What a great time to borrow a line from the late J Vernon McGee; "This is where the rubber meets the road!".
For decades the left and right have been played by the Bush/Clinton/Obama cabal(s). For all of those years they have been given the keys to power, and we all have had a least a small part in letting it happen. Now we get the fruit of our subservient indifference.
Thank you Mark. As a Marxist watching the supposed lefties in my world get on board with Operation Covid and all that it entails is rather revealing and disturbing. Now I'm not just talking about liberals as I'm fully attuned to their fascistic historical tendencies.
But here we are where the side that’s supposedly against discrimination and well-documented, corrupt, multinational corporations that exploit people are now pushing discrimination and vehemently defending the position of well-documented, corrupt, multinational corporations that exploit people.
All of these people who support the state working with pharmaceutical and tech corporations to build a Bio-Medical Surveillance apparatus that crushes the individual are supporting fascism.
I might add that that their solidarity was formed in league with psychopaths, shaped by propaganda systems and celebrated in isolation while receiving government stipends.
Not sure that's what Eugene Debs had in mind.
These lost lefties need to do a lot of soul searching and ask themselves how they got it all wrong and so wrong. Most of them never will. These assholes would crash the plane into the ground before ever admitting they were wrong.
As far as I'm concerned I'll never forgive these f**kers- they've ruined too much and killed too many.
What is the Left FOR anymore, besides wokeness and mass vaxxing? Mass vaxxing doesn't end the pandemic or the restrictions. Any pullbacks on restrictions have been due to the virus weakening (which could be temporary), not to the vaccines. Dissent against the Left is punishable by deplatforming, job loss, and now asset seizure.
Maybe a few on the Left who've stuck with their side of the Faucian Bargain (Fauci gets your body and soul, you get to keep your job, friends, and bank account) don't agree deep down, but how can they voice their objections? Look to the Thermidorian Reaction or Cultural-Revolution style purge. Next stop is toddlers of Democratic parents dying of the shots. The families will virtue-signal, to a million Likes, that they gave their kids' lives for the good of society.
What covid showed up was more than the presence of the intelligence agencies throughout ostensibly Left sites. It showed up the monolithic nature of the media itself. The outrageously stupid covid theology (“cases”, i.e. little black marks on a slice of plastic, now taking over from actual illnesses) would never last a second in any truly free media. The fact that the most elementary questions are not asked and never have been asked in the entirety of the last two years shows the stranglehold that a tiny minority have over all media channels.
The left-right paradigm comes out of the French Revolution, and as I have argued in my blog (warning: astrology) that division should be left behind. What is more appropriate for these times is an division which some call Up vs. Down which is the division between Mr. Global, the elite, you know who they are, and the people, the demos, us. Unfortunately most of "the left" seems to be associating with the elites, and of course the elites know that mouthing left platitudes is a sure way to get the left to like them. The left needs to wake up to who the enemies are, and it sure isn't truckers in Canada. It's a big club and you ain't in it.
I always followed the Left prior to covid. Though, to be sure, after 9/11 I was made forcibly aware of a division whereby any Leftist who suspected something dodgy about the official account was relegated to “the loony fringe”, this process alerting me to the intense conspiracy phobia of the designated Left. To be sure, this astonishingly effective castrating psy-op whereby “conspiracy” i.e. the notion of conscious planning (imagine!) is relegated to “naïve people” or “nuts”, is applied everywhere in our thoroughly monitored and managed “democracy” BUT it is mainly directed at “The Left”.
Then came spring 2020 and a sudden contraction of all Leftist thought behind the covid juggernaut. This took two forms:
First, talk of a “Big One” as in: “Could covid be The Big One?” This confused me till I found out that apparently all these Leftists were waiting for some viral catastrophe brought about by capitalism’s recklessness. I can see the logic of that (capitalism’s disregard for health and safety etc. ) but I don’t recall such a viral matter being reported in Das Kapital.
Second, the designation of all covid sceptics as “Right Wing” or “libertarian”. The idea here is that these sceptics put liberty before safety ... except that that presupposes the deadliness of the virus i.e. the very matter being queried by the sceptics.
These two presuppositions were securely in place all the way back in spring 2020. All planted and ready to germinate. And, in retrospect, it is clear that the stage was set for a spectacular vaulting of The Left over our heads where the usual configuration of good cop/bad cop (Left/Right) became bad cop/even worse cop (Right/Left).
Does this work regarding the (wholly artificial and contrived) left-right divide?
"After any struggle for power, what's left is right."
I ask because there are no such thing as left or right in politics. There are political issues, and there are technical matters being politicised, and there is 'politicalisation' of language.
