Norman Solomon: If there’s a defining issue that now separates the Obama party leadership from social decency, it is the president’s push to cut Social Security benefits.
Liberals Need to Stop Making Excuses for Obama
By
Mary Dudziak: The more we explain away failures during Obama’s presidency as the inevitable consequence of political structures, the more we put off an urgent analysis of the failures of the president himself.
California Democratic Party Disses Fracking, Still Loves Money
By
Wendy Block: It’s heartbreakingly clear that the Democrats won’t act courageously. But a number of non-partisan outside groups will. The MOVI coalition and Common Cause are sponsoring Prop C on the Los Angeles ballot next month, to let voters tell electeds to fight Citizens United. They need you.
Good Timing for a Progressive Partnership
By
Peter Dreier: Progressive activists sometimes joke that if you put three lefties in the same room you’ll soon have five different organizations. Personal egos, ideological splits, and competition for funding often lead to fissures, factions, and “family” disputes.
Exceptional: But Not in a Good Way
By
John Peeler: On guns and prisons, we are more like a Third World country than like other rich nations. On health care, Third World countries simply cannot afford to waste the amount of money we do. And it is doubtful that we can, either.
Culture Wars: The Young Grow Old
By
Rudy Acuña: Pundit after pundit predicts that the entrance of large numbers gay and Latino voters will end the culture wars that divide the country. There is only one problem — progressives forget that the “Young Grow Old.”
The Occupy Movement and Revitalizing Democracy
By
Randy Shaw: Graeber sees MoveOn.org, Rebuild the Dream, and other groups associated with the “left wing of the Democratic Party” as betraying the Occupy movement by not opposing police closures of Occupy camps.
25 Best Progressive Victories in 2012
By
Peter Dreier: Progressives are rarely satisfied. It is part of our political DNA. There’s so much injustice in the world, it’s sometimes hard to feel that we’re making progress. But as Chinese philosopher Laozi reminded us, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
You Could Be Speaking at Netroots Nation
By
ach year, we ask for your help in developing and organizing the sessions you’ll attend at Netroots Nation. Your submissions will help us create an inclusive and engaging agenda.
What Activists (Should Have) Learned in 2012
By
Randy Shaw: Activists are in far better spirits than one year ago. Progressives see that the public is on their side, and, unlike in the aftermath of the 2008 elections, are staying engaged in the major policy struggles that elections are supposed to be all about.
President Obama: Please Raise My Taxes!
By
Ted Vaill: The Bush tax cuts decreased the top personal income tax rate from 39.6% to 35%. A hypothetical millionaire who had $1,000,000 in adjusted gross income in each of the past 10 years benefitted by over $200,000. It is time for payback. Do it.
Fifty Young Progressive Activists Who Are Changing America
By
Peter Dreier: In the next decade, America will be transformed by a new wave of progressive activism, led primarily by organizers, thinkers, and politicians born after 1960.
Will the FCC Finally Protect Public Airwaves?
By
Sue Wilson: People in Portland are now organizing against Clear Channel to bring the progressive point of view back to the airwaves they own.
A Rice Worth Fighting For
By
Karen Finney: Such a fight would galvanize support for Obama among progressives, creating goodwill he might need heading in to the “fiscal cliff” and budget discussions, which could require unpopular concessions from the president.
Succumb to Cynicism, Let Regressives Win It All
By
Robert Reich: The Koch brothers, Karl Rove, the rabid Republican right, CEOs and Wall Street titans who want to entrench their privileges and tax advantages — all of them would like nothing better than for every progressive in America to throw in the towel.
Why Obama, Progressives Are Winning on Issues
By
Randy Shaw: Obama’s campaign is giving progressives something they have not experienced since FDR: a clear cut ideological victory for progressive economic strategies and values. And Republicans know it.
California Progressives Take the Offensive
By
Randy Shaw: While progressives will be forced to invest major resources in defeating Prop 32, the other major ballot initiatives all put conservatives on the defensive and would further progressive change.
Progressives Must Move Beyond Occupy
By
Cynthia Alvarez: Occupy is actually impeding Progressives’ outreach to the general public. Progressives need new organizations based on the successful planning and leadership strategies of the civil rights movement to create an army of volunteers.
Should Progressives Stop Criticizing Obama?
By
Randy Shawo: While Obama draws overwhelming support among African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, single women and organized labor, some progressives continue to attack him. But with Romney-Ryan posing a dire threat to progressive interests, this criticism should stop until after Election Day.
The Ryan Nomination, The Obama Re-Election Campaign, and the Left
By
Mark Naison: Obama supporters who want progressives to take precious energies away from grass roots movements to re-elect the president are, whether intentionally or not, sabotaging long term possibilities of democratic change.
How American Unions Failed Their Members; What They Can Do Now
By
Tom Hall: Unions bargained for better benefits in exchange for slightly lower wages. But then the unions didn’t require that the benefits actually be provided.
How Progressives Can (and Must) Lobby for Social Change
By
Diane Lefer: Citizen lobbying is most effective when the decision maker can see you face-to-face (in their district or Capitol office or at a town hall meeting) or at least hear your voice on the phone.
Progressives Wrongly Alarmed by Roberts’ ACA Decision
By
Randy Shaw: I was astounded to see so many progressive commentators and legal scholars interpret Justice Roberts’ health care decision as creating the legal edifice necessary to rein in future government programs.
How to Stop Urban Violence and Drug Dealing
By
Randy Shaw: What separates Kennedy from so many other anti-crime strategists is that he has been down in the trenches in some of the toughest neighborhoods in urban America and documents what works and what does not.
Welcome to the New Normal America
By
Joseph Palermo: Wall Street banks should be pouring money into Obama’s reelection since he’s been so good to them, and the neocons should be rejoicing in his establishing precedent for more unchecked executive power.
What Tea Party Republican Fundagelicals Really Want
By
Tom Hall: The Tea Party Republican Fundagelical program wants to return America to pre-Gutenburg days – when few, even among the nobility could read, or had anything to read. To a time when people were told, by their religious leaders, what the “truth” was, and how to behave.
LA Progressive Ad Sales Help Needed
By
We need an experienced ad salesperson to sell advertising space on our two websites. We expect to pay a healthy commission for sales that would principally involve online and phone work.
The Great Populist Wave
By
Brent Budowsky: It is time for the true champions of the 99 percent to launch the largest voter-registration, -mobilization and -turnout campaign in the history of freedom.
May Day Los Angeles
By
May Day was observed all over the nation with marches, rallies, sit-ins and demonstrations occurring simultaneously in all of the major metropolitan areas including Los Angeles. Dick and I spent a good deal of the day in the streets of downtown Los Angeles.
PCL offers monthly Open House Events on the 2nd Saturday at 2pm and 3rd Thursday at 6pm. Click here to learn more.
Recent Comments