That understanding is essential to the spread of uprisings and movements like the one that has developed in Wisconsin....
Make no mistake: What is often referred to simply as “Wisconsin” has spread. And it will continue to spread if activists in other states go to their own histories for inspiration.
Every state has radical roots....
In each state, we need to reclaim our progressive history, honor this heritage, and celebrate its continual life. There should be yearly progressive festivals in every state to invoke this unique collective progressive memory....
The empowerment comes from sensing that we are a part of something constant and strong.
June 25, 2011
"Few states have done so good a job as Wisconsin when it comes to retaining a sense of a distinct radical history."
Says John Nichols at The Progressive:
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Lest we forget "The Junior Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy."
And, then, later on, Fuss Feingold getting booted out of office.
Claims to "progessive" fame? Seems an odd coincidence, then, that all sorts of people get elected.
And, the "rule of incumbency" goes down the toilet. When they're booted out of office.
"unique collective progressive memory"
unique : collective as progressive : memory
Is this some sort of twisted logic test?
Those festivals don't sound like a lot of fun, but they also sound like something that's supposed to be supported at this blog: free speech. If people want to get together to celebrate that a bunch of labor union activists and socialists got beat up by Pinkertons a century ago, more power to them. I'd rather spend my free time at a nice restaurant or a concert, however.
Funny, if I remember there were a number of states back in the 1800s that embraced their distinct radical history. They were hardly progressive though.
To me, Nichols just sounds stupid, but if I have to choose one of the provided categories, I'd go with creepy-stupid, what with all that communist collective nonsense.
"To me, Nichols sounds" ... cheesy.
"If people want to get together to celebrate that a bunch of labor union activists and socialists got beat up by Pinkertons a century ago, more power to them"
If there were re-enactments at the festivals, it would be a lot more fun.
The Progressive...the same rag whose editor Matthew Rotschild whined the following recently:
Wisconsin Demoralized, Demobilized
"The mood in Wisconsin is dejected.
After a string of defeats, first losing the state supreme court race against David Prosser, then losing the decision at the state supreme court on the anti-collective bargaining law, and finally losing the vote on Walker’s hideous budget in the state legislature, people are down.
People see that Walker won everything big that he asked for, and despite all the great activism, we don’t have anything to show for it—at least not yet. As a result, lots of people are going to suffer.
The mass protests that I expected this week at the capitol in Madison did not materialize. On Tuesday, there were maybe 5,000 people there. On Thursday, barely 1,000. I’m sorry, but that was pathetic."
Hilarious
Leave us alone. Politics doesn't need to stick its smelly fingers into yet more of our lives.
Nichols:
"What is often referred to simply as “Wisconsin” has spread. And it will continue to spread if activists in other states go to their own histories for inspiration."
"Wisconsin" is like crabs?
If there were re-enactments at the festivals, it would be a lot more fun.
Very true. And if they also sold brats (if we're talking about Wisconsin - that is a local delicacy, right?) at the festivals, I might change my mind and attend.
Fighting Bob Fest
"Fighting Bob Fest is an annual Chautauqua featuring progressive speakers, networking opportunities, and entertainment. Fighting Bob Fest carries on the tradition of Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette by providing a forum for progressive ideas on issues facing Wisconsin and the nation.
Freedom and justice are defended through education, and the exchange of ideas promotes solidarity among progressives. To this end, Fighting Bob Fest strives to provide citizens with a forum for democratic participation where frustrations with current policies can be constructively molded into calls to action. "
I wonder what the entertainment is like? Giant puppets, drum circles?
You forgot the "boring" or "predictable" choices so I didn't have anything to vote for.
". . . delusional." would be best.
wv: actiessy Activism for lazy sissies on etsy?
Is this John Nichols related to the John Nichols who wrote "The Milagro Beanfield War"?
It was well written, and I thought it was a pity that so much talent was wasted to write such twaddle.
Mr. Nichols apparently isn't familiar with the Rainbow Family.
Nichols inhabits a fantasy world like most libs. It is a world where govt budgets for schools etc can just grow and grow and grow. Fortunately for us non-libs, the lib fantasies are usually interrupted by their arch-rival who is that dastardly villain named Basic Arithmetic.
"If there were re-enactments at the festivals, it would be a lot more fun."
Oh! Oh! Can I play the Justice Prosser role?
" ... if people want to get together to celebrate that a bunch of labor union activists and socialists got beat up by Pinkertons a century ago, more power to them ... [to] ... if there were re-enactments at the festivals, it would be a lot more fun...”