Are strong laws governing private property left or right? No one can answer that, because the question is so general that it is pointless.
Are rights as set down in law left or right? Same thing: where and when are we looking for examples?
The whole divide is divisive, artificial and plays to our most base clannish impulses.
Imagine a pen. Is it pointy, or long? Depends on your angle of observation and what words you use to describe it. There isn't a single issue where language can't be used to prove that it is left or right depending on what the speaker wants it to be.
Manichean delusions and triblaistic reflexes have no place in the study of politics.
I see this in LA where supermarket workers and others in the 'working class' - which is apropos if you think about it - they actually work. These people dutifully wear masks and follow orders though surely a few days before they watched the super bowl where those who could afford it celebrated sans masks. But I can tell they are resigned that this is what they are supposed to do and those 'others' well there is something special about them so they don't need to follow the rules. LA County Supervisors are still for masking children based on complete and utter bullshit. I have been writing to City Council and the Supervisors saying the war against children is immoral. The war against the poor is immoral. But when you are wealthy cozy and fat you don't care.
Excellent article. I'm dumbfounded by the naivety of many of my friends. I considered myself on the left as I considered them, yet they think supporting the covid tyranny is fighting fascism! They think the lockdowns were smashing capitalism, wearing a mask indicates you care and are anti Trump fascism (because Trump is just like Hitler don't you know). They shared memes against the use of hydroxychloroquine just because Trump mentioned it. I am astonished at the faith they suddenly show in autocue readers as regards to covid where they used to be sceptical. They all gleefully lined up to get jabbed thinking anyone who didn't was ignoring the science. I half feel they deserve the rude awakening that is coming.
"What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much a movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. [...] The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call feelings of inferiority and oversocialization.
Feelings of inferiority
By “feelings of inferiority” we mean […] a whole spectrum of related traits: low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. [These] feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. Problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power.
Oversocialization
Psychologists use the term “socialization” to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. [...] Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people. [An] oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society [and the propagandists] has laid down for him
Notice that university intellectuals[3] constitute the most highly socialized segment of our society and also the most left-wing segment."
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)
I think this was true for some groups of the 1990s left and is the most accurate description of those who identify themselves as leftists today. I am sure that this or a similar psychological description is brought up as a brief or designing propaganda campaigns in the last decade.
With iit propagandists seem to have crafted a perfect trap, one which cater to the insecurities, authoritarian cravings, power lust and egomania (of their own creation also, through decades of integration propaganda) of the modern left.
It only needed a few simple strokes:
1) Provide faith: Invoke science and progress (as opposed to "denialism" and conservatism)
2) Provide an in group/out group dynamic: everyone is "far right", rebel™, resist™.
3) Provide a sense of power: we will make your live impossible, we will shame you, mask up™
4) Provide a sense of moral superiority: if i hear vaccine justice, once more...)
I heard Giroux on PROJECT CENSORED's radio program denouncing the truckers and anti-vaxxers. Was very disappointed because I had always liked him. One more former comrade who is now crossed off my list.
It recalls Yeats' lines in "The Second Coming":
"The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
I guess the U.S. and Canada need to import a Left from Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela.
“Everyone who writes about propaganda and government lies is expected to have a really strong opinion about Covid-19 and masks and lockdowns, but I just don't and I can't help it. I find the whole thing ultimately irrelevant and boring and have nothing to add to the debate.”
Some 1960s Leftists hated the Man because they wanted peace and love. They wanted to live unmolested by the Man: simply to be left alone in their pursuits. Those are the old hippies who now live hard but simple lives off the grid and populate northern California, some growing great weed. Think Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac.
On the other side of the 1960s Leftist spectrum, Leftists hated the Man because they want to be the Man themselves. They never really hated the Man. They hated that Man: the Man that wasn’t them. Those are the student revolutionaries who later moved into conventional politics and university positions where they influence public policy. Think Tom Hayden and Bernardine Dohrn
The Leftists who hated the Man grow great weed for reasonable prices, but the Leftists who hated that Man control the culture.
very sad mass arrests in Ottawa,. So unnessary... the vaccine does not prevent infection , spread and transmission. No reason to mandate it , No justification for passports. POintless exercise in vindictive politics. I think it will backfire. People will be emboldened
What a great time to borrow a line from the late J Vernon McGee; "This is where the rubber meets the road!".
For decades the left and right have been played by the Bush/Clinton/Obama cabal(s). For all of those years they have been given the keys to power, and we all have had a least a small part in letting it happen. Now we get the fruit of our subservient indifference.
What the heck happened?
The left is bereft of reason and sanity
How could this occur?
