Evidence Of Things Unseen: The Rise of a New Movement

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Now, in response to the public protests and plain questions of grassroots Democrats, all the Democratic candidates are questioning the president on Iraq, his trade agreements and jobs. Think of them as opportunists if you will, but I think of them as a huge speakers' bureau carrying our questions and themes to millions of middle Americans.

Each of us may decide to back an individual candidate, and that can expand our movement. But let's not let ourselves be swallowed in any single campaign. When the candidates ask for our time and money, let's also ask them to join our movement around a new vision of what America can be.

As the global forums have insisted, "Another world is possible," words embraced by the French foreign minister when the US war was rebuffed at the UN. The vision of another world already is becoming manifest in local struggles:

• A reform of the global trade system with enforceable standards to protect sweatshop workers and rainforests, not simply investors in video cassettes and privatizers of water.
• The re-regulation of crony capitalism, from Enron abuses to public financing of elections.
• A shift from being the world's leading arms supplier to greater investment in the UN's anti-poverty programs. In JFK's time we spent one percent of our gross domestic product on fighting poverty; today it is 0.13 percent, little more than zero.
• Resisting the oil, chemical and utility conglomerates from Cheney's task force to the Bolivian pipelines, towards energy conservation and renewables.
• Promoting grassroots participatory democracy in decisions that affect people's lives, as a vital ingredient in governing.

George Bush can be defeated; even the polls confirm it. But who knows if the Democratic Party can defeat him? Who knows if we can bridge the differences between the Democrats, the Greens and Ralph Nader? Politics is a power struggle, not an exact reflection of public opinion. But the fear and loathing are out there, building, and with enough dedication in 2004 we can remove this cloud over our future.

We owe it to ourselves, to our progressive traditions, and perhaps most of all to the world, to prevent a second term for this president. The way to assure a democratic future politically is to prevent what the conservatives conceive as a Second Coming. So I ask your righteous suspicions about electoral politics, set aside your attachments to any single candidate, and see this as a powerful convergence of many campaigns to defeat George Bush. The whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

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