which it is responded to by both those in power and those not. A lot of scholarly writing has expounded on such matters in general and the sit ins in particular.

 Tomorrow, maybe we will see some apparently local action that could have reverberating effects. The University of California Regents are meeting to consider increases of 32% in student tuition that, outrageously, might go into effect during the current academic year. Students across the state have been organizing to go to UCLA to try to stop this decision.  Here's a summary of what may be in store by California Progress Report:

Students, faculty and staff at California's public universities are
mounting a new wave of protests against tuition hikes and enrollment cuts this week.

As public opinion of the governor and the legislature's handling of higher education reaches a record low, concern grows that California is systematically dismantling a system of public higher education that was once the model for the nation. 

Student organizations at the University of California plan a three day strike to begin on November 18 to coincide with the meeting of the UC Board of Regents at UCLA.  UC student organizations and staff unions are descending on the Regents meeting to protest proposed 32 per cent tuition increases. On November 18 and 19, thousands of UC workers represented by University Professional and Technical Employees, CWA local 9119, plan a two day walkout at several campuses to protest unfair labor practices.

Student protests have also erupted at California State University campuses over plans to cut enrollments system wide by 40,000 students. Also on Wednesday November 18, CSU students, faculty and staff will stage a protest at the Long Beach meeting of CSU Board of Trustees, rallying against massive cuts, with additional protests scheduled this week at CSU San Bernardino, Cal Poly Pomona and CSU Los Angeles. 

The planned strikes and direct action are the latest in a series of campus based  protests that have building all fall. At Berkeley, a campus wide strike buy all the campus unions and several student groups has been called.  

There is of course much to be said about the contexts in which these California campus based protests are occurring, but those context can be summed up by saying that we are now one of the largest failed states on the planet with depression level unemployment and a remarkably absent leadership in both parties. My point just now is that these actions-depending on how they unfold of course, could serve as a harbinger and maybe an inspiration for wider movement to come. 

Something else happened today that may help inspire and focus such movement. Richard Trumka, new president of the AFL-CIO, joined by the leaders of the NAACP, the Civil Rights Leadership Conference, The National Council for La Raza and the Center for Community Change, called on Obama and congress to institute major new jobs programs. They pointed out that we are now facing a shortage of 10 million jobs. This new coalition of labor and civil rights groups is itself rather unprecedented. What they are proposing includes: immediate extension of unemployment benefits (about to expire), a major public works and infrastructure investment, injection of direct government funding int community  based organizations in distressed communities for decent wage jobs, and use of TARP funds to support community bank loans for local small business (this last could be done immediately by the white house). They also demand that federal funds be allocated to help states cope with their fiscal crises. States were of course not bailed out in the stimulus package, even though the dollars required to do so would be much less than the amounts handed over to AIG alone. The organization leaders seemed poised today to mobilize their memberships for such a program.

 There is, incidentally, a direct link between  these national proposals and the student/worker strike in California: a rescue plan for the states would obviously help restore the higher education budgets that have been so disastrously cut here and throughout the country.

 People who know me know that I am likely to grasp at straws. But I can't help but hope that something is beginning to stir that has the potential to create a movement dynamic. The White House just announced a national White House jobs conference to be held shortly, to be followed by a nationwide tour by the president to hear about the economic troubles people are experiencing.

 It appears-and this is really important I think-that the Democratic leadership and the President have realized that their fate in 2010 elections are deeply intertwined with the unemployment situation. The local elections earlier this month featured a very big drop in turnout by the very groups most suffering now-young people, blacks and Latinos-and most crucial to electoral prospects  a year from now. A strike against the ballot was , I believe, an effective if unorganized protest. Organized movement that can produce some real results has to come next.

 Of course, there is the question of Afghanistan. It may well be that rising economic unrest will deter further waste of resources on war. If not, what then?

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Quite a lot of folks responded to my last blog on Obama and power. Dozens sent me emails and facebook comments, and there were several good posts on the blog site. Scroll down to see the latter, and a comment I made about the ways in which division within the centers of power provides crucial opportunities for grassroots movements that can win real reform.

