'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby stickdog99 » Mon Jul 05, 2021 5:46 pm

That sounds like a political screed from a "Recall Chase Boudin" supporter to me. While burglaries and other property crimes are up, murder and violent crimes rates are actually down in SF.

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article ... 268178.php
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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby Iamwhomiam » Tue Jul 06, 2021 10:26 pm

https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crime-dashboard

Updated daily, records of crimes reported in SF, compared to the same period last year.
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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby Iamwhomiam » Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:05 pm

Elvis » Sat Jun 26, 2021 6:54 pm wrote:
After all, Jeff Bezos got a $4,000 middle-class tax credit the year his net worth hit $18bn.

* $180bn


Tax The Billionaires

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko1y-f5Ihqw



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V8BYvEjn8I

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Join the movement?

WHAT FUCKING MOVEMENT WOULD THAT BE???


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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri Jul 09, 2021 11:03 am

Grist for the reification mill:
https://polyarchy.arcdigital.media/p/wh ... n-liberals

Nothing fuels online discourse like fights over language. New terms will popularize in a subculture then trickle into the zeitgeist until they lose universal meaning, if it was ever there to begin with. Terminology such as “weaponize,” “virtue signal,” “identity politics,” “moral panic,” “bad faith,” and “cancel culture” gets diffused so widely and unsystematically that it feels impossible to pin down what someone means without a litany of qualifiers and caveats.

But one reason we fight over language is because we are after clarity. It’s not the only reason people have terminological disputes—sometimes, as Oliver Traldi puts it, those disputes are forms of gatekeeping. But it’s also true that clearly defining our terms gets us closer to being able to figure out whose arguments are strongest.

This is an article about clearly delineating a particular political framework—one that is ubiquitous in online discussion. The recurring definitional disconnect I’m referring to is that between liberal and leftist. These terms—and the broader framework they belong to—are contested, but because they continue to be so widely used, because they continue to function as the very categories we use to understand people’s political associations, I want to explore them as clearly as I can.

The confusion over these two positions—and over the political spectrum more generally—is understandable, as these labels have varied historically and around the world. In this brief explainer, I want to paint a clearer picture of what these labels mean, primarily online and in the U.S. today.

When determining what makes someone a liberal or leftist there are two key models we can use.

The first looks at an individual’s positions. What policies do they support? Do they prefer incrementally reforming our healthcare system or shifting to a single-payer approach? Do they support prison abolitionism? Abolishing the police? Do they support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement? Do they generally favor universalistic provisions over means-tested ones? Do they favor policies designed to redress class-based inequities? This model uses policy preferences as an instrument to determine where one falls on the political spectrum.

The second looks at an individual’s ethos. This model is slightly harder to pin down, but has to do with political behaviors that don’t pick out one policy or another. For example, what “side” or ideological community does an individual critique more? What media do they consume? Which views do they think fall outside the bounds of reasonable debate? What slogans do they use—or, perhaps better, what slogans do they criticize? (“#Resist” and “eat the rich” reliably pick out two different groups.)

Both models—positions and ethos—are important. But it would seem people focus more on ethos. This makes sense, since most of our discussions aren’t over the technical specifications of one policy versus another. Rather, we pay more attention to elements like what a discourse participant tends to regularly emphasize or what they consistently fail to address. We look at things like who their audience is, who they most regularly associate with. Since people can easily claim to be politically this or that (“I’m a progressive but…” or “Although I’m a conservative, I think…”), many observers find it more illuminating to look at what these discourse participants spend most of their time discussing or defending. This can seem more representative of their political positioning than their nominal political affiliations.

Some broad binaries that illustrate common differences in ethos between liberals and leftists are reform vs revolution, pragmatism vs idealism, and compromise vs demands.

In the U.S., liberals are standardly seen as social liberals rather than as some other form of liberal, such as classical liberals. One confusing aspect is rival ideological groups situate liberals in quite different positions on the political spectrum: liberals are seen as center-left or centrist by leftists, but seen as just generally-on-the-left by people on the right. So those to the left of social liberals see them as center-left, centrist, or even on the right, whereas those to their right see them as just being on the left.

