The cancer infecting the political Left

[Mickey123]

During the Consciousness Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, a number of groups, civil rights, feminists, anti-war, and others, all found they were united by a single goal - to smash the Establishment.  They've never stopped trying.

But what was once the ideology of a small number of radical leftists has become a cancer infecting the West, a belief system designed to destroy Western culture and societies by turning everyone against one another and in particular against anything that makes society strong and functional.  Referred to at times as "cultural marxism" or "woke culture", the essence of it is that society consists of a power struggle between oppressor groups and the oppressed.  Men oppress women, whites oppress other races, Christians oppress non-Christians, the wealthy oppress the working class, the able oppress the disabled, and so on.

The goal of this is to tear society apart by putting everyone in conflict with everyone else.  As nearly every person will find himself belonging to both oppressor and oppressed groups, therefore everyone is simultaneously destructive and evil, as well as a helpless victim of others, who can only solve his problems when the oppressors above him somehow stop oppressing him.

As the left has, over time, essentially won the culture wars and taken over the media almost entirely, it has become ever more authoritarian, as authoritarians are drawn to positions of power.   In the hands of left authoritarians, this ideology is entirely destructive.  The left hates men, hates white people, hates capitalism, and in fact hates the west altogether.  (All of this despite the fact that many of these left authoritarians are white males)

Liberals are almost entirely unaware that any of this is going on.  They had for a long time viewed themselves in a conflict with conservatives, and still view cultural conflicts from this viewpoint.  They have completely failed to notice that they now stand in the middle between conservatives on the right, and left authoritarians.  This is primarily because all of the positions of the authoritarian left are designed to appear to be liberal positions.  The left is anti-male, but masquerades as feminist, the left hates whites but masquerades as champions of civil rights. 

Liberals believe in freedom of speech, the authoritarian left is utterly opposed to it.  Liberals believe that people are innocent until proven guilty in a proper court of law, the left believes in mob justice.  Liberals want a healthy functioning society, the left wants to destroy society.

While most of those pushing woke culture don't have any sense of an overall goal to what they're doing, there is a goal, which is the old traditional goal the far left has always had, socialist revolution.  Once the west is utterly broken down and everything it once stood for destroyed, the way is paved for the glorious socialist utopia, which will of course be a nightmarish police state, similar to the Soviet Union or communist China.

The west is in the middle of a cultural collapse, with western values almost completely destroyed, leaving nothing but tolerance and diversity, which are by themselves the absence of values.  We have no values and so invite in anyone else who still does, and we tolerate everyone because we have no values of our own to uphold.

To bring this topic to the subject of this message board, all of this is coming to a climax, and soon.  The left's ideology of oppression cannot persist into the next High.  It will either be destroyed in the general coming together of society, or it will be destroyed after the socialist revolution succeeds and anyone who dares to criticize any aspect of the new society is killed.

Liberals are not aware of the rise of the authoritarian left, but conservatives are extremely aware of it.  They have identified the enemy and are preparing to do battle against them.  On the one side, a possible fascist remaking of society to purge the cancer and reassert traditional values, on the other side, a death cult intent on destroying the west and creating the worst police state the world has ever seen.  And liberals stand in the middle between the two, oblivious to it all, living under the illusion that they have almost perfected society, if they could just clear out a few nagging remnants of the old ways.

[Eric the Green]

I think the "left authoritarians" are not as dangerous as you say. I am not unaware of them. I don't think leftists are a mob. I don't think a socialist revolution will succeed and kill people. They may insist on correct terms, but they are not proposing to put people in jail for not using them. All these accusations against the Left are exaggerations. The accusations against the fascist right are not.

The West as the traditional Enlightenment values has already collapsed over 100 years ago. The Decline of the West has been announced. A new culture is rising. It is both global and local. It is green. It says we can have a world without war. It restores spirituality as opposed to materialism and physicalism alone, and restores a holistic world view. It values intuition as well as intellect and science. It understands the implications of new theories in psychology, physics and biology. The various modern arts and music have expressed this new culture since the 1890s. In America, the old style of "progress as our most important product" continued to dominate until the 1960s, but then the new culture came in. I don't mean to say it is monolithic, or that everyone in the new culture adheres to every trend in it. This is a collection of inter-related trends that have currency now, sometimes more than at other times, and different aspects at different times and in different turnings.

It respects diversity, for sure. It understands that mixed races are inevitable. There is oppression, and I understand it can seem that some leftists focus too much on this. But, greater liberty and equality are obviously still necessary as recent events demonstrate. There are tremendous wealth gaps and education gaps based on race and ethnicity. There is homophobia. There is voter suppression, racial profiling and police brutality. Groups that feel oppressed need to unite and help each other. But this new culture is more than just some people enforcing political correctness. It certainly seeks the overthrow of the last 40 years of insidious and unquestioned Reaganomics. Socialism is more popular than it was, but only if democratic, not authoritarian or monolithic state-run. The leftist obsessions don't need to be opposed and resisted; just tempered. Hate is not a basis for a new society. But, the real power in this society is insidious, tenacious, and won't be replaced easily. Movements are needed.

The Left must succeed in order for the next "high" or recovery to happen. Otherwise, inequality will create a banana republic. Climate change will make the world unliveable, and pandemics will destroy economies. Democracy will be destroyed and replaced by the authoritarian right. The Left/liberals will create instead a new consensus. It says, the climate will be restored and pollution ended. Equal opportunity will replace Reaganomics. Government will be restored to the people and dedicated to helping those in need. Competent leaders will be chosen again.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-21-2020, 12:40 AM)Mickey123 Wrote: Liberals are not aware of the rise of the authoritarian left, but conservatives are extremely aware of it.  They have identified the enemy and are preparing to do battle against them.  On the one side, a possible fascist remaking of society to purge the cancer and reassert traditional values, on the other side, a death cult intent on destroying the west and creating the worst police state the world has ever seen.  And liberals stand in the middle between the two, oblivious to it all, living under the illusion that they have almost perfected society, if they could just clear out a few nagging remnants of the old ways.

I am seeing the right taking the Boogaloo Bois motives, attributing the Antifa name, and given the Black Lives Matter numbers. A few obsessed with violence have cobbled together an absurd violent cause.

It is getting to be that to suppress violence local cops are going to have to go wherever the feds without identification go and start arresting them for civil rights violations. It is starting already in Portland.

[sbarrera]

(07-21-2020, 06:20 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-21-2020, 12:40 AM)Mickey123 Wrote: Liberals are not aware of the rise of the authoritarian left, but conservatives are extremely aware of it.  They have identified the enemy and are preparing to do battle against them.  On the one side, a possible fascist remaking of society to purge the cancer and reassert traditional values, on the other side, a death cult intent on destroying the west and creating the worst police state the world has ever seen.  And liberals stand in the middle between the two, oblivious to it all, living under the illusion that they have almost perfected society, if they could just clear out a few nagging remnants of the old ways.

I am seeing the right taking the Boogaloo Bois motives, attributing the Antifa name, and given the Black Lives Matter numbers.  A few obsessed with violence have cobbled together an absurd violent cause.

It is getting to be that to suppress violence local cops are going to have to go wherever the feds without identification go and start arresting them for civil rights violations.  It is starting already in Portland.

Are local cops really arresting feds? If you have a reference, Bob, please post it.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-21-2020, 07:41 AM)sbarrera Wrote: Are local cops really arresting feds? If you have a reference, Bob, please post it.

This one came from MSNBC.  In Portland they have a video of unmarked federal agents 'arresting' and placing into an unmarked van a non violent man.  The state attorney general has a warrant out for 10 John Does involved in the incident.  Rachel Maddow interviewed the AG, who elaborated on the charges and reasons for filing them.  If the feds cannot produce probable cause for arrest, it would seem there is a strong case.

Cops confronting not uniformed federal agents to put them under arrest?  Not yet.  Arrest warrants placed, yes.  The state AG is asking a judge for a restraining order on the feds.

A lawyer group out to protect civil rights wielded the camera.

The following file shows the 'arrest' in question, and the beating of a veteran who simply wanted to start a conversation.

