Figureheads like the Guardian’s George Monbiot have wrecked the left’s ability to think critically, encouraging an analysis of power politics more suited to the playground
So, what is already clear is that this guy is saying that "everybody on the left" thinks the same way. Like they are all the same? Can they think for themselves? Well, if that is the way it is, I doubt Mr. Cook is any different! Sorry, can't support you but, yeah I know how it is!
The American Left, if we can call it that, is pretty lame. So is Britain's Left as well.
Both, the Left in the US and the UK, are afraid of their own shadows.
Both possess NO intellectual honor or integrity.
For once, Jonathan, let's be honest.
The Left in the US and UK have lacked assertiveness and determination for at least the past 25 years!
Why?
Because they live in fear of being labeled "soft" on communism, "soft" on authoritarianism, or "soft" on dictators.
Put simply, the American Left, in 2024, is weak and ineffectual. Where are their voices concerning the genocidal actions of Israel within Gaza. Nowhere.
Like cowards, they are hiding in their congressional offices.
The war in Ukraine is an irrefutable disgrace. How come the "Left" has not demanded a real debate on US foreign policy?
Because the Dems are no different from their GOP neo-con counterparts.
To be absolutely clear, the Dems and the GOP are simply two cheeks of the same ass!!
The media is always diligent, and absolutely obedient, in refusing to ask uncomfortable questions.
As a consequence, the American empire, and its "endless" wars, are never questioned by the 4th estate. No matter how catastrophic or disastrous they may become. Silence. Always silence!!
Jonathan, you are right!
The Left, in the US and the UK, are shameless "cheerleaders" of imperialism's perpetration of misery and death upon the global stage.
Imperialism.
There is no other term for America's or Britain's current behavior. It's grotesque. But quite real!!
It's shocking Monbiot is so blinkered on Ukraine. The best illustration I've seen of that conflict was a cartoon showing firemen labelled “climate crisis responders” rushing to put out a fire, but being stopped and turned away by a policeman labelled “Uncle Sam”, telling them, “before we put out the fire, first we have to help the good guys duke it out and beat the bad guys!”
A lot of good observations, thank you. From a standpoint of function, military security of commerce, trade, scientific exchange and communication infrastructure is needed globally. As is market infrastructure, such as finance of technology advance and corporate accumulation of organization knowledge. These things for example transformed the world post WWII from 20/80 to 80/20 prosperous/impoverished, and continue to do so. The turn of Biden and Sullivan to mercantile armed protectionism looks like a downward spiral, removing the bits of security and commerce utility provided by the US and escalating secessionist conflict apparently to mire the mid level powers (EU, BRICS, Indonesia) and slow their achievement of middle income and security capacity. Alongside being priced out of more infrastructure domains by the BRICS and leveraging phoney green anti energy financing, divisive identity victimology and setting up opaque NGO censorship of social media, it seems the US turn will hasten its demotion.
Monbiot is bought and paid for. The security services always try to recruit prominent left wing voices as they have credibility with those the state wishes to control.
Hence Monbiot is allowed, even encouraged, to rail against corporate capitalism and corrupt state actors to general applause from the gallery.
However, when a serious issue arises, usually of geopolitics significance, the debt is called in and Noy George must heed his masters' call and sing for his supper.
Owen Jones is another, I suspect. Check his role in stabbing Corbyn in the back. As Boxer might have said in Animal Farm. "If Comrade George/Owen says it, it must be true".
I don't disgree with anything about Monbiot that Jonathan has written. He is detestable, pretentious and anyone who doesn't have an anti-imperialist perspective is not serious about the ecological and environmental catastrophe.
But what I do disagree with is the headline 'How the left became cheerleaders for US imperialism.'
I am pretty prominent on the unaligned far left and I cannot recall one single person even mentioning Monbiot let alone praising him. He is irrelevant. Possibly he carries more sway amongst green activists but not those I'm friendly with.
Yes he no doubt appeals to the declining Guardian readership but the Guardian is widely detested today for its use of 'antisemitism' against the Corbyn project Far more prominent is that gadfly Owen Jones whose hostility to Israel's genocide in Gaza, which I have no doubt is genuine, belies a failure to criticise the structure and make up of the state that does it and Zionism.
The only time in the past few years when we targeted Monbiot was when we picketed the Guardian and called out his name a few times for his failure to speak up for a fellow journalist. But that is all.
