Walter Moss: What unites us, as it did the early Progressives, is resistance to–in John Muir’s memorable phrase–“trying to make everything dollarable.”
Our Dysfunctional Economics and Politics: Reflections on Joseph Stiglitz’s The Price of Inequality
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Walter Moss: Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future (2012) demonstrates how and why our present economy and government are a mess and how they have increased inequality, including widening the opportunity gap.
Why Milwaukee Forgot Victor Berger
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Peter Dreier: Berger would be shocked that Wisconsin is currently ground-zero in the nation’s right-wing crusade against unions and progressive government — causes that he espoused.
Progressives Must Seize This Political Opportunity
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Nick Capo: Progressive reformers have led this country to a better state in previous decades, and they will do so again. But it has to start at the local level.
On Komen, Progressives Were Looking the Other Way
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Julie Driscoll: We trusted Komen to have the best interests of women at heart, until the “best interests of women” Komen had previously played up turned out to be denying poor women much-needed breast cancer screenings.
Friday Feedback: Do Newt, Mitt and the Boys Even Like Most People?
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Friday Feedback: This week, an article by Steve Hochstadt, Do Republican Candidates Like Most Americans?, drew a series of comments, supportive and not. We’ll lead with Steve’s aggregate response, then include the observations by others he comments on.
Why Today’s Politicians Love Teddy Roosevelt
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Why are today’s politicians drawn to Theodore Roosevelt? Is it his political beliefs and achievements? No, says historian Rosemarie Ostler. It is more likely his pugnacious personality and his pungent way with words.
Support Alan Grayson’s Return to Congress: Saturday, 12 November
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Alan Grayson, the former congressional representative whose speech on the House Floor went viral on YouTube, because he spoke truth, needs your help. After telling the raw truth about healthcare reform, Grayson lost his seat. But Saturday, 12 November, 2 p.m. we can help change that.Grayson famously said that Wall Street controls our economic policy, Big Oil controls our energy policy, and the military-industrial complex controls our foreign policy.
From Occupation to Door-to-Door
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Craig Williams: Now is a great time for the AFL-CIO and a coalition of groups involved in the Occupation of Wall Street movement to begin a national door-to-door campaign. It might not only be helpful to the effort but necessary given the commercial media’s negative coverage of the movement.
The Rise of the Regressive Right and the Reawakening of America
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Robert Reich: Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and the other tribunes of today’s Republican right aren’t really conservatives. Their goal isn’t to conservative what we have. It’s to take us backwards.
Saturday Survey: The Beginning
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Overall, LA Progressive readers who took this survey are quite enthusiastic about Occupy America’s potential. Five or 10 years from now, most think we’ll look back upon these days fondly
To Rebuild the American Dream, Put Pressure On Democrats
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Randy Shaw: A progressive coalition that claims to be “Bigger than the Tea Party” must hold Democrats accountable as effectively as conservatives do for Republicans .
Liberals Need a Plan
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Brent Budowsky: I propose this: Don’t wait for Obama. Don’t get mad. Organize. Mobilize. Champion the proposals we support in the battle of ideas. Fight for them.
The LA Progressive Attacked!!
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Sharon Kyle: This morning the LA Progressive was attacked. We were down for several hours. BeyondChron and Truthout were also attacked this week. As a result, both of these sites experienced considerable down time as well. Read more to find out who is doing this and what we can do.
Progressivism and a Tea Party Approach to State Government
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Walter G. Moss: Florida’s new governor, Rick Scott, is demonstrating why most of us who consider ourselves progressives dislike the politics of Tea-Party-backed candidates. For many of us, compassion and empathy are central political values, and Scott’s first budget proposal, unveiled on February 7th, reflects little of either value.
Liberty One Radio Can Be the Voice of Progressives in Southern California
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Tracy Emblem: Conservative talk radio has taken over our nation’s airwaves. With radical right sophists like Glenn Beck proclaiming that “progressivism is a cancer in America…eating our constitution,” Progressives need to passionately voice progressive values to the public more than ever.
A Time for Action — Not Servility
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Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen: While Washington pundits are talking up a new civility, many progressives are bracing for the old servility — a bipartisanship that is servile to a corporate elite that is unquenchably greedy and more powerful than ever.
How Do You Get to Be a Delegate?
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It’s happening again! I’m getting a slew of emails from friends because they don’t have a clue who they should vote for in the upcoming California Democratic Party Delegate election. Like the judicial elections, the average voter is either completely clueless or is only vaguely aware of the delegate process. Most voters know very little about the candidates and still more don’t know there is an election on Jan 8 and Jan 9.
Democracy Loses to War in Canada
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Tom Hayden: While it is significant that Canada will end its combat role in Afghanistan next year [unlike the U.S. commitment until 2014], it is disheartening that both the Conservative and Liberal parties have agreed to stay in a “training” role indefinitely
Attention Congress: Fix the Potholes
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Tina Dupuy: A politician who is against government is like an actor who is against entertainment. It’s ridiculous. Because we hate politicians so much, the only way we can stand inking a bubble next to their name is to pretend they really don’t want to do their job.
Out of the Ashes, We Can Build a Strong Progressive Movement
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Tracy Emblem: The lesson from Tuesday is simple. Democrats must be unified and elect real progressive democratic leaders that stand up for the people on the nation’s issues.
The Tragedy of Under-Reaching
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Norman Solomon: We need to build a grassroots progressive movement — wide, deep and strong enough to fight the right and challenge the corporate center of the Democratic Party.
Top “Tossup” House Race for Progressives: Raul Grijalva
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Norman Solomon: Demagogues in the Republican Party, and their Democratic allies, will say this is about amnesty and open borders. No matter how many times they repeat it, it won’t be true.
Progressive Canaries in a Political Mine
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Norman Solomon: After more than 20 months of White House insistence that the only useful role for progressive canaries is to keep singing the president’s tune, the electoral coal mine is filled with the political equivalent of carbon monoxide and methane.
Devil and the Deep Blue Dog
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Brad Parker: This November, Progressives, Liberals and Democrats like myself are caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Dog. Greens and other Independents are being squeezed to the breaking point. This is a classic dilemma – a situation requiring a choice between equally undesirable alternatives.
Progressive Media Bolstering Republican & FOX News Agenda
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Randy Shaw: Here’s a thought. What if the progressive media stopped reporting on every silly idea promoted by Sarah Palin and used that time to report on positive actions by the federal government to help people. I get emailed press releases announcing such accomplishments each day, so the stories are out there but are not covered.
Washington May Be Broken Now, But the Future Is Up for Grabs
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Michael Sigman: But lest the healthy anger of progressives during the Bush years curdle into full-blown, hide-under-the-covers depression, it’s worth asking: When did Washington work, anyway?
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It’s Only Unethical When It’s Called ‘News’
Tina Dupuy: Why doesn’t the Left have a Fox News? Why isn’t there a liberal version of political organizing on television? There are currently nine 24-hour news stations, so why isn’t there one that’s outright for progressives?