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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe L Word Lives Is it safe to say "liberal" again?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112271/word-liberal-makes-comeback#
The L Word Lives Is it safe to say "liberal" again?
BY ALAN BRINKLEY
For more than twenty years, the word liberal seemed to have disappeared from the political world. But President Obamas speech appears to have revived iteven though the word did not appear in his inaugural address.
In the aftermath of his speech, "liberal" was suddenly everywhereby the right (with derision) and by the left (with relief). Most interestingly, the word appeared prominently in the mainstream news outlets that have typically avoided using a term that had evolved from being a basic political descriptor to a loaded piece of jargon used as an epithet by Republicans as avoided as a liability by Democrats.
If anyone found the usage inappropriate, they didnt make much of a fuss. What made liberalism alive was not the word, but the many issues that liberals have waited for decades to hear from a president: inequality, poverty, illegal immigration, gay rights, and many other liberal promises that have been ignored or overlooked for years. Obama may not have said liberalism, but he made it possible for others to start talking about it again. In his inaugural address, he painted an America that has not been seen in many years:
Whether the president succeeds in these bold efforts, he has attemptedeven if somewhat belatedlyto restore our lost liberalism. Already, conservatives have derided Obamas inaugural address, calling his statements socialism and saying his speech was obsolete. It remains to be seen whether the president can sustain his policies and the liberal ideas he presented in his speech. But for liberalism to become part of our time again, we need to know what liberalism means -- in the past and today.
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Some liberals have shown arrogance. Some have given up. Others have over-reached. But at its best, liberalism has been a pragmatic system that could help create a society that helps those in need and works against our growing inequality. Four years after Obama became president, he may have finally launchedat least for nowa robust fight for what most liberals believe.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)avoided being called one are consummate cowards.
msongs
(67,413 posts)babylonsister
(171,070 posts)babylonsister
(171,070 posts)babylonsister
(171,070 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)I'm also not afraid of the word socialist.
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)real for comfort. I like the phrase "a robust fight for what most liberals believe."
Lady Freedom Returns
(14,120 posts)the word "liberal" will be used. Either in trying to insult me, or in someone complementing me.
BTW, when a Conservative uses it to insult me, I take it as a complement!
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)I am NOT a progressive nor am I an absolutist or an extremist
and I am a 10%, not a 100% er.
I know 10% of somethhing is better than 100% of nothing.
Cha
(297,299 posts).. it made me mad that recons thought they could smear a great word like "Liberal".
In the mean time they smeared their own party's name with tea stains.. "conservative" is the new "liar".
Lugnut
(9,791 posts)I've never changed my stripes nor have I denied that's who I am. JFK said it better than I ever could:
"If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)is unacceptable, since Republicans sometimes say that. But they don't say "liberal man" or "liberal woman."
I heard a tea partier say "liberals" on tv today, so if you use that term, that makes you a tea partier, I have learned.
(this is a comment on complaints I got when I shortened a term, making it a term that wingnuts use, supposedly)