Do you think British/UK society is getting as sick as American society? I live in a town away from any big cities, and so far, it is free from extreme political divisiveness.

@Naomi yes there has been an inexorable shift to the right wing and the kleptocracy of Tory opportunists selling delusional British Imperial fantasies, the fawning allegiance to Trump and his fascistic world view was very apparent and has left them floundering as Brexit and the Covid blunders start to bite. I fear the UK will not have the resources or resilience to recover and invoking the spirit of the Blitz won't cut it.

Identity politics is quite the lucrative buisness.

Robin Diangelo, Ibram X Kendi, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Don Lemon, Tucker Carlson, and many other individuals have made quite a tidy sum over the years speaking, writing books, and selling "us v them" identity politics.

News broadcasts like CNN, and FOX, have changed from objective reporting of the news, to "I'm on your side" ("not on their side) opinionated journalism pieces. More time is spent framing the other guy, then bipartisan nuanced discussion of value.

Then, of course, we have our R & D politicians, who ride off the civil unrest 24/7, and every election cycle present their chosen champions to take up the mantle of making America a better place. Yet, most of the time very little action is actually taken or is gridlocked.

Without identity politics, police reform would be a debate over shady unions and questionable accountability practices, instead of a debate over whether or not it's racist, and barely digging further.

Without identity politics, COVID would have been a combined effort of options and a variety of doctors assessments. State leaders and politicians would have put politics aside for the bigger picture, and MSM would have covered Trump in a more forgiving manner, instead of it being a one man Trump show vs Faucci.

Without identity politics, politicians would have reigned in the negative campaigning, come to a compromise over COVID releif quicker, immediately put a stop to the BLM riots with a combined effort, and MSM would have handled our current civil unrest more delicately, instead of reducing the entire situation over a mask.

Identity politics has worked out great for everyone who isn't making a profit or obtaining power from it. I'm unsure what, if any, positive change has come from it. So, I'm inclined to believe it's been utilized more heavily due to the lack of incompetence at a higher level, and taken advantage of by those who can make a quick buck. So, yes, I absolutely believe the quote.

@saramarylop3z Thank you for your input. I value views and opinions that are formed based on objective observations like those you make. Many people are so biased that they cannot acknowledge different views from theirs.
I think people monetise free speech as well. The other day, I saw Tim Pool being outraged on YouTube because FB is about to remove his account. Unfortunately, FB can do so because intentionally or not, FB revealed in court that it was a publisher (in 2019). I very much doubt that YouTubers/journalists like TP are not aware of this. I couldn't help thinking that TP's outrage was fake but he probably successfully increased his popularity.

@Naomi Tim Pool is an interesting character for sure. I started watching him a lot more often last year. He definitely went a bit crazy as election got closer. He's switched from pro Trump heavy content to walking the middle line again, after. It seems like he's trying a Joe Rogan style of talking points, but doesn't quite get that without a certain amount of consistency, he falls short of credibility.

Joe Rogan is one of my favorites. No matter who he's had on his show, he comes off consistent in his stances on topics. Plus, he gives his guests a lot of room to speak and his shows are more of a conversation than debate. Tim has a tendency to not listen and build off of what his guests are saying. He likes to prove them wrong.

Both make a living off political commentary, for the most part, but Tim Pool comes off more like a salesman doing so. He has the typical data and stats that most conservatives use to argue a point, he just falls short on personal believability. Still, I don't want to sound too hard on Tim, he has had quite a few shows that were informative as well as entertaining.

I definitely do have my biases, but I also try to be a bit more objective. So, thank you for saying so.

@saramarylop3z
I like Rogan, too. Like you say, he seems genuine and consistent.
It's impossible for anyone to be 100% neutral; everybody is biased, but some have the discipline and intellectual curiosity to seek to understand and engage opinions that are different from their own. I like to be one of them.

@saramarylop3z
BTW, did you know that Tim is bald? I've always wondered why he always wears a woolly hat.

@Naomi I did hear that! I forgot about that. That's why he always wears a beanie I guess? He's not even that old. I took the premature gray route myself. I had streaks of gray when I was 16, only for it to be youthfully trendy now a days.

Thank you for your insightful comment. The first paragraph of your comment is very convincing, which looks at the matter from both ends. I'm non-white myself but I personally have very little experience with racism against me. A friend of mine once said that probably because I'm not conscious of my ethnic minority background all the time; ignorance is bliss. So, I can't pretend to know what it is like to be a victim of racism. Also, I think that people are sometimes just curious about others who look different and that curiosity may be reflected in different behaviours and may be seen as prejudice, unfortunately - ha, I make myself sound naive! I don't doubt that prejudice against people belonging to a certain racial or ethnic group exists, and that it is used as a political weapon by both sides.

