Things I hate about liberals

[CAleftist]

What are some of the ways in which you, as a revolutionary Leftist, despise liberals?

Here are some reasons.

1. Their arrogant, elitist condescension towards workers and poor people: (ie: "most Americans are too stupid/vote against their best interests/are uneducated in general")

2. Their "feel good", "activist" bullshit, which includes "green energy", "social justice" (within a capitalist society? Yeah right. :rolleyes: ), "speaking truth to power", etc. In this they are really not much different from the Tea Party assholes who want to "take back America."

3. Their idealistic "nostalgia" for the "days of (insert FDR/Truman/JFK/LBJ in here) and the "great American middle class."

4. Their hatred/fear/dismissal of the Left, and historical leading role in purging Communists and radicals from the trade unions and other centers of political power (and their reactionary morph into hard-line right-wingers whenever their bourgeois liberal utopia is threatened).

5. Their general insulting of people's intelligence with their attempts to "reform" capitalism.

What would you add to the list?

[the Leftâ„¢]

For some reason they are driven to believe that the United States government can create a more equitable and fair society

[Bronco]

How pretentious and sanctimonious they always are

[Azraella]

As a psychologist, liberal psychologists piss me off the most.

Apparently I'm deluded because I think law is not beneficial for human development and that humans would be psychologically healthier in a communist society. ("But people need to be lead!") Gah! Liberal psychologists can bite me.

[Red And Black Sabot]

Liberals bring the function of policing into our movement and onto the streets as "peace police" aka "citizen cop" by directly hindering direct action, attempting to censor expression, physically and sometimes even violently blocking action, screaming at radicals for saying shit like "fuck the police" playing the goody goody clean up roll in response to basic rowdiness and obnoxiously repeating over and over again "NON VIOLENCE! NON VIOLENCE!" as if anyone else actually gave a fuck.

[Adorno4498]

The fact that they think they can coopt our movement. We'll show those dickbags...

[Kadir Ateş]

When they call themselves revolutionaries.

[Ocean Seal]

My favorite one is that they take the credit for all the reforms that have been achieved.
-Liberals brought about labor reforms, and civil rights...

Also they are constantly concerned with "upsetting" people. So they'll shy away from saying things like whites/men/heterosexuals have privilege in society. They also worry about upsetting the rich so they can't say that the rich are stealing our wealth, and they need to have a moral basis for taking it back.

Also humanitarian fucking imperialism makes me rage. We attacked Libya to protect civilians!!!!!!! Its different from Iraq, I swear.

Which brings me to my next point. They'll support anything that a Democrat does. They constantly rag on everyone else for not having critical thinking facilities, yet they don't seem to use them here. Libya=Iraq.

[Le Socialiste]

When liberals call and/or consider themselves to be representatives of the American "Left," going so far as to discredit genuine leftism as "too radical," or "no better than right-wing authoritarianism." :glare:

[Tim Finnegan]

Honestly, I just feel sorry for them. Their whole... whatever it is, I'm not even sure if it's a cohesive entity at this point, is just such a desperate, burned-out shambles that it's hard for me to get too worked up about it. I just work on trying to make this as apparent to them as it is to me, and maybe start thinking beyond these inherited confines.

[AntifaZG]

I thought liberalism is a distinctive trademark of the far-left... Freedom of speech and that shit, ya know.... I'm quite surprised you people oppose it

[Marxaveli]

When liberals call and/or consider themselves to be representatives of the American "Left," going so far as to discredit genuine leftism as "too radical," or "no better than right-wing authoritarianism." :glare:

I tell regular Democrats all the time that Obama is one of the best Republican Presidents ever....they are like wtf :confused:

[Magón]

Their fashion sense.

[RadioRaheem84]

Two words; social entrepreneurship.

[Franz Fanonipants]

embrace of radical atheism

[RadioRaheem84]

I thought liberalism is a distinctive trademark of the far-left... Freedom of speech and that shit, ya know.... I'm quite surprised you people oppose it

Yeah, freedom of speech is why we hate liberals. :rolleyes: gtfo

[Franz Fanonipants]

Yeah, freedom of speech is why we hate liberals. :rolleyes: gtfo

that one too

natural rights/law sucks

[Adorno4498]

Their irrational fear of communism. Present any democrat with a full on, government buildings burning the ground communist revolution, and a liberal will do one of the two things:
1) Conveniently forget all the rights that Communist orgnaisations won for them in the 1930's and 1940's and claim that the revolutionaries are "too radical" and claim that there needs to be an emphasis on "nonviolence" ("police batons: yardsticks, essentially.")
2) Become a full-fledged conservative

[Franz Fanonipants]

be Noam Chomsky

[NewLeft]

American liberals are a mixed bag. Some are sympathetic to socialism, some are social democrats, some are 'centrists', some are closet conservatives, some support some form of neoliberalism...

[Leonid Brozhnev]

Their complacency in the perpetuation of social hierarchies...


As a psychologist, liberal psychologists piss me off the most.

Apparently I'm deluded because I think law is not beneficial for human development and that humans would be psychologically healthier in a communist society. ("But people need to be lead!") Gah! Liberal psychologists can bite me.

My girlfriend's lecturer told us about a time he want to a department seminar, one half was Sociologists and the other half was Psychologists. When the speaker started talking about Marx, he looked around... all the Sociologists we're nodding their heads in agreement, the Psychologists on the other hand were shaking their heads in disagreement. Sounds to me like Psychology isn't too Marx friendly :lol:

[Impulse97]

The fact that they reject Socialism, and then act like there stupid arguments are bulletproof. My liberal mother will have absolute fisticuffs with my Tea Party grandmother, but as soon as I critic capitalism I'm just an idealist who's arguments aren't worth her time.

[kahimikarie]

-their dumb fixation with "choice"
-exploitative liberal schemes like microcredit they call charity.

[~Spectre]

Sounds to me like Psychology isn't too Marx friendly :lol:

They just can't handle the shit we be spittin', yo.

[Susurrus]

Their whole "nothing ever get's done outside the system" spiel.

Also their insistence on the basic good of institutions.

[Le Socialiste]

I tell regular Democrats all the time that Obama is one of the best Republican Presidents ever....they are like wtf :confused:

I'll usually say something similar to that...it really drives the liberals in my family crazy. :laugh:

[RadioRaheem84]

I think liberals are more worried about maintaining institutional legitimacy than right wingers are.

And I hate their damn microfinance, economic development, social investment scams. Their whole solving social problems through the market is incredibly annoying just as a annoying as their insistence on making government more efficient, which translate into making government fit market standards.

I really think I hate liberals more than right wingers. I really do.

[RadioRaheem84]

Worse than an American liberal: Third Way Soc Dem Northern European technocratic policy wonk that reads too much The Economist. Signed the Euston Manifesto and thinks he is helping defend Western Civ.

[NewLeft]

When they call themselves revolutionaries.
Some liberal on youtube has this under "Occupation": Revolutionary liberal activist :laugh:

[Durutii Column]

How they like to talk about having a revolution and then basically reestablishing things as they are.

[~Spectre]

At least there are a lot of sociopath wall street types that are honest enough to acknowledge how the world actually works. They simply don't care. These sorts of folks you can at least have an interesting airplane conversation with.

Liberals OTOH, are like an elaborate troll job.

[Scrooge]

I get tired of their rhetoric with sayings such as "corporate greed", and "fair trade." They get that there is something exploitative about capitalism, but they refuse to take the argument to its logical conclusion. Coupled with this is their appeal to moderation.

[Veovis]

I'd like to hazard a guess and say that a good many people on this board used to be liberals - myself included. My hypothesis is that a lot of liberals would become socialists if they actually knew what it is, and learned the truth about capitalism's negative PR campaign towards it.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I thought liberalism is a distinctive trademark of the far-left...
You're thinking perhaps of the libertarian left?

[L.A.P.]

-One of my biggest gripes with petty bourgeois liberals is that their idea of anti-racism is being incredibly prejudice towards white (mainly southern) working class people. Ignorant "rednecks" always believing in prejudice stereotypes is a prejudice stereotype in itself.

-peaceful protest bullshit

[Lobotomy]

"Want to make a REAL change? Get out there and vote."

:cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing:

[Veovis]

"Want to make a REAL change? Get out there and vote."

:cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing:

Yeah, that is rather annoying.

[NewLeft]

-One of my biggest gripes with petty bourgeois liberals is that their idea of anti-racism is being incredibly prejudice towards white (mainly southern) working class people. Ignorant "rednecks" always believing in prejudice stereotypes is a prejudice stereotype in itself.

-peaceful protest bullshit

What? The civil rights movement was not peaceful?!? But.. but.. but MLK! No? What do you mean MLK had militant support?!? The black panthers were a militant group?!?

[Impulse97]

"Want to make a REAL change? Get out there and vote."

:cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing:

Yea, I fucking hate that line. Got into one of the very few political debates with my mother the other night and she said that voting was the 'only' way to change the system.

[tfb]

Some liberal on youtube has this under "Occupation": Revolutionary liberal activist :laugh:

I wish them the best of luck in overthrowing feudalism!

[Franz Fanonipants]

I wish them the best of luck in overthrowing feudalism!

you mean enlightened absolutism

[Die Neue Zeit]

Worse than an American liberal: Third Way Soc Dem Northern European technocratic policy wonk that reads too much The Economist. Signed the Euston Manifesto and thinks he is helping defend Western Civ.

You're finally seeing some value in Third Periodism.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Worse than an American liberal: Third Way Soc Dem Northern European technocratic policy wonk that reads too much The Economist. Signed the Euston Manifesto and thinks he is helping defend Western Civ.

i cannot even express how much i love this post

[Lobotomy]

Yea, I fucking hate that line. Got into one of the very few political debates with my mother the other night and she said that voting was the 'only' way to change the system.

yeah my family would probably say something similar. Sometimes I can't help but take a step back and be impressed with how well the ruling class has indoctrinated the public. it is really quite impressive

[Impulse97]

yeah my family would probably say something similar. Sometimes I can't help but take a step back and be impressed with how well the ruling class has indoctrinated the public. it is really quite impressive


Yea, well, everybody's gotta have their sport.

[Le Socialiste]

I'd like to hazard a guess and say that a good many people on this board used to be liberals - myself included. My hypothesis is that a lot of liberals would become socialists if they actually knew what it is, and learned the truth about capitalism's negative PR campaign towards it.

I suspect you're right, I was a hardline Democrat/liberal for much of my teen and young adult years. It wasn't until Obama's election and his party's subsequent actions that I began to seriously question liberalism and capitalism - which eventually led me to revolutionary leftism. I think there's a sizable number of liberals who would be receptive to communism if they understood what it really was/is. Hell, all it'll probably take is to convince most of them that communism isn't some idealistic utopia and they'd probably move beyond their skepticism (that's quite a big "if" though).

[Islamic Socialist]

For me it has to be upholding the capitalist system and maintaining it and serving as a center-right form of capital in a petty attempt to balance out the farther right form of capital. Not to mention the self-absorbed nature of liberals. As well their defense of imperialism in the form of 'humanitarianism' either which is used to expand the foreign policy of AmeriKKKa and Europe into African, Islamic and post-Soviet nations.

[Rocky Rococo]

That they think we're all stupid. That we can't see what a sham, what pure window-dressing they are, in the midst of an epically piratical period in the history of capitalism. They proclaim themselves so much more sophisticated, and I've come to hate the word they use for themselves more than any other "pragmatic". Not because I hate being pragmatic, no not at all. But unless they're speaking solely in their own personal careerist terms, there is nothing "pragmatic" about the operations of liberals and the Democratic Party. Pragmatic means finding the most effective means of achieving a set of goals. It does not mean adjusting one's goals to suit one's personal convenience and advantage. There's a fine political word for that, "opportunism", and by their insistent use of the word "pramatism" they have caused that formerly honorable word to now mean crass opportunism. And as I sa8id, it's outrageous that they think they can strut this stuff around in the public eye for years, decades, and we're so stupid we'll never catch on. Fine, if they want to think that, maybe we can learn to use their own self-delusion against them. If we're smart enough.

[Black_Rose]

It wasn't until Obama's election and his party's subsequent actions that I began to seriously question liberalism and capitalism - which eventually led me to revolutionary leftism.I concern:

I posted this earlier on Gowans' blog:


What is your strategic position on the Laodicean (liberal and social democratic) left? Do you see them as potential strategic assets in the doldrums that can be imbibed with revolutionary fervor with appropriate edification or avoirdupois that must be jettisoned?


Here’s a little trip down memory lane (Feb 2009):

http://web.archive.org/web/20090227041854/http://www.dailykos.com/

(http://web.archive.org/web/20090227041854/http://www.dailykos.com/)
Notice how the “approval rating” of Barack Obama is prominently displayed then; it reflects the panglossian faith that many of the Daily Kos liberals had (and still possesses) in liberal bourgeois democracy, but they failed to comprehend the pervasive influence of the ruling class in the political realm. Perhaps, they have received the epiphany that the immense pecuniary influence of the upper class renders them otiose and disenfranchised and now understand the farcical nature of bourgeois democracy. Obviously, elections will not solve this problem; it would require a revolution that would destroy the political, cultural, military and economic influence of the bourgeoisie to solve this problem.

You educated your son well. Even I was too optimistic about Barack Obama, since I thought he would merely allow the Bush tax cuts to expire and I did not expect him to enact anything “radical”.
Again:
I am surprised that no one mentioned the lukewarmness of the left liberal left.

What is your strategic position on the Laodicean* (liberal and social democratic) left? Do you see them as potential strategic assets in the doldrums that can be imbibed with revolutionary fervor with appropriate edification or avoirdupois that must be jettisoned?

* A reference to Revelation 3:15-16 --- I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Anyone want to answer that?

[kashkin]

Their whole "nothing ever get's done outside the system" spiel.

Also their insistence on the basic good of institutions.

I hear this all the time, especially from my parents. "Become a lawyer/judge/politician/diplomat/etc and you can then change the world". Because we have the rights we have today due to the benevolence of those at the top...:rolleyes:

[~Spectre]

I love when they give you "that look" too. You know, like when you say something along the lines of "Obama has been bad for workers", and they literally react like they can't comprehend the language you're speaking in. They take a tone with you after that makes it sound like they are the ones indulging your stupidity.

[Lobotomy]

How they complain about the Democratic Party but vote for them every time anyway.

[individualist communist]

Yay lets make a thread meant for hating against an ill-defined group of people! My favorite activity.

