The word "socialism" needs rehabilitation more than "liberal", because there's a whole slew of reforms attached to it. The vast right wing radio conspiracy has trained half the nation to associate socialism with totalitarian dictatorships and confiscation, instead of with Universal health care, social-security and European style worker's rights.

For my two cents, I associate "liberal" with an undemanding softness that doesn't ask enough of people. Progressive sounds more energetic, more like a working team.

At some point we just fall off of reality and into a mishmash of words. We thrash around and string them together in different ways and call it thought. The right wing pundits speak in chorus because words that are repeated enough rise to the top and people will jump foolishly atop them for safety. Others, like David Sirota do riffs on the same few surviving news sources, and have a unique or passionate perspective that sometimes resonates with what we know is real. For most of us, most of the time, politics is abstract, distant, inaccessible word rain and we're easily fooled.

Polls have shown that people identify with conservatives but what they want, like healthcare and good public education, is socialist. Say socialist and most people think dictatorship. We're a confused country.

All I meant to say was that Obama is what he is. He really likes the Clintons and bankers and other rich white ambitious successful people, and always has, but he also has real sympathy for the poor. He really likes Israel better than Palestine, and thinks Afghanistan needs our bombs, money and blood. But he will listen to us over the racket of his wealthy cabinet if we can find a way to make ourselves heard.

How?