Focus and determination required:A call to all progressive organizations to unite under one big umbrella

The mainstream media’s largely negative portrayal of the Occupy Movement in Canada illustrates once again the need for the creation of a large progressive cooperative movement in the country – a cooperative venture that would include hundreds of groups. 

“The Canadian media really dropped the ball on this one,” says Kalle Lasn, referring to the Occupy coverage. “Instead of seeing it as a movement of young people fighting for a different kind of future, which is so beautiful and so valid, they basically saw it as a pesky irritation.”  Lasn is co-founder of Adbusters, the magazine that helped initiate the Occupy Movement.

We need a movement powerful enough to pressure corporate media owners into providing equal coverage, and with access to enough financing to support the development of alternative, independent media. 

If the progressive movement is to be successful in improving society, it is hugely important for it to be able to reach the general public with its information creating a balanced view of important issues in Canada.

The kind of large cooperative body I discussed last week would have a much greater chance of being treated fairly by the mainstream media because of the tremendous pressure it could bring to bear on the corporate owners. I plan to discuss possible tactics that could be used in such situations in a future blog.

Last week I pointed out that we must come to grips with the realization that neither the mainstream media nor Stephen Harper is paying much attention to what we have to say.

Journalists such as Murray Dobbin, Linda McQuaig, and Naomi Klein write excellent, thoughtful articles about the problems we face and, while their stories keep us well informed, they have very little – if any – impact on the right-wing ideologues.

If we are to have the kind of Canada we want, we need to look at the possibility of building a huge nation-wide cooperative of hundreds of progressive groups representing different areas of interest that would develop powerful ways of tackling the right-wingers.

But first I think it is necessary for dozens of key progressive groups to do a little self-analysis.

Inside our organizations, Board members, staff and volunteers need to discuss and respond to the fact that the progressive movement is losing ground to the forces of neoliberalism at a tremendous rate. Every day, the Harper Conservatives destroy another part of the fabric and values of our country.

Unfortunately, many people deeply involved for years in the Canadian progressive community are tired and discouraged. Evidence of this is the failure of leading NGOs, public interest groups and labour organizations to come together to establish a major social/political initiative in response to the devastating election of the Harper majority in May.

The huge public response to the emergence of the radical Occupy Movement indicates that there is a wide gap between the concerns of quite a large segment of the general population and the ability of organized groups to lead and channel those frustrations.

In a number of organizations, young, energetic people with different goals and strategies more reflective of the times, need to be given an opportunity to lead on some important issues. Old tactics need to give way to new tactics.

This is not to say that many organizations are not doing fine work in their chosen areas – but many groups tend to focus on their own issues and fail to see the forest for the trees when it comes to identifying the kind of action that is needed in this political environment.

Some organizations, in particular some segments of the labour movement, have lost their way and are often just going through the motions when it comes to supporting progressive social and political issues. This may be due to the fact that many union members do not actively support progressive social and political issues the way an earlier generation did.

The problems we face as a nation requires that all leaders and would-be leaders in our communities come forward and start working together harder than they have ever worked before.

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I launched this discussion on my blog last week with the hope that people would respond to my ideas. Many did. Here are a few of the comments:

“To see what we can achieve by working together, see www.citizensuk.org”, Bruce Edwards wrote regarding a British activist group.  “Political and corporate leaders often don’t embrace change, unless they’re pressured by the people they serve. But too many people don’t realise they have potential to join forces and create change in their neighbourhoods and across the country.”

Anonymous # 1 wrote: “There have been calls for broad progressive/left- wing movements for decades. In 1919 farmers and workers came together to form a provincial government in Ontario. In the 1930s there was the popular front against fascism. In the 1960s there were anti-war coalitions. The CCF and NDP were each formed to be the political expressions of these broad based movements. However, those parties have not yet lived up to their full potential. With the current social upheaval I see the possibility for this to change. You've laid great groundwork here.”

“Great article and analysis,” wrote John Stockton. “Yes, you are absolutely right, Canadians can no longer afford to denounce the situation and then leave it to others to rectify the problem. The problem being that the Conservatives are nothing of the sort. They are quasi-fascists who believe that what they don’t know isn’t worth knowing, hence putting a creationist in charge of the ministry of Science and Technology. . . . The arrogance of the Harper government is breathtaking and it is only by the marshalling of those socially progressive forces in Canada that we can get back on the path of using our mutual strengths to confront the very real problems facing our country.”

And finally, blogger Emily Dee (Pushed to the Left and Loving It), says, “I'm in. How can I help? I have two dogs that can lick envelopes and a genuine concern for the direction that our country is headed in.”

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I would like to ask readers to bring their ideas forward concerning how we evaluate the need for a progressive coalition. First and foremost, information about the basic concept needs to be distributed more widely. I can prepare a condensed version of the basic idea for anyone who has access to email-lists or who would like to circulate it among groups. Contact me at: fillmore0274@rogers.com

A project like this – which would become massive – needs to proceed slowly. But based on the number of people who have shown interest, it would not be difficult, even at this early stage, to enlist the support of at least 20 volunteers. More important, two excellent organizations – one an NGO with developmental skills and the other a major research organization – have indicated their interest in supporting the building such a project.

Please add your comments to my blog. If there is enough interest, we will move the project discussion to a website in the New Year. 

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JABS AND LEFT HOOKS: Who can tell me why the Canadian mainstream media provides so much coverage of the practically meaningless goings-on (at this early stage) of the selection of the U.S. presidential candidates? All that space and journalists’ time wasted! Think of all the good stories they could be doing.