Tags: students, Trumka, unemployment, movement

Posted by rflacks on: Wed 11th Nov, 2009

It's getting fashionable to express disappointment, disillusionment, maybe even disgust with Obama. It's a year since the election, so this provides a hook for all kinds of venting. For example, I got several emails posting a piece by someone called David Michael Green that starts with: 

"Now, today, the Big Hope president has virtually nothing of import to show for nearly a year in office." It proceeds from there with a stream of vituperation about Obama's failure to lead, his lack of political sense, lack of vision, caving in to the right, etc. Professor Green makes no analysis of these alleged failures apart from a savaging of the president's personal qualities. 

It was ironic that the piece got circulated on the very day that the House made history by passing the national health insurance reform-an act we have been waiting 70 years to witness. But of course the House bill itself is pretty disappointing, given what the president has promised, and what we know to be the necessary ingredients of a real reform. What will happen to the reform as the process continues is not likely to move us closer to what we've been hoping for. 

Many, correctly, question Obama's reliance on Wall Street enablers for key economic advice. Many, correctly, wonder whether the Obama team can deal with the rising tide of unemployment and underemployment. And there is deep anxiety about the growing evidence that Obama is committed to further escalation of US involvement in Afghanistan, despite the growing evidence that this war is as foolish, futile and feckless as any military adventure the US has previously undertaken. All these troubles-and I haven't even mentioned climate control, worker rights, gay rights and civil liberties.

 Blaming Obama is, however, exactly the wrong diagnosis. Indeed, the promises he has articulated, and the hope he has inspired, provide the grounds for the rising criticism. The first question to ask is why the hopes and promises are so elusive. Is it really because Obama and company have betrayed us, or demonstrated their weakness or cowardice, or were tricksters from the start?

 To me the fundamental reality is this: all the changes Obama advocates are fiercely resisted by the main centers of power in society. There is a corporate power elite. There is a military industrial complex. Wall Street is a real address.  

 People on the left typically use a power structure analysis to understand the limits of democracy in the US. Yet, for some reason, most of the folks I talk with seem to have hoped that Obama would over-ride all that, and do it in 9 months. I assume, however, that the White House, from the start, has known that everything they wanted most to do would be very powerfully resisted, and accordingly, have tried to figure out strategies that might overcome some of that 4resistance so that some degree of reform might be possible.

 The means of power available to corporate and bureaucratic power centers need to be spelled out more than they usually are:

• Everyone knows about lobbying and campaign contributions; media reporting about corporate influence is almost entirely restricted to this level of conflict. It's important to know and remember the degree to which key members of the congress are financed by the very corporate interests that need most to be reformed. Add to that, the fact that congress is structured to enable minority control, procedural blockage and all manner of subterfuge. Essentially, congress is constituted such that corporate lobbyists have become direct authors of the laws that are supposed to regulate their clients.
• The second well known source of the power of corporate and military interests is their ability to access and manipulate mass media. Any progressive change promoted by a president that threatens such interests is likely to be a trigger for all manner of media messages aimed at undermining the president and his legitimacy. The Democrats have been worried for decades about their ability to withstand charges that they are weak and soft on military and national security matters. When JFK contemplated aborting the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 he was warned that former Pres. Eisenhower would publicly campaign against him. We are told that if Obama fails to follow the demands of General McChrystal re Afghanistan, General Petraeus will resign and run for president against him.
• Underlying these manifest means of influence is a still more powerful lever of power. That lever is the capacity of the investor class-the corporate and financial decision makers-to withhold investment and thereby affect the markets and the economy as a whole. It's generally conceded that the best health reform would be based on a ‘Medicare for all' scenario. The trouble with that scenario is that it would wipe out the giant health insurance corporations, and shift power in the health industry to government and away from the pharmaceutical corporations. Such an outcome may be devoutly to be desired, but it would be most abnormal, to say the least, for the president to seek the elimination and weakening of entire sectors of the private economy. The likely economic consequences of such a presidential stance could be quite dire-because of the reactions of the investor class.

 President Obama has had to formulate a strategy that might bring some needed reform in the face of these sources of resistance. That strategy has included such measures as: reassuring Wall Street by appointing Geithner and Summers to run economic policy and financial reform; forcing key congresspersons to ‘own' health-care reform by giving them responsibility for shaping the legislation, making deals with drug and hospital lobbies to trade some kinds of regulation for their acceptance of other rules they had opposed, going slow with reforms affecting CIA and Pentagon practices, backing a ‘cap and trade' approach to carbon emission control (thereby preferencing the ‘market' as the arena for dealing with global warming), etc.

