What kind of liberal/progressive do you see yourself as?

[UdoKier]

Poll question: What kind of liberal/progressive do you see yourself as?

and yes, this poll is VERY stereotypical.

What kind of liberal/progressive do you see yourself as?

[eleny]

1. I would have said - an old line working person's Dem

But supporting gay rights 'n liberties and the right to choose abortion or not doesn't quite fit the old Roosevelt model. I'm adding to that model and am better for it.

Edit: Go away Grovelbot! I already gave!

[TwentyFive]

2. I like Lattes from my local INDEPENDENT coffee shop. Am I a Latte Liberal?

My biggest beliefs are protecting the environment, while making sure everybody gets along and gets a good shot at achieving their potential. Civil rights, social safety net, separation of church and state, outlawing predatory business practices, and freedom of expression are my biggest hot buttons.

[Arugula Latte]

6. Me too. And I like coffee.

Plus I've lived in Berkeley, San Francisco and Portland and "we were latte before latte was cool." I don't really fit into the other categories, so I guess I'll go with latte liberal.

[hfojvt]

3. I am going with hardcore radical leftist

I also love that it is in red. Was that done on purpose or just a happy irony? Obviously, for a HRL to work with the Democratic party requires a large dose of pragmatism.

[lastliberalintexas]

4. A Truman Democrat

Although that's not a perfect description- and neither was he certainly- it's about the easiest way to describe me. I'm very liberal on both economic and social issues, and rather libertarian on civil liberties issues. Truman was great on the traditional kitchen table issues of Democrats, but he was also ahead of his time in many ways socially- see his executive order integrating the military despite the advice of the "professional politicians".

Otherwise, I usually say I'm a libertarian Socialist. But that's not a good description, because then I have to try to explain how one can be a (small l) libertarian as well as a Socialist. :)

[MN ChimpH8R]

7. Yup

Hardcore libertarian on personal liberty and lifestyle issues (pro gay rights/marriage, reproductive choice, First Amendment, what consenting adults do, watch or :smoke: in the privacy of their own homes). Moderately to quite socialist on economic issues (pro-union, pro-progressive taxation, against the Paris Hilton Trust Fund Protection Act, generally distrustful of large agglomerations of capital, especially in families like the Bushits). Guess I'd find a home in the Social Dems in Europe or the Lib Dems in the UK.

[jaxx]

5. Hard core

Until this Bushco adm., I would have said the civil rights. But with all the bullshit brought down by them, and the way they have sneaked around to take away our rights.....I'm hard core. For every move they make, I get harder.

[carnie_sf]

8. Hardcore pinko commie

that's me

[blondeatlast]

9. I fall somewhere between old-line, pro-labor (and still very much

am one) and "limousine" liberal.

[cobaindrain]

10. What's the difference between a Latte liberal and a Limousine liberal?

[KamaAina]

12. About eighty thousand bucks a year

(rimshot)

[UdoKier]

31. One is comfortable and pretentious, but heart's in the right place

The other is rich and usually wayyy out of touch with normal people's lives.

[cobaindrain]

43. both has there heart in the right place

i'd take a limo liberal over a fat stupid texas oil man every day.

[Darranar]

11. A hardcore radical leftist - and proud of it. n/t

[moddemny]

13. A moderate who is not particularly fond of.....

....Che Guevara avatars.

[JanMichael]

14. A hardcore radical leftist who loves those Che avatars here.

Nice to meet cha':-)

[moddemny]

16. Do you love Fidel also?

....

[GirlinContempt]

22. Oh not THAT again

:eyes:

[moddemny]

23. What again?

??

[wyldwolf]

35. I agree there. Che Guevara was a leftist thug.

[Raiden]

15. The pinko socialist kind

Semi-Marxist, but more FDRist

[dansolo]

17. A pragmatic liberal

My former Senator, the late Paul Simon, was extrememly liberal, but he was also a strong proponent of things like campaign finance laws and a balanced budget.

[Democraticthinker]

18. No say

I really can't classify myself, but I am a civil rights, equality liberal as well as economic and Anti-Bush liberal.

