Progressives paving the road to Socialism

This week a group of left wing radicals assembled at a conference in Washington, D.C. under the banner of the Campaign for America’s Future. This group was a Who’s, Who’s of the progressive movement in America. The speaker list included; Nancy Pelosi, Van Jones, Jesse Jackson, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Howard Dean, Robert Creamer, Deepak Bhargava, Andy Stern, Arlene Holt Baker, Markos Moulitsas, Yosi Sergant, Arianna Huffington, Alan Grayson and Janet Murguía to name a few. Every aspect of the socialist spectrum was represented at this conference. There were over 100 speakers that covered every major type of left wing organization: unions, social justice groups, environmental activists, community organizers, pro left media and even La Raza, the ultra radical Hispanic civil rights and immigration/advocacy organization.

From their web site, About Us section:

“We live in a remarkable political moment: precarious, yet potentially transforming. At the Campaign for America’s Future, our daily work is to bring about the progressive transformation.

After three decades of conservative dominance in American politics, we Americans are threatened with economic disintegration, environmental devastation and international isolation.

The list of failure is simply exhausting: a disastrous Iraq occupation, a destabilized Middle East and Asia, the persistent threat of terrorism, a menacing climate crisis, an insecure and dwindling energy supply, unprecedented trade deficits, unchecked global corporate power, our broken health care system, a weakened pension system and an increasingly inaccessible higher education system.

But out of the ashes of this era of conservative failure comes an historic opportunity for progressives to salvage the American Ideal and shape this young century. 

That’s where we come in.

The Campaign for America’s Future is the strategy center for the progressive movement. Our goal is to forge the enduring progressive majority needed to realize the America of shared prosperity and equal opportunity that our country was meant to be.

To attain our ultimate goal, we spearhead a compelling progressive agenda that addresses the kitchen-table issues working families face. We regularly convene and educate progressive thinkers, organizers and community activists so our voices will be coordinated, cogent and potent. And we incubate national campaigns on the critical issues that will define America for generations to come.

Americans have had it with tired conservative politics that divide us, an economy that squeezes us, a foreign policy that weakens us and a government that serves few of us.

But while conservatism may be exhausted, progressives are just getting started. The Campaign for America’s Future is driving our progressive movement and offering the new vision, bright ideas and bold leadership Americans rightly demand.

We are showing the way toward accessible education, affordable health care and secure retirements for all. Toward a clean energy future and away from Middle East occupation. Toward the representative, responsive and responsible government needed for all of us to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We cannot let the conservative failure that brought us to this precarious moment tip America into another Gilded Age and leave the world at the mercy of unaccountable multinationals, oil-drenched autocrats and merchants of terrorism.

It’s our job to turn this precarious moment into a prosperous progressive era. Together, we can”.

Read this closely and in it you find a low key manifesto for the progressive agenda. It is full of sweeping generalities about conservative failures but fails to be specific about solutions. However the language is designed to appeal to the socialist mindset with its’ themes of equality and redistribution. It even makes an attempt to be patriotic with its’ reference to the Declaration of Independence.

In response to the question, who else do you work with on your progressive agenda, their web site says:

“To maximize the strength of the progressive movement, Campaign for America’s Future regularly convenes organizers and activists to help forge powerful coalitions. Here are just a few examples.

Our annual Take Back America conference is the nation’s premier progressive gathering, attracting thousands to develop solutions, hone strategies, and fortify our movement. Along with Americans United for Change and USAction, we brought together nearly 40 organizations to create the Change America Now (CAN) coalition, which promotes legislation providing economic security to all families. We work with the Economic Policy Institute and Center for American Progress Action Fund to host the biweekly Tuesday Group, where congressional aides, union strategists, scholars, pollsters and advocates share insight on progressive messaging and public opinion so we can elevate the national debate”.

When asked who funds them, the answer is more evasive:

“Campaign for America’s Future is financed through the donations of various organizations, foundations and individual supporters”.

However, further research shows that partners and sponsors include; MoveOn.org, NetRoots Nation, Progressive Majority, Center for Community Change, Progressive Congress.org, Progressive Book Club, National Education Association and People for the American Way.

