Gondwanaland: a moral panic-free zone
Investigators have found that the Democratic National Committee lied about their involvement in the Iowa caucus debacle. Read the Intercept article here:
Investigator: DNC “Directly Involved” in Iowa Caucus App Development (theintercept.com)
Watch this interview with author Jordan Chariton:
In his latest Dark Horse Podcast, Bret Weinstein interviews investigative journalist Jeremy Lee Quinn about the role of insurrectionary anarchists in co-opting the Black Lives Matter movement for their own purposes, and the history behind this. My comments on this movement, and especially its cultic features, are below.
Chris Hedges is even more unambiguously a radical than Bret, being an unabashed socialist. Anarchists could consider him a "reformist" only on the basis of the ultraleft notion that revolutionism means trying to tear things down before you've got something better set up to replace them with. This is what's always differentiated them from the position of Marx, for whom the prerequisite of a socialist transformation was the working class constituting itself as a historical subject, i.e., organizing itself to govern society.
When Bret says none of those involved has a vision of how they're going to create something better, he's only describing those self-identified Marxists who have chosen to align with this movement. Those with a better understanding of Marxism have known for a long time what to do: first organize working people on the political and industrial fields to build power in the workplace and society at large, so that the next time the existing order faces a crisis of legitimacy, structures that can replace it -- structures of workers' democracy -- are ready to take over. This is the situation of dual power in which revolution becomes possible. That some people calling themselves Marxists today don't understand this is just an example of the perennial tendency of youth to be in a rush to change things and want to think it can be done in a hurry, lacking the patience for long-term organizing. Indeed, I remember how, when I was in high school in the late '70s, I seriously thought there might be a revolution within the next five years. I don't think that now, yet because I have more patience, I think that my actions now serve better to make a (hopefully peaceful) revolution possible within my lifetime.
I'm also struck by the many cult-like aspects of this movement. They focus on recruiting youth from high school and even younger because they want to exploit youth's typical excess of eager idealism over critical thinking, often compounded with a need to find something to identify with outside of their families. My own excessive short-term optimism at that age was encouraged by a socialist group that I only later realized had strong cultic characteristics. Fortunately, thanks perhaps to my autism (only identified last year), I was constitutionally incapable of not thinking for myself and got effectively kicked out when they realized this. And, thanks to my parents' still identifying as socialists even though they hadn't been members for decades, this expulsion didn't cause any existential crisis for me. I knew I could remain radical while taking my time finding another group worthy of my membership.
To the above, I might add the use of language loading to effect milieu control. Among themselves, insurrectos use the term reformism, which might sound positive to the average person, to denigrate and reject any approach to social change that to any degree involves working "within the system" rather than attempting its violent overthrow. In this way, realistic, non-destructive efforts to make things better are summarily rejected as "supporting the system." (Note: although Leninists also use this term pejoratively, they mean something different by it. A campaign isn't automatically considered "reformist" merely because it's conducted peacefully or because it advocates for change within the framework of the existing system. This word is reserved specifically for approaches that reject independent working-class activity in favor of subordinating the class movement to demands supported by elements of the ruling class, and to organizations or coalitions dominated by those elements.)
By "milieu control" is meant "the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual," which can be accomplished by language loading among other means.
Sign to tell House progressives: this is the time to use your leverage to win health care for all!
This video I discovered the other day, along with the channel it's on, offers a good jargon-free introduction to what socialism is and isn't.
A Future Beyond Capitalism? Socialism Explained. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hactcmhVS1w
I now try to avoid using the English idiom "I just don't understand how..." to express indignation. If I genuinely don't understand how, then my model is being surprised by the facts, and I should discard it and find a better model. -- Eliezer Yudkowsky, "Think Like Reality"
Diana Davison, founder of The Lighthouse Project in Canada, is working on a handbook for the falsely accused. Listen to her on this latest podcast from Honey Badger Radio, then visit her website and make a donation!
Rebekah Jones has been arrested in Florida for exposing profit-driven, homicidal government policies relating to COVID-19.
I've sent the following message to Gov. Ron DeSantis and the assistant to Judge Joshua Hawkes:
Stop the assault on science and free speech! Free Rebekah Jones, drop all the charges, and return all her technology and data! No witch-hunt for whistleblowers!
I just watched this video by Arielle Scarcella about the harm being done by confusion about what transgender means. I've copied my comment on it below the link.
Trevor Moran Transgender : Fans Push Him To "Be Trans" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWcalDWveQ
The meaning of words matters, but it matters because people agree on that meaning. Since this video came out, we see _transgender_ being overtly defined as any kind of deviation from gender norms. But the point is not how any particular term is defined -- which is in principle arbitrary -- but that the necessary distinctions are being made. You can define _trans_ the way Arielle does here, or you can define it in the broader way; what matters is that you also have a term like gender dysphoria so that that vital distinction can be made.
This point about the arbitrariness of labels also applies on the level of the individual. There's no reason to feel any need to "define" yourself with a label in the first place -- "the map is not the territory." Just be yourself, as long as you aren't hurting others. The only label you need is your name! (And you can change that too.) When words start being our masters instead of our servants, that's pathology.
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