Two stories up on on www.democraticfaith.com make perfectly clear what many have suspected all along. The Obama team has been playing a double game on immigration reform and successfully held reform "leaders" in check with White House meetings, explicit pleadings and strategic hirings.
But none of this heady stuff gets to the root of satisfactory explanation. The docility of reform "leaders" in large measure is a function of dollar flows to the organizations they represent. Forget the White House pampering. Focus on "progressive" foundations and their inter connects. These funder entities, though constrained by their tax exempt status, overwhelming break Democratic. As a consequence - wink, wink - their immigration reform grantees do the same. Falling into line comes with the financial territory where they co-habitate.
Are there exceptions? Of course. NDLON is one of them. So guess who wasn't invited to the recent CIR summit at the White House? You got it. The National Day Labor Organizing Network. Another seems to be Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO who appeared anything but bamboozled by the White House pitch.
There's way more to this story than anyone has publicly pieced together. Plus it's not close to over. President Obama is in a box of his own (and foundation land's) construction. Lets see what happens when Congress vacates DC for the summer with the ball entirely in Team Obama's court.
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Some years back Charles Koch parlayed a mid sized oil service and engineering firm founded by his father into a multi national conglomerate. In the process he became the sixth wealthiest individual in the world. Among other things his firm manufactures Dixie Cups, a product he didn't invent but had the acumen to acquire, and the chemical stew patented as "Stainmaster", a mix he didn't invent but also astutely acquired.
By virtue of his spectacular wealth Mr. Koch is now entitled to a Pharonic Pulpit to accompany the more run of the mill foundation establishing, lobbying and influence peddling that flows from possession of mega green. The Wall Street Journal has confirmed his standing. Mr. Koch is for liberty and he thinks you should be too. About ten years ago, badgered by EPA and OSHA governmental nobodies to clean up his industrial act, Mr. Koch decided to up his political visibility and download hordes of cash on sympatico candidates. Now he's into politics big time, trading barbs with Senator Harry Reid who, unlike many politicos, doesn't think being unimaginatively rich always requires genuflection. Mr. Koch is an admirer of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises - the Austrian School of Economics and all that. He says they helped him understand who he was as a person and a business man. Forget Freud. Embrace the Austrian economists and you'll be better for it. Guess who's a burr under Mr. Koch's Pharonic saddle? None other than Saul David Alinsky. Here's how he goes at him while opining in the aforementioned Journal. Says Koch: "Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination. (I should know, as the almost daily target of their attacks.) This is the approach that Arthur Schopenhauer described in the 19th century, that Saul Alinsky famously advocated in the 20th and that so many despots have infamously practiced. Such tactics are the antithesis of what is required for a free society—and a telltale sign that the collectivists do not have good answers." Schopenhauer, Alinsky and the despots. Pity the poor victim of infamous practices. BTW, Mr. Koch, Saul Alinsky never advocated character assassination and he certainly wasn't a "collectivist".
This Friday past, President Barack Obama invited to the White House a carefully selected group of 17 “national leaders” identified as immigration reform activists to deliver a two-part message: I’m deeply moved by the conditions of families ripped apart by my detention/deportation policies and I can’t do much about it but I’ll see.
The activist leadership, with the tight lipped exception of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, declared the meeting a victory of sorts for having happened (see what our pressure delivered?) while ushering in a three month period of watchful waiting as the congressional session expires. We told him “act now!”, one of the plucky leaders said, while agreeing to the extended period of lip biting. Conspicuously absent from the two hour event were the more obstreperous reform advocates like the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) whose media work might have helped trigger the meeting in the first place. Part of the White House orchestration called for the reform "leaders" to pretend to buy the administration’s claim that three months from now congressional politics might be clearer. Sure. How much clearer than DOA in the House of Representatives can it get? But three months from now things will be much different in one regard: Thousands more immigrants will be detained and deported and thousands more families broken up as a consequence of presidential inaction as reform “leaders” stand by waiting watchfully which presumably means counting the mounting casualties as the days go by. Five years ago when Janet Napolitano and her team reviewed border and immigration policy she performed the very review President Obama is seeking from his new man, Jeh Johnson. At that time, President Obama, a constitutional lawyer himself, was informed of exactly what he could do with his newly acquired executive powers and how he could do it. Back then Napolitano, whip smart and steeped in immigration policy intricacies, was staffed by the brilliant immigration attorney Roxie Bacon who delivered the policy goods on demand to her boss and uber boss, the President himself. Back then, of course, with political capital to burn President Obama’s approval rating hovered around 70%. Now, five years and a trail of broken promises later, not to mention a short seven months from a national election in which the entire House and 1/3 of the Senate will be elected, assurances that decisive action will occur based on another review by newbie Jeh Johnson fuse with magical thinking. President Obama has stated over and over that his hands are legally tied on the detention/deportation issue. His unqualified, repeated assertions in this regard, a box entirely of his own making, nonetheless are in fact what the President has declared to be factually true. Even a cautious, ameliorative move to curtail detention/deportation abuses will be met with howls of liar, liar pants on fire from multiple quarters. I am not referring only to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. The sad part of all this is that the “activist leaders” President Obama was corralling and seeking to horse whisper, carry little water where it counts. Mostly DC based, mostly foundation funded professional spokespeople, their organizations have little reach into competitive districts where the howling is most likely to bite deep and certain. President Obama is in a box that would freak out Houdini himself.
