LIBERAL? Or PROGRESSIVE?? What Are YOU???

My good friend Mycue23 over at Random Thoughts (http://www.hamsandwich66.blogspot.com) has just posted a very thoughtful and well-reasoned (as always) article proudly proclaiming himself to be a "liberal", and that is critical of "progressives" whom he views as being overly critical of President Obama, and are seemily ready and willing to jump ship on him.

To be sure, the President has disappointed many of us who took him at his word in 2008 and believed that Gitmo would have been closed down by now, that he would have pushed more strongly for and implemented a single-payer, public option for health care, or that numerous other things he promised but has not yet delivered on would have come to fruition. Like Mycue23 and, I suspect, many of the rest of you regular readers, the idea of dumping the President for a more leftist and less centrist candidate, and splitting his party and losing the 2012 election to a reactionary, blabbering fool like Sarah Palin or a far-right social conservative like Mike Huckabee, or even to a corporatist plutocrat like Mitt Romney in the process, is simply NOT AN OPTION. So, unhappy though we may be with the status quo, we are indeed stuck with Obama, as we know the alternative is far, FAR worse!

But Mycue23's impassioned stance (read his post; it's great!) got me to thinking: am I a Liberal? Or a Progressive?

Such labels are always murky and often inaccurate descriptions of one's political beliefs. For example, today's Tea Party and far-right Republicans refer to themselves as "conservatives" but that is not at all accurate. They are instead backward-looking reactionaries. And when these poor unfortunate souls foam at the mouth and deride "liberals", I strongly suspect what they are really complaining about are "progressives." Let me explain...

I went to Google.com and entered "the difference between liberal and progressive" for some clarification. I was very pleased to find a number of articles listed which may help clear this mystery up for you as well. The first was a gem by David Sirota which appeared in the 10/19/06 Huffington Post. Mr. Sirota writes:

"Liberals...are those who focus on using taxpayer money to help better society. A "progressive" are those who focus on using government power to make large institutions play by a set of rules...a liberal solution to some of our current problems with high energy costs would be to increase funding for programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). A more "progressive" solution would be to increase LIHEAP but also crack down on price gouging and pass laws better-regulating the oil industry's profiteering and market manipulation tactics. A liberal policy towards prescription drugs is one that would throw a lot of taxpayer cash at the pharmaceutical industry to get them to provide medicine to the poor; A progressive prescription drug policy would be one that centered around price regulations and bulk purchasing in order to force down the actual cost of medicine in America (much of which was originally developed with taxpayer R&D money).

Let's be clear - most progressives are also liberals, and liberal goals in better funding America's social safety net are noble and critical. It's the other direction that's the problem. Many of today's liberals are not fully comfortable with progressivism as defined in these terms. Many of today's Democratic politicians, for instance, are simply not comfortable taking a more confrontational posture towards large economic institutions (many of whom fund their campaigns) - institutions that regularly take a confrontational posture towards America's middle-class..."

Mr. Shirota also warns us that "Paying off corporations to do what they already should be doing sets a dangerous precedent - it sends a message to Big Business that they can leverage their irresponsible behavior into government handouts..."


Another illuminating insight came from a 01/05/08 post on the blog Corrente:

"If you think every American should be guaranteed health insurance, you're a liberal; if you're trying to make universal health care happen, you're a progressive...[liberals are] people who want things like universal healthcare, out of Iraq, privacy rights, help for the homeless, good public schools, justice, equality, etc... but accept the excuses made by politicians and the media for why these things are not possible.

Progressives, on the other hand, know that progressive policy is possible (and necessary, real soon) and want to fight whatever stands in the way of making it happen."


Yet another fascinating piece comes from a listing called The Progressive Review, but no date is listed:

"As Progressives learned from the last year, getting Democrats elected does not automatically translate into progressive policy. The Democratic controlled congress has failed to promote or even defend Progressive values on pretty much every issue that has come up, from Iraq to FISA...

Progressives also learned from the last 8 years that progressive policy has NO chance if the Republicans are in charge...

Therefore:

Democratic Party (or non-Republican) control of government is a necessary but not sufficient condition to bring about progressive policy...

This explains my and possibly others' concerns about efforts at bipartisanship and triangulation by Democrats running for office...

Since the liberal prime directive is to win elections, they argue that compromises must be made in terms of policy, because policy is secondary...

What we need is both electoral success and the successful promotion of progressive policy. These thing have to happen simultaneously. Here is a picture to help understand this concept...

Progressives would argue that policy is everything: what is the point if a candidate wins the election but does not enact progressive legislation?...

Also, Progressives would argue that progressive policies are popular, so why would candidates make compromises with conservative policy in order to gain popularity?...

Progressives, as liberals did before Reagan, emphasize doing the most for the most – which is how we got socio-economic programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and a minimum wage. Today’s liberals favor expanding health insurance company profits over expanding Medicare and strongly support Democratic presidents who undermine the very programs that earlier liberals created such as social welfare and Social Security...

