New Left Now: This is the inaugural issue of New Left Now. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what it is and why you’ve started it?
Nick Ruiz: Well, the premise is simple enough. American politics and media have taken such a hard turn to the right, that the progressives in this country, in trying to work within the current political and cultural circumstances, are unrecognizable to themselves. They don’t understand their own legacy. They don’t know where they come from and even, what they truly think today, about the real problems of engaging progressivism. And most importantly, because of all that, they don’t know where they are going. They’ve lost their cultural memory, along with their social and historical bearings. I want to change that.
New Left Now: So how does New Left Now fit in that process?
Nick Ruiz: New Left Now is a forum for progressives. It’s the magazine of the New American Left. Essentially, it will follow an interview format. It will ask progressives: What are you doing? Is it working? Why? Why not? What’s your vision and hope for progressivism in the U.S.? Progressives are failing this country, in the most horrible of ways. Look at the Social Security cuts coming our way-- are you kidding me? We’re in one of the worst chapters of American history in terms of the lives of millions of people working every day and getting nowhere, even sliding backward, on voting rights, economics, racism, education and more-- and our irresponsible and inexcusable answer as a community-- is to decide that we’re cutting social services, we’re closing schools; that we’ll allow rampant voter suppression efforts; that we’ll tolerate congressmen calling Hispanics ‘wetbacks’ as in the case of the Alaska rep. Is this America? Yeah, this must be the place. Progressives are supposed to combat these things. But we’re losing this war, and we need to talk about it, so we can turn it around.
New Left Now: What’s your answer to all of this?
Nick Ruiz: Lots of things. I reach students through the college teaching and work I do in philosophy and humanities, because those subjects are rich environments for considering sociocultural questions, and students have the most time to develop insight and proceed to progressively change the world they live in. I’m running for Congress. Third time, I do so. I’ve started a leadership PAC called the Florida Forum for Social Justice in 2011 that supports authentic progressive federal candidates. At the same time, I started a non-profit think tank/advocacy group called the Progressive Leadership Council that troubleshoots current progressive trends and advocates for what needs to change in progressive culture in the U.S. We need authentic progressive representation, and we need a cultural environment that understands the benefits and realities of progressivism, as well the challenges progressivism faces in an increasingly hyper-corporate American culture.
New Left Now: How will you help voters-- who are often busy with their day to day struggles-- understand the difference between a progressive and a garden variety corporate Democrat?
Nick Ruiz: That’s really the question, isn’t it? Plenty of ‘Democrats’ running around. They just don’t do democratic things. They don’t write democratic policy. Modern Democrats have lost their way. We have to rethink the entire enterprise. I see the word ‘progressive’ as synonymous with ‘democratic’, because to be truly democratic, you have to make policy and support agendas that are fair to the most amount of people. Decisions have to be socioeconomically just. That’s the progressive test. In addition to that, policy objectives should seek to improve people’s lot in life, where reasonably possible. That’s New Deal policy. Garden variety corporate Democrats don’t do these things. Often enough, they do the opposite. Take the President’s move to cut Social Security-- and the Democratic establishment complicity with it. Not democratic. Not progressive. In fact, it’s Republican, and anti-social justice. It’s this sort of difference that must be pointed out for people. People have to understand that these kinds of people cannot be politically supported, nor elected.
New Left Now: Many Democrats just finished supporting and voting for President Obama, and now that he has broken his most fundamental campaign promise to not reduce Social Security benefits for seniors-- how do you deal with that without turning off voters entirely and making them cynical, repeating the words Republicans love hearing most, “They’re all the same.”
Nick Ruiz: We have to be honest about it. The people of this country don’t want this, not when they understand the parameters of it, and not even superficially on the face of it. And most Democrats don’t want to do it. So why do it? Because they are not listening to the people. They are listening to the wealth establishment, and they are cognizant of the funding of their political campaigns. They want to curry favor with the wealth establishment. That’s who wants this done. In that sense, corporate politicians, and the PACS that support them, are all the same. But we have choices to make. You can vote for me in FL-7-- I’m the anti-social justice establishment’s worst nightmare. Because I will not acquiesce to social injustice. In fact, I will work to reorder the entirely unjust scenario just described, by replacing corporate Democrats with authentic progressive people.
New Left Now: Many Democrats here in Florida are celebrating new recruits to the party like Charlie Crist and Patrick Murphy, lifelong Republicans who are now opportunistically calling themselves “Democrats.” How do you make grassroots Democrats understand how this hurts what the party stands for?
Nick Ruiz: There’s a certain level of intellectual and emotional maturity that has escaped too many Democrats today, I think. And they don’t know what being a Democrat, really means. It means you can’t legislate against the socioeconomically-just, greater interests of people. That’s something Republicans do, consistently. Not Lincoln, and those kinds of Republicans. They’re in the past. Today’s Republicans. The Bush regime. The Romney/Ryan riot. The Fox News channel that propagandizes all politics to the point of farce. Grassroots Democrats have to support the Democrats that actually matter to the greater good. Everything else is waste of time, energy and money.
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