And that allows for the alternate vision:
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Iâm tempted to edit the title to say, âThe need for a functional left wing in global politicsâ.
Because except for a few places in Europe and South America, thereâs nothing. Nothing but lip-service to the concept of opposition to the corporate plutocracy.
How bad does it have to fucking get, before we wake the fuck up? Occupy was great and all, but it seems to have fizzled - probably due in no small part to the fact that it brought hardly anyone on board who wasnât already pissed off; the apathetic masses looked at the #OWS protesters and saw Other.
Fucking drones.
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Costa Rica; Uruguay (Considered one of the best countries in the world, also had a badass Bernie Sanders ish president who legalized abortion, weed, and gay marriage before he died in 2015. DO YOU SEE WHAT WE COULD HAVE HAD PEOPLE!?!? DO. YOU! SEE?); Portugal; Iceland; Scotland (Especially if they keep going the direction they are heading in, become independent, and legalize abortions); Norway, Finland, and Denmark (if they can avoid the far right upswing); and maybe New Zealand (if they can pull back to the left, because they are kinda centrist right now).
Bonus round!
- Nambia has been moving in the right direction, so far, but it still has a long way to go.
- Kurdistan? Kurdistan!?! Kurdistan! If it ever becomes a country the semi-autonomous region in what is still kinda Iraq has shown a great propensity towards viewing men and women equally, building up infrastructure, and focusing on democratic government. They still have a very hard path to travel, and yet they are already showing promise.
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True, but freedom for whom? We see big businesses gaining freedom from federal regulations, and look were it brought us.
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Us. Or you, if you prefer.
And slogans never stand up to scrutiny. But they are catchy, can resonate with people and when shouted loud enough can drown out nuance Which is how people like Orange Shitler gets power.
Iâm riffing on what I see as American values and what, if anything, would be more powerful than nostalgia (Make America etc. etc. ) and have a broad appeal to the disaffected and the disillusioned. Because itâs going to take something like that to shift realities.
Flip it around.
Free to own our own shit, not just rent it. Free from exploitation. Free to breath clean air. Free to get a fair weeks wage for a fair weeks work.
Iâm not a great political thinker or a clever mind. Iâm not American. Shit, I donât even vote. Iâm just sounding out ideas here, sloganeering, rather than starting a political movement.
But I see freedom as a core value of America and I see it being taken away from Americans.
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Memberberries.
Nothingâs more powerful than nostalgia, it seems. Maybe the key is to popularise the fact that the prosperity of the 50s and 60s can be traced directly (Piketty) to FDRâs New Deal.
Thereâs no freedom for the American populace while theyâre at ransom to employers via healthcare being tied to employment, and thereâs a gaping chasm of dread where there should be a social safety net.
Consider all the folks who would quit their shitty bullshit job and start a business if it wasnât too risky to contemplate, for exampleâŚ
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'member chewbaaaccaaaâŚ
Maybe. I made it about a dozen pages into Piketty before realizing I was way over my head, but I can see that. Problem I can see with the 50s and 60s is that for a lot of people, it wasnât all that prosperous. The prosperity that springs to my mind when thinking about that period is whiter than a polar bear in a blizzard, ya know.
But there could definitely be a way of pitching that without the baggage that goes along with it.
Yepyep.
And if youâre trapped as working poor, running two or three jobs just to make ends meet and only an unexpected bill or two away from disaster, you might not have the time or energy for highly nuanced political debate.
Like, if youâre starving, you want a damned cheeseburger, not a lecture on crop rotation and the three field system.
Any functional left wing in the US is going to need to understand that and sell it.
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One possible answer is that there is no singular ideological unifying cause, nothing to bind the left community across its various constituencies.
How about, weâre not here to fuck each other over as a default mode of existence.
Sums it up pretty nicely, IMO. Sure, the right will deny thatâs their modus operandi, but come on.
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But how is that any different from the right? I think that the main difference is that the right offers its followers simplistic problems and solutions. And they keep the rhetoric extremely superficial. Even between social and economic conservatism, or different schools of Christianity, it is easy to see that in-depth interpretations yield differing values and opinions - which can be learned about and celebrated, by those who are mature enough. The right-wing pretense of being united against the difference is a deception, and why such groups and individuals tend to be so averse to real debate and any social awareness beyond loyalty and dominance. Nothing can be about issues of any sophistication, because there is only room for reenforcing the hierarchy. But ironically, these people are convinced that they are âindividualistsâ when the hierarchy permits them to exploit others.
Refusing to offer easy answers with token solutions makes the leftâs job more difficult, but I think that it means reality is on our side. Because the real world is more complex and nuanced than instinctive human power dynamics prepare one for.
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I agree with much of your desire for freedom. Although I think it needs to include âfreedom fromâ as well as âfreedom toâ. Thatâs one of the areas where some freedoms OF - such as freedom of religion, can work against people and inspire a degree of conformism. For your examples, being free from such things as personal property and romantic love are needed to make life equitable and bearable. Also they need to be as valid for groups as they are for individuals. A commune can be free to collectively own their house without needing to create yet another hierarchical corporation. And they could be free to all marry each other, if they so chose. And freedom to not have a house, to be nomadic. These are all freedoms which sound like should be theoretically obtainable in the U.S., but which are deliberately prevented.
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I think you should do with it what you like. Your idea of what an equitable and bearable life is sounds very cold, lonely and painful to me. But Iâm happy for you to live as you see fit and I donât see any reason to prevent you.
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FYI statements like this come off an insulting and judgmental. It reads as âanyone who doesnât agree with me is delusionalâ.
Not a good way to encourage dialogue.
Now as to the core question at hand, for one thing, the fact that the ârightâ in the US generally does share some variety of Christian faith or at least a derived moral system is in fact a big unifying factor that goes beyond politics. It does seem that people consider the metaphysical as greater than secular differences.
And somehow I still took the he time to move the conversation along and answer @popobawa4u 'a question.
I find myself looking at Political compass again to try to find an answer.
(I know itâs not a great test, but I needed something and compared to all the others itâs OK. At least it looks outside the Overton Window.)
This is where every presidential candidate since 2008 (and more than a few from the primaries) roughly fits on to their chart (2004 didnât use the same chart, but it still fits in this pattern). All parties should be recognisable by colour.
The blue in the Green party section represents Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich, the red in the libertarian section is Ron Paul and the blue in the libertarian section is from when Mike Gravel swung to the right in 2008. The red and blue stripes is the area where both republicans and democrats have had candidates (itâs where Hillary was for this election).
Looking at this it is clear that the left covers far more ideological ground than the right even before you start including people who donât really fit into the four biggest parties.
I could say more but I donât have the time or energy right now, I have to get on with moving house.
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Only if you count the corporate Dems as âleftâ, though.
Fortunately, the centre of American public opinion is closer to Bernie than Hillary; the Overton shift was a phenomenon of the parties more than the people.
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Donât you mean the media?
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Media, political parties: same owners.
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Whenever someone criticises the left for not agreeing with each other, they include the corporate Democrats. I though It was best to include them to make my point.
I think thatâs right too, Itâs just how do we make the Democratic party leadership accept that?
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