A New Coalition for a New Situation

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

The election of Barack Obama has fueled renewed hope and promise of new opportunities. At the same time, the economic crisis, coupled with a potentially catastrophic crisis of climate change, the nagging war in Iraq and the acute danger of escalation in Afghanistan – all constitute a tsunami of gathering crises that cry out for an effective response from the nation’s progressive majority.

A crucial question: are the presently constituted progressive coalitions and single-issue organizations fully equipped to deal with the present crisis?
 
We offer the following propositions in response to that question:
  1. The present crisis is a seamless convergence of three major elements:
    1. The economic crisis that embraces crises in health care, education and housing;
    2. the crisis of climate change and the exhaustion of energy; c) the crisis of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the persistence of a permanent war economy and national security state.
There is a vital need to develop approaches and forms that recognize and act upon the inseparability of those crises and advancing solutions on a national scale – recognizing that those solutions must simultaneously address all those interrelated elements. Cooperation among organizations and movements from the grass roots up are needed to effectively deal with multi-faceted crises.
  1. Thus, there is a need for a new paradigm for a new coalition:
    1. It should have the ability to make the appropriate connections between issues;
    2. its member organizations should be able to act on the most pressing issue(s) of the moment regardless of their major priorities, taking the lead from those groups primarily concerned with those pressing issues while forging connections between their major concerns and the most urgent issues;
    3. In advancing the interconnected major issues, the new coalition should connect with the key unaffiliated segments of the Obama campaign (youth, African Americans, organized labor, women, Democratic Party activists);
    4. The new coalition should also seek links with broad national movements and organizations at or close to the political center, i.e. NAACP, Change to Win, AFL-CIO, National Council of Churches, etc., as well as with progressive national formations such as AFSC, UFPJ, Campaign for America’s Future, etc.
  2. The new coalition should be able to effectively connect local issues and local organizing with a national multi-issue coalition.
  3. The coalition should develop the means to explore and advance effective, transforming solutions to the multi-faceted crises. That may include such proposals as people’s ownership and control of the financial system; public ownership of the energy industry; controlling workers’ equity in the Big 3 auto companies, etc. While those solutions may not be immediately viable, the coalition should propagate advanced ideas as a vital and much needed contribute to a national debate on how to end deep systemic crises.

by Mark Solomon, December 2008
Presentation to United for Justice with Peace