Are "progressives" ever right about anything?

[kentuck]

I do recall they were against Bush's wars when 90% of America was supporting him. I do recall they never believed there were WMDs in Iraq. I do believe they have been right more times than wrong?

Have they ever been right about anything else??

[SteppingRazor]

1. Only everything.

:toast:

[Uben]

2. Uh,...........they voted for Obama.

So............

[SteppingRazor]

8. Yeah, cause McCain would've been a vast improvement.

:eyes:


You don't get to castigate someone for choosing the lesser of two evils in an either-or decision.

Now, we can certainly talk about the necessity for massive election reform in America, including proportional representation, public financing, instant-runoff voting, and so on. But none of that changes the decision with which voters were faced in 2008.

[meow mix]

24. not fair... he only pretended to be progressive on TV

in order to trick us out of our votes.
cant we expect our candidates to at least speak half-truths?

[Rageneau]

40. On;y because Obama's team painted the Clintons as racists.

I MUCH more wanted to vote for Hillary.

[bobbolink]

3. Some of us understood that Obama was never going to do anything positive about poverty

and/or homelessness.

Not only were we right.... even *WE* never guessed he would cut thousands off disability (in the dark), cut food stamps, and now write a bill that INCREASES taxes on poor folk!

So, we were right... but we were also wrong -- not even guessing he would do that much damage to poor people!

[frazzled]

4. Two things about that

(1) Progressives are not a monolithic bloc
(2) Of course we're right -- but being right in the abstract has little to do with trying to get things done in the real world, where not everyone agrees with you.

When you actually have to govern there are choices to be made: there are consequences to clinging to what you believe is right at all costs. If the status quo, for instance, is intolerable, then clinging to the purest ideal of what would change that status quo is wrong if doing so would lead to a failed vote and therefore continuation (and growth) of the intolerable status quo.

Only in a world of dictators can pure ideals be achieved.

[old mark]

5. It is funny - the RW extremists said from the start that Obama was not

what he said, and that he was being "controlled" by others...now I see the exact same things being said by the Left.

Could the Right have been....right?


mark

[notesdev]

6. Broken clocks

right twice a day

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. I only wish he was the SOCIALIST that they said he was

No, I don't think got that right so they were wrong.

[bushisanidiot]

15. The right sees him as a socialist extremist. The left sees him as a right wing plant.

all that tells me is that he's in the middle somewhere, left leaning for sure (hell? he DID push for and SIGN the health care bill!). And that's a good thing, because that's where his constituency is.

[Raksha]

21. Why should that tell you "he's in the middle somewhere"?

The truth does NOT always lie somewhere in the middle! Do you usually base your thinking on what other people say, and not on the intrinsic merits of the argument? Yeah, the right sees him as a "socialist extremist," or they say they do anyway. They said it about Clinton too. They claimed he was from "the far left wing of the Democratic Party." All that proves is that they have no idea what a socialist is.

[ladjf]

22. It tells me that he has no verifiable positions on anything. He just

seems to drift down a path of what he believes is the least Resistance. That means no leadership whatsoever.

[bushisanidiot]

26. Trying to move the country forward and OUT of AWOL Bush's recession

while passing an historic Health Care Bill is NOT "drifting".

You seem to think being President of the United States of America is a pretty damned easy job.

[ladjf]

30. I believe that the Bush tax cuts were the primary cause of the

current bad financial situation and that the continuation of them will guarantee a worsening of America's economy. The Health Care bill was weak although had possibilities.

I most definitely don't think that being President is an "easy" job. However, if seemed to be fairly easy for Obama lately as he simply did whatever the Rich wanted him to do.

You and I both are for America. We don't agree on how things should be done.

[bushisanidiot]

32. The rich wanted the health care bill to pass?

.

[ladjf]

34. I'm not sure about the answer to your question. However, I did get the

feeling that the Health Care industry seemed to be satisfied with the results, especially in the absence of the public option. And as for whether the bill was good or bad, I don't recall that Obama was highly involved in the creation of the bill. He said he wanted it but left the heavy lifting up to Congress.

