As Dan Atkinson and I argue in our forthcoming book about the failure of the single currency,* Greece was the point where progressive illusions were shattered.
He is the first to have the courage to confront what politically correct thinking has hidden from itself, stripping it of its progressive illusions and of the antiracist fairy tales that, as everyone knows, are no more than the other side of a barbarism that has refused to speak its name but that here, in this exercise of truthful fiction, finds it.
For these progressive artists, the illusion of speed was accomplished through Cubistic, multicolored linoleum-cut renditions of modern life.
He called the platform a "frivolous proclamation, an exercise to pacify progressives with the illusion of hard-won progress".
Especially after reading the transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs and other major banks, few progressive activists have illusions as to where Clinton's priorities – and donor pools – lie.
Agree or disagree with his policies, priorities or governing style, the 44th president is — pick your preferred cliché — a pragmatic progressive, an idealist without illusions (John F. Kennedy's description of his own ideology), or a liberal who will compromise to get results.
"I wouldn't call myself a progressive," he said, "because progress is an illusion".
But in a society where few people pay anything close to their legally required taxes, and wealthy individuals often pay no tax, the idea of a progressive tax code is an illusion.
Liberals and progressives still clinging to Victorian notions of progress are under the illusion that we have become a more compassionate, more fair society.
At the time, that vision may have been a noble illusion, a projection of the progressive, problem-solving hopes of the culture.
