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Brood Parasitism in Leftist Politics (beehaw.org)
submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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 question 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.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Douglas spent the majority of Lincoln's presidency mercilessly and publicly attacking him - claiming he was 'working for him' is not only fairly disingenuous but an extremely odd way to characterize their relationship

Idk what your point is with LfB but that letter absolutely slaps.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

He attacked Lincoln after helping him get elected. Almost as if a War breaking out changed things.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

..... You have that backwards. Edit: it's possible that you're referring to Lincoln's campaign for reelection, but that was still 4 years after the start of the civil war.

If you're actively curious and not just using this selectively to support your own stances on current events, here's a pretty good resource that describes the bigger picture of their relationship

Douglass opposed Lincoln both when he was a candidate and through most of the beginning of his term as president. Lincoln was, at first, a supporter of the American Colonization plan - which was a belief of some white abolitionists that blacks and whites could not live peacefully with each other, so they sought to emigrate the freed slaves to colonies in Africa. Douglass was justified in detesting that plan and condemning Lincoln's support of it. Douglass went as far as to say of Lincoln's presidency that he "has resolved that no good shall come to the Negro from this war."

I think there's ample reason to think that Lincoln's shift in perspective by the end of the civil war was a direct result of Douglass's influence, but by no measure does anyone on 'the left' think of Douglass as a traitor to his morals. He was a patriot who fought tooth-and-nail for what was right, even in the face of compromise presented as 'progress'.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Your own link shows that Douglas campaigned for Lincoln.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Check my edit. He campaigned for him after his first term (through which he actively opposed him), and only really saw him as an ally after the first 3 years through the civil war (and after Lincoln's own perspective had shifted).

Edit: keep in mind that Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation January 1st of 63, before Douglass had any interest in campaigning for him. He had literally already abolished slavery before Douglass threw his hat in for him

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Leading up to the 1860 election, Frederick Douglass was conflicted about who to support. David W. Blight argues in "Frederick Douglass" that the activist saw Republicans not as true opponents to slavery but rather as just opposed to the power that enslavers could wield politically. Still, he saw supporting the Republicans as his only real option because they at least "humbled the slave power" and fought against it as an institution. Douglass expressed a willingness to work with the Republicans even though he was disappointed by their overall platform. He wrote an article a few months before the election that was positive toward Lincoln.

In the months leading up to the election, Douglass continued to stump for Abraham Lincoln by giving many speeches, and he was involved in other campaigns, like trying to abolish the racist $250 property requirement for Black voters in New York (per Blight). He also worked as a recruiter, getting Black soldiers to join the war effort. A month after the election, Douglass wrote an article in his newspaper, "Douglass' Monthly," in which he stated the nomination of Lincoln "demonstrated the possibility of electing ... an anti-slavery reputation to the Presidency of the

https://www.grunge.com/853161/the-truth-behind-abraham-lincolns-relationship-with-frederick-douglass/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I had to go and pull out my copy of Blight's book on Douglass, because it had been a while but I remembered that section of the book differently.

The whole passage is expressing a sentiment very different from the one that 'Grunge' article is representing - without transcribing that whole section i'll just quote the last little bit that summarizes his summer leading up to the election:

spoiler

On July 2 [after his apparent June indication of support for the Republicans], he wrote in a confused tone to Gerrit Smith, who struggled with a mental breakdown in the wake of Harpers Ferry. “I cannot support Lincoln,” Douglass asserted, “but whether there is life enough in the Abolitionists [Radical Abolition Party] to name a candidate, I cannot say. I shall look to your letter for light on the pathway of duty.” Then in August Douglass wrote in the Monthly that the “vital element” of the Republican Party was its “antislavery sentiment.” “Nothing is plainer,” Douglass argued, “than that the Republican party has its source in the old Liberty party.” It would live or die, he contended, “as the abolition sentiment of the country flourishes or fades.” Vexed by his commitments to moral principle and political action, Douglass announced that he would vote for what historian Richard Sewell rightly called the remnant of Gerrit Smith’s “miniscule” radical party, while assiduously working for Lincoln’s election.

The comparison is not quite as clear as I think you'd like, since Douglass's tentative 'support' of Lincoln was motivated by a desire to bring the north and south closer to outright conflict, not as a way of picking a lesser evil or mitigating harm. I'd say Douglass's sentiment is more in-line with current-day pro-palestinian activists, who acknowledge the political calculus of a moderately-favorable party against an outright hostile one, but who publicly oppose voting for them themselves. He'd be in that same 'protest-vote' pool that most people here keep complaining about. I'm actually lightly amused by this apparent reversal, since today it's more common to find people who say 'i will vote for democrats' but then actively campaign against them, but again I think the comparison is strained.

