Usprogressives.org
Building a Progressive Coalition for a Better Future
Building a Progressive Coalition
A key skill of progressive political leaders is the ability to solve problems. There are at least four important steps in problem solving. These include:
- First, recognizing the existence of problems and understanding their underlying causes.
- Second, developing a range of potential solutions and evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of each option
- Third, choosing the most effective solution which addresses not merely the short term surface problem by the underlying long term problems.
- Finally carrying out the chosen solution and evaluating whether changes are needed.
Our nation, our State and our local communities are facing some of the worse problems in our history. There is a lot of anger, conflict and frustration with the economic and social injustice going on in our community, our State and our nation. Things are getting worse rather than better because we, and more importantly, our political leaders, fail to understand and act on these four basic principles of structured problem solving.
There are four basic Progressive Values which can form the basis of a more just community. These include:
First, we believe in fairness for all. We want a fair distribution of the wealth and a fair distribution of taxes. We believe the role of government is to protect the poor and middle class from domination by the rich and powerful. We oppose unfair price fixing by banking monopolies, oil monopolies and insurance monopolies – all of which have driven our middle class into bankruptcy and our economy into a ditch in the past 10 years. We believe we are all in this together. Republicans may believe we are all on our own, but Progressive Democrats believe that none of us can succeed unless all of us can succeed.
Second, we believe in liberty and justice for all.As FDR once said, “There can be no liberty unless every person has the economic freedom that comes with a good paying job.” The economy, like a house is built from the bottom up, not the top down. We believe that supporting the rights of workers to have fair treatment and universal employment is good for the economy.
Third, we believe in strength through diversity. We believe in honoring and respecting every point of view. Differences of opinion are not to be feared, but encouraged - as the best way to find creative win-win solutions to the problems we face.
Last, and perhaps most important, we believe in bottom up, grass roots Democracy.
We believe in counting all the votes, not merely the votes of the rich and powerful. We oppose selling elections to the highest bidder. We believe in choosing our Representatives based on who has the best ideas - and not merely who has the most money. We believe in honoring the will of the people by respecting the outcome of elections. It is undemocratic to place the opinions of a few who come to meetings above the voices of thousands of voters who express their opinions with their ballots.
As FDR once said, “The real rulers of this country are the voting public…The direct primary makes the nominating process more democratic by allowing the voters to pick their own candidates.”
The purpose of our website is to build a path for building a more just and Democratic community based on our Democratic values.
What are our most important underlying problems and what caused them?
We face many surface problems. At least one in five adults is unemployed. In the next two years, our economy is likely to plummet down an economic death spiral in which unemployment exceeds that of the Great Depression. Families are losing their homes, their savings, their health insurance and their hope. Our schools are facing bankruptcy. The future of millions of children have been placed at risk just so a few greedy billionaires can buy bigger boats. Our political system has been hijacked by wealthy, arrogant, short sighted and corrupt corporatists who care only about buying elections so they can assume power, control the rest of us and line their own pockets. But these are only the surface symptoms of much deeper problems.
One way to get at the deeper hidden problems is to look at them through various lenses. Two important lenses are the lens of our cultural history and the lens of our personal human development – our personal histories. We will take a look at each of these.
History of Conflict Between the Super Rich and the Rest of Us
Some have described a war going on between the wealthy elite and the rest of us. Some say this war began in the 1980’s with the “Reagan Revolution” when wealthy corporatists first took over the Republican Party and then took over the Democratic Party. But in fact, this conflict has been going on a very long time. Our nation’s Founding Fathers took on the British elite. The Civil War was in part a class war between the middle class in the north and the wealthy plantation owners in the south. In the 1920’s, the wealthy took over both political parties and drove our nation to bankruptcy. In the 1930 election, the voters were fooled by Hoover’s claim that recovery was just around the corner. Republicans and Corporate Democrats actually won the 1930 election. But what was really around the corner was the Great Depression.
Even in 1932, wealthy corporatists still controlled both political parties. At the 1932 Democratic National Convention, nearly every leader in the Democratic Party – and the leaders of the major unions - were opposed to FDR and worked hard to defeat him. Thankfully, FDR and his supporters had worked hard during the preceding two years to build a national grassroots progressive coalition. Even then, it looked like the corporate Democrats would prevent FDR from getting a majority of the votes. At the last minute, Huey Long, a progressive Democrat from Louisiana, managed to persuade a single delegate from Mississippi to change their vote. This single vote got FDR the nomination, which changed American history and not just our economy, but also saved our Democracy. We too can change the course of history by changing the minds of even a single voter.
Today, our nation is repeating history. The voters are once again being fooled by the claim of corporate Republicans that all we have to do is hand power back over to the same people who just drove our economy into the ditch and recovery will be just around the corner. Unfortunately, our structural economic problems are so great right now that, without a massive full employment program, not only will there not be a recovery, but things are going to get much worse in the next two years. Beginning on October 1, 2010, our Governor has ordered the firing of thousands of State Workers. Due to the $6 billion State budget shortfall, within the next two years, more than ten thousand teachers will lose their jobs. If Republicans take over Congress, unemployment benefits will disappear and millions of families will be tossed out on the street. We already have more than 700,000 unemployed in our State. This number may rise to more than one million in the next 2 years.
This economic disaster will cause the voters to turn to progressive FDR Democrats to save our country in the 1932 election. So while it is important to work as hard as we can to win the current election, it is also important to build a progressive Democratic coalition to win the 2012 election.