The Intolerance of ‘Black Lives Matter’ Is Perplexing. I Hope.

 

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., led an organized movement against an obvious injustice, using eloquent, simple arguments which were based on sources that few questioned (the Bible and the Constitution), while denouncing violence and emphasizing honesty and integrity. Many argued with him for a while but, eventually, America agreed with him and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By passing this law, white America agreed that the way they had treated blacks was wrong and such abuses would no longer be tolerated. The transformation in American society since then has been remarkable. I was born in 1968 and in my 51 years, I have never seen what Rev. King or his contemporaries would call racism against blacks. I’m sure it happens, but it has become extremely rare. Not only are racist acts illegal but they have also become unacceptable behavior for white people in our society, even in private. As they should be.

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests which have been sweeping the country over the past month are ostensibly focused on race. But the similarities to Rev. King’s movement end there. BLM is leading a chaotic and unpredictable movement against subtle concepts that are difficult to specifically define, such as micro-aggressions and white privilege. Their arguments are highly variable, unclear, poorly stated, and do not appear to be based on any set ideology or legal framework. They do not denounce violence and frequently seem to actually encourage it. White Americans are desperately competing with one another to prove they’re less racist than the next guy but they can’t meet the demands of BLM, because they’re not sure what they are, exactly, on any given day. There is, however, one consistent message pushed by BLM and their supporters, and it terrifies me:

They tolerate absolutely no debate or discussion. Blacks who question BLM in any way, no matter how small, are branded “Uncle Toms.” Whites who do so are called racists.

A quick aside: If a white person is called a racist, by anyone, just that accusation (regardless of its merit) can destroy that white person’s life. S/he can lose friends, their job, and their place in society with little to no hope of ever recovering from such destruction. That truth suggests that BLM’s claims of widespread systemic white racism against blacks are apparently not anywhere near correct. But, whatever.

My point is that the BLM movement tolerates no dissent. Even from dead people. They destroy statues and attempt to rewrite history, like Muslim extremists and other tyrants all over the world. If a comedian once made a joke they found offensive, that comedian should not be permitted to make jokes about anything else, even years later. Works of art that don’t share their worldview should be destroyed, rather than carefully considered. If a police officer in Minnesota is suspected to be a racist, then police departments across the country should be shut down. The intolerance of the BLM movement and its supporters is breathtaking.

Intolerance of others is always dangerous. This is the genius of our Constitution. Our Founding Fathers recognized that we would often disagree, and used federalism, three branches of government, a nation of laws and not of men, and various other techniques to allow a diverse group of individuals to co-exist peacefully.

But this particular brand of intolerance – the one pushed so hard by BLM and their supporters, I find particularly concerning. And that is because I can think of only two possible reasons for it. Perhaps you can think of others but these are the only ones that come to my mind:

  1. BLM does not permit anyone to argue with their ideology or goals, because no one (including BLM) knows what they are. They understand that any effort to debate their point will quickly show that they don’t have one, and they don’t want to look stupid. I don’t think this is the case but I suppose it’s possible. But I hope this is it because the only other possibility I can think of is…
  2. Their true underlying goals are nefarious and extremely unpopular. They are simply Marxists using their current source of leverage (in this case, racial tensions) to get what they’ve wanted all along – to destroy America. Or, as President Obama put it, “…a fundamental transformation of America.” Make America into something completely different than what it has always been. They despise democracy and capitalism, and seek to transform America into some sort of socialist state with more central control and fewer individual liberties. They denounce racism because they know that most Americans don’t want racism. But they can’t admit that their ultimate goal is Marxism, because they also know that most Americans don’t want that either.

What do you think? Am I overlooking something?

Why are BLM and their supporters so extreme in their intolerance?  Rev. King went out of his way to find areas of agreement with American whites. He based his entire movement on the Constitution and the Bible, and he eloquently explained that all black people wanted was the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He relentlessly emphasized his hope to have blacks join American society. BLM appears to seek further separation between blacks and American society.

This seems odd. Any minority movement tends to attempt to broaden its appeal, form coalitions when possible, and build support in order to achieve their goals.

That is clearly not what BLM is doing. Why?

Rather than encouraging people to agree with them, they make it harder and harder for people to agree with them. They say that it is no longer good enough to not be a racist — you must be “anti-racist.” I’m not quite sure what that means, but I suspect it means agreeing with whatever BLM says is important this afternoon. And stay tuned for changes tomorrow morning.