@Naomi The United States has a history that set us up for the racial conditions we have today. To feel justified in having slaves they had to be viewed as sub-human. There was a large population of slaves here and they had to be controlled. It was against the law to teach them to read or gain any education. Slaves and eventually freed slaves had to be kept subservient to whites and when you live that every day of your life it takes a tremendous toll. If you watch carefully you can see the difference between African Americans and people of recent African descent from other countries. They are much more comfortable with themselves and don't display the caution and defiance that is displayed by those born here. It is amazing how cultural attitudes can carry down through centuries. All humans are of African decent.

@Pand0ro
"It is amazing how cultural attitudes can carry down through centuries."
Indeed. That's something that is beyond my comprehension.

Talk about collectivist authoritarianism how about the people who stormed the capitol. What we have is people on both sides saying "my point of view is right and any other is wrong." The right believes that others are trying to take everything away from them, and the left saying you should be doing this for me because you have everything and I deserve that too. What both sides are missing is a realization that there are things they all could be doing that can help change what is happening. A reasonable sense of humility in understanding that we all are mistaken at times and fallible. Recognizing we have a responsibility to help community to the best of our ability. A realization on our dependence on each other and due respect for others.

What has been developing for the last forty years in america is a profound selfishness. We do not see how dependent we are on each other because we have every thing we want that is immediately available to us in exchange for money and no thought to the intricate structure that is necessary to have that available to us.

@Pand0ro what the Left is missing, is that fact that what I do is none of their business.
There may be a million things that I could be doing, or even should be doing in their opinion... and they have every right in the world to try and convince me to do things.
But they have no right in the world to try and force me to do things. That's very different.

@rway "what the Left is missing, is that fact that what I do is none of their business." Like large groups of citizens storming the center of government?

"But they have no right in the world to try and force me to do things. That's very different." Like obey traffic lights and speed limits, respect for others safety and property, allowing them to do what they want? The line you are drawing seems to be zig-zagging/

@Pand0ro The line you're drawing has a name: legitimate Law.
You don't have any right to break legitimate law... I guess I should've spelled that out.
That's a pretty straight line... maybe it's your perception that is zig-zagging.

"Forcing you to do things", and "Forcing you not to do things", are two entirely different things.
Legitimate Law constrains your behavior, when (and only when) that behavior would violate someone else's rights.
It does not, and cannot, compel behavior of any sort, at any time, under any circumstance.
That would be "Illegitimate Law"... the enforcement of which, is called "Tyranny".

You obey traffic lights because you agreed to the rules of the road when you decided to drive on public streets. If you don't like the rules, don't drive; your choice.
It is an "opt-in" cooperative system, it has nothing in the world to do with your natural rights; that's why you can't be forced to drive. Subjecting yourself to those constraints is entirely a matter of your discretion, and nobody else's.

Hello. Meanwhile, how about the right who constantly blame the left for identity politics, PC, and victimhood for example? Do you think they (right-leaning YouTubers, etc.) want to keep talking about those things, making sure that they are big problems and saying all the right things about them so that they can keep their subscribers and patreons happy, i.e., cashing in on those matters?

@Naomi

The majority of the right youtube commentary is from people who'd rather go back to topics more interesting than politics. That's been my impression.

@govols I agree
Ben Shapiro: Violinist, Father, Harvard Law Grad would rather be with his wife (who is a doctor) but leftists accuse him of being a Nazi, even though he is a Jew.

Dave Rubin: Was a left-wing reporter and would rather not be harassed because he discovered Liberty > Tyranny

Tim Pool: Was a left-wing reporter who discovered the left was insane as he travelled/reported on events abroad and saw how Vice execs twisted reality to become a propaganda rag.

Alex Jones: Was a reporter for over 20 years

Steven Crowder: Is and will continue to be a comedian

Joe Rogan: Is and will continue to be a comedian but spoke up because the wokes tried to kill comedy and tried to kill his podcasts because he talked to the “wrong” people.

Jordan Peterson: Prefers to be an author/professor but that was disrupted because he pointed out that compelled speech laws are anti-thetical to western life.

Bret Weinstein: Would rather have stayed a professor but the leftists tried to end his career because he exists.

James Lindsay: Would rather stay in academia but the left tried to corrupt Mathematics (similar for Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian)

Karlyn Borysenko: Would rather be knitting peacefully but people targeted her for talking to Trump voters and discovering they aren’t evil.