[individualist communist]

embrace of radical atheism
WTF is radical atheism? It is when i hear shit like this that i wonder i i'm really on a social conservative forum.

[Franz Fanonipants]

WTF is radical atheism? It is when i hear shit like this that i wonder i i'm really on a social conservative forum.

dawkins, hitchens, the white man's burden set of the 21st century

[Veovis]

dawkins, hitchens, the white man's burden set of the 21st century

Atheism, radical or otherwise, has nothing to do with the "white man's burden."

[individualist communist]

dawkins, hitchens, the white man's burden set of the 21st century
Whaaaaaaaaat?

[sulla]

Also they are constantly concerned with "upsetting" people. So they'll shy away from saying things like whites/men/heterosexuals have privilege in society. They also worry about upsetting the rich so they can't say that the rich are stealing our wealth, and they need to have a moral basis for taking it back.

.

As white mostly heterosexual male, I get pissed of at generalizations like this. I've been part of the poor white underclass. I've had a hard upbringing. Then some person like yourself has the nerve to claim someone has privilege for being white and heterosexual?

First of all there is female privilege in society.(In fact females seem to be embracing capitalism very well. Capitalism has become more feminized!) There are plenty of none white rich people out there.

If you are going to say things like this at least say. "RICH white males!" (Sexuality hasn't got a lot to do with privilege in society. In fact gay people seem to embrace capitalism as well. There are plenty of gay right wingers.)

If you go around saying things like this you are just going to alienate people like me! A person can not choose there gender sexuality or the colour of the skin. While most of the people are at the top of the capitalism system are white European males, the colour of there skin is not the inportant aspect. In fact capitalism will welcome clogs in the machine of any colour, race, creed, gender, sexaulity.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Atheism, radical or otherwise, has nothing to do with the "white man's burden."

thats fuckin rich comrade
i suppose it is simply an epistemological condition of being w/out any sort of underlying material causes

[Franz Fanonipants]

If you go around saying things like this you are just going to alienate people like me! A person can not choose there gender sexuality or the colour of the skin. While most of the people are at the top of the capitalism system are white European males, the colour of there skin is not the inportant aspect. In fact capitalism will welcome clogs in the machine of any colour, race, creed, gender, sexaulity.

yes there are no differences in relation to the means of production based on identity we should be v. careful to not alienate you

[Tim Cornelis]

The liberal notion that somehow the corrupted banking sector and pharmaceutical corporations are isolated evils within the virtuous system of capitalism, and not a logical (indeed inevitable) product of market forces.

And in addition, that fighting the bankers and pharmaceutical companies will solve (most or) all social ills.

[Comrade Jandar]

Their naive dedication to "non-violence" and to quote Slavoj Zizek, their goal of putting a "human face on capitalism."

[Inner Peace]

Things i Hate about liberals:
Everything

[sulla]

yes there are no differences in relation to the means of production based on identity we should be v. careful to not alienate you

Alienate people like me. White underclass people have it really shit too. They get kicked about by the state, and discarded by society, then they get told they are privileged, and it is all their fault. At least make a distinction about class!

Also I will make the point again. What about privileged white females? In fact they seem to be adapting to the capitalism system better than males these days.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Alienate people like me. White underclass people have it really shit too. They get kicked about by the state, and discarded by society, then they get told they are privileged, and it is all their fault. At least make a distinction about class!

Also I will make the point again. What about privileged white females? In fact they seem to be adapting to the capitalism system better than males these days.

yes what with glass ceilings and rape culture.

motherfucker its on you to not BE alienated by your comrades. i have no problem with poor whites. that's not the issue. the issue is that race and gender are both valid parts of capitalist oppression. if you're offended by that statement you are a reactionary.

[sulla]

yes what with glass ceilings and rape culture.

motherfucker its on you to not BE alienated by your comrades. i have no problem with poor whites. that's not the issue. the issue is that race and gender are both valid parts of capitalist oppression. if you're offended by that statement you are a reactionary.


Rape culture? Okay explan to me child abuse and neglect culture? More woman abuse kids then men.

What do you mean by rape culture? Most men do not approve of rape. Trying to guilt an entire gender with the actions of a small minority of men. Also a lot of rape trials are falling in the UK due to the fact that a lot of juiors are right wing prudish females, who go against the female victims. (You know woman tend to be slightly more conservative than men right?)
You know conservative woman tend to hate woman, just as much as any reactionary male.

In fact that you feel free to generalise about a whole gender due to the fact that some men rape is very telling. If you added the words black rape culture, you would be rightly condemned.

Also glass celling? Do you realise females are starting to get richer? I am sure at the very top, it is still mostly men, but woman are doing well in the city. Also I am a socialist anarchist, I don't give a shit about gender reformist issues. I don't want females to break the glass ceiling, I don't want there to be a glass ceiling full stop.

"the issue is that race and gender are both valid parts of capitalist oppression"

I don't understand what you are saying here? What has valid got to do with anything? Capitalism is a very adaptable form of tyranny. It will find diffrent groups to oppress and exploit. I have never denied that? Why the hell are you bring that up? I know about the Belgian Congo, how Africa was raped, how the British Empire starved millions to death, how the Americas where colonized with genocide etc...

Please don't call me motherfucker. Just stop labeling all whites the same. To me that is the action of a right wing reactionary.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Please don't call me motherfucker. Just stop labeling all whites the same. To me that is the action of a right wing reactionary.

restrict this dude

[Raúl Duke]

Their complacency in the perpetuation of social hierarchies...



My girlfriend's lecturer told us about a time he want to a department seminar, one half was Sociologists and the other half was Psychologists. When the speaker started talking about Marx, he looked around... all the Sociologists we're nodding their heads in agreement, the Psychologists on the other hand were shaking their heads in disagreement. Sounds to me like Psychology isn't too Marx friendly :lol:

That's because in sociology, anthropology, and history Marxist ideas are pretty relevant to the field. Psychology however, no; thus they would react like the rest of the indoctrinated general public in relation to Marx.

[sulla]

restrict this dude


So you call for censorship? Is it because I refuse to let people generalize about a whole group of people? I thought only stupid right wingers did things like this.

I am challenging some sort of orthodoxy here? People do not choose the gender or the colour of the skin they are born into. Do you realise there are groups of white people who suffer under capitalism as well? (Take the traveler community for example) Why should they have to hear generalizations about themselves like this? How does this build solidarity between diffrent groups? Don't you see how counter productive this is?

[Luc]

Ugh I just started Civics (aka the indoctrination) and it turns out my teacher is a liberal.

long story short I'm begining to hate Liberals and Liberalism as well...

[Franz Fanonipants]

So you call for censorship? Is it because I refuse to let people generalize about a whole group of people? I thought only stupid right wingers did things like this.

I am challenging some sort of orthodoxy here? People do not choose the gender or the colour of the skin they are born into. Do you realise there are groups of white people who suffer under capitalism as well? (Take the traveler community for example) Why should they have to hear generalizations about themselves like this? How does this build solidarity between diffrent groups? Don't you see how counter productive this is?

no one is doing the things you are saying. you are being a hysterical racist.

and i call for censorship plenty. nazis, capitalists, racists, sexists, and homophobes deserve to be taught they are wrong. they do not deserve to be protected by some liberal ideal. like i said earlier in the thread, the worst thing about liberals is their worship of universal law (in the metaphysical sense) and "rights." you are a liberal, comrade, not a revolutionary. thus, you should be restricted until you can fully take part in a radical discourse. i ain't calling for you to be sent to a gulag, but i am askin you to take some time becoming an actual leftist.

[Rusty Shackleford]

sulla, i am a working class white person and guess what. even in my position, with occasional food insecurity and all that, still have --subtle, unspoken- privileges in this society.

white working people do suffer but disproportionately less than black and latino workers and indigenous peoples. this society is a white supremacist society. that might be why you see poor working white people siding with reactionary or conservative politicians or ideas.

In reality, all working people - regardless of nationality or any other identity signifier- have the same enemy. Capitalists.


there are many intricacies but that is the basic point. Being a communist isnt about hiding issues, its about bringing them to the front. National oppression and racism are a very big part of this society. Of course white people are suffering as well, but its not the only sector of theworking class is, and in relation to other sectors, its still suffering less.

[Crux]

American liberals? Well that their come back to me when I make the oh so radical suggestion that instead of just whining they ought to tell the Democrats to fuck right off, is that I apparently don't understand american politics.

[DrStrangelove]

Whaaaaaaaaat?

Militant atheism has taken to supporting "white man's burden" like positions. Dawkins and Hitchens both have stated that the "civilized west" should bring "enlightenment" to the Islamic world. Militant atheists also have the tendency to blame religion on the problems within society (i.e. people do x because they believe in religion y) while completely disregarding the various historical and material conditions that said culture or society developed within.

-My problem with liberals? When they dismiss feminism as a "thing of the past," because they believe we live in a society where gender inequality doesn't exist anymore.

[Tim Finnegan]

As white mostly heterosexual male, I get pissed of at generalizations like this. I've been part of the poor white underclass. I've had a hard upbringing. Then some person like yourself has the nerve to claim someone has privilege for being white and heterosexual?

First of all there is female privilege in society.(In fact females seem to be embracing capitalism very well. Capitalism has become more feminized!) There are plenty of none white rich people out there.

If you are going to say things like this at least say. "RICH white males!" (Sexuality hasn't got a lot to do with privilege in society. In fact gay people seem to embrace capitalism as well. There are plenty of gay right wingers.)

If you go around saying things like this you are just going to alienate people like me! A person can not choose there gender sexuality or the colour of the skin. While most of the people are at the top of the capitalism system are white European males, the colour of there skin is not the inportant aspect. In fact capitalism will welcome clogs in the machine of any colour, race, creed, gender, sexaulity.
"Privilege" does not mean material benefit as such, it means the ideological structuring of society in such a way as to favour individuals in certain social categories over others, and to normalise their experiences while marginalising those of others. That has concrete material impacts, no doubt, but it is in itself an ideological phenomenon, so it shouldn't be understand as some glib declaration that all white people/men/straight people are better off than all people of colour/women/queer people/etc.

[sulla]

sulla, i am a working class white person and guess what. even in my position, with occasional food insecurity and all that, still have --subtle, unspoken- privileges in this society.

white working people do suffer but disproportionately less than black and latino workers and indigenous peoples. this society is a white supremacist society. that might be why you see poor working white people siding with reactionary or conservative politicians or ideas.

In reality, all working people - regardless of nationality or any other identity signifier- have the same enemy. Capitalists.


there are many intricacies but that is the basic point. Being a communist isnt about hiding issues, its about bringing them to the front. National oppression and racism are a very big part of this society. Of course white people are suffering as well, but its not the only sector of theworking class is, and in relation to other sectors, its still suffering less.

What about the Travler community in the UK, or how gypsies are treated in Europe?

You seem to be talking about the USA. Blacks have in bad in the UK too. I've never denied that, but let me assure you that certain sections of the white population have got it as almost as bad!

[sulla]

no one is doing the things you are saying. you are being a hysterical racist.

and i call for censorship plenty. nazis, capitalists, racists, sexists, and homophobes deserve to be taught they are wrong. they do not deserve to be protected by some liberal ideal. like i said earlier in the thread, the worst thing about liberals is their worship of universal law (in the metaphysical sense) and "rights." you are a liberal, comrade, not a revolutionary. thus, you should be restricted until you can fully take part in a radical discourse. i ain't calling for you to be sent to a gulag, but i am askin you to take some time becoming an actual leftist.


Sorry people on here generalising about straight hetrosexual males are the racists here! (What has sexuality to do with privilege? I know there are really high rates of homophobic crimes, but gays in the UK in some respescts are quite well off. They tend to be more wealthy on average.)

Don't call me a liberal you little *****. I was shocking and outraging liberals at the prison book club over 2 years ago. (Stupid liberal hated the fact, that I was bad mouthing Obama! and tryed to censor me) So please don't talk like you know about me. You have no idea what I have been threw. I know what black people go through, I also know what white underclass people go through as well. You sound like a political correct privileged liberal to me.

Also how dare you call me a liberal? Do you think I am some sort of reformist little *****?

There is just no excuse for generalising about any group. If you have to complain about whites, at least point say "Wealthy white people" and leave out the irrelevant hetrosexual part. In fact that left wingers are stupid enough to generalise like a hystrical right wing racists, is very disapointing to me!

[Tim Finnegan]

(What has sexuality to do with privilege? I know there are really high rates of homophobic crimes, but gays in the UK in some respescts are quite well off. They tend to be more wealthy on average.)
Well, firstly, there's a serious section bias there, namely that whether or not you openly identify is not a decision made in isolation from your socio-economic circumstances, so that's a very poor example.
Secondly, the point, as I mentioned above, is not that any one social group has an invariable and absolute material benefit over others (aside from anything else, that would imply some bizarre heirarchy of unrelated categories to overcome the self-evident contradiction between the existence of, say, straight blacks and gay whites), but that society is structured in such a manner as to normalise the experiences and perspectives of certain social groups; that this may result in material benefit is a consequence of these structures, not the structures themselves. Saying that whites constitute a hegemonic social category, in the sense that the experience of being white is the normalised one which is reproduced in the hegemonic ideology, is not in any way to say that all whites are better off than all blacks. It's not "generalisation", it's not "complaining", it's a simple observation of how capitalist ideology is constructed.

[sulla]

Well, firstly, there's a serious section bias there, namely that whether or not you openly identify is not a decision made in isolation from your socio-economic circumstances, so that's a very poor example.
Secondly, the point, as I mentioned above, is not that any one social group has an invariable and absolute material benefit over others (aside from anything else, that would imply some bizarre heirarchy of unrelated categories to overcome the self-evident contradiction between the existence of, say, straight blacks and gay whites), but that society is structured in such a manner as to normalise the experiences and perspectives of certain social groups; that this may result in material benefit is a consequence of these structures, not the structures themselves. Saying that whites constitute a hegemonic social category, in the sense that the experience of being white is the normalised one which is reproduced in the hegemonic ideology, is not in any way to say that all whites are better off than all blacks. It's not "generalisation", it's not "complaining", it's a simple observation of how capitalist ideology is constructed.

What do you mean by normalising? I want to understand the point you are making. Is there such thing as a normalised group in British society? There is the stereotypical white middle class person off tv, that advertising pressures people to conform to. Also using your logical, isn't most advertising aimed at woman? Does that mean that we are being normalised to be feminine? You are coming across as as bit of a structuralist to me. (In other words I don't completely understand you.)