Science became god, and bad science at that...
Where's Thomas Dolby...
Thank you Mark. As a Marxist watching the supposed lefties in my world get on board with Operation Covid and all that it entails is rather revealing and disturbing. Now I'm not just talking about liberals as I'm fully attuned to their fascistic historical tendencies.
But here we are where the side that’s supposedly against discrimination and well-documented, corrupt, multinational corporations that exploit people are now pushing discrimination and vehemently defending the position of well-documented, corrupt, multinational corporations that exploit people.
All of these people who support the state working with pharmaceutical and tech corporations to build a Bio-Medical Surveillance apparatus that crushes the individual are supporting fascism.
I might add that that their solidarity was formed in league with psychopaths, shaped by propaganda systems and celebrated in isolation while receiving government stipends.
Not sure that's what Eugene Debs had in mind.
These lost lefties need to do a lot of soul searching and ask themselves how they got it all wrong and so wrong. Most of them never will. These assholes would crash the plane into the ground before ever admitting they were wrong.
As far as I'm concerned I'll never forgive these f**kers- they've ruined too much and killed too many.
Someone else can take that higher ground.
What is the Left FOR anymore, besides wokeness and mass vaxxing? Mass vaxxing doesn't end the pandemic or the restrictions. Any pullbacks on restrictions have been due to the virus weakening (which could be temporary), not to the vaccines. Dissent against the Left is punishable by deplatforming, job loss, and now asset seizure.
Maybe a few on the Left who've stuck with their side of the Faucian Bargain (Fauci gets your body and soul, you get to keep your job, friends, and bank account) don't agree deep down, but how can they voice their objections? Look to the Thermidorian Reaction or Cultural-Revolution style purge. Next stop is toddlers of Democratic parents dying of the shots. The families will virtue-signal, to a million Likes, that they gave their kids' lives for the good of society.
What covid showed up was more than the presence of the intelligence agencies throughout ostensibly Left sites. It showed up the monolithic nature of the media itself. The outrageously stupid covid theology (“cases”, i.e. little black marks on a slice of plastic, now taking over from actual illnesses) would never last a second in any truly free media. The fact that the most elementary questions are not asked and never have been asked in the entirety of the last two years shows the stranglehold that a tiny minority have over all media channels.
The left-right paradigm comes out of the French Revolution, and as I have argued in my blog (warning: astrology) that division should be left behind. What is more appropriate for these times is an division which some call Up vs. Down which is the division between Mr. Global, the elite, you know who they are, and the people, the demos, us. Unfortunately most of "the left" seems to be associating with the elites, and of course the elites know that mouthing left platitudes is a sure way to get the left to like them. The left needs to wake up to who the enemies are, and it sure isn't truckers in Canada. It's a big club and you ain't in it.
This has been a source of bafflement (at first), and then anger, to a lot of us lefties. Winter Oak had a good article out today on the same thing,. https://winteroak.org.uk/2022/02/17/our-insurrection-will-be-impure/
I always followed the Left prior to covid. Though, to be sure, after 9/11 I was made forcibly aware of a division whereby any Leftist who suspected something dodgy about the official account was relegated to “the loony fringe”, this process alerting me to the intense conspiracy phobia of the designated Left. To be sure, this astonishingly effective castrating psy-op whereby “conspiracy” i.e. the notion of conscious planning (imagine!) is relegated to “naïve people” or “nuts”, is applied everywhere in our thoroughly monitored and managed “democracy” BUT it is mainly directed at “The Left”.
Then came spring 2020 and a sudden contraction of all Leftist thought behind the covid juggernaut. This took two forms:
First, talk of a “Big One” as in: “Could covid be The Big One?” This confused me till I found out that apparently all these Leftists were waiting for some viral catastrophe brought about by capitalism’s recklessness. I can see the logic of that (capitalism’s disregard for health and safety etc. ) but I don’t recall such a viral matter being reported in Das Kapital.
Second, the designation of all covid sceptics as “Right Wing” or “libertarian”. The idea here is that these sceptics put liberty before safety ... except that that presupposes the deadliness of the virus i.e. the very matter being queried by the sceptics.
These two presuppositions were securely in place all the way back in spring 2020. All planted and ready to germinate. And, in retrospect, it is clear that the stage was set for a spectacular vaulting of The Left over our heads where the usual configuration of good cop/bad cop (Left/Right) became bad cop/even worse cop (Right/Left).
Does this work regarding the (wholly artificial and contrived) left-right divide?
"After any struggle for power, what's left is right."
I ask because there are no such thing as left or right in politics. There are political issues, and there are technical matters being politicised, and there is 'politicalisation' of language.