This is not an insignificant movement. Look at who is involved. Look at the changes they have already made, healthcare reform being the most significant. They are spending us into ruin. Our government is being taken over from the inside with the help of elected officials, teachers, powerful labor unions, and community organizers. This group is smart, well funded and organized. They know they have limited window of time to move their agenda forward. They (the progressives) have no intention of squandering an opportunity that they have waited 80 years for. America had better wake up soon because time is of the essence. Every day another piece of the infrastructure is put in place and our fate becomes more uncertain.

You owe it to yourself to explore their web site:

 http://www.ourfuture.org/

 Don’t just read the words, focus on the messaging. Look at the conference sessions and understand what they are teaching.

Remember President-elected Obama said, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America”. Well ever since he took office he has been working hard to deliver on that promise.

Here are collection of interesting quotes and comments from their America’s Future Now Conference that prove that the left is dissatisfied with the speed of change. They want more and they want it faster.

According to Arianna Huffington, the easy part was getting Obama elected. However she said, “Bipartisanship is not the way to fundamental change…Why isn’t greater urgency coming out of Washington to solve Main Street’s problems? She went on to suggest, we need “Hope 2.0,” and we (the progressives) need to “take matters into our own hands.”

Roger Hickey, co director of Campaign for America, “many hoped that Obama would lead the movement to stand up to corporate interests… Is this Obama’s problem or is it ours? What can we do to ensure that Obama achieves that transformation?”

The speakers accused the President of being “too timid” and “too reluctant to draw clear ideological differences” and that as a result the “right-wing gained greater traction than it otherwise might have.”

CAF’s other co-director Robert Borosage said, “We will have to fight… We have to revive our independent movement. We have to stop waiting for Obama. We have to take on conservatives in both parties. The progressive movement must organize independent of the Democratic administration to effect change”.

And how about this beauty from self admitted communist, Van Jones… you remember Van Jones who in a magazine interview described himself this way:

Leading up to Rodney King trial, Jones said, “I was a just rowdy black nationalist on April 28th [1992], and then the verdicts came down on April 29th. By August, I was a communist. (…) I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary”.

At the recent CAF conference, Jones had this to say, “I think that when we look back to the history of the Obama administration and look back at the history of our progressive movement, that this week will mark a historic inflection point when progressives decided to be progressive again in this country. I think something shifted this week”.   — I wonder he means?

Make no mistake, the progressives are committed to their agenda and they will not give in to a return to conservative American values without a fight. They will use every tool at their disposal to win. They are trying to convince the weak and the lazy among us that they can create an all powerful government that will ensure a “fairer, more humane society” which will take care of everyone equally through policies based in “social justice”. All they need to accomplish this is a little more power.

“You can reach out to your fellow young people and make it clear to them that where they may not be satisfied with everything we’ve done — we’re not satisfied with everything we’ve done. The way to cure that is to give us more authority and more ability”. – Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA

However, history would argue a different case. Power corrupts. Each and every time socialism, communism or fascism is tried, two things happen – the citizens become enslaved by the government they thought would protect them and many of them die as a result. And of course, freedom and liberty are lost.

The transformation is underway. If the people in charge have their way we are headed for a hybrid government which is part communist and part fascist. See definitions below:

Communism: the political theory or system in which all property and wealth is owned in a classless society by all the members of that society

Fascism: a movement, ideology, or attitude that favors dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism

If you merge the bolded parts of each you end up where we appear to be headed as follows: “a movement, ideology, or attitude that favors a classless society, centralized control of private enterprise and repression of all opposition”

America, do I have you attention yet? 

In the words of Buffalo Springfield, “ There’s something happening here, What it is ain’t exactly clear … I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down”!

Pay attention, your country is depending on you. The founding fathers warned us this could happen. Stand up, Be counted, Make your voice hear.

Restore the Republic and the American Way! Reject the Agenda of the Progressive Left!

