Posted on 06/25/2007 5:59:51 AM PDT by John Galt 72
OK, We’ll Call You ‘Progressives,’ but You’re Still the Same Old Liberals
By Matt Carrothers
June 25, 2007
Liberal activists – the political left’s extreme political left – ask that everyone stop referring to them as liberals. They now want to be called progressives. According to a June 22 Washington Times article, Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) co-director Roger Hickey says the word progressive “goes beyond the traditional concept of liberalism, which we also subscribe to, and it has an emphasis on empowering people in the political and economic sphere.” To paraphrase Billy Joel, everybody's talkin’ ‘bout the new label. Funny, but it’s still liberalism to me.
The liber – I’m sorry, progressive – CAF hosted a conference last week called “Take Back America 2007.” The group invited the Democratic presidential candidates to explain their now progressive policy prescriptions for the country. A close examination of the policy solutions offered by both CAF and the leading Democratic presidential contenders, however, reveals their solutions to be nothing more than the same socialist pursuits promoted by the left for over 40 years.
CAF’s website lists five issue priorities: Energy Independence, Healthcare for All, Revitalizing Education, Social Security and Take Back Medicare. Its “10-Point Plan” for energy independence includes very unliberal but certainly progressive points such as:
*Promote Advanced Technology & Hybrid Cars
*Expand Renewable Energy Development
*Preserve Regulatory Protections
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) would never have thought of those!
CAF’s solutions for its other four priorities also sound eerily similar to the rhetoric Reid, Pelosi and others in Congress – including the Democratic presidential frontrunners – have churned out for years. CAF advocates universal health care, increased spending to fix public education’s ills, no Social Security “privatization” and government control of prescription drug prices.
The Democratic presidential candidates are attempting to secure the support of the leftest of the left by repackaging their policies as progressive. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said during her speech at the CAF convention, “We’re going to send them packing in January 2009 and return progressive leadership to the White House.” Of course, whomever wins the 2008 presidential election will “send them packing,” just like President Bush sent Clinton and her husband “packing,” since Bush is constitutionally barred from running for a third term. Details.
Clinton’s website spotlights her seemingly progressive new ideas for the economy and jobs in a plan called “Innovation Agenda 1.0.” Her Innovation Agenda merely proposes a slew of new spending programs, increased government intrusion in the free market, and even throws in a sex and racial quota for education and research grants. Perhaps Clinton’s Innovation Agenda version 2.0 will include proven economic stimulants such as lower or no taxes on incomes, capital gains and estates.
The website of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is equally devoid of any policy proposals that thinking Americans would consider progress. Like the liberals who currently lead Congress, Obama advocates universal health care, energy “independence” that is somehow achieved by not utilizing our own energy resources and a “comprehensive” immigration policy that grants amnesty to tens of millions of illegal aliens. Progressive? As my grandmother used to say, wishing doesn’t make it so.
Robert Borosage, another CAF co-director, kicked off the CAF conference by telling his progressive minions, “The conservative era that defined our politics for the last quarter century is at its end…The right has failed. Their policies are bankrupt.” If only the facts were on his side.
First, a June 13 Rasmussen poll found that just 19 percent of Americans say the Democratic-led Congress is doing an excellent or good job. In the same poll, only 13 percent of American voters said that Congress has passed any legislation over the past year that will significantly improve life in America. So much for the Democrats’ vaunted “100 Hours Agenda.” If the conservative era is at its so-called end, then liberalism is surely receiving its last rites.
The second fact dispelling Borosage’s myth that conservatism has failed is found in the head-to-head poll results between the leading Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. The latest Real Clear Politics (RCP) national poll average shows Republican Rudy Giuliani beating Clinton by one half of one percent.
Further, the latest Rasmussen poll of likely Republican voters shows that the decidedly more conservative Fred Thompson now leads Giuliani by one percent. Thompson trails Clinton in the RCP national poll average by just 5 percent. Thompson’s conservative message is clearly resonating with an American public eager to return to legitimately conservative leadership.
In truth, leftist activists want to abandon the term liberal because it carries decades of worn, big government baggage in the psyches of American voters. The term progressive, the activists believe, sounds more focused and forward-thinking. In fact, progressive policies are no different whether they are labeled progressive, leftist, Democratic or liberal. They all share the same goals – eliminate individual freedom and liberty, secure government control of the economy and decimate our national sovereignty by dismantling our military and opening our borders.
The progressives may claim to represent the next phase and a new wave. It’s still liberalism to me.
© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
I always thought progressives were communists.
Newspeak, old agenda........
9. Medicine/Medical. continuously increasing in extent or severity, as a disease.
I don't want them to have the term progressive. I also want to take back the term liberal because liberal refers to freedom and that is the last thing those people want. Use the terms socialist, communist or fascist because they are the ones which most closely match their ideology.
I complained about this trend last year. I especially do not like that Bill O’Reilly always refers to them as “progressives”.
I guess the stink is the same whatever the name.
it is predominantly the left that constantly changes terms and names in order to keep ahead of people’s common sense.
colored/negro/black/african american
queer/gay/samesex/partner
borderjumper/illegalimmigrant/undocumentedworker
etc
OK; "Commies" it is! Hey, glad to help!!!!
Democrat=Progressive=Liberal=Socialist=Communist
It’s all the same no matter what they call themselves. They could call themselves patriots but that doesn’t mean they are. All you have to do is look at their actions.
I never use the word “Liberal”, in truth, they are leftists.
A political theory as old as Plato that manipulates people with marginal influence (and, in most cases, rightly so, because they are crazy, violent, self-destructive, or otherwise incapable of governing themselves) to gain power for yourself by claiming to best represent their interests. Since such attempts to raise the worse to the best by appealing to the mob has for centuries been appropriately named, perhaps we could borrow from the past and call their new political moniker what it is: the Demagogues.
You’re right. They are.
You are right. The “Progressives” are not your fathers liberals but Socialists, Communists and general crazies.
I don’t mind letting the “liberals” refer to themselves as “progressives”. That is, as long as they use it as the adjective that it is and not as a stand-alone term to describe something that they’re not. They’re not “progressive” in the true definition of the word. They are “progressively” worse for America. They are progressively intolerant of differing opinions. They are progressively worse for the economy. They are progressively worse for our freedoms. They are progressively bad for freedom of speech and the press and especially “talk radio”. They are progressively bad for our defense and our military personnel. They are progressively bad for our foreign policy. They are in general, progressively bad for America and the world.
If it waddles like a duck...
Roger Hickey says the word progressive “goes beyond the traditional concept of liberalism, which we also subscribe to, and it has an emphasis on empowering people the members of the People's National Worker Party in the political and economic sphere.”
Closer to truthiness, that.
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