I gave a talk at the June Moon Madness program, which was a progressive networking event and fundraiser for KKFI. It was on June 16th, at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City. Here is the text of my talk:

ACHIEVING PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL UNITY

My name is Kelly Gerling. I was born within a mile of here at St. Lukes Hospital. This has always been home for me. I thank you for the chance to have your attention for the next 10 minutes. My work is in psychology with individuals and organizations. And my specialty is conflict resolution. Progressives are so conflicted and fragmented that the very idea of progressive political unity is hard to imagine . . .

I’ve been working very hard for three years on the subject of progressive political unity. And what we’ve been doing here tonight is essential for that unity.

This evening we’ve been participating in the wonderful, timeless activities that began in ancient villages. Music and dance bring us together and help us connect. They help us find what we have in common and celebrate our togetherness. And so does storytelling.

Part of progressive political unity is having a common story. We need to tell a story that defines our identity, our problems and challenges, and our goals. We need a story of who we are. My brief talk tonight is a draft of that story for you, and I, and any of us to tell.

Let’s begin at the beginning.

About 500 centuries ago, the first human tribe emerged in East Africa. And it began spreading over the globe.

For the first 350 centuries we spread all around the world as roaming bands of hunter-gatherers. We hunted. We sang. We danced. We told stories around the yellow flickering flames of campfires. We populated the continents and most of the islands in the world.

As parents of helpless infants, we cared for our own children. And for those in our own group. We developed close bonds of nurturing, cooperation and mutual love.

These ancient and peaceful bands of hunter-gatherers were the first progressives.

But we have another side to us. As predators we hunted animals. And as prey we were hunted by animals—big ones with big teeth. Our survival through history required violence. The seeds of violence and domination then grew within us from the beginning. Like all predators, we were (and are) capable of being deceptive and violent.

We therefore possessed two worldviews: domination and cooperation. So we developed two politics. One thrived on hatred. The other on love. One sees the bad in the Negative Other. The other sees others as potential brothers and sisters in a community. One wants to take from others. The other wants to work with others. That is the difference between the conservative and progressive worldviews. One is based on domination, the other on cooperation.

The interplay of these two worldviews and two forms of politics is the interwoven two-stranded braid of history. Like a double helix of DNA, domination and cooperation create a two-part dynamic through history.

Bands cooperated and created progressive villages.

Then lands got overpopulated and villages became towns. Resources dwindled. Competition heated up. Hunting groups became warring groups. Some societies began acquiring land and resources through theft and conquest. They said, “If we don’t conquer them, they will conquer us.” They believed in domination. They were the first conservatives.

The conservatives ruled for a long time in many places.

Towns and city states conquered or were conquered by each other.

Groups of cities and regions became empires.

Empires spread.

The great religions arose as peaceful resistance to empires.

Then empires hijacked religions.

Democratic nations arose to counter empires and dictatorships.

Then the conservatives and their corporations took over nations and conquered helpless societies.

In response, progressives instituted new forms of government empowering the people by making goverments mirrors of the people.

This alternating pattern happened in America.

Conservatives ruled from the Civil War until 1900. Progressives got some power from 1900 to 1920. Conservatives took over in the 20s. Progressives took over with the New Deal from 1932 to 1970. Wages rose four-fold.

Then the conservatives seized the presidency in 1980.

Conservatives seized the military as America’s way of dealing with the world since then. This resulted in millions of innocents being killed in the last few decades, from Vietnam to Iraq.

But progressives rose up in response.

In 1999 we had the Battle of Seattle.

Now some progressives are fighting back with progressive caucuses in the Democratic Party and a growing Green Party.

We are making progress.

Our progressive media is growing.

Democracy Now plays every weekday morning. There are many other progressive shows on as well: Tom Klammer's Tell Somebody; Judy Ancel and the Heartland Labor Forum; David Barsamian's Alternative Radio; Radio Nation by the Nation magazine; Vicki Walkers Watchdog; Pacifica News, and many others.

So KKFI is a key player in this quest for a media of, by and for the people.

This progressive media revolution is part of a nationwide progressive movement.

We are on the march. Our movements are powerful, but sadly, they are not enough.

Defeating the current corporate regime and its forces of domination requires a political unity that we have not yet created. While their policies are failing—they have the money. They have the military. They control the workplace. And Congress. And the corporate media. And the public debate.

So what do we do? First, think of or motive—our cause.

We have the greatest motive of all for creating political unity and acting as one. We face two converging sets of problems which place us at the edge of history in the twenty-first century. The technologies of weapons of mass destruction are spreading. The warming of our climate, depletion of resources and the destruction of our ecosystems are accelerating. This emerging global megacrisis threatens the long human quest for a peaceful, secure, prosperous world that works for all humanity.

The choices before us at the edge of history are clear. David Korten wrote a book called The Great Turning about this moment at the edge of history. The subtitle says it all. We have two choices he says: Empire or Earth Community.

The future is a race between progressive change and planetary catastrophe. We can have security and prosperity for all, or no one will be secure and prosperous.

If we fail, there will be no future historians talking about us or anyone else. Instead there will be just a few impoverished survivors telling stories about the destruction of the world and those idiots who failed to prevent it. Us.

But if we succeed in our progressive endeavor, future historians will look back on us and say “there lived a great people who rose up. They brought about the great turning and made our world work for all of humanity.

For us to do that we need the power of politics.

But we are fragmented and at odds with one another. And we face important questions:

Where do we march? When do we march? Who do we boycott or buycott? Who do we vote for when elections come? How do we vote our ideals without helping the worst of the conservatives? How do we work with the Democratic Party without supporting their intent to preserve the current corporate regime? How do we end US imperial domination abroad? How do we stop the emergence of a police state at home? How do we get corporate bribery out of elections. How do we actually bring about a true multiparty democracy which most Americans want?

There is no one progressive leader who can make decisions; nor any group that can decide for us; nor any entity that can provide a single, unifying forum for discussing such questions.

In short, we have no political unity for the American progressive citizenry.

On Wednesday night, June 27th, those who created this event are sponsoring me to give a free evening talk. It is about achieving progressive political unity.

I’d like to pose a question now that I’ll be exploring at that talk: What question, if asked, would naturally lead us to create a plan to achieve progressive political unity?

I’ll go into that at the free presentation at UMKC at 7 p.m. on Wednesday the 27th. Jim Herrmann will be there too to provide some music.

Thanks for your interest and attention. I hope to see you there.