More Than 500,000 Rally in L.A. for Immigrants’ Rights

That’s what am talking about [LA Times - March 25, 2006]!

Joining what some are calling the nation’s largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting "Si se puede!" (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.

Republicans, as they always do, counted on scapegoating another out group in the 2006 election cycle. In 2004 they went after "the gays" and this year it looks like Republicans counted on vilifying "illegal aliens" to agitate their narrow minded, yet always reliable, base. Well, as it occurred in California in the 1990s, when the Republican governor at the time, Pete Wilson, backed the draconian 187 anti-immigrant proposition, it looks like this latest scapegoating attempt by Republicans will back fire over the long term (and, hopefully, over the near term, too).

Pete Wilson’s support of proposition 187 turned the Latino community in California against the Republican party for years to come; and, now, even after the Republican efforts to reach out to Latinos, it looks like they miscalculated and never anticipated the Latino community’s reaction to the latest anti-immigrant push by Republicans.

Here we see how grassroots organizing and a cooperative communications network (Spanish language stations have aired announcements for these national marches for a while now) must go hand-in-hand to mobilize people. Now, all the organizing and communications coordination that got out 500,000 people to the streets of LA occurred unnoticed because it was happening out of the mainstream and in Spanish. However, the combination of grassroots organizing and a cooperative communications network, I’m convinced, can mobilize any community, whether it be Spanish speaking or English speaking. And here’s where the equation for organizing mainstream progressives has been broken: we’ve lacked a cooperative and truly liberal broadcasting network. The moment we have a truly liberal and cooperative voice on one of the major broadcasting outlets, that’s when mainstream progressives will be agitated and mobilized — and that’s when we’ll pour onto the streets, just as the Latino community and their supporters have done over the past week. Si se puede!

People Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Their Government, Governments Should Be Afraid of Their People

Go see "V for Vendetta." There are some that am sure will charge that the movie is too this, too that… that it is heavy handed… that it is not faithful in some way to the original vision, etc., etc., etc… However, "V for Vendetta" is worth seeing because it unabashedly addresses the concerns of our time and it asks us to take some part of the blame for letting it all happen — simply because we were afraid. (Of course, many in this community (DailyKos.com), especially in this beautifully Liberal community, stopped being afraid a long time ago… but not all of our fellow citizens have managed to shed their fear.)

I simply loved this line from Vendetta: People shouldn’t be afraid of their government, governments should be afraid of their people. Now, no one, of course, is advocating violence in any form, but symbolically, the dark hero of this movie is right on… for far too long we’ve been afraid of what we’ll be charged with: un-American, un-Patriotic, an opportunist merely seeking to position oneself for a presidential run in 2008 — think Feingold, and the shit with which his courageous and CORRECT stand has been met with by some that are still afraid (including elected Dems). At any rate, here we have a movie that comes dangerously close, given our times and the paranoia that still lingers in some circles, to advocating a storming of the castle, en masse… err, should I say, a Crashing of the Gates, as it were (and, frankly, it suggests that we, The People, do a lot more than just batting down some gates).

Now, aside from open advocacy of an up rise against an oppressive and un-representative government, bent on moralizing and hoarding power while those that hold key government posts profit from the failures of their own government; V for Vendetta also offers some provocative moments and more than a couple of touching performances by Natalie Portman (whom looks great with short hair or even wearing a baby doll outfit (see the movie!)).

Of course, as with any work dealing with a dystopia, at moments the movie falls short; but, I believe, specially if one puts the movie in today’s political context (and how could one not!?), there’s a lot in V for Vendetta that’s provocative and well worth the $10+ bucks that many of us will pay now days to go see a movie.

PS. I just saw this post, which covers some of the more substantive issues that V for Vendetta raises.

