Whatever happened to American Progressives?

[RabidBillsFan]

Whatever happened to any man or woman who was willing to preserve both freedom through a strong foreign policy AND improve the lives of all Americans? The American Progressive.


Instead we have conservatives who are waving their flags and yapping their gums, sitting in their big house with their perfect lawn and their phony airs telling us that every action is justified based upon ideas that are inherently flawed, desperate to defend the record despite its grave failings.

Blind following an agenda of uncaring without taking into consideration how it actually affects people is killing this country. People are smart enough to realize when they are being given a bunch of mularkey, and polling numbers from various sources saying the exact same thing don't lie.

It is PERFECTLY RIGHT and LEGITIMATE, accoring to the original genesis of this nation, to criticize the government when it fails you. A Progressive movement can incorporate change and repair the damage done while maintaining our strength on the foreign stage.

If you are just sitting on your duff, complaining about the people who are actually out there fixing what is broken, then *YOU* are wrong. I welcome the day when it becomes so bad here that those who choose to sit and preach to those who want to make a difference find themselves unable to cope with not having their creature comforts, or being catered to.

SOMEONE has to defend those who have little or who suffer at the hands of those who wish to put the thumbscrews on. FREEDOM is only as good as the quality of life of a person- FREEDOM means nothing if someone can't survive. FREEDOM does NOTHING to people who are constantly subjected to the worst kinds of conditions!

[Mouldsie]

Woo hoo!

[35Pete]

Whatever happened to any man or woman who was willing to preserve both freedom through a strong foreign policy AND improve the lives of all Americans? The American Progressive.

You mean LIBERAL. Stop using semantics.

Instead we have conservatives who are waving their flags and yapping their gums, sitting in their big house with their perfect lawn and their phony airs telling us that every action is justified based upon ideas that are inherently flawed, desperate to defend the record despite its grave failings.

What are the inherent flaws? Sitting in their big houses? I smell class envy. What are the grave failings?

Blind following an agenda of uncaring without taking into consideration how it actually affects people is killing this country. People are smart enough to realize when they are being given a bunch of mularkey, and polling numbers from various sources saying the exact same thing don't lie.

What is the agenda?

It is PERFECTLY RIGHT and LEGITIMATE, accoring to the original genesis of this nation, to criticize the government when it fails you. A Progressive movement can incorporate change and repair the damage done while maintaining our strength on the foreign stage.

Change allowable within the constitution and consistent with the philosophy of the framers as outlined in the Federalist Papers and their other writings?
What damage?

If you are just sitting on your duff, complaining about the people who are actually out there fixing what is broken, then *YOU* are wrong. I welcome the day when it becomes so bad here that those who choose to sit and preach to those who want to make a difference find themselves unable to cope with not having their creature comforts, or being catered to.

What is broken? How bad? What do you mean?

SOMEONE has to defend those who have little or who suffer at the hands of those who wish to put the thumbscrews on. FREEDOM is only as good as the quality of life of a person- FREEDOM means nothing if someone can't survive. FREEDOM does NOTHING to people who are constantly subjected to the worst kinds of conditions!

Thumbscrews? Christ, I think that I am going to puke. Victim again, huh? Frredom never guaranteed a good life. And I won't trade my freedonm to "give" someone a good life. That is what my guns are for. To kill people that take away my freedom. Dead serious. You really don't want our nation to go this route. Security at the cost of freedom. Because it violates the foundation of this nation, which was built on freedom, not security. And yes, I would KILL for this principle. In a heartbeat. As would millions others.


Dumbest post you ever made.

PS. You are left-wing whether you want to admit it or not

[njsue]

my opinion.

We will always have to continuously fight to keep our freedom intact because of sick minded who are way to envious of what americans get out of having freedom. Make War not love. when it should be Make love not war.

We will never have total peace, unfortunatly. :(

[RabidBillsFan]

Dumbest post you ever made.

PS. You are left-wing whether you want to admit it or not

I thought it was a very good counter to the 'American Patriotism' post.

Progressive does not mean liberal... just ask T.R.!!!!!

You never responded to my posts of rebuttal.... :(

[35Pete]

What posts? I don't cut and run. Tell me where to go.

[RabidBillsFan]

What posts? I don't cut and run. Tell me where to go.

I asked you if you had ever been to Europe...

I commented on my philosophy in your Party thread...

:)

[35Pete]

I asked you if you had ever been to Europe...

I commented on my philosophy in your Party thread...

