The Ocean Park Column

Earlier this week, on Democracy Now, host Amy Goodman reported that Michael Moore met Noam Chomsky for the first time at the 25th Anniversary Benefit for FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

I have a problem with that.

That Moore is meeting Chomsky for the first time is symptamtic of a problem of the US left. It tells us that the prime movers of the left in the United States are not part of an organized movement, not part of a new party, not part of a left that is working to form a movement for change.

Moore has made dramatic, humorous, and effective films critiquing the US capitalist system. Chomsky is one of the best, most scholarly and precise diagnosticians of the contradictions of US and European imperialism over the past century.

Yet, the logic of organization used by these powerful voices is weak, even non-existant. Along with others, such as Ariana Huffington, who named a newspaper site after herself that recently was valued at over $300 million, Greg Palast, who sells his books laden with brilliant acerbic investigative journalism, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West whose new alliance tells it like it is, and many others, the American Left is a balkanized sea of individuals and activists. The people who should be the leaders or working with the leaders of an organized left are, instead, each preaching from their own pulpits, earning a living, sometimes a lucrative one, yet not working in any unified way to form a movement.

Is it unrealistic to expect these pundits and analysts to somehow self-organize and be part of forming a movement? Perhaps. But, at least, they could each be pointing out that, effectively, we have no organized left in the United States. As de facto leaders, to whom audiences and fans flock, these speakers could do more than appear on CNN (in the case of Ariana) or go on yet another book tour at Universities or be heard on Pacific Radio preaching to the already-convinced. They could put each other into their address books and get together with other political organizers, including Latino and Black organizers, and could be part of an organized movement.

The Arab Awakening has shown that, initially, a spontaneous leaderless (or so it may seem) movement for change can indeed self-organize. That is a wonderful new phenomenon aided by modern communication tools. Does that apply to the US? In fact, will a leaderless movement even work in the Arab world, ultimately? Of course not. A next phase is necessary both in the Arab world and among the US left.

The US and Europe protect the revolt in Libya but do not protect the revolt in Bahrain as Saudi troops invade.

The US, France, Great Britain, and the UN Security Council vote to enforce a no fly zone and to protect the Libyan people by whatever means are necessary.

What about the Bahrain? President Obama and the UN do not protest the Saudi invasion of Bahrain. So what’s going on here?

The Arab zeitgeist imbued with the ideal of democracy is a leaderless unstoppable force that is willing change in the Middle East. The road to change will be long, not short. It will contradict the forces of capitalism that have kept down the Arab people and caters to the rule of ownership of resources by the few.

The US invaded the Philippines almost 100 years ago and has since supported almost every dictator on the planet who helps protect US resources from Marcos to Suharto to Somoza to the Saudi Kings. As in Guatemala in the 1950s where half of the farm land was owned by Chiquita Banana (then United Fruit Company) and 100,000 Mayans were slaughtered by the US-supported dictatorship. The cases are many. They have nothing to do with the so-called cold war or iron curtain or fight against communism. They have to do with the preservation of power, US power in these cases. Anyway, the old excuses are all gone now. The new excuse is to battle terrorism, but the new Arab movements are neither terrorist nor fundamentalist.

The US and Europe are caught in a contradiction. On the one hand, they say they
support democracy. Yet they support dictators and kings and the plutocracy at home and abroad that consists of a small percentage of the population that owns most of the wealth and has most of the power.

Will that change? A better question is, can that change?

Capitalism does not equal democracy, a lesson the idealists in the Arab world will come to learn after the dust settles.

Still, the ideal of democracy is a good one, in spite of capitalist forces that oppose it. So that movement towards democracy will continue. It is what is happening in the Arab world, helped by the internet and mass communication that dictators can no longer censor.

I cannot agree with Hugo Chavez this time. I don’t believe Gaddafi is a good guy or would honor a cease fire. So another contradiction here is for those on the left in the US who are pacifists. No intervention means de facto support for Gaddafi. That does not make the situation in Libya any less of a mess. It is a mess and no one knows what the outcome will be.

The emerging forces among the rebels in Libya will follow the logic of capital. Power will accrue to those who own and not so much to those who work. Immigrant labor, Tunisian and Egyptian, will continue to be the norm. Will that new arrangement permit Libya to have a democracy? If it permits more democracy than before, it’s a start. It is change that will continue to be rebuffed by autocratic capitalism. But it is change for the better.

What about the United States? Can the left in the US learn from the Arab movement for change?

The movement in Wisconsin was also a spontaneous uprising with no clearly defined leadership. No amount of opinion by Ariana Huffington, who named a newspaper after herself, or speeches by Michael Moore, who has a wonderful Web site, however well intentioned, will provide leadership for the left in the US.

The Arab World will find leaders and a platform and form new parties with the goal of creating socialist democracies where the interests of working people becomes the goal for society. May the US left follow that lead.

Very brave people in Libya are fighting in Zawiya to free themselves from the corrupt dictator Ghadahfi and his cronies. The battle is raging as I write.

The people fighting for democracy may not win. They may lose. But things have changed. The zeitgeist is now imbued with the ideal of democracy. It’s just an ideal, without an organized leadership or ideology. Partly that’s good because, among other things, it is not a fundamentalist religious movement. It is an uprising by millions of people who have reached a tipping point. They see the world on the Internet, they see the conditions in their own country. They want change now. It’s not perfect and never will be but it is good change.

If this battle is lost, the war will continue. This change is inevitable, however long it takes.

Saudi Arabia, you’re in line.

Does the power structure in the United States want this? After having supported so many dictatorships in the world for so many decades? Well, it’s time for some change here too.

The working people of the United States, including “illegal” people, are also witnessing the events. Labor, what should be a revered and cherished aspect of our society, can savor this change being lead by the Arab world and other places like Bolivia, whose president is a Llama herder.