• Leftychat
    176 replies, posted
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/159354/4758034c-d399-4a93-a692-9f21dee318c9/leftychat banner2.jpg Hey so we've actually got quite a few users who wouldn't really fall under the definition of liberal as I understand it because they're challenging conventions and talking mad shit about free market capitalism. I thought it would be nice to have a chat thread for radical/weird thought and talking about ongoing news from our own perspective right in here. If you're coming in here thinking that Joseph Stalin is the be-all end-all of socialism or communism you'll probably be surprised to learn that the breadth and depth of ideas is pretty staggering, in some theories there aren't any leaders, in others we vote for our bosses just like we vote for leaders and just fyi if you go far enough to the left you get your guns back! SO! If you're questioning why we produce more than enough for all but still have famine, wondering why your boss makes 370 times what you do without doing 370 times the work or are pissed that Henry Kissinger isn't at the Hague yet or are just wondering why nobody really wants to face our horrifying climate future this could be your new home thread! https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/159354/9d47c418-4379-47ea-b96f-424c27de8994/news-and-reading.png There's so much to read it's impossible to keep up. This section and the film and podcast sections were almost entirely written by Lambeth. We didn't select theory to read in this section because it's dry and impenetrable and theorists' points can be made in more entertaining ways. Zero Books My man Douglas will hook you up with all sorts of books like Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, it's a book store and youtube channel all in one! -0 Good Reads has a fairly good list of leftist books. I haven’t read all of them but I really liked the Dispossessed. I’ve read bits of Das Kapital but found it pretty dry reading. I’ve been meaning to read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States because it’s a classic. Ursula Le Guin has already been mentioned in the list above but she deserves her own section because she’s one of the best fiction writers ever, in my view. China Mieville is a novelist who is very outwardly a socialist and very active in left wing politics. I haven’t read uh any of his books but he’s won many awards for his work. He had this to say on political themes in his books: "I'm not a leftist trying to smuggle in my evil message by the nefarious means of fantasy novels. I'm a science fiction and fantasy geek. I love this stuff. And when I write my novels, I'm not writing them to make political points. I'm writing them because I passionately love monsters and the weird and horror stories and strange situations and surrealism, and what I want to do is communicate that. But, because I come at this with a political perspective, the world that I'm creating is embedded with many of the concerns that I have. [...] I'm trying to say I’ve invented this world that I think is really cool and I have these really big stories to tell in it and one of the ways that I find to make that interesting is to think about it politically. If you want to do that too, that's fantastic. But if not, isn't this a cool monster?" Podcasts Chapo Trap House is a pretty crass political podcast hosted by a few left leaning guys. They have little respect for traditonal political norms and will spend a lot of their time ripping into liberal journalists and politicans as much as they do Republicans. They also have a book coming out! Why is this Happening? With Chris Hayes. Is perhaps a more liberal than left leaning podcast but Hayes seems to be aware that the winds are turning within the democratic party, more than other journalists on air. Gaslit Nation with Sarah Kendzior: Kendzior is a journalist that was documenting Trump’s corruption and mob connections way way before much of the mainstream press was. Kendzior also wrote a book on the disenfranchised american heartland, although it predated the podcast. Film Sorry to Bother You is more or less out of theatres now but once it hits streaming or blu-ray, take the opportunity to see it. I won’t get to into the plot so as not to spoil anyone but it does have a distinct anti-capitalist bent to it while being extremely entertaining. -L People tell me that it's a wonder this film ever got made at all and they mean it in the best way possible -0 I Am Not Your Negro: I haven’t actually seen this! But I heard good things about it and it’s a documentary on James Baldwin, who was one of the great social critics of his time. The pervert's guide to cinema and its sequel the pervert's guide to ideology are films made by Slavoj Zizek, the most deranged man in Slovenia who will explain some of the ideology underpinning movies. Recommended for the gif factor -0 News Democracy Now! I listened to this every morning when I had a car, imagine if the news didn't just forget about Palestine or Puerto Rico after a week and was still talking about how Dupont chemicals has been consciously poisoning us for decades and make topics like SLAPP lawsuits against people defending the environment destroying free speech something they put front and center. -0 https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/159354/f647d447-8ddc-4f56-8e56-f6a20d4451de/channels-personalities.png There are a lot of channels around that talk about topics from a left perspective. Here are a few. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2PA-AKmVpU6NKCGtZq_rKQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyoQK-mZXr2ws4C0nXGCH1w https://www.youtube.com/user/petercoffin https://www.youtube.com/user/ContraPoints And personalities on Twitter and elsewhere: Sean McElwee is a dude I would recommend following on twitter. Although he didn’t invent the idea, he’s arguably the one who popularized the slogan Abolish ICE, which many progressive and liberal politicians have taken up. He also called Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s win, as well as Ayanna Pressly’s. He also founded Data for American Progress which is focused on finding empirical evidence for leftist policies. They also post Lefty memes on twitter. -L Owen McDonald is great and talks a lot about the intersections between disasters and capitalism and racism. He's almost a news outlet himself due to commenting and linking to things all the time. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/159354/521fe532-8567-4c98-8575-096720f2a29e/current events.jpg Here are some of the events happening right now. Let me know about others so I can add them! The national USA prison strike, prisoners protesting against terrible conditions and prison slavery. #PrisonStrike The ZAD (Zone à défendre) (Zone to defend), a French resistance movement against the destruction of a forest and the construction of an airport. https://twitter.com/ZAD_NDDL Hambacherforst, a similar situation where a coal mine expansion is about the destroy a german forest. https://twitter.com/hashtag/hambacherforst Kinder morgan pipeline protests. The pipeline is currently stopped and the canadian government is being forced to consult first nations again because they basically went "what do you think of our pipeline ok thanks" and started construction (doesn't count as a real consultation). https://twitter.com/stopkmorgan Bayou Bridge pipeline, a pipeline protest in lousiana in a vulnerable bayou. http://nobbp.org/ This OP is a collaborative work and welcomes new additions / edits. Just let me know and I'll add to it as you see fit. Happy Posting!
