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My guess, especially given his hopeful conclusion, is that ifDouglass was alive today he would speak about America in a way that resembles Obama's depictionin the body of his public remarks over 20 yearsin the broadest sense. Neither would ignore the horrific crimes of the past, nor the way the legacy of those crimes continues to resonate. Neither would shrink from highlighting the continuing, fresh injustices being visited on African Americans and members of other non-white groups today. But both would present a nuanced narrativeone full of struggle and loss, yet also one of hope and gradual progress toward a goal for which we continue to reach. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama asserted that on civil rights "things have gotten better," yet added: "better isnt good enough."

Meteor Blades is right to identify Frederick Douglass as a hero. Along a similar vein, Michael Lind characterized him in The Next American Nation as"perhaps the greatest American of any race, of any century." It's highly appropriate in 2016 to remember Douglass's 1852 speech, especially on July 4. I want to reinforce that here. What I am also doing here is using Meteor Blades' post about Douglass as a jumping-off point for a relatedbut differentdiscussion.

From a political perspective, we on the left have to be wary of allowing our public rhetoric to focus primarily on feelings of alienation from this country. This isnt trying to tell anyone how they should feel. No one should do that. This is about what we publish and proclaim, and the strategic value thereof. What we cannot do, what Douglass himself did not doas seen in the conclusion to his 1852 speechis cede patriotism and an embrace of America to the right wing. This is a crucial point I've written about previously:

Michael Lind wrote further about the importance of embracing an inclusive, singular national narrative of our country's history with which Americans of every background can identify as their own:

Even in writing this, I want to be crystal clear about what I'm sayingso that nothing is misconstrued. I'm emphatically not saying that Meteor Blades or anyone else should tone down their criticisms of this country's flaws or injustices, whether in the present or the past. To be more specific, I am notsaying that black or brown or red or yellow or gay folks, or anyone who feels marginalized should keep their thoughts to themselves because they might scare the straight white folks.

But we must find a way to do what needs doing, to shine a light on the problems and injustices in our country, while still publicly embracing a commitment to the whole country, the whole community. We have to do both of those things at the same time, over and over again, in order to get our point across and persuade people to join our movement. If we don't do that, we can't solve those problems and fix those injustices.

As politically engaged progressives, we know that this country can and must do better on a whole host of different fronts, and that in order to do so we need to understand our history in full. A history, however, that emphasizes only our crimes and ignores the progress is but the mirror image of one that does the oppositeone that solely bathes our history in glory and righteousness. And if those are the only two options, many middle-of-the-road Americans, in particular whites but others as well, are likely to be more attracted to the Pollyanna-ish view simply because it sounds more familiar and makes them feels better.

As survey data from the Public Religion Research Institute makes clear, Donald Trump certainly appeals to those who are likely attracted to such a view, those who see America as having veered away from what once made it great. As Ronald Brownstein explained, Trumps emergence represents a triumph for the most ardent elements in the GOPs coalition of restoration, voters who are resistant to demographic change. This is certainly just as true in 2017 as it was during the presidential campaign.

We progressives have to make sure that we present a balanced picture. That way we can get those people who sometimes forget about the crimes our country has committed to remember them and to work toward reversing their effects, rather than dismiss our criticisms as somehow "anti-American" because we talk only about the negatives. We have to present our case as representing the true American values, and contrast them to the values of those whom we oppose. This is the way Barack Obama speaks about America's past, present and future. We can see this approach in his remarks of July 4, 2012:

That first paragraph represents what Obama, during his eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney in Charleston, called an "honest accounting of America's history." The next two paragraphs connect his vision of America and its core values to the policies he is proposing going forwardpast, present, future.

