We’ve had some interesting discussions kicking off the BMT Electoral Politics Project. The overall picture is one of deep skepticism about most electoral work for the Democratic party…and yet, in response after response…there’s also been a kind of determined engagement and perseverance on the part of members here. (The link will connect you to both sets of discussions.)
In the next phase of the “EPP”, the rubber starts to hit the road.
As I’ve mentioned previously, this will be the first of two posts in which I ask any and all BooTribbers for their Five Top Progressive Platform Planks.
I’ll be working with vieravisionary to try to chart your responses. Read below for a brief “set up” of how to make your list easier for us to track…
This will be the hardest of the “open mics” to chart and track since we are asking both for specific ideas and/or broad concepts. One person might simply have “issues” that form a Top Five Progressive Platform items…and another person might have five concepts or principles. Either approach is okay.
What I’d like to ask of you is three simple requests:
1). Whatever your platform planks, please number them and make them as “boiled down” and succinct as possible.
2). Whether you make “broad statements” or simply state specific goals, undertand that your choice of platforms items is entirely your own. (ie. you may suggest things that are deeply personal and specific or general and philosophical…either way, understand that what you choose will be understood as simply your choice.)
3). If at all possible, at the end of your “Platform Plank” include a parenthesis with your suggested “Tags” for that plank. ie. A Plank about Universal Health Care might have a tag that read (Health Care). A plank about Gay Marriage might have a tag that read (Civil Rights Gay Rights and Fairness.) This won’t be perfect, but it will help us sort your feedback…if that turns out to be possible!!
Editor’s Note: For a great example of how to keep your list short and use tags try this comment by ignorant bystander.
I want to make clear that this is NOT a scientific survey and I won’t be using your responses in a way that turns it around and concludes any “pat answers” from what gets listed. I don’t see this as an election….it’s the beginning of a discussion.
In particular, moving on to the next phases of the EPP…what we come up with here will be quite useful.
For example, next up will be an open-call for identifying Five Progressive Politicians or Leaders that each of us looks up to. Obviously, what Platforms we choose will influence those selections. After that, the next step will be a BooTribune-wide call out for the names of Candidates, Politicians, and Organizations that best work on Election Reform. After that, the issues we highlight in our Progressive Platform Planks will determine where we go from there.
At the end of the day, this discussion should provide a useful set of names and links for all of us. In particular, I’m very much hoping that this process will turn up new faces and names from the wide pool of local candidates and leaders.
Finally, if you are interested in joining vieravisionary and me in the “behind the scenes” tracking of responses…or, if you have a desire to create a Website clearinghouse for this project, please email me at kidoakland”at”comcast”dot”net.
So, on with the EPP!
Question Two: please list your Top Five Progressive Platform Planks below.
Ok, k/o this deviates a bit from your guidelines, but I’ve thought about these questions over the last twenty four hours and I broke it down like this early this morning. The essence or philosophy followed by specific planks. I haven’t really tag-lined anything, perhaps I’ll follow-up with some tag-lines later.
The Essence of Progressive Politics
The essence of progressive politics is a deep and abiding belief in the inherent worth and dignity of all people at all times.
Or as supersoling quoted from Wikipedia:
I think these essences become the Rubicons of progressive politics, policy, and polity.
What that means is that progressive politics always advances the rights and well-being of all people at all times. The dignity and autonomy of people becomes the driving force behind certain kinds of progressive politics: ending slavery or serfdom, expanding voting rights, ensuring choice, expanding civil liberties to the GLBT community. These become the action items of progressive philosophy.
So what does that really mean in today’s world? Unfortunately, in many instances it means fighting a holding pattern, or focusing on a different set of issues. In today’s electoral climate I see the following as the core planks of progressive party politics and progressive policy:
Four Progressive Political or Policy Planks
1.) Work & Family:
The ability to earn a living wage that supports you and your family
Access to quality & affordable healthcare
Safe & Secure Shelter
Safe & Secure Retirements
Global labor, health/safety & environmental standards that create safe, humane workplaces across the globe
2.) Public Investment:
Meaningful & long-term investments in schools, libraries, learning, parks, roads, transit, & basic science
These investments commit us to halting the erosion of the commons and of communities
Public investments ensure safe, healthy communities, learning opportunities for our kids, and an ongoing competitive advantage for our businesses in an increasingly global world.
