New Whine, Old Bottles

“Oh, no, it’s happening again,” I heard
from people standing on the sidelines. “Defeat snatched from the jaws
of victory,” was another phrase of choice. “If we can’t win this time.
. . ?” 

You could hear it from one end of the
country to the other. The stay-at-home fretters were echoed on the tube
by the talking heads already dissecting Obama’s defeat and explaining
what he should have done differently. This was often accompanied by
bewilderment about how anyone could possibly vote for Sen. John McCain.
Clearly these folks need to shut off National Public Radio and get out
and talk to real voters. 

People who say they want this country to
change but aren’t willing to fight for it don’t, to put it simply,
deserve the change they profess to desire.

Go rent the HBO movie Recount,
all about the aftermath of the 2000 election. Watching the movie you
get a clear picture of the difference between the way liberals fight
and the way conservatives fight. Recount pits the stately
warrior James Baker against the high-minded but weak Warren
Christopher. I hear echoes of Christopher from far too many liberals
these days. {Editor’s note: HBO will air Recount on Friday, Oct. 11, noon and 10:05 p.m.; Wednesday, Oct. 15, 6 p.m.; and more runs throughout the month.}

Then go rent Spike Lee’s film on New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. You’ll be quickly reminded of why it’s important to fight this time as if it matters who wins. 

This election isn’t a competition to see
who can be cleverer in their analysis, it’s a battle to take the case
to voters in key swing states. The outcome of this competition will
determine whether we can repair the damage done in the past eight years
or whether we continue full speed ahead with policies domestic and
foreign that threaten to leave us not only less powerful, but less just. 

Republicans have no illusions that this
is a fight. Too many Democrats and liberals seem to think it is just a
matter of having the best ideas. Republicans keep a clear eye on the
prize, which is winning the contest, while some Democratic
sympathizers, as portrayed in Recount, seem determined to spend the rest of their lives in the opposition telling everyone that they hold the moral high ground. 

But the people of New Orleans, and the
rest of us, need real high ground. We need to end the George Bush
nightmare, even as we watch his party run away from his label while
endorsing his policies. 

Now the polls are beginning to tip in
Obama’s favor, and the nervous nellies are feeling more relaxed. Now
they are doing nothing because they are not needed; a few weeks ago
they did nothing because it was hopeless. It takes a good candidate,
good ideas and hard work—hard work that won’t end on Election Day—to
make a difference.  

It’s a messy, imperfect process, but all
real change is. For my money, if the Obama campaign is successful, the
people we should thank are those dedicated souls taking the bus each
weekend to campaign in Pennsylvania, where the electoral vote winner is
still anyone’s guess. 

Thirty years ago I was in a car riding
through the Arizona desert just outside Phoenix. Sunrise was more than
an hour away. That was back when there were citrus orchards, not just
retirement communities, growing in that corner of McCain’s adopted
state. It was the morning that a small group of farm workers, orange
pickers, were going on strike. 

The man driving the car was the head of
their union, the Arizona Farm Workers. If all went according to his
plan, we would be met at a four corners in the middle of nowhere by 30
or more workers prepared to walk out on their employer to demand better
wages and working conditions. For them that meant having a chance to
earn minimum wage and an end to sleeping under orange trees on winter
nights and bathing in chemical-laden irrigation ditches.

Their concern was that the employer
might bring in replacement workers, scabs, to pick the oranges. Fresh
out of school, I contemplated the conflict that we would face when we
got to the orchard. I asked Lupe, the union organizer, what slogans
might be deployed. He didn’t understand my question. He just said, “Get
the workers out of the trees.” 

That didn’t sound like a great chant to
me. “So what other slogans do we have?” Now he looked at me like he had
nothing more to say. He shook his head. “Just get the workers out of
the trees.” By the time we got to the orchard, most of the workers were
standing on the edge of the road. In the morning’s early light, we
could see that a few of their fellow workers were still up on ladders
in the trees. 

As if on cue, the workers on the ground
started to throw oranges at those non-strikers who insisted on picking
fruit. In a few minutes the scabs were climbing down, and the strike
was under way. A couple of holdouts were finally persuaded when their
co-workers grabbed the bottom of their ladders and began to walk away
from the tree. 

That was a lesson on the limits of the
power of words. More importantly, I learned the power of real action.
Sometimes you just need to get out there and toss a few oranges. 

I know what some of you are thinking: We
don’t want to stoop to their level. We don’t need to deceive, to
conceal, to hide the record. We just have to be willing to engage
people outside our own circle, to not be afraid to state our
convictions. As Sen. Joe Biden said in the vice presidential debate,
“Facts matter.” That’s true, but if those facts are just rattling
around in your head, or filling up your living room as you mutter at
the TV, they don’t matter much.

It’s time to stop talking to ourselves, and get on the bus. Bring oranges.