Slow down! Don’t stop, but slow down.
Guaranteed college for all
Federal jobs guarantee
Healthcare for all
Gun control
Abolish ICE
The “New Green Deal”
Fair taxation
Campaign finance reform
Immigration reform
The small list of progressive agenda entries above is on the table. The real question is where do we start? And the real concern is, where do we end up?
My opinion?
Well I actually like all of the above, but I know there has to be some reality inserted before we start. Obama’s greatest achievement was the ACA. The problems that followed show how hard it is to even implement a nearly crippled by intention healthcare system. This was designed by a republican think tank, implemented in Massachusetts by a republican governor and opposed 100% by republicans. It passed with nearly twice the amount of republican amendments than democratic, took two years to get through congress and the senate, and spent every day of its implementation being vilified, attacked and weakened by said congress that the American people made sure was overwhelmingly republican because a majority of Americans wanted the ACA destroyed.
People were easily cajoled into opposition by constant attack by those whose interests are most damaged by any form of affordable healthcare. Healthcare becoming affordable will have a devastating impact on the economy precisely because an enormous chunk of our economy requires that prices keep increasing thus becoming by nature unaffordable. If you think that makes no sense, well you’re right. If you think that is a recipe for collapse, well again you’re right. Current business culture is astonishingly geared for short gain, and at all cost for that matter.
The problem is that the money that controls who gets into positions of power in our government still comes mostly from these interests. I will say that the number of Democratic candidates have refused anything but individual contributions is wonderful, but that is not the answer either. Why in the name of holy hell does one have to spend millions or even billions of dollars to appear on the national stage? The answer is that every platform available to anyone is also controlled by the obsession to make enormous amounts of money. That would be all news outlets and social media, and there is no way to say what you stand for if you don’t have the money to satisfy that obsession.
A great many of the things listed above will simply never happen when the control is the way it is. And to be realistic if the things above are implemented it will devastate the wealthy class. Billions of dollars will hemorrhage from their coffers never to be retrieved. There is really no humanitarian debate against that this would increase the overall wellbeing of all of us, but that is not the current debate. The current debate is about how even our current tax system is already hurting the wealthy and needs to be further altered to their advantage.
So what do we do?
PRIORITIZE!!
There will be nothing implemented simply because it is for the public good or because it will benefit future generations as long as the power structure is based on the endless ever increasing profits. And those interest control our government.
There will be disaster in the ever nearing future on apocalyptic scale if we don’t get our sh!t together on climate change.
Start there please!!