Liberals - Friend or Foe? [Archive]

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Nox

10th January 2012, 18:03

Franz Fanonipants

10th January 2012, 18:06

about where i rank you, kind of below my attention but sometimes worthwhile for a laugh

Nox

10th January 2012, 18:10

about where i rank you, kind of below my attention but sometimes worthwhile for a laugh

Touche

Jimmie Higgins

10th January 2012, 18:13

Liberals in power are representatives of the interests of the ruling class and so they are our enemy, the arguments the make are there to maintain the system. Regular people who identify with liberal ideals or call themselves liberals are potentially people who can be won to radical politics - more easily than people who are just cynical or people who are right-wing. It's a case by case basis though - some may identify with liberals because they want health care provided, union rights, etc. Others are not just picking some "liberal" issues but do actually fully embrace the whole logic of liberalism... the first group are the people that we should want to try and convince of radical politics, the second group can sometimes be pretty annoying and just as bad as arguing with conservatives.

Klaatu

10th January 2012, 18:16

"Liberals" is a pretty broad category. It would be better to examine this issue-by-issue.

Can you be more specific in what issues you dislike about liberals? For example, are they
too-closely connected with the present powers-that-be? That would be one good reason to dislike them.

Ostrinski

10th January 2012, 18:23

The left is right

10th January 2012, 18:35

Comrades who haven't been convinced yet ;)

I don't get the radical left's strong dislike for liberals. I was once a liberal, they can be "converted" to socialism if you will. Also they are a hell of a lot better than conservatives. At least they feel compassion and are closer to us politically.

But yeah I do agree that it is annoying how highly they regard the capitalist welfare state instead of full freedom from the bourgeoisie.

dodger

10th January 2012, 18:54

Are liberals our friend or our enemy?

I personally think they are useless idiots who base 99% of their views on emotions and have no logic whatsoever. I've given up trying to talk some sense in to liberals because they're just so ignorant. But I want to hear your opinion too.

Well Nox, I have always taken a liberal approach to my own shortcomings. However I am no liberal when judging others. :blushing:

They used to say scratch a liberal, there's a fascist underneath. Probably true. Suppose we can all be liberal, when we can afford to be, perhaps when our self interest looks to be under threat it becomes another story. NIMBY, not in my back yard. Somebody might subscribe to provision for the mentally ill, but don't build a bloody home in my street it will affect house prices. We might be murdered in our beds etc.etc. SOME LIBERALS HOLD STRONGLY TO PRINCIPLE, they are to be admired. Too much like hard work for the likes of someone like me. Better to acknowledge a progressive self interest if one can. Take it to another level of class interests and there is not much room for a liberal tack. The term means something else across the Atlantic, also in a previous century, but I think I know what you mean Nox. Social liberals have not defended my social interests to the death, might miffed about that, looks like I'll have to defend them for myself, in my own way. ie take responsibility.

aty

10th January 2012, 18:54

Liberals are the biggest enemy against the working class. Even more than fascists.

Crux

10th January 2012, 21:10

Rusty Shackleford

10th January 2012, 21:15

Azraella

10th January 2012, 21:22

Экс-фашистских

10th January 2012, 21:33

Liberals support the capitalist mode of production and have a history of anti-Marxism.

Dire Helix

10th January 2012, 21:53

Foes, of course. In Russia liberals are all zoological anti-communists. There`s barely any difference between them and fascists.

The Dark Side of the Moon

10th January 2012, 21:57

Liberals are the biggest enemy against the working class. Even more than fascists.
curious(nobody say it), do you even know what liberal means?

and yes this is the internet, so you could search it up

after becoming a commie, i hold a little respect for them rather than none.

The Dark Side of the Moon

10th January 2012, 21:59

liberal means many things. in the US is means the democrats, in the UK it means Labour, in the SU it meant Yeltsin and Gorbachov.

one thing they all have in common though is they are capitalists. liberalism having its roots in old bourgeois-revolutionary times. classical liberalism is something like your misean/randroid/paulbot.
do you know what liberal means?

correction, what is the general difference between liberal and conservative

can someone do me a favor and merge the two posts?

Rafiq

10th January 2012, 22:29

Because Liberals themselves include conservatives. You guys realize that Liberalism is the foundational basis for bourgeois thought, right? Conservatives, right wingers, etc. are all Liberals, too.

Firebrand

10th January 2012, 22:58

At its heart liberalism is based on support for the free market. They are the original capitalists, and the basic premise of liberalism is that fundamentally capitalism is good for everyone. That is why they are often supportive of a welfare state, since they think it proves that capitalism can work in a complementary fashion with the interests of the disadvantaged. The idea being that capitalism properly harnessed is a force for good. On a more pragmatic note its easy to see why keeping the working class healthy and well fed might be useful for capitalists.

Also inherent in liberalism is the idea of equality of oppertunity. the idea that if you work hard and behave you can succeed in life. this is partly for moral reasons, to show that anyone can benefit from capitalism if they put the effort in, partly to keep the working class quiet in the hope that they too can rise to the position of bourgeoisie., and partly because for capitalism itself it's useful to have new bourgeosie rising up in order to explore new oppertunities for capital that larger businesses might be less likely to take a risk on.

Klaatu

10th January 2012, 23:07

do you know what liberal means?

correction, what is the general difference between liberal and conservative

can someone do me a favor and merge the two posts?

I've always thought of:

"Liberal" as being progressive (but still tied to The Establishment)

"Conservative" as being a stagnationist (no improvement at all, like stagnant, microbe-infested pond water)

The USA "Tea-Party" is actually regessionist (a tearing apart of the fabric of society... look at their actions... they are fascists)

El Chuncho

10th January 2012, 23:15

Liberals are the biggest enemy against the working class. Even more than fascists.

HAHAHA!

Sorry. :cool:

aty

11th January 2012, 00:30

curious(nobody say it), do you even know what liberal means?

and yes this is the internet, so you could search it up

Yes I know what it means in my country. The term liberal have a different meaning in different countries. In my country it is a term that we socialists throw at the right wing.

In Sweden a liberal is someone who like free markets and Thatcher, Reagan, Ron Paul, Friedman, Ayn Rand, Mises etc. Just a totally different political climate from the US...

aty

11th January 2012, 00:34

HAHAHA!

Sorry. :cool:
Yes it is not the fascists today that make the lives of the working class a living hell. It is these free market policies.

Ostrinski

11th January 2012, 01:11

I've always thought of:

"Liberal" as being progressive (but still tied to The Establishment)

"Conservative" as being a stagnationist (no improvement at all, like stagnant, microbe-infested pond water)

The USA "Tea-Party" is actually regessionist (a tearing apart of the fabric of society... look at their actions... they are fascists)This is false, though. As Rafiq said, liberalism is the umbrella philosophy of bourgeois thought. Progressives and conservatives are both liberal. Tea Party are conservative.

Klaatu

11th January 2012, 01:37

This is false, though. As Rafiq said, liberalism is the umbrella philosophy of bourgeois thought. Progressives and conservatives are both liberal. Tea Party are conservative.

Historically, progressives and conservatives were both liberal (to varying degrees)

But these modern-day Tea-Partiers are not conservative at all. "Conservative" means not desiring change. Tea Partiers are wanting change: they are actively trying to take away peoples' rights. This is in fact a form of radical Fascism (because that is exactly what Fascists do: take away the rights of citizens.)

They claim to want to "restore the Constitution," yet they block and thwart the very rights granted under the Constitution, the ones they do not agree with, such as the right to plan one's family, the right to be gay, the right to form a union, the right to free speech, the right to be free of governmental interference (4th and 5th Amendments) and so on. TeaPartiers are a wolf in sheeps clothing; they are Fascists. And watch out if and when they get into power.

A Revolutionary Tool

11th January 2012, 02:01

It really depends on the person I think. In my experience conservatives have actually been more receptive to my ideas than any liberal has ever been. I think it had to do with class though, surprisingly a lot of working class kids are conservative while others who are more well off are snotty douchebag liberals, at least in my experience. I've had conversations with liberals that literally ended by them saying "You're right capitalism naturally fails, but Jerry Brown made capitalism work, that's why you need to vote for him." So they can be just as stubborn, dogmatic, and irrational as conservatives so I would say foes. Sometimes you can get them to march with you but if you actually started gaining any influence they're perfectly willing to kill.

