Progress Means Doing Things

by: Matt Singer

Tue Dec 21, 2010 at 08:32:39 AM MST

But here's the thing, DREAM is a great piece of legislation. I love it. But is it "quite possibly one of the best pieces of policy" of the last four years? Is that defined in that it was all good and no bad? Because if we're talking on net good, the ARRA and TARP kept millions of people unemployed and staved off a great depression that would have crushed the American Dream for millions of families. The ACA marked the first time in American history that we accomplished comprehensive health care reform and laid the groundwork for getting to affordable health care for all -- one of the biggest social justice issues of our time. The passage of DADT repeal marks the first time, I believe, that LGBT civil rights legislation has passed Congress (I could be wrong on this). We saw huge victories on student aid. Lilly Ledbetter. Financial reform.

If you call yourself a liberal or progressive and don't consider this a landmark session of Congress, you need to think long and hard about how change in this country actually happens. Read more history.

Abraham Lincoln was a racist and a tortoise. He also ended slavery in the United States. FDR cut deals with racist southern Senators. He also established Social Security, one of the most important anti-poverty programs and the keystone of America's social insurance system. Both of these leaders had loud, angry critics from the left who insisted that their politics would result in crushing failures. They're now among our heroes.

Our leaders are imperfect. They always have been. But we've made change, always, by fighting one vote at a time.

Moving Jon Tester on immigration reform, if we can do it, is a process that will take years of focused work. One or two rounds of angry phone calls is such an inadequate response without bigger planning. And if the end game here is to oust Jon Tester, you'll actually see the next wave of Montana policymakers get worse on issues that we care about.

This isn't just about what Jon Tester owes our communities. It's about what we, as organizers, owe our communities: strategies that lead to victories. I don't get disgusted by policymakers who cast bad votes. I get disappointed. And I don't get disgusted by my friends and allies in the movement who execute poor strategy. I just get disappointed.

Democracy is hard. It will always be hard. Those of us who tend to be outspent should actually be grateful that small bursts of political pressure have as little of an impact as they do. If electoral threats always moved US Senators, we'd never win a vote.

Krugman outlines progressive agenda for Obama

by: JC

Fri Jan 16, 2009 at 12:37:18 PM MST

Dear Mr. President:

Like FDR three-quarters of a century ago, you're taking charge at a moment when all the old certainties have vanished, all the conventional wisdom been proved wrong. We're not living in a world you or anyone else expected to see. Many presidents have to deal with crises, but very few have been forced to deal from Day One with a crisis on the scale America now faces.

So, what should you do?

Krugman goes on to illustrate in detail the challenges facing our country: economic, health care; labor and the middle class; and truth & reconciliation. He also lays out a progressive framework for Obama to look at. But most importantly, he presents his arguments in a fashion that allows lawmakers, policy wonks, bloggers and the general citizenry to pick up on the intricacies of his thoughts and inform their daily understanding of where this country needs to go.

Presumptive Accountability, or what to do when the Nominee's move is Right and you've been Left?

by: JC

Fri Jun 27, 2008 at 10:39:57 AM MST

"Warning: this is one of those brutally frank posts that may well piss you off. Sorry about that"

Given the tenor of several recent diaries here at LitW, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the issue of accountability during a general election. Having run by Lux's article, and another, "The Obama Problem" at HuffPo by Jason Rosenbaum, I thought I'd throw some of their ideas out to see what people here think. And we haven't had a real barn-burner comment love-fest in what, 2-3 days since Wulfgar's "Tepid" diary hit the front page?

So instead of attacking the poster or commenters (me, Jay, Anna, or Mark, or Wulfgar...), let's go at the issue straight up. It's become obvious to progressives and the left that Obama has been moving to the right, and is now campaigning with many centrist positions. And we "Obamabots" have been accused of being delusional because we can't see what is truly happening in the general election.

Rest assured, objective readers, that many Obama supporters the world over can see what is happening, and offer our critiques of his moves, as opposed to resorting to ad hominem "accountability" threats. I had this intuitive notion that holding a general candidate accountable for things like press releases and campaign PR babble was just pissing in the wind. Accountability needs to be reserved for the realm of actions, not postures. Once the election is over, and the candidate has won, then the whole world changes (I'm not talkin' 'bout Obama's "change" agenda here). Reality sets in, the glamor and bubble of electoral politics is burst, and it is time for everybody to get to work--whatever that may be, and make the best out of the next 4 years.

Lux and Rosenbaum speak well to this issue.

Blogging the Movement

by: Matt Singer

Mon Jul 09, 2007 at 11:34:17 AM MST

hermans tour, day whatever

by: Kilgore

Thu Jun 07, 2007 at 06:45:38 AM MST

Well, I'm still in the back of a van, watching America go by, and it's been going by for a while.  For those of you who don't know me, I play bass in a little Missoula rock band called the Hermans.  We've spent the past two weeks crossing the country trying to sell a book we wrote called The Hermans: Stalking America, due out in September.  All this travel, the people and places, have made me remember why I love America and why all of us fight so hard for what we believe in.  We are true patriots.

