Pragmatic = Progressive.

[Armstead]

This whole notion that there is some difference between "pragmatic" and "progressive" or "on the left" is hogwash and hooey.

Pragmatic means "what works best."

Universal health care is pragmatic. Social Security and the rest of the safety net is pragmatic.

Making corporations accountable for the social and economic results of their behavior is pragmatic. Making Wall St. keep to its place and be transparent and ethical is pragmatic. Preventing monopolies that become abusive -- and then who go begging for taxpayer bail outs when they fuck up -- is pragmatic.

Trade policies that do not offer a blank check and incentives to ship American jobs and businesses overseas is pragmatic. Trade and financial policies that do not encourage the gutting and selling off of the American economy is pragmatic.

Consumer protections, worker protections, minority protections is pragmatic.

Not allowing ourselves to get into -- and then mired in -- useless destructive wars is pragmatic.

You want to see the opposite of pragmatism? Look at the behavior, policies and social values of the people who have been poo-poohing "liberals, the left and progressive populists all these years. That includes CONservatives and so-called "centrists."

LOOK at the Results.

Yes, America needs to get more pragamtic. But IMO, that means America needs to get more progressive populist and liberal.

[MisterP]

1. indeed: the definition of pragmatism is to have a goal one's working

toward
hiring and electing conservatives works toward CONSERVATIVE goals (deregulation, privatization, Social Darwinism, Dickensian 1830s-style capitalism, incessant warfare against Latin American, African, and Asian locals--19th-c. colonial or 20th-c. Cold-War/neoliberal--repression, torture, exploitation, environmental degradation, and moral-cesspool-ism), regardless of which party label "wins" that particular house

[Sunnyshine]

2. k&r - even if it's not popular to say here.

I understand. :hi:

[NashVegas]

3. I Almost Started a Thread In GD About "Progressive"

And how all it really means is that you're ahead of the curve ....

[Armstead]

4. Ahead of the curve -- Correctamundo

[Raineyb]

5. That sounds about right

I have no idea why that should be a problem.

:thumbsup:

Regards

[martymar64]

6. You got that right!

:)

[depakid]

7. Pragmatism according to DU centrists apparently means

that our leaders and representatives are required to enable and legitimize- or even embrace ill advised, corrupt and unproductive right wing policies.

Seems to me that after a disastrous war, the drowning of a great American city, an economic collapse- and the loss of stature around the world, etc. progressives ought toi be saying to such folks:

Do we have your attention now?

[Runcible Spoon]

8. "well I guess you would have preferred President Cheney"...DU centrists' snarky bullshit

I don't really think we have their attention yet :evilfrown:

[Armstead]

17. Great line -- "Do we have your attention now?"

[nichomachus]

9. Robbing a bank is pragmatic

-- assuming you don't get caught. If you need money, it's an effective way to get it.

[bvar22]

10. Oh Noes!!!!

You must be some kind of "Fringe Purist".
Back off, Satan!

You're ruining the Democratic Party for those of us who don't stand for anything and get tired of Thinking about Right and Wrong.
Whatever is In the Middle is good enough for me!
It should be good enough for you too!

Can't you just be happy we won? :party:

[Moochy]

11. lol

:party: (+10 bonus points for using party smiley)

[stillcool]

12. What country am I living in?

and what government have we had since our inception? How do you attempt to progress without a 'popular movement'? How do you get a 'popular movement' when you discard by labels large sectors of American society?

..just something cute from Ferdinand Lundberg's "The Rich and the Super-Rich" 1965

But the reason Democratic presidents must be sympathetic toward the big wealthy at all times, short of allowing them to upset the new synthesis, is simple: All these people, even if Republican, carry great weight in American affairs because of their intimate hereditary involvement through professional subordinates in complex enterprises penetrating into every corner of society. They may no longer be self-made they may have been sired by trust, testament or codicil out of holding company, foundation and monopoly-but they are independent power wielders. They aren't average citizens. And this is a political fact, not likely to be overlooked by any serious politician.

Any criticism of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson for the nature of their top appointments should face up to this question: Where should they look for Cabinet officers? Kennedy and Johnson looked for them where Eisenhower looked for them, and where Roosevelt looked: in the large financial and industrial organizations. These organizations belong to the wealthy. They are part of their plantation, which in its broadest sweep is the market place itself.

Experts of greater if not complete independence of judgment are to be had, to be sure, from the leading universities, and Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy both drew heavily upon them for certain tasks. But scholars have neither the habit of command nor is their authority apt to be recognized by men practiced in the arts of expedient manipulation--Plato's men of the appetites. Any president has to look to the big enterprises, selecting competent men who are least compromised by egocentric self-service.

To be sure, it is not the quintet of Du Ponts, Rockefellers, Mellons, Fords and Pews that alone has supported the Republican Party in its struggles to protect and nourish big wealth and is now playing around the edges at least of the Democratic Party. They have had many collaborators among groups of lesser wealth, most of them strong Republicans in the past as now, even though some of them seem inclined to take fright as latter-day woozy fanatics come to the fore in the Republican Party.

[yodermon]

13. "Reality has a well-known liberal bias"

a wise man once said. ;)

[Kaleva]

14. Making individuals accountable......

for the social and economic results of their behavior is pragmatic.

[Median Democrat]

15. MSM Meme - Progressives Are Not Pragmatic, Therefore Obama's Appointment,,,

Of people described as "pragmatic" and "non-idealogues" means that they are not progressive. Just think, the two primary folks who battled for the Democratic nomination, Obama and Hillary, are not progressives! Yay, we Democrats have managed to marginalize ourselves, and buy into the stereotype that liberals are not pragmatic. Or, are we going to denounce the Obama administration as right wing neo-cons?

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. Great post, Armistad.

Social Pragmatism applies science and logic when sorting out the important things to come up with political opinion. We should pick our battles carefully, and go in with our strong points, instead of trying to win the smaller ideological wars, such as the PC wars that sometimes happen when someone is trying to win opinion by controlling thought through linguistics. Those things should be secondary to getting the real true concepts across. The PC wars should only be considered after you successfully have managed to turn opinion using irrefutable cold, hard logic.

Here's a good example on DU of what happens when a progressive tries to fight on a PC level. The argument doesn't advance for anyone:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4608559