I don't accept there is a hegemonic white ideology. There might be a hegemonic capitalist system, but there are plenty of black people who embrace it, and want to be part of it. (Where does gangster rap bling bling come from?) I have to complain about your generalization again. I spend a lot of time arguing with people who generalize about Muslims, and Travelers. I wasn't expecting to run it to it here?

I don't tolerate lazy generalization of groups. I find it morally cowardly and lazy. Also at one level we are all part of the capitalism system, the real victims are the third world factory workers, who are slaves to the system. Even most poor people in the third world live off their backs! Including me and you! (We are both using computers after all!)

[Meridian]

sulla, i am a working class white person and guess what. even in my position, with occasional food insecurity and all that, still have --subtle, unspoken- privileges in this society.

Good for you, though do you suppose you speak for all people with white skin? Perhaps not in your immediate vicinity, but there are people who happen to be white who spend their entire life on the street. List us their privileges.

We should not get stuck in generalized or even essentialist views regarding discrimination. White people overall have it better than "colored" people in most if not all western nations (probably all countries of the world), but that fact says absolutely nothing about individuals of either category.

[Tim Finnegan]

What do you mean by normalising? I want to understand the point you are making. Is there such thing as a normalised group in British society? There is the stereotypical white middle class person off tv, that advertising pressures people to conform to. Also using your logical, isn't most advertising aimed at woman? Does that mean that we are being normalised to be feminine? You are coming across as as bit of a structuralist to me. (In other words I don't completely understand you.)
Well, I never suggested that the proportion of advertising direct to any given demographic was how you establish which groups are more normalised than others, so I don't really know where you're getting that from. :confused: But it's not about pressure to conform to some particular lifestyle, even if that is certainly an effect of it, it's about the sort of experience and perspective which the hegemonic ideology takes as its baseline, and in which others are primarily regarded in terms of their departure from. Straightness is assumed, for example, and queerness understood in terms of its departure from straightness, which is why both bisexuality and homosexuality are understood as queer, i.e. as being something other than straight, even though bisexuality encompasses both heterosexual and homosexual attraction and so is objectively as "straight" as it is "gay".


I don't accept there is a hegemonic white ideology. There might be a hegemonic capitalist system, but there are plenty of black people who embrace it, and want to be part of it. (Where does gangster rap bling bling come from?)I'm not suggesting otherwise, and I'm not sure how you inferred as much from my post. :confused:


I have to complain about your generalization again. I spend a lot of time arguing with people who generalize about Muslims, and Travelers. I wasn't expecting to run it to it here?I'm not sure what generalisations I've made that you could be referring to. :confused: (And it's a bit odd that you'd complain about generalisations and then comment to the effect of "'gangsta rap bling bling' = black".)


Good for you, though do you suppose you speak for all people with white skin? Perhaps not in your immediate vicinity, but there are people who happen to be white who spend their entire life on the street. List us their privileges.
Well, on example is that they are overwhelmingly unlikely to get turned down for a job because of their race. The fact that they'll get turned down for a myriad of other reasons, perhaps even in favour of a person of colour, doesn't change that. Hopefully that gives you some idea of what is actually being suggested here.

[the last donut of the night]

At least in America, what bothers me the most about liberalism is not only its desperate nature -- how their past political projects, even the social democracy, have been so watered down to seem 'respectable' to the prevailing right-wing discourse in the country that it's become weak and arrogant calls for voting, free trade, "social entrepeneurship", shopping "green" and the like -- but how their ideology immediately falls down when they see their privileged class positions threatened. When Occupy Oakland and even Wall Street became (slightly, nothing compared to what we've been seeing in other countries) more radical, more focused on working-class demands, all my liberal friends -- if not actually angered -- became arrogant, mocking the protestors as "ignorant", "uneducated", that they weren't protesting "the right way". Liberals are worse than right-wingers because of their insistence on peace, social peace. The right wing has a scapegoat, whether its blacks, the poor, the foreigners, whatever; it is clear about its hatred and is clear that it will do a lot to enforce policies that follow this bigotry. Yet liberals water down their own stupid demands so that everyone can live in some kind of perfect democracy where everyone agrees before any discussions even start. This principle of "fairness", of "respect", of "rational discourse" is toxic. It leads people into apathy much more efficiently than right-wing calls to bigotry. It's also a strange deja vu of the Church's ideological role in Medieval Europe: like religion at the time, liberalism today tries to enforce social roles and hegemony through respectability, through respect, through "love for one's neighbor". Just as 13th century peasants shouldn't rebel against their feudal lords because it would "upset God", workers today can't rebel, can't be violent, can't be radical because it'll upset the rich, the cops, the "citizens", because apparently, they're "also part of the solution". It's fucking sickening. Liberalism today is more than a problem; it's part of the cancer that shows how fucked up capitalism is today.

/endrant

[sulla]

Well, I never suggested that the proportion of advertising direct to any given demographic was how you establish which groups are more normalised than others, so I don't really know where you're getting that from. :confused: But it's not about pressure to conform to some particular lifestyle, even if that is certainly an effect of it, it's about the sort of experience and perspective which the hegemonic ideology takes as its baseline, and in which others are primarily regarded in terms of their departure from. Straightness is assumed, for example, and queerness understood in terms of its departure from straightness, which is why both bisexuality and homosexuality are understood as queer, i.e. as being something other than straight, even though bisexuality encompasses both heterosexual and homosexual attraction and so is objectively as "straight" as it is "gay".

I'm not suggesting otherwise, and I'm not sure how you inferred as much from my post. :confused:

I'm not sure what generalisations I've made that you could be referring to. :confused: (And it's a bit odd that you'd complain about generalisations and then comment to the effect of "'gangsta rap bling bling' = black".)


Well, on example is that they are overwhelmingly unlikely to get turned down for a job because of their race. The fact that they'll get turned down for a myriad of other reasons, perhaps even in favour of a person of colour, doesn't change that. Hopefully that gives you some idea of what is actually being suggested here.

On the job turning down thing. How do you know it is skin colour, and just the fact a lot of black people don't comform to social norms employers are looking for? How do you know white underclass people are not rejected for the same reasons? (Black people happen to be disproportionately part of the underclass. I'm fairly sure the current capitalist system would gladly take on useful clogs in the machine no matter what their colour. (I admit I could be wrong on this!))

Gangster rape is mostly performed by black artists. It is also a load of misogynistic, hateful, status glorifying, capitalist filth. (Got nothing against other types of rap.)

Btw I am the sort of white person who is going to get turned down for jobs, cause of my past record. (Not going to say why. That would be giving out to much personal info! lol)

[RadioRaheem84]

Liberalism today is more than a problem; it's part of the cancer that shows how fucked up capitalism is today.



Couldn't have said it better myself. Liberalism is the real obstable not allowing us to confront the real threat; right wing nationalist conservatism.

The right wing wants to take us head on, we welcome it, they're ready for it, but we have this inane liberal class that insists on being some sort of referee to mediate between the two "extremes". They're downplaying what is the only serious counterweight to all the extreme right wing propaganda out there.

Liberals are hurting our efforts to really empower the working class to strive ahead for their interests. They won't allow us to show our ideaological and intellectual teeth to really shred all right wing talking points. They shut us up before we even get to say a word. They'll allow for "one extreme" to talk all they want because they have to allow viewpoints to have their say, but when "our extreme" left wants to talk they deny us a podium more so than the loony right wing radical.

They just hate anything that is perceived as "populist", whether it's right or left wing. They think that we're populists and will discount the expert technocrats that tend to defend institutional legitimacy.

They're the only ones that still really want to retain the institutional legitimacy. Right wingers want to tear it all down to build their libertarian utopia. We want to tear it all down to build a more just society.

Liberals love the respectability of working in policy think tanks, the prestige that government brings, the connections with business, the social climb that comes with being an "expert".

They think all ideas that are not liberal are inferior and liberals will mock, chide, and marginalize anyone that think is too "extreme".

Since the early days of the Depression, they've been backstabbing the left and usurping their acheivements. We do not need them in our struggle, guys.

I suggest we become active to counter their idealogical junk just as much as we counter right wing propaganda. It's time we piss them off just as much as they piss us off.

[Belleraphone]

They care more about bashing republicans and the far right than actually trying to improve conditions for the working class/middle class. I heard one too many Bush jokes.

[freethinker]

Used to be a Liberal first before I started studying the True Left..

Liberals are pussies that think they can improve the world through name sake and pushing paper weights...

And Why dose the U.S Communist Party endorse the Democrats and ever sadder sueing them because the Dems stole their platform :scared::scared::scared::scared:

[RadioRaheem84]

They care more about bashing republicans and the far right than actually trying to improve conditions for the working class/middle class. I heard one too many Bush jokes.

Yes, they're obsessed with making people (especially on the right) look stupid.

Right there you can sense their elitist nature. They'll make anyone out to look stupid. They're like the annoying grammar Nazi that will by pass a good point one makes in order to point out a mispelling or bad syntax, etc.

It never dawns on them that the GOP is acting in their own interest and from the perspective of a person who leans left it looks illogical but to them it's perfectly logical.

When it comes down to it they're snobs. The right wing is right to call them out on it, because they really are snobs in every sense of the word.

The right wing, in their populism, at least makes an attempt to understand working people (while underhandly manipulating them), but conventional liberals do not even want to understand the working class.

They want to feed them, clothe them, house them, give them insurance, pay for their school...all so they can be just like them, i.e. make them liberals, because they are so self assured that their ideas are the right ones above all else. And that a society full of liberals would be a better one.

[RadioRaheem84]

Liberals are pussies


No, comrade, just no. :glare:

[Tim Finnegan]

On the job turning down thing. How do you know it is skin colour, and just the fact a lot of black people don't comform to social norms employers are looking for? How do you know white underclass people are not rejected for the same reasons? (Black people happen to be disproportionately part of the underclass. I'm fairly sure the current capitalist system would gladly take on useful clogs in the machine no matter what their colour. (I admit I could be wrong on this!))
In any given case, that may be so. But it may simply be race. It may be both, or something else altogether. Nobody ever said that there was one single, over-riding factor here, because there really isn't. There are plenty of people out there who couldn't give a crap what colour their employees are, but would flat out refuse to hire a woman to do "man's work". The point isn't that any given case can be debated over, but that racial discriminatory hiring is in itself is a real and document phenomenon, and that it only effects to any sociologically significant degree people of colour. You're not seriously denying that, are you?


Btw I am the sort of white person who is going to get turned down for jobs, cause of my past record. (Not going to say why. That would be giving out to much personal info! lol)
And in that sense, it could be argued that other people stand in a privileged position in regards to you. As I said, there are a myriad of such factors.

[Rafiq]

Liberals disgust me in almost every way. At least the bastard conservatives don't pretend they are trying to change things.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Gangster rape is mostly performed by black artists. It is also a load of misogynistic, hateful, status glorifying, capitalist filth. (Got nothing against other types of rap.)

lol what

[Franz Fanonipants]

Sorry people on here generalising about straight hetrosexual males are the racists here!

:ohmy:

[Madvillainy]

jesus christ the american left is dripping in guilt! i thought this white privilege bullshit was only pedaled by self hatin white college kids.
i imagine american leftists gettin up in the mornin and startin the day not by having a shower and breakfast but by apologising once for being white, 3 times for being male and 5 times for slavery. like srsly. this whole privilege theory crap gets no respect outside of the usa. who needs bosses when u got leftists producing crap like this.

[Tim Finnegan]

jesus christ the american left is dripping in guilt! i thought this white privilege bullshit was only pedaled by self hatin white college kids.
i imagine american leftists gettin up in the mornin and startin the day not by having a shower and breakfast but by apologising once for being white, 3 times for being male and 5 times for slavery. like srsly. this whole privilege theory crap gets no respect outside of the usa. who needs bosses when u got leftists producing crap like this.
Mate, my family are Bog Irish as far back as I can tell, so I don't have a fucking thing to feel guilty about. Wouldn't even know where to start! I'm just describing the facts of the matter. It's a screaming great tragedy if my stating those facts offends you, but the facts themselves offend me rather more, so I consider myself quite vindicated in that regard.

[Madvillainy]

nah man u cool, i think u got me wrong anyways. i agree racism exists (no shit) but the whole talk of 'privilege' fuckin stinks. like i said talk of white skin privilege is doing the bosses work for them. ur tellin white people that they gain from the current set up, then yall sit around wondering why white working class people identify with the present system, jeeezzz.

[Leftsolidarity]

As white mostly heterosexual male, I get pissed of at generalizations like this. I've been part of the poor white underclass. I've had a hard upbringing. Then some person like yourself has the nerve to claim someone has privilege for being white and heterosexual?

First of all there is female privilege in society.(In fact females seem to be embracing capitalism very well. Capitalism has become more feminized!) There are plenty of none white rich people out there.

If you are going to say things like this at least say. "RICH white males!" (Sexuality hasn't got a lot to do with privilege in society. In fact gay people seem to embrace capitalism as well. There are plenty of gay right wingers.)

If you go around saying things like this you are just going to alienate people like me! A person can not choose there gender sexuality or the colour of the skin. While most of the people are at the top of the capitalism system are white European males, the colour of there skin is not the inportant aspect. In fact capitalism will welcome clogs in the machine of any colour, race, creed, gender, sexaulity.

This angered me

[NewLeft]

jesus christ the american left is dripping in guilt! i thought this white privilege bullshit was only pedaled by self hatin white college kids.
i imagine american leftists gettin up in the mornin and startin the day not by having a shower and breakfast but by apologising once for being white, 3 times for being male and 5 times for slavery. like srsly. this whole privilege theory crap gets no respect outside of the usa. who needs bosses when u got leftists producing crap like this.

Do you care to explain why you think it's bullshit?

[Rusty Shackleford]

Good for you, though do you suppose you speak for all people with white skin? Perhaps not in your immediate vicinity, but there are people who happen to be white who spend their entire life on the street. List us their privileges.

We should not get stuck in generalized or even essentialist views regarding discrimination. White people overall have it better than "colored" people in most if not all western nations (probably all countries of the world), but that fact says absolutely nothing about individuals of either category.


no im not speaking for all white people. i cant speak for all workers either. i was not trying to deny the fact of the existence of extreme poverty for whites as well. Appalachia is a good example. Same with rural towns and major metropolitan areas.




What about the Travler community in the UK, or how gypsies are treated in Europe?

