Is the "Alt-Left" Hurting the Republicans, or the Democrats? - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14839389
Pants-of-dog wrote:Haha. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

So the best source you can come up with is an opinion piece from a Christian group that believes the end of the world is coming.

That was hilarious! I rest my case.

It was the first link in Goggle. I'm not gonna go search for the rest.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Or maybe leftists and progressives do not spend money supporting hate like the right does.

Soros is not a leftist? What would you call 'im?

Pants-of-dog wrote:So your response to my claim about how the right has commercialised hatred is to discuss celebrities? Imma take this as a concession of defeat.

Are you saying that celebrity support is not commercialized?

Pants-of-dog wrote:I have done this. Does this mean I am right that the alt left does not exist because there is no left wing pundit selling hatred?

You actually did? Lord, why am I surprised...
Well...good on ya POD. If this is really true.
#14839391
Buzz62 wrote:It was the first link in Goggle. I'm not gonna go search for the rest.


Yes, your refusal to find a good source is noted. Refusing to support your claims is not actually an argument.

Soros is not a leftist? What would you call 'im?


It actually takes more keystrokes to write "'im" than "him". I wonder why you pretend to use this folksy yokel jargon.

Anyway. Soros is a wealthy progressive capitalist.

Most importantly, this has nothing to do with my point that leftists and progressives do not support an industry of pundits spewing hateful rhetoric.

Are you saying that celebrity support is not commercialized?


No. I am saying that celebrities have nothing to do with the discussion.

You actually did? Lord, why am I surprised...
Well...good on ya POD. If this is really true.


I do not care, and this has nothing to do with the argument.

Also, note that you have not mentioned a single far left pundit who makes money by saying hateful things.

Meanwhile, the right has many who do exactly that.
#14839409
Buzz62 wrote:which makes them what?
Better business people?


It means that there is no financial incentive for leftists and progressives to become "alt-left".

This, in turn, is evidence supporting the idea that the alt-left is not a real thing, but a media myth perpetuated by the right. Kinda like "white guilt".
#14839646
From what I've gathered, the "alt-left" is actually a thing...but not as a left-wing movement. Rather, it's an extension of the alt-right. The left wing of the alt-right, if you will. They want a dab of socialism with their racism. How socialism could ever work in a race-based society I have no clue, but such people aren't exactly known for making sense.

Personally, I actually wish there were a genuine alt-left. It seems like in today's times you either, a), support socialism while despising white people and men, or b), not despise white people and men but piss on black people and the poor every chance you get.

An alt-left would make way too much sense, but alas, that's just not what people are about these days.
#14839677
What Left Nationalist seems to be touching on is a historical tendency of fascism to mix policies from both left and right wing positions in a kind of eclecticism.
In fact, one of fascism's outstanding traits is its eclecticism, the propensity of its numerous individual variants to accommodate or synthesize ideological components from a wide range of sources taken from any part of the left-right spectrum. Italian Fascism, for example, merged elements of right-wing politics (nationalism, imperialism, authoritarianism) with left-wing syndicalist claims of creating social justice and abolishing class conflict, and the cult of the Roman past with elements of the Futurist cult of hypermodernity. It also attracted a number of former Marxists in Italy and Germany, hosted left-wing and right-wing variants of corporatist theory, and accommodated currents of philosophical idealism and technocratic modernism; clerical Fascism and neopaganism; cultural racism (which treated patriotic Italian Jews as full members of the re-born Italy, although a more "biological" current eventually led to the adoption of anti-Semitic race laws); and the full spectrum of aesthetics from neoclassicism to futurism, from anti-cosmopolitan ruralism to international modernism. Even Nazism was far from homogeneous ideologically, embracing ruralist and technocratic visions of the new order, varying degrees of paganism and accommodation with Christianity, several varieties of racism, an anticapitalist ("Strasserite") current, and even a strand of promodernist aesthetics. Fascism's animus against communism and the degenerative impact of liberalism on the organic national community nevertheless makes it sensible to locate fascism within the tradition of right-wing politics rather than simply "beyond" left and right (as it sometimes claims to be).