Not Just Hollywood Writers

It’s always hearting to read constructive and hopeful posts, at MyDD.com and elsewhere; posts about how eager many of us are to help the Dems take the country back — even if it’s one. office. at. a. time. At least this is how I read The Hollywood Mythspiracy diary that’s been on the front page of MyDD.com for much of the day. Matt’s brother and many of his acquaintances, is clear from the diary, want to help the Dems craft resonant messages, which is a good enough and laudable thing to offer on its own right; but, as he writes, Dems have not tapped into the eager resource that exist in young Hollywood.

Now, I know that Matt’s brother’s diary over at MyDD.com does not purport to suggest that having Hollywood writers craft the Dems message (i.e., via speeches, commercials and “narratives”) would be the magic bullet that would end the Dems apparent electoral woes. Clearly, the suggestion/offer made in the diary would only be one small — very small — part of the solution. I write and hope that it would be “only a very small part of the solution” because it must be understood that the long-term health of the Dem party, and of the Progressive movement necessitates the creation of a brick-and-mortar infrastructure to mirror/match/surpass what they’ve got on the right. Additionally, aside from the brick-and-mortar infrastructure, we, the Progressive constituency, have got to demand long-term leadership and vision from elected Dems — and from unofficial leaders (i.e., former presidents and non-elected party officials). For a brief encapsulation of the much needed long-term leadership that we need on the left see Rick Perlstein’s The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo — his essay made the rounds on the internets a couple of months ago.

There’s such a thing as a Progressive philosophy… at the moment we simply want to win; so, we’re content with merely being partisan and will support a candidate that stands up to the right… but, at least I am, we’re ideological and have a strong sense of the rough outlines of our progressive values and ideology, even if these are not being articulated nor defended in the mainstream media by a recognizable leadership — much less by elected Dems. Our Progressive ideology, though, needs to be nurtured over the long-term if a movement is to rise from our ranks to challenge the right and, too, to move the nation’s center back to the middle (and, one would hope, one day, to the center-left).

What prompted me to write this is what I perceived as the undercurrent in Matt’s brother’s diary: an overt reliance on short-term and marketing-driven stylistic responses to the apparent electoral woes of the Dem Party (i.e., as if the Dems’ electoral problems would be solved if only the party made better commercials, told better narratives or gave better speeches. Sure, such solutions would make a difference at the margins in a couple of national races, but we — I think — need more than that.). This is a simplification, I know; it’s just that reading The Hollywood Mythspiracy diary I was reminded of an old Hollywood adage, There are no bad movies, there’s only bad marketing. Such an approach, one that relies too heavily on message alone, is what has weakened the Democratic party and, too, atrophied anything resembling a progressive movement in this country. As critics of the DLC have pointed out, this is precisely what that organization is guilty of: convincing the Democratic beltway establishment to target their message to specific audiences (i.e, the swing voters du jour ), and to mirror whatever the conventional wisdom of the day is on a given subject (i.e, national security, moral values, etc.).

Sure, governing and winning elections requires exploiting short-term strategies (i.e, effective marketing), but wrestling the ideological center of the country away from the right back to the middle will take: building physical networks off-line and creating a message delivery system to compete with the right’s echo chamber. (We gotta build a progressive/liberal competitor to FauxNews, damn it — if only I had a couple of million dollars to build my own media empire — okay, it’ll take more than a couple.)

Up Dating MyDD.com

Over at MyDD.com a thread was recently started on what changes and suggestions had for the community blog, I decided to contribute and wrote:

MyDD.com and DailyKos.com offer an invaluable service to the Progressive community — and it’s great that now others have emulated what these two sites pioneered.

That said, I think that both sites, MyDD.com and DailyKos.com — yes, I know that we’re dealing with MyDD.com exclusively here; however, my broad comments are applicable to both sites — I feel that both sites must evolve into “activism” platforms.

