The Radical Left has Lost The Future?

[Avanti]

the radical left has lost the future

it lost it in the 1970s

the 1968 student and hippie movements turned into the dying grasps of the left

since the late 1970s

the right has owned the future

in the beginning of the 20th century

you couldn't be cool and be right-wing

at the same time

nowadays

the political right owns all cool memes

horror films

guns

militia movements

radicalism

islamic fundamentalists are the fastest growing ideology on the planet

in europe

nationalism is spreading like a wildfire

nationalist rock like sabaton and eluveitie is even mainstream today

most science fiction is right-wing

radical outlets tend to go to right-wing conspiracy theories

chemtrails

new world order

radical marxism-controlled united nations

black helicopters

that's cool stuff

and what does the left got

"analysis of gender & power relations"

"ableism in argentina, 5th volume"

"feminist intersectionality interpreted through post-modernist glasses"

"democratic participation in indigenous councils"

"politically correct sex positions"

"committee for the defence of the welfare state"

the only radical leftists with an attractive imagery today are the green anarchists and the anarcho-primitivists

the black bloc was amazing,

but is a shadow of its former self

failed to develop a compelling mythology

i remember the old-time veterans from the 1990s.

their siblings and small cousins today are nationalists and listen to sabaton instead of ratm

in school elections, the fascist parties together get 15% of the votes.

the growing generations are lost for left-wing imagery

instead, they interpret the world through right-wing lenses

because right-wing lenses are far cooler

the radical left

must find a way

to attract more angry young males

icanhazclasswar?

and

anarchocommunaltoad

are probably moving in the right direction

we can develop the frog imagery

that can be a new beginning

[DVRA]

I'm not particularly bummed about the death of the left because "revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily, but that everywhere and at all times they have been the necessary outcome of circumstances entirely independent of the will and the leadership of particular parties and entire classes." (Engels)

[GoddessCleoLover]

Leftists can regain the future, but I don't see appealing to the angry white male demographic as the way to it. To my mind, we ought to have a universal appeal to female and male proletarians of all races and ethnicities, based upon smashing the bourgeois state in favor democratic working class rule. We ought to specifically disown the failed dictatorial models of 20th century revolutions and proclaim the 21st century to be the century of proletarian revolutions that empower the proletariat, not some particular singular "vanguard" party.

[Avanti]

Leftists can regain the future, but I don't see appealing to the angry white male demographic as the way to it. To my mind, we ought to have a universal appeal to female and male proletarians of all races and ethnicities, based upon smashing the bourgeois state in favor democratic working class rule. We ought to specifically disown the failed dictatorial models of 20th century revolutions and proclaim the 21st century to be the century of proletarian revolutions that empower the proletariat, not some particular singular "vanguard" party.

i don't see that happening

not only white males are angry

non-white males in white countries

(such as myself)

are also angry

but the left requires so much of an attention span

it is much cooler

to run around tagging neighborhoods

skating

playing with paintball guns

also, the pendulum is switching to the right

do we have anything

that can compete

with militia outfits

crusader aesthetics

black helicopters

sabaton?

[GoddessCleoLover]

The aesthetics of the revolutionary left are also valid. Perhaps we cannot compete in terms of the coolest uniform, but the Fascist and Nazis fell into oblivion despite their aesthetic appeal. The Left can prevail if we disown the sectarianism and dictatorialism that plagued our movement in the 20th century. At the end of the day, the people will realize that the Right has no substance, merely style, and if the Left rectifies its dogmatism we will be in a position to prevail.

