General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Has the Left Surrendered? - BillMoyers.com [View all]rrneck
(17,671 posts)Nobody could sensibly argue that identity politics didn't bring about indispensable changes in our culture. While that work is not yet done, there are no longer water fountains separated by color and women at the significantly increased right to control their own bodies (red states lag far behind on that score). That's progress. The thing about cultural change is that the closer one gets to the goal, the less effective the means of achieving that goal become.
And all the while, the world changes around us. While progress has been made in racial, sexual, and gender equality, economic equality has bloomed to become the largest issue of our day. The challenges that face people today resemble the challenges people faced in the Gilded Age rather than the Vietnam era. While women, people of color, and LGBT's suffered we were busy fighting for economic justice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. After WWII, identity politics brought more parity for oppressed groups while wages stagnated and the middle class has all but disappeared.
Social activism does not equal buying bandwidth from Comcast. Just as you know a certain genre of music is passe when you hear it in an elevator, when you can publicly advocate for something with no real consequences and even make money doing so, your social movement is more of a business than a social movement. And when it comes to liberal politics, when liberals turn their ideals into a product we funnel a boatload of money into the pockets of the people who are screwing us.