The left and right take the same reality-based view of the world but respond to it in different moral terms. Liberals, on the other hand, live in an alternate universe – of pure make-believe
Great article again - to which I would mainly add that the left and right disposition do have their distinct respective origin (the haves or oligarchy as well as those aspiring to it vs. the have-nots that want their due share and limit the customary exploitation by the haves) which have been blurred over time - e.g. the left by now having severed it's labour roots and the link to global revolutionary movements and being passivated as "social-democratic" movements (just a different brand of the right by now). And the liberals? Their origin is close to that of the left (and communism) - but now they are either "neo-liberals" (like the FDP in Germany, a particularly aggressive form of the right) or in a state of denial - mostly belonging to the right (by origin) but professing to a an illusion of a "liberal visison", as you say. In theory they could ally with the left and the internal left again - but the system knows how to prevent that by a combination of propaganda, co-option and "divide and rule".
"And the liberals? Their origin is close to that of the left (and communism)".. By any chance didn't you escape psychiatric department ? What do you think the "communism" is ?
Although corporations have polluted the planet and "externalized the costs" onto an unwary public, neither they no us caused "anthropogenic global warming". Climate change is just another one of their Grand Deceptions. This was proven in an American court several years ago when the "scientist" (Mr. Mann, I kid you not) who conjured up the hockey stick graph to terrorize the unwary public with "global boiling", refused to provide the data on which he based his conjecture. That's prima facie evidence of scientific fraud.
Firstly, the planet is emerging from the last ice age and secondly, deliberate weather modification (like cloud seeding) is the cause of many freak weather events. Thirdly, check who now owns practically all of the research journals. So the good news is that there is no ecological crisis. That's one less thing to worry about.
The real impending threat however is the roll-out of Central Bank Digital Currencies. The European Central Bank has announced a launch date of October 2025. If the technology is ready, then the US and UK launches won't be far behind... CBDCs => economic digital prisons.
I'll play along, since it seems some people are trying to have a "serious" debate on this gangly Machiavellianism being dangled in front of us.
The inherent pretense in this, is someone is being controlled in either psychopathic line of acceptance. So if this is a treatise on acceptance, then it may be accurate in it's description. That would come down to a serious lack of critical thinking, which could be the root cause.
More likely, is that our reality tunnel is so entirely limited by a fascist undercurrent that we refuse to find a tangible solution to a complex world order that pulls in literally thousands of directions at once. Capitalism and a failing empire have deluded or diluted our American psyche into a outwardly violent and hateful "winning" that precludes everything else- for example the idea that other countries exist and their peoples have a different sense of morality or objectivity. We have been hearing (or those of us who are actually listening) that the literal end of capitalism is when it becomes fascism. There is a full body of evidence, throughout history and today, to support that claim.
So, if we are indeed that goddamn stupid as a nation, then the die is cast and we continue our willfully ignorant tribalism as we spiral into oblivion. OR- we do what is necessary to formulate a new path forward, collectively, where we analyze what has continually failed us as a country and begin organizing an anarchistic overthrow of all centralized fascist regimes- giving power to ordinary people who actually CAN govern themselves in the knowing that individual freedom and collective power are interconnected but REQUIRE constant engagement.
We can continue for a decade or two to pound away at the same disaffected rock pile that we have been on for the last 70 years. But if we're being honest with ourselves, Capitalism- NOT buy and sell economics, is killing this world. It's not liberal or conservative. It's not right or left. It's not good or evil (but aren't we fucking trying hard to cling to that magical thinking?).
I conclude by saying, fuck dogma, fuck authoritarianism, fuck political power, fuck the rich.
The greatest trick ideology plays is making its own mechanisms invisible—convincing us that the way things are is simply ‘natural,’ the only pragmatic option. The so-called ‘rational’ view of world affairs—whether conservative or liberal—functions as a self-reinforcing fantasy, a justification for the global order of domination. The conservative says, ‘this empire is necessary,’ while the liberal says, ‘this empire is regrettable but ultimately beneficial.’ What neither admits is that the very categories through which we understand ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ are shaped by the logic of empire. The true horror is not that some support oppression and others oppose it, but that even those who oppose it often do so only in a way that remains within the coordinates of the existing system, ensuring nothing really changes.