I believe that MyDD.com (and, yes, DailyKos.com) is narrowly focused on being a media outlet to progressive causes and that it stops short of providing “tools” for grassroots participants to concretely contribute with. I think that moving from being a media/press outlet, to being a grassroots mobilization site requires a different administrative mind set. Therefore, the site(s) may need to be divided into two distinct sections: an editorial/media outlet side and a grassroots/tactical mobilization side. Of course, there would be no clear demarcation, as users and the website administrators would flow from one to the other with no restrictions. However, the focus of the sections would be distinct and specialized; and, if a plan similar to this were to be adopted, the grassroots/tactical facilitator would be someone whose primary focus would be to “direct and inspire” concrete action (am thinking of the various offline activities, for example, that MoveOn.org puts together; however, since this community (MyDD.com), I believe, is more immersed in the nitty gritty of politics, perhaps we could come up with better activities than just vigils, for example).

Take the conservative TownHall.com website — they go beyond opinion by directing users to take concrete action; moreover, they serve as a gate way to reach conservative activists and pundits.

Of course, building a robust tool box that we could use to take concrete action would require more resources than what might be available. However, if the resources were to be available, I would like the following:

• Require that users provide zip code, so that data (i.e., house races, local government, media, etc) could be personalized/localized.
• Break diaries into categories that include, for example, the following (“editorial” and “activism” diary entries should be separated into their respective sections):

- Most Commented on Diaries
- “Thumbs up” section!? (Check out digg.com to see what I mean. This would be distinct from the Recommended Diaries)
- Recent Diaries
- Recommended Diaries

• Allow users to customize their “user’s page” (mine, for example, is http://bedobe.mydd.com) so that it could function more like a portal to the MyDD.com if I so chose to use it: with feeds, subscriptions, a MyDD.com inbox, a buddies list (so we can network and build off-line communities) — and any other goodies that a user may want to add to their portal/”user’s page.”

Minor website tweaks that I would like see:

• Printer Friendly Link that reformats a dairy entry just like many newspaper sites do with their articles.
• Customization capability so that users, for example, could choose their font size, whether to open links in new windows, etc. — check out http://www.memeorandum.com/ to see what I mean (click on preferences).
• Allow users to see who is online — this, I think, promotes community cohesiveness and participation.

Am writing this off the cuff, so a lot may be jumbled and not all that clear. But I do hope that this contributes in some way. And, again, thanks for building this community.

And another user asked me to flush out what I meant by “concrete action,” here’s how I responded:

Thanks for the question — I agree, the issue of “‘concrete’ action” vs. “commentary” is an important one for online participants.

To begin with, I think that both are important and complementary functions. Moreover, I understand that there are some websites/blogs by individuals that are meant to provide commentary/analysis, and that other sites (MoveOn.org, for example) focus on suggesting “concrete action” around specific issues. Additionally, the commentary/analysis function is important because the web is virtually the only place where progressive voices can be found, given our media landscape. Now, while commentary/analysis is important, there are certain sites/blogs, I’m thinking of community blogs (i.e., MyDD.com and DailyKos.com) specifically, that users go to seeking “action items” that they, we, can take practical action on.

I’ve seen a lot of comments on community sites (MyDD, DailyKos, HuffingtonPost and others) asking, What can I do on this or that issue? A lot of us are often looking for some off-line organization or group to get plugged into, to feel a part of and grow the progressive movement (a lot more needs to be said about that, but I don’t have the space here). Accordingly, we come to the better known community sites in search of info on how we can tap into an off-line “movement” and, too, we come looking for “action items” that we can contribute towards.

I subscribe to the idea that on-line and off-line participation are complementary, and that one does not exclude the other. Therefore, I don’t subscribe to the idea the there exists something called the “netroots.” Instead, I belive that there only exists the “grassroots,” and that we, the grassroots, go to the web to communicate with each other and in search of information. Now, because I see on-line and off-line participation as complementary, and because grassroots participation exists in both forms, I belive that community sites/blogs need to offer specific tools and serve as a repository of “tactical” advise for the grassroots to take action with.

