To Progress is to move forward, continually, into a brighter tomorrow.
Also, it probably helps to do it without cliches. Progress is hope, and change, and all the things that Barack Obama talks about but it's not progress because he talks about it, it's progress because he's doing something about it, and he's motivating other people to do something about it.
I feel like there should be a law against too many apostrophes and commas. But you see, that wouldn't be progress; progress is about helping people. Progress is making the world a better place.
And progress is working together to do it, maybe even borrowing phrases from a friend for a speech if it makes the point across better (like Obama did with Deval Patrick), not to plagiarize but because it's not the speaker that matters it's the point he (or she) is trying to make.
Progress means changing things and moving in a positive direction, so for me the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party" represents progressives. Activists can be progressives, when they're working for a better world. The establishment isn't progressive because people that already have power don't need change.
To me, progress is about stopping wars, ending genocide, making health care available to everyone, ending poverty, ending discrimination and unemployment and starvation and hopelessness. Those are the goals: ending what makes people's lives worse; making people's lives better. But you don't have to create a utopia to make progress. All progress is, is making things a little bit better.
Just a little bit, and then you can say you've made progress. That's how President Bush could say every year that "we're making good progress" in Iraq. But you have to keep making progress, every day and every year and pass that heritage on to the next generation, because the world still won't be perfect but it can still be made better. And then you can call yourself a progressive.
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