[bushisanidiot]

35. So you believe the president should write bills that he is going to sign

and hand it to congress to vote on?

[ladjf]

37. No I don't believe that.

I'm beginning to tire of this conversation. Posting on DU isn't important enough to me to prompt me into carefully crafting everything I say so as to be certain that I have included the exact nuance of everything I'm thinking.

My feeling is that you are wanting to "win the argument". If that is the case, I surrender. You have won.

[riderinthestorm]

36. The rich are indifferent to the nuts and bolts of health care since they can always afford it

The health care industry was delighted the the "reform" because it enshrined the insurance middle man into the US system for decades to come. They were fearful of the public option because that truly would have been the first step towards a single payer as many people would have abandoned the insurance companies in droves.

Big insurance got a sweet deal - and yes, they are very, very rich.

[bullwinkle428]

23. "Obama not what he said he was" = ZOMG!!1! SOSHULEST MUZLIN XTREEMEST

in the eyes of the wingnuts.

I believe the "professional leftists" have a slightly different take.

[old mark]

39. I always got a laugh out of that "socialist" thing...those people see socialism in

everything, and satan as well...and they said Obama represented both. I posted on sev4eral RW sites that I thought Obama was way too conservative...now they think I am a Stalinist...but I doubt they know what that is, either...


mark

[social_critic]

7. What's a progressive?

I'm interested in the evolution of language. The word progressive is used more and more, but to me it remains poorly defined. For example, is Hillary Clinton progressive? What about Senator Kerry? Is he progressive?

I don't like to tag myself, but I think I may be progressive (I like progress), but my definition of progress may be different or considered odd ball. For example, I prefer to see the federal government shrunk as much as possible - I want them to have a tiny budget and get out of our lives. I hate a government which dares tell me the amount of water I can flush down the toilet. And I would like to see most drugs legalized. And I would like to see all our troops brought home. Is this progressive?

[riderinthestorm]

10. From your very brief outline of your positions, you're a libertarian. nt

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SteppingRazor]

11. I think a lot of that depends on where your libertarian streak ends.

Specifically, is it just the Nanny State stuff you hate, like the drug war? Or do you also have a problem with the government regulating business? I think a lot of progressives have a lot of agreement with civil libertarians (I know I do), but you won't find a lot of progressives who take that same attitude toward the regulation of institutions. I can't speak for anyone else, but I agree with very little the government does to regulate individual behavior, but at the same time, I recognize that the government is the only entity capable of making sure powerful institutions such as corporations are properly overseen.

[social_critic]

16. I think regulation is extremely important

I have worked in large corporations, and I am a consultant now, sometimes to very large state owned corporations, sometimes to private corporations.

Regulation is extremely important, and it has to be done right. But regulation can also be counterproductive. Let's use the toilet example. A while back congress passed a law dictating the volume of water a toilet could flush. This was supposed to save water. But it never worked, because a lot of people now have to flush twice or thrice to get their doo out of the bowl. So the overall result is frustrated people and a lot of water down the toilet.

Since I am involved in fairly high level discussions and sometimes I advice state entities (not in the US, but elsewhere), I assure you I take this issue of regulation very seriously. I go even further - A while back I awhite paper for a government recommending they coordinate the work to be done by several large companies, and force them to create a single corporate structure to carry out certain functions I felt would benefit from coordination and economies of scale. While I abhor centralized state planning - I know it's a failure and leads to huge mistakes - in this case I also felt it was essential to make sure all these guys had their heads knocked together. And it seems to have worked, they WERE forced to do it jointly, although the design itself was a little bit more expensive than I recommended.

What I can't support is government getting into the business of doing business in competition with private individuals, unless it's something really specialized. For example, if the US government can't get private industry to sign up to build a smart electric grid (cost $500 billion), then it ought to create a corporation and do it. Once it's built, it'll make money, and the shares can be sold.

[riderinthestorm]

20. Do you have a link that says that "a lot" of people have to flush twice now?

I've never heard that, not even anecdotal. If you can substantiate that point, then you may have a case otherwise the water savings by low-flush toilets are too vastly important for the planet's sake.

