Reclaiming US's liberal soul

LIBERALISM in the US is a political tradition so reviled that its adherents dare not speak its name.

Sometime in the 1960s, conservatives began using "liberal" as an epithet and, after a while, liberals gave up trying to defend its honour. When pressed for a self-description today, many prominent liberals choose "progressive". Then they explain that they don't like labels.
There's no shame in ideological change. In its modern American context, liberalism - the belief that government should intervene in society to solve problems that individuals cannot solve alone - began with Franklin Roosevelt. American progressivism (championing workers' rights and social justice in the age of industrialisation) has older roots and different emphases. But yesterday's liberals haven't become today's progressives to evoke a different intellectual tradition; they have become progressives to escape intellectual tradition. With the flip of a label, they have cast off decades of disappointment and failure. Unburdened by the past, they can now define themselves on their own terms.

Dash of liberalism will aid US war on terror

Muscular liberalism, as Beinart sees it, is "a narrative of national greatness that (links) America's mission at home and abroad". It requires the US to lead by example, in the best tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman and the Kennedys. Military strength and firm resolve should be accompanied by fiscal responsibility and progress on inequality, education and civil rights. Above all, Beinart argues, the US must welcome international constraints on its power and fund nation-building generously.
His most damning observation is that between 1948 and 1952, the US spent $US200 billion a year on non-military assistance to Europe. The Bush administration's total non-military spending on the Muslim world has been a comparatively piddling $US8 billion. As Beinart asks, "What kind of way is that to fight World War IV?"