It has occurred to me lately that we need to rename the terms “Progressive” and “Liberal” because they have lost their meaning.
PROGRESSIVES: Contemporary so-called “Progressives” are not progressive at all. They are REGRESSIVE. They want to go retreat from liberty.
LIBERALS: Contemporary so-called “Liberals” are not liberal at all. They don’t want to “liberate” — rather, they want to ENSLAVE others. Contemporary Liberals should therefore be referred to as “Fascists” because they want extreme social regimentation via government.
The JFK Democrats (strong on defense) wouldn’t even recognize the greedy agglomeration of selfish special interest groups that comprises today’s Democrap party.
If we get the nomenclature to correctly portray the Fascist/Regressives for what they really are in the minds of the unwashed masses, that’s half the battle!
PROGRESSIVES: Contemporary so-called “Progressives” are not progressive at all. They are REGRESSIVE. They want to go retreat from liberty.
LIBERALS: Contemporary so-called “Liberals” are not liberal at all. They don’t want to “liberate” — rather, they want to ENSLAVE others. Contemporary Liberals should therefore be referred to as “Fascists” because they want extreme social regimentation via government.
"Objective journalists" and "liberals"/"progressives" (who are so-called merely because they pander to journalists, and therefore are accorded whatever positive labels they want) inverted the meaning of "liberal" in the 1920s. William Safire gives that time frame in Safire's New Political Dictionary, tho he does not say who did it. But, after all, who else but journalism would have the propaganda power to pull that off?To the objection that "journalism" is a cacophony of competing voices, the answer is simple and complete: journalism was a cacophony of competing voices until the Associated Press homogenized journalism in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. Since then, although editorial pages vary, the main body of the paper has been driven by the wire services. And to the objection that there are other wire services besides the AP, that doesn't matter - all wire services inherently have the same homogenizing influence because they all affect the business model of the newspaper the same way. But the AP is the granddaddy of them all, and still the largest - and an aggressive monopolist to boot.
You have a good idea, but only in the sense that Will Rodgers had the solution to the submarine menace - "Boil the Oceans." We don't have the propaganda power to rectify the fraudulent labeling systematically conducted by journalism. My preferred solution is to sue the AP and its membership for libel - noting that the apparent diversity of journalism is illusory, and that it is a single entity which cannot evade its responsibility for things like keeping Rush from buying the St. Louis Rams, for libeling the Duke Lacrosse team, promoting the "TANG memo" hoax, telling the voters in the FL panhandle in 2000 that Gore had won Florida's electoral votes before the polls were closed in the panhandle, and so on and so forth. The name of their swindles is legion. Ideally it would be a class action lawsuit, and a RICO suit for triple damages.
Incidentally, the fact that journalists claim that journalism is objective is proof that they are not even trying to be objective. To actually attempt to be objective, one must start by being open about any reasons why one might not be objective. Journalists do have motives which are not congruent with the public interest - they want influence and they want advertising revenue. The desire for influence with an audience is the obvious reason for rules like, "If it bleeds, it leads," and "'Man Bites Dog' not 'Dog Bites Man.'" Those rules have obvious value for attracting attention, but little to no value in assuring that the stories selected on that basis promote the public interest rather than merely interesting the public. When journalists claim objectivity they are doing the very opposite of what they would be doing if they were actually trying to be objective.