Far-left politics

[snooper2]

Proponents of horseshoe theory interpretation of the left-right spectrum argue that the far left and far right have more in common with each other as mutual extremists than they have with moderate centrists.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-left_politics#cite_note-2

The horseshoe theory in political science asserts that rather than the far left and the far right being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear political continuum, they in fact closely resemble one another, much like the ends of a horseshoe. The theory is attributed to French writer Jean-Pierre Faye.[1]

(ON EDIT, adding a picture too (one from the many on google images that won't get me labeled as a Rand fand by tools LOL)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0viO-Dm52sM/SS0f3-39cfI/AAAAAAAAKPY/LCL1ygeEmBY/s400/The+Political+Circle.jpg

Agree or Disagree with this concept? (curious poll)

17 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited
	Agree
	4 (24%)
	Disagree
	13 (76%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Confusious]

1. I've seen example of people

Jumping from far left to far right.

Micheal savage is one.

Personally, I think both ignore realities of life and people in favor of ideology.

I prefer my ideology to conform with reality.

[Fumesucker]

2. Is your OP in support of this graphic you used a little while ago?

You know, the one where Libertarians and Objectivists are the freedom lovers and Democrats are just as bad as Republicans?

[RomneyLies]

6. That's a pretty fucked up graphic right there.

Total Randian bullshit.

[snooper2]

10. in the same theme yep...I don't agree with Objectivists or Libertarians at the top under "Freedom"

But everything else is just about right---

Especially
Politically Correct Activists vs. Piously Correct Activists

[Fumesucker]

12. I've heard the term "politically correct" a great deal, usually from the right

I don't think I've ever heard "piously correct".

And like it or not Ayn Rand worshipers are on that graphic you used as examples of true supporters of freedom.

[snooper2]

15. This one is better (Nadir point)

but it's a .gif, clicky it-

[Fumesucker]

19. Too late for that

You posted what you posted and now you own it.

Libertarians and Objectivists are the true supporters of freedom, you made no demurrals when you first posted that moronic graphic.

[snooper2]

20. ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL

you just made me serially LOL in the office

Okay, I own it, it defines me, it is who I am- busted, nailed,

I'll go back to watching canadacatalyst now

[Fumesucker]

22. OMC? Is that you?

[G_j]

31. mmm...

Now there is a flashback!

[snooper2]

33. If you are going to call me anybody at least make it someone good

like the beer and travel money dude

[Fumesucker]

36. Whatever his faults may have been Random Thoughts wasn't a Libertarian Objectivist

Also he didn't clog up his posts with a lot of smilies.

OMC on the other hand did all of that.

[Hatchling]

65. Random Thoughts was sweet and funny

If a little deranged.

You are not sweet and funny at all.

[snooper2]

66. I'm sweet and funny!

can this be our song!

[patrice]

53. Not quite OMC's level of fuckery, I think. Close, "but no cigar." nt

[whatchamacallit]

23. And in record time

the ROFLMAO escape pod.

[snooper2]

30. I can't escape I'm a trappy! LOL

So you agree with the political circle or not?

Go too far to the left or too far to the right and you eventually hit Alex Jones!


whatchamathink?

[whatchamacallit]

39. I think it's idiotic

but you knew that.

[snooper2]

41. Is it idiotic because nobody who claims to be "super far left"

wants ANY association with someone they deem the mortal enemy, the super far right?

[whatchamacallit]

44. If the "super far left" and "super far right" are the same

how can they be mortal enemies?

[patrice]

48. Because they are not 100% the same, so that even a small "amount" of difference evokes

antagonism over who is who.

[whatchamacallit]

50. Right...

So even though the left and right have radically different agendas, the great inert middle think we're the same.

[patrice]

58. Agendas are abstractions. I prefer to talk about how people act, how they treat others as more or

less disposable accessories to abstractions that they often refuse, or just fail, to admit may be more in the less probable spectrum of more-or-less probable.

e.g. political speech, I have seen what calls itself "the Left" treat words PRECISELY like the Reich does, that is, abuse, insult, attack and otherwise OPPRESS posters here on nothing more than what they assume is, or have tactically decided to treat as, a "talking point", which, btw, they use a lot themselves.

bt, btw . . . I am more Left than anything else and, while I do support personal ownership of property, I go quite a bit deeper into the Left spectrum than most people you meet. I just DO NOT like the way what calls itself "the Left" is going about "its" business lately. I think they are DAMAGING what would be "their own" putative objectives, for example, Single Payer Health Care.

