The Pushback against Leftism

'People have different political and moral views, grow some skin and deal with it'

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

the lack of self awareness is incredible

For anyone literate in social democracy, there is a political spectrum from left to right. Social Democracy itself is the result of a compromise between left (unions, democratic/civil rights/eco movements etc) and right (Business interests, nationalist movements etc.). From the post war period to the 70's in the west this compromise worked not just to the benefit of businesses but also those who were members of trade unions and organised labour in general. However the lever of balance has always ratcheted to the right economically even when supposedly left wing parties were in power as regulations on capital and corporate taxes were incrementally decreased. At the same time, since the 70's, the strength of organised labour and unions in general has dramatically declined. In my opinion the traditional left became 'liberalised' if you like, economically, leaving what you might call the working classes adrift as working conditions & pay stagnated. It is these people, both in the UK and US who have, paradoxically veered right. This is what underpins the anger against the so-called progressive agenda which now champions anyone else but them.

In this country, Labour, the traditional left party with a fine history of genuine progressivism and social activism is now associated for right or wrong with crippling austerity. What i am saying is that we seem to now have a generation of people who suffer from a collective misunderstanding of what 'leftism' actually means. We are heading down the road of Trumpland where anything that doesn't fit a certain agenda can be classed as 'leftism', communism etc ( i.e the title of this thread) without actually understanding the history of social democracy and where the actual left fits in.

Your misunderstanding is that the left has always been interested in promoting the the rights and welfare of oppressed minorities. Working class people were always just one of those oppressed minorities as far as the left was concerned. Equality for all is the cornerstone of everything left wing. The left wing was always on the front line with the victims of racism and the right was always the victimizer they were fighting.

Forgive me if I don't take the definition of a Tory as gospel on what a left wing supporter is.

Well if they're "not often the same thing" then they're not really the same thing are they.

Look it's really simple, "teh lEft" is merely a catchphrase used by the simple minded for everything they hate. There's no great mystery here. Trans people...it's "teh lEfT"...immigrants, it's "teh lEfT"...people on the dole...it's "teh lEfT". Apparently, Neo-Liberal conservative pillars like the privatisation of essential services is also "teh lEfT" for some people on this thread. 😆

For some people the Left is any old thing they want it to be.

I'm not even looking at your shitposting any more.

For some people, it can be.

No, the descriptions aren't "meaningless", but they can be used in a meaningless way as has been demonstrated on this very thread.

The vast majority of people will swing "left" or "right" depending on the topic and anyone who buries their needle in either direction and becomes immovable is an idiot in my book, because they end up being told what to believe in instead of actually believing in what they themselves hold true. Far too many people are beholden to what "their team" says, rather than just engaging in a bit of reflection on a given topic and coming up with their own position. There's plenty of posters on here who'll you'll just know will be topic starters of certain issues or will have an obvious opinion just based on the title of the thread. It's not even funny any more.

But there's a larger, more important, issue at play here. The political sphere has become swamped with US centric identity nonsense whose signal to noise ratio is immense. Significant topics get drowned out in favour of people shouting at each other about people they'll never even meet al la trans people, for instance and will carry on like the sky is falling in. It's a farce. It's been a dreadful side effect of social media and the internet in general.

They seem to anti science with anything involving the bible like Intelligent design was only taught in Republican states. They also deny climate change, or actually they seemed to have now fallen back from that position and now seem to be of the opinion it is happening and we can either do nothing about it or it is not man-made. The Republicans were also heavily against the vaccines but that is more conspiracy theory nonsense than anti science.

The right likes science that makes them money and hates science that gets in the way of making money. Then there are the antiscience religious crazies.

I wouldnt consider it a smear to say that Southern states were teaching Intelligent design as an alternative to Evolution. They are literal believers of what was written in the bible.