Nascent Political Party Takes Aim at Big Guys

Forming a local political group can be difficult and time-consuming. Creating an alternate political party is no picnic, either. But launching a national political movement composed of many different factions can be a nightmare.

In 1997, Ronnie Dugger learned this the hard way.

As co-chair of the Alliance for Democracy, he, along with thousands of other Americans, has taken on a target of staggering proportions: the transnational corporations that dominate so many aspects of modern life.

Currently, 1% of America’s population controls 40% of the national wealth, and 20 mega-corporations own more than 50% of our radio and TV stations, book publishing companies, movie studios and magazines, according to Dugger’s research.

Ever since May, when The Times chronicled the alliance’s grass-roots efforts to promote a more authentic form of American democracy, the fledgling movement has been wrestling with the demons of procedure and protocol.

“I can’t tell you how much time we have spent--and, I think, lost--simply trying to get people to agree on how we should best proceed,” says Dugger, one of America’s most respected journalists and former longtime editor of the Texas Observer.

“But we’ve got that behind us now,” he adds. “We’re strong, we’re directed, and we know what we need to do.”

After a spirited meeting of the group’s 55 chapters in Kansas last month, the alliance has settled on goals for 1998 and beyond. Members will soon finish voting on action plans to do battle with the corporate state; they are also moving to establish an international clearinghouse on efforts to form an alternative, non-corporate-dominated world economy.

The alliance, which dismisses the Democratic and Republican parties as irrelevant and ineffectual, “is now ready to enter the networking and pilot action stages and money-raising stages that precede going out into the public arena and actually confronting corporate adversaries,” Dugger says.

Southlanders can get a glimpse of the alliance at work on Jan. 22, when Dugger and others will hold a fund-raiser and informational meeting at the home of Los Angeles philanthropist Stanley Sheinbaum. Information is available from Jo Seidita, a San Fernando Valley alliance leader, at (818) 886-4489.