http://progressivesforobama.net/discussion-on-our-future/
Discussion on Our FutureWhat Next for P4O?An Organizing Proposal fora Left-Progressive NationalNetwork and Clearinghouse
By Carl Davidson and Bill Fletcher, Jr.
How can the people brought together by the ‘Progressives for Obama’ project make a transition into a broader and ongoing post-election nationwide network? How can that network continue to serve as a left-progressive pole within the broader alliance of Obama activists and voters, while contributing to the organization of the instruments for popular political power? What follows is an outline of the organizing tasks and components of such an effort, with an invitation to wider discussion among our community of supporters and activists.
Starting Points
The most important node on the new network is the base community. This is a grassroots group of left-progressive voter-activists situated where people live, work or go to school.
1. Where people live can be a neighborhood, a township, precinct, church parish, temple or mosque, a ward, town or city, state legislative districts or congressional districts. It can be any combination or variation of these, but the main point is that they have a set of elected officials or governmental body as a target.2. Where people work is important because of the potential power of organized labor, whether their workplace is currently organized or not. That power is multiplied by the direct engagement of the rank-and-file in base organizations, committees and such.3. Where people go to school is important because of the powerful role of youth as a critical force, often serving to awaken the wider society to injustices, local and global. School is the most common place they come together, but faith, culture and sports venues are also important here.
Left-progressive defines the political orientation, essentially broad agreement with the principles of the initial call to ‘Progressives for Obama’, groups like the Aurora Project, Progressive Democrats of America and others. The main themes to focus on: Healthcare not Warfare via HR676, Green Jobs Not War Jobs via recession-busting infrastructure spending, Alternative Energy Investments dealing with climate change, College for All who want to learn for the work and study required by the 21st Century, wider democracy through EFCA for unions and other anti-discrimination measures, and stopping the wars now and cutting defense to help pay for it
The voter-activists we seek are the kind of people who hold these politics and either already belong to mass democratic organizations working on the above, or they want to join them. They can be ad-hoc single issue groups, 501C4 nonprofit groups, faith-based and community based groups, union locals or even clubs of political parties or the campaign organizations of local candidates and elected officials. But it’s best if they have individual members, and see themselves growing by getting more of them. During election cycles, they are people who vote and work in campaigns. Between election cycles, however, they are also active in a variety of other mass campaigns. They have little problem shifting from one to the other as the situation demands.
Without these base communities, we can talk about politics and change, but we can’t DO anything about politics and change with much impact....
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