To: Catfish who wrote (231 ) 8/28/2006 12:35:34 AM From: ksuave Read Replies (1) | Respond to Actually, Catfish, the word stems more directly from the old Progressive Party of William Jennings Bryan. He had a large and proud influence on the Democratic Party after his party’s candidacies fizzled out. The Progressives originally broke off from the Democratic Party, and many of its supporters eventually drifted back. Certainly you remember the Progressive Party from American history class – pure heartland stuff, reaction against the growth of the Eastern industrialists. Unlike what shortnmisinformed says, the word “progressive” has some specific connotations in the same manner that words like liberal, conservative, radical, neo-con, fascist, socialist, etc, ad nauseum do. In current terms, in America, the word progressive connotes things like civil rights, a women’s right to choose, environmental protections, the right to collective bargaining, separation of church and state, social freedoms, due process, anti-corporate welfare, anti-imperialism etc. People who usually talk about themselves as “progressives” are generally referring to their support for varying conglomerations of those kind of principles, and almost every ninny in the country knows that, but lately it’s become a talking point for anti-progressives – those who support imperialism, militarism, a state-church, social restrictions, selective rights, government secrecy, corporate favoritism, monopolies, etc. – to become outraged at the use of the word progressive. How dare people who they don’t like use a word that they don’t approve of!
