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NAME: Harry Targ
EMAIL: Targ@purdue.edu
DATE: 07/04/2007

TITLE: Advancing the Progressive Majority: The Socialist Contribution

Harry Targ
National Executive Committee of (CCDS)

Presented at the CCDS/US Social Forum panel

“A Progressive Majority: What is it and How to Build It?”

The great artist and activist, Paul Robeson, writing about his research into music and folk traditions, said that there was “a world body-a universal body-of folk music based upon a universal pentatonic (five tone) scale.” He reported that “interested as I am in the universality of (hu)mankind- in the fundamental relationship of all peoples to one another-this idea of a universal body of music intrigued me, and I pursued it along many fascinating paths.” This belief in the universality of humankind drove Robeson to a socialist politics committed to peace and justice, an end to racism, and the full flowering of democracy for all workers. The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) is dedicated to such a vision.

The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) was formed in the early 1990s. It was a confusing time: the former socialist states had just collapsed; the cold war had ended; and many of us were hopeful that a so-called “peace dividend,” that is a diminution of the military system, was now possible. But spokespersons for imperialism were talking about the United States as the last remaining super-power. Neo-conservatives planned for world military domination and neo-liberals advocated for an exploitative system of international political economy they called globalization. Over the subsequent years, the problems of war, racism, sexism, exploitation, and poverty lingered and grew.

Members of CCDS created an organization that was pluralist in its thinking and democratic in its decision making. While most of its members remained committed to the construction of a humane socialist future, they were equally committed to working with peace and justice activists with many different views.

Over the subsequent decade the U.S. and the global economy experienced deepening and multiple crises; of poverty and inequality, environmental devastation, and spreading violence and war. The tragedy of 9/11 was used by the Bush administration to pursue its imperial agenda. Wars were launched on Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel was supported in its war on Palestinians and Lebanese. And, hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern peoples and thousands of young Americans died as the neo-conservatives promoted global hegemony. While people died overseas, constitutional rights were severely limited at home. In addition, in September, 2005, the nation watched as a morally bankrupt federal government refused to respond to the desperate needs of Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans..

Most of us realized that working together was necessary to stop the war machine, reduce economic injustice, and protect constitutional rights. We in CCDS began to call for a mass movement to Build a Progressive Majority. Building a Progressive Majority could not be a task of any one organization or worldview but the project of all of us who wanted to defeat the rightwing and begin to construct a world based on peace and justice.

In a statement written for CCDS by co-chair Mark Solomon in the spring, 2006, the “progressive majority” was defined as a “unified, coherent force” bringing together a “center” that is opposed to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and seeks to curb corporate power, and a “left” that has a more systemic view of why the problems of war, exploitation, and racism exist. While the “center” and “left” have different views of the problems we face and their causes, the statement said, they share a common desire for peace and environmental survival, concerns for economic and social justice, and a wish to defend constitutional and human rights.

Other CCDS statements encouraged members and friends on the left to help build alliances around common programs of peace and justice. Organizational outreach was stressed. Priorities were placed on linking the issues individual groups were addressing to other issues wherever possible. Commitments by progressive groups of mutual support, in thought and action, were regarded as central to activating a progressive majority.

This progressive majority leverages its power in the electoral arena, in the streets, and in union halls, churches, and is manifest in a variety of single issue groups at the local, state, and national levels. Groups with an international focus on human rights, on canceling global debt, ending sweatshops as well other issues are part of this progressive majority.

Recognizing the needs, progressives went to work on a variety of political fronts, particularly around the 2006 elections. The outcomes of the November, 2006 elections bolstered their spirits. Along with Democratic victories in the House of Representatives and the Senate (including the election of the nation’s first Socialist senator), voters rejected a draconian anti-abortion law in South Dakota and in multiple communities in the state of Illinois voted “no” on the war in Iraq. Democratic victories, such as in the state of Indiana, defeated clear rightwing attacks on workers. In general, progressives brought the issues of war, the economy, and corporate corruption to public attention. Perhaps most central was a strong “no” vote on the war in Iraq.

