"Progressives for Obama"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

That's the title of a piece by Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Danny Glover, and Barbara Ehrenreich at The Nation in support of Obama.

Read it. (And then click here for more.)

Here's a key passage: "All American progressives should unite for Barack Obama. We descend from the proud tradition of independent social movements that have made America a more just and democratic country. We believe that the movement today supporting Barack Obama continues this great tradition of grassroots participation, drawing millions of people out of apathy and into participation in the decisions that affect all our lives."

I usually describe myself as liberal rather than progressive, and of course both terms are shrouded in nuance, but it seems to me that there is ample room in Obama's movement, and in support of his candidacy, for liberals and progressive alike -- as well as for centrists and moderates and independents and even some conservatives.

Obama is, I would argue, a broad-based liberal-progressive whose centrism coalesces in and around the genuine center of American political life, the liberal center that, over the past few decades, has been eclipsed by media-driven right-wing propaganda. Conservatism, we have been told -- and, increasingly, the union of neoliberalism, christianism, and nativism within the Republican Party -- is the real center. Liberalism and progressivism, we have been told, are extremist ideologies.

It is not. They are not.

The propaganda has worked, but now Obama, spanning the spectrum and presenting a genuinely liberal-progressive vision for America, a vision that restores the center and looks ahead with clarity and determination to the realization of the possible, to an authentically liberal-progressive future, leading a movement that excites and unites, that seeks to fulfill the promise of America, not, as conservatism has done, deny it, leading America astray, now Obama threatens to undo it, to unmask the lies, distortions, and contortions of the right.

That is reason, too, to support him. He will bring America home.

And, yes, I believe he can do it.