Defining “Progressive” and Spotting the Impostors

[Judi Lynn]

Weekend Edition July 25-27, 2014

The Political Charlatans of the Left

Defining “Progressive” and Spotting the Impostors

by ANDREW TILLETT-SAKS

“The framework of thought is consciously manipulated by an effective choice and reshaping of terminology so as to make it difficult to understand what’s happening in the world, to prevent people from perceiving reality, because if they perceived it they might not like it and act to change it.”

– Noam Chomsky

This election season, millions of Americans will use the terms Progressive or Liberal. I will have no idea what any of them mean.

George Orwell wrote, “The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another.” Were Orwell writing in 2014, he would include Liberal and Progressive as well. In the regular frenzy for votes, politicians with wide-ranging politics will fly both banners. Despite no common definition or clear understanding of what the terms imply, millions of well-intentioned voters will follow the labels and deliver their votes.

The lack of clear language on the American Left prevents coherent thought and action. Because the Left cannot clearly define what it means to be Progressive or Liberal, it cannot effectively identify its friends nor its enemies. Wolves in sheep’s clothing reside in elected offices nationwide. Well-intentioned, egalitarian voters elect self-proclaimed Progressives and Liberals who proceed to desecrate workers and equality in return.

Modern Americans use Progressive and Liberal with a wide range of meanings, many of them contradictory.

The public brands politicians far apart on the ideological spectrum, from Joe Lieberman to Bernie Sanders, as Liberal. Starkly contrasting intellectuals, from Paul Krugman to Noam Chomsky, also commonly receive the label.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/25/defining-progressive-and-spotting-the-impostors/

[wandy]

1. I am neither a Progressive or a Liberal........

I am a member of the Democratic party.
I am a Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson Democrat.

No amount of right wing propaganda will give me shame in that.

[yurbud]

6. me too (minus Johnson's war and foreign interventions)

[geek tragedy]

2. This piece excludes civil rights and liberties

as considerations for defining a "progressive."

That's some serious bullshit. Lemme guess, the author is a straight white man?

[1StrongBlackMan]

7. In all fairness ...

civil rights and liberties DID get mentioned in a line one two ... as a passing remark ... on the way to the "ECONOMICS" that makes true liberal and progressive, true liberals and progressives.

[geek tragedy]

11. Pretty clearly the author doesn't give a crap

about stuff that doesn't affect his demographic. He dismissed civil rights issues as a distraction.

[1StrongBlackMan]

13. Should fit right in here.

I would have thought this thread would be at the 1,000,000 rec mark by now.

Maybe if it were posted by a different DUer?

[yurbud]

33. civil rights are important but if you are only free to work the same 80 hour work week

as a white heterosexual male, get the same benefits, not be able to support your family, and have your pension stolen my your employer, and your future Social Security stolen by Wall Street, that equality would be cold comfort.

Frankly, Republicans and neoliberals would be glad to make all of us equal--to Jim Crow era blacks.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. I think he takes support for civil rights and liberties as read, for progressives

He says liberals, in his definition, support civil rights; he is saying the difference between them and progressives is economic beliefs. So he thinks the people he defines as progressives support civil rights too.

[geek tragedy]

17. Maybe, maybe not but the question of whether

they are of high priority is not to be assumed--civil rights are dismissed by some on the left as "lifestyle liberalism" and "gonadal politics"

Shockingly enough, it's straight white men who use such phrases

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. However, I see no sign of him dismissing them in the article

And he has also written on civil rights for Counterpunch before:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/11/07/neoliberal-myths/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/02/why-the-progressive-response-to-the-zimmerman-verdict-falls-short/

[cprise]

24. Is geek tragedy a straight, white man?

I find that some straight white men channel a certain antipathy to economic justice, and their sense of entitlement manifests as strenuous levels of trolling on the Internet.

And speaking of BS, you're wrong about the article excluding civil rights. It paints the charlatans' politics as half-baked, departing with the left on economic issues. That's far from being an exclusion, but I see how this would be misinterpreted by an individual afflicted with a dualist mindset.

[1StrongBlackMan]

3. Thank you Andrew ...

for providing a checklist so that I can place myself, and others, in the appropriate political box. That is so helpful!

[Maedhros]

4. Important analysis.

There is a disastrous consequence to the mainstream Left’s lack of descriptive precision: elected officials routinely attacking the very Leftists and workers who voted them into power. The traditional, racism-fueled American political conundrum involves workers supporting conservative politicians explicitly against their own interests. Our loose terminology creates a different conundrum, politicians who win election based on ostensibly anti-corporate, pro-equality platforms only to betray their working class and Leftist supporters. Electoral politics for Democratic voters today is generally a game of bait-and-switch: Leftist rhetorical bait followed by conservative economic policy.

The effectiveness of this bait-and-switch has fostered the rise of a new class of pseudo-Left, neoliberal charlatans nationwide. Waves of these charlatan politicians continue to ascend, effectively dominating the Democratic Party. The Charlatans generally support liberal social issues, such as formal civil rights (i.e. marriage equality), basic women’s rights (i.e. the right to have an abortion), and racial ‘diversity’ (i.e. formal equality and ‘color-blindness’). However, they break from traditional Leftist economic positions. The Charlatans often scapegoat and battle worker unions, lead the charge in ‘reforming’ and ‘marketizing’ (privatizing) the public school system, and generally advocate supply-side, trickle-down economics in the name of ‘job creation’ and a better ‘business climate’.

