| > Says the person who took an article about American labor organization and tried to make it about Europe. That is not what I did. What I did was find the most historically important counterexample to an unselfconsciously silly thing you said. If I had realized that we are pretending the rest of the world doesn't exist, I could have chosen the anti-Communist leadership of the Teamsters during the red scare or something. Equating unionism with Marxism is goofy. I mean, honestly, go to the local pipefitter's union hall or something and poll a few people on their feelings regarding Karl Marx or worldwide worker's solidarity or control of the means of production. Please just be honest: do you really think you are going to find a lot of real Marxists? > Except the term "progressives" was coined by Marxists and socialists in the 1930s to separate themselves from liberals. Not to downplay the importance of etymology, which dang reminded me recently is quite important, but I think that if we project the values of today's "progressives" onto the depression era, it is obvious that they identify quite a bit more with the New Deal than with the progressive movement. Today, it is just a poorly thought out label. I think you can see why someone might view "Marxist" as a bit more than that. It's a tangential point, but "progressivism" as a political term in the US dates back all the way to the 1890s. It meant something different in the 20s and 30s, which sort of illustrates the point I'm making. |