Lefty Internal Politics: How to Talk About This Stuff?

[Zorral]

Wokeness = teaching the history of the United States that includes the primary role the Atlantic slave trade, slavery, the domestic slave trade (and the Native American genocide) played in turning the North American colonies into an economic powerhouse, and the adjacent history which the unplumbable personal horror and cruelty that enslaving and being enslaved was.  This makes (some) White people uncomfortable* (until they get their next bespoke latte) so it must be disappeared from classrooms, libraries, media and conversation, to be replaced by discussions and materials in classroom, libraries, media and conversation that tell us how awful the non-existent antifa is and how any well meaning person must resist, which is how we all get along and sing kumbya.  Which is important, not that They are killing women and children and other powerless people every single day.

* For example tourist companies on Lake Windermere have written the fact that many of the estates and mansions built there were built out of the fortunes of the Atlantic slave trade and the sugar slavery in the Caribbean, because some people on the boats complained about being so informed.  While, here, tourists are shrieking that Thomas Jefferson the slaver is included in the tour of  Monticello -- though that's a separate tour that they don't have to take.  While calling out this stuff is 'mean' i.e. woke.

Edited June 16 by Zorral

[Varysblackfyre321]

11 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

That’s what I’m calling maximalism. We can call it something else (Absolutism? Fundamentalism? I dunno), as long as we understand what we talking about.

23 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

You can just use more words to explain why it’s counterproductive—I understand the want for a simple, one word catchy quick-phrase 

But sometimes it’s better to be specific on what exactly you’ve a problem with as to avoid the stigmatization of the very concept of harm reduction.

I agree some measures taken in its name can be counterproductive—the analysis and criticism can and should  be purely to the effect of highlighting that and proposing more productive alternatives.

11 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I lost track of Jordan Peterson since he came back from some wacky drug rehab in Russia, then licked Victor Orban's ass. Perhaps you can send me the link to what you're describing so I can have a better idea of what you're talking about here.

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

23 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

By being rude, you're preventing yourself from learning what may be valuable point of view from the other party. You're also preventing the other party to learn anything from you, since they're bound to get defensive or become rude in return. You're turning what could have been interesting and educational experience from both parties into a competition who will be most creative in dissing the other one. (again, in this paragraph "you" is impersonal, it's not aimed particularly at you).

Best debates I've either been in or saw have this great conclusion at the end, where everyone involved has this "Hey, I disagree with you a lot, but it's been great talking to you and I feel like I've learned something new and valuable. I'll ruminate about what you just said" feeling, and - at least in my experience - I feel watching and participating is such exchanges helped me and enriched me as a person. This would not have been possible if the tone of the conversation crossed the limit of rudeness. Heated - yes, passionate - yes, honest - of course; but not rude.

That said, I can sympathize with the frustration - for not every debate can be like this. Like you, I also think there's many people whose arguments lack any coherence, insight or even basic logic and who couldn't say anything remotely intelligent if their life depended on it. But if that's the case, why bother debating them at all, why not just leave (instead of dissing them) and find someone better to converse with?

Oh because they may need to be made into a pariah.

This is a perfectly fine reason to debate with someone especially on a public stage.

instead hemming and hawing on trying to convince an interlocutor  who wants to do a fascism  and pretending they’re positions are respectable and grounded in reason it’s okay to destroy them with facts and logic.

See here? This is a good debate between a leftist and fascist.

No strawmaning, engaging what’s being said calmly and an explanation on why the fascist is scum worthy of being hated and mocked. 
Forgive me it often seems to me a lot of liberals and some on the left  see debate as just way they can show they’re smart, totally able to remain calm and civil and goodnatured in a dialogue no matter the subject and a fun little exercise they should do with no worry about the consequences for anyone outside the debate. 

But that’s not universal and I’ll fully admit there being well intentioned, good people who’ve a more idealistic view of the nature of debates than I do. Destiny(a YouTuber who periodically debates the worst and best) is one of them even though I don’t listen to him much because I find his voice insufferable.
 

Edited June 17 by Varysblackfyre321

[Larry of the Lawn]

Fwiw that dude Vaush seems like a real piece of shit.  

[Varysblackfyre321]

50 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

Fwiw that dude Vaush seems like a real piece of shit.  

Eh yeah that’s fair.

I enjoy his political commentary and advocacy but I’m under no illusions good content creators often if not rarely are good people. 