Trump campaigned on an old-fashioned America First platform and promised to focus on the domestic economy, fire up the industrial base, and dial back foreign entanglements. Many Trump voters are dismayed by what's happening in Gaza and the West Bank, in the same way that many who welcomed the presidency of Barak Obama remember the pang of betrayal when the bombs continued to rain down across the Middle East and HRK's hideous cackle over the brutal murder of Gaddafi.
I think it's fair to draw a distinction in the conservative ranks — in an idiot's guide, if not a complete idiot's guide to world affairs — between paleoconservatism and neoconservatism.
Paleoconservatism doesn't care about and doesn't want to get involved in the internal affairs of distant countries. Its constituency is the great number of ordinary people who are struggling in a tough economy and who finally got fed up with the excesses of woke - many of them ex-Democrat voters. Their focus is the home front and they've got no bone to pick with Palestinians or Iranians or Yemenis.
Neoconservatism, a contrivance of ex-Trotskyists who wrote for Commentary Magazine in postwar New York, is an entirely different beast: radical, obsessive and interventionist in the extreme. Its political frontmen masterfully gull the everyman, while winking at their masters, who mercilessly pursue their agenda from one administration to the next.
I read the transcript and scanned the comments. I still don't know if we are talking about two things, three things, or more. Are we talking about political "liberals" or economic "liberals"? "Right wing" vs. "conservatives". Same or different?
Leave "fascism" out for now. I agree with Darryl Cooper—these days "fascist" is just another way to say F*** You.
It isn't just that people are indifferent, it is that they appear to be proudly so. If one expresses solicitude and empathy for distant and different looking human beings, they are branded a bleeding heart lunatic - a dyed in the wool "leftist" who hates their own kind. As you say, in educated and professional circles (the liberals) such apathy is taken to be a sign of some kind of a deep intelligence and savvy about international affairs that the empathetic ignorant do not have. The apathetic are somehow privy to a kind of foresight that the wishy washy crusties lack.
And it is this same attitude that inures the well off in our societies to widespread privation and destitution around them and normalizes the harassment and subjugation of the less fortunate. The apathy is rigged out in pretty economic models, replete with graphs and equations which purportedly illustrate the benefits of indifference to the long term prosperity of society. Similarly, the slaughter and oppression of black and brown skinned people abroad are dressed up in high- falutin sounding theories like "Wilsonian idealism" and "deterrence" and "establishing credibility" etc., that weaklings who are worried about other humans simply don't understand. They are sentimental fools, the bewildered herd, who can do great damage to the enlightened projects of the more intelligent folks - the cool and rational observers who have the common good in mind.
These ostensibly intelligent liberal folks constitute the dovish end of the spectrum. It is no use talking about the conservatives, the other end. They are openly racist and genocidal but at least don't pretend that all of this in pursuit of some greater common good. They chuck all the arcane theories and models. They concede, sometimes implicitly but often quite explicitly, that there is a hierarchy of human worth, it is how it ought to be and it needs conservation.
That sums up the spectrum of opinion, by and large. There is, of course, the loony fringe that believes in solidarity with the oppressed, the outcastes who need to be deported or muzzled lest their "syndrome" vitiate the carefully cultivated intelligent indifference of the self appointed guardians of civilisation
There is another brand of right wing thought that agrees that what is coming down the pike now is bad, but it is due to socialists, communists, the WTO, the hard left, Woke culture, liberals, China and Russia who are all in cahoots somehow and want to destroy what is good about America.
I think this is due to some "brush fire" propaganda. This term applies to fighting a forest fire by burning brush that will carry the flames of the main fire. It starts by telling people what they are inclined to believe and expands upon that, competing in psychological space with what is actually going on.
