Tag: platform

Welcome to the Progressive Platform Project!

The Progressive Platform we are building will be a sort of blueprint that we believe all progressives, especially candidates, should follow. It will be our beliefs as progressives, where we stand on various issues, and in many cases, what we believe needs to be done on those issues.

In the first post, the idea of creating a Progressive Platform was introduced. I had posted links to various political platforms, so everyone could get an idea of what we are trying to accomplish. Then you were asked to vote on what planks we should include in our platform.

This week we will briefly discuss planks for our platform.

Welcome to the Progressive Platform Project!

In the past few months, there have been a lot of discussions in the media and on the blogs about what a progressive is. Many, especially in the media, are of the opinion that a progressive is the same thing as a liberal. But is that really the case? Chris Matthews considers himself a liberal. The DLC folks consider themselves liberal. Most Democrats consider themselves liberal. But are those folks progressive?

Is a progressive the exact same thing as a liberal? If not, what is a progressive? And better yet, what does a progressive, in this day and age, stand for?

These last questions are ones that we will be answering over the course of the next several months while we draft our Progressive Platform.

So I’m ask of all of you, would it benefit the liberal blogosphere to have some kind of a platform to unite around?  I’ll keep it brief, since this should be more of a discussion than a lecture.

Let the navel staring begin!

This entry builds on what Something the Dog Said and rossl wrote in their own entries.  Before I get to the meat of my own text, I just want to summarize what each of the previous entries state.  Starting any political party, or building an existing one, is going to be a lot of hard work and progressives are going to face an uphill battle regardless of what we do.  If we’re going to break away from the Democrats, however, it’s worth the effort; there are parties such as the Progressives (currently in Vermont and Washington) and the Greens, among others, that have made substantial progress at local and state levels.

That’s the short version of what Something’s and rossl’s entries have to say.  I highly recommend reading them both in full.  Now, on to my own contribution to this subject.  Because I want to provide a real-world context to the topic at hand, I’m going to pick an existing political party (The Progressives), though feel free to substitute your own.  I’m going to lay out some first steps that can be taken to get the ball rolling.

One more thing before I begin: know WHY you are forming a new political party, know what your goals are, and have realistic expectations about what you hope to accomplish.  Don’t hold any illusions.  Unless either the Democrats or the Republicans implode, chances are you’re not going to replace one of them on the national stage.  At most, and if you do things right, you’ll force the Democrats to shift back to the left.  That’s it.  If a new political party does rise to prominence, great, but that is only icing on the proverbial cake.  All you’ll want to do is force one of the major parties to experience an ideological shift to the political left.  Expect at least a generation to pass before you get this result.  It was twenty years between the 1912 election, when Theodore Roosevelt led the Progressive Party and split the presidential election three ways (thus handing it to Democrat Woodrow Wilson) and that of 1932 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the New Dealers to power.  It was another generation before the Republicans built their party back up to the point where they could begin taking back political power in government.  Finally, don’t let the progressive movement become subservient to your party – make the party subservient to the progressive movement.  David Sirota explains why far better than I can, so I’ll let his words do it.

And now, without further adieu…

If you are anything like me, you vacillate between: Yes, we can, I hope we can, and who the hell are we kidding.  

While I’ve always “sort of” been interested in politics, I fell in love with the good rebel, Dr. Dean in 04.  It was the first time in my life that I felt “we the people” had any power, let alone “the power”.   After all, who can ever forget the What I Want to Know speech by our internet interloper.

Like Obama today for so many, Dean lead me to dailykos, activism, and the belief that we could make a difference; and then, he/we lost with the help of the corporate media and our very own Democratic Party.  With that loss, Kerry’s 04 capitulation, and the on-going dismal performance of the minority and majority Dems in the House and Senate, I really began to doubt that we had any power at all.

So, you ask, what the hell does any of this have to do with health care?  The simple answer is sometimes we can make a difference.  (more)