|
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
United States42008 Posts
The Democrats are not sufficiently leftist because they’re not at all leftist because they’re neoliberal which is a centre right ideology attempting to find a marriage of social liberalism with Reagan/Thatcher economics.
It’s one of the many compromises created by a two party system.
It's also why Trump is fascist, rather than conservative, and why Wegandi is right to draw attention to the chasm between himself and Trumpers. Trump doesn't believe the market should pick winners and losers based on free competition, he believes that he should personally pick winners and losers based on the degree to which they've shown personal loyalty to him. Trumpism isn't right wing, beyond a slavish dedication to authority figures. I don't brand Trump voters as fascists because of some belief that everyone right of Pol Pot is a fascist, I brand them fascists because they've dropped whatever actual conservative beliefs they may have held to support a fascist strongman who openly disagrees with the core tenets of conservatism.
Obviously Wegandi's entire ideology is extrapolated from a few nonsensical aphorisms and is closer to a religion than a coherent political ideology but he's certainly not a fascist. I don't respect his religion but I can absolutely respect the sincerity with which he believes in it.
|
|
|
On December 18 2020 01:34 Liquid`Drone wrote:
You could have googled the guy. I wasn't familiar with him (Jesse Singal) either, but quickly reading about him confirms that he himself considers himself left of center (for example, he's part of a listserv where the “About” page states that it aims to provide an “off-the-record discussion forum for left-of-center journalists, authors, academics and wonks.”, and that he's controversial in the trans community.
Now, I haven't seen him called a right winger - but I see that he's considered a lying bigoted transphobe.
I bring up the example because I saw him called a right winger ... because shocker ... people think you can’t be on the left and hold his views on trans issues. As another example, since I picked Jesse at random, Krystal Ball and modern identity politics. To a lesser extent, Dem elected reps Tulsi Gabbard, Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin. The same holds for what I’ve read on this same page about being on the left and holding the wrong views on abortion. I think the weight of evidence should dictate that the left has problems over labeling things as right-wing, all the while complaining about being labeled leftists or whatever. Practically every time I bring it up, somebody reinforces that view heterogeneity indeed excludes the speaker from being part of the left.
So maybe, Drone, you wouldn’t be surprised at pissed people filing protest votes for Republicans, since they’ve been excluded (indeed, for-cause attacked) by their former Democratic compatriots. ~Ok you don’t want my vote, see how you like this~. Basically, it’s a major means to getting their voice heard, instead of being ignored. That and also staying home or splitting the ticket between presidential and congressional. (Maybe Democrats aren’t actually concerned with winning back these people, and I entertain any arguments that they want a coalition united on 6-12 common issues, and hope the more major disagreements with Republican policy are enough to stop a major swing against them in the future)
|
Norway28561 Posts
Yeah I'm not at all surprised that people don't want to vote for the side that attacks them. It's a significant part of why I think this is a failing political strategy and something we have to stop doing. (The other being that even if someone isn't voting for the same party as I am and never will, we're still part of the same society and we need to coexist peacefully. )
That said, I don't really see leftists complain about being labelled leftists. What I do see is leftists complain about centrists being labelled leftists. 
|
United States42008 Posts
If you vote fascist to spite someone else you're probably just a fascist. It's like those men who say they oppose feminism because a feminist was mean to them once. If your view on the rights of others is impacted by your personal grievances then you don't actually believe in the rights of others. There's nothing to be gained by trying to be nicer to people who are open to voting fascist if they feel affronted, you just end up in bed with a bunch of fascists.
Also the reason all those right wing people are in the Democratic Party is that the Democratic Party is right wing. That's why it's constantly under fire from leftists. The Democratic Party is a neoliberal party that leftists sometimes support because of the two party system. Leftists do not control it. Leftists are to the Democratic Party what libertarians are to the Republican Party.
|
On December 18 2020 03:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:Yeah I'm not at all surprised that people don't want to vote for the side that attacks them. It's a significant part of why I think this is a failing political strategy and something we have to stop doing. (The other being that even if someone isn't voting for the same party as I am and never will, we're still part of the same society and we need to coexist peacefully. ) That said, I don't really see leftists complain about being labelled leftists. What I do see is leftists complain about centrists being labelled leftists.
