Counting Their Coins…

And this is where we, Progressives, stand… establishment Democrats counting their few gold coins, while Roman soldiers point their lances in our direction…

With the announcement that Lieberman is going to give the Democratic radio response to Bush on Walter Reed, it’s pretty well confirmed that progressives are shut out of the Congressional halls of power.  First it was Feingold’s defunding proposal being poleaxed, then Hoyer winning the Majority Leader contest, then it was Murtha’s plan sandbagged by Blue Dogs, then it was Reid allowing Fox News as the anchor for the Nevada Presidential debate, then it was Joe Biden and Carl Levin failing to do anything substantive on Iraq, and now it’s a full-throated embrace of Lieberman.  And yes, this was Harry Reid’s choice.

From what I understand from talking to a few progressives on the Hill, the freshmen in Congress are being extensively ‘trained’ by Rahm Emanuel’s DLC band of consultants and pollsters, which is one reason they’ve been silent.  

Tying the Thread of American Social Progress

It’s incredibly moving and great to see how when one is cognizant of our nation’s history the thread of social progress is readily visible; thus, one can see how at different times, for various reasons, different communities have broadened our understanding of American citizenship and thereby expanded the universe of the phrase, “We the People.”

Van Jones, over that the HuffingtonPost.com, writes:

At this week’s "Dia Sin Inmigrantes/Day Without Immigrants" march in San Francisco, I saw a beautiful, exciting and hopeful vision of the future of this country.

I also caught a glimpse of a familiar past, fading away. And I shed a few tears for both.

From the moment I climbed aboard the BART subway cars Monday morning, I knew this May Day march and rally would differ from the Bay Area’s usual protest fare.
The trains headed into downtown San Francisco were filled with working-class Latinos, all wearing white; most had kids in tow.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF RALLY

There were few protest signs or banners. But the stars and stripes were everywhere. One tyke on my train kept trying to poke his cousin with a little American flag.

Some of the teeniest kids were wearing their older sibling’s white Tees - with their shirt hems hanging down past their knees. The children were all well-scrubbed and happy … and very proud.

So were their parents. They knew they were part of something new, and big, and promising.

The bright mood contrasted starkly with the dreary atmosphere that chokes most protests nowadays. On this march, I saw no resigned shuffling of already-defeated feet. No sea of scowls. No pierced tongues, screaming. Nor could I spy a single person dragging behind her the weighty conviction that resistance - though obligatory - was futile.

To the contrary. Beaming, brown-skinned families walked off those trains with their heads held high. Sure, they may have been poor, facing tough challenges in the near term. But they stepped like they were marching into a future of limitless promise and potential.

[...]

Deep inside, I was grieving for my own people. I wished that my beloved African-American community had managed - somehow - to retain our own sparkling sense of faith in a magnificent future. There was once a time when we, too, marched forward together - filled with utter confidence in the new day dawning. There was a time when we, too, believed that America’s tomorrow held something bright for us … and for our children.

[...]

By simply standing up for their own kids and grandparents - for their own dignity and futures - activist Latinos today are pulling the nation to a higher level of fairness and inclusion.

They are posing a simple and devastating question: should U.S. society continue to profit from the labor of 11 million people - many of whom pick our fruit, nurse our children, clean our workplaces - without embracing them fully, without honoring their work, without extending to them the same rights and respect we would want for ourselves?

Can we countenance or tolerate a Jim Crow system - in brown-face - with a shunned tier of second-class workers, enriching society but lacking legal status and protections?

Or are we willing to change our laws - and change our hearts - to embrace those upon whom our economy has come to rest? This is a simple moral challenge. The right answers are not easy, but they are obvious.

I know that there will be a backlash (there always is when people push for fairness), even coming from some Black folks. But I also know that the Latino-led struggle for justice and inclusion offers hope to all of us. A national conversation about the true meaning of dignity, equality, opportunity and fair play in the modern economy can ultimately benefit every American community.

I am confident that it will. Because during the two prior centuries, it was the African-American community that performed this service for the country. And we paid a high and awful cost in blood and martyrs. Unfortunately, we did not achieve all of our aims. But we did tear apartheid from the pages of U.S. law books.

And in the course of that struggle, we did improve the lot of all Americans - expanding social programs, democratic rights and social tolerance for all people. And our efforts opened the doors for today’s equality struggles. Our marching feet moved the whole nation forward.

The entire piece is incredibly moving, I urge you to read it and, if so inclined, leave note of appreciation over at the HuffingPost.com blog.

A Progressive’s Wish List

Here’s a brief list, er, wish list, of items I’d like to see coming from the Democratic party and their national candidates:

Policies

• National commitment to the Energy Apollo Project, to curtail, if not end, our dependence on fossil fuels — I’d also like to see more exploration on alternative energy sources
• No US forces in Iraq, no permanent basis the country
• Rebuild and regain the trust of our nation’s military after the catastrophic abuse of the past six years
• As an aside, and as someone that served in the military, I’d like to see a mandatory — yes, mandatory — military service period for every American after completing high school for a two year period. (Conscientious objectors could serve in non-combat units that are not required to undergo any direct weapons training — our nation must commit to an ideal wherein war must be a shared sacrifice, across the board, period.)
• Heavy investment in our educational system, particularly k-12
• Rekindle our national governments commitment to Social Security, so that the country knows that the systems is solvent and secure
• National healthcare
• A renewed commitment that Americans’ reproductive security and sovereignty will remain a personal matter, even as we acknowledge that abortion should be "rare, safe and legal"
• An increase in the minimum wage
• Strong support for Americans’ right to negotiate job security with their employers through our unions
• Strong incentives (patent protection and other methods) to maintain tech jobs and industry in our shores
• Reforming our nation’s revenue code to curtail payment evasion, and to shore up solvency
• Provide an avenue for undocumented immigrants to join the American mainstream, while simultaneously working with our partners in the Western Hemisphere to curtail the inflow of undocumented immigrants
• Work with Israel, Palestine and the world community to assure that the parties move rapidly towards a two state solution — negotiate a sustainable cease fire
• Recommit to the nuclear non-proliferation treaties
• A renewed commitment of America’s most sacred creed: Equal Protection for All. Yes, all, including gays — there would be no more talk of any anti-American amendments

