Patience is a virtue, it’s said, and that might be especially true when reform is sought. If progress seems slow, impatience can lead to frustration and worse.Patience is particularly important when conventional wisdom, stereotypes, etc. become obstacles to change.
For Peoria-area progressives – who are meeting at 6:30 p.m. August 3rd at downtown Peoria’s Waterhouse facility – obstacles range from incorrect assumptions about “liberals” to people identifying themselves as conservatives or moderates when their core beliefs fit comfortably with goals of progressives.
“The majority of Americans are liberal. Period,” says Bill Poorman, who’s helping to coordinate the August 3rd meeting, which will take place in Suite B (upstairs) at the Waterhouse, 619 Water St.
“But over the last 40 years, no one’s been telling them that,” he continued. “In fact, the other side has been telling them they’re not. So we have to win the hearts and minds of the people – but that’s not that much of a struggle.”
Indeed, although people can self-identify any way they want, of course, labels mean little without definitions or deeper issues being considered. And many surveys over the last several years show that Americans who classify themselves as conservatives or moderates espouse quite progressive preferences.
Asked about eliminating tax cuts for wealthy Americans, 59 percent supported it; asked about impose a tax on Wall Street profits, 70 percent supported it.
Further, a sizable majority of U.S. adults …
• think climate change is real, serious, and happening now, and in need of government attention,
• oppose cutting benefits for Medicare or Medicaid,
• favor raising the amount of earnings subject to Social Security tax beyond the current level of about $107,000,
• oppose raising the eligibility age for Social Security to 69,
• approve of labor unions and favor raising the minimum wage,
• favor withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan,
• like the health-care reform – or want it more liberal,
• opposed President Bush’s bailouts for Wall Street,
• favor keeping abortion legal and support stem cell research,
• support enforcing federal environmental regulations more forcefully,
• favor spending tax money to develop alternate sources of fuel for automobiles, including solar and wind power, and
• support setting higher pollution standards for companies and imposing controls on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.
“People don’t feel that a lot of their beliefs are morally defensible, so they feel guilty,” Poorman continues. “But we all need the courage of our convictions and to understand.”
The August 3rd meeting will be an outgrowth of a get-together in late June that spun out of a tongue-in-cheek outfit called Drinking Liberally. June’s organizing kick-off meeting expected just a few folks but ended up with dozens.
“The meeting will be another chance for people interested in getting more active to talk about the next step,” Poorhouse said. “We’ll formalize something soon, but my vision is a forum for better communication, cooperation and collaboration between various interest groups.
“There are all sorts of progressive goals, so the effort could be comprehensive. Facets? Electoral? Yes. Issues oriented? Yes. Anything is possible to further the goals,” he said. “Several [groups] are very active; several are very well-organized around certain issues; everybody’s looking for ways to get more support, get more people talking, and so on.”
Poorman, who moved to central Illinois with his family more than three years ago, is from Akron, Ohio. A 41-year-old stay-at-home dad to two sons, 6 and 9, Poorman used to work as a writer in Michigan before relocating to central Illinois for his wife’s job.
Drinking Liberally was a springboard for this new network, he said.
“Drinking Liberally is a national organization started seven years ago during the height of the Bush administration – or, the ‘depth’ – when people wanted to gather with others like them and just see what could come out of that,” Poorman said.
Out of hundreds of Drinking Liberally chapters nationwide, nine are in Illinois.
Despite the generalization that central Illinois is conservative – a claim that goes unchallenged, despite underfunded candidates with too-little Democratic Party support challenging Republican incumbents and still getting 25 percent to 41 percent of the vote – progressive hearts and minds grow here, too. Two Drinking Liberally chapters are in Peoria and Springfield.
That’s logical. A “progressive” is a liberal and patriot who wants to help a small-d democratic system serve its constituents. Not big government; better government. It’s a multi-partisan concept. Besides current progressive Democrats such as John Lewis and Al Franken, there are Independents such as Bernie Sanders and, historically, Republicans Bob La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt.
A variety of progressive community organizations in Peoria work on issues tied to poverty, peace, labor, race and civic issues, from the Green Party to people who’d “like to see changes in the Democratic Party,” Poorman says. “This organization – I like ‘Peoria Progressive Roundtable’ – will be one subset of the larger progressive community.”
Whatever its eventual name, it won’t be a top-down organization.
“This is turning in to more of a network than a group with a command-and-control approach,” he added. “We’re progressive; we’re liberal. We’re not conservatives and we’re not Republicans – and those aren’t necessarily the same thing.
“We know what a progressive is – there’s no hard or fast rule,” he said. “We want to bring people together and help people work together.”
Asked how his progressives feel about “keeping hope alive” or whether “Yes, we can” still rings true, Poorman replies, “We’re not beaten or demoralized. Sure, some are disappointed with some things, but that means we’ll just be pushing even harder – part of what’s in this group, despite obstacles.
“If we sit down, no one else is going to stand up,” he adds. “Hope never dies.”
Patience – and faith, like expressed the ancient Zen saying: “No seed ever sees the flower”
Contact Bill at: bill.knight@hotmail.com