[Avanti]

the most important thing

is that

your ideology

is cool

not that it is theoretically correct

the only reason

why academic leftists love the term

"democratic worker's committees"

is because

they think academic language is cool

poor things

[Avanti]

The aesthetics of the revolutionary left are also valid. Perhaps we cannot compete in terms of the coolest uniform, but the Fascist and Nazis fell into oblivion despite their aesthetic appeal. The Left can prevail if we disown the sectarianism and dictatorialism that plagued our movement in the 20th century. At the end of the day, the people will realize that the Right has no substance, merely style, and if the Left rectifies its dogmatism we will be in a position to prevail.

the fascists stole their style from parts of the left

but revolutionary left aesthetics are over

only within anarchism

is there some embryo to some cool left-wing aesthetics

my idea

is to combine

anarcho-primitivism

with

cybergoth/cyberpunk

that would take it

to the next level

we can never move backward

only forward

even if we must fall

[the Left™]

psychedelic frogs are the symbolism of the new revolutionary left:tt1::tt1:

[Astarte]

Avanti, for a long time now in this forum I have proposed a notion that a kind of mysticism or quasi-mysticism needs to be re-injected into the left, essentially for the same reasons of combating "leftist-sterility" as you are mentioning - I think the very fast popularity of your prophetic/shamanistic presentation and approach, and the popularity of your persona itself proves the viability of this tactic ... what is your personal opinion of mysticism, by the way?

As for this Toad symbolism ... it is simply appealing to an animal archetype, which may work, but has been done before in other forms, like the "My little Pony" communist fad that was going on, and another previous disaster ... I am not sure it is novel enough ... perhaps if you consciously tried to make a link like the below:

What would the Toad be? It is the Salamander from which issues the burning fire of renewed wisdom which fuels the forge of the new society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander_(legendary_creature)

[Avanti]

i will probably start a thread

about mysticism soon

in my neo-anarchist group

there are a few interesting discussion topics there

shortly speaking

the amphibians are stealthy

and moving between water and land

they are flexible

what i've found a lot more interesting

than any topics here

is what avatars people are using

i love the avatar

of the poster

above you

astarte

[hetz]

not only white males are angry

non-white males in white countries

(such as myself) Didn't you say you were a woman?

[Avanti]

Didn't you say you were a woman?

i can move between the genders

like the god Loki

but i do have a cock

even if i some days

see myself as female

i can decide to change

my mental gender

like a chameleon changes colour

and i can be very feminine

i always use make-up

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

If the radical left has lost the future, it is because it has failed to make itself relevant to the on-going concerns of the proletariat. Look at the Golden Dawn in Greece - part of their popularity at the least can be attributed to their provision of soup kitchens. While such things are not the answer to the capitalist crisis, it does in the short term provide credibility to claims of being able to provide a lasting solution. I've not heard of KKE or Syriza doing anything similar.

That's not to say that good work along those lines is not being done, in Greece or elsewhere in the world - in New York, the Occupy movement has been involved in efforts to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. But I suspect the larger portion of the radical left is currently too busy fighting sectarian battles, and those that aren't are not big enough to make a significant difference.

We need a mass movement, it doesn't have to be all one party or organisation, it could be a network of networks, but the important thing is that it is on some level coordinated on a global scale. At the moment it seems to me that settling the ideological differences among the radical left is less important than getting working people to realise en mass that another world is possible in the first instance. Building a new kind of society is going to be a cross-generational project even in the most ideal of circumstances and it seems to me that arguing over the shape of that society is akin to arguing over the deckchair arrangements of a cruise ship that is nothing more than a set of blueprints at the moment. Just as we need to acquire sufficient steel to build a modern ship, so do we need to acquire sufficient participation to build a modern society.

My two pence.

[Avanti]

settling ideological differences

is going to produce

a bland movement

which would become

reformist

and then dozens of small cults will bloom

it is better

to increase ideological differences

evolution moves to greater diversity

what we need

is to activate people

golden dawn began

by appealing to angry young males

seeking a direction in life

we need to

come to the point

where we can afford

bribing people with soup kitchens

we aren't there yet

i have given you everything you need

appealling aesthetics

a future vision

a new political language

which is way superior

than anything

the left has produced

since the 1970s

if you want to be successful

or defeat neo-anarchism

you have to become neo-anarchists

in your language

[GoddessCleoLover]

Seriously, Avanti, are you sure that the Golden Dawn is so rooted in the disaffected youth? Greek comrades report that GD has deep roots within the Greek police. From what I have seen on Youtube and elsewhere, GD goons seem more middle-aged than youthful.