Great riffs. Both ways.
Just finished watching one of my favorite movies, “3:10 to Yuma” (Bale/Crowe) for the dozenth time. Heroes, Pinkertons, outlaws, bankers damming water rights, balled-up whores (Charlie Princess), wanna-be-bad adolescents, Railroad barons, sheriffs and posses turned double-crossing cowards, sweating coolies, railroad labor bosses in need of more “Negros,” prostitute moms and barmaids in hotel and at-home beds, little kids with coughs against diseases of the world, hard core killers with crucifixes molded into six-shooter handles, “that gun’s gotta curse on it” ...
... and I’ll be damned if it still isn’t hard to tell bad guys from good ones.
In each state, we need to reclaim our progressive history, honor this heritage, and celebrate its continual life. There should be yearly progressive festivals in every state to invoke this unique collective progressive memory....
And we could create a special town in each state specifically for this purpose and we could call it...
Oh, I dunno, do all the states have a slot for, "Nuremburg"?
It doesn't sound creepy or evil to me.
Just a little wishful and sad.
For the first time I see what I believe is a lob sided poll here.
I have to see a man about a pick up game ;)
BTW.. I'm all for doubling down on progressive radicalism.
Every state may have its radical roots, but sooner or later every state runs out of other people's money to spend.
Oh wait.. sorry about that.
I red the last poll entry as "fantastic".
My bad.
Maybe folks in Wisconsin should hang some Wobblies off a rail road bridge?
How about that progressive act of resistance in Wisconsin history wherein the progressives blew up a building killing one, wounded several and terrorized thousand and not to mention costed millions? Now that's progressive.
Will the festivals also celebrate eugenics and Prohibition?
I see they don't have a comment section for readers to comment.
I guess that would be too radical.
Nichols majored in journalism. That puts his intelligence in question.
So can the rest of us also relive OUR history by sending the cops in to crack some heads?
Please, oh pretty please,..?
Why can't I vote for "creepy AND fascistic"?
Wikipedia sez that the Republican Party was born in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854 as a coalition of anti-slavery Whigs and Free Soil Democrats.
Being against slavery was radical for its time, so hey, maybe the author was right about Wisconsin having "a distinct radical history."
I don't blame these radicals or wanting to bathe in past glories..
If you got trounced at the polls as convincingly, you might want to go on a time machine too.
You know what?
Fantastic as a description of the article would have suit just fine.
Asking people to look back on a fantasy.
I would love for them to start celebrating their progressive history more. It will tear down one of the few remaining veils they have left between most Americans and the progressive's seriously dark origins and beliefs.
One thought occurs. Can it be considered a progressive movement if it's looking backwards?
I don't think what happened in Wisconsin is an "uprising." You'd need to have a significant percentage of the people participating, and that didn't happened. It was a lot of things, but it wasn't "democracy" and it wasn't an uprising.
Funny how those "progressives" seem to keep forgetting that the Democrats invented Jim Crow laws. That was part of their distinct radical history too.
Progressively higher taxes.
Progressively more oppression in the name of the war on drugs and "homeland security."
A world with progressively fewer choices in the name of protecting us from ourselves.
Progressively lower standards in education, creating progressively more ignorant children with progressively lower expectations.
That's progessive.
I voted "festive" but would've voted "wishful thinking" if there was that choice. I didn't read the article, but c'mon, the quote is not fascistic or even creepy.
Can it be considered a progressive movement if it's looking backwards?
he he he..
Coulter points out in her book Demonic that mobs notoriously posses and strongly defend concurrently contradicting views.
They have no problem with that.
Socialists, I mean "Progressives", have no feedback loop.
Their ideas are now over 100 years old, and have failed every time and everywhere they have been tried, killing off over 100 million people in the process, sometimes by starvation, sometimes by bullets, and sometimes by Zyklon B.
Regardless, each new generation of collectivists demands yet another bite of the apple, and never admits responsibility for a single error.
It is a religion, where all its failures belong to its enemies, and all its successes lie in the future. And isn't it pretty to think so?
The poll sucked. "... like a dipshit" wasn't included.
Methinks "Progressive" in early American History doesn't mean what Mr. Nichols thinks it does. Wisconsin not-with-standing.
To me, Nichols sounds... sad.
[W]e need to reclaim our progressive history, honor this heritage, and celebrate its continual life.
We must look backward to move forward. We must honor our iconoclastic heritage. We have torn down numerous institutions and traditions; let us, then, preserve the rubble.
