Hello Erica... Because UnRestrained Capitalism Rewards Ruthless Greed... DJT is the Epitome... How did a Dim-Witted Criminal become the Most Powerful Person In The World?...
Our culture tells us that continual growth (as measured by GDP) is a prerequisite for human flourishing. Growth requires a continually increasing rate of extraction of resources and encourages the mistreatment of labor. Growth compounds on itself, just like compound interest. GDP growth of even 1% per year imposes an exponential pressure on capital as the available resources become scarcer, as markets become saturated, as environmental damage imposes greater costs due to disasters and sickness.
Capitalism as it formulated today is fundamentally dependent on an intense drive for continual growth. We live on a finite planet though, so this is not possible to continue forever. When the rich and powerful realize they are hitting the limits of what they can achieve within their current constraints, they look for a fix.
The fix inevitably requires a new source of resources or labor to exploit. The target could be abroad (wars for oil; colonization; trafficking of slaves). The target is often the commons (oil spills; climate change; AI slop). No one and nothing is safe in the long term when the governing logic is that of growth for growth's sake.
Continual growth is not healthy, equitable, or sustainable. The best natural analogue is cancer. Capitalism is fundamentally driven by growth.
If you are interested to learn more and to see a vision of what a better world free of the pressure of growth could look like, read Less is More by Jason Hickel. This comment is my own interpretation and restatement of Hickel's presentation in that book.
Sure - and thanks for asking! The goal of any capitalist enterprise is by definition to make a "profit". To do so, more value needs to be gained from a transaction than is offered. Clearly, people who have less of a moral compass can increase the amount gained by engaging in whatever shady practices they can get away with. That puts them at an economic advantage when it’s time to get involved in politics — enabling the ability to “buy” more favorable leaders and legislation that further increases their wealth and power. Those who are best (i.e. “worst”) offenders rise to the top on a sea of money.
And here we are today, with 12 billionaires literally holding more wealth than the bottom half of the planet.
The question of nationalization. Versus public option can only be discussed when we have a political party that acknowledges the problem. The issue of Musk’s government handouts may be the best way to arouse political energy as Americans love to personalize and hate him already. Taxation is not enough, but passing legislation to take back government ownership of its share of product in proportion to investment is a good start. That should be part of any progressive candidate’s platform. Simple. Educational. Easy to understand and promote. Same with any platform using gov originated technology airspace etc.
So how do we take this ship in another direction? I'm in. Tell me how. My belief is that we have to build the alternative, better world, outside the box of the broken one in which we are presently stuck. Stop going back to the same power structure to fix what it so plainly will not lift a finger to fix. Got any ideas? I do it in my own life as a self employed person who actually knows how to make stuff. So how do we retrain or re-flow all the creative potential of this massive populace of ours into something more like that? Where does it begin? I'm game. Show me the map – cause even though I'll vote for the changes I want to see, I sure don't see the path to a better world running through the ballot box. I think we have to make it ourselves.
I really believe in the efficacy of financial boycotting since these billionaires only care about money. Would it be as simple as a general strike-- everybody just stay home and put forth our demands and stay home until our demands are met? Could very well be that simple. I am not sure. If there is something being organized, I have not heard of it yet. But we have to give it about a month lead so people can organize and prepare for this kind of day. And we need an anonymous (and possibly foreign) individual to communicate about it from afar so they can't be targeted by our fascist police state. Just thinking...
Look up May Day Strong. https://youtu.be/RsNfSd1XlRk?si=ofK6xh5LG_Zf4MDj. They are planning a general strike, and just had a big national call last week (link above). It takes a huge amount of planning and infrastructure, please consider becoming part of that work. Also follow Indivisible, and attend the weekly call What’s The Plan. Every week the founders of Indivisible lay out the major events being planned and the strategy behind them. The link is on their home page, Indivisible.org. Dozens of thousands of people across the country join the call every week and you’ll be better informed than you could have imagined—all the calls are on YouTube and a podcast. It takes huge coalitions to manage all this work. Also No Kings Day III on March 28, which people are working to make the biggest demonstrations in American history. It’s happening, you have to look in the right places and then you can be part of it!
It will take all of us working together to bring down the oligarchs and the regime, and Corbin’s vision for what comes next is key.
