A major problem for the left, before, during and after, “the Wisconsin Uprising” is sectarianism, I am convinced. It undermines a basic strength. As I concluded in the past “heat and light” post: “After the fall of Communism, the strength of the left is its diversity, its turn away from dogmatism. Understanding what different actions, movements and institutions contribute is crucial.” It was with this view in mind that I read the discussions here and on my Facebook page on Chad Goldberg’s recent post. Here is a dialogue blending the two discussions.

I appreciated Vince Carducci’s Deliberately Considered comment, even though I wondered how he decided what is radical:

“This discussion is really getting to some good ideas, helping to move beyond the knee-jerk facile reactions to the recall. I think there’s value in both positions, though Henwood is more radical (which I have sympathy with) and perhaps as a result more reductive (which I don’t like so much). Chad Goldberg brings important firsthand experience into the discussion. I do think there’s another aspect to Fox Piven and Cloward’s book that he overlooks. It’s true that the legislative process was crucial to the success of poor people’s movement in the end, but the central thesis of the book is that the substantial gains are usually made *before* legislation not really in tandem. The legislative process, Fox Piven and Cloward assert, is the way in which the grassroots movements were mainstreamed and thus brought under control. So in this regard, I side with Henwood to a certain extent. However, even as a strategy of containment by the so-called powers that be, the fact that the legislative process embedded progressive ideals into the mainstream is important. Examples include: the creation of the Food and Drug Administration, fair labor laws, the Civil Rights Voting Act, and in fact the provisions of labor into what Daniel Bell termed “the Treaty of Detroit.” I’d like to suggest a framework within which both perspectives might be brought, specifically Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato’s work in Civil Society and Democratic Theory. I modify their points to get some alliteration in there as follows: The four “I’s” of social movements. The first “I” is identity, individuals “coming out” whether in terms of sexual orientation or in this case class identity. The second is inclusion, or as OWS has put it, “We are the 99%.” The third is influence, and in this case there’s no doubt that the broad trend of which Wisconsin has been a crucial part changed the discourse within the public sphere. The final one is institutionalization, which is essentially the codification of the progress, as documented by Fox Piven and Cloward, into formal norms that we call laws. It’s this crucial area, which is the realm of legislation but also regulation and judicial process, that is the most difficult to achieve. The labor movement has played a major role, though not always, in pretty much all of the progressive achievements of the last century. The failings are what Henwood is focusing on, perhaps too much. But I do think they are worth taking into account, especially his characterization of what amounts to the spoils system in American labor unions. Naomi’s graphic that illustrates this post is something we all should study. It suggests the work that needs to be done. And all of us need to participate.”

George Finch, on Facebook, also focused on the question of institutionalization of protest and its implications:

“… I haven’t read Poor People’s Movement for some time now, but their contention was that mass movements and disruptions made needed legislation possible as a way to “shut people up” to put it crudely. To say, ‘protest movements have historically been most successful when disruptive protests worked in tandem with—not as an alternative to—electoral volatility.’ is a tad misleading, specially the term “in tandem’. If anything they were saying such movements brought about change, not legislative campaigns or electoral politics. I believe Piven also notes that soon a reaction occurs and the legislation becomes watered down…This is what occurred with labor law through first the Taft-Hartley law. Unions then were more legislative orientated as many are now, and got whupped. I really can’t comment on Wisconsin as I wasn’t there, and you really have to be there to get a feel about what is the best strategy. But from my 30 years of organizing experience at different levels, a priority and one base is getting ‘people support’ and also going against the grain through creative disruptive tactics, which no doubt is tricky and to well thought out ( and not repetitive) . There are other matters and strategies as well, and the Right has been doing it very well for almost 40 years now. They are more savvy about organizing than the left or progressives and the like.”

Getting “people support” is crucial in a democracy. I, as the author of The Politics of Small Things, agree with Carducci and Finch that the creative force of direct social action and protest is crucial. But having an effect requires official action.  As Vince noted there is a tension between the dangers of cooptation and the need to institutionalize change.

