TheProgressiveRevolution

TheProgressiveRevolution https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheProgressiveRevolution News Community Action Copyright 2005 - Steal what you want Sun, 26 Jan 2020 09:27:54 +0000 Sun, 26 Jan 2020 09:27:54 +0000 Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Per NYT: Bernie's ~$6M is STILL the highest Day 1 for the primaries, according to FEC filings. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/4/17/1851042/-Per-NYT-Bernie-s-6M-is-STILL-the-highest-Day-1-for-the-primaries-according-to-FEC-filings Preface: Before anyone gets the wrong idea, this diary is not going to be a negative piece about any other candidate running for President, including Beto who I’ve avoided referencing in the title. Beto’s running a solid campaign and I think he should be applauded for doing so. That out of the way, let me begin with this: <div class="dk-editor-embed center-block" data-twitter-content='&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;NEW: Remember those headlines about Beto O&amp;#39;Rourke&amp;#39;s $6.1 million first 24 hours?&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Well, he inflated that figure a bit with ~$300,000 in general election funds he can&amp;#39;t spend in the primary, meaning Bernie Sanders raised most for primary on Day One.&lt;a href="https://t.co/Wt9H4xBg2a"&gt;https://t.co/Wt9H4xBg2a&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1118176763526434817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;April 16, 2019&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;'><div class="remove-embed-content">x</div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">NEW: Remember those headlines about Beto O'Rourke's $6.1 million first 24 hours? Well, he inflated that figure a bit with ~$300,000 in general election funds he can't spend in the primary, meaning Bernie Sanders raised most for primary on Day One.<a href="https://t.co/Wt9H4xBg2a">https://t.co/Wt9H4xBg2a</a>Ã¢Â€Â” Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1118176763526434817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2019</a></blockquote></div> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/us/politics/democrats-2020-fundraising.html" target="_blank">www.nytimes.com/...</a> <blockquote> Ms. Harris raised the second highest amount, $12 million. And despite Mr. Sanders’s advantages, Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign touted, loudly, that he actually had out-raised Mr. Sanders in his first 24 hours as a candidate: $6.1 million to $6 million. But the new federal disclosures show that Mr. O’Rourke relied upon a bit of accounting finesse to score that headline: Nearly $300,000 of his first-day haul was actually general-election funds raised above the limit that he can spend in the primary contest. </blockquote> Huh.. That’s .. interesting... Now, I suppose one could argue that this is one way to control the news cycle. And I’ll let others come to their own conclusions about the decision-making/campaign tactics involved there; that’s not really what I’m interested in talking about. The reason I put this diary forward is because I know many people within the Bernie-sphere were a bit shocked and some even dismayed by Beto’s Day 1 fundraising; in fact, I think everyone was a bit blown away. And there’s no denying Beto had an amazing Day 1, and the fact that he is running a great campaign for President! But there’s also nothing wrong with acknowledging that Bernie’s grassroots supporters are deserving of whatever kudos there are for achieving their $6M haul, which is in fact (as we now know) the biggest haul for any Presidential candidate in a single day. <a href="http://fortune.com/2019/02/20/bernie-sanders-fundraising-money-raised/" target="_blank">fortune.com/...</a> <blockquote> Senator Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist, received $5.9 million from about 223,000 donors in the 24 hours after he announced his repeat bid for the U.S. presidency. In total, the Vermont independent has raised $6 million, with small-dollar pledges mirroring the average donation of $27 from his 2016 run, according to his campaign. The fundraising rose from the $4 million the campaign said he amassed as of the evening of Feb. 19, the day he announced. </blockquote> Fundraising this cycle will be of critical importance. While Senator Sanders focuses his efforts on campaigning in the early states as well as the general election battlegrounds; he’s being funded almost entirely by small-dollar online donors and recurring monthly pledges. So it’s important that the left-wing grassroots sees the impact their efforts, time, sweat and hard-earned donations can has on this race. And for those not already aware, there’s a pretty cool website, <a href="https://berniebag.com/" target="_blank">BernieBag.com</a>, that’s keeping track of Bernie’s numbers — but will likely get a massive update once more reporting hits about the candidate’s respective April 15th FEC filings. Here’s snapshot in time (as of this diary’s writing) of the infographics from BernieBag.com to give you an idea of the kind of data being tracked: <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl"><img alt="bernie_bag_money-80.