The left are bad at winning.

DannyL

Wild Horses
Me @john eden & @padraig (u.s.) were having a discussion about this recently but I can't remember on which thread. I found this an illuminating thread.
- Will stick it here, and see if anyone - including me - has anything interesting to say about it. It strikes me that when "the Left" has success, it's precisely because it stops being "the Left" anymore. See Blair, Starmer's current struggles.
 

version

Well-known member
It's that Adam Curtis thing we talked about again. The idea that the left are unwilling, or unable, to discuss and exercise power.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Thats what I've been on about, paving some channel for the will to power in socially progressive terms, perhaps even in terms compatible with those of communism.

Could have something to do with channelling one's vitality into spiritual and/or intellectual efforts, becoming host to forces beyond your timescale.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Is it actually compatible with the left though?
Depends on how we define the left. Are we talking about socially progressive values, or are we talking about politically progressive values? Or both?

Seems many of the complainers about political correctness are actually addressing social correctness. Less to do with policy, and more to do with on the ground social interactions across demograic lines. Not to say that the two are unconnected, but I do think distinctions needs to be made there. Much that passes under the label of political, at least these days, is actually better defined as social, no?
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
And is the current-day political left really leftist if we support the installment of globalist regimes? That is what I consciously voted for when I voted for Biden/Harris: a step toward a globalist regime.

Perhaps the spirit of the right and the left can persist despite their formal definitions being inverted. Not sure.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Certainly not trying to downplay the significance of such a sublation. Seems to me that fascism is the conventional societal expression of boundless libido, and certain less extreme strata of the right seem to be orbiting such extremities, no? Albeit, not as intensely.

And from the perspective of such intensity, egalitarian seems to be posited as mediocrity, or at least that is the Nietzschean argument. That people leaning on each other is a sign of social decadence, poor collective physiology, etc.

And frankly I don;t believe that the kind of vitality I have in mind actually reduces down to sexuality. I believe sexuality is the path of least resistance, the sort of psycho-physiological default path-to-the-ground, the means of discharging the swelling energy.

I think there are more subtle and more efficient means of expressing that, sublimating it, etc. For me, it looks like a messiah complex. A sort of boundless potential. Hence why I'm talking about cultivating such-and-such cadres of egalitarian messiah ubermensch geniuses, which as of now is the WIP solution, seemingly.

Clearly, there is more work to be done. But conceptually a major axiom is dialectics: namely that there is always a possible sublation that manages to reconcile such seemingly unreconcilable premises. Hence the possibility that all of this can prove to be compatible with some as-of-yet unelaborated marxism.
 

Leo

Well-known member
That is what I consciously voted for when I voted for Biden/Harris: a step toward a globalist regime.

where do you get this from? Biden's a life-long super moderate/centrist democrat who will most likely be foiled by congress in getting much accomplished, how is he representative of a globalist regime?

and what is a globalist regime, anyway? how would it possibly work, with all the conflicting interests in the world?
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
where do you get this from? Biden's a life-long super moderate/centrist democrat who will most likely be foiled by congress in getting much accomplished, how is he representative of a globalist regime?

and what is a globalist regime, anyway? how would it possibly work, with all the conflicting interests in the world?
Still in a naive phase of things, but that is the price of such high order perspectives, no? Higher order almost necessarily means lower resolution, at least when we are talking about systems of such complexity as the known universe.

My idea of a globalist regime is one that sorta combines this notion of an economy that is suspended within a sort of blast chamber erected by these multinational uberwealthies, with a cooperation of governmental bodies either partially or primarily in private interests.

I didn;t word that clearly, but I'll leave it up in the interest of exhibiting my thought process (which I know realize is the reason I don't painstakingly edit my posts).

I just tend to think that economic trends, which enabled the creation and success of this or that multinational corporation, seem to favor international trade circuitry, however brittle or last-minute, no? To me, this incentivizes international corporations, and frankly I lack the insight into which uberwealthies are the actual agents behind such extra-governmental agenda-setting.

Varoufakis has mentioned a couple times the disconnect between the stock market and the economy-qua-material-existence-of-the-99%. Its as if high order capital has been abstracted, to some degree, perhaps to increasing degrees, beyond materiality, beyond the actual status of production here or there.

I'm no expert in almost any of the areas I;m making these hypotheses about - but they are just that: hypothetical.