Bob Perillo underscores the dangers of my position. He writes on Facebook:

“Jeffrey: I respect your position, but I don’t share it, and on several levels. First, the possibilities you see, I don’t see. In fact, just the opposite. The Obama administration has engaged in a crackdown on OWS that would have had liberals shrieking had Republicans done it (coordinated arrests across the country, HR-347, the strip-search rule, etc.). OWS and other social movments may move Obama to change his rhetoric at times (particularly from now to Novemeber), but his actions against these movements are simply repugnant and indefensible. More importantly, having a Democrat with “liberal” bona fides (real or imagined) in the White House has provided corporate power with a priceless asset that openly right-wing Republican administrations have never been able to deliver: the capacity to co-opt, confuse, and demobilize social movements. At a time when global corporate capitalism is imploding, and the response of the rich is to exploit the crisis in order to force everyone else to make the kinds of concessions they could never think of demanding otherwise — that is to say, at a time when popular uprisings are not only possible but practically inevitable — the ability to demobilize social movements is critical.

Wisconsin is a prime example. The anti-war movement is another. One can only shake one’s head in morbid admiration as people who vigorously protested Bush’s warrantless wiretapping remain silent about, or actually express support for, Obama’s administration that he’s running a death squad out of the Whiter House.

It’s not that I want Romney to win. But one shouldn’t dismiss the value of actually having a “progressive” opposition to the executive branch again.”

And I agree there is value in progressive criticism. But opposition doesn’t make sense to me. I write this the day after Obama moved forward on undocumented young adults. Not perfect, but a definite advance. This and much more suggests to me that while criticism of specifics makes sense, opposition doesn’t, but I do respect Perillo’s position, as I don’t agree with it.

I want to take this opportunity to respond to two recent blog posts which reflect upon the usefulness of electoral politics in the wake of the Wisconsin recall election: one by Jeffrey Goldfarb (“On Wisconsin,” June 6, 2012) and the other by Doug Henwood (“Walker’s Victory, Un-Sugar-Coated”). I am in basic agreement with Jeff Goldfarb’s main points, though I have a few of my own to add. With Doug Henwood, I am in strong disagreement.

Elections matter, as Jeff Goldfarb argues, and not just presidential elections. Elections are what enabled Republicans to gain power in state legislatures and the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. Their electoral success in Wisconsin is what empowered them to legislate a radical assault on labor and public services there. Unless they are dislodged from power through elections, they will continue to use their power in familiar ways. But ironically, even as the right demonstrates the effectiveness of electoral politics, some radicals are now arguing that the left should abandon elections.

Following Walker’s victory on Tuesday, a longtime friend of mine wrote that Wisconsin’s unions should have organized a general strike instead of fighting Walkerism by means of elections. This is almost surely an erroneous conclusion. Exit polls showed that 38 percent of voters from union households voted for Walker in the recall election, suggesting that solidarity was neither broad nor deep enough to pull off a general strike. Moreover, rather than forcing a repeal of Walker’s anti-union legislation, a strike in Wisconsin would more likely have ended like the 1981 PATCO strike, another iconic instance of government union-busting that reportedly inspired Walker. I do not oppose strikes and other forms of disruptive protest under all circumstances; I only insist that anyone who cares about the consequences of their actions must use these methods intelligently. Their effectiveness depends on the ability of protesters to surmount a host of practical obstacles, well documented in sociological studies of social movements, including the likelihood of severe reprisals. Without some serious thinking about how protesters might withstand reprisals and overcome other obstacles, calls for a general strike—both those made in Wisconsin in 2011 and those made retrospectively now—are nothing but foolish bravado. Lastly, to insist on either disruptive protests or electoral politics is a false choice. As Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward showed in their classic study Poor People’s Movements, protest movements have historically been most successful when disruptive protests worked in tandem with—not as an alternative to—electoral volatility.

