in·cre·men·tal·ism
/iNGkrəˈmentlˌizəm/
noun
belief in or advocacy of change by degrees; gradualism.
Use over time for incrementalism
JANUARY 29, 2016
Pragmatism, Incrementalism and the Transformative Moment
by ROB URIE
Be Afraid Little Rabbits
Mainstream American political strategy proceeds from an ever present with few, if any, links to a deeply burdened past. One of the few transformative leaders in modern history, Dr. Martin Luther King, presciently wrote in ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ that if political change is left to those urging caution and patience it will never arrive. In this regard the Democrat Party is a branch of the status quo— it exists to preclude, prevent and otherwise impede threats to the existing order. Cooperative strategies depend on a will to cooperate whereas American political economy exists to create and perpetuate concentrated power. ‘Inequality,’ the case where a few people have grotesquely outsized claims on social resources, is self-perpetuating by design.
The dominant political Parties are oppositional in a narrow sense but they are wholly co-dependent in a broader sense— they exist to define the realm of political possibility in ways that support the status quo. This imposed limitation is brought to the fore when prominent liberals urge caution and patience lest the powers that be tire of granting privileges. The frame of faux realpolitik is a warning from on high— play by the rules or the consequences will be dire. The miscalculation that appears to be unfolding is that circumstances are already dire for a growing number of people. If there were a sense that a credible political response could be achieved through mainstream channels the warning wouldn’t have been seen to be necessary.
For reasons outlined below the current election cycle is either a referendum on the continued viability of the existing political system or it is nothing. Bernie Sanders’ program will die a quick, ignominious death within the Democrat Party or it will substantially end the hold that the dominant Parties have on the realm of political possibility— there is no ‘third way.’ The wealthy few whose interests the Democrat Party represents— Wall Street, multi-national corporations, corporate executives and the inheritance babies who represent a rapidly growing proportion of the ‘Forbes 500,’ like the current arrangement of circumstance just fine. ‘Compromise’ in the face of uncompromising power is capitulation.
Past is Prologue
To understand the current dismal state of the Democrat Party requires some history. In the mid-1970s a bi-partisan counter-revolution was launched against FDR’s New Deal reforms. Democrat President Jimmy Carter, the ‘liberal’ response to the decay of official power from the Vietnam War and the oppressive residual of America’s racial history, was the Barack Obama of his time— poorly regarded by the thinking left as the more politically palatable face of radical capitalist resurgence. By the time that Mr. Carter ran against Ronald Reagan in 1980 few on the left saw reason to support him. After his electoral loss to Mr. Reagan establishment Democrats put forward the revisionist apologia that it was Mr. Carter’s ‘liberal agenda’ that lost the election.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/29/pragmatism-incrementalism-and-the-transformative-moment/
= new reply since forum marked as read
they post pro-Clinton articles and have banned over 500 people. you can believe everything you read there 
anti-intellectualism and mindless semantic parsing is all the rage there.
i killed a sacred cow 
frankly, it was about time someone did. 
good looking out.
