Progressives can still succeed if they call out nonsense, focus on class, and start to talk like human beings again, argues Freddie deBoer in an excerpt from his new book.
Actually malaria is quite utilitarian. Who said the greatest good for the greatest number has to only be about humans. Think of all the good created for all the mosquitoes and malarial parasites when an infected mosquito bites a human. Mosquito and parasite lives matter!
Revolutionary Marxists, are deadly parasites. The author is blind to the outcomes for every Marxist revolution: totalitarian disaster. It is in Marxist revolutionary DNA to become totalitarian no matter the iteration of Marxism followed. The author is another fool who believes he has the vision of the first Marxist revolution to result in utopia. Freddy deBoer helped paved the way for the woke left's rise to totalitarian power. It's too late for him to have regrets - that tyranny ship has sailed.
Kurt may have meant, the greatest cause of human death by other humans. Though I don't really agree with this either... per capita, the greatest cause of human death by other humans has to be the warlord system (or whatever you call it) of violent conquering/subjugation.
Mosquitos can't really learn and we don't expect them to. They are 100% survival-instinct creatures.
We expect humans to learn and control their unhealthy or destructive instincts and behaviors. If I'm kind, I'll just say that Mr. Deboer is either hugely ignorant or has horribly misunderstood Marxist ideology.
It is easy to worship Marx and Engels’s utopia from a position of a well-to-do American intellectual who was raised in a safe and cushioned environment in a family who never knew a threat to their lives or hunger. I was a refugee from a communist country, and this article makes my blood boil. Totally ignoring history lessons is malevolent and evil.
The death toll from Christianity is even bigger than that. Shall we despise all who identify as christians because of that? Or aren't we better off judging all individuals individually according to their own deeds?
I equally know marxists and christians who are amongst the finest human beings I've ever met. And I also consider Stalin's orgy of violent murder, the killing fields of Cambodia and the crusades, the witch hunts and other crimes committed by marxists and christians in the name of their ideology/god some of the most appalling crimes in human history. And yes, both can go side by side...
“I’m a Marxist… I would still love to see a Marxist revolution. You know, an international movement of workers rising up and taking control of political and economic systems, and distributing resources and labor based on need, while organized under the principle of shared ownership of the productive apparatus of society”.
Here’s an idea for Mr. Deboer, start your own business with fellow Marxists. If it’s successful, I’ll stop by for my shared ownership and cut of distributed resources. Since the chance of any Marxist successfully creating anything of value is zero, I won’t hold my breath. Instead, I say we demand that loudmouth celebrities like Natalie Merchant, Cher, Mark Ruffalo, and most notably Barack Obama, who have benefitted enormously from our capitalist system, put their money where their collective mouths are and “spread the wealth”.
"...an international movement of workers rising up and taking control of political and economic systems, and distributing resources and labor based on need, while organized under the principle of shared ownership of the productive apparatus of society."
_________
The workers rise up and take control to distribute resources. Then, the "distributors" become the new elite and, viola, we have a new class-based society replacing the old one. Winners: the new elite. Losers: the same old workers. Evidence? Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, N. Korea,...the list goes on. So, where is utopia in all this? Please explain.
There is entertainment value. There is value in learning how naive these people really are. What struck me especially was the lament near the end of the essay, that the BLM riots of 2020 had fizzled out BECAUSE PEOPLE DIDN'T FIGHT HARD ENOUGH. Hello, Freddie, have you seen news of massive misappropriation of funds by a handful of leaders? Maybe set foot into the enemy camp and watch Candace Owens' The Greatest Lie Ever Sold on Daily Wire.
Kendi’s sh*t show is not convenient and TFP is vying for space in the MSM, from what I’ve been witnessing. Even Nellie ‘s TGIF’s posts are being edited by not one but two of her colleagues. They are ruining what was special about TGIF. So we get lame I’m a Marxist and I’m ok….
The Left has achieved a lot in this country - a lot of destruction.
Financial destruction with the mis-managed economy, open borders, and with property theft considered a mere misdemenor - so that no one goes after criminals or prosecutes them when they are caught. Car theft is sky high. Stores are closing because thieves walk in and fill bags in broad daylight with no one trying to stop them.
Also, minds and bodies are destroyed with Gender Ideology - an outgrowth of the post-modern queer theory Left.
It is just that the "moderate lefties" are no longer needed. We live in a Brave New World.
Let's form a coalition to get our world back. Hint, this will not come from the Left.
What world would you like to get back, and what would it look like to you? I agree with you in part--the refusal to arrest and charge shoplifters and other petty tyrants is insane--and I don't want children to undergo gender transformation surgery and puberty blockers.
But illegal immigration was high under many conservative presidents, not only liberals, and some of the worst financial destruction of our country happened under conservatives: the Great Depression, the savings and loan collapse, the banking system and mortgage bond collapse, the automakers' collapse, and the massive tax cuts for the rich under Bush and Trump that took money out of the pockets of the middle class and showered it on the rich and corporate.
So what world would the non-left bring back that you would like?
There is no value there. Marxism killed 100 million people in the 20th century. If the author wants to try it, move to Russia. I’ll pay for the one way ticket.
That's a fair point. The chances of a Marxist using Marxism to create anything of value are zero. This article, while written by a Marxist, was created, distributed, and read using tools created by capitalism. And Marxists can create value within a capitalist system.
Yeah, I agree with this. My post had nothing to do with supporting communism. I reject the premise that there is nothing to be learned or taken from that system that is useful.
I agree, Ava. I’m a true conservative of longstanding, favoring free markets and traditional Judeo-Christian social mores, even sexual ones. Yet I have long admired Freddie for his honesty, thoughtfulness, and willingness to engage in respectful discourse with his ideological opponents. Quite the opposite of the current woke Left.
When Mark Ruffalo agrees to be paid the same as the extras on the set of a movie then I'll buy into his commitment towards social justice. Until then, he really should just enjoy his lucrative career and stop with the nonsense.
Adam Smith was a Moral Philosopher first. This is what led him to define Capitalism as the system providing the most benefit to man (or do I have to say all 63 sexes/genders?) But, now we have a system of Corporatism - a coalition of Government, Education, Pharma/Tech and Media working against us. Smith likely had something to say about that sort of thing.
I had to set the Marxist bullshit aside, and when I did, I really enjoyed the rest of his points. Pretty much working-class Liberalism, like Liberalism was before the Wokeatollahs got their sneering hands on the machinery of media.
I was a labor leader for a time, and believe me when I say I did not want to own the newspaper as part of that role. I preferred letting capital be capital and labor be labor, never the twain shall meet. They are the flip sides of the regulated-capitalism coin that has served us so well--albeit with serious hiccups that requires eternal vigilance--over the years.
A lot of "progressive" money was donated to BLM, and they have a ton of nice real estate that I am sure they would share with the Marxist comrades at Marxist, Inc.! No?? Huummmmm......
One of the largest profit machines this country has ever produced, Timothy, can arguably now be called socialist, with strains of Marxism within - and that is the NFL. Total shared ownership between owners, players - with everybody literally raking in millions by evenly dividing up the billions of dollars of yearly revenue.
Players do not share profits evenly. The superstars are paid more than 3rd stringers. Meritocracy rules again. Even if they share revenue, salaries differ.
Yes, salaries differ. A QB might get 5 mil, a running back or a guard 1 million - but where else does the low worker on the totem pole get that kind of dough?
But the vast wage disparity seen in most corporations between owners/management and workers (20 to 50x) doesn’t exist in the NFL. Revenues are shared between owners, players, coaches and personnel to a much higher degree than equivalent echelons in other industries.
Still a capitalist system. They provide a product that people like and pay for. If revenue sharing between participants is the norm, that is still vastly different than the government owning the team, and distributing the profits to people not associated with the NFL. As does happen in Marxism.
Your definition of "worker" is way too narrow. You aren't considering assistant coaches, trainers, scouts, facility employees, etc. This is no different than any other capitalist profit sharing organization where high contributors can lobby to keep their own surplus, but commodity wage labor is still present and very necessary. Law firms come to mind.
Didn't the working class truckers revolt against the tyranny of the Trudeau elites? How did that work out? Marxism is contradictory to human nature, unless you condition the subjects to accept their fate. There will always be inequality in life. In the end, some idiots always crave power and corruption for their own purposes and want to rule the roost. Plus Marxism destroys the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit that has made America what it is today. Even the faux-Marxists like Patrice Cullors and Ibraim X Kendi realize the benefits of a capitalist society.
Timothy, seems Mr. Deboer’s beliefs are, “the work of a Marxist” is to find & join a group, stuff envelopes, make & hold signs on the side of highways, etc., etc., oh, and of course, teach this in college & universities, while the rest of us work hard to feed our families & pay our bills.
But, yes, ideally, wouldn’t it be just wonderful to live in a society where the wealth is distributed evenly to everyone? No reward? No punishment? Please explain how this utopia works — in reality.
The sad thing is that he enjoys being a contrarian, and will relish the pushback here. I used to subscribe to him, but disliked the fact I was paying to read an awful lot of the reader's articles he likes to publish. So I said so and he told me to f*ck off, so I did.
I let my subscription lapse (I had signed up at the annual rate) after he insulted a subscriber in the comments over a piece on the aesthetics of public housing. His Twitter-asshole shtick gets wearying.
Kind of. And not for long if this joker gets his way.
Was he paid for this? What did he do with the money? And how much does he make? Under his desired rules these things become my business. An absurd notion to be sure
Bari, this has to be a joke, a poor one, right? If you have a Marxist writing in TFP, when are you going to have a NAZI? In the 20th century the communist slaughtered more people, by a huge margin, than Hitler did.
If you have a NAZI post here you subscribers would justifiably be outraged. Well you had a Marxist and I am justifiably outraged.
A Marxist! Give me strength!
Anyone who is a communist is an idiot, a dangerous one, but still an idiot who has no grasp of history. Communism doesn't work. It never has worked and it never will work.
The only thing that holds communist rule together is it is run by brutal, murdering dictators who rule through terror. When I saw a Marxist was writing today's ramblings, I was too disgusted to read the rants of an unbalanced moron.
The workers will rise up and make everything wonderful, a workers' paradise? Give me a break. This idiot can't give one example where communism works but history is replete with examples of where it doesn't work. This clown has never read a history book, obviously.
Be fair, Bari, and balanced. Have another disgusting writer tomorrow, a NAZI. But have him or her, proudly, give examples of how both systems are run by murders.
I have supported you on this BBS for over a year but I cannot support you on this one.
Polecat, all I can offer you is that the publication is called The Free Press, and that means publishing dissenting voices sometimes. 🤷🏻♂️ I’d rather support a publication like this than an echo chamber where my ideas aren’t challenged and I don’t get an opportunity to really think about how and why I believe what I believe.
Like the saying goes, if speech is silenced, how will I know who my enemies are?
Bill I have been a member for over a year and have vigorously supported free speech but I do not support tyranny or anyone who promotes tyranny and Marxism and Naziism are not just made up tyrannies. They are real and empirical evidence supports this. It is not just my opinion. It is reality and I don't think anyone can dispute this. History proves me right. As right as me saying, "The sun is coming up tomorrow."
I agree with you, but I don't think the FP is supporting Marxism here. DeBoer states that he's a Marxist and gives reasons that are childish and totally ignorant of history and human nature, but I thought his discussion of the excesses of the progressive movement was on point.
I don't want to stifle this idiot's speech. I don't want him censored but sure don't have to read this clown's ramblings.
If you read what I have said in the past on TFP. I am vehemently opposed censorship. I have said in the past. If you don't like something don't read it. be your own censor and that is what I am doing.
The crimes that the Marxists and the NAZIs have done are too horrific and in under no circumstance forgivable. So I won't tolerate them or anyone who supports them. You can but I won't and neither should any decent human being.
Marxism is an abomination just like Naziism and I won't tolerate. I believe in the old axiom, "I may not agree with you but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
I very much agree with you about the mountain of damning evidence against said ideologies. The irony of this piece though (at least from where I’m sitting) is that this author sounds much more in tune with modern day conservatives.
As another commenter brilliantly pointed out: if granted the revolution the author wished for, he’d likely be seen as a moderate and sent to the gulag.
There is a vast gulf between silencing someone - which I'm sure Polecat doesn't support - and giving aid and comfort to our enemies by publishing their moronic musings.
There is something to be said about granting them the rope to hand themselves with. I don’t see this piece converting anyone to his side anytime soon. His side is eating itself.
Although I do believe that Jake Tapper, who pretends to be a journalist, should interview RFK Jr. We must be ready to hear and evaluate all views. Tapper refuses, he says, to interview RFK due to his supposed anti-vax stance. If he actually interviewed the man, he would learn that he is not in fact anti-vax. But there's no curiosity there, no interest in rooting out the truth. Is not a good journalist ready to challenge an interviewee? CNN should fire the man.
LC--I don't agree with this guy (not many here will). But I was very interested in the ramifications of what he was saying:
The Left has lost logic. It has lost the good sense needed to convince ordinary people to support its goals. All it has left to use is force.
I hope it isn't successful at using force. So far, the force is primarily social. But the more people they cancel, the more enemies they make. That doesn't bode well for the Left.