Those who have fought for equality have long sought to connect that idea to America's fundamental principles, to our own history. Frederick Douglass did it, even in the speech discussed above, as did the black abolitionist David Walker a generation earlier, who called on us to "Hear your languages, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776." So did Martin Luther King Jr. in his "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," where he predicted that the civil rights movement would succeed because "the goal of America is freedom," and in his "I Have A Dream" speech, in which he proclaimed that the dream he described that day was "deeply rooted in the American dream." So did Harvey Milk when he said: "All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about. So did Barbara Jordan, who noted, "What the people want is simple. They want an America as good as its promise." And so did Barack Obama in Selma, at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday March, when he identified those who walked and bled on that bridge as the ones who truly represented what America is supposed to be:

Progressives must criticize, that is crucial. But we must also inspire, because inspiration is how we motivate action.

[This is a revised and updated version of an essay I have posted previously on July 4.]

Ian Reifowitz is the author of Obamas America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity (Potomac Books).

Originally posted here:
How progressives talk about July 4 and our national history - Daily Kos

Well, there was a lot a talk about Antifa protesters showing up at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to protest and vandalize Confederate graves and burn the flag of the would-be rebel nation at the historic battle site. There are some problems of course. For starters, there are no Confederate gravesites at Gettysburg. Emily Zanotti of Heat Street had more:

According to local media, rumors are swirling that several groups affiliated with anti-Confederate monument protests across the south are targeting the Civil War battlefield. That site hosts its own Confederate memorial and Confederate cemetery, alongside more than a thousand other memorials marking one of the bloodiest battles in American history.

A Civil War re-enactor forum claimed that a Facebook page appeared last week, calling on Antifa groups near Gettysburg to gather during the anniversary celebration to desecrate Confederate Gettysburg graves, and burn Confederate flags. A local blog also reported threats from Antifa-linked protest groups, and an event on a local website called Burn the Confederate Flag to Trigger Trump Fans.

Both the Facebook pages and the event appear to have been scrubbed. Even so, protesters on both sides of the debate over whether America should embrace the Confederate Flag have squared off at Gettysburg before, so the National Parks Service is taking the rumors seriously.

From Fox News Chris Wallace, who included that local Antifa groups thinks a lot of hoaxers got their fifteen minutes of fame:

The Central Pennsylvania AntiFa group says on its facebook page that such reports are most likely false and smell fishy.

Nevertheless, groups that sought to protect the battlefield from desecration by progressives attended just in case something happened (via Philadelphia Inquirer):

A total of four groups have now applied to exercise their First Amendment rights at the battlefield, said Katie Lawhon, a park spokeswoman.

Two of the groups that are ready to rally may find themselves with time on their hands if a fifth group which hasnt yet applied for a permit doesnt show up.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans and a group called Real 3% Risen have received special use permits for 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday in a special section north of Meades Headquarters, Lawhorn stated.

Blessedly, at the end of the day, nothing happened (via Penn Live):

The handful of people were from the Real 3% Risen group and they said they came in response to the rumors.

[]

The group's members said they were prepared to stay all day to protect the country's monuments and American flags. By noon, they were still the only demonstrators around as streams of visitors passed by to enjoy the park's events.

Government Supporters Storm Venezuela Congress, Injuring Lawmakers

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Well, It Looks Like Progressives Decided Not To Cause Chaos At Gettysburg After All - Townhall

Jim Keady (right) discusses a variety of issues with Kate Triggiano (left) and other committee members.

The highlight of the committee meeting last week was guest speaker Jim Keady. Famous for being told by outgoing Gov. Chris Christie to sit down and shut up during a 2014 press conference, Keady is now running for a seat in New Jerseys 4th Congressional District in an effort to unseat Republican congressman Chris Smith, who has held the seat since 1981.

Keady spoke to members of the committee about his platform and upcoming campaign. He says he plans on running his campaign on an unapologetic, bold progressive platform. He believes the majority of people agree with the progressive platform and that it is just a matter of running an effective campaign to turn out votes.

If you look at the polling, we are on the right side of all of these issues, Keady said.

We just have to get out and talk to people about them.