Rush Limbaugh said something that sidled up to the truth the other day. "At no time has the divide between Washington, DC and the rest of the country been greater." Of course the hypothesis is impossible to substantiate but who cares. He's as close to right on this as he is likely to be on anything else. And his view comes closer to unanimity among the populace than the muddled messaging of either party. The canyon between the DC world and the rest of us truly is muy grande.
From where I sit in Oracle, Arizona at 5,000 feet on the backside of the Santa Catalina Mountains, the Presidency of Barack Obama recedes further from sight by the day. Nothing on gun violence, nothing on immigration reform, nothing on tax reform. Ambergris anyone?
According to a Politico article by Kenneth Vogel and Maggie Habberman yet another Obama guy is reaching into the financial honey pot to extract gobs of financial goodies. By now no one should surprised by the crassness of this sort of transition including the creepy exploitation of “organizing” language for its polar opposite – top down messaging.
Viewed through the lens of broad based community organizing the Obama political enterprise has advanced the cause of democratic practice not at all. In fact the utilitarian bias present in his youthful decision to leave after a brief fling with organizing work in Chicago blossomed inside of a mechanized political apparatus embodied by men like Jim Messina. Sadly from my point of view, the man once attacked by his political enemies as the Community Organizer in Chief has turned his back on precisely the kind of local inquiry, debate, discussion, and action that lies at the heart of the broad based community organizing enterprise. As a result there has been a cascade of negative consequences including a severed relationship with ordinary people, a gaping power vacuum into which the early Tea Party stepped and a deepening divide between Washington, DC politics and everybody else. It could have turned out differently. Maybe it still could. Imagine what real attention at the highest levels of government to grassroots interests, innovations and accomplishments might achieve.
News from the comprehensive immigration reform front isn’t good. In fact, it’s downright ugly if Capitol Hill is the front and winning federal reform now is the objective. When the curtain drops on the tawdry drama of the 2014 congressional session it’s high probable CIR will put a big fat zero on the legislative scoreboard despite the optimism engendered by the appointments of Hill staffers Tallent and Olavarria. Reformers will be fortunate if they don’t go backward with some double down on an enforcement strategy that is as expensive as it is futile.
If the annual congressional failure is in fact consummated, no doubt there will be calls for a changing of the guard in foundation funded immigration reform leadership. Already Politico reports on a split between wings of the movement with those staying the course behind President Obama (and prized White House meetings) on the one hand and those like the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and Bishop Minerva Carcano calling for an executive order to end the detention/deportation savagery on the other. So far, it turns out that getting quoted in the New York Times and Politico hasn’t made a hell of a lot of difference either way. Out with the leader losers will likely be the cry. Get some people in there who know how to organize. Obviously the mega messaging, bizillion emailing, Twitter emitting reform pontificate has botched the job. Maybe they had it planned this way all along to save their issue and preserve their jobs in perpetuity or at least as long as the patience of their patrons holds out. Maybe it was all just sound and fury designed to bolster Democratic politicians. Baloney! The real problem lies with the kind of organizing happening at the grass roots. Mostly it’s short on patient, careful power analysis, constituency building, and targeted action. Still, opportunity knocks. The slow death of reform in 2014 could prove a wake up call for course correction in 2015 and beyond. Going deep and going local is where the issue ultimately will be moved. That will give the DC based single-issue mavens something with which to bang the reform drum harder and tougher. In fact, the inside the beltway reformers have performed about as well as could be expected. Occasionally even venturing out into the real world inhabited by desperate immigrant families, struggling businesses and immigrant integrating states. If the big money behind immigration reform – old line foundations, newbie high tech firms and a few mega rich individuals – decide to invest in deep local organizing, within a year the political calculus would swing sharply in the direction of reformers and real comprehensive reform would get done.
Raising the minimum wage paid to workers employed by future federal contractors builds on a living wage initiative first launched by a broad based IAF organization in Baltimore, Maryland – BUILD – in 1994. Since that ground breaking public action hundreds of political subdivisions have followed suit.
Now, President Obama has turned to the IAF playbook for a centerpiece action in his State of the Union speech delivered two days ago. Going forward, by his executive order, federal contractors will pay their workers a minimum of $10.10 per hour. It’s a step in the right direction but a very small step unless linked to other inventive local initiatives advanced in conjunction with the living wage. The Obama team would be well advised to explore places where this broader, more complex agenda has been initiated because it has implications for growing local economies and attacking inequality in concrete ways. In this regard the Obama administration has failed and will continue to fail until it looks in the right places for inspiration, strategic thinking, and road tested action. The sad truth is that once elected Barack Obama turned his back on the very community organizing tradition that for a few years played an important role in his life journey. He lost touch with its vital center of innovation and impact. Now, in the twilight of his presidency, he has a fresh opportunity to mine a tradition that has delivered remarkable outcomes across a broad front of concerns voiced by poor and middle class alike.
