Who's a leftist now? It depends on where you stand

[Wwagsthedog]

My goodness, After reading this, I'm having an identity crisis.

http://www.iht.com/articles/106801.html

Radical goes mainstream

STANFORD, California The political left-right distinction was born in revolutionary France, but Americans didn't adopt it until the New Deal era. It seems to lay out the political topography along a conveniently symmetrical spectrum. But like any map projection, it can distort the landscape it depicts.
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Take "leftist." As a pair with "rightist," it had a long history as a purely descriptive term before the McCarthyites adopted it as a label for Communist sympathizers and subversive organizations.
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Just before the 1952 presidential election, Senator Joseph McCarthy accused Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee, of being unfit for the presidency because of his association with "leftists" like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who had defended the right of Communists to teach in universities. (Schlesinger had qualified his position by adding, "so long as they do not disqualify themselves by intellectual distortions in the classroom," a clause McCarthy ignored.)
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That same year, Americans for Democratic Action indignantly denied charges that it was a leftist group, pointing out that it had worked at "purging the American liberal movement of individuals with loyalties to communism."

More.............

[Terran]

1. dupe

Please go here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=6540

Dirk - DU Mod