Freddie’s Marxism is somewhat unconventional insomuch as he sees it as gradual and aspirational rather than gradual and inevitable. In other words, he wants to get there in steps approved over time democratically.
Lonesome, I forced myself to read through it and felt myself gagging. His idiocy and delusion are revolting, for sure. To quote Moon Unit Zappa: "Gag me with a spoon". What a moron he is.
I guess what the author fails to understand is that he probably would not be able to even publish his thoughts and opinions in Cuba or China. They control the media. China and Cuba banned Facebook and other social media. Communist governments do not want their people to even have a hint of what freedom is like. Also, communist Govt's control religion. In China, Christian's have to have underground churches. I believe that the Bible is illegal there. (Not that Communist's care about Christianity).
Bari Weiss’s one redeeming value is that she believes in free speech. This is why the majority of her readers are conservatives. But she is clueless. I regret being a paid subscriber. Anyone who doesn’t know that Marxism is evil is truly clueless and is ignorant regarding history.
I agree with you. But I also understand that there is a growing group of Americans who identify as Marxist. Ignoring that is of no avail. I think it is because it is intellectually lazy to identify as Marxist - you get to be part of the group and leave the thinking to others.
I see the criticisms of the article and as two-fold. First, the those-who-do-not-understand-history-are-bound-to- repeat-it thing. Intentions be damned. Which leads to the second. All-powerful central governments are inevitably just unwieldy bureaucracies. As such they are unaccountable to the populace they purport to serve and self-perpetuating. I see no fix for that. Thus I see such governments as incapable of fixing the ills that ail our populace. What will fix what ails us is innovation, creation of new technologies, adaptation to new circumstances. Those are human endeavors. They cannot be mandated, decreed, ordered or otherwise government controlled. I think anyone who cares to observe will recognize that current federal over-regulation has all but crippled the creation, adaptation and innovation we need desperately at this point.
I see the criticism of Ms. Weiss as objecting to her as left-leaning. But not just for being left-leaning but for providing a base of support for leftist idealogy. This I think strikes a nerve because TFP (and Common Sense before it) is marketed as being objective journalism. Arguably it is not. Apparently more than a few subscribers do not want their money used to support policies they believe are harmful to the nation and her citizens. As is their perogative.
Compro2.0 that’s an interesting point. Bari (and her wife) do have a history of canceling. That said – seeing what she’s doing now… Might it be that she has evolved?
I believe she has. People get second chances. And fourth and fifth chances. As a paid subscriber, I judge Bari Weiss by what she’s doing now: hosting a forum of uncensored speech.
Will she invite a Nazi up on the soapbox? I seriously doubt it, but if she does I would read it in order to see why she chose that writer.
In the case of this article today – I’m hearing that the Left is beginning to realize it’s gone too far. Of course it bothers me that this man supports utopian ideologies, and would like to break America as we know it. But I’d be a fool to stick my head in the sand and not listen to what my enemy was saying in the fox hole.
Nope. Not evolved. Went after Kyrie Irving for liking a tweet re: a movie.
Still goes after Alice Walker.
Still consistently goes after Arab/Palestinian academics & scholars.
Bari was quite outraged that ANYONE may of found her friend Joe Rogan's past "Nigger Show" episodes even the least bit tacky. Even though Rogan & Spotify mutually agreed, on their own, to take them down, Bari claimed the "woke mob" and "radical leftists" were trying to silence/cancel Rogan and his "Nigger Show" episodes, which is bad because we need to be able to have "tough conversations."
Now, what do you think Bari would say/do if a podcaster with Rogan's following, or ANY podcaster, were having "Kike Show" episodes, or "Hook-Nosed Hebe Hour?"
She would call them an anti-Semite and go after them. Period.
Bari is all for "Free Speech" and "Tough Conversations" as long as that speech and conversations are not directed toward Jewish/White people.
"We're in a war" - yeah, might want to tamp down the hysterical hyperbole.
However, in summation, the good news, Charlotte, is that the right hasn't gone too far AT ALL. Thank God for that!
The article is not about the author’s Marxism. He could have easily left out that fact and still made his point. Getting caught up in that detail and ignoring the much bigger point of the whole article is ... well, silly.
This a ridiculous take. You can’t even read a Marxist article? Get the fuck out of here. That’s stupid.
Your comment just betrays how closed minded, and incredibly arrogant you are. Yes, communism has issues and a horrible past. They should be pointed out and (oh the scandal) discussed, in the same way capitalism does.
Says who? Your diatribe is no different than his. You just can't handle someone who can't handle Marxism. And the distinction between (your perception ofcapitalism) having " issues and a horrible past" is that capitalism is an economic theory/mechanism of private ownership of production.
Marxism on the other hand is political theory that government owns everything so those "issues and horrible past" were government directed. IMO massive bureaucracies are particularly ill-suited to avoid unintended consequences.
I disagree. My "diatribe" is that it is worth taking in information from all sources. I just think it is ridiculous to throw away information based simply on the fact that they are a Marxist. That would be like me just saying I am not even going to read your comment, because I already know you are wrong.
I think your comments are valuable. They make me think about my position in a critical way.
Economic systems and political theory are entirely linked and relevant in this conversation. I do agree that bureaucracies lead to unintended consequences. I also think that is the case for the current corporatism, not capitalism that we have now.
I think we are largely in agreement as to policy. (I do draw a distinction between linked and wholly owned though.) My original point in my response to your comment was you took the same tone as the commenter you objected too. That is your prerogative and may or may not be effective as to the commenter. But it just sounds like a cat fight to other readers.
If there is a common thread between you and most of the conservative posters here, tell us what you think are the one, two, or three problems with America today.
"They should be pointed out and (oh the scandal) discussed, in the same way capitalism does." Please give me an example in modern times of capitalism slaughtering tens of millions of people like the communist do.
Except for the racist FDR incarcerating over two hundred thousand Japanese Americans without a trial, how is capitalism "horrible" compared to communism.
How about the great expansion into the west by the United States after the Civil War. This decimated entire tribes of Native Americans in the name of capitalism, democracy, and taming the west. This was largely driven by capitalism, and railroads.
How about the Military Industrial Complex? How about the fact that unbridled capitalism has morphed into a quasi-corporatism that create enormous corporate bureaucracy?
How about the fact that our current system has created 10 people with more wealth than the lower 50%. This is incredibly inefficient.
You have dodged my question. I said in modern times.
You went into the 19 century. Let me say this. You cannot judge the past my today's moral standards. What was moral then is not moral now.
Show me one country in the world that was not settled by invaders. Normandy, France got its name from the Nothern invaders, Vikings.
You sound like a socialist, cursing the wealthy. I don't begrudge the wealthy. Unless you are a parasite like the Kennedys and the Rockefellers who inherited their wealth, most people became wealthy through hard work. I know that "work" is a four letter word to the left. I don't cruse them. I applaud them. They have used their drive and talent to become wealthy. More power to them.
Now back to 20th century atrocities, what has the US done that compares to the evil of communism?
Communism is a criminal, totalitarian ideology, just like fascism. At this point in history, everybody realizes that it’s not Communism that “has issues” but the people who try to defend it.
Better yet, an article from someone who used to be in the Clinton inner-circle who will go public on the hypocrisy of this evil pair, who was in 2016 election night after-party uncovering exactly what happened.
Why is Bill afraid of her, and why she won't come out of her lesbian closet.
What they're about to do with money earmarked for Ukraine is another Clinton disgrace waiting to happen.
People contain multitudes. I think Freddy’s views about Marxism are naïve, but find him nonetheless to be a brilliant writer and thinker on a ton of other issues. If you can’t read past his opening paragraph that’s on you.
Lonesome, my position is if the writer had not identified himself as Marxist at the get go, then you might have found his views he elaborated on in the essay quite palatable. He's critical of the Left's methodology. But, as he himself explains in the essay, because of the tribal culture wars, once one is labelled, no one on the other side of the divide listens.
Wel, he did proudly identify himself as Marxist. If he had identified himself as the Grand Dragon of the KKK, I wonder how many of you would have listened to him and defensed him and castigated me?
Your example of an article written by a KKK Grand Dragon brought up memories of a CNN reporter interviewing a KKK member, which yielded some surprising revelations, as well as a TED talk of a while ago. All to say, if the writer self identified as KKK - I would have read it.
I follow what I preach. I will fight government censorship tooth and nail but I am my own censor. If I don't like something, I don't listen to it or read it.
You do realize that Wikipedia is written by the users not acedems. Here is a quote from the article:
"Marxist would conclude that capitalism exploits and oppresses the proletariat; therefore, capitalism will inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution. In a socialist society, private property—as the means of production—would be replaced by cooperative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits but on the criteria of satisfying human needs—that is, production for use. "
Sounds like communism to me. Marx was full of shit! He was an unrealistic boob.
He recently criticized congress-critter Occasional-Cortex for being (paraphrasing) "all hat and no cattle." Proggies got all over his ass for that. You do not criticize their idols. Even made the WSJ.
Aesthetic marxism is popular with people who want to irritate conservatives. Actual marxism is something a lot of current conservatives might appreciate on some level, provided “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is translated almost literally (we all work hard for our fair share of the benefits of a productive society), and the benefits of this arrangement to traditional family structures were emphasized. The popular misconception that its only about dishing out free stuff to the underserving is unfounded, but in some respects that’s kind of the difference between half-baked/half-assed democratic socialism as it would probably appear in this country and actual marxism, which would be an existential threat to the undeserving rich who benefit from the quasi-oligarchy we find ourselves in.
As the Orange Monster might say, "wrooooonnnngggg".
"Actual" Marxism is the exact opposite of conservativism in America. And it produces quite the opposite of your dreamy "all working hard for their fair share of the benefits". In the USSR many of the most brilliant people purposefully worked the lowest possible jobs (not working was not an option) so as to avoid giving their talents to a literally murderous state. (All Marxist states are murderous, and if you don’t agree please supply a counter example.) As the Soviet joke went, we pretend to work and the state pretends to pay us.
I've never once heard "fair share" Mena anything other than "I want more"
"From each according to his ability, to each according to their need" just ignores the fact that humans are lazy and selfish, which is why this doesn't work as a political system and never will.
Except you overlook that problematic little issue that it is the government, administered through its bureaucracy (Ugh!!!) that decides who has means, who has needs, and who does and gets what.
oh please............don't tell me you're another one of those who subscribes to the rantings of that silly old fart who couldn't even care for this own family.
“Undeserving rich” ( not that I qualify in my current economic state). If many of these undeserving rich had not existed, we would still be bashing each others brains out over the last scrap of rabbit meat. Innovation and invention are results of adversity and hard work . When you eliminate the rewards you eliminate the drive and desire. Would communism be a lovely Peter Pan scenario? Of course. And we should all fart rainbows and have manna from heaven rain down every day.
Exactly, Bill. Freddie's understanding of virtue is pretty orthodox. He just fails to appreciate that virtue is ultimately inimical to Marxism due to the inhuman coercion it inevitably requires to be effective.
In Freddie's new world of equality, who will call all the shots, live in the big houses, and make all the important decisions for the masses? Freddie will! A movement should fire every Marxist or leftist professor and replace them with a retired business leader or somewhat sane person. Only a place where one can't get fired produces the stupidity that comes from the "educated" mind.
In past Marxist paradises, the intelligentsia/academics were immediately dispatched to work in the fields (‘scuse the word). I think that would be good for Freddie, most tenured professors, and many members of the teacher’s unions for that matter. Do an honest day’s work for the glorious leaders!
Depends on which country you live in. Orwell was banned in Thailand in 2014, I've never seen a copy of Brave New World in a Thai bookstore. But I did see a copy of Lenin's Letters, misfiled in the fiction section. Or was it misfiled and did the clerk have a sense of humor?
I believe BLM founder, Patrisse Cullors, owns 4 mansions. Meanwhile, if you don't have a lot of money you might find that your neighborhood store has been burned down - making your life more difficult. Or, the store might just have closed because it couldn't stay in business due to the out-of-control shoplifting that is no longer considered a crime.
Millennial Woes just wrote a really good piece about "equality". If you haven't checked him out, I'd for sure recommend him. He's incredibly insightful:
Note the deep hypocrisy concerning the terms used. Maybe ignorant millennials don’t know it, but those who have lived through communism know that a Marxist enthusiastic for the revolution that will (forcibly, of course) confiscate the means of production is called a COMMUNIST. The name being too tarnished, Mr. DeBoer prefers to avoid it. Just like the so-called Democratic Socialists, who one moment talk about being like Denmark or Sweden (very much capitalistic countries, albeit with a strong social net), and the next moment they state that the “means of production should belong to the people”, which is the foundation of communism. Crooks playing on the ignorance and lazyness of the younger generations.
I am glad Ben said this so I did not have to. If you like Marxism that much, move to Venezuela or North Korea, where that pollical system is generating what it always has; economic devastation and dead people. But I am sure whoever wants it here will "get it right this time."
There seem to be so many Marxists desiring marxism in this Capitalist nation. I wonder how many Marxists embrace Marxism in Marxist countries. If it is utopian, why don't they just move there and live that good life? What is holding them back?