I do think he’s demonstrated an ability to do internal criticism of certain overly sensitive, overly santmonous, overly fretful segments of the left in a way that won’t accidentally push people to more reactionary takes. 

Edited June 17 by Varysblackfyre321

[Zorral]

nvm - wrong thread

Edited June 21 by Zorral

[Varysblackfyre321]

I’ve come to the realization  a lot of American liberals and a lot of the left are more fretful maybe one would say sensitive  of mockery than the right is in some respects. And less accepting of different forms of activism, activism  that don’t neatly align as neatly with respectability politics or some that looks  a bit goofy. 

I think this mentality helped jettison a lot of the anti-feminist hysteria on YouTube like a lot of the people catastrophizing about x random feminist(who usually didn’t have a large platform) doing a “freak out” where people fashioned themselves as liberal. 

This moral panic helped funnel a lot of young people into the far right.

 

[Heartofice]

I don't know what point you are trying to make, but here in the UK you have things like the Just Stop Oil protests which on the whole have served to just piss people off and turn them against Just Stop Oil.

If your tactic to get people on board with your message is to stop people getting to work, to stop ambulances saving people, to ruin people's days and fuck up works of art then maybe try something else. 

Trying to win over the everyman in the street by annoying them, and then doing some silly hippy dance isn't the answer.

A lot of these protests are mainly speaking to people they have already convinced. I've been forced to try and get around these things in London and it's almost entirely populated by the same demographics of people. 

• Art school dropouts who are probably on at least 3 types of drug and live in a squat in East London
• Middle class students on gap years who don't want to have to get a job any time soon
• Elderly housewives who have been living off the fact they bought a house in the 80s and don't have very much else to do during the day and need to find a purpose

Those things aren't convincing the bloke in the street and there is a serious disconnect between them. You walk past these protests and people are just grumbling about what a bunch of idiots they are, and laughing at their lack of self awareness.

[Rippounet]

24 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

If your tactic to get people on board with your message is to stop people getting to work, to stop ambulances saving people, to ruin people's days and fuck up works of art then maybe try something else.

"Something else" has been tried for decades now, and most people still don't give a shit about the environment, so trying to block everything is fair game now. People most annoyed are almost always those who didn't want to listen in the first place.

[Heartofice]

24 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

"Something else" has been tried for decades now, and most people still don't give a shit about the environment, so trying to block everything is fair game now. People most annoyed are almost always those who didn't want to listen in the first place.

That's not really a good argument.

Its not like there are only 2 options: 'What we did before' and 'Piss everyone off and do stupid drug fuelled dancing in the street'. 

[Ran]

4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

"Something else" has been tried for decades now, and most people still don't give a shit about the environment,

Yale's Environmental Performance Index has a nice 10 year change tracker for the 180 countries it tracks. 58 countries are performing worse than they did before, totalling -212 points on the index, an average of -3.65 per country. 122 countries are performing better than they did, totalling 827.8 or an average of 6.78 improvement over the last decade. Overall, the index suggests an overall improvement in environmental performance among the indexed countries.

The idea that our air is of the same shitty quality that it was 50 years ago, that our water is of the same shitty quality it was 50 years ago, that our energy production is as carbon intensive as it was, that our energy usage is not more effecient, etc., is just an absurdity that can't be taken seriously, the paranoia of Chicken Little.

Global carbon emissions per capita has flattened over the last decade, and will likely begin to decline over the next decade or two, at least to a point.

 

Edited June 30 by Ran

[Varysblackfyre321]

13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I don't know what point you are trying to make, but here in the UK you have things like the Just Stop Oil protests which on the whole have served to just piss people off and turn them against Just Stop Oil.

Oh that the left should take an adage from the right and stop fretting so much about getting mocked by their opposition to the point of needlessly attacking their allies.

I give your side credit for being more pragmatic in this respect.

Anyway can you actually point to any social or economic movement that progressed through doing things everyone already liked or didn’t mind?

13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

If your tactic to get people on board with your message is to stop people getting to work, to stop ambulances saving people, to ruin people's days and fuck up works of art then maybe try something else. 

Ohh ohhh I know what’d you’d be saying in response to the civil rights movement.

 

 

Or Gay rights movement.

Women’s suffrage. 
If you were being consistent I believe.

Could be you think holding up traffic to protest segregation would be a bit justifiable than protesting over climate change.