Why are the demands of this minority movement so vague, and yet so draconian? It doesn’t make any sense.

I can think of only two possible reasons. And I think one of them is wrong.

And I really hope I’m wrong about the other one. Because if that one is true, if BLM really is nothing more than a camouflaged Marxist revolution, we may have a very serious problem here. A problem that could lead to a very, very, very messy conflict.

What do you think?

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  1. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    After posting this and re-reading my closing line, my first thought was:

    I can’t imagine a BLM leader or one of their supporters publishing an editorial about their movement and ending it with, ‘What do you think?

    But that wasn’t really my question.  Sorry.  Let’s focus on the main question I posed:

    Why are the demands of this minority movement so vague, and yet so draconian?  It doesn’t make any sense.

    • #1
  2. KentForrester Coolidge
    KentForrester
    @KentForrester

    Doc, I don’t know what in the hell is going on. The U.S. has become Crazytown.   I wish I could offer up something to help your argument.   However, what you’ve written makes more sense than anything I’ve read thus far. 

    • #2
  3. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Dr. Bastiat: Intolerance of others is always dangerous.

    I do not agree with this, Doc.  Intolerance of truly reprehensible ideas is a good idea.  We should be intolerant of Nazis, and Communists, and Marxists.  We should be intolerant of Jihadis, and of anyone trying to bring back Aztec civilization with the human sacrifice.

    I actually think that we should be intolerant of BLM.  They are radical post-modern Marxists, and their ideology is quite terrible.  I think that black supremacism is the best name for it.

    • #3
  4. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):
    Why are the demands of this minority movement so vague, and yet so draconian? It doesn’t make any sense.

    BLM is a Marxist led effort with no foundation supporting the principal accusation against American society, that of police brutality directed at black people. That charge is false. Then they build on something that’s been floating around for a while, ‘white privilege’ and that is a myth. BLM should be designated, if not already, a terrorist organization with its principal objective the violent overthrow of American constitutional government.

    • #4
  5. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    I read the past two days that only 17& of BLM rioters/demonstrators is black. The vast majority are white and quite a few are white millenial women.  Here is a nice example although she might be an octoroon.

    https://twitter.com/_sagnikbasu?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1276682947895197697%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Falthouse.blogspot.com%

     

    • #5
  6. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    bring back Aztec civilization with the human sacrifice

    #AztecLivesMatter

    Oh, wait.

    • #6
  7. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    After posting this and re-reading my closing line, my first thought was:

    I can’t imagine a BLM leader or one of their supporters publishing an editorial about their movement and ending it with, ‘What do you think?

    But that wasn’t really my question. Sorry. Let’s focus on the main question I posed:

    Why are the demands of this minority movement so vague, and yet so draconian? It doesn’t make any sense.

    The problem that they complain about does not exist, to any significant degree.  As far as I can tell, the number of innocent black people killed by police is less than the number of people hit by lightning.  Virtually all of their examples are justifiable homicides of black criminals — Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Philando Castile.  Some probably aren’t even homicides at all — Eric Garner, Freddy Gray, possibly George Floyd.

    The ideology is black supremacist, and seeks special rules and special privileges for blacks.  It is part of the intersectional movement, which seeks such special rules and privileges for other groups as well — women, homosexuals, trans, Muslims, American Indians, and doubtless others.

    They generally are post-modernist in outlook, which refers to a strange philosophical movement.  It is strangely tied to linguistic games, and one of its hallmarks is the use of terms in a way that does not mean what you think it means.  There are many of these code words — diversity, inclusion, equity (the “DIE” trifecta), underrepresented minorities, historically marginalized people, people of color, white privilege, white fragility.  When you see these terms, you should suspect ideological possession and an ulterior motive.

    So, for example, when a school wants to adopt DIE — diversity, inclusion, and equity — this means overwhelming preferences for those in the intersectional groups, together with a right, on their part, to end any discussion and demand agreement if faced with an idea or fact that makes them “uncomfortable” or — more recently — “unsafe.”

    The intersectional pecking order is in some flux, but the general hierarchy appears to be:

    • black
    • American Indian
    • trans
    • homosexual
    • other Person of Color
    • feminist

    It is quite a complicated web of bad ideas.  I have two good sources for you, if you want to study it further.

    First, the book Explaining Postmodernism by Canadian philosopher Stephen Hicks, available online for free here.  (This is not a pirated version — it is on Prof. Hicks’s own website.)

