Self-Evident Truths?

[exaggerating for effect]"EnMasse" has dwindled to about 10 regular users, but it's still managed to attract some of the stupidest fucking people on the fucking planet.[/exaggerating for effect]

Check out this quote from one of my bête noires, the anarchist super-radical "Slumberjack." In response to my assertion that we on the left have to come up with a revolutionary agenda equal in significance to the bloody tragedies of the World Wars and the Great Depression, because Thomas Piketty has pretty convincingly demonstrated that they and they alone produced the only real change in the level of social equality across two-centuries of capitalist history, this is what "Slumberjack" came up with:

Some people in Florida and California have decided that taking potshots at the police works in their situation, others engage in collectivism, cooperatives, and community work, others defend against and expose the misogynist culture surrounding everything, some smash and grab from corporate franchises whenever the opportunity presents itself. There's obviously quite a range of activities that don't require any guidance from the so called 'political' operatives that are thrown at us to choose from.

Now, here's the thing: There are police, all across North America, who believe that the protests against the fact that black men are 750% more likely to be shot by the police than white men, are nothing more than hating on cops. Police, who are caught routinely beating the shit out of people in custody, abusing protesters, tasering children and the elderly, and shooting 12-year old black boys with toy guns seconds after pulling up to them, believe that they're being "bullied" by the general public. They feel under appreciated for putting their lives on the line to defend us, day after day. The FACT that the media routinely portrays them as heroes and that the majority of the general public supports them, and the FACT that police work is a relatively safe profession, can do nothing to dissuade these guys that they're victims of an uncaring, unappreciative, hostile society.

And, in spite of the fact that they believe this self-pitying bullshit with all their hearts, it's a self-evident fact that it's  groundless, self-pitying bullshit. These protests are against the general lack of accountability our police have to face, and the murderous consequences of this lack of accountability.

By the same token, in spite of the fact that "Slumberjack" honestly appears to believe that joining a co-op, or doing some undefined community work, or shop-lifting, or "taking potshots at the polcie works in their situation" (whatever that means) can somehow have results equal to the social impact of the World Wars and the Great Depression, it's self-evident that they cannot.

Keep in mind that "Slumberjack" is referring to the activities in these areas carried out by radical leftists, who comprise .00000000000001% of the population. Just so that we're clear about  how self-evidently deluded he (or she, but I think it's a "he" and that's what I'll be sticking with until further evidence becomes available) is.

I left out "defend[ing] against and expos[ing] the misogynist culture surrounding everything" because this is actually becoming a pretty major phenomenon, and one that affects half the population. The bulk of this work isn't being done by the hippies and squeegee kids "Slumberjack" reveres, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Still and all, what are we talking about here? Feminism has many strands. Are we talking about the right of all women to walk alone at night without harassment, but all energies go towards building a world where university-educated white women can become capitalist-exploiters on equal terms with white men, while working class women and women of colour walk around free of harassment at great length because they're homeless? Is "liberation" about celebrating female sexuality? Or is it just society ogling at sculpted female celebrities parading the results of their extreme diet and exercise regimes? Without the defense and expansion of the welfare state, most women's (and men's and children's) lives will be of lower quality and with less freedom and dignity, than is the case now.

Why am I bitching about this lunk-head from "EnMasse"? Because the delusions of "Slumberjack" are just a more extreme version of the delusions of radicals and leftists everywhere.

It should go without saying that the activities "Slumberjack" identifies are nowhere near as significant as the world-historical events under discussion. But there are so many leftists intoxicated with their own causes and activism, and their own immersion in their little worlds, that they're unable to grasp the obvious. Their own efforts and the millions of other efforts of their similarly afflicted brothers and sisters are not enough to produce real change. On their own, they're almost inconsequential.

In the same way that "Lead Now!" imagines that delivering a petition with a few thousand names to it to some backbench Conservative MP's is somehow going to block an omnibus bill from being passed by a majority government, so too do radicals truly believe that their miserable collectives, their squatting in abandoned buildings, their camping out in public parks (until the police disperse them), their "smash and grabs" will materially affect the course of history.

It's this sort of self-evident shit-headdery that fills me with despair for the future of humanity.