You seem to be talking about the USA. Blacks have in bad in the UK too. I've never denied that, but let me assure you that certain sections of the white population have got it as almost as bad!

well i was talking about the US probably because i dont live in the UK. But, as for Roma people and travellers and other nomadic people, yes, there is oppression facing these communities. any group that does not adhere to the capitalist society at large faces repression from the capitalists.

again, im not denying oppression of white people or white workers. but in general i was stating how 'white' people tend to be better off and have certain benefits in western capitalist societies.

[Manic Impressive]

Do you care to explain why you think it's bullshit?
http://www.isreview.org/issues/46/whiteness.shtml

[CynicalIdealist]

I agree with the theory of white privilege as long as we're keeping it in the context of saying that it's easier to be white on average. I disagree with it insofar as it asserts that privileged groups "benefit" from the oppression of minority groups. The unity and upward mobility of the working class helps workers of all races, and history proves that.

[sulla]

This angered me

Why? Am I going against the political correct orthodoxy? I am for the complete emancipation of all races, genders, groups from the capitalist system.

Why do people get self righteous about prejudice, but practise what they see as an acceptable form?

If you are for Left solidarity? Where is your white heterosexual working class, underclass solidarity?

White heterosexuals are not one big monolithic group.

[sulla]

In any given case, that may be so. But it may simply be race. It may be both, or something else altogether. Nobody ever said that there was one single, over-riding factor here, because there really isn't. There are plenty of people out there who couldn't give a crap what colour their employees are, but would flat out refuse to hire a woman to do "man's work". The point isn't that any given case can be debated over, but that racial discriminatory hiring is in itself is a real and document phenomenon, and that it only effects to any sociologically significant degree people of colour. You're not seriously denying that, are you?


And in that sense, it could be argued that other people stand in a privileged position in regards to you. As I said, there are a myriad of such factors.


Not denying it. I am just wondering if you are underestimating how much discriminatory hiring the white underclass suffers. I think people go on about racist prejudice, and forget about economic prejudice. In fact you can't understand the racist aspect of prejudice, without understanding the economic part.

[Leftsolidarity]

Why? Am I going against the political correct orthodoxy? I am for the complete emancipation of all races, genders, groups from the capitalist system.

Why do people get self righteous about prejudice, but practise what they see as an acceptable form?

If you are for Left solidarity? Where is your white heterosexual working class, underclass solidarity?

White heterosexuals are not one big monolithic group.

What are you even talking about?

Boo-fucking-hoo is shit rough for the straight white man? :rolleyes:

What is meant by white/heterosexual priviledge is not that they have it easy or are not oppressed, a large percentage of the working class would most likely fall into those catagories. That doesn't mean they aren't better off than other races/sexual orientations. A straight white male is going to be "better off" than a homosexual black woman.

No one is trying to guilt-trip white heterosexuals but it would be good for them to respect the fact that other races/genders/sexual orientations are having a tougher time. That is a way to build solidarity instead of closing your eyes and plugging your ears going "IT'S HARD FOR ME TOO! IT'S HARD FOR ME TOO!"

[Manic Impressive]

What are you even talking about?

Boo-fucking-hoo is shit rough for the straight white man? :rolleyes:

What is meant by white/heterosexual priviledge is not that they have it easy or are not oppressed, a large percentage of the working class would most likely fall into those catagories.
Just a percentage and not the whole working class? cos y'know that would be actual Marxism.

No one is trying to guilt-trip white heterosexuals but it would be good for them to respect the fact that other races/genders/sexual orientations are having a tougher time. That is a way to build solidarity instead of closing your eyes and plugging your ears going "IT'S HARD FOR ME TOO! IT'S HARD FOR ME TOO!"
well obviously it's not a good way to build solidarity in fact it's highly divisive. I would propose that instead of playing identity politics we recognize our common oppression and fight to overturn it which will bring an end to the factors which enforce the other oppressions. That's something on which to build solidarity. Whiteness theory = post modernist bull shit which is inherently un-Marxist

[Leftsolidarity]

Just a percentage and not the whole working class? cos y'know that would be actual Marxism.


What? You think that the entire working class is white and heterosexual? What Marx are you reading?


well obviously it's not a good way to build solidarity in fact it's highly divisive. I would propose that instead of playing identity politics we recognize our common oppression and fight to overturn it which will bring an end to the factors which enforce the other oppressions. That's something on which to build solidarity. Whiteness theory = post modernist bull shit which is inherently un-Marxist

So acknowledging racism/sexism/homophobia is highly divisive and identity politics?

And shut up with your "un-Marxist" crap. Can we have a conversation without you trying to say anyone who disagrees with you is not a communist?

[Manic Impressive]

What? You think that the entire working class is white and heterosexual? What Marx are you reading?
fuck off with your strawman

you said

a large percentage of the working class would most likely fall into those catagories.
so the whole working class is not oppressed then?


So acknowledging racism/sexism/homophobia is highly divisive and identity politics?
No but subscribing to whiteness theory is. Do you understand what whiteness theory is have you even read about it or are you just using it's inflammatory rhetoric?


And shut up with your "un-Marxist" crap. Can we have a conversation without you trying to say anyone who disagrees with you is not a communist?
Another bull shit strawman. I disagree with lots of people but I still recognize that they follow a fairly good Marxist line. But when people start prioritizing identity politics above class or advocating capitalism then I feel I'm perfectly within my rights to call bull shit.

[Madvillainy]

so the whole working class is not oppressed then?


nah man, i dont think as a worker im oppressed. im exploited. there not the same thing.

[Manic Impressive]

nah man, i dont think as a worker im oppressed. im exploited. there not the same thing.
I beg to differ.

Oppression


Prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.
The state of being subject to such treatment or control.

[Leftsolidarity]

fuck off with your strawman

you said

No, what I said was
What is meant by white/heterosexual priviledge is not that they have it easy or are not oppressed, a large percentage of the working class would most likely fall into those catagories.

Don't edit out half my sentence to make it sound like I'm saying something different.



so the whole working class is not oppressed then?



Please, show me where I said that. Only this time don't chop my sentences in half.



No but subscribing to whiteness theory is. Do you understand what whiteness theory is have you even read about it or are you just using it's inflammatory rhetoric?


What is it? If you're trying to saying I'm advocating a certain theory tell me what it is. I'm simplying saying that we should recognize the fact that minorites are more oppressed than white heterosexuals.



Another bull shit strawman. I disagree with lots of people but I still recognize that they follow a fairly good Marxist line. But when people start prioritizing identity politics above class or advocating capitalism then I feel I'm perfectly within my rights to call bull shit.

When did I advocate identity politics above class or advocate capitalism?

[Manic Impressive]

What is it? If you're trying to saying I'm advocating a certain theory tell me what it is. I'm simplying saying that we should recognize the fact that minorites are more oppressed than white heterosexuals.

Race, class, and "whiteness theory"


GIVEN THE depths of racism in U.S. society, it is not surprising that Black separatism is an important political current historically. Black nationalism is a legitimate response to the colossal and sustained level of racism directed against African Americans since slavery. Black nationalism has risen in influence among African Americans particularly when the level of class struggle is low and the possibility for multiracial class unity appears hopeless. As Ahmed Shawki argues in Black Liberation and Socialism, “Above all, the main factor that gives rise to Black nationalism is white racism.”1
The notion of “white skin privilege,” that all whites share a common interest in upholding a system of white supremacy, has provided the unifying core for Black nationalism—from the conservative nationalism of Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement in the 1920s to the revolutionary nationalism of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers that launched the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) in the 1960s.
But who is responsible for the perpetuation of racism—both ideologically and structurally—in U.S. society? And who stands to benefit? In recent years, the notion that all whites gain from racism and are equally responsible for Black oppression has gained acceptance, especially in academic circles. “Whiteness theory” now in vogue among many current labor historians also strikes the theme of white skin privilege. But the theoretical framework of “whiteness theory” has more in common with postmodernism than with the ideas or politics of Black nationalism. Historian David Roediger helped launch this academic trend with the publication of his 1991 book, The Wages of Whiteness. Despite the legally sanctioned and violently enforced system of white supremacy, backed by both political parties after Reconstruction, Roediger asserts, “working class ‘whiteness’ and white supremacy [are] creations, in part, of the white working class itself.”2
Roediger accuses Marxists of reducing racism to something that merely “trickles down” from on high, and criticizes Marxists’ tendency “to concentrate on the ruling class’s role in perpetuating racial oppression and cast white workers as dupes, even if virtuous ones.”3
To be sure, Roediger pays homage to revered civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois. Indeed, the phrase “wages of whiteness” harks back to DuBois’ classic work, Black Reconstruction in America, noting the effects of racism on Southern white workers:


[T]he white group of laborers, while they receive a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage. They were given public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools.4
But Du Bois’ quote, taken out of context, is misleading. Du Bois positions the above comment between two others that clearly show his intention to explain how the ideology of white supremacy prevented Black and white workers from uniting as a class, to the detriment of both. First, Du Bois argues, racism drove such a wedge between the white and Black workers that there probably are not today in the world two groups of workers with practically identical interests who hate and fear each other so deeply and persistently and who are kept so far apart that neither sees anything of common interest.5
A few paragraphs later Du Bois adds, “The result of this was that the wages of both classes could be kept low, the whites fearing to be supplanted by Negro labor, the Negroes always being threatened by the substitution of white labor.”6
But the important instances of racial unity even during the era of segregation merit explanation. Roediger himself admits,


The popular working class consciousness that emerged during the later stages of the Civil War, especially in the North, saw the liberation of Black slaves as a model, and not just as a threat. Like freedpeople, white workers came to see the Civil War as a “Jubilee” and, in the words of Detroit labor leader Richard Trevellick, to hope that “we are about to be emancipated.”9
Nevertheless, Roediger concludes, “The meager record of biracial organization does not allow us to fall back on the generalization that Black-white unity automatically places labor in a better tactical position from which to attack capital.”10 Although Roediger claims otherwise,11 the political framework for whiteness theory appears deeply indebted to an offshoot of postmodernism known as “identity politics,” popular among much of the post-1970s academic left.12
Whiteness theory and the politics of “difference”
Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe—self-described post-Marxists—first articulated the theoretical framework for identity politics in their 1985 book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics.13 Laclau and Mouffe’s (extremely) abstract theory divorces every form of oppression not only from society generally, but also from each other. As they put it, society is a field “criss-crossed with antagonisms” in which each form of oppression exists as an entirely autonomous system.
According to this schema, social class is just another form of oppression, separate from all others, leaving the system of exploitation equally adrift. Furthermore, each separate system of oppression has its own unique set of beneficiaries: all whites benefit from racism, all men benefit from sexism and all heterosexuals benefit from homophobia—each in a free-floating system of “subordination.”
Not surprisingly, Laclau and Mouffe argue,


[T]he possibility of a unified discourse of the left is also erased. If the various subject positions and the diverse antagonisms and points of rupture constitute a diversity and not a diversification, it is clear they cannot be led back to a point from which they could all be embraced and explained by a single discourse.14
So identity politics, the politics of “difference,” seeks to refute the unifying potential of working-class interests. Significantly, Laclau and Mouffe insist that the state itself is autonomous, and take great pains to refute the Marxist assumption that the state consistently acts on behalf of society’s ruling class.15 This theory, if it were grounded in reality, would have enormous implications for the origin of white supremacy. White supremacy then could be a creation “in part, of the white working class itself,” as Roediger asserts.
But, as historian Gregory Meyerson responded to this analysis,


[W]hile it is true that the various identity categories intersect—class is lived through race and gender etc.—and while I am also willing to accept that no experience of oppression should be privileged over another, it does not follow that multiple oppressions require multiple structural causes.… [Roediger’s] working class appears too autonomous, at times nearly sealed off from ongoing processes of class rule. This autonomy, inconsistently maintained…requires Roediger to supplant class analysis with psychocultural analysis.16
Who benefits from racism? Central to Roediger’s critique is the notion that Marxism minimizes the importance of race:


The point that race is created wholly ideologically and historically, while class is not wholly so created, has often been boiled down to the notion that class (or “the economic”) is more real, more fundamental, more basic or more important than race, both in political terms and in terms of historical analysis.… In a quite meaningless way, the “race problem” is consistently reduced to one of class.17
But Roediger’s analysis is flawed on several counts. First, he appears to assume that working-class interests have been defined historically only by the actions of white males, as if women and African Americans—not to mention other oppressed populations—have not played an active role in defining working-class identity. Second, Roediger falsely assumes that by designating class as the primary antagonism in capitalist society, Marxism discounts the importance of race. Most significantly, Roediger’s entire thesis rests on the assumption that white workers benefit from the existence of racism. Meyerson counters this set of assumptions, proposing that Marx’s emphasis on the centrality of class relations brings oppression to the forefront, as a precondition for working-class unity:


Marxism properly interpreted emphasizes the primacy of class in a number of senses. One, of course, is the primacy of the working class as a revolutionary agent—a primacy which does not, as often thought, render women and people of color “secondary.” Such an equation of white male and working class, as well as a corresponding division between a “white” male working class identity and all the others, whose identity is thereby viewed as either primarily one of gender and race or hybrid, is a view this essay contests all along the way. The primacy of class means that building a multiracial, multi-gendered international working-class organization or organizations should be the goal of any revolutionary movement: the primacy of class puts the fight against racism and sexism at the center. The intelligibility of this position is rooted in the explanatory primacy of class analysis for understanding the structural determinants of race, gender and class oppression. Oppression is multiple and intersecting but its causes are not.18
Designating class as the primary antagonism in capitalist society bears no inference on the “importance” of racism, as Roediger claims. Marxism merely assumes a causal relationship—that white supremacy as a system was instituted by capital, to the detriment of labor as a whole. Marxist theory rests on the assumption that white workers do not benefit from a system of white supremacy. Indeed, Marx argued of slavery, the most oppressive of all systems of exploitation, “In the United States of America, every independent workers’ movement was paralyzed as long as slavery disfigured part of the republic. Labor cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded.”19 Marx was not alone in assuming that racism, by dividing the working class along ideological lines, harmed the class interests of both white and Black workers. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass stated unambiguously of slaveholders, “They divided both to conquer each.”20 Douglass elaborated, “Both are plundered and by the same plunderers. The slave is robbed by his master, of all his earnings above what is required for his physical necessities; and the white man is robbed by the slave system, because he is flung into competition with a class of laborers who work without wages.”21
Capitalism forces workers to compete with each other. The unremitting pressure from a layer of workers—be they low-wage or unemployed—is a constant reminder that workers compete for limited jobs that afford a decent standard of living. The working class has no interest in maintaining a system that thrives upon inequality and oppression.
Indeed, all empirical evidence shows quite the opposite. When the racist poll tax was passed in the South, imposing property and other requirements designed to shut out Black voters, many poor whites also lost the right to vote. After Mississippi passed its poll tax law, the number of qualified white voters fell from 130,000 to 68,000.22
The effects of segregation extended well beyond the electoral arena. Jim Crow segregation empowered only the rule of capital. Whenever employers have been able to use racism to divide Black from white workers, preventing unionization, both Black and white workers earn lower wages. This is just as true in recent decades as it was 100 years ago. Indeed, as Shawki points out of the 1970s, “In a study of major metropolitan areas Michael Reich found a correlation between the degree of income inequality between whites and Blacks and the degree of income inequality between whites.”23 The study concluded:


