what are "identity politics" and why do they make you so angry?

ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Shamelessly stolen from the comments section of an article about labor unions in nakedcapitalism.com

"JusticiaFebruary 17, 2017 at 2:40 pm

Agreed: identity politics w/out economic populism isn’t politics — it’s narcissism. Class warfare is the primary means by which all of us who didn’t get the secret handshake are ripped off.

But, there are encouraging new models of economic populism that unite us:

Anyone thinking about strategies of political resistance might take a long look at North Carolina’s Forward Together movement, which on Saturday held its eleventh annual Moral March outside the Raleigh statehouse. Organizers claimed that more than eighty thousand marchers had attended, surpassing the crowd at the 2014 march, which was then the largest civil-rights gathering in the South since the era of Selma and Birmingham.
[…]
As Barber put it on Saturday, the movement exists “so preachers can fight for fifteen and workers can say ‘black lives matter,’ and a white woman can stand with her black sister for voting rights, and a black man can stand for a woman’s right to health care, and L.G.B.T.Q. folk can stand for religious liberty, and straight people can stand up for . . . queer people, and a Muslim imam can stand with an undocumented worker.” This litany of identities might horrify those who argue that Democrats have fallen away from common appeals, but the premise of the movement is that a universalist program—for health care, voting rights, reproductive choice, and higher wages—begins in building coalitions among people whom politics have driven apart.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/north-carolinas-long-moral-march-and-its-lessons-for-the-trump-resistance?intcid=mod-latest "

This is the only future for the Democratic Party that leads back from the wilderness it now funds itself in. If it continues to willfully ignore those who are suffering in favor of the corporate fatcats who shower the establishment party with money, then it's finished as a party.

That's why I think we need a left wing, to remind the Democratic apparatchiks who they're supposed to be working for.
 
Grandpapy

Grandpapy

Well-Known Member
Episode 420 of Bill Maher's Real Time Featured Gen. Michael Hayden on the panel where he says we have fissures being pressured from outside sources.

I've spent bowls trying to find it so I could share it with you.

If we can come together (identify) as Americans first, with a heartbeat (not Chevrolet), the fissures will be easier to repair as we see value in all identities. jmo.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
HAF2 said:
Any governing body that tries to take away the rights and freedoms of a group of people is never going to get my vote.

I don't give a fuck if they will improve the economy and make gas cheaper and lower taxes. I'd rather pay higher taxes and know that my fellow citizens are protected from hate. I'd rather pay for social programs than see them dissolved.

If this is "identity politics" then I don't see it as a bad thing.
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Exactly correct. Identity politics is a right wing term for people with a common interest working together because there is strength in numbers. Who are the "identity politics" groups that the right are heaping scorn and propaganda against?

Unions, NAACP, La Raza, Sierra Club, ACLU, ACORN, GLAAD, Black Lives Matter, NOW and others. One could probably put the KKK on the list too.

The war on "identity politics" is a propaganda sham by the right. Paddy and some other left leaning young white men have swallowed the hook. Of course, young white men like him are acting as a group in their own self interest and I'm not opposing that they do so. It would be more appropriate if they named who they object to, such as, "I wish the NAACP would get back in line" or, "Women should support jobs for everybody.". Statistics show white men are still experiencing preferential treatment in employment but they fear others are "taking their jobs away". They don't like that.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
twostrokenut said:
A decent example of identity politics. "I dont refute any of the content of that message but look at the channel its on."

"Thomas Sowell is a racist" is another personal favorite quote from op.
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My, what a tender suppressed white man you are. A quick google search on "Sowell is a racist" brings up pages summarizing or referencing his writings about racism and how it doesn't really exist or if it does, it doesn't really matter. Nothing showed up in a quick survey where liberals accuse Sowell of being racist. I seriously doubt you run in a crowd where you've heard Sowell called a racist. Except maybe here. Do you listen to right wing radio much? That's where this idea of liberals calling Sowell racist is echoed ad nauseam.
 
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Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
ttystikk said:
Shamelessly stolen from the comments section of an article about labor unions in nakedcapitalism.com

"JusticiaFebruary 17, 2017 at 2:40 pm

Agreed: identity politics w/out economic populism isn’t politics — it’s narcissism. Class warfare is the primary means by which all of us who didn’t get the secret handshake are ripped off.

But, there are encouraging new models of economic populism that unite us:

Anyone thinking about strategies of political resistance might take a long look at North Carolina’s Forward Together movement, which on Saturday held its eleventh annual Moral March outside the Raleigh statehouse. Organizers claimed that more than eighty thousand marchers had attended, surpassing the crowd at the 2014 march, which was then the largest civil-rights gathering in the South since the era of Selma and Birmingham.
[…]
As Barber put it on Saturday, the movement exists “so preachers can fight for fifteen and workers can say ‘black lives matter,’ and a white woman can stand with her black sister for voting rights, and a black man can stand for a woman’s right to health care, and L.G.B.T.Q. folk can stand for religious liberty, and straight people can stand up for . . . queer people, and a Muslim imam can stand with an undocumented worker.” This litany of identities might horrify those who argue that Democrats have fallen away from common appeals, but the premise of the movement is that a universalist program—for health care, voting rights, reproductive choice, and higher wages—begins in building coalitions among people whom politics have driven apart.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/north-carolinas-long-moral-march-and-its-lessons-for-the-trump-resistance?intcid=mod-latest "

This is the only future for the Democratic Party that leads back from the wilderness it now funds itself in. If it continues to willfully ignore those who are suffering in favor of the corporate fatcats who shower the establishment party with money, then it's finished as a party.

That's why I think we need a left wing, to remind the Democratic apparatchiks who they're supposed to be working for.
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Yeah, yeah. Because All Lives Matter. Vilifying "identity politics" takes away the identity of a politically active group in order to make an enemy out of them. "The Jews", The Blacks", The Identity politics.

How about "NAACP" or "NOW" or the frickin Sierra Club? Should they stop addressing their own issues? The Democratic Party is a coalition rather than a monolithic ideology. It's more complicated, for sure but closer to representing moderate and left views than any one ideology can.
 
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