Doug Henwood, a contributing editor to The Nation and the publisher of Left Business Observer, echoed my friend’s rejection of elections in his blog: “channeling a popular uprising into electoral politics,” he commented, was a “horrible mistake.” In his view, unions would have been better off supporting a “popular campaign—media, door knocking, phone calling—to agitate, educate, and organize on the importance of the labor movement.” This suggestion dovetails with Jeff Goldfarb’s argument that progressives must work to shape “how the broad public understands the problems of our times” or, put differently, “to win hearts and minds.” But as Jeff understands, this kind of education is entirely compatible with and indeed a necessary part of electoral politics, and it is in fact precisely what Wisconsin union members were doing when they made a million phone calls and knocked on two million doors in the weeks before the recall election.

Just as “giving up on electoral politics, or blaming Obama, … is extraordinarily foolish,” in Jeff Goldfarb’s words, it is equally foolish to give up on or blame organized labor for the outcome of Wisconsin’s recall election. This is precisely what Henwood does in his blog post. Labor unions aren’t popular, he argues, because the anti-labor right is correct about them: rather than fight for the public interest or the needs of the working class as a whole, he insists, they are a special interest who care only about the wages and benefits of their “privileged” members. The right has always depicted labor unions this way, but it is astonishing to see an avowedly progressive intellectual embrace the most anti-labor elements of the right-wing vision about America. It suggests that progressives need to start within our own ranks if we want to shape how the public understands the problems of our times.

Contrary to Henwood’s sweeping condemnation, organized labor has used its political clout since the New Deal to promote full employment and decent wages and to improve health care, education, and housing—for all Americans, not just union members. Furthermore, Henwood ignores the efforts within the labor movement since the 1990s, documented by sociologists Kim Voss, Dan Clawson, and others, to reach out to groups that were previously alienated from unions (students, immigrants, and so forth), organize the unorganized with innovative grassroots strategies (e.g., the Justice for Janitors campaign), and build a new “social movement unionism.” Lastly, Henwood’s characterization of unions is contravened by their role in Wisconsin, where they spearheaded a broad-based recall movement that was motivated by far more than the loss of collective bargaining rights.

Rather than dismiss the entire labor movement, progressives should support this kind of unionism—indeed, they should join unions whenever and wherever possible. While recent events in Wisconsin and elsewhere have undeniably weakened organized labor, they have also shown the extraordinary commitment, energy, and public-spiritedness of union members. Progressives still need unions to help realize their political agenda.

While it is a mistake to give up on electoral politics or unions, we need to do more than participate in elections. We need to fight to ensure that the electoral process is fair and inclusive. One of the chief reasons that Wisconsin is so politically polarized at present is that what we have seen there is not ordinary partisan politics within stable and consensual rules. Rather, the radical right is using its monopoly on political power in Wisconsin to alter the electoral process itself. After the 2010 election Wisconsin was effectively a one-party state with virtually no checks or balances: Republicans controlled the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature, and they held a majority on the state’s supreme court. Moreover, the agenda of Scott Walker and Republican legislative leaders was closer to the radicalism of the Tea Party than the moderate conservatism of previous Republican administrations. They sought not merely to enact their agenda but to ensure that it could not be undone. By crippling public-sector unions and thereby eliminating an important source of funding for the political opposition, gerrymandering legislative districts, and passing a highly restrictive voter ID law that will skew the electorate in its favor, Walker’s party has worked ruthlessly to give itself a permanent advantage and to cement its grip on power for the foreseeable future. (Although the June 2012 recall election appears to have given Democrats a razor-thin majority in the state senate, they are likely to lose it in November when the new legislative districts will be in effect.) This strategy has implications at the national as well as the state level.

Wisconsin State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, speaking on Fox News in March 2011, boasted that if their efforts succeeded, Obama would have a “much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin [in 2012].” Add to this state-level corruption of the electoral process the untrammeled flow of corporate money into American politics as a result of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision and the electoral dice begin to look frighteningly loaded. Effective resistance to this power grab will require both symbolic work and material resources. Progressives must work to win over hearts and minds but also to safeguard democratic institutions.

