[lbo-talk] Kos on Marches

[Nathan Newman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Lacny" <jlacny at earthlink.net>


Nathan Newman writes:
> I don't think electoral work is the be all and end all of
> politics

-We know you don't Nathan, but it's pretty clear that Markos Moulitsas does.
-Nothing against him, frankly, because I think he's done great work, but he
-has his limits, and the post of his that you cited is a case in point.
-Being
-"media savvy" is not unimportant, but it's not the only thing out there. 
Kos
-approvingly cites the way the Republicans pitch everything to the media, 
but
-that's not a parallel that works strategically for us, because the enemy is
-in power and we're not, the capitalists own the media and we do not.

That's too simple an analysis of the class nature of the media.  Of course 
it favors capitalists interests inherently, but it's legitimacy as an 
institution (and the source of its profits) is as a trusted source of 
unbiased information.  The more that is eroded, the more those profits are 
ultimately threatened.

So strategic political work around the media to expose media bias and 
pressure media leaders has its use.  And just the creation of an alternative 
news source like Daily Kos is part of that threat.

-I don't
-think that someone like Kos really has a clue about organizing the working
-class (e.g., unions and the black liberation movement) at the grassroots so
-that ordinary people can fight for their own interests. You have been
-critical yourself of the politics of many of the kinds of people who
-gravitate towards Kos, MoveOn, the Dean candidacy and the like: they're 
into
-"clean" government and see themselves as fighting "entrenched elites," when
-they are themselves overwhelmingly upper-middle-class or professional in
-origin and do not ideologically identify with workers' issues.

Yes and no.   There are times when folks like myself have kicked Kos in the 
shins to get him to take more seriously the role of labor in the progressive 
movement, and over time he has gotten better.  And a number of his key 
"guest posters' Have been labor union veterans, just as one of the top 
posters at a closely affiliated site, Chris Bowers at Mydd.com, is also a 
union organizer veteran.

As to the site itself, while actual union battles don't excite folks as much 
as I would prefer, the associated legislative issues of interest of labor 
and working people are taken seriously.   Kos had more coverage of the fight 
over the bankruptcy bill by far than any comparable mainstream media source 
(Josh Marshall's site was the motherload) and people have repeatedly posted 
and commented on Bush's assault on the Davis-Bacon law in the Katrina 
coverage.

As to issues of race, that's complex.  Marcos is not just some random 
professional.  He grew up in the middle of the slaughter of death squads in 
El Salvador and has a real if non-indentiy-politics driven focus on racism. 
One of his earliest guest posters, Steve Gilliard, is today one of the most 
prominent african-american bloggers who has a strong working class focus on 
politics.  And the site is regularly riven by discussions of race and class 
by current co-poster Armando, who regularly kicks progressives for racial 
bias.

Yes, they could be all more organization-oriented in building working class 
movements.   They need to take organization-building and 
institution-building a bit more seriously, but then they are not alone in 
that.

-Therefore
-they have a tendency to see unions as just as much of a problem as corrupt
-local party machines, for instance. Or they think that nominating Bob Casey
-(who is better than the common run of Democrats) is a "move to the right"
-over Barbara Hafer (who was a Republican until recently, but who they
-describe as a "progressive" for reasons I still can't fathom).

John- This statement is bizarre in regards to Kos.  He and a lot of people 
on the site have been some of the more prominent progressives supporting 
Casey on strategic grounds that he is better for core Democratic values. 
Yes, some Kossacks think otherwise but the exact debate you cite is well 
understood and debated among people.

-There are some people out
-there who think that not only national demonstrations, but local
-demonstrations, sit-ins, strikes and the like are all obsolete, and that we
-live in a sort of Jean Baudrillard fantasy-land where we all just need to
-learn to play the mass media game because that's where all the real
-decisions get shaped anymore anyway. Like I said, I don't think you hold
-this position, but you're giving Kos too much credit if you think he
-doesn't.

John-- I've been reading Kos and emailing back and forth with him pretty 
much since he started blogging.   Yes, he's actually not that radical in his 
politics-- he's a liberal Democrat but just militant about it.  Which is a 
good thing and the rise of militant liberals is one of the biggest changes 
in the political landscape of the last few years.

But that doesn't mean he's hostile to labor unions, strikes or other forms 
of mass action.   It's not the world he is most familiar with but he always 
supports pro-labor legislation and the goals of unions.   He's regularly 
cited to my site for labor news when it was prominent enough.    But the 
fact that he doesn't cover labor stuff outside the electoral field partly 
has to do with an explicit specialization of his blog; he has said his focus 
in on electoral politics and the Iraq War and expects other sites to carry 
the load on other issues.

Let me point out just a few Daily Kos posts on labor issues, some by Kos, 
some by his front page co-posters:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/10/12636/977
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/3/2/155843/7904
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/22/112212/52


And in fact, Kos from his electoral standpoint understands that 
non-electoral organizing to build stronger unions is more important for 
political change than just immediate media savvy.  As he writes here in 
discussing SEIU plans:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/25/85558/5369

"Rather than invest directly in races (something SEIU clearly still plans to 
do, given its current efforts to take over the San Antonio city government), 
it plans on diverting some of that direct assistance into organizing and 
growing union ranks. That investment will mean 1) more money for future 
political engagement, and 2) more Democratic-leaning votes. "

Yes, Kos returns things to politics-- at least partly because that is his 
official audience -- it is very broad understanding of what changes politics 
over time, not just a narrow focus on immediate media and tactics.

I have many broad disagreements with Kos-- many of which I have expressed --  
but I have continued to be amazed at the lack of serious analysis of what 
these new "netroots" (Kos's word) activists mean for politics.  There are 
criticisms to be made but they have to start with the complexity of not just 
what Kos believes but of the increasing diversity of who is part of that 
netroots groups.

-- Nathan Newman