Wanted: A Progressive Party
Published by terrance February 14th, 2007 in religion, politics, blogs,
current events, elections.
http://www.republicoft.com/2007/02/14/wanted-a-progressive-party/
[excerpt]
What do I mean by a progressive party? Certainly one that stands for
economic justice and social justice. What we have right now in the
Democratic party is a leadership that’s only willing to go half the way,
and work on issues like poverty and war, but stops short on social issues
in the interest of not offending voters who are either unconcerned with or
even opposed to progress on those issues. From a party chair sitting down
with Pat Robertson to netroots activists believing they need to support
candidates who aren’t progressive on some issues in order to win elections,
to a party now distancing itself from the principle of church/state
separation, we’re inching closer to what I predicted we’d get a while back.
And then I remembered something I hear a certain A-list blogger (who
honestly seems to care about these issues, and keeps asking how Dems should
talk about them) say a while back: just getting Democrats elected is not
sufficient. Certainly not if they’re going to put their constituents and
the convictions in the closet in order to win. A party that believes it has
to put its own values on the back burner in order to win must not believe
that it can and should win based on its values. It becomes something else
entirely, and will find it hard to go back if the trick should work.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The ultimate victory of the
“Republican Revolution” may very well end up being a more conservative
Democratic party.
And what of those progressive who care about and are working on issues like
war and economic justice, but who are also passionate about social issues?
What do we do with a party that seems to want less to do with those issues?
The problem is that we’re stuck in a party that’s not so much progressive
as it is “progressive-to-a-point,” stopping short of some progressive
values in pursuit of voters who do the same. I can think of three off the
top of my head. To my mind, in addition to other issues, a progressive
party would also stand up for:
* reproductive choice
* equality
* separation of church and state
Right now, it looks like Democrats don’t have the stomach to stand up for
any of the above. They didn’t have the stomach, after all, to stand up to
someone like Bill Donohue or Michelle Malkin.
Because they can’t. Or at least they think they can’t.
[end excerpt]
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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