political labels may not mean what you think they do

[ginnyinWI]

Bush is no conservative, he's actually a reactionary, according to an article in a local Wisconsin alternative paper, "The Scene". Dems and Repubs can be any of the four labels: conservative, liberal, radical, or reactionary, or a combination. We can't assume that all Repubs are "conservative" or that all Dems are "liberal", according to this writer. This article will change the way you think about these terms. As a point of reference, the writer is a member of the Green party:

"In a radio broadcast of October 26, 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt said this: “A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs, who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest ... of his head.” As flippant as those remarks may seem, they represent one of the few times in our history that an American leader actually tried to define the meaning of common political labels. Clearly FDR defined the labels in such a way as to build up his own liberal leanings while knocking down his conservative critics, marginalizing the radicals, and mocking the reactionaries. But at least his remarks provoked Americans to think about political philosophy.



Today’s politicians use labels almost exclusively to build themselves up and knock down their opponents. Rather than encourage us to think, modern political labeling seeks to shut down our brains; to create a breed of babbling buffoons conditioned to endorse blindly the “conservative” or the “liberal” without a shred of comprehension or even care about what those once honorable terms could or should mean. Every Republican presidential nominee since Barry Goldwater in 1964 has promoted a “conservative” program while attacking the “liberalism” of his opponent. Every Democratic presidential nominee since Jimmy Carter in 1976 has run away from the term “liberal” while often arguing that he is actually more conservative than the Republican. Both Republicans and Democrats swear off the term “radical” while the term “reactionary” has all but disappeared from mainstream public discourse.



Disastrous consequences follow the reduction of political language to build-up and knock down labels. So-called “conservatives” and “liberals” attack each other viciously and mindlessly in political campaigns, talk radio, TV chat shows, blog wars, and in the print media, while “radicals” become convenient whipping boys for both. Meanwhile the real enemies of American democracy—the reactionaries—dominate public policy in Washington and in most American cities, safely entrenched in structures of power that TRUE conservatives, liberals, and radicals should be appalled by and united against.



In the American political tradition, true conservatives, liberals, and radicals share some fundamental goals: the advancement of freedom and small-d democracy at home and a foreign policy best described by Jefferson in his First Inaugural address as “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Sharing these goals meant that true conservatives, liberals, and radicals had to be united against reactionary politics. But in today’s political climate, aided and abetted by an until now unheard of concentration of corporate wealth and power, we’ve lost our radical, conservative, and liberal leanings. It’s true that Jefferson and other founders owned slaves and hardly lived up to the sterling ideals associated with their names. But at least they left a written legacy of democratic values that future generations could rally around in struggles to protect and expand rights and freedoms. Today’s “leaders” will leave a legacy future generations will recognize as rooted in maintaining power at all costs, dogged refusal to reform a dysfunctional electoral system that is an international embarrassment, and a complete failure to demand high-level accountability on everything from the torture at Abu Ghraib to outrageous budgeting practices."

more... http://www.valleyscene.com/cover.html

[carnie_sf]

1. I've been saying

for years that the people commonly referred to as conservative are, in fact, reactionary.

[Old and In the Way]

2. The only label deserving of Bush Republicans is: criminal