    Second, Jordan Peterson’s YouTube talk Identity Politics and the Marxist Lie of White Privilege:

    “White fragility” is a particularly interesting Kafka trap, apparently pioneered by a PhD named Robin DiAngelo.  It looks like her 2018 book on the subject is becoming the equivalent of Mao’s Little Red Book, in the current BLM-led cultural revolution.  The trap is this — if you’re white, and you deny you white privilege — which means denying systematic racism and other mistreatment of various groups — this proves that you display “white fragility,” which proves your guilt.

    • #7
  8. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus

    Dr. Bastiat: if BLM really is nothing more than a camouflaged Marxist revolution, we may have a very serious problem here. A problem that could lead to a very, very, very messy conflict.

    Looks pretty messy from here. The problem is not BLM, any competent city manager can handle them. The problem is Apple, FaceBook, Twitter, Amazon, et.al. pumping tens of millions of dollars into BLM to amplify their efforts. (Where are your consumer dollars and content going?) And they will continue to until it hurts their bottom line, even while their facilities burn. BLM is a destabilization project. The position of the day is chosen for tactical shock effect, not high, or even consistent, principle. 

    Even the name is a joke, BLM is killing and robbing and looting blacks continuously. And most blacks know that, they aren’t stupid. It isn’t even a good insurgency strategy. Mao would mount a charm offensive when he came to a village and come away with a base of operations and recruits. 

    BLM is getting corporate sponsorship but a mounting pure animus for the violence and chaos sowing. The other day their top stated objective on their website was destruction of the family. In just so many words. 

    Why is Apple sponsoring the destruction of the family?

    • #8
  9. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    It’s about the 2020 election. The BLM status as a Marxist front with no substantive cause related to black Americans is easy to discern but is mostly covered up by our media. A main hope at this point is that after witnessing the mindless destruction during this period, the people will receive the President’s message and respond in November.

    • #9
  10. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…
    @GumbyMark

    BLM is not the issue or at least the biggest issue right now. They’ve actually been on the saner side of crazytown re the statues.  The big issue is young white progressives and their jihad against anyone who thinks differently, along with all the institutions that have given in to them.

    • #10
  11. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    I may sound like a conspiracy theorist to some of you.  The infiltration of post-modernism into the universities, and now its movement outside academia, is complicated and insidious.

    I’ve seen these problems going back to the late 1980s, when I was in college.  It was present, in embryonic form, in some of the 1960s radical movements, and in Black Liberation Theology.  The first widespread outbreak was the “PC” craze of the 1980s and 1990s.  The radical pro-homosexuality and pro-trans movements are aspects of this ideology.

    I didn’t see it characterized as “post-modern neo-Marxism” until around 2017.  The earlier labels included “critical race theory” and “critical legal theory.”  Third-wave feminism was part of the same ideological movement, as far as I can tell.

    I’ve been studying this, off and on, for about 3 years now.  Jordan Peterson has probably been the most prominent opponent to this ideology.  There’s another academic trio — Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose — who are also pretty good.  These are the three who pulled off the hoax paper demonstration, submitting absolutely absurd articles and having them accepted in supposedly credible, peer-reviewed journals in the grievance studies fields (which are festering sores of pseudoacademic nonsense).  The hoax papers were pretty funny: there was a re-write of a part of Mein Kampf; a paper about homophobic rape culture in dog parks (among the dogs themselves, but the owners supposedly encouraged the heterosexual canine rape while intolerantly stopping the homosexual canine mounting); and the gem of them all, The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct (here).  The last is good for many laughs, including the abstract:

    Anatomical penises may exist, but as pre-operative transgendered women also have anatomical penises, the penis vis-à-vis maleness is an incoherent construct. We argue that the conceptual penis is better understood not as an  anatomical organ but as a social construct isomorphic to performative toxic masculinity. Through detailed poststructuralist discursive criticism and the example of climate change, this paper will challenge the prevailing and damaging social trope that penises are best understood as the male sexual organ and reassign it a more fitting role as a type of masculine performance.

    Peterson, Hicks, Boghossian, Lindsay, and Pluckrose are all atheists, though Peterson has a deep respect for the Christian world view.

    For a Christian response to post-modernism, I recommend the following talk by a Christian pastor named Voddie Baucham:

    • #11
  12. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    What is Marxist about BLM?