“How can limited government and fiscal restraint be equated with lack of compassion for the poor? How can a tax break that puts a little more money in the weekly paychecks of working people be seen as an attack on the needy? Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes—one rich, one poor—both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare? Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?” – Ronald Reagan

“Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this: The communist, seeing the rich man and his fine home, says: ‘No man should have so much.’ The capitalist, seeing the same thing, says: ‘All men should have so much.’” – Unknown

“Communism teaches and seeks two objectives: unrelenting class warfare and the complete eradication of private ownership” – Pope Pius XI

Scary Progressives/Socialists: In Their Own Words, Part 2

“Progressivism” is a reform movement that began in the 1890’s and has remained active to this day. At times it has had a lower profile but it has been an active force in American politics for over 100 years.

So what is my beef with “Progressives” ? In part 1, I gave you the history of the movement and the names of some of its’ current members. For the second part of the answer I offer you a compilation of the Progressives in their own words:

Early Progressives/Socialists:

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, ITALIAN PHILOSOPHER & FATHER OF MODERN POLITICS:

“Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.”

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, NOBEL PRIZE WINNER & PLAYWRIGHT:

“The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it … If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?”

“I don’t want to punish anybody. (But there are) an extraordinary number of people whom I want to kill. I think it would be a good thing to make everybody come before a properly-appointed board, just as they might come before the income tax commissioner, and say every five years, or every seven years, just put them there, and say, “Sir, or madam, now will you be kind enough to justify your existence?”

If you’re not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then, clearly, we cannot use the big organizations of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.

JOHN DEWY, AMERICAN PHILOSPHER, PSYCHOLOGIST & EDUCATIONAL REFORMER:

“Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.”

SIR FRANCIS GALTON, ANTHROPOLOGIST & EUGENICIST (He invented the term Eugenics):

“It has now become a serious necessity to better the breed of the human race. The average citizen is too base for the everyday work of modern civilization.”

“(Eugenics) must be introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion. It has, indeed, strong claim to become an orthodox religious tenet for the future, for Eugenics co-operates with the workings of Nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races. What Nature does blindly, slowly and ruthlessly, man must do providently, quickly and kindly.”

WOODROW WILSON, 28th U.S. PRESIDENT:

“The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit; and if Congress be overborne by him, it will be no fault of the makers of the Constitution … but only because the President has the nation behind him and Congress has not.”

“Government does now whatever experience permits or the times demand.”

“All that progressives ask or desire is permission–in an era when development, evolution, is a scientific word–to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.”

STUART CHASE, AMERICAN ECONOMIST & ENGINEER (Credited with coining the term The New Deal used by FDR):

“The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.”

“Why should the Russians have all the fun remaking a world.”

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 19th CENTURY GERMAN PHILOSPHER:

“There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.”

“After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.”

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, 32nd U.S. PRESIDENT

“Throughout the nation men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth… I pledge you, I pledge myself to a New Deal for the American people… This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms.”

“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.”

“Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.”

“If I went to work in a factory the first thing I’d do is join a union.”

“As new commander in chief under the oath to which you are still bound, I reserve the right to command you in any phase of the situation which now confronts us.”

MARGARET SANGER, AMERICAN FOUNDER OF THE BIRTH CONTROL MOVEMENT:

“We are failing to segregate morons who are increasingly multiplying … a dead weight of human waste… an ever-increasing spawning class of human beings who should never have been born at all.”

OTHERS:

“I believe that now and always the conscious selection of the best for reproduction will be impossible; that to propose it is to display a fundamental misunderstanding of what individuality implies. The way of nature has always been to slay the hindmost, and there is still no other way, unless we can prevent those who would become the hindmost being born. It is in the sterilization of failure, and not in the selection of successes for breeding, that the possibility of an improvement of the human stock lies.”

“The case for government by elites is irrefutable.” – Senator William Fulbright

Modern/Current Progressives:

FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK, AUSTRIAN BORN ECONOMIST & PHILOSOPHER:

“Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rates higher and which lower, in short, what men should believe and strive for.”

“Let me now state what seems to me the decisive objection to any conservatism which deserves to be called such. It is that by its very nature it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving. It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it cannot prevent their continuance. It has, for this reason, invariably been the fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing. The tug of war between conservatives and progressives can only affect the speed, not the direction, of contemporary developments.”

LYNDON JOHNSON, U.S. PRESIDENT:

“I am concerned about the whole man. I am concerned about what the people, using their government as an instrument and a tool, can do toward building the whole man, which will mean a better society and a better world.”

