In this Truthout.org article, ( http://www.truthout.org/lessons-progressives-power-shift-youth/1303843838 ) Amy Dean explains how Young Progressives are taking the lead on clean energy, and helping to move even the President of the United States on this issue.
Could this be a way forward for Democrats disillusioned with an ebbing social compact and far too many Republican gains (read "middle-class losses") in Washington, DC?
I'm certainly interested in finding that answer out.
After watching what's been happening around the Midwest and in the Supreme Court of the United States the past year or so, I've had quite a feeling of the blues. I went to high school in Madison, Wisconsin, and it's hard for me to imagine that the most Progressive city I know could be hosting such a malignant cancer as Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled State legislature there. Even worse, yesterday's Supreme court decision in Washington basically eviscerating the right of consumers to join class-action lawsuits boggles my mind.
Fiscally, Socially, Morally, Technically, the Right has been sawing the legs out from under the structure of this country, making it less able to compete, less democratic, and destroying its greatest strength; the strongest middle class the world had ever seen.
We've lost the top-notch capacity to educate our children and young adults en-mass and pushed ourselves to a point where college is no longer affordable and primary education is highly at-risk to those without wealth.
We've let our infrastructure get old and decrepit, building up a massive "infrastructure deficit" that will haunt us for decades to come.
We've been week-kneed about advancing clean and sustainable energy sources that could create millions of jobs permanently here in the USA.
We've lost the freedom to move about the world in comfort and safety.
We've built a host of antagonists around the world with wars instead of teachers, volunteers, and builders.
We've left our poorest people to hang in the breeze, starving, cold, homeless, and sick.
We're on the verge of losing retirement and heath care security for the vast majority of older Americans, both now and in the foreseeable future.
We've lost our national ability to put humans in space, just before exploiting resources in space is about to become the way of the future.
There is still time to reverse this downward spiral of cutting our country to death. we need to move out of the phase of insane levels of military spending into a drastic increase in domestic spending on education, research, infrastructure, and energy renaissance.
I'm not saying abandon military defense, but bring it to within reason.
I'm saying be helpful to nations who we want as friends or business partners, rather than bullying.
Defend our rights here at home, and treat visitors as well as we treat our own people.
Rebuild our education system to suit the industries of the future, and make sure that young people get all the education they can handle at every level of income.
Rebuild or national industrial, space, energy, and transport capacity.
End the vast disparity of wealth accumulating in too few hands and plugging up the flow of capital through the economy. Too much money is in the hands of too few, and not flowing around the rest of the economy keeping it moving. Haven't you seen the vacant storefronts, the closing shops and restaurants, the foreclosures and vacant homes sitting unsold on the market for months? Every empty storefront means a small business that no longer exists and no longer employs anyone. Every empty house means another family gone broke. I haven't even gotten to the shuttered and rusting factories yet.
The first vote every one of us gets, the one that counts the most, the one that we can be certain counts, is where we spend our money. Are the dollars we're spending helping keep Americans employed or not? Are they supporting the goals we have for our future or not?
A lot of food for thought.
All the best,
Dan
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