It seems that just about every hundred years (or so, I'm a lawyer; cut me some slack; numbers aren't my thing), the body politic we call America swells with fever as it fights off a democracy-destroying disease. That disease is "Special Interest Government," a government captured by the economically powerful in society, as they find a way to convert economic into political power; the fever comes from the reform movement, keen to kill that disease and restore an ideal of government of, by, and for "the People."
The rise of Andrew Jackson was the first of these cycles. His fight with the Second Bank of the United States and with the "monied interests" as he called them was the romantic political struggle for most Americans for much of the 19th Century -- far more important than anything Washington or Hamilton had done.
The rise of the Progressive Movement in the late 19th, and early 20th Century was the second of these cycles. Reformer after reformer focused the American democracy on the deep corruption that had captured government. The first round of "robber barons" had completed their theft. Smart and courageous souls fought on every front to end the threat of more robber barons, and reclaim the democracy that Jackson had promised.
We have now entered the third of these cycles. The anger that has broken out across America is rightly targeted at the captured and incompetent institution that our government has become. That capture, most Americans believe, is a kind of corruption. But not the corruption of bribery, or brown paper bags of cash hidden and traded among congressmen.
Instead the corruption of today is in plain sight. The mechanism of its reach is displayed to everyone. It is the simple and pervasive economy of influence that buys access and more through campaign cash. And then without explicit recognition, the actions of our government are guided by the understanding of how those acts will affect the opportunity to raise money.
I'm sure no one in the White House had a second thought about how bizarre it was that the first deals the administration struck to get health care reform was with the insurance lobby and the pharmaceutical companies. Yet how many of the 69,456,987 votes that Obama received came from them? And so why is it so obvious that they get the first seats in the negotiation of what could be Obama's most important (and only?) significant legislative victory?
As with each of these cycles of reform, when the fever gets hot there arises a political movement to fight the infection. Sometimes that movement has a leader. Some of us thought Obama was our Jackson, a thought that feels embarrassingly naive today.
Sometimes, however, it has no single leader. The resistance instead grows in a wide range of affected contexts, and an almost magical coordination among these disparate interests has an effect.
That was the story of the 20th Century's Progressive Movement. It had no single leader. It had no single plan. Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt were both leading progressives. But the two were as different as Jefferson and Hamilton. They shared a common ideal -- to defeat the power of "the Trusts" to control government -- but they had very different ideas about how that should be done.
Thus, instead of a Jackson, the 20th Century Progressives had an army of leaders in every field of social life that finally forced onto a corrupted political stage demands for political and social reform. For the most part, they got these demands. Not all of them, and some that they got some of us wish they hadn't (the referendum process, for example). But that open source political movement achieved something extraordinary against the most powerful economic forces in the world.
Arianna Huffington has become a leader in this third feverish cycle fighting the corruption our democracy has become. Along with scholar/activists such as Elizabeth Warren, Simon Johnson, Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Reich, and maybe even come-back-kid politicians like Eliot Spitzer, she's building a movement to focus America again upon the once-again task to reclaim our democracy from those who would buy our franchise from beneath us. Through a powerful and clear voice, tied to a growing media empire, she is honing a message and an awareness that we have lost control of this democracy. And she is thereby motivating a Neo-Progressive Movement to respond.
Third World America is a powerful complement to this work. The book is a brief -- in honor of perhaps the wisest of the Progressives, we could call it a Brandeis Brief -- that pulls together in the most powerful way that I have seen just how bad things have become. "In the mid-1960s," Huffington writes, "only 29% thought 'big interests' ran the nation. ... [I]n 2008, 80% ... believed government was controlled by 'a few big interests looking out for themselves.'"
Most important to me, however, is that Third World America is the first in a long line of fantastic Neo-Progressive books that places at the top of the list of reform the need to end Special Interest Government with a system of Citizen Funded Elections.
It is this central objective of killing corporate control of government that links these three progressive movements. But if this movement is to be as successful as the last, it needs to learn an important lesson from the last.