3.) Community & Environment:
Pollution free communities with access to safe, clean drinking water
Safe & Secure food supply chains
Habitable buildings and neighborhoods
Human-Scale development that promotes walking and biking and transit links to neighborhoods
International standards of environmental responsibility such as the Kyoto protocols and various fishing treaties
4.) Innovation & Technology:
Actions & investments that reflect a belief in human imagination and ingenuity;
Capital formation policies that foster entrepreneurship and micro credit development
Language, Science, Research, & Engineering grants & fellowships at all levels of society
Tax credits for companies that rebuild and maintain corporate labs and R&D Centers like the old AT&T Bell Labs and Xerox PARC
An Apollo project for Renewable Energies & a new infrastructure based on a portfolio of renewable energies
Net Neutrality would be an important 2006 electoral issue under this plank. It’s best tied to job and revenue creation:
What I’m reading here is a mix of social Democratic, or “Red,” pro-labor, policy with “Green” environmentalist and “fair trade/one world new economy” policy.
Is that a fair summation?
Yup, perfect boil. Two things:
1.) (add middle class) Pro-labor policies that protect working families and the middle class. I’m not a unionist at all, but believe strongly in workers rights.
3.) – 4.) I’d add sustainable/small scale agriculture in there somewhere with the Green stuff.
That’s a perfect summation.
1. Pro-labor policies that protect working families and the middle class. (Living Wage, Health Care, Housing, Social Security, Workplace Standards)
2. Investment in public infrastructure along a Democratic Socialist or European model. (Education, Science, Public Works)
3. Green Environmental Policy (Sustainable Agriculture, Energy Policy, Small Scale Development)
4. Green Technological Investments and Globalist economic policies. (Micro Credit, Net Neutrality, Investment in Research, an Apollo Energy Program.)
Perfect. It reads so beautifully when you summarize.
on further thought, I think the term Social Democratic is more apt than Democratic Socialist.
But right now that’s just quibbling. In a discussion with a broader group of democrats and independents, I think the distinction would be important and meaningful.
From the first post to further down the list? Just curious.
On your “user page” there is a category for “comment preferences” up at the top of the page. Yours is probably set to rank comments according to ratings. If you change that, they will just show up in order of when they were posted.
Thanks!
Additions to my list.
Include after one and two, (publicly provider quality education).
Include after 2, (environmental policies that enhance the life process on earth)
NG, I like the way you think. IN some of your avocations we already have said mechanisms in place but are not adhered to. Not by this unitary executive and complacent congress and questionable supreme court
1) a government of we the ppl and by the ppl and for the ppl.
a) not a government of a select few and not a class of which one can fall into/out of, without recourse.
b) maybe it is a socialistic way of thinking but all for one, vision.
1) a means of making all ppl the beneficiary of good and prosperous government. Give the women the right to choose and really mean it. Advancement of thoughts as to how to lower the signing of welfare to those who want to work and make a living, giving those who will be willing to work and clean up our highways and parks and the like, with a supplement of such as food stamps and the like, if they do hold down these jobs to help their self worth become more visible then they will hopefully strive to become less dependant on the government for help. Still giving the less fortunate the aid necessary to maintain their dignity, as in disabilities.
2) Universal health care for all.
a) no more riding the fence of such with its entitlements. If those want insurance to help more for things in health care, then let them find a way for that, as if it should make any difference. maybe I should not have put the last statement in there
b) see b above.
3) equal and fair taxation for all. NO more divisive class taxation. It should and always be a fair ways and means of collection of taxes.
a) devise a forum of said taxation and stick to it and do not let the classification of status divide from others, either more or less fortunate.
4) Sunshine government.
a) ’nuff said.
5) work towards world peace instead of backwards.
a) create a strong and necessary military but it should not be the only way to act as a superpower. Take money from that department for the needs of other programs that is lacking. Create and advocate responsibility for receiving said monies for spending by making an annual statement for said spending. Stop fraud and graft!
b) increase our advancement in innovation/invention and social avocation of education overall.
1) make education and the arts an advancement to overall American benefits of money spent at all levels of education.