Complicating things further is that “liberal” varies around the world. The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) is considered conservative and Liberal Party in Canada is considered center-left, for example. In Europe, liberalism is usually understood to be something closer to neoclassical liberalism, or, as it might be known in the U.S., bleeding-heart libertarianism—favoring free-markets, softer borders, global commerce, and a focus on humanitarian concerns.

There is yet another meaning for “liberalism”: some use it to refer to the political philosophy centered around civil liberties, the social configuration usually tethered to democracy and capitalism due to its emphasis on robust private property rights and the belief that its inhabitants are free and equal members of society.

I’ll stick to social liberalism as the working understanding of liberalism, since that’s the group that most gets associated with the “liberal” label in the U.S. today.

Through an economic lens, liberals support capitalism with varying degrees of regulation and social programs to alleviate market inadequacies. This can range from a center-friendly neoliberal approach (favoring more markets and globalization) to a left-leaning social democratic approach (favoring a more muscular welfare regime and statist intervention). At times, and under different analyses, the economically neoliberal approach can be closer to a classical liberal or libertarian conceptualization of liberalism, whereas an economically social democratic approach can veer towards leftism or socialism. But even though economic liberalism can sometimes appear libertarian on the one hand or leftist on the other, liberalism is big enough to accommodate both the neoliberal and social democratic approach. In other words, it doesn’t have to be the case that implementing a more austere safety net (as historic iterations of neoliberalism have preferred) or very high marginal tax rates (as social democracies require) takes one away from being a liberal on economic grounds—again, this is a range of positions that liberalism can accommodate.

Through a social lens, liberals can be moderately progressive to radically progressive. Frameworks like feminism or intersectionality are frequently used by liberals to analyze issues through identity traits like race, gender, class, and geography. That said, there are also reactionary liberal contingents, such as gender-critical feminists and cultural critics who pump the brakes on what they perceive to be excesses of progressivism, without going as far as conservatives in their rejection of identitarianism. Democrats on the center-left often align with conservatives on issues like foreign policy, policing, or fracking as well. Though it sounds paradoxical, there are even illiberal liberals, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say liberals who are illiberal about certain fundamental elements of liberalism, e.g., social liberals who favor restrictions on speech to an extent that it complicates their ability to genuinely maintain that they believe in the importance of free speech.

In terms of ethos, liberals embody incrementalism, reform, pragmatism, and compromise. Their antithesis is the revolutionary or accelerationist impulse. Liberals emphasize gradual progress, they typically value consensus building, and they base policy decisions on what’s popular or feasible at a given time. Liberals are likely to applaud corporations, institutions, and media for increasing their inclusivity of minority groups, though they are perhaps the least capable of detecting that the symbolic gestures these entities offer are only just marketing ploys or PR campaigns. Inspirational messaging like Obama’s “Yes We Can” is meaningful to liberals because an underlying tenet of liberalism of the current variety is that progress doesn’t merely—or even principally—come about via systemic change, but rather follows cultural attitudes.

This is why some liberal rhetoric may sound revolutionary, or carry with it a tinge of moral urgency, only to later get dialed back during the actual processes of governing and legislating. This sets up a recurring rhetorical battle with leftists who expect revolutionary campaign promises to be fulfilled by revolutionary legislation—and when that doesn’t happen, rather than support the liberal candidate on at-least-they’re-better-than-the-right-wing grounds, leftists denounce the liberal in power just as strongly as the right, which frustrates liberals.

Although liberals at times appear aspirationally utopian, in practice they are interested in altering the status quo, not replacing it. Liberals, much like leftists, view our institutions as fragile, but unlike leftists, believe fixing them is a better solution than uprooting them.

Leftists, a group mainly comprised of socialists, communists, and anarchists, are usually anti-capitalist. Liberals sometimes see themselves as leftists, or view themselves as being “on the left,” since liberals are likely to place themselves as left-of-center on the political spectrum—but leftists typically reserve “left” and “left-of-center” for people whose political orientation is to the left of liberalism. Those who lean right tend to use “the left” and “leftist” as a way of picking out anyone to their left, which includes the vast swathe of liberals.