We were reminded that Wyoming loves coal, but we saw wind farms all across the midwest.  We visited small towns where diversity wasn't even a buzz word and we saw poverty in the inner cities of the East.  There've been streets so clean they sparkled and alleys so nasty you didn't want to walk in them, for fear you might stick to the ground.

I spent one morning glancing at the front page of the Philadelphia Gay News and just a few days later watched the rising sun shine off of the spires of mega-churches in northern Indiana, delivering its mixed message of love and intolerance.

I could go on and on with more examples, but I guess what I've realized once again is how wonderfully diverse this country is.  Yes there is a lot of baseless fear, stubborn nationalism, and in a lot of places, down-right bigotry, but there are a lot of people on our side, even behind enemy lines here in the breadbasket.

We do live in a bastion of diversity and that's what makes our country the greatest country in the world.  I don't think I will ever get sick of traveling across it in the back of an automobile.  We forget what we're fighting for because we fly all over the place.  Get out there and drive (if you can afford it).  Meet the people you want to help.  It feels good and it'll remind you of what motivates the opposition.  There's a lot we can learn from compassionate conservatism.  First and foremost, how to win.

Woodruff: The Great Progressive?

by: Matthew Koehler

Fri May 04, 2007 at 10:17:55 AM MST

Like I have said, my computer is full of documented examples of where Woodruff (and most recently the Missoulian's environmental reporter) just flat out ignored important information while repeatedly blasting our organization in lead editorials or writing unflattering articles about us and our work. Some examples of information that was systematically ignored by the Missoulian are posted in the comments section here: (http://www.newwest.n...).

So, imagine my surprise when we learned last week that Steve Woodruff has been hired to be Deputy Director of a new progressive think-tank called Western Progress (http://www.westernpr...).  I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that few people in the Montana progressive community would even remotely consider the Missoulian's editorial positions during Woodruff's tenure to represent progressive thoughts and ideals, not just on public land issues, but on a host of important issues facing our communities, state and region.

This week's Missoula Independent has a good look at issue here: (http://www.missoulan...).

In the article, Woodruff acknowledges that the Missoulian's editorials are "right of center on many issues."  On one hand he seems to distance himself from these editorials by saying he was simply the "voice of the Missoulian."  Yet, at the same time he refers to the 6,000 editorials he's written since 1988 as "my editorials."  So which is it? And what does this say about Woodruff's progressive credentials or the ethics of a "progressive" pumping out "right of center" editorials for the past 18 years?

In addition to the documented examples contained in the links above, I'll leave you with another classic run in with the Misleadian's editorial page editor.

It was April 2001 and I stopped by the Missoulian attempting to arrange an editorial board meeting to discuss the Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA).  This was a few weeks prior to secret, closed-door meetings in Quebec City, Canada by trade ministers from 34 nations from North, Central and South America and the Caribbean to expand NAFTA to the entire Western Hemisphere, affecting 755 million people. 

I told Steve that we'd like him to sit down and talk with U.S. Steelworkers and representatives of worker and community organizations from Mexico, Chile and Argentina that would be in Missoula for an FTAA Teach-In we were hosting.  Woodruff wasn't even willing to sit and listen to their perspectives about the FTAA and "free trade."  He told me flat out, in that special condesending way Woodruff is famous for, "Nothing your steel workers or other's tell us is going to change the fact that this paper is a staunch supporter of 'free trade."  I snapped back, "Even if that 'free trade' is on the backs of 13 year old girls working twelve hour days in factories in Central and South America?" and just walked out.

Woodruff clearly wasn't open to even listening to other perspectives from real people in this country and the Americas who were seeing, first hand, the inequalities of unbridled 'free trade."

That certainly didn't strike me as progressive.

Peace Rallies and How to Destroy Our Credibility

by: Kilgore

Mon Mar 19, 2007 at 12:08:58 PM MST

I have had it with the Vietnam comparisons and I think that we have lost any advantage by comparing the present conflict to our failed police action.  Apparently the pacifists cannot let go of Old School pacifism. I watched students rolling their eyes as they walked by the spectacle. These were not people who think that the Iraq war is the best thing since Nintendo either.

Young people are turned off when they think about their parents for any reason.  Staging a hippy-style rally complete with folk singers, strange speakers, and the bizarre is the exact opposite way to get young people involved in the anti-escalation movement. We need to provide arguments against the current plan, not talk about why Bush is the devil"

I am an ardent pacifist and a weirdo myself, but hippies will never be a majority. Want to stop the war? Tell people why it's a good idea for them to oppose it in accordance with THEIR values. Stuff like this simply shoots us in the feet.

Baucus, Progressives and Two Questions

by: davidsirota

Mon Mar 12, 2007 at 13:33:55 PM MST