Tag Archives: politics

The Problems with Purism and Reformism (not reforms)

Future Hope, , , ,

Over 20 years ago I wrote one of these columns examining the issue of “purism” versus “pragmatism” when it comes to organizing for systemic and desperately needed change in this world. I wrote about two essential ingredients that are sometimes in conflict.

One essential is conscious political organization motivated by principles and a genuine desire and plan for improving the lives of the disenfranchised and downtrodden, ending militarism and war, and stopping and reversing environmental devastation. But this alone won’t bring about change.

As a once-great revolutionary once said, “the masses make history.” It is only when large numbers of people identify with a movement for fundamental change and support it, verbally or actively, that we have any hope of winning political power and transforming society. In the USA that means not tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or even millions, but tens of millions of people.

Is this possible? Yes. One big example is the 15 million votes independent socialist Bernie Sanders got in 2016. Another is the NY Times report that 16-25 million people all over the country took demonstrative action in the spring of 2021 after George Floyd was murdered.

We need to go about our organizing work in a way which doesn’t undercut either, which avoids the temptation to be so committed to being principled that one becomes purist and narrow, on the one hand, or to be so committed to being with and interacting with “the masses” that problematic positions are taken and political relationships are built that end up deflecting energies into reformist and dead-end approaches to change. We need reforms, yes, but our broader objective must be to build upon successful struggles for major reforms in a way that leads to truly revolutionary, justice-grounded, social and economic transformation.

Purism versus reformism—the twin dangers of serious efforts to bring about the kind of change that is so, so needed today.

What can be done to lessen these dangers, to increase the possibilities that more of us will keep our eyes, minds and hearts on the prize?

One is the building of independent and progressive organizations that are truly democratic in the fullest sense of the term. As difficult as the process of democracy sometimes is, it is also a way to keep the group as a whole and the individuals within it centered on the stated objectives. Democratic process, sooner or later, frustrates individual power plays on the part of any person in leadership who lets power go to his/her/their head and who becomes either purist or reformist as a result. These things have happened much too much historically, but in this third decade of the 21st century, there is a growing consciousness of this danger increasingly expressed in how more and more of us are going about our organization-building.

Another necessity is an explicit commitment to the testing out of theories and ideas in practice and a process of constant evaluation based upon input from the people the ideas are being tried out on. If an independent candidate is running for office, for example, and has what they think is a great platform but the vote totals are very low, perhaps the problem is that the issues being addressed, or the way they’re being expressed, don’t connect with peoples’ understandings. Since just about any issue can be addressed from a progressive standpoint, a much better approach is to identify what the issues are to speak about because of day-to-day listening to and communicating with working-class people and people of the global majority.

The same with forms of direct action. It may feel good and righteous to some to stand up to the police during an action, but if that is done in a way which makes it easier for the government and the corporate-dominated press to call us violent, that will not generate sympathy for our cause among the wider public. Expressing our sense of urgency and anger is a good thing, if done wisely. Expressing it without political consideration of an action’s impacts is not a good thing.

Ultimately, our ability as a movement to navigate between the dangers of purism and reformism comes down to how each of us live our lives. Do we live in such a way that, on a day to day basis, we are in touch with working class people, regular folks, those in need of change? Do those of us who are white ensure that, in some way, we have regular communication and interaction with people of color so that we are constantly reminded about racism and its pernicious effects? Do we make time for meditation, allow our conscience to make itself heard over the daily demands on our time and energies? Do we interact with others in a way which prioritizes listening and objective consideration? Do we struggle to keep from responding defensively when others make constructive, or not so constructive, criticisms of us?

In the words of the late Rev. Paul Mayer, “What history is calling for is nothing less than the creation of a new human being. We must literally reinvent ourselves through the alchemy of the Spirit or perish. We are being divinely summoned to climb another rung on the evolutionary ladder, to another level of human consciousness.”

 Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com. 

Living to Fight Another Day

Future Hope, , , ,

“UE rarely makes endorsements within the two-party system, and we are not endorsing Biden. Instead, our hope for the future lies in a politically independent labor movement, and in those politicians in Congress and at the state and local level who are willing to put the working class first, not the Democratic Party. We encourage working people not to be completely distracted by the Presidential horse-race, and to pay close attention to their Congressional and state races.