RadioRaheem84

11th January 2012, 02:30

Искра

11th January 2012, 02:32

Better dead then liberal.

Comrade Jandar

11th January 2012, 04:15

This is a tough question to answer and there are good arguments for both sides. I generally see liberals as foes, rather than friends. They are simply another wing of the bourgeois, don't let their idealism fool you. In some ways they are more dangerous than conservatives because they recognize, at least to some extent, that capitalism is flawed and bound to collapse. This allows them to use strategies such as social democracy and Keynesian theory to prolong capitalism's life. Liberalism is a legitimate obstacle to class consciousness for this reason.

GPDP

11th January 2012, 05:36

Assuming by liberal, you are using the term as employed in the US (social liberal or Democrat), I would say there's basically three types.

The first kind is what I would classify as "closet socialist" liberals. Were it not for socialism having had its name driven through the mud, these liberals would almost certainly adopt it as their political identity. I often find these liberals don't actually have very defined or coherent politics, usually identifying with some vague specter of anti-capitalism, being pro-personal freedoms, gay rights, environmentalism, etc. I would consider these liberals our friends, which is neat because I believe they are by far the most common type of liberal, as they tend to be found within the ranks of the working class and IMO a good chunk of students. They may be social-democrats at worst, but are otherwise on the right track.

The second type is the yuppie "elitist" liberal. These liberals hold more refined politics, and buy into the system for the most part. Whereas "closet socialist" liberals usually only apply the liberal label due to having no other good term to use save perhaps social-democrat (a term nigh-nonexistent in the US), the "elitist" liberal wears his label with pride. This liberal is more educated and well-read in politics and actual liberal thought, and is usually found among the petit-bourgeoisie. This is the archetype that RadioRaheem already outlined in his post. Basically, they're really annoying, and think dealing with the "issues" is a matter of applying the right policy. These guys are usually our foes, though some can be turned.

The third type are the "ruling class" liberals, or liberals in power. This is the "left" wing of the bourgeoisie. They are our foes through and through. Not much else to say.

Tim Finnegan

11th January 2012, 13:32

Whether somebody is a liberal or a leftist is significant only insofar as it determines how they act when the shit hits the fan, and that's not something that can be absolutely declared one way or the other. Jacobins participated in the Paris Commune, the CPF supported the state during the 1936 and 1968 revolts. It's about labour and capital, not about left and right; what matter is how you orientate yourself in the concrete struggle of class against class, not what abstract principles you espouse.

Because Liberals themselves include conservatives. You guys realize that Liberalism is the foundational basis for bourgeois thought, right? Conservatives, right wingers, etc. are all Liberals, too.
Do you actually talk complete shit for a living, or is it just a serious hobby?

Franz Fanonipants

11th January 2012, 20:41

i would kill for a genuine conservative party in the us. america becoming a consitutional monarchy would be hilarious.

Aleenik

11th January 2012, 21:32

Liberals support the state and capitalism.

Anarchists and Communists do not.

Of course, the non bourgeoisie liberals aren't really enemies, they are just normal people and could be turned to the light side, as anyone can, but they are surely no ally of us with their current views.

Ocean Seal

11th January 2012, 21:43

They are our enemies. Full stop. We don't collaborate with liberals in power. We let them do as they do, and we do as we do. If they hold a rally to support gay marriage or abortion. We come out and join them, but we make ABSOLUTELY sure that we are seen as separate from them. We recruit the most militant of workers and we show the people how useless the liberals have been in getting their demands completed. We leave the liberals out from this, we pull the rug from under them.

Our creed when dealing with liberals should be: What has Obama done?

Tim Cornelis

11th January 2012, 21:52

Because Liberals themselves include conservatives. You guys realize that Liberalism is the foundational basis for bourgeois thought, right? Conservatives, right wingers, etc. are all Liberals, too.

In the US "liberals" has become synonymous with "social liberalism":

"Social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes" facilitating equality of opportunity.

In this sense conservatives, right-wingers are not [social] liberals.

aty

14th January 2012, 16:15

In Sweden the question right now for the left is not if liberals are friends or foes but if we should beat them up or not.

2 people from the Classical Liberal Party got beaten up last week when they were handing out leaflets. They have been told that enemies of the working class will not be tolerated on the streets.
http://folket.se/nyheter/eskilstuna/1.1314947

Walt

14th January 2012, 17:59

If the US continues down its path of radical rightwing and libertarian ideology, there will be no more centrist liberals, and the "reagan democrats" will just defect to the right.

Most mainstream progressives here in the US view capitalism as a sustainable system (I say sustainable and not good, as I believe most are closet marxists) only with strict oversight and basic regulatory laws. If the democrats do not get the support they deserve, the party will soon dissolve and there will be an unofficial handover to the right, which is ultimately a handover to the corporatists.

Our focus should be the safety of the working class. We all know capitalism will fail, and in the meantime, the working people should not suffer from austerity measures or other bullshit the right would love to put forth

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Wubbaz

14th January 2012, 21:31

I think that instantly labelling the ideology "Liberalism" and it's followers as our enemies is a wrong approach to take. Liberals are supporters of the capitalist mode of production, and are therefore as a point of departure opposed to Socialism and other ideologies that advocate abolishing private property. But, we must not forget that liberals also agree on (in my opinion) many parts of Socialism. They are simply not concious of this, as liberals are quick to define the revolutionary left's ideas as ending up in a dictatorship with the state literally enslaving 90% of the population to work for a bureaucratic party elite.

If we approach the liberals and dismantle what-ever prejucies they have against Socialism and the like, we believe that we may actually be able to convince them that Socialism is not that bad after all.

Yuppie Grinder

14th January 2012, 22:07

Some of you don't seem to differentiate between common people who are liberals and liberal politicians.

Franz Fanonipants

14th January 2012, 22:16

Some of you don't seem to differentiate between common people who are liberals and liberal politicians.

false consciousness is a m

Pretty Flaco

14th January 2012, 23:32

Some of you don't seem to differentiate between common people who are liberals and liberal politicians.

Somebody's political believes aren't set in stone. A lot of people don't even really think about it. Fuck, about half the US doesn't even regularly vote. Saying they're our "enemies" is ridiculous. A lot of people say "oh im a conservative" or "im a liberal" cuz most of the people they know say the same.

rednordman

14th January 2012, 23:54

fuck liberals, they look down on us, as if we are their naive, uninformed and immature little brothers/sisters.

Philosopher Jay

15th January 2012, 00:59

People should not get too hung up on labels. What counts are policies and actions.What people call themselves does not matter, their objective relationship to the means of production does.
Being a liberal or a socialist is not like having blue or green eyes.

Zav

15th January 2012, 01:03

Liberals are the biggest enemy against the working class. Even more than fascists.
No. That's anti-liberal dogma, and a disgusting example at that.

Mettalian

15th January 2012, 03:30

Similarly to what's been said previously, I've been successful in convincing liberal/social democrat friends that capitalism is the root of the issues they are against. I can't say the same about conservatives. That being said, many liberals oppose socialism and therefore would obviously constitute 'foes', however, as someone in this thread said, I prefer to think of them as "comrades who haven't been convinced yet".

EDIT:Obviously using the North American definition analogous to 'progressive', just for clarification.

Rafiq

15th January 2012, 04:31

In the US "liberals" has become synonymous with "social liberalism":

"Social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes" facilitating equality of opportunity.

In this sense conservatives, right-wingers are not [social] liberals.

All of this fall under the umbrella of Liberalism.

MarxSchmarx

15th January 2012, 04:55

Jimmie Higgins

15th January 2012, 11:13

Many leftists who hate on "liberals"/"social democrats" etc... internalize a lot of the right-wing "volk" perspectives.

The classical leftist caricature of the "liberal" is an individual, usually from the professional class, who has a comfortable, white-collar ("elite") job, cosmopolitan, urban (this point is particularly important) and is broadly tolerant. It bears highlighting that many of these are characteristics traditionally associated with Jews.

