“The Left” and “Leftism” has no specific meaning outside the imagination of the individual saying it.
In practice, it’s a way to obscure the contradictions between liberals and communists.
AFIAK most Europeans still draw the line at private ownership of the means of production, while in America the red scare & McCarthyite purges left it a floating signifier because there was no actual left left.
I'm yet to meet an European who isn't a capitalist who identifies as a leftist. European leftism is capitalists who won't immediately execute gays, unless too inconvenienced, and may even see immigrants as not this much less of humans and only are racists to the brown and Slavic.
I grew up among Marxists so I know they exist, but outside of that familial circle I don't think I've met a european leftist that isn't actually a capitalist. There's a handful of former libs I've converted into leftists, but I can't think of any I just bumped into out in the wild.
Ironically, I had more experiences of conservatives/trads being respectful to me, while "progressive" capitalists would admit to seeing the groups I belong to as lesser in a condescending indirect way. Or sometimes just being straight up hyper xenophobic or racist without any self-awareness on their part. Many progs think you can only be xenophobic/racist to black people and are extremely happy being racist to brown people, Asians, white people with dark hair and eyes or Slavs. I had people tell me the ethnicity I am 50% is alcoholic aggressive thieves. Yes, sure, there are such people who happen to be of this ethnicity, as there are such people of different ethnicites, theirs included, yet they don't speak of those as defining their ethnicity. It's so fucking weird.
“The Left” and “Leftism” has no specific meaning outside the imagination of the individual saying it.
In practice, it’s a way to obscure the contradictions between liberals and communists.
AFIAK most Europeans still draw the line at private ownership of the means of production, while in America the red scare & McCarthyite purges left it a floating signifier because there was no actual left left.
I'm yet to meet an European who isn't a capitalist who identifies as a leftist. European leftism is capitalists who won't immediately execute gays, unless too inconvenienced, and may even see immigrants as not this much less of humans and only are racists to the brown and Slavic.
I grew up among Marxists so I know they exist, but outside of that familial circle I don't think I've met a european leftist that isn't actually a capitalist. There's a handful of former libs I've converted into leftists, but I can't think of any I just bumped into out in the wild.
🥴Another lesser of two ontological evils situation
Ironically, I had more experiences of conservatives/trads being respectful to me, while "progressive" capitalists would admit to seeing the groups I belong to as lesser in a condescending indirect way. Or sometimes just being straight up hyper xenophobic or racist without any self-awareness on their part. Many progs think you can only be xenophobic/racist to black people and are extremely happy being racist to brown people, Asians, white people with dark hair and eyes or Slavs. I had people tell me the ethnicity I am 50% is alcoholic aggressive thieves. Yes, sure, there are such people who happen to be of this ethnicity, as there are such people of different ethnicites, theirs included, yet they don't speak of those as defining their ethnicity. It's so fucking weird.
Wow. A concise, accurate, and helpful comment from a user with an @ in their name. I'll have to check out this "lemmygrad".
i've heard rumors that lemmygrad even has communists
All the more reason to investigate. Nothing but
s over here, sadly.
Here I thought the .ml meant it was a Mike Lindell fan page
Lemmygrad is an ML instance and have been around for a bit. They're cool