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Rage the Left Should Use
Wall Street and the abuses of corporate America crashed the economy, leaving regular people anxious and financially insecure. Yet the far right, not the reformist left, is getting the political windfall.
Something is severely off when economically stressed Americans confront members of Congress about "death panels" in the Obama health plan. The rumors, fanned by talk radio with a little help from Republicans, are false and even delusional. Yet the anger, if misdirected, is genuine.
People should be plenty angry about their jobs and their mortgages and their health insurance. With health care, however, virtually all of the fears attributed to the Obama health reform efforts more accurately describe the existing private system.
It is private insurance companies that ration care by deciding what is covered and what is not. Private plans limit which doctor and hospital you can use, define "preexisting conditions" and make insurance unaffordable for tens of millions. For many, all this can cause suffering and sometimes even death. Our one oasis of socialized medicine, Medicare, has the most choice and the least exclusion.
The misdirected citizen anger at the Obama health reform efforts is a surrogate for broader, entirely legitimate, popular economic backlash.
After receiving nearly a trillion dollars of taxpayer aid, Wall Street is returning to business as usual. Consider: Firms that received government help, after losing fortunes in 2008, still found money to pay out exorbitant bonuses at public expense.
Far too little of the government's aid to Wall Street is trickling down. Because of the administration's decision to target $75 billion in mortgage-relief aid to banks and mortgage companies rather than to beleaguered homeowners, foreclosures are still increasing far faster than loan modifications.
Despite the premature triumphalism about a trivial drop in the measured unemployment rate in July, more than 25 million Americans are either unemployed, out of the labor force, or working part time when they need a full-time job. No wonder there is widespread pocketbook anger.
When economically stressed and frightened people are anxious and sullen, you never know who will capture their fears and hopes. In the 1930s, economic anxiety produced leaders as different as Franklin Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler. History shows that if the reformist left doesn't offer a plausible story and strategy of reform, the lunatic right will gain ground even with an implausible one. So where are the liberal protesters? The initiative has passed to the know-nothing right for two big reasons.
One is Obama himself. This president recoils from confrontation, even with those who are out to destroy him. He has had ample opportunities to put himself on the side of popular economic grievances and to connect America's economic troubles to the forces that Roosevelt called "economic royalists." But Obama, whose propensity for consensus is hard-wired, keeps passing up those opportunities.
Even now, he won't make clear that the private insurance industry is the problem. Recent administration statements on the "public" insurance option have been classics of mixed messaging. Obama's economic team is far too cozy with Wall Street, fanning populist suspicions.
Despite the president's history as a community organizer, his style as president is to tamp down popular protest, not rev it up. I know of several cases in which the White House requested allied progressive groups to cool it. When government-subsidized AIG disgracefully paid culpable executives "retention bonuses," Obama dispatched Larry Summers to the Sunday talk shows to helpfully explain that "We are a country of law. There are contracts." Tell that to laid-off and outsourced factory workers. It's hardly surprising that regular people resent the corporate-connected Washington of Barack Obama.
Second, the progressive grass roots have been weakened by the same Wall Street-dominated economy. The labor movement, the best single instrument for turning popular economic distress into reform, has been savaged by illegal corporate union-busting. While the Obama administration offers kind words to unions, reform to ensure workers' rights to organize is not one of its priorities. Too many other liberal interest groups have become Beltway operations, packaged and polite affairs disconnected from the real grass roots.
The remedy is not left-wing mobs to contest right-wing ones. In Germany in the 1930s, fascists tilted in the street with communists, and both were recipes for disaster.
One way or another, hard times produce popular anger at callous elites. Presidential leadership and progressive organizing energy to connect the mounting outrage to the real economic abuses are overdue. Otherwise, even a ticket of Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford could pick up the pieces.
- Posted in
101 Comments so far
Show AllObama needs a pair, that's all...and I see no room for growth. He needs to mount that horse and stop riding side-saddle....
To late, that horse has bolted and left Obama staring at its southern end.
Are you kidding? First he needs to get the Insurance corporation stallion to stop sodomizing him. And then we have to ask the pertinent question. Does he like it? I know the answer and it has nothing to do with being gay or not. The answer is that, in D.C. politicians either become part of a massive tag team taking turns in the barrel or they lose their job. End of story.
