Left wing loonies used to be all in favour of free speech back in the day because they weren't in power. Now that the long march through the institutions is almost complete and they run most of the show, the last thing they want is the serfs speaking their minds. So now the loony lefties will suppress dissenting speech wherever the find it. For our own good of course.
In my younger days I was certainly closer to being a left wing loony than I am now - although I still retain a lot of the same core values and ideals. I just realized as I got older that idealism needs to be tempered somewhat with pragmatism.
I think free speech (as close as we can practicably get to it) is so vital to having a decent, fair society. It shouldn't be a political football, but it has become one.
Simon Elmer's book "The Road to Fascism" is good on the failure of the so-called "left" during the fake pandemic. Among other things, he relates it to wokeism, which he sees as the fascistic extension of identity politics. This has all been a bit of a shock to me, since I used to think of myself as a leftie, and now find myself aligned with those terrible awful right-wingers on many issues.
and thanks for the pointer to the book - I hadn't heard of that one
It's the same for me - definitely quite 'left wing' in my younger days - and still think I retain a lot of the basic core values and ideals. But now I am probably viewed as being some 'far right' fascist nutjob.
I have certainly drifted a little 'right' (according to old understandings of right/left) because I began to realise as I got older that most of the good things I'd like to see in a society require **resourcing** and that requires a sound enough economic foundation from which to work.
I believe most of (maybe all of) the content of Simon Elmer's book was previous published on his Architects for Social Housing web site here: https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/
I've always considered myself to be a bit of a leftie. I've always supported public education, the union movement, nationalised health care, a strong social security safety net etc.
But now, because I don't think that men in dresses are women and I didn't get jabbed with an experimental drug and similar views I'm classified as a far right nut job. WTF? ☹️
It's not me that's changed, it's the political left. They've been overtaken by crazy people. Seriously, the views being honked by those on "the left" (whatever that means) these days are are crazy, and the people doing the honking look crazy too.
A small group of people have lost their minds, and they are now taking over our society. The lunatics really are running the asylum.
There are SO many things on the 'left' I disagree with now - and many of those 'left' positions, as you say, are just batshit insane.
Climate being in a 'crisis', the whole 'green' energy approach and EV approach is spectacularly ignorant and just plain dumb (from a technology perspective), gender ideology, critical race theory, the idea that there are these invisible complicated webs of oppression that operate everywhere at all times, that countries can exist without well-defined and defended borders, cultural appropriation, the whole 'de-colonisation' farce, that words are violence (or silence is violence), the whole concept that other people are responsible for MY feelings, and that those feelings actually matter, emotional labour, equity, that diversity of skin colour or sexuality is in any way important when it comes to getting the job done
After the grand failure of the Soviet Union (which was obvious in the 1960s), and the realisation during the late 1960s and 1970s that China, Kambodja and North Korea were even grander failures, the old left was quietly taken out back and dealt with by the left-leaning progressive liberals (what we call woke or 'the left' today): in reality using old classifications were the bourgeoise who then re-branded the whole thing during the 1990s, calling it gloablism and the rest of the buzzwords.
Old or traditional or whatever we want to call it lefties were concerned with the control of the means of production and distribution of goods, infrastructure and the abolition of private property as a concept, beyond trinkets of purely sentimental value - and said so. To do this, they needed to be well-read on subjects like logistics, agriculture, economics, history and stuff like Hegelian dialectics to understand Engels and other theorists on ad absurdum.
Which meant hours upon hours of studying, debating, arguing, and having bloody rows with fellow travellers about the correct interpretation and implementation of the one true way to produce and distribute toilet paper in the dictatorship of the proletariat. Insert Life of Brian-skit about "The Peoples Front of Judea" here.
And that didn't appeal to the bourgeoise class of liberal arts and other humanities-adjacent academics, being frigid harridans and termagants of all genders that were used to being metaphorical Daddy's girls getting anything and everything on a silver platter (the prerogative of the managerial subset of the middle class).
So they started to make up their own disciplines with their own words becoming a cult and a very useful tool for authoritarian party-politicians in democratic nations.
And here we are, where as you say pointing out that putting on a dress doesn't make anyone a woman is right-wing extremism. Lenin, Beria, Hoxha, Pol Pot, Honecker, and so on would have (and did) sent such people as the woke and their inspirators to the Gulags for bourgeoise counter-revolutionary degeneracy.
Also, the things you list can just as well be described as nationalist conservative: it's all semantics. A proposition to remove all kinds of tax deductions and lower the income tax for the lowest income brackets to make them independent of welfare, would that be leftist or rightist?
