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The sooner we realize the “left vs right” battle is a facade put up to distract and divide us, the sooner we realize what terrifies the upper class: we’re much stronger together.
Unless you’re a Nazi, then you can get fucked.
Bernie said it in 2000. The right uses single issue tactics to divide us. The real war is against the rich and poor.
Bernie has been speaking truth to power on this longer than I’ve been alive, which is why the ruling class killed both his presidential campaigns.
Now, we’re seeing the logical conclusion that plays out when people feel like there’s no way to win this fight at the polls.
Amusingly, this kind of thing makes me think about gun laws.
Everyone believes it’s impossible for gun control, but I would bet my life that if the rich got too unsettled we would see some swift and heavy restrictions set up.
It’s all class warfare. Always has been.
This is part of why I’m a pro gun leftist.
No, police arrest and kill rich black people in the US too.
https://apnews.com/article/business-nancy-pelosi-congress-8685e82eb6d6e5b42413417f3d5d6775 (Pelosi defends lawmaker stock trades, citing ‘free market’)
Our political “left,” ladies and germs.
pelosi ain’t left at all. not by a long …road
We have maybe 2-4 individuals in all of Congress, none promoted within the DNC as that is determined by how well you “fundraise,” aka demonstrate you’re willing and able to get the biggest bribe checks, that might actually hold some economically leftist ideals.
They are hated and undermined by both parties harder than either party fights the other. The DNC and leaders like Pelosi and Schumer are far more at ease with Trump being President than They would with AOC.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/aoc-and-nancy-pelosi (Nancy Pelosi ‘Making Calls’ to Undermine AOC’s Bid for Top Oversight Role)
Behold Democrat leadership’s priorities a month before Trump takes office, kneecap the farthest left member of her chamber yet again.
Exactly their point, it’s not left vs right, it’s the ruling class vs the laborers
But how will red Fascists justify their governments if they can’t claim the people wanting freedom are evil?
What of course doesn’t disagree any bit to what you said. But expect some coordinated and well founded opposition every time you try to claim “left” and “right” are bullshit.
That’s true, but the opposition has shown their strategy already: to redirect public unrest towards marginalized groups and social policies, and away from the bourgeoisie. The result is right-leaning people getting captured in a funnel that starts with “society is too woke” and ends in full blown fascism.
So how do we counter it? By maintaining a grassroots effort to bring people out of that funnel by showing worker solidarity and uniting against the ruling class.
If you push someone away because they voted for the wrong candidate or don’t agree with you on some social cause, some fascist talking head on YouTube will be right there to swoop them up.
If you push someone away because they voted for the wrong candidate or don’t agree with you on some social cause, some fascist talking head on YouTube will be right there to swoop them up.
I feel that about my older boomer relatives and friends - they are very right wing, but they have more in common with leftists than the true interests of the Republican Party, and if they’d just stop believing dumb shit, they will be ready for a change (of whatever form that may take). They are also firm belivers in the second Amendment and drive large trucks. I wonder where the right will land on gun control if, heaven forbid, copy cat CEO killings occur.
We’ll see if they fall in line or if shit gets real, I guess?
Your right wing friends and family - their lived experience has proven that the system doesn’t work for them, and they’re rightfully pissed off.
My Trump loving relatives used to be Bernie supporters. If you can speak to what they already know - that our country is failing them and we need real change - they’ll realize that we all have a lot more in common than the establishment gives us credit for.
Exactly, this isn’t about left vs right. He could’ve been a flat earther and the rest of his actions would still be valid.
And the landscape of US politics is so fucked at this point that which “side” somebody is allegedly on based on donkeys and elephants, or whose podcasts they listen to, or who they retweet is really only an entertaining starting point to determining what the hell their views actually are.
I’m sure plenty of “right wing” Republican voters actually would agree with us here on a lot of things once you broke down individual topics – possibly with a little bit of rephrasing of things, and after you punched through the layer of bullshit, lies, racism, identity politics, and incessant fearmongering over non-issues that the GOP slathers all over everything they say nowadays.
Liberals and conservatives generally actually agree on these two core concepts, vis-a-vis:
- We want the government to provide for us what we think everyone ought to deserve to get, and
- We want it for “free.”
Pretty famously the Affordable Care Act polls pretty well with both parties whereas Obamacare polls very poorly with Republicans. One would find that odd considering those are two different names for the same thing
Propaganda is a powerful drug.
