New Solar City, Strip Searches, Teenage Sexting, Progressives and Liberals, Afpakistan, Gaza

Gay film star Jack Wrangler dies; Florida's new "Solar City"; strip searching 13 year olds and D.A. filing pornography charges against teenage "sexters"; Progressives, Liberals, Lies and Democrats; Obama Report -- wading even deeper into Afpakistan quagmire and his Republican-heavy hedge fund Administration; latest on Israel's war crimes in Gaza.

For the second time, Blogtalk censors have taken their axe to my show description. Note how their filter rejected my use of the word pornography in the above description and forced me to change it on blogtalk to "***nography" to get past the filter. Orwellian and Stalinesque, huh? Also stupid.

Obama Careens Right and "Progressive Democrat" is an Oxymoron

Obama careens Right, the definition of Progressivism and why "Progressive Democrat" is an oxymoron; Minnesota Democrats endorse Instant Runoff Voting (How 'bout Florida?); Reform the electoral college NOW; new study in the War on Drugs in Florida.

On the Road Again

Live at the Florida Progressive Summit in Tampa. We're asking the activists what Progressivism means to them and what is their strategy for achieving that vision in Florida.

I Am a Progressive!

Day Two. Okay, I’ll declare it. I’m a Progressive, above all else. And I have concluded from the initial reactions to the question of What is a Progressive? that 1) my thinking is going to evolve on this one, with your help, and 2) I’m going to make this a recurring feature of the 100 Days and the radio show — my definitions of what a Progressive is, and 3) my position is hardening that we need to clearly define what Progressivism is, for that will ground us for all the decisions we will have to make about things, strengthen us as negotiaters with our Moderate and Liberal friends, confront the right wingers, and hold a recognizable banner for the general public to follow, in short, to provide STRONG LEADERSHIP.

What is a Progressive?

Day Three. We really need to define, broadly, what Florida Progressivism is. It’ll clarify our thinking and guide us in our work and choices and which candidates we endorse, perhaps the most important of our choices. If you are not clear what you stand for, you will be seduced by liars, propagandists, careerists, Moderates and media spin, and weakened when you confront Rightwingers. (Isn’t that how we got into Iraq?) So I invite all of you: write out a relatively brief statement of your Progressive principles. Or if you identify yourself more as a Liberal or Moderate, or even a Democrat, define what that means to you. Here’s my rough draft try at this, I’m going for something more specific than the FPC’s statement, but not programmatic, since there can be a lot of legitimate differences on how to execute principles:

Progressivism to me, and as I have understood it over the past 40 years, advocates a society that rejects foreign intervention, coercion and militarism and military “aid” and uses its armed forces only as a last resort against real, emerging imminent threats or to stop genocide. Instead, it seeks resolution of international and transnational conflicts through discussion and respect for the legitimate interests of all parties and foreign economic development aid. This enables the society to focus its resources on broadening its prosperity to ALL of its people. This starts with progressive taxation based on the ability to pay. It embraces lite socialism to provide for the basic needs of society such as postal, education (from pre-school through vocational ed and college), police, fire, emergency management and prevention, housing, transportation infrastructure, targeted economic development to depressed communities and wherever the private sector fails to provide a basic need affordably to all people (that means health insurance and hurricane insurance). Progressivism advocates respect and equality of minorities. It advocates a criminal justice system that protects the individual from false detention, arrest and incarceration or for “moral” crimes and seeks to rehabilitate the truly criminal through education, counseling and humane correction with prison and harsh sentences as a last resort. Progressivism means a truly fair election system in which every person can participate on a financially even footing with an emphasis on grassroots organizing. Progressivism seeks to expand individual freedom from oppressive government and society, while constraining greed, economic predation and the unlimited accumulation of wealth at the expense of most of society. Progressivism truly means Progress, by looking forward to a better and better all inclusive society based on science and rationality as opposed to 14th century thought.

Pretty simple, huh? What do you think?

Identity Politics

Day 4. We’re on a roll, pickin’ up steam, train’s a comin’. My radio show starts 10am Saturday. Tune in. More on that tomorrow. I swear this is all leading somewhere, people. We’re starting out defining who we are. I didn’t expect it to evolve like this. I didn’t know what to expect. But I will soon move into strategy, and then tactics, and go into policy, which is after all determined by identity and strategy.

Words do count. Our political identities are important. Here’s another exercise for you, you should start writing stuff down: how do you identify yourself politically? Post it. Maybe you don’t have an identity, but I find that hard to believe, correct me if I’m wrong. Sure, a few people among us may not have a political identity, and I guess that’s cool. But your not leading. You’re following. And that’s cool too. Follow me. (Tee hee). Just don’t flip to the Dark Side down the road, when the next terror attack hits, or you convert to President Thompson or whatever. You’re in danger.