:)
No, never been to Europe. But never been to central america before but when I finally got there it was exactly as I had researched it.

But what is your defining philosophy? Didn't answer the question.

[uppy]

Progressive does not mean liberal... just ask T.R.!!!!!

It Teddy saw todays "progressives" he would have them shot as traitors...Fact

[RabidBillsFan]

No, never been to Europe. But never been to central america before but when I finally got there it was exactly as I had researched it.

But what is your defining philosophy? Didn't answer the question.

You've NEVER been to Europe and you make the comments you do? Petey, you need to go and experience it. I've been to England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia, Greece, and the European part of Turkey. Everything that I have experienced just makes me all the more awed by how different each place is and how life is different...

My defining philosophy is taking it case by case and applying my knowledge in exactly the way I said it. If I must generalize, I am slightly to the right socially and mid-left economically. By comparison to the other parts of the country, I am a moderate.

[pmoon6]

Whatever happened to American Progressives? They all write for "The Nation".

[anEinherjer]

I've been to England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia, Greece, and the European part of Turkey.

If we're having a contest I've been to England (, Scotland and Wales :D), Ireland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Czech, Austria, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy and Greece.

I have seen a great deal of Europe. I love it there. But I wouldn't want to live there, unless I was cruising around without a job. Then it's great, living off someone else.

[sukie]

Okay... anEin. help with a simple question.... WTF is an American Progressive?

[anEinherjer]

Beats me wtf Rabid is talking about, but here's a little history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_1912_%28United_States%29

[sukie]

TR is dead and the Bull Moose lost.

[pmoon6]

Okay... anEin. help with a simple question.... WTF is an American Progressive?
The dual effort of American progressives to change the world is the subject of this book. Starting in the years before the Great War, I have followed the progressives through the turbulent years of war and revolution into the conservative 1920s. I have tried to make sense of their responses to the major questions of the day--social injustice, economic inequality, war and peace, imperial intervention--in an effort to better understand the past. At the same time, I have also tried to link past and present in a way that might help a later generation think about the relation between American reform and world affairs in the twenty-first century.

Certainly, the founding generation of progressives has given us much to ponder. In a hectic round of activity, they set out to regulate big business, rid money-driven politics of corruption, secure a place for industrial workers in American life, and give the New Woman room to grow. As if dealing with issues of class and gender were not enough, they also tried to improve relations among ethnic groups--what they called "races"--with mixed results. Although a good many progressives were ready to include Catholic and Jewish immigrants in the American family, others tried to impose narrow Protestant values on immigrants, or else exclude them altogether. Despite some achievements in civil rights, including the formation of the flagship National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, white progressives fell woefully short in pursuing racial equality.

Although this eclectic collection of reforms hardly made for a unified movement, progressivism found a certain cohesion in three overlapping aims: winning social and economic justice, revitalizing public life, and improving the wider world. We will take them in turn. In addressing the social evils of the day, progressives pursued such reforms as wage and hours laws, the prohibition of child labor, and the regulation of business, all in an effort to bring order to the unregulated marketplace. It is important to recognize the international dimension of this effort. In a world knit together by far-flung markets and the international state system, progressives confronted social problems that crossed national boundaries, and their solutions did the same. Whether battling for women's suffrage, temperance, or labor standards, they commonly joined forces with their counterparts from Europe to Australia.3

In the process, they drew many ideas from the left. The left is defined here as the political stance, whether Marxist or not, that blamed inequalities in wealth and power on the workings of the capitalist system. That serves to distinguish leftists from progressives, who, for the most part, did not see capitalism behind every wrong, but it also establishes points of overlap between them. During the prewar heyday of socialism, many progressives could be found supping at the socialist table, sampling ideas of municipal ownership, social legislation, and redistribution of wealth. In some ways, American progressives resemble England's Fabian socialists and what were later called social democrats. European social democrats were partisans of mixed economy who combined support for private ownership with public regulation of business and modest redistribution of wealth, and many progressives did the same.4

The quest for social justice shaded over into a second aim--the revitalization of public life. In a host of ways from women's suffrage through public commissions, progressives aimed at replacing the existing politics of patronage and power with a new politics of civic engagement. In the process, they drew heavily on republican ideas. Heaping scorn on selfish private interests, they embraced, instead, the republican principle of civic engagement in service to the public interest. In progressive campaigns for good government, direct election of senators, and, most important, women's suffrage, the republican emphasis on active citizenship was very much to the fore.

