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Those who analyze the American left, both from outside and within, often deny the constant assault the left is under in this country. Most of the essays, articles, and videos which demand to know what’s wrong with the left are great examples of this. Very few of them find the obvious answer: what’s wrong with the left is that it is under constant assault from multiple well-funded sources, and has been for many decades.

The denial of this fact is not of an obvious and simple kind, like climate change denial or denial of the Holocaust. In those cases, a group of people, for self-serving and inappropriate reasons, have chosen to ignore both rational evidence and the popular consensus and assert their views with impermeable persistence. But there’s more than one way to deny a truth, and the simplest one is not the most effective. It’s much more effective to acknowledge the fact you want to deny, while simultaneously dismissing it as unimportant. Best of all is waving off a fact because everybody already knows it. As John Stewart once said, the best way to hide evil in America is to wrap it in something profoundly boring. If people are bored, or are willing to be convinced that they are bored, then they will ignore the fact that you want to deny.

People ask why it’s necessary to belabor this unpleasant fact which everybody already knows. The answer is that, if you’re being more or less constantly shelled, it’s going to have an effect on almost everything you do; it will even have an effect on your understanding of yourself and your political philosophy. If you ignore these effects, then you will be mesmerized by the specific issues of the day and unaware of the ways in which those issues are being deployed against you like weapons. You will be left vulnerable to manipulation and near-incapable of self-defense.

The current uproar over censorship and bigotry is a good example of this. Someone examined the left and found its soft underbelly: unresolved conflicts in our thinking that are easy to exploit. We believe in democracy and populist politics, which necessitates an opposition to censorship, but we also strongly oppose bigotry and the use of language in its service. Since we did not resolve this conflict in our thinking, it provided a convenient way for our enemies to tie us into knots (especially once they had the internet, the greatest device for promoting division and character assassination ever constructed).

Similarly, we had the idea that oppressed people were automatically better than the rest of us. The original conception of this idea was actually sound: we supposed that when different groups have radically different histories (such as one group being brought to America against its will as slave labor, and the other group arriving mostly voluntarily), the first group will probably know things that the second group doesn’t. I find the following scene from Norma Rae useful in this regard. Norma looks at the Jewish union organizer and says, “People always told me you Jews are different. You don’t look that different to me.” He replies “We are, though.” She asks, “Why? What makes you different?” and he says “History.”

It’s pretty obvious that when talking about what it’s like to be black in America, it’s better to ask a black person than a white one, and equally obvious that there are plenty of things that white people know less about than people of color. We not only have a different history than people of color. Our education in their history is also truncated, and the social segregation of the country usually means we have few windows into what their lives are currently like.

However, it’s a long way from acknowledging those facts to insisting that individual members of an oppressed group must always be good guys, incapable of lying or being corrupted--a belief that actually robs those people of their humanity. There’s nothing even to suggest that every member of an oppressed group must be left-wing, an assumption often made by both liberals and the left in defiance of the existence of people like Ben Carson, Michael Steele, and Condi Rice. White people on the left also tend to deny the fact that Black Christianity can, and often does, promote right-wing beliefs right along with the left-wing beliefs of the Civil Rights movement.

These unresolved conflicts and foolish beliefs make it easy for the enemies of the left. All they had to do was find some black people, trans people, gay men, lesbians, white women, and other people of color who were willing to promote right-wing talking points for pay. The idea that no one from these communities would ever be willing to do such a job has already been disproved for anybody who recognizes that Michael Steele, Sarah Palin, and the Log Cabin Republicans exist. That should put the kibosh on the idea that everybody with black skin or female organs or a preference for same-sex partners is a virtuous left-wing reformer or idealistic left-wing revolutionary. But these facts too are waved aside. Yes, of course there are some weirdos from oppressed groups who become Republicans. But most of them are Democrats, immune to corruption and guaranteed to be correct.

Unfortunately, being a Democrat is no guarantor of accuracy or ethics:

About a decade after the CBC’s 1971 founding, some 20 black lobbyists started holding informal gatherings around Washington. The Civil Rights movement had ushered more African Americans into Congress, and those lawmakers brought black staffers with them. Many of them, like former staffers all over Capitol Hill, wound up on K Street.
...
Today, the organization—now known as the Washington Government Relations Group—is a significant nexus of influence. At its regular policy gatherings, lobbyists can interact with lawmakers and staffers…[and]the corporate world...has been paying close attention. The CBC represents roughly 10 percent of the House and about a fifth of the Democratic minority. That alone makes it an attractive target for lobbyists. But two characteristics have helped it amass particular power. Its aura of moral credibility, earned during the Civil Rights era, can provide valuable progressive cover for controversial measures. And its tradition of voting as a bloc, forged in its early years to avoid marginalization, means that persuading the right CBC member can secure dozens of additional votes

as one bank lobbyist put it, “Sophisticated companies have sophisticated lobbying operations.” He explains, “Almost every big bank has a lobbyist who has experience and can work with the Congressional Black Caucus.” The industry’s term for these lobbyists: CBC specialists. And by targeting the ten CBC members who sit on the financial services panel, these lobbyists can potentially win over the entire caucus.

