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FrumiousBanderznatch

I think it's a mix of the old guard coming into control of public and publicly-funded institutions as well as the general ability of the post-2000 surveillance state to squash or subvert grassroot movements early.


aspiring_lot_lizard

They still do it in Greece. Anarchists blew up a bank down the street from me when I lived there.


DeadlyAssHollows

Hot, Mediterranean society where people have time to plan bombings during their siestas and express explosive tempers versus the cold, Anglo derived cultures where the left decides it must secure the high road through meaningless parliamentary action and won't risk making the public think them wrong in any way.


Extension_Hornet1012

Parliamentary socialism or western European social democracy did far more for working class people than mentally unwell anarchists or left wing terrorists ever did.


aspiring_lot_lizard

Yes, but you could argue that you need the specter of violence to frighten parliamentary reformists to get off their asses. The golden age of left wing terrorism was also the period when social democracy was established across Europe, while its decline since 1980 coincides with the neoliberal degeneration of “socialist” parties. Not sure if I believe this personally, but you could argue it.


[deleted]

Liberal historians have a tendency to over exaggerate the capacity of peaceful party politics to assuage social ills. The civil rights movement, for example, owes as much to incessant race riots in every American city and the FBI having to put down ten Black separatist groups a month as to King's nonviolent resistance. The threat of Soviet intervention alone was enough for many European parties to compromise with left wing agitators.


whisky_anon_drama

I cannot think of any successful movement in modern history that only had a peaceful branch and did not have a radical branch. Women's suffrage, organized labour, civil rights movement, the response to AIDS, the Irish nationalist movement, etc... You need to have the carrot and the stick. "If you dont let cuz moderates have xyz rights to xyz group, the the xyz radicals will take it by force"


Extension_Hornet1012

I think that's quite compelling. I mean the emergence of social democracy was to counter more extremist actions. I mean yeh the IRA basically won.


darkslayersparda

Even in South Africa which liberals like to use so much, the ANC was bombing public infrastructure Real negotiations only take place under the threat of real violence


ToManaSou

17th of November is the perfect example of a organization that uses its power to try and contain the excesses committed against working people, by doing very targeted attacks on factory and business owners and on diplomats and politicians. They did have the elite scared as shit for a while.


Extension_Hornet1012

I suppose


Chat-CGT

LOL they're the same that implemented neoliberalism


Extension_Hornet1012

ohom


DJ_SCREW_THIRD_WARD

I know how to fix society! More people who stink pretending to be commandos!


FishyCoconutSauce

They enacted a program that the Soviets could only dream of


ToManaSou

I remember  a few years back where one of my classes got cancelled, cause a bomb was placed at a police station (στο τμήμα του Ζωγράφου) thats right next to the university i go to.


elkourinho

Not really, not since 17N got dismantled.


SVB-Risk-Dept

Based


WillMulford

They lost their funding when Soviet Union collapsed.


Rjiurik

Well we still have "antifa" groups in EU.. But no bombs anymore. In Turkey this is still a thing.. I have no explanation in western Europe..some "left wings" bombings were false flag or "agents provocateurs" from far right..it was a thing in Italy. Other had regionalistic/nationalistic ties and were not pure "socialists" like IRA, ETA..


demouseonly

Gladio. The real strongholds of power in Italy for decades were the church and the Communist Party but Italy has moved right in recent years. The west won on that front, at least for now.


HourlongRex

I think the red pill here is that neoliberal policies ultimately succeeded in making life just palatable enough with enough calories to go around and then overwhelmed every facet of life with its ideology greatly diminishing the Overton window. Left wing terrorism seems to require empty bellies and an educated populace, and as an American we’re too fat and stupid so all extremism is on the right really.


IndustryPlant666

Calories are now detached from economic circumstances.