Progressives wanted to believe that the republican revival at home was part of a worldwide movement toward greater self-government. In the vast belt of agrarian societies that ringed the globe, sleeping giants were awakening in Mexico, China, and Russia in sprawling social revolutions aimed at throwing off imperial yokes. It is important to note that prior to the Bolshevik revolution, rebel movements in the developing world commonly set their sights on a whole panoply of republican ideals, including popular sovereignty, written constitutions, representative parliaments, and freedom of expression. Although social revolutions could seem alien and threatening, American progressives stoked their own convictions by extending sympathy to republican movements overseas.

The key to understanding the political philosophy of American progressivism is to see it as a quarrel with liberalism. The liberal component in progressive thought is easy to spot. The terms "progressive" and "liberal" were often used more or less interchangeably, and progressives typically mounted the battlements in defense of such quintessentially liberal ideas as civil liberty and limited government. Certainly, progressives preferred modest government regulation to state ownership. Emphasizing such liberal associations, an earlier generation of scholars treated progressivism as part of the liberal tradition, which was seen to be the only viable political tradition in the United States.5

The fact is, however, that progressives had serious objections to laissez-faire liberalism. In a revealing turn of phrase, Walter Lippmann, then at the start of a distinguished journalistic career, spoke for his generation in rejecting the "drift" of the market in favor of the "mastery" of social control.6 While accepting the general framework of capitalist property relations, progressives had lost faith in the capacity of the free market to create social justice. Setting out to bring the market under social control, but suspicious of coercive bureaucracy, they fashioned compacts in civil society and imposed regulations in the public sphere that went beyond the old liberalism. Although lacking a well-developed body of doctrine, progressivism was a trenchant--and still pertinent--critique of laissez-faire.

Progressives braided together republican, socialist, and liberal strands to create something new. Dissatisfied with social and economic inequalities that arose under laissez-faire, they developed a distinct set of practices pitting social justice against class rule, civic engagement against patronage, and international cooperation against balance-of-power politics.

Excerpt From "Changing The World" by Alan Dawley
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/i7499.html

[pmoon6]

My take is that some on the left, like Katrina Van Der Heuvel, have adopted the term "progressive" as a substitute for 'liberal" since liberal has come to be viewed with some negative connotations.

[sukie]

Thanks Moonie... i agree with your take NOT the historical definition applied to today's circumstance.

[rob on the job]

... Instead we have conservatives who are waving their flags and yapping their gums, sitting in their big house with their perfect lawn and their phony airs telling us that every action is justified based upon ideas that are inherently flawed, desperate to defend the record despite its grave failings. ...

1. Waving their flags -- yep.

2. Yapping their gums -- I didn't know talking was illegal.

3. Big houses -- guess it depends on your interpretation of "big."

4. Phony airs -- Redundant. No such thing as "honest airs."

5. Perfect lawns -- Grass envy?

[sukie]

Rob... During my vay cay... My buddy let my lawn die... I must kill the bastard.

[rob on the job]

Rob... During my vay cay... My buddy let my lawn die... I must kill the bastard.

Clearly, he was one of those few but tenacious progressives.

Those people REALLY hate grass!

[Ru]

I've never really thought about it before, but that manicured lawn fetish thing does seem to be almost exclusive to those who are staunch Republicans. (At least from my experience.) What is that about?

[pmoon6]

I've never really thought about it before, but that manicured lawn fetish thing does seem to be almost exclusive to those who are staunch Republicans. (At least from my experience.) What is that about?Ha, so pride in one's property is an exclusively Republican trait, eh.

[Ru]

Ha, so pride in one's property is an exclusively Republican trait, eh.

No, not pride in one's property, but the almost obsessiveness (if that's a word) with one's lawn being absolutely immaculate. It just seems like all the people I know who have this lawn OCD seem to be ones who are the blindly loyal Republican party supporters. Just thought it was interesting considering the posts on this thread.

[sukie]

I purchased my first 20 lb. bag of Scott's with Nitrogen level 32 someyearsago andit made me realize, whilst in the Depot parking lot, that I am not responsible for the lazy homeless and poor.

[Ru]

I purchased my first 20 lb. bag of Scott's with Nitrogen level 32 someyearsago andit made me realize, whilst in the Depot parking lot, that I am not responsible for the lazy homeless and poor.

Well, I'm very proud of you. Congratulations. Did you then go hire some of the illegal Mexicans hanging around out front of the store to go spread it around for you?

