One of the neatest tricks of the capitalist technological system has been the commercialization of libertarian values for the bourgeoisie.

Big-tech companies (like FAANG), Democratic politicians (like Biden or Obama), and liberal-minded universities across the country encourage people to celebrate BLM, LGBTQ+, feminist, pro-democracy and anti-capitalist ideas while simultaneously being capitalist, bureaucratic, patriarchal, authoritarian and racist themselves.

They dish out products to satisfy the deep and completely reasonable frustrations that people have with the system, providing an outlet for all the pressure, which keeps those in power safe from any real threat. The point is to make people feel like they are rebelling, without them actually doing so.

Big-tech companies (like FAANG), Democratic politicians (like Biden or Obama), and liberal-minded universities across the country encourage people to celebrate BLM, LGBTQ+, feminist, pro-democracy and anti-capitalist ideas while simultaneously being capitalist, bureaucratic, patriarchal, authoritarian and racist themselves. — darthbarracuda

I'm not going to take issue with that because I think there is truth to it. However, I have a question: When it comes to the proletariat, which is worse? Those who fall for that ruse, or those who actually believe in and support the capitalist, bureaucratic, patriarchal, authoritarian, racist line without even having to be fooled into supporting it?

Are you asking which is worse, to be foolish or to be evil?

Are you asking which is worse, to be foolish or to be evil? — darthbarracuda

No, I'm asking which is worse? Those who fall for the ruse, or those who actually believe in and support the capitalist, bureaucratic, patriarchal, authoritarian, racist line without even having to be fooled into supporting it?

Let me contextualize and then re-state the question: On the other side we have their opposition and their minions celebrating rugged individualism, risk-taking, boot-strapping, personal responsibility, anti-democratic, anti-government, pro-nationalist, pro-capitalist, anti-socialist ideas while simultaneously hiding behind big government skirts with statutory limitations on liability, cost socialization, corporate shareholder protections from having to take personal responsibility for their own actions, regulatory inhibitions to competition, legal tax evasion, capital investment in communist and dictatorial labor markets, and use of U.S. infrastructure, police, national defense and the list goes on. Yet their proletariat hauls their water for them at the polls and on the streets, all while voting against their own interests.

Normally I would just say the prols on the right are fools, just like the prols on the left. But my question was about those who actually support their masters on principle; not simply because they were fooled. Who is worse? Who's principle is a greater threat to America?

The point is to make people feel like they are rebelling, without them actually doing so. — darthbarracuda

Yes, pure ideology! – my God, therefore I would prefer not to, and so on and so on. :smirk:

I didn't pull it out of thin air is my point. — Cheshire

No, of course you didn't, you're simply parroting the blueQ line which, with nothing to say about the billions of dollars poured in from American corporate financing, can't shut the fuck up about 'Russia'. The Koch's, the Wilk's, the Uihlein's, the Mercer's, the Adelson's, Foster Friess, Bernard Marcus, Regnery II (who, in some good news, died yesterday, one can only hope in miserable circumstances), Fox, local Super PACs with enormous funding and organizational capacity, Murdoch (an Australian blight we exported to the rest of the world), the preponderance of multimillionares in office who openly engage in insider trading... nooo it's a bunch of boogyman ex-KGB agents with Facebook accounts. Why would America, the home of the most brutal capitalist empire in the world, with a wildly active billionare activist class, take a swing to right, and into fascism? Must be Russians! This is blueQanon for Rachel Maddow watching morons.

And just to be clear, I have no doubt that 'Russia' has attempted to stir shit up in the US. It is what any sensible geostrategic rival would do to a nation as fucking stupid as the US. But they are, at best, a peripheral actor that piggbacked and plugged into an existing supermassive architecture of fascist bullshit peddled by homegrown extremists who have been cultivating a scared, ignorant, and fragile population for decades.

Normally I would just say the prols on the right are fools, just like the prols on the left. But my question was about those who actually support their masters on principle; not simply because they were fooled. Who is worse? Who's principle is a greater threat to America? — James Riley

I don't know.

I don't know. — darthbarracuda

I might have read too much into your OP (I hate when people do that, so if I did, please correct me), but I got the impression that you think the duplicitous master is bad (patriarchal, authoritarian and racist) so wouldn't those who where all-in, and did not have to be fooled to get on board, be the worse of the two?

The measure of a "good leader" is in their ability to quell dissent.

To say there is no Left Wing in America is to deny an entire radical counterculture.
Read Sorel.

The point is to make people feel like they are rebelling, without them actually doing so. — darthbarracuda

True. Revolutions aren't usually planned ahead of time. They start with random explosions of anger that are subsequently channeled into revolution. Stop the random explosions and you head off revolution.