Progressive Activism, What it Means to Me, by Rebecca Young
Actually, I am a screaming, bleeding-heart liberal who also happens to believe that the government should be fiscally responsible to all Americans. For expediency I call myself a Progressive.
The Activist part started with the "selection" in 2000. Followed by the lack of leadership after 9/11 and ending with the grim election of November 2002. I hadn't been active in politics for 25 years but clearly the nation was in sorry shape. I started looking for something I could do. I wrote to Terry McAuliffe at the DNC but he never answered. Not even a form letter.
It seemed pretty hopeless until the Spring of 2003 when some guy named Howard Dean starting saying what I'd been thinking. He started asking the hard questions. He started pointing his finger at the outrages. I had found my voice! And it wasn't just mine. Hundreds of thousands of others suddenly found someone to speak for them too. We Progressives had been cowed and silenced by our own party, but now we could scream "We Have The Power!" It had been a long time since I had felt that good about my country and its future.
Of course, Dean's primary defeat came as a blow to all of us, but it didn't knock us out! We are running on people power now. The people who worked on Dean's campaign are the finest folks I've ever met in my life. The degree of dedication these talented people bring to this organization is amazing. We can and we will work to bring our party back from the right-wing agenda it has so misguidedly embraced. We can and we will give Democrats in Delaware permission to start talking and thinking and acting like Democrats again. We'll work with candidates who offer a clear alternative so the 50% of the population who can't tell the difference between parties will have a choice and will vote. As Howard Dean said, "We Are The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party".
Right now it can be difficult to feel good about our country. The thing that keeps me going is grassroots involvement. America is a great nation because the American people are a great caring people. That's you and me, not our politicians. From the beginning it's taken all of our will to keep the country on track. Now more than ever that will needs to be harnessed to serve the nation.
And, while John Kerry might not have been my first choice I support him wholeheartedly. After all, he's adopted most of Howard Dean's ideas. We will take back the White House in November.
