This is Your /Our Story -- The Progressive Story of America

POSTED BY: Connorflynn
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 1, 2004 21:34
VIEWED: 1102
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CONNORFLYNN

Monday, November 29, 2004 9:30 PM

I got this from my Uncle-In-law and thought I'd share. This is a pretty interesting read. Bill makes some good points.

by Bill Moyers

In one way or another, this is the oldest story in America: the struggle to determine whether "we, the people" is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality -- one nation, indivisible -- or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others.

Let me make it clear that I don't harbor any idealized notion of politics and democracy; I worked for Lyndon Johnson, remember? Nor do I romanticize "the people." You should read my mail -- or listen to the vitriol virtually spat at my answering machine. I understand what the politician meant who said of the Texas House of Representatives, "If you think these guys are bad, you should see their constituents."

But there is nothing idealized or romantic about the difference between a society whose arrangements roughly serve all its citizens and one whose institutions have been converted into a stupendous fraud. That difference can be the difference between democracy and oligarchy.

Look at our history. All of us know that the American Revolution ushered in what one historian called "The Age of Democratic Revolutions." For the Great Seal of the United States the new Congress went all the way back to the Roman poet Virgil: Novus Ordo Seclorum" -- "a new age now begins." Page Smith reminds us that "their ambition was not merely to free themselves from dependence and subordination to the Crown but to inspire people everywhere to create agencies of government and forms of common social life that would offer greater dignity and hope to the exploited and suppressed" -- to those, in other words, who had been the losers. Not surprisingly, the winners often resisted. In the early years of constitution-making in the states and emerging nation, aristocrats wanted a government of propertied "gentlemen" to keep the scales tilted in their favor. Battling on the other side were moderates and even those radicals harboring the extraordinary idea of letting all white males have the vote. Luckily, the weapons were words and ideas, not bullets. Through compromise and conciliation the draftsmen achieved a Constitution of checks and balances that is now the oldest in the world, even as the revolution of democracy that inspired it remains a tempestuous adolescent whose destiny is still up for grabs. For all the rhetoric about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," it took a civil war to free the slaves and another hundred years to invest their freedom with meaning. Women only gained the right to vote in my mother's time. New ages don't arrive overnight, or without "blood, sweat, and tears."

You know this. You are the heirs of one of the country's great traditions -- the progressive movement that started late in the l9th century and remade the American experience piece by piece until it peaked in the last third of the 20th century. I call it the progressive movement for lack of a more precise term. Its aim was to keep blood pumping through the veins of democracy when others were ready to call in the mortician. Progressives exalted and extended the original American revolution. They spelled out new terms of partnership between the people and their rulers. And they kindled a flame that lit some of the most prosperous decades in modern history, not only here but in aspiring democracies everywhere, especially those of western Europe.

Step back with me to the curtain-raiser, the founding convention of the People's Party -- better known as the Populists -- in 1892. The members were mainly cotton and wheat farmers from the recently reconstructed South and the newly settled Great Plains, and they had come on hard, hard times, driven to the wall by falling prices for their crops on one hand and racking interest rates, freight charges and supply costs on the other. This in the midst of a booming and growing industrial America. They were angry, and their platform --

PIRATEJENNY

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 11:08 AM

we the people have the power not just here in America..but everywhere around the world..its always been so..demcoracy and progressive movements in this country didn't just happen ..that is the truth..people fought for anything good thats ever happened alot of people even died..thats always been the way..(always)..its a sad fact but thats how it is..time passes and people get comfortable ..and the struggle begins again..things gained are lost..and you have to fight all over one step forward one step back..everything has a price

there are always going to be power hungry people out there..

partly the way we belive and what we think of as democracy is an illusion..but I suspect the illusions serves its purpose..

the larger problem is that those in power, find more advance ways of keeping power , of manipulating the masses..and we can't keep up...progressive people and movements can't keep up.. thats the bigger problem now

Democracy may not be a lie ..but its never really been the truth either

HERO

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 9:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by piratejenny:
partly the way we belive and what we think of as democracy is an illusion..but I suspect the illusions serves its purpose..

Its not an illusion. Its FAITH. Thats why liberals have such a problem with it.

Quote:

Democracy may not be a lie ..but its never really been the truth either

The truth is that our nation is not perfect. It is merely more perfect...says so in the design specs for those what care to read.

H