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This narrative relies on a media narrative. The media focus is always on the right-wing resistance, because that serves as the narrative to manufacture consent

This narrative relies on a media narrative. The media focus is always on the right-wing resistance, because that serves as the narrative to manufacture consent for police and surveillance powers (look at these evil white supremacists!".) As a person firmly on the left (like, the actual left, not Joe-Bernie-whatever), I detest what happened to the trucker protests, and the anti-covid lockdown protests, which were all, in the media, portrayed as radical and violent right-wingers - when that was, when you saw any in person, NEVER the core of them and not even a large minority. The media has you believe otherwise. It pars-pro-totos the most radical element as the core, or the whole, of them, which then bludgeons the milquetoast left (party-political left type) into acquiesce with the police/banking powers used against them. "after all, we do have to contain the right wing!" And then these police powers set a precedent, and then they're established, and then they get converted into code with little opposition from what deems itself "progressive" civil society. And then we all sit in it.

recuter 4y ago
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- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Nothing. Most leftists are anti-authoritarian and want strict limits on the power of the state. The small number that reify authoritarian regimes like the USSR/DPRK are known as 'tankies' (a reference to sending in tanks to crush the 1956 rebellion in Hungary). They are unpopular and regarded as either very immature or (if they're really serious) not much better than Nazis. 'Red-brown alliance' refers to the tendency of left wing authoritarians to sooner or later make common cause with right wing authoritarians because it seems expedient to team up to overthrow the prevailing liberal order, not unlike the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that saw Hitler and Stalin divide up Poland. Authoritarian types tend to keep drifting right because right wing politics explicitly reify hierarchy and tend towards monarchy. 'The left' is highly fragmented in western countries, ranging from distributionists who like technology OK but want a flatter economic/industrial structure that treats capital like a library rather than an object of accumulation; to anti-civ types that want to dismantle industrial society altogether. Fortunately the latter tend to select themselves out and take up living in shacks instead.
  - recuter 4y ago
    > Nothing. Most leftists are anti-authoritarian and want strict limits on the power of the state. > 'The left' is highly fragmented in western countries These two things seem incongruent. I like how both yours and the other reply to me make it a point to say 'no true lefty' and only the 'bad' ones are authoritarian and would get ostracized but also lefties don't ostracize. The other reply claims that centrist lefties are really the authoritarian ones and you say the extreme lefties are the authoritarian ones. Who are we left with? Also, I was downvoted, I assume by lefties who "aren't lefties", for asking. I detect a pattern. To further reply to you both if "just-left-of-center liberal types" are bad, and extreme left tankies are bad, and they all call each other authoritarian and accuse one another of not being the real lefties -- this according to you -- how is one to best interact with a stranger who identifies as a leftie? Bonus question: further down thread I was told " If the cops submitted a thousand data requests and 999 of them came back with nothing, but one of them prevented someone from gunning down people, then they are were justifiable requests." -- since some lefties are authoritarian/violent tankie types shouldn't the police be investigating lefties none stop?
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      These two things seem incongruent. I'm not sure why. I know lots of people with different ideological tendencies (some of which I think are wrong or even silly) but with whom I have some core values in common. I think the best way to approach people of unfamiliar political viewpoints is to spend more time listening and less time badgering.
      - recuter 4y ago
        If the left is highly fragmented it is hard to make generalizations like "most leftists are anti-authoritarian". You yourself mention the tankies and others with an authoritarian bend. You might say they are not true lefties and are not representative but they say the same about you. > I think the best way to approach people of unfamiliar political viewpoints is to spend more time listening and less time badgering. I am all ears, it is not my intention to badger. The question is posited to you in good faith -- to me those you deem "bad lefties" are still lefties and leave a bad taste in my mouth. The proclivity towards censorship and authoritarian behavior, "well intentioned" and often justified as necessary for whatever reason, is not new and has sadly started being fashionable on the left again as of late. This, as is tradition, is the undoing of your movement. I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask if you can't agree about the subject amongst yourselves how an outsider should interact with you, it is not like I can automatically tell right away who is which flavor. What should I do about the "bad" ones?
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  No, most leftists have similar comments. The gp's comments above might as well come from someone like Noam Chomsky, they are not some brave new position. It's exactly centrists, or just-left-of-center liberal types, that go for this left authoritarianism. Which is more often than not quickly turned against more left positions much more quickly than against the right.
miguelazo 4y ago
>The media focus is always on the right-wing resistance Are you serious? Were you not alive in 2020 during the George Floyd protests? I could literally list hundreds of other examples just since then. The Cop City protests near Atlanta where an activist was just murdered by the police under very suspicious circumstances, for example.