Lower taxes are after all typically "right", while removing tax deductions are typically "left".
Engels' analysis of history and economics is bang on the money; where it goes off the rails is when the didactic parts written by Marx come in, about how to force communism (as defined by them, not the real thing we know) to come into existence fully formed from the get-go.
This was largely the reason Marx went on to write "The Communist Manifesto"; he saw an opportunity arising from the abject failure of unfettered industrialist capitalism during the 19th century and grab it with both hands.
What is happening in the West right now is largely capitalism becoming communism as predicted. Itremains to be seen if we wind up on the Orwellian path, the Huxleyesque one or something more esoteric and left field.
Of all of today’s bon mots, I do believe “Neil like a Ferguson” may be la crème de la crème.
As a former crazy leftist— with the indignant voice wobble and all— I do think they’ve overplayed their hand with both misinformation and gender. My posts were removed from a moms forum during the pandemic because I used the word “ivermectin” even though I was actually talking about it in the context of its efficacy and safety against heartworm in puppies. And when I reposted using the phrase “the I-word” I was kicked off altogether.
I hold out hope (and see strong signs) that the perspective shift that happened to me during covid is happening to others. I look at the latest book in Chelsea Clinton’s series “She persisted” about women who defy all odds, and see it features Dick “Rachel” Levine. In various item descriptions I see Levine referred to as a female and a woman. This is really too far even for most of the “let’s just be nice” crowd. I know because I still struggle with that instinct. Silencing dissent doesn’t help when you are your own worst enemy. It’s like the woman in the restaurant who is screaming at and berating her server. Maybe the dude really did mess up her order, but that’s not what most of us are focused on.
The policing of all of this by 'normal' people is definitely disturbing.
I remember about a spat on a knitting forum when people were kicked off for showing any kind of support for Trump.
Knitting
We've got lesbians who, in the past, could organise lesbian-only events in the full knowledge that only those driving a vulva would attend. These kind of people are now 'bigots'.
It's a level of crazy that was unthinkable only a decade ago.
The good signs you are seeing, and I hope we all see more of, is the effect of chasing ever more abstruse signs of 'purity' - it's like the snake eating its own tail.
Humans love stories more than anything. It’s why the movie industry thrived and why the Novel is pound for pound the most precious item one could own in a post apocalyptic world. Imagine finding a library filled with thousands of stories three hundred years after the collapse and civilization, but into a stable time of agricultural plenty, a new beginning without technology. And yet… the left want to destroy meaningful story telling by turning it all into woke propaganda. It’s bad already, but imagine the story lines in a uberwoke full on social justice society. Imagine every novel run through the filter of full on wokism. I’ve never considered being a book burner, but maybe at some point it might become an act of rebellion.
We have all seen how the left have destroyed comedy… I mean seriously, that new show by Chris Rock. Vomit 🤮. Horrible woke unfunny Shite.
Gosh. It’s like there’s a new form of secular Gnosticism on the rise...”*we* have the truth and you can’t possibly understand it. You low-life prol loser.”
...However, there are some that prefer that Apotheosis of verse...'Vogon poetry is a variety of poetry, often considered to be one of the worst. It is sometimes used by the Vogons as a torture method, as it causes physical pain to the hearer. '
The dullards of TV land and work-a-day buy a shit thing cos I'm Boredville will lap it up. "No No you're wrong cos the man said so and he's got a tie on... so there!" They don't really care anyway. As long as they can go to the game on the weekend - go along to get along...
Left wing loonies used to be all in favour of free speech back in the day because they weren't in power. Now that the long march through the institutions is almost complete and they run most of the show, the last thing they want is the serfs speaking their minds. So now the loony lefties will suppress dissenting speech wherever the find it. For our own good of course.
In my younger days I was certainly closer to being a left wing loony than I am now - although I still retain a lot of the same core values and ideals. I just realized as I got older that idealism needs to be tempered somewhat with pragmatism.
I think free speech (as close as we can practicably get to it) is so vital to having a decent, fair society. It shouldn't be a political football, but it has become one.
This was one of your best, Sir. The picture of Jacinda was perfect.
Thanks Duchess - appreciate it
Thanks once again for the laughs.
Simon Elmer's book "The Road to Fascism" is good on the failure of the so-called "left" during the fake pandemic. Among other things, he relates it to wokeism, which he sees as the fascistic extension of identity politics. This has all been a bit of a shock to me, since I used to think of myself as a leftie, and now find myself aligned with those terrible awful right-wingers on many issues.
