Progressive good tidings of 2007
Along
with political challenges, the past year offered some hopeful
advances — many of which came just in last few weeks.
By
Mark Engler Read Spanish Version
Understanding
what is wrong in our society; speaking out against injustice;
denouncing abuses by the powerful. All of these are crucial tasks.
Many of us devote a large part of the year to them, and they are
certainly necessary if we are to create a better world.
At the
same time, it is highly doubtful that these acts are sufficient.
Creating positive social change takes more. It takes the knowledge
that people can organize to win justice and an awareness that, even
in inhospitable times, some things can go right. The holiday season
provides an important moment to reflect on a few of those advances
that offered hope in 2007 –many of which came about just in the past
few weeks.
In early December the 16 U.S. intelligence
agencies, including the CIA and the NSA, released a new National
Intelligence Estimate on Iran. The document may have single-handedly
undermined the White House’s push to start yet another war in the
Middle East. The report declared that Iran dropped its clandestine
nuclear weapons program in 2003 and has not renewed it since. The NIE
has greatly strengthened the hand of those in Washington-including
many high-ranking military officials-who believe that a preemptive
attack on Iran would be both unnecessary and disastrous. The NIE also
solidified public opinion against military escalation and spawned a
wide range of commentary denouncing the most recent round of
Bush-Cheney war-mongering. The
Washington Post,
for one, editorialized that the report "strengthens the view,
which we have previously endorsed, that this administration should
not have to resort to military action to destroy Iranian nuclear
facilities."
Of course, efforts to stop a new war must
continue. The NIE notwithstanding, U.S. relations with Iran remain
tense, and the neoconservatives have recently been trying to regroup
and articulate reasons why an attack would still be warranted. But
their opponents can proceed from a much better position than before.
So distraught are the far-right militarists that some have resorted
to conspiracy theory: Neocon godfather and Giuliani advisor Norman
Podhoretz recently voiced "dark suspicions" that the
intelligence community was "leaking information calculated to
undermine" President Bush.
Beyond Iran, 2007 witnessed a
number of other critical shifts in policy debate. Whereas just a few
years ago many public officials denied that global warming was even
taking place, climate change is now almost universally regarded as
one of humanity’s gravest challenges. The Nobel Committee trained a
spotlight on this idea by awarding the Peace Prize to Al Gore and the
UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Upon formally
receiving the award on December 10, Gore passionately decried global
warming as a "threat to the survival of our civilization that is
gathering ominous and destructive potential." Just a week later,
at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, he went
further by explicitly charging that "My own country, the United
States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress" on
climate policy–an unusually blunt acknowledgement which the
conference attendees applauded energetically.
In their most
serious drive in at least a decade to address this crisis and end
U.S. dependency on foreign oil, Democrats have pushed a promising
energy bill in Congress. The bill, which passed through the House on
December 6, included what the
New York Times
calls "the first meaningful increase in fuel efficiency
standards in three decades," mandating that auto makers move
from a standard of 25 miles per gallon (mpg) to 35 mpg by 2020. Due
to a shameful filibuster by Senate Republicans and a threatened veto
from the White House, two provisions from the original bill were
removed from later versions: one would have required that at least 15
percent of the country’s electricity come from renewable alternative
energy sources by 2020, while the other would have paid for this
initiative by eliminating tax subsidies for oil companies. Despite
these changes, the legislation marks a significant defeat for the big
oil corporations and for the auto lobby. The rising public demand for
action on clean energy suggests that this may be the first of many.
In
another overdue but nevertheless important move, Congress passed a
bill in May mandating a graduated increase in the federal minimum
wage, raising it from $5.15 to $7.25 [per hour] — the first increase
in 10 years. There were also some victories for working people on the
grassroots level this year. In April, building on their 2005 victory
against Taco Bell, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers won a campaign
calling for McDonalds to demand that tomato growers it buys from
increase wages for their farm workers. This increase will almost
double wages for the workers, raising their pay from 40 cents to 72
cents per bucket of tomatoes picked. The agreement will also create a
new code of conduct for labor relations and safeguard workers’ rights
in future disputes. With their series of wins the Coalition of
Immokalee Workers — made up of immigrant laborers who are
traditionally among the most exploited in America — have provided
some brilliant examples of the power of collective action.
There
has also been a notable shift this year in the debate over the death
penalty. On the national level, the movement to restrict capital
punishment has been reinforced by actions at the Supreme Court. The
Court has implemented a de facto moratorium since late September,
ordering the halt of five scheduled executions while it deliberates
on a case that will determine whether lethal injection constitutes a
form of cruel and unusual punishment. Subsequently, on December 13,
the New Jersey State legislature passed a bill outlawing capital
punishment in the state, which Governor Jon Corzine signed into law
the following week. New Jersey thus became the first state to abolish
the death penalty since Iowa and West Virginia did so in 1965. David
Fathi of Human Rights Watch argued that the move is "a very
significant event for a state that has had the death penalty on its
books for decades. It’s one more indication that the death penalty is
on its way out in the United States."
Advances in the
global South also bode well. The rebellion in Latin America against
the economics of corporate globalization continued in 2007, with
governments in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela leading the march
toward more progressive policies. In what ended up being a very
positive development, Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez lost a
public referendum on December 3 in a narrow 51-to-49 percent vote.
Among other things, the constitutional amendments at issue would have
abolished presidential term limits and centralized state power.
Chávez graciously admitted defeat. Contrary to the hysterical
voices in the mainstream press asserting that Venezuela had become a
dictatorship, the referendum showed that the country’s democracy is
robust and its public debate vigorous. From a progressive
perspective, the referendum’s failure will encourage Chávez to
broaden the leadership of his "Bolivarian revolution" and
potentially pave the way for a new generation of activists to succeed
him.
For Latin America as a whole, one of the most significant
gains of the year was the creation of the Bank of the South. On
December 6 representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador,
Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela met in Buenos Aires to inaugurate
the new bank, which will compete directly with Washington-controlled
institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank. In the past, these institutions were leaders in enforcing a
fundamentalist brand of "free trade" neoliberalism-an
economic model that has had terrible results in the region. Not only
will the Bank of the South represent a critical step in the battle
for regional self-determination, it will be free to support
approaches to development that can effectively combat inequality and
address the needs of the poor.
For those who have grown
disheartened living under the reign of George W. Bush, such victories
abroad are genuine markers of hope. We can cheer them just as
heartily as we celebrate the signs of progress within the United
States-and resolve to work for even greater gains in the New
Year.
Mark
Engler, an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus, is author of
How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy
(Nation Books, April 2008).
He can be reached via the web site http://www.DemocracyUprising.com.
Research assistance provided by Sean Nortz.