[Fumesucker]

59. It's not just the left and the right that use that sort of language

I see it here on DU constantly from the very strong Obama supporters who pride themselves on being sensible pragmatic moderate centrists.

[patrice]

61. It's stupid, wherever it comes from. Some of it is talking-point robots, some of it is just newbies

beginning to actually use the words they happen to have.

[patrice]

62. The effect is all very cliquey & clique driven & I don't care what labels you hang on those cliques

, that's not constructive.

[Fumesucker]

63. You were hanging labels yourself just a couple of posts back

We use labels to try and make sense of an almost infinitely complex world that is far beyond our ever really grasping.

It's extremely difficult to have a conversation without labels because they are a shorthand, without them all our posts would be far longer and probably no more accurate or easy to understand.

[patrice]

64. The brew needs a bottle, so bottles are useful as long as you don't drink them. I'm just advocating

for awareness of what we are doing.

[whatchamacallit]

13. And I was beginning to think

you'd manage to never out yourself.

[snooper2]

16. out myself as what?

if it's the circle you are all throwing fits about I'll add another one--

whatchamawhat! LOL

[Starry Messenger]

11. Socialism is serfdom?

WTF. I guess our public parks and schools are really fiefdoms?

[patrice]

35. The only way this graphic makes sense is if Freedom has one & ONLY one essential trait,

no external control, because that's the only trait Freedom would share with Serfdom (and, thus, be different segments on the same continuum/line, curved or otherwise), so I'm not at all certain that you and I share the same definition of Freedom.

[Fumesucker]

40. A point of clarification

It's not my graphic and I don't agree with it, you should address your post to the OP.

[patrice]

45. I suspect that the concept of Freedom used in this graphic is too reactionary for me, which would

make it not freedom at all, but only just a different level of serfdom.

[Romulox]

3. That same theory would suggest "centrist" Democrats have more in common with "centrist"

Republicans than with the foundational principles of their own Party. From my readings at DU and elsewhere, this is 100% true.

That's why "ex" Republicans feel so comfortable here, for example.

[RomneyLies]

4. They only resemble one another in their fervor and in much of the idiocy both extremes exhibit

Other than that, if you locked the extremes into a room together, there would probably be mutually assured destruction.

[patrice]

21. +1

[union_maid]

52. That sounds about right n/t

[G_j]

5. Would this apply to people who swear the world is flat,

and their counterparts, those who know the earth is a sphere?

[Romulox]

7. How can one not be reminded of: "'No Labels': We’re not centrist anymore, promise!"

The "centrists" (and their corporate backers!) are really feeling put out, right now.

For two years, the nonprofit group “No Labels” has brought together some of the most respected and influential members of the New York and Washington political and business elite to publicly fight for a set of vague goals related to “civility” and “problem-solving.” They have, so far, failed to advance their cause, because their cause is nonsense. But they keep trying, bless their hearts. Their newest rerelaunch is underway, with some sort of conference in New York today, and their new mascots are figures hated by everyone besides people who reflexively think angering your own party is self-evidently virtuous: Former Utah Gov. John Huntsman and current Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/no_labels_were_not_centrist_anymore_promise/

[graham4anything]

8. More of the Ralph Nader bullspit. Nader threw the election to the repubs & reaped millions in pocket

only good third party is one that promises to caucus with the Dems (like Bernie Sanders and Angus King and Charlie In Crist I trust).

Rand and Ron Paul
two frauds.
Ron now making $50grand a speech off the cultlike fans he has.
As for Rand,Don't let the smile or the clone fool you
[img][/img]

[whatchamacallit]

9. Please provide a policy example of "far-left politics"

I see a lot of these inane attempts to equate the "far left" with the far right. We know what the right is all about, in your opinion, what is it the left demands that makes it the same as the right?

[pampango]

42. A desire for the US to withdraw from its commitments to international organizations (the UN and WTO

are good examples).

There isn't any 'official' designation of far-left and far-right positions but I see a lot of suspicion of international organizations (tied to a fear of a loss of national sovereignty) coming from both ends of the spectrum.

Open Democracy had an interesting article on the comparison between left-wing (Occupy) and right-wing (tea party) populists a few months ago. It's quite long.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/catherine-fieschi/plague-on-both-your-populisms

For right-wing populism, a variant of racism (more or less sophisticated in its language and its footwork) will do the trick... But given the contemporary left’s complicated relationship to diversity (that pesky conundrum resulting from the dual demands of equality and representation), clear cut racism is no longer an option and neither is a classic xenophobia necessarily related to race, ethnicity or even religion.

