I saw this reading recommendation today at Working Assets, and it reminded me of some words that are very appropriate for today.
A Quick Pre-Kos Book RecommendationHere is something from that book that describes today's situation so well. Though there is a lot of straight talk and few holds are barred in this book...in the end it gives hope.
There has always been a waxing and waning in the balance of power in America between ordinary people and the wealthy and well connected. Our founding fathers saw it coming and warned against letting the power of wealth outweigh the power of the ballot box. Teddy Roosevelt warned, too: "Every special interest is entitled to justice full, fair and complete....but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench or to representation in any public office."
In the past, times of excessive corporate ascendancy were followed by times of correction. FDR's New Deal so radically changed American society that it remained stable and protective of the middle class for half a century. But as the twenty-first century dawned, and the Republicans grew more extreme and the Democrats grew more impotent, and our new Gilded Age ripened and began to grow rotten, no such correction seemed to be in sight
The Democratic Party, just like the Republicans, emerged from the 1990's pretty much the captive of big-time money interests.......The Democrats in the 1990s supported telecome policies that failed to protect consumers and that accelerated the concentration of media power in corporate hands....
Sounds grim, but the book's title says it all. "You Have the Power".
I have been criticized here for getting upset with those who single out some of the Democrats who really are working for us in Congress. They need our support, they have been out of power long enough to lose the fighting spirit...and many, like many of us here, did not really understand who was controlling the message. Trust me, many good Democrats did not really understand. Then Iraq happened.
We need to fight, and to get Congress to fight. But I am among those who think targeting the right people makes the difference.
A group here is trying to push a third party scenario. The author of this book thought about that as well. He decided it would be too bloody. From the 2005 preface:
He speaks of traveling the country as DFA chairman, and what he saw happening.
These victories weren't being organized from our headquarters in Burlington. They were happening because activists and organizers wanted to change the Democratic Party -- and then use the Democratic Party to change politics in America. In many ways, the movement wasn't ideological so much as it was practical. These people were trying to move the Democratic Party back to the organizational model that had worked for us in the past, but that we had abandoned in the era of soft money.
As I watched what was happening in state party after state party, I realized there was no way I could indulge thoughts of leading a third party when the people whose ideas I trusted and whose energy I relied on were working within the system to strengthen the Democratic Party. If these activists were really bringing about change in the Democratic Party from the grass roots up, it might just be possible for me to help them by working to change the party from the top down.
And a little more from the Working Assets blog:
Dean's political memoir-slash-handbook for saving democracy was published a mere six weeks before election 2004, at a time no one would have predicted he'd ever be DNC Chairman, much less within less than a year. All of which makes Dean's book somewhat of an oddity, historically speaking - it's hard to think of another book written by a future major party chairman where the author so explicitly outlines their view of how the party should function at a time they had no expectations to be personally forced to deliver on such reforms. As such, we have a unique opportunity to judge Dean's behavior as DNC Chairman; we can use the criteria of successful party leadership he employed back when he was merely opining on what he might do if he magically had the position. As we approach the first Yearly Kos more than halfway through Dean's term as Chairman, it certainly helps us take inventory of that leadership.
The pendulum may not swing so easily this time, he once said. He is right, we are in dangerous moments now.
History won't correct itself so easily
