The Sinister Left

I actually don't like discussing politics and economics in the classical terms of "left" and "right". Like all words and terms, these words have evolved to mean something different completely from what they meant only a few decades ago.

Left and Right were, in political and socioeconomic context, two clearly separated sides. Traditionally leftists were more community minded and were seen as progressives, as opposed to the ideological opponents on the right, who were concerned with the individual and their rights, and as such were seen as conservative. The right has always been defending the status quo in which the extreme wealth and power of some individuals is explained as the result of their individual efforts, while the left were fighting for the rights of the majority, the masses, the community, you know, the place where wealth is actually produced.

The difference between these lame wings has become smaller through the decades, but the position of the right wing hasn't changed; it has been the left that has been creeping in the right direction, which is actually the wrong direction, in an effort to keep pace with the increasing individualization and commercialization of western societies. I'm not talking about left and right political parties here, but the general public, ordinary people like myself and probably you, dear reader. This has taken on extreme forms, to the extent that talk about any measure of income redistribution is likely to get you labelled a communist, nature lovers being called treehuggers and taxes called "theft" instead of "contributing" to the "common good".

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the right has effectively had a free game without an ideologically opposing super-power, and since the fall of the twin towers the military industrial complex has managed to replace the Red Scare with the fear of Terrorism. The left has given up on fundamentally criticizing capitalism for it's many flaws and injustices. Instead it has adapted a new form of group-think resulting in the horrible identity politics with special rights and privileges for targeted segments of the population. I don't get it. Why is it so hard to comprehend that ALL people in a community need ALL other people in that community to make the community the successful breeding ground for successful, content, happy INDIVIDUALS. There's nothing wrong with individuality, on the contrary, but individualism is as bad as communism, and saying that does nothing to devalue individuals or the community of people they belong to.

Translated into Italian, "left" becomes "sinistra". In Latin left and right are "sinister" and "dexter". People fear change, and since the dawn of human civilization some things have never changed, one of them being the fact that always there has been a tiny group of powerful individuals ruling over the masses, with the dogma's of their era, be it religion in the past, or capitalism today. The left has always been the force of change, the hope for a future in which the people, and not some power-hungry individuals, decide where to go from now. The left has to become sinister again, a danger, a threat to the eons old status quo of priests, kings, emperors or modern-day multi-billionaires...

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