Why? - REALLLY - Why? I want to know . . .

[patrice]

Why don't people ever separate the words "professional" and "left"?

What happened to some people's ability to reason?

Why do they assume ALL lefties are professional lefties? Why don't they think "There are professionals and there lefties and there are professional lefties, but that does not mean that all lefties are professionals anymore than it means that all professionals are lefties, so if I'm not a PROFESSIONAL Leftie, that label doesn't apply to me, because I'm some other kind of Leftie."

It really DOES look kind of suspicious folks: What is wrong with observing that there are people who benefit in one way or another, some of them even with paychecks, from keeping the conflict alive. If that doesn't apply to you, what's wrong with observing that this IS true? Why is this truth being oppressed? No matter what label is hung on it/themselves, the conflict provides a benefit of somesort, hence the modifier "professional", and that makes the conflict a higher value and, thus, obviates solutions of any kind. Why is it wrong to say this is possible?

WHY do people jump to GENERALIZED conclusions about hate soooooooooooo quickly? except that, perhaps, they PREFER the conflict more than solutions?

Is it even remotely possible? Why, Why, Why are we pretending that ONLY happens on the Right?

[Rex]

1. It is actually a backhanded complement.

Because the other side only has professional mullets. I assure you they would really love to call us all 'Dirty Fucking Hippies' and dismiss everything said. It is how people cope with being untruthful for a decade and never taking responsibility for their actions.

[JoePhilly]

2. Example #1, Arianna Huffington.

She would not have made a dime at Huffpo unless she kept the "amateur" left extra crispy angry.

Lots of folks on the left think they are the professional left.

If you aren't making around 100k keeping the left angry, you aren't in the professional left. You are a blogger.

[patrice]

3. It's as though the ability to analyze and parse out logic is completely gone!!

If you're not someone who benefits somehow from keeping the conflict alive, the label "professional left" does not apply to you; you're some other kind of Left.

[JoePhilly]

5. But that has less power or influence.

I'm much more important if I'm part of the "Professional left" ... I'm not just a person sitting in my kitchen ranting on a web-site.

[patrice]

4. P.S. Arianna's noblese oblige makes me want to puke!

[patrice]

6. Notice the unrecs. What is Left or Liberal about those who can't/won't talk about this?

That can't/won't runs absolutely counter to everything that makes the Left Liberal.

[Solomon]

7. What amazes me even more is how people self identify

with words and lables when they don't even know what the words and lables really mean, because the words and labels are not defined in the first place.

It's odd how, you can use a term and people will howl like you're attacking them personally. They self identify with labels that causes them to assume you are kicking them when you can be talking about a whole different thing entirely.

The term "professional left" is one of those things like that.

[patrice]

9. I've noticed that too. SOMEONE ELSE uses the label and people start self-identifying

with it, which basically accepts that someone else's frame, without getting some idea of what it means or how it was derived. I think it's the social context in which a label was used that causes this, or at least that's what "professional left" suggests. It's a type of conformity.

It's all so non-Chomsky -ian in a movement that regards Noam Chomsky as a guiding light.

Labels are relatively useful. If you recognize what they are, they are not absolutes.

[LiberalEsto]

8. I'm an amateur leftie

Nobody pays me