Zach argues that calling Saul Alinsky Machiavellian is a crude slur. I'm not sure Alinsky would agree. Certainly, the violent character Poe depicts bears little resemblance to Alinsky; same goes for his Hillary Clinton et al. Alinsky did, however, argue persuasively with his "rules of means and ends" that the left is overly hostile to the development and deployment of power through organizing, and overly paralyzed by metaethical debates and overly splintered over tactics. I'd say there were several respects in which he was right. Hillary Clinton, incidentally, wrote her thesis criticizing Alinsky's tenant organizing in Chicago. Needless to say, while there's much that's deeply problematic about the top-down nature and rigidity of Alinsky's organizing model, and the distance it creates between the roles of organizers and leaders, I'd take his leadership model over Hillary's neoliberal village any day. I won't say any more of Richard Poe's Freeper ramblings except that the best condemnation of the "respected Hillary biographies" he cites is recorded by David Brock, who wrote one of them and worked with the authors of the others.

Has the press treated Dean worse than the rest of the Democratic field? The Center for Media and Public Affairs argues convincingly that it has. Dean, meanwhile, is back in the lead in Iowa polling, albeit a statistically insignificant one. I say he'll win on Monday because his campaign is the one most effectively organizing voters not only to show support but to do the shlepping it takes to caucus.

This issue of In These Times includes compelling pieces by Andy Stern and Gerald McEntee, Presidents of the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, the two largest unions in the AFL-CIO. SEIU and AFSCME, the leading private and public sector unions respectively in the US, surprised many pundits who view them as rivals when they together endorsed Howard Dean a few months back. Stern argues rightly that the Democratic party cannot survive without the labor movement: At our best, unions are one of the few institutions with progressive values that have millions of members, multimillion dollar budgets and the ability to do grassroots organizing on a large enough scale to counter the power of today's corporations. The 2000 presidential election clearly showed the difference unions can make. * Bush won in nonunion households by 8 points, but lost in union households by 37 points. * He won nonunion white men by 41 points, but lost union white men by 24 points. * He won nonunion gun owners by 39 points, but lost union gun owners by 21 points. * He did 16 points better among nonunion people of color than among union people of color. So if more workers in Florida, Missouri, Ohio and other states that went narrowly for Bush had been union members, the past three years in this country would have been very different. He offers three priorities for organized labor: legal defense of the right to organize as a human right, alliance across movements and communities in fighting for just causes, and prioritizing organizing. The latter two are arguably what accounted for the historic success of the CIO before and during the New Deal period, and are central to the New Unity Partnership Stern is spearheading with the Presidents of HERE, UNITE, the Laborers, and the Carpenters. The decline in the first, from the Taft-Hartley Act (which only Dennis Kucinich among the Democratic candidates has promised to repeal) to Reagan's crackdown on the Air Traffic Controllers, is at the centerpiece of the counter-revolution against the labor movement over the past decades. And Bush, as McEntee argues, has pushed that counter-revolution further: Indeed, at no other time during my 44 years in labor have I seen members of my union-the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)-nor the House of Labor, more dedicated to getting one person out of office. And we all know why. Three million jobs lost in three years-the most since the Great Depression: 66 million Americans with inadequate healthcare coverage or no healthcare coverage at all; a median household income that has fallen for three straight years; 3 million Americans who slipped into poverty in 2001; ergonomic rules scrapped; overtime regulations attacked. The list goes on and on...the Bush administration invoked the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act-an action that hadn't been taken in 25 years and never in a lockout. President Bush's shameful use of Taft-Hartley sent a message to other employers: When the going gets rough at the bargaining table, the federal government can always step in-to help the boss. But McEntee's central argument, which Stern alludes to as well, is that getting a Democratic President into office is not and never has been enough to protect the rights of working people. Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed a National Labor Relations Act to bring labor into his coalition and into the Democratic establishment becuase it was clear that otherwise the labor movement could have torn his Presidency apart. Real economic change in this country won't be accomplished by a Clintonite who sees organized labor as a special interest equivalent to big business to be kept at bay with moderate reforms and kept out of corrupting the political process. As McEntee argues: It is clear that we must defeat George W. Bush. But we must also grow our unions. And whomever the Democratic Party selects as its nominee-AFSCME hopes it is Howard Dean-we must insist that he support a comprehensive social justice agenda, job creation, quality and affordable healthcare for all, the preservation of Medicare and Social Security, civil rights and much more. And the House of Labor must insist that the next president support an aggressive agenda for worker rights, including real penalties for violators of labor laws, creating a law that will make employers recognize their workers' desire to form a union, establishing first contract arbitration and giving the National Labor Relations Board the power to enforce laws that protect workers.