[Avanti]

Seriously, Avanti, are you sure that the Golden Dawn is so rooted in the disaffected youth? Greek comrades report that GD has deep roots within the Greek police. From what I have seen on Youtube and elsewhere, GD goons seem more middle-aged than youthful.

most of them

were young skinheads

in the 1980s

saying that

elsewhere in europe

fascist and conservative ranks are swelling

with kids born in the 1990s

[GoddessCleoLover]

That is terrible news, indeed. I would imagine that most of these reactionary youth are children of the petit-bourgeoisie attempting to maintain their parents' standard of living in the face of the economic crisis and austerity. Nonetheless, that is a bitter pill to swallow. Perhaps we can turn brown to red, but I have always been skeptical of that notion, since petit-bourgeois youth drawn to fascism make poor candidates to join a proletarian movement.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

what we need

is to activate people

golden dawn began

by appealing to angry young males

seeking a direction in life

we need to

come to the point

where we can afford

bribing people with soup kitchens

It's not bribery if one expects nothing in return. Any charitable overtures we make must be sincere or else we risk losing credibility or going down the path of cultism.


we aren't there yet

i have given you everything you need

appealling aesthetics

a future vision

a new political language

which is way superior

than anything

the left has produced

since the 1970s

Actually the stuff you've been giving us is more likely to induce apathy and subculturalism rather than a mass movement, I would say. A Mad Max/Escape From New York-style world is a Hobbesian one where it's everyone for themselves, sink or swim. That's what dystopian nightmares are made of, not new and more humane forms of society. The latter is what you actually want, right?


if you want to be successful

or defeat neo-anarchism

you have to become neo-anarchists

in your language

I don't accept your prognostications of the future as written in stone; indeed, you have yet to demonstrate that capitalism will survive its own contradictions long enough for what you believe will come to pass.

[Avanti]

It's not bribery if one expects nothing in return. Any charitable overtures we make must be sincere or else we risk losing credibility or going down the path of cultism.

individually

it is bribery

collectively

we expect

that some

of those whom we help

would join us


Actually the stuff you've been giving us is more likely to induce apathy and subculturalism rather than a mass movement, I would say. A Mad Max/Escape From New York-style world is a Hobbesian one where it's everyone for themselves, sink or swim. That's what dystopian nightmares are made of, not new and more humane forms of society. The latter is what you actually want, right?

i have given you the tools

to survive and prosper

in a ruthless cyberpunk world

capitalism

will morph again

it always does

self-contradictions

are not destroying capitalism

but ensuring

it will continue on

in the long-term

it will die

but everything dies

human life is a self-contradiction

the sun is a self-contradiction

the universe is a self-contradiction

self-contradictions are meaning entropy

and entropy means a conflict

between chaos and order

dark and light

evil and good

and all existence thrives

in the zone between the conflicting forces

we are on the edge

and we should always be on the edge

a system without self-contradictions

would be a dead system

but we all long for an end of the self-contradictions

subconsciously

because our quantum awareness

is reminded of the time

when you and me were the same awareness

[Avanti]

That is terrible news, indeed. I would imagine that most of these reactionary youth are children of the petit-bourgeoisie attempting to maintain their parents' standard of living in the face of the economic crisis and austerity. Nonetheless, that is a bitter pill to swallow. Perhaps we can turn brown to red, but I have always been skeptical of that notion, since petit-bourgeois youth drawn to fascism make poor candidates to join a proletarian movement.

in all of northern europe it's like this now

rich and upper-middle class white children are drawn to the academic left

these kids are then overtaking the activist left groups

some working class white and brown children are drawn to the activist left

middle class and working class white children are drawn towards conservatism and fascism

underclass white children are drawn to nazism

middle class and working class brown children are drawn to either social democracy or islamism

underclass brown children are drawn to islamism or gangsterism

that's how it is here anyway

then there are smaller

insignificant ideologies

libertarianism... etc

that's how it is here anyway

[GoddessCleoLover]

I can only hope that the fascist tide fails to reach critical mass and that the left resurges when the masses see that conservatism and fascism will do nothing to help the people, rather than feed them bullshit about the glory of the nation/race.

