The solution, he challenged the audience at the Honolulu Friends Meeting House, is not to make ourselves feel morally superior by dismissing or insulting people who join these movements, which is just a form of retreat, but rather to out organize them. There is no reason why the Left should not be able to build broad coalitions and movements by taking on the real grievances of the people and directing the anger towards more just systemic change.<\/p>\n Regarding the Right wing attacks on Obama and Left wing disappointment, Berlet said that we should “have his back, and kick his butt.”\u00a0 That is challenge racist attacks on Obama, but also protest and push him on progressive issues.\u00a0\u00a0 Berlet faults the centrist Democratic insiders that surround Obama for insulating him from the upwelling anger rather than making him take on these issues.\u00a0 This has isolated Obama and made him appear aloof and “out of touch” with the struggles of ordinary folk.<\/p>\n He told a story about important lessons from the fight to defeat the anti-gay ballot measure 9 in Oregon in 1992.\u00a0 A Christian right group called the Oregon Citizen’s Alliance put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to make homosexuality illegal in Oregon.\u00a0 Gay rights political heavyweights from national organizations did the polling and concluded that with the support of liberal urban centers of Portland and Eugene, they could defeat the ballot measure.\u00a0 They framed a message that amounted to “smart liberal city folk wouldn’t vote for such an ignorant and bigoted measure”.\u00a0 Basically, the pollsters and spin doctors were calling everyone outside of the cities ignorant red necks.\u00a0 This would have been a disaster. most of the state is rural and fairly culturally conservative.\u00a0 Such an arrogant and short sighted tactical decision would have alienated 80% of the counties and made it impossible to organize for progressive issues for decades.<\/p>\n Instead, progressive organizers pushed the national groups out and decided that their long term success meant organizing on principled unity between a broad coalition of groups, in other words, solidarity.\u00a0 This was tough because there were contradictions and prejudices against gay rights among many constituencies in the state.\u00a0 The organizers decided that it was better to fight in a way that built a grassroots movement based on principled unity and solidarity for the long term and possibly lose at the ballot than to pick the politically expedient tactic to win the ballot measure, but poison the political water for decades – a courageous decision and a heavy burden for the organizers to bear.\u00a0 Ballot Measure 9 was defeated.<\/p>\n Berlet said that the research shows that the best way to win people over and get them to join your group or movement is through face-to-face encounters and respectful, principled dialogue and debate.\u00a0 Sorry, “internet warriors”. \u00a0 The point is not to convert the ideologically consolidated leadership, but rather to win over the people who may have reactionary politics on some issues, but who have not yet hardened in their ideological stance.<\/p>\n He challenged the audience to take risks and build broad coalitions to fight for justice and peace. He shared the story of the White Rose Society to make his point.\u00a0 The White Rose Society was a Catholic student movement in Nazi Germany that courageously educated and organized against Nazism, fully certain that they would be defeated and most certainly killed.\u00a0\u00a0 But they felt that morally and politically, they had no choice but to resist the fascist tide.\u00a0 The leaders were executed, but they inspired others to resist. And anti-fascist movements grew. The emblem of the\u00a0 white rose has become the international symbol of anti-fascism.<\/p>\n What does all this have to do with demilitarization?\u00a0\u00a0 If Right wing populism becomes more powerful and virulent, it may one day turn the existing infrastructure and mechanisms of authoritarian rule and military power into a nightmare of state violence.\u00a0 One of the “first principles” of the Tea Party movement is “National Defense”, which includes endless wars, runaway military spending, torture and extraordinary rendition, warrantless spying and other attacks on civil liberties.\u00a0 To rephrase the famous admonition from the radical labor organizer Mother Jones, “Don’t whine, organize!”<\/p>\n![\"Populism-chart-handout(2)\"](\"http:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Populism-chart-handout2-791x1024.jpg\" "\\"Populism-chart-handout(2)\\"")
<\/a>Berlet described how Right wing movements typically mobilize fears about losing some form of unfair privilege, whether it be economic, political power or social status.\u00a0 They turn this into a neat rhetorical trick whereby victimizer becomes victim.<\/p>\n