Yeah Ben, but you gotta admit, knowing his adapted essay would be pummelled by the capitalist (and anti Left) leaning FP readership here, he doesn't care what you think..
To be in a newsletter as widely read as TFP is a good opportunity for any writer.
I’m just curious why TFP has gotten so lefty over the past few months. I don’t mind it (as long as they’re still being honest), but that article they ran on 9/11 still pisses me off.
In an attempt to answer why there appears to be 'lefty' bias in many articles ( i see conservative leanings in many as well) - it may be to encourage a robust and dynamic debate in the comment section. If I was involved in the management of a publication like this, my mission would be to make this the antithesis of an echo chamber. I think that's what FP is trying to do.
Yes this article was really about what a far lefty thinks is wrong about the far left. I had a hard time reading it myself. They couldn't possibly have allowed it to be posted here without knowing what would happen in the comments section. They more or less know who is here most of the time.
I would generally agree with that sentiment, but Marxism has proven itself to be an ideology that always leads to mass poverty, mass death, and tyrannical, authoritarian government. To make the argument that "real" Marxism has never been tried is like saying that there can be a benevolent form of Fascism or National Socialism... it's just never been tried by the right people.
I realize my statement calling Mr. Deboer a fool or evil can sound extreme, but I believe that Marxism is an extreme, evil ideology that one either accepts out of pure maliciousness or out of naivety.
I will wait for an example where there has been a "Marxist revolution" that has resulted in a better society. I will wait a very long time.
A little late to the party, but totally agree. It was hard to take the writer seriously after the first few paragraphs - he said he yearns for the day the revolutionaries come into power...then redistribute the resources. If you've brushed up on your history (and your Orwell), you will know that if they ever come into power, they will hoard all the resources for themselves.
The strangest part for me is seeing how the left has been distorted into something that it never was before, and yet a majority of left leaning people just go along with it.
For instance, the left was against Iraq and Afghanistan right? And recognized the debacle that is the "war machine" of America. And yet the Ukrainian war is right and good?
Or freedom of speech is now bad?
Or big pharma is now a good guy?
It's weird seeing how people just go along with the narrative without questioning it. Muh team said it so it must be good!
I noticed in grad school that, despite the fact that "the establishment" in my field (English) had long-since been captured by the Far Left, every essay had the premise that "the establishment" was against the writer's ideas.
I think you've described it perfectly. They have literally defined themselves as being "against." Their first heroes were the anti-war hippies. It is a core aspect of their identity to be struggling against some injustice or other. If there isn't a real injustice handy, they'll invent an imaginary one.
Notice that this is why the Left is "anti-racist," but not in favor of actually doing anything to improve black people's lives. They have one-track minds--minds that chant "anti-this, anti-that, anti-more" all day.
one of the most ironic examples is the democrat attitude toward slavery.
It was ended in 1865 by force of arms and hundreds of thousands died to end it. In the wider view, the only civilization in the history of the world to actually end slavery, is Western Civilization. It exists right now, today, almost everywhere else in the world; yet instead of trying to help slavery to its demise, they continue to talk about something that died in America more than 8 generations ago.
De Boer said it right in the excerpt from his book: "...any revolution must be a permanent one...a perpetual revolutionary class must exist...constantly pressing for a more radical future, even after great victory."
Their whole scam only works when you've got the useful idiots feeling like moral heroes, they must have enemies - and lots of them.
A very thoughtful and well written piece with lots of practical suggestions to address the “oppression” of (insert the trendy villain here). What always seems to be missing in these discussions is a specific description of the what the desired end state looks like. Secondly, the shared characteristic of the people making these demands is that they seem to believe that the world began when they were born and everything they identify as “oppressions” have existed since humans began to live in large groups. If they bothered to look, even superficially, back in recorded history, they would see that the end state of these noble battles against “oppression” always ends the same - the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Iran are all perfect current examples. Put more simply: Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.
I think he described the desired end state pretty well. The problem is, it is disconnected from any feasible means of achievements, and indeed from the nature of humanity itself. Which is why "really existing socialism" is so horrible.
key words are "disconnected- from the nature of humanity the nature of humanity itself"! That is the problem! And perhaps why so many who embrace Marxism when they are young (and dumb) wake up as adults, after observing human nature -and how it manifests itself in actual Marxist counties. Orwell was 100% right!
He's selling a book. His motivation is strictly capitalist. Selling lots of books make him more money and gigs with the media translates into more possible book sales.
I'm glad to have read this, though. He may be calling out other Leftists, but he's doing so for the most capitalists of reasons: to make money.
I probably don’t agree with him on much of anything, but he’s probably writing the book to get the message out. In academia, it’s publish or perish and always has been.
I doubt the sales of this book are going to make him particularly wealthy, and he may not keep the money. If he’s a good Marxist, he will find a probably donate to a good cause.
No desired end state. There never is with leftists:
"I still yearn for revolution, but I now recognize that any revolution must be a permanent one, in the sense meant by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels—that a perpetual revolutionary class must exist, remaining independent from the political machinery of its day and constantly pressing for a more radical future, even after great victory. This is the only way to truly secure the best good for the most people. We must see political success as an ever-receding horizon."
My comment at the time when AOC contributed to the loss of the Amazon HQ deal in NYC, is that she didn’t want her constituents to lose the excuse for not working.
All I see from the activist left is the desire of something for nothing.
Like Gender identity is fluid but we must operate on the children to entrench a cosmetic look. Social Constructs require Big Pharma. Men are women, Women are Men and Men can have babies. Remember the Monty Python skit?
"The 'Right' to Have Babies - Monty Python's 'The Life of Brian'"
Pity the poor right wingers, who have to change direction every time you do!
(I hear Kavanaugh is a hero these days. I haven’t had time to read the story yet, but I saw the headline.)
The problem, in my opinion, is people treating politics like a religion and feeling like they have to die on every hill. There is a world outside of political discourse, go find it and live in it!
I don't think the average individual can spot a narrative when they see one. Narratives are very powerful and actually make up an individual's reality -- so asking someone to question a narrative is asking them to question their very existence and reality... and that's where the cognitive dissonance sets in:
No. The democrat party was overwhelmingly in favor of Iraq and Afghanistan and has always - always - been overwhelmingly in favor of the war machine.
From the Mexican War in 1846 and the Civil War when they fought to the death to keep their slaves, right up to Desert Storm, every single American war was started and waged by the democrat party, and they voted in gigantic numbers for Reagan's incursions, Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. Note how as soon as the left regained power in 2008 they destroyed Libya and Syria and did their best to disrupt other countries with Arab Spring. They're destroying Ukraine today.
The culture of the left in America has always - always - been informed and infused by the raw racism of Jim Crow and it still is. Only the target has changed; note the openly racist policies and laws the left has enacted in multiple states since 2021.
The left is using the same censorship tactics to defend abortion and castration today that it used to defend slavery in Lincoln's day. Anyone can read his early speeches and find that was a point which he spent considerable time attacking. The left has always advocated for censorship; see Woodrow Wilson, see FDR, see the Gores, see their attacks on Taibbi.
The democratic party != the left. And, your facts, including your very first statement, are proveably wrong. Let's take a look at the public record on votes for the Iraq war resolution in the house:
215 (96.4%) of 223 Republican Representatives voted for the resolution.
81 (39.2%) of 208 Democratic Representatives voted for the resolution.
6 (<2.7%) of 223 Republican Representatives voted against the resolution: Reps.
How in the world are you equating the word "overwhelmingly" to mean < 40%? Especially given how strongly the case for going into Iraq was made by Cheney and Bush... equating patriotism itself (in the wake of 9/11) with voting for this resolution.
It's also well known that the Democratic party has morphed in ideology over the past 150 years... there was a distinct difference between southern democrats and northern democrats. And, during the 1960s, when northern democrats were working to pass the Civil Rights Act, it was the southern democrats who attempted to filabuster, including Strom Thurmond, who would switch parties because of the democractic support for civil rights. This would precipitate a larger exodus of former southern democrats to the GOP, bringing with them an intense opposition to civil rights, desegregation and other trappings of former slave owning white southerners, also morphing the republican party in the process.
I've seen all of the talking points you've written used as meme fodder on right wing Twitter / Facebook. Like any good fiction, it has elements of the truth, but on closer inspection, it falls apart, as yet more culture war fuel. Try reading a variety of history books, in order to get a broader picture of these topics.
As someone who has always been of the progressive bent, I'm definitely not a big D democrat, though I often vote for the democratic candidate. I also don't subscribe to full on Marxism, and feel like those who do are falling for yet another form of populism. I enjoy having discussions with conservatives and liberals, and at the end of the day, I find that my guts says that the "truth" (whatever that is) lies somewhere in the intersection between those ideologies. I certainly used to blindly vilify the right, and adore the left... as I've gotten older I've realized that the world is more complicated... it isn't black and white. Creating a cartoon version of the other side is easy... actually engaging and trying to understand is hard, hence most people don't do it.
The Senate is what matters in foreign policy as you know.
Republican 48 1
Democratic 29 21
The Democrat party hasn't morphed in ideology. There was a movement 1964-1974 by the democrat party to abandon democrat policy and embrace the republican policy which had remained the same since 1860 and which remains the republican policy today. But that movement was dead before Carter was elected, and it remains dead. Biden and now Newsom are openly stating they will select candidates based purely on their race. You can't become more racist than by openly violating the laws against using race in hiring practices.
I don't use social media so I'll have to take your word for it that these points are popular; but they are popular because they are correct.
edit - i missed the part about the South in 1968. More BS.
The South remained solidly democrat for 25 years. democrats did not become republicans. It was Gingrich's Contract with America that broke the stranglehold the democrats had on those states, the Southern economy promptly soared, and Southern states continue to outperform while democrat states collapse and citizens flee.
While the senate might matter more for foreign policy, the house generally provides a clearer picture of the unwashed political will of the constituency. Given that an overwhelming majority of house democrats voted against the Iraq war, and also considering that likely most, if not all of the anti-war protesters of the time were lefties, I'm struggling to see how your argument that lefties are pro war holds any water whatsoever. Yes, there are unfortunately lots of career democrats who cozy up to industry, especially in the Senate. They thrive on feeding the industrial war machine. And, virtually all of the republicans in congress have their hands in the pockets of the same industry. This is all why a chunk of the left vote either independent (think Ralph Nader) or counter to party leadership (think Bernie).
The GOP has most definitely not remained the same since 1860. Please read your history... here are some starting points:
What's especially interesting is how the GOP was at one point attached to the ideals of progressive reform, including regulation of industry. If you look at the history of American political parties, including the Whigs, Democrats, Republicans, etc, you can see that it's all much more complicated than some static definition that stays fixed for hundreds of years. At different points in time, the Republicans were the party of liberal progressive reform, and the Democrats were the party of states rights, nationalism and patriotism.
The south remained solidly democrat between the 60s and 90s, not because of white southerners, but because of black southerners switching to the democratic party. Conservative white southern democrats broadly started switching to the republican party beginning in the 1960s, but the change in power was not reflected by the polls immediately. Much of the power shift was also demonstrated by the shift of southern white evangelicals as a voting block, driven by the rise of the religious right in the 80s and 90s. Before this time, conservative southern white evangelicals were predominantly democrats, since before the Civil War.
What Biden and Newsom (and others) are doing is slightly more nuanced than just "select[ing] candidates based purely on their race." On the surface, this does seem awful... but if you actually dig into the specifics, it's just not that simple. e.g. Newsom just named a black woman as an interim replacement for Feinstein, which he explicitly named as one of his selection criteria. This wasn't the only criteria, by a long shot, but it's the one that gets headlines. Affirmative action is controversial, and it can sometimes result in bad choices. But it is also a corrective action based on what can be seen as a historical, baked in preference for choosing (essentially) white men for position of power. This country basically had affirmative action for white males working as the defacto standard since its founding... even in cases where a non white male would potentially be more qualified, in practice (which you can see based on statistics), it didn't work out that way. In my own personal opinion, this kind of this needs to be treated carefully... i.e. ensure that quality and merit are still top qualifiers, while also acknowledging that historical practice has resulted in false meritocracy... and that perhaps questions of fairness, balance, and representation of distinct viewpoints must also be part of the overall equation.
the democrat party has always advocated for war. Always. the record is abundantly clear. mexican war; civil war; spanish american war; wwi; wwii; korea; vietnam; supported desert storm; supported iraq, afghanistan, libya, syria, arab spring, ukraine.
the so-called unwashed ? at the time, bush ii was polling over 70% nationwide in favor of war.
The platform of the GOP has stayed consistent from 1870 to 2020. peace and prosperity, strong borders, small government. It's never changed, through wars and epidemics and depressions and booms. The platforms are available for online reading. wikipedia is perfectly laughable.
trying to shift the conversation about the Southern polity into a conversation about race is perfectly typical.
Again, I don't understand your numbers. If we look at Desert Storm as an example, we see the following (from public records mind you):
- In the Senate, only 10 (18%) democrats supported the authorization, while 42 out of 50 republicans supported it. In the House, 86 of 267 democrats supported it, while 164 out of 167 republicans voted for it. btw, Bernie Sanders was the sole independent who voted against it.
- This was a war predominantly pushed onto the American public by Bush senior, a staunch republican, Ronald Reagan's former VP.
