The questions posed here appeared in the website
commondreams.org on Friday 30 May. Here is the list and this writer's assessment on where he stands.
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...So who is a progressive? You might be one if …
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• You think health care is a basic human right, and that single-payer national health insurance is
a worthwhile reform on our way toward creating a non-profit national health care service.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think that human rights ought always to trump property rights.
Largely AGREE
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• You think U.S. military spending is an obscene waste of resources, and that the only freedom this spending protects is the freedom of economic elites to exploit working people all around the planet.
Somewhat DISAGREE
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• You think U.S. troops should be brought home not only from Afghanistan and Iraq, but from all 130 countries in which the U.S. has military bases.
Largely AGREE
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• You think political leaders who engage in “preemptive war” and invasions should be brought to trial for crimes against humanity and judged against the standards of international law established at Nuremberg after World War Two.
Largely AGREE
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• You think public education should be free, not just from kindergarten through high school, but as far as a person is willing and able to go.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think that electoral reform should include instant run-off voting, publicly-financed elections, easy ballot access for all parties, and proportional representation.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think that electoral democracy is not enough, and that democracy must also be participatory and extend to workplaces.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think that strengthening the rights of all workers to unionize and bargain collectively is a useful step toward full economic democracy.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think that as a society we have a collective obligation to provide everyone who is willing and able to work with a job that pays a living wage and offers dignity.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think that a class system which forces some people to do dirty, dangerous, boring work all the time, while others get to do clean, safe, interesting work all the time, can never deliver social justice.
SOMEWHAT AGREE
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• You think that regulating big corporations isn’t enough, and that such corporations, if they are allowed to exist at all, must either serve the common good or be put into public receivership.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think that the legal doctrine granting corporations the same constitutional rights as natural persons is absurd and must be overturned.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think it’s wrong to allow individuals to accumulate wealth without limits, and that the highest incomes should be capped well before they begin to threaten community and democracy.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think that wealth, not just income, should be taxed.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think it’s crazy to use the Old Testament as a policy guide for the 21st century.
FULLY AGREE
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• You believe in celebrating diversity, while also recognizing that having women and people of color proportionately represented among the class of oppressors is not the goal we should be aiming for.
SOMEWHAT AGREE
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• You think that the state has no right to kill, and that putting people to death to show that killing is wrong will always be a self-defeating policy.
FULLY AGREE
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• You think that anyone who desires the reins of power that come with high political office should, by reason of that desire, be seen as unfit for the job.
SOMEWHAT DISAGREE
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• You think that instead of more leaders, we need fewer followers.
AGREE
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• You think that national borders, while sometimes establishing territories of safety, more often establish territories of exploitation, much like gang turf.
DISAGREE
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• You are open to considering how the privileges you enjoy because of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and/or physical ability might come at the expense of others.
SOMEWHAT AGREE
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• You believe that voting every few years is a weak form of political participation, and that achieving social justice requires concerted effort before, during, and after elections.
AGREE
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• You think that, ideally, no one would have more wealth more than they need until everyone has at least as much as they need to live a safe, happy, decent life.
SOMEWHAT AGREE
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• You recognize that an economic system which requires continuous expansion, destroys the environment, relies on rapidly-depleting fossil fuels, exacerbates inequality, and leads to war after war is unsustainable and must be replaced. Score a bonus point if you understand that sticking to the existing system is what’s unrealistic.
FULLY AGREE
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Obviously this list is considerably incomplete. But it does give a good basis for understanding what it will take to try to fix this world, if that is even possible, before mankind and society destroys it in the next one-half or so century.
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With gasoline prices past $ 4.00 throughout the nation for the most part and $ 5.00 per gallon fuel on the very near horizon for many -- perhaps as soon as late August --, the end of the gluttonous era of the sport utility vehicle automobile has arrived. This is not the first time a line of motor vehicles will disappear from the marketplace. In the past, such vehicle lines as muscle cars, convertibles, station wagons, and big long luxury sedans have all come and gone. The smaller fuel economical motor vehicle made its debut in the early 1960s with the Chevy Corvair, Ford Fairlane, and VW Bug, and this line continues and will continue to for imperpetuity seemingly. The only way there will be a return to large and powerful vehicles is if another fuel source is incorporated into the design and operation of such vehicles, a source that is highly inexpensive, economical, environmentally responsible, and with the ease of use and location such as what gasoline has had for over three-quarters of a century.