For left-wing populism in the era of identity politics, the contortions are more and more demanding. ... This means that ‘the other’ can be expanded to mean just about anything: the elite of course, liberals and intellectuals who favour the complexity of diversity, the ‘traitors amongst us’, but also foreign powers (Europe, the US, China).

In this respect, xenophobia is an intrinsic part of populism, because the latter’s political dynamics create ‘others’ as a matter if course in a constant quest to determine who’s who. Even in its most benign version, populism asks people to choose: with us or against us? For the people or against the people?

The Occupy movement is diverse, and some within it are clearly more attracted by simplistic solutions than others. But overall, and especially in the US, the demands, while often couched in a rhetoric and a style that privileged direct politics and transparency, were often targeted, precise, almost technical - limiting campaign funds; the restoring of the Glass-Steagall Act that would once again separate investments banks from commercial banks; or the closing of the loophole on Delaware-based Corporations. The language of anti-corruption and democratic accountability differs substantially, in that it targets specific laws and specific members of the elite. It is not anti-elitist per se. And in all these points it differs markedly from a populist movement.

[whatchamacallit]

47. Sounds like nonsense to me

Thanks though.

[Romulox]

57. The comparison between so-called "leftwing" Corporatists and their rightwing analogues

requires far less ink. They are essentially part of the same movement.

[hay rick]

14. Comforting theory for those who would maintain status quo. nt

[patrice]

17. If means and ends are equally important, Left & Right are more alike than different, because they

act the same for different purposes.

[leveymg]

18. American politics is really a pretzel.

Just ask this guy.

[bemildred]

24. I guess everybody ought to be moderate politically so they could be different underneath. nt

[patrice]

56. That's too often an abused and, hence, mischaracterized and under-rated position, I think that

honestly and assiduously developed could, at least hypothetically, result in more inclusiveness and freedom than any of the other positions. I know that sounds like I'm talking about PO, who may or may or may not be such a person, btw, but this isn't something that I just started thinking in 2008.

I have to admit, though, that "centrist" may be a word more in keeping with the kinds of processes I'm referring to and "position" should be a result, not a starting point.

[bemildred]

72. In the 60s the saying was "do your own thing".

I think that is what we need to agree on, our individual right to "do our own thing" as long as we are not annoying or abusing anybody else.

Some "problems" are only made worse when you try to "fix" them.

[NeedleCast]

25. I think Its True on Some Single Issues

and I think the fanaticism and purity demands of any form of extremism, political or otherwise, is generally the same.

[whatchamacallit]

29. Fanaticism as in

fanatically supporting leaders or parties regardless of their policies?

[NeedleCast]

49. Fanaticism as the word is defined

and in cases where radicals on the right and left have the same endgame on certain issues. One issue that came to mind was when the LHC at CERN was being built and turned on. I saw elements from the left argue that we shouldn't be spending gobs of money on this project when (insert cause here) and elements among the fundamentalist right arguing that the search for the Higgs-Bosun (AKA God Particle) was spitting in the face of their god. Different objections, same endgame. Both stupid.

Moreover, a belief that on some (possibly many) issues, the fanatical/radical supporters of each side desire the same thing - control. Primarily, a desire to control your decision making on a certain issue.

[whatchamacallit]

51. So centrists don't seek control?

They are in control. What are the endgame issues you elude to?

[NeedleCast]

55. I Edit my above post to add an example

while/after you responded, sorry.

Another example might be some extreme elements among feminists and (again) the fundamentalist right's desire to do away with pornography.

I guess I see this in terms of two mindsets: One that says "I don't agree with (x) but I don't want to take away your right to do it" and one that says "I don't agree with (x) and I don't think you should be able to do it either."

[el_bryanto]

26. I agree that the actual far left probably has a lot in common with the far right

Stalin and Hitler were not that far apart.

that said, here in America what is called the left is actually the middle, and the far left is moderate liberal in the rest of the world, so the analogy doesn't do much in the US.

Bryant

[2ndAmForComputers]

27. Only according to stupid, primitive black-and-wite thinking.

"A is evil. B is evil. Hence, A=B."