So the Althouse setup posts today, knowing Prosser choked a fellow justice:
"Abrahamson was stalling for political gain!"
"Think Progress! Who knows about that source!"
"John Nichols. Radicals!"
What a bunch of sad juvenile delinquents.
I was have selected drug induced fantasy but there wasn't an option for that.
"Stupid" should have been a choice.
There is no per se benefit to anything he argues for. There is no per se benefit to radicalism, none to progressivism. "Empowerment" is an empty term used in an effort to create a fantasy that people will somehow have more power by giving the government more power over them.
Freedom gives you more power. The power to do with you life what you will. If you goal in life is that of prograssivism, which is to force others to live as you expect them to, then it's fascism, not empowerment.
Living in a world run by The Progressive would be like sentenced for life to Freshperson Orientation.
The Progressive's style is a mob mentality that claims it has the right to take power over commerce. Trust the mob, Wisconsonians.No one will be able to steal from you when your mob has claimed the first right to steal from yourselves. That kind of Progress sure slows things down.
Another piece by the Progressive:
Walker Booed at Devil’s Lake
But it wasn’t a great backdrop for Walker because there were 12 boats— kayaks, canoes, a couple motorboats, and a large sailboat—in the water with signs that read: “Walker Smells Fishy,” “Walker Jump in the Lake,” “Civil Consternation Board,” “Walker Crimes Against Nature,” “Support State Workers,” and “Recall Walker, ASAP.”
Guy just can't catch a break!
Wisconsin should make a theme park that gives visitors a sense of Progressive's distinct radical history.
The Killing Fields merry-go-round, the Cultural Revolution roller coaster, and the Soviet Harvest of Sorrow bumper cars will be thrilling for kids of every age.
And do try the radical food. The Siberian Gulag corn dogs are to die for.
Just finished watching one of my favorite movies, “3:10 to Yuma” (Bale/Crowe) for the dozenth time. Heroes, Pinkertons, outlaws, bankers damming water rights, balled-up whores (Charlie Princess), wanna-be-bad adolescents,
The original with Glenn Ford and Van Heflin was better. Why does the hero have so many hangups and problems ? All that stuff was absent from the original which was made at a time when America was not so neurotic. Once in a while I get my kids to watch earlier movies, like "Thomas Crown Affair" with Steve McQueen. They can't believe how good it is.
Maybe a dose of testosterone would help.
"Leave us alone. Politics doesn't need to stick its smelly fingers into yet more of our lives."
Everything is politics, like it or not, where two or more people are involved.
Funny how those "progressives" seem to keep forgetting that the Democrats invented Jim Crow laws. That was part of their distinct radical history too.
Woodrow Wilson, racist and Progressive hero, segregated the US civil service for the first time. Before him, blacks were treated equally in the federal government.
I went with "creepy", because I'm not sure that Nichols has extracted his tongue from John Edwards' rectum yet. Boy, was he in the tank for Edwards. No corrections page, no erratum sheet, no apology, no excuse. I guess love really means never having to say you are sorry.
Every state has radical roots....
And it Jackboots.
"Nichols inhabits a fantasy world like most libs. It is a world where govt budgets for schools etc can just grow and grow and grow. Fortunately for us non-libs, the lib fantasies are usually interrupted by their arch-rival who is that dastardly villain named Basic Arithmetic."
And yet, somehow, in the world the radical right inhabits, the villain Basic Arithmetic is disregarded as a phantasm, for while there is no money for social programs, there are always billions more to be produced at will to initiate new wars or continue old ones, and the iron law of the universe holds sway, i.e., Taxes will never be raised, but will always be reduced.
Wisconsin should make a theme park that gives visitors a sense of Progressive's distinct radical history. The Killing Fields merry-go-round, the Cultural Revolution roller coaster, and the Soviet Harvest of Sorrow bumper cars will be thrilling for kids of every age. And do try the radical food. The Siberian Gulag corn dogs are to die for.
You know, this comment might have some degree of sting or wit if it had anything to do with American political history in general or Wisconsin political history in particular. But it doesn't, given that events in Cambodia, China and Siberia don't have much to do with the cultural history of the Upper Midwest. But I suppose if you were the sort of anti-American sad-sack who would equate FDR, LBJ, Pat Moynihan and other American progressives with Pol Pot, I guess you might find such a comment to be amusing or insightful.
Everything is politics, like it or not, where two or more people are involved.
I bet your a real barrel of fun to be with.