Progressivism in its best sense is not a politics of the Left. Or better, not just a politics of the Left. The 20th Century politician who struck the fatal blow to Republican William Howard Taft's presidency was not a socialist, or a Democrat. It was another Republican: Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette. La Follette was among a band insurgents in the Republican Party of 1910 who believed the party had been taken over by corporate interests. In April, 1911, he launched a challenge to President Taft, pushing five principles of "The National Progressive Republican League." The League had been founded upon the recognition that "popular government in America has been thwarted ... by the special interests." And all five of the principles responded to this "thwarting" with anti-corruption ideals: Four calling for stronger democratic checks on government. The fifth demanding an anti-corruption law with teeth.
La Follette failed to beat Taft, but his partial success encouraged Teddy Roosevelt to return from the wild and try his own hand at ousting a sitting president. Roosevelt too failed to win the Republican nomination, but he continued his campaign as a third party candidate, leading the "Bull Moose Party."
And then there were the Democrats. Most in the party feared it would nominate again the populist William Jennings Bryan. But Bryan recognized he couldn't win. And he instead engineered the nomination of New Jersey Governor (and former Princeton University President) Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson was no populist. But he was a Progressive. As described in Melvin Urofsky's extraordinary biography, Brandeis, Wilson pushed back against Hamiltonian-Teddy Roosevelt, and pushed forward a vision sketched for him by Louis Brandeis: against the idea of a cabal of big business regulated by big government, and for the idea of small business and the liberty that would encourage for all.
The 1912 election thus gave America perhaps the most diverse menu of political options ever in the history of Presidential elections. At one extreme was Socialist Eugene Debs, pushing for a radical change in the substance of American social life. At the other was Republican William Howard Taft, insisting that the substance of pro-business politics that defined the mainstream of the Republican Party was the best policy for Republicans and for America. And in the middle were two strong Progressives, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, both agreeing on the urgent need to end Special Interest Government, even if disagreeing on the vision of how government and business should interact.
Almost 70% of Americans voted for the Progressive cause (42% for Wilson, 27% for Roosevelt. Taft received just 23%). Many of them were Republicans, or former Republicans. Many more were Democrats. But they all represented an odd coalition of interests that put aside strong substantive differences about what government should do to address forcefully (and they naively thought, finally) the corruption that government had become.
The Neo-Progressive Movement needs the same catholicism. The vast majority of Americans would willingly go to war to end Special Interest Government. Disgust with Wall Street "reform" is palpable. The compromises of the bailouts and stimulus plans will just fuel that disgust even more. There is an endless reservoir of examples of government corrupted that could convince America of what it already believes: Money buys results in Congress; "the People" are no longer sovereign.
But if this Neo-Progressive Movement is to have any chance of success, it needs to be disciplined enough not to insist that all members also be members of Moveon.org. We need, to borrow and remix the insight of Cass Sunstein, an "incompletely theorized movement." We need Republicans who stand in the tradition of Reagan and Goldwater, yet who are as disgusted with the sellout that corporate money has induced as are we. How can an honest Republican vote to protect domestic sugar manufacturers? Yet many do, because the millions in campaign contributions from sugar lords is just too sweet to resist. How can honest Republicans vote for the corporate welfare we call farm subsidies? Because, as former-Representative Leslie Byrne (D-VA) was told by a colleague when she came to Congress, "always lean to the green." That colleague "wasn't," she clarified, "an environmentalist."
The Neo-Progressive Movement must also make its case to the Tea Party, the most potent political movement in America today, far deeper than it is caricatured to be by both Fox and MSNBC. For whatever extreme social vision motivates some in that party, the belief that government has been bought motivates them all.
And most importantly, the Movement must be willing to sacrifice Democrats who don't commit to its fundamental reform. That party is filled with people who don't actually believe in this reform. The sell out of the Democrats to Wall Street during the 1990s testifies to this split.
But if the failure of Obama teaches us anything, it is that real reform for Democrats won't happen in the world of Special Interest Government. And if the failure of 20 years of Republican presidents in the last 30 to deliver on the fundamental promises of Reagan teaches the Right anything, it should be that real reform on the right won't happen in the world of Special Interest Government either.
