Where is the Left Wing Uprising in the USA?
With the rise of "Far Right Extremism" and the Right so emboldened as to storm the Capitol building, where is the Far Left's Uprising? There are forms of Left Wing radicalism apparent in the US, but none so apparently emboldened as the Right's.
Why?
Why?
Comments (71)
[quote=Upton Sinclair]It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.[/quote]
Also, the idea that Russia is responsible for the insanity of American politics and not the fact that Americans are endogenously politically insane is hilarious.
As a leftist, that's news to me. How do you know this?
What you doing next Tuesday?
Review of "Canceling Comedians While the World Burns"
Bernie and AOC have done their job well.
But when the next elections come things will change...if you only vote for the Democrats, that is. And then when things don't change...they will surely change in the next elections!!!
The majority of Americans are in favor of taxing the rich, free public education, student debt relief, universal healthcare, climate change mitigation, gun reform, etc. Poll after poll. If that's what we mean by "left," then we by far have the numbers. So I don't think the 10-1 is accurate in that sense.
The problem is that we have no organization. We don't even have a labor party as most other comparable countries do. There are many reasons for this, of course, but chief among them (in my opinion) is the education system and the media. These are the institutions that control thought; they're called, respectively, indoctrination centers and propaganda outlets -- and this is accurate.
So we're left with apathy, disenfranchisement, passivity, hopelessness. Most importantly, the traditional means of circumventing these systems of thought control have been destroyed or weakened: unions, independent media, social groups, etc. There's also the cultivation of fear and hatred of one another. All this is to say nothing about the (structural) fact that we're also being worked to death, and so have little energy or time to dedicate to educating and organizing ourselves.
Add it up and it's no wonder there's not an organized "left" in this country. But it's there. The fact that people were shocked about the Sanders campaign should tell you something.
The non-establishment right aren't very organized either, they just fight a lot harder. They also have structural advantages electorally, so are disproportionately represented in government.
I think this is exactly right. Although I'm there if there's a revolution!
Oh, SLX, you're just so cute. I want to pinch your cheek.
That's how I see things and, to the extent we disagree, Xtrix, I suspect it's more of a matter of semantics than substance, and not worth quibbling over definitions & labels for me to get my point across when I say "the Left, as far as the Anerican electorate is concerned, are outnumbered (approximately?) 10:1" IMO. If you still disagree, then let's agree to disagree on the precise ratio, but I don't suspect we disagree that to a significant degree The Left is outnumbered by, let's call them, the Center-Right + Right in the US. Or do we disagree even on that?
Even what I consider as leftists broadly, I wish we made 10% of the electorate. It’s not even close.
Well that's speculation. It's hard to say. Maybe they want structural changes in the form of Keynesian policies. Maybe they want an end to what's called "capitalism" altogether. What we do know is where the country stands on these issues. I think deep structural change is wanted -- I want it as well. But short of a revolution, that's not going to happen. Changes happen gradually and require hard work sustained over time. But as I said before, I'm all for radical changes if I'm missing something -- I'm there if there's a revolution. Give me something to sign and I'll sign it. But I don't see it happening in my lifetime. So we have to work within the confines of reality.
Quoting 180 Proof
That's interesting you mention stakeholder control. I created a thread about that here. But a lot of that reminds me of greenwashing. I like the words, but it's probably just more delay tactics so we don't come for their blood.
It's funny you mention that as radical change, though. Unless you're meaning something different when you say "stakeholder control", which I take to mean companies taking into account customers, workers, environment, etc., rather than just shareholders (i.e., away from the Friedman Doctrine), I see it as more of a system we had in the 50s and 60s -- the era of managerialism and the "soulful corporation." I frankly think that is a welcome step forward, and we need to look no further than the economies of those decades to see what the effects could be.
But when I think "radical," I'm thinking worker ownership and control of industry, in the anarchist tradition (or anarco-syndicalist tradition anyway). I see this happening already in worker co-ops. Very successful.