I like the comment by Jon Ossoff, Senator from Georgia. Musk, Bezos, Gates, billionaires in general are the Epstein class. They prey on girls, perhaps, but even more broadly they prey on the poor, workers, brown and black people, and other lesser beings in their eyes. The deserve a good taxing, like under President Eisenhower, 90% of everything over a billion. Perhaps we can say 75% for everything over 100 million. The disparity is way out of hand.
There's so many truthful, needed points made here ... but maybe the one that struck me the most is, and likely only because I've spent countless hours and decades thinking about it:
"You know how many people aren’t qualified for the good jobs they’ve got? A lot."
I have SO much to say about where that comes from, but suffice to say for now: We are doing education and career choice very wrong. Eg. No education for a professional field should allow even a single student who isn't there for the love of the work, itself. And we shouldn't be asking our children what they want to be when they grow up, a very selfish question, instead we should be asking them what societal system do they want to improve and support or create and build for the betterment of both one and all.
What I fail to say well is that corrections need to happen from the inside, out, which means addressing our core values and seeking national agreement if not global. Eg. When we agree to make choices based on passion and need, not manipulation and greed, everything changes for the better and for the long-term. In this way, we can fix what's broken without having to go to war or demonize or destroy or create chaos. We can just shift priorities and watch as change happens, naturally and organically. Both sides actually want the same things, they just are both wrong in how to go about it.
To be clear re Newsom: The national Democratic Party is essentially as much one of corporate puppets as the GOP. Not as much as the GOP but close enough to greatly limit what they can do. So no, Big Pharma (and Big Business and unrestrained capitalism) will never be called out let alone addressed in any way.
It’s not just Newsom. It’s everyone who wants to play ball with DNC. Being a corporate tool is what the DNC wants and demands.
We all rightly complain about Trump’s grifting (which he actually admitted to in passing in 2016); the DNC’ pretty much the same.
What stands out to me is how clearly this names the real choice in front of us: keep managing decline, or rebuild collective capacity. The idea of publicly owned, people-funded alternatives feels less like radicalism and more like democracy finally catching up to the economy that shapes our lives.
Competing oligarchs out of relevance only works if people have real pathways to participate—not just as consumers or voters, but as stakeholders with a say in what gets built and why. Without that, political democracy keeps getting hollowed out.
This feels like an invitation to stop asking billionaires to behave better and start designing systems where shared ownership, participation, and long-term stewardship are the default.
I believe this is much more than just a fight worth fighting. This is an existential war that we must win because it is a fight for our literal, physical survival as a species. Think Jim Jones style murder/suicide death cults, human caused environmental collapse and nuclear war.
As a retired military officer I believe winning this war demands that we deeply understand: 1. Ourselves, 2. Our Enemy, 3. The Battlefield and 4. Our Objective. Only through a clear understanding of these aspects of this war for our survival can we develop an effective strategy and the necessary tactics to win. In brief;
1. Ourselves: We are psychological beings. Our most important strengths and vulnerabilities are psychological because the actions we take are determined in our minds. If we behave irrationally we are unlikely to survive. If it seems like the world has gone crazy, that's because destabilizing us by inciting irrational behavior is part of the enemies strategic plan (Project 2025).
2. Our Enemy: Those people who are actively exploiting us and endangering us to increase their own wealth and power. They are doing this because they believe safety and happiness depend upon the power of wealth.
3. The Battlefield: Because we are psychological beings, the battlefield is our minds. That is why our enemy is invading our minds with propaganda, disinformation, fake news, gaslighting, mass hypnosis and all the manipulative methods of psychological warfare. This is a war for control of what we believe because our beliefs determine our behavior. The enemy wants us to surrender our freedom and autonomy and serve them. That is the whole point of police terror tactics.
4. Our Objective: A society built on liberty and justice for all and Universal Human Rights. A world where everyone lives in safety and in peace without being in constant fear. This means a worldwide community of shared resources and equal political power.
An important strategy for winning any fight is refusing to fight on your enemy's terms, forcing them to engage your strengths with their weaknesses while you protect your own weaknesses. Their strengths are in terrorizing (because they are a terrified small minority identifiable by their pathological narcissism), deceit (because honesty exposes their paranoia and narcissism) and corruption (because wealth is power, power corrupts and we are all vulnerable).