The National Council of La Raza offers a blistering and trenchant critique of Bush's immigration reform proposal: The President’s proposal is limited to creating a potentially huge new guestworker program for immigrant workers with no meaningful access to permanent visas or a path to citizenship for those working, paying taxes, and raising their families in the United States. Immigrants would be asked to sign up for what is likely to be second-class status in the American workforce, which could lead to their removal when their status expires or is terminated. Labor rights for temporary workers have historically been weaker than those afforded to workers in the domestic labor force. Under this proposal, workers would be vulnerable during their temporary status, and even more vulnerable when it expires, which would also have a negative impact on wages and working conditions for their U.S.-born co-workers. That said, President Bush, by adopting the rhetoric of the left to advance a proposal unsatisfying to left or right, has created an opening for those concerned with true progressive immigration reform to hold him accountable for the failings of his proposal to live up to his rhetoric. Left advocates are effectively doing so - it's time for left politicians to do so as well, particularly because this legislation will never pass without their votes. Let's keep in mind that Bush pandering for votes by playing at offering more immigrants a path to legalization beats Clinton pandering for votes by throwing them off welfare eight years earlier. The difference has everything to do with the popular movements mobilizing since then for progressive change - and it's those movements that will bring a reform far better than the one Bush offered today. As the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride coalition argued today: If there is any reform here, it is of “old” temporary worker programs, including the notorious and discredited “bracero” program...President Bush said our immigration laws must be “more humane.” But a policy that measures an immigrant worker’s stay in America in three-year increments is far from humane. Why buy a house or start a family, why open a business or put down roots in a community, why build up seniority on a job or train for higher skilled work, if you will have to leave it all after three or six or nine years? Why pull yourself up by your bootstraps only to have the boots themselves taken away when you’ve succeeded? The IWFR Coalition will continue to work for comprehensive immigration reform based on the great American tradition of welcoming immigrants through an open door, not a revolving one.

Right now C-SPAN is replaying a National Chamber Foundation conference at which Newt Gingrich was invited to represent the Republicans and the Democrats were represented by - you guessed it - the DLC's Al From. It's a pretty painful exhibition of the two of them gloating about how much they have in common. True, insofar as Newt Gingrich's Republicans represent the direction in which Al From would like to shepard the Democrats (his top three under-discussed goals for the Democratic party: eviscerating labor and environmental protections in trade agreements, scaling back the New Deal, and co-operating better with Republicans)...The most ridiculous moment however, would have to be From's argument that they're parallel figures in that Newt discovered a "New Republican" movement, and he discovered a "New Democrat" one. The difference, of course, is that Newt's Republicans made a resounding victory in '94 by mobilizing their base and Al's Democrats inspired a new verb - "Sister Souljah" - for what they did to their base and bequeathed a statistical tie in 2000. Newt Gingrich has much more in common with Howard Dean than with Al From - which may be why he used his podium to lavish praise on From and castigate Dean, and may also be why Dean is so much more popular than From these days (for more on Newt as organizer, check out David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf's book)

