> If reasonably (or perhaps very) well organized activist groups can't
> robustly protect past gains and prevent ongoing erosion what's the
> cause? I think the comfortable liberal response would be that a
> Republican controlled legislature, or conservative counties or gated
> communities filled with Scrooges, are holding us back. If only we
> could sweep those legislatures clean, politically evangelize (or
> marginalize) reactionaries, Get Money Influence Out of Politics and
> keep our elected officials' 'feet to the fire', things will begin
> moving our way.
<snip>
> But what's the way out?
I place a lot of blame on the notion of "civic engagement," which seems to be what the whole DailyKos, netroots, new "progressive"-ish movement is all about. Not to resurrect the whole power debate, but "civic engagement" is about influencing power rather than seizing and/or wielding it: organizing phone banks, letter writing campaigns, fundraising, authorized rallies, boycotts, dogooder NGOS, get out the vote, etc. All of this can be well and good but it's also authorized, which is a good sign that it's also generally ineffectual. Civic engagement is fundamentally respectful of state authority and assumes the legitimacy of state institutions.
The trick is to get people to move beyond the authorized resistance of civic engagement and to start protesting outside the "free speech zone," as it were. It's important to remind people that some causes are worth going to jail or getting teargassed for, and some causes -- e.g. ending slavery -- are even worth killing and dying over.
So how do ya do that? I think we need to change how people look at history: less as a series of great men (what can be more disempowering than an historical narrative comprised of leaders who do this or that while the masses sit in the background?) and more as a power struggle between groups. IIRC a certain nineteenth century philosopher had some things to say about this latter conception of history. Remind people that the civil rights movement, for example, did not just "challenge the conscience of a nation." The Civil Rights movement was a hotbed of illegal activity -- same with every other great movement. That kinda thing.
-WD