Even without strong state intervention or state censorship bourgeois democracies manage to convince countless of working people to vote, behave and think against their objektive interest. How so? Editorial boards and directors only hire journalists and creators whose opinions they like, leading to journalists being allowed to say what they like because the board likes what they say. Even if a journalist has a change of heart, their article will likely get removed from mainstream editions. On top of that market machinations prevent the publishing of actually critical content that looks at the root of issues instead of just feeding into capitalists (sur)realism since that wouldn’t bring profits or would upset the shareholder/oversight board. (Now you might say that the left-wing content might sell well among the public, but who controls the flow of (investment) capital and thus dictates what is viable at a large scale and what isn’t?)

  • chemical_cutthroat@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Because that isn’t what it means. “Left” or “Liberal” means exactly this:

    lib·er·al
    adjective

    1. willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas.
    2. relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.

    Wanting to systematically change the status quo for the better is a matter of perspective. What is “for the better?” That is a moving target. A conservative can want the exact same thing, but the end goal is wholly different than that of a liberal. I’m not saying that you are wrong to want what you want, I’m just warning against conflating ideas, because that is a slippery slope, and you’ll find your own words turned against you very quickly.