[pbrower2a]

(07-21-2020, 07:55 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-21-2020, 07:41 AM)sbarrera Wrote: Are local cops really arresting feds? If you have a reference, Bob, please post it.

This one came from MSNBC.  In Portland they have a video of unmarked federal agents 'arresting' and placing into an unmarked van a non violent man.  The state attorney general has a warrant out for 10 John Does involved in the incident.  Rachel Maddow interviewed the AG, who elaborated on the charges and reasons for filing them.  If the feds cannot produce probable cause for arrest, it would seem there is a strong case.

Cops confronting not uniformed federal agents to put them under arrest?  Not yet.  Arrest warrants placed, yes.  The state AG is asking a judge for a restraining order on the feds.

A lawyer group out to protect civil rights wielded the camera.

The following file shows the 'arrest' in question, and the beating of a veteran who simply wanted to start a conversation.

Technically speaking, an unlawful arrest is a kidnapping. A mistaken arrest is one thing, and it usually gets settled in the courts. 

Probable cause is essential to an arrest, and this includes flagrante delicto (caught in the act) and arrests under suspicious circumstances (such as speeding away from the scene of a crime). An arrest warrant is probable cause. Mistakes can be made in warrants and in arrests (wrong person arrested).  

Can the States interfere in an unwarranted arrest by federal officials? Federal law enforcement is rightly about federal activities and federal offenses. People exercising their Constitutional rights are not to face federal harassment for such, and the States well know what the Constitution says. Only rarely have the States intervened against federal abuse of Constitutional rights, but that does not say that any President can get away with such.

Trump wants a secret police to make life difficult for dissidents of any kind. That a State like Oregon can get in the way is a fair warning.

[Warren Dew]

(07-21-2020, 02:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: They may insist on correct terms, but they are not proposing to put people in jail for not using them.

They are most certainly proposing it, and in Canada they are actually doing it.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-22-2020, 10:04 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(07-21-2020, 02:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: They may insist on correct terms, but they are not proposing to put people in jail for not using them.

They are most certainly proposing it, and in Canada they are actually doing it.

Rachel Maddow had a legal talking head on recently.  According to this guy, the federal government was never given policing powers.  In the original Constitution, policing was left to the states.  In FDR and Hoover's day, the feds took dominance on certain crimes, mostly involving the crossing of state lines.  Various gangsters would commit their crimes in one state, but keep clean in another, and thus act with impunity.  But the federals have no police function for most crimes, crimes which do not involve crossing state lines.  (Kidnapping is another such crime where the federals rapidly get jurisdiction.)

Thus, state AG's putting a restraining order on the federals could establish a good case.

Now, activist like the Boogaloo Bois who travel long distances to make trouble could be specifically targeted.  If you know someone crossed state lines to make trouble, there is a federal case.  This could actually be helpful, would force the secret police to do more detective work and focus on people who commit real crimes.  Locals walking local streets without providing probable cause would not make such a case.

Now, the federal forces are trained and usually act to fulfill proper functions.  This includes guarding federal buildings, border patrol, port inspections, and guarding federal prisons.  If they are not doing one of these functions, they are open season.

The 1968 Democratic convention was brought up and presented as a presidential candidate initiating a "police riot".  It was given as an example of a Law and Order candidate supporting police using violence and acting outside the law as a political ploy.

It seems like an undercover cop with a radio link for calling for help mingling among the protesters could act to set up a sting for these guys.  If they make a false arrest, if they use violence without provocation, the state could act.  If the feds wind up using a tactic quite at odds with the local approach, they have motivation to act.

In Chicago, they have a 12,000 man police force and a incoming force of 200 secret police.  This is not enough to make a dent in any policing shortcoming.  It is enough to create trouble if they like.  Watching them to make sure they do not make trouble seems plausible.

Hmmm... This thread seems to have been hijacked, concentrating on a cancer by the political right.

[sbarrera]

(07-23-2020, 02:50 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Hmmm...  This thread seems to have been hijacked, concentrating on a cancer by the political right.

Sort of...except the original post claims that a mob of woke leftists is leading us to an eventual socialist police state, when there is an actual right-wing police state led by a Republican president forming (or attempting to form) before our eyes.

To address the original post, I do agree with its statement of the fall of liberalism. I don't know about the assertion that most liberals aren't aware that they are now stuck between the populist right and the populist left. I think this is commonly understood, though perhaps not by the average Democratic voter, who ran to Biden for a safe, comfortable bet against Trump. But certainly it's a theme you encounter in opinion pieces and analysis throughout the journalistic media.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...ra/553553/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/n...-forrester

https://promarket.org/2020/06/09/are-we-...ral-order/

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/aut...iled-26267

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-23-2020, 10:42 AM)sbarrera Wrote:

(07-23-2020, 02:50 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Hmmm...  This thread seems to have been hijacked, concentrating on a cancer by the political right.

Sort of...except the original post claims that a mob of woke leftists is leading us to an eventual socialist police state, when there is an actual right-wing police state led by a Republican president forming (or attempting to form) before our eyes.

To address the original post, I do agree with its statement of the fall of liberalism. I don't know about the assertion that most liberals aren't aware that they are now stuck between the populist right and the populist left. I think this is commonly understood, though perhaps not by the average Democratic voter, who ran to Biden for a safe, comfortable bet against Trump. But certainly it's a theme you encounter in opinion pieces and analysis throughout the journalistic media.

From the original post...

(07-21-2020, 12:40 AM)Mickey123 Wrote: As the left has, over time, essentially won the culture wars and taken over the media almost entirely, it has become ever more authoritarian, as authoritarians are drawn to positions of power.   In the hands of left authoritarians, this ideology is entirely destructive.  The left hates men, hates white people, hates capitalism, and in fact hates the west altogether.  (All of this despite the fact that many of these left authoritarians are white males)

This is another post which does not describe me or any of the blues I know. He has his self justifying straw man to prevent him from thinking through his world views and values, and is totally divorced from reality. Thus, I did not take the original post seriously.

[pbrower2a]

After Donald Trump, boring and bland (really, like his predecessor) looks very good. Populism is anything but boring and bland. At this point, Americans would vote for a conservative version of Barack Obama over Donald Trump -- easily. Indeed, the next effective conservative as President will act far more like Barack Obama than like Donald Trump. The generational cycle suggests that we are roughly ten years away from the next Eisenhower-style President.

I try to take the long view, and we typically have alternations between conservatism and liberalism, ideally on the bland and boring side. It is tough luck for people who want political life to be entertaining; the three most deprecated of the Emperors of Rome were Nero, Caligula, and Commodus; there Emperors were quite good at entertaining the crowds by the standards of their times with gladiatorial games and such spectacles as feeding Christians to the bears and Big Cats. To this I say "if you want to be entertained, then pay for it or expect ads to go with it!"

Donald Trump exemplifies much of what is wrong with America, beginning with an education lacking in any moral influences. Maybe he did get a legacy admission, but we need remember that a college education is still something of an elite opportunity and achievement, and people who get something that gets them the potential for entry into above-average achievement and resulting material indulgence need to be very good morally when entering or get significant improvement. Our college graduates need to recognize that there is more to life than material gain and indulgence, easy access to entertainment far cheaper to themselves than to 'proles', bureaucratic power, and "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll"... because any amoral dimwit can cherish those. Good people recognize that they must sacrifice those on occasion for something better for themselves, their families, and for Humanity as a whole. We need accountants who don't embezzle, college professors who do not seduce their students, bureaucrats and elected officials who do not abuse power (including by bribery and official oppression), attorneys who would never consider becoming complicit in the misdeeds of their clients, engineers who do not cut corners on safety, and clergy who do not fleece their flock. If we educate so many people that we can't have enough desirable positions that can make use of an advanced degree... well we might have some very good bartenders, wait staff, retail clerks, and factory workers. The tragedy isn't a wasted education; the tragedy is an unjust social order in which people get rewarded very well for treating others badly. And, yes, we need good cops (cops used to not need college degrees, but having a good education aids in making one a better cop), county agents, K-12 teachers, nurses, medical technicians, etc.

