>
> Take gay marriage. The left supports it because it both thinks it is
> correct to oppose the oppression of same sex couples, but also as a
> means to
> build a movement and chip away at the forces of capital. When people
> are in
> denial about the latter and present themselves as only interested in
> the
> former they are doing a disservice to both the cause and the left.
> They are
> dishonest about their instrumental use of the cause and this does
> damage to
> it and they deny the left and separate the struggle against capital
> from the
> movement, which strengthens capital.
>
> I would think that at least here and spaces like this we should be
> able to
> cull out our position from the general understanding of politics. The
> inability to do even this minimal step is instructive on the problems
> we
> face.
>
> Brad
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>[WS:] As I see it, this whole left/right discourse is basically a
>> mental
> football match - the teams compete not because they stand for
> different
> values but because they are simply opposing teams, and the rules of
> the game
> require that opposing teams compete against each other.
>
> Both historical "left" and "right" have their shares of
> authoritarianism,
> xenophobia, populism, liberalism, internationalism, and democratic
> governance - so attribute some of these traits to one side but not the
> other
> is not grounded in facts. What makes a difference is that is a
> specific
> historical circumstance, a course taken by one side is almost
> automatically
> opposed by the other. For example, gun ownership is neither "left" or
> "right" , but under current political circumstance is a bone of
> contention -
> one side defends it because the other side opposes it and vice versa.
>
> Ditto for environmentalism or government regulation. In itself,
> neither is
> "left" or "right", but the US left espouses both because they are
> signifiers
> of anti-capitalism, while the "right" opposes them because they are
> "left"
> issues.
>
> The entire modern political "discourse" has been reduced to a shouting
> match
> between opposing camps. The main goal of this match is to shut down
> the
> opponents, not to decide merits or demerits of their "positions." In
> fact,
> there are no "positions" in a conventional meaning of the term i.e.
> logically coherent systems based on a set of fundamental principles.
> Anything goes as long as it scores points for "our" team. Thus, the
> same
> health care system that was a brain child of Heritage Foundation and
> the
> Republican governor of Massachusetts became "socialism" when proposed
> by a
> Democrat president. This shift defies conventional logic, but is
> perfectly
> consistent with the logic of a football game - the very same maneuver
> can be
> either good or bad, depending is "our" team is scoring or losing
> points.
>
> For that reason, I am rapidly losing interest in political discourse,
> just
> as I have zero interest in spectator sports.
>
> Wojtek
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