The committee showed similar enthusiasm toward Keady as it has for other progressive candidates.

We are really excited to have a real progressive running, said Triggiano of Keady.

Progressive candidates like Keady believe securing the demographic of young voters is crucial to winning elections.

On our issues, 18- to 25- year-olds are not agreeing with a conservative Republican agenda, Keady said.

The leaders of the Young Progressives Committee hope that creating the group will keep young people politically active and, therefore, increase voter turnout for progressive candidates.

I think the main purpose is to keep all of these people together and talking, especially young people. I think that for younger people, the progressive platform really resonates with them, said Triggiano.

The dates and times of meetings are posted in advance on the Monmouth County Democrats website or on the Monmouth County Young Progressives Committee Facebook group page.

This article was first published in the June 29-July 6, 2017 print edition of The Two River Times.

Originally posted here:
Monmouth County's Young Progressives Build Forum for Political Engagement - The Two River Times

WASHINGTON

In many ways it seems so simple: Go to a doctor; find out what is wrong, and get a prescription. No bills, no arguments with an insurance company.

As Republicans struggle to devise an alternative to the 2010 health law known as Obamacare, progressives are turning once again to the simplicity of a government-operated, single-payer health care system in which everyone can see a doctor and nobody faces ruinous out-of-pocket costs.

But critics including some analysts and every conservative on the planet say a single-payer health care system is as it seems: too good to be true.

This is Lucy and the football, quipped Thomas Miller, a resident fellow and health care specialist at the Washington-based non-profit American Enterprise Institute. The closer you get, the harder it is to kick it.

Many progressives embraced single-payer last year as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, touted its merits during his presidential run.

Sanders was in Columbus last week making some of those same points.

After we defeat this disastrous Republican health plan, he declared, our job is to go forward and pass Medicare-for-all single-payer system. If every other major country on earth can do it, surely this country can do it as well.

Sanders is hardly alone among progressives. The California state senate last month approved a single-payer model while 112 Democrats in the U.S. House have co-sponsored a single-payer plan financed by taxes instead of premiums, out-of-pocket expenses, and co-pays charged by insurance companies and hospitals.

Most people would be paying less than they are paying now and they would get better health care, said Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who helped design the single-payer plan Sanders promoted last year.

Its a win-win win except if youre a drug company or an insurance company or a hospital, Friedman said.

But Republicans and some analysts dont see it as a win-win. They cite Sanders home state of Vermont, which dropped efforts in 2014 to install a single-payer system after state lawmakers discovered how high they would have to raise taxes.

Critics also note that while the California state senate approved a single-payer plan, the state assembly shelved the idea when the cost was estimated at $200 billion a year.

Vermont is a highly instructive as a case example because the governor and the legislature were so determined to do it, said John E. McDonough, a professor of public health practice at the Harvard School of Public Health. They gave it everything they had and couldnt make it work.

Health care around the world

Supporters of single-payer tend to cite the Canadian Medicare system as the ideal, but there are a wide variety of systems where governments play a role in health care.

In Canada, taxes finance about 71 percent of all health costs and all Canadians are covered. A patient does not pay to see a physician, and the doctor bills the province for the fee.

According to the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation in New York City that analyzes health-care systems throughout the world, more than 60 percent of Canadians also buy private insurance to pay for services not covered by the government, such as vision and dental care and prescription drugs.

Great Britain offers a much more socialized system based on taxes financing a comprehensive system of free physician care and public hospitals. They run the health system like the town of Amherst runs its fire department: Its paid for and if you need it, you use it, Friedman said.

Most industrialized nations such as Canada, Great Britain, Germany and Australia spend less than 12 percent of gross domestic product on health care, while the United States spends 17 percent, according to the Commonwealth Fund. Other industrialized nations also have longer life expectancy and lower rates of infant mortality than the United States.

