Dear Progressive Reader,
Last Tuesday was the 102nd anniversary of the birth of Pete Seeger. The legendary folk musician and activist died at the age of ninety-four in January 2014. Seeger was interviewed for The Progressive in 1986 by Mike Ervin. It was Mike’s second piece for the magazine, and today his column appears in every issue, along with regular bi-weekly content on our website. Seeger’s exemplary life of using music as a tool to help build a better world has inspired a generation of musicians and activists. But, as I quote in a 2019 article about this new generation of cultural activists, Seeger himself once sang in 1967, “If music could only bring peace, I’d only be a musician.”
On May 4, 1986 (his sixty-fifth birthday), Seeger participated in the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of May Day in a concert in the city of Chicago, where this workers’ holiday began. In 2021, as award-winning photographer David Bacon chronicles, May Day rallies and demonstrations included calls for support of the PRO Act, a bill in Congress to support the right of workers to organize unions. President Joe Biden supports the Act and recently said in speech announcing his American Jobs Plan, “I’m a union guy. I support unions. Unions built the middle class. It’s about time they start to get a piece of the action.” But as cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates this week, Republicans seem more interested in collective amnesia about the January 6 insurrection than about any of the accomplishments or proposals put forward in Biden’s first one hundred days.
Meanwhile, although Biden has moved forward many progressive proposals, journalists and activists point out that it is important to keep the pressure on to make these changes a reality. Tina Gerhardt details the calls of Indigenous and environmental activists for Biden to shut down the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline project along with other tar sands boondoggles. As Jeff Abbott reports from Guatemala, current U.S. policies, and U.S. dollars, are putting the lives of migrants in danger in Mexico and Central America. And as James Goodman writes this week, the “Eyes on ICE” movement wants to keep “a spotlight on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—the rogue federal agency that has wreaked havoc in immigrant communities.”
Also, Sarah Lahm looks at how, in spite of Biden’s call for free pre-K and two years of community college, “Rather than invest[ing] in families and publicly funded education . . . Minnesota and most other states have largely backed away from a commitment to do so, thereby making both college and preschool an expensive, exclusive proposition.” And David Love examines new Republican-led bills to criminalize protest and restrict voting rights that are being adopted in states like Florida. “With only 25% of people identifying as Republicans—a dwindling base in a changing multicultural America,” he notes, “the GOP faces a choice. It can either listen to the Black Lives Matter protesters and adopt new policies to reflect a new reality, or seek to silence their voices. The Republican Party is choosing the latter.”
Monday was World Press Freedom Day, proclaimed annually by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). “The theme of this year’s World Press Freedom Day, ‘Information as a Public Good,’ ” Director-General Audrey Azoulay said, is meant to underline “the indisputable importance of verified and reliable information. It calls attention to the essential role of free and professional journalists in producing and disseminating this information, by tackling misinformation and other harmful content."
The Progressive has stood firmly in this tradition since our founding in 1909. In the very first issue, Bob La Follette wrote that the goal of this publication was to provide “an intelligent conception of the actual progress made in the supremely difficult task of embodying progressive ideas and ideals in laws and institutions.” He went on to explain, “We hope to be useful in constructive work, as well as in destructive criticism. We aim to be practical in our suggestions. We shall be just to every interest.” These principles remain our guide as we report on issues of national import today. Please continue to support the work of The Progressive and join with us on this journey into the future.
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S. –If you don’t already subscribe to The Progressive in print or digital form, please consider doing so today. Also, if you have a friend or relative that you feel should hear from the many voices for progressive change within our pages, please consider giving a gift subscription.
P.P.P.S. –We need you now more than ever. Please take a moment to support hard-hitting, independent reporting on issues that matter to you. Your donation today will keep us on solid ground and will help us continue to grow in the coming years. You can use the wallet envelope in the current issue of the magazine, or click on the “Donate” button below to join your fellow progressives in sustaining The Progressive as a voice for peace, social justice, and the common good.
|
|