But what is most dramatic—in each of these blue-collar groups, the Southern white workers earned less than Northern Black workers. Despite the continued gross discrimination against Black skilled craftsmen in the North, the “privileged” Southern whites earned 4 percent less than they did. Southern male white operatives averaged…18 percent less than Northern Black male operatives. And Southern white service workers earned…14 percent less than Northern Black male service workers.”24
Racism against Blacks and other racially oppressed groups serves both to lower the living standards of the entire working class and to weaken workers’ ability to fight back. Whenever capitalists can threaten to replace one group of workers with another—poorly paid—group of workers, neither group benefits. Thus, the historically nonunion South has not only depressed the wages of Black workers, but also lowered the wages of Southern white workers overall—and prevented the labor movement from achieving victory at important junctures. So even in the short term the working class as a whole has nothing to gain from oppression.
A question of consciousness
But Marxist theory is careful to distinguish between material benefits and the psychology, or consciousness, regarding race. Whereas material (i.e., class interests) are fixed and objective, consciousness is fluid and subjective.
When Marx identified the working class as the agent for revolutionary change, he was describing its historical potential, rather than its actuality or as a foregone conclusion. Without the counterweight of the class struggle, competition between groups of workers can act as an obstacle to the development of class consciousness, and encourage the growth of what Marx called “false consciousness.” Marx did not regard white workers as “dupes” as Roediger claims in his caricature of Marxism.25 Rather, Marx merely understood, as he argued in the Communist Manifesto, “The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.”26
Ruling-class ideology in its various forms serves to justify the class status quo, pitting workers against each other, and impeding workers’ ability to unite in struggle against their employers. Racist ideology, so strongly asserted by Southern and Northern rulers alike, did exercise a strong deterrent to class unity at its height. And racism remains the key division within the working class.
But consciousness is a changing, not static, phenomenon. The dynamic is such that workers’ objective circumstances are always in conflict with bourgeois ideology, as evidenced by the exceptional instances of multiracial unity even in the South during Jim Crow.
Roediger’s analysis misses this active dynamic of class struggle central to Marxist theory—in which workers’ objective class interests collide with “the ideas of its ruling class.” New Orleans workers demonstrated the volatility of this dynamic, in a racially united general strike in 1892, followed by murderous race riots in 1900, and then a successful union struggle of white and Black workers in 1907. Marx described in the Communist Manifesto: “This organization of proletarians into a class…is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier.”27
Much as the Knights of Labor contradicted itself by campaigning against Chinese immigration while welcoming women, Blacks, and most other immigrant workers into its folds, individual workers also hold contradictory ideas inside their own heads. Workers are neither dupes nor romantic heroes, but active agents in a process of determining their genuine class interests.
Because consciousness is subjective, no segment of the working class can be expected to behave in a predetermined way. Marx distinguished between a class “in itself” and a class “for itself,” which has reached broad class consciousness. The political intervention of radicals within the working class movement has frequently played a crucial role in advancing class consciousness.
As Marx wrote, “The revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown any other way, but because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the old crap and become fitted to found society anew.”28 Racism and segregation have historically been the key obstacles to working-class unity in the United States—the worst of the “old crap” that must be conquered if the labor movement is to succeed.
For Roediger, in contrast, the “psychological wage”—and psychology generally—is paramount. Roediger argues, “working class whiteness reflects, even in the form of the minstrel show, hatreds that were profoundly mixed with a longing for values attributed to Blacks.”7 Labor historian Brian Kelly remarked that this emphasis by the whiteness wing of labor historians “leaves one wondering whether white supremacy served any function other than defending the material and psychological interests of working-class whites.”8





When did I advocate identity politics above class or advocate capitalism?
when you start throwing terms like white privilege around

[sulla]

What are you even talking about?

Boo-fucking-hoo is shit rough for the straight white man? :rolleyes:

What is meant by white/heterosexual priviledge is not that they have it easy or are not oppressed, a large percentage of the working class would most likely fall into those catagories. That doesn't mean they aren't better off than other races/sexual orientations. A straight white male is going to be "better off" than a homosexual black woman.

No one is trying to guilt-trip white heterosexuals but it would be good for them to respect the fact that other races/genders/sexual orientations are having a tougher time. That is a way to build solidarity instead of closing your eyes and plugging your ears going "IT'S HARD FOR ME TOO! IT'S HARD FOR ME TOO!"

Never said things where rough for white straight males. I said things where rough for white underclass males. I've been to prison so I know what I am talking about. You sound like those sanctimonious liberals that I thought people. You sound like a privileged middle classed busy body to me, with his fake indigent moral outrage. In fact you should be ashamed of yourself pretending that white people who are economically disadvantaged don't have less rights.

Political correctness is liberal reformism, it is shallow and empty. The only way to have true equality is to fix the economic system. Liberals distract people with there fake political correct crusades, so people do not talk about economics, and how being economically disadvantaged is a form of prejudice.

I am going to keep on calling bullshit, and double standards on this. Stop generalising white people like there a homogeneous group. That is how ignorant people talk about Muslims, and other groups, that is no excuse for it.

[Lucretia]

Rape culture? Okay explan to me child abuse and neglect culture? More woman abuse kids then men.

What do you mean by rape culture? Most men do not approve of rape. Trying to guilt an entire gender with the actions of a small minority of men. Also a lot of rape trials are falling in the UK due to the fact that a lot of juiors are right wing prudish females, who go against the female victims. (You know woman tend to be slightly more conservative than men right?)
You know conservative woman tend to hate woman, just as much as any reactionary male.

In fact that you feel free to generalise about a whole gender due to the fact that some men rape is very telling. If you added the words black rape culture, you would be rightly condemned.

Also glass celling? Do you realise females are starting to get richer? I am sure at the very top, it is still mostly men, but woman are doing well in the city. Also I am a socialist anarchist, I don't give a shit about gender reformist issues. I don't want females to break the glass ceiling, I don't want there to be a glass ceiling full stop.

"the issue is that race and gender are both valid parts of capitalist oppression"

I don't understand what you are saying here? What has valid got to do with anything? Capitalism is a very adaptable form of tyranny. It will find diffrent groups to oppress and exploit. I have never denied that? Why the hell are you bring that up? I know about the Belgian Congo, how Africa was raped, how the British Empire starved millions to death, how the Americas where colonized with genocide etc...

Please don't call me motherfucker. Just stop labeling all whites the same. To me that is the action of a right wing reactionary.

Ask them whether there has ever been a society without a rape culture, and you'll get a blank stare.

The concept of "rape culture" is just the idealist concept of "patriarchy" relabeled in order to be smuggled in through the back door. It's a timeless, amorphous concept constructed to show that men oppress women.

[Tim Finnegan]

Ask them whether there has ever been a society without a rape culture, and you'll get a blank stare.

The concept of "rape culture" is just the idealist concept of "patriarchy" relabeled in order to be smuggled in through the back door. It's a timeless, amorphous concept constructed to show that men oppress women.
In what sense is patriarchy an "idealist concept"? It's quite well-established that the first historical division of labour was based on gender, as materialist a basis as you could hope to get.

[Lucretia]

sulla, i am a working class white person and guess what. even in my position, with occasional food insecurity and all that, still have --subtle, unspoken- privileges in this society.

The problem with identity-formulated claims about so-called privilege is that it takes one aspect of a person's identity and isolates that one aspect from other axes of social identity in order to make a broad generalization about how oppressed or privileged a specific person is. So what you end up with is a situation in which a wealthy lady living a luxurious lifestyle can look point-blank at a poor white man and talk about his "male privilege."

Yes, women collectively, when viewed in abstraction as a statistical category, are more prone to certain disadvantages and negative experiences in society. That is different, though, than saying that these abstractions are reducible to the concrete experiences of individuals, which implies that simply being a woman is the cause of being oppressed as a woman. In reality, sexism is the cause of women's oppression and racism is the cause of African Americans' oppression. These are materially rooted structures of power that shape individuals' experiences differently contingent upon a whole host of other social variables in which an individual finds himself or herself. In fact, many women are largely (but never entirely) able to avoid the consequences of sexism because of their class position. Hence, the silliness of the wealthy white woman berating the homeless old white man about his male privilege. Or of somebody like, say, Madonna, talking about male privilege in front of a group of bullied gay high school boys.

[Tim Finnegan]

The problem with identity-formulated claims about so-called privilege is that it takes one aspect of a person's identity and isolates that one aspect from other axes of social identity in order to make a broad generalization about how oppressed or privileged a specific person is. So what you end up with is a situation in which a wealthy lady living a luxurious lifestyle can look point-blank at a poor white man and talk about his "male privilege."
And if I try to cook with just salt, I'm going to get a shitty meal, but that doesn't invalidate salt as an ingredient. What you're criticising here isn't the concepts themselves, but specific cases of their application.

[Lucretia]

In what sense is patriarchy an "idealist concept"? It's quite well-established that the first historical division of labour was based on gender, as materialist a basis as you could hope to get.

I think you might be mistakenly interpreting "patriarchy" to be synonymous with male privilege. Patriarchy has a very specific theoretical meaning. Patriarchy theory attributes male privilege to men's active and often subconscious role in perpetuating sexism across history because of the material (or sometimes psychological) benefits men -- all men -- supposedly derive from such oppression. Patriarchy theory is idealist because it does not attempt to explain how men's collective advantages over women are rooted in political economy.

[Lucretia]

And if I try to cook with just salt, I'm going to get a shitty meal, but that doesn't invalidate salt as an ingredient. What you're criticising here isn't the concepts themselves, but specific cases of their application.

This is a terrible analogy. What you're positing here is that axes of social identity function within individuals as additive ingredients.

What are the experiences of a working-class black lesbian? Well, according to your approach, you just add working class experiences, throw in black experiences, add some "woman-ness," and finally toss in a pinch of homosexuality. Then of course stir until incorporated.

You should read up on the concept of intersectionality.

[Tim Finnegan]

I think you might be mistakenly interpreting "patriarchy" to be synonymous with male privilege. Patriarchy has a very specific theoretical meaning. Patriarchy theory attributes male privilege to men's active and often subconscious role in perpetuating sexism across history because of the material benefits men supposedly derive from such oppression. Patriarchy theory is idealist because it does not attempt to explain how men's collective advantages over women are rooted in political economy.
I'm not sure on what basis you're arguing that acknowledging the role of the subject in reproducing social structures makes something "idealist" in itself; any version of Marxism with enough sophistication and flexibility to be of any use acknowledges this reality and integrates it into its analysis. You seem to be making a leap from noting that some patriachy theorists do not supply a sufficient economic aspect to their work to suggesting that patriarchy is a concept intrinsically devoid of economic content, which, unless you're arbitrarily using "patriarchy" in reference to idealist theories alone, I don't think is at all accurate. It is entirely possible to construct a model of patriarchy that encompasses both its material and historical basis in the division of labour and the role of subjectivity, i.e. male privilege, in reproducing this division of labour over time- you may recall that a certain Herr Engels was among the first to attempt to do so.


This is a terrible analogy. What you're positing here is that axes of social identity function within individuals as additive ingredients.

What are the experiences of a working-class black lesbian? Well, according to your approach, you just add working class experiences, throw in black experiences, add some "woman-ness," and finally toss in a pinch of homosexuality. Then of course stir until incorporated.

You should read up on the concept of intersectionality.
All I have learned from this post is that you think "cooking" means "mixing stuff up in a bowl and then eating it raw", which does not speak of a good diet on your part.

[Lucretia]

I'm not sure on what basis you're arguing that acknowledging the role of the subject in reproducing social structures makes something "idealist" in itself; any version of Marxism with enough sophistication and flexibility to be of any use acknowledges this reality and integrates it into its analysis. You seem to be making a leap from noting that some patriachy theorists do not supply a sufficient economic aspect to their work to suggesting that patriarchy is a concept intrinsically devoid of economic content, which, unless you're arbitrarily using "patriarchy" in reference to idealist theories alone, I don't think is at all accurate.

No, I am not saying that patriarchy theorists don't talk about economics. In fact, I specifically stated that many patriarchy theorists argue that men continue to oppress women because of the material (economic) benefits that men supposedly receive.

The point I am hoping to convey to you is that patriarchy theory posits the reproduction of male privilege solely as the result of innate divisions between genders (e.g., "all men throughout all of history have oppressed all women throughout all of history"). It does not attempt to root that structure of female oppression in class power, and therefore in history. Instead, it treats gender as the main division throughout all of human societies. In the hands of patriarchy theorists, male oppression of women ("Rape Culture") is a universal and amorphous incapable of being explained historically.

This is in stark contrast to somebody like Engels, who did trace the oppression of women to a historical origin in the rise of class society, and did not spin off class-blind generalizations about all men oppressing all women.


All I have learned from this post is that you think "cooking" means "mixing stuff up in a bowl and then eating it raw", which does not speak of a good diet on your part.Nice attempt to salvage your additive theory of identity and experiences (which feminists have spent decades criticizing). The point is that "woman-ness" or "blackness" is not an ingredient present in a person's body, causing that person to experience certain things, in a way that yeast is in a person's bread recipe causing the dough to rise. They are abstractions which demonstrate the existence of social structures (racism and sexism) that do not correspond and do not necessarily have a formative role in shaping individuals' life chances or experiences. And the reason they do not is that the abstractions ignore that other axes of social identity make the experience of sexism qualitatively different for each individual. And in many cases, other axes of social identity offset whatever deficit of privilege a person might experience as a result of oppression based on a certain aspect of their social identity.

[Tim Finnegan]

No, I am not saying that patriarchy theorists don't talk about economics. In fact, I specifically stated that many patriarchy theorists argue that men continue to oppress women because of the material (economic) benefits that men supposedly receive.

