You're Not A Progressive Just Because You Mouth The Word "Progressive"

New Dem is the opposite of progressive

The word "progressive" has become fashionable and now anti-progressive politicians are using it. Joe Crowley, Wall Street's conduit to the House Democrats and the reactionary former head of the New Dems is hoping to follow Pelosi/Hoyer as the head of the House Dems. He's a truly disgusting, glad-handing corrupt crud. But last week he dragged one of the most progressive members of Congress, Ro Khanna (D-CA) all over his district to give him progressive cred. Crowley's office sent out a press release on February 5: As an admirer of Khanna, it turned my stomach:

Today, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley (D-NY) hosted Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a leading progressive voice in Congress, in Queens and the Bronx. The congressmen spent th­­­e day visiting a range of local organizations, community leaders, and every­­day New Yorkers.

Crowley and Khanna first met with leaders of Queens’ vibrant South Asian community to discuss immigration, health care, and Democrats’ priorities in Congress. Following that event, the congressmen visited a Goodwill in Astoria to participate in a jobs training workshop event with volunteers from the Grow with Google program, which helps Americans develop the skills necessary to secure well-paying careers. Crowley and Khanna also held a town hall with C4Q Founder and CEO Jukay Hsu and alumni and fellows from the innovative tech training program to learn about the importance of coding skills for young men and women.

“Congressman Khanna is a transformational thinker in Congress and leading voice in the Democratic Caucus. It was a pleasure to host him in Queens and the Bronx. NY-14 is a rich and vibrant community, and home to some of the hardest working men and women in the country," Chairman Crowley said. "I'm so glad Ro got to see firsthand the investments we are making to ensure working Americans have access to on-the-job training resources. It was exciting to see the work Google, Goodwill, and C4Q are doing to expand access to skills-building programs in our communities, and to develop Queens and the Bronx into a hub for technology.”

“Chairman Crowley is a distinguished leader in his community, in the Democratic Caucus, and for our nation,” said Rep. Khanna. “We are fortunate for his commitment to supporting the future of American jobs. We must prepare our communities with the tech skills they need for a flourishing 21st century economy, and I remain invested in ensuring hard working Americans have the access to skills and on-the-job training, like we saw in Queens and the Bronx today, to succeed.”

Worse was Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a blot on the Democratic Party and another grotesquely corrupt New Dem, sending out a mailer to her constituents claiming the mantle of a "Bold Progressive," demeaning the title entirely. Tim Canova, an actual progressive running for the seat she was made into a moral pigsty, reacted at Medium: Enough with Fake Progressives, pointing out that "Establishment politicians regularly talk out of both sides of their mouths, largely because they make campaign promises to grassroots voters that are contrary to the commitments they’ve already made to their corporate backers. A perfect case in point is the recent glossy, expensive direct mail piece sent out by my opponent Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- published and paid for at taxpayer expense, and filled with deceptive information about her purported accomplishments in 2017." She wrote "I’ll continue to advocate for a bold progressive agenda."

What bold progressive agenda? This is hypocrisy in full display. On issue after issue, she talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.

Like other entrenched incumbents, Wasserman Schultz is swimming in corporate money while pushing the agenda of predatory payday lenders, Wall Street banks, private prison companies, healthcare executives, and the fossil fuel industry. She now claims to be fighting for a progressive agenda while either opposing or remaining silent on key progressive issues!

Perhaps we should help Debbie Wasserman Schultz understand what a true bold progressive agenda looks like:

• Healthcare should be a guaranteed right for all Americans, not just as rhetoric, but by backing HR 676, the Medicare For All bill that Wasserman Schultz refuses to cosponsor.
• A complete halt to new pipeline construction, while transitioning to 100% renewable energy.
• The drug war and mass incarceration must end with true criminal justice reform, and permitting states to serve as laboratories of reform in legalizing and regulating cannabis markets for medical and recreational purposes.
•Ending privatization of water and sewage treatment systems to protect our land and drinking water. We must allow state and local governments to ban hydraulic fracturing--  otherwise known as “fracking”-- and ending federal support and subsidies for fracking and other oil and gas drilling.
• We need a federal jobs guarantee at a living wage, as perhaps the most effective way to incentivize big businesses to pay $15 as a national minimum wage.
• We need true campaign finance reform and publicly funded elections, like we see in most western democracies. Moreover, we need Election Integrity reforms to ban closed-source software and electronic voting machines and move to a system of high quality paper ballots counted by hand in public, as was done effectively for many decades.
• We need trade deals that represent American workers and not just large corporations, unlike the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
• Education should be a guaranteed right for all Americans, with well-funded public schools K-12 and tuition free higher education.

Make no mistake about it, Wasserman Schultz will continue to barrage voters’ mailboxes with more empty promises and propaganda, some mailers paid by taxpayers and many paid for by huge corporations and Wall Street bankers who are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep her in office.

And make whatever you can out of this: