Progressive Movement

War Against The Elderly: The Most Vulnerable In Society!

Ronald 2 Comments

So now not only has Michigan decided that retired employees in Detroit, who devoted their lives and safety to their work, shall see their pensions cut, but the state of Illinois, governed by Democrats, has enacted legislation to the same effect!

Normally, the power of legal agreements prevents such action as to cast the elderly, on a fixed income, out to the wolves! But no more by the power of courts and legislatures and governors to defy the law and get away with it!

As one retired employee in Detroit said yesterday, he has to decide between eating and his medication come next year.

This is unconscionable, and shows the lack of respect for the elderly, and for life itself!

Already, there has been an attack on poor children, taking food out of their mouths, through cuts in food stamps. But the thought that maybe poor women should have access to birth control and abortion, so that they and future children might avoid poverty and deprivation, never crosses the minds of those who insist all life in the womb, from conception, should be born, but then to hell with what happens after birth!

If Michigan and Illinois can destroy public pensions for the elderly, what will stop many other states from doing so, rather than facing the facts that the wealthy have been ripping America off with the help of conservatives and Republicans, who have no problem subsidizing the wealthy and corporations, but do not give a damn for the poor, the sick, the young, the elderly, women, and workers?

With all of the progress of the progressive movement, the New Deal, and Great Society, we are now witnessing a return to a true Gilded Age, a return to a century and a half ago, effectively wiping out the 20th century movement toward humane, compassionate government!

Now it is back to laissez faire, Social Darwinism, dog eat dog, no concern for those less fortunate, and Democrats are starting to act like Republicans, all so that the wealthy do not have to pay taxes in a fair, honest way!

How can one have any optimism about the future of the “great experiment” known as American democracy?

And imagine with all of the reality described, how much tougher it is if one is African American, Hispanic, Native American, or disabled?

What has happened to our souls, our ethics, our morals, as we honor the almighty dollar, and fight over “things” on Black Friday and even Black Thanksgiving?

The middle class is being ground down to the level of poverty, as a small elite takes all of the wealth of America, and now wants to privatize EVERYTHING, including our national parks, in the almighty quest for profit and MORE MONEY, never enough, a level of materialism enough to make one want to vomit!

Rick Santorum Reveals His True Self: Moral, Religious Zealot Out To Promote Social Controls!

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Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has now thrown down the gauntlet, and only dimwitted Americans, or those who totally agree with him, could back him for President.

Santorum has now said he does not wish to deal with the issue of jobs, inflation, gasoline prices, and other economic issues!

Why? Because, according to him, the issue is morality, overcoming contraception, abortion, gay rights, and pornography!

Rick wants to control the social, private lives of all of us, and force Puritanical standards on all Americans, all through his devoutly Catholic religious beliefs, and with the backing of evangelical Christians who only care about Santorum’s “social agenda”!

Santorum comes the closest to being a theocrat of any modern Presidential candidate, with the closest to him being William Jennings Bryan, who ran as the Democratic nominee in 1896, 1900, and 1908. But even Bryan, although a convinced evangelical Christian, advocated political, social and economic reforms that became the Progressive movement, ushering in ideas that became part of the agenda of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt over time.

Santorum has no such desires, as he wants government out of our lives, EXCEPT for social and privacy areas.

Santorum wants to shape all of us in the name of his brand of morality and religious fanaticism!

This makes Santorum a very dangerous man, a totalitarian minded person, who would interfere with the personal rights of those who disagree with him, putting the heavy hand of government on the people, even though he condemns big government in theory.

Santorum makes other Republicans cringe, as well as Democrats, and every effort must be made to prevent his nomination, as one can never be certain if times get difficult in the next seven months, that this moral censor might not be elected President in November!

Wisconsin Moves Toward Recall Election Of Governor Scott Walker: La Follette Progressivism’s Return!

Ronald 1 Comment

The state of Wisconsin, the home of the great Progressive Republican leader Robert La Follette, Sr a century ago, is on the way to a recall election against Conservative Republican Governor Scott Walker, who has worked to destroy public sector unions in the Badger State, and has taken other actions in league with the Republican legislature to harm education and other social services, areas Wisconsin has always been a leader among the states of the Union.

Wisconsin introduced the recall method, and it has succeeded in bringing about much more support in voter signatures than anyone would have ever imagined, and the date for the primaries for Governor and other state offices is May 8, followed by the election of either Walker or his Democratic opponent on June 5.

The former Dane County Executive (Madison), Kathleen Falk, is favored to be the Democratic nominee, although she is being challenged in the Democratic primary by the former Democratic opponent of Scott Walker in 2010, Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, as well as other possible challengers.

The important thing is for the Democrats, progressives, and the labor movement in Wisconsin to remain united, and take advantage of the opportunity to recall Governor Walker and other Republicans in the state legislature, due to this rare and unique “second chance” given the people of Wisconsin, something almost never available in most states, and rarely successful in American history.

