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.
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.
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
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.
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
and Frederick Douglass, who said:
spoiler
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.
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.
Lmao, sorry, FD's writing is so loud I can't hear your sealioning over the sound of his righteous fury
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.
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.
So, you're agreeing with me again and saying that we should use strategy?
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