> It is Power which decides - power which overwhelmingly
> derives from the ownership and control of property. Morality,
> alas, does not confer much power on the poor and powerless.
> On the rare occasions when the poor are roused to exercise
> power, they are driven by Necessity, with morality in the back
> seat providing inspiration.
I wouldn't disagree with this in the big scheme of things. But it requires qualification.
Political power is the productive force of *labor* directed at changing legal and political minds/behavior/structures (or structures/behavior/minds, take your pick), ultimately with the goal of changing economic minds/behavior/structures. The productive power of labor (aka labor power) is personified in the bodies and minds of *human* workers. Therefore, power contains a moral element. Or, to use terms widely used in the debates on socialism, labor is driven by a shifting combination of "material" and *moral* incentives.
The role that passion and emotion, as opposed to cold calculation of costs/benefits, play in prompting people to launch and sustain mass political action has been huge in history. To use a well-known example, it's impossible to explain how Cuba resisted so many decades of blockade and hostility by the U.S. without the ethical and emotional, raw and visceral appeal of the revolution. I'm absolutely persuaded that it wasn't the cold calculus of economic advantage that drove Cubans to accomplish what they have accomplished under such duress. It's no accident that Fidel and Che couched their most important policy decisions in the strongest moral terms. (I have watched Fidel give speeches at short distance, and there's no way not to moved by the man. One of the most stirring speeches I've ever watched, in video, is one that Fidel gave to a small group of soldiers leaving for Angola at the Boyeros Airport. Let me just say that the reference to the history of colonialism and slavery was a rather small portion of the speech.)
I entirely understand that the U.S. people have -- on average -- a different psycho-social makeup than that of, say, Cubans. But, if my casual observations of U.S. political culture, commercial advertising, and other products of U.S. mass culture are not entirely misguided, it seems entirely possible (and necessary!) for the left make the case for health care reform and other reforms using the strongest moral and emotional components that it can marshal. I was here when 9/11 happened. I saw how the media played Bush's speech at ground zero.
I can understand that Obama or the Democratic Party refuse to appeal to serious mass action. Clearly, what underlies this and Gore vs. Bush and so many other episodes in U.S. political history is fear of popular mobilization. The Democrats wouldn't be who they are if they didn't fear popular mobilization. But it is fatal for the left not to notice how important it is to connect with the U.S. working people at the most primal level, not to manipulate them, but to be best able to help them enlighten themselves. As Carrol himself often notices, the first thing is action, with whichever people have in their heads at the time. We need motion first. Clarity will follow, if we do the right thing and are lucky.
Power flows not only from guns and cash and intellectual clarity. Power also flows from high moral values, moral indignation, raw emotion, sex appeal, etc. It's not about succumbing to them and reproducing them, but about recognizing them as facts of our political life.