New Left Review I/216, March-April 1996

Kim moody

A New American Politics: Who Will Answer the Invitation?

Joel Rogers (nlr 210) has done the Left in the us a great service in pointing out that the current political conjuncture in the us ‘is the unstated invitation to progressive action, our opportunity to do some good.’ As Rogers argues, liberalism is dying, the Right is aiming at the majority of us, and discontent is nearly universal. The question is how do we seize the opportunity. The current mainstream political paradigm of money, media, and meanness is not available to the Left. We have to do it the old-fashioned, grassroots way. This means organization and Rogers is correct when he says the American Left lacks organization. Not organizations. Indeed, the Left in the us is composed of innumerable organizations: ideological tendencies at war with one another; small projects dug in around specific issues; race and gender advocacy groups with important, but usually separate agendas; environmental organizations; and letterhead coalitions with few troops. Many of these groups are doing good things, necessary things; but together they are less than the sum of their parts.

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