Forum Replies Created
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Of course, it goes without saying that it shouldn’t be just privileges whites talking to other privileged whites — in the media, in government, etc. etc.
Just saying that when it is, it can often devolve into a “holier than thou,” self-serving event for the few, and that really doesn’t solve a thing, ever. From what I’ve seen, it also draws rebuke from POC public figures — or laughter, or scorn, etc. etc.
And, om that note, I really have to get out of here and find some super-powerful cough and cold medicine. Not that any of that ever seems to work for me.
Edit: Thanks for your reply, ZN. Much appreciated.
Best to you and yours.
Yeah Sanders is what Chomsky said he was, a new deal type.
But I think steering away from race is a white straight male privilege move.
And to me unless it has equal parts race and gender in it along with class, it’s not even the left.
None of this is easy. It;s mangled tangled and bumpy. There will never be anyone who gets it all right. Dismissing race though is a mistake. In the USA you can’t think class without race being part of it. And once that is realized, then there’s a lot of challenging and conflict-laden ideas to work through. None of us will get it “right” either.
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I’m not seeing people dismissing race. I see some using it to steer the conversation back to mainstream Democratic/GOP status quo. An attempt to shame people into just shutting up and clapping louder, especially young people, filled with passion, ideals, energy and the desire for change.
And, no, these discussions really don’t need a certain preset balance in order to be “the left.” That sounds like a demand for “purity,” IMO.
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And to me unless it has equal parts race and gender in it along with class, it’s not even the left.
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Again, I think you and I just aren’t dealing with the same interpretation of things here. It’s the proverbial talking past each other. So on that note, I think I’m gonna head out.
Enjoy the weekend!
Also: I reject the frame that it’s supposedly easy for people of privilege to hold fast to their principles,
Oh as it happens I believe that one bit completely.
I see it on an everyday basis, too.
And of course privilege here means “white privilege.”
You look long and hard and close enough at white privilege, you can see—to quote Noah Cross from Chinatown—it’s “capable of ANYTHING.”
Well, perhaps a better way of putting this: It’s not at all easier for those who seek rapid change than the same privileged class who insist we must take baby steps, “or nothing ever gets done!!”
As in, people of privilege have it easier when it comes to either option, or any option, so it’s pretty ridiculous to go all “holier than thou” against the people who talk about the tremendous urgency involved. I just reject that the case is better for people of privilege who insist on the “sensible” and “reasonable” route, which takes decades, if it ever happens at all. And our history has been — at least since the 1970s — of one step forward, two or more steps back. So even on their own grounds, it’s not working.
Not sure I can add humor to the debate here, either, but I will say I’ve grown quite tired of the “ideological purity” strawman, along with “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
I run into these memes on another forum dominated, by centrist Dems, and I try to say to them, No one is asking for “ideological purity”. We’re just asking for “much better.” No one is asking for “the perfect.” We’re just asking for “much better.” Oh, and given that we haven’t seen “the good” as an option in things like the ACA or Dodd-Frank, “the perfect” isn’t in danger of forcing “the good” out in the first place.
Cornel West (also) pushed back against the “purity” strawman on my TV this morning, saying that it (purity) wasn’t human, and he and others like him focus on the human.
You need to own it. You said communist is what you desire but not what was presented during the cold war. That is why I used it. Your memory is failing you
And that was just him.
BT is free to speak his mind but no one else espoused those views.
ZN, it’s far more accurate to just say “no one espoused those views.”
WV and I share the same basic non-school school, as far as political philosophy goes. We’re both eclectic and non-orthodox, but “libertarian socialist” is a pretty good catchall descriptor. Left-libertarian, left-anarchist, etc. etc.
“Communism,” in its true sense — at least as I see it — is just one possible road it might take. One possible “logical progression” after libertarian socialism comes into being. And it’s quite literally the opposite of the Soviet perversion of the word, or the Chinese one. It’s the opposite of totalitarianism. It’s the apotheosis of true democracy, as second nature, in my view. The absence of the state and all classes. Obviously, that means no ruling class, either.
Bnw was basically just red-baiting. He doesn’t believe it’s possible to see “communism” the way I do. Hell, he doesn’t believe anyone can see Obama as “conservative,” which I do as well.
Bottom line: No one here espouses the views bnw suggests with that angry old right-wing slur.