Is leftist supposed to be derogatory? I thought it was just a word that mean "being on the political left".
|
Norway28561 Posts
On December 18 2020 04:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2020 03:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:Yeah I'm not at all surprised that people don't want to vote for the side that attacks them. It's a significant part of why I think this is a failing political strategy and something we have to stop doing. (The other being that even if someone isn't voting for the same party as I am and never will, we're still part of the same society and we need to coexist peacefully. ) That said, I don't really see leftists complain about being labelled leftists. What I do see is leftists complain about centrists being labelled leftists. Is leftist supposed to be derogatory? I thought it was just a word that mean "being on the political left".
I mean, from some right wingers it definitely is? I don't think right winger is derogatory either, but it's still sometimes used derogatorily.
But this does touch upon a point; leftists generally embrace being leftists. I certainly do. Socialists generally embrace being socialists - I do that, too.
This doesn't really apply to the derogatory terms used against the right. Very few admit to being racists or fascists - but a lot of people are accused of being either.
Communist partially has the same appliance to it - you'll find people claiming that they are communists, but there are probably a lot more examples of social democrats or socialists being labelled communists than there are actual genuine communists. I mean, actual communists will usually embrace being communists, although because people associate communist with 'supporter of regime which wasn't communist but which claimed to be' (which actual communists never actually support) then it's often easier not to.
With racist or fascist though, it's a bit harder. The terms are definitely more opaque. Everybody agrees that guys who are violent towards black people for being black are racist, mostly everybody agrees that using the n word is racist, slightly fewer but still most agree that wearing blackface is racist, even fewer agree that being opposed to affirmative action is racist - some will indeed argue that affirmative action is racist against white people. People agree (I assume this goes for most republicans, too) that Mussolini was a fascist - and that he was terrible, even if they have no real understanding of what took place in Italy between 1920 and 1945 - but I'd assume only a very small subset of Trump supporters agree that Trump is a fascist.
|
Northern Ireland23900 Posts
If the left is probably rather too quick to attack each other over the narcissism of petty differences, which I think most of us here would agree is reasonably commonplace, the inverse seems rather the case with the mainstream right in recent years.
Nicely enscapsulated with 4 years of battered partner rhetoric about ‘he didn’t really mean it, he loves me really’ excuse making for Trump and his shambles of an administration.
Of course all these people who support or don’t support Trump but voted for him as the lesser of two evils but disapprove of much of what he does apparently were all alienated by the ostensible left and its our fault for not understanding them or something.
|
Norway28561 Posts
I agree with that, too. While I dislike some of the infighting on the left, I most certainly prefer it over the sycophancy we've seen with Trump. I do understand the lesser of two evils-voting, I understand the SCOTUS-votes, but a lot of those people should have been a lot more vocal about their criticism of Trump and his administration. I'm obviously opposed on policy, too, but I would have been absolutely pissed off if I supported a left wing government which was as obviously incompetent as the Trump admin has been.
|
|
|
I'm of the opinion that a lot of political discourse is warped in the us by the fact that liberalism became the norm and center relative to everything else. Its become the orthodoxy to the point where peoples legitimate problems with the world therefore have become problems with liberalism. Neoliberalism has become the standard for being moderate in the face of leftist ideological collapse after the fall of the USSR. Conservatives had built their legitimacy in a post fascist world by trying to leverage the fact that they were the closest thing the fascists would get against an increasingly fractured but majority worldwide shift to the left over time.
But the dems in the wake of the "machine that beat communism" has shifted to the right in order to do the same the right did after fascism died. The right being in such an authoritarian bent caused the libertarians to break away.
Make no mistake the right is still the electoral majority. If the libs gave a shit about libertarian views and voted for their team trump would have won again. The left also faces a crisis however that no one really gives a shit to vote left when the party is in no way left itself. Progressives like Bernie aren't stupid enough to form a pointless breakaway like the libs but are also in no way being modivated to vote for people who by all rights wouldn't be out of place in the Republican party. Joe Biden obama and the Clintons would have been Republicans if they were from another state and progressives know this. Maybe if Obama wasn't also black but you get my point.
We're not seeing an age of different opinions I don't think i believe we see an age where our differences are not being expressed in rational ways anymore. The dems should be pulling the nation left not trying to maintain a status quo no one likes. The Republicans should be checking the progress of the state to ensure it's not for progressions sake instead of scrambling for some sort of scrambling for meaning in the stagnation of empire.