There is an opportunity for Neo-Progressives now, much like the opportunity of a century ago. There will be open Republican primaries in 2012. In those primaries, there will be Republicans who want to distance themselves from the "sell our government to the highest bidder" policies of the Gingrich/Delay days. That candidate could well recognize that especially in light of the certain to be grotesque flood of corporate money that will define the 2010 election, America, and especially, grassroots Republicans are starving for a candidate who would deliver what Obama promised in reform, but failed to achieve. And if it becomes the Republican Party that is talking about ending Special Interest Government (again), then the race to achieve real reform will be on.
The Neo-Progressive Movement needs to encourage these Republicans. It needs to be willing to put aside part of the agenda of each within the movement, recognizing that no change, on the Right or the Left, will happen until the fever is broken, because the disease has been stopped. Mainstream parties have lost the credibility for reform. As in 1912, only a breakaway, trans-party movement, possibly with no single leader, could have an effect in 2012.
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I expect you have seen this Nation article, in which you are mentioned:
http://www.thenation.com/article/155381/upton-sinclairs-epic-campaign
I think that to be effective, a reform movement must include more than campaign financing- I think the issue does not have enough emotional associations to inspire people. I would propose that we include in our platform the issue of unemployment- or more positively, of full employment. There has been a lot of research in recent years that tends to show that being unemployed is bad for a person's health, will shorten one's life and will affect earnings for the rest of one's life- in other words, that unemployment has persistent social costs and is worse than merely a matter of transient personal distress to a few individuals. We could consider going beyond that and looking at the question of inequality in general- or more positively, of fairness. Wilkinson and Pickett's recent book, The Spirit Level, documents the correlation of inequality with crime, poor health, and other indicators. The book has apparently made enough of an impression in Britain that even the conservatives feel the need to pay at least lip service to the goal of equality.
I am labeled a Liberal yet:
I want to “conserve” the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, ensuring equal protection under the law for all of our citizens.
I want to “conserve” our economy by restoring strong Corporate regulations that ensure healthy economic activity.
I want to “conserve” a safe and secure standard of living for elderly Americans by NOT messing around with Social Security and Medicare.
I want to “conserve” our labor force by preventing greedy corporate interests from shipping jobs overseas in order to save 10 cents on some nameless widget.
I want to “conserve” our environment from reckless destruction brought on by our industrial carelessness.
While those who call themselves Conservative:
Applaud Liberal interpretations of the Constitution that give corporations almost unlimited power to influence elections.
Applaud Liberal interpretations of the Constitution that allows for the Government to spy on Americans.
Applaud Liberal interpretations of the Geneva Conventions that allows for the torture of prisoners.
Applaud a Liberal redistribution of wealth by supporting policies that help the richest 1% get richer, while the other 99% struggle to get by.
Applaud a Liberal reinterpretation if not repeal of portions of the bill of rights they don’t like.
Applaud laws that allow for “liberal” deregulation of business, enabling the worst financial disaster in history and quite possibly the destruction of the planet.
Applaud Liberal interpretations of history that suggest America is a Christian Nation.
The world is up-side down.
And calling the tea party the "most potent political movement in America today" is crazy. The tea partiers are at the core of the corporatist movement, doing the heavy lifting for corporatists and Republicans. You can't listen only to their anti-corporatist talk; attend to their anti-tax, anti-government talk, mixed in with xenophobia, hatred, fear, anti-science, hyper-religious, etc. talk. That's all music to the ears of corporatists, who are funding them and pulling their puppet strings. Because the corporatists don't care what you say about them as long as you advocate policies that enhance their power. The ONLY thing that can stand up to the banksters, corporations and Wall Street is the government, if it only will. The tea partiers, like the libertarians who make up a lot of their membersip, are an anti-government, pro-corporatist, pro-fascist movement masked in populist rhetoric.
Also, consider that Obama's deals with pharma and insurance could have been strategic to get us a start on health care reform.
"The Neo-Progressive Movement must also make its case to the Tea Party, the most potent political movement in America today, far deeper than it is caricatured to be by both Fox and MSNBC. For whatever extreme social vision motivates some in that party, the belief that government has been bought motivates them all."
I've never heard of "neo-progressive" but I know some basis for the tea party. Contrary to what either party or news orginization wants you to think...there is no national tea party. Its a bunch of smaller parties.
