The Left: 13 generalizations.

The Left: 13 generalizations.

1. No confidence in working class.

2. "It's not what you're for, it's what you're against."

3. Substitutiary locomotion: since the working class has failed to rise to the occasion, look to other forces: meritocratic NGOs, progressive labor unionists, Islamist philanthropic groups,
OWS, hackers.

4. Unprincipled "Whateverism" defined along an anti-American axis: we are all Bolivarians/Hezbollah/Correa/Ahmadinejad.

5. Programmatic "Whateverism." Equal social weight granted to all oppressed groups. Tailist approach to backwardness and spontaneity. Rhetorical word salads and politically correct obscurantist euphemisms.

6. Against extraction resources/fossil fuels. Opposition to nuclear power. Opposition to pipelines. Let the world's toilers eat cake.

7. Critical approach to meta-narratives like science. Skepticism about GMOs and vaccines.

8. Absolute anti-Zionism. The "Holocaust Industry." The "Israel Lobby."

9. Rejection of the Cuban road. Yes to Corbyn/Syriza/Podemos.

10. Hysterical responses to political events and election results. Chicken Littles.

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Some additions from readers:

11. Shibboleths cooked up in the offices of campus professors; i.e., "White Privilege".  No training in a bona-fide mass movement (not necessarily any given persons fault).  Trained by academics with no connection to the working-class.

Of course, the one thing it's actually possible to shed, middle class privilege, by joining the working class, is the one the middle class left never considered doing.

12. Cannot understand why you shouldn't collaborate with rightist conspiracy theorists and Jew haters.

13. This could've used a mention of Maoism, which I'm convinced has had a tremendous impact on leftist vernacular.