I want to draw attention to the elephant in the room.

Leading up to the election, and perhaps even more prominently now, we’ve been seeing droves of people on the internet displaying a series of traits in common.

  • Claiming to be leftists
  • Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left
  • Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
  • Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
  • Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”
  • Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
  • Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism

When you look at an aerial view of these behaviors in conjunction with one another, what they’re accomplishing is pretty plain to see, in my opinion. It’s a way of utilizing the moral scrupulousness of the left to cut our teeth out politically. We get so caught up in giving these arguments the benefit of the doubt and of making sure people who claim to be leftists have a platform that we’re missing ideological parasites in our midst.

This is not a good-faith discourse. This is not friendly disagreement. This is, largely, not even internal disagreement. It is infiltration, and it’s extremely effective.

Before attacking this argument as lacking proof, just do a little thought experiment with me. If there is a vector that allows authoritarians to dismantle all progress made by the left, to demotivate us and to detract from our ability to form coalitions and build solidarity, do you really think they wouldn’t take advantage of it?

By refusing to ever consider that those who do nothing with their time in our spaces but try to drive a wedge between us, to take away our power and make us feel helpless and hopeless, we’re giving them exactly that vector. I am telling you, they are using it.

We need to stop letting them. We need to see it for what it is, get the word out, and remember, as the political left, how to use the tools that we have to change society. It starts with us between one another. It starts with what we do in the spaces that we inhabit. They know this, and it’s why they’re targeting us here.

Stop being an easy target. Stop feeding the cuckoo.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    21 hours ago

    It’s not amazing, but actually kind of pathetic, how desperate you are to dodge the points i’m making.

    Literally every time you’ve tried to prove something you’ve ended up proving my point.

    In fact, you brought up Winston Churchill and the need for everyone to line up behind his leadership to beat the Nazis.

    And by bringing up Gaza you’ve done it again. Trump has tripled down on his support for Israel and the slaughter has only gotten worse.

    I wish I did as good a job selling my ideas as you have.

    • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      21 hours ago

      Lmao, just saying ‘you proved my point’ doesn’t make it true, but I’m ok with walking away from this one cus it really seems like you need it more lol

      • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        11 hours ago

        My point was that it’s better to be practical and take small steps than it is to be idealistic and make no progress, or even go backwards.

        I used Douglas and MLK as examples of people doing what they could, and you demonstrated that’s exactly what they did.

        You even showed that King had avoided talking about Viet-Nam because he didn’t want to upset President Johnson.

        • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          9 hours ago

          Right, and my point is that even while MLK and FD both made their own strategic choices for advancing their causes, both have pointed out repeatedly that those who do not feel the burn of justice denied cannot set the timeline for those who do. It’s the actual point MLK was making when he said:

          spoiler

          I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation

          and Frederick Douglass, who said:

          spoiler

          Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

          Even if there is some objective measure for when it is time for radical justice and when it is not, that determination can’t be imposed by those who are unaffected by the injustice of inequality. To them, there will always be a ‘more convenient season’ for justice. Those who profess to seek the same justice as those who cry out but refuse to stand with them can complain all they want about the methods designed to agitate them into action, but (by MLK’s estimation), righteousness is always on the side of those fighting for justice.

          • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            9 hours ago

            And that’s what’s so funny about you.

            You can’t just say that I made a valid point and move on. You’re so consumed with “winning” that you keep repeating exactly what I said telling me I am wrong.

            As long as we keep agreeing, I’ll keep pointing it out.

            • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              0·
              8 hours ago

              Lmao, sorry, FD’s writing is so loud I can’t hear your sealioning over the sound of his righteous fury

              The American people have this to learn: that where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither person nor property is safe

              Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

              • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
                0·
                6 hours ago

                And where exactly does he say that the only thing we should do is lash out mindlessly without any sort of strategy? If you show me somethign where he advocated barreling along without any sort of plan, I’ll concede the point.

                • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                  0·
                  6 hours ago

                  The point isn’t that we must always chose agitation, the point is that you cannot blame the presence of tension on those who agitate for justice, because the tension was already present. Those who agitate against injustice are merely bringing that tension into the light.

                  You cannot set the timeline for another’s liberation.