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/665949/large/bernie_bag_money-80.jpg?1555448409" title="bernie_bag_money-80.jpg"> <figcaption>BernieBag.com snapshot before Q1 filing updates.</figcaption> </figure> </div> Good stuff! So let’s continue to drive this campaign through the second quarter of 2018! And remember that building out this kind of grassroots fundraising army will not only be useful in securing the nomination, but most importantly, in evicting President Cheeto from the White House come the general election. Let’s get it done in Q2! <div class="table-wrapper"></div> rss@dailykos.com (ProgressiveFirst) Bernie2020 BernieSanders FeeltheBern Recommended TheProgressiveRevolution TPR _1851042 Wed, 17 Apr 2019 18:27:59 +0000 The Mysterious World of DC Centrism Vs. a Platform that Real Voters Would Like https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/5/31/1212895/-The-Mysterious-World-of-DC-Centrism-Vs-a-Platform-that-Real-Voters-Would-Like I have been bemused for many years by the peculiar mindset represented by DC centrism. I have written about it a number of times over the years, in my book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Revolution-Best-America-Came/dp/0470395117">The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be</a>, and in many of my blog posts. DC Centrism embraces what the political establishment, especially including the big special interests who tend to control this town, thinks is right, even when the vast majority of Americans are opposed to it. For example, cutting Social Security, something 80% of Americans oppose, is a classic example of DC centrism. Another example is focusing obsessively about the deficit while ignoring new measures to create jobs, which is the reverse of what voters want the government to focus on. Bailing out, and now subsidizing, the Too Big To Fail banks is yet another example. And these 3 examples really just scratch the surface- there are so many ways that DC Centrism is different from what the centrist position of real voters is. I was thinking about all this again over the last week while I was out in my home state of Nebraska, where the Senate and Governor races are wide open. While traveling around the state talking politics with folks, I was also doing email conversations with friends about the South Dakota, Montana, Iowa, Minnesota, and Oregon Senate races. In all of these cases, the political situation goes against DC conventional wisdom, as candidates and potential candidates scramble the usual political labels and dynamics. Let’s look at the situation in all of these races. Six years ago, in both Minnesota and Oregon, openly progressive/populist challengers Al Franken and Jeff Merkley took on well-funded Republicans with reputations in DC as centrists in classic swing states (both of them have been on target list for both parties in most of the Presidential campaigns over the last 30+ years). DC conventional wisdom rated them both very long shots-after all, how could a centrist in a swing state lose to lefties like Franken and Merkley? But both Democrats ran aggressively populist campaigns, attacking the incumbents as beholden to big money special interests. Both won, and both have served in the Senate just as they ran, as bold and unapologetic populist progressives. And you know what? Both enter this election cycle as very well-positioned for their re-election battle in 2014. Iowa is another classic swing state, one of the closest states in each of the last 4 Presidential elections. With Tom Harkin retiring, Democratic Congressman Bruce Braley is running to replace him. Braley is so populist that he founded the Populist Caucus in the House, and if wins he will carry on Harkin’s progressive politics in the Senate. You would think that such a candidate would be in a tough race, and one may yet develop, but so far every leading Republican that party leaders have tried to recruit into the race have turned them down, and Braley is likely to win. Turning to more red states, take a look at the political dynamics in Montana. DC Centrist Max Baucus had shaky approval ratings and a tough re-election race in front of him, and he retired. Ex-Governor Brian Schweitzer has far higher approval ratings than Baucus, and would be heavily favored if he decides to run. Guess what? Schweitzer is the ultimate populist, happy to take on corporate special interests on behalf of everyday working families in Montana, and made himself a beloved figure in Montanans for doing so. South Dakota is another fascinating state politically. Unlike the states above, we don’t know the outcome yet, but the dynamics have some similarities to some of the stories above. The conventional wisdom DC Centrist candidate was supposed to have been Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, who had voted to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and against tightening up regulations on Wall Street speculation, who has come out against repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and who had come out against repealing big oil companies’ tax loopholes. Since these were Republican positions in a red state, conventional wisdom suggested that they should have helped her in SD, but she lost her bid for re-election because a 3rd party candidate picked up about 6% of the normal Democratic vote, and because Democratic turnout for her was abysmal. When a Democratic candidate far preferred by most Democratic activists in the state entered the race, she decided not to run. That Democratic candidate, Rick Weiland (full disclosure, he is my friend and I am helping out with his race), is supposed to be “too liberal” to win in South Dakota, at least according to the DC establishment. But people in DC don’t get the difference between being a coastal liberal and being a Midwest populist. Rick’s message of taking back the country from the big corporate interests that are strangling the Main Street economy of places like South Dakota it is likely to play well there. There is a fair amount of evidence from recent decades that this approach can win. Populist firebrand Byron Dorgan wasn’t supposed to win his first Senate race in North Dakota; Brian Schweitzer wasn’t supposed to win the Montana Governorship but did so going away twice; and South Dakota Democrats Jim Abouresk, Tom Daschle, and Tim Johnson were never supposed to win their first Senate races either, but they did. Taking on the big money special interests works pretty well in these states, and it just might this time. Nebraska is the toughest state of all for a Democrat to win in, and there aren’t even any announced candidates yet. But it is a fascinating year in Nebraska politics, with wide open races for Governor, Senate, and a lot of down ballot races as well, and I suspect some populists are going to jump in to some of these races and give the Republican establishment a run for its money. The pro-establishment, pro-special interest “centrism” of Washington, DC doesn’t actually work very well in the Midwest and West states. I think progressive populism is the path for Democratic victory, at least in that part of the country, and I just hope that DC Democrats don’t get in the way of helping candidates who follow that path win these races.       rss@dailykos.com (Michael Lux) Al Franken AlFranken BrianSchweitzer BruceBraley ByronDorgan Centrism ConsumerFinancialProtectionBureau Iowa JeffMerkley JimAbouresk Jobs Max Baucus MaxBaucus Minnesota Montana NebraskaSenaterace Oregon rick-weiland SocialSecurityCuts South Dakota SouthDakota StephanieHersethSandlin TheProgressiveRevolution TimJohnson TomDaschle TomHarkin _1212895 Fri, 31 May 2013 19:46:18 +0000 Inspiring Each Other Forward https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/5/21/1210736/-Inspiring-Each-Other-Forward When I was writing my book on the history of American political debate and change - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Revolution-Best-America-Came/dp/0470395117">The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be</a> - in 2008, I was doing some research on the sequence of events in the 1960s, I was struck by the fact that so many big things happened so close together. As I wrote in my book: <blockquote>"The civil rights movement inspired other progressives not only to help in the civil rights cause but also to come together around a range of other issues and constituencies. A renewed wave of feminism was sparked in great part by Betty Friedan's influential book The Feminine Mystique. The environmental movement gained broad public appeal when Rachel Carson's Silent Spring became a best seller. Students began to organize themselves. The Port Huron statement, written by Tom Hayden and others, prompted young people to get involved in politics through the student and antiwar movements. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was founded. Cesar Chavez used many of King's organizing tactics, as well as new ones of his own, to unionize farm workers in the agricultural fields of California. And as the 1960s wore on, progressives of all stripes looked with growing concern at the Vietnam War and began to protest in earnest against it. What is truly astounding is how many of these movements were created in exactly the same window of time: the publication of Silent Spring and The Feminine Mystique, the Port Huron statement and the founding of SDS, and King's "I Have A Dream" speech all happened in a two-year period during 1962 and 1963. Chavez's organizing also began in the early 1960s. It was a flash-point moment in American history, as movements and leaders inspired one another, and pent-up frustrations over injustice came spilling out. It was no accident that the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the