[MrSlayer]

19. Old line, Blue collar, Pro-Labor, equal rights Democrat.

I don't do limos and lattes and I'm not a fringer or Puke enabler.

[GirlinContempt]

20. Hardcore red.

that says it all I think.

[moddemny]

24. Hardcore red?

Is that the totalitarian stalisnist kind of hardcore red?


Is hardcore red considered liberal? or progressive?


on edit: typo - stalinist

[hfojvt]

25. I would say red has a long history in America

and not just from Parsons and Spies (two people hanged for their anarchist views in 1889). Eugene V Debs got 600,000 or so votes in 1912 and almost a million votes in 1920 although he was in jail at the time for opposing WW1. Before that, there was Edward Bellamy and his very popular book "Looking Backward". After Debs there was Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington, author of the somewhat influential "The Other America".
There are very few Stalinists in America, and certainly few fans of dictatorships. As EF Schumacher describes it in "Small is Beautiful" socialism is about "a more democratic and dignified system of industrial administration, a more humane employment of machinery, and a more intelligent utilisation of the fruits of human ingenuity and effort." That is on the production side, on the distribution side the idea is to eliminate destitution and reduce the fear of it.
So, yes, hard core lefties would be radically progressive, and well left of liberal.

[moddemny]

29. Socialism and communism

are not the same......... socialism is on the spectrum toward communism but is a much more moderate version. The term hardcore red usually means full blown communism, centrally planned economy, no free market, etc. Usually socialists describe themselves as pink.

[UdoKier]

26. Stalinism is contrary to communist ideals, if I'm not mistaken.

Not that I'm a communist, I'm just not an anti-communist. I think that there are things the government does better than private industry (like health insurance), and most industries need good regulation to keep them from exploiting workers and the environment beyond the bounds of decency.

I think a heavily socialized democratic state like Sweden is highly preferable to an ultra-militaristic, unfettered corporate rule model like our own.

[moddemny]

27. Believing.....

that government does a few things better or that regulation is necessary to prevent abuses is not a communist belief. Far from it.

[moddemny]

28. ..........

people can argue what communism is in theory and what happens in practice........ if you are worried about militarism, communists countries have been some of the most militant in history.

[UdoKier]

30. Yes. The Soviets certainly were, but they lost 20 million men in WW2...

What was our excuse?

Paranoia brought on by a belligerent little man with no compunction about INCINERATING 200,000 innocent civilians just to scare the Russians.

Don't get me started....

[moddemny]

33. Most communist countries......

were/are militant police states, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, etc, not just the Soviets.

I am not defending the decision to drop the atom bomb but it wasn't just to scare the Russians. A conventional invasion of the Japanese mainland was expected to cost at least 1,000,000 U.S. lives and many more Japanese. Why exactly you bring up that chapter in history and what it has to do with the overall communism debate I am still trying to figure out. If the Soviets had a bad system a wrong by the U.S. doesn't make them right. It's actually a very poor defense or rationale.

[UdoKier]

37. I bring up that because it was an ignominious end to an otherwise...

...noble war.

" A conventional invasion of the Japanese mainland was expected to cost at least 1,000,000 U.S. lives and many more Japanese."

Of course I've heard that lie a million times, but there's no point in hashing that out again.

My point was just that Truman was instrumental in destroying our wartime alliance with the Soviets and creating the climate of fear that dominated the Cold War period.

Of course it was just as much about doing the bidding of US industry who were TERRIFIED of left-wing movements, which had gained real power in the 30s, and wanted an excuse to purge socialism/communism from our country forever, thus the spectre of "Soviet Expansionism".

Yes, the Soviets under Stalin took Eastern Europe. And Joe Stalin was most certainly one of the most demonic leaders of the 20th century, but he was soon replaced by Kruschev, who despite the shoe-banging, confrontational image was actually someone who could have been worked with, had our government not gone whole hog into the ideological demonization of ANY collectivist philosophies.

Kruschev and Ike were right to take a strong posture with the Soviets, but they went way too far with the ideological insanity.

China is a police state, but then again, so is the US. See how easy it is to live in a police state? Many people don't know it, and I can assure you many people in China don't know that the thousands of people being imprisoned and/or killed there are anything but terrorists.

