Occupying Progressive Strategy

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by Joe Brewer, Cognitive Policy Works, with permission

Overview

Emergence of the Occupy Movement in 2011 represents a sea-change in US politics.  The landscape for strategic action is now transformed, enabling dramatic new opportunities for bold progressive policies to be implemented on the national stage.

This strategy brief maps out the core strengths and potential risks for progressive organizations and elected officials to build on the major advances made throughout the last year as we move into a critical election cycle.

This work was commissioned by Progressive Congress to serve its mission of supporting progressive members of Congress and the vast ecosystem of organizations they depend on to advance a progressive vision for America.

Download the PDF version of this strategy brief Continue reading →

Compassionate Americans Want Compassionate Government

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by Dean Feldmeyer with permission

Many thanks to Mr. Gary Abernathy for last week’s op-ed column laying out the Libertarian point of view that God doesn’t give a hoot what the government does or doesn’t do. He argued that government is incapable of care and compassion, virtues of which, he said, only individual citizens are capable.

He also opined that Jesus was interested in changing only the people, not the government. And he informed us that government is, by nature, repressive, in that it enforces taxation and legislation by threat of imprisonment and fines.

I am not a political scientist; I am a theologian and, since Mr. Abernathy has ventured into that realm, I believe it is within the purview of my calling to add a few thoughts to the discussion. Continue reading →

Buy Local Human Rights Needs A Compassionate Press

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by Chuck Watts

The idea is simple: Ethical businesses and a moral market are tools to enhance the common good defined as expanded human rights and individual liberties.

Market success is measured by a growing common good through protection and expansion. Incentives that enhance the common good AND punish violations of the common good should govern ethical business and the markets.

By contrast, consider our current American nightmare of market failure: bully corporations and their bully enablers inside public government, who shift public resources AND the moral mission to protect and empower all of us, to themselves and enslave us.

The Buy Local Clinton County project is a worthy endeavor because I believe it is based on American principles of progress, based on American values, and a simple American vision: Caring citizens are the solution to building trust for effective community governance and the broadening of our mutual prosperity.

The American dream is a trust. Others created it. Caring citizens protect and expand it. Last night’s Candidate’s Forum, hosted and sponsored by the Wilmington News Journal at the Murphy Theatre, violated that trust. Continue reading →

An Open Letter to Pat Haley, County Commissioner

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Chuck Watts
by Chuck Watts -
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In Response to the Facebook group I Love Wilmington, Ohio, Trails – Call to Action!
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Dear Pat,
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What do the following five items have in common with bike trail grants?
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They all, including supporting bike trail grants, requires strength of character that includes empathy and responsibility, both personal and social, to promote them.  Continue reading →

Portland City Council Declares Persons, Not Corporations, Have Human Rights

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by David Delk
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On January 12, 2012 the Portland City Council voted unanimously for the historic resolution purposed by Mayor Sam Adams declaring the city’s support for amending the US Constitution making clear that money is not speech and that corporations are not people.
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The vote was 3-0 with Commissioners Nick Fish and Dan Saltzman absent. Commission Fish had indicated that he would have voted in favor had he been there.
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Continue reading →

The Decline of the Public Good

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Robert Reich

by Robert Reich, republished with permission

Meryl Streep’s eery reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” brings to mind Thatcher’s most famous quip, “there is no such thing as ‘society.’” None of the dwindling herd of Republican candidates has quoted her yet but they might as well considering their unremitting bashing of everything public.

What defines a society is a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions — public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.

Public institutions are supported by all taxpayers, and are available to all. If the tax system is progressive, those who better off (and who, presumably, have benefitted from many of these same public institutions) help pay for everyone else.

“Privatiize” means pay-for-it-yourself. The practical consequence of this in an economy whose wealth and income are now more concentrated than any time in 90 years is to make high-quality public goods available to fewer and fewer. Continue reading →

Clean Elections Require Nurturing Worldview

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Chuck Watts
by Chuck Watts, Co-Founder

Clean elections are about effective and nurturing public governance, i.e. institutionalized protection and empowerment of American citizens, something we currently do not have. Abraham Lincoln called this kind of governance “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

We know from social science that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in any field, and clean elections focuses on helping ordinary Americans identify, elect/appoint, and keep those trusted public servants who will fulfill the American dream of a well-functioning democracy.

Clean elections reverses the 100 plus year systematic and on-going SHIFT by cruel corporations and their elected and appointed enablers inside public government of (1) public resources to corporate bank accounts; and (2) government’s moral mission of protection and  empowerment of citizens to cruel corporations. Clean elections are direct resistance to public theft – privatization of democracy, i.e. government of cruel corporations, by cruel corporations, for cruel corporations. Continue reading →