"Progressives are moderates"???
Sometimes I just can't get over what a different language is spoken in the USofA from what is spoken in the rest of the English-speaking world.
Back when words meant something, even in the US, "liberal" was a
bad word, to
progressives. It still is, out here on the other side of the borders.
"Progressive" ... well, I was goint to say that it was roughly equivalent to non-aligned left, but it wasn't really. It referred to people and groups working for causes that advanced the interests of disadvantaged groups -- women, workers, people of colour, immigrants, tenants, low-income neighbourhoods and communities -- who didn't necessarily have a complete political analysis of their cause, and didn't necessarily espouse a particular vision of society, but were moving in the right direction alongside other people working for good goals.
Not all feminists (using the word in a very broad sense) are/were progressive, for instance. Libertarian feminists are not progressive, for instance, any more than any other (economic) libertarians are.
"Left" necessarily implied a broad economic analysis/agenda, "progressive" didn't; I guess that would be one way of putting it.
Here's an interesting article -- of course it is not only from the US but from the right, so I don't agree at all with its value judgments, but the history is there. (I googled
"black panthers" progressive since that seemed likely to find me the word being used as I am talking about.)
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1089Of all the misnomers of our political vocabulary, "progressive" is the most abusive and the most abused. "Progressive" is the accepted term for the political left today, just as it was 50 years ago, when it was used as a self-description by Communists and fellow-travelers who sought its protective cover even as they supported the most oppressive regimes in human history. In the later years of the Cold War, it was the term of choice for liberals as well, who thought that the Soviet system was "converging" with Reagan's America, just before the Communist fall.
One of the more interesting characteristics of progressives is the way they seem to learn nothing from their experience, confounding the very idea of progress as a process of escaping from the myths of the past and acquiring knowledge. Today, self-styled "progressives" can be found supporting economic redistribution and state-sponsored racial discrimination, or memorializing the death anniversaries of totalitarian legends like Che Guevara, just as though the history of the last 50 years had never taken place. And progressives can still be counted on to lend their support to the discredited domestic legends of '60s "revolutions," most notably the Black Panther vanguard.
An example of 60s usage:
http://www.blackpanther.org/legacynew.htmThe Black Panther Party was a progressive political organization that stood in the vanguard of the most powerful movement for social change in America since the Revolution of 1776 and the Civil War: that dynamic episode generally referred to as The Sixties. It is the sole black organization in the entire history of black struggle against slavery and oppression in the United States that was armed and promoted a revolutionary agenda, and it represents the last great thrust by the mass of black people for equality, justice and freedom.
The Party's ideals and activities were so radical, it was at one time assailed by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States." And, despite the demise of the Party, its history and lessons remain so challenging and controversial that established texts and media would erase all reference to the Party from American history.
http://www.theeagleonline.com/media/storage/paper666/news/2005/02/24/News/Black.Panther.Bobby.Seale.Urges.Social.Progress-876077.shtml?norewrite200608021131&sourcedomain=www.theeagleonline.comBobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, stressed the importance of making human connections in progressive movements and recalled his experiences with the party in the '60s and '70s last night in the Kay Spiritual Life Center.
"The Black Panther Party was a profoundly progressive organization," Seale said. "We didn't care if you were black, white, blue, red, green, yellow, polka-dot or whatever ... what we were concerned about was where your heart was."
Seale attributed the foundations of the Black Panther Party to progressive student-led action. The founders of the Black Panther Party and those who supported it were all students, Seale said.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2004/apantherinafrica/special_today_seale.htmlP.O.V.: What do you think is the lasting impact of the Black Panther Party? What lessons could someone involved in community work today draw from your experience?
Seale: We didn't take any crap — I mean racist crap. We didn't take it. If you we're going to perpetuate some racism, if you we're going to attack us, we were going to defend ourselves. In a five-year period, 750 Black Panther Party members were arrested on more than 2,500 different charges, mostly felonies. It was an effort to try to identify Party members: the police would get their fingerprints and mug shots and then drop the charges. Less than ten percent of all those charges went to trial, and we won 95 percent of all those that went to trial. That's saying something: we had one of the best legal defense teams. We put that together early. It's also important to understand the relevance of coalition politics to all efforts at liberation. Assess the true progressive nature of an organization, regardless of who it is. That's important in coalition politics and grassroots community organizing.
I'm afraid that to hear someone like ... well, pretty much any leading light in the US Democratic Party ... described as "progressive" makes my ears hurt.
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