Everything Southern Humboldt and more
Listening to the highlights of the Prop 8 trial on my way home today something occurred to me. I was thinking about the bumper sticker which reads, “if the people lead, eventually the leaders will follow.”
Do you think that applies to universal marriage rights? For that matter, did it really apply to the older civil rights struggles in the south?
Maybe progressives ought to reconsider their negative view of the “great mover” theory of history.
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8 comments
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January 29, 2010 at 8:25 am
Anonymous
Even where the people lead, the leaders don’t necessarily follow. Take the public option for instance.
January 29, 2010 at 10:23 am
Mitch
But if the people don’t lead, the leaders will probably end up endorsing the status-quo. The status-quo got them where they are today.
One of my all-time favorite quotes, Truman on Eisenhower:
January 29, 2010 at 11:23 am
Eric Kirk
Mitch, the point is so far all of the progressive movement has come from legislatures and courts. But each time the people have had the opportunity to affirm those movements, they’ve been shut down.
Same thing with the Civil Rights conflicts in the south. The legislation and court decisions preceded the changes in popular consciousness.
January 29, 2010 at 1:21 pm
moviedad
I totally support gay rights. Because if they can’t be different; I can’t be different.
January 29, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Mitch
Eric,
It depends how you define things. In my opinion, progress on gay rights has come from gay people coming out and insisting on equal rights. It has come from gay political action organizations funding gay candidates. It’s harder to demonize gay people when there’s an active gay community visible beyond gay pride’s drag queens (though I love them all).
Personally, I think the pace on gay rights has been like lightning. When I was in college in the late 70s, people were laughed at for bringing up topics like gay marriage. Ten years before, gays were being arrested and battered by cops for going out for a drink. Today, equal rights in the workplace are just assumed, except in what some call the heartland and what I call the Confederacy (which I wish had gained independence).
The equal opportunity decisions have come from decades of work by employees of large company after large company, university after university, aided by gay rights organizations. Legislators may come along afterward, do some final cleanup, and take credit.
Sure, “the people” have shut things down, because the Republican party has treated gay rights as its post-nigra-phase red-meat item number one, using them to ensure elections in the Confederacy. As the electorate ages, the strength of anti-gay hatred in the electorate, even in the Confederacy, is lessening every day. I don’t have ANY faith in legislators to move things forward until that happens.
The courts are another story. Thirty cheers for the Ninth Circuit, but you still have the reactionary SCOTUS. I’ll believe in change via SCOTUS once some of those folks are dead or in jail.
January 29, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Eric Kirk
I don’t disagree with any of your points Mitch, but so far in terms of voting the gay people and heterosexual supporters combined have been in the minority each time, albeit growing with each election. Maybe we simply need to exchange “some people” for “the people.”
“If some people lead, eventually the leaders and the rest of the people will follow.”
January 29, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Scott LaMorte
What do you mean by “leader?”
If you mean elected official, then no. I don’t think elected officials typically spearhead social change. I think they reflect and codify social change that has already occurred on a wide-spread scale.
If you mean leader as in MLK, Gandhi, Goldman, and other similar social organizers, then sure; most movements benefit from having one or two heroes to rally around, stimulate ideas, and act as communicators and promoters for the new idea.
I think social change is met with resistance at first, and builds momentum within a progressive movement. When that movement goes mainstream, when that radical new idea becomes essentially commonplace and the new norm, that’s about when politicians change the laws to reflect that new norm.
January 29, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Eric Kirk
Scott, I understand the theory. But my point is that specifically with the gay marriage movement, and the civil rights movement of old, it was in fact “spearheaded” (ie. the first major institutional movements) before “the people” were up for it. In both cases there were social movements, but not by “the people,” just some people. The leaders moved after some people, but before “the people.”