I think Americans need to absorb a bit more global context about the left-right spectrum. I see people saying that policies like universal health care, access to abortion, basic worker rights and affordable education are “far left”. Most of the proposed policies of the left in the US are centrist in the rest of the Western world. Unless you are advocating for a Communist regime along the lines of the Soviet Union or Maoist China, you aren’t really “far left”. Similarly, unless someone is advocating for a fascist dictator state, we should probably not call them “far right”. Of course, that is what Trumpists advocate for, so they really are far right!
We’re “not allowed” to. The concept of comparing our politics to elsewhere around the world is chastised. “It’s not the same here!” “They have a longer history” “they share a common culture!” (far right for “skin color”)
Any excuse under the sun to keep the right as being viewed as closer to “center” and to misrepresent centrist policies as “far left” so we get no progress and all the arguments.
It’s really interesting how the right has embraced moral relativism on a case-by-case basis. Often it is a strategy to quarantine/localize ideas, so as to avoid the need to reconcile them to any broader worldview.
It’s also a strategy for insulating ideas and events from history that they want to shelter from criticism, like criticizing slavery, theocracy, monarchism, etc. I’ve seen real cases in the wild where criticism of slavery was dismissed as “presentism”, as inappropriately imposing present day moral values.
There are quite a few actual leftists on Lemmy. I don’t think they’re confused and as the meme suggests, they’re rather vocal.
Meanwhile Trump and other far right people have tried to brand liberals as “radical left” which is just silly, but a lot of news sources seem content to parrot alt-right rhetoric. One thing the Republican Party has always been good at is poisoning the well.
Those terms are so vague and have so different meanings to a lot of people that I often avoid using them… I recently read the idea that egalitarian=left // strong hierarchy=right and it kinda makes sense, but it’s still quite debatable
Generally it’s better to separate views by who supports them, and who they benefit. Leftists tend to support the Proletariat, whereas rightists tend to support the bourgeoisie.
I’m not sure its that easy nowadays, when lots of freelancers and self-exploiters struggle while being considered bourgeoisie. Or at least, not “proletariat”. The lines are not as clear as they used to be.
Freelancers and self-exploiters are petite-bourgoisie, not bourgeoisie. Class mechanics definitely hold up.
If you’re working five days a week for a living, you’re not really a part of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie are the business owners, not the business managers and assistants. At best, a freelancer with no employees under them would be petite-bourgeoisie. You wouldn’t graduate to the bourgeoisie until you have a few employees under yourself, who take care of the day-to-day operations.
A lone freelancer is just a step away from an employee, with none of the legal protections. Hire a manager to run the day-to-day op, and employees to do the grunt work, thus freeing yourself up to sit back and collect profits. Then you would start to be the bourgeoisie, because you only need to check in to ensure everything is running smoothly and occasionally sign some new contracts. The majority of your time isn’t being spent at work for someone else.
To be “on the left” at minimum you need to be totally opposed to the capitalist system.
From there, there are many ideologies to choose from whether authoritarian (like Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, Stalinism, etc.) or anti-authoritarian: mutualism, communalism, one of the many strains of anarchism, etc.
Also if you’re authoritarian I’d say it’s questionable whether you’re still on the left.
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I’m not far-left, I’m extreme far-left. Radical far-left if you will. I want everyone to have healthcare and adequate housing. (spooky noises)
Luxury gay space communism or bust
FALGSC Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism
Whoaa there. That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think? Maybe turn it down a bit. Best we can do is Universal Debt and cardboard boxes.
“Truth” and “Right-wing” don’t associate.
ITT: not one person who knows what far left is.
Left is to redistribute the land. Far left is to redistribute the landlords too.
Far left is no landlords really. Like maybe small scale for like older people who prefer not to own condos and do any maintenance in elderly years, or students or people temporarily in another country or something, but no massive bloated greedy parasites like now.
I think the distinction comes in how you get there.
Let’s redistribute the farlands!
Between Dale and Amelia, the Earnhart family has been through a lot.
I’m far-ting.