Too often, I think, community sites/blogs neglect “action items” and advise on “tactical lessons” learned on the ground; which are, I think, essential components to building a progressive movement. Instead, most of us, the average community blog participant, focus on offering commentary on current events and on offering “strategic” advise to Democratic party leaders — which, I fear, is too easily ignored. Please keep in mind that I’ve not suggested that community blogs stop offering commentary/analysis; rather, I’m merely suggesting that community blogs spend more time and dedicate more of the site’s resources on “action items” and on serving as a grassroots coordinating mechanism for off-line action.

I hope I’ve clarified my post above a bit more… and, yes, a lot more needs to said about defining and about building a progressive movement.

You DO Have the Power!

Over at MyDD.com Michael in Chicago sounded a little disheartened after being confronted with strong opposition from the Democratic establishment in Chicago. Michael writes:

I owe my political awareness to Howard Dean. Because of him I started blogging, volunteering and donating to Democrats. Dean’s rallying cry in the 2004 campaign was “You have the power.” The more I learned about the Republicans in control of our government, the more I wanted to use this power to help elect Democrats.

This is why I started supporting a local candidate running for Congress in my own district. Henry Hyde’s district. With Christine Cegelis’ campaign as a rallying point, I saw more Democrats active in my district than I’ve seen in my lifetime.

But now, as the Democratic primary approaches, I read of the DCCC again passing over a candidate who newly energized Democrats in my district overwhelmingly support. I read of the DCCC’s backing of a candidate with no political experience and few ties to my district. I read of the advantages of military credentials and “wounds” – not issues that matter to the district. I read of the finest political consultants money can buy working for a candidate who hasn’t even done any fundraising in the district yet.

As I watch this unfold, I wonder what power I really have.

[...]

The real power for Democratic fundraising in Illinois is Emanuel, not small donors like me.

[...]

It is Emanuel, not me, who has the power to shut down a campaign by choking off it’s sources of high dollar donors. Donors in Chicago. Donors in his district. It is Emanuel, not me, that has the power to provide a network of top dollar consultants…

[...]

Gov. Dean told us “You have the power.” In 2004 I believed him. As I watch what’s happening to the Cegelis campaign, I’m not so sure anymore.

After reading his post I was compelled to respond:

You do have the power. Dean, however, should’ve completed that thought more frequently, I’m afraid to say. Because, while you, I, and every one of us have the power to challenge the status quo and bring about change, it ain’t gonna be easy.

I saw Dean at UCLA when he was out in LA during the 2004 primaries and he, of course, ended the small rally with that infectious yell, You have the power, You have the power, You have the power! As the crowd dwindled and my girlfriend and I walked away from the small outdoor stage, I remembered what Dean had said as he opened his remarks that evening, It’s not going to be easy… but YOU have the power.

It’s never easy. Every activist has known that… and needs to be reminded of it now and then; because we’re going against entrenched interests for whom the status quo works just fine, so why fuck with it. Therefore, entrenched interest count on that fact alone, that it’s never easy to dislodge them, to remain securely in power; that’s why incumbents and entrenched interests gerrymander, hoard political contributors and, thereby, make it nearly impossible for third parties and challengers to arise.

Accordingly, the only thing that’s left for us, the grassroots, to do is to organize and mobilize — and, again, it’s not easy and I don’t know that an easy formula exists. However, out here in CA, the nurses, teachers and firefighters have shown us that, indeed, it can be done. Man, the nurses, teachers and firefighters brought down Arnold — I mean, remember, not that long ago Sen. Hatch was talking about amending the Constitution so that Arnold could one day run for president; and, well, now that this mighty Goliath has been brought down, I don’t think there’ll be any talk of an Arnold amendment to the Constitution.

Perhaps the entrenched Democratic establishment in Chicago, especially Rep. Emanuel, need to start hearing from Cegelis’s supporters every where they go — and don’t forget their friends, too.