Conservatives keep blabbering about family values and smaller communities. But all they really ever advance is economic deregulation, globalization of the economy, and crushing inequality. Dog eat dog, everybody is out for their own self-interest.
As for the progressive achievements, they have all happened strictly in the area of personal sexual autonomy. There is a lot of talk about other things, but this is what really got achieved.
It doesn’t mean that “they are all the same” because they clearly aren’t. But the shared root is clear. Neoliberalism is still liberalism. And for all the talk about solidarity, togetherness and communities, the only cause that actually gets advanced by anyone is that of an independent, autonomous, alienated individual. An individual who derives all meaning from the self.
Clarissa's Blog 
Does the union movement fit under this (or let us say, the union movements from the mid-late 19C to WWII anyway?
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It’s telling that it’s necessary to go back the union or civil rights movements (both of which were finished by 1970) to find possible counter-examples.
In Europe the anti-communist movements were similar in that they were expressions of collective will against an unust ruling ideology. Of course they didn’t last after victory. In Poland Solidarity had been about the desire to establish a Scandinavian-style welfare state but after the communists blinked the movement was hijacked by Thatcher-Reaganites creating divisions that are still around.
Solidarity still exists and periodically does something or other – it’s latest victory was getting most stores closed for two Sundays a month (to be expanded). That’s as close to a social campaign that wasn’t about the right to consume as I can think of now…. It was still about consumerism but intended to allow people to stop serving consumption at least for two or three days a month.
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Related: “Cultural wars might seem an indication of strong political involvements,” [Wolin] writes. “Actually they are a substitute. The notoriety they receive from the media and from politicians eager to take firm stands on nonsubstantive issues serves to distract attention and contribute to a cant politics of the inconsequential.”
See: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/sheldon-wolin-and-inverted-totalitarianism/
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Exactly. As a young feminist told me at a conference, “We are very politically active. We do hashtag campaigns on Twitter!”
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What? Who is the “we”?
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Her generation of activists.
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She is insulting the activists in her generation.
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That’s what I thought.
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