{"id":347,"date":"2009-03-11T23:31:43","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T03:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2009\/03\/11\/banish-the-word-moderate\/"},"modified":"2009-03-11T23:31:43","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T03:31:43","slug":"banish-the-word-moderate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2009\/03\/11\/banish-the-word-moderate\/","title":{"rendered":"Banish the Word “Moderate”"},"content":{"rendered":"

MoveOn and ACORN are joining forces<\/a> to pressure Democrats who voted against the bankruptcy bill that made it easier for folks to emerge from bankruptcy and allow judges to impose new conditions on delinquent mortgages.<\/p>\n

Ads are due to run in districts of the Dems who opposed the bill.  I like the move, but not the language the progressive groups use.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe think it is significant that progressives are joining forces to hold congressional moderates accountable for their votes affecting working families,\u201d ACORN Executive Director Steve Kest told POLITICO. \u201cWe think that it signals how seriously we take these issues in the face of the economic meltdown.\u201d <\/p>\n

The liberal coalition doesn\u2019t seem to mind taking on Democrats, though it\u2019s unclear if the ad campaign would extend to backing more liberal Democrats in primaries against moderates like Ellsworth and Hill next year.  <\/p>\n

"We were appalled to see some congressional Democrats side with Wall Street while families in their districts are struggling to stay in their homes," said Robert Greenwald, president of Brave New Foundation, an organization spearheading the effort. "That is just unconscionable." <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cModerates\u201d is not a word you want to use against your opponents.  \u201cModerate\u201d hardly sounds bad.  Progressives shouldn\u2019t use it against anti-middle class, pro-bank, reactionary Democrats.  <\/p>\n

And while they\u2019re at it, they should insist Politico refer to them as \u201cprogressives,\u201d not \u201cliberals.\u201d  \u201cLiberal\u201d implies a lack of standards, values or limits, whereas progressive implies moving forward, making things better.<\/p>\n

For the most part, \u201cmoderates refers to wishy-washy Democrats afraid of their own shadows, as this story suggests<\/a>.  To turn its back on labor after all the unions did to elect Obama and many congressmen and women and senators is unconscionable.  Even if you think workers should be able to have a secret ballot, \u201ccard check\u201d is something labor unions earned, and they shouldn\u2019t be denied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MoveOn and ACORN are joining forces to pressure Democrats who voted against the bankruptcy bill that made it easier for folks to emerge from bankruptcy and allow judges to impose new conditions on delinquent mortgages. Ads are due to run in districts of the Dems who opposed the bill.  I like the move, but not… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}