Neither party is doing what we want and so we're left being confused angry and unrepresented.
|
On December 18 2020 06:27 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2020 05:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 18 2020 04:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 18 2020 03:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:Yeah I'm not at all surprised that people don't want to vote for the side that attacks them. It's a significant part of why I think this is a failing political strategy and something we have to stop doing. (The other being that even if someone isn't voting for the same party as I am and never will, we're still part of the same society and we need to coexist peacefully. ) That said, I don't really see leftists complain about being labelled leftists. What I do see is leftists complain about centrists being labelled leftists. Is leftist supposed to be derogatory? I thought it was just a word that mean "being on the political left". I mean, from some right wingers it definitely is? I don't think right winger is derogatory either, but it's still sometimes used derogatorily. But this does touch upon a point; leftists generally embrace being leftists. I certainly do. Socialists generally embrace being socialists - I do that, too. This doesn't really apply to the derogatory terms used against the right. Very few admit to being racists or fascists - but a lot of people are accused of being either. Communist partially has the same appliance to it - you'll find people claiming that they are communists, but there are probably a lot more examples of social democrats or socialists being labelled communists than there are actual genuine communists. I mean, actual communists will usually embrace being communists, although because people associate communist with 'supporter of regime which wasn't communist but which claimed to be' (which actual communists never actually support) then it's often easier not to. With racist or fascist though, it's a bit harder. The terms are definitely more opaque. Everybody agrees that guys who are violent towards black people for being black are racist, mostly everybody agrees that using the n word is racist, slightly fewer but still most agree that wearing blackface is racist, even fewer agree that being opposed to affirmative action is racist - some will indeed argue that affirmative action is racist against white people. People agree (I assume this goes for most republicans, too) that Mussolini was a fascist - and that he was terrible, even if they have no real understanding of what took place in Italy between 1920 and 1945 - but I'd assume only a very small subset of Trump supporters agree that Trump is a fascist. Communists would prefer communism to capitalism and should prefer the USSR to Western Europe for example. If they don't they are not communists or I am not a social democrat because I accept the bad that comes with my prefered system and understand that some bad will likely always exist. Comparing utopian communism with utopian capitalism they would both work out really well, one just has more of belief that equality equals fairness and the other that get what you work for equals fairness. But comparing utopian communism to actual functioning various types of western democracies is pointless. You can't simply ignore the failings, not discuss the why, or of course they will continue to exist. It is not a fluke or accident that all the countries and people that have tried "communism" (with very different people and into very different cultures) have all had some extremely similar problems. They are all authoritarian, they all have huge wealth disparity from the ruling class to rest, they all have nepotism and special treatment, the lack of ability to stop people from taking advantage of their power at every level, and so on. The last sentence is not what any "communist" wants, the same way that capitalists don't want starving children or some of the other terrible outcomes. They are just consequences of the systems as they exist. It makes no sense to ignore one, it would be equally frustrating if someone was calling themselves a capitalist and ignoring all the problems that capitalism in its existence has created (well maybe the closest capitalist equivalent are libertarians) If you are a communist and not a democratic socialist, then you prefer the USSR model to the Norway one. If you prefer the Norway one you are a social democrat who thinks that it can still be improved upon. You can call yourself a communist because it is edgy and maybe leads to good conversation in a devils advocate kind of way. Because right now if you were to implement "communism" anywhere in the world there is a extremely high likely hood it will end up like the USSR, China, NK, Venezuela, Cuba, so on, rather than a place of equality and fairness, because history and current events tell us so. It is madness to think it won't. I could see someone being a believer in the communist philosophy and democratic socialist political system since it is by far the closest in practice. Being left of Norway but not USSR is a place that just does not exist. I would be very interested to hear what that place fundamentally would look like, but I have yet too, so i've come to believe that the place does not exist. I would be wildly excited to hear all about it though!
Any time you talk about the USSR it sounds like you don't know much about communism or the history of communism or how communists think about communism. You want to root your beliefs in the results of it, that's fine, but don't discuss how communists should think philosophically.
There's no way to have a real discussion about what's gone wrong with various communist regimes in the world without being also willing to mention that said movements were utterly and aggressively opposed to the utmost by Capitalist regimes just for existing.
Such a thing can't exist because the second it does the entirety of the western world will sanction it into oblivion.