So someone gets an expensive degree and decides to be a diesel mechanic or a machinist instead of a glorified clerk. Fine!

The dignity of human existence must take precedence over class privilege, bureaucratic power, and even GDP. In the most advanced economies, people have gone beyond the facile assumption that making and using more stuff brings more happiness. Just visit Goodwill and see all the cast-off stuff (to be sure, much of it is technologically obsolete) that used to be expressions of prosperity. Now it would be clutter.

[Eric the Green]

(07-22-2020, 10:04 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(07-21-2020, 02:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: They may insist on correct terms, but they are not proposing to put people in jail for not using them.

They are most certainly proposing it, and in Canada they are actually doing it.

references?

[Eric the Green]

(07-23-2020, 10:42 AM)sbarrera Wrote:

(07-23-2020, 02:50 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Hmmm...  This thread seems to have been hijacked, concentrating on a cancer by the political right.

Sort of...except the original post claims that a mob of woke leftists is leading us to an eventual socialist police state, when there is an actual right-wing police state led by a Republican president forming (or attempting to form) before our eyes.

To address the original post, I do agree with its statement of the fall of liberalism. I don't know about the assertion that most liberals aren't aware that they are now stuck between the populist right and the populist left. I think this is commonly understood, though perhaps not by the average Democratic voter, who ran to Biden for a safe, comfortable bet against Trump. But certainly it's a theme you encounter in opinion pieces and analysis throughout the journalistic media.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...ra/553553/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/n...-forrester

https://promarket.org/2020/06/09/are-we-...ral-order/

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/aut...iled-26267

I always like to point out that the word "populist" is often misused these days when referring to the political right wing. Right-wing "populists" may stir passions and prejudices that appeal to the lowest common denominator of the people, but using this as a basis for the word "populist" assumes that the "people" must always be liable to reduce themselves to the level of being misled and and deceived in this way. Really, the people should be expected to rise above this. Populist really means that the people, rather than a demagogue or an authoritarian ruler or class, can be trusted to rule, and should rule. "Populist" thus means, and has meant ever since it began in the 1890s, that power is given to the people politically. It means government of, by and for the people, and in the peoples' interest. That can only occur on the left, which always means to bring more power to the people, rather than to traditional authority. Those who appeal to prejudice, the "populist right wing," are always doing this in order to buttress and support traditional authority.

Trump, Bolsonaro, LePen, Orban, Duda, Duterte, Johnson, Sisi, et al, the current crop of these "right-wing populists," are doing precisely that, and nothing BUT that.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-23-2020, 04:22 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I always like to point out that the word "populist" is often misused these days when referring to the political right wing. Right-wing "populists" may stir passions and prejudices that appeal to the lowest common denominator of the people, but using this as a basis for the word "populist" assumes that the "people" must always be liable to reduce themselves to the level of being misled and and deceived in this way. Really, the people should be expected to rise above this. Populist really means that the people, rather than a demagogue or an authoritarian ruler or class, can be trusted to rule, and should rule. "Populist" thus means, and has meant ever since it began in the 1890s, that power is given to the people politically. It means government of, by and for the people, and in the peoples' interest. That can only occur on the left, which always means to bring more power to the people, rather than to traditional authority. Those who appeal to prejudice, the "populist right wing," are always doing this in order to buttress and support traditional authority.

Trump, Bolsonaro, LePen, Orban, Duda, Duterte, Johnson, Sisi, et al, the current crop of these "right-wing populists," are doing precisely that, and nothing BUT that.

Unfortunately, racism was popular.  In LBJ's time, he went after the black vote, the Republicans went after the racist vote, and the progressive era ended.  America willfully stopped being great so that many people could view themselves 'above' minorities.

Black Lives Matter may have ended that.  Given videos of the result of some of racism, a lot of people were turned off by racist violent policing, and this bleeds over to racism in general.  If so, what was popular a while ago and which many politicians tried to exploit may be less popular today.  They are doubling down on an attitude which may be no longer there.  This change in viewpoint might leave a lot of those that exploited the old values high and dry.

Couln't happen to a finer bunch of people.

It sometimes takes a crisis...

[pbrower2a]

(07-21-2020, 12:40 AM)Mickey123 Wrote: During the Consciousness Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, a number of groups, civil rights, feminists, anti-war, and others, all found they were united by a single goal - to smash the Establishment.  They've never stopped trying.

Not quite. Many of them used the Establishment -- the courts, the media, and academia -- to promote their goals. It is now anything but Establishment to express overt racism, male chauvinism, or a desire for aggressive war. The Establishment is much more flexible than you give it credit for being.  

Quote:But what was once the ideology of a small number of radical leftists has become a cancer infecting the West, a belief system designed to destroy Western culture and societies by turning everyone against one another and in particular against anything that makes society strong and functional.  Referred to at times as "cultural marxism" or "woke culture", the essence of it is that society consists of a power struggle between oppressor groups and the oppressed.  Men oppress women, whites oppress other races, Christians oppress non-Christians, the wealthy oppress the working class, the able oppress the disabled, and so on.

Like most people I am far more tolerant of "cultural" expressions of Marxism, which are basically Marxist coloration of existing models of Western culture. "Cultural" Marxism does not create proletarian revolutions. If you want to know what promotes such revolutions, then I have a list of characteristics that make such a revolution possible:

1. early stages of industrial development in which the proletariat experiences severe danger, regimentation, dislocation, neglect, and disappointment resulting from mass poverty associated with such a level of development 

2. incompetent or corrupt political leadership that profiteers from mass suffering

3. the absence of democracy as workers have no say in politics and cannot find political allies in pro-labor parties or factions within parties In the plutocracies in such places any dissent with the order is shoved to the underground, where extremists become increasingly violent in rhetoric and conspiratorial in character

4. emphasis on anything other than consumer goods in the economy -- basically people are working, but what they produce can never improve their lives. Emphasis on heavy industry, luxury exports, or weaponry might accelerate development without improving the lot of workers.

5. excessive concentration of industrial activity in a few places -- there may be huge numbers of cheap labor where the economic activity is, but that also means mass misery and large numbers of people  amenable to crude Marxist propaganda because they have nothing to lose. 

Marxist regimes do not appear in places in which democratic norms allow people to assemble for redress of grievances and social reformers can achieve majorities in the legislature or where industrial development begins with cottage industries. Mohandas Gandhi knew what he was doing when he promoted small-scale spinning of textiles. 

6. the breakdown of traditional society -- an inevitability, but those societies that depend upon maximal profitability by keeping people on the brink of starvation, sweating and abusing them, are most likely to find themselves in catastrophes such as military debacles from which they cannot recover.

If you want to know what really causes Marxism it is the mirror-image Marxism of economic elites entrenched in irresponsible power who agree with a Marxist stereotype on how capitalist society is organized and then endorse and enforce such. The difference between such people and Marxists is that Marxists see such as an abomination as well as a reality. 

Marxism-Leninism, the consequence of such horror as existed in Russia just over a century ago, China or Vietnam nearly a century ago, colonial rule in Angola and Mozambique, Nicaragua under the Somoza clique, and Ethiopia in the latter years of its Solomonic dynasty, does not succeed because of alienated intellectuals looking for something to salve the emptiness of their lives and finding Marx. It arises from mass suffering that makes obvious that anything is better -- and that Marxism-Leninism offers more.    

Quote:The goal of this is to tear society apart by putting everyone in conflict with everyone else.  As nearly every person will find himself belonging to both oppressor and oppressed groups, therefore everyone is simultaneously destructive and evil, as well as a helpless victim of others, who can only solve his problems when the oppressors above him somehow stop oppressing him.

Completely wrong except for the White Power types who see anyone non-white and non-Christian as a blot upon what used to be a "Christian white man's country". Despite being as different from each other as they are from white people, America's model minorities are practically in lockstep with each other politically. Contrary to what one might expect from the Israeli-Arab conflict in the Middle East, American Jews and Arab-American vote largely alike.Intermarriage between them might be rare and cultural differences between them can be profound, but they all recognize a shared enemy in the White Power types. 

