Harry Targ
Reflections on Movements from Below
Revisiting peoples’ histories suggest that from time
to time issues have emerged which led to the building of mass movements.
Movements come from concrete circumstances, theoretical writings, grassroots
organizing, and hitting the streets. Also,
periods of resurgence of theory and practice are joined with what Michael
Denning called a “cultural front,” that is the development of art forms that
educate and inspire in conjunction with mass movements. Some combination of
these elements can be found if we examine the periods of abolitionism,
resistance to the rise of capitalism in the late nineteenth century, early
anti-imperialism and opposition to war in the 1890s and World War 1, the rise
of the labor movement in the 1930s, and the anti-fascist movements in the late
1930s as a result of the Spanish Civil War and the growing power of fascist
Germany, Italy, and Japan. After World War II, struggles, campaigns, and
organizing efforts centered on opposing war and imperialism and challenging
racism.
Looking back on these periods suggests that singular
issues animated the organizing and movement building. Even if sectors of social
movements envisioned building a new society they generally embraced just one or
a few issues for purposes of organizing. In this sense, organizing in the
periods mentioned were “easier;” single issues dominated the political terrain.
The positions that should be taken by progressives were relatively clear.
However, because of the growing complexity of
economic, social, political, and environmental developments in the twenty-first
century and because of the
powerful new technologies of communication that have emerged, the
issue/organizing domain has gotten much more difficult. One element of
twenty-first century politics that needs to be recognized is what might be
called “The Politics of Distraction.”
What is “The Politics of Distraction”
A distraction is “a
thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.” Over
the last twenty years our political landscape has been populated with numerous
distractions, even if they are important to peoples’ lives.
Perhaps the foremost
distraction that has occurred in recent years has been the candidacy, presidency,
and post-presidency of Donald Trump. His pomposity, racism, hate-filled
messages, and his combination of power and ignorance of the issues has made him
the prime target for the corporate media and mainstream politicians and
pundits, while his base of support, largely those disenchanted with the
direction of economic, political, and cultural change, has been wildly
demonstrative in support of him.
For the corporate
media, he has been the perpetual gift that continues to give. Fox News has
built a media empire based on celebratory lies and distortions of political
reality derived loosely from Trump’s words and deeds. But also Trump, and his friends
at Fox News, have been the gift that keeps giving to other sectors of the
corporate media. MSNBC and CNN have built their programs and diatribes around
endless ridicule of Donald Trump and Fox News.
A second distraction
involves highlighting the ugly underside of US politics, past and present.
Today the term fascism or neo-fascism is used as a short-hand label to
ground the racist, homophobic, and violent politics in the history of fascism
in world history. There is no question that the politics of hate, racism,
homophobia, and violence have had an enormous role to play in US history. The
slaughter of the original inhabitants of the continent and 400 years of slavery
speak to these pivotal features of the development of the country. And in
conventional politics there has always been a percentage of the population
attracted to these currents, perhaps 30 to 40 percent of the voting population
from before the civil war to the present. But to bring to the conversation
analogues to German, Italian, or Spanish history distracts discourse from what
is central to the American experience in the past and what needs to be
addressed in today’s politics. References to fascism in the contemporary
context distracts activists from addressing the “why” question and further
divides the politics of the nation.
A third distraction is the constant conversation in
the corporate media and in grassroots progressive circles on elections.
Almost immediately after one election occurs discourse shifts to speculation
about the next election. Ahistorical predictions dominate the conversations.
This is perhaps the major corporate media preoccupation. Polls, webinars,
constant pontification by polling experts fill a high and growing percentage of
all public discourse on the corporate media, social media, and discussions and
planning among progressives.
Most of the conversation is based on longitudinal data
using dubious methods and without comparisons with historical research. For
example, political scientists have long noted that the vast majority of voters
make their choices based upon the party they identified with as early as their
childhood years. Similarly, lots of research has shown that except for dramatic
historical changes such as the Vietnam War, most of us accept the beliefs and
perceptions and attitudes that are learned at very young ages. Beliefs about
“human nature” or “the inevitability of war” become part of our understanding
of the world during our youth.
A fourth distraction is more time-bound. That is to
say from time to time issues, statements, events occur that constitute
flashy news that excites the viewer or listener, mostly because of the
extremism embedded in the story or event. At the time of this writing, Florida
has become a daily news story: censoring books in classrooms, punishing
teachers of the renaissance who fail to get parental permission to use images
of Michelangelo’s statue of David in class, or ongoing battles between the
governor of the state and the Disney empire. Oftentimes prominent touring
college speakers, sponsored by groups who know how to create distractions,
become famous for hateful statements or preposterous claims, and find their way
into both corporate and social media for days at a time. (One can only
speculate what would be their impact if the media did not publicize these speakers.
Of course, one could speculate whether Donald Trump could have been elected
president if not for the corporate media providing billions of dollars of free
publicity for his bizarre claims).
What are the More Fundamental Questions
That Distract From “The Politics of Struggle”
The questions that seem to undergird the fundamental
structures of our society remain the most basic ones that must be
addressed. These “fundamental”
structures are indeed the deep structures that get lost in the panoply of
distractions that populate discourse in every day life.
First, undergirding virtually every issue that has
surfaced in the varied United States historical periods has been the
economic system, that is capitalism. Everyone knows that however it is
measured the profit system has created on the one hand huge corporations and
banks that dominate the production of goods and services and shape everyday
life. And everybody knows some small sector of the population benefits from
this economic system and the vast majority do not. Further, and this is most
vital to organizing, the economic and political institutions are created by and
serve the interests of capitalists.
Second, capitalism, the dominant economic system in
wealthy nations requires a global reach, imperialism. That is the
economy requires cheap labor, natural resources, and land. To insure the
acquisition of these resources, cooperating elites in countries all around the
work are favored and supported. Writers often reflect on history by organizing
their thoughts around colonialism and slavery, neocolonialism, dependency, and
conceptualization of a struggle between the Global North and Global South. But
what remains constant is that the capitalist economic system is a national and
a global system. And when concerns are raised about arms races, wars, the
danger of nuclear war, trade, aid, immigration, and environmental devastation,
the global system of capitalism is involved.
Third, while the first two items above refer to
“fundamental structures” they are inextricably connected to enduring and
fundamental problems: economic inequality, poverty, racism, and misogyny.
In every era, in every place (with a few exceptions), in every election cycle
these issues directly or indirectly remain central and shape how people think
and how they behave. To not address these issues and the “fundamental
structures” that give rise to them is to misplace the forest for the trees.
Finally, the deep structures, the enduring problems
are inextricably connected to many of the issues social movements are
addressing today: access to income, food, health care education, housing, and
healthcare. But progressives today compartmentalize their activism, do not
connect their issues to the fundamental structures, fail to suggest the
inextricable link between the issues and their connections to capitalism and
imperialism, and fall prey to the politics of distraction.
In sum, in order to focus on the fundamental issues
that need to be addressed, progressives have to challenge conceptualizations
and actions that decontextualize and dehistoricize the deep, almost
insurmountable, problems that most of humanity face. The task then is to revisit
the movements we are part of, raise questions of interconnections between
issues, struggle to understand the relationship between issues and fundamental
structures and in the process work to overcome the politics of distraction.
While the politics of distraction disarms and confuses progressive movements,
linking the distractions to the economic system, imperialism, inequality and
racism, and fundamental issues such as jobs, healthcare, education, and income
can make organizing more effective.