Denis Prager: Has a prior career in radio but the left called him a white supremacist even though he is a conservative Jew.

Hodge Twins: Rather make fitness videos but the left kept calling them uncle Toms.

All of these people have had their lives ripped apart or torn inside out by the left and they speak because they wish to highlight the dangers of the left gone too far. All of them would rather be doing what they were doing before the left “came for them”. If they weren’t being targeted they would go back to their lives and be happy.

@Naomi
Booker T. Washington was prominent over a century ago so the class of race problem-solvers he points to has been enduring and ineffective. He is saying they are being purposefully ineffective for their own benefit. The problems back then are the same problems of today. Are right-leaning youtubers getting government subsidies and grants to do what they are doing?
We were doing quite well lately with race, despite the community activists (race-problem solvers) such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, sitting in their strongholds demanding largesse for themselves.
Consequent to their activity we do have a lot of anti-white sentiment from the Black community. Whites have more or less allowed them freedom to create their own culture if they don't like the extant social structure. What has been borne out of that has been, a breakdown of the family unit, a negative attitude and disrespect toward whites if not outright racism itself, high crime rates in Black communities (obviously more ammo for the race problem solvers because whites don't care about Blacks) drug abuse, gangs, violence gangsta rap and other moral depravity. Are whites angels? No, look at the Democrats. They are egging the Blacks on to be violent, loot, pillage, burn the place down. How mendacious is that? All in the name of "help". "We is helping.", they will say to sound like they are one of them. You must have seen Hillary or even AOC sink into their southern drawls when pandering to their crowd.

@Naomi

I think it is possible that the right-leaning media has a vested interest in continuing the narrative, but I think to your average conservative, they're simply tired of people using racism as an excuse for lack of exceptionalism.

This is not to say that racism doesn't exist, only that racism seems to be the one-size-fits-all problem that can be used to explain away any situation. Didn't get that job? Racism. Didn't get good grades at school? Racism. Life didn't work out the way you dreamed it would? Racism. Had two subpar years as pro quarterback and cancelled your own option year, looking for a big payday that didn't happen? Racism. And no one will push back on accusations of racism, no matter how ridiculous they might be.

Furthermore, you have people who are doing their best to live their lives who are being bombarded with constant messaging that they are racist and the reasons other people aren't able to succeed. There is a very strong narrative of, "if you're white, you're part of the problem," that exists in America today, which flies in the face of what most American born in the Civil Rights Era have been taught to believe their entire lives: that skin color doesn't matter. Well, now it does, apparently, and if you don't agree, you're a racist. It's like the "rules" have been completely turned upside down, with the purpose of vilifying people who aren't doing anything to hurt anyone. And people are damned tired of being vilified for doing what they've been told all their life was the right thing to do.

There is no empathy, there is no equitable rules. I'm reading a story recently of a young lady that was forced to leave her university because someone with an axe to grind against her kept a video of her singing along to a rap song that had the n-word in it for THREE YEARS, just waiting for the right opportunity to publish it, with the intent of using it to harm her. Just try to wrap your head around that: singing along to a song that had the n-word as lyric - meaning context absolutely doesn't matter - in order to destroy her college career over it - which means empathy and understanding on the part of administrators doesn't matter - and the perpetrator is lauded by the NY Times as some kind of hero for having done this - which means our ability to sense right from wrong doesn't matter.

This is where we're at in 2021.

Hello RitBorg,

"All of these people have had their lives ripped apart or torn inside out by the left and they speak because they wish to highlight the dangers of the left gone too far."

I believe that's what happened to them, too.

"All of them would rather be doing what they were doing before the left “came for them”. If they weren’t being targeted they would go back to their lives and be happy."

I understand their initial urge to speak up against whatever they believe is harming society. Meanwhile, they have earned celebrity status. Would they go back to what they were doing before? I'm not sure. I remember that Peterson once said on YouTube that he found a way to monetise SJWs. I remember I felt disappointed at that time; I had been closely following him.

@Naomi Question Re your reply to RitBorg.

Do you have a distaste for capitalism?

@FrankZeleniuk ????? No. Please try not to label me, #my bio Lol

@Naomi Alright let me ask the question a more impersonal way.

How is monetizing SJWs a problem.

You know social media uses people as their "product" but deceitfully calls them their customer.

@FrankZeleniuk Are you suggesting that monetising SJWs isn't a problem? Like monetising ethnic minorities isn't a problem?

