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Stephen Heller 30 Etudes Progressives op.46 4 by alice zhang
2014.5.9.

By: jing zhu

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Stephen Heller 30 Etudes Progressives op.46 4 by alice zhang - Video

The In Anemas gas plant, Algeria, seen from the air. It was attacked by Islamists in January 2013.

A beheading in Woolwich, a suicide bomb in Beijing, a blown-up marathon in Boston, a shooting in the head of a young Pakistani girl seeking education, a destroyed shopping mall in Nairobi and so it continues, in the name of Islam, from south London to Timbuktu. It is time to take stock, especially on the left, since these things are part of the worlds daily round.

Leave aside the parrot-cry of Islamophobia for a moment. I will return to it. Leave aside, too, the pretences that it is all beyond comprehension. Progressives might ask instead: what do Kabul, Karachi, Kashmir, Kunming and a Kansas airport have in common? Is it that they all begin with K? Yes. But all of them have been sites of recent Islamist or, in the case of Kansas, of wannabe-Islamist, attacks; at Wichita Airport planned by a Muslim convert ready to blow himself up, and others, in support of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. We cannot stop lone wolves, a British counterterrorism expert told us after Woolwich. Are they lone? Of course not.

A gas facility in southern Algeria, a hospital in Yemen, an Egyptian police convoy in the Sinai its complex all right a New Years party in the southern Philippines, a railway station in the Caucasus, a bus terminal in Nigerias capital, and on and on, have all been hit by jihadis, with hostages taken, suicide belts detonated, cars and trucks exploded, and bodies blown to bits. And Flight MH370? Perhaps. In other places in Red Square and Times Square, in Jakarta and New Delhi, in Amman and who-knows-where in Britain attacks have been thwarted. But in 2013 some 18 countries gotit in the neck (so to speak) from Islams holy warriors.

There are battlefields and battlefields in this conflict. Some are theatres of actual orpotential civil war, most often when Sunnis and Shias are at each others throats on behalf, respectively, of Saudi Arabia andIran. Other battlefields are in failed or failing Muslim states, others again where the infidel has unwisely intruded upon and assaulted Muslim lands. At the same time, weapons and warriors are in constant movement in Islams cause across dissolving national boundaries, many of themof western colonialisms creation. And in India, with its 175 million Muslims, their mujahedin will be in action soonenough if Hindu nationalists come to power this month.

Jihadist groups, from Pakistan to the Philippines, also fight each other. But for the most part they are consolidating and expanding often as affiliates of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in the Maghreb, in Somalia and Kenya, in Iraq and Syria, in Gaza, in Bangladesh and in south-east Asia. There are separatist or secessionist Islamic insurgencies, too, from Russias Caucasus to north-west China, in southern Thailand, in Burma, in northern Nigeria and in divided Kashmir.

Warriors for Islam, believing that they areunder infidel threat, today range an increasingly frontier-less world. Thats globalisation too. A car-bombing in New York which failed was planned by a Pakistani-American trained in a tribal area ofnorthern Waziristan. Many would-be warriors from western countries learned their skills from Taliban instructors, going on to fight in Iraq as they now fight inSyria. There, ubiquitous Bearers of the Sword and Defenders of the Faith from Britain and France, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, Indonesia and Kazakhstan, and evenUighurs from Chinese Xinjiang, are to befound armed to the teeth in the battle against Assad while being trained for future combat in their countries of origin.

In the Islamist merry-go-round, jihadis from Libya after the countrys collapse went on to Syria, Tunisian holy warriors crossed into Mali, Egyptian and Canadian Muslim fighters were among the attackers on the refinery in Algeria, and Somalis from Minnesota have returned home to join al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda affiliate that carried out the Kenyan mall attack. Ugandan Islamists are in eastern Congo, and a Malaysian army captain was linked to two of the 9/11 hijackers. Beat this? No.

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Latitude Festival

Progressivism is a political movement that represents the interests of ordinary people in their roles as taxpayers, consumers, employees, citizens, and parents. To coin a phrase, progressivism champions government "of the people, by the people, for the people."Given this mission, one might expect all democracies to be made up predominantly of one or another Progressive parties. Unfortunately, this isn't the case.