Just as with “liberalism,” what counts as “leftist” varies around the world. The Socialist Party of France is considered center-left and Communist Party of India is considered far-left, for example. Historically, the term “left-wing” has been used to describe dozens of leftist philosophies including Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, Trotskyism, and Anarcho-Syndicalism, just to name a few. Some also define social democrats as leftists, as well as left-leaning liberals with a substantive critique of capitalism or those who participate in labor movements.

Through an economic lens, though leftists sometimes share goals with liberals—such as when leftists and social liberals or social democrats want more socialized programs—leftists go further than liberals. Even in its most moderate forms, leftism supports actions undermining the capitalist superstructure in society, such as incentives for democratizing workplaces with unions and co-ops, or supporting mutual aid and communes. Radical leftists, going further, support a wholescale overthrow of capitalism, which can take the form of workers forcibly seizing the means of production, the abolition of private property, the nationalization of all industries with a view to full collective ownership, or even violent revolution. Within leftism, the end goals sometimes vary, but all forms of it situate capitalism at the core of our social malaise.

Through a social lens—which, under leftism, cannot meaningfully be separated from the economic lens—leftism’s goals sometimes overlap with progressive forms of liberalism. Not always, though—leftists and some socially progressive liberals might agree on, say, criminal justice reform, but they will tend to disagree on whether class or race is the most salient analytical input for advancing justice. Focusing on building class consciousness as opposed to engaging in what they sometimes deride as “performative activism,” leftists prefer to address material conditions rather than whatever symbolic changes end up being prescribed by a concern over racial “identity politics.” This is because leftists believe racial identity politics can be easily addressed without oppressed people gaining much of anything at all; corporations and institutions are able to play-act as though they are pursuing social reform but, according to the leftist, in the end it’s just a vacuous branding exercise. Minority representation doesn’t mean much if the system is exploitative through and through. There are also reactionary leftists such as parts of the “dirtbag left,” areas where left-wing and right-wing populism overlap, as well as authoritarian contingents that are pejoratively referred to as tankies.

In terms of ethos, leftists fundamentally view the world through the frame of power dynamics, such as anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, anti-hierarchy, and class conflict between workers and owners. They believe the systems in place are corrupted by capital. This totalizing framework is why ideas on this side take on a similar form: like “ACAB” (all cops are bastards) or decrying “lesser of two evils” reasoning during elections. They believe the clock is ticking on addressing matters like climate change, economic devastation, and the forward march of fascist regimes—liberals sometimes do too, but leftists see a greater urgency, which is one reason why they push for more immediate, more radical, solutions. If we’re operating with a simple binary of liberal or illiberal social configuration, many leftists will endorse tenets of philosophical liberalism (such as democracy), but they’ll believe social liberalism on its own will inevitably fail to defend them. Leftists believe in philosophical liberalism’s commitment to equality, but they think that this way of ordering society can easily fall into oligarchy and produce widespread social alienation. Some leftists also reject the liberal ethos of civil discourse or so-called respectability politics. To them, certain ideas that serve the goals of capitalists, fascists, and racists shouldn’t be debated and instead should be mocked, deplatformed, or violently fought—since to treat them politely is to grant them respectability, which in turn is to pave the way for their ability to harm.

Since there’s no prominent left-wing party in America today, leftists often ally with liberals in hopes to either reshape the Democratic Party or influence culture enough to start their own. Some leftists are big-tent advocates, while others prefer fracturing into niche communities.

What about social democrats and progressives?

Social democrats have historically been part of the reformist wing of the socialist tradition, but social democratic policies fall within the economic parameters of capitalism so liberals embrace the label as well. Even some leftists call social democrats liberals because they argue their model maintains the status quo and is only sustainable by relying on developed countries for support and exploiting developing countries for resources. More radical leftists believe social democratic reforms—such as FDR’s New Deal—act as mere bandages to the wounds inflicted by capitalism, wounds needing surgery rather than cosmetic changes.