If we look at the 2nd gulf war, as well as the incursion into Afghanistan, these were all efforts primarily pushed onto the public in the fervor and confusion following 9/11. A lot of democratic senators jumped onto this in order to show solidarity with the republican majorities who were following in lock step behind a popular republican president who was gunning for war.
Shifting back to WWI, the largest pro war support was driven not by democrats, but by eastern conservative republicans. Anti war sentiment was driven by middle class midwesterners and leftist pro labor progressives.
Republicans were initially opposed to intervention in WW2, but after Pearl Harbor, they changed their tune. When Ike (a strong republican) came to power in '52, he was driven by a strong current of inverventionism within the republican party platform (look it up... you can find all of of the convention party platforms online, and the 1952 convention had a very pro war bent, even if it included the phrase "waging peace".)
So, I'm again confused by your statement that the democratic party has always advocated for war. If you count 10-30% as strong advocation, then I guess...
As per the race and affirmative action topic, I was simply responding to your strange deflection in your first reply, going off on a tangent about Biden and Newsom. It didn't really make any sense to me why you had to bring those topics up, but I was simply responding to your points there.
The left hasn’t been a friend to working people in a very, very long time. The NAFTA debate hosted by Larry King between Al Gore and Ross Perot in the ‘90s was the point at which that became impossible to ignore. Supersmart Al Gore explained to us plebes that offshoring our manufacturing sector would make us all rich. Well it certainly made some people rich. I’m not so sure about middle Americans, though.
I’m not sure I understand your comparison of Ukraine to Afghanistan?
Am I crazy or is one in the Middle East and was retaliation for 9/11, and the other is about not allowing an autocratic dictator to invade a sovereign country that is the main buffer between NATO and said dictator? It’s easy to just say, “war bad” but these are very different situations.
Well, yes, except against Russia, we were supporting Afghanistan, and after 9/11 we were taking out their government. In the second case, Russia was not a factor.
I’m not sure you can call it a proxy war if we change sides. It’s more like two different conflicts.
If you have never read Charlie Wilson's War you should. There is a movie but the book.is eye-opening in terms of American politics. And as for the Ukraine invasion, read the Budapest Memorandum signed by the US, UK, Russia and Ukraine in 1994. It is remarkably straightforward, 3 pages long.
Agree with much here, but I will say that the 'left' logic of Ukraine vs. Iraq is pretty straightforward- it is based on opposition to one country invading another, e.g. opposition to the US invading Afghanistan or Iraq, or opposition to Russia invading Ukraine. The continual conflation of these things doesn't really make sense to me personally. A true parallel would be if the US invaded Russia in order to topple the Kremlin, destroy all the terroristic warlords, and install a new democratic leader.
I’m sorry did I miss something? Isn’t the right going along with everything Trump says? They haven’t wavered even with 91 indictments! I liked this article and I am a lefty. Well center left ! OK try to define that.
So Freddie declares, "I would still love to see a Marxist revolution. You know, an international movement of workers rising up and taking control of political and economic systems, and distributing resources and labor based on need". That would be quite an upheaval, so I assume, Freddie, that you have some historic examples of Marxist revolutions actually leading to greater economic and social freedom for the masses? Would that be the Soviet Marxism, Cuban Marxism, Cambodian Marxism, North Korean Marxism, Venezuelan Marxism, or any one of the Marxist revolutions that have slaughtered and impoverished hundreds of millions over the past century? Like a crackpot who still believes that mercury can cure disease, Marxist medicine has been given to patients dozens of times, and the patient died every time. But, hey, let's give it another shot! I'm afraid that Freddie is another example of the the delusional mental illness that is taking over the human race.
In the US, a plumber can leave his employer and go out on his own. He can build that business to employ 100 people and both provide plumbing services and sell supplies. Do the Marxists consider that "rising up"?
That's how an ordinary plumber becomes the Oppressive Man.
Don't ever build a successful business, people, because success creates inequality and all of morality is defined by inequality and nothing else! Success is by definition morally wrong.
I jest, but Marxist revolutionaries are genuinely that stupid, and it's why whenever their revolutions work, they have no clue how to successfully run anything and they fail every time.
And then when your plumbing business that you built with sweat and labor and worry and time away from your family and home succeeds and you are wealthy and comfortable they will accuse you of greed and profiteering and lining your pockets.
Yes - and who would lead this revolution? Would there not still be a hierarchy of rulers? And would greed and corruption not prevail as it always has in the past?
Elites love this movement! As long as we're all bickering about pronouns and defunding the police, we're not talking about wars, money printing, corrupt institutions, corrupt politicians, exploitative corporations or anything else that really matters.
But gosh golly we'll get everyone's pronouns right!
The “elites“ have been distracting the public from class issues for a very long time – – as chronicled by Christopher Lash over the decades. Whether race, one war or the other, even environmentalism in some ways, all eat up the oxygen while middle class wages go downhill and “working class” becomes a dirty word. Freddie has made a good start, but really only begun to dig out from the propaganda and sloganeering that impassions young people and old manipulators “marinating” in groupthink.
I think there is some merit yo your position. However it is my understanding that the class divide does not play well in the US. Thus the pivot to -isms.
Indeed. But the pivot has totally different objectives. Through the 60’s and even during the Reagan administration there was at least lip service to a working wage for a working man. All this race and climate change stuff distracts from the terrible unregulated work practices of the service industry— part time, unpredictable schedules (can’t change jobs or easily hold down two jobs or plan child care), no benefits, no overtime.
Actually, the climate agenda is a barely concealed war on the working class (and to a lesser extent, the middle class). More expensive, less reliable energy will affect the lives of poor people more than the affluent. Brendan O’Neill has been hammering home that point for years.
Yes. Started with Europeans as a trade restriction. Talking with vague terms like “climate” is easier than meeting fuel economy standards and actually cleaning up your urban air pollution and drinking water (which most people favor). But our elites ran with the idiocy.
I don't like Trump personally. Liked his policies but the one very important thing he did was expose the corrupt executive branch bureaucracy. I had no idea it was that bad. The FBI was the last part of it I trusted besides the military and now I barely trust the military. To find out the FBI was so corrupt was a big blow for me. I guess a little part of me is still an idealist.
The elites are playing with fire. The fire of the peasants with torches who will come to take away their toys. "Eat the rich" should chill them but they're too vain and stupid to understand that. The photo in the essay of the two white women "taking the knee" is proof positive of that.
I would argue the TRUE social justice movement was more about class: think the 99% vs 1% of the Occupy Wall St days not that long ago. But I do agree the Elite are responsible for turning the movement into what it is today. And I theorize it was an intentional divide-and-conquer strategy to neutralize the threat, because 99% is a helluva lot bigger than 1%, after all.
Reparations are a way to punish working-class white people, while the elites are essentially unaffected. If you own a large stock portfolio, inflation doesn't really matter, you have the ultimate hedge. And you're paying a bit of capital gains tax at a low rate instead of income tax at a high rate.
It mainly affects people who are living paycheck to paycheck. It's just class warfare dressed up as social justice.
Where does it start? Affirmative action started in the 1960s, and affects not only university admissions, but more importantly, government contracting worth billions of dollars.
When does it stop? Never, because you can never change the past; you can only move on.
Yeah. That’s something I still have yet to stomach. It’s a nice thought to try and right historical wrongs, but I have yet to be truly convinced it’s actually achievable.
There was an article (on TFP I think?) about an example of reparations in a small Illinois town that sounded like it was doing good for some people, and that’s awesome, but I don’t see that system functioning at scale ever.
I guess what I’m getting at is that at its most base level, reparations sounds like a morally good idea worth pursuing. 🤷🏻♂️ In no way do I endorse how that plays out in the real world though.
Let's see, here's a concept that pins an opprobrious, defamatory label on living people, based on the past misdeeds of dead people who they claim to be "one of their kind", and uses it as justification for imposing disabilities and costs on those same living people. Where have we seen this pattern before? And you think that's "a morally good idea that's worth pursuing"? I say it's racist in its very essence.
Bro, chill. lol At its most base level it’s about paying back lost wages. Seen through that lens, I can understand why people are passionate about it. After all, I am a human being, therefore I can empathize with others of my species.
In no way am I defending whatever political, legal, and ethical nightmare this actually is. I’m just saying, I get where some of them are coming from. The ones not supporting the idea just for a free paycheck.
Where am I? Oh, a few more thousand to go before it’s paid off...
Ah, you mean what is my opinion on the issue? It was nice while the payment pause lasted the past few years, but the bill comes due.
Even if you’re 18 when you excitedly sign on the dotted line, it is a contract and it should be honored, barring extreme circumstances. Hopefully you studied engineering or computer science to make paying it back easier.
I am wa-a-a-a y down the road from that. From an era where it was practical to pay off. My husband and I sacrificed and paid for our two offspring, too. I commend your honor your contract position.
I didn’t stop taking the whole thing seriously, but reparations are such a bad idea. Forget the morality and just look at the practicalities - do you have to prove your ancestor was a black slave in America to get reparations, or do you just have to be black? Does the percentage of someone’s black ancestry matter? Are white people supposed to pay for these reparations even if their ancestors arrived in the US as destitute Irish immigrants in 1890? (For example.) I’m directly descended from a Union soldier. Do I get a monetary reward?
Amazon and other corporations made mine for me. Kendi has collected some too. I am okay with formal reparations from the financial institutions of the Northeast to actual descendants of slavery.
"You’d go out to the BLM protests, feel the energy, hear the slogans, see the righteous rage, and feel like something had to give." - Oh, it did, and the people running the organization "took" when it was given to the tune of millions of dollars - because AGAIN - human nature. It continues to amaze me that that folks on the left are surprised by this.
The "2020 moment" was engineered by the intelligence community to get rid of Trump. A color revolution but at home. It didn't fail, it did what it was meant to do. The idiots were no longer useful at that point, so of course the "movement" went away.
At least we should note that the timing of the riots was, ummmmmm “interesting” -- especially the abrupt end at a very convenient moment for the election.
I read a post not long ago that stated Cuba was a good example.
I immediately thought that its working out so well Cuban citizens strap innertubes together and launch themselves aimlessly out to sea on the regular. We should probably get this implemented right away.
Anyone who believes that hasn't been to Cuba. I went there in 2018 and Havana looks like the set of a post-apocalyptic sci fi movie. Our tour guides were constantly in fear of being overheard saying the wrong thing by government monitors.
It is also instructive to point out that although they have government health care, and universal education, that their lives fall below the standard of living which they hope to aspire to. Hence, the innertubes!
Show me one government agency that is run efficiently and on budget.
We did have one. It was the Panama Canal Company, owned by the US Government. The Dems couldn't stand that a government agency actually showed a profit so they got rid of it.
Many things can be true at once. Marxist revolutions and full on communism can generally be considered bad things, because ultimately they simply shift injustice rather than end it, and perpetuate a new ruling class pretending to be "the people". However, in the case of Cuba, another huge source of economic strife has been the decades long US embargo of the island nation, which has both been ineffective at ending communist rule, as well as being very effective at stripping trillions of dollars of worth from the Cuban economy. That is to say, this wasn't an experiment in a vacuum, so it's hard to draw strict economic performance numbers without also taking into account the embargo.
It worked in Israel for the first 19 years of its existence. It didn't involve a revolution, but it did involve communal living and sharing of resources. Israel was built by idealistic volunteers who took a leap of faith and did backbreaking work for the benefit of their communities.
The fledgling Israeli society was SOCIALIST in its roots, not Marxist. And yes, that is how they started out, but not how they are functioning today. In other words, they outgrew their socialist leanings, for the most part, for a more market-based economy. That said, I cannot think of any government that does not have a bit of "socialist" programs. Medicare and social security come immediately to mind, both of which I am now enjoying in retirement. There is no true "free market" economy in the world today.
Yes, and I didn't articulate my point - these socialist/communist societies can work temporarily, and only with voluntary commitment from its members. They cannot work when they're imposed on people unwilling to part with their own property.
Progressives will continue to eat their own in the name of equity and virtue. Its part of the DNA of victim based group think and one-upsmanship. The speed and violence of their appetites will continue to increase to its own bitter end. That can't come soon enough IMHO.
Love it, …. The speed and violence of their appetites ……
Yes, even liberals will be eaten alive. They just don’t know it yet. But they will, and when they do, they will look at conservatives and ask: why didn’t you tell me ?
I actually think Marxism and "social justice" (at least in any modern interpretation) are fundamentally incompatible. Social justice is about wealth redistribution based on some characteristic (or declared characteristic), best summed up as "from each according to ability, to each according to skin color and pronouns".
The incentive structure of true Marxism is collectivist; that is someone will put in work for the good of society. The incentive structure of social justice is entirely characteristic-based; if you don't have the "marginalized" characteristic, your work is unequally given to those with the characteristic, and those with the characteristic are incentivized to demand labor from those without the characteristic (which ironically was also the essential principle of slavery).
Yes it is redistribution, but I disagree they're the same. In fact, social justice goes out of it way to eschew the class angle. Reparations won't affect the wealthy; if you have a large stock portfolio you already have a huge inflation hedge and taxes don't effect your quality of life. The destruction of the public school system doesn't effect you if you're sending your kids to Choate and Andover. DEI hiring doesn't effect you if you already have a degree, resume, and stable job -- although it might screw over your kids.
