Steev,

Well, you can use a word to mean whatever you want it to mean, but if you hope to be understood by other people, your meaning should probably have some kind of connection with the way that other people have historically used the word.

The original “Progressives” — Herbert Croly, John Dewey, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, etc. — were well aware of American anarchists, and they despised them. In fact, in the run-up to World War I, those with influence in the media blacklisted anarchists (such as Randolph Bourne) from publishing their writing, and during and after World War I, those with political power (such as Woodrow Wilson) had thousands of American anarchists (such as Emma Goldman) beaten, arrested, jailed, prosecuted, and/or exiled from the country.

I see no reason why anarchists should want to associate ourselves with a historical movement that has done everything in its power to hinder or destroy us.

Robert,

One shouldn’t ignore the effects that conscription had, and the shifts in consensus within the military where it has been abolished. But in a line of work where your boss has the legal power to treat striking or quitting as a hanging crime, the line between volunteers and conscripts is fuzzier than it might at first appear.

That mattered a lot for the boys who signed up voluntarily in the Great War, not knowing what they would find in the trenches. And it matters a lot today in this age of stop-loss and endless reserve call-ups.