Fighting Bush II

by Mike Liu
11/9/04

Bush is President for another four years. The once and future administration has announced that they intend to pursue a hard right agenda by “spending his capital,” as Bush put it in his first press conference after the election.

The Democrats have shown the pathos of wavering “liberalism,” incapable of standing up for any real principles (can you say, “funding for social services” or “separation of church and state?”
Progressives invested much on Kerry, giving of principles, donations, and energy. It was all for the illusion of bourgeois democracy.

What should those working for social justice do under current conditions?

What is to be done?
We should continue to build the popular movement against the right. We should continue to organize, of course, and build a pole of opposition to the right wing. A visible opposition to the right will encourage and rally greater opposition to it.

We should actively build alliances among Asian progressives and between progressives in different communities and different classes. We will need all our strength to fight the right in the next period. Rally the progressive religious community too against fundamentalist born-again bible-thumpers, showing that there is a less reactionary path to faith.

Within this broad alliance, we should pay particular attention to building the strategic core of the progressive people of color and progressive sector of the labor movement. The latter means that part of the labor movement working with low-income, immigrant, and people of color constituencies. Among the strategic core, we must continuously work to define a clearer direction.

We will need to put more energy on building independent structures for social justice. The dependence on tax-exempt, nonprofit as the basis of organizing is over. Resources will have to be drawn from activists and our communities. The Bush administration, beset by the deficit, war, and their ideological bias, will dry up funding for social service programs. More of such funding will be directed toward religious organizations that are part of the Republican right-wing apparatus. We should pay particular attention to independent media and means of consciousness raising.

Declare class war against the rich and against corporations, especially those that supported the right including Dunkin’ Donuts, Koch Industries, Krispy Kreme, Coors, Fox and other Murdoch media companies. We should organize consumer boycotts and corporate campaigns to limit funding for the right. Demand taxes on the rich to pay for health, education, and social services.