/ I cessful in rallying people to an .ilternative political movement, yet they ultimately failed. And why? On the one hand, they underestimated the opposition. Populists tried through democratic politics to bring the corporate state under popular control without fully anticipating the countertactics available to the nation's financial and industrial spokesmen. On the other hand, they failed to mobilize all of the potential support that existed among the rest of the poor downtrodden types in post-Civil War America. The farmer activists of the 19th century had no notion of how to organize the urban industrial poor. Labor didn't get its act together until the sit-down strikes of the 1930s. By that time over half of the small farms in America had been lost to corporate landowners. The agrarian masses were broken up. Another problem was that neither the agrarian reformers nor the labor organizers (nor for the most part modern activists) ever came to grips with their own white supremacisf attitudes. Some tried, but the involvement of blacks and other minorities was for the most pait token, and involved great ·risks to those who did become leaders. These were hard-learned lessons to a movement whose central issues were: 1. land ownership in America 2. the hierarchical nature of the nation's basic financial structure 3. the consuming threat that corporate centralization poses to_ the democratic heritage itself. Charles W. Macune, chief economist of the populists and editor of the Alliance national newspaper, .the National Economist, summed ul:' the goal and the obstacle in one sentence: "The people February/March 1981 RAIN Page 5 -, \ ·~ •. \ we seek to relie;e from the oppression of unjust conditions are the largest and most conservative class of citizens in this country." And so, they failed, and Goodwyn concludes: Today, the values and sheer power of corporate America pinch in the horizons of millions of obsequious corporate employees, tower over every American legislature, state and national, determine the modes and style of mass communications and mass education, fashion American foreign policy around the globe, and shape the rules of the American political process itself. Self-evidently, corporate values define modern American culture. • Goodwyn goads us, challenges us to rally using the model (successes and failures) of the Populist Movement. He redefines terms like "free" and "democratic" and makes terribly valid arguments for reassessing all of our activism. His singleminded focus on the virtues and frustrations of the Populist Movement and his attitude that no subsequent movement has replicated populist zeal, causes him to give short attention to the citizen struggles of our own time. This avoidance may anger some readers, but nonetheless his insights, analyses, and criticisms are very timely (to say the least). It took an amazing feat of dreaming and organizing to gather together a citizenry disconnected by distance and for all practical purposes disenfranchised, and instill in them the self-confidence to act outside the confines of the parties of "the fathers." To create a new party with enough allegiance to elect its members to office called for a major reorientation of the populace. The Populist Moment is really a prime_r. The lessons learned then should be built upon, not ig- • nored.-CC AGRARIAN ACCESS Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies, publication: Ways and Means, bimonthly, subs $10 individuals, $20 institutions, from: 1 abreast of progressive politics nationally, subscribe to this one. -CC Appetite whetted? You may want to follow up on this reading. Goodwyn, in "A Critical Essay on Authorities" at the back of the book, gives more than an annotated bibliography; really it's an opinionated bibliography. It includes the writing~ of the populists themselves, explorations of other economists and historians, and what he calls "points of entry" for ferreting out less accessible information such as some insights into tli.e role of women in populism. -CC 2000 Florida Ave. N.W. Washington, DC 20009 Goodwyn stresses repeatedly the importance of communication and a free press to the populist movement. For several years now the Conference has been functioning as a clearinghouse on progressive reform at the state and local levels in this country. We've accessed them often in RAIN. Their publications are always provocative, well researched and equally well organized. I've found their .inalysis of political and economic policies invaluable. Ways and Means is their bimonthly update and access journal. To keep Assisting Beginning Fanners: New Programs and Responses, 1980, 53 pp., $4.95 from: The Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies Lest all these other booklets just end up depressii:ig you, do read this one. Taking off from Ritchie's Three Part Program (see box) you'll get a feel for how we're doing in reversing the tide. Corporations are not omnipotent. Working together, farmers, laborers, all of us (the folks Reagan sees " over the counter all across America") can be formidable, too. -CC cont.--
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