Can't a "Progressive" also be a "Patriot"?

a reply to: desert

Well played.

Singing of songs....

"Youngstown" by Bruce Springsteen

Here in northeast Ohio
Back in eighteen-o-three
James and Dan Heaton
Found the ore that was linin' Yellow Creek
They built a blast furnace
Here along the shore
And they made the cannonballs
That helped the Union win the war

Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown

Well my daddy worked the furnaces
Kept 'em hotter than hell
I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer
A job that'd suit the devil as well
Taconite coke and limestone
Fed my children and make my pay
Them smokestacks reachin' like the arms of God
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay

Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
Sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown

Well my daddy come on the Ohio works
When he come home from World War Two
Now the yard's just scrap and rubble
He said "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do."
These mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this country's wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for

Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown

From the Monongahela valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalachia
The story's always the same
Seven hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name

And Youngstown
And Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown

When I die I don't want no part of heaven
I would not do heaven's work well
I pray the devil comes and takes me
To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell

There is an old adage is that there are two sources of political power: organized money and organized people. The Right has almost unlimited oceans of money and organization.

The Progressive Movement needs to organize people in numbers far far greater than we’ve done to date. I’m going to argue this: That in order to organize and engage the masses of people we need, progressives have to expand their notions of what makes people tick, of what they need, of what they value and long for----from a simplistic liberal emphasis on economic justice and equity to a broader view of human needs that include needs for recognition, meaning, connectedness, and agency.

Bruce Springsteen’s music and his performances do just that. They suggest the possibility of a relationship with oneself, with others, and with the social world that elicit and cherish just these kinds of values and needs in his audience.

Bruce Springsteen and the Politics of Meaning in America How progressives can learn from The Boss

We have lost our soul. The soul of America is not a religious repository, filled with dogmas of faith. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see us plain.

the best aspects of that America are being allowed to wither away. Her first book offered an often-flattering juxtaposition of the Western literary ethos of personal liberty against the totalitarian fundamentalism of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Here, however, is where Nafisi calls Americans — left and right — to account for abandoning a glorious cultural legacy to wallow in materialism, narcissism and groupthink.

Helping to restore America's soul would be a very patriotic undertaking for Progressives. "Recognition, meaning, connectedness, and agency". Too many times in history, a nation drifts to authoritarianism, when an authoritarian hands out "recognition, meaning, connectedness, and agency". That, my fellow patriots, is the challenge we face and the internal struggle we must win.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

LOL You seriously don't know about the economic concept of "creative destruction"? Or how hedge funds, investment bankers, foreign exchange firms, and vulture capitalists work? There are plenty of different business practices that support what I said. And if I was a heartless person, I'd be doing this stuff instead of warning people about it.

I know about creative destruction, yes, but I’m not sure how it relates to what you’re trying to describe. The invention of the digital camera basically made film companies obsolete. The film and camera companies that adapted advanced while those who didn’t basically failed. Doesn’t sound too sinister to me.

My point was, from the beginning, that no one can design the economy with any foreseeable or determined outcome. Hedge funds, investment bankers, foreign exchange firms and vulture capitalists fail as much as they succeed. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be treated as high risk.

As for your list, I’m not an economist, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but a Marxist slant on the economy and capitalism is ironic given the track-record of the alternative.

Thanks for warning us.

a reply to: desert

"Here, however, is where Nafisi calls Americans — left and right — to account for abandoning a glorious cultural legacy to wallow in materialism, narcissism and groupthink."

It's interesting because arguably progressives like Henry Ford gave birth to our consumerism.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

The term "patriot" can easily be applied to nearly any political ideology, if said ideology is taken at face value.

The modern versions of liberal or progressive are more "statist" than anything else currently available. In that sense, it could be said that they are the *most* patriotic mainstream offerings available.

Now, if we were to approach it in terms of the spirit of the foundation of the US, the interpretation can change quite dramatically solely on the basis of the balance of power between the people and their representative government. Such a strong statist position would be more applicable to supporters of the crown than the revolutionaries.

