Guilty by association...the 'L' word.

[RadioRaheem84]

It seems that the right wing deems the media to be left wing. Yes, I agree with them that the media is 'liberal', as in corporate centrist, but it is by no means leftist.

Noam Chomsky, in his interview with Andrew Marr in the BBC, rightly points out that what the media considers "left" is most likely moderate centre-right. The right wing erroneously applies the left wing label to liberals and liberals, out of self righteous piety, sometimes don the label as a badge of honor. But BOTH are two sides of the same business class. BOTH are in favor of free trade and economic globalization. BOTH base their beliefs off the pressuposition that free markets are a good thing and globalization is something that is not only inevitiable but viable for a nations growth.

How do you guys feel about the left being associated with liberalism?

What do you guys really think about liberals?

[RNK]

Any amount of time spent on this site will grant you the ability to see what we think about liberals. Neoliberal tripe is often worse than right-wing shit and liberals are just as much an obstacle to revolutionary change as their conservative brethren.

[RadioRaheem84]

Agreed. Oh gosh it is horrible debating conservative people who believe that liberal = socialism. They somehow believe that Chicago/Austrian/libertarian economics is "true" capitalism and anything that deviates from that is somehow "socialist". They really believe Clinton was a socialist!!?

On the other side of the spectrum, I really cannot stand the self-righteous piety of the liberal. They love to bear the scorn of the right winger by hiding behind the accomplishments of the democratic working class. What they don;t know is that Liberal Parties elsewhere around the world are seen as centre-right parties that advocate for the same globalization scheme that Republicans endorse.

Good grief, politics in America is so sad.

[professorchaos]

Love me, love me, love me! I'm a liberal!
web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/liberal.html
And updated!
allthelyrics.com/lyrics/evan_greer/love_me_im_a_liberal-lyrics-1269212.html

[jake williams]

Nowadays Liberals are people who think gays should be allowed to own sweatshops too. I mean, because We're really good and they do all their charity and so on, they pretend they campaign against things like sweatshops. But they're liars and hypocrites.

You should try to understand the history though. Political terminology and ideology has a long twisted history that makes almost everything impossible to understand. The American experience has made the situation particularly desperate.

But to be brief: about 2 or 3 hundred years ago, "liberalism" was the progressive movement fighting against the aristocracy and church, and fighting for the rights of common people - European men, but this was revolutionary compared to the contemporary practice of concern about, well, the King, and Church, and their buds.

It happens that a lot of these advocated what eventually led to our modern conception of "capitalism". There are complex reasons for that. We could go into it.

It wasn't long, however, that (for reasons we again could go into if you'd like) these "liberals" became a part of the dominant class, though note, not all of it. Still riding on their wave of Smithery in a lot of ways.

In a lot of ways they sold out. But in a lot of ways it was a very organic process whereby the natural "progression" of society led to their transfer into a new aristocracy. And look, in a sense it was the same tradition that in the West in this past century fought a lot of legitimate causes, race and gender equality being those most prevalent and obvious. On the margins they even flirted with socialism, which isn't really a new idea, I'm misrepresenting things if I suggest that "freedom" never before struggled from being pulled back and forth between capitalists and anti-capitalists.

But that's mostly all over now. The 60s rather prematurely blew their load, and in American liberalism, all these "causes" are dead, though liberals remain convinced that they're still quite committed. But it's become the basic structure of things that now the "equality" intend is that whereby a tiny ruling class has some women too! and the more polite and refined blacks can come! (like Barack) and maybe even a gay! And look, I do have real trouble begrudging horrifically oppressed gay people of their gains, these gains are extremely important, but they're of course not remotely enough.

[Revolution4TheHellOfIt]

I believe Liberals and conservatives much like democrats and republicans are different links in the same damn chain of oppression. If you do not truly care about the plight of the people you are not a friend of mine. But as far as the media goes it does not matter whether the media is conservative or liberal in my opinion the media is another branch of the government used to twist the minds of the people to the political agenda of whoever owns the parent corporation or who ever gives them the most cash. Occasionally you might have people who care in the media but mostly in my opinion it is propaganda for the capitalist agenda.

