Everybody knows....
http://www.leonardcohen.com/...
that the Republicans currently in power are figureheads for big business and the small group of wealthy elite who benefit from government policy at the expense of everyone else.

With control over all branches of government, this wealthy elite is succeeding in ruthlessly wiping out 40 years of work done by progressive interest groups.

When I've asked fellow environmentalists and fellow animal rights activists about joining forces, the answer I usually get is that they do not want to lose focus and dilute their message. And so each battle is fought on its own against a powerful enemy that has control of all the levers of power.

Can progressive groups overcome this myopia, in order to work together to achieve one big common goal -- namely, a system of rules and laws and policies that are fair-minded, serve the general welfare and live up to our highest ideals?

* eve's diary :: ::
*

In spite of the expertise developed by each activist group, isolation has made each one an easy target to be ridiculed and discredited and falsely painted as a threat to the economic well-being of the rest of the country.

But progressives have a lot in common. For example, the cynical destruction of the family farm from the Reagan years forward in favor of industrial factory farms has been responsible for environmental degradation, labor rights abuses, animal cruelty, poor nutrition, etc, and threatens our long term viability and health. Yet we don't see environmentalists and labor rights organizations and animal rights activists and family farmers and city consumers joining together often enough to demand policy that saves the family farm and its benefits to our way of life.

OrangeClouds115 makes this point very effectively here:

http://www.dailykos.com/...

The second chapter of "Crashing the Gate", "This Ain't No Party" begins with Howard Dean's June 4, 2005 comment::

The Democratic Party for too long has been a group of constituencies instead of a party.

Markos and Jerome explain our dilemma:

The Democratic Party stands for everything, yet stands for nothing. It's a gaggle of special and narrow interests, often in conflict with each other, rarely working in concert to advance their common causes. Members of each issue group - environmentalists, pro-choice activists, civil libertarians, plaintiffs' attorneys, and so on - promote their agenda above all others and show little or no understanding of the larger progressive values they share with the other groups. And so the whole is never greater than the sum of its parts.

Markos and Jerome point out that with Democrats out of power, even well funded and publicly supported progressive groups are losing ground because the old strategies aren't working.

Yet all of us want the same thing, policies that are fair-minded. Instead we get no-bid contracts, unnecessary wars, incompetence, violations of constitutional rights, unsafe food, dirty air and water, abuse of workers and animals. Short term profits for the favored few trump everything else. We have, as Wes Clark has said, CEO run government instead of a level playing field of regulation for business and workers.

When Exxon hires scientific shills to raise doubts about global warming to discredit environmentalists reinforced by swiftboaters in the press, we've been unable to draw on solidarity from sister progressives to counter the campaign of ridicule and intimidation highlighted by demeaning names like "treehuggers", marginalizing our message. We are like a disfunctional family.

. Bush/Cheney are just symptoms of the disease http://www.dailykos.com/...

Although their mean spirited violence and incompetence, their strategic blunder in Iraq and their failure to help the people of the Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina have shone a light on their priorities.

When Democrats were in power, progressive groups could ignore the big picture. Not any more.

I hope progressives figure out a way to work together.

Given the sorry state of affairs, most of us are pretty discouraged.

But given how desperate things have become, we actually have a new potent ally that people here seem hopeful about but traditional a-political progressive interest groups may be failing to recognize.

Several retired military officers, sick at heart over Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld's misguided unnecessary, brutal war, have been speaking out and making the personal sacrifice to run for office in defiance of what they understand better than anyone as a foreign policy intended to serve a small financially powerful elite while our soldiers, Iraqi people and American taxpayers carry the burden and pay the price.

IMO, progressive and enlightened military leaders, like Wes Clark http://securingamerica.com/ and Jim Webb http://www.webbforsenate.com/ are now our best hope to help turn this country around, if progressives groups will start trusting not only each other but these bright, enlightened retired military officers, too. Many here on dailykos feel that the fighting Dems have the heart, commitment and good will to do what's right. The fighting Dems also offer us their personal courage and fine strategic thinking when it seems that some of our elected Dems have failed there.

How do progressive groups establish trust and working relationships to fight a common enemy?

There are some glimmers of hope. For example, the Union of Concerned Scientists takes a more holistic view of what's going on.

http://www.ucsusa.org/

And just this year, The Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Production

http://www.jhsph.edu/...

was formed to conduct a comprehensive, fact-based and balanced examination of key aspects of the farm animal industry. Commissioners represent diverse backgrounds and perspectives. They come from the fields of veterinary medicine, animal science, economics, agriculture, public health, business, government, and animal welfare.

For the next two years (beginning 2006), the Commission, in consultation with other national experts, will conduct an assessment of the impact of the industry on the public's health, the environment, farm communities, and animal health. The Commission will conduct hearings in various parts of the country and will produce specialized interim reports to help inform the Commissioners and the public. Finally, it will issue a comprehensive report of its findings, including practical recommendation that will made available for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and the general public.

http://www.ncifap.org/

That's good news. It's an important test to see whether experts from diverse groups can effectively work together on something that's dear to the hearts of people who care about our health, our environment, family farmers, farm laborers, fair animal treatment, and sustainability.

And there are business leaders like John Mackey of Whole Foods who built Whole Foods on the idea of health, environmental sustainability, family farming, fair worker standards, fair treatment of animals. http://www.grist.org/...

http://alevin.com/...

http://www.animalcompassionfoundation.org/

It seems self-evident that even if progressive groups were not under attack, we would be well-served to consider a more holistic approach.

A perfect opportunity for progressives to work together is the case of the regressive Smithfield, Inc. that Lowkell has written about here:

http://www.raisingkaine.com/...

and here:

http://www.raisingkaine.com/...

Smithfield management should be held accountable to the community for these abuses.

The activists groups that could work together on Smithfield are

fair immigration activists

labor rights activists

civil rights activists

animal rights activists

healthy food activists

family farmers activists

organic food activists

etc

All progressive Democratic interest groups have been beseiged by the same corrupt dysfunctional system. Recently, an attempt has been made to marginalize scientists and educators with efforts to diminish and discredit hundreds of years of scientific study to promote some faith based alternatives in order to serve the corrupt system we have. This cannot stand.

Each specialized group understands from their particular perspective how the elites use our government and our tax dollars for their benefit.

It's clear that short term corporate goals are no way to run government policy. Progressive activists must find ways to work together on what is our common problem. And that includes working to elect and educate progressive candidates who understand this common problem and will stand up and fight to overcome it with good sense and good will.

The real goal of the people who run the oligopolies has been to socialize the costs and risks of doing business and privatize the profits.

I propose that our only chance to reverse course before the public treasury is depleted and we have become for all practical purposes a third world country of haves and have-nots is that we find a way for people of good will to trust one another in order to unite against a common adversary.

cross-posted from dailykos.com
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/31/232333/078