Quoting 180 Proof
No, I was nit-picking. But I only did so because I think it's important to emphasize just how many people there are out there who think along similar lines. Whether the 10:1 ratio is correct or not in any other respect, I have no idea. Maybe you're right. But like you said, not terribly important. I don't think they're a silent majority, for example.
You missed the Antifa and BLM "mostly peaceful" riots last summer in which at least 23 people were shot dead, 700 police officers injured, 150+ federal buildings damaged, hundreds of small businesses destroyed, and billions of dollars in property damage was done?
"Well that's speculation. It's hard to say. Maybe they want structural changes in the form of Keynesian policies. Maybe they want an end to what's called "capitalism" altogether. What we do know is where the country stands on these issues. I think deep structural change is wanted -- I want it as well. But short of a revolution, that's not going to happen. Changes happen gradually and require hard work sustained over time. But as I said before, I'm all for radical changes if I'm missing something -- I'm there if there's a revolution. Give me something to sign and I'll sign it. But I don't see it happening in my lifetime. So we have to work within the confines of reality."
I lean towards Erik Olin Wright's formulation of "non-reformist reformism" on the path to socialism. Let me know if you're sympathetic to it (personally I find this path to be obvious, there is neither going to be a revolution or slow build up of anarchist communes that will lead to socialism. I'm just glad someone was able to articulate it in formal language)
"There is a third position in debates within the Marxist tradition over the problem of transcending capitalism. This third approach, which is neither strictly revolutionary nor reformist, advocates what has been referred to as “nonreformist reforms.” Here the idea is to struggle for reforms in the institutions of the state that have three kinds of simultaneous effects: they solve some pressing problem in the system as it exists; they enlarge, rather that close down, the space for future transformations; and they enhance the capacity of popular social forces to fill that space. The central argument is that the capitalist state is an internally contradictory configuration of principles and mechanisms, and thus it is possible, under appropriate historical conditions, to achieve such nonreformist reforms of the capitalist state itself. Simple reformists don’t worry about the second and third conditions; revolutionaries deny their possibility.”
- Erik Olin Wright from John Gastil: Legislature by Lot
P.S. It's true that polls have shown the majority Americans seem to agree with policies that are significantly more progressive than the Democratic Party Elite when asked. I don't think that means they're "left-wing" however, if that means a particular political worldview (having a political worldview involves many different tendencies other than just policy) 80% of the American public is "politically ignorant" meaning they are so ignorant that they can not answer very basic questions about American politics. The people who somewhat follow the news and hold strong political opinions is a fraction of the U.S. public at large. What it does mean that in the state of ignorance, a lot of progressive policies simply make sense in the absence of ideological blinders. So there is an opportunity to catch them in.
Shot dead by whom? Cite your sources— seems bogus to me, or hiding context.
There were massive protests all last summer, millions of people in fact. The vast majority of people—99%— were peaceful. I know conservative media loves to try to portray it all as “chaos,” but we already know why that is. The same reason they’re trying to portray the sacking of the capitol as akin to a “guided tour.”
I see you’re a consumer of this fiction. What a shocker.
That’s just silly. Talk to an organizer about why, but the reasons are fairly obvious. It’d be as effective as the WU in the 60s. May make us feel better, but takes the cause backwards.
The funny thing is that Americans have historically known very well how to achieve change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long,_hot_summer_of_1967
They have just forgotten.
I'm hoping because they are just sitting back and watching the right melt down. Why would you want to take any oxygen away from that fire?
Because police brutality continues, yes. But by that standard the anti-war movement wasn’t successful either, nor the early civil rights movement, etc.
Burning police stations has the opposite effect as well. Just gives police more sympathy and Fox easier material. But I’m guessing you know all this already and are just being provocative. Still it’s worth reminding ourselves of when enraged by the lack of any significant progress.
Quoting Saphsin
What is your source for this? I’m actually interested.
Quoting Saphsin
Sure. There are many paths we can take. I’m for Revolution as well, actually. It’s just that no one is starting one — and no one listens to me! So I’m left with the most realistic options.