 Some folks seem to think that reforming presidents like FDR, JFK and LBJ, were somehow more courageous or bold than Obama has been. This is not the case. FDR made major and harmful compromises with respect to social security, the Wagner Act and civil rights. JFK tried mightily to contain the civil rights movement and ordered the FBI surveillance of Martin Luther King. Kennedy launched a huge arms race with the USSR, was afraid to recognize communist
China, invaded Cuba. LBJ could figure out no way to end the Vietnam War, even though he believed it would destroy his legacy. And his great health-care reform-Medicare-was itself a compromise (since it covered only those over 65).

 The entire history of successful reform emanating from the White House is replete with compromise with corporate and political interests. Deeply ingrained in the thought process of successful politicians is the mantra we now hear from Rahm Emanuel: ‘We can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We need to pass something even if it is quite flawed. We can work to improve it down the line."

 The trouble is that the people and our future need more than what the present alignments and strategies can deliver. I ask you to consider the following: Obama is doing about the best he can do given current power relations.  He could of course take the advice of some: fight for the real reform even if you lose. But he's right to reject that course of action, given that he is now the president of the US and not a community organizer.

 People on the left make a bad mistake by focusing blame on the president. It's a mistake because disillusionment leads to demoralization, not action. On the other hand, the leaders of progressive reform on the national level are making an even bigger mistake: they are spending their resources on mobilizing support for the white house agenda. What needs to emerge I think is a national  coalition aimed at ‘keeping the promises'-a coalition that aims beyond what is immediately possible, and makes strategic demands that challenge the agenda of the president and his party:

• Demand a real jobs program that builds in the green economy but seeks more rapid expansion of employment opportunity than now seems on the agenda.
• Demand more far reaching carbon control targets than current legislation contemplates.
• Demand a timetable for ending US troop involvement in Afghanistan as well as Iraq

These goals are interrelated. Jobs will come from massive investment in renewable energy, conservation, alternative transportation; investment funding can come from reducing the war budgets; energy alternatives will reduce the obsession with Middle East oil that drives our international policy. A revitalized progressive coalition at the national level, independent of the Obama administration while embracing its stated goals, can be a power counterweight to the corporate/financial/ military pressures. Indeed, it has the potential of splitting current power relations, because a vibrant, green economy would be quite beneficial to many businesses, and relief from the wars would be welcomed by many in the military at all levels. Barack Obama said a thousand times during the campaign that the change was up to us. He will be a great president when we make him one.

Tags: Obama, corporate power, progressive movement

Posted by rflacks on: Tue 10th Nov, 2009

please pledge! KCSB is now in  the second week of its annual membership/fundraising mode. Thanks to those of you who've sent me pledges via email. If you haven't, but can and want to, I'm hoping you'll make a contribution.

•  I'm offering cd's of several of the most requested recent culture of protest programs as thanks.  On this week's show I'll be playing clips from each of these so you can call in and pledge  on air. That's 805-893-2424.
•  You can also make a pledge by responding to this email message, providing your name, address, phone and donation amount. The basic membership levels are $25 for UCSB students and $50 for non-students. For a basic pledge, you can request one of the following: 

1. THE POLITICS OF THE WIZARD OF OZ  (a 2 hr broadcast featuring the work of Yip Harburg, blacklisted lyricist for the Wizard of Oz movie, Finian's Rainbow, Buddy Can You Spar a Dime)
2. ANI DIFRANCO (Our exclusive interview  with Ani, and a selection of her songs)
3. SONGS FOR HARD TIMES I (songs from the thirties and today about bankers, foreclosures, depression and hard times in general)
4. SONGS FOR HARD TIMES II (and more of the above)
5. LABOR DAY 2009 (songs about workers and their movement, including a musical remembrance of the SF general strike 75 years ago)

You can have 2 of the above for a $75 donation, 4 for $100.   Please reply with your name, address, phone, pledge request. Thanks a million!!!!! Dick Flacks

 culture of protest thurs 11/12/09 6-7p pst kcsb 91.9fm www.kcsb.org  

Tags: kcsb

Posted by rflacks on: Fri 6th Nov, 2009

It was a bizarre election campaign here in Santa Barbara but the results are provocative, and give much food for thought about Santa Barbara's future and some lessons that are pertinent to the national scene too. 