Until we can have a communist state that isn't treated as the de facto enemy, the debate will always be hamstrung. I mean, literally the only reason we have so many 'successful' Capitalist countries today is because we all cooperate and prop each other up.
|
|
|
On December 18 2020 06:27 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2020 05:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 18 2020 04:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 18 2020 03:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:Yeah I'm not at all surprised that people don't want to vote for the side that attacks them. It's a significant part of why I think this is a failing political strategy and something we have to stop doing. (The other being that even if someone isn't voting for the same party as I am and never will, we're still part of the same society and we need to coexist peacefully. ) That said, I don't really see leftists complain about being labelled leftists. What I do see is leftists complain about centrists being labelled leftists. Is leftist supposed to be derogatory? I thought it was just a word that mean "being on the political left". I mean, from some right wingers it definitely is? I don't think right winger is derogatory either, but it's still sometimes used derogatorily. But this does touch upon a point; leftists generally embrace being leftists. I certainly do. Socialists generally embrace being socialists - I do that, too. This doesn't really apply to the derogatory terms used against the right. Very few admit to being racists or fascists - but a lot of people are accused of being either. Communist partially has the same appliance to it - you'll find people claiming that they are communists, but there are probably a lot more examples of social democrats or socialists being labelled communists than there are actual genuine communists. I mean, actual communists will usually embrace being communists, although because people associate communist with 'supporter of regime which wasn't communist but which claimed to be' (which actual communists never actually support) then it's often easier not to. With racist or fascist though, it's a bit harder. The terms are definitely more opaque. Everybody agrees that guys who are violent towards black people for being black are racist, mostly everybody agrees that using the n word is racist, slightly fewer but still most agree that wearing blackface is racist, even fewer agree that being opposed to affirmative action is racist - some will indeed argue that affirmative action is racist against white people. People agree (I assume this goes for most republicans, too) that Mussolini was a fascist - and that he was terrible, even if they have no real understanding of what took place in Italy between 1920 and 1945 - but I'd assume only a very small subset of Trump supporters agree that Trump is a fascist. Communists would prefer communism to capitalism and should prefer the USSR to Western Europe for example. If they don't they are not communists or I am not a social democrat because I accept the bad that comes with my prefered system and understand that some bad will likely always exist. Comparing utopian communism with utopian capitalism they would both work out really well, one just has more of belief that equality equals fairness and the other that get what you work for equals fairness. But comparing utopian communism to actual functioning various types of western democracies is pointless. You can't simply ignore the failings, not discuss the why, or of course they will continue to exist. It is not a fluke or accident that all the countries and people that have tried "communism" (with very different people and into very different cultures) have all had some extremely similar problems. They are all authoritarian, they all have huge wealth disparity from the ruling class to rest, they all have nepotism and special treatment, the lack of ability to stop people from taking advantage of their power at every level, and so on. The last sentence is not what any "communist" wants, the same way that capitalists don't want starving children or some of the other terrible outcomes. They are just consequences of the systems as they exist. It makes no sense to ignore one, it would be equally frustrating if someone was calling themselves a capitalist and ignoring all the problems that capitalism in its existence has created (well maybe the closest capitalist equivalent are libertarians) If you are a communist and not a democratic socialist, then you prefer the USSR model to the Norway one. If you prefer the Norway one you are a social democrat who thinks that it can still be improved upon. You can call yourself a communist because it is edgy and maybe leads to good conversation in a devils advocate kind of way. Because right now if you were to implement "communism" anywhere in the world there is a extremely high likely hood it will end up like the USSR, China, NK, Venezuela, Cuba, so on, rather than a place of equality and fairness, because history and current events tell us so. It is madness to think it won't. I could see someone being a believer in the communist philosophy and democratic socialist political system since it is by far the closest in practice. Being left of Norway but not USSR is a place that just does not exist. I would be very interested to hear what that place fundamentally would look like, but I have yet too, so i've come to believe that the place does not exist. I would be wildly excited to hear all about it though!
This is based on happenstance rather than logic, let's reverse a bit. The social-dem party in my country is a dumpster fire, imagine that there have only been several social-dem led governments on the planet, all of them in dysfunctional developing countries inspired by one another.
In this alternate reality someone from conservative/neoliberal Norway is saying they're a social-dem ideologically because they find it more empathetic on paper and you tell them "well, unless you prefer Romania to Western Europe you can't be a social-dem" or "greed isn't gonna diminish just because you call it social-democracy".
