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Good description of the left, Bitter Crank.

One has to have little historical understanding to put things into context, as you have.

Conservatives use the "far left" as a rhetorical device to devalue liberals. A meaningless term. — Jackson

Independents and moderate Dems, like Bill Maher and Elon Musk, use the term, "far left" to show that "liberal progressives" arent liberal or progressive, but are wacko-wokesters that are actually status-quo authoritarians. When you have an incessant need to control other people and continue to vote for people that have been in power for decades, they are anything but liberal or progressive. Both sides mis-use the terms, "liberal" and "progressive". Both extremes are authoritarian in that they want to tell you how to live your life. One or two-party systems are the status-quo and abolishing political parties would be considered progress.

That approach doesn't work for me, that's for sure. But we can at least expect bad things to happen -- plan on them, prepare ahead. — Bitter Crank

I'm actually not sure how to plan ahead for a catastrophe. I'll have to think about it.

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Yes. — whollyrolling

Name it.

actually not sure how to plan ahead for a catastrophe. I'll have to think about it. — frank

I was thinking more of mental preparation. Really big catastrophes leave little opportunity for meaningful preparation. Like, the dinosaurs should have expected a meteorite to wipe them out? Ukrainians should have known the Russians would wreck everything in 2022?

On the other hand, lots of people regularly put themselves in harm's way. They buy a house located in a flood plain. They build a house in the fire-prone Northern California forests. They site a nuclear power plant on a known earthquake fault.

There is no left left. And neither is right right. There is production, consumption, production, and consumption only. In all the diversity in personality, individual markers, different cloth styles, musical tastes, etc. there is greater global monoty then efver seen before. The world turns into a grey, amorphous, uniform ball of sameness.

Insofar the catastrophe is involved, there are tours organized now inside atomic shelters that are now out of use. The TV said the tours were sold out months ahead...

Does any culture believe stabbing and murdering people is acceptable (outside of war!)? — Jackson

Even the culture you live in currently finds it acceptable to drop bombs scientists have invented. But that's inside the domain of war. Which is stabbing and murdering between abstract entities like countries.

There is production, consumption, production, and consumption only. — Hillary

Paraphrasing the ur-leftist himself, "the conditions of production determine the conditions of society".

The upheavals in changing production, say from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to the present, have driven upheavals in the culture. The 19th - 21st centuries contain the story of almost continual change in culture, technology, working conditions, trade, and, well, everything.

There are historical reasons why you can say, "There is no left left." One reason (at least in the United States) is that socialist organizations, socialist publications, and socialist organizing have all been subject to corporate and government suppression since the end of WWI - 1918. The "Red Scare" of 1919 involved brutal action against leftist activists. Anyone identified as an effective "change agent" might get a beating, a lynching or a bullet for their trouble. For a good time, investigate what the FBI
"COINTELPRO" operation (1956-1971) was all about,

Unionization peaked in 1954 at 35% of workers. Workers didn't abandon unions -- the unions were murdered (so to speak). Beginning in the 1950s on up to the present, organizing unions and holding on to unionized work places has become very difficult owing to laws which favor anti-union activity by companies. It pays for a large company to spend 20 or 30 million dollars to a union busting consulting group, rather than accept unionization.

In all the diversity in personality, individual markers, different cloth styles, musical tastes, etc. there is greater global monotony then ever seen before. The world turns into a grey, amorphous, uniform ball of sameness. — Hillary

I do not see the world as a gray ball of monotony.

For example, people have been saying for decades that media were homogenizing the culture, particularly the way Americans talk; we will all sound like television programs. In fact, the distinctiveness of regional accents had intensified, as opposed to becoming homogenized. No thanks to the media for this. Language changes, media or not.

Culture also changes continually, media or not. There are enduring and distinctive differences in the several major American cultural regions, even as changes occur.

You will see some dramatic cultural changes in less-developed countries once cell phones and the internet become available. East Africans, for example, developed banking by text messages as soon as they got cell service--way before I started banking by phone.

People are "all alike" more than they we are "all different". Greater contact between people will mean more borrowing in both directions. The result is a more complex pattern rather than a movement towards gray-scale.

Look, Hillary, there are enough things to lament without inventing more of them.

was thinking more of mental preparation. Really big catastrophes leave little opportunity for meaningful preparation. Like, the dinosaurs should have expected a meteorite to wipe them out? Ukrainians should have known the Russians would wreck everything in 2022?

On the other hand, lots of people regularly put themselves in harm's way. They buy a house located in a flood plain. They build a house in the fire-prone Northern California forests. They site a nuclear power plant on a known earthquake fault. — Bitter Crank

So be flexible. Plan for life to continue as it has, but also recognize that we might be in a world war next week.

I can do that.

Well, that might all be true. But when I hear my Italian grandfather talking about the old communist glory days, my heart gets filled with longing. Before 1970s , it was the far-left; and after, the left-wing, so already there a reduction in power can be noticed. The once iron red fist has become a rosa broken wing.

"The Communist Party (Partito Comunista, PC) is an Italian political party of Marxist–Leninist inspiration, founded in 2009. It defines itself as "the revolutionary political vanguard organization of the working class in Italy."

A staggering 0.88% voted on it. Compare with the 33.4 percent in 1947...

the revolutionary political vanguard organization of the working class in Italy. — Hillary

Such argot tells me that the Partito Comunista is talking to itself. No wonder they didn't break 1%.