No. Significant change does not occur so long as the ruling classes do not feel threatened. If their conditions of life and social reproduction are not rendered intolerable, anything else is just so much fluff.
Yes, but you know as well as I do that doesn’t exclusively mean threat of violence.
There’s been progress even under our oligarchic system. If we reserve “significant” only for systemic change, then unfortunately you’re right.
In which direction exactly? Wealth inequality is higher than ever, you run the world's largest gulag system, corporate capture of government power has probably never been more prevalent, US life expectancy is falling, your infrastructure is crumbling, your housing market is back up to 2008 levels with no countervailing forces in sight, your public services have been gutted, working rights have never been more scuttled as more and more workers turn to the gig economy as they wallow in precarity, your press has never been more subject to corporate imperatives ... that progress?
Well when you put it that way…
But we have some decent pizza places.
Correction:
Portland residents held hostage to continuing violence as mainstream media looks away
Posted by: Scott A. Davis, June 17, 2021.
PORTLAND, OR – Despite mostly silence from mainstream media, the residents and businesses in Portland continue to suffer under relentless anti-police riots more than a year after the violence began. ...
Residents have been held hostage in the city as violence appears no longer tied to protests, but to simple anarchy. One 44-year-old Portlander told The Epoch Times:
“There are brazen shootings and killings in broad daylight which did not happen before this past year. The violence is no longer limited to nights or certain neighborhoods.”
“While most left-wing activists welcomed the Biden inauguration, Portland activists unveiled signs that read “WE DON’T WANT BIDEN—WE WANT REVENGE” and swarmed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, throwing rocks, bottles, and a pepper-like spray from paintball guns.
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/portland-residents-held-hostage-to-continuing-violence-as-mainstream-media-looks-away/
Keep the applause going!
Those left wing rioters need your left wing support!
Old style Communists would probably brand the right-wing storming the US capitol building (1/6/21) as "infantile adventurism" or some such. There is no good reason for the left--even if it were a coherent militant force, which it is not--to pull a similar stunt.
Why not?
The US Government, like most large governments, is perfectly capable of defending itself and prosecuting would-be revolutionaries, right or left. True, the capitol police force was caught flat footed, but they are but a tiny branch of the forces available.
As mentioned above
Quoting Saphsin
There is virtually zero revolutionary left-wing (socialist) organizing going on in the United States. There probably is more right wing / fascist organizing going on, but we are not talking about a mass movement on the right, either. The Right wing doesn't need to get organized as long as you have people like Trump, Mcconnell, Abbott, et al around.
I find that to be as compelling as my own take on the matter, and even more comforting. Maybe a more objective view from 30k feet? I hope it is true. I think it is true. It would help me sleep better at night. Raising a glass to it. :up:
Revolutionary is just an escapist buzzword for those who don't want to think about the steps. Take for example, stakeholder socialism that was mentioned earlier, let's run through what is needed to achieve this. What are the prerequisites to recreate the Meidner Plan for instance, you obviously need a labor union movement. And at the moment, this is excruciatingly difficult in the U.S. without passing the PRO Act, which people are organizing to pass right now. And if it fails this year, we have to try again through building a greater majority in Congress next year with left-wing members (and I'm not saying this because I like this process, but what's the outline?). Or what about the Roemer's Market Socialist Model? To do anything close to making sweeping changes like this, you need a radical social democratic state. It's a far greater expanded form than Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund project.
Because right-winger extremism isn't largely considered a threat as demonstrated by the muzzled response by guards (some sympathetic to them) during the capital riot. Contrast this to the response of city police during Black Lives Matter protests last summer after the death of George Floyd. Easier to be "emboldened" as the Right, when the red carpet is rolled out for you.
Most modern US Leftist organization is through unionization and through local politics achieved with some very moderate success. I don't think problem lies with Leftists per se, as some members seem to suggest (I think Leftists are far smarter today than they have in decades prior), but rather lies with the colossal structures of Capitalism, ideological bulwarks, state militarization, etc.
Absolutely.
