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New Beginning for Left
Source News for Social Justice Action
Date 04/11/14/15:49

The needed new beginning for the Left, fortunately, is
already in motion.  For the 2004 campaign, Left
organizing was unbelievable, swelling the ranks
opposing tyranny to over 56 million - well beyond all
wildest expectations.  All across the country, new
forms of activism sprang up -- from local leafleting to
global cybernets which, combined with traditional
stalwarts from organized labor, churches, liberal and
progressive enclaves, created an avalanche of motivated
new voters like never before.  MoveOn PAC, America
Coming Together (ACT), VoteAmerica, TrueMajority.org,
AlterNet.org, IndyMedia.org, CommonDreams.org, NARAL,
AFL-CIO's Working Families, SEIU & Progressive Labor
Unions, Michael Moore & Fahrenheit 911, Rock The Vote,
the impromptu cyber army of Howard Dean, FacingSouth,
RadioAmerica, CountEveryVote2004, Medea Benjamin &
Jodie Evans' Code Pink, Progressive Majority,
BiogemsDefenders, League of Independent Voters, Slam
Bush & the Hip Hop Political Convention, the Hip Hop
Summit Action Network, George Lakoff and Rockridge
Institute, remnants of the Green party, labor Party,
third party advocates, and others are but a few of a
new, energized, emerging progressive front.
......
What Can Be Done?

First and foremost, the Democratic Party must now be
dismissed -- in its entirety.  No more excuses. To this
very day, all the rotten excesses of the Bush
administration have been sanctioned by, and will
continue to have overwhelming consent of the mindless,
gutless Democrats.  The Supreme Court is lost to
moderate interpretation for at least a generation.  And
for the next decade, Congress is likely transfixed with
Republican majorities.  And, we must not forget the
shocking scene from Fahrenheit 911 where the Democratic
Party refused to put forward just one of its 47
senators to co-sponsor the Congressional Black Caucus'
challenge to certification of the 2000 election.  No
greater illustration of how the two parties of
corporate rule carry out their marching orders on
matters of African American inclusion is needed.
Earlier this year, SEIU President Andy Stern announced
that labor should "reconsider its relationship with the
Democratic Party" because this relationship was more
and more a one-way street.  The progressive movement
cannot do less.

The case for Party allegiance cannot be weaker than at
present.  All prior rationale in support of 'lesser-
evilism' no longer hold...

--James E. Vann, Oakland, CA

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