During his appearance last weekend before 2,200 people in Columbus, Sanders said he lives 50 miles away from Canada; they manage to provide health care to all their people. Go to Germany, go to the U.K., go to Scandinavia, go to France. Every major country understands that in a civilized society, health care must be a right for all people.

Yet most Americans have never warmed to a national health insurance system. In a statewide ballot campaign in California in 1994, less than 27 percent of voters supported adoption of a single-payer system. A similar statewide ballot issue in 2002 in Oregon won the support of just 21.5 percent of the voters.

Although Friedman argues Americans would save money by paying taxes instead of health costs, Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management at Emory University in Atlanta, said Friedman is not even close to being right.

Last year Thorpe, a former Clinton administration official, calculated that Sanders single-payer plan would require the federal government to raise nearly $14 trillion in new revenue during a 10-year-span.

We would need a Value Added Tax for single-payer; youre not going to do that through the income tax, said AEIs Miller. This is make-believe land.

Some results better in U.S.

In determining why America is less healthy than many other countries, the nations obesity rate cant be ignored.

Canada and Great Britain both have obesity rates around 25 percent, or one in four people. Japan is in single digits. Countries like Sweden and Denmark are at 11.7 and 14.2 percent, while the U.S. was 35.3 percent, according to the latest data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The quality of care differs greatly by country, but the American health care system does fare better in some categories.

On sophisticated care, such as cancer treatments, the U.S. system produces substantially better results without the waiting times that plague the Canadian and British systems. The Commonwealth Fund concluded that between 1995 and 2007, cancer mortality rates in the U.S. plummeted at a faster rate than any other major country.

I think if you look at the countries that spend less than us and have better outcomes there are two reasons, said Thorpe. One is they have a better primary care system And second they integrate better and spend more on social services, housing and things like that.

At the specialty level we do very well on different types of cancer and cancer treatments and mortality rates.

Marion Renault of the Columbus Dispatch contributed to this story.

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Progressives tout single-payer as health care alternative - Dayton Daily News

With four Maryland progressive groups holding major events in different parts of the state last weekend, activists had to make tough choices about which activity to attend or rush from one to the other.

Trying to avoid the same problem, another group is rethinking plans to hold a forum for gubernatorial candidates on Sept.9, the day a different coalition of activists is scheduled to march on Washington for racial justice.

The scores of left-leaning organizations that have cropped up since the 2016 election often trip over each other as leaders try to harness a groundswell of opposition to President Trump and Gov. Larry Hogan (R) in a way that could impact the states 2018 election.

In addition to scheduling problems, they have clashed over issues as basic as whether to endorse a candidate early in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, or wait until all the hopefuls have had a chance to campaign.

There always seems to be some kind of conflict, said Betsy Halsey, who chairs United for Maryland, which had proposed the Sept.9 forum. She hastened to add that she thinks the proliferation of groups is good for the progressive movement, and that efforts are underway to improve coordination.

Bob Muehlenkamp, a longtime activist who chairs Our Revolution Maryland, said the leaders of many emerging groups are new to political activity and are strategizing as they go along.

Theyve been very effective with various resistance activities since Trump was elected, but thats not enough, he said. You cant have an effective state legislative program or political program with these groups functioning on their own.

[Our Revolution Md. moves to endorse Jealous for governor]

The Maryland groups are part of a vocal and visible wave of activism that has swept the country since the 2016 election cycle. Progressive organizations fueled the upstart presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and turned the selection of a Democratic National Committee chair after the election into a battle between the partys left and centrist elements. But progressives ultimately lost both battles, with the nomination of Democrat Hillary Clinton and the selection of establishment favorite Tom Perez for DNC chair.

It remains to be seen whether progressive groups in Maryland will succeed in nominating one of their own to challenge Hogan in 2018, or will be able to achieve their other goals of pushing the party to the left in Annapolis and denting the governors sky-high approval ratings.

