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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
Why has the left become so brittle, humorless and fragile?
Progressives love crowing that "white people" will soon be a minority, and that realization is driving "white people" to fearful, hate-filled extremism. There is no evidence to support this pseudointellectual cotton candy. Unfortunately, we do have a blessedly small and mostly powerless number of neo-nazi and white supremacists among us. Always have. When I was a teen living in Denver in the 80's, white supremacists from the Silent Brotherhood killed Jewish talk show host Alan Berg in front of his home.
If "white people" were really that unstable and angered that they were being replaced, our nation would be suffering a sharp increase in "white people" violently attacking and murdering "people of color." We are not, thank God.
"The Truth Will Not Replace Us!"
Progressives are the ones growing more sweaty and desperate, like meth heads backed into the corner of their kitchen screaming at the snakes swarming out of the kitchen cabinets.
Their angry lectures, loud scolding, and cajoling everyone to get on the "right side of history," belies a quivering insecurity.
Why is the left so hell-bent on silencing and controlling people?
Why are they so quick to hurl the racism label? Most importantly, and disturbingly, why are people on the left so eager to dox people, wreck people's lives, and get people fired from their jobs? It is a sick and poisonous urge to want to destroy people and take away their livelihoods forever.
People on the left have gone beyond trolling and now actually believe all the nasty and demeaning snipes they direct at the right: anti-science, pro-Russian, white supremacist, disseminators of disinformation, etc.
The left's increasing shrillness and love of corporate censorship stems from fear and insecurity. They are losing their sweaty, totalitarian grip on society. Even worse, they have dictated to the rest of us for so long, they have forgotten how to debate and persuade, which is why their rhetoric becomes shriller and louder.
Progressive totalitarianism is under attack from thousands of blogs, twitter accounts, websites, podcasts, and worst of all, word of mouth among people experiencing the stench of progressivism's rotten fruit with their own five senses.
Progressives have lost control
They are no longer the gatekeepers because the gates have been smashed and the old institutions discredited. They are losing control of the courts, information dissemination, and even their citadels of academia are under attack, with many good liberals fighting back against the narrow-minded progressive pogroms that chase down dissidents and free-thinkers.
Free-Thinking and Departing from Orthodoxy Unhinges the Left
The left is becoming increasingly unhinged. Solid liberal free-thinkers like Jon Stewart, Glenn Greenwald, Bill Maher and Russell Brand skewer the latest progressive illiberal stupidities, and the left strikes back by casting a cloud of suspicion over them or even labeling them "rightwingers."
Progressive Establishmentarians are asking, Why Don't They Believe Us Anymore?
Answer: Because the CDC is hiding data. They have to figure out how to spin it before releasing it. Wouldn't want all those data scientists taking it and providing everyone the plain facts without an establishment-approved narrative...
Wouldn't want somebody saying something crazy like, "SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be reverse-transcribed and integrated into the genome of human cells," would we?
Progressivism is looking more and more like the final days of the Ceausescus...
"Why has the left become so brittle, humorless and fragile?"
ReplyDeleteA glance at left wing publications will demonstrate that there is no shortage of individuals from the Right fitting that description. I have aquaintances from a wide range of political dispositions who are adaptible, joyful and robust but you can rely on whichever wing of the partisan media to seek out the fragile etc. examples of their opponent faction to present to their base.
I know this is a pointof contention, but the argument to your claim that white supremacy is a minority interest, is that white supremacy is to some extent coded into our institutions. This was explicit a hundred years ago, we needn't argue over it. What makes you so confident that all of it was successfully removed?
"why are people on the left so eager to dox people, wreck people's lives, and get people fired from their jobs?"
It's a good question, but I would ask it without the "on the left" clause. I haven't carefully analysed it, but from my casual observations I haven't noticed a political tendency for the left to be more prone to doing this than the right.
"People on the left have gone beyond trolling and now actually believe all the nasty and demeaning snipes they direct at the right: anti-science, pro-Russian, white supremacist, disseminators of disinformation, etc."
