I'm So Tired of the Word Progressive

[liberalmike27]

Just say liberal!! We're just helping the right-wing by running away from the word, the word that is actually a good thing. Stop running away from it. If someone calls you liberal, thank them, say "Yea, I'm an open-minded, caring person, who values education, and good information."

[Loudly]

1. Progressive lets us co-opt Teddy Roosevelt, who is on Mount Rushmore.

Not for nothing.

[Scootaloo]

2. Which tends to display the historical ignorance of liberal Americans

Roosevelt's progressives were an anti-left movement. Granted they were a "soft" approach compared to the anticommunist hard right of the day, but the whole point was still to protect the status quo against leftism while arguing for some incremental, progressive changes in order to defuse the movement of the left.

Still, I'd rather lay claim to Roosevelt than Jackson, given the choice.

[Loudly]

4. Ha Jackson!

A rube and bully and immortalized on the twenty!

[Scootaloo]

9. I think of him more as "genocidal maniac" n/t

[LooseWilly]

50. Sure... he illegally enforced the Trail of Tears, but on the other hand, he expanded the franchise

Genocidal bigoted and a complete defiler of the constitutional relevancy of the courts, including the Supreme Court?... Absolutely.

But... he did usher in the end of the property requirement for the voting franchise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_manhood_suffrage

It was sort of a one step forward, two steps back kind of horror.

On the other hand, there are many on the right who are still trying to turn back that clock today, pushing for a property holding requirement in order to vote.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/11/30/132532/tea-party-voting-property/

A useful asshole, Jackson was... to a limited extent.

Just sayin'...

[liberalmike27]

12. Yep, and FDR

Embrace the compliment!

[Buzz Clik]

3. Gasp! Using that word empowers it! Even if we only use it referring to each other.

(agreed)

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. With the addition on "neoliberal" to the lexicon....

... I'm inclined to go all the way to "progressive," and leave "liberal" behind altogether.

Terminology gets muddled and makes clear communication difficult.

What I really am is a socialist... in the early 20th century sense of the word. But that word's been declared naughty by TPTB so "progressive" seems the best pick at the moment.

[liberalmike27]

13. Using "Progressive"

Is allowing our media to herd you into the "liberal is a bad word" crowd.

Use it, embrace it. Hell "liberal" (especially these days) is a lot closer to a socialist than "progressive." We should have never run away with it. It's like everything Democrats have been doing for 45 years now, run away, don't argue, never make the case for your point, give in, allow them to move right, but when elected just try to keep the peace.

It's this BS that makes it not work for us--they might do it on television, but we should not fall prey to their word brainwashing.

[Gravitycollapse]

6. Liberalism and Progressivism are not the same.

So it's very much possible that someone is one or the other without being both.

[RedCappedBandit]

7. Agreed

I'm a proud liberal, damnit!

[liberalmike27]

14. Goon on ya

Brothers and Sistuhs.

[Zorra]

8. +1. Yeh, it's kinda wimpy. I'm a flaming radical liberal. Liberal: Good, Conservative: Icky. nt

[AsahinaKimi]

10. It seems to be everywhere!

oh wait... sorry.

[davidthegnome]

20. For some reason, that made me LOL

Good stuff. Not sure if it's good for you, but I like progressive soup.

On edit: Whoops. I meant progresso. Progressive is that car insurance company.

[olddots]

22. right you are

oh and CHICKEN noodle means progressos are chicken
I am a Liberal and can't remember when the term progressive started and why .

[Scootaloo]

11. I pretty much agree

I see the use of "progressive" as basically ceding territory to the right. Next year, what will they have us calling ourselves?

I just call myself a leftist. It always makes 'em get this look, as if I popped 'em between the eyes with my pecker.

[liberalmike27]

15. Seriously

Give 'em a big "Thank you!"

Then they'll say "Hey, it ain't no compliment," to which you reply "Yea, you should look it up, it's a pretty good thing."

Seriously, when I was a kid, it was all good. It took them a long time, and we cooperated, rather than fighting. We need to fight, show emotion, be all-in, argue, make the case. Passion goes a long way.