"Progressive," if defined as someone who works towards progress, would also apply to nearly everybody if self defined. Of course, this term is used to define a very specific set of social ideals, allies, and enemies that may not lead to any actual progress whatsoever. Whether or not success is achieved is based largely in the perceived opposition losing power, rather than societal or cultural health as a whole. A concept that is certainly nothing new, innovative, or "progressive" regardless of how we label things.

In the end, my own opinion is that very few individuals of any label are actually working towards a better world as a whole, nor are many patriotic and progressive in the sense of the spirit of the nations foundation.

All I see is different rhetoric according to era and social group, but all of the same behavior across the board. SSDD, same behavior-different labels, same paradigm-different pieces.

a reply to: Logarock

And your never going to convince me that progressives that see themselves as patriots think much of the other kind.

What "other kind"?
what?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Just for the record, "creative destruction" is also applied to other fields like mergers & acquisitions. Here's an article about it from the 2012 election cycle. And remember, this is just one part of the cycle I listed above.

Mitt Romney, Bain Capital and the gospel of ‘creative destruction’

And yeah, hedge funds and the such can fail. But you seem to be overlooking that all of them are just vehicles for the same wealthy investors (as are investment banks, corporations, etc). One vehicle's "failure" is used as a write off for other vehicles (or as "proof" that more public subsidies are needed for a particular industry). And one powerbroker may be an advisor for one vehicle, on the board of directors for a second one, was a former executive at a now-defunct vehicle, have cronies & associates in several more, and have large investments in even more. Those companies/vehicles are completely interlocked even if they are separate entities on paper.

In other words, quit paying attention to the puppet & the shell companies and focus on the puppet masters. As I said before, citizens are brainwashed to think our political & business leaders are fools, but they're not. They're masters in the arts of power & money, politics and trade. As an example, taxpayers get tricked into supporting spending tax dollars to destroy a country, then to rebuild it; while never realizing the same powerful investors own large stakes in both the companies that sold the weapons to destroy it and the companies that profit from rebuilding that same country they just destroyed. War spending is just a condensed version of the cycle I mentioned in that other post.

(cough cough mods, sorry to be off topic though cough)

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Good for you!

If more people were like you, getting involved in the world around them, gee, maybe the situation wouldn't have arisen in the first place...

Ask Germans right now if "Progressivism" is good for business....."Patriotic"

What's that? They can't pick up the phone because they're too busy fending of rapists??

Oh my, that's not good news!

I believe the core of progressiveness is to take from the top and give to the bottom (pun intended). Fiscally they advocate taking money from the rich to give to poor. They advocate raising min wage, taking from consumers and business to give to the lowest wage earners. Take traditional marriage and bestow it upon two dudes.

Pretty easy to see how that contradicts American ideals like freedom and independence.

No chance can a progressive be a patriot.

originally posted by: Moegotti
I believe the core of progressiveness is to take from the top and give to the bottom (pun intended). Fiscally they advocate taking money from the rich to give to poor. They advocate raising min wage, taking from consumers and business to give to the lowest wage earners. Take traditional marriage and bestow it upon two dudes.

Pretty easy to see how that contradicts American ideals like freedom and independence.

No chance can a progressive be a patriot.

To a Progressive....."Rich" means anyone making $60,000 a year or more.

Next year it will be "Anyone who has a well maintained shiny vehicle and better shoes than me"

Progressives embrace Multi-Culturalism along with the new mantra, "Freedom of Movement", within E.U. nations.

How's that working out? Balkans Part Deux? Or should I say DOS? What's Arabic for "Two"?

I dunno anymore.

Anywho, how's that working out? Progressivism is FUN! Yay!

"Patriotic"!!!!ELEVEN111

Progressive ideology maintains that Illegal Immigration is good for "Cultural Diversity"...while those same "Progressives" see national declines in jobs, birthrates, education, wages, healthcare DECLINE as direct effect....and tell the rest of us to shut up about it.