recuter 4y ago

[flagged]

anigbrowl 4y ago
Nothing. Most leftists are anti-authoritarian and want strict limits on the power of the state. The small number that reify authoritarian regimes like the USSR/DPRK are known as 'tankies' (a reference to sending in tanks to crush the 1956 rebellion in Hungary). They are unpopular and regarded as either very immature or (if they're really serious) not much better than Nazis. 'Red-brown alliance' refers to the tendency of left wing authoritarians to sooner or later make common cause with right wing authoritarians because it seems expedient to team up to overthrow the prevailing liberal order, not unlike the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that saw Hitler and Stalin divide up Poland. Authoritarian types tend to keep drifting right because right wing politics explicitly reify hierarchy and tend towards monarchy. 'The left' is highly fragmented in western countries, ranging from distributionists who like technology OK but want a flatter economic/industrial structure that treats capital like a library rather than an object of accumulation; to anti-civ types that want to dismantle industrial society altogether. Fortunately the latter tend to select themselves out and take up living in shacks instead.
- recuter 4y ago
  > Nothing. Most leftists are anti-authoritarian and want strict limits on the power of the state. > 'The left' is highly fragmented in western countries These two things seem incongruent. I like how both yours and the other reply to me make it a point to say 'no true lefty' and only the 'bad' ones are authoritarian and would get ostracized but also lefties don't ostracize. The other reply claims that centrist lefties are really the authoritarian ones and you say the extreme lefties are the authoritarian ones. Who are we left with? Also, I was downvoted, I assume by lefties who "aren't lefties", for asking. I detect a pattern. To further reply to you both if "just-left-of-center liberal types" are bad, and extreme left tankies are bad, and they all call each other authoritarian and accuse one another of not being the real lefties -- this according to you -- how is one to best interact with a stranger who identifies as a leftie? Bonus question: further down thread I was told " If the cops submitted a thousand data requests and 999 of them came back with nothing, but one of them prevented someone from gunning down people, then they are were justifiable requests." -- since some lefties are authoritarian/violent tankie types shouldn't the police be investigating lefties none stop?
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    These two things seem incongruent. I'm not sure why. I know lots of people with different ideological tendencies (some of which I think are wrong or even silly) but with whom I have some core values in common. I think the best way to approach people of unfamiliar political viewpoints is to spend more time listening and less time badgering.
    - recuter 4y ago
      If the left is highly fragmented it is hard to make generalizations like "most leftists are anti-authoritarian". You yourself mention the tankies and others with an authoritarian bend. You might say they are not true lefties and are not representative but they say the same about you. > I think the best way to approach people of unfamiliar political viewpoints is to spend more time listening and less time badgering. I am all ears, it is not my intention to badger. The question is posited to you in good faith -- to me those you deem "bad lefties" are still lefties and leave a bad taste in my mouth. The proclivity towards censorship and authoritarian behavior, "well intentioned" and often justified as necessary for whatever reason, is not new and has sadly started being fashionable on the left again as of late. This, as is tradition, is the undoing of your movement. I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask if you can't agree about the subject amongst yourselves how an outsider should interact with you, it is not like I can automatically tell right away who is which flavor. What should I do about the "bad" ones?
tsimionescu 4y ago
No, most leftists have similar comments. The gp's comments above might as well come from someone like Noam Chomsky, they are not some brave new position. It's exactly centrists, or just-left-of-center liberal types, that go for this left authoritarianism. Which is more often than not quickly turned against more left positions much more quickly than against the right.

miguelazo 4y ago

>The media focus is always on the right-wing resistance Are you serious? Were you not alive in 2020 during the George Floyd protests? I could literally list hundreds of other examples just since then. The Cop City protests near Atlanta where an activist was just murdered by the police under very suspicious circumstances, for example.