Either way, trying to argue that Douglass 'worked for Lincoln' is still incredibly misleading at best, and clearly a liberal self-centeredness that he (and most other black civil rights activists in our history) actively loathed and berated:

Americans, Douglass believed, instinctively and culturally watched history and preferred not to act in it. Douglass summed up his bitter complaint as “this terrible paradox of passing history” rooted in a distinctively American selfishness. “Whoever levies a tax upon our Bohea or Young Hyson [two forms of Chinese tea], will find the whole land blazing with patriotism and bristling with bayonets.” If some foreign power tried to “impress a few Yankee sailors,” Americans would go “fight like heroes.” Douglass fashioned a withering chastisement of American self-centeredness that would match any modern complaint about the culture’s hyperindividualism. “Millions of a foreign race may be stolen from their homes, and reduced to hopeless and inhuman bondage among us,” he complained, “and we either approve the deed, or protest as gently as ‘sucking doves.’ ” His “wickedly selfish” Americans loved to celebrate their “own heritage, and on this condition are content to see others crushed in our midst.” They lived by the “philosophy of Cain,” ready with their bluntly evil answer to the famous question “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Douglass’s use of the Cain and Abel parable is all the more telling if we remember that, unlike the more sentimental ways the “brother’s keeper” language is often employed today, Cain had just killed his brother, and to God’s query as to Abel’s fate, Cain replies in effect, why should I care? Douglass wanted the indifferent Americans, with blood on their hands as well, to read on further in Genesis and know Cain’s fate as “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.”

Doubtless he wouldn't have seen as much in the way of redeeming qualities in Biden or Harris, since far from Lincoln's willingness to engage the south (for the wrong reasons in Douglass's mind), Biden repeatedly cowered away from confronting Israel's antagonism and actively sheltered them from consequence. But then again I think neither of us can do more than speculate as to what he'd think of us more than 170 years later.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

, while assiduously working for Lincoln’s election.

It's possible for good people to feel that someone isn't perfect and still work hard to get them elected.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

What about voting against them?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Back in the day I used to know a group of old school Communists. Folks who'd gone to Spain to fight Franco and who had been blacklisted by McCarthy. One of the stories they told was about how back in 1968 they told young folks that they had to vote for Hubert Humphrey because Richard Nixon was going to be truly awful.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Guess nobody advised Douglass of that, then.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Keep going. I find your desperation amusing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You wanna cover your gripe with MLK and the letter from Birmingham now?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Sure. Post all the times King explicitly talked about LGBTQIA+ rights.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

? Does that have relevance to his letter from Birmingham...? Are you saying MLK was not one of Americas most effective civil rights advocates, or...?

Winston Churchill was a homophobe but that doesn't mean I think he was on the wrong side of WWII....

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You keep on making my point for me.

Thanks for bringing in Winnie, because another thing I often post is that in WW2 many people who hated racism and imperialism joined hands with the racist USA and imperialist England to fight the Nazis.

As Winnie said, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I should find something nice to say about The Devil."

Again, thank you for proving me right.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Ok.... so it has no relevance with MLK's letter then? You agree fully with his methods and contentions in the letter, like the below? I don't have any idea what you're trying to say, you'll have to use more of your words.

spoiler

The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

spoiler

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, 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. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

spoiler

While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights.

spoiler

Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with.

spoiler

We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

spoiler

And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as “rabble rousers” and “outside agitators” those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies—a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

spoiler

So I have not said to my people: “Get rid of your discontent.” Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist.

spoiler

So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime—the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

spoiler

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm waiting for you to post all the times MLK explicitly spoke out on LGBTQIA+ rights.

I've read the letter, and somehow the guy who worked hand in hand with Bayard Ruskin never mentions that stuff.

Almost as if King understood that you had to use strategy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Lmao, I think i'm picking up the clues now. You don't like the letter because you're in the picture

“I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action" <-- That's you!

