The Progressive Ideology In Practice

Chris Bowers on My DD:

The longstanding practice of progressive organizations to exploit their most dedicated workers by forcing them to live ascetic lives in order to help "the cause" is being repeated with the way many progressive organizations and campaigns are now treating the blogosphere and the netroots. We are not supposed to actually make a living helping out the progressive movement, but we are supposed to be happy eating rice and gruel as we struggle to find a way to either blog full-time, or to maintain a good blog while we hold down a full-time job.

[D]espite this, we are often asked by Democrats and progressives with real influence to help flog their latest campaign.

It also reminds me of why there is such a sharp divide within the progressive activist world that almost breaks down along class lines. As the lower rung ground soldiers for organizations like PIRG and the Sierra Club struggle to make a living, they watch as well-heeled insiders run campaigns that keep losing and losing and losing.

We have done all of this in an attempt to stop replicating the same mistakes the progressive movement has been making for decades: exploiting its hardest workers.

But now, as our success is starting to show, many progressives want to get back to the business of exploiting us and telling us what to write, as they have done to their ground troops for decades.

There’s a lesson here and Bowers has missed it. Chris Bowers is experiencing the progressive ideology in practice and he doesn’t like it. The entire “progressive movement” has always been about the exploitation of society’s hardest workers.

The well-healed, liberal elites- Kennedy, Rockefeller, Kerry, Corzine, Boxer, Pelosi, etc. – demanding ever more work and taxes from our most productive people to fuel their “progressive cause”. They have theirs and could care less how their demands affect others. This continues as we witness the failure of progressive polices time and time again. It doesn’t matter, the elite know best - shut up and think (write) what we tell you and be happy.

Guess what Chris, they don’t care how hard you work and they don’t give a damn about your struggles. You are a means to an end, power. Wake-up and stop flogging their ideas and candidates. Why help their attempt to exploit an entire nation as they have exploited you?