OK, I am a white man, but as a German-American I understand those White Power types all too well. I went through a phase in which I was fascinated with the culture of great Germans... and it is quite rich, and it is something that one never abandons. I also found out one thing that I had no desire to adopt from German history. I recognized that many of those Germans were Jews, and many who fled Germany for being Jewish brought much of their German culture with them. 

If I ever had to choose between being a Jew and a Nazi (an unlikely choice unless in a scenario that I could imagine on Judgment Day I would choose to be a Jew. I would need make neither cultural nor moral compromises to be a Jew. I despise killers, thieves, exploiters, sadists, liars, and torturers. 

The model minorities have a few things in common: respect for formal learning, faith in business formation, acceptance of solid family life as a necessity, rejection of criminality and violence of any form, and adherence to democracy as the only viable means of operating a society that has room for competent people with differences. Hey! Deal me in!     
 

Quote:As the left has, over time, essentially won the culture wars and taken over the media almost entirely, it has become ever more authoritarian, as authoritarians are drawn to positions of power.   In the hands of left authoritarians, this ideology is entirely destructive.  The left hates men, hates white people, hates capitalism, and in fact hates the west altogether.  (All of this despite the fact that many of these left authoritarians are white males)

The left-wing cultural wars petered out in the 1970's as the Establishment showed its willingness to compromise. The Establishment is at times more pragmatic than you might expect. It's when parts of Corporate America tried to use mass resentments against educated people as objects of contempt for their alleged exploitation and humiliation that we had a virulent culture war. A placard that says "The Zoo has an African Lion; the White House has a Lyin' African" exemplifies such. The cultural war this time is between the well-educated and the ignoramuses. Ignoramuses ultimately lose unless they get some despotic patron. Trump offered himself as such, and we are in a Crisis until at the least this hideous man is out of office. 

Get this clear: this time the Left (as you describe them) is using the tools of Western civilization against a would-be tyrant who shows little influence upon his life from the glories of that civilization. Despite his privileged background and his great wealth, Trump exemplifies the low end of American life, the sort that a solid education ideally compels one to see as inadequate. A good life is far more than bureaucratic power, material indulgence,  cheap thrills, admiration  by callow people, and "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll". Service, principles, culture, literacy... not consorting with mobsters and whores. 

Quote:Liberals are almost entirely unaware that any of this is going on.  They had for a long time viewed themselves in a conflict with conservatives, and still view cultural conflicts from this viewpoint.  They have completely failed to notice that they now stand in the middle between conservatives on the right, and left authoritarians.  This is primarily because all of the positions of the authoritarian left are designed to appear to be liberal positions.  The left is anti-male, but masquerades as feminist, the left hates whites but masquerades as champions of civil rights. 

The traditional sort of conservative is now off the scene, marginalized, or co-opted. That sort of conservative was a fallback in the event that radical reforms went awry or if the culture spiraled into anarchy. Tradition in part or whole offers a ready alternative against new and ill-founded ideas. Consider that until a couple decades ago it was commonplace for liberals to blame crime on poverty when the real cause is bad character. To be sure, poverty merits alleviation due to its destructive dehumanization, but there have always been plenty of good people in the most deprived ghettos, barrios, and Reservations. It may have been an ironic consequence that such a view of crime that poverty creates it creates in itself a fear of poor people and a hopelessness of improving a lot. Such a 'social organizer' as Barack Obama had to find out whom he could trust and whom he couldn't if he were not to get knifed by a pimp or drug pusher.  

We liberals rediscovered that character matters greatly, and we use that rediscovered knowledge against someone who has had all the advantages of life except for character. Yes, Donald Trump.  

Quote:Liberals believe in freedom of speech, the authoritarian left is utterly opposed to it.  Liberals believe that people are innocent until proven guilty in a proper court of law, the left believes in mob justice.  Liberals want a healthy functioning society, the left wants to destroy society.

Finally you recognize that liberals are not Marxist-Leninists. Did I accuse a conservative of the past such as Bob Dole of being a fascist? 

Quote:While most of those pushing woke culture don't have any sense of an overall goal to what they're doing, there is a goal, which is the old traditional goal the far left has always had, socialist revolution.  Once the west is utterly broken down and everything it once stood for destroyed, the way is paved for the glorious socialist utopia, which will of course be a nightmarish police state, similar to the Soviet Union or communist China.

Police state? Just look at what Donald Trump is trying to inflict upon America!  Just look at his contempt for anyone who dissents with him. Look at his demagoguery and his willingness to exploit superstition and anger. 

With a slight modification of a quip by Benjamin Franklin

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin


https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/benjamin_franklin_136955

I could replace "temporary safety" with material comfort or economic gain and it would still be true. 
 

Quote:The west is in the middle of a cultural collapse, with western values almost completely destroyed, leaving nothing but tolerance and diversity, which are by themselves the absence of values.  We have no values and so invite in anyone else who still does, and we tolerate everyone because we have no values of our own to uphold.

No, it is not in such a collapse. People are sorting things out with the expectation of a wholesome synthesis that pleases far more people. Such will still require the freedom of cultural identity. 

Quote:To bring this topic to the subject of this message board, all of this is coming to a climax, and soon.  The left's ideology of oppression cannot persist into the next High.  It will either be destroyed in the general coming together of society, or it will be destroyed after the socialist revolution succeeds and anyone who dares to criticize any aspect of the new society is killed.

We need to get through this Crisis Era if our next Awakening Era is not to become a failure because a brutal, authoritarian elite successfully quashes it in the name of a perverse tradition of despotic power, class privilege, and pre-modern orthodoxy. There will be no socialist revolution... and if anything I have more cause to fear a new America that sees Donald Trump as a permanent break from "America before Trump". That is more like fascism than like Marxism-Leninism.    

Quote:Liberals are not aware of the rise of the authoritarian left, but conservatives are extremely aware of it.  They have identified the enemy and are preparing to do battle against them.  On the one side, a possible fascist remaking of society to purge the cancer and reassert traditional values, on the other side, a death cult intent on destroying the west and creating the worst police state the world has ever seen.  And liberals stand in the middle between the two, oblivious to it all, living under the illusion that they have almost perfected society, if they could just clear out a few nagging remnants of the old ways.

The Authoritarian Left collapsed except in Cuba and North Korea, and it is shaky in Venezuela. China and Vietnam maintained the symbolism of the long-past revolution while abandoning Marxist theory. As for traditional values, however one defines them, those often give a pretext for significant left-wing reforms. An example: I became for gay rights once I was gay-bashed because I recognized that institutional protection for homosexuals would make life safer for me even if I am not a homosexual. The problem wasn't that I failed to prove to the gay-basher that I am straight; the problem is that the gay-basher who threatened severe bodily harm against me could do so to anyone. I came to the recognition that the old conservative virtue of law and order mandated LGBT rights. Groups differing by creed, ethnicity, and linguistic origin have different ideas on what the traditional values are, at least in cultural identity and the values of those groups are just as valid as my conception of traditional values. Lebanese and Lithuanian tradition are just as valid in America. 

As for Confederate paraphernalia going down... maybe a Confederate flag does not mean quite the same thing to blacks what a Nazi swastika means to Jews... we can live without either symbol, can we not? Statues of Confederate political and military war heroes? I have mixed feelings on Robert E. Lee, who at least told former Confederates to abandon any dreams of recovering the Old Way of Life to the extent that it implied chattel slavery or the oppression of blacks.. there were plenty of analogues to him in Germany, Italy, and Japan. But other than he, a Confederate statue (typically erected around 1915, fifty years after the war had ended and probably as no coincidence when the horrible  Second Ku Klux Klan emerged can have this message for a black child:

This man is a hero for defending the enslavement of your black ancestors with the expenditure of great treasure acquired from your ancestors' toil and plenty of cannon fodder of poor white rendered into pawns in the defense of chattel slavery. White Southerners still recognize the Confederacy as a noble cause and might even consider putting you, a black person, back in the appointed place in which they once had your black ancestors.