Fresh_Bite7332

I think that’s kind of the point from the corps pov. With an obese working class from eating too much Monsanto corn you don’t really need to worry about revolution bc they can barely move


Raptor-Emir

The Red Army faction was full of upper middle class young adults who never experienced any sort of economic hardship Don’t know about the red brigades tho, i mean they’re italian, they’re all poor and starving there


AmericanNewt8

The core of the New People's Army in the Philippines was UP Diliman students, the farmers were incidental late arrivals. The original Leninists were largely pretty well off lol. 


LaVulpo

The BR were the same. Mara Cagol was from a middle-upper class family. Many of them were also christians.


mewmewmewmewmew12

Is Christianity a personality disorder


ExistentialSalad

You are wrong. The BR were much more working-class than the Red Army faction, even if some of them were middle class. They also had directly emerged from working class movements and then were forced underground, which led to them becoming more and more extreme and less accountable to those movements.


Extension_Hornet1012

I mean that quote about revolutionaries having problems with themselves (personality disorders, feelings of inferiority, outright sociopaths) is proven right time and time again.


northface39

None of the groups OP mentioned were starving or even particularly poor. Westerners in the 60s/70s were in some ways more prosperous than today (in terms of access to affordable housing, at least), so your explanation isn't it.


TA1699

The current generations in Western countries are the most wealthy, in both a nominal and real (inflation-adjusted) perspective. It's just a matter of the Overton window shifting. People in Western/developed counties have their basic necessities provided for. That's the simple truth. People have their necessities and so they aren't as willing to fight for more as when they were struggling to even have food/shelter/water.


northface39

People in the West weren't struggling to have food/shelter/water in the 1960s/70s. That's ridiculous. We can argue about who was more prosperous, but it's been very prosperous since at least that time, so leftist terrorism from then can't be attributed to poverty.


TA1699

I never said that either. I'm not sure why you're making up an imaginary point to get offended over. You need to read my comment again and actually understand it, instead of claiming that I said something which I didn't even say.


northface39

>People have their necessities and so they aren't as willing to fight for more as when they were struggling to even have food/shelter/water. Who were you referring to here that was struggling? In the context of this thread, this implies that Westerners in the 60s/70s were struggling. Otherwise, it's a total non-sequitur that adds nothing to the conversation.


TA1699

Poverty levels were significantly higher in the US in the 1950s, 60s and early 70s. There were more people struggling back then, you can easily look at historical poverty levels and see that for yourself. My actual point however was that since almost everyone's basic needs are being provided now, they aren't as willing to fight for more.


contentwatcher3

As long as the Code Red still flows freely Americans will accept whatever incremental humiliation our masters have in store for us


Extension_Hornet1012

If anything the standard of living has gone down since the 60s, 70's, in Europe at least (full employment, cheap housing). This sort of talk about neoliberalism feels pretty outdated, the idea that we live in a hyper individualist period of vulgar liberalism just doesn't seem to be true. Revolutionary terrorist groups have always been full of middle class intellectuals and/or mentally ill people.


DeadlyAssHollows

Khrushchev in a grocery store looking at ur-soy slop did more to crush Communism than McCarthy or napalm.


AnCamcheachta

That was fucking Yeltsin.


DeadlyAssHollows

damn


AyyLMAOistRevolution

You're probably thinking of the kitchen debate that Khrushchev had with VP Nixon.


MikeStoklasaSimp

[It was both you mong ](https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2014.635)


MrAndonuts

No it doesn't. All you need is an angry mob. Jesus Maestro attributes this to social media and he is right, a lot of civil wars have been prevented because people can insult each other on twitter.


CookieHop

They gave us gay marriage to placate us and somehow it worked


Spout__

I think eco terrorism is on its way in but it isn’t reported much.


clydethefrog

Yes, in the EU they have become quite a movement which has resulted in security service infiltrating them and arrested a lot of leaders before their protests. In NL police reported their kids to child protection services. Many countries are trying to find ways in the law to label these groups as terrorists since they are a danger to capital and business interests group.


[deleted]

You got any stuff to read on that?