The lobbyist knows first hand how effective this tactic can be. “We go right to the CBC because they are open-minded and they often vote as a bloc,” he says, asking for anonymity because he frequently relies on CBC members for support on deregulation bills. “And the professional left is scared of them. Every white liberal—media, politician, advocacy group—knows better than fucking with a CBC member.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/117874/congressional-black-caucus-war-it...

Hillary's "firewall" strategy is simply an electoral application of this idea, and it has become the primary tactic of those tasked with suppressing the left. And it's not just the white left which is suppressed (usually via character assassination). What is done to left-wing members of oppressed groups is arguably worse: though occasionally they too suffer character assassination, most of the time, they are simply erased from notice, as if they didn't exist. As one black man put it, #BernieMadeMeWhite. (Follow the link to read his story: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/03/bernie-sanders-whites-race-voters-pri...)

At some point, if we are to have a left, we will need to admit both the fact that we are under constant assault and the somewhat humbling reality that our thinking contains some serious conflicts. Delaying this come-to-Jesus moment will only hand more ammunition to our enemies, as it has for the past forty or more years.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Ryan Grim was doing good work like this article?

https://newrepublic.com/article/117874/congressional-black-caucus-war-it...

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

..."if the differences WITHIN groups outweigh the differences BETWEEN groups, the latter are trivial"?

If the things I learned JUST in my freshman semesters of psychology were only common knowledge - or more disturbingly if only critical thinking were a normal faculty (I had a conversation with my father last year that revealed that the reason I'd always had trouble understanding the concept of "critical thinking" was because it turns out it was the only only way of thinking I've ever known - WTH is wrong with everyone else that it needs to be "taught"?), then post-2014 neo-nationalism could never have gotten off the ground.

Hell, whatever happened to 'individuals matter more than groups'??? Capitalism has somehow brought us the absolute WORST of what used to be denounced as "communism". THIS is why fighting the Commies had to be acknowledged as at least partially a good idea - and yet the Reds, for their part, denounced all "identity politics" save class as "petty bourgeois liberalism" or "fascist plots". So what have they turned this country into...?

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat @The Liberal Moonbat

trivial. In fact, I have no real measuring stick for which set of differences is more important, and, since I think they're all important, I'm not very motivated to find one.

As far as fighting the Commies goes, I'm opposed to every form of tyranny I've ever encountered and understood as such, and obviously the Soviet Union was practicing one variation on tyranny. That said, I've never been fond of the calls to fight the Commies, since they've usually been used by people the likes of Ronald Reagan to convince me to support their own brutish empire. That was back when we were actually embroiled in a cold war with actual Marxists, unlike now, when socialists have arguably never been less powerful. I know China is nominally Communist, and certainly curtails its citizens' rights with the same thoroughness that previous large-scale Marxist regimes have. But I find it hard to take them seriously as Marxists when they clearly have no interest in fighting capitalism. You can't be waging an ideological war against capitalism while cutting deals with Sam Walton and Steve Jobs. If China is waging any kind of "war" with us, it's a nationalistic one, or, more accurately, an imperialistic one based on national identity. It's not an ideological struggle and the only thing it seems to have to do with economics is that control of wealth and resources is the way empires beat each other. China has come up with a few creative ways to use economics in the struggle of their empire against the American empire, including putting us massively in their debt (which might have been brilliant tactics or a big mistake that will blow up in their faces). But really, none of what they're doing seems all that ideologically different from what we're doing. And that's not because the United States has gone Marxist, no matter what the online right wing wants to say. As you just commented, we're a lot closer to being fascists than socialists.

Some of the dipshits online like to make hay out of the fact that the Nazis had the word "socialist" in their name, and use that to try and say that the Nazis were just one more kind of Marxist, but anybody who knows any history knows how horrendously inaccurate that is. The Nazis hated Marxists and pursued them with an ardor similar to that with which they abused Jews.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Lookout's picture

The dim wits are corporate sell outs. Basically becoming rethugs under Clinton.