...Even if the stereotypical heritage of Southern blacks is still artificial (read David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed for that observation, and Hackett-Fischer recognizes slave-descended culture as extremely creative and thus meritorious as that heritage is completely separated forcibly from any African heritage), it is as valid as yours. 

For the sake of us all those statues need be removed.

[Mickey123]

(07-24-2020, 03:00 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(07-21-2020, 12:40 AM)Mickey123 Wrote: During the Consciousness Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, a number of groups, civil rights, feminists, anti-war, and others, all found they were united by a single goal - to smash the Establishment.  They've never stopped trying.

Not quite. Many of them used the Establishment -- the courts, the media, and academia -- to promote their goals. It is now anything but Establishment to express overt racism, male chauvinism, or a desire for aggressive war. The Establishment is much more flexible than you give it credit for being.  

Quote:But what was once the ideology of a small number of radical leftists has become a cancer infecting the West, a belief system designed to destroy Western culture and societies by turning everyone against one another and in particular against anything that makes society strong and functional.  Referred to at times as "cultural marxism" or "woke culture", the essence of it is that society consists of a power struggle between oppressor groups and the oppressed.  Men oppress women, whites oppress other races, Christians oppress non-Christians, the wealthy oppress the working class, the able oppress the disabled, and so on.

Like most people I am far more tolerant of "cultural" expressions of Marxism, which are basically Marxist coloration of existing models of Western culture. "Cultural" Marxism does not create proletarian revolutions. If you want to know what promotes such revolutions, then I have a list of characteristics that make such a revolution possible:

1. early stages of industrial development in which the proletariat experiences severe danger, regimentation, dislocation, neglect, and disappointment resulting from mass poverty associated with such a level of development 

2. incompetent or corrupt political leadership that profiteers from mass suffering

3. the absence of democracy as workers have no say in politics and cannot find political allies in pro-labor parties or factions within parties In the plutocracies in such places any dissent with the order is shoved to the underground, where extremists become increasingly violent in rhetoric and conspiratorial in character

4. emphasis on anything other than consumer goods in the economy -- basically people are working, but what they produce can never improve their lives. Emphasis on heavy industry, luxury exports, or weaponry might accelerate development without improving the lot of workers.

5. excessive concentration of industrial activity in a few places -- there may be huge numbers of cheap labor where the economic activity is, but that also means mass misery and large numbers of people  amenable to crude Marxist propaganda because they have nothing to lose. 

Marxist regimes do not appear in places in which democratic norms allow people to assemble for redress of grievances and social reformers can achieve majorities in the legislature or where industrial development begins with cottage industries. Mohandas Gandhi knew what he was doing when he promoted small-scale spinning of textiles. 

6. the breakdown of traditional society -- an inevitability, but those societies that depend upon maximal profitability by keeping people on the brink of starvation, sweating and abusing them, are most likely to find themselves in catastrophes such as military debacles from which they cannot recover.

If you want to know what really causes Marxism it is the mirror-image Marxism of economic elites entrenched in irresponsible power who agree with a Marxist stereotype on how capitalist society is organized and then endorse and enforce such. The difference between such people and Marxists is that Marxists see such as an abomination as well as a reality. 

Marxism-Leninism, the consequence of such horror as existed in Russia just over a century ago, China or Vietnam nearly a century ago, colonial rule in Angola and Mozambique, Nicaragua under the Somoza clique, and Ethiopia in the latter years of its Solomonic dynasty, does not succeed because of alienated intellectuals looking for something to salve the emptiness of their lives and finding Marx. It arises from mass suffering that makes obvious that anything is better -- and that Marxism-Leninism offers more.    

Quote:The goal of this is to tear society apart by putting everyone in conflict with everyone else.  As nearly every person will find himself belonging to both oppressor and oppressed groups, therefore everyone is simultaneously destructive and evil, as well as a helpless victim of others, who can only solve his problems when the oppressors above him somehow stop oppressing him.

Completely wrong except for the White Power types who see anyone non-white and non-Christian as a blot upon what used to be a "Christian white man's country". Despite being as different from each other as they are from white people, America's model minorities are practically in lockstep with each other politically. Contrary to what one might expect from the Israeli-Arab conflict in the Middle East, American Jews and Arab-American vote largely alike.Intermarriage between them might be rare and cultural differences between them can be profound, but they all recognize a shared enemy in the White Power types. 

OK, I am a white man, but as a German-American I understand those White Power types all too well. I went through a phase in which I was fascinated with the culture of great Germans... and it is quite rich, and it is something that one never abandons. I also found out one thing that I had no desire to adopt from German history. I recognized that many of those Germans were Jews, and many who fled Germany for being Jewish brought much of their German culture with them. 

If I ever had to choose between being a Jew and a Nazi (an unlikely choice unless in a scenario that I could imagine on Judgment Day I would choose to be a Jew. I would need make neither cultural nor moral compromises to be a Jew. I despise killers, thieves, exploiters, sadists, liars, and torturers. 

The model minorities have a few things in common: respect for formal learning, faith in business formation, acceptance of solid family life as a necessity, rejection of criminality and violence of any form, and adherence to democracy as the only viable means of operating a society that has room for competent people with differences. Hey! Deal me in!     
 

Quote:As the left has, over time, essentially won the culture wars and taken over the media almost entirely, it has become ever more authoritarian, as authoritarians are drawn to positions of power.   In the hands of left authoritarians, this ideology is entirely destructive.  The left hates men, hates white people, hates capitalism, and in fact hates the west altogether.  (All of this despite the fact that many of these left authoritarians are white males)

The left-wing cultural wars petered out in the 1970's as the Establishment showed its willingness to compromise. The Establishment is at times more pragmatic than you might expect. It's when parts of Corporate America tried to use mass resentments against educated people as objects of contempt for their alleged exploitation and humiliation that we had a virulent culture war. A placard that says "The Zoo has an African Lion; the White House has a Lyin' African" exemplifies such. The cultural war this time is between the well-educated and the ignoramuses. Ignoramuses ultimately lose unless they get some despotic patron. Trump offered himself as such, and we are in a Crisis until at the least this hideous man is out of office. 

Get this clear: this time the Left (as you describe them) is using the tools of Western civilization against a would-be tyrant who shows little influence upon his life from the glories of that civilization. Despite his privileged background and his great wealth, Trump exemplifies the low end of American life, the sort that a solid education ideally compels one to see as inadequate. A good life is far more than bureaucratic power, material indulgence,  cheap thrills, admiration  by callow people, and "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll". Service, principles, culture, literacy... not consorting with mobsters and whores. 

Quote:Liberals are almost entirely unaware that any of this is going on.  They had for a long time viewed themselves in a conflict with conservatives, and still view cultural conflicts from this viewpoint.  They have completely failed to notice that they now stand in the middle between conservatives on the right, and left authoritarians.  This is primarily because all of the positions of the authoritarian left are designed to appear to be liberal positions.  The left is anti-male, but masquerades as feminist, the left hates whites but masquerades as champions of civil rights. 

The traditional sort of conservative is now off the scene, marginalized, or co-opted. That sort of conservative was a fallback in the event that radical reforms went awry or if the culture spiraled into anarchy. Tradition in part or whole offers a ready alternative against new and ill-founded ideas. Consider that until a couple decades ago it was commonplace for liberals to blame crime on poverty when the real cause is bad character. To be sure, poverty merits alleviation due to its destructive dehumanization, but there have always been plenty of good people in the most deprived ghettos, barrios, and Reservations. It may have been an ironic consequence that such a view of crime that poverty creates it creates in itself a fear of poor people and a hopelessness of improving a lot. Such a 'social organizer' as Barack Obama had to find out whom he could trust and whom he couldn't if he were not to get knifed by a pimp or drug pusher.  

We liberals rediscovered that character matters greatly, and we use that rediscovered knowledge against someone who has had all the advantages of life except for character. Yes, Donald Trump.  

Quote:Liberals believe in freedom of speech, the authoritarian left is utterly opposed to it.  Liberals believe that people are innocent until proven guilty in a proper court of law, the left believes in mob justice.  Liberals want a healthy functioning society, the left wants to destroy society.