Progressive doesn’t mean progress because progress is a meaningless term, although that was the original 17th century name of the concept. Everybody wants progress towards their own values. Progress would be a fundamentalist Christian Republic to many Christians; a democratic, U.S.-ruling elite aligned, oil supplying, U.S. military based Iraq to the neo cons, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of people will be killed and maimed,and how many millions refugeed and trillions of dollars wasted to achieve that progress.

Our political identity determines everything, our opinions on issues, the importance of them, what we do, who we support, who we empower. I’m a Progressive first and foremost. Personally, I also consider myself a Liberal, a Democrat, a Green, a Socialist, a civil libertarian, a unionist, a Moderate and a gay libber, but those are the sub identities. Yeah, there’s a lot of overlap between these. Some of you consider yourselves Democrats above all else. That’s your identity. It affects things. One of my gripes about the party people is you’re often partisan, party above all else (here I go again, labeling and stereotyping). But you have a tendency to have a double standard for “bad” behavior if it is committed by a Republican as opposed to a Democrat. Or to oppose every single thing a Republican proposes (granted it’s easy to mistrust them). You get caught up in side shows. Take the primary flap. That’s a side show, at least for a Progressive. I don’t care about it. I’m outside the circular firing squad. I love you all. The primary system broke down this year, and good riddance. I’ve hated it for twenty years. We’re gonna fix it for 2012,I think. We will.

There IS a Progressive political identity, folks. I swear I’m not making it up. There are hundreds of thousands of people around this country who identify as Progressives, first and foremost, a whole community. They don’t consider themselves Liberals. Just ask Scott Maddox, I think, and Kucinich, Jesse Jackson, Feingold, Howard Dean, Jerry Brown, maybe Obama, if you get the chance. We gotta get them down here.

Now you don’t need to name your identity, that’s cool. Better that than say your someone you’re not. But doesn’t it make things easier? In the end, after I talk to and observe you for an hour, I’ll name you. I have limited energy, so I will try to help Progressives get elected, not Liberals or Democrats, and I will advocate Progressive ideas, not Liberal ones or Democratic Party positions (except where they often overlap).

In the end, BEWARE of the labels people attach to themselves. They may not be what they appear. Maybe I’m not really Progressive, after all. Just be clear about your identity.

Progressives and Liberals

Day Eight. Wow, it’s going to be a long 100 Days of posts! Some of you are asking, “Why are you going on and on making this distinction between Liberals and Progressives? What do you hope to accomplish? It’s a false dichotomy. They’re the same. I’m both.”

Don’t misperceive. I’m not trashing Liberals. Yeah I know it may sound like it, at moments, on fine points, but I’m not. Liberals are family. I’ve just NEVER thought of myself as a Liberal. I’ve always thought of myself as Progressive. Not that I have any animosity toward Liberalism, and at some moments and contexts I call myself a Liberal. I’m making the distinction for several reasons: 1) because it exists, at least among many people, although there is a lot of overlap between the two, even if it doesn’t exist for you personally; 2) I want all of us, including me as I think about all this fascinating stuff, to clarify our identities for the reasons I outlined in Identity Politics; and 3) there’s something that concerns me about Liberalism, as many Progressives define it, even though you personally may not. I’m not going to get into this in this post. My thoughts are still unclear. It’s a feeling, an intuition. There’s something about Liberalism, as some of us see it, that echoes some of the premises and paradigms of the right wingers, or amoral anchorless Centrism. I don’t know. It’ll emerge as a thread during these 100 Days.

To an extent I am making a forced dichotomy, I wouldn’t say a false one, it’s a matter of degree and nuance. Most of what I’ve been saying about Liberalism, many many people who call themselves Progressives would agree with. But you’re also getting a little of my personal take on the differences and yeah it may be a little theatrical and stretching, but I still think I’m touching, if in metaphors, the differences.

But I will say that there is merit in defining Progressivism broadly, as Kenneth and others are doing, and I am committed to a free ranging, honest, CIVIL discussion. But I get nervous about defining it so broadly that it loses a clear identity, that neither we nor the general public who we are trying to provide STRONG clear leadership for can unambiguously explain what we stand for. Maybe I’m emerging as “on the left” of this redefined Progressive movement, but I swear, I consider myself a Moderate. Then again, maybe none of this matters. Maybe I should forget labels and distinctions. We will see.

What do you think?

Are You Progressive?