“Nonetheless, we have to be honest about the dilemma that faces labor and working people in the short term. The issue that makes Biden the lesser evil for us is the fact that the labor movement, and especially UE, has been making some real gains in organizing new workers under Biden’s economic policies and NLRB. A second Trump presidency would make it far more difficult to organize — and to build the labor party we need and deserve.

“Given who will be on the ballot in November, we urge all working people to hold their nose and vote for Biden, in order to live to fight another day — the cost of re-electing Trump would be too high.”

-from “The Stakes of the 2024 Election,” issued by the United Electrical Workers Union: https://www.ueunion.org/political-action/2024/the-stakes-of-the-2024-election


Way back in the 70’s when I first became involved in organized efforts to form an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans, I had many meetings in the headquarters of the national UE. At the time, before their move to Pittsburgh, those headquarters were in midtown Manhattan, right across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in a building that, I believe, used to be owned by the Vanderbilt family.

The UE describes itself as “the USA’s only national, independent, membership-run union (since 1936), representing thousands of workers in the private and public sectors.” As is true today, back in the 70’s they believed that working people in the USA need an alternative to the Dems and Reps, which then and now they describe as a “labor party.”

I had this privilege of meeting in their building because their General Counsel was Bob Lewis, and Bob was a leader of a group initiated by civil rights lawyer Arthur Kinoy in 1974, the Mass Party Organizing Committee. When I became involved with MPOC in 1975 and moved to NYC to work in its national office, we would often have evening meetings in Bob’s office.

So when I saw the UE’s statement on the Presidential elections a few days ago, I read it closely, respecting them as I do.

I pretty much agree with their conclusion, quoted above, that all working people should vote for Biden and also pay close attention to Congressional and state races. At the same time, given that it is the electoral college which determines who wins the Presidency, I think it is strategically key to emphasize the absolute importance of this happening in the battleground states: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. In the vast majority of the other states, the likely winner is pretty much known based on past voting history.

The UE statement criticizes Biden for his unwillingness to take on corporations, for not doing enough “to rein in the power of the oil and gas industry,” for not taking action “to address the broken criminal justice system,” for not dealing with the underlying causes of immigration, the “failed economic and military policies toward Latin America,” and his failure to halt “Israel’s attack on the Palestinian people”  and the “stoking of a ‘new cold war” with Russia and China.

They go on to critique Trump, not a hard thing to do, referring to “his rhetoric taking on an increasingly fascist tone” and using the language of “vermin,” “human scum” and “poisoning the blood of our country” as far as immigrants.

I liked the phrase they used to conclude their statement: “vote for Biden in order to live to fight another day.”

Political dynamics in a country, definitely in the USA, are not stagnant. There is a rise and fall as far as movements around issues and movements for major political change. One current example is the difference between this Presidential election and the ones in 2016 and 2020. In both those years there were strong and visible progressive challenges via the Bernie Sanders, and then Sanders and Warren, campaigns. Sanders got 15 million votes in the 2016 Democratic primary, helping to generate a progressive political upsurge that has not gone away, even if there is no mass-based challenger to corporatist Biden this year either from within the Democratic Party or from a “third party.”

On the issues I agree much more with Presidential candidates like Jill Stein and Cornell West, but they are stuck in the very low single digits in all polls. The biggest impact they could have on the Presidential race is to help elect Trump. True!

What will happen after November 5 if Biden/Harris win? Almost certainly, the independent progressive forces will feel strengthened and revitalized, in a position to build upon that victory going forward.

But first things first: the defeat of Trump by voting for Biden. He’s a lesser evil, but he’s not a racist, misogynist, narcissistic fascist. Trump and MAGA Must Be Defeated.

 Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com. 

Activist Risk Taking, Then and Now

Future Hope, , , ,

April 30 is a day I remember because it is my mom’s birthday. She died in 2005. But it’s also a day I remember because, on that day in 1971, while serving what turned out to be an 1l-month sentence in federal prison for my draft resistance activism against the Vietnam war, I was indicted with seven others by the Nixon Justice Department for a supposed conspiracy to destroy heating tunnels under DC and kidnap Henry Kissinger.

Those charges were bogus; when they finally got to a jury in conservative Harrisburg, Pa., they were hung 10-2 for acquittal, and that was the end of that particular “conspiracy” trial during the Vietnam War.