By contrast, the right wing praises an "anti-liberal" individual that is not wealthy, often living in rural areas, and not educated in the sense of holding credentials. Such an individual is supposed to be "authentic", and even have a wallop of "common sense" derived from (often ecclesiastic) tradition and (patriarchal) historical wisdom, to contrast to the ivory tower, fancy theories of vaguely effeminate "liberals."

Such workerism is rampant throughout the left, and the hatred poured upon "liberals" is merely a manifestation of this less than salutary component of many a leftists' analysis.

Sadly, the left, in its well-meaning defense of the "common person", all too frequently internalizes the right-wing's prevailing view of the anti-liberal, and targets the "liberal" for scorn otherwise reserved for capitalists and their political lackeys.

I live in the Bay Area and there is a grain of truth in the general "liberal elitist bogyman" the the right-wing talks about. And frankly when dealing with some of these folks there is a little voice in my head that says, "wow, are they worse than fascists - no, but they are quite obnoxious". They are really self-important and individualistic and moralistic and sometimes even patronizingly racist. They are the "why doesn't everyone buy solar panels for their house, am I the ONLY one who cares about the environment!" type people and I can understand why the right-wing has found some traction in misdirecting some class anger towards this caricature.

So I don't know, there are sort of different parts of liberal politics that appeal to people of different economic strata (not necessarily class because two different workers might like different aspects of liberalism based on regional or cultural or wage-level or racial factors). So, for example, probably the vast majority of black voters in the US support liberal politicians - if they are working poor and black are they being attracted by the "green economy rhetoric" or "not buying so many things" rhetoric - probably not, they are probably attracted to liberal politicians by promises of a better deal economically and in regards to racial justice. Not that working poor blacks or whites aren't intertested in the environment - just that the way liberal environmentalism is presented probably sounds pretty hollow to people who can't afford Priuses and don't have the excess in the first place to even be in a place to worry about their "carbon footprint".

Edit: maybe it isn't liberalism of bay area yuppies that I despise on a gut level, maybe it is just that they tend to be self-absorbed elitist assholes.

Anyway, that's just a long-winded way to say that I think there's a ounce of truth in this charature of liberals. But what I think you are totally correct about is the "real amuricun" archie-bunker staw-man. So I think while there are very real liberals who are elitist assholes (and these are the influential ones anyway - same with conservatives), but then again tons of regular workers and rural people identify with what they consider to be "liberal ideals". In fact when you go issue by issue in the US the population supports "liberal" things like healthcare, are opposed to the wars, want racial justice, and so on even when they don't consider themselves to be liberals.

tanklv

16th January 2012, 05:23

They used to say scratch a liberal, there's a fascist underneath. Probably true. Suppose we can all be liberal, when we can afford to be, perhaps when our self interest looks to be under threat it becomes another story. NIMBY, not in my back yard. Somebody might subscribe to provision for the mentally ill, but don't build a bloody home in my street it will affect house prices. We might be murdered in our beds etc.etc. SOME LIBERALS HOLD STRONGLY TO PRINCIPLE, they are to be admired. Too much like hard work for the likes of someone like me. Better to acknowledge a progressive self interest if one can. Take it to another level of class interests and there is not much room for a liberal tack. The term means something else across the Atlantic, also in a previous century, but I think I know what you mean Nox. Social liberals have not defended my social interests to the death, might miffed about that, looks like I'll have to defend them for myself, in my own way. ie take responsibility.

What an amazing amount of bullshit in such a short space.

Liberals are definietly our FRIENDS.

Liberals brought about the end to slavery.
Liberals brought about Civil Rights.
Liverals broucht about Workers Rights, Uniions, 40 hour work week, Vacations, Weekends, & Health Care.

Environmental laws, Green legislation.

Most of the good you all take for granted are the result of LIBERALS and the things we all fought & died for.

And most Liberals grow into socialists.

Liberals as fascists? That's got to be the most ignorant thing I've read online in quite a while...

Yeah - guess Liberals are pretty bad...

tanklv

16th January 2012, 05:28

Liberals... it depends. I "get" liberal/Democrat politics here in the US and they are just as complicated as a tendency war among the radical left can be. If we're talking about conservativeish liberals like the Blue Dog Democrats, then I doubt it or at least in any meaningful way. If we're talking about moderate to the left leaning liberals, then it's possible to work with them.

Personally, I have liberal friends and colleagues, they are really nice people, they are a pain in the ass to talk about politics though.

Again, another amazingly ignorant post. You know nothing of Liberals, the term "liberal", or Democrats, let alone "Blue Dog Democrats".

Blue Dog Democrats are about as conservative as can be, and are Conservative Repukes in all but name only - they just haven't admitted it to themselves yet.

tanklv

16th January 2012, 05:30

Liberals are the biggest enemy against the working class. Even more than fascists.

Then you don't have a clue to what you are talking about.

Liberals, and liberalism is about as far from fascism as you can get.

tanklv

16th January 2012, 05:33

Because Liberals themselves include conservatives. You guys realize that Liberalism is the foundational basis for bourgeois thought, right? Conservatives, right wingers, etc. are all Liberals, too.

Again, stop with the ignorance!

Liberals and liberalism is the opposite of conservatives and conversativism.

You're just as bad as the repukes saying socialists are Nazi's/fascists because the Nazi's had "socialist" in their name.

Utterly astoundingly ignorant, your post is...

tanklv

16th January 2012, 05:36

Yes I know what it means in my country. The term liberal have a different meaning in different countries. In my country it is a term that we socialists throw at the right wing.

In Sweden a liberal is someone who like free markets and Thatcher, Reagan, Ron Paul, Friedman, Ayn Rand, Mises etc. Just a totally different political climate from the US...

WOW!!!

Thatcher, Raygun, Ron Paul, Ayn Rand?!!! These are all CONSERVATIVES - RADICAL CONSERVATIVES - the OPPOSITE of LIBERALS/LIBERALISM!!!

Liberals are anethema to all these and are similar as hot is to cold - in other words, not at all.

Liberals are more closely related to socialists and are on the left end of the political spectrum.

tanklv

16th January 2012, 05:55

Conservatives = classical liberals

liberal = right wing soc dem, Third Way

This is how it's mostly defined in the States

They all believe in liberalism though one way or another.

Liberals, especially of the progressive stripe can be our allies sometimes but throw us under the bus once they're redbaited by the right wing.

Also, at least conservatives make an attempt to understand the common man even while they're sticking it to them.

The typical mainstream liberal has nothing but contempt for the working class and just feels guilty that they're able to get ahead while others are left behind.

Liberals are the most annoying bunch of people in the United States political spectrum. They are just as bad as your average Northern European technocrat policy wonk that reads too much Economist and thinks everything government needs to follow a market model.

They're super trendy, only care about the latest fads in academia and business and apply it to government.

They think voting Democrat but interning at Morgan Stanley I-Banking or a useless management consulting firm makes them all that different from a right wing Republican out in Arkansas.

For our comrades across the pond think of Oliver Kamm, that insufferable British Euston Manifesto hedge fund manager that is so proud to be New Labour.

Key buzzwords; social entrepreneurship, microfinance, social responsibility, sustainability, creative capitalism, non-profit, NGO, etc.

Which proves you know nothing about Liberals.

This is NOT how they are defined, let alone in the US!!!

right wing soc dem, Third Way = CONSERVATIVES of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, not Liberals. You are confusing the Democratic Party with Liberals. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party in the US is compposed of all stripes, from very Conservative to Liberal and Socialist. The Conservatives and their mouthpieces are currently assendant and have almost taken over the party. The repukes (Republican Party) are just plain nut jobs and are Religious Fascists and Plutocrats - there are no "moderates" or "liberals" in the repukes. All of the sane "conservatives" have migrated to the Democratic Party. Again, not the same as "Liberals" - we don't have a "Liberal" party in the US anymore...

"The typical mainstream liberal has nothing but contempt for the working class and just feels guilty that they're able to get ahead while others are left behind."

You are confusing Liberals with Conservatives, again. Liberals fight for the working class, and ARE PART OF THAT WORKING CLASS!!!

