We’re busying working on a special issue to celebrate The Progressive’s 100th anniversary.

I’m combing over the 1980s right now and found this gem, written for the July 1980 issue:

Is Exxon Worth Dying For?
Overcoming the energy crisis, President Carter once proclaimed, “is the moral equivalent of war.” His reference was to U.S. efforts to reduce consumption of imported oil, but recent developments in the Middle East have given a new twist to the statement: American leaders are no longer talking about the equivalent of war; they are talking about the possibility of war itself.
In his State of the Union address last January 24, Carter declared that any effort to block U.S. access to Persian Gulf oil would be considered “an assault on the vital interests of the United States,” and would accordingly “be repelled by use of any means necessary, including military force.” . . .[T]here is no doubt that America is gearing up to fight for control of foreign oil supplies. Washington is preparing, in other words, for energy wars.
—Michael T. Klare

It’s been inspiring and somewhat frustrating to see what The Progressive has covered since Fighting Bob La Follette started it back in 1909. We covered the need for universal health care—back in 1917; an article demanding an end to the corrupting influence of money in politics—dated 1909; article after article against the death penalty, starting with Leo Tolstoy in 1910.

I’ll post more from the archive in this coming year. We have a book coming out this spring from University of Wisconsin Press: Democracy in Print–The Best of The Progressive Magazine 1909-2009. And don’t miss our commemorative April 2009 issue.

But for now I leave you with my favorite quote from Fighting Bob: “The real cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.”

The SF Chronicle reports that “on inaugural morning a mysterious group descended on Bush St. and covered up every mention of Bush with Obama tape. . . . Per a tipster the signs were covered with “double-sided picture mount foam tape was used so as not to vandalize the signs or permanently mar them.”

by Zach Lawson

Click here to see more.

Thanks to my dear friends on the West Coast sent me this.

My favorite part of the Inauguration ceremony was the Rev. Joseph Lowery. His benediction specifically mentioned the need for a spirit of solidarity and the hope that we will “to turn to each other and not on each other.”

And I loved all of his allusions, from the Bible to anti-war songs to MLK. Lowery asked the Almighty for help “to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid . . .”

He ended with humor, something sorely needed on such a day.

Another thing needed on Inauguration Day is an accounting for what the whole shebang costs. Public Citizen released a report on January 14 about just this. Here’s an excerpt:

President-elect Barack Obama has banned corporate and lobbyist funding for his historic inauguration, but that has not kept special interests from picking up the tab, according to a Public Citizen analysis. Nearly 80 percent of the $35.3 million raised to date by the Presidential Inaugural Committee has come from just 211 individual “bundlers.”

And guess where many of the major donors hail from? Wall Street!

From Public Citizen: Many prominent Wall Street executives have bundled large amounts for the inauguration, including:

• Louis Susman, vice chairman of Citigroup Corporate and Investment Banking and managing director, vice chairman of investment banking, Citigroup ($300,000);

• Mark Gilbert, senior executive, Lehman Brothers ($185,000);

• Robert Wolf, chairman and CEO, UBS Americas ($100,000);

• Jennifer Scully, vice president, private wealth management, Goldman Sachs ($100,000);

• Bruce Heyman, managing director of the Private Wealth Management Group, Midwest region, Goldman Sachs ($50,000);

• Kobi Brinson, senior vice president and assistant general counsel, Wachovia ($35,000)

“It’s no wonder that Wall Street is pouring so much money into this inauguration,” said David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “The executive branch has given bailouts worth trillions of dollars to Wall Street firms and is considering trillions more. Wall Street has a lot at stake.”

Obama has a lot at stake. We all do.

Reporter Helen Thomas did not get a chance to ask President Bush a question at his last press conference. But luckily Amy Goodman of Democracy Now sat down with Thomas. (Click here to read.)

As a White House correspondent for the United Press International, Thomas began covering the Kennedy White House. She was not assigned to the beat—she just started showing up.

Next week she will start covering the Obama Administration as a columnist. She recently penned a column about Bush’s Presidency entitled, “History Cannot Save Him.”

“As he leaves office, President Bush is passing on to his successor two wars and a growing economic debacle. What a way to go!” she writes. “Because of Bush’s policies, the U.S. also is complicit in the Israeli attack on the Palestinians on the Gaza Strip by providing a ‘made-in-America’ high-tech arsenal for the assault and blocking a ceasefire for nearly two weeks, a move intended to help the Israelis consolidate their hold.”

What I most appreciate about Helen Thomas is her courage and her outrage. I interviewed her in 2004 and she was kind and gracious in person, but had a thick skin when it came to criticism. She was unapologetically a liberal, before it was cool again.

Here’s an excerpt of my August 2004 interview:
Q: Even after 9/11, when the press was really tame, there were still charges by some people in the press that there was a liberal media. Do you agree?

Thomas: I’m dying to find another friend. I am a liberal. I was a liberal the day I was born, and I will be until the day I die. What’s a liberal? I care about the poor, the sick, and the maimed. I care whether we go to war for unjust causes. I care whether we shoot people who are innocent. There’s no such thing as a liberal media. I think we have a very conservative press. Read the columnists. They are predominantly conservative. I don’t relate to them at all. I’m looking for another liberal.

Q: But there was a time when there were more liberal voices.

Thomas: There were more. But the press has moved with the country to the right. There was a Ronald Reagan revolution. There were many more liberals in the Great Depression, World War II. They had heart and soul and compassion. Reporters see so much more than anyone else, really, if they open their eyes. It’s their job to take a very human approach. I don’t see how you can see what’s all around you and not be liberal. You see the poor. You see the hungry. You see the suffering.

In Democracy Now’s interview with her, Amy Goodman notes that former White House Scott McClellan spoke about Thomas’s role in the White House Press corps.

Scott McClellan: “Well, first of all, I think we need more Helen Thomases in the press corps, both the national press corps, even in the White House press corps, as well. She is someone who is not afraid to ask the tough questions and hold people accountable for the decisions that are made. So I think that’s important to state right up front.”

Goodman asked Thomas if she has her first question ready for Barack Obama.
“Sure. I have a thousand of them,” Thomas responded. “What are you going to do to fulfill your ideals expressed on the campaign trail? Or are you going to submit, like most presidents, just . . . try to carry out your promises that have no meaning except for how many people gave you money?”

Yes, we need more Helen Thomases in the press corps.