Notice how many govts and groups are IDed as "leftist" now?

[Skidmore]

I've heard this word applied by RW pols and media people quite "liberally" lately (excuse the pun). Everyone from Castro and Chavez to the Chinese and NK govts to Iran's president, and one time last week, enterprising Israeli and US pols were referring to Hezbollah for a while as "leftist." What a handy-dandy label.

Maybe the true left needs to settle on our own definition and make certain that this much misused word gets corrected at every opportunity.

Discuss.

[villager]

1. This started in the Reagan 80's, and the Democrats then

let them get away with it (of course, so did the media) and now here we are, at the present demonizing moment...

[Virginia Dare]

2. Yes, I just posted about this...

according to freepers, the Iranian government is "leftist".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1962154&mesg_id=1962154

[OnionPatch]

3. Yes, I noticed and it pisses me off

simply because it is a word that just doesn't sound very nice. It sounds extreme. Actually, I looked it up and and the word "rightist" is a valid term and is the opposite of leftist. So, my question is, why aren't we calling out people as rightists?

This goes right along with the habit of right-wing bloviators to refer to the Democratic Party as "that Democrat party." They need to be called on it.

[Lex]

4. I looked up the term and it is definitely being misused

left - "those professing views usually characterized by desire to reform or overthrow the established order especially in politics and advocating change in the name of the greater freedom or well-being of the common man"

[Kutjara]

5. Unfortunately, the political debate in America...

...has shifted so far to the right during the past two decades that almost everything that isn't GOP is 'left.' The greatest success the Repugs have had is convincing our brainless and docile populace that the GOP is the party of 'moderation' and 'common sense,' when in fact they are rightwing extremists.

So, by the yardstick they've created, everything else in the world is 'left' compared to them. Even 'moderation' is far left by their standards.

[Ravenseye]

6. We should definately label right wing fringe groups as just that

Everytime someone refers to the Nazi party they should call it 'the right wing Nazi party', and when refering to totalitarian fascist governments in the world they should say things like 'the right-wing Saudi dictatorship'...'the right-wing authortarian group'..etc....

They've successfully turned every fringe group on either side into leftists, and then label liberals as the same.

I hate what they stand for, but I'll give credit where it's due. The right-wing Republican party has certainly demonized every other group as leftist in the world including the right-wing dictatorships. They are winning, and have been for awhile, the war of words, thanks to their unified talking points and authoritarian jackboot stepping toe the line methods of controlled messaging.

[indepat]

7. Anything left of extreme RW is leftist