Leave the country based on election result?

Where do I get the idea that the left is gone? Jesus. I am on the left. I have no representation outside of a very few elected officials who are or will be marginalized in the public sphere while goons and thugs from the right are paraded around like homecoming queens. I can hardly believe you are asking me that question. Sounds to me like you are in denial. You are too intelligent a person to actually believe what you are saying.

 

Well, I don't deign to speak for him but I imagine it might be because his politics are marginal considering the tenor of the modern day Democratic Party. He is true Left.

 

As usual, the definition of Left has shifted so much that people don't remember what it actually means.

MM is correct. The Right has shifted so far right that the whole discourse has shifted. What you call the left today is really the centre. The actual left is off the map and not part of the discussion.

 

Left or Right is not the real issue. The real issue is the complete dismissal of science. When there are elected officials on the science committee getting cheered at fundraisers for claiming that the big bang theory and evolution are messages from hell and that the creation story is hard fact we are in real trouble. When elected officials think there is "legitimate rape" and that women can "shut-off" their reproductive system we are in trouble.

 

i listened to democracy now's coverage of the election returns most of the night, mostly because the idea of watching the idiots on cnn was entirely unpalatable. it turned into an extended little demonstration of the extent to which, organizationally and politically, there is no left in the united states at all. none of the perspectives that were outlined there have any meaningful voice in the dominant media. they have no place within the democratic party, which is about a leftist as the non-gaullist conservative party in france and has been that way since the ascendancy of the dlc to power in the party across the late 80s (i think--this isn't an area of detailed expertise, the twists and turns of the democratic party---what's clear is that the dlc was ascendent by the time clinton was first nominated.) the most obvious demonstration of the centrism of the democrats of the 1990s was dick morris' famous strategy of triangulation--co-opting republican initiatives and rhetoric. that tactic had the effect of driving the republicans further and further to the right in an effort to find space to articulate independent positions. measured against *any* national political spectrum that has even a social-democratic mass political party, it's pretty obvious that the united states is what it is often called, a single party state with two right wings. in pragmatic terms, the main difference between bush 2 and clinton on globalizing capitalism (for example) is that the former preferred assymetrical bilateral agreements because they were understood to be more nationalist and manly, where clinton preferred multi-lateral agreements. that's about it. in foreign policy more generally, the bush people were simply incompetent. and, as it turned out, arguably war criminals (according to the nuremburg standards anyway)...but i digress.

for example, chris hedges was outlining a position i've held for some time---that, absent anything like an organizational left and given the political and ideological paralysis of conventional political institutions (one that is eating away at their legitimacy---witness the nature of far-right/neo-fascist rhetoric in the states over the past 2 years in particular--which has a lineage that goes back to the 90s, one what you could already see in action in the radio culture of the bosnian war on the part of american-backed stations....but i digress again)----the anger of people is being channeled in a neo-fascist direction. this is not good in any way---but the problem is that the political and ideological paralysis that's obtained since 2008 at the least makes of this a potentially quite dangerous situation. it's the classic scenario for the rise of fascism. it's not given in advance that it will issue into that outcome, but the possibilities are definitely there and it's naive not to see it. american exceptionalism is a myth. nothing will save us, collectively, from ourselves.

so there is every reason to at least keep an eye out for something quite bad coming from the right in a situation of crisis. the political preconditions are present. the situation is in an abstract way present. but everything depends on how things play out in the legitimate political institutions. if, for example, the republicans do abandon their idiotic obstruction strategy of the past 2 years, maybe it'll become possible to actually address the quite profound problems that confront american capitalism. or avoid them. but if the conditions of the past 2 years continue to obtain, the country will continue to drift until, from one direction or another, the shit will hit the fan.

and remember---the american surveillance state remains largely blind in its right eye.

 

Personally, I think the fact that we have to vote (and often at a loss) on something as mundane and socially negligible as gay marriage is pretty indicative of where we are politically.

 

Well, I'm not on the left, so to me the world looks a bit different than it does to you. Intelligence has nothing to do with it; perspective does. Plus - and I don't mean to tell you how you should think, so please don't take it that way, but I do believe I should mention this - the fact that there is no one, or almost no one, who nicely fits into the particular set of slots of left ideology you find most congenial doesn't mean the left is gone. Again, looking in from the outside, the left side of the spectrum looks to me very heterogeneous and raucous, with lots of disparate agendas from different parts of the coalition. They're all there, they're all left -- but you might not identify with many of them. Doesn't mean they're not there and blatant.

Hmm, reading through roachboy's post I see what the problem is. You guys are defining "left" as a sort of platonic form that has an existence in an ideal state, while I'm viewing it more contextually. Historical circumstances make left parties different in different places.

 

Contextually, I see it as the difference between one side that wants to limit rights vs the other side that wants to expand rights and one side that wants to alter the balance between legislative branch and judicial branch vs the other side that trusts an independent judiciary (while not always agreeing with it).

Or one side, the small government side, that wants the government in a woman's womb and a couples bedroom vs the other side that believes privacy is a right.

 

I respect your perspective, but respectfully disagree with what you see. And it does matter, very much so, whether I identify with them. You can say it's a matter of context, but I say it's a matter of a continual push to the right that has centralized left politics.

 

Pardon the interruption...

but I just can't resist posting this here...

 

Yeah I posted that in another thread, BG said they'd be more then welcome to Winnipeg. The part I enjoy the most is the laughter off screen.

 

Your country is your country. I recently had the pleasure of spending some time with folks from China. They are from our China plant, and by the 6th night I learned so much about how people feel about "their country". It was heart warming and sad at the same time. It's the people I care about, not the government.
I also saw how my company did not take care of these vistors during the storm of Sandy. I did and made sure they were ok without electric and wireless for 3 days.
Away from home and nobody fucking cared where they were or if they made their flights. Fuck Corporate!

 

As long as they can get away from all the socialism Obama is shoving down their throats they'll find a way to keep warm.