If holding up the traffic is outside the bounds of proper protest than any meaningful protest is essentially dead because that’s really one of the most acts of civil disobedience groups can take that’s not easily ignored.

I get it my friend—it’s practical to get your opposition to basically neuter itself and delude themselves into thinking they can make people like you an ally by making themselves obsessed with not inconveniencing or angering anyone.

I get that its pragmatic, please don’t give me some vapid moral indignation though. 
 

Ohhhhh I just remembered all the anti-monarchist protesters who got arrested for just holding up sighns saying monarchy bad during Charles coronation. Isn’t that a shame?

Edited July 1 by Varysblackfyre321

[Varysblackfyre321]

15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Trying to win over the everyman in the street by annoying them, and then doing some silly hippy dance isn't the answer.

Now This is a such worrying trend I’m seeing this incredulity at protests  being annoying.

15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

A lot of these protests are mainly speaking to people they have already convinced.

Again this expressed incredulity is so alarming.

a lot of times protests are meant more to mobilize and inspire people who’re already sympathetic to them to act out in ways to help spread their message and propel their goals than convert people unsympathetic or hostile to them.

 

15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I've been forced to try and get around these things in London

Oh.

15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Art school dropouts who are probably on at least 3 types of drug and live in a squat in East London

Wait did you actually get out your car and do interviews and drug tests?

If so it doesn’t sound like you were in much of a hurry.

15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Middle class students on gap years who don't want to have to get a job any time soon

Again you gleamed this by?

Like did they wear a shirt laying out their life story?

 

15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

• Elderly housewives who have been living off the fact they bought a house in the 80s and don't have very much else to do during the day and need to find a purpose

 

So do you like have a psychic ability to where you can glimpse into the past actions of people by starring at them?

Forgive me I jest, but it sounds you’re doing as follows

“These protesters who are young and/or women annoy me so naturally they have x traits I loath.”

You’re compounding things to be outraged about them based on nothing but bias, metaphorically  frothing out of the mouth.

15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Those things aren't convincing the bloke in the street and there is a serious disconnect between them. You walk past these protests and people are just grumbling about what a bunch of idiots they are, and laughing at their lack of self awareness.

Hey question how triggered do you think the average bloke would be hearing “we’re here we’re queer,” in the 80s during a gay rights protests which tended to be really gaudy and really annoying?
do you think hearing that instantly make him less likely to try and beat the gay out of their kid if they had any?

Anyway I get it, it’s rational for you to want your opponents to be petrified at being mocked by you and those on your side.
I totally get that.Please don’t use moral indignation against me, I’m trying to be nice.

 

Edited July 1 by Varysblackfyre321

[Varysblackfyre321]

Oh should note the original video I posted didn’t feature any talk of people blocking roads. Just progressive dancing in a public venue while protesting the systemic queer-phobia propagated in Florida and getting on a NY train track to protest the lack of care given to the homeless in the city. There seems to be an attempt to conflate those actions with a one conservative activist  can more easily have(or at least feign) righteous fury at without having to combat the message of the protesters,.

It’d just sound whiney if you complain about protesters you’ve a idealogical or policy grievance with dancing no matter what your political stripes.

Oh here’s another example of a conservative activist trying to get his opponents to depower themselves: 

Through elucidating a negative reaction from his side.

Edited July 1 by Varysblackfyre321

[gruff one]

For consideration.

 

[Zorral]

False 'lefty' flags, everywhere, about everything.

A viral left-wing Twitter account may have been fake all along
The Erica Marsh account shows how ‘rage baiting’ remains a powerful way to win attention and score political points

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/04/twitter-erica-marsh-suspended/

What to Know About a Seemingly Fake Document in a Gay Rights Case
A supposed request for a website for a same-sex wedding played a minor role in a major clash between free speech and gay rights at the Supreme Court.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/03/us/politics/same-sex-marriage-document-supreme-court.html

I remembered from the time that this was bullshit.  Why didn't SCOTUS?

[Varysblackfyre321]

9 hours ago, gruff one said:

For consideration.

 

“European reacts” and pictures people supporting pride memorabilia even—gasp—a child.

I’ll watch it to see if My bias is misplaced but this screams reactionary bait and I’ll hate for more of this stuff to get it stuck in my recommendation feed on YouTube.

Before I do Would I be remiss to think they use the word degeneracy and/or woke?

Edited July 5 by Varysblackfyre321

[Zorral]

Only idiot will believe ANYTHING that They accuse 'the left' of being, saying or doing.