War on Poverty, the Fair Housing Act, the Clean Air Act and the clean Water Act, Head Start, the creation of legal services for the poor, the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, the Roe v. Wade decision, and the end of the Vietnam War all happened in the decade that the Roe v. Wade decision, and the end of the Vietnam War all happened in the decade that followed." </blockquote> I feel like we are living in such a moment in history right now, that organizers and activists are sparking off each other and inspiring each other, that there is something building out there that will bring bigger change down the road. And just as it took several years for the seeds planted in those 18 months in the early ‘60s to take root and begin to bring about the changes of the years to come in terms of civil rights, women’s rights, and the environment, it will take several years for the seeds being planted now to fully take root. But I believe more and more that it will happen. Yesterday, homeowners who have been royally screwed over by big Wall Street banks risked not only arrest but worse in demonstrations at the Department of Justice (capitalize) demanding that DOJ start prosecuting bankers rather than the people ripped off by them. Look at this horrific video of a completely peaceful protester being tased: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/b1XA33qI4XI" frameborder="0" defang_allowfullscreen=""></iframe> The protests are continuing today, tomorrow, and maybe beyond. Meanwhile, low wage workers who work for federal contractors are doing some protests of their own. Check out this excerpt from the news release announcing this action: <blockquote>Washington – Hundreds of low-wage workers employed under federal contracts, concessions, and leases went on strike today in several federally owned buildings asking their employers and President Obama to take action and improve their wages and working conditions. These low-wage workers are part of a hidden army of nearly two million low-wage workers across the country employed by private businesses on behalf of the U.S. government to serve the American public—working in the food courts at government buildings like Union Station and the Ronald Reagan Building, greeting visitors and selling memorabilia at the Smithsonian Museums, driving trucks hauling federally-owned loads and making military uniforms for our troops. Earlier this month, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/rally-report-urge-higher-wages-for-service-workers-in-federal-facilities/2013/05/08/beeef0f8-b817-11e2-b94c-b684dda07add_story.html">the workers announced the launch of their organization,</a> Good Jobs Nation, and called on President Obama to ensure contractors pay a living wage and improve working conditions for all those employed by federal dollars.   Today’s strikes come on the heels of combined fast-food and retail worker strikes in <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/05/14/food-workers-strikes/2159047/">Milwaukee</a> and the <a href="http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/10/detroit-experiences-what-may-be-largest-fast-food-strike-yet/">largest-ever fast food strikes in Detroit</a>, as well as recent strikes in <a href="http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/04/17587032-fast-food-workers-strike-citing-low-wages-its-not-enough?lite">New York City</a>, <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/dozens-of-st-louis-fast-food-workers-planning-to-strike/article_7a0c248b-d7b4-5794-b11a-b8316462e9f2.html">St. Louis</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/24/chicago-low-wage-workers-strike_n_3149755.html?icid=hp_front_top_art">Chicago</a> and the nationwide walkout by Wal-Mart associates on Black Friday. Labor unrest is spreading as workers in low-paying jobs are fed up with stagnant wages and a lack of economic opportunity. “All I want is to be able to support my family, but I can’t even afford to pay my rent on $9.00an hour,” said Ana Salvador, who has worked doing a myriad of tasks at the McDonald’s at the National Air and Space Museum for 10 years. “The company I work for makes big profits thanks to taxpayers. It’s not right that I work hard every day to serve the public, and I have to choose between taking the Metro to work and paying the electric bill. I’m asking President Obama to act so I can provide for my family.” Low-wage jobs have accounted for the <a href="http://www.nelp.org/page/-/Job_Creation/LowWageRecovery2012.pdf?nocdn=1">bulk of new jobs added in the recovery</a>, but a recent Demos report found that the <a href="http://www.demos.org/publication/underwriting-bad-jobs-how-our-tax-dollars-are-funding-low-wage-work-and-fueling-inequali">federal government is the largest low-wage job creator</a> – with nearly 2 million low-wage workers employed under government contracts, loans and leases, including nearly 100,000 working under federal contracts in the DC area alone. A growing