A small group of insane(ly) rich people control our government. Decades of research (see work by researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page) shows that the rich control and use our government to get what they want. What We, The People, want has no bearing on what becomes law or, as we are witnessing, what laws are enforced. This means trying to fight them by lobbying corrupt politicians, campaigning in wealth controlled elections or appealing to the Supremely Corrupt Court just saps our time, our energy and our courage. And it doesn't matter which political party is in charge because they are both in thrall to wealth.
As our government collapses into dictatorship, we must redefine the battlefield to take advantage of our strengths (numbers, shared values, human relationships, empathy, etc.) and exploit the weaknesses of our enemies. (e.g. pathological narcissism, malignant fear, relatively small numbers, etc.).
Bottom line: To survive we must destroy the power of wealth by building a society of shared resources and equal political power. We, the People must organize horizontally, inclusively and build parallel structures to starve the enemy of our support and cooperation. Historically, all political elites are doomed by the fatal disease of greed and corruption. It is happening right now all around the world. We must organize and fight to win by building a better society, because we are builders, not destroyers.
Love this. Saving it. Thank you. Our thinking does determine our experience. Maybe that's "psychological." We are also spiritual, in essence, and that's why equaity, empathy, courage, and love will sustain us in organizing horizontally and building a better society.
Corbin - I like your ideas but as it plays out in my mind - take any topic, say Waste Management - I get lost in the execution - My county let's say is going to "takeover" waste management from the presently contracted company. It hires workers and buys trucks and appoints people to manage the effort? Where does the capital come from? (taxes?) Wouldn't it be a long haul to get folks who know how to run this? Most governments see this as a sub-contracting opportunity - right back to the people we had contracted with in the first place ... no? If you are building housing - you are going to hire carpenters, plumbers, etc to the government payroll ? You won't be tempted to just sub-contract? How does this taking-it-over and doing it yourself actually work?
Take waste management, for example. I grew up with municipal waste management. It worked. Not that this service is one of the most important to take over by the government, but health care is one. Then electricity production and distribution, Internet provision, and cell phone service.
To take the fight forward we have to take control of the Federal Taxes. The Arms Dealers and the Wall Street Gamblers and their cronies have been looting the Treasury successfully, with the Dems completely complicit, since WWII. It is suggested that at least 1/3d of our debt was spent in the meaningless wars in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.; and at least another 1/3d of our debt was spent picking up the economic messes made by the Gamblers. The spendthrifts of both parties have borrowed, and continue to borrow tax revenues to be taken from future generations of the Middle and Working Classes while constantly endeavoring to limit taxation on the 1.0% and the corporations. The looting is coming directly out of our and our children's pockets and lining the pockets of our Landed Gentry and self-nominated Lords. The original playbook was written by the Commons in the British Parliament of the 1740's to take control away from the Lords when they refused to increase taxes in support of foreign wars. It took the Brits 200 years to remove the Lords from power over the taxes; we have barely begun. A starting point will be facing the Lords of the Senate and our Monarch President and cornering them in our House of Representatives by refusing to pass budgets which continue funding our enormous military machine and budgeting for ICE and lining the pockets of our American Lords of Commerce. We have barely begun. And I laud Mr. Trent for acknowledging the Dems complicity and lack of spine in all this.
I agree with much of what you write and and the solutions you propose. The only problem is we need a real opposition political Party to promote and, in time, enact these policies. Electing individual progressives in various districts will never get there without a Party to help fund, and support their ideas. Without an organized and disciplined opposition party willing to fight for a progressive agenda, a few random progressive are simply whistling in the dark. Building such a Party must be the first step. And anyone who says the Democratic Party is an opposition party needs professional help.
We shouldn’t “compete his [Elon Musk’s] market share away” - we must TAKE IT AWAY.
NATIONALIZE tech, power, infrastructure, water, post, transportation, medicine.
It was done in Western Europe following WWll (where despite neoliberalism, their citizens still enjoy better lives than in the US.)
Nationalization is the only surefire way to wrest our wealth back from the obscene midwit plutocrats that currently HAVE IT ALL
Under Capitalism, money ensures that the worst people will eventually rise to the top.
Can you spell out why this is so?
Hello Erica... Because UnRestrained Capitalism Rewards Ruthless Greed... DJT is the Epitome... How did a Dim-Witted Criminal become the Most Powerful Person In The World?...
