[Dialogue] Progressive manifesto

[KroegerD at aol.com]

I think this is a pretty comprehensive definition of the progressive  
movement in our time.
 
Dick Kroeger
 
 
So who is a progressive? You might be one if … 
• You think health care is a basic human right, and that single-payer  
national health insurance is a worthwhile reform on our way toward creating a  
non-profit national health care service. 
• You think that human rights ought always to trump property rights. 
• You think U.S. military spending is an obscene waste of resources, and that 
 the only freedom this spending protects is the freedom of economic elites to 
 exploit working people all around the planet. 
• You think U.S. troops should be brought home not only from Afghanistan and  
Iraq, but from all 130 countries in which the U.S. has military bases. 
• You think political leaders who engage in “preemptive war” and invasions  
should be brought to trial for crimes against humanity and judged against the  
standards of international law established at Nuremberg after World War Two. 
• You think public education should be free, not just from kindergarten  
through high school, but as far as a person is willing and able to go. 
• You think that electoral reform should include instant run-off voting,  
publicly-financed elections, easy ballot access for all parties, and  
proportional representation. 
• You think that electoral democracy is not enough, and that democracy must  
also be participatory and extend to workplaces. 
• You think that strengthening the rights of all workers to unionize and  
bargain collectively is a useful step toward full economic democracy. 
• You think that as a society we have a collective obligation to provide  
everyone who is willing and able to work with a job that pays a living wage and  
offers dignity. 
• You think that a class system which forces some people to do dirty,  
dangerous, boring work all the time, while others get to do clean, safe,  
interesting work all the time, can never deliver social justice. 
• You think that regulating big corporations isn’t enough, and that such  
corporations, if they are allowed to exist at all, must either serve the common  
good or be put into public receivership. 
• You think that the legal doctrine granting corporations the same  
constitutional rights as natural persons is absurd and must be overturned. 
• You think it’s wrong to allow individuals to accumulate wealth without  
limits, and that the highest incomes should be capped well before they begin to  
threaten community and democracy. 
• You think that wealth, not just income, should be taxed. 
• You think it’s crazy to use the Old Testament as a policy guide for the  
21st century. 
• You believe in celebrating diversity, while also recognizing that having  
women and people of color proportionately represented among the class of  
oppressors is not the goal we should be aiming for. 
• You think that the state has no right to kill, and that putting people to  
death to show that killing is wrong will always be a self-defeating policy. 
• You think that anyone who desires the reins of power that come with high  
political office should, by reason of that desire, be seen as unfit for the  
job. 
• You think that instead of more leaders, we need fewer followers. 
• You think that national borders, while sometimes establishing territories  
of safety, more often establish territories of exploitation, much like gang  
turf. 
• You are open to considering how the privileges you enjoy because of race,  
class, gender, sexual orientation, and/or physical ability might come at the  
expense of others. 
• You believe that voting every few years is a weak form of political  
participation, and that achieving social justice requires concerted effort  before, 
during, and after elections. 
• You think that, ideally, no one would have more wealth more than they need  
until everyone has at least as much as they need to live a safe, happy, 
decent  life. 
• You recognize that an economic system which requires continuous expansion,  
destroys the environment, relies on rapidly-depleting fossil fuels, 
exacerbates  inequality, and leads to war after war is unsustainable and must be 
replaced.  Score a bonus point if you understand that sticking to the existing 
system is  what’s unrealistic. 
No doubt some readers will say this list is incomplete. It is. Many policy  
issues of importance to progressives go unmentioned. Others might say that the  
list leans too far to the left, or not far enough. It could also be said that 
 some items are vague (what does it mean to say that human rights ought 
always to  trump property rights?). These are all useful responses. If we hope to 
work  together to transform the social world, we need to know what we agree on, 
what  we don’t agree on, and what needs further hashing-out. 
In the end, however, it’s not labels and identities and criteria for  
bestowing them that really matter. Political terms have consequences, but only  
because of how we use them. Which suggests another item for the list. You might  be 
a progressive if you think that it’s important to take seriously the meaning  
of political identities, but that what really matters is living out those  
identities in ways that help to create more peace, justice, and equality. 
Michael Schwalbe is a professor of sociology at North Carolina State  
University. His most recent book is _Rigging the Game: How Inequality Is Reproduced 
in Everyday  Life_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195333004?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0195333004&adid=1HCR52M8M322FV7FDZC3&)
  (Oxford, 2008).



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