The Progressive Imperative, More Than Ever

Last week, with the Tea Bagger triumph in Massachusetts and the corporate triumph in the U.S. Supreme Court, an apt soundtrack would have been the Creedence Clearwater Revival song “Bad Moon Rising”:

I hear the voice of rage and ruin ...
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.

But political change happens when fervent advocates stand up after getting clobbered and go back into the struggle with renewed determination.

We’re engaged in a battle for democracy. And neither a new senatorial conservative from Massachusetts nor a corporate-minded Supreme Court will turn us around.

Vast numbers of Democratic voters stayed home last Tuesday in Massachusetts. As I wrote in a piece titled “Democrats Boosting Right-Wing Populism,” the problems can be largely traced to the centrist policies served up by the Obama administration and the dominant Democratic approach on Capitol Hill:

“For a year now, leading Democrats have steadily embraced more corporate formulas for ‘healthcare reform.’ In the name of political realism, they have demobilized and demoralized the Democratic base. In the process, they’ve fueled right-wing populism.

“The Democratic leadership on healthcare and so much else—including bank bailouts, financial services, foreclosures and foreign policy—has been so corporate that Republicans have found it easy to play populist. ...

“At the grassroots, many progressives are apt to buy into a false choice between capitulating inside the Democratic Party or staying away from it. But there’s another option: an inside/outside strategy that involves openly fighting for progressive power within the party while also organizing outside of it.”

Two years after Progressive Democrats of America launched the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign, we’re facing a corporate-driven “healthcare reform” debacle in Washington and a colossally tragic escalation of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.

In the words of an old civil rights spiritual: We shall not, we shall not be moved.

Norman Solomon
Co-Chair, Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign

P.S. The Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign has been expanded with the addition of Brown Bag Lunch Vigils. Click here to learn more.

Norman Solomon