The so called left media still pushing Russiagate sure ain't the left either.

I see no real left remaining in the US...a few individuals perhaps...but no movement which I'm aware.

Where is the antiwar message being broadcast? The Grayzone and empire files perhaps, but a massive anti-war movement could be a start at restoring the left.

Y'all have a good day!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Lookout

I agree that there is no institutional left in the United States. The left lives primarily on podcasts, and is being hunted off YouTube by censorship while being more or less constantly gaslighted on platforms like Twitter. We've talked before about this, and I've shared my list of who I think is "left," and, as I recall, you agreed with my choices.

The only real way to describe the left in this country is via a blogroll.

That doesn't, of course, mean that it doesn't exist. The attempt is being made to destroy people's ability to imagine it, which both means that the left is facing catastrophic defeat and that it has not yet been catastrophically defeated.

I need to write that essay about what right and left actually mean these days!

Glad you had a good trip down here, btw.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Lookout

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NYCVG

In Israel today... Bibi's time is running out. Here is a passage from an Anti-Bibi coalition leader this morning in Ha'eretz, the Israeli Leftish newspaper:

The alarming portion has been highlighted.

"Lieberman says believes unity deal will be finalized today
Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman expressed confidence Tuesday morning that a deal to form a new government will be formalized by the end of the day, and warned that Likud actions could encourage violence by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's supporters.

Lieberman said that his own party has already reached an agreement with the other parties opposing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "I believe that, with a little goodwill, we'll finish this business and inform the president," Lieberman said at the Bar Association conference in Eilat.

Lieberman also warned that Likud actions and security threats against members of the negotiation teams could spell a repeat of the violence in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, this time in Israel."

--------------------------------------------------------

There is plenty wrong with the Left in the USA. What bothers me most is how easily Progressives take people at their word when they claim to be a (P.) 3 of the 8 candidates now running in the NYC mayoral race called themselves Progressives when the race began and the Press ran with those descriptions. ALL of which, under the spotlight have proven false.

That said, it seems to me that an important feature of being Right Wing actor in politics these days is to adopt every authoritarian figures determination to hang on even when all is lost.

Trump, obviously. Benjamin Netanyahu right now. And back to my obsession, NYC, where Eric Adams has made it clear that he will not accept the vote that happens this month. Further, he will not accept Ranked Choice Voting results.

RCV passed with 75% of the voters in 2020.

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NYCVG

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@NYCVG

There is plenty wrong with the Left in the USA.

I'd argue most of it is inescapably affected (and in some cases produced) by the right-wing assault that has been rained down on left-wing heads since roughly 1978.

We left-wing types have a strong tendency to look within our own group and our own selves for what's wrong. Actually, that's a strong American tendency. It sounds great--very moral, very tough, very independent. But we have such a strong prejudice toward blaming whoever is having the problem, assuming that if they worked harder or were more virtuous, they'd have no problem, that we really don't like looking at power relations or how influences outside of groups and individuals affect them.

Most of us would rather believe that other people, groups, and the environments in which you work have no effect on you unless you let them. That could be the subject of an essay in itself.

As for those on the left who are still pursuing electoral solutions through the Democratic party, the problem you've identified--too easily taking "progressive" politicians at their word--is almost inevitable, isn't it? What just happened with both Biden and the Squad pretty much shows that the very definition of being a left-wing Democrat is taking politicians at their word when they say they are progressive, and later, when they make decidedly un-progressive decisions, either feeling hurt and betrayed or committing some species of doublethink in order to preserve the politicians' progressive reputations.

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11 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@NYCVG

outside the U.S., something I wasn't even thinking of.

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7 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Here is the upside of a worldwide view---

In Scotland, quite recently, the Scottish Nationalist Party Beat the Unionists handily.

This is the Left winning and the implications for the End of the British Empire are enormous.

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NYCVG

Raggedy Ann's picture

There was a knock on my door Sunday afternoon. A nice young man was there, going door to door for the democrat candidate that wants to replace Deb Haaland.
The young man (ym) said to me: Are you XXX?
Me: Yes
YM: We can count on you to vote for XX? (He actually went there with no other conversation)
Me: No
YM: (Curious look on his face ~ wrinkled brow ~ so I elaborated)
Me: She is not a progressive.
YM: What do you mean?
Me: She says she is progressive, but when she gets there, she will not vote for the things that I want.
YM: What do you want?
Me: Health care for all, no tuition, student loan forgiveness, all the Bernie Sanders agenda. When they get to Congress, they vote for the corporations.
YM: (Backs up, brow still wrinkled)
Me: Bottom line - we need term limits in Congress.

