Gathering Power

by Osterman, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780807043387
• ISBN10: 0807043389
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-01-01
• Publisher: Beacon Pr

Summary

How an interfaith community organization is revitalizing our democracy Democrats are looking for the right national message that will attract the most voters, leaving progressive politics to operate from the margins. Paul Osterman argues that political change lies not in crafting a better message to beam from Washington but rather in effective local action. Gathering Power explores the most successful and promising organization to enable local activism and strengthen our democracy: the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). Osterman focuses on the successes of Valley Interfaith, a progressive multiracial coalition founded by the charismatic Ernesto Cortes. It is based in the Rio Grande Valley, which straddles the border between Texas and Mexico and, since the passage of NAFTA, has been one of the fastest growing regions in America, as well as one of the poorest. With the help of the IAF, and working primarily through local churches, Valley Interfaith has brought together Latino residents to improve their communities. They have fought for, and won, reform in their schools and improved wages-but most important, the members of Valley Interfaith have been transformed into activists, ready to take on future battles as a community. Gathering Power shows how the IAF teaches people to become activists, and argues that religious values have an important place in progressive politics. Paul Osterman is professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with joint appointments in the Sloan School of Management and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. He travels extensively throughout the country and abroad to speak to business groups, community organizations, and government and public policy organizations. He lives in the Boston area.

Author Biography

Paul Osterman is professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with joint appointments in the Sloan School of Management and the department of urban studies and planning.

Table of Contents

Contents

Chapter 1: Reviving Progressive Politics

Chapter 2: Building Organizations

Chapter 3: Faith

Chapter 4: Practicing a New Politics

Chapter 5: Managing Our Economic Destiny

Chapter 6: Gathering Power

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Excerpts

Chapter One Reviving Progressive Politics These are not happy days for politics in America, or at least so it seems from the perspective of Washington, D.C. The percentage of Americans reporting that they mistrust government is rising while voter turnout is declining. And if this is a bad time for politics in general, it is even worse for progressive politics. Progressive politics is going nowhere at the national level. Democrats have run to the center and will no longer touch issues of power and privilege lest they be accused of class warfare. In Washington, interest groups checkmate each other, and those few that represent progressive causes cannot compete with their opponents in money or influence. The union movement, the traditional backbone of progressives, continues to produce funds and foot soldiers for elections, but its membership base is eroding and its moral claims are unfortunately no longer compelling to most Americans. The decline in politics has been accelerated by how we have come to think about the economy. The boom of the 1990s brought many benefits, but it was accompanied by a rhetoric that implied that citizens could, and indeed should, have little voice in the trajectory of the economy. The economic difficulties of Germany and Japan, both of which had practiced a form of capitalism that restrained the play of pure market forces, contributed to this trend, but more important, the spread-in reality and in rhetoric-of globalization introduced a new force that seems impossible to control or restrain. Occasional eruptions, such as those at the 1999 World Trade Organization conference in Seattle, testify more to a sense of helplessness than to any ideas about a way forward. Viewed from Washington, the political scene is indeed discouraging. But if things are so bad, how can we explain what happened in Austin, Texas, on a Sunday and Monday in April 2001? That Sunday the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), a network of community organizations in the Southwest (with sister organizations in other cities around the country), convened its annual Human Development Fund and Alliance Schools conference in an Austin hotel. The purpose of the conference was to celebrate the network"s achievements, to provide ongoing training to its members, and to lobby the state legislature to pass the network"s legislative agenda. The hotel ballroom filled with fifteen hundred people for the two o"clock Sunday start. Many were active members in IAF organizations from Dallas, Houston, El Paso, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Austin, and the Rio Grande Valley. Also scattered throughout the room were teachers and principals from some of the Texas schools that the IAF has organized through its Alliance School program. Some of these people had gotten on buses at 4:00 a.m. in order to reach Austin on time. The room was bursting with energy, and that energy exploded with the roll call that kicked off the session. Twenty people stood at the microphones in the front of the room and in turn yelled to the crowd, "I"m from EPISO in El Paso, and we"re here 50 strong," "I"m from Dallas Area Interfaith, and we"re here 100 strong," "I"m from Valley Interfaith, and we"re here 250 strong," "I"m from COPS in San Antonio and we"re here 200 strong," and so on through the roll of Southwest organizations that had sent representatives to this meeting. The meeting then began with opening prayers, led by an African- American Baptist minister from Dallas and a rabbi from Austin. The leadoff speaker, Ernesto Cortes Jr., the supervisor of the IAF network in the Southwest and a member of the IAF National Executive Committee, then rose. Cortes gave a