Conservatives, who can be part of the same working class, are DUPES and believe they are simply temporarly unfortunate "millionaires in waiting". These people have contempt for unions, workers, and anyone else but them. They are also racists. They are like the Jews who the Nazi's got to help run the camps. They are traitors to their class. Liberals are not.

"They think voting Democrat but interning at Morgan Stanley I-Banking or a useless management consulting firm makes them all that different from a right wing Republican out in Arkansas."

Morgan Stanley/Bankers are all REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVES!!! None are Democrats, let alone "liberals". Again, you don't know what you're talking about.

Let me go at this again: Liberals are the OPPOSITE of Conservatives, and are closer to socialists while conservatives are closer to fascism. The are nothing at all alike and do not spring from the same origins. Good god...

GPDP

16th January 2012, 09:18

jesus christ man

wow

Jimmie Higgins

16th January 2012, 09:28

jesus christ man

wowOk, spit it out Costanza.:D

Geiseric

16th January 2012, 09:43

I don't even know why this is a topic, honestly. I thought we'd of been past this point...

Btw, Liberals and Fascists are all Capitalists, so there's no point throughout history when allying with either of them would have been acceptable.

dodger

16th January 2012, 09:59

What an amazing amount of bullshit in such a short space.

Liberals are definietly our FRIENDS.

Liberals brought about the end to slavery.
Liberals brought about Civil Rights.
Liverals broucht about Workers Rights, Uniions, 40 hour work week, Vacations, Weekends, & Health Care.

Environmental laws, Green legislation.

Most of the good you all take for granted are the result of LIBERALS and the things we all fought & died for.

And most Liberals grow into socialists.

Liberals as fascists? That's got to be the most ignorant thing I've read online in quite a while...

Yeah - guess Liberals are pretty bad...

At the risk of spreading more manure on to your fertile thread Tankly, might I suggest, you, do some further reading. Subjects that might benefit from deeper analysis: The ending of slavery, lets look at that and establish a connection with attitudes to workers at home. William Podmore makes reasoned argument. Liberalism indeed can be a very thin veneer indeed. Hence my use of the very old corny phrase "scratch a Liberal....fascist underneath".

"William Hague's recent biography of Wilberforce unsurprisingly paints a very pretty picture of the Tory MP from Yorkshire. But what is the historical context of Wilberforce's policies?

During the 18th century, Britain became the `honourable slave carriers' to the sugar planters of her rivals France and Spain, as the abolitionist the Reverend James Ramsay complained. He lamented that the slave trade "has contributed more to the aggrandisement of our rivals than of our national wealth."

Between 1782 and 1792, British slave traders doubled the slave population of France's colony St Domingue (present-day Haiti). St Domingue was more fertile than the British West Indies, whose soil was becoming exhausted. St Domingue's sugar cost a fifth less and its exports and profit rates were twice Jamaica's. By 1789, St Domingue's sugar production was a third more than that of all Britain's West Indies colonies. The sugar colonies were far more important to France than to Britain.

Prime Minister William Pitt raged that the slave trade, "instead of being very advantageous to Great Britain, is the most destructive that can well be imagined to her interests." Abolishing the slave trade would ruin St Domingue. So he urged his friend William Wilberforce to campaign against the slave trade: the abolitionist movement was created to serve the British state's interests.

The British ruling class's frenzied reaction to the French revolution of 1789 intensified the antagonism with France, as she became not just a rival but a political alternative. Pitt expected to win before Christmas, and he didn't mean Christmas 1815. Wilberforce shared, indeed often led, the British ruling class's hostility to the French revolution, and he supported the long wars against revolutionary France, sometimes voting for peace but always voting for supplies for the war.

In 1791, St Domingue's slave-owners offered to leave French rule and put themselves under British rule. In 1793, Pitt accepted their offer and agreed that they could keep their slaves. As Wilberforce noted in his diary, "Pitt threw out against slave motion on St. Domingo account." Suddenly, the slave trade was in `British interests' again. So Pitt blocked abolition for the next 14 years, and British slave ships clearing for Africa doubled.

When St Domingue's slaves rebelled against Pitt's betrayal, he sent hundreds of thousands of troops to try to crush them, in a disastrous and futile war. 50,000 British soldiers died, 50,000 were permanently invalided. When St Domingue's revolutionary government ended slavery, the British ruling class did not need the slave trade any more and so could abolish it in 1807.

In Britain, Wilberforce was the foremost apologist and champion of every act of tyranny, from the employment of Oliver the Spy and the illegal detention of poor prisoners in Coldbaths Fields jail to the Peterloo massacre. Wilberforce supported the 1794 Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, which let the government imprison people against whom it had no evidence at all. Habeas Corpus was suspended until 1802. Across Britain, trade union members, journalists and publishers were arrested and detained.

He backed the 1795 Act against Seditious Meetings and Assemblies, the 1795 Act against Treasonable and Seditious Practices, the 1797 Seduction from Duty and Allegiance Act, the 1797 Act against Administering Unlawful Oaths, the 1799 Newspaper Publications Act, and the 1799 Act for the More Effective Suppression of Societies Established for Seditious and Treasonable Purposes. Consequently, the state prevented meetings of the Literary Society of Manchester, the Academical Society of Oxford, and even of a mineralogical society, on the grounds that the study of mineralogy could lead to atheism. Wilberforce backed the Tory government's Six Acts of 1819, including the Blasphemous and Seditious Libel Act, known as the Gagging Act.

In 1794 Pitt's government prosecuted twelve members of the London Corresponding Society for high treason - their crime? Advocating universal suffrage. Wilberforce backed the prosecution, and when a jury acquitted the defendants, he backed the government's decision to arrest 65 leading members of the Society and imprison them without trial for two years. No wonder that it was said of Wilberforce, "he never favoured the liberty of any white man in all his life."

Wilberforce wrote that Christianity "renders the inequalities of the social scale less galling to the lower orders, whom also she instructs in their turn to be diligent, humble, patient: reminding them that their more lowly path has been allotted to them by the hand of God; that it is their part faithfully to discharge its duties, and contentedly to bear its inconveniences." William Cobbett called him the prince of hypocrites, who praised the benefits of poverty, from a comfortable distance.

The bishops and baronets of the Proclamation Society (as Wilberforce's Society for the Suppression of Vice was earlier called) prosecuted the impoverished publisher of Tom Paine's The Age of Reason. Sydney Smith called it "the Society for the Suppression of Vice among those with less than five hundred pounds a year." In 1801 and 1802, it launched 623 successful prosecutions for breaking the Sabbath laws. Pitt's government declared The Rights of Man seditious and prosecuted those who published and sold copies of Paine's book.

The government, with Wilberforce's support, imposed censorship, launching 42 prosecutions of publishers, editors and writers between 1809 and 1812. It became a criminal offence to write that the Prince of Wales was fat (he was), or to report that Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh had ordered the flogging of Irish peasants (he had).

Wilberforce also backed persecution of the whole working class. He proposed a general Combination Act, calling combinations - trade unions - `a general disease in our society'. The Pitt government's Acts of 1799 and 1800 were the severest of their kind ever enacted in Britain. They made all unions illegal as such, whether conspiracy, restraint of trade or the like could be proved against them or not. In theory, the Acts applied to employers as well as to workers, but workers were prosecuted by the thousand, never a single employer. In 1834, a year after the emancipation of the slaves, the penalty for trade union activity was still transportation for life.

But Pitt looked after the slave-owners; he introduced non-domicile tax status in 1799, so that those who had made their fortunes from slavery abroad paid no tax on their profits.

The abolitionist movement flourished when it backed the current interest of the British state - it made no gains when the British state opposed it. It was never able, or willing, to overrule the state. It did not challenge slavery itself: Wilberforce consistently opposed those who worked for the abolition of not just the slave trade but slavery as well. Wilberforce was about as independent as Sir Bob Geldorf.

