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Mole's Progressive Democrat

The Progressive Democrat Newsletter grew out of the frustration of the 2004 election. Originally intended for New York City progressives, its readership is now national. For anyone who wants to be alerted by email whenever this newsletter is updated (usually weekly), please send your email address and let me know what state you live in (so I can keep track of my readership).

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Location: Brooklyn, New York, United States

I am a research biologist in NYC. Married with two kids living in Brooklyn.

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  • Saturday, October 15, 2005

    Progressive Democrat Issue 47: THOUGHTS

    On Daily Kos someone was asking about what the progressive vision for America is. I also had an email discussion (through a reader) with a Green organizer. That discussion focused on coalition building and the obstacles to a leftist coalition. I feel the left too quickly Balkanizes itself, offering coalition but, in essence, requiring 100% agreement before one group will even consider talking to another group. Compromise has become a dirty word on the left. Now, excessive compromise is not good. But compromise is necessary in any coalition and the left is too unwilling to compromise these days.

    But to compromise we need some common ground. A “vision thing.” What is our vision? Each person would have his/her own answer. But, here is a stab at an answer. What are progressive values? I propose these are our values, as a first approximation, and these are also our rallying points and our common ground:

    1. Civil Liberties...and we may have to open this up to gun rights in some places. When in doubt, I favor the stronger Civil Liberties stand.

    2. A safe living and working environment. To me this extends to global environmentalism, but it doesn't for everyone.

    3. A Fair Deal: fair wages, fair voting, fair justice...

    4. Equal Opportunity regardless of race, class, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Education would be a BIG component to this.

    5. People focused: profits are fine but not at the expense of people's lives, health or the other elements of this progressive agenda.

    6. Anti-corruption/anti-cronyism: the kind of cronyism, putting party loyalty and corporate/personal favoritism before qualifications that the Republicans and, to a lesser degree, Democrats are doing is unacceptable to progressives. We demand that someone in government should be qualified and capable, not just rich and well-connected.

    And, I think, that covers most of it. I could come up with more categories and with more detail. But to do so would probably compromise the inclusiveness of my proposed values. My intention is to create a list that most of us can start from—Green, Democrat, leftist, moderate…even some conservatives. Sometimes vagueness can aid in compromise.

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