People who are already wealthy aren't effected by social justice. It mainly is a way to screw over the white working class living paycheck to paycheck -- who were the majority in the US up until about 2000, and are now the new minority, and therefore the easiest punching bag.
US is 61.6% non-Hispanic white (down from ~90% in 1960; and probably an overestimate given the 250k+ illegal entries per month). Current labor force participation rate is 62.6%. If we assume that affects all demographics equally, that means about 36-37% of the US population is non-Hispanic white and has a job. Of course, many of the non-working are retired but still would be considered "working class". We can applaud demographic change, lament demographic change, or simply accept demographic change, but shouldn't ignore it.
I disagree. The wealthy can and are affected by social programs. Start with Social Security. After tax dollars contributed to pool controlled by socialists, who promised never to tax it, now tax most of it, giving a meager return below the CPI, and if I die the day after I start collecting, 40-50 years of contribution evaporates.
It entirely depends on your idea of wealthy. Middle and upper middle class wealth doesn't count. Those don't affect structural wealth one iota. The wealthy, and by that I mean the truly wealthy, those that control most of the money in the world, are completely unaffected by party or any cultural movement. Their wealth is cemented in, and the wealth structure never changes. Nothing underneath them matters. They simply move their money to where the money is. They invented the game, and they control the game. All the fighting goes on underneath them, and they are unaffected. Even when they are affected, as in the 2008 crash and when Trump bankrupted himself, they bail themselves and each other out to protect that structure. To truly change the world, the entire economic system that the world is predicated on must collapse or radically change; otherwise, nothing meaningful ever, ever happens. We're too scared to take that on.
I hear what you're saying, but socialism can still endanger everyone's wealth.
For instance, some Democrats want to tax unrealized capital appreciation. If that ever happens, they'll determine the market value...and the tax rate.
Socialism at it's core is taking from those who have and redistributing to those who have not. It starts small and if not stopped, we know where it ends.
They go where the money is, and eventually there is no escaping them. They will hunt down the ultra wealthy.
They have built a message that wealth is evil, wealthy do not pay their fair share, half of wage earners in America pay nothing. These are dangerous times.
I think you still miss the point about wealth, the 85 or so people/families who control it all. The socialism I know- UK and European- doesn't really endanger everyone's wealth. Their system sort of works like ours, just not to the same degree. There is a tiered system of money-making similar to capitalism. They have professionals and entrepreneurs and people who own large businesses and are quite wealthy. They are taxed at a 45% rate and receive a bit more services than we do. I'm not a proponent of socialism but capitalism needs an overhaul as well. Perhaps combine best practices to make capitalism not so extreme (corrupted pyramid system) and socialism less autonomic. The ultra-wealthy rarely suffer, and when they do, there is always one or two sacrificial lambs to save and perpetuate the rest. These are transformational times, which can be very dangerous, yes.
The social justice movement is the inevitable result of socialist thinking. Many other commenters have pointed out the problem with determining who “has ability” and who is “in need”. Identity politics presents a fairly simple method for making that determination.
Of course, because the whole philosophy is irrational, they are running into the next problem, as Mr DeBoer identified- correctly identifying and ranking those who fall on the “need” side of the proposition.
And (again) where has “true” Marxism ever been practised? The party elite always take the benefits that they claimed would benefit the collective. Human nature.
The basic premise of the article is good, calling out the nonsense when you see it, even if it is on your side.. The rest is BS. If you've ever been involved in sales, a church, a civic organization, or essentially any group of people, you know 80% of the results come from the efforts of 20% of the people. It's called the Pareto Principle. This is why Marxism doesn't work. Too few contributors, too many takers.
I’m as far from a Marxist as it gets. so no agreement on ideology. But, the bulk of what he’s saying? That’s called…common sense. Nice to see at least some far lefters have it.
As objectionable as his ideology is, the real point of this essay is that the Left has lost the ability to use logic and common sense. And that is, surprisingly, encouraging for the rest of us.
Agree. On the LGBTQ++++ issue alone I keep waiting for the LGBs to wish the T++++s well and split off. Their causes are not the same. It is insanity that lesbians are being called transphobic if they don't want to have sex with people with penises and white gay dads aren't allowed to participate in their school board causes because they aren't extra enough these days. Actually the black community might want to part ways with the Ts as well. Nothing against the Ts but they need to do their own thing and stop hijacking everyone else. I think it is setting back groups that have fought hard to get where they are. But as you seem to be saying, maybe this is the silver lining?
The T's have to stay with the rest. On their own, they would not have the same support. Cloaking themselves in all of those other letters make it harder for people to be against them, because currently if you are against T's, you are against a bunch of other people...even if you actually aren't.
Stating the obvious and offering more ways to continue the culture wars is not common sense. It’s actually capitalist. He writes a book to capitalize on his contrariness by pointing out an obvious he believes most don’t see). He offers no way out of the problem nor does he illustrate a system that will actually work. I wonder how he will use his profits?
"pointing out an obvious he believes most don’t see." -- That most LEFTISTS don't see. I had the thought while reading this piece that he's kinda preaching to the choir with this audience, and where it really needs to be published is in the New York Times, Washington Post, etc.
No need to disparage Bari here. It would be nice to see the follow-up article by a Conservative making the case for conserving core American freedoms and highlighting we really aren't the devils in the room. Freddie takes the crazy edge off the progressive movement, but in no way articulates how Marxist has ever or will ever work. And he continues the myth that Conservatives are a problem, vs. an alternative (and better) idea for solving society's problems. Problem with progressives is they can't take a win and move on. They have to find some other obscure "oppression" and drive it into the ground. They need to acknowledge they (progressives) are the major source of division and Marxism is not the answer.
Much as I disagree with Freddie, I actually found this article very interesting, because he shows--with abundant examples--that the Left is not only immune to logic, they are now incapable of using it as a rhetorical tool. The only thing they have left is force.
I thought the essay was interesting as well. But because the writer self identified as Marxist, a lot of what he says gets tossed out, as being shown by comments on this thread. A good example of labels obscuring the message.
There is a need to disparage Bari because publishing drivel by idiots is not worth our precious time. What's next, extolling a toddler examining the content of her diapers as "art?"
I do not think he acquitted himself well at all. He espouses to divide the spoils according to "needs". He never explains who gets to decide who "needs" what, how much and from whom does he take it. This is why his argument will never succeed. Once the "elites" discover that its them that pay, they will change their minds.
I don’t think the point of his article was to argue for Marxism (though I’d love a follow up with more detail - do they ever bother to think through the actual operational reality of their politics?) Anyway, I think the point was to show how woke politics achieves little by way of policy change because it’s too divisive. Which makes me wonder if the so-called “elites” are actually more clever than they get credit for.
I think the writer mentioned his Marxism in order to press the point that he is as far Left as possible and yet is still critical of so-called Progressives.
Extensive definitions would make the article unwieldy. What do I mean when I say “individual rights” or “liberty “? It’s a form of shorthand that communicates an idea.
I do agree that “all good things to everyone”, ignoring second level effects is no way to run a railroad.
Swooning for nonsense that's been disproven beyond peradventure is hardly "acquitting himself well." The man is a fool. I don't want to silence him. He's free to stand on a street corner shouting into the wind like any other garden variety lunatic. I just don't have the time or inclination to stop and listen.
That Marxism hasn’t worked historically is beyond argument Bruce. That doesn’t mean that all collectivist arguments will disappear from the public sphere. As we’re going to continue to wrangle with these ideas it’s useful that we hone our rhetorical skills on someone like Freddie who expresses his thoughts respectfully and intelligently.
Well if you want to have even a vague understanding of the lunatics running this country you need to absorb a certain amount of drivel written or spoken by idiots. That’s why I listen to NPR (plus it’s hilarious). I found this article quite entertaining - a delusional Marxist lunatic attempting to talk sense to his fellow Leftist nutters who have basically left the planet. He almost sounds sensible at times by contrast (when he’s not arguing for Marxist revolution). That’s how crazy the Left is now.
Hahaha I understand completely. I find it quite amusing but there's a certain amount of masochism to listening to their utterly unwavering slavish devotion to Narrative.
Conservative ideas are not a fair and even balance to a Marxist revolutionary.
To balance this out we need an article from a far-right white nationalist explaining the virtues of his position.
Anything less is following in the deceit of mainstream propaganda, where "far right" is an ever present terrifying threat, but "far left" is a phrase never used at all because no "left" is too "left" even when explicitly calling to overthrow the country.
Despite the legions of lefties thinking that "white nationalists" are hiding under every bed. Which the Senile Imbecile brays idiotically about on a daily basis.
People of color who become successful have to double down on the neverending racism narrative in order to avoid being accused of "acting white" by their peers. Also to avoid being called racist names by elitist Woke white people.
I mean if this was something that was supposed to be a left-leaning piece in an effort to balance TFP between left/right, they could have done worse. This guy is a self-proclaimed Marxist, but the principles he lays out seem more...conservative.
Stop being a victim, use common sense, be a team player, play smarter not harder? Sounds like a Republican to me. lol
"I’m not a professor, but I’ll always be an academic. I grew up in an academic household, I have a PhD, and I read academic publications regularly. I’ll always be an academic at heart. I’m not a professor, but I’ll always be an academic. I grew up in an academic household, I have a PhD, and I read academic publications regularly. I’ll always be an academic at heart. ""
And right here is the problem! An academic who does not live in the real world, and who repeatedly fuels his belief system with the thoughts of other academic elites! Ask him where his financial support comes from, and I am willing to bet that it is NOT from getting his own hands dirty with real work and real world concerns. Lenin and Stalin were correct when they eliminated "intellectuals" from their cadre. They are worthless!
No worries, some day the Plumbers of the country will have so much control over the elite. All it takes is one stopped-up toilet in the house of Marxism to prove the concepts bogus.
I may have my history incorrect but wasn’t it Haiti that eliminated all their elites and look what happened there. I think we’ve lost our ability to look at others and see their shared humanity.. the line of good and evil runs through every human being and we would be better people if we recognized our own propensity to do great harm and great good.
But therein lies the rub with Marxism and elites. Both assume the individual is incapable of doing so. Thus the elites and/or the government must do so.
Thank you, Free Press for putting this piece before us. If any of us had any sympathy at all for Marxist ideas before reading this, those ideas should be gone now. I especially liked the part where he exposes virtue signaling. No, wait, the Brits are paying taxes for free health care but we wouldn’t have to - that was fun too. Full. Blown. Stupidity.
I lurk on Mumsnet, a forum chiefly populated by British women. So many stories about people with serious health problems waiting months and months to get crucial treatment through the NHS.
Thank the LORD nobody is coming to save you. Just how many centuries of failed Marxism/Socialism will you guys need to observe until you accept the well-known fact that "everybody's equal" is just pure bullshit. Capitalism is the only business model you need to look at. How about the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Thank the LORD the founders were well grounded in all aspects of government, and chose a republic based on capitalism.
Somewhat tangential: the current "anti-racist" movement in industry basically ends up being a way to punish young/new white people (especially white men) looking to get into the job market, good schools, internships, etc, while doing very little to those who already have degrees/resumes/employment, and very little to prevent or disrupt generational wealth from "elites". It just prevents any sort of upward mobility. At no point do I see any advocates for DEI talking about how it disproportionately affects new job seekers, it's all merely about the numbers evening out. When 94% of new jobs are going to non-white, when management internships at places like Best Buy specifically stipulate "non-white", you're not fighting privilege, you're just creating privilege -- an 18-year-old white guy from a poor family has the least privilege of all, *de jure*, because of these quota systems. If your perspective is, "sure, let's punish white guys now because their ancestors had privilege" then fine -- but it is *revenge* being sought, not equity, and that revenge is being wrought disproportionately on the young and on the working class, for their audacity to be born with the white skin after the year 2000.
Meanwhile, the Schuabs, the de Rothschilds, the Clintons, the Kennedys, the Trumps, the Bushes... they all keep their wealth going for many generations to come as they pivot to virtue signalling about how "anti-racist" they are.
They don't even pretend it's not about revenge - "it's our turn now". It will all come back around to bite them in the ass eventually, probably with a brutal wave of racist backlash.
Yes, there will be some backlash. Which is why they have passed new online censorship bills in the last few months both in the UK and EU, why they're proposing a new podcast law in Canada, why the US military is working so hard to push white people out and their main threat model is domestic terrorism, etc. Mostly by accident of the internet, people have stopped gathering or discussing topics in public, or forming any sort of organizations that way, and now we have the technology to prevent or mitigate organizations digitally. Any sort of backlash will be contained and quickly dealt with. It won't "bite anyone in the ass". They've anticipated resentment towards these measures (as well as towards population/demographic change which is happening quickly across the whole Western world) and have put measures into place to deal with that resentment.
FWIW, though, in studies European-Americans tend to have the lowest in-group bias by far; in fact they have negative in-group bias on average (oikophobia -- the opposite of xenophobia). The majority do not have a problem with it, and are in fact cheering it on, as appears to be the case with our author Freddie deBoer here. Any sort of backlash -- whether that be explicitly racist/white supremacist (which I'd say is a quite bad thing), or a more practical approach looking for a return to colorblindness/meritocracy -- will be from a small and dwindling minority with extremely little institutional power.
