I like that American left are miserable

[fredd bear]

You know what pisses me off about the American left?  This is something I've noticed over the past few years of being involved with some very VERY left wing communities:  the left adamantly refuses to compromise their message, even the slightest, even if it helps them better communicate good ideas.  There's a kind of frustrating intellectual elitism going on with it.  

Meanwhile, I watched a documentary about far right groups, especially white nationalist groups and, you know what?  They took the exact opposite route: they're hiring PR people and gladly changing their messages in order to take terrible, hateful ideas and make them more likable, more popular, to the public.  

The far right seems to care about PR and public opinion far more than the far left.  And, by the way, that plays a role in the country gradually moving to the right and with republicans winning so many elections with candidates that would make Forrest Gump look like a genius.  

I wish the left would actually acknowledge that to promote their ideas, their ideology, they're going to have to work with the public instead of just trying to piss off as many people as possible.

 Up to about 20 years ago, I proudly identified with "The Left" . Even belonged to our Leftist Labor Party., which was founded as the political arm of the trade unionist ,movement.

I left the Labor party when they made  a bloke I considered a thug and a moron our leader. I was right; he helped Labor snatch defeat from the jaws of Victory.

I have watched with horror as the Australian left has  moved ever closer to the right. From where I sit, there is no effective left wing in Australian politics today. Instead, we have 'fluid' factions, in both major parties..


 Gore Vidal  describe the two major US political parties as  Tweedledum and Tweedldee" over 30 years ago. It's gotten far worse since; I am still at a loss over how the "poor white trash" of the bible belt could possibly think a  a narcissistic  billionaire gives a flying fuck about them.

We have the same kind of idiots here. They are the working class tories, who for years seemed to be to be voting against their own best interests. Today I'm not so sure.


Today, I describe myself as nether left nor right, but as a pluralist. I concluded  sometime ago that I ought beware of the 'true believer', religious,  political and philosophical.

Today it is my opinion that "The true believer  is at best naive, at worst dangerous"

[Amarok]

That last sentence right there is what makes you a libtard. No one in this discussion has said that the GOP is on the right track.  You're an offensive person who brands anyone as a Trump supporter if they say anything about you being an offensive person.

You deserve a president like Trump. You beg for it. If the left really were a bunch of libtards (instead of libtards just being lice that have infested the left), then I would want the left to suffer Trump for life.

Again, here is a very thoughtful article about libtards alienating people. Grow a brain, read it, and spend some time thinking about it. We don't win elections by intentionally pissing people off who have traditionally been pretty supportive of the Democratic Party.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/o...-americans

I'm sorry those people don't deserve not to be pissed off . And fuck elections if the price of victory is having no integrity. That's how the right got Trump .

[Yonadav]

That last sentence right there is what makes you a libtard. No one in this discussion has said that the GOP is on the right track.  You're an offensive person who brands anyone as a Trump supporter if they say anything about you being an offensive person.

You deserve a president like Trump. You beg for it. If the left really were a bunch of libtards (instead of libtards just being lice that have infested the left), then I would want the left to suffer Trump for life.

Again, here is a very thoughtful article about libtards alienating people. Grow a brain, read it, and spend some time thinking about it. We don't win elections by intentionally pissing people off who have traditionally been pretty supportive of the Democratic Party.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/o...-americans

I'm sorry those people don't deserve not to be pissed off . And fuck elections if the price of victory is having no integrity. That's how the right got Trump .

And yet another example of a mindless bigot deliberately pissing people off.

[GUBU]

I left the Labor party when they made  a bloke I considered a thug and a moron our leader. I was right; he helped Labor snatch defeat from the jaws of Victory.

You're right, if Blair hadn't turned the party into a milquetoast version of the Tories, or decided that being a war criminal and genocidaire was not an admirable thing to be, Labour would have been in power for a generation or more.

By 1997 the tories were politically, and capitalism ideologically, bankrupt. They had run the country into the ground and destroyed British industry and commerce in the favour of foreign finance, all the while pissing Scottish oil revenues into the wind. If, as he promised before the 1997, Blair had instituted a social democratic (and actual Labour) programme of government; instead of deepening and accelerating privitisation (he effectively privatised the NHS and education systems, two things Thatcher was afraid to do for fear of losing her head), plus becoming more slavishly entwined with US adventurism, Labour would have been in pretty much permanent power for a generation.

Instead, the only reason he won in 2001 or 2005 was because the tories were still in civil war mode, and had nobody even half way competent to stand against Blair.

[Amarok]

I'm sorry those people don't deserve not to be pissed off . And fuck elections if the price of victory is having no integrity. That's how the right got Trump .

And yet another example of a mindless bigot deliberately pissing people off.

Another example of a mindless idiot deliberately spewing his idiocy in defense of idiots

[fredd bear]

I left the Labor party when they made  a bloke I considered a thug and a moron our leader. I was right; he helped Labor snatch defeat from the jaws of Victory.