[Blue_Tires]

55. +1

[Comrade Grumpy]

16. I think "progressive" denotes a more leftist position than "liberal."

I think of Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_States,_1948)

Foundation

The formation of the Progressive Party began in 1946, when the recently ex- Secretary of Commerce and former Vice President Henry A. Wallace began to publically agitate against the policies of the Truman administration. The need and want for a third party had been growing even before Wallace left the Truman dministration, with two major organizations, the National Citizens Political Action Committee (NCPAC)and the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions (ICCASP), ( Both of these organizations were formed as PACs for Roosevelt).[1] While these two organizations would eventually form the backbone of the 1948 Progressive Party and Henry Wallaces bid for President, it took several years for these organizations to agree on a shared platform and move forward with the formation of a political party. This happened in July 1948, when a convention was called in Philadelphia to launch the "New Party" to a crowd of enthusiastic liberal and left-leaning citizens.[2]

Views

"I urge elimination of groups and factions in this new party movement. This movement is as broad as humanity itself. I urge that we accept all people who wish for a peaceful understanding between the United States and Soviet Russia .... We can get the support of these people if they realize that we do not represent one group. If we are going to be a party of 20 million, there are going to be many kinds of people in that party. Keep the door open".[3] - Henry A. Wallace, from a speech given in April 1948

The slogan of the "New Party", and the name many used to refer to the party forming around Henry Wallace, was appropriately "Fight for Peace". A major drive for Henry Wallace had always been the ending of the hostile relations between the Soviet Union and the United States and the acceptance of Russian influnece in Europe.[4] These sentiments were first put forward by Wallace in 1944, but those same sentiments soon began to take a more dramatic tone, as a really sense of urgency and anxiety for peace settled in with the beginning of the arms race and the Cold War.

Yet, while the "New Party" may be most famous for its anti-war, pro-Russian relations, it sought to include an incredibly broad range of issues and interests. The quote by Henry Wallace above shows how he, and many others in the party, sought to create something more than a single issue party, to the objection of other leaders in the party who felt that would be their undoing.[5]

Nevertheless, the platform of the party and the range of issues it covered shows the diversity of the people who formed the "New Party" in 1948, which included many socialists as well as communists. Among the policies the Progressive Party hoped to implement was the end of all Jim Crow laws/ segregation in the South, the advancement of womens rights, the continuation of many New Deal policies including national health insurance and unemployement benefits, the expansion of the welfare system, and the nationalization of such industries as power.[6]

[PDittie]

35. And that's why I prefer the soup label above

over liberal. Truth to tell, I am more a socialist than anything else.

But hey, just don't call me late to dinner...

[DevonRex]

17. I agree. I think people were afraid to say they were liberal so they

chickened out and used the word progressive instead. Like they're not quite liberal.

[progressoid]

21. It may seem that way but it's the other way around.

In the U.S. Congress, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party, and it is often in opposition to the more centrist or conservative Democrats who form the Blue Dogs caucus.

[DevonRex]

23. Yeah, it is now.

I was talking about when it first started being used. It was kind of an easy way out of having to say liberal. Sounded nice and didn't start arguments. Later on it took on meaning. I still like liberal though because that word pisses my relatives off and I won't back down from it.

[progressoid]

26. Yeah I just tell them I'm a Communist.

Sometimes they aren't sure if I'm joking or not.

[DevonRex]

28. Hahaha!!! I said I thought communism was a beautiful idea once

and I swear I thought they were going to call an exorcist, except they don't believe in exorcists. They're way too Presbyterian for that. And then I told them that Jews practiced socialism and I could prove it in the Bible. They almost had a cow. Anyway, I found a link that explains it. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6704-gleaning-of-the-fields

I think it's kind of cool and a fun way to annoy RW Fundy types.

[liberal_at_heart]

18. I've never been afraid of it.

[Kablooie]

19. If liberals are progressives them conservatives have to be regressives.

[olddots]

27. regressive is too kind a term

they are not conservatives they want to destroy what America set out to become .

[Blue_In_AK]

24. That's fine, liberalmike.

You be tired, I'll be progressive. It's a term I prefer and will continue to use. I think people can call themselves whatever they want to.

[BainsBane]

25. Liberalism involves a belief

that "free markets" are natural and the ideal basis of an economy. Adam Smith was a liberal, as were our nation's founding fathers. Liberalism emerged as the political corollary of capitalism. No where else in the world is the word liberal so stripped of its historical and philosophical meaning.

I don't use the label liberal because I don't believe that free market capitalism is natural or morally just. It's fine if you want to call yourself a liberal, but I am a leftist.

[Scootaloo]

32. Adam Smith was hardly the "free market" capitalist he's portrayed as

Wealth of Nations is a very interesting book... and it needs to be taken in the context of when he wrote it. It reads a lot differently when you realize his only available example of governments were church and monarchy.

I suggest that anyone on the left - whatever they call themselves - give it at least a thumb-through. Nothing shuts a libertarian up like pointing out Smith was a proponent of universal education and believed that manufacturers had to bear 100% of the cost of production...

