Take Your Money, Set It On Fire

AlterNet is running a two-part feature on the need for better progressive media in the United States. The sentiments are nice, but they replicate old and tired refrains that money will fix many ills.
First comes a piece from Rick Gell, wherein he laments that if only progressive America had a television network of its own to rival the majors, everything would be better in the political world. Specifically, progressives need a for-profit television network, as the corporate sector is where all the money is.
Gell says we need to wake up and stop believing that “progressives are still the back-to-the-country, anti-automation, communal-living hippies of the sixties and not the Starbucks-drinking, iPod carrying, SUV-driving people many of us really are.” That’s the first hint of a problem. The Starbucks-drinking, iPod carrying, SUV-driving people like Rick aren’t really progressives – they’re Leadership Council Democrats, who sully the term “progressive” by appropriating it. Progressivism represents a way of life, not a lifestyle descriptor. Continue reading “Take Your Money, Set It On Fire”