Add new comment

Though biased, I support the Progressive Democrats of America. You don’t get a email from the man behind the curtain about the issue du jour. They have a platform on the issues built upon the input of its chapters, and they stand behind it. They have stood firm and backed Lee’s H.R. 508 (The Safe and Orderly Withdrawal resolution). They are grassroots in that the movement is built from the bottom up, and they take stand on issues and are not shy about saying what that stand is. They work to add support to the Congressional Progressive Caucus members and to expand their numbers. PDA's plan, a long term one, is to reshape the Democratic Party to be a party that speaks with the progressive voice, one that chooses citizens over the corporations. I suggest of you do not have a chapter in your CD, then you start one and start organizing. We have to build the movmement for change from the bottom up, not the top down. And though Move-on can elicit a large response and gets many donations, I believe the PDA approach is the practical, roll-up-your-sleaves-and-get-to-work strategy that will bring about change. You money is better spent funding PDA. We have to build and sustain a movement, and we have to support those who stand tall in Congress and work to elect others who will stand tall. Though I identify with many of the ideas of the Nadarites and the Greens, starting a third party is pracitcally impossible at this time in America. Let’s take the Democratic Party and refashion it around principles of a sane and shared responsibility in addressing problems, both foreign and domestic. In truth, the American people are much more progressive than even they think when asked about how they stand on issues (such as single payer health care, international cooperation, fair work rules, etc). If we can reshape the Party and election rules (such as instituting Instand Run Off Voting, and publically financed elections--see this link for the issues: http://pdamerica.org/policy/priorities.php) the space will be made for other parties to join the game and we can get at a consensus politics where the input of all parties at least gets some hearing. We then will get to listen to the voices of the true minority rather than the minority that now rules–the corporate and monied elite, the oligarchs. See www.pdamerica.org Forgive the commercial but we need to begin buiding the beast that can change the way things are now done and the PDA plan is a solid one: working inside and outside the Democratic Party for change. Addressing how the powers that be try to co-opt progressives, I should say, that even in my home state, I have seen the state party operate in much the same way. They use pseudo-progressive groups (and I am not calling Move-on pseudo-progressive or am I saying that they are used by the national party–I don’t know enough about them to make qualified statements) to try to gather the progressives under their tent so that they can use and rein in their energy for their own purposes. These psuedo-progressive groups bandy about the word “progressive” as if any grass roots group is by definition progressive. None make an across the board stand on the issues, or say exactly who they are and what they stand for. They don’t have much respect for progressives, and they see them more as a hemorrhaging cut that needs to be stopped. They tend to see them as naive and treat them as such.