Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee: a political ecology of change

Had the Panthers followed today's practices and looked just at the surface evidence, they'd have written the Patriots off as hopeless racists. Instead they asked why these folks were hurting: was their racism based on vested interest or had they been fooled into it. They concluded that in the big picture they all had more to gain as allies than enemies.

This approach has nothing in common, by the way, with the Democratic strategy of courting white, suburban swing voters by catering to their prejudices. The Panthers came to the table with an organized political base united around an alternative program. What they offered the Young Patriots and their community was a more promising vision.

Offering an alternative vision, so central to history's most successful movements, is foreign to today's left-liberal non-profits whose operating principle is "fight for what's winnable." This in a nutshell summarizes the contrast with the right: we fight for winnable "gains" while they fight for power. We go as far as we can without brushing up against the barbed wire. They decide when to move the wire closer, steadily limiting the "winnable" possibilities.

The battle over health care reform lays bare how this plays out. Corporate lobbyists were invited to the White House to draft legislation that would regulate their industry, thus guaranteeing that their core interests would be protected whatever the outcome. They then backed a campaign to defeat it, resulting in the steady removal of what little nutrition was in the package. Desperate to pass a law, the White House continually watered it down in successive attempts to win Republican approval. When finally introduced, the bill came under heavy Republican fire and was compromised further. The President suddenly found his populist voice, touring the land, blasting the evils of corporate greed. This galvanized the unions and non-profits to pull out all the stops to pass what by now was a giant, brightly colored placebo. The final bill incorporated some "gains" that progressive spokespeople could point to even as it entrenched the position of the insurance and pharmaceutical corporations at the heart of the "reformed" system. These corporations not only gained an expanded captive market but are in a comfortable position from which to deploy their vast army of lobbyists and bottomless campaign chests to undermine and erode any progressive gains that irritate them. We measure our progress in "gains," they measure theirs in power. At the end of the day power it's power that counts.

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