I was glad that Howie Hawkins, who has long been a critic of NATO, came firmly out against Russia at the very beginning of the 2022 invasion. Note though that just as the Lenin-era Russia funded...
I was glad that Howie Hawkins, who has long been a critic of NATO, came firmly out against Russia at the very beginning of the 2022 invasion.
Note though that just as the Lenin-era Russia funded the left in the West, Putin has been supporting right-wing movements. “Manospherists” in the UK look to Russia as the epitome of traditional gender roles, Russia is notorious for being anti-LGBT, and many Republicans in the US notoriously are not supportive of supporting Ukraine including Trump and DeSantis but not Nikki Haley.
I know some tankies who aren't necessarily pro-Russia, but they are pro-anti-America and assume that almost anything negative about e.g. Russia and China is fake or at least not any worse than the...
I know some tankies who aren't necessarily pro-Russia, but they are pro-anti-America and assume that almost anything negative about e.g. Russia and China is fake or at least not any worse than the US. In this specific situation (invading Ukraine), they tend to be on the Russian side of the conflict: buying into the Russian narrative about protecting Russians and stopping Nazis.
Tankies? I was under the impression that some of the people mentioned in the video are pretty influential in the US (not only Chomsky). It is hard to estimate for someone who is not living in the...
Tankies? I was under the impression that some of the people mentioned in the video are pretty influential in the US (not only Chomsky). It is hard to estimate for someone who is not living in the US. When you look around, what do normal mainstream people think about them? I know you are not going to do a representative survey but if you had to guess, how many people see things related to the Ukraine war the way Chomsky sees them? 40%? 4%?
When I see people like Tulsi Gabbard spread this kind of thinking to the huge audience of the Joe Rogan Show (while Joe Rogan nods and does not challenge even the wildest claims), I am worried.
Mainstream democrats? Definitely under 5%. The current polarization in the US is that the left supports Ukraine and the right supports a more isolationist position (which you could argue is a...
Mainstream democrats? Definitely under 5%. The current polarization in the US is that the left supports Ukraine and the right supports a more isolationist position (which you could argue is a veiled support of Russia). Although the right isn’t that unified behind that position - old school Republicans.
I have a strong preference for written rather than video content. It's possible that hanging out here I will start to challenge that and watch more, but it's my starting point. I watched long...
I have a strong preference for written rather than video content. It's possible that hanging out here I will start to challenge that and watch more, but it's my starting point.
I watched long enough to hear the list of who he is complaining about. Cornel West, Greenwald, Taibi etc are influential in certain circles and I pay attention to them because some of their values I appreciate as a contrast to governmental positions. For example, they tend to be pro whistle blower, pro privacy and anti police brutality. However, they are niche figures and their influence varies depending on what the issue is. I am not going to listen to any of them about the Ukraine war. Pacifism is allowed here for individuals and certain religious and philosophical movements, but it is not main stream and it is not my view.
We all saw Russia invade. I may have doubts over whether Ukraine can win this war, but I wish Ukraine and Ukrainians the best.
There isn't really an "extreme left" in the US because, as you say, what is considered the mainstream left here is simply conservative without the wild conspiracy theories and overt hatred of...
There isn't really an "extreme left" in the US because, as you say, what is considered the mainstream left here is simply conservative without the wild conspiracy theories and overt hatred of minorities.
This idea that neo-nazis and those looking for universal healthcare and human rights are different sides of the same coin is exactly how authoritarians are able to legitimize conservative ideology and poison discourse on progress through their framing of the political landscape in a way that puts right-wing terrorists on the same footing as BLM activists protesting black people being extrajudicially executed in the street.
It's a false equivalency that pre-supposes conservativism is a legitimate political philosophy that needs to exist, when the reality is that the idea of insusting on applying out-dated, failed political solutions to modern problems is not a coherent or effective philosophy. Rather it is one that always leads back to fascism.
I’m not sure if it is worth replying this or how to do it but here goes. I am offended by people who find “fascism” everywhere and I’m concerned too many of them are surrounded by people who never...
I’m not sure if it is worth replying this or how to do it but here goes.
I am offended by people who find “fascism” everywhere and I’m concerned too many of them are surrounded by people who never offer any correction. When such correction is offered, the parties involve frequently go straight to the rejection of the categorical imperative seen in the above post. What kind of people postulate that certain people are always right and other people are always wrong? What kind of people systematically dehumanize and other anyone who disagrees with them? I’m left thinking that “fascist” and “anti-fascist” are like matter and anti-matter or the black and white squares of a chessboard.