Now, six months after the elections, there is incontrovertible proof that, at least at the level of attitudes, a progressive majority exists in the country. Recent poll data makes this clear:

The dilemma for this progressive majority now, and especially for the “left” within it, is to craft strategies that link the sentiments of this new majority with an effective politics to achieve short-term policy victories (such as ending the war in Iraq and establishing national health care), to articulate the connections between the various issues that make up the progressive majority and to transform the economic and political system in the long term towards a new society based on a humane and democratic socialist vision.

In the history of the United States, there have been moments when a progressive majority was constructed to significantly transform policies and institutions. In the late 1930s, for example, the drive for industrial unionization under the banner of the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) constituted a visible, ubiquitous form of class struggle.

Parallel to the formation of industrial unions was the drive to end some of the most egregious forms of racism: lynchings, the imprisonment on false charges of the young men of Scottsboro, segregated unions, and refusals of retail stores in urban areas to hire African American workers.

Masses of people went into the streets to demand support for the homeless, the unemployed, and the starving. Progressives organized rallies in defense of the newly proposed social security.

And slowly but surely left and center forces came together to build an anti-fascist front to lobby for support for popular forces in Spain and to oppose Hitler and Mussolini in Europe.

The progressive majority penetrated popular culture. Writers, such as John Dos Passos, James T. Farrell, Jack Conroy, Richard Wright, Meridel LeSueur, and Tillie Olsen brought the experiences of class, race, and gender to avid readers. Jazz musicians joined the struggle in their own way: Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Billie Holliday singing of “Strange Fruit.” And of course the music of working class and anti-racist struggle was spread through the performances of Paul Robeson, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Aunt Molly Jackson.

In the midst of this political and cultural front were radicals-communists, socialists, anarchists, and pacifists-who brought people together, advocated for the rights of workers, of African-Americans, and the need to build an anti-fascist front and at the same time continued to press for a more holistic view of the system that created the problems people faced; that is the capitalist system.

What should be the “socialist contribution” to advancing the progressive majority today? First, for all their shortcomings (too long a story for this presentation) perhaps we should begin by critically reexamining the 1930s and the 1960s for some ideas about how to build a progressive majority and this time how to help move the society more effectively toward socialism.

Second, we on the left need to continue with many, many others to engage in the daily struggles against war, racism, sexism, homophobia, and environmental destruction drawing upon as broad a mass of supporters as we can. This includes electoral work, constant advocacy of progressive agendas at the grassroots in our unions, our churches, civic organizations, and single-issue groups. A victory on each issue we confront provides some short-term relief for people and constitutes a step in a broader struggle.

Third, we need to confront our friends in each struggle with the proposition that the issues that we face are connected: fighting for workers’ rights means fighting racism; fighting against racism means fighting against global warming and the dumping of toxic wastes in particular geographic areas. This means working to build activist organizations that link the issues of peace and justice. We need to remind ourselves of Paul Robeson’s vision of the “universality of humankind;” aspects of our pain and suffering are universal as are our common needs.

Fourth, we need to make it clear to our partners in struggle that the long-term solutions to the interconnected web of human problems require a structural transformation. In the end we can and need to begin a serious, respectful, and determined conversation about constructing a 21st century socialism, what we call “envisioning socialism.”

Charles Dickens wrote in the introduction to The Tale of Two Cities that this was “the worst of times and the best of times.” That line comes to mind today as we witness the storm clouds of global war, fascism, and apocalyptic environmental catastrophe. But, and this is critical, a progressive majority exists in our country today and indeed around the world. Our task is to help transform attitudes into policy and issue-specific political campaigns into a mass-based movement for the creation of a socialist society. The progressive majority exists. We need to translate it into action and an effective movement for fundamental social and economic change.

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