Is the presidency a real office or is it mostly just a p.r. wing of corporate America -- or Wall Street? What does political power mean anymore? Some of us thought that an election mattered, only to find the same old insiders running the show. (Then again, what did we expect of someone with such limited experience?)
But I have to disgree with Robert Kuttner and give President Obama some credit. The president has made clear that the private insurance industry is the problem, repeatedly. And this is not the first time an intellectual leader of the Left has made such a fundamental mistake with his criticism of Obama (see Paul Street). I just do not understand how such mistakes can be made.
It seems He has made it clear they are the solution too.
freefallen August 19th, 2009 11:11 am............"The president has made clear that the private insurance industry is the problem,...."
And this is some great revelation? The only thing Obama has made clear that wasn't so obvious in his pre-election rhetoric, is that he does not have the leadership ability to make decisions that might go against the normal course of corruption via lobbyists in DC. I, for one, expect a leader to have answers and to be able to follow through with solutions, not just kowtow to the "contributors" by accepting the status quo.
I agree with you about Obama. As a columnist in 'The Guardian' put it (I am giving credit, not name-dropping), so far, Obama has been more of a cheerleader of reform than a leader. And I also agree that it is no revelation about the private insurance industry being the problem. I was reacting to Kuttner's strange claim that Obama had not made this clear, when I had just seen several recent headlines and front-page stories saying just the opposite and even noting his blunt language. I have seen and heard President Obama criticize insurance industry practices for months now and I recall seeing headlines about how it was White House strategy to target the insurance industry.
Any specific critiques of Paul Street? I can find few issues with his brilliant deconstructions of Obama - his pre-election analyses fully predicted everything we are seeing now.
http://www.zcommunications.org/zsearch/search/all/paulstreet
I am reading Paul Street's "Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics" (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2009.) I do not recall how I learned about the book. (Maybe I just liked the title.) I was not familiar with Street. He is incisive and the book is well-documented and very thorough and I am learning a lot. I probably should have reserved comment until I have read more of the book. But in reading the section about Obama and Iraq (in the chapter, "How 'Antiwar'?"), I found myself wishing I had a pencil handy to jot down my questions and concerns about Street's version of events. Here is one example (p. 152). Street is quoting lines from a speech Obama made in 2006 to the Chicago Council of Global Affairs:
"At one terrible and telling point in [his speech], the all-but-openly-declared presidential candidate had the cold imperial audacity to say the following in support of his claim that the U.S. citizens support 'victory' in Iraq: 'The American people have been extraordinarily resolved. They have seen their sons and daughters killed or wounded in the streets of Fallujah.'
"This was a spine-chilling selection of locales. Fallujah was the site of colossal U.S. war atrocities -- crimes including the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the targeting even of ambulances and hospitals, and the leveling of practically an entire city --- in April and November 2004. The town was designated as an example of the awesome state terror promised to those who dared to resist U.S. power. Not surprisingly, Fallujah became a powerful and instant symbol of American imperialism in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It was a deeply provocative place for Obama to have chosen to highlight American sacrifice and 'resolve' in the imperialist occupation of Iraq. In doing so, he hurled insult after injury toward the Iraqis, who are the ones who truly made sacrifices in Fallujah"
But no where does Street mention what I am guessing Obama probably had in mind (if I recall correctly): the images of U.S. soldiers' (and private security personnel) charred remains being dragged through the streets of Fallujah, and dead bodies hanging upside-down from bridges -- some of the most shocking images of the war seen by the average American citizen. I don't dispute what Street says about U.S. operations in Fallujah or their symbolic value (in fact, I believe the brutal images we saw resulted from a revenge attack on U.S. forces, a fact which was lost in a lot of the media coverage), but did Obama really do anything different from what most politicians do? Was his selection of Fallujah intended the way Street saw it, or was it simply an attempt, using imprecise shorthand, to connect with his audience and the larger American public?
On the other hand, I do not recall U.S. women soldiers being victims of the brutality infamously pictured in Fallujah. So maybe Street's take is the more accurate one, after all. But I just found his omission of any reference (other than, possibly, "those who dared to resist U.S. power") to that particular brutality jarring.
The presidency and congress are the fall guys for the "real" powers that be.
