Authors: Ralph Nader
Step 2
is to support national and local convocations to deliberate and tentatively agree on selected concrete convergent actions, with suitable proclamations for public discourse.
Step 3
is to use careful preparation to establish organizations dedicated to achieving specific missions at all levels of our political economy.
You may be asking, one can hope, about the calendar for any such involvement on your part. That is significantly a
function of how many resources are available, together with how they can be employed with prudent absorptive capacity and strategy by the doers. The more there are, the more synergy is produced. Historically overdue change needs to come quickly once initiated, otherwise the forces of the
status quo
will have time to game the strategies of delay and obfuscation. Universal health insurance was seriously proposed by President Harry Truman to Congress, and we're still waiting through the sixty-seventh year and counting for this to come to pass. By contrast, auto safety legislation was heard, deliberated, and enacted with overwhelming convergence by Congress within nine months after the publication of
Unsafe at Any Speed.
It was put into law at a signing ceremony at the White House in September 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson.
As you know from your own business experience, enlightened companies often do not take positions on matters they believe are good for the country because of the fear of alienating a portion of their employees, shareholders, supply chain partners, or consumers. Convergence can give some cover to these companies as it does for lawmakers. Some corporate statesmanship or corporate patriotism can come alive with such stimuli. There is much consensus in this country that will be seen at the grassroots, once the fog of abstract or manipulated polarization is cleared away.
My colleagues and I seek a meeting with you to go over what is obviously a number of questions you will have in order to reach a level of rigor, which you rightfully are going to demand. There is an expectation that needs to be conveyed at the outset, however. The requested budget from you, together with any of your colleagues you may enlist, will be in the tens of millions of dollars, subject to strict controls, reporting, and stages of expenditure. The frame of mind we must enter into together, should you be interested enough to continue this exchange and desire to communicate the value of the endeavor
to your associates, is in a way comparable to that of industrialists striving to convince investors to commit enough capital for, say, a large steel mill. The factory could not be built without a critical mass of investment money. The same holds true with this promising endeavor of multiple convergences and their expected momentums for a better country and world.
However, unlike a factory investment in which all could be lost, the convergence initiative has so many locales and redirections available that the real question would be: How much will it succeed? For the civic investment contemplated here is both to build local alliances that then attach to state and national drives for change and to start nationally and work through to the local for a mobilized convergence. Where to start would depend on the nature of the project. In this manner, we will be able to use a variety of dynamics and to recognize that some starts are better at one end of the continuum or the other. For example, the physical fitness project described in
Chapter 5
is a natural for local originations and local competitions. The renovation and upgrade of public works in our deferred-maintenance country, especially given where much of the funds must come from, invite a nationwide inspiration with local convergences of business, labor, civic, charitable, and municipal groups as well as individuals.
Abraham Lincoln once memorably said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Today it can be said, “A house divided against itself cannot thrive.” Just why people oppose each other or do not work together because of contending abstractions or “isms” in our country has been studied too abstractly as well. (An exception is Professor Howard Gardner's
Changing Minds
.) It is when means and ends are taken down to concrete levels of scrutiny and examination that fusion comes over the horizon, that the agendas of the influential fewâpartisan, commercial, turf-holding, fearful, and unknowingâcome to the forefront for
honest appraisals by themselves and the daunted many. Often convergence is not compromise as much as it is putting together two nearly identical positions that have been separated by other conflicts.
To imagine is to envision real possibilities that can perpetuate themselves in their own right. We look forward to your reactions.
Best Wishes,
Ralph Nader and the Convergers
Visit
www.nader.org
for more information.
T
his work has emphasized the convergence of seemingly disparate ideologies on concrete projects and programs for change. John Kenneth Galbraithâthe eminent economist for progressive reformsâonce wrote that the most vested of all interests are vested interests in ideas.
1
He was probably thinking of those historic opponents espousing capitalism, socialism, communism, or the regulatory state versus the unfettered free market economy or the monetarists versus the fiscalists. Actually, the defenders of these positions tend to employ more rigid dogmas than do those with the political labels of conservative, liberal, libertarian, or progressive. People who label themselves with the latter designations are far more likely to converge than the true believers in “isms.”
Recognized leaders of these liberal and conservative political philosophies, whether they are thinker-scholars, elected representatives, popularizing polemicists, or popular entertainers who speak out, as Ronald Reagan did in his preelective career, have large numbers of like-minded followers in elections, legislatures, or city councils. People follow the cues of these leaders, or they follow the “influentials” in their neighborhood or community who relay these preferences, complete with affirmative phrasings and
swipes at the opposition. At infrequent times, as suggested, the dynamic can start with the people and bubble up. AARP's leaders in Washington, who supported certain disputed legislation, found this out from their members a few years ago to their astonishment.
But at least in today's type of top-down political economy and media, when people see the leaders with whom they share strong convictions shift gears, they are far more likely to support the new directions than they would be if they simply heard a debate in which strong arguments are made on either side. This, writes law professor Cass Sunstein, is because people hearing a debate only take in information in a fashion to further bolster their long-held viewpoint. According to Sunstein, people are more likely to accept challenging information if it “comes from a trusted source they cannot dismiss,” because they have regularly agreed with that leader or opinion maker. Sunstein gives as examples if “civil rights leaders oppose affirmative action, or if well-known climate change skeptics say that they were wrong, people are more likely to change their views.”