I had an acquaintance try to tell me that Presidents didn’t use executive orders before Obama. He was mad because Obama “started the whole executive order thing”.
It took me a minute to process the level of stupid that it takes to actually believe that considering,
1.) The US constitution grants the president broad discretion over the executive branch.
2.) An “executive order” is nothing more than a directive from the president to an agency or department under the executive branch.
3.) Nearly every president since Washington has issued executive orders, although they weren’t called “executive orders” and did not have any sort of numbering system until 1907.So basically he was mad at Obama and every president thereafter for checks notes doing their job.
Same folks will be like, x issued more orders than any other president, but also excitedly talking about record revenue, turnout, etc. As if the stuff they agree with grows in a vacuum away from the stuff they disagree with.
I’m sure plenty of “right wing” Republican voters actually would agree with us here on a lot of things once you broke down individual topics
I wouldn’t be surprised. USSA, unlike Europe, is politically homogenous. Instead of 100500 different parties it has only right wing and more right wing party.
And there was video demonstrating what you said.
Voting for Kamala Harris to stop Trump: “The Democratic Party didn’t provide good enough options!”
Making a class hero out of a spoiled rich kid: “We’ll take whatever we can get!”
Taking out the evil CEO of a multi-billion dollar company built to take advantage of people makes him less of a spoiled rich kid than some random cunt getting on the internet and spouting his opinions like anyone gives a shit.
Let’s be real: he will be remembered for his actions, not for his background.
In other words, “B-but…”
Any proof that he is right winger, that’s not made by some fundamentalist?
Because last bullshit I read is that he was right wing because he liked technology…
I read he complained about “woke” a lot.
Idk what’s more woke that offing a CEO.
Heart attacks have probably killed more CEOs than anything, but I wouldn’t call them woke.
Not offing CEO
I complain about Woke a lot and I’m a dyed in the wool leftist to be fair. There’s a broader spectrum of opinion out there.
*on american scale. Most american lefists wouldn’t look out of place in russian coalition of right forces.
What I read is his friends identified him as economically leftist, but took issue with identity politics
Which depending on context could be as simple as “I dont care ill mind my own business you mind yours.” which I suspect is what most folks opinions boil down to.
Identity politics will be the downfall of democracy if Democrats don’t stop that bullshit
The problem with that is that oppression injustice, and inequity are often based on a person‘s identity
Still do it, just don’t base your entire platform on it. It’s not that hard to understand but most democrat politicians can’t
Agreed there, democrats continue to refuse to challenge their economic masters and try to use identity politics as a sop
Why do you blame Democrats for identity politics and not Republicans for passing laws based on identity politics?
Because that’s what Republican voters want and that’s enough for them. They vote on spite and hate and the GOP feeds them it
I don’t believe that the democrats actually based their entire platform on identity politics. That’s more a right wing issue, in that they have an issue with the existence of certain groups of people.
I don’t remember seeing a trans person as a speaker at any of the rallies for the DNC, for instance.
I wouldn’t say “right-winger” - he was apparently a “rationalist” aka gray tribe, a loose philosophy that places rational thinking above ideologies.
Greys are into eugenics, they’re weird.
They are very right wing lol
Don’t think so. “For the greater good” - heavily associated with left wing - is a rationalist take.
they are peter-thiel-style libertarians and “race realists”, among the most extreme of the far right you can get. that very term “grey tribe” comes from an essay by scott alexander who consistently goes to bat for racist and fascist causes. there’s nothing remotely left about them.
The idea of being a ‘rationalist’ or ‘realist’ is literally almost always just one finding excuses to not call themselves nihilists
Nihilist here. Nope.
Okay?
I was referring to those who acted nihilistic whilst calling themselves realists
Because last bullshit I read is that he was right wing because he liked technology…
Man, I miss technology being left-wing.
Class solidarity is exactly what we need, and if billionaires and multimillionaires break rank to join us, we most certainly can welcome them, with caution of course.
A liberal who realized something was wrong is something a lot of leftists once were. Accepting him should come from a place of empathy.
Can confirm, gave up on the whole “Democracy will repair itself” thing after the election.
Call me naive, but I really had hope the majority of Americans would at minimum be willing to vote against a rapist/insurrectionist/fraud
gave up on the whole “Democracy will repair itself” thing after the election.
Comparing to russian opposition, it surprises me that “democracy will repair itself” is popular. It was understood somewhere in 2013 by nationalists, “right” and “left”. “Democracy is a muscle, that needs to be excercised regularly” as Ekaterina Shulman (recently) said.