Someone wrote that there are 13 families and organizations running the show. Lets see if we can identify them by the ways our elected officials go back on their campaign promises.
Big pharma - check
Big insurance - check
The Bush family - check
The military/industrial complex - Yeah, there still here.
See if you can find more.
Free or affordable health care for people who need it is an obvious part of a functioning society which benefits not only the people who receive health care but also the employers which are able to hire from a healthier working base.
I have experienced first-hand subsidized health care in Sweden and though there are some things that need to be improved, it was an experience which kept me healthy and freed me up to worry about more important things than whether or not I would be able to see a doctor if I needed to.
I just read on CNN that Obama and the dems might go it alone to pass legislation, they have my support, after 8 years of Bush strongarming EVERYONE, I can safely say that they deserve to be left behind, for good, for progress' sake.
Amen.
If Obama hasn't yet figured out that the "bipartisanship" he has been touting will only be achieved through total capitulation, he is isn't going to be able solve other problems, either.
Kuttner: "One way or another, hard times produce popular anger at callous elites. Presidential leadership and progressive organizing energy to connect the mounting outrage to the real economic abuses are overdue."
Mr. Kuttner takes us to the doorstep of a reasonable anticipation of an appropriate focus for populist rage---then with this quote drops us in a barren field in which there is little prospect for the assuaging of our angst. "Presidential leadership and progressive organizing energy" are precisely, in his own analysis, the missing elements in our present woes, not only "overdue" but nowhere in sight.
As I was reading his devastating if reluctant indictment of today's presidential leadership, I was almost holding my breath in anticipation of his definition of an appropriate focus for our rage. Here at last I was thinking, one of the stable of Obama-apologizers housed at Nation and American Prospect magazines would say it's time for the people to get hopping mad at those ENABLERS of the power of Wall Street and other "elites": namely the President and those "energized progressives" many of whom are energized (think Organized for America, Sierra Club and Health Care For All if you want examples) to support Obama's policies no matter their progressive or regressive content. The people of this country, if not the "culture creative" class (that would be us) of their leaders, are entitled to a furious attack on elite domination in every thing from war-making to health-providing. Since they (along with the usual suspects of the Republican know-nothings) are the forces that allow the financial firms and drug industries to continue to dominate our political system, it is quite "useful" for the people to follow the example of Jesus and wrathfully throw out of the temple the money-changers AND their liberal enablers. In short I'm suggesting that the very kind of anger at a sell-out administration and Democratic Party and a sell-out liberal establishment that is so often is so often displayed in the pages of these CD pages must become the language as well of people on the streets of this country. Short of this becoming the fact, Kuttner's grave threat of a "Palin/Sanford" presidential ticket in 2012 is an all-too-real possibility, but one that cannot be averted by deflecting our rage at those "awful Republicans" while the benign Democrats are feeding themselves at the corporate trough.
Waiting for Obama is like Waiting for Godot or Waiting for Lefty. He has nothing, however,to wait for. The Dems are largely Wall Street/Pentagon Dems as are the Republicans. Pro War,pro empire,pro big business--these folks spell ruin for our country...and still we wait....
dr wu: But HOW LONG will we wait for Godot/Lefty/Obama?
Obama is like a pop culture icon, out of central casting in the movie role about the first African-American president. It seems from the moment he won, his fifteen minutes were up and the movie is over and he isn't up to the task in the real world - yearning to be back on the campaign trail, performing his speeches instead of now reciting his canned lines from a teleprompter. He has a quest for bipartisan unity--a mission strangely at odds with real world mandates and also like shallow made-for-TV movie content. The people want repudiation and change from the Bush years, not a continuation of them, not a compromise with Right wing crooks-rather a reckoning, an accountability. Still Obama makes Chamberlain-like overtures, keeping with the movie image and plot and not rising to the demands of the hour. The resulting perception is one of weakness and vascillating incompetence at a time when all the stars are aligned for change. There is something removed and unconnected to the people's interests over corporate priorities that stinks of elitist complicity. It seems like currying favor with the Right and serving the interests of the corrupt ruling elite is the real world role while he still plays Obama the vessel of change on TV. So, I don't understand why it is always the people who are somehow not supportive enough of Obama vs the vested money interests when, thus far, he has demonstrated allegiance to them over us.
