Progress?

Politics today. If you are looking for baseball, hypnotism, or American Idol chatter, you will not find it here. I’d rather just lay it out up front. You are excused if you don’t wish to read more about today’s subject.

How do you define progress?

Webster defines it as a noun in three ways:

\ˈprä-grəs, -ˌgres, US also & British usually ˈprō-ˌgres\

1

a (1) : a royal journey marked by pomp and pageant (2) : a state procession b : a tour or circuit made by an official (as a judge) c : an expedition, journey, or march through a region

2

: a forward or onward movement (as to an objective or to a goal) : advance

3

: gradual betterment; especially : the progressive development of humankind

— in progress

: going on : occurring

I’d never it used in example 1, above, but that matters not.

I’d like to deal with examples two and three for a short while.

Personally, I have goals towards which I would like to make progress. I would think that with few exceptions people want to make progress, right? Am I crazy here? No, I am not; I am totally sane.
My parents wanted me to do better than they did in their lives or, in other words, progress beyond where they ended up in life. So did their parents. Our FREEDOM basically depended on our own ability to progress and keep from being dependant on others in society.

Here, I guess, is where some people begin to have differing ideas about this.
My parents wanted me to have MORE in life and get more out of life. That meant, to them, that I would acquire more wealth so that I would be financially secure so that I would not have to worry about where I got meals, where I lived, etc. They wanted me to drive a new car so that I didn’t have a piece of crap to drive around all the time, leaving me potentially victimized by ill-timed breakdowns. They wanted me to have a bigger house and more land so that I could have more to pass on to my family so that they could be financially secure also, and so on down the line.

I will just assume that you get my point about that without elaborating further.

In America, our ancestors have all wanted the same things, progress in medicine, technology, energy, transportation, etc., etc.
Because of that societal desire to become better at living, in all aspects of our lives, our society advanced. Our ancestors worked hard to create and develop these ideas and things so that we could have better lives and then we would take what they created and develop and create even greater things for our kids.

That, to me, is progress.

So, I’m sort of curious to know why these days we seem to doing things that are regressive and labeling them progressive some how.
Take the automobile. I think what it has done for our freedom and for our economic engine of progress speaks for itself.
Yet, there is an actual movement to do whatever it takes to essentially remove the car from roads.
I have run into more people than I care to know even exist who say we would be better off without the car.

These people, now get this, call themselves “Progressives.”

HUH?!

Not a new term, I know. But it does just want to make you slap yourself in the face to wake up, right?

These same people want us to do away with things like oil, coal, and anything that create actual real energy to power our lives and provide HEAT and replace it with things that do not yet work properly.

Before I continue, let me say that I am all for doing whatever it takes to develop and create new energy sources. But if these sources don’t work better than oil or gas or coal and are not cheaper, THAT IS NOT PROGRESS.

Our education system, once an envy of the world, is not making progress, yet some 75% of educators call themselves “Progressive” to some degree.

Our dollar is regressing. It buys less. Our government, currently run by a Progressive, actually makes policies that intentionally lower the value of our dollar! If our dollar is worth less, how can we progress in our lives?

Our home values are declining. Again, our government, currently run by a Progressive, has enacted policies that have made it more difficult for people to buy a home. If we can’t buy homes, how can we progress?

For the last two examples, we are now being told that we should learn to do with less. This comes from the mouths of Progressives.

Just kick me in the head now because I can’t wake up from this nightmare.

Sidebar…Canada’s economy is now growing at twice our rate. Recent changes in health care there, to a system with INCREASED privatization…according to our Progressives, HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT. Just look the other way, sheep…that has nothing to do with it.

It’s so bad and so hypocritical that these people….these Progressives….want those who have actually progressed in their lives, to basically go backwards under THE NAME OF PROGRESS!

If they don’t they are called all sorts of names which include greedy, lustful and even criminal.

We never seem to see these Progressives actually help those who have not progressed very far in life move forward. No, instead they focus their attention on those who have reached goals and then decide to penalize the advanced in the name of progress.

I could continue with more examples of this but let me move to a totally unrelated note…

I wonder if you have ever read the following:

Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
 
Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.
At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:
[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]
CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the

World Court

from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the

World Court

jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

I saw this quite some time ago. I wonder how many of you have ever read it. A few things are no longer relevant but most of the real majors ones on this of 45 still are.

There is a conclusion that one could make here; it does seem as if SOMETHING has really made “progress” here in America.

Done.