Reading Gathering Power by MIT Professor Paul Ostermann is a good place to start his re-education in modern, broad based organizing and the strategic opportunities it breaks open. Valley Interfaith, an IAF organization in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, embodies precisely the grassroots driven, community tested, multi-issue change that the Obama administration so desperately needs to explore right now. In the story of Valley Interfaith he will find living wage ordinances coupled with labor market intermediaries, building and strengthening worker’s associations, immigrant integration, school reform, child development and large scale infrastructure investments that have made life better for tens of thousands of families.
It’s late in the game for President Obama to awaken to the creative opportunities advanced by a tradition he once briefly practiced. But it’s not too late. His legacy may well depend on it.
Organizers generally have a hard time explaining to outsiders what they do. Running the gamut from the glib “I’m a trouble maker”, to the dated “I’m like a union organizer but in the community”, to the quaint “I’m a community organizer”, to the inoffensive “I train leaders how to build organizations”, to the ingratiating “I work for a foundation”, the answers are generally unsatisfying to the inquiring audience.
If that’s a problem, what about how to name the new creations organizers organize? Community organizations or CO’s? No. Most ventures are now larger in scale. Broad based organizations or BBO’s? Sounds dangerously odiferous. Citizens organizations? Most now include the undocumented. How about IBCO’s (Institution Based Community Organizations)? Is that an abbreviation for chemicals in the West Virginia water supply? I prefer Broad Based Community Organizations but BBCO’s doesn’t beat IBCO’s or BBO’s by more than a nose if at all. For the moment I’ll use IBCO’s because that’s what the only national studies of what the authors call "the field" use. IBCO’s are a growing phenomenon by any measure. In 2012 Richard Wood and Brad Fulton place their numbers at about two hundred. Their numbers like their moniker don't matter much. What does matter is what they have done, do now and may do in the future. Given their growth, geographic expansion and potential impact, that’s a question worth exploring. Most philanthropists share two qualities. They hold fast to the belief they’re doing something important with their money. They find exquisite joy in the experience of being pandered to. Put them together and you have money and power writ small in all its vainglory. Lesser beings, those who actually invent, agitate, initiate must learn the fine art of pandering if any philanthropic dollars are to flow their way. For starters, the monied – old monied Carnegie and Rockefeller types or new monied Buffett and Gates types - deep down share the same expectation. Kiss my butt if you want what we’ve got. Subtle or blatant, quixotic or bureaucratic, that’s where the action is. We rich, or more likely an intermediary of we rich, know better. More important we are better so butt kissing in actuality is mere recognition of a truth. The only way to get around this entirely is to raise dollars through alternative means – hard work for hard money. I suspect more organizers leave the field because of this degree of difficulty than for any other reason. It makes a person tough minded but it can frustrate and wear down the spirit. Paradoxically solving the money problem for an organizer doesn’t do him or her any favors. Concentrating money at the top of networks of organizations turns everyone into a hired hand. Relying on hard money guarantees survival, ownership and self-respect. But it radically decelerates parts of the organizing business that are exceptionally difficult to scale up without outside, soft money resources. To name just two:
The money problem confronts organizers and leaders with hard trades, conflicting aspirations and persistent dilemmas.
Foundationland and all the pandering and program altering bs that gets piled up there is only the tip of the funding iceberg. It’s a given that nothing approaching the truth ever happens in this territory.
These days more important is the newly minted money elites coupled with rich heirs whose wealth has been compounding for years into a gigantic bolus. Whether from gaming, technology, pornography, extraction, entertainment, finance, health care – it doesn’t matter. Here lies the ground of the new philanthropy that is an iteration of the old philanthropy in a new key. Relative to his times, lucky smart ruthless Bill Gates parallels lucky smart ruthless John D Rockefeller. Rockefeller rode the engine of oil to the financial stratosphere. Gates rode the engine of software engineering to the same place. Both believed their ventures were gifts to humanity and both believed business practices they embraced if duly replicated in philanthropic enterprise would make the world a still better place. Both fought hard to create monopolies, or failing that, cartels in their commercial activities. Both fought hard to advance monopolistic dynamics in their philanthropic activities. Both succeeded by purloining the best work of others. Both self-presented as self made and were acclaimed as such by an adoring media. Both dismissed the importance of fostering democratic practices in their philanthropic offspring. Both held unions in contempt. Both did everything in their power to kill off any worker sentiment flowing in the direction of organized political power. |
Frank C. Pierson, Jr.Frank Pierson retired after forty years of work with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) as a professional organizer. He began his career in 1971 in Chicago, moved to Queens, New York City and migrated west to work in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. He resides with his wife, Mary Ellen Kazda, in Oracle, Arizona. He may be reached at alinskynow@gmail.com Archives
June 2018
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