I can only hope that people who think this way are going to turn out in the 2024 election and not stay home because Biden is some old white dude who isn’t radical enough and Kamala Harris was a former prosecutor so she’s a fascist, racist, etc.
Fascism is a permanent human concern that always needs to be kept at bay in any society, the greed and lust for power is something a certain demographic of humans will always want desperately....
Fascism is a permanent human concern that always needs to be kept at bay in any society, the greed and lust for power is something a certain demographic of humans will always want desperately. It's not simply that I disagree with conservativism, it's that by its very nature it is a political philosophy that leads to fascism by one road or another.
Consider that conservativism is, at its most fundemental, a preference for old solutions over new ones. This preference can function for a brief time, but the inevitable issue that arises is society changes, our understanding of the world and eachother evolves, our scientific grasp on reality gets stronger etc. and we are eventually confronted with new problems or ones we were unaware of that have gone unaddressed.
The conservative approach to solving these new problems is by insisting on the continued implementation of old solutions to try and solve contemporary problems. When this fails, conservatives are left with a dilemma, admit that they cannot solve the issue through conservative means or double down and suppress the problem. This list of failed solutions grows as time goes on, with conservatives doubling down time and again, until they find themselves living in an alternate reality that's so dissociated from anything real going on around them that they are forced to either abandon the philosophy that got them their (i.e. conservativism) or attempt to force reality to conform to what their philosophy says should be true.
This is where the break into fascism happens. The stolen elections, the propaganda, the violence etc. Anything to try and stop the movement of society along the rails of reality.
This is also why fascist systems inevitably fail, even if they sieze the levers of power and force their will on everyone, it's only a matter of time before people cannot tolerate any more abuse and falseness.
Progressive philosophy actively searches new infotmation, new solutions, to incorporate scientific understanding into policy. So it is not like the opposite checkers on a chess board, it is simply a commitment to understanding reality and using that understanding to better society.
Biden is likely to scrape a victory, but the fact that polls show him as being neck and neck with someone literally indicted 4 times and twice impeached, does not speak well of his fitness for the job. It was hubris for him to run for a second term and exposes our democracy to a lot of risk, especially when he campaigned on soing the opposite, but we are unfortunately stuck with him now so it is what it is. There's a chance he will win. There's a chance he will lose, and our nation will be plunged into complete fascism.
In my mind the time period 1905-1945 was the tail end of the process that started with the French revolution in Europe and had, in parallel, Japan's reaction to the threat of being colonized in...
In my mind the time period 1905-1945 was the tail end of the process that started with the French revolution in Europe and had, in parallel, Japan's reaction to the threat of being colonized in Europe where they felt they had to beat the colonizers at their own game. I don't think it is accidental at all that Mussolini had his revolution just four years after Lenin. You can always draw parallels between different places and times but I think it's a mistake to take those too literally.
The label is certainly used too much these days: sci-fi writer Charlie Stross said "Keir Starmer is a borderline fascist" (if that is who supports labor expect to see the tories keep screwing up and getting voted in anyway), I expect to see it applied to the police in Ithaca who are investing a murder at the homeless colony and also to school districts that ask about the period status of female athletes (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5524267/)
A lot of people on the left are getting into a hysterical state these days, just as the John Birch Society saw communists behind everything, they see fascists behind everything. Two years ago I saw a woman on the bus almost have a panic attack when she saw that Republicans were running candidates in a local election. I live in a small town where many people agree with the Republicans on issues such as gun control (e.g. they say the "fascist" NY state government is behind it) but the Republicans keep getting trashed in local elections because people hate Trump here.
I've met a lot of people in politics. I had a friend who grew up next to Noam Chomsky who introduced me to the people who run South End Press. We were the first people to publish audio Chomsky lectures on the internet and our organizing helped start United Progressives at Cornell. I've been to Howie Hawkins' house. A friend and co-worker from long ago is a leader in the local Republican party and when he wanted my signature to run candidates on the Democratic line (it really is that bad for them!) I did so, not because I agreed with him, but because a contested election would give the incumbents a mandate if his candidates lost, which they did.