Also, just laying out thought processes, which may be of interest to those who are also trying to consider ever facet of the known universe in one ultra complex system.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
where do you get this from? Biden's a life-long super moderate/centrist democrat who will most likely be foiled by congress in getting much accomplished, how is he representative of a globalist regime?

and what is a globalist regime, anyway? how would it possibly work, with all the conflicting interests in the world?
Could just be their juxtaposition with Trump and co, but do you not get the impression that cooperation with such and such international green policies (which I'm certainly not against, for the record), increasingly egalitarian sensibilities (again, which I;m not against), all points toward a globalist ideology?

Globalism seems to be more ultimately in the interest of uberwealthy agenda-setters than nationalism does, which isn;t to say the latter cannot be exploited periodically in the manner that Trump and co seem to have done. Again, I have much to learn in terms of actually names, actual people here - but I don;t think I;m taking too conspiratorial a leap in assuming that such people have vastly more power than any other figures in our history, no?

Whether or not such transitions can be negotiated by policymakers, breaching this or that nationalist agenda, whatnot - that seems to be an incidental matter.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
To the OP, I take it "bad at winning" is interpreted as being a sore winner? Initially I interpreted it as meaning that the left isn;t good enough at the game to actually win.
 

Leo

Well-known member
interesting approach, I guess: vote for someone with the intent exception to get something...but have no idea of what that thing is or how it would work.

global corporations and other interests have always cooperated to maximize potential profits, more so in the past 20-30 years, no doubt. but that's completely different from a global regime, which implies dictating a lot more than just financial outcomes.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Well I also believe that any vote is a veritable shot in the dark, given the complexity of these systems. Unless we are basing voting validity on the sensation of knowing what one is voting for, in which case I would fail, yes.

The alternative, in my case at least, is analysis paralysis. Does one need to be familiar with every possible permutation of the universe to claim assurance in their vote for the next president? In other words, what good does reading up on the alleged prospective policies held bu such-and-such candidate, if I don't understand the infrastructure in which those decisions have an effect?

And how can I understand the societal infrastructure if I don;t under the psychic units? Or the biology of those units? Or the chemistry of their biology? No absolute lines drawn, if we are to process everything as an ultra complex system.

Sure, a tad totalizing. But to conceive of everything as one system requires that one err on the side, ultimately, of totalization, no?

That said, I certainly could have familiarized myself more with Biden/Harris before voting for them, and I do believe that one should do more research than I did. But the same can be said for the bajillion other things to understand, so one must be economical at some point, no?
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
a globalist ideology is very different from a global regime.
Sure, but the former strives for the latter, in some manner, no?

Plus, on a very basic level (not to discount or dismiss facts or research), doesn't just make sense that all road lead to some kind of globalist regime? Which isn;t to say there won;t be detours, even violent detours.

edit: could be more a matter of faith, now that I reflect upon this statement. Faith in the tendency for systems to become ever more intimately interconnected in the process of forming higher order systems.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
I asked myself, which option more promisingly leads to a globalist regime: Biden/Harris, or Trump/Pence?

So again it could just be a conclusion informed primarily by such a comparison.

edit: and to be clear, by globalist regime I mean an ecosystem of governmental bodies, acting in the interest of optimizing a globalist economy. Whether or not the whole shebang would be anministered by private parties, or who such parties would specifically be, I couldn;t say. But I get the feeling thats how things work. That certain private parties have, de facto, more leverage than governmental parties.
 
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constant escape

winter withered, warm
Yeah that makes more sense, rather than arguing that Biden/Harris are optimizing their platform for globalism.

edit: seems like I swept myself up into making such an argument, which I wouldn;t disown wholesale, just reorient my main point.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
To the OP, I take it "bad at winning" is interpreted as being a sore winner? Initially I interpreted it as meaning that the left isn;t good enough at the game to actually win.
No, it literally means they don't win. Sanders didn't in the US, Corbyn got the boot here. With the latter, I find it hard to imagine a different outcome. The Left don't win.
 

Leo

Well-known member
and to be clear, by globalist regime I mean an ecosystem of governmental bodies, acting in the interest of optimizing a globalist economy.

this is where you lost me. global regime implies there's a king of the world, a supreme leader running a single world government dictating laws on a global basis. that's clearly not what you're talking about, right?
 
Depends who is on the "left". Liverpool the most Liberal city in the world, we know how to win & everyone knows what we're about.

etc

If you ignore the failings of Joe "chippy tits" Anderson, if scousers were in charge of the Labour Party we would take less shit. The corduroy wearing lentil eating left of the South, less so.

I also think there is a general correlation between being willing to party and embrace exuberance and the ability to communicate ideas and convey them to others. The further away you go from that the worse off you are.
 
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