Solidarity: A Meme Whose Time Has Come

11 Comments

1. 

   BrendaStewart on February 14, 2006 at 3:23 pm

   I am with you on this, Jim.  Really, Huston, we do have a problem!  It needs to be addressed as quickly as possible!  NOthing changes if we just sit here bitching.  I know my constraints but I do have a phone and PC and the US mail service.  I use them all!  The Dem. party has got to wake up or they will NEVER be anything ever again…They will soemday and very soon wake up and find they “really are” the minority!

2. 

   idredit on February 14, 2006 at 8:45 pm

   In the ‘Thoughts on Hackett’ diary, I posted a comment citing an article by Don Santina discussing Cindy Sheehan’s withdrawal to challenge Feinstein.

   He asked not only “What’s wrong with the Democratic Party” but he makes a distinction between the two camps; The Royals and The People camps.

   There are the “People Democrats” and then there are the “Royal Democrats” who are not that far removed from the old Jim Crow Democrats who became Republicans when the Democratic Party embraced civil rights legislation.

   Worth reading the full piece: It’s time for Democrats to stop whining and vote their conscience, resurface as Republicans or retire to corporate boards. A real oppostition must be mounted against the White House madness

   Scroll down to “DiFi and the Royal Democrats..The curious withdrawal of Cindy Sheehan”

   Shame on us for discouraging the new and energetic activists.

3. 

   sbj on February 14, 2006 at 8:49 pm

   I’m going to read all the info at the links you posted, but in the meantime I want to make an observation about a particular dynamic that has to do with solidarity that I think is essential to recognize if true solidarity is to materialize and be effective.

   Solidarity in it’s truest sense rerquires that we relinquish, or otherwise overrule the impulses for selfishness that so dominate our lifestyles and world views on so many levels.

   Learning to “do for others” without linking that doing to a demonstrable reward accruing to onesself is a formidable obstacle to functional solidarity in today’s world.

   • 

     poemless on February 14, 2006 at 11:33 pm

     That really is the sticking point.  Even those of us who like to think we are capable of that, who do “do for others,” would find it challenging.  Have you ever been to a Meetup or Party meeting?  Sometimes it’s impossible to get everyone to just agree on what to talk about.  

     To set aside our sense of self for a higher cause woudl require a major sea change in our psychology.  Individualism is so engrained in our culture.

     • 

       sbj on February 15, 2006 at 12:23 am

       To set aside our sense of self for a higher cause woudl require a major sea change in our psychology.  Individualism is so engrained in our culture.

       It’s not eve that we have toset our sense of self so much as we just need to delink our actions in life from the expectation of reward.

       Why do we help our neighbor? Because by doing good we’ll be more likely to have a better and more prosperous or happy life? Do we help our fellow man because doing so will increase our chances of going to heaven?

       Or do we help our neighbor simply because he needs help and we’re available?

       For me it doesn’t get any simpler than that. Eliminating the quid pro quo for “doing good” is an essential step on the way to brotherhood and solidarity, IMHO.

       • 

         James Benjamin on February 15, 2006 at 1:41 am

         I think you hit it right on the head.

         • 

           Whitey OFay on February 15, 2006 at 12:40 pm

           Solidarity is not selfless altruism.  If it was, then we wouldn’t even have a word for it, because there aren’t many saints.  I tell you right now you get nowhere if you go out preaching that people act with selfless altruism.  The truth is there is a huge human history of solidarity, because it IS self-interest.  Look at it like this:  when a businessman makes a decision that brings more profit in the long term than the next quarter’s bottom line, we call that “enlightened self-interest.”  Solidarity is  “enlightened self-interest” for working people–being “enlightened” isn’t just for the rich and comfortable!  The enlightened self-interest of solidarity is this:  an injury to one is an injury to all.  Because even if that injury isn’t your own this time, it could just as well be, and might be next time.  Martin Niemoller’s “First they came for…” is a story about a society without solidarity.  Remember how it ends.  Solidarity is self-interest.

         • 

           sbj on February 15, 2006 at 5:21 pm

           I don’t see anyone here advocating selfless altruism. Certainly helping one’s fellow man because one recognizes it’s a “good” thing to do, a beneficial thing to do, is admirable in and of itself. My point, however, was that if we expect that benefit, if we find ourselves limiting our willingness to help our fellow man based on whether we think we’ll get that reward for doing so, if we incorporate the rubric so many have that they resent it when they help someone and they don’t experiencea reward, that that sort of motivational quid pro quo calculus get’s in the way.

           If I came across Ann Coulter or Bill O’Reilly laying in the gutter in a drunken stupor I’d pick them up try to get them some help for their plight, even though I would have no expectation that my simple act might have an effect on improving their character or gettingthem to treat me well. If, on the other hand, couleter or O’Reilly asked me to help them publish or broadcast their sick rhetoric, I’d tell them to go fuck themselves.