Maybe Jonathan knows something I don't know. I realise as an ex Guardian journalist that Jonathan regularly targets his ex employer because he feels it has betrayed it. I understand that. As someone who took the paper for close on 40 years and who was a regular letter writer to it I feel much the same but the good writers have gone. It is a neo-liberal rag and despite a few good articles is part of the enemy today.
There is a real problem for some of the left, not least supporters of the old IMG and Fourth International as represented by Prof. Gilbert Achcar in their support for NATO in Ukraine but that has nothing to do with Monbiot.
And yes I agree with the person who said he was not unhappy at the demise of Louis Proyect. He was a poisonous individual who labelled me an Assad/Putin supporter over Syria because I refused to support the Jihadists there.
I think that George Monbriot and Jonathan Cook misuse the idea of 'empire'. In my understanding, a modern empire is primarily an institution where the periphery serves the center. Another kind of empire, usually older, is simply a large organization with centralized authority that serves its subject peoples.
There was a Russian Empire and a British Empire, but these were in no way alike, as the British institutionally exploited its colonies and the Czarist Empire treated all of its people the same. The USSR was never an empire in any definition of that term; in fact, the periphery cost the center and was a drain on its resources. China has experienced a series of great Empires, but modern China is not one as China is a socialist state with "Chinese characteristics."
The American Empire is buttressed by controlling military bases all over the world and it economically exploits the world by its rent-collection and the borrowing it foists on the world due to the petrodollar dominance. The latter is a form of tribute. So, if a country does not pay its rent (technology licenses, copyrights, etc) or pay its tribute, US bases are poised to enforce (think Iraq and Libya). Anti-imperialism in this modern world is exclusively anti-American.
It's not just with 'wars'. Monibot's dogma and idiocy on covid also took people from left to right or completely turned them off reading Monibot, which by extension rubbished the environmental issues he focused on.
Monibot wrote 'Every few days I hear of another acquaintance who has become seriously ill with Covid, after proudly proclaiming the benefits of “natural immunity”, denouncing vaccines and refusing to take the precautions that apply to lesser mortals. Some have been hospitalised. Within these circles, which have for so long sought to cultivate a good society, there are people actively threatening the lives of others.
It’s not just anti-vax beliefs that have been spreading through these movements. On an almost daily basis I see conspiracy theories travelling smoothly from right to left.'
Anti vax is a perjorative term and applies to those who oppose vaccine mandates as well as to people with safety (new to market products have limited data- it is not a conspiracy to say so) and efficacy concerns (the Pfizer (convicted criminals) had an absolute efficacy of 0.85%- thus it protected less than one person in a hundred from getting symptoms said to be an alleged disease with fatality rate and demographic very similar to the 'flu).
The issues surrounding covid policy may well have political objections about the rights of the individual and the collective.
But they also have profound scientific ones (as does the Russian SMO have profound historical issues). The needs of pharma profits were clearly put ahead of both freedom of speech and the provision of evidence- debate on the scientific issues on 'covid' were censored or were ridiculed by numbnuts like Monibot.
The science is never settled especially when the holes in what we were expected to accept were so large a truck could go through them and the ignorance of the scientific method was so profound it brought tears to the eyes.
Brilliant writing, thank you. I’ve long harboured a suspicion that all is not what it seems as regards the British/American narrative of the war in Ukraine. You’ve succinctly pointed me towards various factors that deserve closer scrutiny. Your analysis is a welcome voice in an ocean of oftentimes vacuous inanities.
Monbiot, sadly, is a disappointment. He is another, not-very-well-developed psychologically, self interested individual. Anyone who has b/w views, as in ‘you’re either on the side of Ukraine, or you support fascist dictators’, or the famous post 911 George W Bush warning, ‘you’re either with us — as in don’t dare to question the US — or you’re with the terrorists, or an example I’m personally familiar with, ‘you either support Israel, or you’re an antisemite’… Anyone with this kind of either-or limbic psychology, has little tolerance for complexity.
A dime a dozen, except Monbiot does have some undeserved influence, which is why this article is important. Thank you, Jonathan.
I hope George Monbiot reads this article and takes it to heart. He needs to look more deeply into foreign affairs and stop, perhaps without realizing his error, supporting the oppressor. He should be wise to the depth and breadth of international propaganda.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was also a violation of the UN Charter. For avoiding wars, it matters. And the left needs to be more affirmative of the UN's role as peacekeepers. It also matters that Chinese troops are the majority among the UN's 'Blue Helmets.'
So, what is already clear is that this guy is saying that "everybody on the left" thinks the same way. Like they are all the same? Can they think for themselves? Well, if that is the way it is, I doubt Mr. Cook is any different! Sorry, can't support you but, yeah I know how it is!