I don’t really get the far left image, is it saying people on the far left are sponsored by tyre and racing companies?
Dale Earnhardt has been co-opted into a leftwing figurehead, mostly just to piss off people on the right
It’s absurdist comedy, a deconstruction of the soyjak meme format.
I don’t know. People will proudy tell you they are staunch conservative anti socialist, all while collecting a check from the government
To be fair, social programs aren’t Socialism.
*In the US
Go to most other Western societies and your version of “far-left” is new, naive, and conservative. In my country, most right-wingers back all the “socialism”—by American definition—that we have.
Y’all got decades of catching up to do. I admire the surge, but you’ve got a lot of examples around the world of how to actually do it. All the while also understanding what you apparently claim to stand for.
Keep enjoying that Us versus Them game though, since that’s more what Americanism is into. Love that division. Good job 👍 /s
This meme references the “far-left,” ie Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, etc, not the Social Democrats. If it was referring to the American “left,” it would say “liberals.”
How’s your political propaganda out there?
ALL of our major media outlets are for profit corporations and serve as propaganda outlets.
NONE of our major media outlets speak honestly about progressive policies.
ALL of our right wing propaganda equates socialism with “the left” and “the left” is portrayed in the absolute worst ways possible. They constantly talk about Venezuela and eating rats (they say we want that). The argument about abortion is almost entirely to be at opposition with “the left” and to paint us as “baby murderers.” Any conversation about taxation is equated to theft from “hard workers” to be given to “lazy slobs who pop out babies to collect free money.” They specifically take opposition to anything “the left” wants so they don’t have to have policies other than “hate the other.”
“Yeah, but if you go to those countries in Europe, you’ll find that almost no one likes the socialized health care they have in their country.” - Every American conservative and libertarian ever trying to defend the freedumb of paying thousands of dollars out of pocket each year for basic medical treatment.
I love the NHS in my country. I’m currently in hospital right now and the staff are fucking amazing but it’s underfunded so I got stuck in an isolation room all of Saturday after being transferred to another hospital. Anyway the staff isn’t the problem, it’s the lack of support and funding that’s killing the quality of the service which everyone i.e patients, staff, even politicians all agree on.
“In polite conversation, one should never mention religion or politics, as it never ends well”
Americans - “Hold my beer”
Middle-of-the-road person: “You are not in a culture war or an ideology war. You are both in a CLASS war, run by billionaires who are the REAL source of your pain. They use the six corporations that control all the news to distract you and keep you fighting with each other so that they . . . the rich . . . can run off with all the f*cking money.”
The economic left/right scale is and has always been a measure of which side of the class war you support.
Welcome to being a leftist who’s so fucking stupid they think they’re a centrist.
I think that the key difference here that would make two people who agree with this statement a centerist or a leftist is whether or not they feel visceral hatred for the right or if they treat them like human beings.
I’m not left or right. I hate you all mutually. 👍
Pure ideology (liberalism).
Ew. I want the government to keep their grubby little hands out of my freedoms, not pretend like they care while ass fucking us e.g. liberalism.
ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM is the best I agree
I feel like it’s rather stupid to simplify everyone into 2 big groups. Am I far right?
This isn’t simplifying people into 2 big groups, it’s talking about 2 big groups among many, many, many groups.
Isn’t the image implying that people who says they are not left or right are actually far right?
No, it’s saying that far-right people claim they aren’t right or left, and just care about the truth, as a means to distance their image from their actual views.
Some people genuinely aren’t left or right, those people are generally Social Democrats, ie Capitalism with strong social safety nets and some level of government ownership of some key industries. However, this isn’t perceived as being a centrist view due to the Overton Window, ie in America, Liberalism, a right wing ideology, is the status quo, with a liberal party and a fascist party.
The logic chain is a bit different.
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the fuck
They reject being labeled by the left, it’s the same how the left doesn’t like “woke” any more.
No, we think woke is hysterical because no right wingers know what it means. I’ll happily call myself woke, but I also use it as a sarcastic pejorative
