Activism: The United States is at the crossroads.

We will come out of the next two years a very different country, one way or the other. If we continue on as we have since the early 1970s, the forces of reaction will complete the incrementally paced revolution that has enabled the corporate elite and the super-rich to appropriate an ever greater share of public wealth and power. Or they will be stopped, and the nation will get back on the path to expanded freedom, justice, and equality that leads from the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights through Emancipation and universal suffrage to Social Security and Medicare.

The corporations relied on fear and ignorance to win the latest round. The next round could be the last.

Although some members of Congress are wholeheartedly committed to the struggle for political and economic reform, most elected officials in both parties are too compromised or too timid to be counted on as allies in this struggle.

Alternative organizations are needed to develop new leaders, to formulate new solutions, and to fight fear and ignorance. Many progressive institutions already exist, of course, from foundations, research centers, academic journals, magazines, newspapers and websites, to activist groups organized around action against war or poverty or in favor of affordable universal health care or equal rights -- People for the American Way, the makers of this video, is one, and there are many others on the links section to the left of this page -- but all their efforts together have not added up to nearly enough. We may need to develop new organizations. We may need to merge existing outfits into bigger entities. We may need umbrella groups to help existing institutions better work together. We may need to form a progressive political party. But, for sure, more people must participate if the resistance to corporate power is to succeed. This means you -- joining, funding and actively spreading the word about the fight for progressive values.