It is time to take back the language and define Responsible Progressives versus Self-Centered, Destructive Regressive Right Wing Extremists

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(Article originally published here on October 22, 2005)

I'm re-publishing an article I wrote in 2005. Outside of the candidates in New Jersey, not much has changed. I'm adding some comments in italics.

As usual, the right wing extremists have taken charge of the language, the words that describe who WE are. They've perverted the word LIBERAL and have turned it into a nasty aspersion. But the response on the left has been VERY healthy and unlike in the past, the new generation of lefties is not extreme, not far left. We are reasonable, responsible, patriotic and more concerned than ever that the true extremists--the Republicans who have been taken over by far right religious zealots and self-centered, destructive lobbyists and corporate lobbyists who are doing irreparable damage to our nation.

The nice thing about the word that we now use to describe the 21st century version of a left leaning opposite of a right winger is it has an opposite. Just like the right hand has a "contralateral" opposing hand, the left hand-- the word PROGRESSIVE has it's oppositional counterpart and that word is REGRESSIVE. It's a natural, pre-existing pairing of word functions which more accurately describes 21st century politics.

The right wing is no longer conservative-- seeking to maintain the old order, seeking fiscal stability and balance. The right wing is regressive, self-centered and destructive, aiming to move backwards, seeking to produce the same kind of states of imbalance that existed over 100 years ago, or even 500 years ago, when children worked as laborers, when women were not allowed to vote, when feudal lords ran communities where serfs had few rights or privileges and were always on the verge of financial collapse, at the mercy of the lords of the manor.

The right wing has become so extreme that the current "middle" has been skewed so far to the right that "centrists" are now, really, right wingers. That doesn't leave room for moderates in the Republican party. It doesn't leave room for centrists in the Democratic party, since today's centrists are really espousing Republicans policies and values. The most natural home, at the beginning of the 21st century is with progressives.

Even more important than the language is the TRUTH that most progressives are not extreme "leftists." The change in politics has mostly occurred on the right. The Republican party has been hijacked by extremist, far right-wing zealot multimillionaire religious leaders who have hijacked and perverted the teachings of Jesus, misleading and misguiding their "flocks" to support wrong-headed, unchristian policies and politicians.

These megachurch and televangelist demonizers of Christianity have worked hand-in-hand with right wing pundits and corporate lobbyists to cobble together a platform of irresponsible policies that are severely injuring American democracy, diplomacy, commerce and industry, jobs and workers, ecology, education, and ability to take care of and protect America.

That would be bad enough, but there are also far too many centrist Democrats who have become too chummy with the corporate lobbyists. They've sold out too many times, no longer holding true to their responsibilities to their constituents. Hubris is rampant in the White House and in the centrist realms of the Democratic party.

The greatest strength of today's Democratic party is coming from the progressives. The right wing, regressive, Republican extremists know this and hit the hardest with their attacks on Democrats running for office, calling them liberal, attacking anyone who is supported by Moveon, the most visible progressive organization. The right wingers have imbibed so much of their partisan power Kool Aid that they now believe that Democrats don't have a place at the table, period. This is best exemplified by indicted former house majority leader Tom DeLay's effort to force the judge handling his case because he is a democrat who has supported Moveon. This is totally inappropriate. Does this mean, that I, as an activist, if I get a traffic ticket I want to contest, can demand to know the political leanings of the judge I go before, and that I have the right to demand he recuse himself?

In New Jersey, perhaps the biggest political race in November, between Jon Corzine and Doug Forrester, we see Forrester reverting to what has become an almost mindless right wing mantra--accusing Corzine of being a tax and spend liberal. It's a shame that Corzine's response has been to come back just accusing Forrester of misdeeds. (just as today's centrist, soulless Democrats do,) The one thing Corzine may be doing right is associating Forrester with Bush on other issues, like Stem Cell research and labeling Forrester as a millionaire who has gotten rich working with a bad health care system making money off of pharmaceutical companies who are overcharging millions of Americans. Maybe he should be going further, attacking Forrester as a supporter of far right wing extremist policies that are killing workers, keeping American education below top levels, destroying the environment, eviscerating our ability to defend ourselves from foreign and natural threats.

We have to start hitting back when right wing extremists use their mindless, getting too-old, catch phrases. And we should have ready answers for them. Liberal tax and spend is their way of describing responsible, budget balancing, job building, people protecting and supporting policies that Bill Clinton proved were good for Americans rich and poor.

The DLC centrists are also getting more desperate, churning out anti-left, anti-liberal, anti-progressive propaganda, labeled as think tank reports, claiming that liberals and progressives hurt the chances of Democratic party success. Like Mark Twain observed about statistics--"lies and more damn lies."