“There is but one way for a president to deal with the Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it’s really going to work, the relationship between the president and the Congress has got to be almost incestuous.”

“No member of our generation who wasn’t a Communist or a dropout in the thirties is worth a damn.”

“It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.”

JIMMY CARTER, 39th U.S. PRESIDENT:

“Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.”

“What has happened at Guantanamo Bay… does not represent the will of the American people. I’m embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.”

MICHELLE OBAMA, U.S. FIRST LADY:

“The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.”

BARACK OBAMA, 44th U.S. PRESIDENT:

“It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure everybody who is behind you, that they have got a chance at success, too. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

“We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.”

“It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

“But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. … one of the, I think the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.”

BILL FLETCHER, JR., SENIOR SCHOLAR – INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES’:

In this sense, comrades, I am here to not only speak to you about the subject of this panel, but to put before you a challenge. Too many of us on the Left act as if we have all the time in the world to make changes. If it does not happen in our lifetimes, too many of us think, it will inevitably happen in the next. No! History demonstrates exactly the opposite. There are no guarantees.

“DSA is needed as a major force to transform the Left and compel the entire Left to recognize that ours must be a struggle for power; a struggle for a progressive politics; a struggle to create a national-popular bloc capable of truly altering the priorities of this country…and this necessitates theory and it necessitates organization.

Remember the words of A. Philip Randolph that I think are so applicable to this moment:

“At the banquet table of nature there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can’t take anything, you won’t get anything; and if you can’t hold anything, you won’t keep anything. And you can’t take anything without organization.” What more needs to be said!

MANY OTHERS:

“Two of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa.” – Anita Dunn, former Obama White House Communications Director

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” – Rahm Emanuel, Obama White House Chief of Staff

“[A]lmost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine. And if the Court is right, then fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. ” – Cass Sunstein, Obama Regulatory Czar

“ In Venezuela, with Chavez, really an incredible revolution — a Democratic revolution — to begin to put in place saying that we’re going to have impact on the people of Venezuela…” – Mark Lloyd, FCC Diversity Officer

“Capitalism is a stupid system, a backward system.” Stokely Carmichael, African American Activist

“Capitalism and the market are presented as synonymous, but they are not. Capitalism is both the enemy of the market and democracy.” – David Korten, Member of the Club of Rome

“Capitalism works better from every perspective when the economic decision makers are forced to share power with those who will be affected by those decisions.” – Barney Frank, Rep. U.S. House of Representatives, (MA)

“Generally speaking we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they are convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it’s an adults only, no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.” – Ron Bloom, Obama’s Manufacturing Czar

“I think ultimately the rate of growth of material consumption is going to have to come down and there’s going to have to be a degree of redistribution of how much we consume in terms of energy and material resources in order to leave room for people who are poor to become more prosperous.” – John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar

There is a consistent set of themes running through their comments:

• more government
• individual freedoms are secondary
• the government knows best
• use of what ever means necessary
• the Constitution is outdated
• capitalism is bad
• “social justice”
• redistribution of wealth
• global government

So this is where it starts – the question is where would it end? These people are radicals who want to reengineer our society and our nation. Open your eyes America, the Constitution and the American way of life are under attack! You must fight back, the threat is real. There are “progressives” in our government who want to “fundamentally transform America”. This transformation is underway. Will you help stop it?

What is a Progressive? (and why they should scare you) Part 1

Restore the Republic, Reject the Agenda of the Progressive Left! 

If you are a regular reader of my blog you are familiar with my closing tag line above or a variation of it, which I close most blogs with. 

So what is a “progressive” and what is my beef with them? For the answer you must look at American history beginning in the early 1900’s. 

“Progressivism” is a reform movement that began in the 1890’s and has remained active to this day. At times it has had a lower profile but it has been an active force in American politics for over 100 years.

The American “progressive movement” was originally led by “intellectuals and social reformers” (aka the elite) seeking to address the economic, political, and cultural issues which had resulted from the rapid growth/industrialization of the country as well as the growth of modern capitalism. The Progressives believed then as they do today, that this rapidly changing society required the establishment of a “new order”.  Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Croly, John Dewey and Charles Merriam were early political leaders of the movement.