Absolutely. I feel empathy for the United CEOs family, while also recognizing they are going to be financially fine. They also have a chance to reflect on any grief and how affected families may not be sympathetic for valid reasons. Whether they do or not depends on whether they value healing, or greed/retribution.
I don’t. They benefited from it, same as him. Were happy to do so. They are nearly as demented as him.
You’re talking about a 16 year old, a 19 year old, and his estranged wife who is a physical therapist. What’s demented about them?
Thank you.
Not willing to defend your accusation eh?
Why does it need defending? I’m not saying they are deserving of the same fate as Brian, but I don’t feel bad for them for no longer having such a vile man around. If they are good people as you say, they would rejoice as well.
“They are nearly as demented as him.” That’s why. I don’t know any of those people, but this whole “sins of the father” bullshit doesn’t fly in the modern world. They aren’t responsible for what a douchebag he was, or anything he did a UHC. In fact it looks like at least his wife figured out he was a douchebag since she left him. So I’m just wondering what your source for the claim was.
Left Vs. Right is old and busted
Poor Vs. Rich is new hotness
Seriously. There have been profiles of his online interests. He clearly was not a political partisan. What he was more than anything was anti-establishment. He was a big fan of both AOC and Joe Rogan. However, the corporate media is doing what it always does - try to divide us along artificial partisan lines.
An MIB reference?
I salute you friend.
o7
Indeed it was
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He nixed a deep right oligarch because they were killing people.
I don’t know what label you really want to assign to that, But it current it doesn’t seem very Right Wing thing to do
In American politics left and right have no meaning anyway
Yeah you’re kind of need to clarify these days whether they’re the Right looking for upper middle class tax breaks, or the right that’s looking to use the police to hunt non white people to extinction, not that there’s not a significant overlap of those two circles but…
That is why we need to start using the more specific libertarian right and authoritarian right of the axis spectrum and stop using the regular left-right spectrum
Libertarian right covers some of the bases, but has their own interesting agenda quirks, like they don’t want tax just cuts, they want to defund the government all together. 0 guardrails. Then rely on ??? To decide who gets paid for what.
It ends up letting the authoritarian right shortcut to racism, there’s 0 support for healthcare and relies far too much on individual good will that does not exist.
The left gives upper middle class tax breaks. Kamala’s plan would have cut taxes for anyone making under $914,900/yr.
See the problem for them is, this isn’t a political issue, this wasn’t about some political rhetoric attacking some mysterious foe, this was a human struggling to relieve their pain because of a corrupt system designed to squeeze every last penny from its victims.
You can’t pit us against each other over this, you can’t create boogeymen over this, because you are the boogeyman this time, but we’re not afraid of you anymore, we know how to scare the boogeyman now.
Luigi was loaded, he probably could have easily paid off all his own medical bills without insurance. Luigi’s dad is the current head of Mangione Family Enterprises.
I think he did it because he thought he could get away with it, and maybe he will.
Luigi isn’t Muad’dib
His motivation was to merk someone just to get away with it?
No, not to get away with it, because he could get away with it.
His motivations weren’t “they ruined my life.” Thats such an obvious lie. Idk why everyone has to have their own Luigi Fanfiction.
Oh okay, thanks for clarification
I think that the left/ right spectrum is outdated, or at least the definitions we give to each.
I mean, originally the left/ right divide was about whether to keep King Louis XVI around or to have him beheaded.
The spectrum we know as a communism vs capitalism scale really was useful in the cold war when those were the two sides of a bipolar world. When we still use this as the measuring stick, things become super confusing in the 21st century. Our world is no longer a communist vs capitalist struggle. Russia and China aren’t communist like the Soviet Union. The United States isn’t the same democratic state that it was in 1960.
I don’t know what our new spectrum is, that’s going to be the research of the next great political scientist, but I do think the old tools we’ve used are no longer helpful. Some are saying “woke vs unwoke”, some are saying “populism vs. globalism”, and some are saying simply “chaos vs order”. Perhaps it’s a little bit of all, or perhaps we should throw spectrums out altogether. Either way, if we use old tools for modern problems, we will end up confused. It’s like how jazz is seen as a super complex genre- it may simply be because we still use the music theory of 18th century European composers to try and understand Miles Davis. Of course it’s going to be a wild ride.