You're right, if Blair hadn't turned the party into a milquetoast version of the Tories, or decided that being a war criminal and genocidaire was not an admirable thing to be, Labour would have been in power for a generation or more.

By 1997 the tories were politically, and capitalism ideologically, bankrupt.  They had run the country into the ground and destroyed British industry and commerce in the favour of foreign finance, all the while pissing Scottish oil revenues into the wind.  If, as he promised before the 1997, Blair had instituted a social democratic (and actual Labour) programme of government; instead of deepening and accelerating privitisation (he effectively privatised the NHS and education systems, two things Thatcher was afraid to do for fear of losing her head), plus becoming more slavishly entwined with US adventurism, Labour would have been in pretty much permanent power for a generation.




Instead, the only reason he won in 2001 or 2005 was because the tories were still in civil war mode, and had nobody even half way competent to stand against Blair.

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@Nomad

Crossed wires mate.   I'm an Aussie, in Australia, talking about the Australian Labor party. The thug to whom I referred was a drop kick called Mark Latham. It's my observation that Australia no longer has an effective political left wing

I've  been following the Brexit issue for some time but can't say I fully understand it. My perception is that both parties a have a complete shower in charge.  That Theresa may introduced the notion of Brexit  purely for her own political advantage. Much like the appalling Maggie Thatcher and the Faulklands War. As for Jeremy Corbyn; he just  comes across as complete cock.

Overall, it looks as if the UK is as well served by its political leaders as is Oz.

But hey, I'm only an ignorant colonial, what do I know . 

[Cecelia]

You know what pisses me off about the American left?  This is something I've noticed over the past few years of being involved with some very VERY left wing communities:  the left adamantly refuses to compromise their message, even the slightest, even if it helps them better communicate good ideas.  There's a kind of frustrating intellectual elitism going on with it.  

Meanwhile, I watched a documentary about far right groups, especially white nationalist groups and, you know what?  They took the exact opposite route: they're hiring PR people and gladly changing their messages in order to take terrible, hateful ideas and make them more likable, more popular, to the public.  

The far right seems to care about PR and public opinion far more than the far left.  And, by the way, that plays a role in the country gradually moving to the right and with republicans winning so many elections with candidates that would make Forrest Gump look like a genius.  

I wish the left would actually acknowledge that to promote their ideas, their ideology, they're going to have to work with the public instead of just trying to piss off as many people as possible.

Is this Satire?  Cause it's hard to tell.

The left are the party of compromise.  That's why we got Obamacare instead of Single Payer Healthcare. 

The Alt-Right on the other hand, solely do things to piss off the left.  That's why you've got a bill in Missouri that requires all adults over the age of 18 to own an AR-15.  That's why there's constant talks of banning abortion.  They DO NOT compromise.  It's their way or the highway.

So either this has it completely backwards, or it's satire that's become difficult to tell because of the political atmosphere we have today.

[EgoDeath]

You know what pisses me off about the American left?  This is something I've noticed over the past few years of being involved with some very VERY left wing communities:  the left adamantly refuses to compromise their message, even the slightest, even if it helps them better communicate good ideas.  There's a kind of frustrating intellectual elitism going on with it.  

Meanwhile, I watched a documentary about far right groups, especially white nationalist groups and, you know what?  They took the exact opposite route: they're hiring PR people and gladly changing their messages in order to take terrible, hateful ideas and make them more likable, more popular, to the public.  

The far right seems to care about PR and public opinion far more than the far left.  And, by the way, that plays a role in the country gradually moving to the right and with republicans winning so many elections with candidates that would make Forrest Gump look like a genius.  

I wish the left would actually acknowledge that to promote their ideas, their ideology, they're going to have to work with the public instead of just trying to piss off as many people as possible.

It's ironic, isn't it? A small part of the left has become reactionary and so stubborn that they refuse to give any ground. Now, the right is convincing people of their insane ideas because they're willing to bend instead of breaking. It's honestly sad.

[Yonadav]

The state of Michigan in Democratic primary of 1988 chose Jesse Jackson. In 2016, Michigan went to Trump by a razor thin margin. The response of especially stupid people on the left has been to brand all of the working class white people in the state of Michigan as a bunch of fucking racists, pretty much as if they want to forever alienate one of the states that chose a black man to be the Democratic nominee 30 years ago. The Rainbow Coalition worked because it was a coalition based on class, rather than racial and ethnic identity. The white working class felt included. The Libtard Confederacy intentionally excludes the white working class and by doing that, they pretty much handed states like Michigan to Trump.

[The Grand Nudger]

What the right is doing isn't so much convincing people of their ideas as it is convincing them that it's okay to hold them.

The idea, for example, that the whites are somehow, someway, being excluded. It's ridiculous on it's face, but people still believe it, and voicing that ridiculous idea makes people feel more secure in holding it. Particularly when it can be repackaged and divorced from it's narrative origins.