Finally you recognize that liberals are not Marxist-Leninists. Did I accuse a conservative of the past such as Bob Dole of being a fascist? 

Quote:While most of those pushing woke culture don't have any sense of an overall goal to what they're doing, there is a goal, which is the old traditional goal the far left has always had, socialist revolution.  Once the west is utterly broken down and everything it once stood for destroyed, the way is paved for the glorious socialist utopia, which will of course be a nightmarish police state, similar to the Soviet Union or communist China.

Police state? Just look at what Donald Trump is trying to inflict upon America!  Just look at his contempt for anyone who dissents with him. Look at his demagoguery and his willingness to exploit superstition and anger. 

With a slight modification of a quip by Benjamin Franklin

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin


https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/benjamin_franklin_136955

I could replace "temporary safety" with material comfort or economic gain and it would still be true. 
 

Quote:The west is in the middle of a cultural collapse, with western values almost completely destroyed, leaving nothing but tolerance and diversity, which are by themselves the absence of values.  We have no values and so invite in anyone else who still does, and we tolerate everyone because we have no values of our own to uphold.

No, it is not in such a collapse. People are sorting things out with the expectation of a wholesome synthesis that pleases far more people. Such will still require the freedom of cultural identity. 

Quote:To bring this topic to the subject of this message board, all of this is coming to a climax, and soon.  The left's ideology of oppression cannot persist into the next High.  It will either be destroyed in the general coming together of society, or it will be destroyed after the socialist revolution succeeds and anyone who dares to criticize any aspect of the new society is killed.

We need to get through this Crisis Era if our next Awakening Era is not to become a failure because a brutal, authoritarian elite successfully quashes it in the name of a perverse tradition of despotic power, class privilege, and pre-modern orthodoxy. There will be no socialist revolution... and if anything I have more cause to fear a new America that sees Donald Trump as a permanent break from "America before Trump". That is more like fascism than like Marxism-Leninism.    

Quote:Liberals are not aware of the rise of the authoritarian left, but conservatives are extremely aware of it.  They have identified the enemy and are preparing to do battle against them.  On the one side, a possible fascist remaking of society to purge the cancer and reassert traditional values, on the other side, a death cult intent on destroying the west and creating the worst police state the world has ever seen.  And liberals stand in the middle between the two, oblivious to it all, living under the illusion that they have almost perfected society, if they could just clear out a few nagging remnants of the old ways.

The Authoritarian Left collapsed except in Cuba and North Korea, and it is shaky in Venezuela. China and Vietnam maintained the symbolism of the long-past revolution while abandoning Marxist theory. As for traditional values, however one defines them, those often give a pretext for significant left-wing reforms. An example: I became for gay rights once I was gay-bashed because I recognized that institutional protection for homosexuals would make life safer for me even if I am not a homosexual. The problem wasn't that I failed to prove to the gay-basher that I am straight; the problem is that the gay-basher who threatened severe bodily harm against me could do so to anyone. I came to the recognition that the old conservative virtue of law and order mandated LGBT rights. Groups differing by creed, ethnicity, and linguistic origin have different ideas on what the traditional values are, at least in cultural identity and the values of those groups are just as valid as my conception of traditional values. Lebanese and Lithuanian tradition are just as valid in America. 

As for Confederate paraphernalia going down... maybe a Confederate flag does not mean quite the same thing to blacks what a Nazi swastika means to Jews... we can live without either symbol, can we not? Statues of Confederate political and military war heroes? I have mixed feelings on Robert E. Lee, who at least told former Confederates to abandon any dreams of recovering the Old Way of Life to the extent that it implied chattel slavery or the oppression of blacks.. there were plenty of analogues to him in Germany, Italy, and Japan. But other than he, a Confederate statue (typically erected around 1915, fifty years after the war had ended and probably as no coincidence when the horrible  Second Ku Klux Klan emerged can have this message for a black child:

This man is a hero for defending the enslavement of your black ancestors with the expenditure of great treasure acquired from your ancestors' toil and plenty of cannon fodder of poor white rendered into pawns in the defense of chattel slavery. White Southerners still recognize the Confederacy as a noble cause and might even consider putting you, a black person, back in the appointed place in which they once had your black ancestors.

...Even if the stereotypical heritage of Southern blacks is still artificial (read David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed for that observation, and Hackett-Fischer recognizes slave-descended culture as extremely creative and thus meritorious as that heritage is completely separated forcibly from any African heritage), it is as valid as yours. 

For the sake of us all those statues need be removed.

Of course the West is in the middle of a cultural collapse.  This is the essence of what the Unravelling is.  It's the death of the old First Turning culture, which then must be replaced with something, but there's nothing to replace it with.  A Crisis is then necessary to reform society and create a new culture.

The last Awakening was in my mind the most intense we've seen in our history, and it's led to a unusually extreme unravelling.  What you're seeing all around us is cultural collapse, you just don't recognize it as such.  This is because you, and liberals in general, misinterpret everything going on as some sort of step in the direction of liberalism.

Liberals see the Black Lives Matter movement and they think it's a liberal movement.  They think it is about standing up for black lives.  But it has nothing whatsoever to do with that.  It's part of the general effort going on to break society down.  The media carries out a continuous nonstop drum beat of "racism racism racism racism" all day every day, week after week, month after month, year after year, to turn people against each other.  The message is non stop, whites are racist, whites are racist, whites are racist, the problems of blacks are caused by racism, racism is the worst thing in the world, whites are racist, blacks can never get ahead, the U.S. is racist, whites are privileged, the police are racist, and so on and so on endlessly.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and other western nations are probably the least racist countries in the world, at the least racist time in modern memory.  But you would never know that to watch or read the news, as reporters scour the country looking for any misconduct by a white policeman against someone black, or any white person to have inappropriately called the police on someone black.

Why would a society carry out such a self destructive and self loathing campaign as this?  None of this is in any way intended to help black people (or other racial or religious minorities), it is intended to keep them feeling angry and helpless.  Telling people that all their problems are caused by someone else, and that this group has all the power over them and is evil and destructive, all of this disempowers people - as it's intended to.

Meanwhile, liberals mistake all of this for some legitimate attempt to help blacks and to improve society.  "Black lives matter", who could disagree with that?  Racism is bad, and police brutality is bad, and people communicating about their issues is good, it all sounds so liberal, if you aren't paying attention to the bigger picture.

To address one of the other points, you say, "the Left (as you describe them) is using the tools of Western civilization against a would-be tyrant who shows little influence upon his life from the glories of that civilization".   I'll repeat my statement that you, as a liberal, mistakenly believe that the conflict going on in society is between the liberal left and the authoritarian right.  Meanwhile, what's actually happening is an ever growing authoritarian left bent on destroying society, versus an authoritarian right which is just about to conclude that seizing power and arresting all their political opponents is the only way forward.  With liberals in the middle between the two, thinking they're the left.

The insanity you see on the right is one side of the coin, matched by the insanity of the left. 

You will never move forward by defeating Trump, because we've reached a point of collapse.  There is no return to stability.  Every move by any side destabilizes the whole system further.  Attack Trump successfully, and you strengthen the left, which further strengthens the resolve of the right.  If Trump wins the election, the left will come back and attack 10 times as hard, and states may begin openly defying the federal government.  If he loses, he may likely attempt to seize power.

I can't predict how all of this is going to turn out.  But you will never understand anything that's happening if you mistakenly think that the left is liberal, and if you fail to see the ever spreading cancer that has taken over much of leftist thinking.

[pbrower2a]

(07-24-2020, 11:32 PM)Mickey123 Wrote: Of course the West is in the middle of a cultural collapse.  This is the essence of what the Unravelling is.  It's the death of the old First Turning culture, which then must be replaced with something, but there's nothing to replace it with.  A Crisis is then necessary to reform society and create a new culture.

Collapse -- or redefinition? 

