Six crucial tasks for the left and progressive community

From Sam Webb.

Since Ronald Reagan was elected president more than three decades ago, right-wing extremists gathered in the Republican Party have been attempting to restructure the role and functions of government to the advantage of the top layers of the capitalist class.

One of their main aims has been to dismantle the bundle of social programs and rights (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and voting, civil, disability, women's and labor rights, and much more) that were legislated over the past eight decades. These progressive breakthroughs are anathema to them. Instead of triumphs, the right wing sees them as sorry episodes in American history.

Looking back over the past 30 years it is fair to say that the right wing has been successful in redistributing income, by way of taxes, to the wealthiest corporations and families. It has been much less successful in dismantling social entitlements and rights.

That speaks to the popularity of this social compact with the American people.

Nevertheless, the rightists keep trying to do away with it, including in the recent debt ceiling talks. And they will try again when the super-committee of 12 senators and representatives - half from each party and chamber - convenes this fall and deliberates on the future of these programs and rights.

So no one who benefits from them - and that means just about every American - should rest comfortable. No longer are a safety net for older people, a health care bottom line, and basic equality and democratic guarantees considered a part of the birthright of every American. Indeed their future is precarious.

What will it take to save these core components of our social compact? The same thing that it took to win them - sustained mass struggle of a broad-based labor-led multiracial movement. Without such a movement it is hard to see how these social protections will be maintained - not to mention improved upon.

Yes, in the White House and Congress there are supporters of social entitlements and rights (and that too is necessary for a winning struggle) but it's not sufficient. They don't have the social power to stand up to a right-wing-driven offensive that includes nearly every section of the capitalist class. That social power resides with the masses of people who put elected officials into office.

In these circumstances, the left and progressive community has a crucial role. Here's what it can, and must, do:

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