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Pick up the cry!

by Anthony Noel

Borrowed from the Jefferson Airplane classic “Volunteers,” my headline neatly summarizes what I’m asking each of you to do in this post: Pick up the cry!

Last fall, you – MyFDL readers – chose ten prospective opponents to Barack Obama in the 2012 Democratic primary. You spelled out five relentlessly Progressive platform points, each of which stands in stark contrast to the compromised “progressivism” this president and his corporate-owned, hapless party have force-fed Americans for more than a generation. You even gave this fledgling effort a name: the New Progressive Alliance.

The FDL family of sites was officially neutral during the effort’s founding and remains so, but gave the effort a place to grow – when other purportedly “progressive” sites were banning readers and diarists who dared even suggest the Democrats have sold out their principles to the highest bidder.

Since the nominations and voting last fall, a few volunteers have continued to work on the effort. Last week, they received via e-mail a “sneak peak” at the very first NPA Update. We now share it below, right here – where nearly 150 of you participated in the NPA’s founding.

We’re all frustrated about the sorry state of America and the lack of voice given to Progressive policy objectives at the national level. Those ideals, time and again, are shown in nationwide polling to be overwhelmingly supported by the American people. And certainly, it is great when we “Look what’s happening out in the streets” – in the Mideast and our own Midwest – to borrow another line from The Airplane.