Organizing and Politics: Insiders vs Outsiders?

Sat Jan 19 12:43:56 CST 2008

From:     Peter Dreier <dreier at oxy.edu>

Friends -

Grassroots organizing is the lifeblood of progressive politics. In the 
1960s, many radicals looked at politics as working either "inside" or 
"outside" the "system."  But the reality is more complicated than this 
either/or perspective. The recent tempest between the Obama and Clinton 
campaigns about whether Martin Luther King or President Lyndon Johnson 
deserved the most recent for the enactment of civil rights legislation 
provides an opportunity to examine the way things really work -- which 
is that all progressive reform requires both grassroots activists 
organizing from "outside" as well as liberal and progressive elected 
officials and lobbyists working from "inside" to push and then broker 
compromises to get things passed. This is the point of my article with 
Kelly Candaele in yesterday's HuffingtonPost 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/to-bring-change-politica_b_82186.html), 

Progressive politicians (like the late Paul Wellstone) view themselves 
as the voices of progressive movements from "inside" Congress (or state 
legislatures, city councils, or local school boards), but they rely on 
"outside" activists to make noise, draw attention to issues, disrupt 
business-and-usual, and create a sense of urgency.  That's what Dr. King 
and the civil rights activists did. But it took allies in Congress to 
"cut the deal." The same dynamic was at work when FDR worked with the 
labor movement to adopt New Deal reforms in the 1930s, when women 
organized to win the vote in 1920, and when the environmental movement 
pushed for a wave of federal reforms in the 1970s. Today, as Kelly and I 
note in our article, the LA labor movement has developed a sophisticated 
inside/outside strategy to win important victories, and to use those 
victories as steppingstones to further change.     (For a slightly 
different take on the King/LBJ matter, check out Barbara Ehrenreich's 
piece in The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080128/ehrenreich).

LA's housing  and tenants' rights movement is learning those same 
valuable inside/outside lessons as it organizes, through the Housing LA 
coalition, to win stronger tenant protections, a mixed-income housing 
policy, and funding for the city's Housing Trust Fund.  The Tidings 
newspaper has recently published two interesting articles by R.W. 
Dellinger about LA's housing movement -- profiles of two grassroots 
housing organizers, Francesca de la Rosa and Larry Gross 
(http://www.the-tidings.com/2008/011808/housing.htm), and a report about 
LA Voice, one of the community groups involved in the Housing LA 
coalition (http://www.the-tidings.com/2008/011108/housing.htm)

Progressives typically push for reforms that make society more humane 
and livable, such as housing, health care, reproductive rights, the 
environment,  good schools, living wages, and workplace safety.  But 
there are also reforms that level the political playing field and give 
ordinary people more power to organize and make their voices heard. 
Andre Gorz once called these "non-reformist reforms" or "radical 
reforms." In his article in the Huffington Post recently, "Change That 
Really Matters," my Oxy colleague Derek Shearer outlined an excellent 
agenda of "non-reformist reforms" that the next President and Congress 
should adopt, including voting rights, labor law, and community service. 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derek-shearer/change-that-really-matter_b_80654.html).  
(I would add campaign finance reform to this list).  As Kelly and I 
wrote last May 
(http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/05/10/labor_law_reform_not_just_for_unions.php), 
no reform would be as effective as the EFCA in changing the balance of 
power in the U.S. and making our democracy healthier.If a Democrat wins 
in November, labor law reform -- the Employee Free Choice Act  (EFCA) -- 
should be a top priority, but it will require the next President 
spending considerable political capital, and using his/her bully pulpit 
to encourage Americans to put pressure on Congress to overcome the 
fierce opposition of the business establishment.

Derek and I agree that labor law reform needs to be a key priority for 
the next President, Congress, and the entire progressive movement (not 
just unions). But we disagree on whether Hillary Clinton is the most 
likely candidate to push for a progressive agenda.  As I wrote in the 
HuffingtonPost last week 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/hillary-clinton-should-be_b_80803.html), 
Clinton would be more useful to America as a progressive Senator than as 
a centrist president, which is how she has positioned herself in 
contrast to the more liberal Barack Obama and John Edwards. Obviously 
she still hopes to win the White House. But if she loses the nomination 
or the November election, would she, freed from presidential ambitions, 
be willing to reposition herself as the progressive she once was and 
spend the rest of her career building a solid legislative record? Some 
think its too late -- she's already established herself as a 
triangulating centrist. Others, including some of her long-term friends, 
think she's still a closet progressive. If so, she should learn from the 
example of Ted Kennedy, who has been the most effective progressive in 
the Senate for many years.

Even as he sputters into retirement, George Bush continues to advance 
the cause of his capitalist cronies, as I wrote in the HuffingtonPost a 
few days before Christmas. 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/bushs-class-warfare_b_77910.html).  
(Also check out Larry Peterson's great article on Bush's relentless 
anti-union actions since taking office, in the September/October issue 
of Dollars and Sense magazine (http://dollarsandsense.org). On the day 
before Chief Justice John Roberts swears in Obama, Edwards or Clinton 
next January, Bush will no doubt be still trying to find ways to reduce 
taxes and regulations on big business.  In every way possible, George 
Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and cronies were willing to wage top-down 
"class warfare" despite its consequences for our society, our economy, 
and even (as the mortgage meltdown reveals) large sectors of business 
whose own unregulated greed is now coming back to haunt them, as the 
faultering banking industry and housing market sinks the country into a 
recession and as as more than a million Americans are likely to lose 
their homes by the end of the year.  So, to put this in property 
perspective, and to lighten your load, take a look at this hilarious 
video about the Bush Administration's misdeeds: http://blip.tv/file/520347

Peter
____________________________________________________________________________
Peter Dreier
Dr. E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics
Chair, Urban & Environmental Policy Program
Occidental College
1600 Campus Road
Los Angeles, CA 90041
Phone: (323) 259-2913
FAX: (323) 259-2734

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great 
moral crises maintain their neutrality" - Dante