Well, you touched me with that one. You won't thank me for bringing him up, but we can't ignore the shadow cast by la Donald here, can we? He was (is?) a fire hydrant of disinformation, he certainly seemed cosier with white supremacists than you or I could bring ourselves to be, his affection for Putin became (with some validity) a stock joke for satirists and his attitude to science failed to reflect the indifference of reality to his political preferences. To some extent, anti-science and reationary opposition to minority rights have been things I have associated with the Right for long before Trump became a person I was obliged to care about, but since Trump's extraordinary performance in office and in light of his continuing dominance over the GOP it seems absurd for conservatives to plead innocence here.
If I am scared of anything, it is the Right's dimissive debating stance. Any clip of the British parliament shows the total lack of intellectual engagement by the right, and I'm not certain that it's better in the states.
That article about reverse transcription is not hidden... you link to it. What is your accusation?
Not an accusation. Rather, pointing out a basis for the statements that the vaccines could be considered "gene therapy" or that they alter the human genome. I leave it scientists on that one, I am way over my head already, but the 'gatekeepers' in the Infotainment Media Complex bat this stuff away without even a discussion, and simultaneously defame and disparage anyone who raises the issue.
DeleteTo the rest of your comments, of course we can criticize all sides, but I chose to focus on the left because their actions get almost no critical analysis in the dominant Infotainment Media Complex. We are all well-versed in El Donaldo's long string of vulgar and fact-challenged ramblings.
The Right has very little sway in pop culture, government, and other culture-shaping institutions in this country, so it is more interesting what is going on to the left.
The left is on a heretic hunt, and its real. I have provided examples. When you label Russell Brand a 'rightwinger' you've gone over the edge.
Brand eschews all mainstream politics, so it's approximately as meaningful to call him a rightwinger as a it is to call him a leftwinger. I wouldn't bother designating him as either. His channel is increasingly addressing the Qanon right, but I don't hold that against him, I think it's important to reach out to that faction. (Regretfully, I've been finding him much less intellectually substantial in recent months, after several years of sustained growth in that regard).
DeleteIn fact in general I find I see further, or at least notice different things, when I completely abandon the whole left-right framework -- this is a cue I took from you to some extent. I understand what you're doing by highlighting the bad behaviour on the Left, but I don't see how it helps.
I find Russell Brand, Matt taibbi and others who are traditionally considered left to be interesting precisely for the reason you cite. Much of the discussion in that sphere and in the intellectual dark web transcends left and right,. I agree with you agreeing with me that it isn't outdated concept.
Delete.....that left right is an outdated concept.
DeleteAbsolutely. But what politically palatable construct could it be replaced with? The Duopoly is so ingrained in every aspect of our culture....that it seems it would have to take a seismic event to change the paradigm.
SF: agreed ;)
DeleteCI: Farmer's (I think I'm right in saying, but don't let me speak for him) favourite globalist vs nationalist is a useful axis. But we need more than one dimension.
Then I will speak. I think that Elizabeth hit on it a bit at her blog today. Capitalism transformed itself in the 1960's as a result of the Cold War into a fused capitalism-culturalism or "cultural capitalism" as Zizek called it in his video w/Soros as example. It's the old neocon-paleocon divide raised up a political level.
DeleteWhen Bob Dillan went electric, the New Left became populist and what dominated the culture was neoliberalism. Scoop Jackson's Leo Stauss U of Chicago students were staunchly anti-communists, and became Bush/Reagan "Neocon" staffers after Reagan/Thatcher remade American capitalism into global capitalism (as Nixon had dumped the American led Bretton-Woods gold standard in the late 60's/early 70s). Pat Buchanan and his paleocons (American capitalists) were left behind until Trump revived them in 2016. The culture is again shifting into a populist paleocon version at the expense of the formerly populist neoliberal one.
We need to end the "cultural capitalism" that emerged in the 60's and get back to good old pre- 1940s American capitalism unless we want the clash of civilizations necessitated by a "universalized capitalism" to drive the world into a single hegemonous global state.
One that doesn't use others as means to capitalism's ends.
...and doesn't "moralize" the economic sphere.
DeleteLet "nations/civilizations" cover the moral sphere like it used to.
Delete...and stop allowing Starbucks the right to define our "coffee ethics".
DeleteWe separated church and state, but not corporation and state. Why?