Let it begin. Day One. I swear I’ll keep most of these short and to the essence, although this, as the first, will be one of the longer ones.

I know I should start these 100 days with a post on Labor, but I have to kick this off with a look at The Big Picture: What is a progressive?

The opposition to radical bastardized conservatism is, finally, clearly ascendant, and its leadership, including us, are calling ourselves Progressives. Forget for a moment that the number of Americans identifying themselves as Liberal, not progressive, is at a 35 year high. I suspect that’s because the general public still cannot define what Progressivism is. But I am worried, worried that the Progressive movement as it has existed since its reincarnation in 1968 is being diluted by the flood of people jumping onto the band wagon, and morphing into an amorphous catchall for anything that opposes George and Jeb Bush Republicanism. I could be wrong. Please, comment about this.

The modern Progressive movement developed in 1968 when McCarthy and Robert Kennedy split from the Liberal Democratic Establishment of LBJ and Hubert Humphrey and others who were perpetuating the Vietnam War. (Historical point: American Progressivism emerged in 1912 as an agrarian reaction to urbanization and industrialization in the Republican Party, which splintered into Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party. Robert La Follette carried the banner in 1924 and Henry Wallace in 1948, opposing Truman’s Cold War militarism. The FPC is an inheritor of this historical continuity).

So Progressivism split from Liberalism in 1968, and developed into additional issues. The two were distinctly different. Are they now? Tell me, what is the difference between a Liberal and a Progressive? And which are you? Are you a Progressive merely because Liberalism went out of fashion? Are you merely rebranding Liberalism?

In 1976 I canvassed hundreds upon hundreds of homes for Progressive Tom Hayden for the U.S. Senate in California against Liberal Democrat incumbent John Tunney in the Democratic primary who originally won because he was the son of a famous boxer. Great credentials, huh? I walked the Hispanic working class West side of Santa Barbara, CA. Hayden was the militant anti-Vietnam War protestor who was tried in the Chicago 7 trial of war protestors at the Democratic National Convention in 1968. Hayden won a surprising 40% in the primary. Tunney was then defeated by radical right winger Sam Hayakawa. We Progressives blamed Tunney for the loss because he was a Washington D.C. Limousine Liberal who had lost touch with middle and lower class working people.

One last story: from 1976-80 I wrote for a Progressive weekly newspaper in Santa Barbara. We called our paper a Progressive paper, not a liberal paper, because we saw ourselves somewhat to the left of Liberal.

Okay, I’ll start to wrap.

What was the difference between Tom Hayden and our paper, and John Tunney and a Liberal newspaper? And what is the difference today, in my mind?

Liberals tend to be wealthy, or well to do attorneys who cater to an exclusive clientele who can afford $250 an hour for their legal rights, and have lavish lifestyles, homes and haircuts and drink $100 bottles of wine. They don’t understand what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck. Or the Liberal is a politician who identifies with the economic interests of these Liberals, advocates for them and is rewarded with the lavish campaign contributions that enable them to run advertising campaigns and win elections. The Clintons are the classic example of this style of Liberalism, and they have much company. Look toward YOUR elected officials. Progressives tend to be middle middle class, working class or lower income. They tend to grassroots politics, unionism, movement politics and the non-profits. Of course there are exceptions.

Liberals accomodate powerful economic interests. Progressives are more willing to challenge them on behalf of middle and lower income people.

Liberals tend to accomodate and compromise with “conservative” interests, be it national security, social issues or civil liberties. Progressives are more willing to challenge these.

Liberals want to tweak our democratic system. Progressives want a major overhaul.

Liberals worry about winning their elections on their tepid platforms and take controversies off the table. Progressives think that upholding the Rule of Law, our Constitution as we have known it for so long, and the separation of powers, is more important, by holding hearings on articles of impeachment of Bush and Cheney as co-defendants.

Liberals support U.S. invasions, though they may no longer initiate them. Progressives oppose ideological right wing wars, from the start.

Liberals have turned against the Invasion of Iraq because we’re losing the occupation. Progressives opposed the war from the start because it is wrong to invade other countries.

Liberals accomodate and compromise with militarism. Progressives want a rollback.

Because of all of the above, Liberals are unsure of their principles since they are conflicted. They apologize when they have said no wrong. They frame their debate on conservative ground. They cannot defend themselves from right wing attack and so they cower in fear and seek to appease right wing politics with their vacilating policies and rhetoric. They cannot take the offensive. They are always waging defense.

My next 99 posts will all flow from today’s post.

Tell us. Are you a Progressive or a Liberal? Or are you a Moderate? Or am I all washed up?

Now let’s get to our picnic. Will you be sipping beer or $30 wine?