coalition of community organizations, clergy, and labor groups, including Empower DC, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Change to Win, OUR DC, and Jobs with Justice, have voiced their support for the workers’ efforts… Federal contracts, grants, loans, concession agreements, and property leases worth hundreds of billions of dollars go to large, profitable corporations that pay their CEOs millions in salaries and bonuses but pay their workers such low wages that they are unable to afford basic necessities like food, clothing, and rent. Instead of strengthening our economy, taxpayer dollars are being used to pad corporate profits and bonuses, while leaving workers unable to shop at local businesses and reliant on public assistance to provide for their families… Congressional Hearing Following the strikes, congressional leaders, including Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN-5), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ-7), Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), held a Congressional hearing to investigate and improve working conditions for the nation’s largest low-wage workforce.   Federal procurement doubled in the years between 1996 and 2009, and continues to represent an enormous and profitable industry. In 2012, the U.S. government paid private companies $446.5 billion to provide goods and services in the United States, according to USASpending.gov.  Concessions agreements, leases, and grants awarded to private business are worth additional hundreds of billions dollars. Because the federal government sets standards on these contracts and awards, the government is in a position to require that wealthy employers pay frontline workers higher wages that will allow them to afford basic necessities like food, clothing, and rent. </blockquote> The workers striking are literally risking their desperately needed jobs while doing so. Just like the people at DOJ risking arrest and being tased, these workers are on the frontlines, showing enormous courage and grit under fire. It is a shame that some of our political leaders couldn’t do the same. Like the non-violent warriors of the early 1960s who fed off each other, these kinds of demonstrations are inspiring and sparking each other. These last few years have seen environmental, immigration, and LGBT activists chaining themselves to the White House gates and pushing back hard against the administration, to great effect; they saw the birth of the Occupy movement, which started in NYC and spread to demonstrations around the globe; they saw the birth of the brave homeowners at Home Defenders League literally occupying each other’s homes to keep families from being foreclosed on; they saw one day strikes at Wal-Marts and fast food chains spreading all over the country. And now in one week, we are seeing low wage workers and homeowners getting squeezed stand up and fight back against the wealthy companies that are treating them poorly. And all these sets of demonstrations and movements are sparking and inspiring each other. The powers that be are wealthy beyond measure, and are used to getting their own way, so they are bending all their power to keep a lid on all of this. But people are rising up, and in the years to come, we are going to see some real changes. rss@dailykos.com (Michael Lux) BettyFriedan CesarChavez DOJ GoodJobsNation HomeDefendersLeague MartinLutherKing Occupy OSHA port-huron-statement RachelCarson RoevWade sds Silent Spring SilentSpring TheFeminineMystique TheProgressiveRevolution TomHayden Vietnam War VietnamWar Wall Street WallStreet wallstreetaccountability WorkersRights _1210736 Tue, 21 May 2013 19:04:57 +0000 The Stakes in this Election: Incredibly High | Mike Lux discusses "The Progressive Revolution" https://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/20/911943/-The-Stakes-in-this-Election-Incredibly-High-Mike-Lux-discusses-The-Progressive-Revolution Welcome to the second interview in the Beyond the Choir fall series.  This week we feature progressive organizer, strategist, blogger, and author Mike Lux.  Mike is the CEO of Progressive Strategies, the Co-founder of Open Left, and he has been active for thirty years on many progressive issues. Mike is the "outsider's insider."  