[Niccolò Rossi]

*snip*

[Winter]

At one time in history, the word liberal was used to describe one that was in favor of liberty, democracy, and free markets. The likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin took up this label to differentiate themselves from the restrictions the monarchy enforced in Great Britain. In early America, if you were wealthy, white, and male, you would more likely have considered yourself a liberal.

But as human civilization progresses, terms begin to take on new meanings. For instance, the word gay once meant happy, but now it means homosexual. Liberalism has shifted from meaning a person standing for individualism and capitalist democracy ( which in reality is only democracy for the few ) to pacifistic, gun restricting men and women in business suits who claim to stand for the working class and poor.

Within mainstream politics I hear a lot about people like Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy being labeled as Communists. Those on the far right think the Democratic Party stands for Socialism, when in reality they are nothing more but another pro-capitalist organization ran by the elites to make an extra dollar. Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, share much more with one another than they would like to admit.

To make a claim that Democrats stand for the left in this country is absolutely outrageous. Liberals and Democrats want nothing more but a capitalism light while disarming the nations citizens. Sounds like a police state to me.
My fellow Leftists and I realize that most of society's problems lie with the capitalist system. By saying the most you want to do is to restrict free markets is not enough. The social problems this country currently faces will by no means be relinquished.

Liberals and Democrats seek to turn us into government loving sheep even more than the Republicans. By putting bans on weapons they wish to disarm the working class, turning us into targets for crime and government tyranny. Here in California, you can't even walk down the street with a knife without being thrown in jail. Meanwhile, taxes are increased on the middle class and small businesses to pay for imperialistic campaigns in the Middle East and Latin America.
I always notice something when I watch pundits and politicians on the mainstream media. They will throw around the term "far left" as if it were an insult. Even liberal Democrats will wince upon being labled this. But the interesting part is that nobody accuses anybody as being part of the far right. Because, in reality, that is the goal of every politician. Being labled as someone standing for the far right is a compliment for them.

Liberals and Democrats claim that change can come about by democratic means. The problem here is that in order to do this one would need a democracy. If you haven't heard yet, America isn't a democracy. More like an aristocratic oligarchy. Change, real change, will never occur as long as the system remains this way. The Leftist knows this, calling for class consciousness to wake up the masses. Change will only come about by a forceful grasp at the elites power.

The Leftist and the Liberal are very different. Leftism stands for an armed, class conscious, well-informed individual who knows he/she must join forces with others. Whereas Liberalism stands for pacifistic statists latte drinking hippy sheeps.

[RadioRaheem84]

I go to a top twenty university school. I meet rich liberals day in and day out. A lot of these guys want to get into politics later in life and while some of them do care about the people most of the time they're only doing what they believe a liberal should do. The typical liberal dislikes the poor and merely wants to help them out out of guilt or because they do not have that screw the poor mentality like conservatives do. But you should hear them recoil at the sight of "ghetto" areas and see their materialistic manners. The only difference I see in the liberal and the conservative is that the liberal tends to be more willing to learn about other cultures and is more of an internationalist. That and the fact that the liberal feels guilty that other people aren't sharing in his wealth.

But while we bemoan the conservative, we usually just have to battle them over NATIONAL issues (except for neo-conservatives that want to spread conservatism abroad). The liberal wants to spread liberalism to the globe by way of the WTO, IMF, UN, USAID, and other economic development programs that usually favor privitization. The main goal of all the liberals at my school (and it is a really liberal private school) is to join a think tank, NGO or government agency that promotes the liberal agenda abroad. They talk about the WTO, IMF and the UN as if they're GOOD programs and scoff at anti-globalization protestors. They promote wealth and class elitism while acting as if they're agents of change.

Sorry but I just do not buy their act and are as much a threat to true democratic struggle as the conservative.

[rsinger09]

I feel like a lot of so-called liberals don’t see capitalism as a menace to society. So, they focus more on social issues (gay marriage, abortion, etc.) which is great and all, but they fail to see that oppression and capitalism go hand in hand. Of course, when you bring this up you get called a “crazy commie.” Oh the irony!