maybe i've just instinctively avoided places like this but that isn't my impression at all, i find that a lot of people agree even if they don't call themselves leftist at all, in fact the whole problem is that basically everyone has nearly identical beliefs but can't bear the thought of voting for leftists who want to actually treat people fairly.
frankly the sentiment of this post feels like astroturfing to sow discontent.
'Centrists' don't help much either because they too hold the left to a higher standard than the right and always seem to be looking for any excuse to whip out the ol' "so much for the tolerant left" so that they can feel better about themselves when they vote for who they really wanted to vote for anyway.
People on the right can say in plain English "I want to dismantle women's rights and put all gay people into camps" and the 'centrist' will be like "hmmm yes that seems like a valid political opinion". But the moment someone on the left drops the high road shit for once and bites back, the 'centrist', clutching pearls is like "See? This is why I'm supporting the bigots that hate everyone, because you SWORE and that's unacceptable!"
This so fucking much
The differences of opinion are still there in irl leftist spaces but it alters how it feels when you’re actively doing something. Online you only see the differences in opinion but the real leftists aren’t just arguing details online (though they do that too) they’re running food banks and organizing housing cooperatives and coming out en masse when someone is being evicted. They’re putting together food packages and sending books to inmates. They’re hiking out into the desert to leave water for migrants and waiting by the train tracks to toss food up to travelers.
Bickering about details online might seem ridiculous to someone who isn’t involved but for the actually active leftists that part is only a sliver of their leftism and it’s not necessarily a bad thing— it’s very hard to imagine the world organized other than it is and one way we can be prepared to make the right decisions together when gaps appear is to discuss everything from every angle. I’m not going to pretend all the stuff online is in good faith and I suspect a good percentage of keyboard warriors who are not actually involved in leftward movement, but I do think in the context of real activism the bickering makes more sense.
A lot of online leftists aren't doing anything because they don't know how to do something (or are scared, e.g. of losing their job or of getting brutalized by the police). If you aren't doing anything in The Real World(TM) there are only so many things left to do, and the internet is genuinely terrible about people who make mistakes or change their opinion.
They suck because nobody is left enough for anyone else, this past year the left splintered and if you so much as lean a little bit left or right of another leftist, you’re a fascist and they don’t want your support.
Meanwhile the right is unified, so no wonder the left is getting its ass handed to them.
It's how we're conditioned to behave by society from birth. Break the rules and you get punished.
It's easy to convince people to do wrong if you convince them there is no right to be done.
That's why Tankies are so hard to tell us both sides bad.
The Left: Fractured Butt Hole. 😞
I need someone to explain to me why I should be guilted into staying on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
By this logic I should be on truth social trying to make it “a better place.” This is fucking stupid. The sites are built on rage bait, The algorithms want to keep you angry and fighting with people online. You are fighting against massive companies who have weaponized your data against you for the purpose of making sure you hang around. The only correct decision is to leave.
We need to build our own spaces and defend them.
As a leftist its also important to keep in mind we do differentiate between leftists who hold some opinions we disagree with compared to a Liberal who disagrees with us on nearly everything. Especially when said Liberals demand to be treated like leftists yet support imperalism, genocide, apartheid, capitalism, bigotry, and yet constantly call people "fake leftists" or "tankies".
Preach
I think you underestimate my ability to fuck things up. Especially my plans to do nothing.
Freedom is a humanist value. Curtailing freedom to do wrong is of course acceptable. Something most people here won't like is that the best gender/sexuality is hetero-CIS. That doesn't make the freedom not to be forced into the best humanist production of 20+ births per lifetime to not be a valid freedom. A feminist/queer supremacy can define wrongs as hiring practices, or not believing their preferred side in any accusation.
Autocracy, oppression, warmongering is not a left/right exclusivity. Warmongering against those less liberal than "us" is common. All of these are huge wrongs, not the slightestly cured by "leftism". Freedom has to be more important than good, because there is no non-evil way of imposing "only good", or especially, letting a ruling autocracy corrupt definition of good.
UBI is especially important as a solution to divisiveness. It is incredibly empowering to workers, and empowers both forming relationships, and empowering those unhappy into leaving relationships.
To be honest, if the leftist revolution promises Stalins USSR style economics and governance, then Western people are better off without it because most people in Western nations are relatively well off, so moving to that type of economic/political model will make the majority in a western nation poorer.
For example, 66% of US population are homeowners, that is they own both the land and property (if any). In this case, the humanitarian pov is that the minority should be lifted from poverty, and provided equal rights to achieve self-actualization. So housing assistance, education, health care and food assistance.
The democratic and humane way to achieve this is via high tax rates on the uber wealthy. People also deserve protections from discrimination to enable their self-actualization in a psychologically and physically safe manner. My own philosophy is that a person is born without any will to be born, so that person doesn’t necessarily owe anything to anyone else other than reasonable and mutual social contracts. People don’t have the right to be sociopaths or psychopaths, but they don’t have to be self sacrificing or altruistic.
My own pov aside, the U.S. could implement China-style market socialism and state-controlled socialism for itself and its citizens, but then it’s not going to be a haven for immigrants because such policies require cultural homogeneity. Cultural homogeneity requires strict immigration control, as seen in China, https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/why-isnt-china-considering-immigration-against-demographic-decline-163101.
But I think maintaining immigration to democratic and economically well off nations is important for lifting the world out of poverty and illiteracy. However, all of this necessitates that nations preserve democracy. Capitalism has ruined democracy, which is why we get neoconservatism/neoliberalism, two sides of the same fail coin.
Governance models have forgotten that people formed groups, communities and nations to ensure the betterment and self-actualization of the individual, not to create productivity or workers. Currently the world acts to enable self actualization for companies or nations, which is why we end up with genocides and corporate imperialism as a default state. People deserve better than the Stalin-style leftism or the Clinton-style liberalism. I think we need some type of humanitarian libertarianism, where we can ensure free markets, individual freedoms, but also governance models which ensure social fairness and justice.
Lmao i love this planet.
