The Left Fails Yet Again

[Farm Boy]

It took me a long time to start getting this, but often enough when people that like you rib an action as whiny, they usually aren't calling for your nonparticipation. They'd usually like seeing you take it up a notch. If I complain too much about stuff around here, my dad(yet another Boomer) usually starts obliquely referencing local charities. It's not exactly that word, but you can hear the implied, "Well, you have got hands, don't you?"

Strange how that sucks eh?

That is not strange at all.<looks around> Nope. Not shocked.

 

[rah]

this post is dumb and just pouring oil into the fire, carrying on with stereotypes and actually you're making yourself look like a stereotypical boomer even though you aren't one..

Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't have posted that.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

But yeah i apologise Rah, you are right that i place my anger too broadly at boomers, so let me clarify it then.

I dislike straight, white boomers, specifically those who continue to enable the status quo that has all of us ****ed and those that refuse to accept that.

 

[rah]

Yeah, I guess the reason I dislike being grouped with them is that mistakes were made.
But there are bad people in every generation.
For the record, Ronald Reagan wasn't a boomer.
I'll let it rest.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't have posted that.

I say dumber stuff on a daily basis. the problem is never with saying dumb stuff, it's with people who don't own it what's so special about you (and many people on cfc) is that they'll admit mistakes and try to do better, which becomes increasingly uncommon as people get older and more ideologically fixated.

But yeah i apologise Rah, you are right that i place my anger too broadly at boomers, so let me clarify it then.

I dislike straight, white boomers, specifically those who continue to enable the status quo that has all of us ****ed and those that refuse to accept that.

but you don't dislike gay boomers who continue to enable the status quo?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

On a case by case basis, yes.

 

[Farm Boy]

Makes sense!

Spoiler offered with dated positive energy.. Not actually SFW, whoops :

 

[rah]

I say dumber stuff on a daily basis. the problem is never with saying dumb stuff, it's with people who don't own it what's so special about you (and many people on cfc) is that they'll admit mistakes and try to do better, which becomes increasingly uncommon as people get older and more ideologically fixated.

Actually as I get older, I getting more unsure of things that I used to take for granted. The more you learn, the less you realize what you know as fact.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

You'll just condemn them all anyway so what's the point. Racists hate blacks to make themselves feel superior. Are you feeling superior?

But I've had enough of you blind hatred tonight so I'm going to call it day. Good night

It's almost like maybe... he's a bigot?

But yeah i apologise Rah, you are right that i place my anger too broadly at boomers, so let me clarify it then.

I dislike straight, white boomers, specifically those who continue to enable the status quo that has all of us ****ed and those that refuse to accept that.

Lol, how do you think that's better? You only dislike certain boomers, based on sexuality and skin colour. Lovely.

 

[Patine]

Ain't that the truth! The left has basically ceded the economic game to the right with the "third way" after the embarrasment of the soviet system. Why isn't there constant outrage about rent-seeking activities by the financial elites, multinational companies exploiting tax loopholes in free trade agreements, how these companies are making countries compete with taxation for their investments, how we are letting these companies' negative externalities be paid by the global poor and future generations and how their tax avoidance is plunging welfare states into increased taxation, cycles of dept or austerity. It's basically what Lenin talks about in Imperialism, that the ruling class has bought the working class in the developed nations with trinkets. People just don't care, because they like their gadget at 5,99€ delivered by Amazon to their door, and not 59,99€ from your local brick and mortar. It is infuriating! And we're all guilty parties in it.

Instead the left is flailing about with buzzwords about cultural issues. Especially the very Internet people who splash in a puddle about "gamers" being mean, or what ever. It's like being in a gilded cage. With the risk of being called a "Strasserite" (which seems to be the term for the universalist heretic for a portion of the intersectional left), I think that Angela Nagel is basically right in that the intersectional left is neoliberalism in disguise, and the terminology surrounding it is just an aesthetic.

I'm not even calling for some socialist revolution, that would end up badly as always, but only to make the markets more accountable and fair. Currently the big multinational companies can exploit their size to compete unfairly, and exploit the lack of negative externality taxes to gain abnormal profits by poisoning the planet and making everyone else pay for it in the end.


Implying that the economic growth is not about buying more garbage.

Again, as I've mentioned above, several time, the sixth word in your poll is an utterly nonsensical and gaping hole in you terminology there, unless you can tell me, concisely, how Xi Jinpeng, Nicolas Maduro, Gennady Zhuganov, the recent successors of Jacob Zuma, Robert Mugabe, and Raul Castro (their names haven't stuck yet), Morelos, the Global Greens, the Pirate Party International, and many others have participated in this "Third Way" failure, and also reaped the same results. If you CAN'T, be more concise and specific in who you're talking about. This LAZY, COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE, AMORPHOUS, INPRECISE, UNINFORMED, and SABOTAGING TO ANY SENNSIBLE OR RATIONAL DEBATE terms like "the Left" need to go, NOT be taken for granted as more and more acceptable. Please, for the love of all that's good, STOP with it, and @Zardnaar, change this ridiculous thread's title instead of constantly defending the stupidity behind it as legitimate!

 

[El_Machinae]

It took me a long time to start getting this, but often enough when people that like you rib an action as whiny, they usually aren't calling for your nonparticipation. They'd usually like seeing you take it up a notch. If I complain too much about stuff around here, my dad(yet another Boomer) usually starts obliquely referencing local charities. It's not exactly that word, but you can hear the implied, "Well, you have got hands, don't you?"