While I agree that A LOT of people who should be protesting and more actively lobbying on the health care front (and on all matter of economic and foreign policy related issues) are too busy sitting on their asses and continuing the brain dead irony lifestyle of the coddled American consumer, I think this piece is missing a very important point. The right-wing protesters are getting much more press than they deserve and the corporate puppet masters pulling their strings are being utterly ignored. The corporate media is trying desperately to spin them as a grass roots revolt of some kind, when an intelligent analysis of them clearly shows them to be the last gasp of a dying corporate ideology (hell-bent on making sure the rest of us die along with it).
The anti-war protests in 2003 were far larger and more disruptive, but they were treated as irrelevant by the corporate owned media. These uninformed Beckbots and Limbaugh drones are being elevated by the corporate media that is, as always, attempting to push the pro-corporate agenda. Once again, the corporate-owned media is using the most superficial of pretenses to frame the debate in such a way that progressive ideas and opinions are made to seem far more marignalized than they should based on the number of Americans who hold them. Meanwhile, truly marginal, right wing opinions are being treated as far more mainstream than they should be, based on the reality of the number of people who actually hold them.
The writer is 100% correct that many, many people are neglected their civic obligation to involve themselves in the policy debates of their time. But he is himself neglecting the crucial role that his industry plays in this dynamic. Not surprising, coming from a Beltway newspaper writer.
Briggs Seekins
briggsseekins.wordpress.com
True and Obama succumbs to them without even offering a PR campaign of his own to counter. He sends out his mealymouth backpeddlers instead of launching a solid program.
Face it, he can't. He is too compromised, too cowardly, too compromising.
Robert Kuttner drew the wrong lesson from history in regards to the rise of Nazi Germany; where the SA won the battle of the streets versus the Communists, Socialists, & Labor (whom did not work together even as it appeared as if the Nazis would win). If the screaming nut bags are not directly confronted, then they have won the perception battle by fait accompli. It should also be mentioned that the majority of the corporate shills and dupes showing up at these town halls are not even remotely the same sort of physical specimens that the average SA member was. The time for an overwhelming push back is now.
Agreed... We need a list somewhere on this site of every single Health Care townhall in the country and have groups of people at each one pushing back; that being said, I protested the Iraq war, and you can tell the media are much more inclined to cover the right-wing protesters than the left-wing protesters. There were millions of people protesting around the world before the Iraq war and we only limited mentions on TV and the print media. A few right-wingers at protests get much more coverage and the public needs to be educated that those people are in the extreme minority, not some populist movement as the media portrays them as.
It's assumed that everyone at the meeting is with the right. Wouldn't it be better for the the left to organize a massive nation-wide protest and ignore the town halls?
You are quite correct that the corporate media is more likely to cover the right wing nut bags than progressives. After all, they would loath to loose the ad $'s from Health insurance and Drug companies that is sure to occur as a predictable side effect of public option, or, dare I write it, single payer. The PR operations that call themselves the network news are merely following orders.
HERE is a sample of some of the rage the left needs delivered coutesy of Prof. David Michael Green.
This particular essay of Green's won't appear on CD because it anger and passion might make some of hand-wringing liberal supporters of this site feel "emotionally raped" as I understand they felt when reading comment section posts. It's title" "Guess What? He's a Terrible President". probably didn't help either. Here it is:
http://www.counterpunch.com/green08192009.html
Classic Green. Thanks for the link, pj.
My favourite line, after comparing the first eight months of Bush and Obama:
Green sez: "How about that, Brother Barack? You’re getting your ass kicked by the worst president in all of American history."
You must be new to this site because Green gets criticized here for being being too easy on Obama. I'm one of the guys that thinks Nader should run as a Dem and help reform the party. Parties change over time- the population just needs to be convinced of who to vote for.
You responded to my comment recently regarding why health-care doesn't function in the private market( http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/13-10 ). Debunking the libertarian argument (fed by decades of anti-commie propaganda) is what we need to focus on imo. I hope the left can refine their economic arguments because we are failing miserably.
Nope, I'm not at all new here. Read the article.
I agree that attacking the decades of "libertarian" propaganda and their twisted definition of "freedom" is long, long overdue.