Cheers Mark
and thanks for the pointer to the book - I hadn't heard of that one
It's the same for me - definitely quite 'left wing' in my younger days - and still think I retain a lot of the basic core values and ideals. But now I am probably viewed as being some 'far right' fascist nutjob.
I have certainly drifted a little 'right' (according to old understandings of right/left) because I began to realise as I got older that most of the good things I'd like to see in a society require **resourcing** and that requires a sound enough economic foundation from which to work.
I believe most of (maybe all of) the content of Simon Elmer's book was previous published on his Architects for Social Housing web site here: https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/
I've always considered myself to be a bit of a leftie. I've always supported public education, the union movement, nationalised health care, a strong social security safety net etc.
But now, because I don't think that men in dresses are women and I didn't get jabbed with an experimental drug and similar views I'm classified as a far right nut job. WTF? ☹️
It's not me that's changed, it's the political left. They've been overtaken by crazy people. Seriously, the views being honked by those on "the left" (whatever that means) these days are are crazy, and the people doing the honking look crazy too.
A small group of people have lost their minds, and they are now taking over our society. The lunatics really are running the asylum.
Agree - same here
There are SO many things on the 'left' I disagree with now - and many of those 'left' positions, as you say, are just batshit insane.
Climate being in a 'crisis', the whole 'green' energy approach and EV approach is spectacularly ignorant and just plain dumb (from a technology perspective), gender ideology, critical race theory, the idea that there are these invisible complicated webs of oppression that operate everywhere at all times, that countries can exist without well-defined and defended borders, cultural appropriation, the whole 'de-colonisation' farce, that words are violence (or silence is violence), the whole concept that other people are responsible for MY feelings, and that those feelings actually matter, emotional labour, equity, that diversity of skin colour or sexuality is in any way important when it comes to getting the job done
and so many, many more
It's gone completely off the scale loon.
After the grand failure of the Soviet Union (which was obvious in the 1960s), and the realisation during the late 1960s and 1970s that China, Kambodja and North Korea were even grander failures, the old left was quietly taken out back and dealt with by the left-leaning progressive liberals (what we call woke or 'the left' today): in reality using old classifications were the bourgeoise who then re-branded the whole thing during the 1990s, calling it gloablism and the rest of the buzzwords.
Old or traditional or whatever we want to call it lefties were concerned with the control of the means of production and distribution of goods, infrastructure and the abolition of private property as a concept, beyond trinkets of purely sentimental value - and said so. To do this, they needed to be well-read on subjects like logistics, agriculture, economics, history and stuff like Hegelian dialectics to understand Engels and other theorists on ad absurdum.
Which meant hours upon hours of studying, debating, arguing, and having bloody rows with fellow travellers about the correct interpretation and implementation of the one true way to produce and distribute toilet paper in the dictatorship of the proletariat. Insert Life of Brian-skit about "The Peoples Front of Judea" here.
And that didn't appeal to the bourgeoise class of liberal arts and other humanities-adjacent academics, being frigid harridans and termagants of all genders that were used to being metaphorical Daddy's girls getting anything and everything on a silver platter (the prerogative of the managerial subset of the middle class).
So they started to make up their own disciplines with their own words becoming a cult and a very useful tool for authoritarian party-politicians in democratic nations.
And here we are, where as you say pointing out that putting on a dress doesn't make anyone a woman is right-wing extremism. Lenin, Beria, Hoxha, Pol Pot, Honecker, and so on would have (and did) sent such people as the woke and their inspirators to the Gulags for bourgeoise counter-revolutionary degeneracy.
Also, the things you list can just as well be described as nationalist conservative: it's all semantics. A proposition to remove all kinds of tax deductions and lower the income tax for the lowest income brackets to make them independent of welfare, would that be leftist or rightist?
Lower taxes are after all typically "right", while removing tax deductions are typically "left".
When it comes to toilet paper it's probably more like the People's Back(side) of Judea
Even when I was more 'traditional' left I thought the whole 'Communist' program was a bit loopy and unsustainable.
It's a bit schizophrenic to be sure.
Engels' analysis of history and economics is bang on the money; where it goes off the rails is when the didactic parts written by Marx come in, about how to force communism (as defined by them, not the real thing we know) to come into existence fully formed from the get-go.
This was largely the reason Marx went on to write "The Communist Manifesto"; he saw an opportunity arising from the abject failure of unfettered industrialist capitalism during the 19th century and grab it with both hands.
