A lot of times over the past 30 or 40 years, progressives have been marginalized. For example, the roll-back-the-clock paradigm as defined and designed by the neo-cons and neo-liberals of the 1980s and 1990s have until recently dominated to such a degree and timely turnouts in voting down bad politicians and bad leaders of bad legislation have occurred with such regularity that main-stream media has too often easily marginalized us and our concerns at home and abroad. Finally, to the degree that this roll-back-the-clock phenomenon has often been a farce in fact (like when W. Bush or Ronald Reagan talked about less big government while quadrupling defense and security spending) , we progressives have not been able to raise and maintain a united vision to stop these adverse visions of the American dream--a dream built on credit card, student, and national debt while maintaining a high dependence on very high levels of military and homeland security spending just to keep some citizens employed.
As an antidote to all this misdirection, mis-spending, and failing paradigm, i.e. roll back the clock, built on illusions about our past, present and future, I suggest that our progressive future may need to start with our taking the bull by the horn and stating clearly to all of America (and to the world) that we, too, have a roll-back-the-clock vision for America.
This roll-back-the-clock vision for America should include:
(1) A foreign policy truly based on human rights and the funding of development that promotes the poorest and neediest first. This policy must be an empowering one for those who receive aid--and military aid and military posturing will not be the basis for this aid or development (nor will it be the rationale for empowering others). We will base these practices on real needs on the ground and not on some fantasy neo-con nor neo-liberal vision of the future. Democracy will be promoted through education but not by using NSA nor CIA secreted monies and projects to undertake these efforts.
(2) Related to the foreign policy, will be a drastic reduction in monies and finances for military bases and outposts around the globe. According to recent estimates, the Department of Defense alone owns nearly 10 trillion dollars in property, such as golf courses, shooting ranges, parks, housing, cinemas, resorts, and barracks around the world. Tiny islands, like Okinawa, parts of Germany, Diego Garcia, and Guam are overrun by such overspending. In short, we progressives have a vision to start a sale of properties to pay down overspending of the past few decades. This will improve our national debt ratio immensely. Moreover, it can make our military forces leaner and stronger by training all to think more efficiently when using government resources.
(3) Domestic spending as well as effective international aid must be increased to transform the USA into an economy to compete with a developing Chinese, Latin American, African, and European economies. This will not be done the quickest way, which often leads to sending jobs overseas, but by investing in people and infrastructure at home. The most important step is in terms better investments in education and in global warming-gas reductions. These latter investments would include better transportation systems, better internet access nationally (so more people can work at home regardless of where they live), renewable energy, such as from wind, water, and sun.
(4) A goal of building a great society should be re-undertaken slowly but surely. We can start with universal healthcare coverage by everyone everywhere on USA soil--i.e. regardless of which state one lives and regardless of whether you are a legal resident or not. Next, we can focus on investing in job training and giving investment vouchers to boost local development. States could receive matching funds but this should always be a race to the top not to the bottom as has been the case of state-centered federal dollars in the past.
(5) Immigration issues must be settled in a way that does not exploit workers or which fails to educate and take care of immigrant children and aging immigrants properly. Immigration is a family issue, like health care and social justice. Our interests include property housing, access to good education, the creation of more powerful internet access anywhere in America, and increased democratic modes of participation in society. Importantly, more legal immigrants will require greater infrastructures and the creation of these will boost the USA economy as well as assist families of immigrants abroad to do better.
(6) We need to cut up some of the largest banks and financial service firms, which have recklessly endangered our present. We need to return to saner practices of decades gone by and promote renegotiation of debt on behalf of the poor and victims of bad banks. Bankruptcy laws and banking laws must serve people above all else. In this global and local trusts in banks will grow and speculation in gold and other markets will be diminished.
(7) As far as international treaties and the international court goes, America must rejoin the systems of treaties of nations and stop pretending that a might-makes-right attitude in and outside the USA is good for America. We cannot simply look at a treaty as a piece of paper to be tossed in the garbage but as a legal document. American exceptionalism before the world in terms of torture and war crimes must be rolled back. We need return to the decades when leaders like Eleanor Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter put human rights foremost in our relationships with other states. Moreover, we must return to the 1976 era when we told the CIA to get out of the Angola civil war--and the CIA did what it was told. (We need to return to the era when both the CIA and the NSA knew not to work very much --if at all--on American soil. )
In short, our progressive roll-back-the-clock movement lead America to return to ages of greater law and order. We will bring other progressive dreams back to steer the nation still further. Americans need, for example, to depend on their own government not trying to kill them when they were overseas or to send in undercover agents to the peace planning meetings of everyday concerned citizens.
By rolling back the clock on injustices, we (and our children) will experience an America where cases of war criminality are tried in court and not by drone attacks from above. We could even offer up former presidents, vice-presidents, defense secretaries, lawyers and others up to the International Court in the Hague to show our contrition to the world and immediately take real acts of remorse--paying indemnity to victims of drone attacks--in order to commit for public example our progressive dream of turning from our ways (turning back the clock) and renewing America within and without.
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