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My perspective on the perspectives

Posted by Dissident on Thursday, April 26 2018 at 3:34:19PM
In reply to parties posted by Eeyore on Monday, April 16 2018 at 03:59:45AM

Thank you for the compliments on my writing, though I'm sure you know there are those who dislike my tendency towards wordiness and opinionated musings, so I appreciate all who feel they benefit from what my pen produces. All writers are aware their style will not be palatable to all, so it's good to hear from those who do appreciate that style rather than only the ones who do not.

When I saw the Left becoming a mess as you did, in all the ways you described, it did not drive me to Trump and the alt-right sensibilities, because that would obligate me to continue aligning myself with an overall system I do not agree with. It is a system whose reliance on inequality, competition, and an acceptance that some will "always" have (i.e., must always have, or have an inherent right to acquire) power over others is the very "shadow force" over the office of the president and the two major political parties (and many of the smaller ones) that you mentioned. That "shadow force" is anything but shadowy, but is personified as the handful of individuals who have huge amounts of money enabling them to influence the system in their favor, as is the very nature of the system itself. Their instruments of influence take the form of everything from the lobbyists who literally buy the loyalty of the politicians; to the owners of the media who control what prevailing ideas are allowed to be disseminated to the public; to the owners of the very lucrative and powerful munitions industry that profit off of perpetual war and an economy largely dependent on the continuation of a combination of actual warfare and "Cold War"-style posturing to keep tensions conducive to war both publicly pervasive and culturally acceptable. Libertarians, to their credit, do not favor war, but their acceptance of the system based on inequality and competition invariably leads to war, since munitions production that depends on war is highly profitable and those who acquire power will fight each other for the greatest control over the whole pie that this fortunate handful controls.

Trump and Clinton are both strong beneficiaries of this world, and neither offer "change." They simply offer a different aesthetic form of dressing to the various constituents who support one or the other, the equivalent of a different costume sprite and set of Fatalities for your favorite Mortal Kombat digital fighter that in no way changes his/her system of moves, combos, and game goals (to beat all the others in competition, and to become the "ultimate" or "apex" warrior in a world of warfare).

One is only a viable "alternative" if you fully accept the system as it is, and hope for either a "lesser" evil (hopefully, since each keeps the cycle going), or hope to pick the "winning" side -- that winning side being the particular underclass demographic who gets a set of presumed minor privileges. In the U.S., this has taken the form of anyone who is not considered a social minority -- i.e., primarily those who are white, male, heterosexual, and cis-gendered -- being pitted against anyone who is not any of the above. Each blame the other for all the problems, with their mutual antipathy and aspersions of each other distracting from the small but vastly powerful group that truly holds the cards and happen to be only actual beneficiaries of the pot we're all now boiling within.

However, too many of one side see themselves identifying with Trump because he is a powerful white male with frat-boy like "masculinity" that is perceived as unabashedly pro-male. And too many of the other side identify with Clinton, because she is a powerful woman who gives a lot of smooth-talking lip service to "breaking the glass ceiling" and is thus perceived as some sort of "alternative" to patriarchy. In actuality, neither are overly concerned with these arbitrary demarcations and the demographics among the common rabble who comprise them, but simply with maintaining the status quo and remaining one of the handful who are in charge of the game. Hence, their mutual goal is to keep people at large from questioning the game itself, and simply taking arbitrary sides that ultimately do not threaten the few in power. All we do instead is threaten each other.

It was inevitable that Trump would disillusion you, someone who wants to see actual fundamental change in the global order. Just as it's inevitable that Clinton's supporters, just like the next centrist promoted by the DNC in 2020, will bring disillusionment to anyone on the "Left" side of the fence who want to see actual change. For those who are not interested in major change outside of which social group has the advantage over the other, then their major concern will continue to be the brand carried by the "leaders" in power, no matter their policies or the severity of their flaws. To them, only the flaws of the person representing the other brand will be too horrifying to support. Whoever carries their brand will merely be perceived as "imperfect" no matter the severity or nature of their flaws.

