Calling all Conservatives...

Lol - Australia and England do not, I think, demonize liberal at all! In general political discourse.


In Oz, the big L liberals are our conservatives.

I am surprised to hear about canada!

I thought it a purely US phenomenon.

deb

Yes, you differentiate correctly. America is unique in how 'liberal' gets demonized. They also had a big hardon for communism, which the rest of us didn't.

But at the same time, we see a move away, in those countries mentioned, from traditional 'liberal' policies towards something further to the right. In Britain, this happened under Thatcher, and in Canada, under Mulroney.

The US, of course, at that same time, was under Reagan.

Yeah - I agree.

Oz conservatives, by the way, tried to demonize communism - and succeeded to some extent - but not the same way as in the US.

They tried to outlaw it in the fifties - but had to put on a referendum to do so - and failed.

My personal upbringing was virulently anti-communist - and anti-left.
t

Russians I 've spoken to who lived in the CCCP in the 30s tell me that the entire system was on the edge of collapse by 1937 and that Hitler's biggest screw-up was invading the place, i.e. that he could have simply waited five years for the thing to collapse of its own dead weight and picked up the pieces. They tell me that life under the tsars was very bad, but that life under the commies was a LOT worse, and that ten years after the commie revolution, they were speaking of tsarist times as the "good old days".

Moreover, there was no possibility of ordinary people rebelling in the CCCP with the commies having a monopoly on machineguns. The commie empire fell when the commies themselves figured out that the system could go forward no further.

The term 'Liberal' means somewhat different things in American and the rest of the world. The original meaning, and the one that generally persists outside the United States refers to free enterprise, capitalism and democratic methods in promoting the general welfare. In the U.S. the term has become a reference to our left and parts of the political spectrum which often term themselves 'Progressives'. Perhaps, to some degree this is a reflection of the stronger hold conservative beliefs have on the American public.

In any case it is undeniable that socialist policies reached a local maximum of currency in most western countries soon after WWII. Certainly during the last three decades they have been in some decline, as even the left wing parties in the U.S., Britain and other places have attempted to define themselves as more centrist in the Clinton and Blair models.

What will happen next? I find it a bit hard to guess. The anti Bush furor has obscured differences in domestic political outlook as far as I can see, Is Europe, faced with the demographic collapse of its social welfare systems becoming more conservative or more stridently left wing? Hard for me to tell. Canada of course defies understanding.

The pictures of NORMAN ROCKWELL (1894-1978) were recognized and loved by almost everybody in America. The cover of The Saturday Evening Post was his showcase for over forty years, giving him an audience larger than that of any other artist in history. Over the years he depicted there a unique collection of Americana, a series of vignettes of remarkable warmth and humor. In addition, he painted a great number of pictures for story illustrations, advertising campaigns, posters, calendars, and books.

As his personal contribution during World War II, Rockwell painted the famous "Four Freedoms" posters, symbolizing for millions the war aims as described by President Franklin Roosevelt. One version of his "Freedom of Speech" painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1957 the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington cited him as a Great Living American, saying that..."Through the magic of your talent, the folks next door - their gentle sorrows, their modest joys - have enriched our own lives and given us new insight into our countrymen."
http://www.illustration-house.com/bios/rockwell_bio.html