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Believe We Can Transform America

 

Welcome to an e-book in progress to help citizens gain an overview

of the socio-political scene in America before the 2012 elections, 

become aware of the extremism of today's conservatives and

understand why we must renew America's progressive values

for a rapidly changing world. Phyllis Stenerson, editor/curator

 

Progressive values are authentic American values.

We aren't moving to the left or the right.

We're moving forward.

 

Table of Contents

 


 

 

Home Sweet Home: Planet Earth

Editorial in the Uptown Neighborhood News,

Minneapolis, April 2012 by Phyllis Stenerson

 

What!? - Editorial in the Uptown Neighborhood News,

March 2012, Minneapolis by Phyllis Stenerson, editor

 

Some major topics

 

Wedge issues, culture war, class war

  

Global consciousness  
Universal values  
Moral values in political issues  

 

Democracy and values  
Democracy and spirituality  
Founders' intent  

American creed/soul/idealism 
Religious pluralism in America  
America is not a Christian nation  
Progressive religion and spirituality  
 

 

Conservative extremism and the Republican Party

Conservative extremist religion

  

Trends in American Religion 
Religion in political conflict  

Unitarian Universalist and related perspectives

   

Occupy Movement - An overview

Big ideas  

History of Labor Unions

 

All articles

 

     Progressive values expressed in diverse ways  

We're all in this together.

We're one human family living together on planet earth.

 


 

Overview of America's Crises and Opportunities

 

Thank you for visiting this website. My intent is to present an overview of the crisis and opportunity in American democracy by connecting selected articles and adding my commentary. I think of this as participating in a national conversation by highlighting information and perspectives of others and adding my own. I'm working on bringing the major points together in a online "book" to tell the "big story."  A hugely ambitious project being done with deep humility.

 

You are invited to take anything from my webste and circulate it with your own comments. Please attribute as appropriate. And/or direct people to this website. And sign up to get the e-letters "regularly" by going to the bottom of the left side of home page.

 

The important thing is to broaden and deepen the dialogue and keep it flowing. Your active participation in democracy is critically important. It's only through honest, sincere sharing of opinions and beliefs that we'll come to a genuine national consensus so we can move forward. Conservative extremists have mastered the art of message manipulation and control over the past 30 years. They have endless deep pockets to promote their bizarre worldview and have made a major negative impact on American democracy. 

 

Far too many people accept this worldview as the "real" America because they do not hear alternatives. Of course, everyone has a right to their opinion, and the liberty to voice that opinion. That does not, however, mean we are obligated to accept the loudest voice as the true voice. I am deeply offended by, and opposed to, many assertions of this new "conservatism" and know there is a better way.

 

One "article of faith" of the new "conservatives" that is hugely dangerous and infuriating to me is that America was founded as, and remains, a Christian nation. The idea of replacing the Constitution with the Bible as the "law of the land" is outrageous. Freedom of, and freedom from, religion is imbedded in our Bill of Rights.  Thomas Jefferson expressed his enlightenment principles of individual conscience and reason in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence by referring to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."  America is now the most religiously pluralistic nation in the world.


Moderate conservatives and Republicans of the past were mostly voices of knowledge, reason, universal values and responsibility. They understood that government has a critical role to play in assuring "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for everyone.  Now the moderate voices are virtually silent and this new extremist ideology dominates. Moderate conservative perspectives are desperately needed now.

 

Progressives need to speak out and remind our fellow citizens that progressive values are authentic American values. We aren't moving to the left or the right. We're moving forward. 

 

With audacious faith, Phyllis Stenerson

 

We must move forward in the days ahead with audacious faith. The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
Democracy doesn't work without citizen activism and participation, starting at the community…What's right and good doesn't come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it – as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Bill Moyers
 
What the American people want is very simple. They want a country as good as its promise. Barbara Jordan

 

 

      

Welcome to ProgressiveValues.org 

site includes

BelieveWeCanTransformAmerica.org and WiseThoughts.com

 

 

ProgressiveValues.org is a website devoted to inspiring and educating citizens to participate in democracy. The editor is Phyllis Stenerson who is soley responsible for selection of materials and views published on this site.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.

  • FAIR USE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is believed that this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

  • In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The material in this site is provided for educational and informational purposes only. I have made effort to include attribution to the source material.

  • I'm deeply grateful to the countless visionaries and progressive patriots who share their wisdom via the internet.

  • Feel free to borrow and share liberally any material that is not copyrighted, such as quotations.

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 Home page updated March 6, 2012






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