In sum, as his biographer the last Lord Birkenhead wrote approvingly, Wilberforce "was a Tory through and through; he never shed the political ideas he had inherited from Pitt and his religion intensified his conservatism."

http://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=william%20podmore%20slavery&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Freview%2FR9YUJAA AE3LW8&ei=QBkUT72lB8bprAeDjY3sAQ&usg=AFQjCNHfWrvylhH_LsyNwl9sRQBeqA296A

http://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=william%20podmore%20slavery&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Freview%2FR2OESLL 9GEY8TP&ei=5ewTT-H-FcLprAf70vmYAg&usg=AFQjCNHPOpsbjigCdifhu5mmYgE_vaNGBA

http://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=william%20podmore%20slavery&source=web&cd=3&sqi=2&ved=0CC0QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2Freview%2FR1LIR R1ZZJEE15&ei=5ewTT-H-FcLprAf70vmYAg&usg=AFQjCNFY_AbO7ywjpbV1MZ55X9gvzi7qhg

Looking at the world from the bottom of my own little well. The attacks made on me were only parried by my own efforts and my fellow trade unionists. Liberals in these parts are very thin on the ground. In a two class society, liberals better employ their talents looking to their own defence, ensuring their own survival. Its getting pretty rough out here in the real world, liberals seem almost lost for words, these days. Small wonder the rest of us ignore them.

You say liberals are our friends, Tankly, splendid that warms the cockles of my heart. I do try to make a new friend every day. Liberal or not. Let.s not forget either ,slavery still flourishes or we all might change te phrase to "scratch a liberal and there is a fat, smug, self serving creepy bastard underneath"

Crux

16th January 2012, 11:47

Most of the good you all take for granted are the result of LIBERALS and the things we all fought & died for.

And you see no contradiction in this statement at all? Rights were not handed down by liberal politicians, they were fought and died for. The Liberal "friends of labor" are not really our friends, but then again I thought most people had learned this lesson some time in the late 1800's at least.

Rafiq

16th January 2012, 15:13

Again, stop with the ignorance!

Liberals and liberalism is the opposite of conservatives and conversativism.

You're just as bad as the repukes saying socialists are Nazi's/fascists because the Nazi's had "socialist" in their name.

Utterly astoundingly ignorant, your post is...

Go fuck yourself you incompident bafoon.

Conservatives want to preserve Bourgeois-Liberalism "apparently" while "progressive Liberals" wish to enhance it a tad bit.

They're both Liberalists, except conservatives are 100% economically Liberal while Liberals are 80% Socially Liberal. Get your facts straight before you reply to my posts, fucking newbie psuedo leftist. I hate all the Leftists who come on at first and start arguing with everyone when they don't know shit.

RadioRaheem84

16th January 2012, 15:27

Good god, tanklv has to be some sort of troll or an utterly ignorant liberal poster.

MarxShmarx, I really wanted to touch on your post.

It seems like you are denying that the liberal establishment and liberals in managerial positions are not somehow in their own class that is anthetical to anything we stand for?

When I think of conventional liberal I think of a technocrat, a third way positionist, an economist reading policy wonk, a banker or management consultant who votes Democrat, etc. People who like reform but fundamentally believe in institutional legitimacy.

The Young Pioneer

16th January 2012, 15:49

They are like the Jews who the Nazi's got to help run the camps. They are traitors to their class. Liberals are not.

Well, it's not a proper Revleft thread until someone's made an N-word reference!

dodger

16th January 2012, 16:09

fuck liberals, they look down on us, as if we are their naive, uninformed and immature little brothers/sisters.

Was that a prophecy.......or was that a prophecy????

I think that was a prophecy.....prophetic!!

ckaihatsu

16th January 2012, 17:49

Are liberals our friend or our enemy?

I personally think they are useless idiots who base 99% of their views on emotions and have no logic whatsoever. I've given up trying to talk some sense in to liberals because they're just so ignorant. But I want to hear your opinion too.

The back-of-the-mind connotation of 'liberal' is "progressive" -- as in 'civil rights' or 'forward-going' -- but it's easy to miss that now, when the liberal camp is in power, they have a vested interest in *not* being progressive, but rather in keeping things as they are, at the status quo.

So, while a more-rational political mind would point out the inconsistencies and lack-of-progress from the liberals, the liberals themselves have an interest in *deflecting* rational-minded inquiries into their actions. The only a-rational mindsets are those based in emotionalism, physicality, and/or petty personal-social intrigues (an extension of emotionalism).

The everyday liberal-in-the-street may just be parroting the liberal-establishment line-of-the-day, and so may be more open to a *rational* discussion of society and politics, but those with vested interests in power will use every trick in the book to avoid a concrete, incisive line of inquiry.

[14] Bloom's Taxonomy, Illustrated

http://postimage.org/image/1coz2ku10/

tanklv

17th January 2012, 01:27

At the risk of spreading more manure on to your fertile thread Tankly, might I suggest, you, do some further reading. Subjects that might benefit from deeper analysis: The ending of slavery, lets look at that and establish a connection with attitudes to workers at home. William Podmore makes reasoned argument. Liberalism indeed can be a very thin veneer indeed. Hence my use of the very old corny phrase "scratch a Liberal....fascist underneath".

"William Hague's recent biography of Wilberforce unsurprisingly paints a very pretty picture of the Tory MP from Yorkshire. But what is the historical context of Wilberforce's policies?

During the 18th century, Britain became the `honourable slave carriers' to the sugar planters of her rivals France and Spain, as the abolitionist the Reverend James Ramsay complained. He lamented that the slave trade "has contributed more to the aggrandisement of our rivals than of our national wealth."

Between 1782 and 1792, British slave traders doubled the slave population of France's colony St Domingue (present-day Haiti). St Domingue was more fertile than the British West Indies, whose soil was becoming exhausted. St Domingue's sugar cost a fifth less and its exports and profit rates were twice Jamaica's. By 1789, St Domingue's sugar production was a third more than that of all Britain's West Indies colonies. The sugar colonies were far more important to France than to Britain.

Prime Minister William Pitt raged that the slave trade, "instead of being very advantageous to Great Britain, is the most destructive that can well be imagined to her interests." Abolishing the slave trade would ruin St Domingue. So he urged his friend William Wilberforce to campaign against the slave trade: the abolitionist movement was created to serve the British state's interests.

The British ruling class's frenzied reaction to the French revolution of 1789 intensified the antagonism with France, as she became not just a rival but a political alternative. Pitt expected to win before Christmas, and he didn't mean Christmas 1815. Wilberforce shared, indeed often led, the British ruling class's hostility to the French revolution, and he supported the long wars against revolutionary France, sometimes voting for peace but always voting for supplies for the war.

In 1791, St Domingue's slave-owners offered to leave French rule and put themselves under British rule. In 1793, Pitt accepted their offer and agreed that they could keep their slaves. As Wilberforce noted in his diary, "Pitt threw out against slave motion on St. Domingo account." Suddenly, the slave trade was in `British interests' again. So Pitt blocked abolition for the next 14 years, and British slave ships clearing for Africa doubled.

When St Domingue's slaves rebelled against Pitt's betrayal, he sent hundreds of thousands of troops to try to crush them, in a disastrous and futile war. 50,000 British soldiers died, 50,000 were permanently invalided. When St Domingue's revolutionary government ended slavery, the British ruling class did not need the slave trade any more and so could abolish it in 1807.

In Britain, Wilberforce was the foremost apologist and champion of every act of tyranny, from the employment of Oliver the Spy and the illegal detention of poor prisoners in Coldbaths Fields jail to the Peterloo massacre. Wilberforce supported the 1794 Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, which let the government imprison people against whom it had no evidence at all. Habeas Corpus was suspended until 1802. Across Britain, trade union members, journalists and publishers were arrested and detained.

He backed the 1795 Act against Seditious Meetings and Assemblies, the 1795 Act against Treasonable and Seditious Practices, the 1797 Seduction from Duty and Allegiance Act, the 1797 Act against Administering Unlawful Oaths, the 1799 Newspaper Publications Act, and the 1799 Act for the More Effective Suppression of Societies Established for Seditious and Treasonable Purposes. Consequently, the state prevented meetings of the Literary Society of Manchester, the Academical Society of Oxford, and even of a mineralogical society, on the grounds that the study of mineralogy could lead to atheism. Wilberforce backed the Tory government's Six Acts of 1819, including the Blasphemous and Seditious Libel Act, known as the Gagging Act.

