Left Wing has to always be right...

[R_P_A_S]

why can the right wing get away with baseless, emotionally driven rhetoric, even unscientific justifications and non-sense when it comes to debating, discussing politics and capitalism?

BUT we in the left have to be 110% right, logical and pretty much in most cases scientifically proven?

why has their bull shit ruled over our logic and what's to be.. OBVIOUS.

[RedHal]

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it....."
-Goebbels

It's easy to do when the ruling class control the media and learning institutions. So when you debate a right winger all they have to do is repeat what they've been fed from birth through the media and school, and of course they don't have to look hard to "back up" their claims because their information is readily available in the mainstream media and ours are found in obscure leftists publications etc.. This is a major problem with Wikipedia when it comes to political issues.

[Comrada J]

It can often feel that way, did an election related debate make you think this? I noticed it too, seems the right wing's rhetoric is easy for the layman to agree with. Opportunity! Free trade! ... I think it's the main advantage of a laissez-fair system, it's about how YOU can do this or YOU can do that and it can be difficult to image a system where people work for each other and having to think about other people in general.

Oh and of course, they are the ones currently in power, hence have control over the media and are probably made role models by those who wish to be successful.

[Black Sheep]

This is an amazing post :thumbup:
I had never thought about it.. it is infuriating!

[Post-Something]

why can the right wing get away with baseless, emotionally driven rhetoric, even unscientific justifications and non-sense when it comes to debating, discussing politics and capitalism?

BUT we in the left have to be 110% right, logical and pretty much in most cases scientifically proven?

why has their bull shit ruled over our logic and what's to be.. OBVIOUS.

Because it's pragmatic. Shit, but nonetheless, pragmatic.

Also, yeah, hegemony.

[bolchevique]

the truth is the people in normal circumstances are conservative , because the human brain is afraid of changes, the human brain lags behind the events, but because we don't live in normal situation,we live in an era of revolution and contrarevolution, many are starting to question the system and looking for answers and ideas tha now are a minority in the this period that we live will be the ideas of millions , so we have to arm with the ideas of marxism to explain what is going in this crazy world and put forward the only solution A Socialist World

[Yehuda Stern]

I don't know about "the left" - but to paraphrase James Cannon, the revolutionaries tell the workers the truth because they know the truth will set them free, and the reactionaries lie to them for exactly the same reason.

[R_P_A_S]

I think I've said this before. The main thing that attracted me to the left wing was how obvious the truth is. I've never read and researched anything that was more obvious and "dead-on" than marxism. I wish more people could take the time to learn about it.

You guys made good points about the media and how average people don't need to research or read into anything because the crap they believe and repeat daily is on TV everyday.

It's really frustrating. And I found my self "with all my facts and knowledge" sometimes fluster... I get stuck and can't seem to make the valid points I have against their misinformation. It's infuriating! Because you know they are so wrong. and not just based on personal opinion, on facts!

It's beyond me that people can spill this kind of stupidity out as a valid argument and have NO CARE what so ever to even back it up with facts.

"Obama is a Socialist in disguise everyone! He wants to spread the wealth around, lets get ready to be equally poor!"

OR

"McCain just has all that military experience and is a christian man, this country was founded on christian principles, I don't care how good Obama sounds."

[Yehuda Stern]

The situation you describe is the expression of Marx's and Engels' point in the Manifesto that "the ruling ideology of every society is the ideology of the ruling class." Leftists who do not know how to think like materialists talk all about 'brainwashing' and the media, but don't understand that a large part of the reason for why workers buy bourgeois ideology is that they have a certain limited interest in imperialism, which act as a countertendency to their revolutionary historical interests in time of social peace. No amount of facts and figures can change a position based on an aristocratic position and material privileges.

[Vendetta]

"McCain just has all that military experience and is a christian man, this country was founded on christian principles, I don't care how good Obama sounds."

Well, there's no changing some people. :glare:

Even though I don't give a rat's ass about Obama.

[Dimentio]

Because we want to change things.

[R_P_A_S]

The situation you describe is the expression of Marx's and Engels' point in the Manifesto that "the ruling ideology of every society is the ideology of the ruling class." Leftists who do not know how to think like materialists talk all about 'brainwashing' and the media, but don't understand that a large part of the reason for why workers buy bourgeois ideology is that they have a certain limited interest in imperialism, which act as a countertendency to their revolutionary historical interests in time of social peace. No amount of facts and figures can change a position based on an aristocratic position and material privileges.

That's exactly what it is. "Materialism" that's the corner stone of how the brain functions compared to a non class conscious person's. That's the line that divides us. If marxism taught me something it was to analyze and research. I'll give you guys a very broad example, this is coming from people that I'm more familiar with, Mexicans. a classic assumption...

"Blacks are lazy. And we are not. that's why we do better at work and economically despite the fact that this is not our country"

Believe it or not many Mexicans think this way. I know! I used to. I didn't consider my self racist. But In the back of my mind I did feel a bit "superior" as a race and in class status. :blushing:

But now is different. I actually can debunk the "blacks are lazy" argument and put race aside and stand by them in class unity. Because why? Because I fucking read, and I understood the history, the issues and struggles. In other words "I see the big picture!" and this big picture is not seen by many average working people. They are satisfied just making the prejudice assumption and move on with their lives taking along with them their ignorant views...

this is the kind of shit I want to rid people off!