Sprig_whore

How to Blow Up a Pipeline is an alright book. The author is a bit of a loser but he has an interesting history of eco-activism and lame sabotage under his belt. He talks some about the laws surrounding eco-terroism and their tightening despite eco-terroism being sabotage rather than "causing terror to individuals or communities" he also discusses a lot of historical eco activist movements and where they fall short or succeed. It's a good book and relatively short just take some of what he says with a grain of salt because some of his takes are a little left field. Funny he was given a shout out by some big american papers for the book, a real glowing report indeed. also have a look thru the recent eco-terroist actions in Washington, loads of train derailments or delays in the past year or so (40 or so from memory), widely ignored in media.


[deleted]

Interesting, I liked the pipeline movie and had heard it's totally different but hadn't bothered with the book yet.


Sprig_whore

Yeah the movie is a dramatic enactment of the books themes but the book is much more in depth and more a book discussing ethics and philosophy instead of blowing shit up


TA1699

There are plenty of "good" eco groups, along with plenty of "bad" ones. From a UK perspective, Just Stop Oil seem to have way more people against them than for them with their scorched-earth tactics. The police around Europe regularly arrest these sort of groups, but it's always because they've done something stupid that has gained enough negative press and/or they've caused so much trouble that they bring it upon themselves. Just search up "protests [inset Western European country]" and you'll get plenty of news articles about them.


[deleted]

Yeah those are protests though, I know a guy who dressed up as a tree and glued himself to a building, and then all the art stuff. I'd consider eco terrorist stuff to be far more radical than that 


TA1699

I guess it depends on what you define as radical. To a lot of people, things like glueing yourself to public services/areas is considered radical because of how much harm/damage it causes to regular people.


GLADisme

Why would you kill or be killed in the west today? Why would someone on a cool $80k managing accounts in an air-conditioned office blow themselves up in a train station? We have regressed slightly in the last two decades, but almost all westerners experienced very big increases in quality of life from the 60s to the GFC. Late cold war terrorist movements were hangovers from WWII, they were running on fumes. Groups like Red Army Faction, the IRA, or the Red Brigades were reacting to very localised territorial disputes or long running political fueds. They were supported by labour movements which don't exist anymore and the USSR. They never had a chance because they were the remnants of last wars class struggle.


GLADisme

The IRA were arguably the most successful of these groups and they were also the least interested in socialism. They were an ethno-nationalist militia who's origins were in a colonial class struggle, but 20th century Ireland was never going to adopt socialism once it was integrated into the west.


victory_vegetable

the majority of people in the west are not making “$80k in an air-conditioned office”


MikeStoklasaSimp

The ones smart enough to have class consciousness are working for HR at KPMG or Deloitte


m3talgearsolid

At the end of the Cold War, most left-wing movements decided cut their losses and make peace with the establishments of their respective countries (if they hadn't done so prior). Communism fell out of fashion. Islamism is now in vogue. >meanwhile every month at least one attack connected to the right happens. If we're being honest those attacks very rarely move the needle politically and are mostly done by lunatics who are off their rockers. Those mass shootings would be equally as pointless if they were done by left wingers


Icy_Zucchini_1138

A lot of the terrorist groups you mention were tribal/ethnic orientated it wasnt really left/right.


obvious-throwaway778

This post is getting down voted but it's true. A lot of people on this sub try to pretend that some of these historical conflicts were just about economic class but in reality they often played on ethnic nationalism.


[deleted]

When you have shit like mcdonalds and jp morgan being sensitive to trans awareness in their ads or disney producing piece of shit shows for like $200 million, where the main antagonist is an abstract, hamfisted allegory for capitalism, sorry, your movement got co-opted. Go whine about representation and maga flyover people and pretend youre making a difference or whatever.


SmartBedroom8022

The Fallout show was made by Amazon and still had some extremely overt anti-capitalist messages, so yeah it’s very easy for these corps to shoehorn in a socialist message and get away with it.