Progressives don’t always agree on how to solve problems but generally they agree government must be actively involved at every level of society to drive reform. They also agree the existing constitutional system is antiquated. They believe it must become a dynamic, evolving instrument of social change, aided by scientific knowledge and the development of administrative bureaucracy.

Some of the first changes the early progressives made were; the direct elections of Senators, the open primary, the initiative and referendum. To drive the desired societal change through the government there was a need for more revenue which resulted in the 16th Amendment and individual progressive income tax.

Progressives are elitists – their vision was to use the Presidency to provide the direction and the vision to drive the evolution of a progressive government. 

“All that progressives ask or desire is permission–in an era when development, evolution, is a scientific word–to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.” – Woodrow Wilson 

The Progressive Party led by Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin was very successful in the years following WWI. After the war there was an up swing in left leaning politics in the United States. Political parties such as the Workers’ Party (the Communists), the Socialist Party and the Farmer-Labor Party, all increased their membership in the early 1920’s.

In 1922, the Conference for Progressive Political Action (C.P.P.A.), another left wing progressive movement partnered with railway unions to create a political force at the state and local levels, successfully backing several liberal candidates for Congress.

In 1924, the C.P.P.A. convinced Senator La Follette to be their candidate for president, giving him full control over the party platform and his choice of a running mate. The platform he laid out is as follows:

• Government Ownership. Claiming mismanagement by private enterprise, the Progressives called for government ownership of the nation’s railroads, timber forests, coal, ore and oil fields, and power-generating water resources.
• Tax Reform. Saying the lower and middle classes paid a disproportionate amount of income tax, the Progressives called for lower of tax rates for those groups and promised sharp increases on the wealthy.
• Agricultural Reform. The Progressives were proponents of farm subsides and other government programs to support farmers. These included price supports and relief from the costs of over production.
• Judicial Reform. The Progressives wanted limitations on both judicial reviews and injunctions. They argued that judges were overturning too much legislation based on constitutional grounds. They said that this was blocking the implementation of programs and legislation that was designed to “benefit” the lower and middle classes. 

Does any of this sound familiar to you? Compare the above to the Progressive Promise found on the website of the Progressive Congressional Caucus: http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?SectionID=5&ParentID=0&SectionTypeID=2&SectionTree=5

Beginning in 1924, Norman Thomas became a leading figure in the American Progressive/Socialist movement running for president six times between 1928 & 1948 as the candidate of the Socialist Party of America. 

“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” – Norman Thomas

This statement is the key to understanding the Progressives. They are radicals who understand that the way to take over America is through an evolutionary process not a revolutionary one. The radicals of the 60’s, using unrest over the war, the momentum of the civil right’s movement and LBJ’s Great Society  tried to move their agenda forward with a more openly revolutionary approach but this was quickly rejected by mainstream America. 

Since then the Progressive Movement has operated quietly inside the Democratic Party slowly moving their agenda forward and waiting for their opportunity. Their patience paid off in 2008 after G.W. Bush’s unpopular second term. 

So who are today’s Progressives and how do they operate within the Democratic Party? 

Within the House of Representatives the Democrats have a group called the Progressive Caucus.

“The Progressive Caucus is an organization of Members of Congress founded in 1991 by newly-elected House Representative Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont), who is a self-described socialist.”

The following is a list of all current Representatives in the Congressional Progressive Caucus: 

    Nancy Pelosi (CA) – Speaker of the House

    Steny Hoyer (MD) – House Majority Leader

    Jim Clyburn (SC) – Majority Whip

    John B. Larson (CT) –Democratic Caucus Chair 

Co-Chairs
Hon. Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07)
Hon. Lynn Woolsey (CA-06)

Vice Chairs
Hon. Diane Watson (CA-33)             Hon. Keith Ellison (MN-05)
Hon. Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18)    Hon. Mazie Hirono (HI-02)
Hon. Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)         Hon. Donna F. Edwards (MD-04)
Hon. Alan Grayson (FL-08)

Senate Members
Hon. Bernie Sanders (VT)