The strange turns included the dropping out of two strong candidates--Iya Falcone for mayor, and Olivia Uribe for council-because of self-inflicted mistakes. Had either remained in the race, the results might well have been quite different. Most bizarre, of course, was the role of Randall Van Wolfswinkel, who spent  $700,000 trying to pass measure B and elect a mostly Republican slate. What motivated him remains mysterious (and I hope Nick Welsh and other journalists keep trying to figure it all out). The result of his investment was zero, for reasons I'll get into below. 

Measure B was  solidly defeated. The measure  got a bit less than the 11,000 signatures that put it on the ballot. That signature drive was supposed to prove that there was a groundswell of grassroots feeling aimed at protecting the ‘small town character' of Santa Barbara against the depredations of developers. As I've suggested before, the ‘no change' sentiment seems largely expressed by upper middle class senior citizens. Many of these are Republicans, and I think local GOPers have cleverly appealed to this sentiment and developed some effective wedge issues that have enabled them to have some electoral success. I doubt very much that Francisco, Self and Hotchkiss cared at all about measure B (especially since ideologically they're opposed to government controls over private development). It was rather laughable that the largest developer effort to affect a local election in the history of Santa Barbara (i.e. Van W's "preserve Santa Barbara') was defended by some leaders of the B campaign as a sincere attempt to oppose developer interests.

 We don't yet have data to do a detailed analysis of the measure B vote. But the precinct vote breakdown shows that B passed in most of the precincts where turnout was over 50%, and was strongly defeated in lower turnout precincts. We know that older, more affluent and more Republican folks are more likely to vote in local elections. So we can read the turnout by precinct pattern as a good indicator of underlying demographics: younger, less affluent, minority and Democratic voters tended to oppose it. 

 An important dimension of this election was the effort by the local Democratic Party and PUEBLO to get out the vote of their constituencies. The mail ballot may well have helped that effort, but it was remarkable that more than 4000 people turned in ballots at collection stations on election day, B was losing by a narrow margin before those last 4000 votes were tallied on Tuesday night; the surge voters were overwhelmingly against it. 

 The No on B campaign was remarkably effective from the beginning. Measure B superficially appealed to the longstanding anti-growth, anti-development consensus in our town, so the campaign against it had to educate folks about the ways that strict height limits would work against housing affordability, control of sprawl and sustainability. The No on B activists included a number of creative minds (including my wife Mickey), who marshaled arguments and means of delivering them that seemed to really affect community awareness and framing of the issue. It certainly helped that Cottage Hospital leaders weighed in against the measure, since  it seemed to require them to abandon their plans for future hospital development. And the stance taken by PUEBLO and the local Democratic Party was a crucial ingredient in educating and mobilizing the opposition.  The strong vote for Helene Schneider, Grant House and Bendy White was certainly enabled by the GOTV efforts led by these two organizations.

 On the other hand, this was also a successful election for the small right-wing of our city. For the first time in years, we have a conservative bloc on city council. Self and Hotchkiss got a bit under 7000 votes each. They got these because the Republican base here has always been pretty disciplined, turning out to vote and to vote in a fairly unified way. It's pretty likely that many Self-Hotchkiss voters bullet voted for these two. If Randall had not spent a nickel, I think their vote total would have been pretty much the same.

 There are two reasons that Self and Hotchkiss were able to get elected.  First, the progressive side was divided in its endorsements for the ‘third' council slot. Diane Channing and David Pritchett were each endorsed by a number of groups (but PUEBLO endorsed only Grant House).  Had only one of these two been running that individual would have surpassed the Republican bloc vote (though it is likely that Self or Hotchkiss might have made into the ‘fourth' slot).  So the perennial issue for Santa Barbara progressives: can't we develop a process that would allow for unity rather than division  at election time?

