Progressive Vision

Progressives Have A Mandate To Govern

In hotly contested 2008 congressional races on November 4, 2008, the Democratic winners were—overwhelmingly—real progressives who campaigned and won on progressive platforms. Voters didn’t just elect Democrats, they elected progressives. more »

More Prisoners Does Not Mean Less Crime

It's not that simple. A 2005 report by The Sentencing Project noted that while increased incarceration rates were accompanied by a decrease in crime between 1991 and 1998, crime rates had increased between 1984 and 1991, a period in which the rate of incarceration was even higher. The director of the Pew Center on the States recently wrote, "Rigorous studies show that increased imprisonment can claim credit for only 25 percent of the nation's crime drop over the past 15 years. The other 75 percent comes from a wide variety of factors, inside and outside the criminal justice system." Those factors include support for improved policing and community crime prevention programs—federal support for which was cut by the Bush administration. We already lock up a larger percentage of our population than any other country in the world. We need to invest more in the programs and techniques that we know prevent crime and lead to healthier communities.more »

Movements Making Noise

American political history is usually told as the story of what political elites say and do. The twists and turns, advances and setbacks, wars, disasters and recoveries, are said to be the work of the founders, or of the presidents, or of the courts, or of the influence of a handful of great people who somehow emerge from the mass. But this history can also be told as the story of the great protest movements that periodically well up from the bottom of American society and the impact these movements have on American institutions. There would be no founders to memorialize without the Revolutionary-era mobs who provided the foot soldiers to fight the British; no films about the quandaries of Abe Lincoln during the Civil War without the abolitionists and the thousands of runaway slaves; no Labor Day to celebrate without the sit-down strikers; no Martin Luther King to beatify without a movement of poor blacks who defied the Southern terror system.
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Wanna Get Involved in the Coming Immigration Reform Fight? Here’s How.

President Obama and Senate negotiators kicked off the national immigration reform process mere days ago, but the contours of the would-be bill are already in sight. With Obama’s proposals only a hazy shade more inclusive than the Senate’s plan, and with the inevitable back room dealing and negotiating already underway, is there any room for everyday people who aren’t lobbyists and professional activists to insert themselves? Is there political space for the policy framework that’s been proposed to be improved upon? Does your lone voice matter? I spoke with activists, experts, community leaders and advocates who said: yes, yes and yes. Read on for six concrete things you can do to help make sure what ends up happening on immigration this year is as equitable and just as can be.

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