50 States. We all produce embarrassments. It's about as common as farting.
Similar to why we look at movie stars. Otherwise? Fiction ain't believable.
"Progressively more oppression in the name of the war on drugs and 'homeland security.'"
Richard Nixon launched the ill-begotten "war on drugs" and The Dept. of Homeland Security was created by the same administration that passed the Patriot Act, the Bush Administration.
Not that many Dems aren't complicit in these evils, but one cannot mark down the increasing authoritarianism of America as the doing of one "evil" party or the other.
Everything is politics, like it or not, where two or more people are involved.
Actually, you sound like the Alec Guiness character in Doctor Zhivago.
Sadly, as it turned out, Yevgraf was right and Zhivago was wrong.
The Party wants you, whether through love or terror.
Your vote options were incomplete. I was looking for something like "Wistful," or more pointedly, "Delusionally Wistful."
The first progressive is Teddy Roosevelt. He was the Governor of New York State, when Tammany Hall want to get rid of him. So, as politicians are wont to do. He was kicked upstairs. To be veep to McKinnley. When McKinnley ran again, for re-election.
I don't blame slavery on our FOunding Fathers. The British brought it with them. More suprising to me, actually, is that some groups of people, seeing sailing ships. Even arriving to America on them. Learned how to build their own.
Indians learned themselves all about canoes.
Black people, however, never did learn much about getting off any coast of Africa. Even by swimming.
Women didn't build boats, either.
At least, in America, it was considered an abomination to buy and sell human beings. (Other than women to men, in marriage.)
But that's a whole other story.
If you want opportunity ... there's no box you can open ... that has the instructions, inside.
Some people can make it on a shoestring.
Others only "make it" by waving a gun at people who ain't got no gun.
And, being in America is to wake up lucky. Because you're in the best place on earth.
The job of coming to retaining a sense of distinct radical history is a really abstract job.
Marching with signs would be easier.
...a distinct radical history. That understanding is essential to the spread of uprisings and movements like the one that has developed in Wisconsin....
Yes, please spread your little temper-tantrums across America.
Please.
Carol, McCarthy was actually a progressive.
...and, not to be ignored, overall pretty accurate in his crusade. Far moreso than, say, global warming advocates.
Cook: Not that many Dems aren't complicit in these evils, but --
Cook: I support the troops, but --
Cook: [insert tu quo here], but --
but go fuck yourself, you socialist america-loathing parasitic scum.
"Socialism is Slavery. And Slavers deserve to be shot in the street."
It sounds like something a conservative would say.
Oh, yeah. McCarthy's "crusade."
He was as queer as a three-dollar bill. He hurt the republicans. And, he lost to the media.
And, who can forget his "lists."
He had "lists" of names of all the homosexuals in the military. Except that he didn't.
He only knew the behinds he had entered. But, then, that's Bob Woodward's story, too.
The victories the Right has celebrated recently in Wisconsin are made even sweeter by knowing we rammed them down the throat of twits like this. I hope he cries himself to sleep at night when he contemplates the wreckage of all he holds dear.
Missing poll option:
Quixotic
" So the Althouse setup posts today, knowing Prosser choked a fellow justice:"
She knows that?
Because she said she didn't know that, and wanted the full story.
Why do you need to lie, if you're always so damn sure of yourself?
Delusional
It's good to remember the role Mel Brooks cast Govenor Nelson Rockefeller, in ... in his wonderful movie BLAZING SADDLES
Nelson Rockefeller was so stupid ... that Brooks portrayed the governor as needing his top coat having is name "THE GOV" emblazoned across his shoulders.
Oh, just in case you've seen the movie. AND, you remember the scene. But you didn't know whom Mel Brooks was spoofing ... it was none other than Governor Rockefeller.
Rockefeller was also the man Nixon overlooked when he chose Gerald Ford. To fill in the two years that covered the period after Nixon resigned.
Back then? Ford had promised not to run, himself. But he lied.
Ford also lied when he said "a pardon of Nixon had not been considered."
Politicians are evil.
But the good news is sometimes they lose.
Desperate.
And pathetic.
Garage,
So the Althouse setup posts today, knowing Prosser choked a fellow justice
I don't know that Justice Prosser choked Justice Bradley.
Neither does anyone else here.
Including you.
Unless, of course, you have better sources than the "journalists" who published these allegations.
In which case, you ought to inform the rest of us.
Ah, generational progressives. The anarchist alter-ego of left-wing ideologues. At least the original "radicals" knew when to end the "progress". Unfortunately, with the progressive loss of moral knowledge (e.g., knowledge of why slavery is considered wrong -- hint: it's a faith based or axiomatic principle), it is inevitable that societies will increasingly introduce totalitarian policies.