Lol, I guess if I wanted to be charitable I could acknowledge the point you're trying to make, which is that civil rights activists like MLK knew that speaking on some issues could undermine the effectiveness of their agitation on other issues (such as MLK avoiding speaking about Vietnam because he wanted Johnson to be sympathetic to civil rights issues) - but you would have to assume that the advantage gained by not speaking on those issues outweighs the disadvantage from denying that justice being demanded. I'd say, in some recent cases, complacency and denial of justice have proven to be more disadvantageous than not.

Still, neither MLK nor Douglass would say that the tension and agitation caused by civil rights protests is the fault of protestors. MLK would tell you that "we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension" and also that the democrats risk loosing 'young people whose disappointment with the party is turning into outright disgust', and that they will bring about their own destruction by continuing to deny the justice being demanded.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Lol, I guess if I wanted to be charitable I could acknowledge the point you’re trying to make, which is that civil rights activists like MLK knew that speaking on some issues could undermine the effectiveness of their agitation on other issues

You keep showing I'm right, and keep making my point for me, but somehow you're so tangled up in yourself you can't actually admit it.

And you've got your history wrong. King did speak out against Viet-Nam War.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/April-4/martin-luther-king-jr-speaks-out-against-the-war

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

He spoke out about it 4 years after its start, and explicitly said he avoided it for so long because of Johnson. I was trying to give you another example of your point, genius. Do a little more than picking the first Google result.

Oops, looks like you stopped before the good part:

but you would have to assume that the advantage gained by not speaking on those issues outweighs the disadvantage from denying that justice being demanded. I’d say, in some recent cases, complacency and denial of justice have proven to be more disadvantageous than not.

Still, neither MLK nor Douglass would say that the tension and agitation caused by civil rights protests is the fault of protestors. MLK would tell you that “we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension” and also that the democrats risk loosing ‘young people whose disappointment with the party is turning into outright disgust’, and that they will bring about their own destruction by continuing to deny the justice being demanded.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

but you would have to assume that the advantage gained by not speaking on those issues outweighs the disadvantage from denying that justice being demanded. I’d say, in some recent cases, complacency and denial of justice have proven to be more disadvantageous than not.

Again, you prove my point. A person could apply King's own words to show how he'd denied the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community.

It's really amazing to me how you can keep on disproving your own assertations and still not notice it.

Exactly the way King not speaking on Vietnam proves my point.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

A person could apply King’s own words to show how he’d denied the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community.

But clearly not in the case of Palestinian liberation, since democrats' refusal to address it lost them the election. King not speaking about Vietnam actually proves my point, because not only did he extract the concessions from Johnson he was working for on civil rights, but he caved to pressure because it was no longer advantageous to deny it as an issue since popular sentiment was overwhelming.

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

So, you're agreeing with me again and saying that we should use strategy?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Lmaooooooooo

Nope. MLK is saying it doesn't matter what strategy you think is best, because the privileged and the unaffected cannot dictate to the oppressed and the dis-privileged what strategy they ought to take to achieve justice owed to them.

The people who agitate are the sole arbiters on what strategy is justified and what timeline is acceptable in the pursuit of justice. If you find that to be inconvenient and ill-timed, that is the entire point.

Lol "Oh, so you agree with me then?!?" lmfao get out of here

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin

King's people held off on the Montgomery bus boycott until they had the right person.

Almost as if King wasn't just rushing blindly ahead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Look man, I think I've covered this pretty well, I'm not sure I want to keep beating a dead horse. MLK and any other agitator for justice can pick their own timeline for justice. Telling someone else that now is not the time is what MLK is criticizing. You're free to withhold your own agitation to the proper time but you can't tell someone else to wait. I feel like that's pretty clear.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

So, again you agree with me.

Everyone is in the fight against Trump, and we need to listen to the smart leaders and not run off like idiots.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I wouldn't fault you for being ESL, but I'd be impressed if you could clip enough consecutive words from that comment that supports what you're saying.

I think I'm done with this

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

So, you kept saying I was wrong, but couldn't prove that Douglas didn't support the candidate who was the best of a bad lot, and helped me prove that MLK used a careful strategy that included not getting into a fight over LGBT+ rights.

You've been done since this thing started, you're just to obstinate to admit what anyone could see.

And, as Isaac Asimov pointed out, the one who has to resort to insults is the one who has run out of ideas. But since you started it, it's unconscious privilege on your part to attack immigrants.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I wasn't insulting you, I was allowing for the possibility that maybe you didn't understand the words as I was saying them.

It's not a bad thing to be an immigrant or be ESL, sorry if you felt that was an insult.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I don't need to insult you. Your own words betray you.