2
President Lyndon Johnson understood this point intimately. When CBS network anchor Walter Cronkiteâa highly credible and popular news broadcasterâreturned from Vietnam and surprisingly reported to a mass audience that our war there was unwinnable, Johnson told a confidant that the battle for public opinion in America on the war was over.
Sunstein concludes that
who
says something can matter a great deal more than simply putting out the information for anyone to absorb. When retired Marine general Anthony Zinni told the
Washington Post
that it was a serious mistake to invade Iraq, the
Post
reporter added “that he hasn't received a single negative response from military people about the stance he has taken.” Zinni continued, “I was surprised by the number of uniformed guys, all ranks, who said, âYou're speaking for us. Keep on keeping on.'”
3
What Zinni was saying was being said by many peace advocates, progressive writers, and some Democrats in Congress. But Zinni saying it
changed the minds of those who never would have accepted the same arguments from liberals, progressives, or libertarians.
Zinni, Cronkite, and others who refuse to censor themselves and go against what is expected of them are critically sensible assets in a society in which we are told again and again of our “partisan divides,” our “red” and “blue” states, and how polls show us to be poles apart on so many issues.
The media, of course, can play a major role in diffusing the news of incipient convergences. However, the media's DNA is attached to conflict, controversy, and visible disruption. Thus, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street received coverage because they were loudly making either unusual demands or thunderous declarations. When some Tea Partiers and the Occupy Wall Streeters got together and discovered common ground on such matters as a call for no more bailouts and violations of civil liberties, there was very little coverage, certainly less than if they had a shouting match throwing soft tomatoes at each other on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets. If there is no media, there is no expansion of what has hitherto not been reported to large numbers of people.
People receive motivation to continue and build if their pleas or demands are being heard by their fellow citizens. The demonstrators protesting outside the Democratic Party's national convention of 1968 in Chicago were roaring, “The whole world is watching,” as the police set upon them. Well, that was the high mark of coverage by such mass corporate mediaâtelevision, radio, and pressâof dissenting street demonstrations. Somewhere high up in the skyscrapers, where decisions for reporting on outside political conventions and elsewhere are made, the men around the table acted in a way that meant, “Yeah, well, that's not going to happen again.”
But 1968 was a long time ago, and the media has many more faces than in the days when there were only three national TV networks reaching everybody who chose to watch. At this point,
convergent initiatives have to be particularly adept in moving, for what it's worth, through the fractured social media as well as in the traditional media, which still hold the greatest influence on decision-makers. Convergers have to use crisper, sharper words to make their points. They need to peacefully picket and demonstrate in the grand American tradition, not just to get attention but to enlarge their own community solidarities and laser-beam concentrations. Importantly, they must go into the dens of the legislators and the agencies of the executive branch of government to make known personally and directly their goals, and be willing to file serious lawsuits where merited.
The operational fuel for these efforts is money. Justice needs money; it always has in American history, whether for abolition of slavery and early women's rights movements or the civil rights and environmental drives of our generation. Far less than 1 percent of the affluent in today's America can put convergence on a fast track. Convergence has to be a uniquely appealing strategy to people of exceptional wealth, especially in their later years, when they have a different perspective on their own legacy. Granted, donated money can dilute, control, and even corrupt. But received with the requisite alertness and clear understanding, money can have a greatly enhanced effect in overcoming the naysayers and skeptics about anything getting done in our gridlocked country. So call, write, and meet them one on one or at group dinners. Prepare to reach only a few of them. That will be more than enough to get the train on the tracks for a sustained journey.
A sense of division of labor among convergers is enhancing. Reaching out to find the wealthy supporters needs traits associated with extroverts: sociability and gregariousness coupled with calmness and deliberation. For other functions, such as persuading media or legislators, or preparing arguments and briefs, different personalities come into play. That convergers often come with substantial experience in public advocacy does not obviate these
obvious points too often ignored. Experience, it should be noted, can be antithetical to innovative, bold thinking that breaks new ground and invites new talents to emerge from settled personalities. Convergence is not for the timid. Convergence is for pioneers breaking out of cultural ruts to move to the higher planes of human agreements and achievements.
My thanks to the individuals who consented to the interviews cited throughout the book. Thank you to Jim Fiest for his thoughtful suggestions. I am grateful to John Richard and his capable associates Monica Giannone and Katherine Raymond, who went through the numerous processes set forth by the diligent editors at Nation Books, in particular Carl Bromley, before
Unstoppable
could pop out of the printing presses toward a broad-based readership.
Special thanks to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) for keeping
Who Owns America? A New Declaration of Independence
, co-edited by Allen Tate and Herbert Agar, and so many other works by thoughtful conservatives in print. For a list of ISI publications visit
http://isibooks.org/
.
Introduction
1
. Out of the 6,312 votes, 3,258 were cast by Republicans, 3,054 by Democrats.
Federal Elections 92: Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives
(Washington, DC: Federal Election Commission, 1993),
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe1992/federalelections92.pdf
.