Thursday, January 14, 2010

why the right can't join the fight

Over at the Shared Sacrifice FB page, and elsewhere, there is a discussion occurring about whether tea party participants can be brought over to the side of anti-corporatist struggle

Here's the problem: The right can't rebuke racism. They can't rebuke it pragmatically because they'll lose their numbers if they do. They can't refute it philosophically because at the core of conservatism is a desire to return to the way life used to be, which is more racist...and at the core of libertarianism is the belief that people have a right to be racist, and even to build their communities around their racism--they believe anti-discrimination laws, for instance, are a greater evil than racism itself. The very structure of right-wing ideology is stacked against doing what would be necessary to move beyond racism.

As for whether the Tea Party movement can become an anti-corporatist movement, the reality is that the right does not hate corporate power, and corporations are funding the tea party movement, so it can't really become anti-corporatist.

There is one thing rightists could do to fight racism, corporatism, and help build a cooperative, non-hierarchical world: They could become leftists.

No comments: