But you can call yourself whatever you like :)

I tuned out of this treatise in the second paragraph, when the author referred to "a former Texas rock band's clever name: Teenage Immigrant Welfare Mothers on Dope." The band is the Austin Lounge Lizards, they are not a rock band, they still exist, and the song is "Teenage Immigrant Welfare Mothers on Drugs." This may seem a minor concern, but getting simple facts straight is a sign of meaningful communication.

In perusing the rest of the article, I found it to be a pretty meaningless exercise in semantics. The polar ice caps are melting. The worldwide mass economic system is collapsing. Our system of social order is disintegrating. There are too many people on the planet. We are threatened by pandemics of uncontrollable diseases. Usable resources are becoming depleted, especially oil and water. To spend one's energy on semantics is just plain stupid.

If we want a term for advancing human existence on this planet, how about civilizationist? From this perspective, policies and programs would focus on what makes possible and improves human civilization. Old dichotomies like "left" and "right," "liberal" and "conservative" would no longer have any relevance. Actually, they have no relevance now, except in the minds of their believers. These divides are models of reality, and have outlived their usefulness.

"Conservatism" in particular is now in disgrace. It is really just a euphemism for mafia, a loose confederation of crony capitalists, religious fanatics, and war enthusiasts. That doesn't make "liberalism" the honorable alternative. What brought disrepute to "liberalism" in the past was the paternalism and coercive nature of its practice. School busing is the most glaring example. It's a pretty Neanderthal approach: Ugh! Integration good! Busing make integration! Let's bus! Meanwhile, the condition of the vast majority of "African Americans" continues to decline.

Looking at the mass information media as a benchmark of our level of civilization, the mere fact that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly are even on the air speaks volumes about the challenge we face. We may not live to see an advanced civilization, but we can at least move in that direction if we shed the chains of past mental constraints.

I'm now libergressive - inward, downward, backward, dissolute, with both progressive and liberal amounts of burning-your-candle-at-both-ends piled on high.

Mmmmm, it's the American way.

*Yeeehaw!*

You can go to the delli sir and have a schmaltz sandwich and some cream soda, sir, instead of ridiculing someone with an unfortunate case of dyslexia, which, after much work on my part, and without any gooberment assistance, has been mostly overcome to the point I only transpose the l and the h in your not so lovely capital city with starving cows wandering around in the streets, elephants being beaten before everyones eyes, and tens of thousands of people sleeping on the sidewalks and by the side of the road.

No, Delhi is no April in Paris, sir.

So, you simply spout Anti American rubbish, midst a chorus of a few hundred liberals who will never understand why their outlook is fundamentally klueless.

You foam at the mouth at my great country while ignoring your own sorry land's eternal bad karma, sir.

Why do you think all the smartest and most industrious people in your country dream of coming to America where they can get rich and do get rich through their own efforts, and not because they are the idiot son in law of some politician in Mumbai, Gopi?

Did you not see "The Namesake," probably one of the loveliest films made about this wonderful country called America, warts and all. We are still a beacon of light and freedom to all of the world for anyone willing to work for a living. This may be impossible for you, sir, if you are one of hundreds of thousands of middle level Indian bureaucrats who sleep walk through their petty jobs each day and who live much better than your hundreds of millions of struggling masses,

So, you should consider coming to America, and really doing something with your life someday, instead of being an annoying, self-important twit, screaming at a high pitch alla da

time.

How about a little Yoga, sir?

Pranayama is very good for the mind and spirit too,

Gail Collins in the New York Times, 22 Nov, "Time For Him To Go", where she makes a reasoned argument for Bush and Cheney to resign IMMEDIATELY and hand over charge to Nancy Pelosi, so that the Obama program could start rightaway. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/opinion/22collins.html?em)

Also worth reading: the Readers' Comments on the article (some 500-odd of them, I believe). The overwhelming majority of readers seemed to support Gail Collins' recommendations!! (Unlikely though it is that GW Bush and Gang would take up these recommendations).

[Check out: http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/11/22/opinion/22collins.html?s=1&pg=1)

[In fact, a very sizable number of readers actually want GW Bush and Gang impeached, thrown into prison, and so on - but that kind of action has already been 'taken off the table by Nancy Pelosi].