I was really bothered by this women who seemed to want to live in a one-party state like Russia or China because having contested elections is dangerous to democracy. I can see where she is coming from with Jan 6 and all that but my take is that one reason the Democrats have been struggling for years is that every year they treat each election as a crisis whereas the Republicans are doing long-term power building with things like the Federalist society not to mention developing candidates for "boring" state-level elections where leftists couldn't be bothered to engage with a polity ("fascist", "racist", "*-phobic", ...) that they are contemptuous of.
Unfortunately there is a small core of people who surround themselves with other people who talk the same way, don't challenge them, and are perfectly happy to keep sawing off the legs of the picnic table that they're sitting on because it's all they've every known: and besides, the more power they give to the Republicans, the stronger their "selfish meme" becomes.
I was glad that Howie Hawkins, who has long been a critic of NATO, came firmly out against Russia at the very beginning of the 2022 invasion.
Note though that just as the Lenin-era Russia funded the left in the West, Putin has been supporting right-wing movements. “Manospherists” in the UK look to Russia as the epitome of traditional gender roles, Russia is notorious for being anti-LGBT, and many Republicans in the US notoriously are not supportive of supporting Ukraine including Trump and DeSantis but not Nikki Haley.
"Left."
Tankies exist and are considered to the (extreme) political left, yes.
I dunno. I know some tankies, and they don't like Russia any more than anyone else.
I know some tankies who aren't necessarily pro-Russia, but they are pro-anti-America and assume that almost anything negative about e.g. Russia and China is fake or at least not any worse than the US. In this specific situation (invading Ukraine), they tend to be on the Russian side of the conflict: buying into the Russian narrative about protecting Russians and stopping Nazis.
Tankies? I was under the impression that some of the people mentioned in the video are pretty influential in the US (not only Chomsky). It is hard to estimate for someone who is not living in the US. When you look around, what do normal mainstream people think about them? I know you are not going to do a representative survey but if you had to guess, how many people see things related to the Ukraine war the way Chomsky sees them? 40%? 4%?
When I see people like Tulsi Gabbard spread this kind of thinking to the huge audience of the Joe Rogan Show (while Joe Rogan nods and does not challenge even the wildest claims), I am worried.
Mainstream democrats? Definitely under 5%. The current polarization in the US is that the left supports Ukraine and the right supports a more isolationist position (which you could argue is a veiled support of Russia). Although the right isn’t that unified behind that position - old school Republicans.
I have a strong preference for written rather than video content. It's possible that hanging out here I will start to challenge that and watch more, but it's my starting point.
I watched long enough to hear the list of who he is complaining about. Cornel West, Greenwald, Taibi etc are influential in certain circles and I pay attention to them because some of their values I appreciate as a contrast to governmental positions. For example, they tend to be pro whistle blower, pro privacy and anti police brutality. However, they are niche figures and their influence varies depending on what the issue is. I am not going to listen to any of them about the Ukraine war. Pacifism is allowed here for individuals and certain religious and philosophical movements, but it is not main stream and it is not my view.
We all saw Russia invade. I may have doubts over whether Ukraine can win this war, but I wish Ukraine and Ukrainians the best.
There isn't really an "extreme left" in the US because, as you say, what is considered the mainstream left here is simply conservative without the wild conspiracy theories and overt hatred of minorities.
This idea that neo-nazis and those looking for universal healthcare and human rights are different sides of the same coin is exactly how authoritarians are able to legitimize conservative ideology and poison discourse on progress through their framing of the political landscape in a way that puts right-wing terrorists on the same footing as BLM activists protesting black people being extrajudicially executed in the street.
It's a false equivalency that pre-supposes conservativism is a legitimate political philosophy that needs to exist, when the reality is that the idea of insusting on applying out-dated, failed political solutions to modern problems is not a coherent or effective philosophy. Rather it is one that always leads back to fascism.
I’m not sure if it is worth replying this or how to do it but here goes.
I am offended by people who find “fascism” everywhere and I’m concerned too many of them are surrounded by people who never offer any correction. When such correction is offered, the parties involve frequently go straight to the rejection of the categorical imperative seen in the above post. What kind of people postulate that certain people are always right and other people are always wrong? What kind of people systematically dehumanize and other anyone who disagrees with them? I’m left thinking that “fascist” and “anti-fascist” are like matter and anti-matter or the black and white squares of a chessboard.
I can only hope that people who think this way are going to turn out in the 2024 election and not stay home because Biden is some old white dude who isn’t radical enough and Kamala Harris was a former prosecutor so she’s a fascist, racist, etc.
