A real progressive runs for office in Staten Island

[dumpster_baby]

Matt Taibbi, along with Joe Bageant, is absolutely the most KICKASS progressive writer in America, in my humble opinion.

Here he is in his latest NYPress column writing about a real progressive -- Frank Barbaro -- running for office out in Staten Island:
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For well over a year now, we have been told in a thousand different ways by the national political press and many of the Democratic candidates themselves that the Republicans can only be beaten if certain concessions to the "center" are made. We are told that we can't have an antiwar candidate because this will invite rejection by the swing vote. We're told we can't have a pro-union, anti-WTO/NAFTA candidate because that will scare the swing vote into believing the Democrats are "anti-business." And despite the fact that polls consistently show otherwise, we're told that we can't have a candidate who supports national health insurance, or is opposed to handguns, because the public does not want health insurance and apparently does want handguns.


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The platform of the mainstream Democratic party is not, as is commonly believed, merely the most centrist and right-leaning position that this naturally progressive party is willing to take in order to defeat a terrible reactionary. On the contrary. It is the most progessive platform that the Democratic party's corporate donors are willing to tolerate, given a political climate that is increasingly favorable to them. It is they, the corporate donors, who are making concessions to us—not we who are making concessions to the swing voter. That is the big lie of our politics, and no one ever talks about it.
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The party leaders zealously promote this fiction of electability for one reason. If it were to ever come out that the party could win elections simply by allowing its constituents to vote according to their interests, the party apparatus would lose the money it gets from business contributions, and with it the power to control policy. It would have to allow the people to make decisions, instead of making those decisions themselves. For obvious reasons, this is unacceptable to party leaders.

Which brings me to Frank Barbaro. Barbaro, a tall, powerfully built older man with huge hands, was a longshoreman on the New York docks in the 50s. His political sensibilities developed in the same atmosphere of intimidation and corruption that was described in the movie On the Waterfront. In his speeches, he recounts a scene from those years that almost exactly recalls that movie. After complaining that the loading procedures were unsafe, Barbaro watched as 4000 pounds of cement fell in the middle of 12 workers.
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more here:

http://www.nypress.com/17/34/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

Check out frank's website: http://www.barbaro4congress.com.