    • #12
  13. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Zafar (View Comment):

    What is Marxist about BLM?

    The founders are trained Marxists and the principal cause of outsized police brutality towards blacks is false. The demands made by BLM fit collectivism perfectly.

    • #13
  14. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    The founders are trained Marxists

    What does that even mean? 

    I know one of BLM’s “founders” has claimed that she’s a trained Marxist, but what does that mean?

    When I started university in India one of our professors routinely added in some Marxist analysis when teaching East Asian history. 

    Does that make me a trained Marxist?

    and the principal cause of outsized police brutality towards blacks is false.

    A lot of movements use false claims to mobilise people.  They aren’t all Marxist, or even collectivist. 

    (Though arguably all movements are a little collectivist since they involve a group?).

    The demands made by BLM fit collectivism perfectly.

    Is all collectivism Marxist?

    I see some vague talk about capitalism and racial justice but I don’t see anything about the means of production, which is the heart of Marxism.

    fwiw Socialist Alternative (who?) doesn’t think BLM is very Marxist at all.

    • #14
  15. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    The founders are trained Marxists

    What does that even mean?

    I know one of BLM’s “founders” has claimed that she’s a trained Marxist, but what does that mean?

    When I started university in India one of our professors routinely added in some Marxist analysis when teaching East Asian history.

    Does that make me a trained Marxist?

    and the principal cause of outsized police brutality towards blacks is false.

    A lot of movements use false claims to mobilise people. They aren’t all Marxist, or even collectivist.

    (Though arguably all movements are a little collectivist since they involve a group?).

    The demands made by BLM fit collectivism perfectly.

    Is all collectivism Marxist?

    I see some vague talk about capitalism and racial justice but I don’t see anything about the means of production, which is the heart of Marxism.

    fwiw Socialist Alternative (who?) doesn’t think BLM is very Marxist at all.

    What’s your point? They are committing crimes and their stated cause is not credible.

    • #15
  16. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…
    @GumbyMark

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    The founders are trained Marxists

    What does that even mean?

    I know one of BLM’s “founders” has claimed that she’s a trained Marxist, but what does that mean?

    When I started university in India one of our professors routinely added in some Marxist analysis when teaching East Asian history.

    Does that make me a trained Marxist?

    and the principal cause of outsized police brutality towards blacks is false.

    A lot of movements use false claims to mobilise people. They aren’t all Marxist, or even collectivist.

    (Though arguably all movements are a little collectivist since they involve a group?).

    The demands made by BLM fit collectivism perfectly.

    Is all collectivism Marxist?

    I see some vague talk about capitalism and racial justice but I don’t see anything about the means of production, which is the heart of Marxism.

    fwiw Socialist Alternative (who?) doesn’t think BLM is very Marxist at all.

    The question is who gets to decide?  The argument made in the linked article goes back 50 year to the split of the Weathermen (including Obama’s mentors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) from the SDS.  The SDS followed traditional Marxist class analysis (I personally witnessed a debate between 2 SDS factions, one self-labelled as Stalinists, the other as Trotskyites).  The Weathermen left because of (1) a commitment to violence, and (2) an analysis based on race, not class.  They still called themselves communist revolutionaries (as do Ayers and Dohrn to this day).  We saw it again with the 1619 Project which is based on race essentialism (basically the same analysis as white nationalists except with a different group on top).  That sparked vociferous denunciations of the Project by the Socialist Workers Party (a Trotskyite org) because its revolutionary intent was based on race, not class and who ran a great series of interviews with leading historians of the American Revolution and Civil War debunking the project.  They all consider themselves Marxist even though, for some, they may not meet the textbook definition.

    • #16
  17. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    What’s your point?

    Marxism has nothing to do with it.

    They are committing crimes and their stated cause is not credible.

    So accusations of Marxism are being used to motivate a response? 

    What is that about? 

    Is it a false claim?

    • #17
  18. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…
    @GumbyMark

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    I may sound like a conspiracy theorist to some of you. The infiltration of post-modernism into the universities, and now its movement outside academia, is complicated and insidious.

    You don’t sound like a conspiracy theorist to me.  It’s the reason you can’t argue with these people.  They simply will not accept the premises or the language you use which they believe was designed to perpetuate white supremacy and is thus illegitimate.  It’s why any questioning of their premises makes you a racist, deserving of being fired or kicked out of school.  James Lindsay, who you mentioned, now has a website with a lot of good material explaining this doctrine and suggesting ways to deal with it.

