Description, appreciation and call for support of Backbone Campaign's two outstanding projects: the Progressive Cabinet, and the Procession for the Future

::::::::

By Diane Wittner, May 29 2008
-----------

Progressives belong to a propositional movement
with the leaders and ideas to run the country.
Progressive Cabinet homepage, Backbone Campaign

*******

The other week I was talking on the phone to an activist friend from London. He asked me if the left in this country understood that it is possible to construct a ‘dual path’ in order to shape policy through electoral politics. He explained to me that the Communist Party in Britain in the last generation had made a strategic decision to do two things at once: work to strengthen and influence the Labor Party while simultaneously maintaining its ideals for long-term systemic change.

My friend said that the Labor Party owed much of its subsequent popularity to the influence of the Communist Party. We then spoke about Scandinavian social democracies as useful models, new challenges to the left, and how the words 'communist' and 'socialist' had become problematic in light of 20th century events.

We then admitted that we leftists often are more adept at highlighting differences amongst ourselves rather than commonalities.

I told my friend that I knew of a potential ‘dual path’ perfectly suited for leftists, or progressives, in the US in 2008: the Backbone Campaign’s Progressive Cabinet.

In Atlanta, on June 26, 2007, the Backbone Campaign convened the first-ever Progressive Cabinet Summit, one day prior to the US Social Forum. This small Seattle-based group put all its resources into organizing this ground-breaking event: round the clock time, personnel, materials, and all its funds.

In the months leading up to the Summit, I witnessed preparation via telephone conference calls (I live on the east coast). As a member of the Summit organizing team, I also received copies of one hundred twenty email invitations from my colleagues at the Backbone Campaign. Though other obligations prevented me from assisting with the grueling daily tasks of organizing, still I was given the opportunity to help develop a parallel government event that had been lodged in my dreams since 2000.

I had already worked with folks at the Backbone Campaign. For two years with Executive Director Bill Moyer, I had co produced 61 hour-long Progressive Cabinet interviews called Conversations with the Cabinet. The first sixty-one Conversations are archived online, and downloads are free. If you listen, you'll discover that we built an excellent foundation for the Progressive Cabinet project.

Progressive Government (www.progressivegovernment.org) founder Dal LaMagna is to be commended for his early support of this work.

Today, this exciting project continues with a new and vibrant team; sign up to be notified of new Conversations www.backbonecampaign.org.

Some of the Conversations on developing an effective progressive movement have clarity, poignancy and a poetic quality. And a young radio producer once described some of our policy Conversations as “wonky.” As an artist and writer, I was new to this kind of work, and I considered that description to be a compliment. We were indeed achieving our objective: to discover our country’s diverse leaders and gather from them, in audio form, their nation-healing policy ideas.

Some Progressive Cabinet nominees:

Jim Hightower for Department of Agriculture
Dolores Huerta, Ruth Rosenbaum and Bill Fletcher for Department of Labor
Howard Zinn, Jonathon Kozol and Eric Cooper for Department of Education
Lester Brown for Department of Sustainability
Winona LaDuke for Department of the Interior
Stephen Zunes (Middle Eastern affairs), Emira Woods (African affairs), Noam Chomsky, Anthony Arnove for State Department
Chuck Spinney, Chalmers Johnson for Department of Defense
Judy Wicks and Amy Domini for Departments of Commerce and Treasury

My experience - both in co-hosting the interviews and in consulting for the Summit - was evidence of the Backbone Campaign emboldening citizens (like myself) as well as leaders 'to stand up for our future.'

As for the Summit, forty-five people participated in the event. And a few Progressive Cabinet nominees and other leaders who joined us:

Independent Progressives Policy Network Nat’l Coordinator George Friday
Farm Labor Organizing Committee President Baldemar Velasquez
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Director Jakada Imani
Black Women's Health Imperative founder Byllye Avery

Indigenous Environmental Network Director Tom Goldtooth
Liberty Tree Foundation's David Cobb
Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin
After Downing Street founder David Swanson
Institute for Policy Studies fellow Steve Cobble

(See Summit Brochure www.progressivecabinet.org for complete list of attendees.)

I wanted this impressive collection of people to jump at the chance to co-create an alternative government institution. I hoped that the hospitality provided by the Backbone Campaign - the setting of Carter Center, delicious meals, advance delivery of the colorful Brochure - would tempt everybody to take co ownership of the nascent Progressive Cabinet.

After all, many were full time activists, albeit with packed schedules and a myriad of commitments. And I knew from research and Conversations that they each already had fantastic and inter-related propositions for government policy.

