Freedom of Speech (did I miss something?)

[FireIceTalon]

I must have missed the Nazi running people over, with all this talk about alt-left.

Yea, no shit. Last few posts have had me perplexed, because they turn reality on its head.

There is no "alt-left" - at least not in the sense that Kandrathe is using the term. There is no radical left-wing group that has aligned itself with the Democratic Party that I know of (like the Tea Party did with certain factions of the Republican Party when Obama took office), since any leftist worth their salt knows the Democratic Party is a bourgeois party just as the Republican Party is - they both serve corporate interests and merely have disagreements on how best to manage the affairs of the capitalist class. One party is on the far right of capital, the other is center-left of capital and is not "leftist" in any meaningful sense of the word. A radical left wing group aligning itself with any faction of the Democrats, is an oxymoron and would cease to be "radical" the moment they did so.

And even if there is a so-called "alt left", this isn't anything new - the radical left has always existed as a resistance against capitalism and its evils through nearly the entirety of its history - and it will until the capitalist system and all its oppression are eradicated (you can count on it). We just had a presidential candidate that ran on an UNPRECEDENTED platform of hate, racism/sexism/homophobia, xenophobia, and anti-working class rhetoric, and he has continued to pander to white nationalist scum throughout his term thus far. A candidate so chauvinist and reactionary even by bourgeois standards that half the ruling class wants nothing to do with him. And you don't expect radical left resistance to develop against the hate and violence propagated by the same right-wing asshats that this administration is sympathetic towards? If so, you are absolutely living in a dream world. Violence by the alt-right is characterized and fueled by fear and hate and therefore manifests itself in the direction of discrimination and oppression. Violence by the left is SELF-DEFENSE against that oppression and discrimination. That's the difference.

This whole centrist "im better than both sides, and we can just solve all the worlds worst problems through pragmatic discourse" position is not only utopian, but its also the most PRIVILEGED, IVORY TOWER political position one can take, especially if you are a white, straight male. It fails to acknowledge the real-world, irreconcilable differences and interests that exist in peoples everyday lives - whether they are on the far right or far left. As one famous Howard Zinn once said (I'm not in the habit of quoting Soc Dems, but he is right on this one), "you cannot be neutral on a moving train". Most people who live in the every day real world, who have objective class interests and face real circumstances, do not have the luxury of being able to be "centrist".