Which I think is related to why the Alt-right dubbed itself as such, to position itself as different to traditional right wingers. It's how someone like Alain De Benoist can get sympathy in his valid criticisms of liberalism that many people detest.
Though today, he has moved beyond the old timey racialist sentiment although it seems those in the US are simply outdated in this regard if they hold any notion of racial homogeneity as viable, except I guess that the US is super racial in its antagonisms and perhaps doesn't require logical coherence.
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cssgj/documents/working-papers/wp022-alain-de-benoists-anti-political-philosophy-beyond-left-and-right-non-emancipatory-responses-to-globalisation-and-crisis.pdf
The combination of nationalist and socialist thought by Gregor and Otto Strasser still provides inspiration for contemporary neo-fascist movements and their claims that traditional left-right antinomies have become superseded. Querfront tactics still are a feature of neo-fascist mobilising against globalisation and crisis in Europe, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. The German movement against labour and welfare reform laws in 2005 provides a good example (Schlembach 2011). Here neo-fascist activists would at times attempt to join the demonstrations organised by trade unions or local anti-cuts networks. While antifascist awareness usually prevented such tactics from being successful, in some isolated cases neofascists were able to march side by side with left-wing and labour movement activists (Sommer 2008).

In other instances, activists have adopted the language and aesthetics of global justice and anti-capitalist movements. Instead of combat trousers and jackboots they wear the black street wear and facemasks favoured by ‘black bloc’ protesters, describe themselves as socialists and anti-imperialists or organise anti-war demonstrations (Schedler and Häusler 2011). A key theme that emerges and synergises such strategies is once again the move beyond overt political boundaries and the assertion of the anti-political. Themes of decency or honesty, categories of nation or people; all these posit an overcoming of class divisions and assert instead the division between an organic populace and a corrupt and often opaque leadership.
...
De Benoist is not representative of the kind of neo-Nazi activities and perspectives that sometimes come to the fore within Golden Dawn or similar European neo-fascist outfits. He is clearly an opponent of antisemitism and sees his ‘right to difference’ philosophy as anti-racist and anti-nationalist. Yet, de Benoist’s redefinition of racism, ethno-pluralism, anticolonialism and the centrality of Europe in his work make it a rich source from where to investigate the issue that the Nouvelle Droite take with globalisation processes. The task is to understand de Benoist’s claims on their own terms and to derive at a critical analysis that can in turn inform progressive critiques of globalisation and capitalist crisis.
...
Against globalisation, the New Right argues for the notion of ethno-pluralism. This concept signifies a move away from biological-racist thought, but substitutes it with the centrality of culture and identity. Biological notions of race are decidedly absent. De Benoist, for example, tries to break with conventional and colloquial definitions of race and racism as inequality and superiority (De Benoist 1999). Not all racisms, he writes, were defined via a belief in biological superiority. Many early liberal ‘theories’ of race instead postulated racial difference and superiority based upon social conventions, habits and behaviours. Instead, we find in de Benoist’s texts a justification for the difference of identity, tradition and culture. His position does not entirely abandon the idea of biological race. However, he stresses the influence, not determination, of social traits by biology (De Benoist 1999). Ethno-pluralism advocates the homogenisation of cultural communities while still insisting on their separation. ‘Foreign influences’ are not defined genetically or racially, but are thought to be a threat to the cultural or national homogeneity of a group. The categories of cultural groups are usually described as Volk or ethnie, which are deemed to possess a ‘natural’ and autochthon territory. Ethno-pluralism thus postulates a congruency between a geo-political unit and the cultural community or nation. As such, ethno-pluralism regards cultures as primordial and historically-given units with distinguishable features and defining boundaries, rather than social and historical constructs or processes that change over time. As de Benoist expresses it: ‘anti-racists’ should uphold “the value of difference as the prerequisite for a dialogue respectful of each group’s identity” (De Benoist 1999: 47).

