The right-wing fervor of Bad-Mouthing Progressives and Liberals in the past few years has in my opinion surpassed the height of the Regan era bashing of Liberals. Just a few minutes on Fox News channel would lead you to believe that Liberals and Progressives are demonizing our way of life, Socializing and Stalinizing and eroding our Constitution. Well let’s see what Progressive really is.

A Short List of Progressive Ideologies

The Renaissance:

Starting around the 14^th Century, a time of advancing culture, art and an emphasis on higher learning.

Age of Enlightenment:

Developing simultaneously in France, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the American colonies, the movement was buoyed by Atlantic Revolutions, especially the success of the American Revolution.

The American Revolution:

Was the result of a series of social, political, and intellectual transformations in early American society and government, collectively referred to as the American Enlightenment [This gave us the Constitution.]

American Progressive movement:

First Reform Era occurred in the years before the Civil War and included efforts of social activists to reform working conditions and humanizes the treatment of mentally ill people and prisoners.

Next came:

The Lincoln Reconstruction Plan

The Initial Congressional Plan

The Andrew Johnson Reconstruction Plan

The Radical Republican Reconstruction Plan (seems the Right Wing owes us a favor)

Movements like:

The reconstruction Movement

The Temperance movement

The Farm Movement

The success of progressivism owed much to publicity generated by the muckrakers, writers who detailed the horrors of poverty, urban slums, dangerous factory conditions, and child labor, among a host of other ills.

The Interstate Commerce act

Sherman Anti Trust act

Conservation act

Railroad Legislation

Food and Drug Laws

The progressive spirit also was evident in new amendments added to the Constitution, which provided for a new means to elect senators, protect society through prohibition and extend suffrage to women.

The Roosevelt Progressives (Bull Moose Party) of 1912

The La Follette Progressives of the 1920s

The Henry Wallace Progressives of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Maybe we should just discount all this and hope that we can pull ourselves out of the Dark Ages whimpering at the feet of Dictators and Theocratic Dogmatic Totalitarians.

Eric Knight