    • #18
  19. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… (View Comment):
    The question is who gets to decide? The argument made in the linked article goes back 50 year to the split of the Weathermen (including Obama’s mentors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) from the SDS. The SDS followed traditional Marxist class analysis (I personally witnessed a debate between 2 SDS factions, one self-labelled as Stalinists, the other as Trotskyites).

    The linked article does mention (mournfully) the collapse of Stalinism…

    The Weathermen left because of (1) a commitment to violence, and (2) an analysis based on race, not class.

    Link to Weathermen analysis based on race and not class?

    A quick look at The Britannica article on them has:

    The original Weatherman, the “action faction” of the SDS, was led by Bernardine Dohrn, James Mellen, and Mark Rudd and advocated street fighting as a method for weakening U.S. imperialism. At the SDS national convention in June 1969, the Third World Marxists presented a position paper titled “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows” in the SDS newspaper, New Left Notes. The article, the title of which was taken from a song by American musician Bob Dylan, asserted, among other things, that black liberation was key to the movement’s anti-imperialist struggle, and it emphasized the need for a white revolutionary movement to support liberation movements internationally. The article became the founding statement of Weatherman.

    Which is not quite the same thing as race not class.

    [Edited to add: here’s a link to that paper. TLDR for me, but in case you’re more disciplined.]

    They still called themselves communist revolutionaries (as do Ayers and Dohrn to this day). We saw it again with the 1619 Project which is based on race essentialism (basically the same analysis as white nationalists except with a different group on top). That sparked vociferous denunciations of the Project by the Socialist Workers Party (a Trotskyite org) because its revolutionary intent was based on race, not class and who ran a great series of interviews with leading historians of the American Revolution and Civil War debunking the project. They all consider themselves Marxist even though, for some, they may not meet the textbook definition.

    I could call myself an Evangelical Christian while not believing in Christ.  Would it make sense, regardless of whether you believed in Christ or not?

    • #19
  20. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Gumby Mark):
    The question is who gets to decide? The argument made in the linked article goes back 50 year to the split of the Weathermen (including Obama’s mentors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) from the SDS. The SDS followed traditional Marxist class analysis (I personally witnessed a debate between 2 SDS factions, one self-labelled as Stalinists, the other as Trotskyites).

    The linked article does mention (mournfully) the collapse of Stalinism…

    The Weathermen left because of (1) a commitment to violence, and (2) an analysis based on race, not class.

    Link to Weathermen analysis based on race and not class?

    A quick look at The Britannica article on them has:

    The original Weatherman, the “action faction” of the SDS, was led by Bernardine Dohrn, James Mellen, and Mark Rudd and advocated street fighting as a method for weakening U.S. imperialism. At the SDS national convention in June 1969, the Third World Marxists presented a position paper titled “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows” in the SDS newspaper, New Left Notes. The article, the title of which was taken from a song by American musician Bob Dylan, asserted, among other things, that black liberation was key to the movement’s anti-imperialist struggle, and it emphasized the need for a white revolutionary movement to support liberation movements internationally. The article became the founding statement of Weatherman.

    Which is not quite the same thing as race not class.

    [Edited to add: here’s a link to that paper. TLDR for me, but in case you’re more disciplined.]

    They still called themselves communist revolutionaries (as do Ayers and Dohrn to this day). We saw it again with the 1619 Project which is based on race essentialism (basically the same analysis as white nationalists except with a different group on top). That sparked vociferous denunciations of the Project by the Socialist Workers Party (a Trotskyite org) because its revolutionary intent was based on race, not class and who ran a great series of interviews with leading historians of the American Revolution and Civil War debunking the project. They all consider themselves Marxist even though, for some, they may not meet the textbook definition.

    I could call myself an Evangelical Christian while not believing in Christ. Would it make sense, regardless of whether you believed in Christ or not?

    Calling yourself an evangelical Christian, and claiming this after you also claim to have studied and been trained in Christianity, makes a difference in how you want to be perceived.  And if the process and the end results are the same as Christianity who are you to say they are not?  Only a “true” Christian could lay claim to [drawing] that distinction.

    These BLM founders claim to be Marxists, and act like Marxists in their functioning and language, why do you dispute them?  Only a “true” Marxist could lay claim to [drawing] that distinction.  Ideologically speaking, who are you to dispute them?