House Members
Hon. Neil Abercrombie (HI-01)  Hon. Tammy Baldwin (WI-02)  Hon. Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
Hon. Earl Blumenauer (OR-03)  Hon. Robert Brady (PA-01)  Hon. Corrine Brown (FL-03)
Hon. Michael Capuano (MA-08)  Hon. André Carson (IN-07)  Hon. Donna Christensen (VI-AL)
Hon. Judy Chu (CA-32)  Hon. Yvette Clarke (NY-11)  Hon. William “Lacy” Clay (MO-01)

Hon. Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05)  Hon. Steve Cohen (TN-09)  Hon. John Conyers (MI-14)
Hon. Elijah Cummings (MD-07)  Hon. Danny Davis (IL-07)  Hon. Peter DeFazio (OR-04)
Hon. Rosa DeLauro (CT-03)  Hon. Sam Farr (CA-17)  Hon. Chaka Fattah (PA-02)
Hon. Bob Filner (CA-51)  Hon. Barney Frank (MA-04)  Hon. Marcia L. Fudge (OH-11)
Hon. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04)  Hon. John Hall (NY-19)  Hon. Phil Hare (IL-17)
Hon. Alcee Hastings (FL-23)  Hon. Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)  Hon. Michael Honda (CA-15)
Hon. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-02)  Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)  Hon. Hank Johnson (GA-04)
Hon. Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)  Hon. Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI-13)  Hon. Barbara Lee (CA-09)
Hon. John Lewis (GA-05)  Hon. David Loebsack (IA-02)  Hon. Ben R. Lujan (NM-3)
Hon. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)  Hon. Ed Markey (MA-07)  Hon. Eric Massa (NY-29)
Hon. Jim McDermott (WA-07)  Hon. James McGovern (MA-03)  Hon. George Miller (CA-07)
Hon. Gwen Moore (WI-04)  Hon. Jim Moran (VA-08)  Hon. Jerrold Nadler (NY-08)
Hon. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC-AL)  Hon. John Olver (MA-01)  Hon. Frank Pallone (NJ-06)
Hon. Ed Pastor (AZ-04)  Hon. Donald Payne (NJ-10)  Hon. Chellie Pingree (ME-01)
Hon. Jared Polis (CO-02)  Hon. Charles Rangel (NY-15)  Hon. Laura Richardson (CA-37)
Hon. Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)  Hon. Bobby Rush (IL-01)  Hon. Linda Sánchez (CA-39)
Hon. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)  Hon. José Serrano (NY-16)  Hon. Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
Hon. Pete Stark (CA-13)  Hon. Bennie Thompson (MS-02)  Hon. John Tierney (MA-06)
Hon. Nydia Velazquez (NY-12)  Hon. Maxine Waters (CA-35)  Hon. Mel Watt (NC-12)
Hon. Henry Waxman (CA-30)  Hon. Peter Welch (VT-AL)  Hon. Robert Wexler (FL-19) 

The names on this list should surprise no one as they are some of the most liberal members of Congress. Here is a link to their website: 

http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?ContentID=166&ParentID=0&SectionID=4&SectionTree=4&lnk=b&ItemID=164 

Until 1999 the Progressive Caucus worked in open partnership with Democratic Socialists of America. After the press reported on this link, the connections suddenly vanished from both organizations’ websites.

Excerpts from the website of the Democratic Socialists of America: 

“The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. DSA’s members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly socialist presence in American communities and politics. 

We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.

 We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships”.

DSA website has a youth section, Young Democratic Socialists (YDS). Made up of students from colleges and high schools and young people in the work force, the Youth Section works on economic justice and democracy and prison justice projects. It is a member of the International Union of Socialist Youth, an affiliate of the Socialist International. The Youth Section meets several times during the year. More information is available from YDS staff. 

Also on their site you will find a variety of resources in the form of PDFs. Most of these are in support of all the administrations major agenda items; Health Care Reform, Green Jobs, Climate Change Regulations and Card Check to name a few. However there is one that really stands out called “How a President Creates Change” by Joseph Schwartz.