Josh Marshall just posted a transcript of a conference call between journalists and "senior administration officials" about the contours of the immigration policy President Bush plans to propose tomorrow. I'm glad to see a shift back towards the White House's September 10, 2001 position on immigration, and have no doubt that the organizing coalition and voting bloc mobilized most visibly through the Immigrant Worker Freedom Rides has been vital in that achievement. The framing of the problem - the imperative of family reunification, the centrality of undocumented labor to our economy, the humanitarian crisis - is improved, and the approach is certainly more consonant with the Freedom Riders demands than it once was. A "temporary worker" status, however, opens up new avenues for abuse and exploitation, and simply creating a legal process for undocumented workers to go "above ground" and air labor grievances does little to change the facts on the ground about employers' power over immigrant workers. That would require the right to organize, which is conspicuously absent from the discussions of "senior administration officials." Josh Marshall closes by asking whether "the president expects to or even wants this 'policy' to pass." We'll have to see. Meanwhile, the coalition for progressive immigration reform will have to keep fighting for an immigration policy that truly enshrines the best values of this country.

The New York Times Magazine, in its cover story, makes an awkward, leering, occasionally illuminating, mostly misguided attempt to understand the grassroots movement that (deserved or not) has built around Howard Dean. What's most stunning is the incredulity and confusion with which the Times confronts the prospect that politics could be built around - and create - communities, and that it could arise from and inform personal narratives in ways other than serving as a tool for the performance of privilege. Much of the article is full of accounts of bad break-ups meant to make these folks look pathetic and descriptions of personal eccentricities meant to make them look perverse: He stripped to his underwear, lay on the floor in a fetal position and remained there for days, occasionally sipping from an old carton of orange juice. ''I was completely obliterated,'' he says. ''I didn't know something like that could actually cause physical pain.'' Johnson's friends kept calling, trying to think of something that would get him out of the house. Finally they hit on one: Howard Dean. This paragraph, however, is perhaps more absurd: It felt as much like a support group as a political rally. As they did at Clay Johnson's meet-up in Atlanta, everyone went around the circle describing what drew them to Dean, usually in very personal language. Bob and Eileen Ehlers haltingly explained the problems their children, in their 20's, have with health insurance, while Tony Evans nodded sympathetically. That the most reputable newspaper in the US sees people choosing to get involved in campaigns based on personal experience and personal struggles as pathological is sad. That this is seen as a bleeding heart newspaper is just absurd. There's also Howard Dean as siren: Long before Howard Dean was considered a plausible candidate for president, he seemed to emit some sort of secret call that made people, many of them previously apolitical, drop everything and devote themselves to his campaign. Yet the Times also acknowledges that whatever this strategy is, it seems to be working: By organizing its national network of Yogis, Howards, Dykes and Disney Employees for Dean, the campaign built an alternative to institutions like the D.L.C. Dean has raised $25 million, mostly through small checks -- the average donation is $77 -- and those checks have placed Dean at the top of the Democratic fund-raising pack. Dean's opponents have begun to mimic the trappings of his campaign. Many of the Democratic candidates now have blogs. Even President Bush has one, though comments from the public -- an essential element of Dean's blog -- are not allowed. The article's close suggests a glimmering, even at the New York Times Magazine, of understanding of what a grassroots campaign could be: ''What's happening is an unusual and unprecedented correspondence between the campaign and us,'' she says. It takes me a moment before I realize that when she says ''the campaign,'' she doesn't mean the people running the headquarters in Burlington. She means the people she's going to visit in her Airstream. I doubt I'm the only one who's skeptical of quotes from supporters like ''But the strongest thing was that I could tell he is a good man,'' Brooks says gravely. ''And if a good man were president, it would change everything in ways we can't even imagine.'' But more important to me than whether Howard Dean is a good man is whether he's a good organizer - and so far, he's outpaced every one else by a long shot. Reading this piece reminded me of a recent essay in which Sam Smith wrote: Come with me for a moment to the time of when politics was so much a part of New York City that Tammany Hall had to rent Madison Square Gardens for its meetings of committeemen - all 32,000 of them. . In contrast, when the Democratic National Committee decided to send a mailing to its workers some years back, it found that no one had kept a list. The party had come to care only about its donors. We got rid machines like Tammany because we came to believe in something called good government. But in throwing out the machines we also tossed out a culture and an art of politics. It is as though, in seeking to destroy the Mafia, we had determined that family values and personal loyalty were somehow by association criminal as well. ...politics was not something handed down to the people through such intermediaries as Larry King or George Will. What defined politics was an unbroken chain of human experience, memory and gratitude. So the first non-logical but necessary thing we must do to reclaim democratic politics is to bring it back into our communities, into our hearts to bring it back home. True politics, in imitation of baseball, the great American metaphor, is also about going home. Yet like so much in our national life, we are only going through the motions, paying ritualistic obeisance to a faith we no longer follow. In fact, we have lost our way home. We must not only make politics a part of our culture but make our culture a part of our politics. I share much of Sam Smith's - and others' - skepticism both about what Dean's record portends for working people and about the depth of his commitment to a new new American politics that would include much of the strengths of the old one. But at least he's a good enough organizer, and an innovative enough politician, to merit incredulous, confused pieces in the New York Times Magazine.