One has to operate organized in the vanguard to combat the rigid corporate elect and crush it's wicked new slavery schemes with the remorseless and righteous left fist and blow a far left uppercut in the name of global freedom and justice. It's the argot, necessary to break the chains. The red star is on the rise my fiend.

Yes: The only war is the class war. We have nothing to lose but our chains and a world to gain. Check.

Maybe where you live, the rhetoric of "One has to operate organized in the vanguard to combat the rigid corporate elect and crush it's wicked new slavery schemes with the remorseless and righteous left fist and blow a far left uppercut in the name of global freedom and justice. It's the argot necessary to break the chains. gets the blood of the working class boiling but, the world I live in departed that time and place decades ago.

The rhetoric doesn't work (here and now) because the working class has changed. First, most workers don't think of themselves as working class. They think they are middle class. "Workers" are the unskilled louts who clean the offices in which they labor. They and their boss both think that the boss creates wealth by his brilliance (or profound crookedness) or maybe by magic. That they themselves, the workers--even office workers--create all wealth is an idea that has not occurred to them,

Once upon a time workers understood that they were exploited. With the help of PR, lies, propaganda, advertising, oft repeated cliches, and cheap bread and circuses they have lost consciousness. Their awareness has regressed into "preconsciousness". Education has to start with the basics of today's experiences, not those of 1844, 1890, 1968, or 2001.

I don't know; when I look at Global Warming I wonder whether we have time to accomplish anything.

"The red star is on the rise my fiend." Did you mean "fiend" or "friend"?


I prefer Billy Bragg's version of the Internationale:

The rhetoric doesn't work (here and now) because the working class has changed. First, most workers don't think of themselves as working class. They think they are middle class. "Workers" are the unskilled louts who clean the offices in which they labor. They and their boss both think that the boss creates wealth by his brilliance (or profound crookedness) or maybe by magic. That they themselves, the workers--even office workers--create all wealth is an idea that has not occurred to them, — Bitter Crank

I see my own struggles promoting antinatalism in this.. They will say that it is you who have it wrong... No amount of showing wealth inequalities is going to make people then say, "Oh I guess I better start the revolution".

I mean, I think the conditions of life itself puts us in chains from the get-go. Yet we don't revolt against this either. Don't worry, both fighting the good fight, but no one will listen.

We have both gotten used to being voices howling in the wilderness. We wilderness howlers are dismissed out of hand, even if our howled message is right on the money. Dressed in rags, eating locusts, (roasted. salted, nutty, crunchy, nutritious), howling, of course; and harshing the mellow of the bourgeoisie just doesn't make one popular,

"Blessed are the shat upon." Simon and Garfunkel

We have both gotten used to being voices howling in the wilderness. We wilderness howlers are dismissed out of hand, even if our howled message is right on the money. Dressed in rags, eating locusts, (roasted. salted, nutty, crunchy, nutritious), howling, of course; and harshing the mellow of the bourgeoisie just doesn't make one popular,

"Blessed are the shat upon." Simon and Garfunkel — Bitter Crank

:lol: Haha. The picture you paint is right on the money, but I won't ignore it. All on point. Ignored locust eating wilderness howlers. And correct, dismissed out of hand, even if the howled message is right on the money. Dismiss, dismiss, dismiss.

Since China and Russia are capitalist states now, is there really any true representative of leftism today?

What is the left now, and what is the far left? Who is the far left? — frank

Definitionally I'd say that the far left is whoever is politically active towards the swift replacement of capitalism with socialism, where socialism is the social ownership and democratic control of the means of production, which might lead to some sort of classless society, e.g., communism. Note: not (necessarily) government or state, but certainly social, ownership and control.

The project has been a horrendous failure so far and it has no current prime representative. But capitalism has been in many ways a horrendous failure too, so the spectre of socialism will continue to haunt the world.

The project has been a horrendous failure so far and it has no current prime representative. But capitalism has been in many ways a horrendous failure too, so the spectre of socialism will continue to haunt the world. — Jamal

:up:

An elegant and acute appraisal.

Thanks :smile:

"The red star is on the rise my fiend." Did you mean "fiend" or "friend"? — Bitter Crank

Ah! Sorry bout that! It's a small r between love and hate...

Billy Bragg! Alright! Thanks my fRiend! You feel he means it!! Two for you in return:

The project has been a horrendous failure so far and it has no current prime representative. But capitalism has been in many ways a horrendous failure too, so the spectre of socialism will continue to haunt the world. — Jamal

So it exists as a ghost who is invoked because of the problems with liberalism. :up:

The project has been a horrendous failure so far and it has no current prime representative. But capitalism has been in many ways a horrendous failure too, so the spectre of socialism will continue to haunt the world. — Jamal

One of the reasons it has failed is because socialism was never able to mature into a classless society because the ones that led the revolutions against monarchies and capitalism were privileged oligarchs themselves and did not recognize human rights.

Both sides are authoritarian in that power over many is consolidated into a few, whether it be elitist politicians and their families, CEOs, or the cleregy.

For liberalism to work power needs to be dispersed not just over space but over time in that every person in power cannot be in power until they die (term limits).

:up:

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In what way, by feeding about 80% of the people who didn't previously have food? Everything is failure if you see it from the appropriate angle. Humans should go back to living in starvation, darkness, mass hysteria, and violent psychosis, I suppose.

It would be better than having everything we need and being able to provide what other entire continents need as well despite their governing bodies buying and selling citizens or starving them to death. — whollyrolling

Even if this comment made sense it would be foolish. Don't waste our time please. Up your game.

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