Kline's critical essay is excellent but long so I'll quote selectively:
"At best, progressives seek to convert.... Thus, they don't frame what they engage in as a fight but rather as a debate."
"It is difficult to think of a major progressive policy which commands less than a plurality. This situation is one reason for the lazy reliance upon electioneering by progressives, they know that their issues are popular, in principle at least. Rather childishly, they just want a show of hands then, as if that is what goes on really in elections."
"One could say unflatteringly that the goal of 'progressives' in activism is to raise their personal karma by standing up for what is right."
And here's how Kline sums it up, how radical leftists like moi can win:
"Money is not the main problem; feet on the ground moving forward are the real problem. A discrete agenda pursued full-time by experienced organizers is the solution. Less talk, and more walk. Progressives have successfully stamped Big Capital as 'anti-us' historically, and they need to return to this. Those active for social reform have to forget about the electoral cycle. They have to forget about what the lunatic Right is doing as much as possible and concentrate on what they themselves are in process of accomplishing. They need a compact reform agenda (yes, bullet points and not more than ten of them). They need a defined activist strategy, no matter how large the difficulties or time horizon appear. They need to build genuinely activist organizations with specific plans to achieve a core set of goals. And they have to reclaim militancy as a word, and deed, of pride. If they do those things, they will make real progress, and moreover they will be ready when the moment comes for breakthrough amongst the wider society."
On third thought, this is a stinging rebuke to me and basically everybody who spends most of their spare time & energy blogging, posting, linking, and writing stuff to support their liberal-progressive causes. Because basically, Kline is saying (while writing/blogging, OK I get the irony here), that preaching to the choir won't cut it, that nothing was ever won politically by persuasion but only by pounding electorally those folks who hate your guts. 'Nords, it doesn't matter what Americans think, it matters how their politicians vote. Point taken. Blog on!....
By Richard Kline
September 11, 2011 | Naked Capitalism
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