In 1794 Pitt's government prosecuted twelve members of the London Corresponding Society for high treason - their crime? Advocating universal suffrage. Wilberforce backed the prosecution, and when a jury acquitted the defendants, he backed the government's decision to arrest 65 leading members of the Society and imprison them without trial for two years. No wonder that it was said of Wilberforce, "he never favoured the liberty of any white man in all his life."

Wilberforce wrote that Christianity "renders the inequalities of the social scale less galling to the lower orders, whom also she instructs in their turn to be diligent, humble, patient: reminding them that their more lowly path has been allotted to them by the hand of God; that it is their part faithfully to discharge its duties, and contentedly to bear its inconveniences." William Cobbett called him the prince of hypocrites, who praised the benefits of poverty, from a comfortable distance.

The bishops and baronets of the Proclamation Society (as Wilberforce's Society for the Suppression of Vice was earlier called) prosecuted the impoverished publisher of Tom Paine's The Age of Reason. Sydney Smith called it "the Society for the Suppression of Vice among those with less than five hundred pounds a year." In 1801 and 1802, it launched 623 successful prosecutions for breaking the Sabbath laws. Pitt's government declared The Rights of Man seditious and prosecuted those who published and sold copies of Paine's book.

The government, with Wilberforce's support, imposed censorship, launching 42 prosecutions of publishers, editors and writers between 1809 and 1812. It became a criminal offence to write that the Prince of Wales was fat (he was), or to report that Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh had ordered the flogging of Irish peasants (he had).

Wilberforce also backed persecution of the whole working class. He proposed a general Combination Act, calling combinations - trade unions - `a general disease in our society'. The Pitt government's Acts of 1799 and 1800 were the severest of their kind ever enacted in Britain. They made all unions illegal as such, whether conspiracy, restraint of trade or the like could be proved against them or not. In theory, the Acts applied to employers as well as to workers, but workers were prosecuted by the thousand, never a single employer. In 1834, a year after the emancipation of the slaves, the penalty for trade union activity was still transportation for life.

But Pitt looked after the slave-owners; he introduced non-domicile tax status in 1799, so that those who had made their fortunes from slavery abroad paid no tax on their profits.

The abolitionist movement flourished when it backed the current interest of the British state - it made no gains when the British state opposed it. It was never able, or willing, to overrule the state. It did not challenge slavery itself: Wilberforce consistently opposed those who worked for the abolition of not just the slave trade but slavery as well. Wilberforce was about as independent as Sir Bob Geldorf.

In sum, as his biographer the last Lord Birkenhead wrote approvingly, Wilberforce "was a Tory through and through; he never shed the political ideas he had inherited from Pitt and his religion intensified his conservatism."

http://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=william%20podmore%20slavery&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Freview%2FR9YUJAA AE3LW8&ei=QBkUT72lB8bprAeDjY3sAQ&usg=AFQjCNHfWrvylhH_LsyNwl9sRQBeqA296A

http://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=william%20podmore%20slavery&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Freview%2FR2OESLL 9GEY8TP&ei=5ewTT-H-FcLprAf70vmYAg&usg=AFQjCNHPOpsbjigCdifhu5mmYgE_vaNGBA

http://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=william%20podmore%20slavery&source=web&cd=3&sqi=2&ved=0CC0QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2Freview%2FR1LIR R1ZZJEE15&ei=5ewTT-H-FcLprAf70vmYAg&usg=AFQjCNFY_AbO7ywjpbV1MZ55X9gvzi7qhg

Looking at the world from the bottom of my own little well. The attacks made on me were only parried by my own efforts and my fellow trade unionists. Liberals in these parts are very thin on the ground. In a two class society, liberals better employ their talents looking to their own defence, ensuring their own survival. Its getting pretty rough out here in the real world, liberals seem almost lost for words, these days. Small wonder the rest of us ignore them.

You say liberals are our friends, Tankly, splendid that warms the cockles of my heart. I do try to make a new friend every day. Liberal or not. Let.s not forget either ,slavery still flourishes or we all might change te phrase to "scratch a liberal and there is a fat, smug, self serving creepy bastard underneath"

You can be excused - you're talking about British "liberalism" - I'm talking about American Liberalism - completely different, aparently.

Crux

17th January 2012, 01:30

You can be excused - you're talking about British "liberalism" - I'm talking about American Liberalism - completely different, aparently.
Not completly, no. I think you have some learning to do still.

tanklv

17th January 2012, 01:30

And you see no contradiction in this statement at all? Rights were not handed down by liberal politicians, they were fought and died for. The Liberal "friends of labor" are not really our friends, but then again I thought most people had learned this lesson some time in the late 1800's at least.

Again - you don't include reading comprehension among your assets, either.

I never said Liberals "handed down" any rights whatsoever. We/they FOUGHT FOR THOSE RIGHTS. Conservatives fought AGAINST those rights.

Nice use of a strawman, tho...

Crux

17th January 2012, 01:35

Again - you don't include reading comprehension among your assets, either.

I never said Liberals "handed down" any rights whatsoever. We/they FOUGHT FOR THOSE RIGHTS. Conservatives fought AGAINST those rights.

Nice use of a strawman, tho...
See that's just not how it works. You might well be a liberal, I sure as fuck am not. Allow me to express myself in song, since you've technically already have had it explained to you but still you can't seem to gett off that high horse of yours.

bLqKXrlD1TU

tanklv

17th January 2012, 01:37

And you see no contradiction in this statement at all? Rights were not handed down by liberal politicians, they were fought and died for. The Liberal "friends of labor" are not really our friends, but then again I thought most people had learned this lesson some time in the late 1800's at least.

Where did I say it was "handed down" - I said it is Liberals who fought FOR and gained the end of slavery and workers rights. That is a FACT.

Sorry if you can't see it.

Crux

17th January 2012, 01:41

Where did I say it was "handed down" - I said it is Liberals who fought FOR and gained the end of slavery and workers rights. That is a FACT.

Sorry if you can't see it.
I can't see it because it is not, you know, true. "Liberals ended slavery"? That's rich. And again the point of what I said apprently flew way over your head. The liberal "friends of labour" was not the main cause of worker's rights. Id' be happy to discuss it with you, and perhaps explain it to you further, but you seem a bit too full of yourself.

tanklv

17th January 2012, 01:42

Go fuck yourself you incompident bafoon.

Conservatives want to preserve Bourgeois-Liberalism "apparently" while "progressive Liberals" wish to enhance it a tad bit.

They're both Liberalists, except conservatives are 100% economically Liberal while Liberals are 80% Socially Liberal. Get your facts straight before you reply to my posts, fucking newbie psuedo leftist. I hate all the Leftists who come on at first and start arguing with everyone when they don't know shit.

Wow - you ignorant fucking asshole yourself!!

You don't know what the fuck you're spewing.

I'm not talking about "liberalists' or whateverthefuck you're term even means. I'm talking about "liberalism" versus "conservativism". They are OPPOSITES. Sure, none are communist, but liberals are a lot closer than conservatives.

I hate pseudo leftists who have no idea what they're talking about when they PROVE they don't know shit.

Take some time to LEARN FACTS. What I wrote is the FACTS. Too bad if you and the others are too IGNORANT to actually research it for yourself, instead of munching cheetos in your parents basement between classes...

tanklv

17th January 2012, 01:46

Not completly, no. I think you have some learning to do still.

Then you know NOTHING about American politics, or the american political spectrum.

No wonder people like you will never get ANYWHERE in the US and people look at you like a JOKE!

Way to spread socialilsm...

Ostrinski

17th January 2012, 01:47

I'm talking about "liberalism" versus "conservativism". They are OPPOSITES.No, they're not.

What I wrote is the FACTS.No.

tanklv

17th January 2012, 01:50

fuck liberals, they look down on us, as if we are their naive, uninformed and immature little brothers/sisters.

Well - to see the concepts many of you have are to what constitutes a Liberal or Conservative, or what is Liberalism or Conservativeism, I can certainly see why.

And it's mainly because you don't have a clue as to the subject matter at hand.

tanklv

17th January 2012, 01:52

No, they're not.

No.

Yes - yes they ARE!

Which proves you no nothing of the subject.