Economic elites emerge in every society and invariably seek to promote their own interests, all too often against those of taxpayers, consumers, employees, citizens, and parents. By definition, economic elites enjoy greater wealth, and therefore influence, than the ordinary citizen, and they typically attempt to exploit these advantages politically, using them as leverage to obtain still greater wealth and influence. And since the desire for wealth and power is rarely satisfied, there tend to be recurring cycles of concentrated political and economic power, together with the corruption that always attends these. One such cycle of corruption was seen in the United States around the turn of the 20th century, culminating in the economic crash of 1929. At the turn of the 21st century, the US is in the midst of another.

Progressives are typically portrayed in the corporate mass media as being "far left," a characterization which is grossly misleading. It should never be forgotten that virtually the entirety of the mass media are owned by the ultrawealthy, and objective studies have shown, for example, that corporate representatives outnumber labor representives in the mass media by enormous margins (by one count 27 to 1).

Thus, the impression that Progressives are "far left" arises largely because the elitist mass media simplistically, and falsely, portrays American politics as being a one-dimensional split between "liberals" and "conservatives." In fact, American politics are far more complex, and can't be properly understood unless we add (at least) one more dimension: elitism vs. populism. When we do add this additional dimension, it becomes clearer that many self-styled "conservatives" are in fact ultrawealthy economic elitists who have little in common with cultural conservatives or cultural liberals, and that their distance from the political center is much greater by far than the distance of Progressives, whose views, when accurately represented, are far more mainstream than those of virtually any elitist. (See the linked diagram for the true political spectrum.) Indeed, polls have shown that many of the most important Progressive goals are endorsed by large majorities of the American populace on both the left and the right (as high as 95%).

This misportrayal of Progressivism has been intentionally cultivated because US economic elites typically seek to exploit highly emotional "wedge" issues on which cultural conservatives and cultural liberals differ most, so as to elicit the political and economic support of cultural conservatives. For this reason, it has become customary for pseudoconservative elitist politicians to pose as strong backers of American values. Yet sadly, when this type of individual is elected, cultural liberals and cultural conservatives both lose out, and the most fundamental American values are undermined.

For example, pseudoconservative elitist George Bush portrayed himself as a champion of education. However, a general rule of thumb is that real political priorities, as opposed to political posturing, can be judged by what a president spends money on; and as president he did nothing to increase funding for education. Instead, he cut taxes (primarily among the wealthy) that might have funded such increases, shifted remaining spending to "defense," which benefitted conservative investors and underwrote aggressive foreign policy adventures for the sake of large corporations, and sent out his wife, and posed for photo opportunities himself, so as to present himself as the champion he falsely claimed to be. To choose another example, he talked a great deal about imaginary jobs while millions of real American jobs were exported to other countries, all to benefit his wealthy friends. He also talked about the value and importance of hard work, even as he sought to strip millions of Americans of overtime pay.

Few Americans would have endorsed Bush's actual policies on these issues, and a great many others, if they had been better informed concerning them, while few Americans would find much to object to in the typical platform of Progressive candidates.

Our primary resource concerning Progressivism may be found here. For further details concerning Progressivism, we recommend The World of Hope: Progressives and the Struggle for an Ethical Public Life, by David B. Danbom. This study emphasizes the connection between Progressivism, core American values, and the difficulties confronting attempts to bring those values to bear on politics in the face of recalcitrant and corrupting business and financial sectors.

(See also: class conflict, democracy, populism, plutocracy, oligarchy, globalization and the links below.)

"What an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base."

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Progressivism - Progressive Living

Published: Friday, May 9, 2014 at 4:38 p.m. Last Modified: Friday, May 9, 2014 at 4:38 p.m.

Joe Trippi, the legendary Democratic consultant, is not part of any right-wing cabal. So its noteworthy that when it comes to private school vouchers and charter schools and other forms of parental choice, he says, We should try them all.