Our culture tells us that continual growth (as measured by GDP) is a prerequisite for human flourishing. Growth requires a continually increasing rate of extraction of resources and encourages the mistreatment of labor. Growth compounds on itself, just like compound interest. GDP growth of even 1% per year imposes an exponential pressure on capital as the available resources become scarcer, as markets become saturated, as environmental damage imposes greater costs due to disasters and sickness.
Capitalism as it formulated today is fundamentally dependent on an intense drive for continual growth. We live on a finite planet though, so this is not possible to continue forever. When the rich and powerful realize they are hitting the limits of what they can achieve within their current constraints, they look for a fix.
The fix inevitably requires a new source of resources or labor to exploit. The target could be abroad (wars for oil; colonization; trafficking of slaves). The target is often the commons (oil spills; climate change; AI slop). No one and nothing is safe in the long term when the governing logic is that of growth for growth's sake.
Continual growth is not healthy, equitable, or sustainable. The best natural analogue is cancer. Capitalism is fundamentally driven by growth.
If you are interested to learn more and to see a vision of what a better world free of the pressure of growth could look like, read Less is More by Jason Hickel. This comment is my own interpretation and restatement of Hickel's presentation in that book.
Sure - and thanks for asking! The goal of any capitalist enterprise is by definition to make a "profit". To do so, more value needs to be gained from a transaction than is offered. Clearly, people who have less of a moral compass can increase the amount gained by engaging in whatever shady practices they can get away with. That puts them at an economic advantage when it’s time to get involved in politics — enabling the ability to “buy” more favorable leaders and legislation that further increases their wealth and power. Those who are best (i.e. “worst”) offenders rise to the top on a sea of money.
And here we are today, with 12 billionaires literally holding more wealth than the bottom half of the planet.
The question of nationalization. Versus public option can only be discussed when we have a political party that acknowledges the problem. The issue of Musk’s government handouts may be the best way to arouse political energy as Americans love to personalize and hate him already. Taxation is not enough, but passing legislation to take back government ownership of its share of product in proportion to investment is a good start. That should be part of any progressive candidate’s platform. Simple. Educational. Easy to understand and promote. Same with any platform using gov originated technology airspace etc.
So how do we take this ship in another direction? I'm in. Tell me how. My belief is that we have to build the alternative, better world, outside the box of the broken one in which we are presently stuck. Stop going back to the same power structure to fix what it so plainly will not lift a finger to fix. Got any ideas? I do it in my own life as a self employed person who actually knows how to make stuff. So how do we retrain or re-flow all the creative potential of this massive populace of ours into something more like that? Where does it begin? I'm game. Show me the map – cause even though I'll vote for the changes I want to see, I sure don't see the path to a better world running through the ballot box. I think we have to make it ourselves.
We aren't willing to endure any inconvenience or sacrifice in order to go in any other direction. That is and has been the crux of the disaster.
I really believe in the efficacy of financial boycotting since these billionaires only care about money. Would it be as simple as a general strike-- everybody just stay home and put forth our demands and stay home until our demands are met? Could very well be that simple. I am not sure. If there is something being organized, I have not heard of it yet. But we have to give it about a month lead so people can organize and prepare for this kind of day. And we need an anonymous (and possibly foreign) individual to communicate about it from afar so they can't be targeted by our fascist police state. Just thinking...
Look up May Day Strong. https://youtu.be/RsNfSd1XlRk?si=ofK6xh5LG_Zf4MDj. They are planning a general strike, and just had a big national call last week (link above). It takes a huge amount of planning and infrastructure, please consider becoming part of that work. Also follow Indivisible, and attend the weekly call What’s The Plan. Every week the founders of Indivisible lay out the major events being planned and the strategy behind them. The link is on their home page, Indivisible.org. Dozens of thousands of people across the country join the call every week and you’ll be better informed than you could have imagined—all the calls are on YouTube and a podcast. It takes huge coalitions to manage all this work. Also No Kings Day III on March 28, which people are working to make the biggest demonstrations in American history. It’s happening, you have to look in the right places and then you can be part of it!
It will take all of us working together to bring down the oligarchs and the regime, and Corbin’s vision for what comes next is key.