[Avanti]

I can only hope that the fascist tide fails to reach critical mass and that the left resurges when the masses see that conservatism and fascism will do nothing to help the people, rather than feed them bullshit about the glory of the nation/race.

the left

must self-destroy

and get a new style

before

being able to gain support

and the masses are not important

the only ones that are important

are those

who are willing to use violence

how many typical westerners?

you estimate

would be ready to die

for their beliefs?

that's why

the youth is the most important part

retirees would never lead a revolution

even if they are the majority

[GoddessCleoLover]

The left has engaged in plenty of self-destruction since the Second International betrayed the working class in 1914.

While I agree that revolutionary youth can play a critical role when push comes to shove, it may be an error to focus too much on the youth. Social class is still the more important factor. After all, you have posted about the current fascist trend among white European youth. That seems to be a weak link not a strong one. We have to base our movement in the proletariat as a whole,

[Avanti]

The left has engaged in plenty of self-destruction since the Second International betrayed the working class in 1914.

While I agree that revolutionary youth can play a critical role when push comes to shove, it may be an error to focus too much on the youth. Social class is still the more important factor. After all, you have posted about the current fascist trend among white European youth. That seems to be a weak link not a strong one. We have to base our movement in the proletariat as a whole,

all links are as weak

and as strong

as they are perceived to be

the working class

is really a social construction

and workers have shown

their ability

to kill one another

over race

and religion

and not all of that

is due to fascist propaganda

if people primarily view themselves

as christians or muslims

they are primarily christians or muslims

if i persuaded them

they were the kinships and the enemies

they would be the kinships and the enemies

if you can convince them

they are workers and capitalists

they are primarily workers and capitalists

the thing is

identities become stronger

if they correspond

to the reality experience

and to the grade of pain experienced

during confrontations

i am not constructing ideologies for today

history moves so fast

that when you produce an ideology for the current age

it'll be superfluous once you get to finish it

when the alt-globalization ideology was finished

in around 2001

the globalization/anti-globalization theme was replaced by the war on terror

and anarchism lost its momentum

we have to predict the future

if we want to produce ideologies which should take steam

[LiberationTheologist]

I forget the artists name but he has a video "smash your stuff" or something like that. Someone post that, that is cool all day. It is new and hip hop.

[Avanti]

hiphop lost

its radicalism

when it became

commercial

all trends

will become

commercial

the key

to the power

lies

in predicting

future tends

and appropriating

them before

anyone else

[GoddessCleoLover]

The key to the future is to organize workers and other poor people to fight back against the bourgeoisie and the the oppressors of its organs of repression and austerity.

[RedMaterialist]

in all of northern europe it's like this now

rich and upper-middle class white children are drawn to the academic left

these kids are then overtaking the activist left groups

some working class white and brown children are drawn to the activist left

middle class and working class white children are drawn towards conservatism and fascism

underclass white children are drawn to nazism

middle class and working class brown children are drawn to either social democracy or islamism

underclass brown children are drawn to islamism or gangsterism

that's how it is here anyway

then there are smaller

insignificant ideologies

libertarianism... etc

that's how it is here anyway


What you are describing is Germany in 1933. It's not that liberals have lost the future, but that reactionaries have resurrected the past.

[anarchomedia]

If the radical left has lost the future it isn't because of a lack of glamour, style is nice but substance always carries the day in the end. We don't have substance because our substance is fossilised and stuck in the 19th and 20th centuries, we aren't radical anymore we are reactionary.

There are two kinds of 'radical' leftists - state socialists like the marxists, leninists etc and the anarchists. The state-socialists are the most reactionary and the most irrelevant to our times. The zeitgeist of our day is the abolishment of the state not a new kind of state same as the old state. The thinking people of today do not want a new boss same as the old boss they want no boss at all. In the market-place of ideas state-socialism stays on the shelf unwanted.