Just as “social democrat” is a common economic label that has historically been a source of tension between liberals and leftists, “progressive” is a common social label between them. Progressives are colloquially seen as people wanting to move society forward on a number of social issues, in contrast to conservatives more in favor of retaining the status quo. Though it mainly picks out a social program, “progressive” can describe economic views as well, but the economic views are in service to the philosophy’s socially progressive aims.

Most prominent non-right-wing figures are characterizable as either liberal or left. Some have their places on the spectrum contested. For example, some liberals believe Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are leftist given their rhetorical openness to “socialism” and their preference for policies like Medicare-for-All; while some leftists see them as basically just liberals slightly to the left of most other liberals given factors like Ocasio-Cortez’s affiliation with the Democratic Party and Sanders’s endorsement of liberal candidates. Going beyond political figures and looking at people in the discourse more broadly, Noam Chomsky and ContraPoints have each run into the same critiques. Chomsky may be considered far-left by many in the mainstream, but some leftists consider him a moderate. ContraPoints was one of the first leftist creators to break through on YouTube in 2017 with video essays critiquing capitalism, yet has faced accusations of not furthering leftist ideas enough. Some figures may not want the baggage of the leftist label to begin with; some may wish to see socialism in the future but currently only care about social democratic goals; some may be more focused on social issues than theory; and others may simply not fit so neatly into leftist spaces. That’s why even though most people not on the right can be categorized as either liberal or left, there exists a substantial grey area between the two.

The U.S. is a mixed economy in a capitalist system, which is similar to most countries to varying degrees. Liberalism is the predominant political philosophy of the land, and conservatism is an ever-present orientation against most forms of rapid social change, making “liberal” and “conservative” the most commonly used labels. Leftism is growing in the U.S. today, but its more radical forms remain on the fringes. So whenever you see leftism, it’s usually the sort that has some overlapping elements with some of the least moderate forms of liberalism. All this makes it difficult to reach universally agreed upon labels, especially since political spectra are measured differently around the world.

Some people are strict in their label definitions, some avoid them all together, and others use several in combination. There’s no hard line between liberals and leftists that acts as a catch-all, which is why analyzing someone’s positions and ethos in tandem can help with loose categorization. Everybody wants belonging and identity, but there’s a limitation to labels when they mean something different to so many groups. Most people aren’t ideologically consistent and don’t fit neatly within a political compass quadrant. As the saying goes, ask 10 people in a group to define the group’s beliefs and you’ll get 11 answers. But as long as there are competing ideologies, there will always be worthwhile fights over the language to describe them in the discourse. If nothing else, these fights bring us closer to a place where we can evaluate which perspective, seen as a package, is closest to being correct.
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Random responses

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Jul 09, 2021 11:39 am

.

1. A conscientious discussion posted by WR. Like it will make a difference. Besides policy and ethos, he could have added the more concrete ethos measure as who actually identifies with a given label, vs. who identifies against that label. (Liberal is more often a catch-all target than a self-identification.)

2. I'd like to add a correction to the last paragraph: 'There is no hard line between liberals and the right-wing that serves as a catch-all.' Liberalism under that name originated in the 1820s-30s as the flexible, evolving catch-all ideology, varying by time and place (especially nation), adopted by the secular segments of the economic ruling class and their educated-technocratic intelligentsia for justifying whatever were the present needs of capital and the capitalist state. It started out very nationalist in each country, and often still is, and specialized in selling out working class movements that did not conform to the developmentalist agenda (such as the artisanal working class that was the core of the original socialists). Basically, it was about the emergence of territorial nation-states of citizens on a developmentalist (industrial) track, minus the old religions. In the great powers, liberalism later turned to providing an international-law cloak for for post-abolitionist imperialism. It became the secondary target of emerging fascism (under that name), i.e., after communists a.k.a. 'Judeo-Bolshevism' a.k.a. however fascists conceived the leftist other. Rather than letting the communists in to ruin the nation, as the fascists claimed the liberals would do, actual liberals were among those who opened the doors to fascism.