It is inspiring that on that April 30 day yesterday, several hundred people were arrested around the country, mainly students, as part of the massive worldwide movement to stop the Gaza genocide and end this war. And I saw an email just a couple hours ago from someone reminding people that on this same day in 1975, the United States military completely vacated Vietnam. This brought to an end the 30-year US effort to take over the colonizing and repressive role France had played for almost a century.

Here are some personal reflections on all of this:

-There is a level of intensity on the issue of the Gaza war that is very similar to the level of intensify many of us felt as young people during the Vietnam War, for good reason. When the daily body count is in the hundreds (Vietnam) and literal genocide—“ethnic cleansing” Bernie called it—is taking place in Gaza, intense and focused action is absolutely appropriate.

-Many of us who were students who took part in the Black Freedom and/or Anti-Vietnam War movements felt so deeply about these issues that some of us left school and we and others found a way to make a living while being a dedicated organizer for revolutionary change. Frankly, to have hope of success in our people’s movement for human and ecological survival and just and truly democratic societies, we need more young people to consciously take this step.

-It is clear that the overwhelming number of young people taking part in this spring justice uprising are doing so with a peaceful, if angry, spirit. Much of corporate media is spinning it very differently, painting the movement as violent and abusive. It is a responsibility of all of us to criticize these inaccurate characterizations and demand that the truth be reported.

-The dominant forces in the Democratic Party, and of course Republicans, really don’t like to have their policies criticized or their political power undercut by those of us willing to speak truth to power. Democrats respond one way when that happens, Republicans are much harsher. That’s been true for a very long time. As I wrote in my book Burglar for Peace, “The Nixon Administration that was in power 50-plus years ago was a repressive government, known for illegal wiretapping, inflammatory rhetoric, criminal prosecutions of peace and justice activists, and outright physical attacks, including killings, against Black Panther Party members. I had followed the Chicago 8 trial a year and a half before, a clear case of government repression against anti-war and Black Freedom activists, following the police riots during the Democratic National Convention in 1968.” 

The years 1969 to 1974, when Nixon was President, were very rough for a lot of us, although most of us survived.

-The conditions for organizing are much more positive under Democrats than under Republicans. This would be particularly the case if Trump is elected this November. He and the Republicans have made clear that they have every intention of taking this country so far backward that the Biden Presidency would come to be seen as a very good four years. It’s not. Some things are good, yes, but some things aren’t, Gaza in particular right now. But compared to a Trump Presidency, it would be like night and day.

So as we keep fighting for a ceasefire and an end to the war and movement toward true Palestinian self-determination for that long-suffering people, let’s be sure to respond to the US electoral process accordingly. Trump and the MAGA Republicans must be defeated. Strong progressive candidates like The Squad need to be supported.

It’s all of one, multi-colored piece. Si, se puede.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com. 

Practical Radical: Seven Strategies to Change the World, a book review

Future Hope, , , ,

Future Hope column, February 29, 2024

Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World, a book review

By Ted Glick

“Legendary organizer Bayard Rustin, a consummate practical radical, criticized two other dominant ways of approaching social change: ‘My quarrel with the ‘no-win’ tendency in the civil rights movement (and the reason I have so designated it) parallels my quarrel with the moderates outside the movement. As the latter lack the vision or will for fundamental change, the former lack a realistic strategy for achieving it. For such a strategy they substitute militancy. But militancy is a matter of posture and volume and not of effect.”    page ix

“A defining challenge for Left organizations today is building healthy cultures that encourage real strategic debate and building caring communities that people want to join. In our experience, many organizations lean toward one pole or another—either having honest but harsh debates that lead to splits and drive people away or developing a culture of ‘nice’ that prevents engaging differences in ways that are necessary for breakthrough strategy. Reducing harmful and unnecessary conflict can create the conditions for generative conflict, which can be healthy for organizations and movements.”  p. 263

Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce have written an important and timely book, Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World. For those of us who are committed to live our lives, day after day, in as effective a way as possible to bring about fundamental, transformative, social and economic change, there is a great deal of food for thought in this substantive book

What are the seven strategies which they identify as essential?

-Base Building: “To win anything, you need to organize people, often one by one, door by door, co-worker by co-worker, and to develop strong bonds and leadership capacity.”

