This makes me angry. I encounter it online and in the wild all the time. People have a problem with billionaires and corporations owning everything. They don't have a problem with mom-and-pop landlords living in the neighborhood (whatever's left of it) and renting out a few AirBnBs. People feel this way because they can't see a way out of capitalism except saving up some money and getting their own AirBnbs to exploit the land and proletariat, even though small landlords are neither happy nor interesting people, and they are still trapped inside capitalism.
People with an anti-corporate and anti-billionaire mindset are moving in the right direction, but they're still beholden to capitalist individualism. It's the same with local small businesses, even though these businesses are buying all their products from big businesses, selling them for a massive markup, and (in my experience) cheating their employees far more often than big business. Government jobs are the only ones I've had where I didn't feel like I was going to be fired or screwed every single day I was there.
I saw a Sysco truck a few days ago outside the only restaurant in my very small town. This place was my first job (as a bus boy) a loooooong time ago. They stiffed me on my first paycheck (I had been working an unpaid training period without knowing it, I was also supposed to be a psychic at this place) and I walked out. In the second or third year of the pandemic I saw a girl who couldn't have been more than eight years old working in an apron there (she was related to the family that owns the place). I've lived here off-and-on for decades and almost no one ever went to that restaurant; everyone knew you'd get sick if you ate their food. We suspected that it was a mafia money-laundering operation, since the owners drive red corvettes and seem to be rolling in dough. Tourists do eat there more regularly now even though the place has noticeably bad yelp reviews.
In a colonial context, big or small bourgeoisie can be revolutionary. In an imperialist context like in the USA, they are almost never revolutionary.
Also, the phrase "during the pandemic" makes me angry! A friend living overseas just told me yesterday that they had gotten sick and lost their sense of taste. Look up recent online reviews for scented candles.
Using "childish" as an insult. Bruh, have you talked with kids? Literally any kids. Easiest group of people on Earth to radicalize.
"Israel" is to blame for everything but somehow the USA is still good. This is thanks to Hollywood and the fact that the USA is a far bigger and more successful "Israel." Very few people know that Columbus was a Zionist. People around the world still dream of living here and making it big because of Hollywood movies and friends or relatives who immigrated here and somehow made it work.
In my experience, Arabic speakers are ready for a revolution, as long as it excludes women's liberation / queer liberation. Spanish speakers have profound levels of liberal brainworms. Portuguese speakers are typically pretty aligned with hexbear without knowing it. White leftists seem uninterested in returning the USA to indigenous sovereignty and paying full reparations to slaves / the descendants of slaves, and this is one major reason why their movements always go nowhere. (I hate the term "leftist" but I don't know what else to call these people since they aren't communists and yet they're still a bit more radical than the average democrat.)
What are some of your left-ish peeves you regularly encounter online?
The lack of intersectionality among so-called leftists.
It's like the most basic thing to understand. You are going to have blindspots on issues because you are not part of every oppressed group. Black men and Latino men are both going to experience racism differently, but they both still experience racism that's often violent and/or deadly. The same is true with trans women and Asian women experiencing sexism that (again) is often violent and/or deadly.
But all of this seems to go out the window for some people, especially white people, even when they themselves are part of oppressed groups. I do not understand why this is so difficult for some to understand that racism is to PoC as misogyny is to women as ableism is to the disabled as queerphobia is to LGBTQ+ and so on. Instead of shutting the fuck up and listening, things devolve into taking systemic criticisms as personal attacks.
Speaking of which, I could go into another rant about "leftists" not rejecting Great Man of History or refusing to understand systemic problems are systemic.
People have a lot of trouble getting over their own egos, and I think white people struggle with this most because they have by and large gone through life being unchallenged by the system. It's easy to fall for the lie that the US/the West is a just society or whatever when you're not constantly confronted with evidence to the contrary. I also think the entire way our society is structured makes it hard for people to accept criticism generally. Whether that's the US epidemic of child abuse, the way our schools are designed, or how precarious our jobs are - one's nervous system becomes primed to view criticism as a direct threat. If one subconsciously identifies with the system (because it has not challenged one and one has not challenged one's place within it) and then one encounters criticism of the same, one may find oneself taking it personally. But it should be on the majority to unpack and understand their biases and not on the minority to do the emotional labor.
that's incredibly insightful and i never thought about it exactly like that re: criticism. i think you're very much onto something here.