Progressive Challenge for the 21st Century, Part I

We won! We ended eight years of tyrannical idiocy, we elected the nation's first African-American president, we organized a tremendous grassroots effort and overcame the two most powerful political machines in recent history and by doing so turned a new, brighter page in our history. Yes we could and Yes we did! Now what?

There are many challenges that lie ahead -- the ultimate over-stated understatement for this last leg of 2008. As a progressive, I look at how our current economic crisis intersects with our longer-lasting crises in health care, education, and affordable housing to cause and portend ruin for masses of working families. I shudder when I see unemployment rates rising, and can only imagine how many desperate people aren't even included in the already horrific figures because they have either stopped trying to find work, or are stringing enough out of part-time minimum wage jobs so that the ends of their economic belt might occasionally meet before rent is due. I burn to hear of top CEOs flying corporate jets to Washington to beg for bailout money, blaming unions for their troubles while laid-off autoworkers sit down with their spouses late at night, forced to choose between heating their homes and buying Christmas presents for their kids. And after I think of these things, I tend to remember who our next President is, and it gives me some relief from my anxiety. But I am not satisfied, because I am a progressive, and it is not in our nature to be satisfied.

The progressive movement stands for decency and fairness above all. It stands for a government which protects all its people, not just from military attack, but as well from hunger and illness. Progressives believe that government can serve as a force for good in society when it is led by those who will fight for the common good. We believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, and not that bigger boats will somehow lift the tide. The progressive movement has a vital role to play in this new century, not only to counter the influence of those jet-setting beggar executives and their pocket politicians, but to craft a whole new vision for how the world economy should function.

To do that we need passion, intelligence, and unity. But we also need honesty. It is easy to criticize the profit-idolaters and religious zealots. It is more difficult to point that same lens back at our own history and ideas. The progressive movement may have lofty ideals, but we have not always chosen the best means to reach them.

For nearly a century many progressives pushed Communism and Socialism as the answer to the problems of modern society. We advocated for Stalin and Mao even when we knew, or should have known, about their totalitarian madness. As an interlude, I urge readers to resist becoming defensive at this point. We must admit our weaknesses in order to understand them, and to not repeat the mistakes of the past. We celebrate(d) Castro and Che, Lenin and Trotsky, and countless Third World revolutionaries for their gall to fight against evil capitalists. We decided that governments, well-run, could fix all of our problems through legislation. We danced in the streets for the New Deal and the Great Society programs. When a problem arose, we applied our magic cure: more government spending. We demonized globalization and Wall Street. Now, wait just one second, you say -- this author calls himself a "progressive"? Sounds more like a Fox News pundit! The point I am trying to make here is that we were wrong to believe that government could solve our problems, and we were wrong to believe that the capitalist system is inherently evil. Government should be limited and capitalism is okay...Rush Limbaugh is popping pills and nodding his head. What is this madness?