Are strong laws governing private property left or right? No one can answer that, because the question is so general that it is pointless.
Are rights as set down in law left or right? Same thing: where and when are we looking for examples?
The whole divide is divisive, artificial and plays to our most base clannish impulses.
Imagine a pen. Is it pointy, or long? Depends on your angle of observation and what words you use to describe it. There isn't a single issue where language can't be used to prove that it is left or right depending on what the speaker wants it to be.
Manichean delusions and triblaistic reflexes have no place in the study of politics.
I see this in LA where supermarket workers and others in the 'working class' - which is apropos if you think about it - they actually work. These people dutifully wear masks and follow orders though surely a few days before they watched the super bowl where those who could afford it celebrated sans masks. But I can tell they are resigned that this is what they are supposed to do and those 'others' well there is something special about them so they don't need to follow the rules. LA County Supervisors are still for masking children based on complete and utter bullshit. I have been writing to City Council and the Supervisors saying the war against children is immoral. The war against the poor is immoral. But when you are wealthy cozy and fat you don't care.
Here is another great article on the subject: https://unherd.com/2022/02/how-the-left-betrayed-the-truckers/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=33dae55224&mc_eid=57adc2de30
Excellent article. I'm dumbfounded by the naivety of many of my friends. I considered myself on the left as I considered them, yet they think supporting the covid tyranny is fighting fascism! They think the lockdowns were smashing capitalism, wearing a mask indicates you care and are anti Trump fascism (because Trump is just like Hitler don't you know). They shared memes against the use of hydroxychloroquine just because Trump mentioned it. I am astonished at the faith they suddenly show in autocue readers as regards to covid where they used to be sceptical. They all gleefully lined up to get jabbed thinking anyone who didn't was ignoring the science. I half feel they deserve the rude awakening that is coming.
"What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much a movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. [...] The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call feelings of inferiority and oversocialization.
Feelings of inferiority
By “feelings of inferiority” we mean […] a whole spectrum of related traits: low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. [These] feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. Problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power.
Oversocialization
Psychologists use the term “socialization” to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. [...] Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people. [An] oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society [and the propagandists] has laid down for him
Notice that university intellectuals[3] constitute the most highly socialized segment of our society and also the most left-wing segment."
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)
I think this was true for some groups of the 1990s left and is the most accurate description of those who identify themselves as leftists today. I am sure that this or a similar psychological description is brought up as a brief or designing propaganda campaigns in the last decade.
With iit propagandists seem to have crafted a perfect trap, one which cater to the insecurities, authoritarian cravings, power lust and egomania (of their own creation also, through decades of integration propaganda) of the modern left.
It only needed a few simple strokes:
1) Provide faith: Invoke science and progress (as opposed to "denialism" and conservatism)
2) Provide an in group/out group dynamic: everyone is "far right", rebel™, resist™.
3) Provide a sense of power: we will make your live impossible, we will shame you, mask up™
4) Provide a sense of moral superiority: if i hear vaccine justice, once more...)
I heard Giroux on PROJECT CENSORED's radio program denouncing the truckers and anti-vaxxers. Was very disappointed because I had always liked him. One more former comrade who is now crossed off my list.
It recalls Yeats' lines in "The Second Coming":
"The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
I guess the U.S. and Canada need to import a Left from Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela.
Siempre adelante, comrades.
So Naomi Klein deems the Great Reset a “boring” topic? Now where have I head that before? Ah yes!
https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1283547746411003904
“Everyone who writes about propaganda and government lies is expected to have a really strong opinion about Covid-19 and masks and lockdowns, but I just don't and I can't help it. I find the whole thing ultimately irrelevant and boring and have nothing to add to the debate.”
-Caitlin Johnstone
Some 1960s Leftists hated the Man because they wanted peace and love. They wanted to live unmolested by the Man: simply to be left alone in their pursuits. Those are the old hippies who now live hard but simple lives off the grid and populate northern California, some growing great weed. Think Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac.
On the other side of the 1960s Leftist spectrum, Leftists hated the Man because they want to be the Man themselves. They never really hated the Man. They hated that Man: the Man that wasn’t them. Those are the student revolutionaries who later moved into conventional politics and university positions where they influence public policy. Think Tom Hayden and Bernardine Dohrn
The Leftists who hated the Man grow great weed for reasonable prices, but the Leftists who hated that Man control the culture.
Scratch a leftist discover a totalitarian.
very sad mass arrests in Ottawa,. So unnessary... the vaccine does not prevent infection , spread and transmission. No reason to mandate it , No justification for passports. POintless exercise in vindictive politics. I think it will backfire. People will be emboldened