Anarchism is best hope for the left, but even we have too much fossilised thought, too much baggage and wilful misunderstanding leading to self-contradictory dogmatism. Anarchism has some demand in the marketplace of ideas because the central aim of statelessness is attractive but it doesn't sell as well as it could because some parts of the package are bogus.

[Avanti]

If the radical left has lost the future it isn't because of a lack of glamour, style is nice but substance always carries the day in the end. We don't have substance because our substance is fossilised and stuck in the 19th and 20th centuries, we aren't radical anymore we are reactionary.

There are two kinds of 'radical' leftists - state socialists like the marxists, leninists etc and the anarchists. The state-socialists are the most reactionary and the most irrelevant to our times. The zeitgeist of our day is the abolishment of the state not a new kind of state same as the old state. The thinking people of today do not want a new boss same as the old boss they want no boss at all. In the market-place of ideas state-socialism stays on the shelf unwanted.

Anarchism is best hope for the left, but even we have too much fossilised thought, too much baggage and wilful misunderstanding leading to self-contradictory dogmatism. Anarchism has some demand in the marketplace of ideas because the central aim of statelessness is attractive but it doesn't sell as well as it could because of some parts of the package are bogus.

maybe

neo-anarchism

is the future?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

black helicopters
A very dark green, actually. :cool:

[Comrade #138672]

I'm not particularly bummed about the death of the left because "revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily, but that everywhere and at all times they have been the necessary outcome of circumstances entirely independent of the will and the leadership of particular parties and entire classes." (Engels)Then we can all stop being Communists, because everything will resolve itself, right?

[anarchomedia]

maybe

neo-anarchism

is the future?
Maybe - I don't know enough about it yet to make a guess. People take up ideas that they assess to be correct and useful and dump that which they assess to be bogus and useless.

Myself I think anything anarcho-X is within spitting distance of being correct and useful for our time. My spiritual home is in anarcho-communism kropotkin style but I'm adventurous enough to visit anywhere anarcho-X if there is something useful there for me, even anarcho-capitalism. Lately I visited agorism which I found to be pretty useful and correct.

[Comrade #138672]

Maybe - I don't know enough about it yet to make a guess. People take up ideas that they assess to be correct and useful and dump that which they assess to be bogus and useless.

Myself I think anything anarcho-X is within spitting distance of being correct and useful for our time. My spiritual home is in anarcho-communism kropotkin style but I'm adventurous enough to visit anywhere anarcho-X if there is something useful there for me, even anarcho-capitalism. Lately I visited agorism which I found to be pretty useful and correct.Anarcho-Capitalism? Really?

[anarchomedia]

Anarcho-Capitalism? Really?
Yeah I mean sure some of it is absolutely bonkers that would be hellish if actually put in practice, like they think everything physical should be private property even roads... Can you imagine any society functioning with every road being a toll road :laugh:? I find the NAP quite interesting though, inadequate but interesting. LTV is bogus, sorry but it really is, so that is one useful you could get from an-capism of course you could get that elsewhere.

See the truth is nothing pure can exist in the real world, that goes for pure capitalism but it also goes for pure communism. Any anarchy that can actually function is going to be a hybrid of communism, syndicalism and capitalism.

[barbelo]

the radical left has lost the future

Yes, I totally agree with you.

But the left- and by left I mean leninism and it's thousands subsects- is only a husk of soviet imperialism, an imperialism as bad and capitalistic as the western. Behind the discourse of anti-americanism, class struggle, world revolution, self-determinism, anti-interventionism, etc, etc, etc; there is no talk or experiment about how a communist economy should be.
And the right isn't as organized, centralized or even as rightist as someone would like to see.

As I said in a very earlier thread, I was amazed when I saw that fascists in Greece were actually in touch with their communities. They were teaching a free course of self-defense for women, to prevent rape. What were leftist doing? Posting in blogs about how police men shouldn't be included in their imaginary class struggle? Doing rallies against circumcision, or pro-Julian Assange, or pro-Palestine?

I deeply believe now days socialism is only an ideology the middle class propagates in order to maintain their priviledges, i. e. state funded universities for the few who are admited, wealthfare, etc.