Possum Progressives in Kalamazoo: The Michigan Organizing Project

Small steps, Master Kung tells us, incremental progress; anything more, and you'll break your heart.

Michigan is seeing some small progressive successes in places like Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and Muskegon. A group of liberal-to-moderate church congregations, homeless shelters and community NPOs called the Michigan Organizing Project are networking "to assist in the development of strong, congregation-based, grassroots community organizations committed to democratic principles and values of justice and fairness". They've been careful to define themselves as "non-partisan" while leaning towards social justice projects beloved of the left.

One key element seems to be choosing three (3) specific legislative changes every six months or so, a deliberate decision to avoid the scattershot laundry list of issues I see at other demonstrations. MOP stays tightly focused on small issues: changing local dental care rules for the poor, changing new development projects to include 1/3 low income housing. The member associations then pester hell out of our local politicos, and every three months or so, the congregations get the warm bodies in the seats for a public declaration of intent ("will you vote Yes or No on projects one, two and three?") from our representatives.

This end run is making progressive changes in local politics, while completing ignoring the Democratic party, still trying to get its thumb out of its ass. Michigan Republicans are too busy honking "no taxes! taxes no!" (in a state with an infrastructure already on life support) to pay any attention to MOP; Republicans have a tendency not to show up at MOP rallies, sensing an unsympathetic audience, perhaps. While it's true there's no one there with a purse worth kissing up to, I want to think there's one or two of them willing to go where the people are in pain. The Presbyterians are there; the Catholics are there. The Mayor, the city council, and our state representatives are there. The Kalamazoo Homeless Action Network is there, which allows me to nudge my hipper friends and whisper, "KHAN...!" in an effort to make them snort or giggle during the prayer.

History and a mercurial nature compel me to spend my activism on grandiose, more quixotic projects, chipping away at the obtuse mountain we laughingly call public education-- but that's a fight the gods contend against in vain, gnawing away at the Old Enemy though you know you're going to lose. There is much to be learned from these almost imperceptible notes of grace won by the Michigan Organizing Project. If the next national election is stolen, if it makes no difference who's in charge at the top (though I think ordinary people have it a tiny bit better under the Democrats), this kind of grassroots attention to detail might prove a successful adaptation by the Progressive species to an unfriendly environment.

If I Were a Carpenter, and You Were a Bag Lady

The most disgusting act of treachery against labor today must be the Brotherhood of Carpenters' practice of hiring homeless people to man picket lines instead of union members. Apparently their members can't be bothered; it's cheaper and more "convenient" to hire a desperate man at $8.00 an hour than ask a $20.00 an hour carpenter to walk his own damn line. And "the creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters is supposedly the only national union to crawl so low, but you can bet this will used as a canard against unions by every anti-labor lickspittle from here to Canarsie.

Taking advantage of the poor is a job for management, not labor. A dirty little sliver of rationalization tells me that the street people working the picket line could really use the $8.00, and who's to begrudge them any pittance--? But that's the line of sophistry that lets the apologists of capitalism excuse the Mexican border factories, and the hypocritical exploitation of illegal immigrants on this side of the border, and the insult of a $5.85 minimum wage.

They best not come to my neighborhood; our homeless people are organized. It seems to be the American consensus that anyone dumb enough to fall under the wheels of the system probably deserves what happens to them, and geeking for the Carpenters is a better gig for the homeless than scrounging for bottle deposits. Thus shit is transmuted to sugar. But before I concede, and smile and wink at such a crime against the soul, let my bones turn to dust with Joe Hill's, and mix with the sawdust, and choke the sanctimonious throats of the too-proud to picket members of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters.