I know this is a very late summary of America's Future Now!: The Conference to Take America Forward (AFN6W! [The official font made the 'o' look like a 6]), but it's been a busy week since. Anyways...
This isn't simply bashing the liberal progressive movement. AFN6W! was full of enthusiastic, mostly middle-aged, "activists" (their preferred term) who sincerely want only the best for everyone: escape from poverty, a cleaner environment, healthy and educated kids, a happy, productive democracy, etc., etc. Granted, my opinions differ from theirs, especially in the area of economics, but my problem with the conference lay elsewhere. The conference speakers and officials paid gratuitous lip service, really more slobbery kissing up, to the working class and the poor. Yet if they're so anxious to support the proletariat, why was this conference during the week when most blue-collar workers are at work? And why did it cost $100 to attend for one day?
The elitist undertones were more disturbing. The theme of the conference seemed to be "Silly blue collar worker! Ideas are for elites! Your job is to do what we tell you!" While the events in the Regency Ballroom, meant to accommodate all the attendees, were panels of 'experts,' they turned into, more often than not, stump speeches with more platitudes than critical thought. Yes, the speeches were for everyone, not just those with Ph.D.s in the different issues, but people came to this conference to learn. It's insulting to give them pabulum. Instead of just saying "300,000 people die because of global warming each year" or "free market principles are bad," how about slapping up some charts and graphs, or even simple examples to back up these claims? Some of the "Self Organized Sessions" were more sound intellectually, but "Globalization of Greed and Violence" was a joke, even by their standards. Think: some random guy, no credentials whatsoever, just spouting off a water downed International Relations lecture on criticisms of free trade. But if I recall, we were never taught in IR that the US forced Europe into developing some of the most prosperous economies, that the Marshall Plan was slavery. His sources? Emails from friends in Colombia and some quote out of context from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (not very scholarly). But because the speaker was from Latin America, we, the sheeple, were supposed to believe him. [Lacking credentials is no barrier to being an expert, apparently. In another panel about Big Business, one of the three panelists, "Digby" had no listed credentials that might point to her being a scholar of economics, and yet she was granted the same credibility as the other panelists who DID have more training in business and economics. Of course, while Matt Taibbi explained different corporate terms and concepts, she just prattled on about CNN being bad for airing a documentary that received funding from the Peterson Foundation, which is also bad because it sponsors other "bad things".]
What did the conference attendees walk away with instead of learning more than just flashcard phrases of "hope," "change," and "go green"? They learned that their job is to follow. According to the "Progressives in the Age of Obama" speakers, "Nothing will supersede this... we're here to support the president's agenda." Also, Ilyse Hogue of MoveOn.org believes that being as activist as we can be is the "greatest gift we can give [Obama]."A speaker in the Student Debt panel said that by doing [insert progressive priority] we can make "a great president even greater." I thought this conference was supposed to take AMERICA forward, not just the POTUS. But every speaker agreed that we're supposed to organize. Organize for what, they didn't really go into. But Sara Robinson of Campaign for America's Future blathered on about how the youth know the power and efficacy of forming groups. [I don't know about you, but in my formative years, I learned that forming groups, especially for school projects, is just about the most idiotic thing you can do.] The working class can also act on their progressive principles by losing their jobs. Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins of Green for All told her audience over lunch about how she grew up poor and had to get the free lunch offered at her school. She felt pride when her family had more money by working at the local refinery and she could actually buy her lunch. But then her mom decided to picket the refinery for not being eco-friendly, so she had to go back on the free lunch program. And getting the government-provided lunch, she said, was being an environmentalist. [Rely on the government! Your job is meaningless!] Basically the speakers' point is that we must rely on the president (and AFN6W! speakers) to tell us what to do or think, we're not capable of understanding the simplest economic discussion, and we must follow blindly no matter what.
And despite the praise heaped on the working class, speakers (and some of the attendees) made it clear that blue-collar jobs are too lowly for them. Senator Tom Harkin complained during the Employee Free Choice Act panel about his brother going from working in a high-tech factory to being a lowly janitor. During a Q & A session for the student debt panel, one attendee whined on about how SHE graduated from OXFORD and GEORGETOWN LAW, but because she can't pay off her student loans, she can't get any better job than that of a secretary. [How then, did she afford her purple-red hair dye or the conference pass?] What is the proletariat supposed to make of all that? We're all in favor of YOU having crummy jobs, but WE're too good for that kind of work! Frankly, I'd be offended if I were a member of the working class and I were sitting in on those panels. One attendee even had to point out to a panel that the progressive movement is fueled mainly by upper middle class, aging whites who have no idea what the working class deals with. But the progressive young are fluent in elitism as well. During one lunch, I overheard one college-aged attendee go on about how she had been in charge of "organizing" some worker's group in southern Georgia, and she had been TERRIFIED of going down there. How presumptuous is that? This Yankee's barely out of her teenage years and she thinks SHE knows better than actual workers about what they should do, and she thinks southerners are SCARY.
Despite all of this, there were two other things I found the most obnoxious and telling. 1. The MoveOn.org lady asserted that liberals and progressives should rely on "telling stories first, then facts." [Working class America has to be told fictions first, they can't handle data]. 2. Graciela Sanchez won the Maria Leavey Tribute Award because she had formed a women's peace center in San Antonio that promoted women, autonomy over their lives, and publicly promoting their principles; yet when she was ticking through the list of things we should fight against -racism, homophobia, violence, hate- she included individualism. But without a belief in the autonomy of the individual, why would she have protested white, patriarchal culture in Texas or embraced her own homosexuality? [Being an individual is all right if you're a ranking member of the progressive movement, but if you're just another average citizen, you have no right to it.]
The progressive movement's goals of bettering their communities and having honest, helpful governments are noble, but its leaders have forgotten its priorities. The movement is supposed to actually help all citizens, not just boost the leaders' egos and make them feel like they're making a difference.