Democracy For the Heart of America

PRESENTATION BY DR. KELLY PATRICK GERLING

A new political identity is emerging on the American scene. "Progressive" as a political identity is displacing "liberal." And it is doing so with an emerging platform rooted in the best of the New Deal, the worldwide Green Party movement, the Green Party of the United States, presidential candidacies of Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, new progressive caucuses arising in state Democratic Parties, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus in the Democratic Party.

While progressives are united by ideas and policies, we remain divided politically. Over the last 30 years, the US government and its two-party duopoly has been seized by rich, dominant corporate, militarist minorities who intend to keep harming our society, other nations, and the global environment as they seek to expand their corporate regime to dominate the entire world. This is not democracy but corpocracy -- and under the Bush administration it is headed towards some kind of a police state at home and an empire abroad.

More and more people are becoming aware of the dangerous direction our country is going; while at the same time, progressive ideas are gaining credence.

We not only have a great opportunity to usher in a new progressive era in America, but it is imperative that we do so. This is a formidable task but we have the ideas, the numbers and the resources to do it. Gerling's presentation will focus on how progressives can unite politically to amplify our power. It will include a discussion of what local progressives can do in our own region to pursue the goal of progressive political unity.

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