"Liberal" and "Progressive"

[Stinky The Clown]

It seems to me these terms have been quite confuddled and misundercombabulated.

Lemme start: I self identify as a "Liberal". I do not self identify as a "Progressive".

I see nothing in the "Progressive" label that implies a more .... well ...... liberal bent than a Liberal might exhibit. Some would have us think that a "Progressive" is leftier than a "Liberal".

The word progressive is a fine one. It pretty much means what it implies on face value - a person who wishes to progress or evolve. Or legislation or action that would cause us to progress or evolve.

I also have to say ...... in today's political speak, I find it kind of ..... oh well ..... here it comes .... cowardly. When the repubicans worked to make the word "Liberal" a dirty word, rather than fight, some "liberals" chose instead to reselfidentify and adopt the label "Progressive".




I'm a Liberal. An unapologetic, unreformed, unreconstructed LIBERAL.






I also managed to get a great deal on a whole mess of used "Air Quotes" on craigslist. let me know if you want some. I have NO idea who used them before me ...... :)

[Oregone]

1. The problem is, with the word "liberal", there are a bunch of blue-dog free-marketers sharing it

And "progressive" at least allows one to disassociate themselves with that basic group.

Hell, the democratic party is "liberal". But, in a world context, as well as historically, they are pretty center (or even center-right). As an example, the current health reform looks suspiciously like one proposed by a right-wing crook in the 1970s (whereas, the real "liberals" then, like Kennedy, pushed single-payer).

Along with the Democratic party, the word "liberal" drifted to the right. Some people prefer a new label that actually describes views that were once actually considered "liberal"; that word is now "progressive".

[Stinky The Clown]

2. I understand all that ......

..... I just don't agree with it.

[Oregone]

3. What don't you agree with?

That the Democrats aren't "liberal" anymore, or that they are but "liberal" doesn't mean the same thing?

I think, semantically, "liberal" means the same thing. Look it up in a dictionary. As for people who use it...ehg. The entire political spectrum is outta whack

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Nononono ..... the notion that ......

..... somehow calling oneself "Progressive" (sorry ... I have so DAMNED many of these air quotes to use up :) ) allows one to separate oneself - presumably leftward - from Blue Dogs usurpation and repubican vilification.

[Oregone]

6. Gotcha

Could I dissassociate myself by using the label "socialist"? Because seriously, my ideas just don't fit that other mold

[question everything]

15. I think it is the opposite

During the 80s the word "liberal" became a derogatory term used by Reagan and his goons. I even have a book called "the L word" which celebrates the true meaning of being a liberal.

It is the Democrats, including, I suppose the dogs, who decided to hide behind "progressive."

[QC]

5. The two terms have very different histories.

Both terms are misused by people who are about as Leftist as Bob Rubin.

When I think of "liberals," I tend to think of nice bourgeois types who want to take the rough edges off the system. (John Kerry, for example.) When I think of "progressives," I think of people who want to make radical change, like Bernie Sanders, Howard Zinn, etc.

Other people, of course, see it the opposite way, and they have some reason for that.

It's not a matter of one faction being ashamed to be known by its real name or anything like that, though that very simplistic argument does get thrown around a lot here.

[Atticus]

9. My viewpoint is probably skewed, but I agree with Stinky.

I self-identify as a liberal in a VERY red area in a blue state.
When I think of liberals, I tend to think of people willing to walk the walk, take it to the streets, shut it down and resolutely speak truth to power even when standing alone.
Progressives, in my view, vote liberal, but are more concerned with "fitting in" and "agreeing to disagree" and are reluctant to offend or get in the face of even the most abrasive and disgusting neo-cons. Progressives are liberals with the sharp edges rounded off and a smiley-face painted on.
Like I said, likely skewed.

[QC]

11. Yeah, it's funny how people can come to such contradictory conclusions.

When I think of liberals, I tend to think of comfortable and well intentioned, if ineffectual, people who think that the world can be made whole if we just ensure that our organic coffee is also fair trade certified.

It's unfair, sure, and it's probably a consequence of coming from a very red area where the few people on the left were mostly bourgeois types who really did drive Volvos and, in all honesty, did not understand people from backgrounds like mine. (Like the professors, generally aging hippies, who had no problem complaining in class about "rednecks," never pausing to consider that a good many of their own students came from the very background that they so loved to hate and already felt that they did not belong in a university without having their own professors shit on them.)

I wish we still had a working-class left in America, but those days are long gone.

And, FWIW, we have had this Progressive vs. Liberal discussion at least once a week for as long as I have been on DU--eight years and counting--and it is never really productive. It only leads to lots of posing and ostentatiously hurt feelings. Frankly, this topic is a DU cliché, like pit bulls, Olive Garden, breast feeding, assault rifles, etc.

[BlooInBloo]

7. To me "progressive" = person who accepts republican frame of "liberal" as bad...

And simply ran away crying to another word. When republicans start using the same attacks on the word "progressive", expect them to run away again, and find another word.

I'll stick with "liberal".

[jannyk]

14. +1

[voc]

8. Liberal use to mean something

along the lines of compassion for others, not anymore.
As the OP stated the very word was maligned to the extent people were
marketed into being Progressive, which is more to the right than libertarian.
Libertarian another misnomer, "to the right of center" but no longer see themselves as such.

I don't think it matters what you call yourself anymore. I am on the left. Lefty? Leftist?
Because I neither identify with what passes for liberal, am not a progressive and am not a libertarian.
Not a socialist either, which means I can tell you only what I am not.
but there is no category for those who may be on the "left" anymore.
I have to give it to the MSM, job well done.

[QC]

10. In the rest of the world it means "Libertarian." n/t

[voc]

12. Exactly. Means nothing. n/t

[jannyk]

13. I am a San Francisco Liberal!! It was always used to make

the fundie wingnuts quake with fear. It signified the left of the left, and that's what I am. They didn't seem to fear the word 'Progressive', and I don't identify with it.

[Common Sense Party]

16. So, the word progressive is a fine one...that is also cowardly?

It's both fine AND cowardly.