3. Now it means anything. It may be the single most corrupted term in the political lexicon. In the U.S. since WWII, self-identified liberals always work hardest to suppress and exclude the left, with the ostensible aim of selling a program that will thus be able to defeat the right electorally and culturally. They're always selling themselves as the center, no matter how microscopic. To complicate it, add a popular definition of 'liberal' as 'educated elites (but not the actual ruling class) that think we-the-real-people are stupid, which is why we hate them'. Level any nuance and repeat this combination ad-infinitum.

4. The crime-panic propaganda about SF (and the US) as in the semi-rabid example on the last page has reached the point that polls are finding 57% of respondents saying that (retail) crime rates are worse than 30 years ago, which would have been the literal peak, in 1991. Which is insane, if insanity means radical absence of relation to reality. Same news organizations generally headline the popular perception stories, and usually don't bother with explaining what the actual crime rates are. They are busy, after all, with also having to pump up the inflation panic and the China (Russia Iran etc.) panic.

5. A few days on, the same crime-panic propaganda piece isn't aging too well. Turns out RCV however intentioned 'fixed' the fucking NYC election FOR Adams (by 1%) so that he's not facing a run-off in which his support could very well have collapsed under the scrutiny and the huge vote here of women who want to vote for a woman (whatever you think of that) could have been martialed (marshalled? sp?) against him as an almost ideal target. What this means in actual outcomes is developers rule, cops get more cash (but with bogus diversity measures), and more charter schools. What the alternatives would have meant was developers rule, cops get more cash (but with added bogus diversity measures), and a cap on charter schools. Also, the others weren't the machine and could have been swayed by politics. Adams means war on the left.

6. A simple rule of thumb for U.S. politics: if it's not anti-imperialist (internationalist, not globalist) and on some level anti-capitalist (socialist, conscious of economic class as primary category, whatever) then it's NOT LEFT. No matter what label it claims or is assigned. Also: Anti-racism is left. What's usually firmed as 'identity politics' is not left.

.
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I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby Elvis » Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:10 pm

The radical far left needs rampant crime


The radical left needs a job guarantee. Because people need jobs and incomes. Or else they resort to petty theft.

The radical right seems to agree that unemployment should be used to stabilize the economy, rather than use employment to stabilize the economy. The right, the financial industry and big business in general of course prefer to continue using structural unemployment (manifested mainly in the NAIRU) as a brickbat to keep workers trapped in a depraved game of musical chairs. Uncertainty and instability for workers, guaranteed profits for TBTF banks.
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby Belligerent Savant » Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:04 pm

.
... I don't think the left was ever genuinely pro-liberty. I think that stance was a combination of a lot of bad-faith posturing among leftist intellectuals which was deployed to prey upon the credulity of the hordes of less-informed and the bandwagon-boarders who would make up the mass of leftist movements. The leading voices of the left were most certainly for civil liberties back when their ideas were on the fringes and actively excluded from the mainstream. They wanted THEIR free speech, free thought, free expression, right to assemble, ect., to be expanded and upheld. But I think few leftists were for those freedoms as a universal concept. Once the left finally took hold of all of America's major cultural institutions they immediately started pulling the ladder up and behaving as all petty totalitarians throughout time have behaved.

The good professor Chomsky seems to believe that Manufacturing Consent is all of a sudden just fine and dandy now that it's finally his side doing it


"The leading voices of the left were most certainly for civil liberties back when their ideas were on the fringes and actively excluded from the mainstream. They wanted THEIR free speech, free thought, free expression, right to assemble, ect., to be expanded and upheld."

For most of my life I considered myself to be on the left side of the political spectrum. In part because I believe in free speech/thought/expression/assembly, among other things.

In more recent years, I've become persona non grata in liberal circles if I open my mouth too much, and they find out that I also support civil rights for people on the right, even ones I disagree with. Supporting free speech for people one disagrees with is now "enabling hate speech". It's a form of "violence" and "oppression" to let people who are wrong have free speech. Also, letting people who are "objectively wrong about facts" spread "fake news" and "misinformation" is dangerous and wrong. When I ask, "who decides what's true?" I get blank stares and some patronizing explanation about how "the evidence is very clear!"