In addition, we hoped the Summit would offer everybody present a rare opportunity for building collective power across race, ethnicity, class, gender, nation of origin, party affiliation, geographic boundaries, and even issues.

Finally, I knew that this general structure – opposition movements and people-based parallel governments - had played a significant role in transforming troubled countries in Europe in the last century.

Admittedly, these were lofty goals. But history has shown that in moments of perceived hopelessness, our brightest ideas need to be given specificity and tangibility. People need to see what best practice might look like in order to develop a plan of action.

A Chinese phrase sums this up nicely: crisis equals danger plus opportunity.

We began the day with video greetings from leaders who couldn’t be with us such as Rev. Lennox Yearwood (CEO of Hip Hop Caucus) and Professor Howard Zinn.

Professor Zinn has given this project unfailing encouragement and he was our guest on two Conversations.

Here are some words from Professor Zinn's video greeting www.progressivecabinet.org:

Welcome to the Progressive Cabinet Summit. The Progressive Cabinet is a really important tool for social change…The idea of an alternative cabinet is a profoundly democratic idea, to return to the people the possibility of choosing their own representatives. This idea goes back to the American Revolution, the Committees of Correspondence. I can see the possibility of a progressive Political Cabinet, advancing ideas which are not advanced by the major political parties, which are not in the major media, but ideas which are bold…to create a truly decent society. It’s something we should cherish and support. (video by www.libertynewstv.com)

Adrienne Maree Brown of the Ruckus Society was our facilitator. Matt Power of Liberty News TV filmed the event and produced a documentary of the Summit. Throughout the day we listened to eloquent speeches and had fruitful discussions. Progressive Cabinet nominees recorded ‘First 100 Days’ videos, and a ‘Brilliant Ideas’ document was produced.

In our small group sessions, a few expressed doubts that their primary concerns would receive adequate attention. Others clung tightly to their beliefs that uniting progressives would forever remain an impossible task. We appreciated everyone’s perspectives, and tried to accommodate folks as best we could.

On the new Progressive Cabinet homepage, you'll find a Summit slideshow, two recent Huffington Post articles by Progressive Cabinet Nominees Baldemar Velasquez and Chuck Spinney www.progressivecabinet.org.

In the months since the Summit, I have reflected on what I'd do differently next time.

And my colleagues have begun a clever election-year bird dogging initiative called “Questions for the Candidates,” in which Progressive Cabinet nominees will soon have an opportunity to pose questions to candidates for office.

Also, a Progressive Cabinet Planning Council has been formed. The group has developed a set of eight priorities or themes for the '08 election cycle:

§ Fair Trade, Living Wage Jobs & Healthy Local Economies
§ Climate Stabilization, Ecological Sustainability & Renewable Energy
§ End of War, Dismantling of Empire & the Military Industrial Complex
§ Election Integrity & Renewal of Democracy
§ Housing, Education and Health Care for All
§ Humane & Fair Immigration Policy
§ Celebration of Diversity & Elimination of Racial Disparities
§ Governmental Accountability and Transparency

And this list now brings me to a new project of the Backbone Campaign, a second beautiful form, the Procession for the Future www.processionforthefuture.org.

The Procession consists of a large-group puppet parade that takes up one city block; it’s a varied set of bright large-scale sculptures, inflatable figures, and signage that joyfully demonstrate what everyone hopes our country will look like in the coming years. Talk about transcending partisan politics!

The Procession has, for instance, a blow up green Lady Liberty offering sanctuary to all U.S. residents, a lumbering polar bear, bees on sticks, and frog masks. A large fabric sun opens up to reveal a clean energy and transport town. Fair trade farmers and a single payer doctor show off the tools of their trades. A pentagon “Penta-Gone’ shape is literally deconstructed then transformed -- through simple choreography -- into earth hugging imagery of solar panels, students receiving diplomas, and non-agribusiness farm fields.

And the Procession’s colorful signs contain the propositional themes – in clear language - developed by the Progressive Cabinet Planning Council.

Although I am not involved the Procession project, as an art teacher, I know that appealing and inviting creative actions build group skills, solidarity, confident expression of shared purpose, and joy.

In her recent book Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, Barbara Ehrenreich decries what she perceives in our culture to be a general lack of “collective merriment.” Ehrenreich says that we humans are a social species in need of ecstatic rituals for group bonding, to have an occasional release from life’s challenges, but also to fight oppression.

