Any Progressives Here?

Lol!

Yeah.

Liberals are the conservatives here.

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Was FDR called/considered a "liberal"? (What was the usage of liberal at the time?)

If with Progressive you mean someone who wishes LaFollette had succeeded in establishing a more populist, farm/labor leftwing alternative to the Democrats in '24, count me in.. you might have had public railroads and the right of collective bargaining now.

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While the Democrats were a party made of every stripe of politics,in those days, Roosevelt led us with a liberal slate of programs. It became popular to deride conservatives then as much as conservatives now deride liberals (many of whom hide from the liberal label under the mask of being "progressive."

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edgarblythe wrote:

While the Democrats were a party made of every stripe of politics,in those days, Roosevelt led us with a liberal slate of programs. It became popular to deride conservatives then as much as conservatives now deride liberals (many of whom hide from the liberal label under the mask of being "progressive."

Nonsense. (Re the "hiding" thing)

Only in the USA does anyone think liberals are left.

Well, if you refer only to the US, well, you may be correct, I do not know.

But progressive is a generally accepted term, in the way the American usage of "liberal" is not.

Most places your "liberals" are not particularly progressive.

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I define myself as a progressive liberal.

Cycloptichorn

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I'm used to thinking in the American context. I should have defined it that way. Most American liberals have traditionally stood for equal rights, controlled capitalism, social programs, such as Social Security, welfare, price controls for public utilities (electricity, for example). They gained a reputation for being anti war for so strenupusly opposing Vietnam, but the majority of liberals are willing to fight wars (They want someone to justify the wars first, however). Some notorious liberals are war heroes (George McGovern, for example). At the extreme, some liberals are full blown socialists, but far more are near the political center. Those on the right call liberals atheists, but, for the most part, they are Christian (not of the fundamentalist kind).

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edgarblythe wrote:

I'm used to thinking in the American context. I should have defined it that way. Most American liberals have traditionally stood for equal rights, controlled capitalism, social programs, such as Social Security, welfare, price controls for public utilities (electricity, for example). They gained a reputation for being anti war for so strenupusly opposing Vietnam, but the majority of liberals are willing to fight wars (They want someone to justify the wars first, however). Some notorious liberals are war heroes (George McGovern, for example). At the extreme, some liberals are full blown socialists, but far more are near the political center. Those on the right call liberals atheists, but, for the most part, they are Christian (not of the fundamentalist kind).

As though atheist is bad.

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Though I am a hard core atheist, I have to say, it's just fine to be whatever.

One of the staunchest atheists of the 20th Century, Philip Wylie, described himself as a conservative. I never considered that a political stance, until the past ten or so years.

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i guess i'd be a social democrat if there was such a thing, definitely liberal in my politics with a huge lean to the social activist side, believe in universal healthcare and reasonable welfare state

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I believe in universal health care. That is one program FDR did not put through.

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dlowan wrote:

edgarblythe wrote:
While the Democrats were a party made of every stripe of politics,in those days, Roosevelt led us with a liberal slate of programs. It became popular to deride conservatives then as much as conservatives now deride liberals (many of whom hide from the liberal label under the mask of being "progressive."

Nonsense. (Re the "hiding" thing)

Only in the USA does anyone think liberals are left.

Well, if you refer only to the US, well, you may be correct, I do not know.

It's nonsense in the US context as well. The term "Progressive" has a long history in America, and refers back to a political strand that was always distinct from "liberal". The character of the Progressive movement itself shifted too, for sure, drastically even, from Teddy Roosevelt to LaFollette's leftist Farm/Labor coalition to the "pinko" Henry Wallace ticket of 1948. But it's always been distinct from "liberal", and most of the time, to the left of it. If you go back to the 40s or 50s, you find that "liberal" referred to the moderate, reformist strand on the Democratic Party's left, and "progressive" to the more fundamentally system-critical, radical strand.

Today's US liberals, IMO, continue the tradition of their predecessors, even if the conservatives ridiculously try to rhetorically brand them as some kind of far-leftists. Their dominating focus on 'moral' issues of high-falutin but post-material quality, whether its gay marriage or defending the division of church and state or abortion or gun regulation, worthwhile though each of those issues is on its own, continues a 'safe' kind of tweaking of issues that are not essential to the main, capitalist thrust of society's structures anyway.

Tellingly, they also pretty much mirror the issues that the conservatives have thrust into dominance since the early 80s; they are playing on the conservatives' field, have let them kidnap the agenda.

If I were American I'd call myself a "Progressive", with LaFollette's and Wallace's tradition in mind, to denote that I'd like a far more fundamental revision of socio-economic policy. Affirmative action and a withdrawal of Bush's tax cuts for the very richest are nice, but in the end just tinkering, when the elephant in the room remains the explosively increasing gap between the rich and poor, period, and the existence of lower classes (white poor as well as minorities) who are making do and getting by on their teeth from one generation to the next. Who lack basic protections, whether it's health insurance, rent controls or employee rights, that are standard in most West-European countries.

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We rarely heard "progressive" until the Republicans gained control of the government. Now we hear "liberal" less and less. That was my original point.

My personal belief is, the US government should stand down and undergo drastic restructuring, on a scale vast and complicated, but it will not happen, or be considered, ever.

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a viable third party would help shake things up

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The one way I can see a third party getting out the starting gate, would be if a charismatic person caught the imagination of enough people that they would willingly go where he leads. The individual would have to have great organizational skills and a ring of exceptional associates, to build a party structure. Even then, it would have a one in a hundred thousand chance of taking permanent root.

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the other problem as i see it is, a third party would almost certainly be a social activist party (that's the case in canada anway, not counting the quebec seperation party), after conservatives and liberals, what's left (short of a good italian election with about 500 parties running), and i can't see the american people in general supporting that kind of idea, too close to the dreade commies for most tastes i'm sure

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We've got to get beyond that notion that a nation that pulls together is a commy nation.

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truer words were never spoken, one possible bright sign for the future, by 2008 any eligible new voters will have been born after the wall came down, so at least soviet communism will be a non entity for them

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nimh wrote:

.

If I were American I'd call myself a "Progressive", with LaFollette's and Wallace's tradition in mind, to denote that I'd like a far more fundamental revision of socio-economic policy. Affirmative action and a withdrawal of Bush's tax cuts for the very richest are nice, but in the end just tinkering, when the elephant in the room remains the explosively increasing gap between the rich and poor, period, and the existence of lower classes (white poor as well as minorities) who are making do and getting by on their teeth from one generation to the next. Who lack basic protections, whether it's health insurance, rent controls or employee rights, that are standard in most West-European countries.

Wallace never had much political support here and was quickly forgotten. LaFollette played well only in eastern Wisconsin.

It turns out it is immigrasnts and their descendants who are a principal source of conservative political support here. They know that labor market regulation and unions are merely devices to keep them from ascending the social economic ladder. America is certainly an imperfect society - as are those in Western Europe - however, it is bettter suited to immigration and the competitive challenges of the current world that are the over-regulated and relatively sclerotic economies of Western Europe.

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BBB
I'm a pragmatic progressive. I've also decided that, with the exception of Great Britain and it's class sytem, I'm more European than traditional American in several areas of my thinking.

BBB

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Any Progressives Here?

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