GSC

Perhaps it’s true - ignorance is bliss. While I don’t shy away from “liberal” I’ve long preferred “progressive”. Lately I’ve been advocating that it’s high time we reclaim America’s proud liberal tradition (unionism, FDR’s New Deal, civil rights) and I’d hoped this was the thrust of Lind’s article, rather than a mishmash of historical references and the author’s notion that “progressive” is somehow mere euphemism. I’ve always remembered Reagan mentioning “the L-word” - being shocked that he would use this smarmy tactic to cast a pall of shame onto the Left - and I’ve been astounded at how effective this approach has been over the past couple of decades, during which time many who were once part of my Sixties generation have morphed into self-described “conservatives” and come to view “liberals” as effete, latté-drinking wimps who mysteriously “don’t get it”. These were, of course, the people who never really “got it” themselves back in the Sixties - wannabe hippies, the protesters who were just there to meet chicks. By the way, I’m dismayed to see Lind copping to the same sort of Sixties-dissing that too many writers indulge in today. “Deluded radicals” indeed - who says we despised the New Deal or the Great Society? Those were most assuredly steps in the right direction... oh wait, I mean the progressive direction.

It’s strange how words take on different connotations over time. In the Sixties, I came to equate “conservative” with words like: mean, uptight, narrow-minded, sexually-repressed - and frankly, I still do. But I recall at some point in high school being dumbfounded to learn that it was Southern Democrats who had been most notably racist. Democrats? How could this be? Democrats, I thought, were people who supported civil rights. They liked Black people - or at least they tried to - and inwardly fretted when they felt they might not be succeeding. Today one hears conservative terminology-twisters using the faulty logic that “Lincoln was a Republican” and “Lincoln freed the slaves” so why are these poor deluded Black people in the 21st Century strongly aligning themselves with Democrats? Well, times change - so do political parties - and especially the words bandied about to label them. Remember “Reagan Democrats”? “Log Cabin Republicans”?

Lind curiously refers to libertarianism as the extreme right wing of liberalism. Has he actually spoken with any Libertarians, I wonder? Those I’ve met struck me more as some bizarre wing of conservatism - indeed leading me to contemplate the notion that revolution turns things around all right - but if you go all the way around, you end up back at your original starting point. Libertarians today seek to abolish public education and deny that the population explosion is a real problem - perhaps global warming, too - hardly liberal viewpoints by any stretch.

I don’t agree that Liberals have necessarily resorted to the term Progressive as a euphemism, a way of pretending we’re something other than what we are. Perhaps some have... I had little awareness of centrist Democrats calling themselves “progressives” - though it makes sense in light of the profuse liberal-bashing on talk radio and Faux News. After all, if you can’t call yourself liberal, you must find another word to use - which indeed seems to have been Lind’s dilemma. I was ignorant about (or had forgotten) much of the history Lind points out in this piece. While it’s fascinating to be reminded that early 20th Century reformers of a certain ilk used “Progressive” (not to mention some obscure Germans in the 19th Century) it seems only sensible that most of us will use terminology in its current 21st Century incarnation.

Personally I’ve long associated the term “Liberal” with certain nice, particularly well-heeled folks who enjoyed martini lunches, drove Mercedes and BMWs, and lived in houses where I was more likely to be called in to perform repairs than invited as a dinner guest (though that wasn’t necessarily out of the question). In short, Liberals were the rich folk who were our friends, the ones who donated heavily to Democrats and supported causes I like: environmentalism, food and health care for the world’s needy, ongoing choice about abortion, civil rights, gay rights... and perhaps even peace. It would be nice to think Liberals are against capital punishment - and some are, of course - but I’ve been shocked and dismayed to learn Clinton (and apparently Obama) fail to oppose the death penalty.

As “more enlightened” rich folk, liberals’ money still came from somewhere - and in many cases it was inherited from ancestors whose social values may have been considerably more to the right, back when they amassed their fortunes. The term “liberal guilt” has long been used to describe the sensibilities of decent, well-educated sons and daughters of a certain segment of America’s wealthy families - fundamentally good people who have had their innate instincts for fairness and compassion confirmed and informed by the finest liberal education available. I have that sort of education myself, but I’ve never been wealthy and received my education on full scholarships - so, while I see Liberals as my friends and allies, I’ve always had difficulty identifying myself exactly as one of them. Perhaps I’m both progressive and liberal - but not “a Liberal”.

Perhaps Lind is precisely one of these folks - a true Liberal. His disdain for “deluded” Sixties radicals, for Castro and Ho Chi Minh, his shallow perception of the term Progressive as a mere “soulless ... manipulative exercise in rebranding” betray his biases. He’s certainly free to use the original “L-word” however he pleases. After all, liberal means freedom - so by all means, use it liberally. But then, as Jim Hightower says, trying to get people on the Left to agree on anything is like loading frogs into a wheelbarrow.