During covid, my (used-to-be) left arguments about personal autonomy (you know, my body my choice?), workers' rights, medical racism and discrimination, and corporate capture of both government and media have been met with nothing but anger from the current left. I'm the enemy now.

"But I think few leftists were for those freedoms as a universal concept."

Yeah, I've found that out first hand.


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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby DrEvil » Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:47 pm

Elvis » Mon Jul 12, 2021 4:10 am wrote:
The radical far left needs rampant crime


The radical left needs a job guarantee. Because people need jobs and incomes. Or else they resort to petty theft.

The radical right seems to agree that unemployment should be used to stabilize the economy, rather than use employment to stabilize the economy. The right, the financial industry and big business in general of course prefer to continue using structural unemployment (manifested mainly in the NAIRU) as a brickbat to keep workers trapped in a depraved game of musical chairs. Uncertainty and instability for workers, guaranteed profits for TBTF banks.


George Carlin said it best:
The rich make all the money and pay none of the taxes.
The middle class do all the work and pay all the taxes.
The poor are there to scare the shit out of the middle class.


It only works if there's poor people around. It gives the ruling class leverage.
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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby Marionumber1 » Wed Oct 27, 2021 7:27 pm

For most of my life I considered myself to be on the left side of the political spectrum.


So where does this person consider themselves to be? Your principles shouldn't automatically do a flip just because groups who claim (that is a key word, by the way) to share many of your principles turn out to be problematic. Yet I keep seeing this pattern of self-proclaimed former leftists beginning with qualms about the corporate left's rigidity and authoritarianism (generally more on social issues than economic or foreign policy issues) and ending up as full-blown right-wingers on nearly every policy issue; Michael Rectenwald of NYU is one who comes to mind. I have to say that if such principles are that easily reversed, they probably weren't held very strongly to begin with.
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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby Belligerent Savant » Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:53 pm

.

I believe the author means that it's the "left" that flipped -- or rather, revealed themselves to be posers, for lack of a better term.

What does it mean to be a 'leftist' or 'on the right' today?

Clearly, covid-related policies are authoritarian. How can a true leftist be onboard with such policies? They wouldn't/shouldn't. Unless, of course, they were largely only 'leftist' in name rather than true intent.

I didn't see commentary in the above quoted bits to suggest they shifted to the right. I'm not familiar with Michael Rectenwald so can't speak to him or his apparent shift.

The broader point here is many of the left have, over the last 2 years, almost without question adopted govt narratives and egregious overreach by said govts with minimal protest. We're seeing it here, to various degrees, in some respects.
(there are exceptions and variations of this, of course. But there is simply no way a traditional/historical leftist would be a passive observer of current policies, let alone a fucking ADVOCATE for them).

Is this in dispute?
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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby Belligerent Savant » Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:26 pm

.
While I'm here, a few more related comments:

However deep his principles may or may not be, I will always cherish Chomsky's work with Edward Herman in Manufacturing Consent.

But it is certainly a sight to see someone who literally wrote the book on corporate propaganda now acting as a mouthpiece for corporate propaganda - and doing it so aggressively. It does make you question what the guy is really about. I'd like to believe he was a genuine rebel, once - I believe it took guts to denounce the respectable media's reporting on the war in Vietnam, for instance, and to reject the hawks/doves dichotomy as two sides of the same imperialist coin.

But clearly he works for the dark side now. These latest remarks are just... evil.

Similarly, I've noticed UK journalist Ben Goldacre, who 'wrote the book' on pharmaceutical industry corruption, is enthusiastically pushing the jabs. He wrote a book literally called 'Bad Pharma', which encyclopaedically details the long list of serious problems with the industry, covering the disappearance of trial data, all the jiggery-pokery that happens in the trials themselves, the failure of regulators, the gargantuan sums of money in advertising... Most pertinently, it contains dozens of case studies of drugs that went to market with full regulatory approval where it later turned out they had serious risks that were known about and deliberately concealed, with the result that many people were needlessly harmed or killed - hundreds of thousands in the case of something like Vioxx.