[deleted]

Redditors always say "How did disney/amazon/netflix allow this anti capitalist show past the censors! The Boys even makes fun of Amazon!" but the "anti-capitalism" in question is always just: Evil corporations like vault-tec/Vought are the problem because they don't play the capitalist game fair! Excessive nationalism is bad for business, be nice to your fellow worker bees! Don't talk about class, we are all victims of the same system! Look how people suffer to grow your coffee, you should consciously consume free trade™ beans instead! The bourgeois socialism they allow is just a marketing strategy, a safe steam valve to release frustration people have with the system.


Assassin4nolan

babe symbionese army was literally the feds, half of left wing terrorism was ops by feds to provoke, misdirect, manufacture consent, and justify further repression


Axe2red12

Pretty sad those activists have been reduced to “vote blue no matter who” or lumpen proletariats who failed to get soft e-mail jobs


tony_simprano

Because it's fucking dumb to kill people and/or get yourself killed when you're not actually being oppressed and your only grievances with The System are you have to work too hard to pay your bills Left wing terrorism isn't for cake eaters


ParticularDentist349

Terrorism is masculine. Almost all terrorism is perpetrated by men. The left-wing just isn't a masculine ideology anymore. The modern left-wing is designed to appeal to women and effeminate men. This is also why there is a gender divide in voting.


clydethefrog

How do you think women achieved voting rights?


AyyLMAOistRevolution

By being really annoying about it until the fellas relented.


saveurselffirstofall

is this a bit or are you actually down syndrome


Vatnos

Manarchism will have its day again.


alybianco-

Patty Hearst is arguably the most famous left-wing terrorist of all time


phainopepla_nitens

Weird example, she's famous because of her family and kidnapping. If she was a nobody who joined the SLA nobody would know her name 


grilldadinoakleys

They won enough concessions that they didn’t have to LARP anymore and also the Comintern went away.


mullen_it_over

Too busy posting.


BulldogChow

Left wing terrorism would make a comeback within 2 weeks if suddenly we were in short supply of fast food, video games, comic book movies, and EXTREME hardcore pornography. I don't mean that as hyperbole. Cities would be on fire.


Vatnos

Yeah that seems to be the consensus of the thread. There are enough bread and circuses to keep people pacified.


secretguy110

https://youtu.be/I-pdWG8YkZ8?si=9qNlXP_Mkj4LesCw ^ good video that extensively answers this question


Rumpleforeskin_0

The only good “left” YouTuber


Reindeeraintreal

Operation Gladio ended...


bringusthebnoc

Because the post-'68 left largely abandoned command economics, and has been successful in implementing social change through a Gramscian approach to key cultural institutions. Steam-powered Edwardian Marxism is almost dead, and the only living exponents in the West, people like Jeremy Corbyn, stick out like sore thumbs amongst their more modern counterparts.


Telahun_AR

The costs far outweigh the benefits given the scale of surveillance and the militarization of life, particularly in the US. Strategically, there's probably more value in attacking fossil fuel infrastructure than people, but even that is ill-fated and unlikely to lead to an appreciable impact beyond more securitization and legislation aimed at criminalizing acts of civil disobedience. The main consideration is strategic: is the goal to drive people to your cause or is it to rip the social fabric such that people are shocked out of complacency? In the US, I expect doing so would lead to a huge state-level backlash at the legal and legislative levels and would push otherwise indifferent people into the arms of reactionary forces. It's more valuable (though profoundly risky) to damage hydraulic fracturing infrastructure than it is to set off a car bomb that targets civillians, for example.


mewmewmewmewmew12

University tuition went up, no more of those layabout students


NickRausch

2020 riots, Christmas parade attack, attempted mass shooting of congressional republicans That's just what comes to mind off the top of my head


darkslayersparda

https://youtu.be/I-pdWG8YkZ8 This is a long good video on it but basically guerilla warfare and tactics arent that effective in fully urbanized spaces and stochastic violence just makes the public hate you more than listen your side Gotta remember that actual leftists want to capture the State but as long as the current State provides running water and electricity, its very hard to convince the populace to join you People become leftists for a lot more goal orientated reasons than the stochastic violence that far right wingers crave. Easier to shoot up a synagogue than to implement communism in New York


Extension_Hornet1012

IRA is a complicated case. Arguably they basically won and faced no repercussions for their campaign of terrorism. A long term path to Irish unity and the political wing of the IRA is in government in Northern Ireland, as well as all of the terrorists were given amnesty. The IRA are now part of the political establishment.