Exactly. This is what I predict, as well. Their short-sightedness will have unintended consequences as the majority of the population tires of this nonsense. We're already seeing it happen.
Agree with everything except lumping the Kennedys in with all the rest. They may be wealthy, but to my knowledge they have not jumped on the anti-racist, virtue-signalling bandwagon.
Sir, if you are a Marxist and you wish to see a Marxist revolution, you are either evil or a fool.
The death toll from Marxism is over 100 million, the greatest cause of death the world has ever known.
Without addressing that fundamental truth this is all a distraction based on an imagined utopia.
I believe malaria is the greatest cause of death ever known...
Actually malaria is quite utilitarian. Who said the greatest good for the greatest number has to only be about humans. Think of all the good created for all the mosquitoes and malarial parasites when an infected mosquito bites a human. Mosquito and parasite lives matter!
Comparing Marxists to parasites is very apt.
Revolutionary Marxists, are deadly parasites. The author is blind to the outcomes for every Marxist revolution: totalitarian disaster. It is in Marxist revolutionary DNA to become totalitarian no matter the iteration of Marxism followed. The author is another fool who believes he has the vision of the first Marxist revolution to result in utopia. Freddy deBoer helped paved the way for the woke left's rise to totalitarian power. It's too late for him to have regrets - that tyranny ship has sailed.
But TFP loves how Freddy deBoer, writes!
Mosquito Lives Matter?
To deny that would be speciesist! ;)
Great post.
🤣 Thanks for the laugh this morning.
😂😂
PLEASE, Sir! Linking mosquitos and malaria to the evils of Marxism is a serious affront to all mosquitos, and I must protest!!
😂😂😂
Yeah, and that was a leftist idea. Ban DDT, and save lives. Look how that worked.
Kurt may have meant, the greatest cause of human death by other humans. Though I don't really agree with this either... per capita, the greatest cause of human death by other humans has to be the warlord system (or whatever you call it) of violent conquering/subjugation.
True. Stalin and Mao were two of history’s greatest warlords.
Along with Pol Pot, no slouch in the genocide department.
Yes, I did mean death by human hands.
The Black Book of Communism cites the 100 million number.
Malaria is still killing 500k a year around the globe and surely has a higher aggregate death toll.
As far as the warlord system,isn’t there overlap due to the ‘violent conquering/subjugation’ method. Those revolutions were not at the ballot box.
Mosquitos can't really learn and we don't expect them to. They are 100% survival-instinct creatures.
We expect humans to learn and control their unhealthy or destructive instincts and behaviors. If I'm kind, I'll just say that Mr. Deboer is either hugely ignorant or has horribly misunderstood Marxist ideology.
It is easy to worship Marx and Engels’s utopia from a position of a well-to-do American intellectual who was raised in a safe and cushioned environment in a family who never knew a threat to their lives or hunger. I was a refugee from a communist country, and this article makes my blood boil. Totally ignoring history lessons is malevolent and evil.
The death toll from Christianity is even bigger than that. Shall we despise all who identify as christians because of that? Or aren't we better off judging all individuals individually according to their own deeds?
I equally know marxists and christians who are amongst the finest human beings I've ever met. And I also consider Stalin's orgy of violent murder, the killing fields of Cambodia and the crusades, the witch hunts and other crimes committed by marxists and christians in the name of their ideology/god some of the most appalling crimes in human history. And yes, both can go side by side...
The death toll from living is 100%
It's literally worse than declaring you are a Nazi. These people have no shame.
No, you don't understand Freddie. They'll get it right this time!
“I’m a Marxist… I would still love to see a Marxist revolution. You know, an international movement of workers rising up and taking control of political and economic systems, and distributing resources and labor based on need, while organized under the principle of shared ownership of the productive apparatus of society”.
Here’s an idea for Mr. Deboer, start your own business with fellow Marxists. If it’s successful, I’ll stop by for my shared ownership and cut of distributed resources. Since the chance of any Marxist successfully creating anything of value is zero, I won’t hold my breath. Instead, I say we demand that loudmouth celebrities like Natalie Merchant, Cher, Mark Ruffalo, and most notably Barack Obama, who have benefitted enormously from our capitalist system, put their money where their collective mouths are and “spread the wealth”.
Don't forget free ice cream at Ben and Jerry's
"...an international movement of workers rising up and taking control of political and economic systems, and distributing resources and labor based on need, while organized under the principle of shared ownership of the productive apparatus of society."
_________
The workers rise up and take control to distribute resources. Then, the "distributors" become the new elite and, viola, we have a new class-based society replacing the old one. Winners: the new elite. Losers: the same old workers. Evidence? Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, N. Korea,...the list goes on. So, where is utopia in all this? Please explain.
“The chances of a Marxist creating anything of value are zero”
That’s a pretty broad statement. I thought the article was interesting and this person is a self described Marxist. Is there no value there?
There is entertainment value. There is value in learning how naive these people really are. What struck me especially was the lament near the end of the essay, that the BLM riots of 2020 had fizzled out BECAUSE PEOPLE DIDN'T FIGHT HARD ENOUGH. Hello, Freddie, have you seen news of massive misappropriation of funds by a handful of leaders? Maybe set foot into the enemy camp and watch Candace Owens' The Greatest Lie Ever Sold on Daily Wire.
For starters, I’m waiting for The Free Press exposé on the implosion of Ibram Kendi’s racist anti-racism center at Boston University.
Second, BLM riots of 2020 ended to support the presidential election. I’m guessing 2024 will be a Wild West show.
Kendi’s sh*t show is not convenient and TFP is vying for space in the MSM, from what I’ve been witnessing. Even Nellie ‘s TGIF’s posts are being edited by not one but two of her colleagues. They are ruining what was special about TGIF. So we get lame I’m a Marxist and I’m ok….
Yes, let's read a FP about Henry Rogers and how BU imploded over him. Remember when we instinctively knew not to trust people with aliases?
The Left has achieved a lot in this country - a lot of destruction.
Financial destruction with the mis-managed economy, open borders, and with property theft considered a mere misdemenor - so that no one goes after criminals or prosecutes them when they are caught. Car theft is sky high. Stores are closing because thieves walk in and fill bags in broad daylight with no one trying to stop them.
Also, minds and bodies are destroyed with Gender Ideology - an outgrowth of the post-modern queer theory Left.
It is just that the "moderate lefties" are no longer needed. We live in a Brave New World.
Let's form a coalition to get our world back. Hint, this will not come from the Left.
What world would you like to get back, and what would it look like to you? I agree with you in part--the refusal to arrest and charge shoplifters and other petty tyrants is insane--and I don't want children to undergo gender transformation surgery and puberty blockers.
But illegal immigration was high under many conservative presidents, not only liberals, and some of the worst financial destruction of our country happened under conservatives: the Great Depression, the savings and loan collapse, the banking system and mortgage bond collapse, the automakers' collapse, and the massive tax cuts for the rich under Bush and Trump that took money out of the pockets of the middle class and showered it on the rich and corporate.
So what world would the non-left bring back that you would like?
Freddie will reply CANDICE WHO?
Freddie respectfully engages his ideological opponents all the time. The fact that you don’t know this says something though.
There is no value there. Marxism killed 100 million people in the 20th century. If the author wants to try it, move to Russia. I’ll pay for the one way ticket.
Russia is no longer communist.
True, because it was a colossal failure.
Which tells you all you need to know about communism.
Then a ticket to Cuba, it’s cheaper too.
But they adore Stalin.
#Metoo!
😂
That's a fair point. The chances of a Marxist using Marxism to create anything of value are zero. This article, while written by a Marxist, was created, distributed, and read using tools created by capitalism. And Marxists can create value within a capitalist system.
Yeah, I agree with this. My post had nothing to do with supporting communism. I reject the premise that there is nothing to be learned or taken from that system that is useful.
I agree, Ava. I’m a true conservative of longstanding, favoring free markets and traditional Judeo-Christian social mores, even sexual ones. Yet I have long admired Freddie for his honesty, thoughtfulness, and willingness to engage in respectful discourse with his ideological opponents. Quite the opposite of the current woke Left.
Hi Mike, I think if you knew me a little better you may think I'm part of the "woke left" and we are engaging...
Well, that would be refreshing.
I agree. DeBoer himself regularly creates value.
(Only on non-Marxist-related topics, to be sure. His politic is a congenital defect, and courteous people will look away when possible.)
Ava after reading most of your posts on TFP, I’m beginning to realize this place here is not for you.
The Free Press is a forum for respectful exchanges of ideas. It seems pretty obvious that Ava fits in much better than you.
Really? I wish I could say I knew who the you were, but that would require that I gave a fuck about anything you thought... weird.
Oops Ava clearly I’ve touched a nerve.
I give to you, as clear and solid evidence that Timothy's statement is accurate; the Trabant. https://youtu.be/No1-4GsQa-g?si=nLqCcgy5Jvc3xkJ_
In all fairness, they did make the AK and the RPG, to name a couple things, and they've managed to avoid ruining Cuban cigars.
Or dropping a nuclear bomb.
They would have liked to do so, if they would have got their hands on them before the Americans. If they did, no smart newsletter for you.
Although Cuban cigars post-Castro can be magnificent, the quality is regrettably uneven.
When Mark Ruffalo agrees to be paid the same as the extras on the set of a movie then I'll buy into his commitment towards social justice. Until then, he really should just enjoy his lucrative career and stop with the nonsense.
Adam Smith was a Moral Philosopher first. This is what led him to define Capitalism as the system providing the most benefit to man (or do I have to say all 63 sexes/genders?) But, now we have a system of Corporatism - a coalition of Government, Education, Pharma/Tech and Media working against us. Smith likely had something to say about that sort of thing.
Freddie's 'coalition' brings to mind the bar scene in the first Star Wars movie.
I had to set the Marxist bullshit aside, and when I did, I really enjoyed the rest of his points. Pretty much working-class Liberalism, like Liberalism was before the Wokeatollahs got their sneering hands on the machinery of media.
I was a labor leader for a time, and believe me when I say I did not want to own the newspaper as part of that role. I preferred letting capital be capital and labor be labor, never the twain shall meet. They are the flip sides of the regulated-capitalism coin that has served us so well--albeit with serious hiccups that requires eternal vigilance--over the years.
A lot of "progressive" money was donated to BLM, and they have a ton of nice real estate that I am sure they would share with the Marxist comrades at Marxist, Inc.! No?? Huummmmm......
That’s the funny thing about Marxists, once they come into money, they act like capitalists
One of the largest profit machines this country has ever produced, Timothy, can arguably now be called socialist, with strains of Marxism within - and that is the NFL. Total shared ownership between owners, players - with everybody literally raking in millions by evenly dividing up the billions of dollars of yearly revenue.
Looks pretty successful to me.
I thought the NFL was a slavery system? So said Kapernick.
Mr. Kaepernick was ahead of his time perhaps...
Players do not share profits evenly. The superstars are paid more than 3rd stringers. Meritocracy rules again. Even if they share revenue, salaries differ.
Yes, salaries differ. A QB might get 5 mil, a running back or a guard 1 million - but where else does the low worker on the totem pole get that kind of dough?
But the vast wage disparity seen in most corporations between owners/management and workers (20 to 50x) doesn’t exist in the NFL. Revenues are shared between owners, players, coaches and personnel to a much higher degree than equivalent echelons in other industries.
Didn't the running backs want to break away and form their own union because they're getting screwed?
Still a capitalist system. They provide a product that people like and pay for. If revenue sharing between participants is the norm, that is still vastly different than the government owning the team, and distributing the profits to people not associated with the NFL. As does happen in Marxism.
Your definition of "worker" is way too narrow. You aren't considering assistant coaches, trainers, scouts, facility employees, etc. This is no different than any other capitalist profit sharing organization where high contributors can lobby to keep their own surplus, but commodity wage labor is still present and very necessary. Law firms come to mind.
Possible only with exemptions from anti-trust laws
True enough. But the ‘socialist’ model works - when there’s more than enough money to go around.
And even if another league were to pop up - salaries would stay elevated as one league would try to outbid the other for players.
🤣🤣🤣great post!
Didn't the working class truckers revolt against the tyranny of the Trudeau elites? How did that work out? Marxism is contradictory to human nature, unless you condition the subjects to accept their fate. There will always be inequality in life. In the end, some idiots always crave power and corruption for their own purposes and want to rule the roost. Plus Marxism destroys the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit that has made America what it is today. Even the faux-Marxists like Patrice Cullors and Ibraim X Kendi realize the benefits of a capitalist society.
Timothy, seems Mr. Deboer’s beliefs are, “the work of a Marxist” is to find & join a group, stuff envelopes, make & hold signs on the side of highways, etc., etc., oh, and of course, teach this in college & universities, while the rest of us work hard to feed our families & pay our bills.
But, yes, ideally, wouldn’t it be just wonderful to live in a society where the wealth is distributed evenly to everyone? No reward? No punishment? Please explain how this utopia works — in reality.