[DancingLarry]

It's the power of hegemony to set the baseline assumptions of "the way things are". To be a socialist of any variety in a bourgeois capitalist society means to always be debating not only the facts, but challenging an ideology that has managed to successfully present and preserve itself as not an ideology at all, but rather as above or without ideology. It's akin to the difference between hearing something in your native tongue, and hearing something in a second language that you're just learning. ONe you soak up and absorb the meaning and nuance of immediately (that's the hegemonic ideology). The other you need to translate into meanings, frames of reference and thought processes in a very conscious and cumbersome fashion. That's the eight-ball we who offer a radical ideological critique necessarily fine ourselves behind. With contemporary society ever-increasingly drenched in corporate media communication, people are virtually swimming in a sea of hegemonic thought. It's not easy to be Moses and part that sea, it is veritably a miracle when it can be done.

[R_P_A_S]

It's the power of hegemony to set the baseline assumptions of "the way things are". To be a socialist of any variety in a bourgeois capitalist society means to always be debating not only the facts, but challenging an ideology that has managed to successfully present and preserve itself as not an ideology at all, but rather as above or without ideology. It's akin to the difference between hearing something in your native tongue, and hearing something in a second language that you're just learning. ONe you soak up and absorb the meaning and nuance of immediately (that's the hegemonic ideology). The other you need to translate into meanings, frames of reference and thought processes in a very conscious and cumbersome fashion. That's the eight-ball we who offer a radical ideological critique necessarily fine ourselves behind. With contemporary society ever-increasingly drenched in corporate media communication, people are virtually swimming in a sea of hegemonic thought. It's not easy to be Moses and part that sea, it is veritably a miracle when it can be done.

you know what I figured? I figured that once i discovered this stuff. my friends would follow. Or just people that I tell about this, would just be as interested and seldom does that happen. It's really hard to reach people. And in now way am I aggressive, but I sometimes find my self perhaps.. overwhelming them with facts and material for them to read and make their own discoveries and judgement, that ultimately they are more comfortable with their ignorance than to make efforts.

[Sendo]

^
It will take research, experience, and TIME to change. While many of our friends would switch opinions if they knew the facts like we do, it's hard to expect that everyone will spontaneous delve into this constant struggle for information. They will change, but it will take time.

Chomsky and Michael Parenti have some great vids on this. Not only does the left suffer from unfavorable media by virtue of format (TV doesn't let you explain non-mainstream views in time), but from the background assumptions that run against us. As mentioned, the righties only have to bring up the old lies form our universally approved textbooks and sound correct. We also have the psychological issue that the human brain will accept arguments more easily if they sound true, rather than if they are more logical or have more proof.

We always have to use dressings and avoid keywords. Must say universal healthcare, never "socialist" healthcare. Simplifying our language is very good, and very much needed (esp with old-school communists, jeez); but it gets annoying when I have to break down my arguments into slogans that sound great.

I'd much rather say "stop killing Iraqis" than say "support our troops by bringing them home".

Tangent, there, sorry. But the left does have to deal with an army of righties and libertarian think tanks who have all the archives and armies of debaters they need. They also have that wonderful fallacy of going somewhere else in the echo chamber for back up.

How many arguments have been ruined because undecided onlookers suddenly got asked with "but we all know XXXXX to be true, right?"

[Yehuda Stern]

this is the kind of shit I want to rid people off!

And that's very good, and important, and I commend you for the changes in consciousness you've made - I've made similar ones myself in my lifetime. I don't want in any way to say that it's meaningless or stupid to try and change people's minds. I am only trying to say that it's very difficult to do so under the current conditions, and right now we can only win a small amount of people to a truly anti-racist perpsective.

[politics student]

Also worth mentioning that Politics is not taught in schools and has to be choosen, even then not every college gives it as an option.

When the system they live in is not taught to them. Why would you expect them to be able to seriously question it?

[R_P_A_S]

Wow, I totally forgot about this thread! and that I had all those great points to make. sadly I would of forgotten them all. ;)

[Bitter Ashes]

Openess, honesty and transparancy may seem like a weakness, but they're actualy our greatest weapon.
The difference between us and the right is that we do not have anything that we need to hide. Just look at how the BNP are not back peddling furiously to say that they are not really nazis and not really racists. Some people will actualy end up believing that bull about the BNP having changed for the better for a little while before they realise they were lied to.
That is why the left can be trusted by the working classes who have learned to be so fearful of trusting others. We dont hide anything up our sleeves and likewise we dont pull our punches. We do exactly what's on the tin.
The left = no blind faith required. Only facts

[R_P_A_S]

Openess, honesty and transparancy may seem like a weakness, but they're actualy our greatest weapon.
The difference between us and the right is that we do not have anything that we need to hide. Just look at how the BNP are not back peddling furiously to say that they are not really nazis and not really racists. Some people will actualy end up believing that bull about the BNP having changed for the better for a little while before they realise they were lied to.
That is why the left can be trusted by the working classes who have learned to be so fearful of trusting others. We dont hide anything up our sleeves and likewise we dont pull our punches. We do exactly what's on the tin.
The left = no blind faith required. Only facts

What's the BNP?

[Bitter Ashes]

It's the British National Party. They're basicly neo-nazis

[Glorious Union]

What's the BNP?

British Nationalist Party.

[ZeroNowhere]

Also worth mentioning that Politics is not taught in schools and has to be choosen, even then not every college gives it as an option.
Well, when it comes to brainwashing, history in high school works as well as politics or economics.