Bill Moyers: It's Okay If It's Impossible

But here's the key: If you're fighting for a living wage, or peace, or immigration reform, or gender equality, or the environment, or a safe neighborhood, you are, of necessity, strongly opposed to a handful of moneyed-interests controlling how decisions get made and policy set. All across the spectrum people oppose the escalating power of money in politics. It's because most Americans are attuned to the issue of fair play, of not favoring Big Money at the expense of the little guy - at the expense of the country they love. The legendary community organizer Ernesto Cortes talks about the "power to protect what we value." That's what we want for Americans - the power to preserve what we value, both for ourselves and on behalf of our democracy.

But let's be clear: Even with most Americans on our side, the odds are long. Money fights hard, and it fights dirty. Think Rove. The Chamber. The Kochs. We may lose. It all may be impossible. But it's OK if it's impossible. You heard me right. I've learned something about this from the former farmworker and labor organizer Baldemar Velasquez. The members of his Farm Labor Organizing Committee are a long way from the world of K Street lobbyists. But they took on the Campbell Soup Company - and won. They took on North Carolina growers - and won, using transnational organizing tactics that helped win Velasquez a "genius" award from the MacArthur Foundation. And now they're taking on no less than R. J. Reynolds Tobacco and one of its principle financial sponsors, JPMorgan-Chase. Some people question the wisdom of taking on such powerful interests, but here's what Velasquez says: "It's OK if it's impossible; it's OK! Now I'm going to speak to you as organizers. Listen carefully. The object is not to win. That's not the objective. The object is to do the right and good thing. If you decide not to do anything, because it's too hard or too impossible, then nothing will be done, and when you're on your death bed, you're gonna say, ‘I wish I had done something.' But if you go and do the right thing NOW, and you do it long enough good things will happen-something's gonna happen."