[BainsBane]

41. I understand that

He was writing in opposition to mercantilism. But he was indeed a liberal, and my own beliefs on free markets differ from Smith and the Democratic party. That is why I personally do not choose to call myself a liberal.

Now, I know full well that my beliefs are just beliefs and hardly practical political positions in the US. As I've grown older I've learned that I can still hold my beliefs yet vote for the best, most practical political option before me. I'm perfectly happy to support a liberal like Barack Obama and worked hard to see him elected.

[eomer]

34. Not in the US. But you make the point unintentionally that it's confusing.

In the US liberalism means what might be called social liberalism in some other places. And it definitely does not include advocacy of the free market, which is one if the main differences between the liberal and centrist wings of the Democratic Party - the centrist wing advocates free markets while the liberal wing does not.

So in the US liberal does not include freedom (liberalism) of markets. On the other hand, neoliberal, which has always been a term of economics, here and elsewhere, does advocate free markets - in fact that's essentially what it means.

I embrace the label of liberal but I also see that it can be confusing, as we're proving in this OP thread. I'm also fine with being called a progressive but I don't want to concede on the ruination of the term liberal.

Unfortunately our political opponents intentionally destroy the meaning of words and intentionally sow confusion. They attempt to turn a number of terms into pure pejoratives, including all terms that are actually leftist but also some that are really right wing, like fascism and Naziism, and then they use them to teach people to hate leftists for reasons that are emotional, not rational.

[BainsBane]

40. I must disagree

Liberalism certainly does involve advocacy of the free market in the US. The Democratic Party does just that. No socialist in this country would use the world liberal to describe him or herself. Your notion of what the left is framed by the very narrow political spectrum that reinforces capitalism all along its limited continuum. Americans use the word liberal because they can't imagine a leftist political ideology as exists in other parts of the world. That was completely banished through the red scares. What was left was liberals.

The term neoliberal derives from liberalism. How do you suppose the word came into use?

And the classical meaning of liberalism was indeed used in the US. The difference is most Americans today know very little about history and political economy.

[Comrade Grumpy]

43. And this confuses many Americans.

And makes these semantic discussions almost futile exercises.

Plus, the lack of definitions. It's hard to fight over what's liberal or what's progressive if we don't agree on what either one means.

[eomer]

47. You're in the minority on a question that's decided by the majority - common usage.

This piece in Wikipedia about Liberalism in the United States says it pretty well:

Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process and equality under the law are widely accepted as a common foundation across the spectrum of liberal thought. Modern liberalism in the United States includes issues such as voting rights for all adult citizens, equal rights, protection of the environment, and the provision by the government of social services, such as: equal education opportunities, access to health care, transportation infrastructure, basic food for the hungry and basic shelter for the homeless. Some American liberals, who call themselves classical liberals, neoliberals, or libertarians, support fundamental liberal ideals but disagree with modern liberal thought, holding that economic freedom is more important than equality of opportunity, and that promoting the general welfare of society exceeds the legitimate role of government.[1]
Without a qualifier, the term "liberalism" since the 1930s in the United States usually refers to "modern liberalism", a political philosophy exemplified by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and, later, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. It is a form of social liberalism, whose accomplishments include the Works Progress Administration and the Social Security Act in 1935, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Community Reinvestment Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States

And this piece about neoliberalism:

"Neo-liberalism" is a set of economic policies that have become widespread during the last 25 years or so. Although the word is rarely heard in the United States, you can clearly see the effects of neo-liberalism here as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.

"Liberalism" can refer to political, economic, or even religious ideas. In the U.S. political liberalism has been a strategy to prevent social conflict. It is presented to poor and working people as progressive compared to conservative or Rightwing. Economic liberalism is different. Conservative politicians who say they hate "liberals" -- meaning the political type -- have no real problem with economic liberalism, including neoliberalism.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376

If we used your definition then almost all uses of that word in political conversation in the US would be misunderstood. When people say liberal here, in these times, they definitely do not mean to include a school of economics (free markets/neoliberalism) that is advocated by every single American conservative and neo-conservative you will meet.

I do somewhat agree with the other reply to your post that it's probably futile to debate, but it (common usage) is really decided by consensus, especially for this kind of word, and there is a strong consensus (established by usage in conversation) in the US that liberals do not advocate free markets. Centrist Democrats do, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party does not.

[Deep13]

29. There is a distinction.

Liberalism is the general idea that tweaking the existing system will improve the condition of humanity. This involves generosity (which is what the word liberal means) from the rich to the working people and it means eliminating arcane, traditional restrictions on working people to allow them to prosper. By the 20th century, it mean support for organized labor, regulations to assure fair treatment to working people, and certain public benefits like education, social welfare programs, and some other things. It is based on compassion and a sense of justice. It has a common history with the evangelical left.