Below is the opening of this article:

“The impressive depth and breadth of your electoral victory, combined with Democratic gains in both the House and the Senate, provides the possibility of reversing three decades of growing inequality that is the primary cause of an impending depression. To put it simply, the world now produces more than it can consume; we now are paying the price for using excessive debt to make up for the declining purchasing power of the global working class. But to do avoid a global depression you will have to act boldly and quickly. As a constitutional law scholar, you realize that the system of checks and balances and separation of powers established by our founders consciously aimed to forestall rapid change. Thus, almost all the reforms we identify with the twentieth-century Democratic Party—Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the Civil Rights Acts, and Medicare—occurred in the periods 1935-1938 and 1964-1966, the only times when the Democrats controlled the presidency and had strong majorities in both chambers of Congress. 

 If upon taking office you lead with boldness, your administration could pass major legislation in regard to universal health care, massive investment in green technology, and labor law reform that would transform United States social relations for generations to come. But as a former community organizer you know that such reforms did not come from the top down; they arose because moderate elites made concessions to the movements of the unemployed and the CIO in the 1930s and to the Civil Rights, anti-war, women’s, and welfare rights movements of the 1960s. While your office cannot conjure up mass social movements, you can call your supporters to ongoing grassroots activism”. 

Throughout history, Progressives have been enamored with the wrong people. This included people such as Stalin and Mussolini. Early Progressives were supporters of eugenics and remained interested until Hitler made it into a bad word. At a minimum Progressives are statists, who favor a dominant central government that tightly controls its’ citizens, at their worst they can morph into power mad social engineers who believe they can reshape society through science and government. 

Today, the progressive movement is the lunatic fringe of the left. The Progressives in the administration and Congress openly express their admiration for Mao, Chavez, Che Guevara and Castro. Mark Lloyd, Anita Dunn, Cass Sunstein, John Holdren, Ron Bloom, Maxine Waters and Carol Browner are just a handful of these radicals who have taken up residence in our government. It should not go without notice that President has made references in his speeches to his “progressive friends”. 

During his Sept 2009 Healthcare address to joint session of Congress, he said:

“To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage available for those without it”.

If you have any doubts that there is a Progressive movement hard at work inside this administration, think again! Go to the website of Progressives for Obama and read this article:  http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com/2010/01/organization-you-get-nothing-without-it.html  or check out these sites: http://blog.pdamerica.org/ or http://www.democrats.com/ 

The Progressive Movement goes against everything America stands for: it created progressive income tax, prohibition, the Federal Reserve, the U.N., every single government agency – from the Department of the Interior to the FDA – these were all progressive ideas. Progressives believe in the philosophy that life is just too complex for the common people to understand or deal with so they should back off and let the government solve the problems. Kind of reminds you of the town hall meetings on Healthcare Reform, doesn’t it! 

Here is the real problem – the more power and control the government gets, the more power and control it wants. The founding fathers recognized this, which is why there is a separation of powers built into our Constitution. It was intentionally designed this way to provide checks and balances to control the speed of change. 

Progressives believe in social re-engineering. They believe that they can improve the world by changing the structure of society and the roles of the people in it. Unfortunately, what usually starts with good intentions eventually goes awry. The governments of Chavez and Castro have not created a better life for all. What they did create was equality – in poverty for the masses and wealth for the elite! I defy you to find a “regular person” in a truly “progressive/socialist” society who is happy with their individual freedom, their quality of life and their ability to pursue their dreams. Americans are spoiled – we take these things for granted. There is no free lunch, all entitlements come at a cost. What are you willing to give up, to have your “security” provided by the federal government. I want more from my life than …work, eat, sleep…die! 

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”   – Winston Churchill 

“The assumption that spending more of the taxpayer’s money will make things better has survived all kinds of evidence that it has made things worse.” – Thomas Sowell

Open your eyes America, the Constitution and the American way of life are under attack! You must fight back, the threat is real. There are “progressives” in our government who want to “fundamentally transform America”.  This transformation is underway. Will you help stop it?

“Most people who read “The Communist Manifesto” probably have no idea that it was written by a couple of young men who had never worked a day in their lives, and who nevertheless spoke boldly in the name of “the workers”.” – Thomas Sowell 

Restore the Republic, Reject the Agenda of the Progressive Left! 

Coming: Part 2 – Scary Progressives/Socialists – In Their Own Words