From In These Times: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/14186/jobs_justice_and_the_planet/
During Obama’s second term, the Left cannot passively await changes from the Democratic Party.
BY Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Thursday, 22 November 2012
In 2008, liberals, progressives and many leftists made a strategic mistake. With the election of Barack Obama, we assumed that we could passively await change. We should have known better, given the experience of eight years of the Clinton administration. Rather than moving quickly to push the new Obama administration in a progressive direction, by the spring of 2009, the Left had ceded initiative on both domestic and foreign policy to the Right. With the 2012 election behind us, progressive forces should act quickly so as not to repeat our costly mistake of the first term. We must:
- Prepare to take mass action as we head toward the so-called fiscal cliff. Forces within organized labor, among others, are already preparing to pressure Congress and the White House to reject reactionary cuts. What I am suggesting goes further. We need to begin organizing marches for jobs and housing in early 2013 in every state capital. These demonstrations must demand that people be put to work and that housing be made available for those who need it.
- Demand economic and social justice. Though Obama campaigned in 2008 on behalf of workers, once in office he became far too cautious in speaking out for full economic justice, retreating into the realm of the corporate liberal. Too often, labor unions and others let him off the hook. We must make the expansion of workers’ right to organize part of the national debate. And we must build a state by state movement to implement constitutional changes that expand workers’ rights.
Complete article at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/14186/jobs_justice_and_the_planet/
