:lol:

How do we know these women on the photo are social democrats? — god must be atheist

Because they belong to a social democratic party's women's wing, to one regional section of it. Members who belong to a political party usually share the ideology of that party. OK, there's the Grand Old Party in the US, so there's that exception as it's unclear what ideology that party now stands for (or it's members).

Of course I could a picture of AOC, the democratic socialist, or this young woman social democrat from here, but the ordinary members of a political party are a better example of what the movement is really like.

:lol:

why middle-aged neckbeards pose as young ladies — The Opposite

Who wouldn't prefer to be a young lady over a middle-aged neckbeard? I know I would.

She is so impressive! Even outshines Jacinta Adern who has a stellar reputation in this part of the world.

I think the reason why socialism has such a poor reputation in America, is that it requires too much a sense of social responsibility and commitment to basic social justice to be tolerable to them. And it takes smarts to implement. Americans much prefer a individualist ideology where to the winner goes the spoils, and you have to win by whatever means necessary.

Incidentally, as far as the 'new left' is concerned, I think there is a great deal of value in their 'critique of the Enlightenment'. However I'm extremely dubious about Adorno's 'negative dialectic', although will confess to never having studied it closely.

It's been pretty amusing seeing recent threads and posts decrying the preponderance of leftists on this site, the necessity and importance of having right wingers to provide ideological counter balance, etc. and this is what we get.

I think the reason why socialism has such a poor reputation in America, is that it requires too much a sense of social responsibility and commitment to basic social justice to be tolerable to them. And it takes smarts to implement. Americans much prefer a individualist ideology where to the winner goes the spoils, and you have to win by whatever means necessary. — Wayfarer

I've argued along these lines, too. The Myth of the Individual prevents, for example, a decent response to Covid; and often prevents common decency. It's the flaw that prevents folk understanding the advantages of a well constructed social support mechanism.

I guess the left did fall into a ditch at some point. They need a new plan probably.

Speaking of the left, I'm watching videos about China on curiosity stream. One the commentators said that Chinese allow a certain amount of protesting to allow people to blow off stream, but administrators are told to throw them a bone from time to time without truly changing anything. However, people at the top of the Chinese government know they're eventually going to have to become more responsive to the people's demands, much of which has to do with access to healthcare and opportunity.

Sound familiar?

You sound wicked smart. — Xtrix

Do you think? I can't make heads nor tails of it.

Rafealla, is this really philosophy, or an opinion on politics? Philosophy is about freedom of thought. To take assumptions, and question and critically examine them. I find this is politics, which is often times preaching. Perhaps you can salvage something out of this by taking a part and asking a question out of it. Maybe examining some pros and cons.

The open persecution that big media and internet companies move towards Christian and conservative publications is the integral and definitive proof that the left has already lost all legitimacy as a spokesman for the poor and oppressed and has become the instrument of psychosocial control with which the elite enslaves the herd mentality. — Rafaella Leon

This is an accusation without examination, and could likely be a topic on its own. You can see others here are not really taking your topic seriously, because it isn't an invitation to discuss, but a rant. And its ok to make that mistake. See if you can salvage it into a topic worth discussing?

Very good point. It's not as if there's an equivalent between say BLM and White Supremacists. Yeah, they are two wings on different spectrums, but it's very different.

Then you get this total lunacy of Super PC BS, that only serves to hurt the left, and give the room to the far right to come in and complain about "socialism" or whatever. It's the equivalent of shooting oneself in the foot. Not that high brow theorizing will help much ordinary people.

But aren't you a metaphysician? I mean, what's not to get about the supreme principle of negative theoretical connotations in which sings don't stand in in for ideological objects, which of course implies that China will now go through neo-Confucian dialectics to unearth the negative ethos underlying consumerist simulacra. Of course, the left will protest as an ontological sign against the ruling bourgeoise.

It's pretty obvious.

Then you get this total lunacy of Super PC BS, that only serves to hurt the left, and give the room to the far right to come in and complain about "socialism" or whatever. — Manuel

No instance of "political correctness", whatever that's supposed to refer to here, justifies the encroachment of fascism

Who wouldn't prefer to be a young lady over a middle-aged neckbeard? I know I would. — Pfhorrest

@Rafaella Leon is your second account alter-ego!?

Fringe people who are assigned as being to the "left", mostly on the internet, focusing far more on whether a person should be referred to as a LatinX or a they or a sapiosexual, than talking about climate change, war, gross inequality and so on. These people tend to be language police and are disproportionately loud, who get offended at everything, and this gives the right a good excuse to say that the entire left is crazy and that all this will lead to Stalinist Socialism and the like.

100% Agree, there's is zero justification for fascism. The only way out, as far as I can see, is to attempt to decrease inequality and provide people the means and security to lead a decent, comfortable life. If no corrective comes about, I don't the extreme right going away any time soon. On the contrary, they'll likely keep growing.

Damn, damn.

yawn

I wasn't attempting to be hostile towards anybody, I was clarifying a comment made by me that was taken as giving excuses for fascism. I was pointing out how right wingers caricature the left, which is all the time.

I agree with what you say about "garbage sites" and how only followed like 2 or 3 out of curiosity, but it's not very serious. And yes, of course the right will use any opportunity it can to make outlandish claims about anything left of center-right, essentially. As for social justice in itself, yeah, who's against it? Who doesn't want less racism, more rights for women and respect for the marginalized? Only those who stand to lose something or think they'll lose something, will be against it.

The point, as I see it, is much less about arguing with other leftists, it's to try to fix urgent issues, specifically climate change, nuclear weapons and extreme inequality. The more bickering there is about who is more left than who, or who has read Marx the best or who hates Bezos the most, is a detriment to the left, as the right tends to be highly organized when it comes to passing neoliberal policy. Now, in the US, they're having issues, we'll see how that goes.