For example, CBC Reporter Margo McDiarmid says ... that Canada is being seen as the Darth Vader of the climate conference in South Africa. . . . 

I’m announcing this a little late, but I have a solution to the dispute among the countries about who should pay for cleaning up carbon. My idea is to break this into three categories: rich nations pay a lot; emerging economies pay a reasonable amount that would escalate over 10 years; and poor countries pay nothing.

Please subscribe to my blog to receive future articles.

Protestors to Occupy Wall Street - What actions can help us overcome the tremendous powers of right-wing governments and corporations?

What are the tactics that can best be used to try to pressure powerful, self-serving, joined-at-the-hip governments and corporations in Canada and the United States to do the right thing and recognize the interests of everyday people?

While big marches and sit-ins during the struggle for black rights and an end to the Vietnam War were effective tools for promoting change, such tactics in North America now appear to be losing steam as effective tactics. 
 
These days, it seems too often that protest marches and the like lack specific goals and are organized by folks that have unrealistic ideas as to what they can achieve.

Take tomorrow’s (September 17th) planned protest, Occupy Wall Street, in New York.

Adbusters magazine of Vancouver was the first to call for a day of action to protest the power concentrated on Wall Street.

The protest has the important long-term goal of ending private control of American’s financial system. They want publicly-owned, non-profit banks established in every state. While this obviously won’t happen, at least not now, it is important to introduce the public to such concepts.

Thousands of people are expected to march on America’s main financial district, as well as on financial districts in Paris, London, Brussels, etc.

But it’s all pretty loosey-goosey.

“If the police block us temporarily from occupying Wall Street”, said their most recent Tactical Briefing, “then let's turn all of lower Manhattan into our Tahrir Square. Let's sing our songs in the lobby of Goldman Sachs and in Chase Manhattan Plaza. . . .
“Bring signs, flowers, food and a revolutionary mood … and a commitment to absolute nonviolence in the Gandhian tradition.” They admit that “anything can and will happen.”
Okay, but will this event have a positive impact on the hugely important cause of bringing the all-powerful banks to their knees?

No, it won’t.

First of all, there’s no specific achievable goal behind the demonstration.

I can’t guess how many people will show up, but if even 5,000 enthusiastic radical types block Wall Street – even on a Saturday when the financial markets are shut down – I imagine the New York police will be pissed!

The likelihood of violence – perhaps a police riot, where agitated red-neck officers come unglued – seems more than possible to me. Unfortunately, the whole event is likely to just annoy the people who could perhaps make a difference – people who have money in banks.

The financial sector is a key element in the integrated Canadian and U.S. government-corporate establishment, which is now more powerful than it has been in more than a century. Their brutal use of neo-liberalism is destroying the lives of millions of people around the globe.

So we’re coming to a point where more dramatic tactics could be employed to try to challenge the establishment’s power and prevent them from destroying the western world financially and, not too long from now, prevent them from totally destroying the environment.

Giant corporations use their control of mainstream media to tell people that, while the economy may be approaching another meltdown, there’s no alternative to the current system.

When was the last time you saw a corporate newspaper or TV station explain the ideology behind neo-liberalism? During the last election campaign, while the mainstream press took every opportunity to link the NDP with communism or socialism, not once did I see the Harper government identified as neo-liberals.

But the establishment is so all-powerful it is almost impossible to image any action that would make them change their direction. Nevertheless, both radical and ordinary citizens cannot sit idly by.

The key to forcing change usually involves identifying the weakness of an unjust government or a destructive corporation and then develop a strategy to attack them along those lines.

As for Saturday’s planned protest in New York, one way to get the banks attention would be to hurt them where it hurts most – in the pocket book. Put 300,000 people in the streets for up to a week and, despite the arrests of thousands of people, it might mean the temporary closing of the New York Stock Exchange. Whether it would empower ordinary people – like people millions of Europeans have taken to the streets recently – is questionable. 

Then there’s the Internet. Effective use of the Internet as a tool to both educate the public and force change on a global scale is perhaps one of our best hopes. But radicals are just learning how to use the growing resources available to them – and figuring out how to avoid jail for their sometimes questionable actions.

Civil disobedience is accepted by many people – like those arrested in Washington recently during the protest over the Keystone tar-sands XL pipeline – but every individual must decide whether they want to go further and disobey laws that may be anti-democratic.

Back in the 1950s, Chicago activist Saul Alinsky helped poorly treated welfare recipients win better services by helping them jam the phone lines at city hall.

Using the Courts to argue legal cases, and create legal cases – such as the recently recognized class action suit over whether a drug intended to ease menopause symptoms caused best cancer – are proving effective in Canada.

Unfortunately, boycotts do not grab the imagination of the general public the way they once did, partly because the corporate mainstream media chooses not to give them much attention.

In other parts of the world, where neo-liberal policies and uncontrolled market speculation have hit ordinary people hard, there are dozens of huge demonstrations and protests. But in North America, most people have been conditioned to disapprove of protests.

In Canada, following the May victory of the Harper Conservatives, it has been extremely disappointing that large and small progressive and liberal minded organizations – all the way from the Council of Canadian to labour groups to Greenpeace – did not come together to develop strategies to try to slow down the backward march of Stephen Harper.

More than anything else, our best hope of overcoming the neo-liberals, and possibly helping the NDP gain power, is to push our organizations to come together across a wide ranging spectrum of interests and develop inclusive strategies. More on this in a later blog.

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