Anti-Capitalist Meetup: The left's intersectional commitment must never be sacrificed
A few words about divide and rule:
White, and more specifically, WASP, identity politics, manifesting in denial of human rights, is the history of the U.S. It didn't just start with Nixon’s southern strategy.
There is a lot of questioning, such as in the NYT today, of “identity liberalism.” While rejecting the class struggle was the Clinton campaign’s egregious failing, just as it has been the Democratic Party’s constant self-defeating mantra under neoliberal triumphalism, now is certainly not the time to stop standing with women, PoC, First Peoples, so-called "immigrants” (code for brown folk), LGBTs, and anyone else the neo-fascists single out as not worthy. It never is the time.
Those who question our duty to stand with those who are shunned have a disgusting lack of morals and a scarcely hidden agenda of divide and rule. Often it is coupled with an homage to the supposed political efficacy of hugging the flag close and speaking English and putting religion back in schools, etc.
I live in the Deep South in a deep red part of a vital swing state. I'm glad the liberals have helped the left win the cultural wars as well as win the ever evolving struggles for civil rights for all.
We, as leftists, lead by an example of sacrificial solidarity and commitment to justice for all.
The neo-fascists have won an electoral college contest, not the popular vote. But even if the neo-fascists won an overwhelming majority of the popular vote, even if nearly every WASP in the country voted to bring back segregation and to put women back in the kitchen and to start armed posses up looking for undocumented people with brown skin, etc., the left always knows fuck that shit.
If you feel afraid because of the Trump election (and you are not a capitalist or capitalist mercenary), solidarity. The left has your back.
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The Reality Of Power
The harder they try to squeeze us for control, the more likely we are to slip through their fingers. They can't rule without our cooperation.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
yes, they do need our cooperation to rule us
but, given the history of the US you know that they are not opposed to resorting to violence if they feel the need to do so. We need to be organising to ensure that they do not get our cooperation and that people are willing to fight for their human and civil rights and for a system that actually serves their interests rather than the interests of the ruling class. Nothing will change unless we fight for it.
"Hegel noticed somewhere that all great world history facts and people so to speak twice occur. He forgot to add: the one time as tragedy, the other time as farce" Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte."
Thank you, a most excellent column. "Identity politics" is
only problematic when it becomes divisive, when it is all about "my issues or causes only, or first and foremost" instead of working together to advance all causes and all persons. Thanks again.
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 --
I Think It Is Important for the Left to Tie the Identity
politics into a broader, more connected narrative to foster and reinforce solidarity.
The problem is that the Left gets blamed for the effects of the Establishment's weaponization and leveraging of identity politics.
Hillary, very clearly, stoked racism and misogyny to harm Bernie's chances.
The Left can't stand there in situ. It is important to acknowledge the grievance and shift position so we stand with other affected identities and activate a greater narrative than,"Am NOT!"
Bernie did both a wonderful job and a fairly poor job of this. His pivot to his stump, economics and class, was often too crude -- not enough acknowledgement. The fact that the corporate media aped the Hillary Campaign's talking points and pointed attack,"Bernie's got problems with Black people," as the sole media coverage of his campaign.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
My grandson and I just had this conversation.
Let me start with a disclaimer. I support inclusiveness and equal opportunity and justice for all. There are no lesser humans. Having said that, we can't fight everything at the same time, all of the time. They burn us out and that is how they divide and conquer. So we must prioritize to fiercely fight for the greatest common good.
I agree with K9. Identity politics must be tied into " a broader, more connected narrative to foster and reinforce solidarity."
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
good to see/read you again galtisalie
i can't remember what my name was back on dkos, left there for good in april
you were one of my favorites
another was opol, who was having health issues then
hope he's okay, anyone know?
opol is hanging in there
He posts daily on FB if you want to connect.
Peace be with you!
You are very kind and made my day! Love, Francisco
I completely agree. Clinton's
I completely agree. Clinton's campaign choices to cynically pander to different disadvantaged groups in order to glom them all to herself and to paint Bernie as not having done enough for them or even as not supporting them at all (disgusting lies), in order to "win" the Democratic nomination played perfectly into Trump's hands.
Her campaign's other tactic of attacking Bernie's concrete policies to help people and grow the economy now (using as many professional pundit "experts" as possible) gave at least the appearance of disavowing FDR-style populism in general in favor of slow, painfully-compromised incrementalism, all proffered from a condescending, elitist position of supposed superior knowledge mostly coming from people whose most telling feature was the utter personal comfort of their own achievements and financial security with the implication that those not as smart as themselves or those too lazy to work as hard as they had for their goals deserved to wait and suffer while doing so, which also played perfectly into Trump's hands.
They completely failed to see that their messages of supporting disadvantaged groups, claiming those issues as their own, failed because of the source even more so than the message. Sure, there are plenty of people who can't wait to call any acknowledgement of the continued existence of racism and misogyny and homophobia "political correctness", but when a super-rich, thoroughly-corrupt greed-head like Hilary Clinton is the mouthpiece for supporting those causes it acts as a catalyst to exponentially harm those causes in the eyes of many voters.
The fact that once she'd secured the the first wave of carefully-chosen Southern states with large percentages of minority, particularly African-American and other black Democrat, voters she basically went back to ass-kissing, high-dollar, crony capitalist soirees that she made sure to kick any actual black voters out of if they dared to enter (even when they had legitimate invites), just added to the lack of desire by people who might otherwise have voted for the Democrat to think that their vote didn't matter and wouldn't change anything for them or their friends and family.
Meanwhile, the racists and misogynists really are emboldened and encouraged to act out by the election of Trump. Pretending otherwise is just as disingenuous as Trump pretending he can bring back all the lost manufacturing jobs with no real plan to invest the kind of money in education and new green industries that might actually be able to employ a significant number of his own supporters. Even if he was sincere, the Republicans will never let him do it.
So, who do we think those disappointed people are going to blame and take their frustrations out on? Trump? Other Republicans? I haven't seen any more sign of those people understanding the real sources of their financial hardships than mourning Hillary supporters have those far demonstrated of being able to see that she personally didn't have their best interests in the deep dark hole where her heart is supposed to be.
Edit:
EEK! To clarify, "those people" are the Trump voters who really did have strong racist and other types of hate as strong motivation for voting for him. I certainly don't think they are the majority of his voters, just that they are the potentially-dangerous ones.
My thoughts are that
It is time to build an alternate society that pleases us. That can come in many forms but generally has to be done on a local level. To a certain extent Washington and Oregon are already doing that. The street level movement here is now perculating into local government. It's coming in the form of interesting new laws like the one that says buildings have to be deconstructed instead of torn down. Everything is then recycled and resold. The jobs and opportunities this creates are many. I just finished building a set of cabinets from recycled 100 year old fir. I could build a business off of that and make a living if I was inclined to but since I have a job I am busily looking for the person or group to hand the opportunity off to.