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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I have no problem with the term "liberal," and I am very happy to use it. I also use the oft-derided term "partisan," since I support a particular political party and believe in the concept of collective action and solidarity in pursuit of a political goal.
But I like "progressive," precisely because of the vision of history it invokes. I really believe it when civil rights leaders tell us that "the arch of history is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that we have a vital role to play in making that so.
It seems fairly clear to me that there is a tendency on the right to look back to an idealized past and attempt to either recreate it or simply resist any further movement away from it. I want to get as far away from it as possible. Conservatives seem to me be people who already have power (social, political, and/or economic) and are trying to hold on to that power, whole progressives are people who don't have power trying to empower themselves (or trying to empower others). It's certainly not a %100 either-or, past-or-future, powerful-vs-powerless orientation, but it's close enough for the phrase to resonate deeply with me.
The problem, as I see it, is not what conservatives call democrats, it’s what democrats call conservatives. Why let them (the conservatives) keep that respectable label while they hurl “communist”, “socialist”, “Marxist”, “terrorist” etc around. Not to brand Rush Limbaugh a fascist is absurd, but as soon as you mention the “f” word the pedants come out of their holes and debate the issue, no doubt to the astonishment and delight of the right wing. The country is where it is today because the democrats, liberals or whatever you want to call them, are not up front enough in the name calling department.
"Liberal" has always, to me, referred to matters economic: Regulating business and the larger economy, funding social services, a tax policy that's, uh, progressive, and so on.
While "Progressive" has (in addition to Liberalism) embraced causes like civil rights, environmentalism, and opposition to the kinds of wars that have mainly been about defining or building empire, all things that were not even particularly correlated with "Liberal" politics until the mid-1900s.
So I like both terms, and I also like any discussion that breaks through the labels and gets into the substance of each, which I think is encouraged by having more than one label to rally around.
I see it almost exactly like that. The guys in power are always trying to hold on to it. And they will usually oppose even the most obviously positive changes because it means someone else will soon call the shots.
I got so mad about this, about the success of the right wing propaganda machine that I actually called myself a Fabian. The name of the nineteenth century political action group that included GB Shaw seemed fine for me. When I got mad enough I would just call myself a socialist. I knew a guy who owned a half-way house funded by liberal governmental programs and liberal charities and would project this disdain for "liberals." Meanwhile, he manages to pull out more than 40% of the gross from the operation and pay himself $100,000.00 a year. Besides the liberals paying his salary, he benefited from liberal programs to get a community college degree that got him the job that ended up getting him ownership of the operation. I have met hundreds of people like this ingrate and I never understood the hypocrisy. Hopefully, if the left can get their propaganda machine running smoothly, the word Republican and the word conservative can carry a bad connotation for decades to come.
I have always detested the term "progressive." The progressives have nearly ruined my hometown of Berkeley with their dogma and PC bullshit.
i never gave up being a liberal! Thanks!
In its classical sense, liberal implies someone who trusts in the market as an antidote to more ancient forms of power: the Church, nobility, inheritance, etc.
Among our European friends, "liberal" is most commonly associated with parties of the right, who trade upon the market concept as the counterpoint to social formations -- social democracy, socialism, even regulatory forms of capitalism -- that most Salon readers would recognize as their ideals.
Progressive means what it says. The Progressive tradition is a long and good one, predating American liberalism. Liberal has had its day. Leave it and let's get on knowing each other for what we really are: progressives.
There are some things a leader does that are beyond acceptability. My grandfather fought in the First World War, and was so traumatized, he made peace his mission. He later won a Nobel Peace Prize.
I can say without pause, he would have found Lee Atwater's/Karl Rove's jugular politics profoundly objectionable. But more than that - isn't it a just little funny how George Bush Jr., Rove, Cheney, and Rumsfeld all managed to avoid service in Vietnam? These are men who never saw battles overseas. But they're reaping the dollar rewards.
i.e., chairs the Progressive Patriots -- I guess progressive isn't a bad thing
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.
...was because liberals cringed and whined and caviled as the right (which is not conservative these days, so I refuse to call it that) turned it into a swear word. If liberals had stood up and said, "Yes, we are liberal, and we're damn proud of it, and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter can just go pound sand," then they would not have lost the nation's respect. As it was, every time some talk-radio Goebbels invoked what has come to be called the 'L-word', liberals scurried to prove that they weren't what they were. Pusillanimity.
In so doing, they--you--were complicit by inaction in the right's destruction of just about everything good that the United States once stood for. You were too afraid of right-wing taunts to fight a good a political fight. In us swing voter types, who by default think both sides are pretty unsavory and who first hunt the presidential ticket for a sane third party to receive our votes, your cowardice excited contempt. And why not? It was obvious you were unwilling to slug it out for your principles. If you let the right steal your very label, then what wouldn't you let them have?
I can't qualify as a liberal due to numerous political positions, but in these past eight years I often wished I did, just so I could justly come out and call myself a liberal right in the face of the neocon spin artists. It would have been fun to demonstrate that at least someone wasn't afraid of them and was ready to tell them where to stick their un-American hypocrisy, theocracy and profligacy. So now--now that you have a president that somewhat represents your values--only now you have the guts to cop to what you always were?
Mighty brave when the majority of the guns are on your side. Had you been brave when you seemed outgunned, history would be very different, for you would not long have been outgunned.
Ralph Nader might be almost a self-parody these days, but at least he's not afraid of what people call him. He'll take on anyone, for better or worse. I suggest liberals take that lesson from him, going forward, because that's why I voted for him in 2000. And while I voted for Obama this time, it wasn't with any enthusiasm; all the third parties on the ballot in my state seemed too delusional to support. If you don't develop some fighting spirit to defend not merely your principles but your very label, it is voters like me who will turn away from you in 2012, even if we have to hold our noses and vote for the Linuxbertarians.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
