I understand what you mean - I’m an anarchist too. Anarchism is a far-left position, though, you realize?
The democrats / mainstream liberals in western countries absolutely do often make the mistake of accepting the right wing’s framing and arguing with them on their terms, but actual leftists are the force who try to refocus that energy back onto the class struggle.
Don’t mistake democrats/liberals for actual leftists. Most of them are still very much pro-capitalism, and the democrat party itself is center right.
I do understand that anarchism is left, but it is almost far left and off-the-scale, it is outside the confides of the political spectrum almost, as it allows people immediate and direct democracy regardless of their political leaning.
However, there is such a thing as left-leaning authoritarianism. People seem to be rose-tinted is their view of the left as a free and positive ideology when it has its own trappings which are often parallel to the right. Both sides of the spectrum and notably those that claim to perpetuate it can’t be trusted imo.
Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, and you’re right that authoritarian leftists are a big threat, as we saw with the USSR and China, but I gotta say, it feels quite unhelpful to say that both sides are being played - it’s quite a defeatist position and discourages people from moving away from the right, centrism and liberalism, towards more leftist positions. Social democrats/democratic socialists are a problem too, but they have no traction, whereas the far-right has a lot of traction. We need to meet people where they are and help them reach the next step on the ladder of class consciousness. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t go from being conservative to anarchist overnight, it was a long and painful journey.
That is my issue with it though - I don’t want people to join the supposed left, they become useful idiots.
Imo, the only way out of this mess is a hard reset. End political parties, give the people direct democracy with as much immediacy as possible. Going left changes nothing, you still end up with a two-party system and a static group in charge who can’t be questioned, just one party will be left and one will be right-of-left.
In the UK we have a socialist prime minister as the face of labour and we got tightening of media and restricted internet.
This is entirely just my opinion, but the whole spectrum needs to get chucked in the bin.
I understand what you mean - I’m an anarchist too. Anarchism is a far-left position, though, you realize?
The democrats / mainstream liberals in western countries absolutely do often make the mistake of accepting the right wing’s framing and arguing with them on their terms, but actual leftists are the force who try to refocus that energy back onto the class struggle.
Don’t mistake democrats/liberals for actual leftists. Most of them are still very much pro-capitalism, and the democrat party itself is center right.
I do understand that anarchism is left, but it is almost far left and off-the-scale, it is outside the confides of the political spectrum almost, as it allows people immediate and direct democracy regardless of their political leaning.
However, there is such a thing as left-leaning authoritarianism. People seem to be rose-tinted is their view of the left as a free and positive ideology when it has its own trappings which are often parallel to the right. Both sides of the spectrum and notably those that claim to perpetuate it can’t be trusted imo.
Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, and you’re right that authoritarian leftists are a big threat, as we saw with the USSR and China, but I gotta say, it feels quite unhelpful to say that both sides are being played - it’s quite a defeatist position and discourages people from moving away from the right, centrism and liberalism, towards more leftist positions. Social democrats/democratic socialists are a problem too, but they have no traction, whereas the far-right has a lot of traction. We need to meet people where they are and help them reach the next step on the ladder of class consciousness. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t go from being conservative to anarchist overnight, it was a long and painful journey.
That is my issue with it though - I don’t want people to join the supposed left, they become useful idiots. Imo, the only way out of this mess is a hard reset. End political parties, give the people direct democracy with as much immediacy as possible. Going left changes nothing, you still end up with a two-party system and a static group in charge who can’t be questioned, just one party will be left and one will be right-of-left. In the UK we have a socialist prime minister as the face of labour and we got tightening of media and restricted internet. This is entirely just my opinion, but the whole spectrum needs to get chucked in the bin.