About the Project Founder
John Clay, founding director of DemocraticPromise.org, is a writer, webdesigner, artist, and lifelong progressive. Born in Indiana, he has lived also in California, Idaho, Washington State, South Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and now Minnesota. Living overseas in Ghana, Venezuela, and Malaysia during part of his youth, he came to understand that no part of the world has a monopoly on virtue. He also learned that roots are deep, and that his roots are American.
John will stand by any party that promotes progressive principles, and if none does, then he will choose the party that tramples them least. For this reason, he has supported Democratic Party candidates most of his life, although the scarcity of bold ideas in the party from the late 1970s onward led him to support John Anderson, an independent, for president in 1980. In 2008 progressive thinking finally has come alive again within the Democratic Party, thanks to the efforts of many individuals and the rise of progressive instututions like the Economic Policy Institute, Free Press, the Small Planet Institute, and the Rockridge Institute.
After receiving degrees in anthropology at Notre Dame University and in music composition at New England Conservatory and Washington State University, John further developed his ideas through extensive readings in philosophy and political-economy. His article "The Deep Difference Between Labor and Use-Value" was published in July 2006 in Science & Society journal.
John's writing has always been geared toward three goals: Fulfilling his own human potential, understanding what helps or hinders fulfillment, and helping create a world where everyone has the freedom and opportunity for fulfillment. They might be lofty goals. But in a nutshell they are the goals of progress and the goals of all progressives.
Read the Promise.