Im not sure yet how this will play out in the Democratic primary for governor, but I think it means going into the general election that there will be a lot of energy and activity, said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

When progressive and resistance groups have formed a united front, they have often made an impact. For example, several joined forces this year to successfully fight a Baltimore County Council measure that would have required local correctional officers to participate in a federal program to carry out certain immigration-enforcement measures.

Many activist leaders say collaboration will be key to replicating that kind of success in the midterm elections.

We have to demonstrate and write letters to elected representatives, but that has to be backed up by then working on elections, supporting candidates that meet our ideology and even recruiting candidates, said Sheila Ruth, of the Baltimore County Progressive Democrats. In order to do that, we have to work together. Theres a lot at stake here not only the Trump-Republican thing we have to resist, but we want to go beyond that and start to work toward progressive priorities.

Kathleen Matthews, who was tapped by party elders this year to chair the Maryland Democratic Party, has made a point of reaching out to progressives, inviting activists to participate in voter-outreach training sessions and giving Ruth a seat on the organizations diversity leadership council.

Matthews said she sees progressive groups becoming more and more organized despite their disparate efforts.

I see them as rocket fuel to help us move forward our efforts, she said. They have a lot of passion and determination and are working with us in many parts of the state.

State Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D-Montgomery), who has said he will run for governor in 2018 and is courting the progressive vote , said he sees some value in the chaos, as long as the groups are generally pointed in the same direction.

People are bringing their own activism and issues and enthusiasm to the table, he said. Its organic, its exciting, and Id hate for any part of that to be lost because there is a sense that we all have to coalesce around certain issues.

[At least two Democrats seek progressive mantle in Md. governors race]

Similarly, Georgetown University history professor Michael Kazin, who specializes in U.S. politics and social movements, said that movements are messy but tend to succeed because people agree in general what direction to move.

For their part, Maryland Republicans say they are not particularly concerned about the surge in activism, and are focused on their quest to win enough seats in the state Senate to disrupt the Democrats veto-proof majority.

Anger is not a strategy, said state GOP chair Dirk Haire. Were pretty unified, and Ive been working closely with all of our various Republican groups across the state to make sure everyone is on the same page. Republicans arent sitting around in a salon in Takoma Park talking about how bad Trump is. Theyre walking the streets with an app on their phones, figuring out who might vote for us next year.

With just under a year until the Democratic primary, progressive groups disagree over whether and when to endorse one of the candidates vying for the right to challenge Trump.

Some want to hold off until candidates have participated in debates and proven that they can appeal broadly to an electorate, while others plan to endorse early, in part out of concern that the states Democratic leaders move quickly to help centrist candidates win the partys nomination.

We have to make the decision earlier and unite around one candidate and bring in all the resources the money and the people behind them, said Muehlenkamp, of Our Revolution, which on Friday started canvassing its supporters about endorsing Jealous, a former board member. You wont get the establishment Democratic Party to hold off. Theyll get together and quietly come up with whoever theyre going to support.

Groups associated with the Indivisible movement and Women Indivisible Strong Effective, say that endorsing a gubernatorial candidate could hurt their cause in conservative-leaning districts. Their leaders said they will focus instead on educating voters about the voting records of incumbents and where candidates stand on the issues.

If we go issue by issue, theres a lot more room for consensus, said Katherine Bain, a member of the steering committee for WISEs Severna Park chapter. We want to create a wealth of information for people and hopefully avoid this habit of people marking an entire column for either the Ds or the Rs.

Together We Will , which hosted a June24 meeting with progressive leaders from across the state, is working to organize a follow-up session this fall, with the goal of coordinating strategies for the states 2018 legislative session and primary elections.

Additionally, a coalition of activists organizing as the progressive caucus plans to meet July26 to discuss how to better coordinate their efforts.

Theres room for different strategies, Bain said. And well see at the end of the day if that adds up to more progressive candidates winning elections.

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Maryland progressive groups learn that 'movements are messy ... - Washington Post