6) Abide by our country’s laws and the constitution.
This is just a throw in for getting back to normalcy.
footnote: get us the hell out of Iraq and maintain a sense of equilibrium of how the world turns and interactions with them, in an over all attitude to maintain world peace.
Is this what you are asking for?
We first must create a mission statement to go forward with policy and procedures of said government for the democratic party. As I see it now, the leadership is not together on said mission statement. Have I missed something here or what?Thank you Kid for what you are trying to do. I just hope that the party listens to you from a progressive way of looking at it.
As I understand the democratic party and it’s goals it is the party of the ppl the working class etc. I see it needing a forum to be less dividing on class overall. (since some are advocating framing of words, etc)
change your words, which everyone can read above…but to help us catalogue them:
1. Making representative democracy the centerpiece of government.
1A: Government commitment to a fair “safety net.”
Is that a fair “boiling down”?
yup..that is fair
#3 what I was trying to state is that the confusion on taxation is completely off the standards. NO propaganda as to certain taxes, as in estate and such. This does not cover many of us but is made to take away from us all and the confusion with it is detrimental to most. The way that the upper 1% is not paying the taxes they need to pay..in tax credits and the like. Everyone needs to pay their fair share of taxes not just a few int he lower class..and do away with class…we are not after in India…;o( I hate talking of class.
3. Progressive, Fair and Straightforward taxation where everyone pays their fair share and knows why.
yes that has it.
There are far better word wranglers and synthesizers here than I, but here are my planks in rough, but heartfelt form.
I want a candidate who will respect the rights of the individual while working to strengthen the well-being of the communities to which we belong.
That’s all I can think of for now
I’m going to be totally lazy and say that Kahli hit everything for me. I wouldn’t change a word.
I’m going to take the easy way out and say that Kahli’s platform list is exactly what mine would be.
The only thing I might add would be government accountability. Such as, trials for those who’ve given orders that violate the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties, no matter how high up those orders came from. i guess that could be listed along with Kahli’s #3, just taking it a bit further. No amnesty for war criminals.
This says it for me.
Could you make #2 a bit more clear? What do you mean by: “educate to one’s fullest potential” in a practical sense?
College for all? Investment in public high schools and grade schools so that they all achieve at a roughly equal (ie. excellent) level?
I have in mind full funding for education at all levels. Not “college for all” per se, but full funding for higher education for those who have the ability and desire to pursue it.
Wasn’t it Jesse Jackson who said that it costs more to keep someone in prison for four years than to send them to Harvard? How many potential young Sagans or Einsteins or Galbraiths are essentially imprisoned in our ghettos and inner cities right now? How many of them will turn to drugs and crime and despair because they see no way out of their economic prison? What economic, scientific and cultural contributions do we as a society forego because all that human potential is never realized?
I would like to see education fully funded at all levels for every citizen who can benefit from it. From preschool programs through grade and high schools to college and graduate schools and beyond. A young mind with significant potential for science or art or mathematics or medicine should not be denied the opportunity to develop that potential because of economic circumstances. The only limitation on their development should be their ability and desire to achieve. If a disadvantaged youth can meet the entrance requirements to Harvard medical school or Stanford law school, I think it would be to our advantage as a society and a culture to invest in that potential.
And I’m not talking about student loans. How many professional people today are essentially wage slaves, struggling to pay back debt incurred getting their education? Some of them struggle to deal with student debt rivalling or surpassing home mortgage levels. Investment in education is an investment in the future well being of our society, our culture, and ultimately the world. It is as prudent as investment in roads or bridges, dams or hospitals. Perhaps more so.
Someone else mentioned trade schools. That reminded me that I may have given a false impression that I think everyone should go to college and be doctors and lawyers. I understand by the term education, the development of human potential in all its forms. I did not intend to belittle the so-called trades.
The Germans have very well developed apprentice programs that turn out some of the best machinists and technicians in the world. That is as important as any professional development program. A master machinist can make a contribution to our society every bit as valuable and necessary as a doctor or a lawyer.
Very insightful.
Oh, and thanks for doing this!
and I saw your reference to “social Democrat” so…edit made!
I’ll have to ask someone else to boil this down for me, as it’s straight off the top of my head.