But they've done quite well all over the world these last 4 decades organizing and passing legislation that takes power away from ordinary people into the hand of those who already have power.

RIPPER 2024

I think the reason why socialism has such a poor reputation in America, is that it requires too much a sense of social responsibility and commitment to basic social justice to be tolerable to them. And it takes smarts to implement. Americans much prefer a individualist ideology where to the winner goes the spoils, and you have to win by whatever means necessary. — Wayfarer

I think that real problem is that Americans don't understand that Western Social Democrat parties aren't against capitalism, aren't such a revolutionary force and already is basically present in the US system.

Basically with the Democratic Party ruling, be it the Clinton or the Obama administration, you have similar policies that in Europe a coalition of a social democratic party and centrist/conservative party would make.

In a way, social democracy has already been in US politics:

She is so impressive! Even outshines Jacinta Adern who has a stellar reputation in this part of the world. — Wayfarer

Before the pandemic her "lipstick-administration", as someone in the opposition dubbed it, was taking a beating with her foreign minister (a male from the Green party) getting into a political debacle with Finnish ISIS moms in Syria, but that all changed when the pandemic hit. Then it was the Conservatives and the True Finns that demanded tougher Covid-measures and she quickly did exactly what the opposition wanted. That simply silenced the opposition and meant that the Covid-policy was a true consensus policy, which meant the policy itself hasn't been a subject of bickering that erodes people's trust. This actually meant that she gained the initiative, the political clout and the popularity of her party increased. Excellent example of how bi-partisan politics can lead to political success.

(At first it didn't look great, with all those young women leading the administration (and the political parties)..., but then came the pandemic. Translation: Rumours of disagreements in the administration are rubbish. The administration appears still as totally uniform.)


Her example actually shows just how incredibly fatuous, stupid and inept Donald Trump was.

Donald Trump was totally incapable of understanding that Covid-19 was his 9/11, his WW2, his stake to be a credible President that would lead the country through a major crisis. Because let's face it. Assume if Trump would not have listened to Rush Limbaugh and not feared for his hotels and golf courses, but gone with tough measures and put his lackeys (those that reurgitate his every line) to say how dangerous the pandemic is and how the country has to go through a dark time, but it will endure. Think the Democratic Party would have been against that? Think the DNC would have started courting libertarians? No. And with that backing, or simple silence from the opposition, suddenly Trump would have been a leader and very likely would have waltzed into his second term.

There is nothing new under the sun. "New" leftism is simply a more overt and vulgar expression of what has always characterized leftism, and indeed most forms of statism; the use of (government) coercion to impose one's own views on others.

Sorry I erased my comment cause I didn't want to get into this discussion but you already saw it.

I largely agree with you that the prevalence of bad liberal progressive politics (especially in popular media) dissuades people, I just wanted to express the other side of it which is that the Right calls anything and everything political correctness and most of them to my experience are not open to an alternative superior left-wing opinion when shown. They're offended by anything to the Left of them because they want to be, it feeds their sensibilities. The priority target for political organizing (in terms of effective use of our energy & time) are really people who agree with you but are politically timid, or apolitical folks who can be convinced to new political opinions. Of course you should try to convince some Right-Wingers, like even 1% (I know some leftists who were former Right-Wingers after all, it changed their lives) but that's not where we're likely to be successful.

As for who doesn't want more social justice? A lot of people. Not everyone is on the fascism spectrum, but plenty of people are moral cowards and don't want to change their preconceptions. I have a hard time understanding why you don't see if this if you actually tried talking to Right-Wingers.

Sure. No need to discuss. Agree with most of it.

There is no oppressed and marginalized people anywhere on the planet. There is news and articles about fictional realities, incentivized by a previously unclear (in objectivity) but powerful group. There is also no and never have been on the planet racism or movements of civil rights. Inner city poverty had been caused by the speaking and using of improper language, but today differences in earnings are being reconciled.

There is no oppressed and marginalized people anywhere on the planet. There is news and articles about fictional realities, incentivized by a previously unclear (in objectivity) but powerful group. There is also no and never have been on the planet racism or movements of civil rights. Inner city poverty had been caused by the speaking and using of improper language, but today differences in earnings are being reconciled. — eduardo

This is the best post ever.

I feel like it's a rorschach test.

Or some sort of surrealist manifesto

,

The ultimate reality is indistinguishable from the self. The self being all, corroborates that there is no world separate from the self. Jan Westerhoff uses the term "irrealism" to describe a world inseparable from the self.

It's important to know that we selves come self-sufficient and self-contained, not independent but self-directing. There are no relationships with other people, since there is only you. — eduardo

Primacy of the self, no expression of empathy, joined a few hours ago; I suspect another refugee...

leftism, and indeed most forms of statism — Tzeentch

“Leftism” is not a form of statism. Both left and right have abused the state, but the original left-right divide had the state on the side of the right.

The original left were liberals, classical liberals, in the sense that in the modern US gets called "libertarians". The original group to actually call themselves "libertarians" were libertarian socialists. Who were also the original socialists, well before Stalin or Lenin or even Marx.

US-style "libertarian" capitalists and Soviet-style state "socialists" are both aberrations from the natural association of the left with liberty and equality, and the right with authority and hierarchy.

“Leftism” is not a form of statism. — Pfhorrest

I'd argue it is.

Or does it not use the state as a means to pursue social and economic equality?

Both left and right have abused the state, but the original left-right divide had the state on the side of the right. — Pfhorrest

So has the left moved to the right, or the right moved to the left?

I should specify I use the term 'left' and 'right' in somewhat of a modern sense, though I am not convinced of their usefulness. Any system that puts liberty and equality in the same box is bound to be contradictory.

Old definitions have given way to new realities.