This is an interesting one. https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/
I like the comment by Jon Ossoff, Senator from Georgia. Musk, Bezos, Gates, billionaires in general are the Epstein class. They prey on girls, perhaps, but even more broadly they prey on the poor, workers, brown and black people, and other lesser beings in their eyes. The deserve a good taxing, like under President Eisenhower, 90% of everything over a billion. Perhaps we can say 75% for everything over 100 million. The disparity is way out of hand.
The Wildlife News has this quote which certainly sounds apt these days, doesnt it?
""At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being,
drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government
and corporations, "thus far and no further." If we do not, we shall later feel, instead
of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote,
near the end of his life, "If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behavior."
Edward Abbey had the right idea!
In my opinion, its time for the "heads" of the Democratic Party to do some repenting and THEN start making changes.
Just wondering how one fights this multi headed juggernaut.
It's a frightening situation.
Most elected officials are indebted to the oligarchs
Supporting candidates who refuse to take that money is a great start. We just need more of them. Corbin is on the right track to do that.
There's so many truthful, needed points made here ... but maybe the one that struck me the most is, and likely only because I've spent countless hours and decades thinking about it:
"You know how many people aren’t qualified for the good jobs they’ve got? A lot."
I have SO much to say about where that comes from, but suffice to say for now: We are doing education and career choice very wrong. Eg. No education for a professional field should allow even a single student who isn't there for the love of the work, itself. And we shouldn't be asking our children what they want to be when they grow up, a very selfish question, instead we should be asking them what societal system do they want to improve and support or create and build for the betterment of both one and all.
What I fail to say well is that corrections need to happen from the inside, out, which means addressing our core values and seeking national agreement if not global. Eg. When we agree to make choices based on passion and need, not manipulation and greed, everything changes for the better and for the long-term. In this way, we can fix what's broken without having to go to war or demonize or destroy or create chaos. We can just shift priorities and watch as change happens, naturally and organically. Both sides actually want the same things, they just are both wrong in how to go about it.
To be clear re Newsom: The national Democratic Party is essentially as much one of corporate puppets as the GOP. Not as much as the GOP but close enough to greatly limit what they can do. So no, Big Pharma (and Big Business and unrestrained capitalism) will never be called out let alone addressed in any way.
It’s not just Newsom. It’s everyone who wants to play ball with DNC. Being a corporate tool is what the DNC wants and demands.
We all rightly complain about Trump’s grifting (which he actually admitted to in passing in 2016); the DNC’ pretty much the same.
What stands out to me is how clearly this names the real choice in front of us: keep managing decline, or rebuild collective capacity. The idea of publicly owned, people-funded alternatives feels less like radicalism and more like democracy finally catching up to the economy that shapes our lives.
Competing oligarchs out of relevance only works if people have real pathways to participate—not just as consumers or voters, but as stakeholders with a say in what gets built and why. Without that, political democracy keeps getting hollowed out.
This feels like an invitation to stop asking billionaires to behave better and start designing systems where shared ownership, participation, and long-term stewardship are the default.
I believe this is much more than just a fight worth fighting. This is an existential war that we must win because it is a fight for our literal, physical survival as a species. Think Jim Jones style murder/suicide death cults, human caused environmental collapse and nuclear war.
As a retired military officer I believe winning this war demands that we deeply understand: 1. Ourselves, 2. Our Enemy, 3. The Battlefield and 4. Our Objective. Only through a clear understanding of these aspects of this war for our survival can we develop an effective strategy and the necessary tactics to win. In brief;
1. Ourselves: We are psychological beings. Our most important strengths and vulnerabilities are psychological because the actions we take are determined in our minds. If we behave irrationally we are unlikely to survive. If it seems like the world has gone crazy, that's because destabilizing us by inciting irrational behavior is part of the enemies strategic plan (Project 2025).
2. Our Enemy: Those people who are actively exploiting us and endangering us to increase their own wealth and power. They are doing this because they believe safety and happiness depend upon the power of wealth.
3. The Battlefield: Because we are psychological beings, the battlefield is our minds. That is why our enemy is invading our minds with propaganda, disinformation, fake news, gaslighting, mass hypnosis and all the manipulative methods of psychological warfare. This is a war for control of what we believe because our beliefs determine our behavior. The enemy wants us to surrender our freedom and autonomy and serve them. That is the whole point of police terror tactics.