Trippi told me this in a recent interview, after describing how he grew up on the wrong side of a school zone, on the side where too many kids joined gangs and dropped out of school. The school board made an exception for him, but only because his mom raised hell. Now hes haunted by those left behind.

I relay Trippis story in response to Daniel Tilsons column, Fight public school privatization. A dominant thread in the piece is a common myth: that parental choice is the brainchild of the radical right.

The truth is, practical concerns of parents are driving the movement, not ideology. But because ideology is warping so much of the debate, I want to address that first.

Tilson is right that many conservatives like parental choice. He references George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Neil Bush, shadowy business interests and the Republican Party of Florida. At least he didnt throw in the Koch Brothers! But the inconvenient truth for this line of argument is growing numbers of progressives like parental choice, too.

President Obama loves charter schools. So does former President Clinton. A few weeks ago, Howard Dean told college students he was now a die-hard for charters because theyre transforming inner city education.

New Jerseys new U.S. Senator, Democrat Cory Booker, unapologetically supports vouchers. So does Mike MCurry, Clintons former press secretary. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren may not, yet, but here is what she said about a universal system of public school choice: An all-voucher system would be a shock to the educational system. But the shakeout might be just what the system needs.

In these polarized times, its nice to see folks from across the political spectrum agreeing on anything. But contrary to Tilsons characterization, progressives have long supported expansion of learning options.

During the civil rights movement, activists established alternatives to segregated, second-rate schools. In the 1960s, liberal intellectuals at Berkeley led the voucher left. The late Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once crafted a tuition tax credit measure that garnered 50 co-sponsors, including Sen. George McGovern and 23 other Democrats. In a fortuitous twist, parental choice dovetails as much with progressive values of equal opportunity as with conservative values of limited government.

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Ron Matus: Progressives are embracing school vouchers

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at the Capitol in Washington on Feb. 27. Sanders, who has said he may run for president in 2016, is scheduled to attend an event in Iowa this month. (AP)Progressives in Iowa seem happy to have received word that Vermont's U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is taking his exploration of running for president seriously as news this week surfaced that he'll be traveling to the state later this month to attend a high-profile political event.

According to reports, Sanders will be the keynote speaker on May 17 at the 'Hall of Fame Dinner' hosted by the Clinton County Democrats in the town of Goose Lake, Iowa. The event, which honors local political activism, is described as the group's largest social event and fundraiser of the year.

Sanders made headlines earlier this year when he gave interviews to several national news outlets and said he was seriously considering a run for president in 2016 and called for the need for "political revolution" in the country.

Responding news of the upcoming visit, Jeff Cox, a member of the local Progressive Democrats of America chapter and former chair of the Johnson County Democrats, said he was thrilled, telling the Sioux City Journal that Sanders represents the kind of New Deal Democratic approach to economics that has been lost to the Democratic Party, particularly under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

The Iowa group of Progressive Democrats, in fact, is holding its first "Draft Bernie Sanders for President" campaign event Thursday night in Iowa City.

Similar to many others at the national level, Cox described a possible run by Sanders as an important challenge from the left to the likely candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

Like Obama now, indicated Cox, Clinton is too closely tied to Wall Street interests and, if elected, would likely continue noxious foreign policies such as the "drone war," "assassinations" abroad, and holding people indefinitely "without due process."

Nationally, the Progressive Democrats of America is actively lobbying for Sanders to run for president inside the Democratic Party as a way to challenge Clinton and others. Currently, though officially an Independent in the Senate and known as the chambers only confessed democratic socialist, Sanders caucuses with the Democratic majority.

This weekend, Sanders is scheduled to attend a memorial service in Massachusetts for Tim Carpenter, co-founder of the Progressive Democrats of America, who recently passed after a battle with cancer.

In a March interview with The Nation's John Nichols, Sanders said he was interested in what progressives at the grassroots level thought about his running inside or outside the Democratic Party. He acknowledged the potential upside and possible pitfalls related with both paths.

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Progressives Welcome Iowa Visit for Bernie Sanders