What is the Radical Left?


We begin with a quote from H. L. Mencken:

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

The Radical Left is not crazed anarchists planting bombs and throwing Molotov cocktails. More generally, the Radical Left is everything that convicted felon Donald Trump is not. The Radical Left is Greta Thunberg: the preservation of and access to uncontaminated oceans, forests, lakes, rivers, fertile soil, wholesome food, clean air, clean water, clean energy, fish and wild life and, yes, save the whales. It is honesty, love, compassion, and belief in free elections and democracy. It is belief in science. It is social security, a social security cardlabor unions, workplace safety, access to medical care, elimination of child labor, equal pay for equal work, elimination of obscene disparities in levels of income. The Radical Left is the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

The Radical Left believes that large corporations and the morbidly rich should be unable to manipulate laws to enable them to largely or completely avoid paying taxes. (Boy, is that radical!) It is absence of racial and gender discrimination. It is elimination of wanton cruelty, and rejection of those who inflict it. "Wanton cruelty" here encompasses wanton cruelty to other people, and to animals. The Radical Left is recognition of man-made climate change. It is get your goddamn religion out of my schools and out of my government. It is denial of vouchers that subsidize religion at the expense of public schools (and that provide no educational benefits). It is acceptance of reality.

It is access to contraception, and a woman's right to exercise control over her own body. It is free speech, freedom of the press, public libraries, and freedom to read without government censorship. It is free public quality education. It is rooting out corruption, and enforcement of anti-corruption laws. (We're looking at you, Congress. We're looking at you, Supreme Court.) It is elimination of abuses itemized in our Declaration of Independence that led colonists to overthrow the Crown.

Note that virtually all of what the Radical Left supports, that Nazi-loving humanoid in the White House opposes. He and his cronies aggressively pursue policies that either undermine those values, or explicitly seek to eliminate their implementation. Their vision of the world is not what we want for ourselves and our progeny. Those who oppose our Radical Left platform truly are a basket of deplorables.

A close review of our platform reveals that it is not radical at all! The lists above are lists of freedom, democracy, health, decency, fair dealing. Really, the only thing “radical” here is the label that MAGA affixes to it. By labeling it “radical”, convicted felon Trump seeks to conjure up the image of bogeymen, ghosts, and all things evil while, at the same time, using that label as a distraction to deflect attention from his own rot and depravity. Thus the many items on our “Radical Left” lists are not to be shunned; quite the contrary, they are to be embraced. “Radical Left” encompasses the salutary philosophies for which convicted felon Donald Trump and his entire administration show only contempt.

Wear Your Radical Left Button with Pride!

health care provider caring handsMAGA conservatives characterize persons who espouse the values listed above as “radical left”. MAGA conservatives characterize persons who demonstrate against oppression, or who support such demonstrations, and who oppose ICE thugs invading cities and murdering protesters as “radical left”. MAGA conservatives characterize persons who demand transparency and accountability in government as “radical left”. To “radical left” in this new lexicon, color us guilty. We wear our metaphorical “radical left” button as a badge of honor.

MAGA conservatives also characterize persons of the radical left persuasion as “woke”, or “antifa”. What bizarre ways to cast aspersions. Antifa is simply shorthand for “anti-fascist”. Woke is what happens when you stop being asleep. In George Orwell's 1984, Big Brother tells us that “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery”, and “Ignorance is Strength”. Quite in line with this doublespeak, what MAGA characterizes as “woke” is all that is constructive and positive. “Ignorance is Strength” rules the land of MAGA. Hello, George!

Why the “Radical Left” Is Necessary

Desmond Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” More poignantly, Martin Luther King said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Silence is enablement. RadicalLeft.site is its operators' rejection of silence.

For the most part, the positions on RadicalLeft.site are those that its operators believe Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King would have endorsed. (This, of course, may not necessarily apply to rejoinders from contributors wishing to express opposing points of view.) Contributors will present positions on contemporary topics. For most topics, its position will be quite definite. renewable energy: solar panelsFor example, there will be little equivocation on the topic of abortion rights. Sometimes, however, ambivalence will emerge. For example, while RadicalLeft.site supports transgenderism in the abstract, it understands the frustration of cisgender women in sports whose performance is weighed against that of transgender women. If we reach and think through that topic, equivocation may reign. This site will not blindly support a so-called liberal position merely because among persons who consider themselves liberals, the position is fashionable.

This Site Is Your Site, Too!

Please note our “Share Your Thoughts!” and our “Letters” pages. Accepted suggestions for additions or improvements to existing pages will be reflected in those pages or, where indicated and time permitting, on a new page. General commentary upon page content, or upon current events, will be considered for our Communications page. Contributions that oppose positions of this radicalLeft.site will be tolerated. More than tolerated, they will be welcome. How else can we learn from one another?

Radical left or radical right or radical in between, let's have some good talk!