Does the moderate left in the US need a more radical left

[BrainGlutton]

@adhay

Hmmm. 47% of households pay no taxes.

Wait a minute.

According to this NYT article, 67% of corporations paid no income taxes from 1998-2005.

And, of course, even the poorest pay sales tax and property tax. (Yes, everybody pays property tax. If you own your home, you pay property tax. If you rent your home, part of your rent goes towards your landlord’s property tax. If you buy anything in a store, part of the price goes towards the store’s landlord’s property tax.)

[BrainGlutton]

@mswas

Ahh yes, the trusty, “How can I be a bigot? I’m a leftist!”, argument.

Let’s look at the record:

@mswas

The elitism and religious bigotry of the Left in America is well known and obvious.

@Der_Trihs

No, they are largely imaginary. The Right defines “elitist” as “anyone who isn’t an ignorant right wing fanatic”. And the imagined “religious bigotry” is a combination of the Right insisting that everyone who disagrees with them is anti-religion, and their tendency to label opposition to bigotry as oppression. You don’t like gays being beaten? Oppressor!

I merely agreed (for once) with what Der Trihs said, which (1) does not amount to saying, “How can I be a bigot? I’m a leftist!”, and (2) is (for once) entirely true.

[foolsguinea]

@Bryan_Ekers

I gotta figure real progress in the U.S. won’t be made until everyone who remembers the 1950s (or more accurately, everyone who ideallizes and simplifies their vague memories of the 1950s, painting it as an American golden age that slipped away when the hippies fucked everything up) is dead.

Or alternatively, when we actually go back to what worked in the 1950’s–communitarian values. Most Yanks’ idea of the 1950’s is childish & ignorant.

[BrainGlutton]

@foolsguinea

Or alternatively, when we actually go back to what worked in the 1950’s–communitarian values. Most Yanks’ idea of the 1950’s is childish & ignorant.

If you mean what I think you do by “communitarian values,” then (at least a large and highly visible fraction of) the Baby Boomers called the same thing “conformity” and devoted their youths to rebelling against it in the name of “doing your own thing” (which in practice usually meant doing the thing all the other Boomers were doing, but that’s the way it goes).

And looking back on the differences between their parents’ (purported) values and mores and the Boomers’ (purported) alternatives, it’s actually hard to say either set was clearly right and the other wrong; but, at any rate, the Boomers have the better of the argument by a visible margin. At any rate, they really were sincerely opposed to racism and sexism and (so long as stereos and albums were exempted) consumerism.

OTOH, sometimes public spirit really does mean shutting up and pitching in. It’s no probably no coincidence that America’s commitment to the New Deal declined in pace and in parallel with its commitment to unreflective patriotism and the “Christian consensus.”

[foolsguinea]

See, I think the modern individualist take substantially is the problem. And I was born in the 1970’s, revered the 1960’s youth movements, & was knee-jerk individualist from a young age.

I’m not calling for lockstep conformity but for a people-cultivating community.

[BrainGlutton]

@foolsguinea

See, I think the modern individualist take substantially is the problem. And I was born in the 1970’s, revered the 1960’s youth movements, & was knee-jerk individualist from a young age.

I’m not calling for lockstep conformity but for a people-cultivating community.

In what sense? Is there anything in other countries today you would consider a good example of a “people-cultivating community”?

[foolsguinea]

Today? I don’t know. I’m not sure how it works outside of domination by a quasi-religious movement, such as Leninism.

[adhay]

@BrainGlutton

In what sense? Is there anything in other countries today you would consider a good example of a “people-cultivating community”?

Try Bhutan.