They do have the common belief though that: " the belief that government has been bought motivates them all." Tea parties are small individualy: but since they make up so much of the population, anyone who unites them will have instant political power.
The author is saying that because the Tea partyers and the "neo-progressives" apparantly have that much in common. Government has become corrupt and sold to the highest bidder. A tea partier might argue that if government was smaller, not only would that be more manageble, but the corruption wouldn't be as dangerous as it is now since they wouldn't be in a position to do that much damage.
Labor Unions: UAW, Teamsters, etc?
Teacher Unions
American Farmers (i.e., ethanol and the grotesque farm subsidies they've successfully lobbied to maintain for decades)
And what about the most massive & corrupt special interest machine in the nation...CONGRESS...who's refusal to curb earmark spending or even make it transparent, channels $$tens of billions$$ to worthless slush-projects via a twisted network of cronyism, connections & quid pro quos?
Somehow I doubt these pillars of "progressive" support will be labeled as troublemakers in Ariana's book or any of the discussions in this forum.
So unions are democracy in action,
the multinational super rich political bribers are
plutocracy.
better to outlaw ALL political contributions, publicaly finance elections.
Farm Bureau, American Farmers - corporate farmers.
You can go online and see where all or any of our money has gone.
16.2 million members
Otherwise, you're close!
I can say the exact opposite (and many others as well) that will say
This country has moved so far to the left that conservatives are really the moderates of 50 years ago
Presonally, I call myself a liberal. I don’t know what a “ progressive ” is, but I haven’t been impressed. I just know I don’t change my name when Newt Gingrich says “ boo ”.
We need real true progressives taking over the Congress (basically, just about anyone who is beaten up on or lied about by the corporate owned media, specifically Cluster Fox), not some group of "populist" fakers lead by and cheered for by the likes of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.
WE MUST GET OUT AND VOTE IN NOVEMBER.
THE SURVIVAL OF THE NATION DEPENDS ON IT.
I'm not talking about Wall Street-blahblahblah-unemployment-blahblahblah-singlepayer-blahblahblah, I'm talking about whether there will be anything left left recognisable as the United States of America.
VOTE.
Obama has made the American Corporation the evil enemy of his empire...how does this fit into that picture...notice the word "corporation" is never used:
"As Secretary Clinton has noted,
"Other businesses from other countries have a strong partnership with their government; whether it's state-owned enterprises from China or private companies from Europe, they often have much more support from their governments than we have in recent years given to our businesses."
Do you really believe she was talking about the 250K per yr Mom and Pop business?
This is directly from a posting here by the Under Sec. of State.
BTW - You know what, when a ideology has to change it's name to make itself feel better about itself, or to walk away from itself, there's a message right there.
And much of the money that Koch is using in this attempted leveraged buyout of our Government comes from . . . you and me.
For many years, Koch had a contract to extract oil from federal and Indian lands. In return, Koch was supposed to pay a royalty. A jury found that Koch underpaid the Government by $210 million.
Media Matters says that Koch has received $100 million in government contracts in the last ten years alone.
And Koch has paid for his assault on progressive government during the past decade largely with tax-deductible, tax-free foundation money:
* $120 million from the "David H. Koch Charitable Foundation,"
* $48 million from the "Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation," and
* $28 million from the "Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation," Charles Koch controls.
So there you have it. It's the taxpayers who have inadvertently underwritten the Koch assault on social services, a clean environment and good government.
In 2009, selectively edited videos were released by two conservative activists using a hidden camera to elicit damaging responses from low-level ACORN employees that appeared to advise them how to hide prostitution activities and avoid taxes.
This created a nationwide controversy resulting in a loss of funding from government and private donors.
4 acorn employees and 2 conservative activists with camera tricks put acorn out of business.
http://theenergycollective.com/toddwoody/42882/koch-brothers-jump-california-prop-23-climate-fight
Most of the money for that defeat has come from out of state and of course it is so they can make more money. They don't care at all about the environment in CA. They are just greedy. And if you go to that first link you will also see other articles there where the Koch Bros. have lied about other things.
Why do we put up with them? When do we start taking our country back as the Republicans keep saying, only they have something else in mind. What I mean is from the corporations and the special interest groups that are bankrolling our people in the legislature.