[sukie]

No... just one to clean the house. The perimeter of my domicile is where I escape the wifely "bitchins".

[pmoon6]

No, not pride in one's property, but the almost obsessiveness (if that's a word) with one's lawn being absolutely immaculate. It just seems like all the people I know who have this lawn OCD seem to be ones who are the blindly loyal Republican party supporters. Just thought it was interesting considering the posts on this thread.I was under the assumption that most Republicans and Bush supporters were red state trailer park trash with no lawns whatsoever. I guess I assumed wrong.:D

[rob on the job]

I've never really thought about it before, but that manicured lawn fetish thing does seem to be almost exclusive to those who are staunch Republicans. (At least from my experience.) What is that about?

And why do progressives hate grass?

Why are you trying to rape Mother Nature?

[rob on the job]

I don't see a darn thing wrong with my lawn.

http://www.pamspaulding.com/graphics/ba_swastikas015_lm.jpg

[Ru]

I was under the assumption that most Republicans and Bush supporters were red state trailer park trash with no lawns whatsoever. I guess I assumed wrong.:D

No no, those are the folks to whom they pander to win the elections. You know, acting like they have their interests in mind, they're the common man, etc. It's the true Republicans I'm referring to, the ones who think life is a big contest to see how much stuff they can get at the expense of others.

[Ru]

And why do progressives hate grass?

Why are you trying to rape Mother Nature?

No, quite the contrary actually. If Mother Nature intended your lawn to be perfect, she would have made it possible without chemicals. I'm all about letting Mother Nature do her thing.

[pmoon6]

No no, those are the folks to whom they pander to win the elections. You know, acting like they have their interests in mind, they're the common man, etc. It's the true Republicans I'm referring to, the ones who think life is a big contest to see how much stuff they can get at the expense of others.Oh I see now, and the true Demorat is what? A selfless altruist that lives in a hovel and donates the majority of his income to help the poor and disadvantaged? Lets boil it down to simpler terms, shall we.

Republican - self serving, cruel and evil

Democrat - enlightened, selfless and good.

[Ru]

I don't see a darn thing wrong with my lawn.

http://www.pamspaulding.com/graphics/ba_swastikas015_lm.jpg

I think your lawn would be just perfect if you added one of these:

http://www.p4a.com/item_images/medium/07/73/29-01.jpg

[35Pete]

My take is that some on the left, like Katrina Van Der Heuvel, have adopted the term "progressive" as a substitute for 'liberal" since liberal has come to be viewed with some negative connotations.
BINGO!!!!

[Ru]

Oh I see now, and the true Demorat is what? A selfless altruist that lives in a hovel and donates the majority of his income to help the poor and disadvantaged? Lets boil it down to simpler terms, shall we.

Republican - self serving, cruel and evil

Democrat - enlightened, selfless and good.

Now, we're getting somewhere.

[rob on the job]

I think your lawn would be just perfect if you added one of these:

http://www.p4a.com/item_images/medium/07/73/29-01.jpg

To match with my other one, you mean?

[sukie]

No no, those are the folks to whom they pander to win the elections. You know, acting like they have their interests in mind, they're the common man, etc. It's the true Republicans I'm referring to, the ones who think life is a big contest to see how much stuff they can get at the expense of others.
Hey, now hold on a minute... My stuff came at no one's expense. the trailer typess you refer to are in awe and want to "earn" a nice lawn someday and vote in that direction. It's really simple and effective.

[Ru]

Hey, now hold on a minute... My stuff came at no one's expense. the trailer typess you refer to are in awe and want to "earn" a nice lawn someday and vote in that direction. It's really simple and effective.

Hey, obviously I'm using hyperbole and generalizations to push buttons. I realize people work hard to get things for themselves and they deserve it, but I do also think that there are some greedy SOB's that don't give two shits about anyone else as long as they can get more for themselves. As far as the lawn thing, I could have a nice lawn, I just don't give a shit.

[sukie]

Ru.... I was playing the righteous repub... No buttons were ever pushed.

[shiva2999]

Hey, now hold on a minute... My stuff came at no one's expense.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

http://www.evgschool.org/mother%20theresa_small.jpg

[sukie]

definitely not that old bat's.

[rob on the job]

Mother Teresa photos: last refuge of scoundrels

[uppy]

I was under the assumption that most Republicans and Bush supporters were red state trailer park trash with no lawns whatsoever. I guess I assumed wrong.:D

That was a great shot.