Mr. Cook: You are absolutely right.
The American Left, if we can call it that, is pretty lame. So is Britain's Left as well.
Both, the Left in the US and the UK, are afraid of their own shadows.
Both possess NO intellectual honor or integrity.
For once, Jonathan, let's be honest.
The Left in the US and UK have lacked assertiveness and determination for at least the past 25 years!
Why?
Because they live in fear of being labeled "soft" on communism, "soft" on authoritarianism, or "soft" on dictators.
Put simply, the American Left, in 2024, is weak and ineffectual. Where are their voices concerning the genocidal actions of Israel within Gaza. Nowhere.
Like cowards, they are hiding in their congressional offices.
The war in Ukraine is an irrefutable disgrace. How come the "Left" has not demanded a real debate on US foreign policy?
Because the Dems are no different from their GOP neo-con counterparts.
To be absolutely clear, the Dems and the GOP are simply two cheeks of the same ass!!
The media is always diligent, and absolutely obedient, in refusing to ask uncomfortable questions.
As a consequence, the American empire, and its "endless" wars, are never questioned by the 4th estate. No matter how catastrophic or disastrous they may become. Silence. Always silence!!
Jonathan, you are right!
The Left, in the US and the UK, are shameless "cheerleaders" of imperialism's perpetration of misery and death upon the global stage.
Imperialism.
There is no other term for America's or Britain's current behavior. It's grotesque. But quite real!!
It's shocking Monbiot is so blinkered on Ukraine. The best illustration I've seen of that conflict was a cartoon showing firemen labelled “climate crisis responders” rushing to put out a fire, but being stopped and turned away by a policeman labelled “Uncle Sam”, telling them, “before we put out the fire, first we have to help the good guys duke it out and beat the bad guys!”
He made a mistake there I agree but at present he doing the right thing . So don’t be so fucking hardline it does help anyone
A lot of good observations, thank you. From a standpoint of function, military security of commerce, trade, scientific exchange and communication infrastructure is needed globally. As is market infrastructure, such as finance of technology advance and corporate accumulation of organization knowledge. These things for example transformed the world post WWII from 20/80 to 80/20 prosperous/impoverished, and continue to do so. The turn of Biden and Sullivan to mercantile armed protectionism looks like a downward spiral, removing the bits of security and commerce utility provided by the US and escalating secessionist conflict apparently to mire the mid level powers (EU, BRICS, Indonesia) and slow their achievement of middle income and security capacity. Alongside being priced out of more infrastructure domains by the BRICS and leveraging phoney green anti energy financing, divisive identity victimology and setting up opaque NGO censorship of social media, it seems the US turn will hasten its demotion.
Monbiot is bought and paid for. The security services always try to recruit prominent left wing voices as they have credibility with those the state wishes to control.
Hence Monbiot is allowed, even encouraged, to rail against corporate capitalism and corrupt state actors to general applause from the gallery.
However, when a serious issue arises, usually of geopolitics significance, the debt is called in and Noy George must heed his masters' call and sing for his supper.
Owen Jones is another, I suspect. Check his role in stabbing Corbyn in the back. As Boxer might have said in Animal Farm. "If Comrade George/Owen says it, it must be true".
I don't disgree with anything about Monbiot that Jonathan has written. He is detestable, pretentious and anyone who doesn't have an anti-imperialist perspective is not serious about the ecological and environmental catastrophe.
But what I do disagree with is the headline 'How the left became cheerleaders for US imperialism.'
I am pretty prominent on the unaligned far left and I cannot recall one single person even mentioning Monbiot let alone praising him. He is irrelevant. Possibly he carries more sway amongst green activists but not those I'm friendly with.
Yes he no doubt appeals to the declining Guardian readership but the Guardian is widely detested today for its use of 'antisemitism' against the Corbyn project Far more prominent is that gadfly Owen Jones whose hostility to Israel's genocide in Gaza, which I have no doubt is genuine, belies a failure to criticise the structure and make up of the state that does it and Zionism.
The only time in the past few years when we targeted Monbiot was when we picketed the Guardian and called out his name a few times for his failure to speak up for a fellow journalist. But that is all.
Maybe Jonathan knows something I don't know. I realise as an ex Guardian journalist that Jonathan regularly targets his ex employer because he feels it has betrayed it. I understand that. As someone who took the paper for close on 40 years and who was a regular letter writer to it I feel much the same but the good writers have gone. It is a neo-liberal rag and despite a few good articles is part of the enemy today.
