The Progressive Revolution

by: Mike Lux

Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 10:15


Cross-posted at Huffington Post

I have big news. Today, my first book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, comes out in bookstores, and you can order it online through my website. While you're there, please sign up for e-mail updates, as well as my Facebook and YouTube channel, and I'll keep you informed on all the happenings.

TPR Book Cover

Those of you who have been following OpenLeft for awhile know that I started writing the book about a year ago. It's been a fun and exciting thing to do, made especially so because I am so fascinated by the topic: the history of how progressives and conservatives have been battling each other since 1776, and how progressives have broken through in what I call "Big Change Moments" that have fundamentally remade our country for the better. I relate all of this to the political battles I have been fighting my whole career, and to the present moment of opportunity for progressivism to once again break through in a major way. The book develops a coherent, compelling narrative about the historic battle between progressive and conservative thinking, and makes the case that when our side has won the day, the big changes that happened moved America forward and built a country we can be proud of: the Bill of Rights, the abolition of slavery, the national park system, women's suffrage, the New Deal, the civil rights movement, the New Deal, the civil rights movement- all part of a progressive heritage that is the best of America.

I have always been a big believer in building progressive infrastructure, in promoting the groups and media voices and bloggers and books that are part of our broader progressive movement in any way I can. I am heartened now to see the favor returned by so many people at different blogs who are helping me push this out through donated ad space. The folks at FDL are having me on their book salon. Friends like Arianna Huffington, Tom Daschle, Paul Begala, Donna Brazile, Wes Boyd, David Brock and David Sirota have done blurbs for me. Others like Drew Westen, Victoria Hopper, Digby, Max Bernstein, Waymon Hudson, James Boyce, Mike Connery, and Sara Robinson have agreed to do reviews for me. Netroots Nation, USAction, Media Matters, Campaign for Community Change, ACORN, and others are helping me in a wide variety of ways. It's heartening to get all their support.

I hope I will get yours, too. As I've written time after time over the years in the support of other progressive authors, books need to get off to a fast start to have a chance of making an impact. If they do, it gives the author an even better chance of getting their message out through the extra media attention a successful book brings.

My entire point in writing this book is to build the movement, to give progressives the narrative and the facts about history to carry the day in their debates. Please buy a copy, and spread the word, through your Facebook page, your listservs, and through whatever political groups you are a part of. Every dollar I make on the book will go back into supporting politics in one way or another, so I need your help.

Mike Lux :: The Progressive Revolution

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There will be no progressive movement (0.00 / 0)
if there is no separation of progressive goals from allegiance to individual politicians and to parties.

In this election, the online and activist community has dissipated whatever commitment they might ever have had to an independent set of principles; everything became judged by its effect on their more basic concern of supporting uncritically an individual candidate or party.

It's the difference caught in analogy by the famous question from Plato's Euthyphro: "Is what is good commanded by God because it is good, or is it good because it is commanded by God?"

For the vast majority of activists and members of the blogosphere, the answer is obvious: What is good is good because it is commanded by their favored politician or party.

Say this much for the right: they know what they believe, and they fight for it.


Congratulations (0.00 / 0)
fantastic achievement

I haven't read the book (0.00 / 0)
so this isn't a critique, but I am wondering, why is it advisable to tie modern progressives to the earlier progressive movement of the early 1900's?  It isn't really the same thing at all.  Further, although you can cite some good things from the earlier era, you also have to explain eugenics, forced sterilization, and prohibition, don't you?

Isn't it true that modern progressives are simply liberals who don't like that label?  


Because We Learn From Our Mistakes, Maybe??? (4.00 / 2)
And any reference to any past political movement will have some less-than-flattering associations.

Plus, Mike's argument is about progress, dating all the way back to 1780s/90s.  So using the now-commonplace term "progressive" is sort of a no-brainer.


"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3


[ Parent ]
Historical arguments (0.00 / 0)
I think it's important to make historical arguments, as evidenced by the right wingers doing it constantly even when they have no clue of what actually happened. And I think you can praise important historical movements for the things they did achieve even while acknowledging they screwed up in other areas, as I do in the book.

[ Parent ]
cool (4.00 / 1)
congratulations, I'll pick up a copy next week.

Congrats Mike (4.00 / 1)
A book like this has been needed for along time. Progressive politics wasn't just invented with the Internet, but has been around along time.

Back last fall, I attended at talk by Jim Hightower who said "I worked hard to get rid of LBJ, only to find out later that Johnson was the most progressive president in my lifetime".


That progress is not limited to one party (0.00 / 0)
is evidenced by the fact that the civil right movement was supported by Republicans and opposed by Democrats, who are supposed to be the "progressives" around here.  The New Deal, however, was a Raw Deal, as it gave us Social Security, which is a Ponzi scheme that makes Madoff look like a playground bully.  By the way, you repeat the civil rights and New Deal section twice, if you want to edit that part.

It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember.
 - Eugene McCarthy


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