I could list a couple more, but I want to move on to the issue of style/perception; after all, leadership and politics (as anything else, I suppose), are about substance and style, concrete policy and its veneer (by god, republicans have thought us this lesson… we best learn it). Accordingly, I’d like to see the following in my ideal candidate:

Style

• A transformational leader — someone whose party legacy, for instance, would be said to be: After their administration there were more people calling themselves Liberal than there were before. Take Ronald Reagan, he’s clearly used by conservatives to this day as their standard bearer and the conservative movement uses him to shore up their brand
• My ideal political leader will unabashedly reach to the legacy, language and vision of FDR — the greatest American president of the 20th century –, all the while seeking to build new and lasting coalitions that give shape to an America for the 21st century
• I want someone that does not shy away nor cower before the attacks from the conservative movement; rather, I would like my political leader to respond to any challenges from the right as FDR once did:

We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred. I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second administration that in it these forces met their master.

• I want a leader that understands and respects that we ALL belong to the American family, no matter our ethnic group nor religion; moreover, while we belong to one single American family, the way forward is to be good neighbors within the international community — I want a leader that will seek to build collaborative relations with our partners (no more unileteralism; of course, we retain a monopoly over our national defense)
• I want a leader that will make rebuilding the Democratic and the Liberal/Progressive brand a priority

Roosevelt the Liberal

Roosevelt was an astute Liberal AND pragmatic politician. Many have tried to down play and even obscure his Liberalism, which, of course, given the period, was different than the post-Civil Rights era Liberalism that many of us see in our mind’s eye when we think of a Liberal. However, Roosevelt was a Liberal, even if his agenda was incremental, and, yes, he was also a pragmatist — the two, Liberal and a pragmatist, are not mutually exclusive.

In The Second Bill of Rights, Cass Sunstein writes:

During his last year, Roosevelt concluded that America’s system of political parties needed to be fundamentally altered. He told his principle speechwriter, Samuel Rosenman, that "the time has come for the Democratic party to get rid of its reactionary elements in the South, and to attract to it the Liberals in the Republican party… We ought to have two real parties — one liberal and one conservative." To this end, Roosevelt started negotiations with Wendell Wilkie, the 1940 Republican presidential candidate, stating that with "the liberals of both parties Wilkie and I together can form a new, really liberal party in America." Wilkie responded quite favorably, saying that he was "ready to devote almost full time to this." But both men were dead within the year, and the project was orphaned. [page 16]

Just imagine if their vision had been pursued.

As an observer of politics, to me is quite interesting how Republicans build and build on their brand and figures, while we, Democrats, run away from ours. Republicans have and will continue to spend a lot energy into building shrines for Reagan, because they know that he represents an extension of their brand, a way to reach out and to convert. We, in the other hand, have nearly forgotten the legacy of Roosevelt and how it was during that period that the Democratic party enjoyed its greatest electoral success. Sure, there’s the issue of "big government," "entitlements," "social security reform," and how removed we now are from Roosevelt’s era. The "ideas" that Roosevelt articulated in his Second Bill of Rights still resonate:

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

In the 80s and 90s the Democratic party choose to abandon its storied legacy and, in stead, embraced the corporatist DLC messaging/agenda as the "third way," which they presented as the way forward for the Democratic party. Now, after witnessing how this so-called third way has utterly failed to capture the imagination and hearts of the American people, I would hope that we start to look at the Democratic champions of the past that managed to govern successfully, AND that also managed to build broad-movement coalitions under the party’s banner.

Harry Taylor: Freedom of Speech

Harry Taylor today fulfilled his civic duty simply by sharing his displeasure with OUR public servant, president Bush. Unfortunately, there are still many Americans that continue to betray their civic responsibilities by merely serving as cheerleaders and enablers to an administration and a party that have repeatedly lied to us, even as they failed hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans in NOLA, and elsewhere; not to mention their utter failure at governing and managing our country — lest we forget that in 2001, when Bush came into office, our country was enjoying record surpluses and, only five short years later, Bush and crew have amassed record deficits.

Harry Taylor stood before our public servant and told him:

I feel like, despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration.

However, as Harry Taylor was fulfilling his civic duty, other citizens, more docile and less concerned with their own responsibilities to our country, decided to boo a man that so nobly illustrated one of the four essential freedoms beautifully articulated by FDR; and so movingly depicted by Norman Rockwell.

This image was inspired by a simple post I found over at DailyKos.com, which I thought was very compelling. I’m sure that unwittingly, Harry Taylor inspired many, see here and here and here. You can also check out a clip of the exchange here, courtesy of ThinkProgress.com.

Update:

• There’s now a Thank You Harry site here.
• This person decided to track down Harry Taylor to thank him, and they got to chat.
• Harry Taylor appeared on CNN the morning after his "Freedom of Speech" moment.