4. Our Objective: A society built on liberty and justice for all and Universal Human Rights. A world where everyone lives in safety and in peace without being in constant fear. This means a worldwide community of shared resources and equal political power.
An important strategy for winning any fight is refusing to fight on your enemy's terms, forcing them to engage your strengths with their weaknesses while you protect your own weaknesses. Their strengths are in terrorizing (because they are a terrified small minority identifiable by their pathological narcissism), deceit (because honesty exposes their paranoia and narcissism) and corruption (because wealth is power, power corrupts and we are all vulnerable).
A small group of insane(ly) rich people control our government. Decades of research (see work by researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page) shows that the rich control and use our government to get what they want. What We, The People, want has no bearing on what becomes law or, as we are witnessing, what laws are enforced. This means trying to fight them by lobbying corrupt politicians, campaigning in wealth controlled elections or appealing to the Supremely Corrupt Court just saps our time, our energy and our courage. And it doesn't matter which political party is in charge because they are both in thrall to wealth.
As our government collapses into dictatorship, we must redefine the battlefield to take advantage of our strengths (numbers, shared values, human relationships, empathy, etc.) and exploit the weaknesses of our enemies. (e.g. pathological narcissism, malignant fear, relatively small numbers, etc.).
Bottom line: To survive we must destroy the power of wealth by building a society of shared resources and equal political power. We, the People must organize horizontally, inclusively and build parallel structures to starve the enemy of our support and cooperation. Historically, all political elites are doomed by the fatal disease of greed and corruption. It is happening right now all around the world. We must organize and fight to win by building a better society, because we are builders, not destroyers.
Love this. Saving it. Thank you. Our thinking does determine our experience. Maybe that's "psychological." We are also spiritual, in essence, and that's why equaity, empathy, courage, and love will sustain us in organizing horizontally and building a better society.
Yeah Corbin for getting on Fox news. Good on you!
Corbin - I like your ideas but as it plays out in my mind - take any topic, say Waste Management - I get lost in the execution - My county let's say is going to "takeover" waste management from the presently contracted company. It hires workers and buys trucks and appoints people to manage the effort? Where does the capital come from? (taxes?) Wouldn't it be a long haul to get folks who know how to run this? Most governments see this as a sub-contracting opportunity - right back to the people we had contracted with in the first place ... no? If you are building housing - you are going to hire carpenters, plumbers, etc to the government payroll ? You won't be tempted to just sub-contract? How does this taking-it-over and doing it yourself actually work?
Take waste management, for example. I grew up with municipal waste management. It worked. Not that this service is one of the most important to take over by the government, but health care is one. Then electricity production and distribution, Internet provision, and cell phone service.
Government serving the people instead of corporations serving the billionaires.
To take the fight forward we have to take control of the Federal Taxes. The Arms Dealers and the Wall Street Gamblers and their cronies have been looting the Treasury successfully, with the Dems completely complicit, since WWII. It is suggested that at least 1/3d of our debt was spent in the meaningless wars in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.; and at least another 1/3d of our debt was spent picking up the economic messes made by the Gamblers. The spendthrifts of both parties have borrowed, and continue to borrow tax revenues to be taken from future generations of the Middle and Working Classes while constantly endeavoring to limit taxation on the 1.0% and the corporations. The looting is coming directly out of our and our children's pockets and lining the pockets of our Landed Gentry and self-nominated Lords. The original playbook was written by the Commons in the British Parliament of the 1740's to take control away from the Lords when they refused to increase taxes in support of foreign wars. It took the Brits 200 years to remove the Lords from power over the taxes; we have barely begun. A starting point will be facing the Lords of the Senate and our Monarch President and cornering them in our House of Representatives by refusing to pass budgets which continue funding our enormous military machine and budgeting for ICE and lining the pockets of our American Lords of Commerce. We have barely begun. And I laud Mr. Trent for acknowledging the Dems complicity and lack of spine in all this.
I agree with much of what you write and and the solutions you propose. The only problem is we need a real opposition political Party to promote and, in time, enact these policies. Electing individual progressives in various districts will never get there without a Party to help fund, and support their ideas. Without an organized and disciplined opposition party willing to fight for a progressive agenda, a few random progressive are simply whistling in the dark. Building such a Party must be the first step. And anyone who says the Democratic Party is an opposition party needs professional help.