“Mitch McConnell voted for some of the spending so the debt is actually your fault.”
The perfidy of these adolescent retards knows no bounds.
I understand that "retard" is a trigger word for many now..."adolescent" however can still be used :)
The sad thing is that he enjoys being a contrarian, and will relish the pushback here. I used to subscribe to him, but disliked the fact I was paying to read an awful lot of the reader's articles he likes to publish. So I said so and he told me to f*ck off, so I did.
Believe them when they demonstrate who they are.
I let my subscription lapse (I had signed up at the annual rate) after he insulted a subscriber in the comments over a piece on the aesthetics of public housing. His Twitter-asshole shtick gets wearying.
Yeh, the author of a substack column should not attack subscribers.
That can only happen on Twitter by Elon Musk.
Good for you.
It’s a free country.
Kind of. And not for long if this joker gets his way.
Was he paid for this? What did he do with the money? And how much does he make? Under his desired rules these things become my business. An absurd notion to be sure
I’m not buying his book, that’s for sure.
Maybe just to burn it.
Exactly. We haven’t managed to get it after trying for more than 100 years, but I’m sure it’s possible. Just over the glorious horizon.
Rob Henderson did an excellent piece on movements and their goals in his substack this summer.
The fact is guys like this get sacrificed by the oligarchs they help put in power.
Typical delusional academic. We really need to hear more from those.
As I said in a comment further down:
“This guy is a self-proclaimed Marxist, but the principles he lays out seem more...conservative.
Stop being a victim, use common sense, be a team player, play smarter not harder? Sounds like a Republican to me. lol”
Bari, this has to be a joke, a poor one, right? If you have a Marxist writing in TFP, when are you going to have a NAZI? In the 20th century the communist slaughtered more people, by a huge margin, than Hitler did.
If you have a NAZI post here you subscribers would justifiably be outraged. Well you had a Marxist and I am justifiably outraged.
A Marxist! Give me strength!
Anyone who is a communist is an idiot, a dangerous one, but still an idiot who has no grasp of history. Communism doesn't work. It never has worked and it never will work.
The only thing that holds communist rule together is it is run by brutal, murdering dictators who rule through terror. When I saw a Marxist was writing today's ramblings, I was too disgusted to read the rants of an unbalanced moron.
The workers will rise up and make everything wonderful, a workers' paradise? Give me a break. This idiot can't give one example where communism works but history is replete with examples of where it doesn't work. This clown has never read a history book, obviously.
Be fair, Bari, and balanced. Have another disgusting writer tomorrow, a NAZI. But have him or her, proudly, give examples of how both systems are run by murders.
I have supported you on this BBS for over a year but I cannot support you on this one.
All I feel is disgust.
Polecat, all I can offer you is that the publication is called The Free Press, and that means publishing dissenting voices sometimes. 🤷🏻♂️ I’d rather support a publication like this than an echo chamber where my ideas aren’t challenged and I don’t get an opportunity to really think about how and why I believe what I believe.
Like the saying goes, if speech is silenced, how will I know who my enemies are?
Bill I have been a member for over a year and have vigorously supported free speech but I do not support tyranny or anyone who promotes tyranny and Marxism and Naziism are not just made up tyrannies. They are real and empirical evidence supports this. It is not just my opinion. It is reality and I don't think anyone can dispute this. History proves me right. As right as me saying, "The sun is coming up tomorrow."
I agree with you, but I don't think the FP is supporting Marxism here. DeBoer states that he's a Marxist and gives reasons that are childish and totally ignorant of history and human nature, but I thought his discussion of the excesses of the progressive movement was on point.
What next to show how liberal you are by posting the rantings of a man who support mass murder? What next indeed and essay by Charley Manson?
Just reading the justifications written hurt my head. Why subject thyself to this nonsense.
PS,
I don't want to stifle this idiot's speech. I don't want him censored but sure don't have to read this clown's ramblings.
If you read what I have said in the past on TFP. I am vehemently opposed censorship. I have said in the past. If you don't like something don't read it. be your own censor and that is what I am doing.
The crimes that the Marxists and the NAZIs have done are too horrific and in under no circumstance forgivable. So I won't tolerate them or anyone who supports them. You can but I won't and neither should any decent human being.
Marxism is an abomination just like Naziism and I won't tolerate. I believe in the old axiom, "I may not agree with you but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
And why I pose the question what the Freddie's would do if they had the power
I very much agree with you about the mountain of damning evidence against said ideologies. The irony of this piece though (at least from where I’m sitting) is that this author sounds much more in tune with modern day conservatives.
As another commenter brilliantly pointed out: if granted the revolution the author wished for, he’d likely be seen as a moderate and sent to the gulag.
Funny thing is you’re correct. The first thing the Soviets did upon gaining control of a country
is kill the locals that made it possible.
Most likely put up against a wall and shot!
Read my PS.
There is a vast gulf between silencing someone - which I'm sure Polecat doesn't support - and giving aid and comfort to our enemies by publishing their moronic musings.
There is something to be said about granting them the rope to hand themselves with. I don’t see this piece converting anyone to his side anytime soon. His side is eating itself.
Is that the same rope Lenin spoke about?
They have since the great Menshevik chew and swallow.
Although I do believe that Jake Tapper, who pretends to be a journalist, should interview RFK Jr. We must be ready to hear and evaluate all views. Tapper refuses, he says, to interview RFK due to his supposed anti-vax stance. If he actually interviewed the man, he would learn that he is not in fact anti-vax. But there's no curiosity there, no interest in rooting out the truth. Is not a good journalist ready to challenge an interviewee? CNN should fire the man.
The Dem fix is in. Tapper is just following orders.
LC--I don't agree with this guy (not many here will). But I was very interested in the ramifications of what he was saying:
The Left has lost logic. It has lost the good sense needed to convince ordinary people to support its goals. All it has left to use is force.
I hope it isn't successful at using force. So far, the force is primarily social. But the more people they cancel, the more enemies they make. That doesn't bode well for the Left.
I like knowing that.
I know that I was being narrow minded but I just can't bring myself to read a disgusting Marxist rant.
I get that. It was not an easy read. But this essay is really about what is wrong with the Left. The guy's Marxism is mostly noise.
Good point Celia... I got about half way through, then bailed. It became mindless babble-noise.
Hopefully so
Freddie’s Marxism is somewhat unconventional insomuch as he sees it as gradual and aspirational rather than gradual and inevitable. In other words, he wants to get there in steps approved over time democratically.
Lonesome, I forced myself to read through it and felt myself gagging. His idiocy and delusion are revolting, for sure. To quote Moon Unit Zappa: "Gag me with a spoon". What a moron he is.
I am on a train so it helps.
I guess what the author fails to understand is that he probably would not be able to even publish his thoughts and opinions in Cuba or China. They control the media. China and Cuba banned Facebook and other social media. Communist governments do not want their people to even have a hint of what freedom is like. Also, communist Govt's control religion. In China, Christian's have to have underground churches. I believe that the Bible is illegal there. (Not that Communist's care about Christianity).
You nailed it!
C’mon, this time the Marxist will get it right. You know, they care about the planet and stuff.
What I like about TFP is that they don't censor us when we don't like an article they posted.
Bari Weiss’s one redeeming value is that she believes in free speech. This is why the majority of her readers are conservatives. But she is clueless. I regret being a paid subscriber. Anyone who doesn’t know that Marxism is evil is truly clueless and is ignorant regarding history.
I agree with you. But I also understand that there is a growing group of Americans who identify as Marxist. Ignoring that is of no avail. I think it is because it is intellectually lazy to identify as Marxist - you get to be part of the group and leave the thinking to others.
I see the criticisms of the article and as two-fold. First, the those-who-do-not-understand-history-are-bound-to- repeat-it thing. Intentions be damned. Which leads to the second. All-powerful central governments are inevitably just unwieldy bureaucracies. As such they are unaccountable to the populace they purport to serve and self-perpetuating. I see no fix for that. Thus I see such governments as incapable of fixing the ills that ail our populace. What will fix what ails us is innovation, creation of new technologies, adaptation to new circumstances. Those are human endeavors. They cannot be mandated, decreed, ordered or otherwise government controlled. I think anyone who cares to observe will recognize that current federal over-regulation has all but crippled the creation, adaptation and innovation we need desperately at this point.
I see the criticism of Ms. Weiss as objecting to her as left-leaning. But not just for being left-leaning but for providing a base of support for leftist idealogy. This I think strikes a nerve because TFP (and Common Sense before it) is marketed as being objective journalism. Arguably it is not. Apparently more than a few subscribers do not want their money used to support policies they believe are harmful to the nation and her citizens. As is their perogative.
Actually, Bari has a long history of trying to cancel people, going back to her days at Columbia.
Compro2.0 that’s an interesting point. Bari (and her wife) do have a history of canceling. That said – seeing what she’s doing now… Might it be that she has evolved?
I believe she has. People get second chances. And fourth and fifth chances. As a paid subscriber, I judge Bari Weiss by what she’s doing now: hosting a forum of uncensored speech.
Will she invite a Nazi up on the soapbox? I seriously doubt it, but if she does I would read it in order to see why she chose that writer.
In the case of this article today – I’m hearing that the Left is beginning to realize it’s gone too far. Of course it bothers me that this man supports utopian ideologies, and would like to break America as we know it. But I’d be a fool to stick my head in the sand and not listen to what my enemy was saying in the fox hole.
Folks we’re in a war. Be smart! Be educated.
666
Communism is not utopia.
Nope. Not evolved. Went after Kyrie Irving for liking a tweet re: a movie.
Still goes after Alice Walker.
Still consistently goes after Arab/Palestinian academics & scholars.
Bari was quite outraged that ANYONE may of found her friend Joe Rogan's past "Nigger Show" episodes even the least bit tacky. Even though Rogan & Spotify mutually agreed, on their own, to take them down, Bari claimed the "woke mob" and "radical leftists" were trying to silence/cancel Rogan and his "Nigger Show" episodes, which is bad because we need to be able to have "tough conversations."
Now, what do you think Bari would say/do if a podcaster with Rogan's following, or ANY podcaster, were having "Kike Show" episodes, or "Hook-Nosed Hebe Hour?"
She would call them an anti-Semite and go after them. Period.
Bari is all for "Free Speech" and "Tough Conversations" as long as that speech and conversations are not directed toward Jewish/White people.
"We're in a war" - yeah, might want to tamp down the hysterical hyperbole.
However, in summation, the good news, Charlotte, is that the right hasn't gone too far AT ALL. Thank God for that!
666
666
666
Not interested in your Satanic appeals.
I agree. When is she going to have a NAZI write an article?
The article is not about the author’s Marxism. He could have easily left out that fact and still made his point. Getting caught up in that detail and ignoring the much bigger point of the whole article is ... well, silly.
I have a visceral disgust for communist and I just can't get past it.
This a ridiculous take. You can’t even read a Marxist article? Get the fuck out of here. That’s stupid.
Your comment just betrays how closed minded, and incredibly arrogant you are. Yes, communism has issues and a horrible past. They should be pointed out and (oh the scandal) discussed, in the same way capitalism does.
Says who? Your diatribe is no different than his. You just can't handle someone who can't handle Marxism. And the distinction between (your perception ofcapitalism) having " issues and a horrible past" is that capitalism is an economic theory/mechanism of private ownership of production.
Marxism on the other hand is political theory that government owns everything so those "issues and horrible past" were government directed. IMO massive bureaucracies are particularly ill-suited to avoid unintended consequences.
Edited to correct the damn autocorrect.
I disagree. My "diatribe" is that it is worth taking in information from all sources. I just think it is ridiculous to throw away information based simply on the fact that they are a Marxist. That would be like me just saying I am not even going to read your comment, because I already know you are wrong.
I think your comments are valuable. They make me think about my position in a critical way.
Economic systems and political theory are entirely linked and relevant in this conversation. I do agree that bureaucracies lead to unintended consequences. I also think that is the case for the current corporatism, not capitalism that we have now.
I think we are largely in agreement as to policy. (I do draw a distinction between linked and wholly owned though.) My original point in my response to your comment was you took the same tone as the commenter you objected too. That is your prerogative and may or may not be effective as to the commenter. But it just sounds like a cat fight to other readers.
If there is a common thread between you and most of the conservative posters here, tell us what you think are the one, two, or three problems with America today.
I want everyone in the Comments section to stay.
Yeah, I want them to stay too... it was more of a "get the fuck out of here" like that's ridiculous.
"They should be pointed out and (oh the scandal) discussed, in the same way capitalism does." Please give me an example in modern times of capitalism slaughtering tens of millions of people like the communist do.
Except for the racist FDR incarcerating over two hundred thousand Japanese Americans without a trial, how is capitalism "horrible" compared to communism.
How about the great expansion into the west by the United States after the Civil War. This decimated entire tribes of Native Americans in the name of capitalism, democracy, and taming the west. This was largely driven by capitalism, and railroads.
How about the Military Industrial Complex? How about the fact that unbridled capitalism has morphed into a quasi-corporatism that create enormous corporate bureaucracy?
How about the fact that our current system has created 10 people with more wealth than the lower 50%. This is incredibly inefficient.
You have dodged my question. I said in modern times.