    • #20
  21. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Calling yourself an evangelical Christian, and claiming this after you also claim to have studied and been trained in Christianity, makes a difference in how you want to be perceived.

    Yes, that’s true.  But if I call myself an Evangelical Christian and also state that I don’t believe in Christ then it’s utterly incoherent  – to Evangelicals and atheists alike.  Because my two claims would be contradictory.

    As these BLM founders claim to be Marxists, and act like Marxists in their functioning and language, why do you dispute them? Only a “true” Marxist could lay claim to that distinction. Ideologically speaking, who are you?

    If I claim to be a Marxist and articulate claims in terms of racial justice rather than economic class then my two statements are contradictory.  Because Marxism is based on economic class analysis, not on race.  It’s that basic.

    And the outcomes they demand do not address public ownership of the means of production – which is also a pretty core Marxist thing.

    Courtesy wiki:

    In 2016, Black Lives Matter and a coalition of 60 organizations affiliated with BLM called for decarceration in the United States, reparations for slavery in the United States, an end to mass surveillance, investment in public education, not incarceration, and community control of the police: empowering residents in communities of color to hire and fire police officers and issue subpoenas, decide disciplinary consequences and exercise control over city funding of police.

    Nothing about nationalising anything, public ownership of anything, etc.  In Marxist terms BLM just isn’t that radical.

    Now movements like these draw opportunists like flies to honey.  I’m sure that at least some of these opportunists are Marxists, but I don’t think they will successfully put a square peg into a round hole.

    I just don’t see how Marxism/Marxist is a useful term for BLM if you want to understand what drives it.

    • #21
  22. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Zafar (View Comment):
    I don’t believe in Christ then it’s utterly incoherent –

    You entered this yourself.  the BLM founders have not said this, they have implied the opposite.

    Zafar (View Comment):
    If I claim to be a Marxist and articulate claims in terms of racial justice rather than economic class then my two statements are contradictory

    That’s not true.  “Social justice” has been a theme of Marxist Socialist thought for decades.

    Zafar (View Comment):

     

    Courtesy wiki:

    In 2016, Black Lives Matter

    Wikipedia?  To make an argument?  Nonetheless,

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Nothing about nationalising anything, public ownership of anything, etc.

    this is exctly what the BLM CHAOZ/CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle is claiming.  They claim the people themselves freely own it and run it.

    What is your ideological foundation?

    • #22
  23. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):
    I don’t believe in Christ then it’s utterly incoherent –

    You entered this yourself. the BLM founders have not said this, they have implied the opposite.

    I say if they claim to be Marxist but articulate their issues in terms of race that is contradictory.  Why am I wrong?  Please explain.

    Zafar (View Comment):
    If I claim to be a Marxist and articulate claims in terms of racial justice rather than economic class then my two statements are contradictory

    That’s not true. “Social justice” has been a theme of Marxist Socialist thought for decades.

    Sure, but do they argue that social injustice is primarily a function of economic class or of race?

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Courtesy wiki:

    In 2016, Black Lives Matter

    Wikipedia? To make an argument? Nonetheless,

    Hey, at least I make an effort to provide links and quotes.

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Nothing about nationalising anything, public ownership of anything, etc.

    this is exactly what the BLM CHAOZ/CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle is claiming. They claim the people themselves freely own it and run it.

    Could you share a link?

    What is your ideological foundation?

    Economically eclectic, though I am very into separating church and state.  Progressive, in that  I believe in a welfare state, but then I also believe in the free market’s capacity to deliver stuff efficiently, so….?

    • #23
  24. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Zafar (View Comment):
    I say if they claim to be Marxist but articulate their issues in terms of race that is contradictory. Why am I wrong? Please explain.

    You said justice.  Racial justice is a subset of justice, which is currently in vogue.

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Hey, at least I make an effort to provide links and quotes.

    Yeah, I use wikipedia, too.  I’ll concede to that.  But it I was thinking that we were beyond that in this argument (which is what it technically is).

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Could you share a link?

    There are many.  Mostly on twitter.  It will take me too long to try to find them, but if you’re reading up on the BLM matter you must have been seeing them.

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Economically eclectic, though I am very into separating church and state. Progressive, in that I believe in a welfare state, but then I also believe in the free market’s capacity to deliver stuff efficiently, so….?