It would be hard to over-state the intensity of efforts against labor and the left by the capitalist class (the ones who actually are succeeding at capitalism) and their government / political branches.
But Cuba.
Oh good grief , I live in Chicago , and have seen blm signs littering the wealthiest and most privileged neighborhoods in the city , as well as in the formerly Rebublican, ultra-wealthy , lilly white North Shore suburbs Every weekend hordes of hipster kids would come into town from the suburbs to create sidewalk graffiti and show their radical cred. In my city , as well
as most large American cities, this was about as mainstream a movement as I’ve seen, except among the police.
In D.C. , a strongly liberal city , it was the same thing. The population as a whole despised the capital rioters , and the police supported them.
Does that mean the average urbanite supports
critical race theory. No, but they are vastly more sympathetic to it than to Trumpism.
Any left-wing uprising that exists in the US has been consistently quashed by the establishment "left" in recent years. If you followed the 2020 Democratic primaries, you'll probably be familiar with Super Tuesday and the events leading up to it.
Correct. The founding fathers, dyed-in-the-wool flaming liberals every one (if not radical) built this nation and wrote all it's organic documents. Only fascists have, so far, been so brazen as to try and take down the capital. Well, fascists and monarchists.
Yet for some reason these people are painted as radical Castro-loving communists by the right.
So if a mainstream movement (it peaked in June 2020 with around 67% support, decreased to 55% by September 2020) could illicit demonstrable brutality against them by police, what type of reaction do you think the police would have against a large non-mainstream protest against capital?
you mean like in Portland and Seattle?
All I can say is that the police weren’t calling the shots in Chicago, the mayor was, and she strongly supported the protesters.
Had liberals or black people attacked the capital, they would have been martyred by crew-served, belt-fed automatic weapons fire. Conservatives would have been toasting in orgasmic delight at bars and spreader events all across the country. Their mantra: "They wouldn't have been shot if they would have complied!"
Quoting Mr Bee
Cuba and Castro? Up here in Canadian border state land anyway, Cuba and Castro just don't show up on the radar. Just because they've had some demonstrations doesn't make them relevant to US politics, all of a sudden. (I'm in favor of lifting the embargo on Cuba and freely trading with them.)
Are you speaking of das capital or de capitol?
Any strong, coherent, powerful protest against capital[ists] has been and will be suppressed by the state (some branch). This is not a left/right issue: Most people support capitalism (in the same way they support air or sunshine). Every now and then an effective stroke against capitalism is made, usually in the form of a labor strike. Democrat and Republican governors alike will call out the national guard to assist the capitalists (96 times out of 100, anyway).
Occupy was able to establish its camps on the doorsteps of the corporation and the government without receiving police suppression because it was (more or less) beneath the contempt of capitalists and the state. It just wasn't a threat. It was worth doing, but let's be clear -- the idealists who flocked to Occupy were not plotting revolution. They were engaging in a very pleasant Young Folks Frolic & Political Dance. They should do it more often,
A recent extension of this: the double standard between BLM and leftists protests on Florida highways, and anti-Cuban government protests on Florida highways.
Also, in the case of the Michigan State House and other places, it doesn't hurt if everyone is packing M-Forgeries and other kit. The left could take note. In fact, Ronny Raygun championed gun control in CA as soon as blacks started packing at protests back in the 60s.
Because Americans are the most politically shallow people on Earth.
"One pays heavily for coming to power: power makes stupid." ~F.N.
This pattern has been typical since the past century (young in contrast to the old being the least active), my guess for the reason is that it takes a while to absorb enough experience for a lot of people to realize that they need to pay close attention to the country instead of sitting down. But the politics of the average politically engaged American is going to be very different in the coming decades.
It's the answer to the variance in the groups. Mainstream reports of it in the news over the last couple days. The NY times did a pretty good documentary interviewing ex-KGB. It's documented at degree granting institutions. https://youtu.be/tR_6dibpDfo Operation InfeKtion: How Russia Perfected the Art of War | NYT Opinion
The 'answer to the variance in the groups' is that an enormous majority of Americans are extremist lunatics who, incapable of admitting it to themselves, need to blame a third party.
