>Michael Eisenscher wrote: >>We have allowed the Right to appropriate this language because we failed to >>contest in this corner of the ideological arena. Doug writes: >I'm not sure about this. I think once you start talking about "family" >you're on the right's ideological terrain. Sort of like the "progressive" >use of pension funds - once you start playing the stock game, things are >likely to slip in their direction. Why should >progressives/radicals/whatevers even foreground family as a political issue >in the first place? the language game is weird. For example, the "new Democrats" (a.k.a. Clintonoids, right-wing Democrats) created a "Progressive Policy Institute," which is hardly the usage that US "progressives" follow. Of course, the term "progressive" has always been iffy. To be a "progressive" means one favors "progress," which is what? Don't we on the left favor a specific _kind_ of progress, as opposed to capitalist-racist-sexist-yukko progress? Also, remember that Teddy Roosevelt was a "progressive." But what is an alternative term? Leftist? how does that work in a situation where the media defines "left" as being slightly more "left" than whoever the current US president is? How about "socialist"? heck, that label includes Stalin and was even appropriated by Hitler. I could go on but I won't... I think what's key is that we can't put too much weight on individual words like "progressive," "leftist," "socialist," "family," etc. What's important is to have a very specific and meaningful set of principles, a very specific and meaningful program. Make it _really_ clear what we're in favor of so that people can easily cut through the ambiguous abstractions. So instead of saying "we're in favor of the family" and then redefining the "family" as any set of two or more individuals who live together (or whatever), the point is that we're in favor of helping and protecting children, providing health care to everyone (whether they're in a "family" or not, whether they're "domestic partners" or not), etc. Of course such a program cannot simply be opposed on the scattered and small insurgent-left-progressive-populist-socialist-feminist-antiracist movements. It has to be agreed to democratically. Then, if the political leaders want to blab on about the "family," we can say: this is what we mean _specifically_. And if the leaders stray from the program in order to promote their own careers, we can hold them accountable. for socialism from below, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html
