The Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace: Why Progressives Are Stymied and How They Can Find Their Way Again


Book Description

Contrary to popular myth, it is possible for progressives to take an analytical approach to solving difficult social problems and win. Using the sustainability problem as a running example, this book demonstrates how. The same key tool Limits to Growth used, simulation modeling, is applied. However, unlike Limits to Growth this book explores the social side of the problem, rather than the technical side, to find the fundamental cause of the very strong change resistance civilization has encountered. The root cause turns out to lie in a surprisingly simple social structure called the Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace. The book explains in laymanâÂÂs terms how the Dueling Loops model works, where the intuitively attractive but low leverage point is that progressives are presently pushing on, and where the high leverage points are they must push on instead. The end result is a whole new way of thwinking. For further information on this book and project, please see thwink.org.




Politics in the Gutters


Book Description

From the moment Captain America punched Hitler in the jaw, comic books have always been political, and whether it is Marvel’s chairman Ike Perlmutter making a campaign contribution to Donald Trump in 2016 or Marvel’s character Howard the Duck running for president during America’s bicentennial in 1976, the politics of comics have overlapped with the politics of campaigns and governance. Pop culture opens avenues for people to declare their participation in a collective project and helps them to shape their understandings of civic responsibility, leadership, communal history, and present concerns. Politics in the Gutters: American Politicians and Elections in Comic Book Media opens with an examination of campaign comic books used by the likes of Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman, follows the rise of political counterculture comix of the 1960s, and continues on to the graphic novel version of the 9/11 Report and the cottage industry of Sarah Palin comics. It ends with a consideration of comparisons to Donald Trump as a supervillain and a look at comics connections to the pandemic and protests that marked the 2020 election year. More than just escapist entertainment, comics offer a popular yet complicated vision of the American political tableau. Politics in the Gutters considers the political myths, moments, and mimeses, in comic books—from nonfiction to science fiction, superhero to supernatural, serious to satirical, golden age to present day—to consider how they represent, re-present, underpin, and/or undermine ideas and ideals about American electoral politics.




They Only Look Dead


Book Description

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne argues that American politics is headed not toward the right but toward a new Progressive Era.




The Progressive Movement


Book Description




Get this Party Started


Book Description

A collection of essays reviews the Bush agenda over the last four years and provides advice for Democrats and progressives on promoting a political platform that addresses such issues as the deficit, terrorism, health care, energy, and taxes.




The Progressives' Century


Book Description

Chapter 20. How the Progressives Became the Tea Party's Mortal Enemy: Networks, Movements, and the Political Currency of Ideas -- Chapter 21. What Is to Be Done? A New Progressivism for a New Century -- List of Contributors -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z




The Progressive Movement


Book Description

Benjamin Parke DeWitt's study of the Progressive Era represents a comprehensive history of the theory and practice of politics from a progressive perspective. His account of the history and projections about the future of the progressive science of politics provided the American liberal-progressive tradition with its first full narrative history at a time when it was not yet the dominant interpretation of the American political order. Its greatest importance, however, lies in DeWitt's conception of where the broad-based progressive critique of the Founders' was heading.DeWitt's history of the origins and projected destiny of the progressive tradition commands a respect that places him in the same company as better-known writers. His historical narrative of the liberal progressive tradition was implicit among a number of writers before the Progressive Movement, but no contemporary writer provided a better roadmap of where progressivism was going than DeWitt. What gives DeWitt's critique a twist is his focus on the individualism of the founders, which he regards as the heart of their anti-democratic principles. His critique of this individualism is the foundation for his argument that collectivism is arguably a more democratic alternative.Benjamin Parke DeWitt is one of the lesser-known, often overlooked writers who worked to establish the liberal library of American political thought. This book deserves to be read as one of the neglected gems of the Progressive Era that it chronicles. This is an important addition to the Library of Liberal Thought series.




The Progressive Revolution


Book Description

This is an accessible book that delineates how progressives and the progressive movement have created the American idea and ideals and forged the kind of country in which we want to live. It creates a platform from which to argue how progressives today are fighting to improve America, in contrast to how conservatives have always worked to defend the interests of elites. Each chapter will tell the reader a story focusing on different subjects, such as efforts to enact civil rights laws, social security, the middle class, how the idea of America changed the world, and why most of us can vote. Lux points out what he feels the Democrats have done wrong during the last decades and how the lessons of history can point to making positives changes. Lux shows how the progressives have been instrumental in creating big positive change moments, and argues that as a new administration takes office in 2009 the time will be ripe for a new big change moment,. He outlines how he believes progressive policies can be channeled to solves the big problems facing us today.




Being Right Is Not Enough


Book Description

""Waldman's book is terrific-good sense mustered with evidence, well argued, and sharply written to boot. I agree fervently with almost everything he writes. This is the indispensable book for the 2006 elections."" --Todd Gitlin, author of The Sixties and The Twilight of Common Dreams ""A well-sourced, partisan blueprint for undoing Republican control of the nation."" --Publishers Weekly ""Here's the ticket for Democrats to get back in power: read this book, understand what it means to be a true American progressive, expose conservatives as the mean elitists they are, get tough, and fight back. Nobody paints the strengths of progressives and the weaknesses of conservatives like Paul Waldman."" --Bill Press, author How the Republicans Stole Christmas ""With clarity and passion, Paul Waldman demonstrates persuasively that the forces of the right have not 'taken over the country, ' as the media often lazily put it. They've only taken over politics. That can be reversed, and Waldman shows exactly how."" --Michael Tomasky, Editor, the American Prospect




Getting Things Done in Washington


Book Description

Boyett has written a book that will inspire you, lift your spirits, renew your faith in what progressives can accomplish, and show you a way forward. Getting Things Done in Washington tells the exciting stories of six great moments of progressive legislative history and the people who made them happen: - James Madison and the founding fathers' struggle to expand the power of the federal government, - The Ladies of Beekman Hill, George Wiley and the struggle for pure food and drugs, - Wilbur Mills and the struggle for universal health insurance, - Robert Wagner and the struggle for the right of labor to organize, - John Sherman and the struggle to rein in and regulate big business, and - Lyndon Johnson and the struggle for civil rights legislation. Boyett describes what it was like to live in America before progressives secured these historic pieces of legislation and how these legislative achievements changed the lives of every American. He introduces you to the fascinating men and women who led the efforts to pass this legislation and shows us how to defeat conservatives and once again get progressive things done in Washington. Getting Things Done in Washington is vivid and exciting history. It will inspire you to work even harder for progressive causes. Most importantly, it will give you the tools to begin getting things done in Washington.