-Disruptive Movement: “Disruption is the ability to stop those in power from doing what they want to do and to break up the status quo.”

-Narrative Shift: “A Big Story, rooted in shared values and common themes, that influences how audiences process information and make decisions.”

-Electoral Change: “Organizations endorse candidates or run their own, develop platforms, pursue get-out-the-vote efforts, and attempt to win the power to govern.”

-Inside-Outside: “Win major policy reform by working ‘inside’ in alliance with sympathetic legislators, but also building ‘outside’ pressure through grassroots organizing.”

-Momentum Model: “Momentum-driven campaigns seek to change the political weather—to expand what’s possible to win by changing the ‘common sense’ on a particular issue.”

-Collective Care: “While care—meeting people’s basic needs for food, health, emotional support, or community—is part of everyone’s daily lives, caring for one another can be about more than survival; it can be strategic.”

To help people understand more fully about these seven approaches to world changing, the authors write about the work of nine organizations or movements: Make the Road New York, St. Paul Federation of Educators, the welfare rights movement, Occupy Wall Street, New Georgia Project, Fight for Fifteen, 350.org and Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

One of several key points that the authors make based upon their research and thinking is this one: “Transformational change will likely require multiple forms of power and all seven strategy models. Base-building is fundamental, but the other models work best under particular conditions. To this end, organizers should consider the ways different strategy models might fit together in a larger long-term struggle.”   p. 241

One aspect of the book that I appreciated was the integration of action on the climate emergency throughout it. One of the chapters was devoted exclusively to the work of the international climate group, 350.org, but at various other points the authors make clear that they believe this must be a key focus of the overall people’s movement for positive, systemic change.

One weakness, however, was the lack of a consistent identification of who it is that we must overcome if we really do want to prevent increased attacks on the rights and livelihoods of people of color, low-income and low-wealth people and workers; 21st century fascism; and worldwide ecosystem and societal breakdown. One of the few places where they do so is in reference to what Bernie Sanders consistently and repeatedly spoke about during his 2016 and 2020 Presidential campaigns. Here’s what they said at one point:

“Some parts of the progressive movement focus exclusively on single issues or policies, which makes it challenging to build support for transformational change. If they aspire to assemble a majority coalition, Left political insurgencies must work across issues and speak to different constituencies. One vivid example is the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, which achieved improbable momentum in 2016 in part because of great grassroots organizing, but also because Sanders offered more than a laundry list of policies. He offered a critique that named the villains: corporations and the billionaires and millionaires who were responsible for and profited from the struggles of working people,” the 1%, as first named by Occupy Wall Street.  p. 20

This is not a small issue. If we are not clear that this is the primary reason why humankind and all other life forms are in such great danger right now, we will never bring together the political and social force, the tens of millions of people, the multiracial working class and allies, that is absolutely, strategically necessary.

There is one other issue of note. Toward the end of the book, on page 300, the authors report on a “planning exercise” they were part of in 2022 which emphasized the importance of a “long view.” “We looked at a potential scenario of climate collapse and authoritarian takeover a decade in the future, and then at a world with a multiracial, feminist, global social democracy three decades from now.”

I support having a long view. Having a long view, both looking backwards and looking forward, is an important component of personal and movement staying power. But the way this particular exercise was reported was striking to me.

Why such a disparity as far as timetable between these two possible paths? Did people really think that we need 30 years to get our act together? Did they realize that there are climate tipping points after which it will be extremely difficult, at best, for the world to recover from this century: the drying out of the Amazon rainforest, Arctic and Antarctic meltdown, the release of massive amounts of methane currently locked-in-ice on ocean floors as the oceans warm, the slowing of the Gulf Stream potentially leading to weather instability and crop failures around the world?

Back to the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign: the Bernie movement garnered over 13 million votes that year, and polls for literally months showed that if Sanders had won the Democratic Party nomination he would have started his general election campaign ahead of Trump by about 10 percentage points. This is one big example—there are others, like the majority support right now in opposition to US support of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and Palestinians–that there really are tens of millions of people who support a strong progressive agenda. And that can’t be translated into winning power until 30 years from now?

Bhargava’s and Luce’s book can help us unite on a basis which can last, and sooner rather than later. That’s what we need. That, indeed, is what is absolutely needed strategically.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.