I have friends who firmly believe the truly wild conspiracy theory, some of who were "left wing radicals" at one time.
Ukrainians are honorary brown people. Though the West is not doing the actual killing, it has been refusing all paths to peace. It demands that Ukrainian men sacrifice themselves in an unwinnable and completely unnecessary conflict that benefits no one but arms manufacturers, corrupt politicans who cream off their percentage, and financiers able to buy up war zone assets at knockdown prices.
For a great many Europeans, Ukrainians are perceived / stereotyped in a way roughly analogous to what in colloquial US language would be 'white trash'... which is kindof its own essay. This explains why they're not bothered to have them die by the hundreds of thousands / year to neutralize Russia, but start making excuses as soon as their own might possibly have to step in. It also explains the ambivalence about adding the country to EU or NATO - the land, yes, the people, maybe a few but definitely not tens of millions.
As an aside, Western Europe lumps much of Eastern Europe in such a category, which is not lost on the nationalities in question. In a way, the dream of left-liberalism, that this can be wished away, is actually a very good one. It's just that the centrist-liberal governments we get (like their centrist-conservative counterparts) undermine their own spoken ideals every step of the way... Once you realize the egalitarian verbiage is just for show (at least to those our system allows in power, and those funding the political system itself), it all starts to makes sense.
"In this regard the West’s wars producing even more suffering for brown people are actually “humanitarian”.
This horrible, non-empathetic reasoning is actually verbalized by many Americans. After Harris lost the presidential election, there were many comments online like this: "Palestinians can all burn in hell! They cost Kamala the election!" I guess the neoliberals thought they were being "humanitarian" by expressing those sentiments?
I just don't think it's that simple.....
Great article again - to which I would mainly add that the left and right disposition do have their distinct respective origin (the haves or oligarchy as well as those aspiring to it vs. the have-nots that want their due share and limit the customary exploitation by the haves) which have been blurred over time - e.g. the left by now having severed it's labour roots and the link to global revolutionary movements and being passivated as "social-democratic" movements (just a different brand of the right by now). And the liberals? Their origin is close to that of the left (and communism) - but now they are either "neo-liberals" (like the FDP in Germany, a particularly aggressive form of the right) or in a state of denial - mostly belonging to the right (by origin) but professing to a an illusion of a "liberal visison", as you say. In theory they could ally with the left and the internal left again - but the system knows how to prevent that by a combination of propaganda, co-option and "divide and rule".
"And the liberals? Their origin is close to that of the left (and communism)".. By any chance didn't you escape psychiatric department ? What do you think the "communism" is ?
A very revealing comment that needs no reply.
Really..? Why don't you try to answer the question and brighten me up on "what do you think the communism is"...
There's nothing to brighten in you.
Why should the world's wealth elite bother about the liberals? What power do they have?
What's "elite" about the elitists other than their narcissistic contempt for the rest of us?
Although corporations have polluted the planet and "externalized the costs" onto an unwary public, neither they no us caused "anthropogenic global warming". Climate change is just another one of their Grand Deceptions. This was proven in an American court several years ago when the "scientist" (Mr. Mann, I kid you not) who conjured up the hockey stick graph to terrorize the unwary public with "global boiling", refused to provide the data on which he based his conjecture. That's prima facie evidence of scientific fraud.
Firstly, the planet is emerging from the last ice age and secondly, deliberate weather modification (like cloud seeding) is the cause of many freak weather events. Thirdly, check who now owns practically all of the research journals. So the good news is that there is no ecological crisis. That's one less thing to worry about.
The real impending threat however is the roll-out of Central Bank Digital Currencies. The European Central Bank has announced a launch date of October 2025. If the technology is ready, then the US and UK launches won't be far behind... CBDCs => economic digital prisons.
I'll play along, since it seems some people are trying to have a "serious" debate on this gangly Machiavellianism being dangled in front of us.
