Robert Reich Warns Progressives - We Can't Give Up

There are plenty of us who get frustrated and discouraged and even wonder why bother?   Robert Reich says that's the certain path to a truly regressive future.   He's speaking to American voters but the message applies to us all.

This is for those of you who consider yourself to be progressive but have given up on politics because it seems rotten to the core. You may prefer Obama to Romney but don’t think there’s a huge difference between the two, so you may not even vote.

Your cynicism is understandable. But cynicism is a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you succumb to it, the regressives who want to take this nation back to the 19th century win it all.

The Koch brothers, Karl Rove, the rabid Republican right, CEOs and Wall Street titans who want to entrench their privileges and tax advantages – all of them would like nothing better than for every progressive in America to throw in the towel. 

Then America is entirely theirs.

The alternative to cynicism is to become more involved in politics. Help create a progressive force in this nation that grows into a movement that can’t be stopped.

He's right.   Canadians too need to create a progressive force that can't be stopped.   There are so many places we can begin.  One of them must be the reformation of the Liberal Party away from the conservative-lite posture they adopted under Ignatieff.   If they can't move back well to the left, perhaps the time has come to simply end the farce.

Maybe we need to toss in all the chips and start over.  Scrap the Liberal/NDP party distinctions that have divided us to only Harper's real benefit.   Perhaps we need to build a new party, from the ground up.   The NDP could argue why should they when they're now the Official Opposition.   Yet any honest dipper would admit that the party itself changed, itself went to the right, became a new liberal party, to get there.   In the process today's NDP jettisoned the NDP of the past to become a centrist party more acceptable to the Canadian public.   Clinging to an already rejected image of the past only raises unnecessary hurdles.

Let's unite the Libs and the NDP under a centre/centre-left, progressive tent.   That would also offer the true left to the formation of a new, leftwing party.

We can't give up.   There's too much at stake.   Harper must be stopped.   He has already changed Canada.   We need to act before the Harper stamp becomes permanent.