"Progressive" the new "L" word

[scarletlib]

Great article in Toronto Sun Star showing how the cons have controlled the debate and made liberal a dirty word.

Now they are trying to do the same with the word "progressive"

Time for everyone to fight back.

"Even in Canada, we can't escape the invective. Wander up the nosebleed section of the digital dial, and there's Fox News, in all its vainglory. Read the blogs, the Western Standard, some Sun and CanWest newspaper columnists, and it's a chill wind that blows hard on liberal — that's small-l — values"

"As for the attempt to drop the L-word and replace it with "progressive?" In the strictest political sense, it is not the same as "liberal;" it's just a way of reframing the debate. After all, if the opposite of progressive is "regressive," how can they lose?

But already, the right is taking the word from liberals' — or progressives' — mouths.

"It seems the only way in which liberals are truly progressive is when it comes to shredding the moral fabric that has previously held our society together," countered one right-wing commentator last month. "On issues such as partial-birth abortion, gay marriage, easy access to pornography and a general assault on the traditional, nuclear family, you can leave it to the progressives to show us the way to an enlightened and improved future — or so they say."

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar%2FLayout%2FArticle_Type1&c=Article&cid=1109848148569

[MissMarple]

1. Progressive includes moderates, and the opposite of progressive

is regressive. Liberal and progressive are not perfectly interchangeable. Too many people know that.

[intheflow]

3. I heard a DC Dem refer to some piece of RW legislation as

being "regressively worded" yesterday. It's about time we started calling them what they are!

[Crunchy Frog]

2. Why is it that the regressives are so skilled

at defining the terms of the debate, while liberals/progressives seem like babes in arms? Why is it that after all this time, we still seem to have learned so little, or just seem to want to let them get away with it? It's unbelievably frustrating.:argh:

If you're Canadian, I can't apologize enough for the contaminant of radical RW thinking seeping over our border into your own far more sensible country. I hope you guys are able to resist it far more effectively than we have in our country.

[intheflow]

5. Part of it is b/c the regressives own the MSM.

Those who control the airwaves control the framing of the debate. "Liberal media" my arse!

[Crunchy Frog]

11. I think part of the reason that they got control

of the MSM in the first place was because of success in defining the terms of the debate. For example, they managed to persuade most of the country that the media had a liberal bias, and people tolerated the proliferation of RW whackjobs in the media because the bought it and felt it was necessary to bring about "balance".

I've talked to lots of liberals who were quite sceptical when I said that the media was RW biased. They believed the "liberal media" meme rather than what was in front of their eyes everyday with people like Ann Coulter all spewing all over the TV and editorial pages.

In order to get most people to accept the increasing RW dominance of the media, they first had to get most people to accept the stereotype of the media being liberally biased. There was really nobody there to counter to propoganda, and that's one of our problems. We need to be funding think tanks and pundits the same way the right does, and we need to have a pool of people that are able to stay on a message and pound it home in simple terms that most people can easily grasp.

Until that happens, I'm afraid that they will continue to control the terms of the debate.

[scarletlib]

6. Not a Canadian

Just read and watch their news to get an open honest take on what's going on in the world.

[Stephanie]

4. That's just the radical right talking.

Whenever the radical right is questioned they go to dirty tricks. The radical right is nothing like traditional conservatives. Their agenda is extreme, in fact radical.

[MissMarple]

9. Let's take back the word conservative. Nothing about this administration

is conservative. You are right on the money. George is a dangerous radical, precipitating chaotic changes he cannot control.

[Stephanie]

13. Krugman just said 'radical right' on MTP

[QC]

7. Progressive and Liberal are not the same thing. Never have been.

Different meanings, different histories, different class agendas, etc., as has been patiently and carefully explained here countless times.

[Mr.Green93]

12. Henry Wallace

type Progessives are needed today.

[Coastie for Truth]

8. Repugs Are Not Conservative - They Are Retrograde Regressive

and Repressive (and generally Anal Retentive).

[annabanana]

10. They are too late.............progressive is a good word.

They've already missed the boat.