That is not strange at all.<looks around> Nope. Not shocked.

I really like this post

 

[Akka]

I dislike straight, white boomers, specifically those who continue to enable the status quo that has all of us ****ed and those that refuse to accept that.

=>

I admit, it's pretty ironic to see (as is so often the case) the guy who makes fighting racism the cornerstone of his self-professed values, acting exactly the same way as the persons he claim to despises.
Yet again, an example why I put much more worth in the way people think than the values they pretend to defend.

Though I don't expect the kind of people who do this, to be able to realize they do it, even when being called on about it.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

=>

Though I don't expect the kind of people who do this, to be able to realize they do it, even when being called on about it.

What are you trying to say?

 

[Berzerker]

How do you get an average when "White Boomers" range from literal Nazi's to Hippie Flower children and everything in between?

they put little swastikas in their hair

Unfortunately most of the hippies are either gone or became conservative.

aging can do that...in 40 years you'll be the dinosaur

 

[rah]

they put little swastikas in their hair

Thanks for that great visual.

 

[innonimatu]

Unfortunately most of the hippies are either gone or became conservative.

Most of the hippies were irresponsible fools with an attitude of "I've got mine, screw you". When they emerged as group they did it embracing the the most self-centered, hyper-individualistic ideas that had arisen in a long time. They deliberately turned their backs on responsibility towards other people around them, their own communities they originated from, their own families, all for the sake of some idea of "personal liberation". they turned their backs on humanism. All that mattered was the self. And the self quickly abandoned the trappings co "community" and became openly, unashamedly selfish. Those old hippies didn't change their minds at all. And we are living with the end result of that destruction of society.

It would be good if the hippies had went extinct. Instead they took over, and wrecked, society. Under different labels (including as sponsors of some of the modern conservatism you fail to understand), but their logic triumphed.

 

[Ajidica]

Most of the hippies were irresponsible fools with an attitude of "I've got mine, screw you". When they emerged as group they did it embracing the the most self-centered, hyper-individualistic ideas that had arisen in a long time. They deliberately turned their backs on responsibility towards other people around them, their own communities they originated from, their own families, all for the sake of some idea of "personal liberation". they turned their backs on humanism. All that mattered was the self. And the self quickly abandoned the trappings co "community" and became openly, unashamedly selfish. Those old hippies didn't change their minds at all. And we are living with the end result of that destruction of society.

It would be good if the hippies had went extinct. Instead they took over, and wrecked, society. Under different labels (including as sponsors of some of the modern conservatism you fail to understand), but their logic triumphed.

You are starting to sound like Adam Curtis....

 

[innonimatu]

I did like his documentaries back in the say. Very opinionated, but he made goods points, it was a view about recent history.

I mean, silicon valley and the corporate surveillance&manipulation society was built by those people... the road to hell is paved with good intentions, some say. And while I still believe in good intentions, one should be very critical of those carrying them, check carefully before throwing one's support into a cause. Where is it going to lead to?

Why shouldn't i bring that up as a point of contention within the LGBT community?

Do a reality check. There is no such thing as a LGBT community, dude. There are many communities in that space and some political groups using that label for their own purposes. What brief unity of purpose might have existed in breaking down some social restriction is long gone, as those are gone. You are militating for delusions. And being used.

Your self-worth cannot depend on you being member of any one particular community. What is natural is for you to be member of many. And have responsibilities towards many. If you want to feel virtuous, and I do think that is a humane and good thing to desire, do your best for who may need among those many communities. You'll find that sometimes you know people with entirely opposite views, among those different communities your life touches, and they are not evil for it, nor less deserving of help when in need. Participating and helping widely is one of the most effective ways to reconcile, approach, or change what were opposite views.


People fail to understand the political logic behind the so-called "identity politics". By encouraging groups of people to concentrate their activity solely on one particular cause, those who control overarching political organizations (in the context of the us, the two big political parties) gain more power. They become the sole group capable of organizing an influence block with real political weight out of these many disparate groups. Those groups do not talk to each other on their own, they do it under the umbrella of some big party, they place themselves at the mercy of their organization. I do not think that the rise of "identity politics" was an accident. They were encouraged because it is a damn convenient way of managing people by an upper caste. Of curtailing the independent initiative that might lead to wider alliances and challenges to those managing that top organization.

 

[Ajidica]

I did like his documentaries back in the say. Very opinionated, but he made goods points, it was a view about recent history.

I always struggle with Adam Curtis. I feel he places too much emphasis on grand macro trends and philosophical concepts rather than the (in my opinion) grubbier and down to earth drivers of events like greed, indifference, complacency, and careerism. Plus, his documentaries tend toward the nihilistic which develops into a "if nothing good can come from change and we can't actually improve society, there is no point in trying and we should focus on the self".

 

[innonimatu]

I agree that they are dangerous in that way. Potentially discouraging. But they provide food for thought, and you do not have to be discouraged by the fact that the world is vast, societies very complex, and unintended consequences frequent.
That knowledge is necessary to do something good.

One of his themes was the fact that ideas often produced results very different from its stated aims. The grubbier events are part of what derails things so often. But ideas are powerful, otherwise society would be static. He comments on changes and gives his ideas on what cause them. Useful examples to learn from So ideas do change the world, there is a point on focusing on changing society. It's really the same drive that leads people to try to figure out past history. You can be content with that, you can even be intimidated. Or you can be inspired by something you learned from it and take up some kind of activism. There's all kinds.