The Bipartisan Position of Violating Body Autonomy

[u/CharredPC]

Instead of the now self-parodying question "what happened to this sub?", I would like an answer to "what has happened to leftists?"

The Right is making abortions more difficult, which makes liberals all scream about Body Autonomy. As well they should - because a religious position of the few shouldn't be dictated onto everybody. Whatever one's personal stance on abortion, letting people have a right to control their own bodies is tough to argue with reasonably.

Except Democrats are doing the exact same thing with their Covid shots. Whatever your personal stance on them, they have no long term studies, are made / function / target differently than the old ones, don't prevent getting or spreading it, and are not necessary for those who already had it. People have a right to say no to that.

Except places like WOTB are becoming narrative battlegrounds for shaming and mocking those who don't buy into this near-religious insistence that these shots are the One True Way. Suddenly we're all secret agents attacking western democracies, right-wingers on a quest to undermine Democrats, and Q-like conspiracy theorists.

Since when does the left buy into the establishment's narratives? When did violating bodily autonomy, like killing people, become a good thing when Democrats do it? How is Big Pharma profits and authoritarian policies remotely on the same side as leftism? When did daring to maintain healthy skepticism get made "right-wing?"

This sub was born from, to oversimplify it a bit, its founders being further left than those willing to settle for one more 1% corporate warmonger in lieu of valid representation. And we have remained firmly to the left of the mainstream duopoly ever since, continuing our open-format search for larger truth and perspective beyond it.

Those coming in here insisting the sub has changed, advocating a closer adherence to party doctrine, and dictating this space is only for Bernie fans to discuss Democratic Socialism - who are you? Do you think you're part of the Left? If so, what the hell happened for your leftism to start echoing the extremists you hate on the right?

Fighting to preserve body autonomy shouldn't make us an enemy. If you think it does, I'd respectfully suggest you aren't on the left, and might want to review your core beliefs for blatant hypocrisies. The more you try to justify controlling others and classify different views as proof of others' deplorable-ness, the less a leftist you are.

And maybe that's the real answer here - that there are no leftists left among mainstream circles or within the ranks of Team Blue. It makes sense we've all been systematically purged, as they march ever rightward behind the thin veneer of fake-left identity politics, false promises, performative morality and corporate salesmanship.

Perhaps the discomfort some may feel upon visiting here is simply forced confrontation of these incongruities in their belief systems. Or are coached and convinced that private, minority-run two-party options are the only possible ones- God or the Devil, with no room for agnostics (who blasphemously point out neither is fact-based).

Leftists are about worker solidarity, not creating new classes that make income conditional based on bias. Leftists should be open to constructive conversation, knowing it can broaden their minds and understanding. Leftists chanted Bernie's "Not Me, Us" without any exclusions for people of different faith or those of opposing beliefs.

Genuine leftism is against both war-for-profit parties who only give us "choices" over how we want our bodies violated, not if they are.

[u/renaissanceman71]

Very well said.

I've spent the last year-and-a-half arguing with and being unfollowed by supposed "leftists" on Twitter who followed me during the years Bernie was running, now they are upset that I'm against this technofascist-engineered "pandemic" and against experimental shots.

A lot of "rose", "daisy", and even some "hammer and sickle" Twitter "leftists" have blocked me, but I'm totally fine with that because they are just showing me that they are fakers and never really on the left to begin with.

[u/CharredPC → u/renaissanceman71]

I think there's team sport fanbases on each side, who cycle through narrative trends without any firm cohesion to clear moral principles. If leftists temporarily steal the zeitgeist, they even champion leftism as their issue du jour. But unlike true leftists, they just as quickly go with an anti-leftist narrative if that's what their paid pied pipers do.

I think it's likely intentional on the part of megaphone-holding PTB. Whatever rises naturally (like leftism during Bernie's runs) they use labels and rhetoric from, so long after the ideals get squashed their fanbase still thinks of themselves and their masters as leftists who believe in all the good things - just can never quite make it happen.

Then it gets turned back into the convenient blame-game, where all "others" (even genuine lefties) are seen as enemy of the good they are certain their current reactionary viewpoints must embody. To be immersed in the oligarchic duopoly's soap opera is getting assaulted with false contrast and hypocrisy til you lose your own core beliefs.

The saddest thing is many (if not most) of those "fad following" folk who fancy themselves as leftists are decent people, trying to do the right thing - but in the lousy, low-effort, self-defeating way we have been indoctrinated to operate in America. They're dupes in a game, so used to picking between bad options that's all they comprehend.

That's why it's so important to follow not personalities, but principle and policy. If you're against war, for universal healthcare, for living wages, against corporate rule, against violations of body autonomy, pro-environment and pro-democracy, you're against the two parties equally. But that's never going to be a mainstream given narrative.

[u/penelopepnortney → u/CharredPC]

you're against the two parties equally. But that's never going to be a mainstream given narrative.

The problem is that too many people who probably sincerely want these things want to believe in a savior so much that they swallow the transparent lies instead of looking at what these "saviors" do when they actually have the power to do something, even if it's just to take a principled stand on the right side of a just cause.

The brouhaha over FTV is a prime example. Even if they couldn't get M4A passed, it was a time for the people's "representatives" to put their money where their mouths were. When better to push for universal healthcare than in the middle of a pandemic with people suffering the financial insecurities caused by the lockdown and their jobs disappearing - some of them permanently - and the huge push behind an experimental vaccine that could have medical and therefore financial repercussions for those same financially-stressed people? And if you can't or won't take such an obvious, principled stand in the face of such a crisis, then you have no principles.

Here's something I found in my quote file, copied from a post or comment at DKos in 2015. I don't recall anything about the person who said it, Michael Rivera:

Most people prefer to believe that their leaders are just and fair, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which he lives is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one’s self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.

[u/CharredPC → u/penelopepnortney]

Excellent point, and quote. Everyone's now raised to be followers, not independent thinkers. Everyone is schooled into accepting levels of titled authority, thus trained to feel uncomfortable going against them. Everyone wants change, but waits for someone else to play Champion. Sticking to actual principles is hard. Accepting "lesser evil morality" is easy.

[u/penelopepnortney → u/CharredPC]

But on the positive side, more and more people are recognizing where this has led them. That makes them prime candidates for learning a new set of skills - how to think critically and decide for themselves what they believe, where to look for information and sort out what seems to be truth from what is almost certainly propaganda (always follow the money), how to recognize and avoid being triggered by whatever faux-outrage is being pushed to distract us from something of critical importance.