DeleteJoe, well stated. I agree totally.
DeleteTo replace the outdated left-right, I like Glenn Beck's tyranny - liberty scale.
DeleteNeither Democrats nor Republicans, neither progressive's nor conservatives look totally favorable when measured by that scale
Just bear in mind that the scale is broader... anarchy-liberty-totalitarian tyranny... that that liberty needs a constitutional frame to provide a middle ground between anarchy and tyranny of "none too much".
DeleteThe UN often tries to regulate/control International Law, but its' powers require offsetting powers and limitations... like to pertain soley to "international trade" and not creep in scope as the Constitutional preamble has seemingly creeped in allowing out national government to provide for the general welfare and interstate commerce becoming as broadly defined as it is today.
DeleteIn other words, the Security Council needs to be removed from the UN entirely and established as an offsetting/ counterbalancing non-economic power.
DeleteThe UN Charter is too broad and its powers separated to prevent totalitarianism.
Delete"need to be separated" above.
DeleteLest WHO become the global CDC.
Delete...or a global "Deep State".
DeleteWe need to bring back "The Invisible Hand"!
DeleteAn anti-fragile one closer to "anarcho-capitalism" than "corporate-globalist" we have today.
Delete...the near "anarcho-capitalism" of America's early colonial period.
DeleteThe Left has become so fragile, humorless and brittle because global neoliberalism is collapsing and is trying to prop it up "by any means necessary" as debt/inflation overwhelm it's now useless "monetary policy". The fed CANNOT raise interest rates without bankrupting the US Treasury.
DeleteBy eliminating small economic shocks (but not RISKS), the Fed has made the US economy "fragile" (the size of the debt). All it will take now is one medium size shock to bring it all down.
DeleteSorry. I'll go back to reading Tennyson's "Tiresias", Old Fitz!
DeleteJoe,
DeleteI like your corrected version of the scale.
It should be Anarchy - Tyranny, with Liberty in the middle. Around that middle is where we should be arguing.
Indeed....and before the Fall.
Delete....else those responsible will be claiming that "the Russians did it!"
DeleteInstead of looking to the actual cause/source:
DeleteJoe Biden, Business Roundatable 3/21/22
“I think this presents us with some significant opportunities to make some real changes. You know, we are at an inflection point, I believe, in the world economy, not just the world economy, in the world, occurs every three or four generations. As one of my, as the one of the top military people said to me in a secure meeting the other day, 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946 and since then we established a liberal world order and that hadn’t happened in a long while. A lot of people died, but nowhere near the chaos. And now’s the time when things are shifting. We’re going, there’s gonna be a new world order out there and we’ve got to lead it and we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world and doing it.”
So much for adherence to Founding Principles....
DeleteJohn Quincy Adams’s words:
"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
George Washington in his farewell address:
“Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns.” Furthermore, “Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? It is our policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.”
...but do you see any open discussion of principles for this NWO? Or will it, like every other tyranny known to man, simply be imposed from above?
DeleteAround that middle is where we should be arguing.
DeleteShould be, but only those debating in good faith actually will.
The others will simply move the marker to the pole they subscribe to, and pervert the label of Liberty....mush as they've done with Liberal and Conservative.
Radical centrism is a meme.
DeleteBut Ben Franklin wasn't.
DeleteCentrism, like left and right, is also a useless term.
DeleteSalad Bar-barianism
DeleteDid someone pull an all nighter overindulging in Red Bull while watching Tucker Carson reruns with Alice and the White Rabbit?
ReplyDeleteWho's the actor that plays Tucker Carlson on the Tucker Carlson Show? The facial expressions he makes when the episode calls for him to look like he doesn't know what he's talking about always kill me, even though it's a repeated schtick, like Benny Hill slapping the bald guy on his head. That trademark scrunching his eyebrows together to transform into a Cro-Magnon when a guest character starts delivering their lines must really burn through the special effects budget. It's avant garde improv comedy the way they play it straight, no off set scenes, no trapped in a broken elevator with amnesia tropes. Character development might dispel the magic of the show's main premise of what if an idiot got a job as a political commentator. Let's hope the writers don't change the formula.
DeleteI have known for some fifty years that the people who become angry when their premises are contradicted are people who are not firmly seated in their premises, that people who are angered by homosexuality are people who are not completely comfortable with their own sexuality, that people who demand that you agree with them are not really comfortable with their own beliefs.
ReplyDeleteIn the latter case, by getting you to agree with them, by getting you to agree that their beliefs are correct, they reaffirm their own shaky beliefs. The other things are a bit more complex, but similar.
The left knows that its various positions are so illogical that they will not stand up to reality, and for that reason cannot afford to have those positions questioned. They cannot defend those positions in a logical discussion, and so use anger to prevent such a discussion. They fear a confrontation they know they cannot win, and they manifest that fear as anger, heading that confrontation off by changing the nature of it to an ad hominem contest that can have no winner.
Notice the reply from jez whose defense is too complex to be certain of but consists of either, "The right is that way too," or perhaps, "you mistake the right for the left," or perhaps, "the left and right are the same nowadays," but never offers the defense or any evidence that "the left isn't the way you say they are."
DeleteYou're right, I don't contest that those elements can be found within the left.
DeleteAlso, there's more than one reason to get angry. I can get cross when I notice an opponent arguing in bad faith, for example; or you might get agitated when you can see that someone is putting themselves and others in harm's way but they're refusing to listen to reason.
DeleteWhy get angry when someone is "arguing in bad faith"? Them doing so is no threat and does not harm you. You can simply disengage. Anger serves no useful purpose other than, perhaps, to make you feel good.
DeleteAnd if someone wants to put themselves in harm's way, and even others, that's their business. I, for one, do not feel that anyone appointed me as the guardian of anyone's welfare other than my own. (And my wife's.)
DeleteI chose that because that's my personality flaw. I'm working on it, thanks. And for the second example, imagine that the other person is endangering your wife (or you).
DeleteIf someone is endangering my wife or me there is no point in getting angry. Disengagement is still a viable option, and probably the best one.
DeleteYou're probably right but the productivity of anger is not what I'm talking about, I'm just broadening the range of explanations for people's anger beyond "insecure in their beliefs".
DeleteThe left lost its grip long ago when Clinton was in office. You remember how insane Gore acted, "hanging chads." Then on to Obama and after that it has been a downward spin of insanity. The left has lost its moral compass and its responsibility to the American people that elected them. They have become evil.
ReplyDeleteThe very banality of evil. Global capitalism is the Zucker-Borg. Resistance is futile. You WILL be assimilated.
Delete"Your culture will adapt to service us."
DeleteE-r-r-r-r... me!
Delete:P
DeleteNow the Borg have to help old man Picard who became a zombie android last season go back in time to stop the 2024 election lol
DeleteQ sent him lol
DeleteQ Anon...
Delete:p
DeleteQanon uses the same technique as the Nigerian banking scam. It is purposely outrageous so that it immediately and efficiently filters out all but the most gullible.
Delete"People on the left have gone beyond trolling and now actually believe all the nasty and demeaning snipes they direct at the right: anti-science, pro-Russian, white supremacist, disseminators of disinformation, etc."
ReplyDeleteWell, if you're referencing actual governance, perhaps because the evidence rings loud and clear. I'd suggest that "the left" had hoped such adverse behavior would wane with the removal of Trump rather than intensify.
At what point did Jon Stewart and Bill Maher become the free thinkers of the left?
"The Right has very little sway in pop culture, government, and other culture-shaping institutions in this country, so it is more interesting what is going on to the left."
Perhaps partially off topic yet possibly pointing to how the 2 parties have evolved in the last 20 years, watching the Senate confirmation hearings today I couldn't help but think how the so-called conservatives have predominately filled seats and important positions at all levels of government with cronies, criminals, and incompetent Hellofajob Brownies whereas the Democratic Party has generally seated qualified people.
And who precisely who precisely is this "Infotainment Media Complex"? Or maybe, are there any major news outlets that don't fall into that category?
^ RJW:
ReplyDeleteROTFLOL
Next you'll tell me that FDR didn't threaten to pack the Supreme Court.
Holy Holy Holy DNC Almighty.
Tell me, do you speak in tongues when you attend Democrat fund raisers?