That’s all I can think of in this pass, but I’m sure there are others I would look at and go, “Aha! Why didn’t I say that?”
I’m wondering if I can be lazy and just add a few to all of the good items that have been mentioned. I have a few things on my mind that we used to advocate for, but I think have been lost as we scramble to react to all of the negativity of the last 6 years.:
Iraq is over for us……..hello U.N.!
Campaign and lobbyist reform!
Sustainable green energy to include a refocus and encouraged love affair with mass transit!
Universal Healthcare!
Equal rights amendment!
and his Four Freedoms speech of Jan. 6,1941:
Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As examples:
To this I would add providing opportunities for safe and affordable housing, and opportunities for higher education for all (with employment training for those not interested in going to college — there have to be more options than “college, jail or Army”, and there are plenty of jobs that don’t require a 4-year degree).
To return to FDR:
I have called for personal sacrifice, and I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call. A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my budget message I will recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying for today. No person should try, or be allowed to get rich out of the program, and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.
I especially like the “No person should try, or be allowed to get rich out of the program”…Halliburton would be in deep doo-doo if FDR was around…
Okay, to summarize:
My brain’s a bit fried, so not sure how comprehensible this is…
I forgot:
* Housing — access to safe and affordable housing for all, regardless of income (Housing, Poverty)
If I had a 6th choice it would be an environmental protection and “smart growth” plank.
Here are my seven key points; folks can combine them as needed (as some have above) to get the total down to five. I especially like the “red-green” idea mentioned above.
That anti-trust enforcement bullet should include a reexamination and limitation of the rights and privileges of corporations versus increased social responsibilities for the privilege of incorporation. Incorporation is not a right, it’s a privilege granted by society supposedly because benefits accrue to all as a result. Well, we need to insist the ledger actually end up with a net benefit to the public once all costs of the business’ operation – environmental, social, medical, etc. are accounted for. For firms that stubbornly refuse to make the grade, enforcement of a corporate “death penalty” – revocation of their charter of incorporation by the state.
So call me Chavez, LOL.
These are all great. All I want to say is that we need a classless society that is committed to protecting our home planet, and to sharing information with everyone on it. I’d like to see something about the right to a decent education for all, whether available on an institutional campus, or through access to a free and open worldwide web.
Also, we need to move away from incarcerating so many of our young men. The land of the free is now the land of 6 million imprisoned Americans.
I loved Dennis Kucinich’s idea of creating a Department of Peace cabinet position, but fear that we cannot successfully abandon the concept of being in a competition with the rest of the world.
Thanks to you all for doing the organized work while I flit over the surface like a butterfly.
Some things I had to saw off.
There’s more I could add, but won’t so I can stay close to the rules of the debate.
Those are the most critical, and why this country is in a true crisis.
Recasting our foreign policy is vital and should flow as a natural outcrop of the new Church Commission. Environmental stewardship is also so vital that it should be included on every list.
Patrick Meighan
Venice, CA
I have always believed that much of the so-called pragmatism approach to politics results from not having a clear party platform which identifys inviolate principles. The DNC-KOS type actions that support the Bob Casey’s out there are the result of such so-called pragmatic actions to win. However, what exactly do you win if what you elect looks just like what you despise???
Therefore, how will this needed and worthwhile effort by Kid Oakland deal with these supposed pragmatic actions when we see social conservative supposed Dems supported and these Dems go against our determined platform planks. Will we have some planks that are soft or rotten and can be violated while others are solid and inviolate, or will all such planks so determined in this excercise be inviolate?? In other words, what if we feel truly strongly about a certain contentious plank, but we cannot win with it in the platform now??
I think I’ll be writing a front-page post about this soon (maybe later today). So, I’ll just sketch it here.
First, using the example of Bob Casey. At bottom, the problem with Casey is not Casey. It’s the way the field was cleared of more conventional Democrats to make way for him. Schumer has a different agenda than the netroots. It’s wrong to say Schumer has an anti-progressive agenda. He did the same thing in Ohio for a very progressive Sherrod Brown. Schumer is balancing factors like name recognition and ability to raise money, the need to conserve DSCC money, etc. Therefore, his problem with Lamont, for example, is not necessarily about his policies. One, he is personal friends with Lieberman. Two, he doesn’t want to spend any money on the Connecticut race, and he doesn’t want money diverted to contested primaries.