 Equally pressing and perennial is the question of turnout. Republicans turnout was 10% higher than the Democratic vote. The precincts with the highest turnout went for B and trended toward Francisco and co, while low turnout precincts were strongly voting in the ‘Democratic' direction. There was an excellent GOTV effort in those precincts and so we had a final turnout considerably higher than any purely local city election in memory. How to reach and mobilize thousands of  renters, young voters, minority voters-how to connect with their needs and concerns-is a crucial question for the future of the city.

 Incidentally,  this is the same sort of question the Democrats  have to face nationally. Republican spinsters (enabled by the national media) are claiming that the results of Tuesday's elections were a severe setback for Obama because moderate Independents are resisting his left-wing policies. This line is intended to split the congressional Democrats as they come to vote on health-care and climate change reform. But the election data say quite the opposite: the real problem for the Democrats is the fact that the voters with the greatest enthusiasm for progressive change stayed home. In the face of 10% unemployment (and unemployment much greater among the young, the black and Latino and women voters) Obama and the congressional Democrats must read the returns as a demand for real action that restores hope to those hardest hit.  It would be great if masses of folks took to the streets to demand such action. But staying at home is also a kind of ‘strike' against a politics controlled by a corporate rather than a people's agenda.

 Our local election provided another lesson useful for thinking about national electoral politics: money talks but not so much.  One of the persistent myths taken for granted by progressives is that elections are determined by how much money the contenders have available. So Randall Van Wolfswinkel's  investment failed to help measure B (and probably hurt it), failed to elect Francisco.  Note how Mike Bloomberg's incredible investment of  $100 million in NY did not provide him a decisive victory (even though he's acknowledged as an effective mayor, and even though his opponent was a virtual nonentity), and how Corzine in New Jersey was defeated despite tens of millions of his own money. In this election here and nationally, big money seemed to backfire.   Of course, there is a pretty high dollar threshold that a candidate needs in order to be a contender-and this is largely due to the unfortunate dependence on paid TV advertising for effective campaigning, and on the alleged wisdom of professional campaign consultants. Public financing of elections would create a very different playing field, no doubt. But I think the important strategic questions for the electoral left aren't about money but about bringing out the  people power latent in our numbers.

 There's a lot to be said about what the death of measure B might mean for the future of Santa Barbara...and I'll talk about this next time. Meanwhile...your thoughts on any of the above?

Tags: santa barbara elections, election turnout

Posted by rflacks on: Tue 3rd Nov, 2009

 kcsb, Santa Barbara's campus/community free radio voice, is now in its annual membership/fundraising mode. It's been at 91.9 on the dial for nearly 40 years, broadcasting 24/7. it's programming is as diverse, free wheeling and non-corporate as anything you'll hear anywhere in the US. And virtually all of the work is done by scores of student and community volunteers. KCSB needs community financial support to supplement the budget it gets from UCSB students.

I've been doing my weekly show, Culture of Protest, at  KCSB for more than 27 years. If you've never tuned in, I hope you will (and you can get it streaming on line at www.kcsb.org at 6 PM PST Thursdays). As usual, I'm hoping you'll make a contribution and I'm offering cd's of several of the most requested recent culture of protest programs as thanks. You can make a pledge by sending me an email at rflacks@igc. org. providing your name, address, phone and donation amount. The basic membership levels are $25 for UCSB students and $50 for non-students. For a basic pledge, you can request one of the following:

1. THE POLITICS OF THE WIZARD OF OZ  (a 2 hr broadcast featuring the work of Yip Harburg, blacklisted lyricist for the Wizard of Oz movie, Finian's Rainbow, Buddy Can You Spare a Dime)
2. ANI DIFRANCO (Our exclusive interview  with Ani, and a selection of her songs)
3. SONGS FOR HARD TIMES I (songs from the thirties and today about bankers, foreclosures, depression and hard times in general)
4. SONGS FOR HARD TIMES II (and more of the above)
5. LABOR DAY 2009 (songs about workers and their movement, including a musical remembrance of the SF general strike 75 years ago)

  You can have 2 of the above for a $75 donation, 4 for $100. Please include  your name, address, phone, pledge request. Or call me when Culture of Protest is on the air: 6-7 pm PST Thursday 11/4 and 11/11 (I'll be pitching twice during the fund drive). Thanks!!!!!

Tags: kcsb, community radio