[snooper2]

32. uh, yeah, Jean-Pierre Faye

looks like he thinks in real simple terms

BiographyFaye was a founding member of the avant-garde literary review Tel Quel, and later of Change. He received the Prix Renaudot for his 1964 novel L'Écluse (Éditions Seuil). He is a regular contributor to Gilles Deleuze's literary journal Chimère.

With Jacques Derrida and others, he authored the "Blue Report" (French: Le rapport bleu) which led to the Collège international de philosophie, an open university, in 1983. Yet he soon turned against deconstructionism, postmodernism and its main apostles - as reflected in "Langages totalitaires 2: la raison narrative" (1995).

His essays, including Théorie du récit and Langages Totalitaires, remain influential studies of the use and abuse of language by totalitarian states and ideologies.

[2ndAmForComputers]

34. Sigh.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

[snooper2]

38. So where do you put truthers and birthers on the political spectrum?

two points seperated by



Or just about standing at the bottom of the circle holding hands with Alex Jones?

[Fumesucker]

43. Where would you now put those who believe there were no WMDs in Iraq?

Where would you have put them in 2003?

[snooper2]

46. I don't think you can define somebody by their thoughts on one specific issue

it's the sum of their beliefs--

I didn't think there were WMD in Iraq-

[2ndAmForComputers]

67. You mean, like you just did with post 38?

[snooper2]

68. well that's a little different, I'll try to explain to you...

some folks are for the death penalty, some against. Some like imports, some only buy "union", some have thoughts on charter schools, some think age for drinking should be lowered, some think Cuba is good, some bad. Some think Iraq had WMD, some believe chimpy and his cohorts, some think we should just bomb brown people....


Lots of different ideas and perspectives-

Now, when you go into CGI planes, Obama isn't American, bomb the moon type shit you are in a whole new level of stupid. A level I prefer to put to the side in it's own little box

[2ndAmForComputers]

69. Was that supposed to MEAN something?

[snooper2]

71. you ever post more than six words at a time?

We need MORE! LOL...

[bowens43]

28. No, it's bullshit.

[SpartanDem]

37. Yes, you see do some overlap on some issues.

Civil liberties is one you definitely see more people that are anti-Patriot Act out of the Ron Paul crowd than traditional Republicans. Both far right and left are generally distrustful of government power, but in most cases there ares different reason why. The far right and left are both anti-elite in that they see government as favoring the wealthy, the right which is overwhelmingly white has the added issue of protecting privilege. That's why you see the tea party attacking not only the bailout of wall street, but also the social safety net.


Poducerism is often confused with progressive politics because of the anti-elite rhetoric, however progressive analysis targets systems and institutions while Producerism sees evil individual actors and generally targets scapegoats. According to Lyons, when right-wing populists feel squeezed between the powerful and the powerless:
They often mobilize to defend their limited privilege and fend off oppression from above, while at the same time attacking those below them on the socio-economic ladder to retain a status that at least keeps them off the bottom. In this way they are simultaneously buttressing some oppressive power relationships and systems of social control while seeking to overturn others. In practice it is important to note that attacks against those below tend to be much stronger and more substantive than the attacks on those above, which often tend to be mainly rhetorical.

http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/populism-01.html

[Bradical79]

54. I think it's an oversimplification viewing politics on a straight line

Sure, people with authoritarian views tend to end up in about the same place (a small group of elites with absolute power), but not all far leftists are authoritarian communists for example. Social Democrats could be considered far left, but their methods and policies don't seem to take us to the same place as the various incarnations of Communists that have gained power.

[patrice]

60. I agree. It needs to be someting more like a sphere, though it may not be regular in shape. nt

[Make7]

70. To get that picture in the OP to display...

... change the plus signs to %2B (their url encode equivalent):

[div style="margin-left:1em; color:#000066;"]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0viO-Dm52sM/SS0f3-39cfI/AAAAAAAAKPY/LCL1ygeEmBY/s400/The[font style="color:#ffffff; background-color:#3366cc;"]%2B[/font]Political[font style="color:#ffffff; background-color:#3366cc;"]%2B[/font]Circle.jpg

You can copy and paste that to give you:

[patrice]

73. It's better than a straight line because it weights for extremeness, which, though it may be

minorities, is qualitatively not the same as non-extremeness and has, therefore, different effects.

Though I'm about at the 9 position myself in this schematic (with some reservations about the political names on this wheel), what it depicts is also the reason why I appreciate authentic Centrism (which is a much more difficult position than as commonly characterized, actually) for the way that there can be no authentic center without an authentic Left and Right.