    Yeah, that’s somewhat how I figured.  My only basic answer here is that State control leads to, if it leads to anything, bureaucratic waste, governmental corruption, the diminishing of citizen responsibility, and the replacement of religious spirituality with worship of the government, and conformity to government ideology.

    • #24
  25. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus
    BLm & venezuela

    Just close friends, don’t tell the wife

    • #25
  26. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Yeah, I use wikipedia, too. I’ll concede to that. But it I was thinking that we were beyond that in this argument (which is what it technically is).

    I’d like to take the whole wikipedia thing back.  It was a cheap and pointless shot.

    • #26
  27. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):
    I say if they claim to be Marxist but articulate their issues in terms of race that is contradictory. Why am I wrong? Please explain.

    You said justice. Racial justice is a subset of justice, which is currently in vogue.

    From a Marxist pov racial justice is a misnomer.  It’s actually class injustice with the majority of Black Americans falling into the working or under class.

    This fits with the Marxist view that racial consciousness is false consciousness, etc.

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Hey, at least I make an effort to provide links and quotes.

    Yeah, I use wikipedia, too. I’ll concede to that. But it I was thinking that we were beyond that in this argument (which is what it technically is).

    Is BLM Marxist or is BLM not Marxist?

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Could you share a link?

    There are many. Mostly on twitter. It will take me too long to try to find them, but if you’re reading up on the BLM matter you must have been seeing them.

    I’ll keep my eye out for these.

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Economically eclectic, though I am very into separating church and state. Progressive, in that I believe in a welfare state, but then I also believe in the free market’s capacity to deliver stuff efficiently, so….?

    Yeah, that’s somewhat how I figured. My only basic answer here is that State control leads to, if it leads to anything, bureaucratic waste, governmental corruption, the diminishing of citizen responsibility, and the replacement of religious spirituality with worship of the government, and conformity to government ideology.

    I’m less ideological about it.

    Also, this portion:

    State control leads to…the replacement of religious spirituality with worship of the government

    Implies a very materialist (as in dialectial materialism) view of religious spirituality. Which is…ironic?

     

     

    • #27
  28. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Yeah, I use wikipedia, too. I’ll concede to that. But it I was thinking that we were beyond that in this argument (which is what it technically is).

    I’d like to take the whole wikipedia thing back. It was a cheap and pointless shot.

    No offence taken.  And I think it’s fair to question wiki as the only source for a major plank in an argument.

    • #28
  29. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Is BLM Marxist or is BLM not Marxist?

    BLM is Marxist.

    Zafar (View Comment):
    Implies a very materialist (as in dialectial materialism) view of religious spirituality. Which is…ironic?

    Encyclopaedia Britannica!  Nice!

    No, I would say that you’ve got to worship someone or something.  They either worship something, like the earth, the universe, or idols (which are a manifestation of evil spiritual persons) or you worship concepts, or you worship yourself, or you worship a false god, or you worship the real God.

    I think that the youtubed and twittered young white female BLMers I’ve seen screaming at the cops (of course this applies to men, too, but most of the really loud ones are female; and there are a lot of these videos on youtube) basically are spiritually empty and dedicate themselves, due to college and social indoctrination, to a cause that gives their lives meaning and marching orders; and maybe, it could be said; also it alleviates boredom.  They see themselves as fighting the good fight, and they look for themselves to live up to the standards of the group, and to be praised by the group.  They are irrational and can’t debate or converse, but then their dogma or indoctrination doesn’t include debate — because the ideology is sold to most people as emotional feelings, and the language and theory is naturally illogical.

    And some are simply opportunistic psychopaths.  And others are lead into it, and are experimenting with independence and rebellion, but have no guts in the fight.

    Marxism, and the BLM and anti-fa manifestations of Marxism and socialism, is a convenient ideology for the empty, and they serve their Marxist masters; and those who are truly dedicated to Marxism and the communist revolution, and are intellectually aware of what they’re doing, serve two masters: themselves and their pride, and their desire for power; and the Adversary.

    It’s been good talking with you.  I have to take care of something and hopefully I will be back in a few hours.

    • #29
  30. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    Zafar (View Comment):

    What is Marxist about BLM?

    They are neo-Marxist, heirs to the Frankfurt School which broadened the Marxist concept of an all-encompassing class conflict based on material ownership into an all-encompassing class conflict based on everything else, including symbolism and language.  Look up Gramsci, Horkheimer and Ardorno, and various associated names that will pop up.

     

    • #30
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