Notices by Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz), page 119

@policeinchains
> Again, i don't think libertarian and left, authoritarian and right are same things.

Really? Because that's exactly what you claimed here:
https://todon.nl/@policeinchains/101324978445357908

... and why you claimed the #PoliticalCompass analysis has no value ...
@lynnesbian

@policeinchains
> Social Democrats had a history of rightward mobility since way before that.

That's revisionist rubbish. I'm not as familiar with the US situation, but Labour parties in the UK, OZ, and NZ were all economically left-wing parties, entered by economically hard-right neo-liberals using identitarian politics as a wedge (in NZ it was particularly the nuclear-free issue). #NZLabour economic policy flipped from hard left to hard right within a few years in the mid-1980s.
@lynnesbian

@policeinchains this is the history of colonization, yes, but it's not as universally successful as you seem to think. Again, look at Graeber's work on Madagascar, or the #SurvivalInternational work with uncontacted peoples.
@Meachamus_Prime @lynnesbian

@policeinchains you're just moving the problem sideways. In order to co-opt local authorities, you need to either be able to buy them off or use force effectively against them. That has ongoing costs. You're also presuming that these "local authorities" are hierarchical, maintain a monopoly of force, and see their interests as divorced from their populations, which is essentially the definition of a state (not necessarily a modern one, true).
@Meachamus_Prime @lynnesbian

@policeinchains this has been the political strategy of neo-liberalism in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, and many other countries. It's impossible to build a coherent resistance against this without consistent, historically based definitions of left and right, and libertarian and authoritarian. Using relative definitions plays right into their hands.
@lynnesbian

@policeinchains if you want right-wing authoritarianism to take over a country without resistance, one very effective way is to use entryism to take over the largest left-wing party, and move its economic policy to the centre-right while using more authoritarian means to enact that policy. That way the "left" / "right" spectrum (in corporate media discourse) is actually a two-faction authoritarian right regime, and the actual left and civil libertarians are totally marginalized.
@lynnesbian

@policeinchains none of this makes any consistent sense. If "left" is simply relative to the geographical territory you're analyzing, then given the right set of political conditions, a fascist party could be the "left". If the difference between libertarian and authoritarian is just left/right, it's also totally relative. So China's "social credit" system could be "authoritarian" or "libertarian" depending on what you compare it to. This is dangerous nonsense.
@lynnesbian

@mmin de nada :) I particularly recommend the Team Human episodes that interview folks from #Enspiral (there are at least 2 or 3). I would also recommend any of Adam Curtis' films, although he doesn't understand digital politics as well as he does geo-politics or political psychology, so his film on Silicon Valley (.. Machine of Loving Grace) has to be taken with a few large grains of salt.

@jackyan we're also supposed to believe that #RT is purely a propaganda channel - even though we're told "80%" of what they broadcast is good journalism - because it's funded by the Russian state. But the #BBC is not a propaganda channel, and the 20% they get wrong (eg Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction") is just innocent mistakes #YeahRight. IMHO both are state propaganda channels, whose journalists squeeze in good journalism whenever the state that funds them doesn't have skin in the game.

@jackyan having watched 2 out of 3 parts of Operation Injektion, I'm pretty disappointed. Nowhere near the level of detailed research or insight that Curtis achieves in his films. It's mostly just a summary of the Hillarati talking points we've been hearing every since the result was announced in 2016. Plus a few highly questionable definitions ("disinformation" isn't the same as "propaganda" because it aims to convince people deceptively. Really? #WTF).

@policeinchains It's easy to assume all states have the same means of enforcement as wealthy empires like the USA, EU, Russia, and China. But enforcing centralized laws across a whole territory requires a huge amount of technology, energy, education etc that many states cannot sustain without affiliating to an empire and receiving "aid". The Cuban state, for example, is extremely limited in its ability to enforce laws the majority of the population disagree with.
@Meachamus_Prime @lynnesbian

@policeinchains
> There is nowhere literally outside the political authority as long as it's within national borders.

Not true. You need to read some of the writing by #DavidGraeber on his anthropological field work in Madagascar. The state there (at least at the time) only had effective power in the capital city and surrounding areas, and was utterly ignored in the rest of the country.
@Meachamus_Prime @lynnesbian

@policeinchains
> leftist ideals can be abstracted from history of leftism. Which can be formulated as possibility of unalienated humanity where every person would be free and equal.

This is the aspiration of almost every political-economic manifesto from Adam Smith in 'The Wealth of Nations' to the US Constitution, to the Communist Manifesto. The devil is in the details. Politics is as much about 'means' as it is about 'ends', perhaps more (because means determine ends).
@lynnesbian

@policeinchains
> Not everybody in the history was consistent obviously but leftist ideals can be abstracted from history of leftism.

Ok, we agree on that. But it doesn't really answer the question. Whose histories of "leftism" do we consider authoritative? Marxist ones? Anarchist ones? Liberal ones? Conservative ones? Academic ones? Some of each? Do we each abstract a leftism from the histories we consider legitimate, or is there a canonical abstraction? If so, whose is that?
@lynnesbian

@policeinchains this is a strawman. Citation please.
@lynnesbian

@policeinchains
> a person can support state ownership of some sectors and support privatization of others

That's an example of a centrist view on the left-right (economic) spectrum, one that accepts both as legitimate options depending on circumstances. Such a person could have strongly liberal social views (pro-choice) or strongly conservative ones (anti-abortion), without either of these clashing with their economic views.
@lynnesbian

@policeinchains you're not answering my question. Regardless of their political situation at the time, it's clear that Lenin's and Mao's regimes were highly authoritarian from the get-go. So according to your claim (authoritarian = right), they were right-wing regimes. So any marxists who still eulogize these regimes (and they're still around) are part of the "right". But they see themselves as being to the left of social democratic liberals.
@lynnesbian

@policeinchains wait, what? You are saying modern China is "left"? So, keeping in mind your claim that authoritarian = right, does that mean modern China is not authoritarian?
@lynnesbian

@wolftune it's equally essential that a small group are brave enough to listen to the 'voice in the wilderness', and join the back-paddling effort, so that solo back-paddler isn't just written off as a crank and ignored.
@rbe_expert @Adoxographer @Adoxographer

@wolftune it's true that if only one person back-paddles, the other 99 will still propel the boat over the edge. But it's equally true that exactly the same thing will happen for sure if the person raising the alarm isn't walking the talk (or in this case paddling it ;) A majority back-paddling is needed to effect change, but *someone* has to be brave enough to be the first one paddling against the mainstream, and cop all the flack that comes with that.
@rbe_expert @Adoxographer @Adoxographer