David : I'm not in the least interested in contemporary ( so-called ) "Progressivism." for all the reasons you cite, and more. What does seem like a good idea, though, is identifying some kind of interventionist policy that is closely associated with a worthwhile set of conservative values. TR exemplifies the principle / principles. Along with that goes a healthy dose of reformism, which, these days, is greatly needed all over the place. Plus TR was outspoken, unafraid to say what he wanted to say , confident in himself and in the value of the ideas he espoused. He was about as comfortable making the most of dirt dug up by the muckrakers and making the most of business leadership and capitalist know-how. Some time ago it was important to me to make a case for traditional 19th century Populism and its latter day manifestations vs a kind of new populism but in the service of a lot of people with yellow teeth and antedeluvian ideas. In the latter case the word "populism" was a dirty word. To my own satisfaction anyway, I can now make the distinction well enough when it is a good idea so that there is no confusion. Seems to me that it would be a good idea with respect to the term "progressivism." Rescue the word from the Left the way that the word "populism" needed to be rescued from the fringes of the Right. There are actually a significant number of words that also need rescue Maybe to a non-historian it doesn't matter , but it can be pointed out that many people refer to records on a fairly regular basis, all of which necessarily are historical, plus there are plenty of occasions when the past is invoked to justify the present or even our hopes for the future. This being the case, it is a really good idea to fight against word theft. How many Christmas carols use the word "gay" ? Not sure, but there are several, including some all time favorites. "Don we now our gay apparel," "make the Yuletide gay," etc Why roll over and play dead when it comes to words ? Because it is easier to cave in to homosexuals than stand up to them ? The principle is the same when it comes to neo-Marxists. The word "progressive" as a term for politics was coined by Teddy Roosevelt as far as I have been able to find out, or else, at a minimum, he made the word his own with a set of good meanings. Speaking for myself anyway, its worth a fight to reclaim the word. Billy ============================================ In a message dated 7/8/2010 6:36:37 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
I'm really not that sure that I want a return to old fashioned American Progressivism, even that of TR. Why? Not much of what I call progress. A lot of what I would call regress. The following article about pseudo-intellectual sock-puppet blogger Glenn Greenwald, who has always termed himself a progressive, and even sometimes a libertarian (he's not), and who prefers to be listed, at times, with right-wing blogs (which does not describe him AT ALL, being slightly to the left of Hugo Chavez) shows that much of modern progressivism will not earn my support. _http://newledger.com/2010/07/the-paper-greenwald/_ (http://newledger.com/2010/07/the-paper-greenwald/) If this is the "progressive" mindset, then I do not want it. I would much rather have a return to classical liberalism. For one, I am not at all interested in what most today call "social justice." It is stealing from the working class to give to the government dependent class. It's not even as glorified as "Robin Hood." It would be an insult to "Robin Hood." That class, in turn, votes for more government dependency. I am part of the 60 % who are not willing to pay more taxes to keep the entitlement state afloat. I am part of the 68 % who are not willing to pay more so that government workers can keep their salaries that now exceed the private sector, nor am I willing to fund their Platinum plated retirement plans. The old progressives at least moved to eliminate government corruption; today they ARE the government corruption. They have lost the trust busting anti-big corporation passion and substituted in its place "too big to fail." They support the goals of SEIU which wants to unionize government workers and set them against the rest of the tax payers at the bargaining table, except that they have already bought the politicians with campaign contributions. Who gets screwed: the taxpayers. Support of organized labor has always been a strand in American Progressivism, and it's the main reason that I cannot support it. Organized labor=thugs. It is also to the point that many big unions are now big business. Yet they are somehow purer than the real big businesses. If you can believe that pig-twaddle. (Most of this is distilled from Wikipedia.) David -- If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.--Mark Twain -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