Ostrinski

17th January 2012, 02:03

Liberalism:Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis)[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism#cite_note-0) is the belief in the importance of liberty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty) and equal rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_rights).[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism#cite_note-1) Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutionalism), liberal democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy), free and fair elections (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election#Difficulties_with_elections), human rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights), capitalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism), and freedom of religion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion).[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism#cite_note-Kathleen_G._Donohue-2)[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism#cite_note-The_Economist-3)[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism#cite_note-Sheldon_S._Wolin-4)[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism#cite_note-Edwin_Brown_Firmage.2C_Bernard_G._Weiss.2C_John_Wo odland_Welch-5)[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism#cite_note-John_Joseph_Lalor-6) These ideas are widely accepted, even by political groups that do not openly profess a liberal ideological orientation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum).I rest my case.

RadioRaheem84

17th January 2012, 02:05

You guys have done enough to state your case, the new poster is just trolling at this point.

Liberals never did shit except try to moderate the radical appeals from the masses.

Ostrinski

17th January 2012, 02:18

Well, the Age of Enlightenment did give us the American, French, and Glorious revolutions and all the other things listed above - none of which are relevant to the proletariat in any practical sense now. And we all know the role that the progressive liberal social programs played in pacifying the the afflicted so that goes without discussion. If we are to be pragmatic, liberalism and all of its ideological trends are useless to us now.

dodger

17th January 2012, 03:00

You can be excused - you're talking about British "liberalism" - I'm talking about American Liberalism - completely different, aparently.

I THANK YOU TANKLV---Most gracious, indeed.

MarxSchmarx

17th January 2012, 04:14

I live in the Bay Area and there is a grain of truth in the general "liberal elitist bogyman" the the right-wing talks about. And frankly when dealing with some of these folks there is a little voice in my head that says, "wow, are they worse than fascists - no, but they are quite obnoxious". They are really self-important and individualistic and moralistic and sometimes even patronizingly racist. They are the "why doesn't everyone buy solar panels for their house, am I the ONLY one who cares about the environment!" type people and I can understand why the right-wing has found some traction in misdirecting some class anger towards this caricature.

So I don't know, there are sort of different parts of liberal politics that appeal to people of different economic strata (not necessarily class because two different workers might like different aspects of liberalism based on regional or cultural or wage-level or racial factors). So, for example, probably the vast majority of black voters in the US support liberal politicians - if they are working poor and black are they being attracted by the "green economy rhetoric" or "not buying so many things" rhetoric - probably not, they are probably attracted to liberal politicians by promises of a better deal economically and in regards to racial justice. Not that working poor blacks or whites aren't intertested in the environment - just that the way liberal environmentalism is presented probably sounds pretty hollow to people who can't afford Priuses and don't have the excess in the first place to even be in a place to worry about their "carbon footprint".

Edit: maybe it isn't liberalism of bay area yuppies that I despise on a gut level, maybe it is just that they tend to be self-absorbed elitist assholes.

Anyway, that's just a long-winded way to say that I think there's a ounce of truth in this charature of liberals. But what I think you are totally correct about is the "real amuricun" archie-bunker staw-man. So I think while there are very real liberals who are elitist assholes (and these are the influential ones anyway - same with conservatives), but then again tons of regular workers and rural people identify with what they consider to be "liberal ideals". In fact when you go issue by issue in the US the population supports "liberal" things like healthcare, are opposed to the wars, want racial justice, and so on even when they don't consider themselves to be liberals.

I think you bring up a really interesting contrast here - which is, let's suppose there are basically two types of "liberals" at least in places like the United States. On the one hand, you have the elitist fools and on the other hand you have the "regular workers and rural people (who) identify with what they consider to be 'liberal ideals'". I agree, it's likely (in fact, likely necessary) that the latter outnumber the former. But it is the former that is almost invariably envisioned in regular leftist discourse. Why is this? Although to some extent there's a part of me that thinks the Bay Area is the exception that proves the rule, the perspective you have is not unique - indeed, leftists in everywhere from Nevada to the Netherlands are likely to have some vision of the smug solar panel enthusiast you describe in mind when they think of "liberal", rather than, say, a school teacher or a social worker who is leftist but doesn't see politics as center stage in their lives and therefore is to some extent merely ambivalent about frankly abstract things like "constitutional democracy" and "market economies".

ps it's also worth pointing out that there are elitist asswipes on the right; actually, probably more. Anecdotally, I personally know several Americans who swear by mac products, brag about their love of sushi, and drone about frequent French vacations but also incessantly parrot the worst of right-wing drivel. Laura Bush famously went on and on about how her movie-set ranch in Texas was doing its part for fostering native grasses and Rush Limbaugh is known to be a big fan of continental wines. It's a sign just how powerful the right-wing "volk" meme is that we as leftists would be inclined to see them as "liberals" if we didn't know anything more about them.

MarxShmarx, I really wanted to touch on your post.

It seems like you are denying that the liberal establishment and liberals in managerial positions are not somehow in their own class that is anthetical to anything we stand for?

When I think of conventional liberal I think of a technocrat, a third way positionist, an economist reading policy wonk, a banker or management consultant who votes Democrat, etc. People who like reform but fundamentally believe in institutional legitimacy.
A large part of being a liberal is the political positions one takes.

I venture, although I have no facts to back it up, that what you describe is a (major) component of the prevailing view of a "liberal" but not the exclusive one, at least as that term is used in the broader, day-to-day leftist discourse.

There is a distinct coordinator class, to be sure, and one tends to think there is a distinct political and economic interest of this class that nevertheless aligns generally with expansive central power. Moreover, that class's interests have generally been well served by an alliance with the working class. But for these reasons alone, I think it useful to discuss structural motivations for the managerial/bureaucratic class pursuing their agenda electorally somewhat independently of how we discuss liberals.

For what do you make of, for example, a substitute teacher whose passion is to be a big name pop star but votes Democratic and is otherwise largely disengaged from serious politics? Or a pencil-pusher at a government office who spends their time reading Christian inspirational drivel instead of Marx but is generally anti-war, "pro-environment" "pro education" supportive of welfare, etc...? I think most leftists would go out on a limb and call such people "liberal". Still, despite "liberal" being more about the positions people take politically, "liberals" have, I contend, become very often conflated with the more visceral dislike of "liberal culture" that is remarkably, and perhaps frighteningly, akin to the conservative dislike of "liberal culture".

ed miliband

17th January 2012, 18:57

Whatever people think about liberals, I hate this 'oh, we're all left-wing, we all want the same thing really, lets be friends [or allies]' shit. No.

Rafiq

17th January 2012, 23:07

I'm not talking about "liberalists' or whateverthefuck you're term even means. I'm talking about "liberalism" versus "conservativism". They are OPPOSITES.

As if I don't know what your dumb-ass is trying to say. Listen, you shit head, the whole American "Liberal vs. Conservative" limbo you got going on is a complete fallacy. They aren't opposites, they're both right next to each other on the Bourgeois political spectrum, at that. Perhaps a fuckwit like yourself would believe them to be opposites, considering you know absolutely nothing about radical politics.

Sure, none are communist, but liberals are a lot closer than conservatives.

no, they aren't. We don't oppose them for their ideological views, we oppose them for representing the political interests of the bourgeoisie.

Actually, one could argue that liberals pose more of a threat toward a proletarian revolution than conservatives, considering the Bourgeoisie makes it seem (and you, the idiot buys into their shit) that they are the "Progressive" political force.

I hate pseudo leftists who have no idea what they're talking about when they PROVE they don't know shit.

I think you're a troll, actually.

Take some time to LEARN FACTS. What I wrote is the FACTS. Too bad if you and the others are too IGNORANT to actually research it for yourself, instead of munching cheetos in your parents basement between classes...

Jesus Christ I kind of feel sorry for you...

dodger

18th January 2012, 05:09

Liberals, yer gotta pity them rather than be provoked to anger. Delusional, in deluding themselves they set about deluding others with gusto. Only truly dangerous to themselves, they can become a mild irritant, with a little bit of power. Truly a pain with more power. The answer is staring us in the face, take responsibility. I don't know where these latterday busybodies find the time to set themselves up to instruct us. If they are paid, then the professions or jobs they have should be scrutinized brought under our control. We must decide what is good for us, what we need and act upon it. We must do it with haste, because I don't know what comes after a trillion. Can anyone enlighten me?