It must be satire, Warren. Either that or some mental patient in the psych ward has broken into a nursing station computer.
DeleteFJ, Maybe they're doing a "Hogans Heroes" remake and he's trying out for the Sgt Schultz part. "I know nus-sing, I see nus-sing, I hear nus-sing."
DeleteThere are none so blind as the one-eye blind.
DeleteHave the Left lost it's grip or is it simply the messaging of the propagandist?
DeleteI'm not going to bother Googling names but the Dub admin did bring cronyism to new levels only to be out done by the misfits, thugs, and white supremist plants brought to us from the Donald. I mean hell, they should have just built a prison wing to the WH with a swinging door considering he couldn't pardon fast enough.
But in fairness to Dub and the Donald, the Plutocratic Party deserves equal blame as they were seating these goons as well as unqualified and even pro-rape life time judges on strictly party votes.
Again not bothering to Google but the 4 years of daily lies and scandals of the Donald made Nixon (Watergate), Reagan (Contra), and Dub (endless scandals) look like alter boys.
Something I found profound when the plutocrats got their asses handed to them in both 2006 and 08 was not only their admission of "losing their way" and "spending like drunken sailors" but their strategy of going forward was "to change their messaging". Look it up. It's been their wording for the last 2 decades.
And generally, the Plutocratic and corporately owned party has policies the general public and working class hates. Most voters are not pro-school shooting for example and I'm thinking something like a high 80% supported gun control legislation. In 2020 they didn't even have an agenda and in 2022 it appears to be a $trillon tax hike on the working class. Many others but I've always noticed that rather than legislate for the wishes of their constituents, their alternative was to "change their messaging" which I interpreted as "just blow smoke up their asses", and or blame the opposition party for something or another
I do admit, been a successful stratagem for them.
And so enter culture wars, the brown men coming to rape your wife and sell drugs to your kids, the Donald protecting suburban house wives from black folks infesting their neighborhoods, caravans, CRT, saving "Merry Christmas", Clorox and dewormer, that the Dems want you to have to flush 15 times to get rid of a turd, Dictator Fauci, that Dems are soft on crime, and on and on.
And this "messaging" has been taken to new levels by utilizing social media, Fox News becoming a full blown propaganda arm of the plutocrats, and the Donald successfully convincing the basket of gullibles to believe that factual news was fake and that fake news was real.
You guys should seriously look at the garbage you so often cite. Epoch Times for example was a near nothing company in 2016 placing their propaganda on windshields for free. Newsmax wasn't much more. And I could go on. The only reason they excelled was because when Trump started bashing Fox News for not being Trumpy enough and reporting negatively of him, the basket turned to sources that would tell them what they wanted to hear. And what they wanted to hear is much in line with the bullshit SF wrote.
Think about it. Everything the Donald or the right fringe wants, these outlets go to work. Donald points finger at Fauci and the basket starts barking. CRT which no one even knew about a year ago, an all out emergency. That CNN, WAPO, NYT, etc. is fake news. Stolen elections. And I could go on.
But what's more alarming is what these outlets, that the gulibbles depend on to evaluate and make a logical decision, are NOT telling you. So the only conclusion the basket can make are what they're being programed to believe.
Consider the 60 Minute interview with Lesly Stahl:
DeleteLesley Stahl: Do you know what you told me a long time ago when I asked why you keep saying "fake m-- media"--
President Donald Trump: Yeah? Yeah?
Lesley Stahl: You said to me, "I say that because I need to dis-- discredit you so that when you say negative things about me, no one will believe you."
And this is precisely what happened to convince the basket of gullibles of things that are not true. They were convinced by the leader of our country not to believe any news source that reported negatively of the leader of our country.
What a bunch of saps!
ReplyDeleteSomething tells me that we'll be seeing a lot less of Joey Biden and that this might be the beginning of the end for the Senile Old Fool, even the die-hard Progressives are having a hard time believing him these days, And now that the NY Times have credited his Sonny Boy's Lap Top this might be the beginning on the end. .
LOL Warren my father loved that silly show "Hogan's Heroes." What a lot! lol :)
ReplyDeleteIt was silly but fun. :)
ReplyDelete