As the Procession tours around cities and campuses this summer and fall, it may well prove to be a means for our youth to channel their understandable rage - at the world they're inheriting - into non-destructive energetic street actions and substantive political proposals. Activist training is a key component of the Procession.

I hope Students for a Democratic Society, Student Peace Action Network, Campus Action Network, and other college age youth find a means to utilize the Procession in the coming months.

.----------------

Here we are, eleven months after the Progressive Cabinet Summit.

Americans are saddled with worsening crises - the continuing Iraq War, quickening global warming, and transport, energy, medical, housing and education disasters around the country. It seems absurd to use language in this way: putting the word “worsening” in front of the action-demanding and charged word “crisis,” but that is the crazy situation we face.

New crises – mounting gas and food prices, the mortgage industry fiasco – are just symptoms of profoundly mismanaged policy by an almost nonfunctioning national government.

I am tired of watching well meaning nonprofits – with unstable budgets and personnel - try desperately to fill in where the federal government has failed.

And although I am curious about Obama as a leader (who may listen to some activists’ demands if he becomes President), we cannot rely solely on any single politician to lead in national community-building.

Because our federal government is in a shambles, the change that is needed must come from the people in an organized, collaborative and strategic way.

As I have some familiarity with the propositional ideas put forth by our dozens of Progressive Cabinet nominees, I believe even more strongly in 2008 that a Progressive Cabinet could help to shape such a change.

I haven’t seen another project that matches the potential of the Progressive Cabinet for establishing for Americans our 21st century social contract, and I remain grateful to the Backbone Campaign for initiating and sustaining this project.

To return to that phone discussion with my friend, about the predictable bickering of the left in this country: I know all too well the topics of painful debate among people whom I wish would collaborate, such as:

· Are white progressives at last willing to share or relinquish power, and work long term across issues with progressive leaders of color and their constituents?

· Who is responsible for the planetary nightmare that is Bush and Co? Is it third parties, the two party system, Gore, Kerry, Rove, Cheney, the partisan Supreme Court, the corporate Democratic party, someone in Florida, or the media?

· How to make value distinctions among terms such as ‘leftist’ ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’?

· What is the truth about 9/11?

· How to determine the efficacy of the peace movement?

I have come to understand that without resolving the first issue, little else can go forward for progressives.

But I also have another vision, thanks in part to activists' mind-boggling stamina and successes, but mostly due to what I have learned in the Conversations and at the Summit. My vision encompasses partnerships both inside and outside government.

For instance, I envision:

· Peace and veterans groups linking up with oil and defense industry challengers and successful boycotters - from other areas - to organize new style oil and defense industry boycotts

· Global Exchange, Coop America and BALLE implementing consumer education plans - and then boycotts - alongside WalMart Watch, Corporate Accountability, and groups with similar objectives

· Progressive Democrats of America and a courageous third party group joining through one election cycle, supporting one candidate, regardless of that candidate’s party affiliation. They could mold this experimental partnership in any way they like, by office, by geographic location, by issue (like single payer health care which PDA is championing). The point would be to test the difficult waters of non-partisan progressive politics, to heal old wounds, and to be immediately practical within the current system.

Pioneering culture critic Suzi Gablik once wrote: “[Is] it possible to have an embodied stance and not be exclusionary?" (introduction, Conversations Before the End of Time, 1995)

Gablik was referring to a book called The Leader As Martial Artist by Arnold Mindell. But I find her question relevant to the ever-divided and powerless American opposition movement.

Gablik continues, “…one position, one voice, lacks dialectical resonance. When you practice taking all the positions and listening to all the sides, you help the field to balance its global parts, the older ones they are trying to replace, and the interaction between the old and the new. By helping the field to process its edges and incongruities, you mediate between the varied parts and enable others do to the same."

Through its radiant message and two beautiful forms, the Backbone Campaign is ‘listening to all the sides,’ and is modeling how to 'have an embodied stance and not be exclusionary."

Support the Backbone Campaign www.backbonecampaign.org so that this unique organization can continue to provide these outstanding gifts and necessary tools to the progressive movement.

I hope that soon I will be able to tell my friend in London that U.S.-based leftists have moved beyond that embarrassing and retro stereotype of eternal infighting -- that, instead, American progressives are helping to shape a working government whose policies will take us on the path to the future we all need.

-----------

Authors Website: www.chesapeakecitizens.org

Authors Bio:
Diane Wittner is an art instructor and director of Chesapeake Citizens. She is former coproducer of the Backbone Campaign's progressive parallel government interview series "Conversations with the Cabinet (www.progressivecabinet.org).