@Naomi No. I am asking "how" it is a problem? I see how race problem solvers monetize ethnic minorities. And I see how lobbying for state sanctioned victim status is a form of monetizing. But maybe I have answered my question. Then it becomes why does Peterson's monetizing become so problematic when the race problem-solver has already figured it out?

@FrankZeleniuk Yes, you've answered your question and you're defending Peterson because you like him very much.

@Naomi I am not a fan of Peterson and I am not defending him. The amazing thing about Peterson is he is a psychologist but can still observe, which is odd. Psychologists usually just evaluate what's in front of them.

@FrankZeleniuk Making objective observations is definitely a skill, isn't it? I actually agree with a lot of things Peterson says. I think I liked him more when he was still teaching before he became more political and businessman like. He is a father figure to millions of young men. It's sad that they're disconnected from their own fathers. Communication between parents and children is so important.

@Naomi Making objective observations is indeed a skill. Of course, I am not a SJW and oppose its objective to transform society. They have equality under the law and that is all any individual should have but they want to tear down the entire social fabric and build back better which means they will demand, not an equal but dominant position in engineering society. Unfortunately, they will have little recognition under a communist regime. They are just useful idiots in their view. In actuality Western society and culture offers them the most freedom but they are quite ungrateful and want more.

Hello there. So, what is the real point of the quote?
Apart from the quote, do you think I'm being too cynical about YouTubers and podcasters who take political stance and criticise their opponents so that they can cash in?

Neolibs want to do work that doesn't cost anything. "Change hearts and minds," have token representation in the elite, philanthropy vs. public investment, "don't boo, vote," etc. Black people struggle with whether they can actually succeed in a racist, capitalist system where they are the minority. The options are 1. Trying to integrate, 2. Trying to reform the system, 3. Trying to dismantle the system, 4. Trying to succeed separately (through a. capitalism, b. leftism, or c., e.g. leaving the US). This narrative doesn't engage any of those dilemmas.

And there is a contradiction in the narrative. It admits that the problems still exist yet it is used to discourage any public problem solving or discussion. Indeed, one only needs to study history to understand how the problems started and why they haven't been solved.

Public investment and inclusion (with actual power), especially locally, are the solution, IMO, to inequities and the top/down dynamic this narrative discusses. And of course there needs to be bottom-up organizing to make this happen.

@WilyRickWiles I think your sticking point, is the assumption of a "racist, capitalist system..." in which blacks just can't compete; which is simply incorrect.
The free market doesn't know, or care, what color you are.
Black people succeed all the time, white people fail all the time. And there's an entire spectrum of equally irrelevant skin-shades in between that also succeed/fail with great variation. It takes asians 1-generation or less to come out at the top of the whole pile. Natives have had socialist government plantations for over a century and it's been no help whatsoever.
The "system" is racially agnostic. But systems are operated by people, and people have all sorts of insane and semi-sane idiosyncrasies that we all have to deal with every time we interact. It's quite convenient to just choose one and blame all your problems on that... but it will never produce any positive change because it's simply not the right answer.
Black immigrants do remarkably better than black natives... why is that? Their blackness is a constant in that comparison. It cancels out, because it's not the problem.
All measures of success and prosperity were steadily on the rise for black Americans throughout the 20th century... right up until just about the very moment Democrats decided to step-in and "help out" in the mid-'60s.
And it's been downhill ever since.
If you are sincerely interested in identifying, characterizing, and fixing what you believe to be a serious problem; there's a big clue where to start looking.

@WilyRickWiles we can apply another test to your theory:
All the same people who you believe are keeping black Americans "down" because they just hate them for some reason, would also be the same people who you believe hate "liberals"... correct?
So... why are "liberals" (which is actually a misnomer) effectively running every institution in America, and quite well-represented among the 1%'ers, as well?
If you could not succeed in America, without being approved and facilitated by the imaginary hoard of toothless trailer park goobers who are secretly pulling all the strings in our society... then that would not be the case.
It is the case.
Therefore the assumption is incorrect. It's time to move on to a new theory.

@rway There isn't a free market, for one thing.

@rway "It's quite convenient to just choose one and blame all your problems on that." I tend to think that is most relevant to criticize the dominant one.

@rway Your comparisons of races are meaningless because race alone is meaningless. You ignore class and the history that has made Black descendants of slaves in particular disproportionately lower class in the US. And that history is racial capitalism in motion.

@WilyRickWiles well of course it's not absolutely free, and it never will be. That observation doesn't change anything, it's free in the context of this analysis.
Well, not quite; but where it is skewed with regard to minorities, it is in their favor... not to their detriment. Because "racism".
And that hasn't helped.
Because that wasn't the problem.