And centralized state planning is a failure? What about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid? What about other non-US countries like the Scandinavian countries that are Socialist Democracies and thrive? Their "centralized state" planned education systems for example are stellar. You seem to be selecting a very small sample from your own experience instead of looking at larger systems?

[HERVEPA]

33. Is "advice" a verb now?

[ProudDad]

29. Define "progress"

I suspect your definition, limited as it probably is by existing myths about how an economic system should look and operate...

Or what constitutes "progress"...

Will not be Progressive... :shrug:

[Terry in Austin]

41. Identifying "progressive"

In one sense, "progressive" is just the term that succeeded "liberal" after Reagan-Bush demonized "The L-word" in the 1980's.

But beyond that, I take it to refer to a political and social attitude that is rational, cooperative, tolerant, egalitarian and humanitarian. It advocates governance according to such an outlook. The point is to have government be as effective as possible in its service to society and to these principles, whether that happens to be smaller or larger.

The basic position here is "we're all in this together." It means people before profits. It means Yes, I am in fact my brother's keeper. And it also means that said brother better not be making ten times more than I do, because he's certainly not ten times better than I am!

FWIW, I don't believe it helps to define "progressive" in terms of "progress." The concept of Progress is almost a secular religion; its odd views about the inevitablity of history and its belief that the modern is always better than the outdated just tend to confuse things unnecessarily. "Progressive" can stand alone as a political point of view with its own identity.

[mmonk]

13. I am told no everyday by both political parties and the media.

So yes, we are correct. Look around you.

[PassingFair]

14. Being "right" doesn't matter. Only money and "winning" matter.

Silly Progressives!

[treestar]

17. One thing they are dead wrong about is what is politically achievable

today.

[kentuck]

18. How do we know what is "politically achievable"??

If we don't even try?

[mmonk]

25. Because its the narrative.

In other words, get the people to accept the premise.

[ProudDad]

31. So we should "just sit back and enjoy it"

And "shut the fuck up"...

while Obama and his fellow travelers in the Congress...

Work against every Progressive value and policy...

To fulfill the desires of their corporate masters and the ruling class...

eh?

Why?

[OHdem10]

19. The Liberals have been right and made correct projections

on every issue. Start with the Iraq War, everything
has turned out just as we said it would.

Liberals predicted serious increase in Premiums and
no control of health insurance costs unless there
was Public Option or Single Payer System. Guess
what we read and hear about Rising Health Care Costs.

It was Liberals/Progressives who fought against
Bush Tax cuts when he passed them. Guess what.

It seems this country prefer to follow those who
are continuously wrong.

[ProudDad]

27. Damn near everything

from the 8 hour day to the 40 hour week ... the "Weekend" was brought to you by Progressives...

Ending child labor, minimum wage, social security...all Progressive ideas...

An end to wars -- was then, is now, always will be a Progressive idea...

Economic Justice = Progressives!

You name it and we got it first and are holding on to it to the last...

Even in the death throes of the Empire...


Thanks for asking... :hi:

[The Backlash Cometh]

28. I was shown on DU how the Hippies in the 60 were right about everything.

[felix_numinous]

38. The name "Progressive'

is applied to people who support preservation of all human rights, environmental protection, original Constitutional Rights, peace, full equality under the law for all crimes, full separation of church and state, right to unionize, and the socialization of education, health and welfare.

Yes, absolutely everyone labeled as progressive have been right all along. I, and everyone I knew who were 'awake' knew 2000 was a coup and all the laws put into effect after that were essentially moving toward a police state. I had many friends ranting in the 80's about the corporate takeover of the US, they were right too. Many of these people's vigilance was seen as radical.

The 'progressive' viewpoint was at one point central and mainstream. Now thanks to propaganda and the funneling of the corporate money toward radical extremist groups, another point of view has been artificially created--in order that the powerful elite divide and conquer this country. They have starved this country of it's education and fostered this ignorance long enough to create a radical group--who are turned against their own country.

Where have we seen this tactic before?