Although a progressive-labor coalition failed to unseat Scott Walker in the Wisconsin recall election, and this failure will undoubtedly embolden those who wish to imitate him outside of Wisconsin, the struggle will continue in Wisconsin and elsewhere, at the state level and the national level. We must fight a war of position and not a war of maneuver. I can attest that for many of us Wisconsinites, the failure was heartbreaking and bitter, but we can perhaps take courage in the words that Max Weber famously uttered in 1918:

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth—that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of the word. And even those who are neither leaders nor heroes must arm themselves with that steadfastness of heart which can brave even the crumbling of all hopes. This is necessary right now, or else men will not be able to attain even that which is possible today. Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say ‘In spite of all!’ has the calling for politics.

Today is Labor Day in the U.S. In practice, for most Americans, the primary significance of the day is as the unofficial last day of summer. I just went for a long swim in my outdoor pool, which closes today.

There are also political and union activities on the labor theme, marking the official reason for the holiday. Thus, President Obama gave a speech today in Detroit to a union gathering, previewing the themes of his long awaited address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, addressing the concerns of organized labor.

This September date as a workers holiday was originally chosen by the Central Union of New York in 1882. It is strange that the rest of the world celebrates May 1^st as the international day of labor, marking the Haymarket Affair of 1886, a scandalous labor conflict in Chicago. During the cold war, the U.S. even officially designated May 1^st as “loyalty day.” The contrast with the practice of the Soviet Union and its allies was essential. The American Labor Day, though, has an equally serious origin. It became a national holiday after the violent events surrounding the Pullman Strike of 1894. American indeed has an important and rich labor history.

I think it is unfortunate that American labor’s celebration is out of sync with the rest of the world. We commemorate alone, which weakens the power of the ritual. Nonetheless, especially now, when labor issues are so central, as President Obama indicated in his speech, it is important to take notice. I recall some previous Deliberately Considered posts.

Rachel Sherman’s “Domestic Workers Gain Visibility, Legitimacy” noted an advance in labor legislation in the state of New York. She highlighted the achievements of the Domestic Workers Union to agitate and achieve some fundamental rights in the new legislation, concerning overtime, vacation leave and protections against sexual and racial harassment. As she also observed the place of American domestic workers in the global economy and the connection between class and gender, she celebrated the work of the union in empowering its members, through educational programs, research and protecting them from abusive employers.

In her reflections upon her play commemorating another key moment in labor history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Cecilia Rubino commemorates the role women workers played in the early American labor movement, mourns the deaths of the victims of the fire and notes how following this catastrophe the citizens of New York demanded and helped enact significant labor, health and safety legislative reforms.  Further, “public outrage over the event galvanized the progressive movement and women’s suffrage, and went on to instigate many of the most important reforms of the New Deal.”

These two posts remind us that unions have played an important role in our history and are still playing the role. There are powerful forces seeking to forget this, as Vince Carduccci’s post on the murals in Maine’s Labor Department explains.  Governor Paul LePage, the Tea Party Governor of the state of Maine, really did remove murals commemorating key events in Maine’s labor history because he viewed them as being biased, i.e., pro labor. Even more striking, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, along with other Republican governors, has actively tried to disempower public employee unions.  We had a first row seat view of the early rounds of the political conflict over labor rights in Madison, Wisconsin, in reports by Anna Paretskaya and Chad Goldberg. One of the most important issues in the upcoming elections will revolve around this conflict.

And as we think about this issue, we can turn to some “new music.” In his two posts thus far (more coming soon), Daniel Goode reflects on the problematic status of new music in our cultural landscape. But by analyzing this, he works against the trend. And I am happy to report that in his “We’ve Been Demoted – Part II, you can find not only his reflections on the struggle of new music composers to find an audience, but you can also listen to his composition, which confronts Wisconsin labor politics. Note that the audio file of this work is now available on the post, and can also be heard below.

In my next review post, I will address the issue of cultural freedom, as it appeared this past week on music and politics. Here we close with a video of the President’s speech in Detroit, more on these issues later in the week.

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Half a century ago, Tom Lehrer, our iconic musical satirist, paid ironic tribute to National Brotherhood Week. In introducing his cracked paean to tolerance, Lehrer asserted that ‘I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that.’ His grievance is all too common. We have resided for some time in an age that frets about hate speech, but when does distaste become hatred? And is sharp and personal talk bad for the polity? The shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords temporarily invigorated the debate over civility, but such moments have a way of not lasting. That was so January. Biting discourse draws attention and motivates both supporters and opponents.