All of these things apply to Rahm Emanuel for the DCCC, as well.
So, there is a natural antipathy between the DSCC and DCCC on the one hand, and with the netroots on the other.
Casey and Brown were selected, not because of ideology, but because they were determined to have the best chance to win. The netroots is ideological, and that is the case no matter what Markos and Jerome would wish for.
In crafting a platform for progressive candidates, we need to be mindful that we also have to craft the fundraising devices to empower progressive candidates to stand up to Schumer and Emanuel. I could go on, but then I would have written my front-page post in a diary.
writers.
I haven’t posted much here of late, but had a minute to throw out a thank you to all who continue to work hard at what sometimes (at least to me) seems to be a frustrating endeavor (improving the U.S.) — but there probably are not too many greater or more important activities.
Although it would be difficult to improve on much of what has been written by others, I will try to throw five out there (or not, there are great ideas here).
I did have one question for now, however. How can we motivate the citizens of the United States, seemingly brainwashed into beliefs such as the coming rapture (so who cares about the environment?) or romanticism with (many times false) past ideals of United States actions (who can or why make a difference?) or what does this have to do with me (after all, American Idol is on!) to actually implement these and other great ideas?
My own views have opened to the greatest (which of course means most liberal/progressive/enlightened) in my lifetime, and the blogosphere has great opportunities for change — perhaps the greatest opportunity in history for the average citizen to get involved. Today I heard Randi Rhodes say that while on vacation, she was disconnected from the internet, unable to do her own research, subject only to the news on TV or the local newspaper of Palm Beach, FL — and it was disgusting what most people are subjected to by the corporate media filter. I wondered how we could overcome this inherent inertia and apathy? The long range plan carried through Reagan and now Bush II involves dumbing down our citizens through many approaches, and TV ownership in few (and corporate) hands keeps the rich getting richer, and many of us frustrated (which for too many results in apathy).
I am far from a history buff, but as I understand it, even coming out of the depression FDR had a helluva time passing such basic human needs as Social Security to keep the elderly from going homeless — an idea that the aristocracy has fought ever since, and a very disappointing percentage of U.S. citizens think is the wrong approach.
We have swung our government so far into our bedrooms and into our privacy and into debt that maybe, just maybe there, is an impetus for change. I hope so, and work towards educating all that I come into contact with — I wish I could do more, and have plans to do so. I also begin to wonder when I hear radio hosts speak of our current society that doesn’t even lean over the back fence to ask the neighbor “How’s life?”.
If this is interpreted as a dark cloud over a bright diary — my sincere apologies. It is not my intent. I simply wonder how we (continue to?) cut through the powerful players who will resist and apathetic public who has listened to backwards ideas for so many years?
If this is interpreted as a dark cloud over a bright diary
NO, NO! These are the correct questions to ask, and I think my previous post on pragmatic reality versus inviolate principles is asked in a similar question vein. Let’s see what Booman comes up with in his predicted front page writing on this!
This question on how to win politically in today’s America (which you so aptly described) while still keeping your idea soul is an extremely tough and sensitive subject, and one that I would not be sure how to answer! I sometimes think we have to let things get worst; indeed so bad, that people then fear for their existence. Maybe that will wake them up and have then turn off American Idol!
I would be an awful platform writer, but these are some of the things that I think are important. Sorry I went over five.
Chris,
It seems to me that a lot of the real causes for this blood bath in the cities are due to economic disparities and lack of economic opportunities for many. In addition but notable, a lot of it may be self-caused by the poorly regulated capitalist system in America, which is the sacrificing of our children that DuctapeFatwa talks about in an analogous manner. You cannot have billionaires (who needs so much moiney????) produced in a system without the corresponding extremes on the other end! Therefore, rather than spending time and money on increasing the number of police, albeit sympathetic police, maybe the real solution lies in economic opportunites and guaranteed minimum economic security for everyone. Just a thought!
Absolutely NG. Thanks. I didn’t mean to imply that I think law enforcement is the only avenue. I do think building an ethical law enforcement system would go a long way, but certainly won’t get us there.