He has one foot in the door (having worked on five presidential campaigns, and having served in the Clinton White House health care reform war room), and he has the other foot on the outside (having worked on many issue advocacy campaigns and on building independent progressive infrastructure). Mike wrote a book called The Progressive Revolution which looks at the threads of conservative and progressive thought and action in the United States since the Declaration of Independence. rss@dailykos.com (Jonathan Smucker) Conservative Democrat Elections MikeLux Progressive Tea Party TeaParty TheProgressiveRevolution _911943 Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:08:30 +0000 Mike Lux: The Nebraska Netroots Interview (Part 1) https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/24/712559/-Mike-Lux-The-Nebraska-Netroots-Interview-Part-1 <a href="http://nenetroots.com">Crossposted at Nebraska Netroots:</a> <ins>Part 1 -- The Prodigal Son Returns</ins> <img width="162" alt="TPR - Front Cover" align="right" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3613/3376806563_92621b1b15_m.jpg" height="240" />Thanks for taking a few moments to talk with me. <blockquote> Absolutely. </blockquote> You are very well known nationally, but I'd venture a guess that not too many people know you're from Nebraska. Why don't we start by having you tell us about your time in the state? <blockquote> Well, I brag about it all the time. </blockquote> Ha, I bet! <blockquote> I was born and raised in Lincoln. My dad taught at UNL in the Education Department and served on the Lincoln School Board for many years. My mom was a stay at home mom. I left to go to college at Oberlan College in Ohio but then came back to do vista work in Southeast Nebraska where I worked with low income family farmers to organize farmers markets and help them with energy conservation. </blockquote> More below the fold... rss@dailykos.com (Mike Nellis) MikeLux Nebraska TheProgressiveRevolution _712559 Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:58:09 +0000 Book Review: Michael Lux's "The Progressive Revolution" https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/25/688521/-Book-Review-Michael-Lux-s-The-Progressive-Revolution <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470395117?ie=UTF8&tag=daikos-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0470395117">The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be</a> By Michael Lux $25.95, 256 pages John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: New York, January 2009 <blockquote> From the earliest days of the republic, an ongoing debate has raged between democrats and aristocrats, populists and the wealthy, debtors and the bankers, the working class and big business, the advocates of a "free" money supply and those of a "tight" money supply, the "levelers" versus the elitists, and people who wanted government to invest in and be a guarantor of equal opportunity for all and those who worshipped the free market above all else. Whatever the era, whatever form the battle took, and whatever the specific rhetoric or issues, this divide has been intrinsic to American history. ** That ongoing argument, between the forces of progressive thought and those of conservative thought, is what inspired this book. In the introduction, I lay out my basic theory about how the debate between progressives and conservatives has been a permanent conflict throughout our country's history. Furthermore, when progressives have been on the winning side of that debate politically, the country has made dramatic progress, whereas when conservatives have won the day, the country has suffered as a result. </blockquote> A long look backward to our roots, a quick look forward to our future, Mike Lux's exquisitely timed The Progressive Revolution is a full-blown, heady prescription for getting liberals all fired up and ready to go as Democrats once again control the presidency and Congress. His wide-angle view of the two forces that have raged across the battlefield of American ideology for two centuries serves as an invaluable reminder of what has been at stake in the past and what forces we have overcome. For those of us teetering in the wake of President Obama's election on the verge of cynicism and hope, this is the right book at the right time. As daunting as undoing the damage of the Bush administration appears to be, as long a time in the wilderness it feels that liberals have spent, Lux's review of progressive history shows us that there have been times at least as dark and as hopeless that the country has emerged from -- indeed, it was born in a dark and fearful time, with a successful outcome more unlikely than what we inheritors of Jefferson face today. You see, the progressive story does all begin with Jefferson and with the Declaration of Independence, Lux argues, and a few other key documents along the way. <blockquote> There were three transformative intellectual moments in the history of the United States and in the history of progressive thought in this country. The first was Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. The last was Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. In between the two, at perhaps the most critical moment in our nation's history, with the country on the verge of breaking apart, came the Gettysburg Address. The sweeping power of its central ideas re-created and renewed Jefferson's and Paine's original idea of America and made it even stronger and more progressive. </blockquote> Those three touchstones have marked great leaps forward after periods when the country has been stalled in a conservative, status quo simmer, and Lux looks at the specific agendas that emerged after these