First-turning culture has its weaknesses. Most obviously, most of it is insipid, and the people for whom it is made (1T culture is more anesthetic than challenging) die off. Just look at the collection of LP's available at a thrift store that were donated... very little is truly daring. The youth of our time are not interested in Patti Page, Perry Como, or Andy Williams anymore. 

Wanna try cuisine? Just try finding a Howard Johnson's restaurant. Forty years ago it was easy.  It fit 'Fifties style. It ain't the Fifties anymore. 

Quote:The last Awakening was in my mind the most intense we've seen in our history, and it's led to a unusually extreme unravelling.  What you're seeing all around us is cultural collapse, you just don't recognize it as such.  This is because you, and liberals in general, misinterpret everything going on as some sort of step in the direction of liberalism.

Were you around in any of the prior Awakening Eras? Obviously not... that is a rhetorical question. Maybe you never heard of the Burnt Over District of Upstate New York, where numerous new forms of Christianity, including the one major religion formed in America (Mormonism) heavily defined itself. 

Quote:Liberals see the Black Lives Matter movement and they think it's a liberal movement.  They think it is about standing up for black lives.  But it has nothing whatsoever to do with that.  It's part of the general effort going on to break society down.  The media carries out a continuous nonstop drum beat of "racism racism racism racism" all day every day, week after week, month after month, year after year, to turn people against each other.  The message is non stop, whites are racist, whites are racist, whites are racist, the problems of blacks are caused by racism, racism is the worst thing in the world, whites are racist, blacks can never get ahead, the U.S. is racist, whites are privileged, the police are racist, and so on and so on endlessly.

Until I see otherwise I am going to see its claims to be what it is as what it is... until it betrays that self-description. I see plenty of white people in Black Lives Matter demonstrations... for anti-white racism among blacks, just look to the New Black Panther Party which really fits your description (Whites are racists who intend to oppress black people... hate Whitey... hate Whitey). The New Black Panther Party isn't convincing many people.   

Without question we need effective, fair law enforcement. That means law enforcement that does not endanger the lives of suspects. George Floyd probably should have been arrested... but he should have been taken to jail safely to be booked for whatever. Such is the job of the police unless the perpetrator does something really stupid, like pulling a gun on a cop -- which typically results in the perp ending up dead. 

A hint though: white suspects can be brutalized too.  

We need cops to ensure that criminal behavior has bad consequences for the crook as for the victim. 

Quote:Meanwhile, the U.S. and other western nations are probably the least racist countries in the world, at the least racist time in modern memory.  But you would never know that to watch or read the news, as reporters scour the country looking for any misconduct by a white policeman against someone black, or any white person to have inappropriately called the police on someone black.

OK, we are less racist as a society than we used to be... although the remaining racists are really-nasty fascist pigs who often admire this man:



...the difference between the KKK and neo-Nazis is now nearly moot. 

Quote:Why would a society carry out such a self destructive and self loathing campaign as this?  None of this is in any way intended to help black people (or other racial or religious minorities), it is intended to keep them feeling angry and helpless.  Telling people that all their problems are caused by someone else, and that this group has all the power over them and is evil and destructive, all of this disempowers people - as it's intended to.

Effective police work makes life safer. Figure that people at Black Lives Matter protests often have cameras on them -- cameras intended perhaps to document police brutality. Instead one sees footage of looters. If you are a looter or rioter, then don't trust  peaceful protesters as allies. If they see a car being torched, they most likely are thinking "what about my car? Oooh -- my beloved dog Fluffy is there. Peaceful protesters are anti-violent... Black Lives Matters is not about getting soft on crime. Ask most of them what they would do if they saw a blatant crime... and they would tell you that they would call the police. 

Quote:Meanwhile, liberals mistake all of this for some legitimate attempt to help blacks and to improve society.  "Black lives matter", who could disagree with that?  Racism is bad, and police brutality is bad, and people communicating about their issues is good, it all sounds so liberal, if you aren't paying attention to the bigger picture.

Law enforcement still has a double standard when it comes to blacks. Maybe it isn't racist to find it difficult for white people to fail to see difference between black people similar in build and skin color.

Quote:To address one of the other points, you say, "the Left (as you describe them) is using the tools of Western civilization against a would-be tyrant who shows little influence upon his life from the glories of that civilization".   I'll repeat my statement that you, as a liberal, mistakenly believe that the conflict going on in society is between the liberal left and the authoritarian right.  Meanwhile, what's actually happening is an ever growing authoritarian left bent on destroying society, versus an authoritarian right which is just about to conclude that seizing power and arresting all their political opponents is the only way forward.  With liberals in the middle between the two, thinking they're the left.

The intellectual hollowness of Donald Trump is legendary. It is hard to imagine anyone graduating from a first-rate university and being so grossly unaware of the heritage of Western civilization that he thinks like a bad elementary-school kid. What you call the authoritarian Left includes some questionable people -- devotees of Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Hoxha, etc. -- are bad news. They are no more common than they used to be.  

Quote:The insanity you see on the right is one side of the coin, matched by the insanity of the left.

 
Extremists are often violent, cruel, and ruthless, which is good cause to distrust them. 
 

Quote:You will never move forward by defeating Trump, because we've reached a point of collapse.  There is no return to stability.  Every move by any side destabilizes the whole system further.  Attack Trump successfully, and you strengthen the left, which further strengthens the resolve of the right.  If Trump wins the election, the left will come back and attack 10 times as hard, and states may begin openly defying the federal government.  If he loses, he may likely attempt to seize power.

No -- defeat Trump and we move America closer to the political center. Maybe conservatism redefines itself to be humane, principled, and rational
so that when something goes wrong with liberal leadership we get a viable alternative.
 

Quote:I can't predict how all of this is going to turn out.  But you will never understand anything that's happening if you mistakenly think that the left is liberal, and if you fail to see the ever spreading cancer that has taken over much of leftist thinking.

Typically liberals are on the Left and conservatives are on the Right. But confusing liberals with Marxist-Leninists is about as unwise as confusing conservatives with Nazis.

[Eric the Green]

(07-24-2020, 11:32 PM)Mickey123 Wrote: Of course the West is in the middle of a cultural collapse.  This is the essence of what the Unravelling is.  It's the death of the old First Turning culture, which then must be replaced with something, but there's nothing to replace it with.  A Crisis is then necessary to reform society and create a new culture.

The last Awakening was in my mind the most intense we've seen in our history, and it's led to a unusually extreme unravelling.  What you're seeing all around us is cultural collapse, you just don't recognize it as such.  This is because you, and liberals in general, misinterpret everything going on as some sort of step in the direction of liberalism.

Awakenings are the source of culture, not Crises. Crises being new institutions; Awakenings bring new culture.

The Awakening brought a new culture. Just because it has been ignored and not followed up on doesn't mean it isn't there.

4Ts have always resulted in the liberal or more progressive approach and institutional reforms being adopted. So it's no wonder we interpret it this way. If this 4T is not leading in the direction of liberalism, it will be the first time. It likely means the USA has failed. I don't think this will happen, and I don't think our generations are less capable or more depraved than previous ones.

Quote:Liberals see the Black Lives Matter movement and they think it's a liberal movement.  They think it is about standing up for black lives.  But it has nothing whatsoever to do with that.  It's part of the general effort going on to break society down.  The media carries out a continuous nonstop drum beat of "racism racism racism racism" all day every day, week after week, month after month, year after year, to turn people against each other.  The message is non stop, whites are racist, whites are racist, whites are racist, the problems of blacks are caused by racism, racism is the worst thing in the world, whites are racist, blacks can never get ahead, the U.S. is racist, whites are privileged, the police are racist, and so on and so on endlessly.

You obviously don't see or know what's going on. I don't know why. Black Lives Matter is exactly standing up for black lives and it is a liberal movement. The facts about white racism are chanted because they need to be chanted. And racism is perhaps the worst thing in the world; certainly one of the most perverse things in the world.

Quote:Meanwhile, the U.S. and other western nations are probably the least racist countries in the world, at the least racist time in modern memory.  But you would never know that to watch or read the news, as reporters scour the country looking for any misconduct by a white policeman against someone black, or any white person to have inappropriately called the police on someone black.