           I understand yourpoint about self-interest, and perhaps I should have qualified my more basic philosophical remarks with the caveat that recognizing that a “rising tide lifts all boats”, that if we prosper or advance at the expense of our neighbor, to the detriment of our neighbor, that this is regression, not progress. That helping our neighbor rob or swindle his neighbor might be an expression of solidarity among crooks and conmen, but it is not the particular philosophy around which we here, in the spirit of this diary, are looking to explore.

           In any case, I am at a point where I no longer am motivated to help others by the expectation of reward. I might believe, in fact I do believe, that helping one’s neighbors does contribute to improving life on earth, but whether I experience any such reward for my belief or my helping others is not what motivates me. I will do what I think is best whether I “get” rewarded for it or not. And keep in mind that Niemoller’s words included everyone, every group he identified as  having been targeted. So Niemoller was recognizing that solidarity, by it’s very nature, is inclusive, not exclusive; and the wider your scope of inclusion the more powerful the solidarity.

4. 

   poemless on February 14, 2006 at 11:26 pm

   Today we had a BT diary on Class War, an ET diary on Class War, A Jerome a Paris piece accusing the FT of supporting Communisism (snarky), and now a call for Solidarnost.  

   Damn.

   Not sure what country or decade I’m living in but it looks like I might not have missed my chance to wave a red flag and march down the streets after all.  

   Ok, that was a joke.  Maybe.  But seriously, all the smug free-marketeers and neo-cons and conservatives thought the end of the Cold War meant they won the grand prize, game over.  And it was a game for them.  But it’s not a game for those of us trying to make a living, trying to access basic services, trying to maintain a decent quality of life, trying to defend basic rights, trying to create a civil, fair, healthy society and god forbid even an enlightened one.  

   I think they are counting on the spectre of Communism and a healthy dose of individual greed to keep us away from exploring solutions to the problems of inequality in this country.  

   But they’ve made it clear that spying, censoring, absence of fair elections, torture camps, propaganda and all those other bogey men aren’t just for Communism anymore.  And we’ve come to associate greed with people like Dick Cheney, so that that’s not sexy anymore.

   Maybe we can get somewhere now.

5. 

   rba on February 15, 2006 at 10:41 am

   Ok, you want to get it together?  Fine.  Here’s how the land lays:

   •  MoveOn, MovingIdeas, Media Matters, the 70 liberal blogs on your right,  as well as the Democratic, Progressive, and Labor Parties all compete for your time, effort, and money. [Liability]
   •  Each and every one of those orgs likely contain a minimum 50% shared membership.  Redundancy of effort on a massive scale. [Liability]
   •  One blog (not listed) is comprised of over 900 people whose prime purpose is to gather, collate, and report information in-depth on a wide variety of subject matter.  I call it the “library”, everyone else calls it ePluribus Media.  [Asset]
   •  PTV is a new online only network attempting to gather information through a variety of media – video, audio, blogs – which provides an alternative to the dread “MSM”.  [Questionable]
   •  ActBlue has built an incredible fund-raising mechanism for virtually anyone who has the bux to set up an account (liberally).  [Asset]
   •  People.  The most important element in generating a fully functioning network – on and offline – who are sympathetic to what we are calling “progressive” solutions.  [Asset]

   Tying all that together requires a great deal of time, but not that much costs if the construct is flat.  You’ll need an interactive map of the Country down to the County/Urban level, or in the alternative, precinct level.  Data layers will include every blog, org, contact, and elected office + candidate in those precincts, interconnected in a manner that allows information to flow horizontally. [the Database]

   So.  You are in a rural precinct in say, North Dakota.  You build your own blog-shell, and begin to survey and gather “assets” in your area.  “X” precincts in a region, “X” regions in a State, all States on the map.  You’re having a bake sale in downtown Minot in two weeks to support your local sheriff.  That is a “localcast” with limited distribution.  OTOH, you’re locally-supported candidate for the State leg needs help.  That’s a “Region-Alert”. [the HomeGrown Media]

   Carry the concept to the ’06 elections for Congress, and you move to PTV “webcasts”.  ActBlue is your fundraising mechanism, the rest of the programming is up to some smart-ass 26-year-old programmer with way too much time on their hands.  Easy money:  1) survey assets; 2) map assets; 3) build network. [National Exposure]

   Four:  get real.  As simple as that outline is in concept, execution is a b*tch, because one of the biggest liabilities is the fight to put it together – to weave that cloth out of whole people.  Yes, it can be done, and the last time I wrote that above outline a whole bunch of folk agreed.

   That was then, this is now, and the result will likely be the same:  don’t just do something, stand there.

6. 

   BostonJoe on February 15, 2006 at 5:16 pm

   Just wanted to thank you for posting this again.  I still have not had a chance to read each link.  But the idea is very enticing, just as you have explained it on prior occasions.