The point I am hoping to convey to you is that patriarchy theory posits the reproduction of male privilege solely as the result of innate divisions between genders (e.g., "all men throughout all of history have oppressed all women throughout all of history"). It does not attempt to root that structure of female oppression in class power, and therefore in history. Instead, it treats gender as the main division throughout all of human societies. In the hands of patriarchy theorists, male oppression of women ("Rape Culture") is a universal and amorphous incapable of being explained historically.

This is in stark contrast to somebody like Engels, who did trace the oppression of women to a historical origin in the rise of class society, and did not spin off class-blind generalizations about all men oppressing all women.
So you are using "patriachy" in an arbitrarily narrow manner?

Also, I don't think you know what "rape culture" is. It's specifically refers to an ideological structure in which women's bodily autonomy is significantly diminished, not just an alarmist banner-term for male privilege in general.

[OHumanista]

embrace of radical atheism
Most liberals are radically anti-atheists. And see any kind of atheism as "offensive to religion" and opressive. Still there are those indeed who use it for their own purposes (a very small minority) like Hitch.(who is nowadays not even "liberal" but a stupid deluded neocon troll)
I am "radical" atheist and commie, as are most commies I know. So please no mixing eh? Be religious all you want but stand by my right not to be and to criticize religion freely.(criticizing and denouncing abuses is not persecution no matter how many times zealots say it)

As for liberals...I think most ppl here covered pretty well the reasons to hate/dislike/get disgusted with them.:D

[Franz Fanonipants]

Most liberals are radically anti-atheists.

most liberals

[Lucretia]

So you are using "patriachy" in an arbitrarily narrow manner?

Also, I don't think you know what "rape culture" is. It's specifically refers to an ideological structure in which women's bodily autonomy is significantly diminished, not just an alarmist banner-term for male privilege in general.

No, it is not an arbitrarily narrow manner. It is the manner in which all social theorists have used the term when discussing it. You seem unaware of these debates and therefore confused patriarchy with "oppression of women" or "sexism."

Trust me when I say patriarchy is an entirely different kettle of fish. I advise you to do some research on this front if you do not believe me.

And, lastly, can you name for me a society that did not have a "rape culture"?

[The left is right]

I'd like to hazard a guess and say that a good many people on this board used to be liberals - myself included. My hypothesis is that a lot of liberals would become socialists if they actually knew what it is, and learned the truth about capitalism's negative PR campaign towards it.

Agreed, I used to be a liberal also.

I can see where most people here are coming from in criticising liberals. But a lot of them are well intentioned but brainwashed into thinking that communism is totalitarian. I did distanced myself from democrats when I realized that they are just another business party.

I think there is growing number of liberals that are becoming more radical because of the occupy movements.

That sa

[The CPSU Chairman]

There's so much I hate about them, which has largely been covered here by other posters. But perhaps above all, their infuriating obsession with "the center". They try to make the left and the right look like equal extremes, and smugly place themselves in the middle, which makes them "sane" and "moderate" and even "smart". They think they're the ones who are automatically the best just because they're smack-dab in the middle. They insist that any time two people disagree on something, they're both equally wrong by default and whatever falls precisely between them is automatically the correct solution. I usually give them this argument: "if two people are arguing, one person that the Earth is round, the other that the Earth is flat, and then some middle-of-the-road douche comes along saying the Earth must be a triangle, does that make him the correct, sane, moderate one?"

I would add more, and I want to, but I didn't sleep last night and i'm not playing with a full deck at the moment, so i'll have to leave it at that for now. But maybe i'll add more later.

[Veovis]

embrace of radical atheism

What's non-radical atheism?

The root (radix) of atheism is lack of belief in divinity. Does that mean every atheist is a radical atheist?

[Tim Finnegan]

No, it is not an arbitrarily narrow manner. It is the manner in which all social theorists have used the term when discussing it. You seem unaware of these debates and therefore confused patriarchy with "oppression of women" or "sexism."

Trust me when I say patriarchy is an entirely different kettle of fish. I advise you to do some research on this front if you do not believe me.
"You disagree with me on a basically semantic issue, therefore you are ignorant"? Yer real charmer, you know that? :rolleyes:


And, lastly, can you name for me a society that did not have a "rape culture"?I'm surprised that the concept of "primitive communism" is alien to you. It's kind of a thing in Marxism.

Edit: Oops, missed this:

Nice attempt to salvage your additive theory of identity and experiences (which feminists have spent decades criticizing). The point is that "woman-ness" or "blackness" is not an ingredient present in a person's body, causing that person to experience certain things, in a way that yeast is in a person's bread recipe causing the dough to rise. They are abstractions which demonstrate the existence of social structures (racism and sexism) that do not correspond and do not necessarily have a formative role in shaping individuals' life chances or experiences. And the reason they do not is that the abstractions ignore that other axes of social identity make the experience of sexism qualitatively different for each individual. And in many cases, other axes of social identity offset whatever deficit of privilege a person might experience as a result of oppression based on a certain aspect of their social identity.
...Yep, it has nothing to do with anything that I've actually said. Never mind.

[Leftsolidarity]

Race, class, and "whiteness theory"




I didn't read the whole thing because I'm doing other things but the "whiteness theory" is not what I am saying. I am not saying that white workers benefit from the super-exploitation/oppression of black workers or putting any of the blame onto other white workers. I still blame the bourgeoisie and I still say that the white workers are oppressed/exploited. Those black workers, though, are exploited/oppressed to a greater degree. I don't see how you could disagree with that.

[Lucretia]

"You disagree with me on a basically semantic issue, therefore you are ignorant"? Yer real charmer, you know that? :rolleyes:

Unless you are suggesting I am wrong when I say that there is a long literature within gender studies that talks about patriarchy as being a specific interpretation of sexism's origins and social functions, our only disagreement is that, for the sake of keeping things clear, I think we should continue to use patriarchy in the way it has been used and not broaden its meaning arbitrarily.


I'm surprised that the concept of "primitive communism" is alien to you. It's kind of a thing in Marxism.As I said, "rape culture" is so broad that it's meaningless. According to you, all cultures in which there is structural, institutionalized sexism is "rape culture." But what I don't understand is why you don't simply call the culture "sexist culture"? What analytical benefit regarding women's oppression are you gaining by using "rape culture"? I just don't see it.


...Yep, it has nothing to do with anything that I've actually said. Never mind.It has everything to do with what you said. You compared different aspects of somebody's social identity to ingredients you mix together into a bowl. Even if we concede that the mixed ingredients might merge and chemically bond in a unified product -- like a loaf of bread -- you still are stuck in this mindset of comparing "blackness" or "woman-ness" to salt and pepper. These different aspects of somebody's social identity do not and have never existed apart from society, or apart from other aspects of social identity, like separate ingredients going into a recipe.

This might seem irrelevant, but it's important in distinguish sexism as a social structure of oppression and sex as an individual biological concept. Patriarchy theorists, or "privilege" theorists, want to collapse this distinction so as to argue that sexism is the result of men collectively oppressing women as a group. Once you concede that sexism is a social structure of oppression emergent from class rather than a structure of privilege (that benefits the men who are timelessly pitted against them), you have to concede that this structure is not the inevitable result of - or sustained by - the ability and desire of every man to oppress every woman. You begin to awaken to the fact that sexism harms men as well as women.

[Manic Impressive]

I didn't read the whole thing because I'm doing other things but the "whiteness theory" is not what I am saying. I am not saying that white workers benefit from the super-exploitation/oppression of black workers or putting any of the blame onto other white workers. I still blame the bourgeoisie and I still say that the white workers are oppressed/exploited. Those black workers, though, are exploited/oppressed to a greater degree. I don't see how you could disagree with that.
I knew that's what you were saying but the rhetoric you were using is from "whiteness theory" and a load of other post-modernist fucks like Noel Ignatiev. But then again
“In a study of major metropolitan areas Michael Reich found a correlation between the degree of income inequality between whites and Blacks and the degree of income inequality between whites.”23 The study concluded:
But what is most dramatic—in each of these blue-collar groups, the Southern white workers earned less than Northern Black workers. Despite the continued gross discrimination against Black skilled craftsmen in the North, the “privileged” Southern whites earned 4 percent less than they did. Southern male white operatives averaged…18 percent less than Northern Black male operatives. And Southern white service workers earned…14 percent less than Northern Black male service workers.”And since we are one working class worldwide the label "white privilege" doesn't stand up to further comparison. Are black American workers worse off than white workers in say....Albania? No of course not but what we can say is that there is systemic racism mainly against black people which is more pronounced in certain areas. And I say certain areas because I doubt a well off black family living in the suburbs in a low crime area has as hard a time as a white family living in the roughest parts of L.A. or Chicago or wherever. I don't have a problem with what you are saying but with the rhetoric you used to say it.

[Leftsolidarity]

I knew that's what you were saying but the rhetoric you were using is from "whiteness theory" and a load of other post-modernist fucks like Noel Ignatiev. But then again And since we are one working class worldwide the label "white privilege" doesn't stand up to further comparison. Are black American workers worse off than white workers in say....Albania? No of course not but what we can say is that there is systemic racism mainly against black people which is more pronounced in certain areas. And I say certain areas because I doubt a well off black family living in the suburbs in a low crime area has as hard a time as a white family living in the roughest parts of L.A. or Chicago or wherever. I don't have a problem with what you are saying but with the rhetoric you used to say it.

First, you are comparing apples to oranges with that example.

Second, how would you prefer me to say it?

[Manic Impressive]

First, you are comparing apples to oranges with that example.
which example Northern workers and Southern workers or international workers? I'm merely pointing out that the phrase you've appropriated has a shit load of contradictions when using it to mean something different from what it's original meaning is.


Second, how would you prefer me to say it?
systemic racism is fine.

[Leftsolidarity]

which example Northern workers and Southern workers or international workers? I'm merely pointing out that the phrase you've appropriated has a shit load of contradictions when using it to mean something different from what it's original meaning is.




Northern to Southern workers. I would say that "white priviledge" in this context is talking about American workers.


systemic racism is fine.

I would agree but I don't that disproves the fact that there is a "white priviledge" in a sense. I think we've hit the end of this conversation though. I understand what you're saying and agree with it for the most part

[sulla]

All cultures have child abuse in them. Does that mean there is such a thing as female child abuse culture? (More females abuse kids than men do. That is is a statistical fact.)

[sulla]

Ask them whether there has ever been a society without a rape culture, and you'll get a blank stare.

The concept of "rape culture" is just the idealist concept of "patriarchy" relabeled in order to be smuggled in through the back door. It's a timeless, amorphous concept constructed to show that men oppress women.

Most men don't rape woman. In fact a lot woman are attracted and engage with the type of men that are statistically more likely to rape them, while ignoring the type of male that is less likely to rape them. (Talking about Alpha vs Beta males here.)

In fact I know a really successful person who has loads of different woman all the time. He is a shallow narcissistic sociopath when I point this out to feminists who want to generalise an entire gender they don't want to know. If you want to try and guilty an entire gender, at least criticize the actions of your own!

[Manic Impressive]

I would agree but I don't that disproves the fact that there is a "white priviledge" in a sense. I think we've hit the end of this conversation though. I understand what you're saying and agree with it for the most part
ok I probably didn't explain very well but I'd suggest having a look at this thread. http://www.revleft.com/vb/academics-and-pro-t164805/index.html?t=164805

[Lee Van Cleef]

Most men don't rape woman. In fact a lot woman are attracted and engage with the type of men that are statistically more likely to rape them, while ignoring the type of male that is less likely to rape them. (Talking about Alpha vs Beta males here.)

In fact I know a really successful person who has loads of different woman all the time. He is a shallow narcissistic sociopath when I point this out to feminists who want to generalise an entire gender they don't want to know. If you want to try and guilty an entire gender, at least criticize the actions of your own!
Am I reading 4chan?

Human beings are not wild animals. Most women are attracted to men with confidence and a drive to accomplish their goals. Of course nobody would be interested in a lazy slob who looks like he is about to puke when he talks to a girl.

While some driven people of all genders may be shallow and narcissistic, I don't see how this makes them more likely to commit rape.

Come on.

EDIT: Two days ago there was a thread on white privilege. I posted my thoughts here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-lefts-perspective-t164944/index.html?p=2305852#post2305852).

[Jimmie Higgins]

Are you kidding, I LOVE liberals and have started a blog for one...
http://wupperman.wordpress.com/
...for me to poop on*.


*sorry, that was the most contemporary pop-culture reference I could come up with at that time. I don't even like that skit.

[∞]

They're such soft little bastards. "Oh don't that! Thats bad mmmkay?"- Fuck you.
They have some kind of romantic crush on Clinton and Obama. Okay fine, Clinton reigned during the economy's surplus or whatever. But really? Obama might as well be conservative
This brings me to that double standard. "O WAR WITH LIBYA DURR ITS CHEAPER" but would cry if Bush did the same thing
They think they are actually left-wing. But then again the European liberals or barely left wing, but the US liberals are somewhere in the right.
They try to mellow down everything. "OH YEAH STRICT BORDER PATROL BAD, BUT NOT SO MANY IMMIGRANTS K? I mean they should like get a visa..."
Pro Gun Control
Believe things like Affirmative Action and reparations are a legitimate compromise between the working class and the bourgeois state.

[Decommissioner]

Most men don't rape woman. In fact a lot woman are attracted and engage with the type of men that are statistically more likely to rape them, while ignoring the type of male that is less likely to rape them. (Talking about Alpha vs Beta males here.)
So what are you saying? That if a woman who is attracted to a man who obviously seems sociopathic or "rape-y" gets raped by such a man that they had it coming? Thus meaning it's not really rape?

Not sure if that's what you meant, but it's what I got out of it.

[sulla]

Am I reading 4chan?

Human beings are not wild animals. Most women are attracted to men with confidence and a drive to accomplish their goals. Of course nobody would be interested in a lazy slob who looks like he is about to puke when he talks to a girl.

While some driven people of all genders may be shallow and narcissistic, I don't see how this makes them more likely to commit rape.

Come on.

EDIT: Two days ago there was a thread on white privilege. I posted my thoughts here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-lefts-perspective-t164944/index.html?p=2305852#post2305852).

You are missing my point. What has slobs got to do with this? Of course anyone wouldn't be attracted to a slob. What I am talking about is the fact a lot of woman are attracted to superficial confidence and charm. They are also attracted to sign of status and power.

A woman is more likely to be hostile to someone who approaches who is nervous, cause a lot of men suffer from approach anxiety. Ironically a sociopath is less likely to suffer from this. Some woman complain about the type of men they interact with, perhaps they are interacting with the wrong types?