On the other hand, if we continuously move goalposts, we risk changing definitions so much that being anti-slavery would be “explicitly left”, and as most people tend to stick close to “center”, whatever it could be, this can really change the political landscape.
I’m not sure if updating our tools is moving goal posts- what goal are we aiming for? I understand the frustration with seeing the measuring stick change to make the reasonable seem unreasonable, but I would say that the same measuring stick is now misrepresenting where people fall.
If we are talking political spectrums, there already are plenty of tools used: the linear left right, the horseshoe, the fishhook, the quadrant visualisation, etc. I’d say the data is now leaving the paper. We need new tools to make sense of it.
Much to your point though, I think it’s valuable to ask “what are we measuring, who’s doing the measuring, and who benefits from the answer?”
We will never have the satisfying answers to our questions, but hopefully we can find better questions to ask.
To my mind, there is nothing wrong with majority of people falling to some range. We can still make sense of it, looking at the levels of distinction that will ever be present.
Otherwise, we risk losing any common anchor, which is very important when we talk any point of statistics or want to trace dynamics and trends of political thought.
Taking some of the extreme examples, in USSR you would be “right-wing” for wishing to open your small business, and in modern US, you would be “left-wing” for wishing to make healthcare more affordable to the poor or have minorities heard. In fact, USSR was just full of people on the left, and US is full of people on the right, driven by propaganda, political technology, media, communications, genuine core beliefs etc.
Updating tools could be about bringing more clarity to some new formations and events, but it shouldn’t be about constantly redefining the base values.
The political spectrum is fake bullshit made to divide the working class. The only ideology of the oligarchs is the acquisition of wealth, and they will assume any political persona in the pusuit of it.
I’d argue that, among the working class, the right wing of the political spectrum represents either the expectation/ambition to gain much more than others, or distrust of the left, commonly driven by following capitalist BS or having certain reservations or misunderstandings.
That’s just economics though
The right still pushes for religious liberties and gender identity while the left looks to abolish those things
Left and right are primarily economic, and we can only look at one axis at a time.
Otherwise, what you would call, idk, a devout Christian commune where people share everything? Left, because they’re equals, or right, because religion?
You would call one opinion right and one left, you already know what a political compass looks like and they would fall into economically left, socially right quadrant until you find other beliefs
Then we should define social left and right and keep it separate, and have one type of left and right as default (probably economic) or always mention it.
Because otherwise there’s a giant field for manipulations.
Love it or hate it, political ideologies exist, and they exist on some spectrum
Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
- George Orwell, 1984
The practical ethos of every authoritarian in history (including the self-styled “champions of the proletariat”) is:
It’s not just that I have a lot; it’s that I must always have more than everyone else, and they must be compelled to desire this. Forever.
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Are psychadelics really THAT powerful?
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Unfortunately people don’t often know about their own potential for negative outcomes when they experiment with a new drug. Plenty of people with undiagnosed mental health problems out there.
Without a doubt, yes.
I mean you can’t force anyone to think what you want them to, as in it’s not some extremely suggestible state that makes people compliant and obedient.
But what it does is essentially make you more able to change your opinion. An openness of mind. And right wing rhetoric is very close minded. So making a right winger open minded usually results in them turning to the left.
Despite his strong connections to the right wing crowd, even Rogan is pretty leftist when it comes to the policies he actually supports, despite being a poorly educated steroid-abusing American meathead.
Kinda, yeah.
If you’re bipolar or predisposed to things, yes!
TBH I think it’s takes much stronger drugs to be compliant.
No, I think ppl who say that stuff are full pf shit.
I’ve tried shrooms, ket, and lsd with a bunch of ppl and I’ll let you know, most of those cunts just keep cunting.
It depends a ton on the person, and much more importantly how/if they integrate their experience into their day to day lives (see: great, you’ve experienced yourself as a node in a larger fabric of humanity. How are you going your act next week when the drugs have worn off and you’re back in the office? What’s your plan?)
I’d wager not a ton of people really do the work involved with that second part.
In other words, he could plead insanity?
Luigi Mangione is the median American voter
They’re confused because they still believe the dominant divide in US politics is liberalism v conservatism. It’s not, and it hasn’t been for some time. Increasingly, even if they lack the exact language to explain it, voters do not identify foremost as Democrats or Republicans, progressives or traditionalists, or even left or right. They identify as pro-system or anti-system.
I feel like there are very few people who are truly “pro-system” (mostly just the super rich)… Even in the pro system category I’d say the majority aren’t pro system so much as they believe the system is broken, they just also believe the system can be fixed while playing within the rules of the system itself.