Why would a society carry out such a self destructive and self loathing campaign as this?  None of this is in any way intended to help black people (or other racial or religious minorities), it is intended to keep them feeling angry and helpless.  Telling people that all their problems are caused by someone else, and that this group has all the power over them and is evil and destructive, all of this disempowers people - as it's intended to.

Meanwhile, liberals mistake all of this for some legitimate attempt to help blacks and to improve society.  "Black lives matter", who could disagree with that?  Racism is bad, and police brutality is bad, and people communicating about their issues is good, it all sounds so liberal, if you aren't paying attention to the bigger picture.

It is always empowering to speak out against those who oppress you. It takes some courage. And for whites to join in just shows their awareness that when the lives and rights of some are threatened, the rights and lives of all of us are not secure. It is not black peoples' fault if police treat them unfairly; it is the police's fault. That does not mean that blacks are not responsible for crimes they commit.

Quote:To address one of the other points, you say, "the Left (as you describe them) is using the tools of Western civilization against a would-be tyrant who shows little influence upon his life from the glories of that civilization".   I'll repeat my statement that you, as a liberal, mistakenly believe that the conflict going on in society is between the liberal left and the authoritarian right.  Meanwhile, what's actually happening is an ever growing authoritarian left bent on destroying society, versus an authoritarian right which is just about to conclude that seizing power and arresting all their political opponents is the only way forward.  With liberals in the middle between the two, thinking they're the left.

The insanity you see on the right is one side of the coin, matched by the insanity of the left. 

You will never move forward by defeating Trump, because we've reached a point of collapse.  There is no return to stability.  Every move by any side destabilizes the whole system further.  Attack Trump successfully, and you strengthen the left, which further strengthens the resolve of the right.  If Trump wins the election, the left will come back and attack 10 times as hard, and states may begin openly defying the federal government.  If he loses, he may likely attempt to seize power.

I can't predict how all of this is going to turn out.  But you will never understand anything that's happening if you mistakenly think that the left is liberal, and if you fail to see the ever spreading cancer that has taken over much of leftist thinking.

I had already refuted all of your claims that you have made here again. The question is why you want to think this way.

The right-wing is on the way out. Demographics are against them, and it consists of older people. Red states are turning purple and purple states are turning blue.

Deposing Trump provides a chance for the republic to return to democracy and normal behavior. Whether this also provides a path for progress to return after 40 years of regression and stalemate will be up to the people and their leaders. But that is what I am still predicting will happen. A nation cannot remain in neutral or reverse forever and still prosper. The question is why you ignore this problem and why you want the stalemate to continue indefinitely.

The pandemic and the black lives matter movement provides an opening for progress, and a return to government that can act and be empowered and controlled by an active citizenry, and it will need to encompass many other issues too if our republic is to get off the dime and move again. We on the left can form alliances and address these concerns and ideals and move forward again, and then there won't be such an impulse among some to, as you see it, just tear down the country. What needs to be torn down are the barriers to progress which the right-wing has put up over the last 40 years of Reaganomics. That many whites are marching with blacks now shows the potential for these alliances.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-21-2020, 12:40 AM)Mickey123 Wrote: During the Consciousness Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, a number of groups, civil rights, feminists, anti-war, and others, all found they were united by a single goal - to smash the Establishment.  They've never stopped trying.

But what was once the ideology of a small number of radical leftists has become a cancer infecting the West, a belief system designed to destroy Western culture and societies by turning everyone against one another and in particular against anything that makes society strong and functional.  Referred to at times as "cultural marxism" or "woke culture", the essence of it is that society consists of a power struggle between oppressor groups and the oppressed.  Men oppress women, whites oppress other races, Christians oppress non-Christians, the wealthy oppress the working class, the able oppress the disabled, and so on.

The goal of this is to tear society apart by putting everyone in conflict with everyone else.  As nearly every person will find himself belonging to both oppressor and oppressed groups, therefore everyone is simultaneously destructive and evil, as well as a helpless victim of others, who can only solve his problems when the oppressors above him somehow stop oppressing him.

As the left has, over time, essentially won the culture wars and taken over the media almost entirely, it has become ever more authoritarian, as authoritarians are drawn to positions of power.   In the hands of left authoritarians, this ideology is entirely destructive.  The left hates men, hates white people, hates capitalism, and in fact hates the west altogether.  (All of this despite the fact that many of these left authoritarians are white males)

Liberals are almost entirely unaware that any of this is going on.  They had for a long time viewed themselves in a conflict with conservatives, and still view cultural conflicts from this viewpoint.  They have completely failed to notice that they now stand in the middle between conservatives on the right, and left authoritarians.  This is primarily because all of the positions of the authoritarian left are designed to appear to be liberal positions.  The left is anti-male, but masquerades as feminist, the left hates whites but masquerades as champions of civil rights. 

Liberals believe in freedom of speech, the authoritarian left is utterly opposed to it.  Liberals believe that people are innocent until proven guilty in a proper court of law, the left believes in mob justice.  Liberals want a healthy functioning society, the left wants to destroy society.

While most of those pushing woke culture don't have any sense of an overall goal to what they're doing, there is a goal, which is the old traditional goal the far left has always had, socialist revolution.  Once the west is utterly broken down and everything it once stood for destroyed, the way is paved for the glorious socialist utopia, which will of course be a nightmarish police state, similar to the Soviet Union or communist China.

The west is in the middle of a cultural collapse, with western values almost completely destroyed, leaving nothing but tolerance and diversity, which are by themselves the absence of values.  We have no values and so invite in anyone else who still does, and we tolerate everyone because we have no values of our own to uphold.

To bring this topic to the subject of this message board, all of this is coming to a climax, and soon.  The left's ideology of oppression cannot persist into the next High.  It will either be destroyed in the general coming together of society, or it will be destroyed after the socialist revolution succeeds and anyone who dares to criticize any aspect of the new society is killed.

Liberals are not aware of the rise of the authoritarian left, but conservatives are extremely aware of it.  They have identified the enemy and are preparing to do battle against them.  On the one side, a possible fascist remaking of society to purge the cancer and reassert traditional values, on the other side, a death cult intent on destroying the west and creating the worst police state the world has ever seen.  And liberals stand in the middle between the two, oblivious to it all, living under the illusion that they have almost perfected society, if they could just clear out a few nagging remnants of the old ways.

I'm a believer. Man, if I could write like you.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-23-2020, 04:44 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-23-2020, 04:22 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I always like to point out that the word "populist" is often misused these days when referring to the political right wing. Right-wing "populists" may stir passions and prejudices that appeal to the lowest common denominator of the people, but using this as a basis for the word "populist" assumes that the "people" must always be liable to reduce themselves to the level of being misled and and deceived in this way. Really, the people should be expected to rise above this. Populist really means that the people, rather than a demagogue or an authoritarian ruler or class, can be trusted to rule, and should rule. "Populist" thus means, and has meant ever since it began in the 1890s, that power is given to the people politically. It means government of, by and for the people, and in the peoples' interest. That can only occur on the left, which always means to bring more power to the people, rather than to traditional authority. Those who appeal to prejudice, the "populist right wing," are always doing this in order to buttress and support traditional authority.

Trump, Bolsonaro, LePen, Orban, Duda, Duterte, Johnson, Sisi, et al, the current crop of these "right-wing populists," are doing precisely that, and nothing BUT that.

Unfortunately, racism was popular.  In LBJ's time, he went after the black vote, the Republicans went after the racist vote, and the progressive era ended.  America willfully stopped being great so that many people could view themselves 'above' minorities.

Black Lives Matter may have ended that.  Given videos of the result of some of racism, a lot of people were turned off by racist violent policing, and this bleeds over to racism in general.  If so, what was popular a while ago and which many politicians tried to exploit may be less popular today.  They are doubling down on an attitude which may be no longer there.  This change in viewpoint might leave a lot of those that exploited the old values high and dry.

Couln't happen to a finer bunch of people.

It sometimes takes a crisis...

Correction. The Republicans went after the Southern middle class of the new South which is mainly non union. Racism is still popular on the Democratic side.