Excellent assertion. But, the particular direction of the extremist lunatics has been influenced. I don't dispute they can and will do bizarre things on their own. I'm not finger pointing to relieve blame. There is a substantial record and enough of it is common knowledge to make your dismissal seem awkward. Believe whatever, I didn't pull it out of thin air is my point.
Big-tech companies (like FAANG), Democratic politicians (like Biden or Obama), and liberal-minded universities across the country encourage people to celebrate BLM, LGBTQ+, feminist, pro-democracy and anti-capitalist ideas while simultaneously being capitalist, bureaucratic, patriarchal, authoritarian and racist themselves.
They dish out products to satisfy the deep and completely reasonable frustrations that people have with the system, providing an outlet for all the pressure, which keeps those in power safe from any real threat. The point is to make people feel like they are rebelling, without them actually doing so.
I'm not going to take issue with that because I think there is truth to it. However, I have a question: When it comes to the proletariat, which is worse? Those who fall for that ruse, or those who actually believe in and support the capitalist, bureaucratic, patriarchal, authoritarian, racist line without even having to be fooled into supporting it?
No, I'm asking which is worse? Those who fall for the ruse, or those who actually believe in and support the capitalist, bureaucratic, patriarchal, authoritarian, racist line without even having to be fooled into supporting it?
Let me contextualize and then re-state the question: On the other side we have their opposition and their minions celebrating rugged individualism, risk-taking, boot-strapping, personal responsibility, anti-democratic, anti-government, pro-nationalist, pro-capitalist, anti-socialist ideas while simultaneously hiding behind big government skirts with statutory limitations on liability, cost socialization, corporate shareholder protections from having to take personal responsibility for their own actions, regulatory inhibitions to competition, legal tax evasion, capital investment in communist and dictatorial labor markets, and use of U.S. infrastructure, police, national defense and the list goes on. Yet their proletariat hauls their water for them at the polls and on the streets, all while voting against their own interests.
Normally I would just say the prols on the right are fools, just like the prols on the left. But my question was about those who actually support their masters on principle; not simply because they were fooled. Who is worse? Who's principle is a greater threat to America?
Yes, pure ideology! – my God, therefore I would prefer not to, and so on and so on. :smirk:
No, of course you didn't, you're simply parroting the blueQ line which, with nothing to say about the billions of dollars poured in from American corporate financing, can't shut the fuck up about 'Russia'. The Koch's, the Wilk's, the Uihlein's, the Mercer's, the Adelson's, Foster Friess, Bernard Marcus, Regnery II (who, in some good news, died yesterday, one can only hope in miserable circumstances), Fox, local Super PACs with enormous funding and organizational capacity, Murdoch (an Australian blight we exported to the rest of the world), the preponderance of multimillionares in office who openly engage in insider trading... nooo it's a bunch of boogyman ex-KGB agents with Facebook accounts. Why would America, the home of the most brutal capitalist empire in the world, with a wildly active billionare activist class, take a swing to right, and into fascism? Must be Russians! This is blueQanon for Rachel Maddow watching morons.
And just to be clear, I have no doubt that 'Russia' has attempted to stir shit up in the US. It is what any sensible geostrategic rival would do to a nation as fucking stupid as the US. But they are, at best, a peripheral actor that piggbacked and plugged into an existing supermassive architecture of fascist bullshit peddled by homegrown extremists who have been cultivating a scared, ignorant, and fragile population for decades.
I don't know.
I might have read too much into your OP (I hate when people do that, so if I did, please correct me), but I got the impression that you think the duplicitous master is bad (patriarchal, authoritarian and racist) so wouldn't those who where all-in, and did not have to be fooled to get on board, be the worse of the two?
To say there is no Left Wing in America is to deny an entire radical counterculture.
Read Sorel.
True. Revolutions aren't usually planned ahead of time. They start with random explosions of anger that are subsequently channeled into revolution. Stop the random explosions and you head off revolution.