Read it. Loved it. Also happy to see a new Michael Hudson article.
Green supported (like Chomsky, Zinn, Klein etc.) voting Dem in swing states and copped a lot of flack from Nader supporters here.
I'd like to find the "perfect" argument against libertarian doctrine. I recommend "Why Socialism?" and the "Conservative Nanny State" to everyone but Chomsky has come closest I think. It'd be great if the best progressive economists would circulate petitions and be more active, maybe a "Union of Concerned Economists" or something. Cheers.
There is a video that has floated around the internet for a number of years - it is called "Capitalism and other Kid's Stuff" written by a group with the Socialist Party of Great Britain. It is a plain, idiot-proof critique of the underlying "libertarian" philosophy of capitalism. It can be viewed in multiple parts from youtube, but instead, you may want to dounload it via bit torrent (on Mininova or other - it is public domain of course), or obtain the CD from one of a number of sites.
Oh, I don't know. CD would appreciate it. Thanks for the link, but someone should tell Green that Obama stopped calling it "health care reform" and started referring to it as "health insurance reform". Who would think he would be this terrible in such a short time--especially considering what an easy act he had to follow.
What reformist left might that be? Obama is a right wing republican in all but his label. His followers are just like him. Any real leftwing reformist belongs to neither corporate party. Americans are so ignorant it just can't believe it. Back in the late 60's and early 70's uneducated x cons had more political awareness than most college educated people today. America! We be fucked!
People should be plenty angry about their jobs and their mortgages and their health insurance.
Yes, they should. But the "people" you refer to don't read CD or any other left/progressive blog. They watch CNN or read The Lunkville Gazette and that's where they get their idea of what is actually going on in the world. Tell them that George Wanker Bush or Bollocks Obimbo is a villain, that they have ruined and currently are ruining their lives and the life of this nation and they'll straighten their backs, give you a withering sneer and walk away. They might even shoot you. Those are the people who, in their millions, must get out into the streets and tell the Republicans and the Democrats "we're coming to get you." I don't believe that even a total collapse of this nation will bring that about.
Check this out
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-kilkenny/white-house- protects-blue_b_262783.html
Obama doesn't want liberal protestors!
He certainly doesn't want protestors anywhere in sight when he hobnobs with the G20 in Pittsburgh. Consequently, it is increasingly apparent that the SS has been has been directed to refuse any permits for protests anywhere where they may be seen by the bigs at the convention center or their hotel rooms. Even protests from distant hilltops or across the river are being prohibited.
So much for Obamabot's "make him do it" crap.
Got to wonder what they're going to do about the dudes with the guns strapped to their thighs hanging around the door.
At Spectre's Kittanning town Hall there was rage at the Wall Street bailout--but it was used as one more point against Obama. Along with withering cynicism that big gov. could do anything right--(except of course--conduct a war) If the people got mad and blamed corporate America-- why then it wouldn't leave those interests in power. Popular rage has to be deflected to another target. Or it wouldn't be Amreica.
So true. And paradoxically, it is the formerly well-off, formerly union, coal mining and manufacturing areas like Kitanning/Armstrong County where the now low-paid workers are so allied with those who ruined their lives, and so angrily attacking all the wrong targets.
Where are the protesters indeed. I thought the Woodstock anniversary would have brought out mass demonstrations and a new movement. The singlepayer activists need to agree on a day and coordinate a massive protest using the popular progressive websites.
Kuttner is one of that vast array of liberal shills (like his buddy Robert Reich) who often correctly diagnose a disease but then either do not know how to write a prescription or do not want to for fear of being seen as too radical to be permitted another column in the execrable DC Post.
-30-
Robert Reich wrote a prescription when he worked for Clinton. Unfortunately, it helped kill the patient. It was for "deregulation."
If you have to point out to a person or persons that they SHOULD be outraged about something, I don't think they're going to get outraged.
"So where are the liberal protesters? The initiative has passed to the know-nothing right for two big reasons.
One is Obama himself. This president recoils from confrontation, even with those who are out to destroy him.
Second, the progressive grass roots have been weakened by the same Wall Street-dominated economy."