Progressives don’t think the commerce clause of the Constitution should be used just because you feel like doing something, such as avoiding single payer health insurance. There is a huge difference between using the commerce clause to guarantee human rights and using it to subsidize health insurance companies...

Progressives try to convince people with whom they disagree, not just scold them...

Progressive oppose the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq; liberals like them as long as a Democratic president is running them...

Progressives worry about locked doors, liberals about glass ceilings, which is why liberals thought Obama's election would create a post-racial society.Too many liberals are infatuated with symbolism such as electing a black president, while ignoring the real problems most minorities face in everything from the job market to dealing with the law...

Liberals love Clinton and Obama while despising the Bushes who preceded them. They don’t seem to notice that our government continued to move to the right under both Democrats and that neither repealed any significant policies of their GOP predecessors....

Progressives don't think bailing out banks is an economic stimulus, but that helping to create jobs and stop foreclosures is...

Progressives are not afraid of criticizing Israel for its abusive treatment of Palestine. Liberals either support Israel's criminal actions or are afraid of being called anti-Semites so don't say anything."


and, most importantly,

"Progressives have new ideas; liberals come up with new compromises with the right."
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I have always viewed the government as a buffer against the overreach of concentrated capital, much as the late great progressive Republican Teddy Roosevelt did. For that reason, I strongly support the notion of government regulating corporations and big business to prevent excesses which may harm the public, and I do NOT in the least view the government as an oppressor the way the currently very misguided reactionaries do.


I have always viewed the government as a great force to implement good policy for the betterment of all the people on an individual basis, just as Franklin D. Roosevelt did. That is why I strongly support federal programs like Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid. I do NOT believe that "profit motive" necessarily ensures efficiency or success in human endeavors. In some cases, exactly the opposite situation occurs. And I do NOT believe in the federal government providing routine subsidies to huge concerns like oil companies or the insurance, banking, or pharmaceutical companies who in turn take this money and then end up using it against the people at large for the profit and benefit of only a few!

Given all that which has been presented above, I would characterize myself as a PROGRESSIVE, albeit with a few liberal tendencies. After reading this post, I would guess that perhaps Mycue23 and maybe some others of you out there may wish to reclassify yourselves, but maybe not. It is entirely your choice, and I respect that completely. As by now all of you have ascertained, one thing is for certain, though: I am most certainly NOT a "conservative" or a "reactionary!"

I have always viewed liberals and progressives not as being enemies or opposites, but as being very similar and inter-connected, yet distinct. Just as there are heads and tails on a particular coin, in the end, it is still much the same coin, fused together to achieve the same purpose. I think it is important for us on the left to ALWAYS remember that!


So how about YOU, readers? Are you now more confused than ever? Or are you LIBERAL? Or PROGRESSIVE?? What Are YOU???

CPAC AND THE 4 HORSEMEN OF CALAMITY

"Men love ideas more than their lives. And the more preposterous the idea, the more eager they are to die for it. And to kill for it."
- Edward Abbey -

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest excuses in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
- John Kenneth Galbraith -

"A conservative is a man who believes nothing should be done for the first time."
- Alfred E. Wiggam -

"I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to victory on the Four Horsemen of Calamity - Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear."
- Margaret Chase Smith -

Perhaps it is a good thing the late moderate Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine did not live to see the era of ultra-far-right neocon Republicanism we now have today. For these hard core zealots have hijacked the party and now control it lock, stock, and barrel. They have destroyed all its relevance and credibility. She is surely spinning in her grave at the unconstitutional antics of the Bush/Cheney years and now that vicious extremists Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have repectively become the de facto king and queen of that miserable party (with the impulsively irresponsible Sarah Palin as lady in waiting). For, ever since Chase Smith's death in 1995, the GOP has increasingly succumbed to extremism, just as it did when nominating Barry Goldwater for President in 1964 and subsequently losing that election in a landslide.

As evidenced by this past weekend's CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) gathering of 9,000 hard core ultra-rightists, the lunatic fringe of the GOP is alive and thriving, much like a malignant tumor. Malevolent and determined to have all power for itself, the CPAC crowd is well on its way toward destroying its Republican Party host. Unfortunately for the GOP, there is no cure in sight.

Senator Chase Smith was an intelligent and civil woman of high principle. Had I been a voter or Senator in her day, I would have undoubtedly voted against her positions many times, but I would have cultivated and valued her friendship. I would have liked her and respected her greatly for her integrity and moderate views. She was one of the first critics of the notorious red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy, courageously rising up early to denounce the irresponsible tactics and largely unfounded allegations he made against many innocent Americans. These poor accused souls suffered tremendously for years due to his wild rants about them, and she stood up to the bullying and accusatory tactics which the GOP soon adopted due to McCarthy's influence. Her June 1, 1950 "Declaration of Conscience" from which the quote above was taken, outlined her aversion and opposition to the kind of attack-dog actions McCarthy used then and which the CPAC crowd employs today. For a very interesting and relevant read, Google Margaret Chase Smith and read her declaration. It will help you see the obvious parallels between the McCarthyites of yesteryear and the neocons of today.