I think this thread is a good idea and not just because I'm featured in it. I wish it the best of success.
Sorry To Bother You was the shit and I double down on the OPs recommendation of it.
Segregating posters into their own political containment threads is the worst possible thing that could happen to Polidicks. What keeps political sections like this thread healthy in the first place is debate from outsiders and debate between those from the 'wing' who have differing opinions and interpretations. I do not see how either can happen here, particularly the latter. Worst case scenario with this thread, and I have seen this happen several times outside of Facepunch, is that it inspires people to make their own, similar threads and retreat to the hug-fortress when challenged.
Time to make a rightychat for all the blue members
We had one about GG and it remained civil, this type of thread is something that the new rules seemingly encouraged too.
As a libertarian Socialist I can understand the want to have more forums for lefties to talk on, but after seeing what others said about diversity keeping polidicks healthy I agree that this is unnecessary.
If it isn't against the rules I don't see why not
The OP reads like a how to be a lefty introduction course. I'm more left than I am anything else but something about this OP makes me feel a little sick.
That was meant to be sarcastic but that and this thread are both terrible ideas. Also, you'd think that for a lefty thread you would at least want to explore ideas outside of your echo-chamber so that you don't fall into confirmation bias.
I don't see how increasing the divide between left and right by limiting where certain people can talk is a good idea. Credit where credit's due, it must have taken you a bit of time writing the OP which is pretty impressive!
The last thing we need is an echo chamber megathread, for either the left or the right. Let the political discourse happen in the threads it is relevant to. Don't make a megathread just for the sake of being an OP of a megathread. Also, this section is for political news, not hivemind general chats.
This thread is liable to fall into the same pattern of other megathreads of the sort it aspires to be: You will have a bunch of regulars who all more or less fit on a pretty short spectrum of ideology (because why would non-lefties stick around in a lefty oriented thread) and eventually it will become a circlejerk of reinforcing each other's already congruent opinions while putting pressure by virtue of sheer numbers on any non-lefty foolish enough to enter the thread and stand their ground. A thread oriented around a certain group, especially when frequented by a large enough amount of people from said group, is not (psychologically at least) a welcome environment for most people. It is a daunting thing to go against a clearly established consensus for some people. Sure, it might go down differently, but this is what usually happens and why to me this thread doesn't seem like a very wise idea, befitting the new rules or not.
Don't forget being the "right type of lefty" that will eventually boil down to. Can't wait to see who will eventually run the thread, the socialists, the communists, the social democrats, or anarchists.
I don't disagree, but It's weird you say that FP is significantly left-leaning, because I've heard people on here consider it as center-right. Although personally, I'd consider Facepunch being center-left.
i hate this thread and i hate op #maga
Facepunch is a strange one mainly I think because it's a videogame forum with generally leftist university like attitudes to certain subjects. So we have mostly pro gun US users who are pro immigration and so forth. A libertarian attitude with the capacity to bitch like middle aged women about celebrities doing trivial things. It's all over the place really, and it's why I've stayed.
It's all a matter of perspective. Someone that is center-left would be considered far left by someone far right and so forth.
I don't know about containing left-wing political chat into a single thread. But I like the idea of recommending books and films to each other about politics and economics, and encouraging civil discussion of the ideas they put forth. Don't really know if it would work though.
seize the means of production amirite guise
The most unneeded thread on facepunch goes too... This is just gonna turn into a echo chamber and be used against anyone who regulars the thread. Also have what amounts to a chat thread in polidicks seems a bit misplaced to me.
it will be the me
Good effort, bad idea.
Since the forum changes I've always thought the idea of a casual chat thread on Polidicks would be interesting, where people can discuss goings-on or political stuff without having to actually make a news thread for it. Ideally it wouldn't really have been segregated between left and right but it's hard to put down the amount of effort that went into the OP, and I'm genuinely curious what a right leaning OP would look like. But that's kind of the point though, right? What are we comparing Facepunch to? What is the political mean we are using to gauge how "right" or "left" the FP zeitgeist happens to be on any given day? I honestly can't name a place that is more diverse and moderate than FP. Most other tech forum sites have a distinctive left-leaning bend, with ones like Neogaf being infamous for this. Various subreddits cater to different sorts of echochambers; the closest things you get to moderate boards are places like r/neutralpolitics and the Ask Trump Supporters subreddit which serve very distinct purposes with strict posting rules. Then you have shit like /pol/ and 8chan on the right which speak for themselves. I'd agree that FP leans left but it's very hard for me to think of a website that doesn't lean more left or more right
He isn't talking about FP generally, but this thread specifically. Echo chambers arise not just from strict biased moderation, but also from only a certain type of people frequenting a thread.
What I'd like more is like a weekly debate thread or something. Every week a different topic (maybe on rotation) based on current events or smth. So I guess basically an extension of what @Raidyr said?
In which Boilrig vacillates between so many contradictory points in the space of a minute that he breaks the sound barrier.
Is this necessarily a problem if anyone is allowed to post/debate in said containment threads? I'd love a designated place to shit on liberals. Also if a certain point of view dominates a news thread early it could dissuade opposing views from being voiced there.
i dunno about you but it's weird how all the people who crawl out of the woodwork to be apologists for conservatives doing stupid shit are all showing up going off about how this thread isnt needed lmao
care to elaborate
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