A great word to use to describe and argue for the moderate nature of progressive policies and positions is RESPONSIBLE. Tough progressive policies will advocate a responsible leadership--responsible to constituents, responsible to the needs of America, not the interests of lobbyists and transnational corporations. These include:

-responsible dealings with national security and terrorism threats

--pulling out of wars that were started and that are being maintained for bad reasons.

-responsible appointment of highly competent, deserving, based on merit and experience, leaders to positions of high power and responsibility in government agencies, departments and posts, rather than partisan maggots politically engineered without the interests of the nation, of justice or democratic principles in mind.

-balanced budget financial responsibility,

-visionary energy science, technology and management, responsibly looking to a future where fossil fuels are saved for non-energy purposes, like drugs, plastics, etc.

-taking responsibility for health care for all, like the rest of the first world, taking the burden of exploding health care costs off of corporations who are losing their competitive capabilities in the world markets because of congressional pandering to health care insurers and big pharma,

-responsible, future-looking ecological and environmental husbandry

-rehabilitation of our diplomatic reputation by responsible international citizenship

-responsible management of our trade, including protection of our industries and workers-- rather than the un-natural totally open, un-obstructed trade policies we now engage in.

-responsible compassionate caring for the have-nots, the people real Christians know, deep in their hearts, we should not be forsaking, as the Bush Republicans have so shamefully, even sinfully, done.

-re-instate regulations that were terminated for the benefit of corporations. Make laws that are responsible to humans, not the monster mega-corporations that show no loyalty to the USA, betraying workers and industries, every day, exporting jobs, technology investments, sourcing.

-rescue education by demanding responsible teaching strategies and a school work ethic that creates learning environments that produce students who can compete in a world market where the US's students are trailing woefully behind. Instead of making students memorize, teach them to think, to learn, to ask questions to engage in dialogue, to challenge everything.

-taking responsibility for the peace of mind of the elderly and aging by making sure that social security is not turned into stock market gambling, and making sure that corporate pension programs are adequately funded, that before corporations pay out bonuses and dividends that they prove they have put aside enough money to cover the pensions and other responsibilities they have made obligations to fulfill.

Here are a few I'll add to the list:

-make gerrymandering illegal

-Pass federal laws making state regulations that suppress voting illegal-- and define what that suppression looks like. Register every voter automatically when they turn 18. Void all laws that take away voter rights from former prisoners.

-make all electronic, computerized and on-line voting illegal. Only paper, fully verifiable and re-countable ballots are acceptable

-Medicare for all. End the death-sentence corporate illness system that is the shame of the USA. Separate healthcare from employment, freeing millions of people who are virtually enslaved by companies and some unions because they can't lose their health care.

-Free tuition at state and local government owned colleges and universities.

-reverse Citizens United. Take big money out of politics. Put term limits of three terms on House members. Reduce senate terms to three years and limit them to two terms. Make it illegal for former legislators to take any lobbyist jobs for five years after leaving office.

-end corporate personhood. Institute a corporate death penalty and apply it to repeat corporate criminal offenders. Make corporate actions that lead to deaths or massive pollution a crime warranting the death penalty.

-Take the income tax back to what it was under Eisenhower-- 92%, and eliminate the cap on social security tax income, including assessing it on all forms of income, including investments.

-Make it a crime to be or become a billionaire. Limit wealth to $100 or $200 million. Start by heavily taxing inheritance-- call it the 'dynasty tax' Success is good, but we've learned that extreme wealth is incredibly dangerous to humanity and the planet. No human needs to own a $120 million painting or house, or a $400 million yacht. Anyone who is not motivated by $100 million has something wrong with him or her. Success can and should be measured, beyond $100 million in wealth, in terms of doing good, of helping the people and the planet.

-Put term limits on senators, congressmen-- two three year terms. Put term limits on supreme court justices-- nine years.

-Break up too-big media organizations-- It used to be a low that these could not exist. Re-instate those laws. Start by breaking up Sinclair.

-Break up too-big companies. Big is dangerous. I've written a series of articles on this: "Small is Better than Big; small acts, world, economics, lifestyles, solutions, activism"

On the other hand, there are a lot of Democrats nowadays, in Washington D.C., who are to the right of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and unfortunately outrageously, they are superdelegates and in the Democratic leadership. They should not be there at all. Some will say the Democratic party is beyond redemption. That may be true. But right now, there is an opportunity to repudiate these sellout shill Democrats, whether it's by primarying every Dem superdelegate who voted for Hillary or by voting independent or Green.

Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

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Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

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