The way the term "liberal" is used in the USA makes it difficult for Americans to understand the rest of the world. In many parts of the world, "liberal" seems to be practically synonymous with the (economic) Right opposed to socialism _and_ social democracy. Here, it means either the Center or all who don't go as far to the Right as Bush. It's a way for the ruling class here to say that there can't be, and shouldn't be, anything to the Left of bipartisan consensus on economics (sadly, it also is an index of the virtual absence of an organized mass political force to the Left of Democratic Party), and the only line we are allowed to draw is a cultural one: you are either culturally liberal or conservative. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>