If anything, Brittany, your position on this matter is more moderate than mine is. As a Black Leftist, I woudn’t even give people like Caitlin Johnstone that benefit of the doubt about having the Left ally themselves with rightwingers (or, as I flag them, “wingnuts”). And that includes not only the obvious White Supremacists/neo-Nazi/Alt-Right offenders like Mike Cernovich, but also even garden variety New Right/Religious Right cornballs like Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin or Herman Cain or Michelle Malkin.
If the Left — especially the Indy Left — stands for anything in this multicultural, multiracial world, it must be against racism and bigotry and the use of such to divide and conquer working people against their common interests. If anything, efforts by people like CJ to bring fascists into the coalition as “just antiestablishment conservatives” simply reinforces and reestablishes the tired neoliberal meme that only “rainbow capitalists” like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama care about the real needs of Black and Brown people or women. Plus, people of color — just like sexual dissidents — do not need to be placed at the same table with those who openly deny them their humanity, let alone their right to life.
CJ’s concept of “the establishment” is more than a bit skewed if she can’t understand that the Trump Administration, Breitfart..errr, Breitbart, Alex Jones (whom Johnstone just praised as a potential ally this morning) and the rest are not “antiestabishment” for the sake of opposing inequality; they simply want to replace the current establishment with one of their own. And, they would be more than likely to turn their guns on PoC and the Left the second they gain even a smidget of power. Read up on “Night of the Long Knives” for the results of similar myopia.
If conservatives are capable of questioning their current views and decide to come over to our side, they are fully welcome to do so. Heck, decent conservatives who are willing to support some of our principles can be welcome as well. But, that’s not the same as openly inviting bigots to have positions of power amongst those of the Left…especially when the Left still needs to organize themselves behind core anticapitalist/antiracist/internationalist values.
Then again, I feel the same way about the Left and neoliberalism as I do about the Alt-Right: Eff them; we can organize our own damn selves.