Back to our world, none of the good examples of social democracies are utopias. Similarly, there's a whole galaxy to explore between USSR and "utopian communism". There were a myriad of factions with duelling ideas from the First International all the way to Stalin's purges. I don't think a consequentialist stance on the subject is wise, even with some light reading on the final years of the Russian Empire / first years of USSR you'll be able to pinpoint a dozen small events that could have massively altered the history of communism.
|
On December 18 2020 07:41 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2020 06:27 JimmiC wrote:On December 18 2020 05:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 18 2020 04:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 18 2020 03:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:Yeah I'm not at all surprised that people don't want to vote for the side that attacks them. It's a significant part of why I think this is a failing political strategy and something we have to stop doing. (The other being that even if someone isn't voting for the same party as I am and never will, we're still part of the same society and we need to coexist peacefully. ) That said, I don't really see leftists complain about being labelled leftists. What I do see is leftists complain about centrists being labelled leftists. Is leftist supposed to be derogatory? I thought it was just a word that mean "being on the political left". I mean, from some right wingers it definitely is? I don't think right winger is derogatory either, but it's still sometimes used derogatorily. But this does touch upon a point; leftists generally embrace being leftists. I certainly do. Socialists generally embrace being socialists - I do that, too. This doesn't really apply to the derogatory terms used against the right. Very few admit to being racists or fascists - but a lot of people are accused of being either. Communist partially has the same appliance to it - you'll find people claiming that they are communists, but there are probably a lot more examples of social democrats or socialists being labelled communists than there are actual genuine communists. I mean, actual communists will usually embrace being communists, although because people associate communist with 'supporter of regime which wasn't communist but which claimed to be' (which actual communists never actually support) then it's often easier not to. With racist or fascist though, it's a bit harder. The terms are definitely more opaque. Everybody agrees that guys who are violent towards black people for being black are racist, mostly everybody agrees that using the n word is racist, slightly fewer but still most agree that wearing blackface is racist, even fewer agree that being opposed to affirmative action is racist - some will indeed argue that affirmative action is racist against white people. People agree (I assume this goes for most republicans, too) that Mussolini was a fascist - and that he was terrible, even if they have no real understanding of what took place in Italy between 1920 and 1945 - but I'd assume only a very small subset of Trump supporters agree that Trump is a fascist. Communists would prefer communism to capitalism and should prefer the USSR to Western Europe for example. If they don't they are not communists or I am not a social democrat because I accept the bad that comes with my prefered system and understand that some bad will likely always exist. Comparing utopian communism with utopian capitalism they would both work out really well, one just has more of belief that equality equals fairness and the other that get what you work for equals fairness. But comparing utopian communism to actual functioning various types of western democracies is pointless. You can't simply ignore the failings, not discuss the why, or of course they will continue to exist. It is not a fluke or accident that all the countries and people that have tried "communism" (with very different people and into very different cultures) have all had some extremely similar problems. They are all authoritarian, they all have huge wealth disparity from the ruling class to rest, they all have nepotism and special treatment, the lack of ability to stop people from taking advantage of their power at every level, and so on. The last sentence is not what any "communist" wants, the same way that capitalists don't want starving children or some of the other terrible outcomes. They are just consequences of the systems as they exist. It makes no sense to ignore one, it would be equally frustrating if someone was calling themselves a capitalist and ignoring all the problems that capitalism in its existence has created (well maybe the closest capitalist equivalent are libertarians) If you are a communist and not a democratic socialist, then you prefer the USSR model to the Norway one. If you prefer the Norway one you are a social democrat who thinks that it can still be improved upon. You can call yourself a communist because it is edgy and maybe leads to good conversation in a devils advocate kind of way. Because right now if you were to implement "communism" anywhere in the world there is a extremely high likely hood it will end up like the USSR, China, NK, Venezuela, Cuba, so on, rather than a place of equality and fairness, because history and current events tell us so. It is madness to think it won't. I could see someone being a believer in the communist philosophy and democratic socialist political system since it is by far the closest in practice. Being left of Norway but not USSR is a place that just does not exist. I would be very interested to hear what that place fundamentally would look like, but I have yet too, so i've come to believe that the place does not exist. I would be wildly excited to hear all about it though! Any time you talk about the USSR it sounds like you don't know much about communism or the history of communism or how communists think about communism. You want to root your beliefs in the results of it, that's fine, but don't discuss how communists should think philosophically. There's no way to have a real discussion about what's gone wrong with various communist regimes in the world without being also willing to mention that said movements were utterly and aggressively opposed to the utmost by Capitalist regimes just for existing. Such a thing can't exist because the second it does the entirety of the western world will sanction it into oblivion. Until we can have a communist state that isn't treated as the de facto enemy, the debate will always be hamstrung. I mean, literally the only reason we have so many 'successful' Capitalist countries today is because we all cooperate and prop each other up. The problem with communist regimes in the world is that they don't exist. They all tend to be oligarchies pretending to be communist. (and not because capitalist sanctions make them do this)
And saying that Capitalist countries all cooperate and prop each other up seems to me to ignore most of European history. Capitalist countries have been fighting eachother for hundreds of years, only the last ~75 years have we been at peace and I would attribute that less to capitalism and more to the status quo reset in the wake of the WW2.
|
Perfect example of that is the ccp in China. Membership is extremely hard to get but is also expansive enough that you get the best tens of millions of society as the in group that makes all the money and holds all the power. It's communism but with an upper class and a lower class of communists.
|
On December 18 2020 08:38 JimmiC wrote:
Sure as long as you take equally into account that capitalism regimes are opposed to utmost by communist regimes just for existing.