Progressive means that one views human history as a movement from barbarism to modernity. It believes in active state involvement in the economy and in our lives and therefore is somewhat authoritarian. Part of progressivism is the discarding of traditional belief for modern scientific thinking. Yet one of its first major successes was the 18th Amendment, supported by Christian temperance societies. It promotes public health and sanitation, expanding the franchise (19th Amendment) and many of the same economic justice ideas as liberals. Progressivism is more radical than mere liberalism, an old idea, as it is the product of modernity. It promotes research to fight disease (and, therefore, is antithetical to animal rights) and follows a scientific approach to public policy. Sadly, it also has a history of supporting eugenics and "scientific" racism, but has long since abandoned those ideas. It's victories include contraception, child vaccination, antitrust laws, the FDA.

[eomer]

38. Thanks, that is very helpful.

Is there a particular source this comes from?

[Deep13]

48. Just my own observations of history.

There is and has always been considerable common ground between the two. Liberal is a pretty general term, whereas progressive is a specific political movement that became prominent around the turn of the 20th century.

[Sherman A1]

30. Okay

I however am not. I think the word Progressive is about Progress. That said, each to their own and it's just a word.

[Kalidurga]

31. I really don't care what label people use on me. It really changes nothing.

But, I am more of a radical deep down. I no longer think the system just needs a few little changes. However, I still think that we need to work within the system, except for banks they need some major reform. But, other than that yeah work within the system get liberals elected and get some stuff changed.

My radical agenda calls for free college or trade school for at least two years. It's ridiculous that people have to take out large loans and take on huge debts before they even get their first job or at least their first job that they have been educated for.

[aikoaiko]

33. Liberals tend to more tolerant than progressives.

And sometimes tolerance is good and sometimes not.

[DonCoquixote]

36. I agree

not that progressive is that bad a word, or innaccurate. We do believe in PROGRESS. However, we allowed the GOP to define us by running away, and until such time as we get to deifne ourslves in the same loud, in your face manner they do, we are sunk.

With all due apolgies to James Brown: say it loud, I am liberal and I am PROUD!

[LWolf]

37. "Progressive"

is permanently linked to the DLC and it's "progressive policy institute" which has, imo, destroyed the Democratic Party and along with it, this country.

Liberal? Yes. I'm on the liberal left, which makes me a distinct minority in the U.S..

[Puzzledtraveller]

45. I agree

They stand out, even on DU. I would hazard to name a few but that would be inappropriate. I would say that for a easy example, those that think it's okay to drone strike US citizens without due process are more likely to fall under the progressive moniker. That's what I see anyway.

[LWolf]

49. I see it, too. :( nt

[MineralMan]

39. Both Progressive and Liberal are words with no universal meaning.

They mean what each person thinks they mean. What that does is keep the words fuzzy and useful. I consider myself to be both liberal and progressive. But, there are many who would dispute that, using their own meanings of both words.

Progressive and Liberal are mutable labels. Anyone can use them without providing any definition at all, because there is no fixed definition that describes the political positions taken by progressives and liberals.

For that reason, both are less useful than they should be.

[forestpath]

42. K&R I'm a liberal.

[Puzzledtraveller]

44. Perhaps, but I perceive actual differences between the two

I contend that I am Liberal, not Progressive. I believe there is a difference.

[arely staircase]

46. So open minded

you want to tell me what words i should use - with exclamation marks even!

i like progressive

[Warpy]

51. I'm not a liberal, I'm a lefty

While liberals managed an economy that worked for most of us, no small achievement, I always thought they didn't go quite far enough in setting a lot of the safeguards into stone, e.g. indexing the minimum wage to inflation and making sure Greenspan couldn't fiddle with the CPI market basket and make his substitutions in order to mask inflation.

[CrispyQ]

52. When Reagan attacked the word liberal,

Democrats distanced themselves from the word liberal, & it was just a matter of time before they also distanced themselves from liberal policies as well. You are right, they should have embraced the word LIBERAL & said, "Hell yes we're liberal & here's why!" & then they should have recited the Joe Conservative essay.

But they didn't. They distanced themselves from the word liberal, & the further they distanced themselves from the word liberal, the further they distanced themselves from liberal policies. And here we are, voting for the lesser of two evils & getting the same fucking shit.

[CheapShotArtist]

54. I think progressives and liberals both want the same goals,

but the difference is that progressives tend to be more pragmatic about achieving them. Progressives just want to get things done (hence the word "progress&quot , and they recognize that it usually takes baby steps in order to get things on their agenda accomplished.