And then slight their fellow countrymen as "Bigots"...while yelling "It's only 11 Million people"....for 2 decades running.

"Patriotic"!!!

a reply to: desert

A little grim - but it's easy to sing :-)

Helping to restore America's soul would be a very patriotic undertaking for Progressives.

Well said desert. I treated your posts today as assigned homework. Did me an awful lot of good

"Progressive" Ideology maintains that the "RICH" (See; anyone who makes a living) be taxed heavily at the top.

While the middle class pay more in energy costs, payroll costs, gas costs, regulatory costs, property taxes....so that no growth can happen organically for the MIDDLE CLASS

Then while all this is happening, they tout policies which keep the bottom LOWER CLASS poor, unable to defend themselves in high crime rate burrows and cities, dependent on the "State" for handouts, rampant benefits-taxation-fraud when it comes to foreign nationals (AKA Illegal Immigrants)

"Progressives"...hitting that TRIFECTA of affecting ALL THREE economic classes at ONCE.

"Patriotic"!

"Progressives" in Europe, maintain that they answer to a pseudo world governance (European Union)...give up their sovereign identity and RIGHTS in doing so, and thus encourage massive cultural and economic shifts overnight crippling their local, state, and national way of life...

Then in retrospect....they complain about the effects of POLICY that they themselves wanted, when everything doesn't pan out the way their Utopian minds predicted, and then CRY-BULLY if you say something, that THEY themselves..... are now thinking.

"Progressive" Ideology case point #573628492

Progressive Ideology maintains that a scientific THEORY (still a working HYPOTHESIS) called "Climate Change" is man-made at it's core and thus MAN needs to curb the problem by:

1) Taxation and regulation...even in nations which haven't barely crawled out of the Dark Ages yet, and cannot without cheap fossil fuels
2) Demand LAWS prohibiting SPEECH, if you dare question the issue.
3) Claim "Consensus" on the issue (logical fallacy, Argument from Popularity) although no "Consensus" has been proven other than a skewed ALGORITHM that was used to search published paper TITLES.
4) And propose TRILLIONS...yes...TRILLIONS in taxation....globally...when such taxes are non binding, targeted at nations which do not follow International Law (China)...and which will at MOST decrease temperatures by a slight...ADMITTED negligible margin.


And all these above, to "Progressives" are logical, rational, policies to combat an already widely MYSTERIOUS phenomenon of Climate Aggregation.

And above all THAT. Ask that the U.N., another WORLD body, be placed in control/supra cede our own SOVEREIGN LAWS.............while all of this is going on...without any VOTE from our electorate....or any act of CONGRESS

"Progressives"? "Patriots"?

Yeah.....cool story Bros

Progressive Ideology maintains that in order to teach our children MATH in a more efficient fashion, that children should adopt a "visual step based system" of breaking down numbers/digits in a weird bizarre almost Jungian methodology to come up with proper answers to equations.

Even though the human brain does not naturally PROCESS digits in this manner (Accessing the Creative-Rational-Artistic regions of the brain) to quantify math problems.

And when pure repetition and memorization is the more efficient and more LASTING manner.

Yet "Common Core", devised from very "Progressive/Liberal" budy-body do nothings, thought that this would be "Progressive"

"Progressive"?

Cool Story Bros.....

Case Point #46728492804

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: enlightenedservant

Good for you!

If more people were like you, getting involved in the world around them, gee, maybe the situation wouldn't have arisen in the first place...

Thanks. Literally my biggest complain/request to others in real life is for them to get directly involved. Even if I finally run for some public office, I'm only 1 person. But there are roughly 20,000 cities & towns in the US. Then there are more than 3,000 counties and county equivalents, 50 States, and the federal government. And all of these have their own elected & appointed positions of power.

In other words, it's going to take thousands of like minded people to be elected and appointed each election cycle in order to make lasting changes. And as long as the people with good intentions won't run for these positions, it only leaves the alternatives to do it.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

I have good intentions - but I'd be a terrible politician

:-)

I can do your campaign posters though