It is lazy and lame to pretend like the is happening in just one direction.
What it actually is the scapegoat communist authoritarians use for all their issues. It was not capitalists faults that leaders in the USSR and eastern block lived like kings while their people starved, nor is it capitalists fault that the same thing is happening in them all, same with the other qualities I mentioned.
This is an inaccurate comparison. The US, France, UK, Czechoslovakia, and Japan invading and trying to destroy Soviet Russia during the civil war is in no ways comparable to the geopolitical competition between NATO and Warsaw Pact 40 years later. Imagine 5 grown men trying to strangle a baby in the crib and somehow failing coming back crying later that the baby is fighting back 40 years later.
Pretending that greed disappears when you call it communism is clearly not how it works. China is more than powerful enough to not have billionaires it is their choice to have them, and it is the powerful communists that are the billionaires.
Communism is when there is no greed and ideas are the driving force of history. You heard it here first comrades!
|
On December 18 2020 08:59 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2020 07:41 iamthedave wrote:On December 18 2020 06:27 JimmiC wrote:On December 18 2020 05:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 18 2020 04:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 18 2020 03:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:Yeah I'm not at all surprised that people don't want to vote for the side that attacks them. It's a significant part of why I think this is a failing political strategy and something we have to stop doing. (The other being that even if someone isn't voting for the same party as I am and never will, we're still part of the same society and we need to coexist peacefully. ) That said, I don't really see leftists complain about being labelled leftists. What I do see is leftists complain about centrists being labelled leftists. Is leftist supposed to be derogatory? I thought it was just a word that mean "being on the political left". I mean, from some right wingers it definitely is? I don't think right winger is derogatory either, but it's still sometimes used derogatorily. But this does touch upon a point; leftists generally embrace being leftists. I certainly do. Socialists generally embrace being socialists - I do that, too. This doesn't really apply to the derogatory terms used against the right. Very few admit to being racists or fascists - but a lot of people are accused of being either. Communist partially has the same appliance to it - you'll find people claiming that they are communists, but there are probably a lot more examples of social democrats or socialists being labelled communists than there are actual genuine communists. I mean, actual communists will usually embrace being communists, although because people associate communist with 'supporter of regime which wasn't communist but which claimed to be' (which actual communists never actually support) then it's often easier not to. With racist or fascist though, it's a bit harder. The terms are definitely more opaque. Everybody agrees that guys who are violent towards black people for being black are racist, mostly everybody agrees that using the n word is racist, slightly fewer but still most agree that wearing blackface is racist, even fewer agree that being opposed to affirmative action is racist - some will indeed argue that affirmative action is racist against white people. People agree (I assume this goes for most republicans, too) that Mussolini was a fascist - and that he was terrible, even if they have no real understanding of what took place in Italy between 1920 and 1945 - but I'd assume only a very small subset of Trump supporters agree that Trump is a fascist. Communists would prefer communism to capitalism and should prefer the USSR to Western Europe for example. If they don't they are not communists or I am not a social democrat because I accept the bad that comes with my prefered system and understand that some bad will likely always exist. Comparing utopian communism with utopian capitalism they would both work out really well, one just has more of belief that equality equals fairness and the other that get what you work for equals fairness. But comparing utopian communism to actual functioning various types of western democracies is pointless. You can't simply ignore the failings, not discuss the why, or of course they will continue to exist. It is not a fluke or accident that all the countries and people that have tried "communism" (with very different people and into very different cultures) have all had some extremely similar problems. They are all authoritarian, they all have huge wealth disparity from the ruling class to rest, they all have nepotism and special treatment, the lack of ability to stop people from taking advantage of their power at every level, and so on. The last sentence is not what any "communist" wants, the same way that capitalists don't want starving children or some of the other terrible outcomes. They are just consequences of the systems as they exist. It makes no sense to ignore one, it would be equally frustrating if someone was calling themselves a capitalist and ignoring all the problems that capitalism in its existence has created (well maybe the closest capitalist equivalent are libertarians) If you are a communist and not a democratic socialist, then you prefer the USSR model to the Norway one. If you prefer the Norway one you are a social democrat who thinks that it can still be improved upon. You can call yourself a communist because it is edgy and maybe leads to good conversation in a devils advocate kind of way. Because right now if you were to implement "communism" anywhere in the world there is