There is a real problem for some of the left, not least supporters of the old IMG and Fourth International as represented by Prof. Gilbert Achcar in their support for NATO in Ukraine but that has nothing to do with Monbiot.
And yes I agree with the person who said he was not unhappy at the demise of Louis Proyect. He was a poisonous individual who labelled me an Assad/Putin supporter over Syria because I refused to support the Jihadists there.
"vice-like corporate hold" indeed, full of vice. But I think you meant vise-like?
I think that George Monbriot and Jonathan Cook misuse the idea of 'empire'. In my understanding, a modern empire is primarily an institution where the periphery serves the center. Another kind of empire, usually older, is simply a large organization with centralized authority that serves its subject peoples.
There was a Russian Empire and a British Empire, but these were in no way alike, as the British institutionally exploited its colonies and the Czarist Empire treated all of its people the same. The USSR was never an empire in any definition of that term; in fact, the periphery cost the center and was a drain on its resources. China has experienced a series of great Empires, but modern China is not one as China is a socialist state with "Chinese characteristics."
The American Empire is buttressed by controlling military bases all over the world and it economically exploits the world by its rent-collection and the borrowing it foists on the world due to the petrodollar dominance. The latter is a form of tribute. So, if a country does not pay its rent (technology licenses, copyrights, etc) or pay its tribute, US bases are poised to enforce (think Iraq and Libya). Anti-imperialism in this modern world is exclusively anti-American.
Monbiot is an unprincipled male whore for the War Machine.
It's not just with 'wars'. Monibot's dogma and idiocy on covid also took people from left to right or completely turned them off reading Monibot, which by extension rubbished the environmental issues he focused on.
Monibot wrote 'Every few days I hear of another acquaintance who has become seriously ill with Covid, after proudly proclaiming the benefits of “natural immunity”, denouncing vaccines and refusing to take the precautions that apply to lesser mortals. Some have been hospitalised. Within these circles, which have for so long sought to cultivate a good society, there are people actively threatening the lives of others.
It’s not just anti-vax beliefs that have been spreading through these movements. On an almost daily basis I see conspiracy theories travelling smoothly from right to left.'
Anti vax is a perjorative term and applies to those who oppose vaccine mandates as well as to people with safety (new to market products have limited data- it is not a conspiracy to say so) and efficacy concerns (the Pfizer (convicted criminals) had an absolute efficacy of 0.85%- thus it protected less than one person in a hundred from getting symptoms said to be an alleged disease with fatality rate and demographic very similar to the 'flu).
The issues surrounding covid policy may well have political objections about the rights of the individual and the collective.
But they also have profound scientific ones (as does the Russian SMO have profound historical issues). The needs of pharma profits were clearly put ahead of both freedom of speech and the provision of evidence- debate on the scientific issues on 'covid' were censored or were ridiculed by numbnuts like Monibot.
The science is never settled especially when the holes in what we were expected to accept were so large a truck could go through them and the ignorance of the scientific method was so profound it brought tears to the eyes.
Louis Proyect was a notorious fake-left pro-Imperial scold. He passed away recently. Can't say I'm sorry about it either.
Brilliant writing, thank you. I’ve long harboured a suspicion that all is not what it seems as regards the British/American narrative of the war in Ukraine. You’ve succinctly pointed me towards various factors that deserve closer scrutiny. Your analysis is a welcome voice in an ocean of oftentimes vacuous inanities.
Monbiot, sadly, is a disappointment. He is another, not-very-well-developed psychologically, self interested individual. Anyone who has b/w views, as in ‘you’re either on the side of Ukraine, or you support fascist dictators’, or the famous post 911 George W Bush warning, ‘you’re either with us — as in don’t dare to question the US — or you’re with the terrorists, or an example I’m personally familiar with, ‘you either support Israel, or you’re an antisemite’… Anyone with this kind of either-or limbic psychology, has little tolerance for complexity.
A dime a dozen, except Monbiot does have some undeserved influence, which is why this article is important. Thank you, Jonathan.
I hope George Monbiot reads this article and takes it to heart. He needs to look more deeply into foreign affairs and stop, perhaps without realizing his error, supporting the oppressor. He should be wise to the depth and breadth of international propaganda.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was also a violation of the UN Charter. For avoiding wars, it matters. And the left needs to be more affirmative of the UN's role as peacekeepers. It also matters that Chinese troops are the majority among the UN's 'Blue Helmets.'