No, no, no! If you succumb to their euphemisms, you've let them define the discourse. Sure, "communist" hearkens to the era of McCarthy and Adlai Stevenson.
But changing the jacket doesn't change the man. A socialist is a progressive is a Bolshevik is a Wobbly is a Marxist is a Leftist is a communist.
My question is this: if communism is such a grand, redeeming philosophy, why are its disciples so afraid to admit what they are? Why do they feel the need to euphemize their doctrine, to coat it with more palatable rhetoric? Their very title is a lie, or at best, an evasion.
But my whole point is that they claim not to be "communists". That has been discredited! If you call them "communists" you are dismissed as some kind of a Bircher stuck in the 50s mentality. Dismissed not just by them but by most or many mainstream people. They are "progressives" see, and who can and who will argue with the idea of progress? I'm saying that in the war for the hearts and minds they are outsmarting us. Like it or not, in America the euphemism always wins! (Just check the use of the euphemism for pederasty on this very forum. What is it? Ah yes, some kinda synonym for 'merriment'.)
We're being "proactive", ain't we?