a extremely high likely hood it will end up like the USSR, China, NK, Venezuela, Cuba, so on, rather than a place of equality and fairness, because history and current events tell us so. It is madness to think it won't. I could see someone being a believer in the communist philosophy and democratic socialist political system since it is by far the closest in practice. Being left of Norway but not USSR is a place that just does not exist. I would be very interested to hear what that place fundamentally would look like, but I have yet too, so i've come to believe that the place does not exist. I would be wildly excited to hear all about it though! Any time you talk about the USSR it sounds like you don't know much about communism or the history of communism or how communists think about communism. You want to root your beliefs in the results of it, that's fine, but don't discuss how communists should think philosophically. There's no way to have a real discussion about what's gone wrong with various communist regimes in the world without being also willing to mention that said movements were utterly and aggressively opposed to the utmost by Capitalist regimes just for existing. Such a thing can't exist because the second it does the entirety of the western world will sanction it into oblivion. Until we can have a communist state that isn't treated as the de facto enemy, the debate will always be hamstrung. I mean, literally the only reason we have so many 'successful' Capitalist countries today is because we all cooperate and prop each other up. The problem with communist regimes in the world is that they don't exist. They all tend to be oligarchies pretending to be communist. (and not because capitalist sanctions make them do this) And saying that Capitalist countries all cooperate and prop each other up seems to me to ignore most of European history. Capitalist countries have been fighting eachother for hundreds of years, only the last ~75 years have we been at peace and I would attribute that less to capitalism and more to the status quo reset in the wake of the WW2.
We haven't been "at peace" in the wake of WW2 its just that open war between super powers is unprofitable by any measure with the onset of thermonuclear weapons. The "winner" would inherit a world covered in radioactive glass and neither side could tolerate anything less in a pair of world wars that saw the compete and total defeat of the loseing side. The cold war allowed the military industrial complex's of both sides to exist by breaking its teeth in proxy wars while allowing their militaries to progress alongside some fashion. The days wars in the middle east allowed both sides to check its military capabilities against each other in the most real battles that each side needed. The rest of it allowed enough AK-47's to bath the world in blood while man-portable missiles allowed third world nations to bog down a super power.
|
On December 18 2020 09:12 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2020 08:59 Gorsameth wrote:On December 18 2020 07:41 iamthedave wrote:On December 18 2020 06:27 JimmiC wrote:On December 18 2020 05:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 18 2020 04:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 18 2020 03:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:Yeah I'm not at all surprised that people don't want to vote for the side that attacks them. It's a significant part of why I think this is a failing political strategy and something we have to stop doing. (The other being that even if someone isn't voting for the same party as I am and never will, we're still part of the same society and we need to coexist peacefully. ) That said, I don't really see leftists complain about being labelled leftists. What I do see is leftists complain about centrists being labelled leftists. Is leftist supposed to be derogatory? I thought it was just a word that mean "being on the political left". I mean, from some right wingers it definitely is? I don't think right winger is derogatory either, but it's still sometimes used derogatorily. But this does touch upon a point; leftists generally embrace being leftists. I certainly do. Socialists generally embrace being socialists - I do that, too. This doesn't really apply to the derogatory terms used against the right. Very few admit to being racists or fascists - but a lot of people are accused of being either. Communist partially has the same appliance to it - you'll find people claiming that they are communists, but there are probably a lot more examples of social democrats or socialists being labelled communists than there are actual genuine communists. I mean, actual communists will usually embrace being communists, although because people associate communist with 'supporter of regime which wasn't communist but which claimed to be' (which actual communists never actually support) then it's often easier not to. With racist or fascist though, it's a bit harder. The terms are definitely more opaque. Everybody agrees that guys who are violent towards black people for being black are racist, mostly everybody agrees that using the n word is racist, slightly fewer but still most agree that wearing blackface is racist, even fewer agree that being opposed to affirmative action is racist - some will indeed argue that affirmative action is racist against white people. People agree (I assume this goes for most republicans, too) that Mussolini was a fascist - and that he was terrible, even if they have no real understanding of what took place in Italy between 1920 and 1945 - but I'd assume only a very small subset of Trump supporters agree that Trump is a fascist. Communists would prefer communism to capitalism and should prefer the USSR to Western Europe for example. If they don't they are not communists or I am not a social democrat because