Positive signs...

There have been a couple of really positive signs for progressives the past week or two. Although the right has been in absolute disaster mode for 3 + months now, it's been somewhat demoralizing that there has been no real leadership shown by progressives to show American how we can move forward from where we are. But maybe that is changing...two really interesting and forward-thinking statements made the past few weeks.

On Tim Russert's show a couple of Sunday's ago, he asked a question that usually generates either nothing, or little more than a listing of Republican disasters: What are the Democratic ideas? But an actual answer came from Illinois congressman Rahm Emanuel, who noted five specific ideas - (1) making college universal; (2) demanding a budget summit; (3) cutting energy dependence in half with a hybrid economy; (4) creating a science and technology institute to rival NIH; and (5) making health care universal over the next 10 years.

Hey, look at that, it's actual productive ideas ... that take leadership to implement ... from the Left. Wonderful. As Slate put it: You might have your own ideas, but that's the point—when you listen to a Democrat with ideas, you don't fall into a deep funk or get hungry again half an hour later.

In addition, there was a TERRIFIC message by rising-star Barack Obama cross posted at Daily KOS and Senate blog. His message was in response to some of the dispute in the aftermath of the Roberts confirmation, but what he specifically addressed was the heart and soul - and future - of the progressive movement in the United States. You can read the entire - wonderful - message here, but here are a few highlights:

From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon. They don't think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent. They don't think that corporations are inherently evil (a lot of them work in corporations), but they recognize that big business, unchecked, can fix the game to the detriment of working people and small entrepreneurs. They don't think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib which violate our ideals as a country. ...

I am not drawing a facile equivalence here between progressive advocacy groups nd right-wing advocacy groups. The consequences of their ideas are vastly ifferent. Fighting on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable is not the same as fighting for homophobia and Halliburton. But to the degree that we brook no dissent within the Democratic Party, and demand fealty to the one, "true" progressive vision for the country, we risk the very thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas that are required to move this country forward. When we lash out at those who share our fundamental values because they have not met the criteria of every single item on our progressive "checklist," then we are essentially preventing them from thinking in new ways about problems. We are tying them up in a straightjacket and forcing them into a conversation only with the converted.

Beyond that, by applying such tests, we are hamstringing our ability to build a majority. We won't be able to transform the country with such a polarized electorate. Because the truth of the matter is this: Most of the issues this country faces are hard. They require tough choices, and they require sacrifice. The Bush Administration and the Republican Congress may have made the problems worse, but they won't go away after President Bush is gone. Unless we are open to new ideas, and not just new packaging, we won't change enough hearts and minds to initiate a serious energy or fiscal policy that calls for serious sacrifice. We won't have the popular support to craft a foreign policy that meets the challenges of globalization or terrorism while avoiding isolationism and protecting civil liberties. We certainly won't have a mandate to overhaul a health care policy that overcomes all the entrenched interests that are the legacy of a jerry-rigged health care system. And we won't have the broad political support, or the effective strategies, required to lift large numbers of our fellow citizens out of numbing poverty.

The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job. And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate. ...

But I do think that being bold involves more than just putting more money into existing programs and will instead require us to admit that some existing programs and policies don't work very well. And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans). ...

Finally, I am not arguing that we "unilaterally disarm" in the face of Republican attacks, or bite our tongue when this Administration screws up. Whenever they are wrong, inept, or dishonest, we should say so clearly and repeatedly; and whenever they gear up their attack machine, we should respond quickly and forcefully. I am suggesting that the tone we take matters, and that truth, as best we know it, be the hallmark of our response. ...

I would argue that the most powerful voices of change in the country, from Lincoln to King, have been those who can speak with the utmost conviction about the great issues of the day without ever belittling those who opposed them, and without denying the limits of their own perspectives.

A powerful vision for the future of progressive-ism. This was in direct response to the Roberts confirmation (and much of the balance of the message deals with some of that directly), but on the whole, it goes to the future, and the hope of a true, deep, and comprehesive plan for America which people can dig their teeth into, and believe in again.


Hat-tip: the has been at Slate.