Why wasn't a brilliant and compassionate woman like Stein supported by the SJWs and the mainstream Left? Simple. Unlike Clinton, she isn't a powerful woman, lacking the millions that Clinton and many Democratic congresswomen have in their Swiss accounts. And unlike Clinton, she focuses her attention on the economic issues that affect us all, rather than projecting hate on white, male, heterosexual, and cis-gendered members of the labor demographic and demanding a reckoning. And she had a dinner in Russia years ago to discuss mutual nuclear disarmament and address global warming, which left her open to the Democrats' revived penchant for red-baiting since she didn't rant for war with Russia instead of discussing mutual cooperation to end destructive war and environmental plundering for profit (neither of which are good for an economy driven by war profiteering and cutting corners). And, to make matters worse, her opposition to the status quo obligated her to criticize Clinton as much as Trump. And any progressive who is not a Democrat has always been blamed for "handing" the election to the Republicans, because they want to continue to promote the Democrats as the only game in town for progressives rather than building an alternative (which may be too friendly to actual progressive policies and values, rather than centrists and SJWs pretending to be progressives; this is the cardinal sin of the Greens in their eyes).

As for the gender dysphoria thing, the reason it has been so heavily promoted in the way you mention is because the Left believes gender dysphoric people represent another traditionally disadvantaged demographic whose inner anger and festering bitterness against the "majority" can be tapped into to gain more members in the SJW-fueled hate squad against anyone who is (again) male, white, heterosexual, and cis-gendered. I have no problem with trans-gendered people being recognized as citizens who are distinct from definitively male or female, i.e., their choice of social identity. What I do not like is having their sense of identity politically militarized, so to speak, to recruit them as warriors of "justice" who are actually soldiers in the war to invert past forms of inequality rather than achieve equality for all. If that makes sense.

All of the above is why I went from supporting the mainstream Left to supporting the Greens and progressives like Jill Stein as a form of compromise, since they are obviously social democrats but not actual Marxian socialists (where, as everyone knows, is where my actual loyalties lie). Much as my strong disagreements with organized religion and its political meddling ultimately brought me to an alternative faith that keeps out of politics and is friendly to science rather than embracing agnosticism or atheism and bitterly rejecting the very concept of spirituality itself along with what I consider important questions it asks about layers of reality that modern scientific instrumentation and methodology are not yet able to pin down. As I see it, the truly progressive politicians like Stein at least do indeed address the actual issues, without pushing a polarizing form of identity politics and a revival of Cold War-style baiting of other nations that spread hatred & competitive frustration among us "rabble" rather than unity among the international workers.

As for the lamented individuals sitting around all day smoking pot and watching Netflix (some of them might be watching Hulu too, ya know! Let's not generalize here!): I have no more love for seeing individuals sitting around idle than you do, my friend. This is why I support a system that guarantees well-remunerated, personally meaningful and interesting work to everyone, with said type of remuneration enabling them to live both comfortably and securely. I know first hand what it's like to be forced out of work, or (as is currently the case) working a job that requires a lot of hard work and sacrifice that is simply not lucrative and which forces me into a constant status of financial insecurity and frequently worried about being among the homeless soon. I also see many individuals who work as many as three jobs but still struggle, as the only jobs they can get are low-paying service oriented jobs that, at best, barely pay some of the bills (often forcing them to choose between rent, utilities, having enough food for the month, and sufficient access to recreation to at least partly compensate for the stress of overwork & lack of time with the family).

Nevertheless, I am still far prouder of the work I do than high-paid corporate lawyers and lobbyists, who do nothing for the world other than help further line the pockets of the ultra-rich that employ them at their lucrative positions. I do not respect these people simply because they do some form of hard work, and do not require the help of social welfare programs.

Hence, to me it's not the idle people that I do see when I walk or drive across the boulevards of the big city that truly irk me, but the idle members of the rich that we don't see. Except, that is, when they entertain us by flaunting their privileged lifestyles and the dysfunctional mental attitudes it encourages among them on their reality TV shows. Which leads to these forms of televised entertainment as bread and circuses to help keep people contended with their lot in life and the state of the world, rather than united to improve it.

Yes, there are a good number of respected people on this very board who vehemently disagree with me on my position that the acquisition of unlimited amounts of financial power over others should not be a right as fundamental as freedom of speech and all other civil liberties, but my personal research and personal experience do not bear out the contention that it's a comparable right, since it gives a few the ability and inclination to compromise all other civil rights. That is the way I see it, and it's the major reason I do not take sides of candidates of the two major parties who promote the same world order, nor do I take the side of one entire demographic over another when that demographic is based on gender, race, age, sexual orientation, inner sense of sexual/gender identity, ethnic background, etc. And nor do I take sides against demographics who have chosen a different faith, or no faith at all, or by accident of birth were born behind different state borders than the U.S.




Dissident






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