great dam-breaking moments of focused and purposeful framing rhetoric. From the Declaration, of course, the country itself emerged, and the author looks at how conservatives today downplay the declaration as much as possible in order to highlight the much less progressive original Constitution (sans the Bill of Rights). What conservatives today lay claim to is Jefferson's distrust of government, while conveniently ignoring his much more ubiquitous egalitarian framework and language. Lux also looks at the fate of Thomas Paine, scorned (and at one point even banned) by keepers of the conservative flame for his fiery rhetoric that fanned the flames of revolution. <blockquote> Over the years, conservatives have used three basic strategies for dealing with Paine, Jefferson, and their powerful philosophies of equality and of democratic and economic empowerment for the "common man": direct attack, ignoring or discounting their role in the nation's founding, and co-opting their legacy by trying to claim it was a conservative one. </blockquote> These ebbs and flows of conservatism and progressivism over the centuries since America's birth are charted closely by the author, and it becomes clear that by far the majority of the hallmarks of democracy that we pride ourselves on today are not the result of the "traditionalists," but rather the work of the "radical" progressives, who were much maligned at the time of their struggles, but have entered the pantheon of the hallowed for modern-day conservatives. Universal suffrage, the end to slavery, the abolition of child labor, quality public education ... all these and far, far more were the result of battles fought against the forces of the status quo. Lux points out that one of the most breath-taking periods of overlooked progressivism was ushered in by Abraham Lincoln, who pushed through sweeping policies that are often forgotten because they aren't related to the Civil War:  introduction of the first progressive income tax; the Pacific Railroad Act, which was the first massive federal infrastructure project; the land-grant university system, which made college more affordable than ever before; and the Homestead Act, which put land-ownership within reach of any American willing to move and work the land. <blockquote> Think about the achievement of passing all of this remarkable legislation--probably America's most progressive and ambitious package of domestic legislation outside of the New Deal--in the middle of the most destructive war and the biggest crisis in U.S. history. Lincoln was the most amazing political leader this country has ever seen, and he stood clearly in the great progressive tradition of this nation. </blockquote> "The great progressive tradition of this nation" is the theme throughout this fine book, and it's clear that the author, who's had hands-on experience trying to translate progressive ideology into specific progressive policy in the Clinton White House, has managed to keep alive his love of American history while still keeping a trained eye on the sausage-making aspect of politics. This is no mean feat. The Progressive Revolution is a stirring reminder of, as the subtitle says, how the best in America came to be--and it is not, as conservatives would like to have you think now that we have a President Obama and a Democratic majority in the Congress, through a spirit of kumbaya and bipartisanship. Lux points out what should be obvious--that the difficult battles to make government more accessible and our rights more secure has more often than not been bloody, hard and brutally partisan: <blockquote> There have been only two times in American history where progressive change has happened in any kind of bipartisan way: in the Progressive Era of the early 1900s, when a strong-willed Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, made an alliance with populists and progressives in the Democratic Party to push through a series of progressive reforms over the opposition of most of his party; and in the 1960s, when a few liberal Republicans, mostly from the Northeast, helped Northern Democrats overcome opposition from Southern Democratic conservatives and most of the Republican Party to win civil rights and environmental reforms. </blockquote> In other words, Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Lincoln and FDR all had to push through their reforms with no help from the opposition, and with many a cry that the sky was falling and that the end of the republic was at hand. This is absolutely vital to keep in mind as we move ahead. In the words of the author, "It is important to understand the echoes of all those past battles to engage effectively in the debates of our times." The Progressive Revolution is the perfect vehicle for understanding those echoes during the first Obama administration. rss@dailykos.com (Susan Gardner) Book Review BookReview MichaelLux TheProgressiveRevolution _688521 Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:00:05 +0000