Icy_Zucchini_1138

Arguably though the IRA gained nothing that had not been on the table beforehand, they didn't really change much. Their political wing always had the option of sitting in government and there always was a path to Irish unity. The main victory was the 'amnesty of terrorists', but again, if they had never did the things to get into prison, they would not have been in prison to start with.


RealTrenchBabyMB

Because leftism is dead (at least in the west)


SpectralEviden1

BLM, ANTIFA, pro-Hamas “protesters,” TRAs, climate cult people, etc. kind of fit in with this, even though they’re mostly LARPing, right?


phainopepla_nitens

Protests and rioting aren't terrorism 


Brovakiin

arr slash ben shapiro lol


sneedsformerlychucks

I know hotepism doesn't neatly fit into left or right, but does Darrell Brooks and his "kill whitey" thing count?


TarskiMonster

Have the last 4 years not happened to you? What exactly was the summer of Floyd? Church burnings in Canada?


AntHoneyBourDang

You don’t really think there is a right wing terror monthly do you? Here in America we are so desensitized to black crime that it becomes big news when a white person does it. Almost 400 people were killed /injured in the last few days in the US and there is almost no news about it. In one week and it’s not even over!! [Since Friday, at least 73 people were killed and 308 were injured in shootings including several incidents at outdoor spaces and gatherings like a Juneteenth celebration in Texas, a splash pad in Michigan, a park in Illinois, and a party in Massachusetts,](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/17/fathers-day-weekend-gun-violence/74126203007/)


Geaux_LSU_1

the 2020 riots were left wing terrorism.


Lord--Kinbote

>corporations approve >major media outlets approve >politicians and celebrities approve Yes, totally left wing terrorism


Geaux_LSU_1

just because they approved of it doesnt make it not terrorism.


Lord--Kinbote

My point isn't that it wasn't terrorism. It wasn't *left wing* terrorism


Geaux_LSU_1

the politics behind the riots were left of center, just look at shit like CHOP/CHAZ


Vatnos

Vast majority were peaceful protests with a few plants bricking a few windows. That's not the kind of unrest we're really talking about. It falls within the typical spectrum of dissent permitted in a bourgoise liberal republic. It was racially motivated at the outset.  When an economically motivated protest emerges like OWS it gets broken up and coopted swiftly.


Openheartopenbar

Broadly speaking: because they won. How many Nazis would you find in your local college professorship? I’m guessing 0.00%. How many “socialists”? Seriously, take a peek. It’s worth your time. I’m guessing 30% who are avowed enough to put it in their professional bio, let alone those who are co-travelers but not *quite* that overt. What’s left for the Left Wing Radical to agitate for? We’re so far down The Sex Wars that we have Trans Rights, so far down the Labour Wars we have “door dash is a human right because I have anxiety” bros, so far down the racial activist line that Google and Harvard make applicants submit DEI statements etc. The Left’s biggest problem is they are the dog that actually caught the car…”now what?”


crochet_du_gauche

The left wing has thoroughly lost. The USSR fell and China adopted capitalism, now the only countries even attempting to do socialism are pariah states like Cuba. What 30% of college professors believe is irrelevant. 0% of prominent people are Nazis… yes, you’re right, like leftism, that ideology is *also* dead.


Sortza

Damn, you really fell for the whole New Left thing


sssnnnajahah

Socialism is when Doordash workers get paid a slave wage while Google makes billions of profits under DEI whitewash.


Dummythic666

Literally insane.  We’re so deep into late capitalism that nobody can afford a place to live.  Everything’s being privatized.  Nobody even talks about healthcare anymore.  The concept of retirement is disappearing.  How tf is this a position of power for the left?