He's a cultural segrationist in the logic of multiculturalism.


To which I think Stalin posited social democracy as the moderate form of fascism, which coincides with Reichstraten's point of how social democracies work most effectively within ethnically homogeneous countries.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/09/20.htm
Firstly, it is not true that fascism is only the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy. There is just as little ground for thinking that Social-Democracy can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. These organisations do not negate, but supplement each other. They are not antipodes, they are twins. Fascism is an informal political bloc of these two chief organisations; a bloc, which arose in the circumstances of the post-war crisis of imperialism, and which is intended for combating the proletarian revolution. The bourgeoisie cannot retain power without such a bloc. It would therefore be a mistake to think that “pacifism” signifies the liquidation of fascism. In the present situation, “pacifism” is the strengthening of fascism with its moderate, Social-Democratic wing pushed into the forefront.

Though this had some strategic significance in the issue of workers unifying with social democrats against Nazis or not.
Though I think there is most certainly a racial element in social democratic notions. I mean, looking to my own country, many of its earlier political thinkers upon becoming formally a nation of Australia emphasize social democratic ideas based on a unity of being white. It's quite explicit in our history the idea of Australia being white and it's white Australia policy until the necessities of the economy for labourers keep pushing back the restrictions against non-western european whites until in the 70s or so start getting the multiculturalist policy coming out following Canada.

Basically, fascist tendencies in what ever particular historically contingent form they arise, tend to assert non-emancipatory solutions to the crisis of capital by capitalizing on true problems and valid criticisms of capitalism but in a partial way that posits inadequate solutions. In that it tends to personify the crisis in some 'other', immigrants, jews or what ever, and then only criticize financial capital as bad and think that capitalism is essentially good, it merely been corrupted and disrupted by bad influences.

And I think if we're to make sense of what an Alt-left is meant to mean, one would have to immerse themselves in the project of such right wingers to see what their ideological framing is. Though no doubt it's a shitty classification that doesn't properly analyze essential relations and groupings and has simply created it's them arbitrarily in what ever way fits with the present sense given to their wants and position in society.
#14839735
I call myself alt Lib. We're anti racist. Opposing the cultural Marxist hate campaign against White Infidel Gentiles. I'm progressive I support women's liberation, as opposed to Islamo-feminism who look to humiliate WIG men at every opportunity while idealising Islamic misogynists and Black Rap(e) culture. I oppose Jew worship, in other word Christianity, Yahweh / Jehovah is a lie. The creator of the universe did not order the Israelites to genocide the Caananite Gentiles. The Jewish God is nothing but the projection of a National Socialist Jewish Fuhrer into the sky. Islam does the same, but replaces the Jewish sky Fuhrer with an Arabic one. I oppose our Jews first foreign policy, with its obsession with Iran and Russia, while ignoring or even allying up with our real enemies: Saudi, Pakistan, the Han (well over a thousand year) Reich and North Korea.
#14839741
Rich wrote:I call myself alt Lib. We're anti racist. Opposing the cultural Marxist hate campaign against White Infidel Gentiles. I'm progressive I support women's liberation, as opposed to Islamo-feminism who look to humiliate WIG men at every opportunity while idealising Islamic misogynists and Black Rap(e) culture. I oppose Jew worship, in other word Christianity, Yahweh / Jehovah is a lie. The creator of the universe did not order the Israelites to genocide the Caananite Gentiles. The Jewish God is nothing but the projection of a National Socialist Jewish Fuhrer into the sky. Islam does the same, but replaces the Jewish sky Fuhrer with an Arabic one. I oppose our Jews first foreign policy, with its obsession with Iran and Russia, while ignoring or even allying up with our real enemies: Saudi, Pakistan, the Han (well over a thousand year) Reich and North Korea.