The trademark of the Charlatans is to drench everything they do, progressive or conservative, in traditional Leftist rhetoric. They stoke Leftist enthusiasm by breathlessly emphasizing liberal social issues, while quickly glossing over their conservative economic stances with cliché rhetoric. They attack public schools in the name of racial equality and poor, minority students. They defend de facto racial inequality by celebrating token minority representatives amongst the rich and powerful—the act even works best when the Charlatan themselves is a racial minority, their mere presence projected as an inherently Progressive cause (see Barack Obama, Cory Booker, etc). They wage war on the last bastion of the American labor movement, public sector unions, in the name of improving the economy for the poor and unemployed. In sum, the Charlatans are masters of effecting inequality in the name of equality. Lost in the whirlwind of rhetoric, blinded by the shine of liberal social issues, most well-intentioned egalitarians take the bait.

This bears repeating as often as necessary.

[yurbud]

8. yep: would you like your corporate rule with a side of gay bashing or gay hugging?

Like Henry Ford said about the Model T, it comes in any color you want as long as it's black.

[yurbud]

5. who would call Joe Lieberman a progressive?

[1StrongBlackMan]

9. A conservative, or ...

someone trying, really, really hard to make the point that true liberals and progressives ... ECONOMICS!

[yurbud]

12. "but I do nice things for unions sometimes and try not to say mean things about gays or blacks..."

[Luminous Animal]

16. Harry Reid

Harry Reid Still Defending Joe Lieberman: One Of The Most Progressive People Ever To Come From The State Of CT
http://crooksandliars.com/heather/harry-reid-still-defending-joe-lieberman-o

[1StrongBlackMan]

21. Did you miss the qualifiers ...

One Of The Most Progressive People Ever To Come From The State Of CT

Perhaps you can name a more progressive Senator from the State of CT?

[Maedhros]

14. Who would call Lieberman a progressive? The DNC during election season. [n/t]

[yurbud]

18. they didn't fool primary voters last time.

[yurbud]

26. who woud call the DNC progressive? (at least after Howard Dean was kicked out as party chair)

[yurbud]

10. we need to lay out principles that will drive a stake in corporate Democrats

Last edited Fri Jul 25, 2014, 06:09 PM - Edit history (1)

Many of the functions government does because the private sector will not do them or has done them in the past in a way that harmed the general public.

Public-private partnerships is a euphemism for corruption.

Privatization and efforts at privatization are prima facie evidence of corruption.

Human rights, dignity, and opportunity trump rights to property and profits.

and so on.

[Igel]

20. Those tend to be 1-dimensional labels.

Binary.

But people aren't 1 dimensional. That's a big part of the problem, and every attempt to define multidimensional people in terms of a on/off, binary distinction is doomed to fail or become demogoguery.

There's an attempt to put people on a 2-D scale, but that only works for some people. It "flattens" a lot of values systems to those that the producers of the 2-D scale subscribe to, usually after years of being taught what the appropriate values to hold are. So that only works if we accept that there are only two binary values that we all must abide by.

Wrt Chomsky's quote, that only holds if you produce a terminological system and strictly assume everybody else adheres to it and simultaneously compel others to adhere to it. I've read too many things that Chomsky's written where he piddles with producing a fine-grained set of lexical distinctions and then turns around and misinterprets what somebody else wrote a decade before that didn't abide by his arbitrarily set definitions. It's easy to demolish somebody when you fundamentally misconstrue them or take them to task for not abiding by your terminological distinctions. We relativize connotative and denotative meaning by speaker in many cases.

[yurbud]

27. the problem is the third dimension is corruption not ideological variation

Republicans are at least up front about carrying water for the rich.

Corporate Democrats pay lip service to taking care of the rest of us, then quietly carry water for the rich.

It's the same thing with war and supporting business-friendly thug governments abroad: Democrats do it too, they just don't make as much noise about it or openly get off on it.

[Populist_Prole]

29. Good summation

[alarimer]

22. I define it primarily as someone who believes in a social safety net.

And in progressive taxation that reduces income inequality.

Social safety net: single-payer health care, robust social security system, robust labor rights.

Also includes strong support for civil rights (including pro-choice, someone who is anti-choice is not progressive) and environmental protection.

Also opposed to free-trade agreements on general principles and in favor of reduced military spending and less involvement in military actions elsewhere. I guess I think a progressive is someone who favors the military as defensive only, rather than offensive.

[yurbud]

30. I think we need a different kind of net at the top:

No individual or corporation or bank can become so wealthy that they have greater power than the government or power over the government.

If you get to pick your own regulators, your company is too big.

[swilton]

23. Along with the messiness

of liberalism and progressivism which the author articulates but leaves me dissatisfied, there is also the messiness of saying one thing during a campaign and doing another when elected to public office. In my mind it isn't a question of distinctions between liberalism and progressivism and identifying the charlatans. It is rather promising one thing and delivering another. The author's article fails in not pointing this out.

[yurbud]

31. We all understand the process will lead to less than desirable outcomes, but DLC/NewDems

use that as cover for not even pursuing progressive policies in many areas or making a token effort at best.

With Obama, a lot of us hoped for a president who went as far out on a limb for us as Bush did for the rich, and instead we got a president who started acting like he had a divided Congress well before he did.

[unrepentant progress]

25. A true Progressive:

Someone who recognizes there can be no social justice without economic justice.

[yurbud]

28. gay marriage and abortion rights would be cold comfort if you live in a cardboard box

and survive picking through the garbage the rich throw over their walled communities.

[Demeter]

32. Actions speak louder than words

Matthew 7:15-20King James Version (KJV) UPDATED BY YOURS TRULY

15 Beware of false PROGRESSIVES, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.