Red Mosquito

meatwad wrote:

Green Habit wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:I really hate the term progressive. It doesn't suggest a set of beliefs. At best it sounds like marketing slogan designed to cast everyone else as anti-progress (even a luddite is for a form of progress). The beliefs seem as cobbled together as those of the conservatives, and both seem to change with the wind.

Both are pretty terrible labels, but I guess these are the teams most of America are stuck with. It all just sounds so incoherent and arbitrary, until I remember that this is mostly just tribal partisanship.

The good news at least is that the label "liberal" is possibly being freed up for actual liberals again. Real socialists will happily admit they are as anti-liberal as the far right.

I agree with most of this, especially the part I bolded, though I'd say that that would be closer to "at worst" than "at best". And as you say, this viewpoint can also contain illiberal views within it that makes "liberal" not entirely accurate either. I'd like to just call them left wing, but the rise of the socialist left is complicating that term too. Ugh, the English language can be a pain in the ass at times.

Is language the problem? Or is it humans’ need to put people, things, and ideas into neat little boxes with labels on them?

meatwad wrote:

Green Habit wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:I really hate the term progressive. It doesn't suggest a set of beliefs. At best it sounds like marketing slogan designed to cast everyone else as anti-progress (even a luddite is for a form of progress). The beliefs seem as cobbled together as those of the conservatives, and both seem to change with the wind.

Both are pretty terrible labels, but I guess these are the teams most of America are stuck with. It all just sounds so incoherent and arbitrary, until I remember that this is mostly just tribal partisanship.

The good news at least is that the label "liberal" is possibly being freed up for actual liberals again. Real socialists will happily admit they are as anti-liberal as the far right.

I agree with most of this, especially the part I bolded, though I'd say that that would be closer to "at worst" than "at best". And as you say, this viewpoint can also contain illiberal views within it that makes "liberal" not entirely accurate either. I'd like to just call them left wing, but the rise of the socialist left is complicating that term too. Ugh, the English language can be a pain in the ass at times.

Is language the problem? Or is it humans’ need to put people, things, and ideas into neat little boxes with labels on them?

BurtReynolds wrote:Lately I think most problems are language problems

The word socialism has become a kind of blank canvas on which young leftists project their political desires. The reason to call it socialism, the lefty journalist Kate Aronoff has said, is because people are calling it socialism. At least in Brooklyn, and the spiritual Brooklyns of America, calling yourself a socialist sounds sexier than anything else out there, without necessarily advocating anything too risky.

McParadigm wrote:Republicans sure fucked up by gesticulating and screaming for decades about how an endless series of popular ideas related to healthcare, food stamps, social security, and wealth taxes were all socialism. It was a quick win in the moment, but they systematically destroyed both the public understanding and the negative connotations of the word.

Remember when a subset of conservative media accused JOHN BOEHNER of being socialist? Ahh. We’ve had such good times together.

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:Republicans sure fucked up by gesticulating and screaming for decades about how an endless series of popular ideas related to healthcare, food stamps, social security, and wealth taxes were all socialism. It was a quick win in the moment, but they systematically destroyed both the public understanding and the negative connotations of the word.

Remember when a subset of conservative media accused JOHN BOEHNER of being socialist? Ahh. We’ve had such good times together.

lol

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:Republicans sure fucked up by gesticulating and screaming for decades about how an endless series of popular ideas related to healthcare, food stamps, social security, and wealth taxes were all socialism. It was a quick win in the moment, but they systematically destroyed both the public understanding and the negative connotations of the word.

Remember when a subset of conservative media accused JOHN BOEHNER of being socialist? Ahh. We’ve had such good times together.

lol

lol

simple schoolboy wrote:
Stopped by a fast food joint in the Central Valley today. They still have plastic straws. This is what real America looks like.

It was in one of the nicer parts, that don't have feedlots. I hope to move there when climate change eats up the coast through sea level rise.

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:Republicans sure fucked up by gesticulating and screaming for decades about how an endless series of popular ideas related to healthcare, food stamps, social security, and wealth taxes were all socialism. It was a quick win in the moment, but they systematically destroyed both the public understanding and the negative connotations of the word.

Remember when a subset of conservative media accused JOHN BOEHNER of being socialist? Ahh. We’ve had such good times together.

lol

lol

BurtReynolds wrote:

simple schoolboy wrote:
Stopped by a fast food joint in the Central Valley today. They still have plastic straws. This is what real America looks like.

It was in one of the nicer parts, that don't have feedlots. I hope to move there when climate change eats up the coast through sea level rise.

Move up to the future free state of Jefferson. I think I'll migrate down there. We can drink wine, shoot guns, and laugh about the progressive folly of the high speed rail.

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:Republicans sure fucked up by gesticulating and screaming for decades about how an endless series of popular ideas related to healthcare, food stamps, social security, and wealth taxes were all socialism. It was a quick win in the moment, but they systematically destroyed both the public understanding and the negative connotations of the word.

Remember when a subset of conservative media accused JOHN BOEHNER of being socialist? Ahh. We’ve had such good times together.

lol

lol

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:Republicans sure fucked up by gesticulating and screaming for decades about how an endless series of popular ideas related to healthcare, food stamps, social security, and wealth taxes were all socialism. It was a quick win in the moment, but they systematically destroyed both the public understanding and the negative connotations of the word.

Remember when a subset of conservative media accused JOHN BOEHNER of being socialist? Ahh. We’ve had such good times together.

lol

lol

Mitch out there this morning calling DC and Puerto Rico statehood “full blown socialism”

washing machine wrote:Talking to myself about the Houston Castros

Bi_3 wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

McParadigm wrote:Republicans sure fucked up by gesticulating and screaming for decades about how an endless series of popular ideas related to healthcare, food stamps, social security, and wealth taxes were all socialism. It was a quick win in the moment, but they systematically destroyed both the public understanding and the negative connotations of the word.

Remember when a subset of conservative media accused JOHN BOEHNER of being socialist? Ahh. We’ve had such good times together.

lol

lol

Mitch out there this morning calling DC and Puerto Rico statehood “full blown socialism”

DC should just go back to Maryland, as God intended.