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the_dunk_tank
It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
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Ok rant time. It's a bit big so I'm going to bracket it with spoilers as not to take a whole page of scrolling.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/02/14/chris-hedges-building-a-left-right-coalition-against-war/
I respect Hedges, but this is a point I have disagreement with him. It isn't with a coalition, but I don't think he's taking in the whole picture and taking a bit one sided simplistic view.
It isn't just protesting war for protesting war's sake. It is not taking in the root causes and whole picture of what is going on with the country (the western world really now). Not learning lessons from the past. Being a bit one sided, maybe a bit short sighted. A coalition needs to understand each other. It also needs to have respect especially when one part is actively trying to erase and genocide the other part, and that's precicely from not learning the lessons of the past.
spoiler
All Hedges grandstanding about not canceling only to cancel the "woke left" as a pejorative. He bit the :live-tucker-reaction: too much and commits a friendly fire. I think it shows a lack of understanding from his part, and I mean this all with respect to Hedges and the work he's done.
After how much the term "woke" is used primarily as a fascist umbrella scapegoat term today i.e. :frothingfash: [CW: queerphobia] Ron DeSatan and entire state parties declaring queers a direct threat to women and children to justify fascist laws, he enables fascists using the term as an attack vector. Like no one really uses the term 'woke' on [THE LEFT].
I get temporary allies nuclear war outside comfort zone blah blah urgency, but when Hedges attacks some segments of left for not wanting to stand next to their oppressors pushing for laws making their existence illegal or actively grifting by speading lies and innuendo like Libs of Tik Tok , he displays ignorance of the situation.
We are in the middle of the 3rd Red Scare :kremlins: - he must know and understand that by now. We are also in the middle of the 2nd Lavender Scare to compliment it, ironically boosted by these so-called MAGA "Communists". This isn't just a simple disagreement like universal healthcare vs public option here. This is actively smearing the queers as an easy scapegoat under the umbrella [WOKE] term.
He quotes Nader
.....
Then Heges himself
Has the Lavender Scare been memory holed by these elder Leftists? Perhaps they aren't paying enough attention to those they are allying in and don't realize the extent that these so called temporary allies are virtue signaling con artist grifters of the things he wants to fight.
Hedges seems to miss the point of WHY the leadership and investor class they are protesting is doing this war. - it is because peace wasn't keeping the line going up as fast. It was still making them money. It still had them on the Forbes list. But the line stopped going up as much. What stood in the way? The peace and weapons treaties. [wayback because CNN memory holed it] :trump-moist: tore up on the orders of Bolton and their major bribers, Renaissance Technologies.
Protest war but you need to understand the root cause. That all goes back to :smedly-exhausted: war is a racket.
You need to protest the racket and the tools of that racket as much or more than you need to protest the war and the nasty apocalyptic situation it's leading us to. The tools of the racket is what is oppressing us, piting us against each other, and part of the laundry list of common grievances that we should be able to address to our government.
The establishment / State uses the tools of a Red Scare and Lavender Scare to achieve the threat or percieved threat 🎈 to manufacture consent (another lesson that also seems lost in the sauce here) to placate the population into extorting their tax dollars so :stonks-up: go up faster. Often at the cost of wages, benifets, and social services and infrastructure. Austerity.
The real irony of this all is while those on the :libertarian-approaching: and :frothingfash: right speaking against the war get Red Baited as agents of Russia or China the same as [THE LEFT]. THIS should be a uniting force. Nothing builds teams like common suffering.
The slandering of [THE LEFT] as pedophiles or idpol or cancel culture or [WOKE] is used by them to contibute to the Lavender Scare component of the 3rd Red Scare and try to cancel people not simply from social media, but from life and civilization itself. It feeds the Christo-fascists.
A nation under threat or percieved threat will clamp down on liberties and use religious dogma to stir hyper nationalism. That was played out quite nicely in Game of Thrones. We're seeing that on both sides of the war in Ukraine as well. Ukraine banning the ~~Church of England~~ Russian Orthodox lol and Russia leaning into it.
Hedges wants to cry about moral absolutism when those he's allying with is advocating for State Sanctioned moral absolutism and witch hunts. (Red and Lavender Scares)
Hedges goes to make the "lives are on the line put the petty differences aside" (paraphrasing) when these supposed petty differences are exactly the lives being threatened here at home by those he's temporarily allying with.
For as much as Hedges wants to say come together and build a coalition, why is it always [THE LEFT] that has to constantly make concessions or get berated or told to pocket greivances or look the other way?
I get allies for a common cause yadda yadda, but there seems to be a lack of understanding and remembering history as we are most definitely repeating it. A naivete, or short sightedness from those he is allying with making the complaints about why some on [THE LEFT] don't want to have a photo op publicity stunt in DC with those actively trying to erase them from life.
i appreciate your type up