The Left

In history, there are many who claim that the left is immoral, that its precepts are unlikely, that it is itself as bad as the right. However, these analyses are flawed, quite fatally, according to the words of Che Guevara—"The true revolutionary is motivated by deep feelings of love," a compassion that goes deeper than the surface of liberation and goes into the details of liberation. Guevara was not wrong. The left has always had a strong emotional appeal—children starving tends to wake one up from the illusion of capitalist paradise rather quickly and angers one to the point of radical actions. The Right, on the other hand, is motivated by hatred and greed. As I see black children killed, I am disgusted by the police and the criminal justice system that has failed them. But the right does nothing, sees nothing, and if it addresses these it chooses the side of the police, not the side of those who have less, who are persecuted, but the side of the privileged.

The right is content to watch the police and the state murder people again and again, and with little recourse to the affected communities. The left, on the other hand, sees this and immediately becomes disillusioned with the state and begins to wonder why things are the way they are. Centrists, as some studies show, are neutral and at times hostile to the civil rights of others so long as it threatens the status quo. As such, the only people who seek change are leftists; they argue that the world should be a better place for people of color, for the LGBTQ+ community, and that the working class should be liberated, regardless of color, regardless of gender, sex, and other distinguishing characteristics. The use of these characteristics, we claim, are dependent upon the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie and the white population has colonized the black population and continues to do so. The white population gentrifies neighborhoods, increasing rents and forcing out black working class residents. The black and latinx communities of the United States are under siege, the former economically by gentrification and physically by the police, and the latter in the same way but also sieged by ICE. Hate crimes are increasing among a rising tide of neo-Red Scare tactics used to brutally repress political dissent by non-governmental and governmental sources. All the while people are once again concerned for the "moral degradation" of United States society.

The thought that our morals are degrading is not a new one; it was voiced during the 1950s when defense from "godless communists" was the most important phenomenon in the public eye. The 1950s when the LGBTQIA+ persecution reached its greatest extent and the Mattachine Society formed to create the first gay rights groups. Moral degradation implies a sort of bankruptcy of emotion and hefty selfishness, and yet the left-wing, the group most accused of its assault upon moral values, is more efficient because it is compassionate. There is no revolution without heartfelt compassion for the oppressed, and indeed there is no revolution without the oppressed. The people must rise of their own accord through the increasing class consciousness of an increasingly disillusioned working class whose belief in the free market must be destroyed. The difficulty of leftist politics is that the center has never and never will support the leftist policies that would help to exacerbate the coming liberation. There is no liberation from any system without the destruction of that system. The question among leftists is how do we dismantle capitalism to form a society that benefits not only the bourgeoisie but the proletarians? Questions so easily asked are not easily answered, but the greatest and most important leftist tendency is compassion, is caring, is love for the oppressed. Without caring or compassion, society itself is bankrupt, and it will fall away.

We must care for one another. If we do not, our world will crumble around us, the results of capitalist climate change, and the people will once again begin to starve, as capitalism reverts to previous stages to defend itself. We cannot remain silent on the issues that have the greatest importance to those we love, to those who we feel compassion for, and if we do, we cannot proclaim to be active in politics, we cannot claim to be productive members of society. We must care for one another, and we must start to do so in the face of this increasing neo-fascist threat to democracy and rights. There is no other solution.