"You can pretend to care, but you can't pretend to show up." George L. Bell
There is an unprecedented movement in this country toward grass-roots progressive political organizing. Enormous marches, tireless phone call campaigns, creative alliances and the breaking down of old barriers, all of this and more is happening organically. Just as there is nothing like a bad boss to spur good union organizing, there is nothing like a bad president to spur good grass roots organizing. People are honestly afraid of what will happen to their loved ones and our democracy. People are not willing to wait until the next election to do something about it. The time is right for broad based organizing to flourish and thrive. At this point it bears repeating that this work is already going on under the banners of many groups of community organizers. From Black Lives Matter to Trans* Public Accommodations bills to the Sanctuary movement, Community Democracy is something that ordinary people have been leading and building for years. And given the state of advanced decay of our democracy, the tools of Community Democracy have never been more necessary. It's reasonable to ask, why not simply support the Democratic Party? Heaven knows they find themselves in need of assistance. Shouldn't a progressive simply work to further the interests of the Democratic Party? I think independent, grass roots organizing is more important for two reasons. First, party affiliation is no guarantee that an elected official will be responsive to the community's needs as you can understand them. A Republican (or Independent) official may be willing to work to address your concerns. A Democrat may not be willing to give you the time of day. Politics is personal, that is, the personalities of the people holding power cannot be ignored. To collapse all of politics into a single bifurcated identity and then choose a side is to miss opportunities to change the system. Second, many people live in districts in which only one party has a credible chance of winning an election. What's a Democrat to do in a Republican county? Or, what can be even more challenging, what is the point of doing progressive organizing in a Democratic stronghold? "The bubble", as it is being called, means that politically energized people find they have nowhere to direct their energy because their representatives are too liberal! Community Democracy refuses to accept the idea that an elected official's entire identity can be summed up by their party. What matters is not their ideology but their responsiveness to community need. By being rigorously independent, community democracy is able to achieve political change that is impossible for the Democratic party. There is much movement also toward having people run for local office, especially women. This is tremendously important. However, you do not need to be an elected official (nor a party official) to be actively engaged in changing governmental policy. The tools of Community Democracy allow ordinary people to fight to address the issues that matter most to them and to win. In the next post, I will address in some more detail the issue of being an ally. What does the philosophy of Community Democracy have to say, for example, about what white people should do about the police killings of black people? Or about what men should do about rampant institutional sexism? Or what citizens should do about deportations of undocumented immigrants? Community Democracy offers important tools to help progressive activists how to care about their own issues and to show up respectfully and powerfully for other people's issues.
3 Comments
Virgniia Berman
3/24/2017 10:56:15 am
Thank you John!
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Kay Davis
3/24/2017 11:45:14 am
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Kay Davis
3/24/2017 11:47:13 am
This is good
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AuthorI'm a Christian, a progressive, a pastor, and a community organizer. Archives
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