When I initiated (almost three years ago) what has evolved into the “UMBRELLA MOVEMENT TO COUNTERACT THE RIGHT,” it was prompted by an interview in the New Yorker magazine of David Brock. Brock, an apostate of the Movement of the Right, having been a handmaiden of Richard Mellon Scaife and his ilk for 15 years. It was only when Brock “outed” himself as a gay, and his colleagues in distortions, defamation, and character destruction, turned on him, ostracizing, with practically ex-communication.
This is not just my assessment, but detailed in Brock’s book Blinded by the Right. Brock described the inner workings of the Movement of the Right. This caused me to ask of myself, this is how the success the Right has achieved, and is now the country’s problem, but what is the remedy? First, I conceived of a “Plan of Action to Take Back our Country”, that has evolved into the “UMBRELLA MOVEMENT TO COUNTERACT THE RIGHT”. The core of my thesis was the reason why the Republican Right was winning elections, and dominating our body politic, was not that it was smarter, it had better candidates, more money, better organized, worked harder, had better platforms, but rather it had built over a period of 40 years, what I referred to as an “infra-structure” of institutions of fund raising, think tanks, media outlets, the Republican Party, political operatives, and only then, the candidates. This well conceived, elaborate, coordinated, and well executed plan, practically assured victories election after election.
For the first year, I was a voice in the wilderness, working alone, mailing 1,500 “Plan of Action” letters. The response was most disappointing in numbers, but among those who responded were Ed Asner, Kurt Vonnegut and Alan Bisbort, free-lance writer extraordinaire, and Stanley Thompson, a webmaster who has admirably designed and operated our website, therightiswrong.us. Asner was our featured speaker at our Inaugural Conference (the speech is here) Nov. 21, 2004. Bisbort has written four pieces about me and the Movement, which prompted numerous responses from readers of four Connecticut papers and several websites (we post his weekly column). We held a Leadership Conference in March, 2005. Both Conferences were, in spite of excellent programs, failures in attendance. Our two fund raising endeavors were unsuccessful. We are now left with this website, and a soon to be an internet radio interview program. Our outlook appeared to be dim, although we note some of our ideas, writings, etc. appear elsewhere.
On March 30, 2005, Sen. Bill Bradley had an op-ed piece, “A Party Inverted”, in the New York Times (posted here) Bradley brilliantly analyzed, and more coherently presented what I attempted thus far. Instead of “infra-structure, he employs the image of a PYRAMID. It is much more graphic, but I must say, I have been most surprised and disappointed on what little comments I’ve seen. Nevertheless, this piece has given me cause for a further updating in my approach and proposal, the creation of the “POWER OF THE PROGRESSIVE PYRAMID”, a comprehensive, coordinated infra-structure, frankly patterned after what Lewis Powell, (40 years ago, a corporate attorney, later Supreme Court Justice) designed for the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. I envision thusly:
POWER OF THE PROGRESSIVE PYRAMID
- CHAIRPERSON - A ‘Somebody’ with stature and persona (such as Bill Bradley, Bill Clinton, Al Gore)
- President & CEO
- National Coordinator
- Council of ‘level’ Coordinators - meeting monthly with level Coordinators.
- Base of Pyramid or Level #1 - Financing by big individual donors and Foundations, headed by the Fund raising Coordinator.
- Think Tank Level Coordinator
- Political Level Coordinator
- Democratic National Part Level - DNC Chairperson
- Media Level Coordinator
- Presidential Candidate
The acceptance of this conceptual plan, its implementation, and administered by qualified, competent, and committed citizens will tip the political balance in our beloved country. This proposal/plan as presented here is a skeleton that will require fleshing out, with recommendations, critiques, and help from citizens from all walks of life.