I accept the bad that comes with my prefered system and understand that some bad will likely always exist. Comparing utopian communism with utopian capitalism they would both work out really well, one just has more of belief that equality equals fairness and the other that get what you work for equals fairness. But comparing utopian communism to actual functioning various types of western democracies is pointless. You can't simply ignore the failings, not discuss the why, or of course they will continue to exist. It is not a fluke or accident that all the countries and people that have tried "communism" (with very different people and into very different cultures) have all had some extremely similar problems. They are all authoritarian, they all have huge wealth disparity from the ruling class to rest, they all have nepotism and special treatment, the lack of ability to stop people from taking advantage of their power at every level, and so on. The last sentence is not what any "communist" wants, the same way that capitalists don't want starving children or some of the other terrible outcomes. They are just consequences of the systems as they exist. It makes no sense to ignore one, it would be equally frustrating if someone was calling themselves a capitalist and ignoring all the problems that capitalism in its existence has created (well maybe the closest capitalist equivalent are libertarians) If you are a communist and not a democratic socialist, then you prefer the USSR model to the Norway one. If you prefer the Norway one you are a social democrat who thinks that it can still be improved upon. You can call yourself a communist because it is edgy and maybe leads to good conversation in a devils advocate kind of way. Because right now if you were to implement "communism" anywhere in the world there is a extremely high likely hood it will end up like the USSR, China, NK, Venezuela, Cuba, so on, rather than a place of equality and fairness, because history and current events tell us so. It is madness to think it won't. I could see someone being a believer in the communist philosophy and democratic socialist political system since it is by far the closest in practice. Being left of Norway but not USSR is a place that just does not exist. I would be very interested to hear what that place fundamentally would look like, but I have yet too, so i've come to believe that the place does not exist. I would be wildly excited to hear all about it though! Any time you talk about the USSR it sounds like you don't know much about communism or the history of communism or how communists think about communism. You want to root your beliefs in the results of it, that's fine, but don't discuss how communists should think philosophically. There's no way to have a real discussion about what's gone wrong with various communist regimes in the world without being also willing to mention that said movements were utterly and aggressively opposed to the utmost by Capitalist regimes just for existing. Such a thing can't exist because the second it does the entirety of the western world will sanction it into oblivion. Until we can have a communist state that isn't treated as the de facto enemy, the debate will always be hamstrung. I mean, literally the only reason we have so many 'successful' Capitalist countries today is because we all cooperate and prop each other up. The problem with communist regimes in the world is that they don't exist. They all tend to be oligarchies pretending to be communist. (and not because capitalist sanctions make them do this) And saying that Capitalist countries all cooperate and prop each other up seems to me to ignore most of European history. Capitalist countries have been fighting eachother for hundreds of years, only the last ~75 years have we been at peace and I would attribute that less to capitalism and more to the status quo reset in the wake of the WW2. We haven't been "at peace" in the wake of WW2 its just that open war between super powers is unprofitable by any measure with the onset of thermonuclear weapons. The "winner" would inherit a world covered in radioactive glass and neither side could tolerate anything less in a pair of world wars that saw the compete and total defeat of the loseing side. The cold war allowed the military industrial complex's of both sides to exist by breaking its teeth in proxy wars while allowing their militaries to progress alongside some fashion. The days wars in the middle east allowed both sides to check its military capabilities against each other in the most real battles that each side needed. The rest of it allowed enough AK-47's to bath the world in blood while man-portable missiles allowed third world nations to bog down a super power. I'm not talking about the cold-war. I'm more talking about France, UK, Germany ect not going to war with eachother. And yes 'to costly' is a part of that, and part of why the (eventual) European union was created in the first place. To economically bind Europe together.
But the point is that the peace among capitalist countries is a recent phenomena in history.
|
Northern Ireland23900 Posts
Capitalism’s record is well, not exactly great, but as it’s so normalised as to be the default that divergence is seen as craziness. Whereas Communism is damned by a relative handful of countries over a relatively small span of history.
Nothing is particularly utopian unless you deconstruct what the norm is now and conclude that it’s a sensible state of affairs, least in my mind.
Rather counter-intuitively the rise of right-wing agitation, from rather enthusiastic little capitalists is driven pretty damn hard by them not liking capitalism now they’re not benefitting from global inequity. If only we tackle China, or leave the EU it’ll start working for us again!
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