Fascism is a permanent human concern that always needs to be kept at bay in any society, the greed and lust for power is something a certain demographic of humans will always want desperately. It's not simply that I disagree with conservativism, it's that by its very nature it is a political philosophy that leads to fascism by one road or another.
Consider that conservativism is, at its most fundemental, a preference for old solutions over new ones. This preference can function for a brief time, but the inevitable issue that arises is society changes, our understanding of the world and eachother evolves, our scientific grasp on reality gets stronger etc. and we are eventually confronted with new problems or ones we were unaware of that have gone unaddressed.
The conservative approach to solving these new problems is by insisting on the continued implementation of old solutions to try and solve contemporary problems. When this fails, conservatives are left with a dilemma, admit that they cannot solve the issue through conservative means or double down and suppress the problem. This list of failed solutions grows as time goes on, with conservatives doubling down time and again, until they find themselves living in an alternate reality that's so dissociated from anything real going on around them that they are forced to either abandon the philosophy that got them their (i.e. conservativism) or attempt to force reality to conform to what their philosophy says should be true.
This is where the break into fascism happens. The stolen elections, the propaganda, the violence etc. Anything to try and stop the movement of society along the rails of reality.
This is also why fascist systems inevitably fail, even if they sieze the levers of power and force their will on everyone, it's only a matter of time before people cannot tolerate any more abuse and falseness.
Progressive philosophy actively searches new infotmation, new solutions, to incorporate scientific understanding into policy. So it is not like the opposite checkers on a chess board, it is simply a commitment to understanding reality and using that understanding to better society.
Biden is likely to scrape a victory, but the fact that polls show him as being neck and neck with someone literally indicted 4 times and twice impeached, does not speak well of his fitness for the job. It was hubris for him to run for a second term and exposes our democracy to a lot of risk, especially when he campaigned on soing the opposite, but we are unfortunately stuck with him now so it is what it is. There's a chance he will win. There's a chance he will lose, and our nation will be plunged into complete fascism.
In my mind the time period 1905-1945 was the tail end of the process that started with the French revolution in Europe and had, in parallel, Japan's reaction to the threat of being colonized in Europe where they felt they had to beat the colonizers at their own game. I don't think it is accidental at all that Mussolini had his revolution just four years after Lenin. You can always draw parallels between different places and times but I think it's a mistake to take those too literally.
The label is certainly used too much these days: sci-fi writer Charlie Stross said "Keir Starmer is a borderline fascist" (if that is who supports labor expect to see the tories keep screwing up and getting voted in anyway), I expect to see it applied to the police in Ithaca who are investing a murder at the homeless colony and also to school districts that ask about the period status of female athletes (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5524267/)
A lot of people on the left are getting into a hysterical state these days, just as the John Birch Society saw communists behind everything, they see fascists behind everything. Two years ago I saw a woman on the bus almost have a panic attack when she saw that Republicans were running candidates in a local election. I live in a small town where many people agree with the Republicans on issues such as gun control (e.g. they say the "fascist" NY state government is behind it) but the Republicans keep getting trashed in local elections because people hate Trump here.
I've met a lot of people in politics. I had a friend who grew up next to Noam Chomsky who introduced me to the people who run South End Press. We were the first people to publish audio Chomsky lectures on the internet and our organizing helped start United Progressives at Cornell. I've been to Howie Hawkins' house. A friend and co-worker from long ago is a leader in the local Republican party and when he wanted my signature to run candidates on the Democratic line (it really is that bad for them!) I did so, not because I agreed with him, but because a contested election would give the incumbents a mandate if his candidates lost, which they did.
I was really bothered by this women who seemed to want to live in a one-party state like Russia or China because having contested elections is dangerous to democracy. I can see where she is coming from with Jan 6 and all that but my take is that one reason the Democrats have been struggling for years is that every year they treat each election as a crisis whereas the Republicans are doing long-term power building with things like the Federalist society not to mention developing candidates for "boring" state-level elections where leftists couldn't be bothered to engage with a polity ("fascist", "racist", "*-phobic", ...) that they are contemptuous of.
Unfortunately there is a small core of people who surround themselves with other people who talk the same way, don't challenge them, and are perfectly happy to keep sawing off the legs of the picnic table that they're sitting on because it's all they've every known: and besides, the more power they give to the Republicans, the stronger their "selfish meme" becomes.