In short: you believe in conspiracy theories in all of different forms. :knife:
#14839742
There is certainly an alt left of militant identitarians who are cynically used by establishment democrats as cover for their corporatist politics. For some reason a lot of people have it in their heads the dems are the good guys just because they're not total bigots, but isn't that setting the bar a little low? The best that can be said for the corporate dems is that they're not complete assholes, they're just colossal assholes.


Discrimination is neoliberalism’s theory of inequality. Even poor whites have started to buy it—a large number appear to think anti-white bias is their real problem! Obviously, they’re wrong, but when, as Barbara and Karen Fields point out, the language of victimization has become so impoverished that it consists of nothing but discrimination, you go with what you’ve got. A new left politics will need to change that. Instead of a more complicated understanding of identity—of race, sex, and intersectionality (that opiate of the professional managerial class)—we need a more profound understanding of exploitation.
#14839762
Reichstraten wrote:In short: you believe in conspiracy theories in all of different forms. :knife:

You see this just proves my point. What is crazy for example with believing that Iran is not a priority enemy of the West? It is not an enemy for ordinary people, but neither is countering Iran some urgent priority of wall street? /No our obsession with Iran is because our foreign policy is controlled by obsessive Zionists.

But you see the lefties have only really got two weapon in their armoury, one is name calling, the other is violence.
#14839770
Rich wrote:You see this just proves my point. What is crazy for example with believing that Iran is not a priority enemy of the West? It is not an enemy for ordinary people, but neither is countering Iran some urgent priority of wall street? /No our obsession with Iran is because our foreign policy is controlled by obsessive Zionists.

But you see the lefties have only really got two weapon in their armoury, one is name calling, the other is violence.



Despite your conspiracy theories you're still able to say something intelligible of course. Not all is bullshit.
But could you give an example of this Zionist foreign policy? I'm curious. Or is it just a loose cry?
#14839780
Rich wrote:But you see the lefties have only really got two weapon in their armoury, one is name calling, the other is violence.


No, lefties use all the same weapons and tactics as wingnuts - moral posturing, junk science, fear mongering, claiming victimhood, all manner of applesauce really. The whole fakakta society is post-reality and we're all up to our eyeballs in it. A world this preposterously ignorant couldn't happen unless just about everyone in it was obstinately dedicated to some form of nonsense or other.
#14839853
Sivad wrote:No, lefties use all the same weapons and tactics as wingnuts - moral posturing, junk science, fear mongering, claiming victimhood, all manner of applesauce really. The whole fakakta society is post-reality and we're all up to our eyeballs in it. A world this preposterously ignorant couldn't happen unless just about everyone in it was obstinately dedicated to some form of nonsense or other.


Conspiracy theories are post-truth, and the right are champions in draining them off.
If the right is smart, rightists need to believe in real truth, not pseudo-truth and stupid theories.
#14840704
Sivad wrote:We are ruled by a degenerate financial elite via a corrupt system of political puppetry aided by a slimy organ of mass deception. That's on all of us, liberals contribute to this ludicrous travesty just as much as the right does.

Yup.
The USA is divided and fractured into what looks like, a hundred different factions. Maybe more.
Each claiming to be either "right" or "left". Both so convinced that the other is evil incarnate, that they refuse to cooperate with each other, not as a matter of politics or electorate desires, but as a matter of course. I blame McConnell for this but, it may have begun earlier with Bush II.
Now Trumpy is gonna order the expulsion of "The Dreamers". Let the feathers fly!
I actually think Donny will make some sort of immediate path to some sort of residence permit for the bulk of them. But we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Some of this debate has been over whether or not the "alt-left" actually exists...is a "thing". Ya it's a thing. Its just as palpable as the "alt-right" is, and just as palatable. But these are extreme stations. People who make shocking public proclamations, and like to fight with each other. So much so, that now there's a conspiracy theory that the 2 are in cahoots.

The "alt-left" and the "alt-right" are stoking emotions in America, that are already prevalent in Europe. We, in The Americas, have the luxury of a sizable ocean between us and the Muslim world, so it could be allot worse.

