The Definition of Progressive is Very Simple, But Very Broad...

[SeattleGirl]

Quote:President Obama is a progressive, but his policies can only be as progressive as the rest of the government allows. There are three co-equal branches of government. Congress makes the laws, and the President executes those laws. The President can't pass health insurance reform. He can advocate for it, which he did quite well, and he can work with the sides to get something they can pass. (Might I point out that he, almost single-handedly brought it back from the dead?) But he can't just create a new health care system. He needs Congress.

Put simply, the president can only be as "progressive" as Congress will allow. He can't do anything just because we think it's the right thing to do. The majority of the American people have to think it's the right thing to do, and they have to elect a majority to Congress who think it's the right thing to do.

Quote:If you want Obama to do more, give him the tools to do so. If you want him to be like FDR, then give him a Congress that can get things done. If you want more LBJ-style laws like the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and more War on Poverty legislation, then give him a Congress that can help him. FDR and LBJ could NOT have done what they did with the current GOP in charge of the House and with current filibuster rules and 45 Republicans in the Senate. Both had a Democratic supermajority and a Rockefeller Republican-style GOP to deal with.

Quote:Whining about everything, and voting for people who say all the right things, but who have no shot at winning, doesn't make you "progressive," it makes you gullible. "Obstinate" is not a synonym for "principled," and "compromise" is not synomymous with "sell-out." You are not "progressive" because you are against the NDAA and the drone program, especially when you put them ahead of jobs and education in level of importance. You are not "progressive" because you were willing to advocate killing Obamacare and leave 20 million uninsured, because it doesn't cover the other 10 million. In fact, you're the opposite of "progressive," and we real progressives are tired of you pretending to speak for us, and muddying the waters.

The whole piece is worth the read. Link: http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main...l#comments

Exactly, exactly, and exactly!

[Willinois]

By the definition of the perpetually aggrieved, Dennis Kucinich is a conservative because he couldn't get any more progressive legislation through Congress than Obama did.