On the other hand there is no end to fascists' lies; nor do cowardly fascists back down, no matter how often called on the blatant, preposterous lying.  BTW, Patrick Henry was anything but a religious fundie.  He was an Anglican, who believed in tolerance, and most of all, what he believed is that religion's function was to help keep political law and order.

Hawley Slammed For Using Fake Founding Father Quote To Push Christian Nationalism On July 4

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/hawley-slammed-for-using-fake-founding-father-quote-to-push-christian-nationalism-on-july-4

[gruff one]

19 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

“European reacts” and pictures people supporting pride memorabilia even—gasp—a child.

I’ll watch it to see if My bias is misplaced but this screams reactionary bait and I’ll hate for more of this stuff to get it stuck in my recommendation feed on YouTube.

Before I do Would I be remiss to think they use the word degeneracy and/or woke?

Woke used once near the beginning by a gay poster to her video, wokeness once near the end. Degeneracy not once.

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, gruff one said:

Woke used once near the beginning by a gay poster to her video, wokeness once near the end. Degeneracy not once.

“Pride month is thankfully coming to an end.” Literally in the first three seconds of the video.

Proceeds to claim this particular month being unique due to the accusations of queer people grooming children(which every year gets), outrage at kink(which every year gets), and people identifying as non-humans(which may be dumb but has always happened to an infinitesimal degree).

the first example of “kink”  she’s chosen to give for outrage was just one man twerking where kids can see him.

The man isn’t even exposing his genitals, and it’s just one guy in one parade.

as much reason to get outraged at this then the women who dance as scantily clad at a kid rock concert. But still she infers that the parents who brought their kids to pride should be taken away for this.

 

Second one does show naked guys riding bikes.
The legality of Public nudity warrants discussion and not every instance of it is same level of sexual aggression as say a flasher at the park.

Cites Blair white(one of the GOOD trans people) who considers herself a man whose praised John Doyle, a man who self-identifies as an authoritarian, for his politeness during a discussion with her where he advocated for sodomy laws.

White did get demonized for showing some instances of nudity at pride on YouTube and says it bolsters her claim of pride not being for kids. Ever.

This is all less than five minutes in the video.

Now Having watched it completely it is in part an example of an obvious bigot trying to get the target of their bigotry to do their work for them by an allusion that it’ll eventually make them—the bigots—more receptive to at least some of the groups goals.

It’s an age old tactic that does unfortunately work to some extent. Himmler did enlist the National association of German Jews to push back against anti-nazi activists during some of their rallies and some “moderate” pleaded with the Jewish community to expunge the radical Jews they say we’re trying to destroy society, segregationists in the early 1900s trotted out elderly black people who were more servile as an example for younger black folk who wanted to upend the caste system they lived under. 
 

“If we act hysterical in response to any instance of a kid being near anything queer, and say it’s the worst thing ever then the people who say queer people are a threat to children(and really the public at large) aren’t so bad. We should also hyperventilate over the few edge cases that conform to at least some extent to the paranoia of the bigots(a gay couple abusing a child in their custody or care let’s say murders or sexually abuses the,) to show we are in fact reasonable.”

”If we act hysterical in response to any instance of a aryan boy being near anything kosher, say it’s the worst thing ever than the people who say Jewish people are a threat to children(and really the public at large) the people who say Jews are a threat to children(and civilization) aren’t so bad, doubly so if hyperventilate over the few anecdotes (real or imaginary) that fit their worst possible fears(Jewish perso  abuses kid, defrauds proud working German family rendering them destitute, etc etc).
 

 Though having said all that I have to enquire what your point was in posting the video?

Looking at what has gotten your approval on this thread I’m inclined to think it’s because you thought this obvious reactionary was speaking sense and/or at least progressives should listen to her advice moving forward on the method of their political advocacy. if you’re not of similar political stripe of this person I struggle to see a good reason for you to tell anyone to listen to her. 

2 hours ago, gruff one said:

Woke used once near the beginning by a gay poster to her video,

Yeah it seems a reoccurring them throughout the video—her pulling comments from gay commentators to give credence to her theme of Pride going too far that the consensus  good old fashioned queer people(those queers you liked) are sick of it.

I usually do so hate it when people invoke their identity to bolster their political rhetoric.

Especially when they’re the type to(rightfully) recognize and talk about   how fucking stupid it is.