Personally, idgaf what his alignment was, I know his action’s alignment was chaotic good.
He rolled 20 on ambush
I couldn’t give less of a fuck what his political ideologies are.
It never even crossed my mind he was on the right nor that he would be on the left.
I will say, doing something for the greater good is a very leftist ideology, however doing something out of anger and vengeance would be more universal. Regardless of motivation, the thing he accomplished will (hopefully) be something that inspires change, specifically in regards to healthcare in the USA.
I’m not an American, and your healthcare, or lack thereof, isn’t really my problem. That being said, I’m more left leaning, and I believe in social programs (like healthcare for all). I have government healthcare where I am and as someone on the lower end of the “economic ladder” let me tell you, it’s pretty great. Sure, I might have to wait longer for some procedures, but if I’m upset about that, I can go to my GP and have my feelings checked… for free.
CEOs and healthcare officials will tighten security for a few months, judges will be hard on anyone who gives off even a whiff of copycat, and then some other outrage will come along and people will forget and nothing will change. Insurance practices will stay the same. At most, people will make this a second amendment issue, the government will pass some legislation about 3D printed guns, and our lives will all continue to get progressively worse.
Serious question… If you believe in social programs then, wherever you are, what makes you “right leaning”?
Actually, that’s a typo. I intended to put left leaning, I thought I put left leaning, and reading it back a moment before seeing your comment, I noticed the error.
Whoops. My bad.
Problem more of a traditionalist
cultural perspectives. anti-LGBTQ stuff.
Are you asking all of us? I’m personally a constitutionalist. That never used to be right-leaning, but it’s now forced in that camp. Im also a staunch supporter of biological women’s sports staying that way, and opening categories that incorporate trans men and trans women together in one. Much more interesting sporting that way anyway. Includes everyone, you’ll see more trans men in sports (very few if none as of now) and you get to keep biological women sports as fair as possible.
Evil, I know. 🙄
sports forced you?
Sports forced me to what?
In my reply, I said I’m a constitutionalist. It used to be a thing that wasn’t defined as right-wing, but whatever the new DNC left has become, they’re the ones who are insisting constitutionalists are right-leaning.
sports forced you to lean right. thats what you said.
Sports didn’t. The vocal left insisting that I’m “right” because I want to keep biological women’s spaces for biological women. We can open other categories for trans people to participate in. We can give rights without others being forced to give up their own.
but the deciding factor was sports?
Thanks for answering… Personally my thought is that anyone should be allowed to compete in any sport they qualify for… Just add more league levels. Don’t have to name them in a hierarchical way. Sort of like heavy weight vs feather weight… The competition is still going to be good because you’ve divided athletes by ability level, not something as arbitrary as sex or gender assigned at birth. If a woman or trans person can somehow compete with men (assigned at birth) in the NFL, I wanna see that shit. Sure you’d probably just end up with a league full of women, less talented men, and trans people, but at least they’d all be competitive in that league. Shit, maybe if there were some trans women or less skilled men in the “women’s” leagues people might actually watch them. Idk… I’m definitely talking out of turn; personally I think organized sports are as bad for society as organized religion.
It’s gets super convoluted at that point. Men and women who have switched genders by way of hormones is an easy solution. You can have the same league levels as we do now, not have to make up a whole bunch of new ones, and you keep women’s sports for assigned at birth
To be clear, mens sports are usually open sports, they started being called men sports when women had to open up their own, but I think anyone can partake. They don’t, because they lose, and it makes it not fun. So open categories aren’t an answer. But a hormone competitions are a great one. :)
The only thought I had seeing that was “he was in the right”.
Like many, he was a right-winger until he became the victim of the right wing. Suddenly he became the most extreme example of the “woke” activists he used to attack.
Your commitment to long-term civilizational success, Elon, is not universally shared
It’s not even the majority position
What you call the “woke mind virus” cares about one thing only: equality
The levelers want to destroy everything because in the rubble we will all be equal
- Tweet reposted by Luigi, worshipping a capitalist 10x worse than the one he shot
Which is not exactly why we should remain in solidarity with those who started figuring something out, not alienate them based on past views.
Give him a bit of time, he already started looking through some of the BS.
I don’t care if luigi is a martian, he’s a hero in my book
My enemies wear suits. Not silly hats.
I got more in common with the most batshit crazy redhat than I do with any fucking ceo or billionaire.
