Can Bernie Sanders lead the way?
This afternoon I visited Truthdig, the first post I saw was the following, expressing similar thoughts to those that I wrote about this morning!!
This Democratic Party Is Going Nowhere. Can Progressives Take it Over and Change the World?
Tuesday’s crushing defeat of the centrist Clinton/Obama Democratic Party provides an opening for the American left. The next few years are not going to be pretty, but they could be the beginning of something beautiful.
In 2009, shortly after its most crushing national electoral defeat in 44 years, the GOP was sparked back to life by the tea party insurgency. America’s right wing revived its moribund conservative party with a stark challenge to the Republican establishment. The GOP gained 63 House seats in 2010.
Could the left do something similar to bring the Democrats back to life? Many barriers have to be confronted, but left progressives who are serious about making positive changes in our society need to get going now—for two reasons.
First: The moderate, pro-corporate, Democratic Leadership Council wing that has dominated the Democratic Party since 1992 is reeling, unable to compete with a well-funded and reactionary GOP. Without a charismatic frontman or -woman, this Democratic Party cannot mobilize its middle- and working-class base for the simple reason that it doesn’t represent their interests. Only left progressives stand for the welfare of average Americans, and they have to stand up, make this distinction and stake their claim before all focus turns to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Second: The country and the world are a mess. The economy, the justice system, the environment, education, immigration and foreign policy are all out of whack. Obama, Hillary and the centrist Democrats aren’t going to set these right; as for the GOP, God forbid. If left progressives really believe that their program for America is the best possible program, which they do, the state of the world demands that they get to it right away.
The time is right to strike now. The electoral left has a secret, albeit underutilized, asset. Almost no one in this benighted land knows that the Congressional Progressive Caucus is larger now than the Tea Party Caucus ever has been—yet given its relative influence on the national discourse, the CPC’s anonymity is no surprise. The progressive caucus is simply not as aggressive or as focused a political force as the tea party.
This has to change, and if it does, progressives will go into the next election cycle holding a winning hand. All they have to do is boldly introduce themselves to the public, establish very clearly what they stand for and present themselves as a unified front in 2016. Even if they just hold on to the seats they currently hold, the results will have the appearance of a national victory for a unified insurgent movement. Read More
Minsky also gives us an idea of what a progressive platform might look like, it’s clear that many of the policies would have majority support:
.- Social Security funded for the next century (with the possibility of expanding it) by raising the cap on income levels contributing into the system, while maintaining a cap on payments
– A single payer (Medicare for all) health system
– Free public education through college
– A sharp increase in the national minimum wage and two weeks of paid vacation for all workers
– Rapid citizenship for immigrant workers and their families
– Ending the war on drugs and decriminalization
– Ending government spying
– Sane gun laws
– Support for a woman’s right to choose and equal pay legislation
– Reform of the justice system so that it applies equally to all people
– Invest in green energy and take the lead in combating global warming globally
– Shift foreign policy to support people and not every region’s 1 percent
– As for funding fiscal policy, there’s no need for making income tax levels more progressive (since the change in Social Security achieves that already)—but, in accordance with “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” author Thomas Piketty, raise the rate on capital gains. Also bring corporate taxes back in to line with pre-Reagan era levels by both closing loopholes and raising the tax rate on profits.
– And finally, a program dear to my late father’s (economist Hyman Minsky) heart—an employer of last resort (ELR) program, like Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, in which the government would hire every unemployed person who wants to work at a daily wage that would extrapolate to an annual living wage. (This is probably too radical a proposal for many members of the current CPC, but not for some.) And if not this ambitious plan, a basic national income. I think ELR would work much better and also make a real contribution to elements of the economy that the market addresses inadequately; and it can be organized so that localities have control over ELR projects. ELR’s possibilities for transforming society are immense, but either ELR or a basic income program would conquer poverty like nothing we’ve seen in our lives and empower workers who would no longer fear leaving wretched jobs.
– If the tax increases on the wealthy and corporations aren’t enough to cover the costs, there’s a bloated military budget to shrink
Now all of this may seem a bit far-fetched and a little impossible to accomplish and I would totally agree considering the opposition President Obama had with an agenda not even close as progressive as this one! So how could it happen?
In my opinion the only way would be to make major inroads into Red States and the only way to do that is through a major re-education program to hopefully make the ordinary citizen realize that what is being proposed is IN THEIR BEST INTEREST and that it is the exact opposite of what the Republicans have been doing for the last 40 years!!!! It is educating people to make them realize that government does not want to take away their guns, only help to keep them safe from people who would kill their children just as easily as mine! That government does not care how they worship, there is no War on Christmas that there are no plans to create Christian concentration camps. That as progressives we want to help their children get a quality education and live on a planet that is not moving toward a climatic Armageddon!!
If progressives can be elected in Red States or even force Republicans closer to the center, then maybe progress can be made. But until that happens we progressives will be found in the north, northeast and on the west coast with a huge gap in the middle!!!
