msolomon's blog

The October 2, 2010 “One Nation Working Together” rally at the Lincoln Memorial was a successful expression of the working class and multiracial foundation of the progressive majority. The large turnout of labor unions, African Americans and other communities of color provided a solid start for building a broadly based national coalition to urgently address the crisis of unemployment and inseparably related crises in education, health care, housing, militarism and the environment. While the imperative issue of peace and the ending of Washington's wars was not insistently stressed (except for Harry Belafonte's inspired speech and the strong words of Bob King of the UAW), the peace movement was a large, highly visible and indispensable presence whose major role in the coalition cannot be questioned.

About three years ago Portside posted an article, “Let’s Build The Mother of All Coalitions.” The article stressed the urgent need to end the near-fatal fragmentation of progressive movements. It called for a unified, coherent and effective coalition to counteract the dangerous growth of the right wing and to finally offer a focused multi-issue vision and program to win a latent progressive majority to engagement in battle for a better country and world.

That “mother of all coalitions” was projected as the powerful independent force fully capable of imposing upon the political system progressive policies and programs. With shared resources, it would generate ideas to deal with growing multifaceted crises. It would tackle the political and cultural barriers that impede multiracial and multi-class unity. In short, it would constitute the broad social movement that is absolutely required to beat back reaction and overcome corporate-military control of government.