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.
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.
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
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:
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.
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.
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.
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