I cannot tell you how good it felt to say those things to that young man. I hope I educated him to the fact that our current "Progressives" sell out to the corporations once they are elected.

Hope all are having a good day. The aliens are here to save us from ourselves. I find it interesting that now we are in air signs (astrologically) UFO's are in the news (which was predicted by many astrologers last year - just as they saw the pandemic coming).

Enjoy the day! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Raggedy Ann

Much better than the time I got into an argument on the phone with a Democratic staffer who wanted me to donate to the DSCC.

"Well, I don't know what your problem is with Claire McCaskill, but..."

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Raggedy Ann

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NYCVG

Granma's picture

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Granma

For stopping by.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

think I'll just quibble a bit:

what’s wrong with the left is that it is under constant assault from multiple well-funded sources, and has been for many decades.

Centuries, or, at least, more than a century. Anti union violence as early as 1903 can be rapidly verified, for example. The KKK and Jim Crow and all that was 1800s. I'm sure that with work we can push it back to the 1700s or earlier by looking at persecution of atheists and agnostics, but we weren't the US much before late 1700s.

The answer is that, if you’re being more or less constantly shelled, it’s going to have an effect on almost everything you do;

Very well put. One of the top admins installed at UC Berkeley during the 60s
was picked specifically because of studies he had done showing that if you shock lab rats at random they become lethargic and unmotivated by everything, including food and sex, and the papers he wrote as a result. (Chancellor Roger Heyns, iirc)

I realize the difficulty in addressing this matter, but the terms left and right of the idea that there is a left-right scale is seriously dated and pretty damn useless as well. Worse, sticking to it facilitates the ploys and games used to divide and render us impotent. How much time is wasted on arguing whether some self styled liberal--left--progressive or whatever really is such or even a "moderate" when the reality is that we can't even define any of those terms any longer. Operationally we can lay out some rough matrices whereby those crossing this or that line in their voting record or other actions might be arguably included or excluded from some category, but, as you note, thanks especially to IDPOL, it is the verbiage and the rhetoric that is the constant and near exclusive focus despite the ability, should the focus be shifted to it, to inspect their actual behavior arguably better than ever before.

apropos the previous paragraph, perhaps we need to institute a heavy handed "show me what you did, tried to do and are doing and stfu because we will ignore everything that you say" approach to all political actors. Some of that data is actually already collated by organizations like project vote smart, which, sadly, also still pays some attention to and also collates and transmits what they say. After all, there is a level at which we all know that the term "political promise" is an oxymoron, drenched in mockery since time immemorial, and obviously should be extended to all political speech and declarations.

be well and have a good one

EDIT - added "ignore" in bold to make sentence coherent

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

I think I've posted it on here before, but I think you'll like it, Macedonian Signal, and I think it touches on what you're talking about here: http://www.the1585.com/othernword.htm

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Origins in the French Revolution

The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left.[6] One deputy, the Baron de Gauville, explained: "We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp".[7]

.

I remember the mid-term election of 2006, when the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, making Nancy Pelosi the Speaker. An internet acquaintance who called himself a Conservative went into a message board dither because the "San Francisco Liberal" would be jamming her Far Left Agenda down the country's throat.

"Left" does not really mean anything specific at all now.

.

Opposition to the Warfare State does not have to come from any legacy ideology -- there are good conservative, liberal, socialist, communist, anarchist and libertarian arguments for dismantling the Warfare State.

Why would anyone want to shun allies because of obsolete labeling?

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I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

as the French Revolution and the tennis court seating arranged itself, what much more than Royal supporters vs. democracy. They said it was a belief in the pace of the change. Left thinking was "we want change now, even if heads rolls." Royal Righties wanted a slower, more incremental change. Given that interpretation, it is easy to say the farthest leftists are commies, and the farthest righties are Fascists.
I do have a problem with a progressive that supports war, as that is the very heart and soul of imperialism. I know righties who support things like Social Security are called RINO's by their faction.
What I do to just avoid the left/right label is talk about up and down. Rich rule, poor are punished for being poor. Best label evah: Rich. Worst label: poor.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp .
.
more than I like Wikipedia.

Excellent comment, by the way.

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I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

enhydra lutris's picture

@on the cusp

about, but leads to accusations of one of the isms.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris When did it not?
I just think of rapid change and keeping status quo more prominently than most folks.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981