#progressivisim

[travsd]

On the Popular Phenomenon of Edward Bellamy and "Looking Backward"

I know — you were hoping this post would would be about THIS guy — — Martin Laurello, the man who could turn his head backwards, but there’s no need to be disappointed. You can still read all about him here, but then come on back please! Edward Bellamy (1850-1898) looked backwards too, but from the FUTURE. Which actually means he was looking FORWARD when he wrote his famous 1888 novel Looking…

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[clowngames]

It's been sort of funny to see conservatives' reaction to the utter lack of a red wave. I think many people have been forced to realize that their platform is largely unpopular.

Conservatives recognize that young people skew progressive, and that their politics don't change so much as progressive politics become conservative in 40 years as old conservative ideas die out and new progressive ideas gain traction. Surely they must be able to recognize that in 40 years, their ideas will die out, right?

Right to abortion is more popular than ever, trans rights are more popular than ever, support for universal healthcare is higher than ever. Conservatives lost the gay marriage fight years ago, and as much as they want to bring it back if they do they'll just lose it again.

What I want to know from a conservative's perspective is this: how do you keep going when you know that not only is it a losing fight, but it being a losing fight is such a natural law of the universe that you couldn't stand to be in the same room as a "conservative" from 100 years ago? They would call you a commie, and a race traitor. Do you not realize that they are you? That, had you been born 100 years ago you'd hold the same views they hold? That the point in which society was at its best didn't just happen to be the exact year you turned 16, but that you would think so regardless of what year that was?

Maybe I'm going a bit hard on you to get a good-faith answer. But from my perspective you and I live in completely different worlds; mine is the future, and yours is the past. And I can't understand how you can stay there and not notice, or care, that everyone's already left you behind.

[realitista]

Voters for decades were conned into thinking they were noisome minorities whose best path to influence is to make peace with the mightier "center," which inevitably turns out to support military interventionism, fewer taxes for the rich, corporate deregulation and a ban on unrealistic "giveaway" proposals like free higher education. Those are the realistic, moderate, popular ideas, we're told.

But it's a Wizard of Oz trick, just like American politics in general. There is no numerically massive center behind the curtain. What there is instead is a tiny island of wealthy donors, surrounded by a protective ring of for-sale major-party politicians (read: employees) whose job it is to castigate too-demanding voters and preach realism.

[realitista]

Progressives draft staff blacklist for Clinton administration

Left-wing groups warn the Democratic nominee not to appoint Wall Street-linked Lael Brainard or Tom Nides to senior finance and economic jobs.

..Probably won't work, but I'm impressed at how well organized the progressive caucus is becoming. If it keeps this up, it will be a major force in the next election.

Still bruised by what they see as Barack Obama’s betrayals and anxious that Hillary Clinton isn’t really one of them, progressives are preparing to move hard and quickly to force her hand if she wins the White House.

To start, progressive operatives say they’ve targeted two potential Clinton appointments — Tom Nides as chief of staff and Lael Brainard as Treasury secretary or trade representative — to lay down early markers against Clinton. Pick them, they warn, and progressives will punish her.

[diadoumenos-blog]

Obama comes at the end of a 30-year cycle of narrowing and narrowing what passes for the liberal agenda. The landscape was so different in the 1970s that Nixon was calling for a guaranteed income. Now when Democrats are really feeling bold, they highlight policies that they are proud to reveal were based on Republican ideas of just a few years earlier, things like the Heritage Foundation’s health care plan or the market-based solution of cap and trade. I would disagree that liberalism – although that’s probably the wrong phrase – has disappeared. It’s just become hidden beneath a thicket of campaign contributions from wealthy donors. The decline of unions as a political counterweight means that Democrats chase big money, and not surprisingly they respond to big money concerns. Issues like poverty, hunger, and need go unremarked upon on the national stage, even while they remain core concerns at the community level... [P]oor people don’t have lobbyists, and that’s how Washington works these days.

The Hiding of Liberalism