What Sibboleth said. Xenophobia is a right-wing value. Openness and internationalism are left-wing values. Period.
There are millions of patriotic, eurosceptic, ant-imigration people in this nation who are socially liberal, atheists and socialists who loathe the Tory party, and it is fundamentally illegitimate to describe them as right wing.
I won't respond on the Stalin thing, it's just silly.
Patriotic is not the same thing as nationalist. Do you agree ? The members of national liberation movements in the Third World that have been conscious socialists were patriotic, but not nationalistic, albeit maybe in the name of the parties. Their nationalism was built on the opposition with the colonizing mainland, and not against their neighbours. You can be proud of where you were born, of your roots, of your culture, without hating your neighbours. That's what I'd describe as the difference between patriotism and nationalism, but these words will change meanings depending on what context you will use them, so maybe we should speak about internationalism and xenophobia instead.
You can be eurosceptic in many ways. I myself am eurosceptic in the way of the current orientation of the EU. That doesn't mean I have any grudge against any other people inside the EU or outside for that matter.
You can be willing to put some regulations on how people can immigrate in your country without being xenophobic. There are indeed many reasons why having massive amounts of people emigrating is a problem. I always say I'm not against immigration, I'm against emigration. I feel nobody should be compelled to emigrate from where they live by economical or oppressive reasons. But since those reasons are more often than not originated in the glorious intervention of our colonizating powers, and the continuing neo-colonial influence, I feel we are not in the best seat to be pushing those folks back to the sea because they threaten our identity or anything. Of course, if 800 million Africans
did come knocking on our door one day, we could be having a problem. Not with the dozen thousands we have now.
Maybe I shouldn't have employed "openness" as a value, cause I realize it just sounds too Teddy-Bearish now. But anyway I stand on my point that xenophobia dismisses the possibility of being considered left-wing. If you fight for better living conditions, but only for yourself and not willing to extend them to your neighbours, even if it means he will come to your country and live with you, then you didn't fully understand what socialism is.
What Sibboleth said. Xenophobia is a right-wing value. Openness and internationalism are left-wing values. Period.
I consider myself as a progressive centre-leftist (even though some in your True Leftist ilk might consider me an evil neoliberal), I certainly have nothing but scorn for the reactionary right and their associated racist/crass nationalist/xenophobic penchants and I think that those who think Nazis are lefties are retarded idiots who should read a book; but what you said is utterly ridiculous and hackish to the nth degree. I know that the left loves to treat all right-wingers as intolerant, uneducated, racist, xenophobic regressive morons - and while some (way too much) are, to brand them all as such is just stupid and ridiculously hackish. You can defend your ideological perspective without turning into a hack who says these kinds of ridiculous things. Come on, admitting that some on the left can be xenophobic too isn't akin to treason to some broader True Leftist cause. Similarly, the left certainly doesn't have the monopoly on openness and internationalism. Plenty of centrists, liberals and right-wingers can be considered internationalist, a bunch can be considered "open" whatever that means. Again, why can't you just adopt an open mind? Not all those who disagree with your views are horrible people. Not all those who don't fit in with your definition of the left is some fascist right-winger.
Right-wingers love to bring up Stalin as some xenophobic left-winger, and while nobody can argue that he was a racist etc scumbag he wasn't a left-winger. But need I bring up, for further examples, Georges Marchais and the PCF's crass attempt at race baiting in the 1980s? For another example, in the Rand Rebellion in 1921-1922, the SALP - which was clearly a socialist party - used the slogan "workers of the world unite, and fight for a white South Africa". You could, arguably, redefine being left-wing to exclude all these kind of folks, but that's just stupid. The "left" is broader, much broader, then what you envision it to be.
Please, open your mind. The world isn't black and white, for Christ's sake, and politics is more complex than "my side = good" and "the other side = evil fascists".
Well before calling me a hack repeatedly, which you do tend to do very easily, I'll have at least to explain my using of syllogisms.
In the conversation I was having, when I finally said "xenophobia is a right-wing value", that meant : "xenophobia is not a left-wing value, so any xenophobic politician cannot be sincerely left-wing, or he didn't understand what it really meant", that didn't mean "every right-winger is xenophobic".
You know it's the thing with Socrates being a cat and all that. Every cat is mortal, Socrates is mortal, therefore Socrates is a cat. That's a sophism.
In my context, I was saying : "no xenophobic can be truly considered left-wing".
As for internationalism, it's primarily a left-wing value, but I'll grant it to you that some right-wingers are willing to defend internationalistic initiatives, even if, generally, it's more in the interest of the dominant class than the people at large...
I will also grant it to you that therefore, one of my syllogisms worked and the other didn't. Sh!t happens. So I will restate : "Xenophobia cannot be a left-wing value. Internationalism must be a left-wing value. Fcuk openness." But, being right-wing and internationalist isn't enough to shift you to left-wing either. It's just a small first step towards that. It's sooooo easy to be a right-winger... I'm not saying "you" as in "you Hash" now, it's just the general you. Geez you have to be careful in here... Not you. Well, yes, you too.
Anyway. I may be radical, I may consider the "left-wing label" as a bit too sacred to the tastes of many here, but that label has been worn so many times with so much damage for the worker class, that I feel it could be good to be a bit more demanding for a change. Of course I'm not the one, with my little arms, handing out diplomas of left-wingness. I just feel I'm entitled to state what I think, even if I'm not always in the soft-belly of sweet compromise. More often than not, I am though.
So I'll say once more that I do not consider every right-winger as xenophobic, but every xenophobic as right-winger, or at least as not a good/true/sincere/real/intelligent left-winger.
I do not think everything is black or white, but I believe if you adhere to a set of values, you have to play the whole part.
I've explained about "openness" and sh**t.
And you bring up Marchais' PCF (and sometimes even today's PCF), or the SALP in SA, well had I been a political activist in those eras and those countries, I would have fighted those organizations within the worker class as eventual enemies of its interests.
And for Christ's sake, don't describe me as the kind who consider every one on my side good and on the other side : evil fascists ! I'm not sure I even have a side, or maybe one of my own, and I don't consider everyone fascist because it would make fascism commonplace and that is not something I would like.
And if it was all because I didn't propose 9/30 as Aliya Day, I promise I will propose 1/30 as Komova Day...