The only successful times were in North Dakota in 1921 and in California in 2003. Governor Lynn Frazier in North Dakota and Governor Gray Davis in California have been the only Governors successfully recalled, but neither had abused their position nor had been so confrontational and belligerent as Scott Walker has been.

If there was ever a time for a wholesale removal of political leaders in the legislature and the Governorship, it is NOW in Wisconsin. We will be cheering on the effort, hoping for a successful result on June 5!

Rush Limbaugh And The Ultimate Right Wing Agenda: Reverse The Social And Economic Progress Since World War II!

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Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is on a roll with the Debt Ceiling Crisis and the Stock Market Crisis of the past few weeks, and he has declared war on all social and economic progress for the past 65 years, since World War II! Other right wing radio talk show hosts also promote what he does!

Actually, showing his total ignorance, Limbaugh probably means the past 80 years, since the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s!

By declaring, in any case, that it is time to reverse the past 65 years, that means the following:

1. The Harry Truman improvements on the New Deal programs of FDR.
2. Reversal of Truman’s executive order to enforce racial integration in the military.
3. Reversal of racial integration as ordered by the Supreme Court and enforced by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson.
4. Reversal of Eisenhower’s acceptance of the New Deal and institutionalizing it.
5. Wiping out of the programs of the New Frontier of JFK and the Great Society of LBJ–including Medicare, Medicaid, Federal Aid to Education, Consumer Protection Laws, Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act, programs to fight poverty, Environmental laws, National Public Radio, Public
Broadcasting, and other programs.
6.Ending of Richard Nixon’s domestic reforms–including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Products Safety Commission, Affirmative Action programs, and others.
7.Ending of programs to aid the disabled and handicapped, begun under George H W Bush.
8. Other reforms passed under Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and now Barack Obama.

This is totally insane, and the progressive movement MUST fight tooth and nail to prevent such total destruction of everything which has made America a better nation, a more tolerant nation, a more compassionate nation!

We cannot afford to go back to the 1920s, and there is no way that this agenda of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk can be allowed to triumph!

The Wisconsin Recall Elections: Good Sign For The Future

Ronald 1 Comment

In the past 100 years before yesterday, there were only 20 state recall elections, and only 13 officeholders were removed.

Yesterday, in Wisconsin, in reaction to Republican Governor Scott Walker’s anti labor, anti education, and anti public worker legislation forced through the legislature, we saw six Republican state legislators in the state Senate face a recall, and two were defeated, narrowing the Republican edge to one vote, 17-16.

While it was disappointing that the Democrats failed to win control of the state Senate by one vote, needing three seats, and only winning two, one must recognize the massive amounts of money brought in by corporate interests, including the Koch Brothers, and the fact that the six state Senate districts had been solidly Republican for years, in some cases more than a century.

So winning two seats was close to a miracle, and it shows that the labor and progressive movement in Wisconsin begun more than a century ago by Robert La Follette, Sr. is alive and well.

It is a sign that when people organize and fight, progress can be made, and the hope is that the recall movement can lead to an election to attempt to force Governor Scott Walker out of office next year, instead of completing his term at the beginning of 2015.

It is also a warning to John Kasich in Ohio, Rick Scott in Florida, Rick Snyder in Michigan, and Paul LePage in Maine, as well as Chris Christie in New Jersey, that the middle and working class will fight their reactionary, fascist like attack on ordinary citizens and workers!

Kansas: Historic Center Of Massive Battles And Turmoil Does It Again!

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The state of Kansas, center of the Great Plains, is one often overlooked or ridiculed, but it has been a center of massive battles, turmoil, and struggles throughout its history.

Blessed and cursed by its location in the Wheat Belt, Kansas has seen tornadoes, blizzards, drought, hail, floods, and grasshoppers, and was the center of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, forcing many farmers to leave the state and go west to California for salvation!

It is the territory and state where the Civil War began over slavery in the 1850s, before that war erupted nationally, and it was the center of struggles between Indians and whites from 1860-1890.

It was also the original home of the prohibition movement against liquor, and a center of the Populist movement of the 1890s and the Progressive movement of the early 20th century.

Kansas also became the rare example of a non Southern state which adopted racial segregation legally, and it was a case brought by a young black girl, Linda Brown, in Topeka, Kansas, which led to the famous Brown V. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in May, 1954.

And abortion has become a major controversy in Kansas, with Dr. George Tiller, an abortion doctor, murdered in Wichita a few years ago by an anti abortion fanatic.

Now the state government, under right wing conservative Republican Sam Brownback, former Senator, has passed restrictions on abortion, which has led to only ONE abortion center being available in the entire state, a major victory by the so called Pro Life movement, and a major blow to the Roe V. Wade decision of the Supreme Court in 1973.

So the abortion debate rages on in many states, with Kansas again being the center of controversy, as it often has been in its history over the past 160 years!