And yet now... the guy is calling himself 'Ben Get-Vaccinated Goldacre' on Twitter. It's jaw-dropping. How can the person who wrote THAT book take such an unequivocal pro-Pharma stance when it matters most? Perhaps it's his column in The Guardian, or the fact that he's a practising MD... either way, now the chips are down, clearly he's decided he'd rather nestle in the bosom of that cosy mainstream credibility.

Having studied his book, knowing what I know he knows, in his case I can only to see it as a failure of courage. And it sickens me.

- Triplet


What a gift these mandates have been! We get to out the shills, the wolves in sheep's clothing, the controlled opposition. Consider it like a clearing of the deadwood. Speaking of which, my twenty year old copy of Manufacturing Consent has been taking up too much space on my bookshelf. I might consider repurposing it as fire lighting material.


It's not all that surprising, if you look at it from the standpoint that leftist types are the system's first line of defence. Co-opting and exploiting rebellious impulses (and many/most leftists do indeed see themselves as rebels) appears to be, as Theodore Kaczynski suggested, the system's neatest trick:

"So, in a nutshell, the System's neatest trick is this:

For the sake of its own efficiency and security, the System needs to bring about deep and radical social changes to match the changed conditions resulting from technological progress.

The frustration of life under the circumstances imposed by the System leads to rebellious impulses.

Rebellious impulses are co-opted by the System in the service of the social changes it requires; activists "rebel" against the old and outmoded values that are no longer of use to the System and in favor of the new values that the System needs us to accept.

In this way rebellious impulses, which otherwise might have been dangerous to the System, are given an outlet that is not only harmless to the System, but useful to it.

Much of the public resentment resulting from the imposition of social changes is drawn away from the System and its institutions and is directed instead at the radicals who spearhead the social changes."


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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby Marionumber1 » Wed Oct 27, 2021 10:41 pm

Belligerent Savant » Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:53 pm wrote:.

I believe the author means that it's the "left" that flipped -- or rather, revealed themselves to be posers, for lack of a better term.

What does it mean to be a 'leftist' or 'on the right' today?

Clearly, covid-related policies are authoritarian. How can a true leftist be onboard with such policies? They wouldn't/shouldn't. Unless, of course, they were largely only 'leftist' in name rather than true intent.

I didn't see commentary in the above quoted bits to suggest they shifted to the right. I'm not familiar with Michael Rectenwald so can't speak to him or his apparent shift.

The broader point here is many of the left have, over the last 2 years, almost without question adopted govt narratives and egregious overreach by said govts with minimal protest. We're seeing it here, to various degrees, in some respects.
(there are exceptions and variations of this, of course. But there is simply no way a traditional/historical leftist would be a passive observer of current policies, let alone a fucking ADVOCATE for them).

Is this in dispute?


It's not in dispute, but if you haven't actually moved in your own views, I think the emphasis should be on pointing out that these entities which claim ideological kinship with you are frauds, rather than making a pronouncement about how you disclaim your former viewpoint. And there is no doubt that, as that insightful comment you shared points out, that "rebellious impulses, which otherwise might have been dangerous to the System" are prime targets for this kind of co-option. What bothers me is acting as if the set of principles that led to those impulses are worth abandoning (even if just in name) when the real problem is its illegitimate standard bearers. Left-wing still has meaning despite the bevy of issues with numerous prominent entities presenting themselves as such.
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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby Belligerent Savant » Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:21 am

.
Astute observations, Mario.
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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby thrulookingglass » Thu Oct 28, 2021 1:28 pm

Okay. I'm done. Its been real. Happy apocalypses. Catch ya on the left side.
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Re: 'Liberals'/'Leftists' in America

Postby DrEvil » Thu Oct 28, 2021 5:58 pm

@Thrulookinglass: nooooo!
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
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