@WilyRickWiles "race alone is meaningless..." now we're getting somewhere. Keep thinking.

@rway "All the same people who you believe are keeping black Americans "down""

System. Not people. And you've ignored every word I said about neoliberalism. I never once made the classist argument you are accusing me of making.

@rway Black people may have been accumulating some wealth under segregation, and that wealth stayed in their segregated community. After segregation, there was no more economic wall and wealth was more easily extracted. There was a small window for real equity after the Civil Rights Act of 1968. But Nixon was elected on a white backlash mandate and he shut it down the next year. The Democrats then transitioned to a neoliberal party as the Republicans transitioned to a white supremacist one. And together they disinvested from the public sector and grew the carceral state while the Democrats offered bourgeois rights (which were still better than the Republicans' racial violence). Neither party has a solution, but you can find ones in the Civil Rights legislation, the Great Society, MLK Jr.'s speeches late in life, W.E.B. Du Bois's writings, ideas for reparations and truth and reconciliation, in Reconstruction, and from other leftist and abolitionist thinkers.

@WilyRickWiles ...you just said I was "ignoring class"
If the Faustian "helping hand" initiatives like Affirmative Action had anything to do with the insurmountable economic aftermath of slavery... then they would only be applicable to direct descendants of slaves.
That's not how they are managed, because that's not why they are in place.

System. Not people. The "system" is what I addressed above, you may have missed it: "...where it is skewed with regard to minorities, it is in their favor... not to their detriment."
There's not a single exclusionary "pro-White" policy or law on the books in the United States of America... anywhere. If you can find one, point it out. If you do, it will be gone that very day; guaranteed.

@rway "Keep thinking." Sure I'll go ahead and do that as soon as you read what I always wrote and show some comprehension rather than lob straw man arguments at me.

@WilyRickWiles The solution is freedom... getting out of the way.
There is no shortage of good intentions and elaborate ideas in the literature, but the first thing to do when you're causing harm... is to stop doing that.
Nothing that happened in the 1968 caused the prosperity that had been building since before the turn of the century. The '60s was an abject disaster for black Americans, and we've done nothing but add more interference since then.

@rway Mississippi still has Jim Crow laws on the books, dude. North Carolina was found to intentionally seek analogues for race in its gerrymandering. Chicago just settled a 50-year lawsuit for discrimination in public housing--they've since torn it all down rather than have to integrate. White people firebombed buses to end school integration in the 70s and 80s. GTFOH.

@rway Read these studies just about policing and tell me there's no systemic racism. [washingtonpost.com]

@rway "The solution is freedom... getting out of the way." That is what both parties have been doing for 50 years.

@WilyRickWiles wow, you sound like you think you made a really good point... I'm sorry, I must have missed it.
It's easy to find people who will ramble on all day and all night about how this or that is "proof" of systemic racism...
What I said was: "There's not a single exclusionary "pro-White" policy or law on the books in the United States of America... anywhere. If you can find one, point it out. If you do, it will be gone that very day; guaranteed."

Now... you seem to think there's one of the Democrats' old Jim Crow laws still on the books in Mississippi. So... what is it? Is it actually enforced, or is it just "still on the books"?
Did somebody challenge it, and the legislature said "No! We're keeping it!"?
You know, there's still a law (I forget where...) that compels you to completely dismantle your motor vehicle and move it into the ditch when approached by a horse... so you don't spook the horse.
I don't think that law being "on the books" is having much impact on the dynamics of the community.

@WilyRickWiles wait, wait, wait...
...you are seriously characterizing the last 50-years of the Democratic Party 'efforts' as: "staying out of the way"?

@rway Yes. Lol. Please look up the definition of neoliberalism.

@WilyRickWiles labels, labels, labels. All it says is that they're more "moderate" than traditional liberals. That means nothing to me.
Define "moderate". Hell, define the scale that your using. You can't get more liberal than a real liberal... without just slipping into Anarchy, in which nobody has any rights. I'm about as liberal as a person can get, using the actual definition.
There are only 2 possible directions on the sovereignty continuum: Toward freedom, and away from it. We've been moving "Progressively" away from it, as matters of policy and practice, for over a hundred years now. And those policies have a home in the Democratic Party, no matter what they call themselves.
I only wish "Republican" was the opposite of "Democrat"... which doesn't seem to be the case.

I think she's good at raising money for the party... and nothing else.
She's the rich grandma that everybody hates, but sucks up to anyway because they don't want to be cut off.