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Cacique's Recomended Reading List for week of November 12, 2007
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Posted on 11/12/2007 7:38:21 AM PST by freespirited
Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked this summer if she would describe herself as a “liberal.”
The Democratic front-runner shied away, saying the “word” — noticeably not using the word — has taken on a connotation that “describes big government.
“I prefer the word ‘progressive,’” she said. It has a “real American meaning.”
Then she expanded the term to “modern progressive,” and, finally, clarified that she was a “modern American progressive.”
These are heady days for Democrats. The party is favored by almost all measures in the coming presidential contest.
But while Democrats are emboldened, they remain wary of the term “liberal.”
Republicans, by contrast, as unpopular in the polls as they have been for at least 15 years.
Nonetheless, the label “conservative” remains in vogue.
At a recent Republican debate, Rudy Giuliani referred to himself as a “conservative” four times in roughly the same time span — a minute or so — it took Clinton to reject the word “liberal” and embrace “progressive.”
In seven Republican debates this year the word “conservative” was used 100 times.
In the seven Democratic debates the word “liberal” was used four times — not once by a candidate.
“Conservative is identified with a sensibility,” Stanford University linguist Geoffrey Nunberg said. “The rejection of the Bush-Cheney policy is very clear. But I don’t think the public identifies it with conservatism.
“You can be as liberal as much as you like, if you are a Democrat, as long as you don’t call yourself a liberal,” Nunberg quipped.
To Nunberg and his fellow liberal — or progressive — Berkeley linguist George Lakoff, the presidential election of 2008 may mark the ascension of the Democratic Party, but not of “liberalism.”
“They are running from the word liberal as fast as they can because it has been tainted. It’s ‘bleeding-heart liberal,’ ‘tax-and-spend liberal,’ ‘liberal elite,’ ‘liberal media,’” Lakoff said, who has been a rhetorical consultant for Democrats in the past decade.
The Republican debates bear Lakoff out. Most of the 18 uses of liberal in the GOP forums have been in pejorative terms: Liberal media? Check. Tax-and-spend liberal? Check.
Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) went so far in one debate as to claim that President George W. Bush “ran as a conservative and governed as a liberal.”
Of course, there is reason behind the Democratic rhetorical re-branding.
In early autumn, the Gallup Poll found that while 43 percent of Americans identified as Democrats, only 23 percent of voters called themselves liberals.
While 30 percent of Americans considered themselves Republicans, fully 39 percent labeled themselves conservative.
Today seven percent of Americans call themselves “very conservative.” But none did two decades ago, according to an analysis of Gallup data.
Meanwhile, though five percent of Americans today consider themselves “very liberal,” three times as many did in the summer of 1988.
That was when -- Democrat Michael Dukakis challenged Republican George H.W. Bush for the presidency -- Republicans successfully cast liberal in pejorative terms.
Many Americans accepted the negative implication. Dukakis became a “Massachusetts liberal.” Democrats have been fleeing from the word ever since.
The two linguists disagree, however, over the implications of dropping the word liberal in favor of progressive.
In the short term, Lakoff said it may be shrewd for the Democratic candidates to avoid the “L word.”
But, he warned, the party will suffer down the road by ceding it to the opposition, calling it “a terrible move.... a disastrous move.
“By not having reconstituted the word liberal over many years, by not defending it, they are forced to give it up,” he said.
“But they don’t adopt progressive in a serious way because they don’t know how to say what progressive means.”
A donkey by any other name is still an ass — and Lakoff believes Democrats are acting the ass by ceding “liberal.”
“Even if you call yourself a progressive, they’ll call you a liberal,” as Lakoff put it.
Nunberg once agreed. “I always thought that Democrats would have to bring back the word liberal, in part because it’s etched on the split screen of American life,” he said.
But Nunberg no longer longs for a revival of the word.
“Democrats have found they can concede the word without conceding the doctrine.
“And Republicans can do everything but concede the word” conservative, he added. “Conservatism has been a faith that says whatever we are, we are conservatives.”
During the 2006 midterm elections, Nunberg said, Democrats “had no branding at all” except not being Republicans.
That was enough to win back Congress. In 2008, however, Democrats must define progressive and their party, he said.
“How are they going to reconstruct themselves?” he asked, adding that merely not being Republicans “is not going to work this time around.
“The self destruction of Republicans has obviated them to come up with the need for more of a party identity.”
Democrats still have no forward-looking product to peddle, Nunberg said, cracking, “The only difference between ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ is that liberals think there is one.”
If you can't figure out why, you just might be a liberal.
A turd by any other name...
Which means really big government!
Liberal, progressive, socialist, marxist. It all means the same thing to Hillary. She wants your stuff.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Proclaim it loud and proud through every outlet possible:
“Liberalism” cannot compete in the arena of ideas. Every time that it is honestly examined and compared to conservative principals, it will fail.
Even “liberals” understand this. This is why they never are honest about what they want to do if given power. And it is why so few “liberal” policies are implemented through any representative process of government - it’s almost exclusively forced on us by oligarchs in robes who “know better”.
“I prefer the word ‘progressive,’”
Towards what is she progressing? Outright socialism?
My definition of progressive, when concerning me, is that as of typing this, I don’t own a firearm. I will own one. Being progressive, I’ll own more than one. Why, I might even own one that could kill a rabbit!
Just noticed that George Lakoff (rhymes with) was a big contributor to this article.
Yeah, George Lakoff who blatantly trains his SS (secular socialist) squads that they cannot debate “progressivism” in the terms of the real world, but must always “frame” the debate in their own terms (ie, in a world where the sky is pink) in order to argue.
Have you seen any of the commercials that are setup to look like the Apple/PC guys, except they are “Con” - conservative, vs. “Pro” - progressive? Spin, spin, spin.
It is true that she wants to take your liberty away from you.
But it is for her notion of the “common good”.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
So -- Progressives are the people who want our cars to be just like the cars from 1917.
“Even ascendant Dems wary of ‘liberal’ label “
Of course.
That’s part of their plan to FAKE their way into possession of The White
House, Senate and House.
By pretending to be sane, resonable human beings until the Wed
after the Nov. 2008 election.
Actually I’m pleased with Hillary calling herself a “progressive”.
Even O’Reilly slams “secular progressives” on his show; hence her
choice of label wasn’t the swiftest move HILLARY! has made.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
What you’re seeing is that the label always comes to be understood in terms of what it is applied to.
If you called a can of beets “banana peels”, it would soon be understood that “banana peels” refers to beets. One real example I can think of is “mincemeat” (apples).
My way of describing the who “relabeling” of the left is:
A can of brutal, authoritarian communism,
wrapped in a label of democratic socialism,
wrapped in a label of liberalism,
wrapped in a label of progressivism.
Same can of crap, and everyone understands it.
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Cacique's Recomended Reading List for week of November 12, 2007
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English as a second language.
Then she expanded the term to “modern progressive,” and, finally, clarified that she was a “modern American progressive.”
Progressive = Liberal
Modern Progressive = Liberal
Modern American Progressive = Increasingly tedious liberal
Progressive. How quaint.
Free love/AIDS/Abortion; The Drug Culture; The Breakdown of the Family; The Establishment of a Permanent Poor; The Marginalizing of Christianity; The first American “loss” of a war...
The people aren’ t “progressive.” They promote “regressive” behavior.
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