Well, we had a dream of self-moderating behavior and, in growing numbers, people have chosen to reject their liberty in favor of instant gratification. An entirely voluntary act of submission.
It's funny, but, at one time, Americans thought the Soviet Union was some kind of evil empire. It was, but America is progressive. So, don't worry, the opportunity to recycle history remains ours.
re: generational progressives
The system already has sufficient natural sources of perturbations, which ensures that defects in the state will be exposed. Given their history and predilection to denigrating individual dignity and devaluing human life, it is unlikely that the state change motivated by generational progressives will contribute to the improved condition of humanity.
The generational progressives do not reflect the goals and ambitions of the original Progressives.
e.
Delusional
You missed that one.
Wisconsin should make a theme park that gives visitors a sense of Progressive's distinct radical history.
House of Mirrors!
McCarthy's hearings are little different than some we have today. Ever see...what's his name? The weasel from California? (just Yahoo'd "California Congressman Weasel" but only Nancy Pelosi came up).....Waxman. That who is it. When Waxman holds a kangeroo court, it reminds me of McCarthy.
McCarthy was rather accurate, but I don't believe he knew it. I think he was full of shxt, but mostly by co-incidence many of claims were largly true.
If he had lived until after the cold war was over and USSR/KGB records were released, he would have said "well I'll be damned. There really were Russian spyies in the state department."
I'm late to the party, but I vote "None of the Above."
I live in a very politically conservative state with a fairly progressive constitution. There are protections in the Arizona Constitution forbidding caps on personal injury damages, requiring the legislature to establish universities for as close to free as possible, and establishing all kinds of other protections. Progressives in 1912 actually did something right with this one.
That said, I don't think it would have worked out half so well if the state wasn't so conservative now. Progressive in 1912 has built in protections to keep big businesses (primarily mining at the time) from exploiting the people. That tends to keep the more business-friendly conservatives on the true conservative straight and narrow.
I think that the it's also a good pressure valve---no need for big unions in this right-to-work state, but businesses need to watch out for potential high verdicts. I think that tension runs to the benefit of the people. The conservative present is the check on the progressive founding document and vice versa.
Even saying a state has progressive roots, it doesn't necessarily follow that progressive governance (particularly as practiced by today's progressives) would be good.
The author doesn't sound creepy or inspiring. Just shallow, narrow, and rote.
And it will continue to spread if activists in other states go to their own histories for inspiration.
Which histories? And in accordance with the chosen one history or another, which among the underpinning inspirations of the one chosen?
History can be hard.
So can the rest of us also relive OUR history by sending the cops in to crack some heads?
Please, oh pretty please,..?
sarge here who's we kemosabe?
Carol_Herman said:
"At least, in America, it was considered an abomination to buy and sell human beings."
Yep...it was such an abomination the people hopped right to it and abolished the practice in a swift 250 years, with only the faint bother of a wrenching Civil War in which hundreds of thousands of Americans died.
We sure don't long abide them abominations in our good ole' USA, no sir!
"So can the rest of us also relive OUR history by sending the cops in to crack some heads?
"Please, oh pretty please,..?"
What's to "relive?" Cops cracking heads is still a popular everyday favorite in this Land o' the Free, Home o' the Brave.
(Technology marches on, though: tasing is running neck and neck with head-cracking and may soon supersede that more gross form of bodily violence in frequency and popularity...if it hasn't already.)
Nothing says 'old-fashioned' like going back to your traditional roots.
Progressives know this better than anyone. Which is why they love to play the 'old-fashioned' card when describing conservatives.
Tradition for me, but not for thee.
At least they are 'consistent'.
"...McCarthy was actually a progressive."
I guess there's just no end to the stupid shit that people will tell themselves.
@Cookie
Yes I saw that too and wondered if the utterer of that comment had recently stroked out.
Sheesh.
Cookie,
Cops cracking heads is still a popular everyday favorite in this Land o' the Free, Home o' the Brave.
(Technology marches on, though: tasing is running neck and neck with head-cracking and may soon supersede that more gross form of bodily violence in frequency and popularity...if it hasn't already.)
Problem?
Cook: it was such an abomination the people hopped right to it and abolished the practice in a swift 250 years,
I love the irony here. Cultures EVOLVE. But here is our resident America-basher, damning the nation for its "sins" while he sits atop the corpses of 40 million murdered babies.
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