Third, libs ignore the enormous pressure the oligarchy puts on any President and find it more immediately cathartic to rail against a President who's very life is on the line than hitting the streets against the con obstructionists. Libs passed the hot potato to Obama and are expecting him to fix everything while they sit on the couch and crack their whips. How can libs hope to get our needs met by working within a system designed by those who work against us?
Obama doesn't want the Libs, fool
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-kilkenny/white-house-protects-blue_b_262783.html
Glad to see you're taking time off from watching FOX.
Huh?
No, but I am thinking about looking at it. Sometimes I watch the financial networks too--there are so many of them. I like to watch just for the spinning.Evem Chomsky listens to Right-wing radio to hear what the reactionaries are up to.
What the hell is your problem, anyway? arsehole.
Reactionary morons like you.
Vern and ezeflyer,
you probably will both not like what I say, but take a long hard look at yourselves. Your flaming is expression of frustration (and actually the underlying disunity of the whole progs/left...the content of this article), which ought to be used to fight the cause...the System, not each other.
If you look carefully you will realize that you are both on the same grand mission.
We cannot afford egos and semantic details weaken our unity. Not at this stage.
I agree. The problem may have something to do with reading comprehension skills being compromised by
1) reading too fast or
2) beer.
Either way, I ask all commenters to reread all comments before you assume them to be an attack from the right.
Our enemy is the corporatocracy. There are many millions, even on the right, that are not part of it.
Yes. This is why there is no organized left. Internecine warfare
I agree with you and your replies. Calling you a fool and an arsehole will tend to set you off, dontcha think?
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
American progressives ARE CLEARLY squandering their efforts and righteous anger out of national disorganization and collective paralysis. The Obama track record since he was elected should have made the need for a new national umbrella Party of American progressives obvious and yet most of us are still scattered in our little groups and micro-issue stances with no sense of national solidarity. I've previously called for a summit of leaders of American progressive organization for the purposes of organizing such a Party and I call for it again. Democratic support organizations with any progressive hopes for this nation have been repeatedly and systematically rebuffed, cajoled or threatened by the corporatist Democratic Leadership Council Dims to tow corporate lines that are only worsening the country's problems on almost every front.
Today I read that General Odierno is calling for a new U.S. military build-up in northern Iraq in violation of the Status of Forces agreement and against the wishes of the current Iraqi parliament. Large scale bombings are increasing in Iraq and the "surge" has been quietly melting down for months since none of the basic conflicts between sects, ethnic groups and oil and revenue sharing agreements (including Sunni addiction to bribery and bribe money-inflated "reconstruction contracts" going to selected Sunni sheiks) has been resolved. This is on top of the top U.S. general in Afghanistan calling for a troop build-up there as well. Obama's politics are further militarizing our already over-militarized economy and can only worsen the Police State/police brutality mentality within the U.S. itself. These military build-ups are unaffordable and make long-term commitments to CRUCIALLY NECESSARY domestic spending on real health care reform, environmental economic transition (practically dead in the water), peaceful job creation stimulus money, etc., fiscally suicidal on top of the ongoing "bank bailouts."
China jerked our leash in June by reducing purchases of our T-bills by 3% because America is now such an insanely bad lending risk. Global markets briefly shuddered. This may be the first foreign lending leak in an inevitable fiscal dam burst, and it will probably come sooner than most people think and before far too many are prepared.
IF TRUE AMERICAN PROGRESSIVES DON'T NATIONALLY ORGANIZE TO PICK UP THE PIECES OF 30 YEARS OF FASCIST-LITE AND OUTRIGHT FASCIST MISGOVERNMENT, THEN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WILL IMPOSE ORDNUNG UND RECHTNUNG ITS OWN WAY. THAT IS OUR CHOICE.
I SAY IT'S TIME FOR PROGRESSIVES TO ORGANIZE UNDER A PARTY THAT REPRESENTS OUR ISSUES OUR WAY FOR THE GOOD OF ALL AMERICANS AND NOT JUST THE ECONOMICALLY OR RACIALLY OR RELIGIOUSLY CHOSEN FEW. I CALL FOR TRUE LEADERSHIP FROM THE LEADERS OF AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE ORGANIZATIONS. I CALL ON THEM TO COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY WITH EACH OTHER TO SET A DATE FOR A NATIONAL SUMMIT FOR THE PURPOSES OF ORGANIZING A UNITED AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE PARTY.