Why i s Fox News changing "Liberal" to "Progressive" in its headline.

Foxnews.com ^ | August 8, 2002 | vanity

[Redcloak]

Perhaps this is because what are called "liberals" today aren't really liberals. Thomas Jefferson was a liberal; Ted Kennedy is not. Ted Kennedy is a progressive; and a progressive is a socialist in a nice suit.

[StriperSniper]

always wore black clothes, weird hairstyles, nose-rings, etc.

In the NYC metro area that usually means punk/metal/hard rockers who are tend to be the most conservative/libertarian for many miles around.

[bootless]

You left out the mandatory Che Guevara t-shirt. Or Mumia.

[chemainus]

Why not just FREEP all the addresses on FOXNEWS@foxnews.com and let them know we are watching ?? Use the power we have instead of sitting here spittin' and chewin' with each other... sheesh no wonder the LIBS are beating our drum !

[gaspar]

BINGO!!!

[Little Bill]

I have been using commie Rat to refer to the Rat party for a while. If we could make Progressive = Liberal, we might score a win in the language wars.

I live in the Boston area, in some Rat areas to be known as a liberal is a death sentence, so they adopted progressive.

[Still Thinking]

It would be nice if the socialists would just call themselves what they are

Yes, but "Oxygen thieves" lacks a certain -- something.

[Guillermo]

All of the so-called "progressive" ideas have already been tried, and they all failed, last century.

"Progressive" is about the last thing one could call a left-winger.

[muawiyah]

Yes, "Progressive" was the favorite term of various "newsies" who preferred Joe Stalin to anybody else.

[Hugin]

Of course headlines are written by different people than write the story, so some liberal headline writer probably prefers progressive.

The funny thing is that the term Progressive originally goes back to Marxixt-Leninist ideology. You see Communists used to decry "bourgeios liberalism" as an upper and middle class decadence. So when they made an allience with "moderate" leftists they always called them "progressives", meaning that even though they were not real communists they were aiding the "inevitable progress" toward true communism. Of course if/when the communists took over the "progressives" became "bourgeios liberals" again and were dealt with as counter-revolutionaries. In one of Lenin's more honest moments he simply referred to them as "useful idiots".

[rdb3]

...b/c the word "Liberal" has such a negative connotation, as well it should.

To be honest, today's "conservative" is really a liberal in the classical sense of the word (representative government, free-market system, the individual over the collective, etc.). This is just another word that they have co-opted.

[Barnacle]

I call them Bolsheviks.

[cousair]

I really like that!!

[maica]

Check out the website of the "Progressive Caucus" - members of the House of Representatives that, even before you look, you will be correct if you guess that the list includes all the 'worst' representatives of the people.
http://bernie.house.gov/pc/members.asp

To paraphrase my grandmother: "I can remember when 'Liberal' was a nice word."

Progressive is much closer to Marxism and true liberalism is closer to libertarian principles. I agree with FOX. Let's use Progressive and turn it into a pejorative!

[fire_eye]

Use "progressive" as much as possible. The term deserves to develop the same stygma as "liberal" has.

Bingo!! This is *exactly* the type of tactic - stealing the language - that "progressives" have employed against US ever since Karl Marx (Or was it Noam Chomsky? I'm getting my progressives confused again...).

Clearly, they're on the run... As Nathan Bedford Forrest was wont to say, "Keep up the skeer..."

[marron]

Yes, but "Oxygen thieves" lacks a certain -- something

No, au contraire, I think you're on to something.

Oxygen thief. I like it.

[Dales]

Very true. One of the men who is sometimes credited with being a father of the modern conservative movement, Senator Robert A. Taft, used to call himself a "classical liberal".

[yoe]

Fox News, all of it has become redundant in the extreme. The news coming from them is more like Parade Magazine in context. Nothing too serious and giving too much air time to the dregs of life and sensationalizing trivia. Where are the real crimes of the day like the Credit Card scandal ongoing within our government, a far worse crime than EXON or the Global Crossing etc?

I am tired of the racist, gay/liberal whiners coming on to expound their assumed grievances. Who are the employees in the IRS, Education, EPA, and all the other departments larded with unqualified federal employees? Why aren't the Daschle's, Linda and Tom called on the carpet for not telling, as they are required to do, how much money they are making off the government? I can think of dozens of areas where Fox is treading lightly if at all. This is not what they advertise...hard hitting and fair news.

[StriperSniper]

whatever is waaaay more important than an individual's right to fish, barbecue,

Nothing is more important. ;-)

As a matter of fact, I have to get back to the grill right now for my fish, so I can be ready to go out tonight to catch more! ;-)

Have a great weekend!