Our Goal: Righting the LEft

America needs a dynamic, aggressive and energetic political opposition to force the most vital political questions back onto the public agenda. Just as the conservatives built a social and political movement that operates as a party within the Republican Party, so must the American left do a much better job of engaging people in public life and not just focus on the narrow task of mobilizing voters to block right wing candidates on election day.

Organized labor, social critics in academia and the news media have been sources of opposition to the party in power in the past, but the ability of each to stand in opposition has been compromised. While organized labor is the single most important institution in the opposition, the percent of the workforce it represents continues to diminish as it struggles to find a way to stanch the flow of manufacturing jobs overseas and defend the interests of Americans who live on the wages they earn. Only a handful of public intellectuals continue to speak truth to power, and those that do are marginalized and ignored by the mainstream press that stifles dissent in the name of patriotism. And the growing concentration of ownership in broadcasting and publishing combined with newly-invigorated content controls by public authorities has produced extreme risk-aversion among those who own the news media, considerably shrinking the range of permissible opinions and topics that are openly discussed.

For these reasons America needs a cogent and articulate left every bit as much as it needs a revitalized Democratic Party. The most vital political questions of our day are the honesty of our elections, the false glories of the American empire and the unfairness of globalism. No critique of the Bush administration's legislative agenda can be so damaging to the maintenance of the one party state and the expansion of the American empire as an ardent, sustained, reasoned and articulate critique of the ideological pillars that hold it up. Only the American left can strike at the very heart of the old orthodoxies, since to do so is to invite rhetorical violence from the right wing wrecking crews now operating in commercial television and radio who regularly malign the patriotism and integrity of their opponents.

The opposition is permitted to question the management of the American empire, but not whether we should have one. It can debate Bush's policies but not whether the tactics he used to claim victory damage the very fabric of our republic. And despite overwhelming and growing evidence that the institutions of international development hinder than help developing nations secure the well-being of their inhabitants, the only voices recognized as legitimate in American politics must issue encomiums to globalism and "free trade."

We see an emerging political majority built upon five elements:

• The Democratic wing of the Democratic party, as well as others who can see that its competitiveness as an alternative vehicle for corporate privilege has ended and that it needs a new economic foundation, most likely Internet-enabled fundraising
• The pioneers of a political party of principle, who are organized now as Greens, Naderites and Libertarians
• Working men and women who are harmed by the Bush Administration's policies, and the organizations that bring them together and represent their interests
• The organizers and activists of the fair elections community whose approach to political change is non-partisan
• The protestors for peace and justice who are struggling to create a new politics driven by a new political morality

There is a potential coalition among these groups to successfully bring about progressive reform and democratic renewal. Left.org's ambition is to be a party within these parties and a vehicle for their successful collaboration.

Today's public debate sets a weak and uncertain political center off against a radically aggressive far right and calls it fair. Only when we have true voices on the left in the public debate can the Democrats fight with equal vigor against Republicans for the control of the center. Without a left the Democratic Party is burdened with a role it cannot fulfill.

We will use every available technique before us to build an online community of unprecedented size and scope, and work to engage that community in a wide range of political activities from petitioning, protesting and boycotting to publishing, speaking and running for public office. We will enthusiastically endorse and promote the actions proposed by groups with which we are allied.