The inherent pretense in this, is someone is being controlled in either psychopathic line of acceptance. So if this is a treatise on acceptance, then it may be accurate in it's description. That would come down to a serious lack of critical thinking, which could be the root cause.
More likely, is that our reality tunnel is so entirely limited by a fascist undercurrent that we refuse to find a tangible solution to a complex world order that pulls in literally thousands of directions at once. Capitalism and a failing empire have deluded or diluted our American psyche into a outwardly violent and hateful "winning" that precludes everything else- for example the idea that other countries exist and their peoples have a different sense of morality or objectivity. We have been hearing (or those of us who are actually listening) that the literal end of capitalism is when it becomes fascism. There is a full body of evidence, throughout history and today, to support that claim.
So, if we are indeed that goddamn stupid as a nation, then the die is cast and we continue our willfully ignorant tribalism as we spiral into oblivion. OR- we do what is necessary to formulate a new path forward, collectively, where we analyze what has continually failed us as a country and begin organizing an anarchistic overthrow of all centralized fascist regimes- giving power to ordinary people who actually CAN govern themselves in the knowing that individual freedom and collective power are interconnected but REQUIRE constant engagement.
We can continue for a decade or two to pound away at the same disaffected rock pile that we have been on for the last 70 years. But if we're being honest with ourselves, Capitalism- NOT buy and sell economics, is killing this world. It's not liberal or conservative. It's not right or left. It's not good or evil (but aren't we fucking trying hard to cling to that magical thinking?).
I conclude by saying, fuck dogma, fuck authoritarianism, fuck political power, fuck the rich.
Cheers!
The greatest trick ideology plays is making its own mechanisms invisible—convincing us that the way things are is simply ‘natural,’ the only pragmatic option. The so-called ‘rational’ view of world affairs—whether conservative or liberal—functions as a self-reinforcing fantasy, a justification for the global order of domination. The conservative says, ‘this empire is necessary,’ while the liberal says, ‘this empire is regrettable but ultimately beneficial.’ What neither admits is that the very categories through which we understand ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ are shaped by the logic of empire. The true horror is not that some support oppression and others oppose it, but that even those who oppose it often do so only in a way that remains within the coordinates of the existing system, ensuring nothing really changes.
Trump campaigned on an old-fashioned America First platform and promised to focus on the domestic economy, fire up the industrial base, and dial back foreign entanglements. Many Trump voters are dismayed by what's happening in Gaza and the West Bank, in the same way that many who welcomed the presidency of Barak Obama remember the pang of betrayal when the bombs continued to rain down across the Middle East and HRK's hideous cackle over the brutal murder of Gaddafi.
I think it's fair to draw a distinction in the conservative ranks — in an idiot's guide, if not a complete idiot's guide to world affairs — between paleoconservatism and neoconservatism.
Paleoconservatism doesn't care about and doesn't want to get involved in the internal affairs of distant countries. Its constituency is the great number of ordinary people who are struggling in a tough economy and who finally got fed up with the excesses of woke - many of them ex-Democrat voters. Their focus is the home front and they've got no bone to pick with Palestinians or Iranians or Yemenis.
Neoconservatism, a contrivance of ex-Trotskyists who wrote for Commentary Magazine in postwar New York, is an entirely different beast: radical, obsessive and interventionist in the extreme. Its political frontmen masterfully gull the everyman, while winking at their masters, who mercilessly pursue their agenda from one administration to the next.
I don't know what happened to you, but maybe you took a serious fall and hit your head?
i was often surprised how 2 people can look at the same data/picture and reach different conclusions...
in this case justify the horrors...
the video about how "priors" affect our worldview from trivial to critical is very insightful https://youtu.be/hcmbATnQcMo
i hope it helps someone...and that a critical mass of people eventually arises that will consider the current situation as untenable as i feel it is
I read the transcript and scanned the comments. I still don't know if we are talking about two things, three things, or more. Are we talking about political "liberals" or economic "liberals"? "Right wing" vs. "conservatives". Same or different?
Leave "fascism" out for now. I agree with Darryl Cooper—these days "fascist" is just another way to say F*** You.