In the immediate aftermath of the Tucson killings, some on the left focused their attention on those in the Tea Party who expressed vivid – and yes, offensive – animus for President Obama. There surely are those whose colorful language hides an absence of mindfulness. But, as conservatives knew well, their time for grievance would come soon. After all, we have a United States senator who titled his literary effort, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. And there was the backbench Democrat from Memphis who compared Republican tactics to Nazi propaganda. Hitler would have George Soros’ wealth if he could receive a tiny royalty for each use of his name or image.

Even more dramatic is the boisterous crowd of teachers on the mall in Madison, Wisconsin. Protesters are fighting for collective bargaining rights, and in the process compare their newly elected governor, Scott Walker, to Hosni Mubarak and worse. Others will judge the justice of the Badgers’ cause, but who has taught these demonstrators about the villains of history? By the way, as an Illinois resident, I welcome the fleeing Democratic state senators and urge them to pay our newly increased income tax, part of which will go to teachers’ pay.

The question is how concerned should we be with Governor Walker’s and President Obama’s detractors? What is hate speech? Is it just lusty talk? Is it something to reject and to fear? Or, is it the cornerstone of our rough-and-tumble republic, a democracy that our founders would recognize? When discussed by scholars, such as Jeffrey Goldfarb in Civility and Subversion, civility in the public sphere is often linked to the responsibilities of mainstream intellectuals (Walter Lippmann or John Dewey), but it can equally be extended to C. Wright Mills, Thomas Sowell, or Frances Fox Piven. These thinkers and writers have responsibilities to both lasting discourse as well as to immediate change. But issues of civility and incivility apply also to those who stand outside ivied gates – the Keith Olbermanns, Glenn Becks, Frank Riches, and Bill Kristols of this world.

In fact, there is very little evidence that impassioned rhetoric leads to violence. Admittedly not none, as the assassination of Lincoln, the beating of Senator Seward, or the murder of Yitzhak Rabin reminds us. But objections often seem more aesthetic than criminological. The transposition of scorn and dislike into hatred by those who object to hot talk is misleading, even when we are talking about what has been termed ‘group libel.’ A person who finds African-Americans witless, Jews mercenary, or bankers heartless denigrates the group, but perhaps the heated emotion of hatred does not apply. Maybe they don’t hate, but just scorn, which is different from hate.

As Tom Lehrer breezily suggested, objections to hate speech, when it comes to characterizing a group, can themselves be labeled hate speech. When examining objections to individuals the problem grows thornier still. Someone can object deeply to the president, any president, accusing him of leading the nation into an inescapable quagmire, a world of fascist or communist sympathies. Surely these claims reveal real dislike. As Emily Eisenberg and I once pointed out in comparing reactions to Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton (Tricky Dick and Slick Willie, in their sexualized identities), some leaders raise ire, often less for what they have done, than for who they are.

But it is hard to pin down hatred. A syllogism suggests that I judge critically, you dislike, and they hate. Still, even if one can find such hatred, perhaps we should see the commitment to discourse as opposed to violent action, as within the boundaries of civil society. The allegiance to debate reflects the principles of the Founders, it doesn’t deny them. Being engaged in left or right disruption – talk or action – can be handled by a confident society. Yes, legislators, justices, and government officials must find grounds for reaching agreement, but they can do this – and over centuries have done this – within a welter of voices. The more some say that things have changed, the more that we can say that they have remained the same.

So I am not dismayed about the absence of a congenial debate – even while I wish that those with whom I disagree would sit down and shut up. Throughout our history, tough talk has been common as Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Bush pere and fils can attest. Fiery talk doesn’t lead to fire, it leads to commitment and, sometimes, to social change. As sociologist William Gamson has pointed out, militant social movements tend to be more effective than mousy ones. Get up on the soapbox and shout, as long as there are those who are more pragmatic to do the hard lifting of compromise. Hosni Mubarak is just like . . . fill in the blank.