[Leftsolidarity]

You are missing my point. What has slobs got to do with this? Of course anyone wouldn't be attracted to a slob. What I am talking about is the fact a lot of woman are attracted to superficial confidence and charm. They are also attracted to sign of status and power.

A woman is more likely to be hostile to someone who approaches who is nervous, cause a lot of men suffer from approach anxiety. Ironically a sociopath is less likely to suffer from this. Some woman complain about the type of men they interact with, perhaps they are interacting with the wrong types?

:thumbdown:

[Lobotomy]

how they support gun control, effectively further reinforcing the violent power of the state

[Belleraphone]

This is my favorite thread on revleft right now. Imagine if Ann Coulter decided to "take on" the "radical liberals" and find this thread :laugh:

[Leftsolidarity]

how they support gun control, effectively further reinforcing the violent power of the state

Yeah, the gun control thing really pisses me off. What's a good revolutionary without any guns?

[#FF0000]

Their irrational fear of communism. Present any democrat with a full on, government buildings burning the ground communist revolution, and a liberal will do one of the two things:
1) Conveniently forget all the rights that Communist orgnaisations won for them in the 1930's and 1940's and claim that the revolutionaries are "too radical" and claim that there needs to be an emphasis on "nonviolence" ("police batons: yardsticks, essentially.")
2) Become a full-fledged conservative

10 degrees to the Left when times are good and 10 degrees to the right when it affects them personally.

[Azraella]

You are missing my point. What has slobs got to do with this? Of course anyone wouldn't be attracted to a slob. What I am talking about is the fact a lot of woman are attracted to superficial confidence and charm. They are also attracted to sign of status and power.

A woman is more likely to be hostile to someone who approaches who is nervous, cause a lot of men suffer from approach anxiety. Ironically a sociopath is less likely to suffer from this. Some woman complain about the type of men they interact with, perhaps they are interacting with the wrong types?

Market models for sexuality are wrong. That is all

[black magick hustla]

white ppl burning ulcers about privilege theory

[Tim Finnegan]

@Lucretia: Ok, I'm going to be honest here, my last few replies to you were obnoxious, trite and unhelpful, and for that I apologise. I'm going to try and redeem myself by giving some vaguely mature comments on the topics.


Unless you are suggesting I am wrong when I say that there is a long literature within gender studies that talks about patriarchy as being a specific interpretation of sexism's origins and social functions, our only disagreement is that, for the sake of keeping things clear, I think we should continue to use patriarchy in the way it has been used and not broaden its meaning arbitrarily.
I accept that "patriarchy" is most prominently and commonly used in the narrower sense that you are using here, but I think that even within this usage it's inaccurate to describe it is a purely idealistic concept. "Patriarchy theory", as I understand it, exists in two different forms, the first being the Liberal and Radical Feminist form, in which it is percieved as an essentially ideological phenomenon with material consequences, and in the Socialist or "Materialist" Feminist form, in which it is seen as representing both a material base and an ideological superstructure, standing alongside but distinct from the mode of production given in any society. In both versions, it is indeed a non-Marxist theory, in that it denies the totality of the mode of production, but is not in the latter case an idealist theory, because it still emphasises the necessity of objective social relations to the social structure. So the first point would be that "patriarchy" is not in itself an idealist concept.

So if "patriarchy" can be a materialist concept, what sets it apart from Marxism? The Socialist Feminist theory breaks form Marxism, as I said, in denying the totality of the mode of production, and posing patriarchy as a second social structure alongside (and of course intersecting with) the mode of production. This also means that it exists alongside multiple modes of production over time, so you got slave society-patriarchy, feudalism-patriarchy, and now you get capitalism-patriarchy. But on what basis is it argued that patriarchy exists outside of the mode of production?

As I understand it, the argument is that the social relations between men and women exhibit a level of historical continuity which Socialist Feminists view as being too great for the historical progression from one to another to allow, concluding that this means that these relations cannot be encompassed in any one mode of production. They point to the consistent subjugation of women to men across multiple modes of production, fundamental sense of the material dependence of the majority of women upon men, and in more specific forms such as the delegation of household chores to women. Furthermore, it is argued there are continuities not merely in the relationship between biological males and females, but also in terms of non-binary models of gender, and in various models of sexuality. "Patriarchy" thus appears as a complicated and evolving structure in its own right.

As Marxists, however, we necessarily reject the idea that any aspect of society could exist outside of the totalising mode of production. Our choice then is to either deny the continuity they have described, or to attempt to reconcile it with the Marxist conception of history. If we take the latter course, as I would, then what we say is that continuity across modes of production is no indication of existence outside of modes of production, because the shift from one mode of production to another is not a cataclysmic break in which all society is exploded and reformed, but a shift in the reproduction of society, and often a gradual one. This means that aspects of the preceding mode of production are carried over into the new, reformulated in accordance with the shifting social relations, so that the feudal subjugation of women to men is reformulated as the capitalist subjugation of women to men, for example a subordinate role in the reproduction of the feudal household becoming a subordinate role in the reproduction of the individual worker. However, in making this argument, we are acknowledging that these structures do exist and do exhibit continuity, we are merely locating them within the large structure of the mode of production.

This would mean that we are not actually arguing against the existence of these structures in themselves, but against a particular interpretation of them, and if that's the case, then why not refer to them by the commonly used label of "patriarchy"? There are certainly analogues to this which Marxists accept without a second thought, a good example being the concept of the "city"; Marx specifically addresses, at various points in his work, the fact that the social, economic and political character of the city is distinct, often dramatically so, in different modes of production, and so that there is no one transhistorical city, but different historically specific forms of city. But in doing this, he acknowledges that there is a continuity of cities across modes of production (after all, most of his work was written in a city that had existed under a slave society, a feudal society, a capitalist society, and which will exist under a communist society), and so that to be historically specific did not mean to be historically isolated, and that it could be productive and accurate to acknowledge a "vertical" continuity across "horizontal" modes of production, i.e. that it is meaningful to talk of "cities" as such. I think that patriarchy can be understood in the same way, as something that exists definitely within a given mode of production- so we get feudal patriarchy and capitalist patriarchy rather than feudalism-patriarchy and capitalism-patriarchy- but that can be specifically compared across modes of production in a useful and informative manner, and so addressed in and of itself.


As I said, "rape culture" is so broad that it's meaningless. According to you, all cultures in which there is structural, institutionalized sexism is "rape culture." But what I don't understand is why you don't simply call the culture "sexist culture"? What analytical benefit regarding women's oppression are you gaining by using "rape culture"? I just don't see it.Well, I won't push this one too had, because I don't believe that "rape society" is a useful tool when removed from a broader context of cultures of sexism and violence. It's really an intersection of the two- and one among several- and while I think that there is some value in focusing in on that particular aspect of a given society's hegemonic ideology, I agree that doing so to the point where context is lost is entirely counter-productive.


It has everything to do with what you said. You compared different aspects of somebody's social identity to ingredients you mix together into a bowl. Even if we concede that the mixed ingredients might merge and chemically bond in a unified product -- like a loaf of bread -- you still are stuck in this mindset of comparing "blackness" or "woman-ness" to salt and pepper. These different aspects of somebody's social identity do not and have never existed apart from society, or apart from other aspects of social identity, like separate ingredients going into a recipe.

This might seem irrelevant, but it's important in distinguish sexism as a social structure of oppression and sex as an individual biological concept. Patriarchy theorists, or "privilege" theorists, want to collapse this distinction so as to argue that sexism is the result of men collectively oppressing women as a group. Once you concede that sexism is a social structure of oppression emergent from class rather than a structure of privilege (that benefits the men who are timelessly pitted against them), you have to concede that this structure is not the inevitable result of - or sustained by - the ability and desire of every man to oppress every woman. You begin to awaken to the fact that sexism harms men as well as women.I do agree with you entirely on this, actually; what happened is that you took an off-hand analogy more literally than I intended, and I replied in a childish and obscurificating manner. My original point was merely that it can be useful to discuss certain social categories in abstracted, general forms, and that a failure to do so specific is not a condemnation of these abstractions, but not that the abstracted forms preceded any given concrete instance of those forms. My analogy was a poor one, because salt does indeed precede a meal; a mistake in my choice of analogy, rather than in what I was intending to communicate.

[sulla]

Market models for sexuality are wrong. That is all

Market models for sexuality? When did I ever offer a market model for that? I was talking about gender not sexuality anyway.

[sulla]

white ppl burning ulcers about privilege theory

Not burning ulcers about anything. Do you deny that existance of a white underclass?

[Azraella]

All cultures have child abuse in them. Does that mean there is such a thing as female child abuse culture? (More females abuse kids than men do. That is is a statistical fact.)


Most men don't rape woman. In fact a lot woman are attracted and engage with the type of men that are statistically more likely to rape them, while ignoring the type of male that is less likely to rape them. (Talking about Alpha vs Beta males here.)

In fact I know a really successful person who has loads of different woman all the time. He is a shallow narcissistic sociopath when I point this out to feminists who want to generalise an entire gender they don't want to know. If you want to try and guilty an entire gender, at least criticize the actions of your own!


Market models for sexuality? When did I ever offer a market model for that? I was talking about gender not sexuality anyway.

Except gender plays into the market model of sexuality. Oh look MRA talking points. It's also apparent you do the whole PUA thing too.

Misogyny must be a fun past time.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Not burning ulcers about anything. Do you deny that existance of a white underclass?

hes talking about my side dummy

ie hes on your side

[sulla]

Except gender plays into the market model of sexuality. Oh look MRA talking points. It's also apparent you do the whole PUA thing too.

Misogyny must be a fun past time.


So I say something you don't agree with so I must be into Misogyny? Are you being serious?

Please explan to me what the market model of sexuality has to do with what I am talking about? I know the market manipulates peoples sexuality on many diffrent levels, but how is it related to what I am talking about?

If I sunk to your level I could go. "Oh you are into misandry!" I won't cause it is childish and stupid.

[Azraella]

So I say something you don't agree with so I must be into Misogyny? Are you being serious?



Totally misogynist.



Please explan to me what the market model of sexuality has to do with what I am talking about? I know the market manipulates peoples sexuality on many diffrent levels, but how is it related to what I am talking about?


I'm not talking about the external factors that affect sexuality. You have been making assertions about what women and men are sexually attracted to and you made the allusion to female hypergamy. Basic theory states 95% of women are after the top 5% of males. So, women claim males will fuck any woman with a wet hole. They also say males dont want fat chicks. The first sentence is stereotyping (badly) the 95% of males they dont want. The second is complaining about the 5% they can't get.

It's bullshit, when you finally figure out that society has a nasty habit of controlling our sex lives and that people have a wide variety of reasons to be attracted to a thing. Some of us have fetishes, others have types, and others have other concerns not related to attraction that totally affect our dating pools.

"But lady_catherine! What about the dominant male trope that women tend to fantasize about?" You might be saying. The reality is that women have a wide variety of sexual fantasies too. This is why female dominant partners exist(as we can also find submissive male partners) It is simply wrong to attribute sexual preferences to a gender as a whole. Market models of sexuality treat men as a supply and that women create the demand. It is simply unrealistic. Even if we had differences in how we picked our sexual partners on a purely sex basis, it is a moot point. Society and culture affect our choices.



If I sunk to your level I could go. "Oh you are into misandry!" I won't cause it is childish and stupid.


Lulz:laugh:

[Red Rosa]

what i hate the most about them is their way of talking to other people; their ability to use the most sweet, nice and tolerant discourse (which is often so exaggerated it sounds psycho nice) and yet to express the most vicious offenses.

[∞]

Their taste in music.

[RadioRaheem84]

How they're making everything "indie".

Did they take over marketing/advertising?

[Lucretia]

I do agree with you entirely on this, actually; what happened is that you took an off-hand analogy more literally than I intended, and I replied in a childish and obscurificating manner. My original point was merely that it can be useful to discuss certain social categories in abstracted, general forms, and that a failure to do so specific is not a condemnation of these abstractions, but not that the abstracted forms preceded any given concrete instance of those forms. My analogy was a poor one, because salt does indeed precede a meal; a mistake in my choice of analogy, rather than in what I was intending to communicate.

Since I mostly agree with the rest of what you posted, or last didn't disagree strongly enough to want to spend the time responding, I'll just respond to this part. Also because I think it's important.

"Black" and "woman" are identities that at a very abstract level will enable you to pick out a few experiences or ideas that are shared very, very broadly within those groups (for women, a need to respond in some way, indeed a variety of ways, to the lingering sexist expectation that a woman should put her family before her career). At the individual level, however, what it means to be black or a woman can be dramatically different -- women, for example, will respond to the sexist expectation of "family first" in a multitude of ways, which leads to different understandings of what being a woman means. There is no singular, monolithic identity of "woman" or "black" that is then distorted by other identities in the way that yeast is changed by being mixed with water. It is always already different. In terms of oppression, what unites them as an abstract category capable of sociological analysis is that they experience or might expect to experience varying degrees and types of oppression on the basis of how people perceive them and treat them.

It is important to remember, though, that these acts of oppression are not monopolized by women or black people. Asians are discriminated against because of the color of their skin, just as sometimes men are the victims of sexual violence. What makes rape sexist is the intention or the mindset that creates the act of oppression - the fact that the act in some ways taps into an ideational structure that posits that some group is inferior by virtue of some shared characteristic. Poverty is not inherently racist, but because of racial discrimination, many members of "racial minorities" are poor.

Ultimately what this means is that we should be very, very careful when taking broad abstractions like "female oppression" or "black oppression" and using them, intentionally or not, as cudgels against men or non-black people's supposed "privileges," especially when we are talking about specific white people or specific men. Not only does this ignore the huge gape between sociological abstractions and individual experiences (in a way that elides racism and sexism as structural forms of oppression underpinned by class, such that not all white men perpetrate or benefit from, or sometimes can even be harmed by, prejudice and sexism), but it also needlessly divides the working class.

[fatpanda]

-They love and appreciate Non-White Immigrants, as long as they don't move next door...

-They support "Human Rights" Military Interventions (Yugoslavia, Lybia, Afghanistan and in future possibly Myanmar or Zimbabwe)

-They act nice,friendly and open minded but as soon when you touch a subject that they do not like , they become reactionary and judgemental as you can get

- Liberal Hipster girls claim that appearance,Social Status or "looks" doesn't matter, all that matters is the "inner beauty" ... still they dont date hobos,non whites,ugly or fat people :D:D:D all their boyfriends( or girlfriends) are either rich yuppies, jocks, artsy hipsters or studs :D

[sulla]

Totally misogynist.



