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This is why I tell fellow Marxists to stop being friends with liberals. This is how your liberal 'friend' talks about you to others. (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/thedeprogram@lemmygrad.ml
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[–] 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

what are the oppressed? Advocates for incrementalism?

A lot are, there's no way around this. There isn't any mass revolutionary movement in the U.S., and there really aren't even regional ones. At best you have a decent PSL chapter that's probably dwarfed by your local DSA. Incrementalism is the only game in town at the moment, so a lot of people support it because there isn't anything better.

The argument against incrementalism is that it doesn't work. If an incremental improvement is your goal from the start you'll get only scraps and they'll always be subject to being rolled back -- look at abortion, look at wage gains, look at the halting steps to check the imperial machine. It's not privileged to recognize when someone is trying to buy you off with scraps, and being oppressed does not magically grant anyone political acumen.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago* (2 children)

    The fact they are speaks to how liberalism is still the dominant ideology and by extension the most accessible ideology.

    But I guess my broader point is that the oppressed and exploited don't lean as moderate as liberals project them to be, that it's actually a sign of privilege to believe incrementalism works when it objectively doesn't work for the vast majority of people. Liberals tell on themselves this way.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    I think we should reject the "which take is more privileged" framing wholesale. You can argue it either way, it's all hypothetical (in the sense it's "people who think this must be privileged" rather than talking about actual people and their opinions), and it ignores the real question: what's actually going to improve people's lives in a meaningful way.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago*

    Oh for sure, when all else fails you can simply accuse the other of privilege so you won't have to think about what they might have to say. It's a thought-terminating technique.

    I still maintain however that from a polemic point of view it's interesting to note the hypocrisy of liberals accusing OTHERS of privilege when they look up to people like Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.

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