Breaking news from Business Week: Howard Dean's Presidential ambitions are poised to get a major lift on Nov. 6 when the AFL-CIO's largest union, the 1.3 million member Service Employees International Union, is set to endorse him, BusinessWeek has learned. The SEIU's action, coming shortly after Dean won pledges from two small unions, the International Union of Painters and the California Teachers Assn., goes a long way toward completing the transformation of the former Vermont governor from a niche candidate backed by limousine liberals, antiwar activists, and tech-savvy young people into a mainstream candidate who can also connect with blue-collar America. Says SEIU President Andy Stern: "It's clear that Dean has gained the most support amongst our members and local leaders." For all my reservations about Dean, I do see truth in Jacob's argument that if anyone is going to win against Bush, that candidate needs to unite the foreign policy left wing of the party with the economic policy left wing of the party, and combine all that with a strategy that gets people riled up, donating money, and voting. I'd happly back anyone I thought could do that, from John Edwards to Al Sharpton. Kucinich tries to to the part where he unites the two important parts of the party, but fails at actually running a campaign. Gephardt was thought to have the unions but his wishy-washy politics on the war, combined with his proven record of failure (most recently in 2002) make him a poor candidate. Dean is the man to unite around, and now it seems that the biggest unions in the country agree As I've probably said here before, Dean is the candidate who has had the most success so far in building a left "Contract with America" - mounting a (generally) coherent, passionate, and resonant critique of the current administration and articulating a vision of a more (if insufficiently) progressive alternative - and he knows better than many of the other eight how to organize around it. Shame that he has a record of prioritizing balanced budgets over social services. One place where I agree with Jacob wholeheartedly: ...it's nice to see SEIU, AFSCME, and CWA working together on something. If only SEIU can get AFSCME and CWA on board with the New Unity Partnership...

This front-page story in the YDN focuses on the committee formed in Local 35 which will consider fines - along with other approaches, like new organizing approaches - as a response to the 1 to 2 percent of the membership that continued working during the strike. It's quite similar to a story the YDN ran a couple weeks back on the same topic, also as a top story. What's missing is a conversation with any of the hundreds of members who've pushed for a response; their absence contributes to the sense that setting up a committee is some kind of autocratic punitive stratagem by Bob Proto. That sense, and the erasure of workers from the narrative, are furthered by the absence of any mention of Bob Proto's uncontested re-election as President of Local 35 yesterday, or of the race for Chief Steward. Also misleading is this front-page analysis which continues the YDN's narrative of GESO of late: GESO sinned by organizing and was punished by losing the referendum last spring, and has since redeemed itself by pushing issues instead. While this account has meant some less openly nasty coverage of GESO by the YDN of late, it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the labor movement works, one shared by too many students. Unions don't choose between pushing issues to make members happy or organizing to make their leaders happy. Unions organize by bringing workers together through common experience and interest and shared issues, and unions bring change on issues through the power of their organizing. GESO has, as the YDN acknowledges, been responsible for substantive change in the benefits and resources Yale makes available to its graduate students. But only through the power of its organizing, and the threat of unionization. So while it's true, and admirable, and GESO has conducted an exciting series of surveys, produced damning and enlightening reports, and generated its first unified platform over the past months, pushing for change on the issues which affect graduate students is not a new development - and organizing and fighting for recognition are not only old news.