It isn't just that people are indifferent, it is that they appear to be proudly so. If one expresses solicitude and empathy for distant and different looking human beings, they are branded a bleeding heart lunatic - a dyed in the wool "leftist" who hates their own kind. As you say, in educated and professional circles (the liberals) such apathy is taken to be a sign of some kind of a deep intelligence and savvy about international affairs that the empathetic ignorant do not have. The apathetic are somehow privy to a kind of foresight that the wishy washy crusties lack.
And it is this same attitude that inures the well off in our societies to widespread privation and destitution around them and normalizes the harassment and subjugation of the less fortunate. The apathy is rigged out in pretty economic models, replete with graphs and equations which purportedly illustrate the benefits of indifference to the long term prosperity of society. Similarly, the slaughter and oppression of black and brown skinned people abroad are dressed up in high- falutin sounding theories like "Wilsonian idealism" and "deterrence" and "establishing credibility" etc., that weaklings who are worried about other humans simply don't understand. They are sentimental fools, the bewildered herd, who can do great damage to the enlightened projects of the more intelligent folks - the cool and rational observers who have the common good in mind.
These ostensibly intelligent liberal folks constitute the dovish end of the spectrum. It is no use talking about the conservatives, the other end. They are openly racist and genocidal but at least don't pretend that all of this in pursuit of some greater common good. They chuck all the arcane theories and models. They concede, sometimes implicitly but often quite explicitly, that there is a hierarchy of human worth, it is how it ought to be and it needs conservation.
That sums up the spectrum of opinion, by and large. There is, of course, the loony fringe that believes in solidarity with the oppressed, the outcastes who need to be deported or muzzled lest their "syndrome" vitiate the carefully cultivated intelligent indifference of the self appointed guardians of civilisation
@JC loved it Sir!
There is another brand of right wing thought that agrees that what is coming down the pike now is bad, but it is due to socialists, communists, the WTO, the hard left, Woke culture, liberals, China and Russia who are all in cahoots somehow and want to destroy what is good about America.
I think this is due to some "brush fire" propaganda. This term applies to fighting a forest fire by burning brush that will carry the flames of the main fire. It starts by telling people what they are inclined to believe and expands upon that, competing in psychological space with what is actually going on.
I have friends who firmly believe the truly wild conspiracy theory, some of who were "left wing radicals" at one time.
That's a pretty good breakdown, hard to do in a short space
Ukrainians are honorary brown people. Though the West is not doing the actual killing, it has been refusing all paths to peace. It demands that Ukrainian men sacrifice themselves in an unwinnable and completely unnecessary conflict that benefits no one but arms manufacturers, corrupt politicans who cream off their percentage, and financiers able to buy up war zone assets at knockdown prices.
For a great many Europeans, Ukrainians are perceived / stereotyped in a way roughly analogous to what in colloquial US language would be 'white trash'... which is kindof its own essay. This explains why they're not bothered to have them die by the hundreds of thousands / year to neutralize Russia, but start making excuses as soon as their own might possibly have to step in. It also explains the ambivalence about adding the country to EU or NATO - the land, yes, the people, maybe a few but definitely not tens of millions.
As an aside, Western Europe lumps much of Eastern Europe in such a category, which is not lost on the nationalities in question. In a way, the dream of left-liberalism, that this can be wished away, is actually a very good one. It's just that the centrist-liberal governments we get (like their centrist-conservative counterparts) undermine their own spoken ideals every step of the way... Once you realize the egalitarian verbiage is just for show (at least to those our system allows in power, and those funding the political system itself), it all starts to makes sense.
"In this regard the West’s wars producing even more suffering for brown people are actually “humanitarian”.
This horrible, non-empathetic reasoning is actually verbalized by many Americans. After Harris lost the presidential election, there were many comments online like this: "Palestinians can all burn in hell! They cost Kamala the election!" I guess the neoliberals thought they were being "humanitarian" by expressing those sentiments?