I'm not talking about the external factors that affect sexuality. You have been making assertions about what women and men are sexually attracted to and you made the allusion to female hypergamy. Basic theory states 95% of women are after the top 5% of males. So, women claim males will fuck any woman with a wet hole. They also say males dont want fat chicks. The first sentence is stereotyping (badly) the 95% of males they dont want. The second is complaining about the 5% they can't get.

It's bullshit, when you finally figure out that society has a nasty habit of controlling our sex lives and that people have a wide variety of reasons to be attracted to a thing. Some of us have fetishes, others have types, and others have other concerns not related to attraction that totally affect our dating pools.

"But lady_catherine! What about the dominant male trope that women tend to fantasize about?" You might be saying. The reality is that women have a wide variety of sexual fantasies too. This is why female dominant partners exist(as we can also find submissive male partners) It is simply wrong to attribute sexual preferences to a gender as a whole. Market models of sexuality treat men as a supply and that women create the demand. It is simply unrealistic. Even if we had differences in how we picked our sexual partners on a purely sex basis, it is a moot point. Society and culture affect our choices.



Lulz:laugh:

I don't get what you are saying. I think most woman are very aware of status, and they seek partners of the same status or higher. (Nature or nurture?) I know woman who are not like that at all.

Also society has, still does play a pressuring on how people express there sexuality. Is that a issue of patriarchy? I think it is more complex than that. For example what about woman who ostracize other woman for not conforming to sexually norms? (Used to happen a lot in the Victorian era.)

Also woman tend to be on average more conservative with there sexuality anyway. (I said on average, I know that are loads of exceptions to this.) You can't blame society entirely for this. There are good evolutionary reason for woman being more sexuality conservative.

Feminism (Even third wave feminism.) see things in a too simplistic way. Human beings are fucked up creatures. We are also self improving evolving creatures too. I think both genders have negative and positive traits. Feminism seems to be stuck in a self praise, victimology discourse. If society oppresses people, females are a part of this oppression too. Also if you look at the history of western civilization woman have suffered awfully from poverty and abuse, but so have men! They have been victims too, and I think there is a modern trend for males to end up in the underclass more than females.

Also I think most female suffering goes on in the third world where they have very very badly. Woman in the first world are privileged.

Anyway I think I will end my discourse on this subject, unless I think of anything new to add. I will just end up getting labbeled a misogynist!

[Connolly Was There1916]

Totally agree with the OP regarding the fact that they become full right-wingers the moment their status is threatened. It just makes them seem like their liberal attitudes are just there to shroud their real beliefs, which is rather sinister.

[Tim Finnegan]

I hate the way they present sweeping, impressionistic generalisations about very broad demographics as accurate and meaningful social commentary.

:rolleyes:

[Azraella]

Ah, I love the derailing misogynist in this thread.



I think most woman are very aware of status, and they seek partners of the same status or higher. (Nature or nurture?) I know woman who are not like that at all.


Hypergamy is bullshit.



Is that a issue of patriarchy? I think it is more complex than that. For example what about woman who ostracize other woman for not conforming to sexually norms? (Used to happen a lot in the Victorian era


PATRIARCHY =/= MEN (http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/21/faq-isnt-the-patriarchy-just-some-conspiracy-theory-that-blames-all-men-even-decent-men-for-womens-woes/) Here's a fun fact: Women can be patriarchal and misogynistic too! How revolutionary!



Feminism (Even third wave feminism.) see things in a too simplistic way.


Ah... wow, I never sen this argument before. Can I say... strawman?



I think both genders have negative and positive traits


Two... genders. Hey, guess what? Not all of us fit on the fucking gender binary! I'm bigendered and my spouse is an androgyne.



Feminism seems to be stuck in a self praise, victimology discourse.


What a powerful retort to feminist claims about the institutional sexism in society! I've been doing this feminism thing wrong for about 10 years!



If society oppresses people, females are a part of this oppression too.


Well no shit, Shirlock.



Also if you look at the history of western civilization woman have suffered awfully from poverty and abuse, but so have men! They have been victims too, and I think there is a modern trend for males to end up in the underclass more than females.


Feminists don't deny that men aren't hurt by oppression, there is such a thing called intersecting oppressions! But hey, having your sexuality, spirituality, and autonomy controlled and denied to you on the basis of your sex(not gender) is totally the same as what men go through. On another point sexual minorities(which includes men, by golly) are hurt by hetero-patriarchy too! In basically the same ways as it hurts women.



Also I think most female suffering goes on in the third world where they have very very badly. Woman in the first world are privileged.



Comparatively speaking.



Anyway I think I will end my discourse on this subject, unless I think of anything new to add. I will just end up getting labbeled a misogynist!


Because you are. I calls them as I sees them.

[the Leftâ„¢]

I thought liberalism is a distinctive trademark of the far-left... Freedom of speech and that shit, ya know.... I'm quite surprised you people oppose it

Liberalism( what we are discussing) vs liberalism( a lovely concept if it were real)

[Sam Varriano]

They think they are smarter than everyone honestly. Hell, now that I think about it, I probably have just as many/more conservative/libertarian friends than liberal ones. I mean damn it I want to eat meat and shoot guns and flip off Obama too! :thumbup:

Seriously though, they love people like Churchill, Lincoln, JFK, FDR, etc. and then act as if they "care" about poor people/ending wars (some are actually very pro war)

Also, the fact that on one hand they are care a lot about improving education but then turn around and say everyone is a dumbass, as if it isn't possible some people aren't as educated than others because of a lack of funding towards education in the first place.

I swear, they basically live the lifestyle of Ayn Rand's objectivism except vote for what they assume is moderate democratic socialism or something like that >.>

Now excuse me, I'm going to hunt for some liberal scum and then tie them to the hood of my SUV, brb. :cool:

[阿部高和]

Things I hate about leftists in general:

1.) the constant witch-hunting for people who disagree with them

2.) "if you don't agree with my extremist and narrow opinion, you're (or everyone else) a bourgeois sexist/racist/capitalist/misogynist/facist/-ist"

3.) assuming that everyone will just listen to them and refuse to accept input by people who may not agree with them

4.) followers of anarchist schools of thought who hold ironically totalitarian beliefs

5.) MLs who deny everything

6.) Trotskyists who believe everything

7.) the enforcement of thought (don't follow he party-line to a T, get purged)

There you go.

[Belleraphone]

Liberalism( what we are discussing) vs liberalism( a lovely concept if it were real)
Hmm, what does this mean? The capital L?

[阿部高和]

Hmm, what does this mean? The capital L?


liberalism, aka, classical liberalism, aka capitalism.

[∞]

They are just the slightly more educated form up conservatives. To me they are less annoying. But still really fucking annoying. I don't really why people itt hate them more than conservatives. Talking to a conservative is like talking to a brick wall and they are completely fucking insane. At least liberals are somewhat open-minded. Somewhat.

[sulla]

Ah, I love the derailing misogynist in this thread.





Because you are. I calls them as I sees them.

Okay, but you don't see very well do you? I'm not too scared to talk about gender issues in a frank and brutal way. The current feminist discourse is too simplistic. In fact some feminists remind me of anti feminists.
Also I find the way you label me disrespectful. It is like certain sections of the left want to censor and control debate.

I typed up more stuff on gender issues, but I'm drawing this discourse to an end. I would rather talk about how much I hate liberals!

[#FF0000]

words

yo lady_catherine just ignore the big ol' dummo.

it's what the rest of us are doing

[#FF0000]

also lol "beta male"

[La Comédie Noire]

Liberals really like 1984 and Animal Farm. I think those two books act as a safety barrier to liberals, less they stray too far from the main discourse.

Then you have us lefties who read Homage to Catalonia. :D

[Tim Finnegan]

Liberals really like 1984 and Animal Farm. I think those two books act as a safety barrier to liberals, less they stray too far from the main discourse.
I dunno, 1984 is fundamentally a critique of class society, even if Orwell himself seems to forget that at times. It's only as popular as it is because the accepted reading is so superficial.

[black magick hustla]

wgat us a beta male

[Azraella]

wgat us a beta male

This might help you out (http://www.pualingo.com/pua-definitions/beta-male-beta/)


yuck

[∞]

TIL I am a beta.

[阿部高和]

this has become chit-chat.

[IndependentCitizen]

Liberals are patronising bastards.

[Sendo]

Parenti was the greatest at ripping on liberals. He was right to respect conservatives' power and be frustrated with the arm-chair preaching and intellectual arrogance of liberals. I feel like liberals are the worst because they don't see any systems, only smart and stupid people. They're incapable of identifying the root causes of problems of society and always underestimate the right wing and alienate the masses.

And they trust the system too much. They hate gun rights, because "we don't need guns" while ignoring the rural masses and the fact that if gun ownership goes down, only the KKK and mafia and police will have guns.

They're educated but stupid. They're immunized against leftism. The best people to convert are conservatives who are conservative except for.....X. Like I once was, these people are usually just ignorant to many facts. If they follow the modus operandi they believe that hard work will pay off (it makes sense to human brain, too, after all). But if you talk about enough issues, they'll see gaps and deficiencies in the system.

Maybe the moderate/conservative in question is a fiercely anti-racist white who is unaware of how systemic racism works. Maybe the conservative in question is in shock over the state of American wilderness and the National Parks system. Maybe the conservative in question supports free education because s/he believes that poor people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps but not if they have poor parents. These people can be won over. They are smart enough to see problems in the system. They just haven't encountered alternative histories or experienced enough (the youth). Liberals however, are filled with facts and are equipped with the academic skills and prose and all that, but are unable to form coherent analyses of anything. They think "oh, if we just fix this little thing here, and that leaky pipe there."

Pretend we have a liberal and a conservative sharing a house (bear with me, I know conservatives don't like to share anything). They live in a termite-infested house. The liberal only thinks to replace each beam of wood as it breaks--one at a time--instead of identifying the problem (termites) and exterminating them or rebuilding the house. The conservative will notice that the house is falling apart and the liberal is fighting an uphill battle, but due to being unaware of what a termite is, will blame bad winds, demons, or bad furniture or the Mexican gardener. The conservative might even call an exorcist who charges $2,000. The liberal will call both the conservative and the exorcist "idiots" and not for a moment think that the exorcist is laughing all the way to the bank.

Then you show the two roommates the termites. The conservative will ask you what the hell the termite is and what it is up to inside of the house. The liberal will say we just have to replace the wooden beams at a faster rate and will say we just need to convince the termites to eat apples instead of wood.

[RadioRaheem84]

It's because conservatives already acknowledge the system is broken. They just think that we have to scrap it all and start over from scratch.

Liberals believe in the inherent goodness of the system. They must preserve institutional legitimacy with reform.

Conservatives of the more radical libertarian stripe are cynical and think the government is shit. Liberals still believe in the government and that they can reign in corporations.

[Meditation]

hm what do i hate about liberals amm,....
oh yea Everything

[Zostrianos]

1. Their arrogant, elitist condescension towards workers and poor people: (ie: "most Americans are too stupid/vote against their best interests/are uneducated in general")


I used to think that, that the masses (especially in the US) are idiots who swallow all the bullshit politicians tell them, and vote for rich capitalist bastards who will screw them even more. Then I realized that it's not because they're inherently stupid. No one of sound body and mind is stupid, they just listen to the wrong people and get their info from the wrong sources. If they actually picked up some good books and start educating themselves (instead of watching Fox News, listening to Rush Limbaugh and reading the Bible) their outlook would change entirely. They're not stupid, they're misinformed.



5. Their general insulting of people's intelligence with their attempts to "reform" capitalism.


Trying to improve capitalism is like trying to resuscitate a decomposing corpse. I used to be more of a social democrat, but then I realized that as long as there are right wing parties in a democracy, no true socialist society will ever be possible, because if people vote for the Right, all the benefits that the Left brought could be rolled back from one day to the next. This is the great flaw of democracy in my opinion.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

What to hate about liberals....?

* They are a living version of Animal farms famouse, contradicting, quote; "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal then others", by denying that there actually exist social classes and that its just up for evrybody to Choose which one you want to belong with.

* Theire concept of that they are neither right or left, that it doesnt even exist.

* Theire perverted obsession with parlamentarism and (so called) "official agreements". Like saying that the invasion of Iraq was wrong since it violated the UN:s resolution. Not the fact that the war killed a hell a lot of people for years now. And here in sweden they say that we have to accept the newly elected racist party since thats democracy, jesus....

[Lea Trompsky]

Their feigned outrage at racial, social and economic injustices. I find this so insulting... Especially the whites who self-depricate so that they can not feel guilty about being in a privileged class. The fact that when you look at the faces of those in the liberal pantheon they are almost all men and mostly white.... Their words do not match their actions.

I could play this game for hours!!

[RadioRaheem84]

This is also true about conservatives but browbeating the hell out of people, especially on a chat forum about spelling, diction or grammar, instead of focusing on the main argument.

They are so annoying about this. They'll argue with you until they catch something like that and then proceed to think they've won by default. Just dealt with this one not too long ago.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Annoying liberal cliches or expressions:

"agent of change", sometimes "change agent"

"socially responsible investing" (major oxymoron)

"Social enterpreneur"

"making a difference" (last year NBC News Bryan Williams had a very annoying nightly snippet on "people who are making a difference". One of these was a lady somewhere who baked cookies and sent them to US military personal in Iraq. They spent about 10 minutes on this)

I once worked for a liberal, liberal/left telemarketing firm, the Share Group. We'd call people and ask them to donate to liberal non-profits or NGOs. Our slogan was "the phone line is the front line of social change". We were "telephone activists" who were "changing the world one phone call at a time". Many of the employees actually took these slogans seriously.

The company itself was ferociously anti-union and tried very hard to break the local.They eventually fired almost all their employees(with the cooperation of the union-the UAW) before finally closing the call center.

[wunderbar]

This is also true about conservatives but browbeating the hell out of people, especially on a chat forum about spelling, diction or grammar, instead of focusing on the main argument.

They are so annoying about this. They'll argue with you until they catch something like that and then proceed to think they've won by default. Just dealt with this one not too long ago.

You pretty much described Reddit right there.

[RadioRaheem84]

You pretty much described Reddit right there.

Not sure what that is, but I'm sure you're right.

[Sam Varriano]

You pretty much described Reddit right there.


True fucking story.

[ed miliband]

The typical liberal approach to unions annoys me probably more than anything else: unions are great for both workers and employers, but they are typically led by angry militants who lead rank-and-file members into fruitless conflict with management, etc.

Mental.

[∞]

I still like Reddit. Just unsub from r/politics. Feels good man.