What is happening in the West right now is largely capitalism becoming communism as predicted. Itremains to be seen if we wind up on the Orwellian path, the Huxleyesque one or something more esoteric and left field.
Like Theosophy or something equally disturbing.
Of all of today’s bon mots, I do believe “Neil like a Ferguson” may be la crème de la crème.
As a former crazy leftist— with the indignant voice wobble and all— I do think they’ve overplayed their hand with both misinformation and gender. My posts were removed from a moms forum during the pandemic because I used the word “ivermectin” even though I was actually talking about it in the context of its efficacy and safety against heartworm in puppies. And when I reposted using the phrase “the I-word” I was kicked off altogether.
I hold out hope (and see strong signs) that the perspective shift that happened to me during covid is happening to others. I look at the latest book in Chelsea Clinton’s series “She persisted” about women who defy all odds, and see it features Dick “Rachel” Levine. In various item descriptions I see Levine referred to as a female and a woman. This is really too far even for most of the “let’s just be nice” crowd. I know because I still struggle with that instinct. Silencing dissent doesn’t help when you are your own worst enemy. It’s like the woman in the restaurant who is screaming at and berating her server. Maybe the dude really did mess up her order, but that’s not what most of us are focused on.
The policing of all of this by 'normal' people is definitely disturbing.
I remember about a spat on a knitting forum when people were kicked off for showing any kind of support for Trump.
Knitting
We've got lesbians who, in the past, could organise lesbian-only events in the full knowledge that only those driving a vulva would attend. These kind of people are now 'bigots'.
It's a level of crazy that was unthinkable only a decade ago.
The good signs you are seeing, and I hope we all see more of, is the effect of chasing ever more abstruse signs of 'purity' - it's like the snake eating its own tail.
Humans love stories more than anything. It’s why the movie industry thrived and why the Novel is pound for pound the most precious item one could own in a post apocalyptic world. Imagine finding a library filled with thousands of stories three hundred years after the collapse and civilization, but into a stable time of agricultural plenty, a new beginning without technology. And yet… the left want to destroy meaningful story telling by turning it all into woke propaganda. It’s bad already, but imagine the story lines in a uberwoke full on social justice society. Imagine every novel run through the filter of full on wokism. I’ve never considered being a book burner, but maybe at some point it might become an act of rebellion.
We have all seen how the left have destroyed comedy… I mean seriously, that new show by Chris Rock. Vomit 🤮. Horrible woke unfunny Shite.
Good points you've made there Ian
The cultural value of 'art' is not inconsiderable
We do seem to be heading for some woke grey mush of inanity with all of these moves to remove 'offence' and establish a dull uniformity of opinion.
Gosh. It’s like there’s a new form of secular Gnosticism on the rise...”*we* have the truth and you can’t possibly understand it. You low-life prol loser.”
I've come to realise that this has been the attitude of governments/elites throughout much of history.
One of the 'benefits' of covid has been just how much of the duplicity of our lords and masters is now on display - and more people can see it.
The Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.'
...However, there are some that prefer that Apotheosis of verse...'Vogon poetry is a variety of poetry, often considered to be one of the worst. It is sometimes used by the Vogons as a torture method, as it causes physical pain to the hearer. '
'Vogon Poetry
Nick Page
youtube.com/watch?v=0lXas5Ix65U
----'An example of Vogon poetry
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning)
As plurdled gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning
On a lurgid bee,
That mordiously hath blurted out,
Its earted jurtles, grumbling
Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. [drowned out by moaning and screaming]
Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,
Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,
And living glupules frart and stipulate,
Like jowling meated liverslime,
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,
And hooptiously drangle me,
With crinkly bindlewurdles,mashurbitries.
Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!'
😂😂😂😂thx. Needed this today!!!
Thanks Aaron - appreciated
To understand what is happening, read the book within the book '1984'. You know, the part with a smaller font that everyone skips.
The dullards of TV land and work-a-day buy a shit thing cos I'm Boredville will lap it up. "No No you're wrong cos the man said so and he's got a tie on... so there!" They don't really care anyway. As long as they can go to the game on the weekend - go along to get along...
Great read, thank you.
Thanks Marta - appreciate the feedback
Omg, I laughed so hard at that mask model graph. 😂 Isn't that the truth!
"Like jowling meated liverslime....With crinkly binderwurdles."
And ode to Vogon cuisine.
I love Vogon poetry. ;)