Connecticut’s gerrymandered First District, the eagle’s aerie for the last 20 years of US Representative-for-life John Larson, may in the future develop progressive cracks. Have Connecticut’s “safe” Democrat districts become suddenly vulnerable to attack – certainly not from moderate or right of center Republicans, but from newly animated progressives? Representative-for-life Rosa DeLauro of the 3rd District may be less vulnerable than other more moderate Democrats in Connecticut’s US Congressional delegation, because she is, and has been for a long while, the tip of the progressive spear point in Connecticut. But DeLauro too is getting on – she is 75 years young – and while the spirit may be willing, frail human bodies are subject to all the ills flesh is heir to.
Here in Connecticut, progressives now have a legitimate
claim on Democrat politicians in the state’s General Assembly. Almost half of
the legislature’s Democrat caucus is made up of progressives. And their brains
are swelling with progressive ideas. They also are laying claim to members of
the state’s all Democrat US Congressional Delegation.
Progressives in Connecticut have big
expectations of Larson, we are told in a recent story: “Hours before the
most diverse congressional class in U.S. history was sworn in on Capitol Hill,
about a dozen progressive activists gathered in U.S. Rep. John Larson’s
Hartford office in their quest to get the longtime congressman on board with
their agenda.”
Broadly speaking, the agenda of progressives in the United States
is to make the world over. None of the radical reformers appear to be
acquainted with an article written by William Graham Sumner published in the Forum way back in 1894 titled The Absurd Effort To Make The World Over.
Sumner was an early sociologist, before the profession became encumbered with
quasi-socialist, highly politicized Ivy League professors.
Foreshadowing the rise of fascism, Sumner pointedly asked in
his essay, “Can anyone imagine that the masterfulness, the overbearing
disposition, the greed of gain, and the ruthlessness in methods, which are the
faults of the master of industry at his worst, would cease when he was a
functionary of the State, which had relieved him of risk and endowed him with
authority? Can anyone imagine that politicians would no longer be corruptly
fond of money, intriguing and crafty when they were charged, not only with
patronage and government contracts, but also with factories, stores, ships and
railroads? Could we expect anything except that, when the politicians and the
masters of industry were joined on one, we should have the voices of both
unchecked by the restraints of either?”
And then Sumner shot this howitzer over the bow of socialism,
which had yet to achieve perfection in communism: “In any socialistic state,
there will be one set of positions which will offer chances of wealth beyond
the wildest dreams of avarice, viz., on the governing committees. Then there
will be rich men whose wealth will indeed be a menace to social interests, and
instead of industrial peace, there will be such a war as no one has dreamed of
yet; the war between the political ins and outs – that is between those who are
on the committee and those who want to get on it.”
The world made over by modern progressives would be a much
better place, so Connecticut progressives assert, without cars, which pollute
the environment, and it might be better off if politicians like Larson -- who
is, a news report advises, “out of step with the political moment… An old-school
back-slapper with a crown of white hair and clipped, Kennedyesque inflections”
– were to be replaced by progressive politicians seriously engaged in the
absurd effort to make the world over.
Thus far, Kennedyesque politicians in the Democrat Party
such as Larson have assumed they will be able to manage progressives who
support, among other measures, “a ‘Green New Deal,’ an economic stimulus
program designed to get the U.S. off fossil fuels by 2030,” part of a globalist,
United Nations’ “2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development.”
The UN 2030 globalist agenda seeks to “protect the planet from degradation,
including through sustainable consumption and production, sustainably managing
its natural resources and taking urgent action on climate change, so that it
can support the needs of the present and future generations… ensure that all human beings can enjoy
prosperous and fulfilling lives and that economic, social and technological
progress occurs in harmony with nature… foster peaceful, just and inclusive
societies which are free from fear and violence… mobilize the means required to
implement this Agenda through a revitalized Global Partnership for Sustainable
Development, based on a spirit of strengthened global solidarity, focused in
particular on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable and with the
participation of all countries, all stakeholders and all people.”
Anthony Cherolis, a Hartford progressive activist, was discomforted
by Larson’s close alliance with military contractors such as Pratt&Whitney,
a major manufacturer in Larson’s district. “Connecticut,” Cherolis told Larson,
who had arranged a meeting with the group, “is a state that benefits
significantly from the military industrial complex spending and our climate
crisis is significantly impacted by that massive spending.”
It is so far an open question whether the new globalist
progressives will swallow Larson or whether the old-time glad-hander will be
able to manage their absurd efforts to make the world over. Larson assured the “Indivisible
Activists,” as they call themselves, that “We’re simpatico with all of the
efforts of a Green New Deal.”
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