Dan Carol

Justice or Jobs: Can We Fight Together And Fight For Both?

Ok, last in my little guest blog mini-series on three challenges that progressives face post-Katrina. Hopefully tomorrow we are looking at high-fives with justice served and Rove indictments...

So on to challenge number three -- the one that I DON'T have a ready answer for:

While I am confident in the end that progressives will develop a unified approach on how to fix Bush's mess in Iraq, I worry that we are split right now between calls for justice in the wake of Katrina and calls for jobs and economic opportunity. We are also split emotionally between justifiable ANGER and an absence of HOPE. (In case you didn't follow it, what went down last weekend at The Millions More March is big stuff. Russell Simmons, the Progressive Baptist National Convention, Harry Belafonte, the NAACP and Louis Farrakhan are all really-really ticked off and The Gathering will grow, which is good)

How can we bridge these two calls for action? Will the change come from the faith community as it did in the civil rights movement or instead by sharply and creatively "framing" the issues with modern marketing whizzes to reach folks in the muddled demographic middle? Can we do all this and still be together?

On this challenge, I am sorry to say that I don't have a ready answer.

Frankly, I myself wonder if you can actually create "outrage" that drives deeper social action in a post-Abu Ghraib America where Don Rumsfeld is still on the job. That appears to be substantial momentum heading in this direction. Can we create new forms of social unrest and new Rosa Parks "moments" over issues like black and brown incarceration that will bring more citizens to the political table? Can we even do that well enough to justify more poverty spending beyond some money moving to New Orleans? Can we even stop back-door social service cuts from Republicans to undermine even that social consensus?

I have my doubts - I do -- and tend to support ideas like using energy independence themes and national security arguments to deliver tangible green manufacturing tech jobs to cities and under-invested areas where brownfields renewal is now the only inadequate salve we now offer.

Yes that is indirect and doesn't speak to African-American anger. Worse, it's all a bit wonky. But I see more hope in demanding justice as we demand investment to make jobs.

But as the song goes, while I may think I am pretty fly for a white guy, I am still just that. And I may be really-really wrong and want to learn more.

So on this third challenge, I am all ears. In the meantime, I have signed in at www.colorofchange.org and www.katrinaaction.org.

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Posted at 2:55 PM, Oct 20, 2005 in Progressive Agenda
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