Right and left are an illusion produced by the people who are sucking up the profits of our labour to pit us against each other.
Especially the US two party system seems to be a racket that lets you choose between conservative corpo shills and science denying fascists. All to extract the maximum amount of money from all people involved.
Words to live by, OP, “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds”
Fascism, a far right wing ideology, is often described as “capitalism in decline,” and is what happens when capitalism desperately clings to any hope of maintaining itself, normally by calling itself back to some mythologized, fictional version of a perceived golden age.
Its also worth noting that we use the terms left and right to described to describe relative position within the overton window (the narrow stretch of “acceptable” politics within a given society) of our current politics, as in, biden is left Bush is right, et cetera, but in a larger view of the political spectrum both the democrats and republicans are right wing parties. There isn’t an objective defintion of who is left/right, but for a lot of people, the dividing line is capitalism itself. If you support capitalism, you’re right wing, if you’re a socialist, communist, or anarchist, you’re a left winger. If, by some miracle, capitalism were to die out tomorrow and every country was some flavor of socialist the dividing line would change to some new metric, and x would be left while y would right. It’s a short hand expression not a hard and fast rule.
The problem is not that the left is an illusion and more that there just is no left wing party in the US.
Like you said there is a right wing party in line with most conservative parties in Europe and there is a protofascist party in line with Putin, American Oligarchy and religious extremism.
That doesn’t mean that an actual leftist movement or party can’t possibly exist or is a mere illusion.
The political system in the US is just purposefully designed not to allow a successful party on the left.
Elections are decided in big parts with money, which inherently favours those with money (and corporations are people in the US for some fucked up reason).
This is by design and not something that is natural or automatic.
I guess our positions are not that different, I just wanted to add some nuance.
I agree. We mean pretty much the same. I‘m just saying it different.
In my opinion the thought of cleaning your own doorstep before meddling in foreign affairs (one argument of the actual conservatives in opposition to fascists) actually makes a lot of sense to me.
The same goes for treating all people (and even animals, and plants to a degree) the same regardless of anything that doesnt harm others is not an idea of the „radical left“ imo but the opposite is a pure fascist idea and not conservative at all.
The ideas of what conservative or progressive mean are open to interpretation and using it the way modern populists (others call them politicians) do is just to help them get or stay in power.
Actually, representative democracy is a problem in that regard. We should go back to direct democracy in a lot of topics. Go back to the normal person educating themselves in national and local issues instead of voting for „the guy“ because they lie anyway.
That means making time for this education instead of wageslaving 8-16 hrs a day for all mature people on the household. Living with a small family on one full time income is the way it has to be in my opinion. Which partner goes to work or if both so half a day is inconsequential to me.
Right and left are an illusion produced by the people who are sucking up the profits of our labour to pit us against each other.
Especially the US two party system seems to be a racket that lets you choose between conservative corpo shills and science denying fascists. All to extract the maximum amount of money from all people involved.
This.
OP, to learn more, try:
https://truthout.org/articles/fascism-is-possible-not-in-spite-of-liberal-capitalism-but-because-of-it/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
Words to live by, OP, “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds”
Fascism, a far right wing ideology, is often described as “capitalism in decline,” and is what happens when capitalism desperately clings to any hope of maintaining itself, normally by calling itself back to some mythologized, fictional version of a perceived golden age.
Its also worth noting that we use the terms left and right to described to describe relative position within the overton window (the narrow stretch of “acceptable” politics within a given society) of our current politics, as in, biden is left Bush is right, et cetera, but in a larger view of the political spectrum both the democrats and republicans are right wing parties. There isn’t an objective defintion of who is left/right, but for a lot of people, the dividing line is capitalism itself. If you support capitalism, you’re right wing, if you’re a socialist, communist, or anarchist, you’re a left winger. If, by some miracle, capitalism were to die out tomorrow and every country was some flavor of socialist the dividing line would change to some new metric, and x would be left while y would right. It’s a short hand expression not a hard and fast rule.
I think you are wrong to a degree.
The problem is not that the left is an illusion and more that there just is no left wing party in the US.
Like you said there is a right wing party in line with most conservative parties in Europe and there is a protofascist party in line with Putin, American Oligarchy and religious extremism.
That doesn’t mean that an actual leftist movement or party can’t possibly exist or is a mere illusion.
The political system in the US is just purposefully designed not to allow a successful party on the left.
Elections are decided in big parts with money, which inherently favours those with money (and corporations are people in the US for some fucked up reason).
This is by design and not something that is natural or automatic.
I guess our positions are not that different, I just wanted to add some nuance.
I agree. We mean pretty much the same. I‘m just saying it different.
In my opinion the thought of cleaning your own doorstep before meddling in foreign affairs (one argument of the actual conservatives in opposition to fascists) actually makes a lot of sense to me.
The same goes for treating all people (and even animals, and plants to a degree) the same regardless of anything that doesnt harm others is not an idea of the „radical left“ imo but the opposite is a pure fascist idea and not conservative at all.
The ideas of what conservative or progressive mean are open to interpretation and using it the way modern populists (others call them politicians) do is just to help them get or stay in power.
Actually, representative democracy is a problem in that regard. We should go back to direct democracy in a lot of topics. Go back to the normal person educating themselves in national and local issues instead of voting for „the guy“ because they lie anyway.
That means making time for this education instead of wageslaving 8-16 hrs a day for all mature people on the household. Living with a small family on one full time income is the way it has to be in my opinion. Which partner goes to work or if both so half a day is inconsequential to me.