Ahhhhhh, CPAC! A summit of the meanest, most fearful, ignorant, and intolerant people on earth. A Mecca of the misguided and misinformed. An entire weekend of practitioners and advocates of failed economic theory and disastrous foreign policy all venting to each other while whipping the four horses of calamity to an absolute frenzy among all in attendance. A place in which those who wish to avoid truth and reality can escape to revel in their own fantasy and delusion for a time. There was fat, old, slobby, insecure, big-mouthed blowhard King Rush Limbaugh, once more doing his best to get attention through outrageous and preposterous claims. He tried to portray the President as an advocate of fear because Obama had honestly reported the unhealthy state of the economy. In reality, Limbaugh was attempting to scare the public at large into believing that Obama was out to destroy our free enterprise market system. He characterized Obama's noble effort to more fairly level the economic playing field, by taxing the very rich more heavily to ensure they would pay a more balanced share, as "punishing achievement and punishing earners." You can always count on Limbaugh to appeal to people's selfishness and ignore basic facts. By Rush's twisted rationale, it was evidently perfectly ok for the rich and major corporations to "punish" tradespersons and regular workers alike by destroying their unions, cutting their wages and benefits, and shipping their jobs overseas, all of which helped make the very wealthy far, far, FAR richer than ever before! THAT kind of punishment sits perfectly well with Limbaugh, I guess, so long as the exorbitant wealth created by Bush's unfair tax cuts for the rich remain in place. Next, ol' blabbermouth stated that Obama's proposed budget is "spending wealth that has not yet been created." Of course, Limbaugh conveniently neglected to realize or mention that is exactly what his hero, George W. Bush, and his neocon Republican Congresses did from 2001-2006 by cutting taxes on the wealthy and then starting a very costly and illegally imperialistic war in Iraq. But I guess Limbaugh finds THAT kind of spending to be ok, since it isn't being wasted on job creation or programs for suffering common people. He characterized liberals as being "psychotic" even though the facts clearly show HIM to be the delusional one. He referred to his formative years as being better days for our country and bemoaned how liberals and Obama were going to ruin it all. Funny, though: In Limbaugh's "formative years" the country was being run by LIBERALS and MODERATES, NOT conservatives! Poor Rush even has delusional memories! I guess it takes a conservative about 40 or 50 years to recognize liberal genius. I keep forgetting how slow and dull-witted these conservatives are, and that they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer! Limbaugh was only slotted to speak for roughly 20 minutes, but, naturally, once he started beating his chest and heard the sound of fanatical audience applause, he selfishly monopolized the podium for well over an hour. Amid frenzied cheers and unified, deafening chants of "USA! USA! USA!", Rush just couldn't give it up. It was a scene reminiscent of the 1936 Nuremberg Rally. Very scary!

Queen Ann Coulter was her usual cruel, snobby, and sarcastic self, ridiculing liberals, Obama, Democrats, and the mythical liberal news media in her typically low-brow, insulting manner. Other moronic liars - I mean, speakers - included South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint (Obama is "the world's best salesman of socialism"), Mike Huckabee ("the Union of American Socialist Republics is being born"), the ever-regressive Mitch McConnell, and Michele Bachmann, who always thinks and speaks like a deer caught in headlights and will soon require antifungal spray for her mouth, due to her foot always being firmly stuck in it. These people are hopeless.

Conservative Republicans Bush, Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld used fear to lie us into illegal and imperialistic war in Iraq, stripping us of constitutional rights and instituting kidnapping and torture as acceptable practices along the way. Limbaugh, Coulter, Romney, DeMint, Huckabee and all the rest of the CPAC crowd are now trying to sabotage Obama's Stimulus Plan with fear of socialism. There's your FEAR. All deny that THEIR type of economic theory caused our economic downturn and has failed time after time, in the 1920s, the 1980s, and during the Bush regime. Yet they are pushing for more of the same. There's your stubborn IGNORANCE. They ridicule and hate liberals and gays, and view lower-class whites, minorities, and those from other cultures with suspicion and distrust. There's your BIGOTRY. They constantly lie about political opponents and deliberately distort what their opponents say to turn the public against them and to reinforce their own misconceived notions. There's your SMEAR, which rhey employ all the time.

Margaret Chase Smith was very visionary and wise to recognize these types of threats to our democracy way back in 1950. She would be justifiably and profoundly horrified to see that a new and more militant form of McCarthyism has resurfaced via CPAC 59 years later to capture and control her party today. Her dreaded Four Horsemen of Calamity are galloping her beloved Republican Party right off the political cliff!