We are, indeed, living in "interesting times". The USA is angry, so is Europe, The Middle East and Africa, Indonesia, Korea... The level of social upheaval is monumental right now. I suppose the bigger question becomes, "What can be done to bring the human race to unite and focus on cooperation and common purpose?" That's the question that scares me. Because the "simple" answer to that is "war".

Damn the Chinese and their proverbs...
#14840854
Pants-of-dog wrote:Please define exactly who the "alt-left" are. Thank you.

I predict you will not do so, but instead say that anyone who is not stupid already knows, or some other way of avoiding the question while simultaneously implying your ideological opponents are uninformed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-left
And in the tradition of the term, I, your opponent, will say to your question here...

"Why...you are POD" ;)
#14840883
You do realise that your link supports my psoition that there is actually no "alt-left"?

    Alt-left is a pejorative neologism introduced by far-right online media in 2016, suggesting the existence of an ideological fringe movement on the political left, as a direct opposite of the alt-right. The term began being used by Sean Hannity and Fox News to describe groups, outlets, or individuals who were perceived as being critical of then President-elect Donald Trump. Trump used the term during remarks on the Charlottesville rally on August 15, 2017.

    Unlike the term "alt-right" (which was coined by those on the extreme right who comprise the movement), as noted by Washington Post writer Aaron Blake, "alt-left" was "coined by its opponents and doesn't actually have any subscribers".[1] According to George Hawley, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama, no such label has been adopted by any members of the progressive left.[2][3] While acknowledging that there are anti-fascism activists on the left who engage in physical confrontation against members of the far-right, Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, concurred that no equivalent to those who identify as being part of the "alt-right" exists, stating that anti-fascist groups were not consciously aiming to brand themselves in the manner that white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other members of the far-right had undertaken to mainstream their ideology.[3][4][5]

    Its usage eventually circulated within conservative online media, and was popularized around those circles through its use by Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity to suggest the existence of a similar ideological fringe movement on the political left. On the November 14, 2016 edition of his eponymous Fox News program, Hannity used the term to excoriate "alt-left media" together with "mainstream" and "radical" media for being "biased against President-elect Trump".[1][2][6] According to The New Republic, the term was popularized after it was "picked up" by Fox News as a way to "frame the Democratic wing led by [Bernie] Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as extreme".[7]

    In an early use of the term, Gary Bauer stated on CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper, "It's not alt-right, it's not alt-left; it's alt-delete. It's get the bums out," as a way of equating right- and left-wing populism.[1]

    Both the term itself and the concept of an "alt-left" as a sort of opposite-but-equal mirror of the alt-right have generated controversy for "likening" the "socialist critics" of neo-Nazism "to neo-Nazis".[7][8][9] The term has also been criticized as a label that, unlike alt-right, was not coined by the group it purports to describe, but, rather, was created by political opponents as a political smear implying a false equivalence.[8][1]

    According to Branko Marcetic, assistant editor of Jacobin magazine, the label refers to a faction of the political left that does not exist, as the progressive or far left segments of political ideology do not identify by any other particular collective noun.[10] Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League states that the term was made up by extremist groups to create a false equivalence between the far right and “anything vaguely left-seeming that they didn't like.”[11]

    According to journalist Peter Beinart, "What Trump calls “the alt left”... is actually antifa."[12] Buzzfeed UK published an article about "alt-left media" in the United Kingdom in May 2016.[13] The article refers to "alt-left" news websites such as Another Angry Voice, The Canary, Evolve Politics and Skwawkbox, which are "hyperpartisan" supporters of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.[13]

    The term gained prevalence when U.S. president Donald Trump used the phrase during remarks on the Charlottesville rally made on August 15, 2017.[14][15][16][17] Researchers such as Mark Pitcavage state that the “alt-left” does not actually exist and the derogatory term had been made up to create an equation between the far right and certain activists and politicians on the left.[18][19][20]

I am happy to use this definition.

Thank you for providing it.
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