North Korea is possibly the worst government on Earth today, but it's hardly a socialist ideal.

Vietnam is a terrible example, since most Vietnamese are so much better off today than they were before. We had a chance to work with Ho, who was a great admirer of the US in many ways, but was stabbed in the back by Eisenhower who refused to allow the free nationwide elections he promised and instead installed an inept US stooge in the south.
Imagine what kind of influence for good the US could have been for Vietnam if we had welcomed war hero and liberator Ho as the nation's new leader. But still, Vietnam has made some progress since the war, especially considering we ruthlessly murdered 2 million of them.

Cuba is more a "Fidelist" state than a true communist state, centered around the cult of personality of one man who steadfastly refuses to allow his country to move into the future. It is much more free country than N. Korea, or even Vietnam, but scarcity brought on by government policies both in Havana and DC is a major problem. I had many, many, many Cuban co-workers in Miami, and I never heard the end of the stories of how horrible Castro is, and how there is no freedom, and the poverty is so crushing. Then they would show me pictures of their days in Cuba, as recently as the 80s - and they had nice clothes, nice houses, and everyone looked well-fed. The dissidents they claim are so abused in Cuba, are still allowed to have computers and run anti-government websites - IN CUBA.

I'm no admirer of Castro's by any stretch, but I would disagree with the characterization of Cuba as a militant police state. It's downright pacifist compared to the US. And it uses the EXACT SAME technique to quell dissent as we do here. If you're a dissident, and won't join the party, you are pretty much kept from having any livelihood.

How many open communists do you know here with a decent job?

And I didn't say that the US's act of ultimate terrorism on Japan made the Soviets right. It just set the tone for 50 years of mutual distrust and fearmongering.

And the fact that the Soviet Union's system was flawed didn't make ours so terrific. The New Deal and a certain sense of civic decency after WW2 helped to hold back America's fascistic and oligarchic tendencies, but as we can all see, those tendencies have come back full force, and the common man or woman is pretty much SHIT OUTTA LUCK in today's America.

[GetTheRightVote]

21. I am old true blue but go along with the progressive as well

I dedicate my vote to one of our greatest Presidents, FDR, thank you, thank you, thank you for being there for us when we needed you most of all. I know God's grace shines on you.

:kick:

[Swamp Rat]

32. Über-Radikal

[wyldwolf]

34. Insulting

Just another bogus poll to insult the moderates on DU.

"a old-line, pro-labor blue-collar democrat"

and

"a "moderate" who just wants to make nice with the "good republicans"

Are essentiall the same.

See, old-line, pro-labor blue-collar democrats were moderates.

[newfaceinhell]

36. I guess I'd come under "Hardcore radical leftist"

:bounce:

[murdoch]

38. pro-labor blue collar is now...

I voted for "a(n) old-line, pro-labor blue-collar democrat". This is the "old-line" way of describing this line of thinking, nowadays the "new-line" corporate media calls this "a hardcore radical leftist". So I don't see any difference between the two.

The ultimate heresy in this world is to support blue-collar labor, to say the people who create all wealth should keep the wealth they create. The more unequivocal one is in this conviction, the more "hardcore" and "radical" one is described as.

[Vladimir]

39. The kind that wishes it was 1917 the world over... n/t

[Taxloss]

40. Civil rights, from that list.

[LSdemocrat]

41. Other: pragmatic Democratic partisan

Ideologically, I really don't have an ideology, except that I support pragmatic, long-term solutions that work. In terms of politicians I most identify with are Bill Clinton, for his intelligence, compassion, and fiscal responsibility, Al Gore, for his attention to policy detail and long-term outlook, and Howard Dean, for his pragmatism and willingness to look for unique long-term solutions to problems.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

42. Anarchist. aka "Libertarian Socialist"

But, I don't see anything wrong with just plain Anarchist. Tolstoy, Gandhi, Emma Goldman, Noam Chomsky, all make sense to me.

[Bouncy Ball]

44. Can I choose options 2,5,7, and 9, please?

Because that would be more accurate. A bigger picture, if you will.

But if I had to pick only one, it would be #2. Throw in the word "populist" and you're in business.