I’m a liberal. I’ve always been a liberal…
[…]
“Don’t punch left” is the core tenet of Solidarity, a new book by Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix. In a laudatory interview with the Washington Post, Hunt-Hendrix said the book was aimed not only at progressives in general but also specifically at liberals who criticize the left, naming me and newsletter author Matthew Yglesias as “falling into the right’s divide-and-conquer strategy.”
I read a couple more paragraphs and I had to stop. I forgot what a terrible writer he is. The article is like reading a textbook that lectures you.
It would surprise any liberal to learn we have no desire to redistribute wealth, tackle climate change, or advance social justice and care only about corporations and the status quo.
Then what are you doing?
When every cause is framed as a matter of absolute moral urgency, which is the lingua franca of protest politics, then no compromise can be brooked.
When every cause is framed as a matter of absolute moral urgency, which is the lingua franca of protest politics, then no compromise can be brooked.
That was also quoted in the r/Enough_Sanders_Spam thread. What a odd sub that is. It’s like I put on “They Live” glasses and all the comity and civility and the rest of the superficial façade of liberals is stripped away and I can see who they really are.
Compromise fetishists, with their Henry Clay shrines or whatever, never seem to grasp that if you’re not at the table you’re on the menu. They like to bring up environmentalism vs. construction, as if the compromise is merely between supporters of the Nature Team and the Development Team, rather than, say, communities who don’t want be poisoned and the corporations that want to poison them.
You’re telling me the poison people might like development under different circumstances?
A Reddit link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
Wealth redistribution is socdem nonsense designed to have a better capitalism.
Tackle climate change
While wanting to preserve the market economy. They probably think it’s doable, but if you understand capitalism and the bourgeois state you know it’s not.
advance social justice
What does this mean? They can move the goalposts as far as they want and claim they achieved it. Useless category.
care only about corporations
Yes, I know. You like the petty bourgeois too! How nice of you. Fuck off.
and the status quo.
See “social justice” above. They do like the state, capitalism and everything that entails. You are the status quo. The only reason you claim not to be is to differentiate yourself from other supporters of capital.
I’d much rather liberals talk to the left with open hostility rather than their usual smug “civility” tbh. Make it abundantly clear to all that if you have any empathy for others at all, you belong on the left, not with the liberals.
You might have seen it alreay but a few days ago I started a George Takei related thread that I can’t get out of my head - A lib “how to” on talking about Gaza - Hexbear
Most of it was exactly what I expected. But a surprising word stuck in my craw - “dealbreaker”. As if there can be a “deal” made on morality. And - of course - the “deal” is we must change 100% and see things the lib way while they don’t change an iota. Quite a deal!
That was 3 days ago and “dealbreaker” still really annoys me.
Hot take: liberals should punch left more. When your enemy attacks you, you know you’re on the right path. Liberals are enemies. There are no coalitions to build with them.
There are no coalitions to build with them.
I disagree, there are tactical coalitions that can be built predicated on cooperating over specific issues - such as avoiding nuclear war or ending the Palestinian genocide, etc. - with the understanding that tactical cooperation does not equal comraderyship with those in your coalition.
I guess. I’m just so used to libs being venomous snakes that bite when you turn your back that I’m jaded with them.
No shit, that doesn’t mean there aren’t times where interests align and we can collaborate - preferably on our terms and with our lead - on key issues.
I don’t see any of you lot complaining about how the Communists coalitioned with the progressive libs in the anti-war movement against the Vietnam War or saying the Communists should’ve gone their own way during the Civil rights movement
The rub I see with making a coalition with libs now is twofold:
- What common goals do we share that both sides are willing to compromise on?
- What leverage would communists have in the arrangement that would allow us to get our way?
To be clear, my top level comment isn’t a dogmatic categorical opposition to forming coalitions with liberals. I just do not see the conditions currently that would make such a coalition further the class struggle. I suppose “liberals” might also be vague in this context as it could be anyone from a borderline baby leftist who just needs a nudge in the right direction to a died in the wool demonrat bruncher. The article makes me think the author is the latter.
I suppose “liberals” might also be vague in this context as it could be anyone from a borderline baby leftist who just needs a nudge in the right direction to a died in the wool demonrat bruncher. The article makes me think the author is the latter.
Context is such an underutilized concept among us who tout ourselves as scientific socialists
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Even “tactical cooperation” can get you long-knifed with those snakes
“In Defense of Punching Liberals”
PUT ON THE GLASSES
hehe…
I’m trying to work my way through Lenin’s “What is to be Done”. If I’m understanding it so far, it starts out heavily criticizing opportunists and the idea of “freedom of criticism” in the context of members of an organization being wreckers.
What a wacky coincidence…
I fucking hate liberals
♪♪♪ Sure, once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
Ah, but I’ve grown older and wiser
And that’s why I’m turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal ♪♪♪
Huh, Jonathan Chait likes charter schools. He says so in this terrible article. Well, he doesn’t seem to want to use the phrase “charter schools”, instead just talking repeatedly about “school reform”. Which is indeed a euphemism for wanting charter schools, as I had to click a link to learn.
Why use a euphemism here? Why not just say you’re in favor of charter schools? Is he embarrassed about it? But then why say anything at all? I’m puzzled
Why use a euphemism here?
I’ll assume you’re serious. His wife is very pro-charter schools and people always needle him about that on Twitter so he’s always very evasive on that topic.
But then why ever talk about it at all? He didn’t need to bring it up in this article. I dunno, I’m sure I’ll never get a satisfying answer. Probably even Jonathan Chait doesn’t understand why he does the things that he does
But then why ever talk about it at all?
He can’t help it. He’s a self-righteous prick.
Jonathan “bofa deez commie nuts moist boi” Chait
Jonathan Taint.
Cracker detected, opinion rejected
I find it hard to consider Yglesias even a liberal, he’s just the world’s most bloodless fascist (and yes, this is coming from the perspective of somebody who is fully aware that liberalism is a bourgeois, right wing ideology). I do not know this dweeb, but when anybody finds it fitting to name him alongside that dingus, i think i’m better off not knowing.
liberals always proud to prove they are right wing
I welcome this, actually. More people should learn the distinction between liberals and leftists
![[Not the Onion] In Defense of Punching Left](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/2f24416b-15c8-4492-8885-92c99b08d536.png){kind=link}