Tim Finnegan

21st January 2012, 00:59

Whatever people think about liberals, I hate this 'oh, we're all left-wing, we all want the same thing really, lets be friends [or allies]' shit. No.
And yet if you say that about MLs, your sectarian. Go figure. http://www.v-strom.co.uk/phpBB3/images/smilies/smiley_shrug.gif

Lucretia

21st January 2012, 19:13

As if I don't know what your dumb-ass is trying to say. Listen, you shit head, the whole American "Liberal vs. Conservative" limbo you got going on is a complete fallacy. They aren't opposites, they're both right next to each other on the Bourgeois political spectrum, at that. Perhaps a fuckwit like yourself would believe them to be opposites, considering you know absolutely nothing about radical politics.

no, they aren't. We don't oppose them for their ideological views, we oppose them for representing the political interests of the bourgeoisie.

Actually, one could argue that liberals pose more of a threat toward a proletarian revolution than conservatives, considering the Bourgeoisie makes it seem (and you, the idiot buys into their shit) that they are the "Progressive" political force.

I think you're a troll, actually.

Jesus Christ I kind of feel sorry for you...

tanklv is a self-professed liberal. (For evidence, look at his post history.) The only real mystery is why he hasn't been restricted to OI yet.

ed miliband

21st January 2012, 19:18

And yet if you say that about MLs, your sectarian. Go figure. http://www.v-strom.co.uk/phpBB3/images/smilies/smiley_shrug.gif

I mean it about most, if not all, of the "the left".

Rafiq

22nd January 2012, 18:21

tanklv is a self-professed liberal. (For evidence, look at his post history.) The only real mystery is why he hasn't been restricted to OI yet.

I've notified an admin regarding Tanklv.... No reply.

Shotgun Opera

23rd January 2012, 10:06

It depends entirely.

Yes there are liberals that simply do not have the stomach to stand fast and dont really know what it means to fight for what you believe in. They care...so long as that caring doesnt extend past a few bucks to NPR every month. In their heart of hearts, they're generally not terrible human beings, I dispute the "there's a fascist underneath every liberal" statement.

However, as has been pointed out, there are many that genuinely do want to do the right thing and who do want to help others, they've just never been handed something as powerful as Socialism. They'll agree with virtually everything we say...until we call it Socialism or Communism. These people are the ones we need to focus on. If we can convince them that they want the same things we do, we're just less afraid to hide our beliefs, then I think we have a real chance of swelling our ranks.

Also I think to a certain extent that many liberals are people who traditional Socialist or Communist thought is simply lost. Marx was written generations ago and they dont see how it translates to today, their only experience with Communists or Socialists is looking at China or Russia or Cuba. They've probably never sat down with someone wearing red and had a real conversation with them.

I think we need to be friendly with liberals until we find out if they're kindred spirits who just need a little kick in the ideological ass to get them out on the lines or if they're in it for the feel-good and cant see past their own self-interest.

We of all people should try avoid being elitist.

ckaihatsu

25th January 2012, 03:48

MarxSchmarx

26th January 2012, 03:31

In line with the whole 'identity politics' mentality liberals both wield and succumb-to the "logic" of cultural-demographics-type thinking. Relative to nationalistic jingoism this *would* be socially progressive, and empowering for cultural subgroups overshadowed by the cultural-imperialist mainstream, but our society *should* have progressed beyond clique-mindedness and "playground politics" *by now*, to arrive at a social-material *collective labor* consciousness and international working-class mass empowerment.

[3] Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals

http://postimage.org/image/34modgv1g/

Really? At the core of liberalism, at least as it exists in the Anglo-Saxon countries, is that the individual should be able to transcend such limitations. Thus issues of racial justice, for example, are invariably framed in terms of "opportunity", as if it is any more acceptable that the ruling class consist of a proportionate mixture of aboriginals, colonists, immigrants, and ex-slaves but hold 90% of the world's wealth in their hands.

These kinds of "cultural-demographics-type thinking" have a resonance, sure, but I doubt they are much of what motivates liberals. I think liberals are more concerned with how systems oppress individuals. On some level, I think this is what makes them receptive to leftist perspectives of man as a species-being. For example, I think our analysis of alienation resonates profoundly with most social democrats and liberals, but I doubt it will resonate among "cultural-demographics" types.

A more collectivist approach to "cultural demographics" might have some zinger of truth in places like Taiwan and Latin America where the liberals reject both individualistic solutions (esp. "education") for aboriginal rights as well as assimilation. But if you look at the embrace of disability laws throughout the EU and Japan (not to mention the anglo-saxon countries) for example, you see much of the discourse even by liberals is in the form of "empower individuals" rather than disadvantaged groups.

Drosophila

26th January 2012, 03:41

Liberals are the biggest enemy against the working class. Even more than fascists.

Please explain this further.

Capitalist Octopus

26th January 2012, 05:10

Enemies because they tend to think of themselves as the furthest left that any sane person can go. They see anyone to the left of them as nutjobs, utopians, etc, and thus try to de-legitimize the rev left which only serves to uphold the capitalist bourgeois structure in society.

ckaihatsu

26th January 2012, 06:55

Really? At the core of liberalism, at least as it exists in the Anglo-Saxon countries, is that the individual should be able to transcend such limitations.

Okay, good observation.

Thus issues of racial justice, for example, are invariably framed in terms of "opportunity", as if it is any more acceptable that the ruling class consist of a proportionate mixture of aboriginals, colonists, immigrants, and ex-slaves but hold 90% of the world's wealth in their hands.

Right -- the "dark side" of multiculturalism, in that it is cross-class-collaborationist.

These kinds of "cultural-demographics-type thinking" have a resonance, sure, but I doubt they are much of what motivates liberals.

I mention it not to claim that it's what *motivates* them, but rather to posit it as an upper-boundary, or "ceiling" of their *consciousness*. Allow me to include another graphic -- the 'regional culture' level in the diagram attached below may be seen as their "ceiling", with all levels above it either being beyond their comprehension or else unsoundly incorporated into their politics.

I think liberals are more concerned with how systems oppress individuals.

Okay -- again, the politics of 'multiculturalism', or the total relativity and equanimity of narratives, in lieu of a sound political theory of oppression that roots it in the exploitation of the working class.

On some level, I think this is what makes them receptive to leftist perspectives of man as a species-being. For example, I think our analysis of alienation resonates profoundly with most social democrats and liberals, but I doubt it will resonate among "cultural-demographics" types.

Sorry, this part is unclear to me -- I don't understand the distinction you're making.

A more collectivist approach to "cultural demographics" might have some zinger of truth in places like Taiwan and Latin America where the liberals reject both individualistic solutions (esp. "education") for aboriginal rights as well as assimilation.

Okay -- makes sense. (*Taiwan*, though -- ??? Really?)

But if you look at the embrace of disability laws throughout the EU and Japan (not to mention the anglo-saxon countries) for example, you see much of the discourse even by liberals is in the form of "empower individuals" rather than disadvantaged groups.

Right -- Western-type thinking manifesting as single-issue reformism....

[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

http://postimage.org/image/34mjeutk4/

ckaihatsu

26th January 2012, 07:09

Liberals are the biggest enemy against the working class. Even more than fascists.

Please explain this further.

Just because they're much closer "neighbors" on the political spectrum and so one would be more likely to let down their guard around them than around a more-obvious political threat, as from a fascist.

the last donut of the night

26th January 2012, 15:13

i would kill for a genuine conservative party in the us. america becoming a consitutional monarchy would be hilarious.

only if i could be high priest

the last donut of the night

26th January 2012, 15:24

oh god this is delicious trolling unseen for a long time on the revleft archives

ijrjrnz

29th January 2012, 01:04

Some liberals have been responsible for really good policies. It is wrong to paint all liberals with the same brush.

ckaihatsu

29th January 2012, 02:48

It is wrong to paint all liberals with the same brush.

That brush *was* just dipped in hot tar, though, right -- ???

x D

>8 |

= )