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On the one hand, I agree with you that using "progressive" as a euphemism for "liberal" is a bad idea. When we mean "liberal", we should say "liberal". On the other hand, I think the two words *are* different, and I'd like to keep using both. I am liberal, and I am also progressive.
Liberal, centrist, right-wing: These are words for positions on an ideological continuum. Real world positions don't fall neatly on a line, but it's a handy way to organize our communication about political positions.
"Progressive" is not a place on that continuum. Although progressives have traditionally tended towards liberal, there have been and are centrist progressives and conservative progressives. Progressivism is about action, goals, and progress.
Progressives are *active*. Progressives want Government to take an *active* role in making people's lives better. Progressives are *reformers*. Progressives want to reform government and public institutions to make them more open, inclusive, effective, and fair. Progressivism is a movement for change, reform, and improvement. It is not merely about what positions one takes, it is about how to pursue them, and who to do it with; it is about process and people and results.
Think about the 2003/2004 Democratic primaries for president: Clearly, the candidate with the most consistently liberal positions was Dennis Kucinich. But who did the progressive movement back? Howard Dean, overwhelmingly. He's liberal, yes, though he's also somewhat centrist, but he was clearly the most *progressive* candidate in that race. His message, "you have the power", was about inclusion, movement-building, democracy, opening up the process, reform of the Democratic party - it was about *progressive* things more than "liberal" things. Progressivism was the focus of his campaign, and that's why the new progressive movement coalesced around him and almost ignored Kucinich.
The Reagan movement in the Republican Party in the late 1970s was a progressive movement, though it was not at all "liberal".