You went into the 19 century. Let me say this. You cannot judge the past my today's moral standards. What was moral then is not moral now.
Show me one country in the world that was not settled by invaders. Normandy, France got its name from the Nothern invaders, Vikings.
You sound like a socialist, cursing the wealthy. I don't begrudge the wealthy. Unless you are a parasite like the Kennedys and the Rockefellers who inherited their wealth, most people became wealthy through hard work. I know that "work" is a four letter word to the left. I don't cruse them. I applaud them. They have used their drive and talent to become wealthy. More power to them.
Now back to 20th century atrocities, what has the US done that compares to the evil of communism?
Thank you for your kind words.
Communism is a criminal, totalitarian ideology, just like fascism. At this point in history, everybody realizes that it’s not Communism that “has issues” but the people who try to defend it.
PS
I would rather you have an article written by Bill and Hillary Clinton on how they support feminism than have this disgusting Marxist rant.
Better yet, an article from someone who used to be in the Clinton inner-circle who will go public on the hypocrisy of this evil pair, who was in 2016 election night after-party uncovering exactly what happened.
Why is Bill afraid of her, and why she won't come out of her lesbian closet.
What they're about to do with money earmarked for Ukraine is another Clinton disgrace waiting to happen.
"Better yet, an article from someone who used to be in the Clinton inner-circle"
That is a death sentence.
People contain multitudes. I think Freddy’s views about Marxism are naïve, but find him nonetheless to be a brilliant writer and thinker on a ton of other issues. If you can’t read past his opening paragraph that’s on you.
Lonesome, my position is if the writer had not identified himself as Marxist at the get go, then you might have found his views he elaborated on in the essay quite palatable. He's critical of the Left's methodology. But, as he himself explains in the essay, because of the tribal culture wars, once one is labelled, no one on the other side of the divide listens.
Happens on both sides..
Wel, he did proudly identify himself as Marxist. If he had identified himself as the Grand Dragon of the KKK, I wonder how many of you would have listened to him and defensed him and castigated me?
Your example of an article written by a KKK Grand Dragon brought up memories of a CNN reporter interviewing a KKK member, which yielded some surprising revelations, as well as a TED talk of a while ago. All to say, if the writer self identified as KKK - I would have read it.
www.ted.com/talks/daryl_davis_why_i_as_a_black_man_attend_kkk_rallies?language=en
I follow what I preach. I will fight government censorship tooth and nail but I am my own censor. If I don't like something, I don't listen to it or read it.
I don't understand why people curse me for it.
Maybe Ava and her pals can explain that to me.
Agree re the cursing you out. That was an overreaction and totally unnecessary.
I guess if it's a real Nazi you want, you'll have to consult M. Trudeau.
spot on!
I second the fair and balanced part.
This is a far-left extremist revolutionary devoted to an ideology that has always been at war with the USA.
Fair and balanced means having a far right extremist write an article.
I do not want to see that either.
No it doesn't. I distain extremism of any kind.
That’s ridiculous. Marxism doesn’t equal communism and it’s communism that has blood on its hands.
So Marx and Engels aren't the fathers of communism?
Merriam Webster:
Marxism-Leninism
noun
Marx·ism-Le·nin·ism ˈmärk-ˌsi-zəm-ˈle-nə-ˌni-zəm
: a theory and practice of communism developed by Lenin from doctrines of Marx
Maybe you should do a bit more homework? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism
You do realize that Wikipedia is written by the users not acedems. Here is a quote from the article:
"Marxist would conclude that capitalism exploits and oppresses the proletariat; therefore, capitalism will inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution. In a socialist society, private property—as the means of production—would be replaced by cooperative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits but on the criteria of satisfying human needs—that is, production for use. "
Sounds like communism to me. Marx was full of shit! He was an unrealistic boob.
Well said. Giving this loon a platform is a mistake. Even the softened version purported on this post is irrelevant to me. Makes no sense.
The Marxism aside, the article. was a standard high school civics lesson. "ism's" are dead.
I think he’s what revolutionary Marxists truly despise: a moderate.
If there were to be a Marxist revolution, he would be sent to the gulag or executed within a few years of them taking power.
He recently criticized congress-critter Occasional-Cortex for being (paraphrasing) "all hat and no cattle." Proggies got all over his ass for that. You do not criticize their idols. Even made the WSJ.
"Occasional-Cortex." Brilliant.
I can't take credit. That is from years ago, when she first became a thing. Foxy Trotsky. She Guerva. Others more crude (Pol Tw*t) etc.
Did you see how Byron Daniels (R-FL) exposed AOC for using those fake/altered Biden texts messages?
Let me know when they face off in a no-holds-barred cage match. Until then, I don't get two fucks about either of them.
Shame. Was really interesting.
Maybe he’s a Marxist-masochist and that’s what he’s counting on?
Well said. He’s a fool waiting to be taken.
Aesthetic marxism is popular with people who want to irritate conservatives. Actual marxism is something a lot of current conservatives might appreciate on some level, provided “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is translated almost literally (we all work hard for our fair share of the benefits of a productive society), and the benefits of this arrangement to traditional family structures were emphasized. The popular misconception that its only about dishing out free stuff to the underserving is unfounded, but in some respects that’s kind of the difference between half-baked/half-assed democratic socialism as it would probably appear in this country and actual marxism, which would be an existential threat to the undeserving rich who benefit from the quasi-oligarchy we find ourselves in.
As the Orange Monster might say, "wrooooonnnngggg".
"Actual" Marxism is the exact opposite of conservativism in America. And it produces quite the opposite of your dreamy "all working hard for their fair share of the benefits". In the USSR many of the most brilliant people purposefully worked the lowest possible jobs (not working was not an option) so as to avoid giving their talents to a literally murderous state. (All Marxist states are murderous, and if you don’t agree please supply a counter example.) As the Soviet joke went, we pretend to work and the state pretends to pay us.
Good grief.
No intelligent conservative supports either Marxism or Nazism.
You forgot fascism. Gotta add that one.
Marxism Nazism and fascism are the same thing.
Ah...the "Plantation economy/slave trade was aKshuaLLy Communism" contingent has spoken.
No, they are not the same thing.
That is why they have different names and political constructions/ideologies.
I've never once heard "fair share" Mena anything other than "I want more"
"From each according to his ability, to each according to their need" just ignores the fact that humans are lazy and selfish, which is why this doesn't work as a political system and never will.
Except you overlook that problematic little issue that it is the government, administered through its bureaucracy (Ugh!!!) that decides who has means, who has needs, and who does and gets what.
oh please............don't tell me you're another one of those who subscribes to the rantings of that silly old fart who couldn't even care for this own family.
It is an existential threat to all of us. We all work hard for our fair share never happens. It is a lie.
I’ve always liked the term
“Undeserving rich” ( not that I qualify in my current economic state). If many of these undeserving rich had not existed, we would still be bashing each others brains out over the last scrap of rabbit meat. Innovation and invention are results of adversity and hard work . When you eliminate the rewards you eliminate the drive and desire. Would communism be a lovely Peter Pan scenario? Of course. And we should all fart rainbows and have manna from heaven rain down every day.
Stopped clock?
As long as it isn’t using military time......
They're not even right once a day.
Exactly, Bill. Freddie's understanding of virtue is pretty orthodox. He just fails to appreciate that virtue is ultimately inimical to Marxism due to the inhuman coercion it inevitably requires to be effective.
Sounds American too me.
In Freddie's new world of equality, who will call all the shots, live in the big houses, and make all the important decisions for the masses? Freddie will! A movement should fire every Marxist or leftist professor and replace them with a retired business leader or somewhat sane person. Only a place where one can't get fired produces the stupidity that comes from the "educated" mind.
Freddie doesn’t realize that he will be one of the first people blindfolded at the wall.
That's what Lenin did.
"When I am King, you will be first against the wall"
Great song - over 25 years old, but still holds up. This live version is outstanding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzPtr_n-m8A
In past Marxist paradises, the intelligentsia/academics were immediately dispatched to work in the fields (‘scuse the word). I think that would be good for Freddie, most tenured professors, and many members of the teacher’s unions for that matter. Do an honest day’s work for the glorious leaders!
Perhaps Animal Farm was on the list of banned books when he was in school.
Animal Farm is a masterpiece and should be mandatory reading for all commy nitwits
And I often wonder if it is assigned reading today as it was back in the day . Same for 1984 and brave new world
Depends on which country you live in. Orwell was banned in Thailand in 2014, I've never seen a copy of Brave New World in a Thai bookstore. But I did see a copy of Lenin's Letters, misfiled in the fiction section. Or was it misfiled and did the clerk have a sense of humor?
A great summary of a socialist revolution in an Aesop-like microcosm.
Nah, they all think they'll be Napoleon and not Boxer.
I believe BLM founder, Patrisse Cullors, owns 4 mansions. Meanwhile, if you don't have a lot of money you might find that your neighborhood store has been burned down - making your life more difficult. Or, the store might just have closed because it couldn't stay in business due to the out-of-control shoplifting that is no longer considered a crime.
Millennial Woes just wrote a really good piece about "equality". If you haven't checked him out, I'd for sure recommend him. He's incredibly insightful:
https://millennialwoes.substack.com/p/in-praise-of-hierarchy-2
"I have a Ph.D." followed by "Language incomprehensible to ordinary Americans" is about as elitist as it gets. Totally agree with you Ben.
Note the deep hypocrisy concerning the terms used. Maybe ignorant millennials don’t know it, but those who have lived through communism know that a Marxist enthusiastic for the revolution that will (forcibly, of course) confiscate the means of production is called a COMMUNIST. The name being too tarnished, Mr. DeBoer prefers to avoid it. Just like the so-called Democratic Socialists, who one moment talk about being like Denmark or Sweden (very much capitalistic countries, albeit with a strong social net), and the next moment they state that the “means of production should belong to the people”, which is the foundation of communism. Crooks playing on the ignorance and lazyness of the younger generations.
"Real communism hasn't been tried" will always need to be argued anew. And here we are.
I am glad Ben said this so I did not have to. If you like Marxism that much, move to Venezuela or North Korea, where that pollical system is generating what it always has; economic devastation and dead people. But I am sure whoever wants it here will "get it right this time."
There seem to be so many Marxists desiring marxism in this Capitalist nation. I wonder how many Marxists embrace Marxism in Marxist countries. If it is utopian, why don't they just move there and live that good life? What is holding them back?
Yeah Ben, but you gotta admit, knowing his adapted essay would be pummelled by the capitalist (and anti Left) leaning FP readership here, he doesn't care what you think..
and has the balls to throw it at you anyway.
I wouldn’t call it courage.
To be in a newsletter as widely read as TFP is a good opportunity for any writer.
I’m just curious why TFP has gotten so lefty over the past few months. I don’t mind it (as long as they’re still being honest), but that article they ran on 9/11 still pisses me off.
In an attempt to answer why there appears to be 'lefty' bias in many articles ( i see conservative leanings in many as well) - it may be to encourage a robust and dynamic debate in the comment section. If I was involved in the management of a publication like this, my mission would be to make this the antithesis of an echo chamber. I think that's what FP is trying to do.
Ok. I can see that.
But I'm still pissed they ran that stupid piece about Guantanamo Bay art on 9/11.
And I can see your point there as well..
Yes this article was really about what a far lefty thinks is wrong about the far left. I had a hard time reading it myself. They couldn't possibly have allowed it to be posted here without knowing what would happen in the comments section. They more or less know who is here most of the time.
Yes, they do..
Anyone that seeks to destroy the culture of any country does not deserve to be called sir.
He's neither evil nor a fool. He just has a different view on things than You and for that matter than me too.
I would generally agree with that sentiment, but Marxism has proven itself to be an ideology that always leads to mass poverty, mass death, and tyrannical, authoritarian government. To make the argument that "real" Marxism has never been tried is like saying that there can be a benevolent form of Fascism or National Socialism... it's just never been tried by the right people.
I realize my statement calling Mr. Deboer a fool or evil can sound extreme, but I believe that Marxism is an extreme, evil ideology that one either accepts out of pure maliciousness or out of naivety.
I will wait for an example where there has been a "Marxist revolution" that has resulted in a better society. I will wait a very long time.
Meh, all these terms, Marxism, socialism, capitalism, have proven themselves irrelevant. It's absurd to even use them, they've lost all meaning.
That’s one of the problems: less defined and more obfuscated language.
Solzhenitsyn noted that the same thing happened in the Soviet Union
I think both.
A little late to the party, but totally agree. It was hard to take the writer seriously after the first few paragraphs - he said he yearns for the day the revolutionaries come into power...then redistribute the resources. If you've brushed up on your history (and your Orwell), you will know that if they ever come into power, they will hoard all the resources for themselves.
".....distributing resources and labor based on need...."
There's an App for that!
The strangest part for me is seeing how the left has been distorted into something that it never was before, and yet a majority of left leaning people just go along with it.
For instance, the left was against Iraq and Afghanistan right? And recognized the debacle that is the "war machine" of America. And yet the Ukrainian war is right and good?
Or freedom of speech is now bad?
Or big pharma is now a good guy?
It's weird seeing how people just go along with the narrative without questioning it. Muh team said it so it must be good!
Okkkk
If corporate america is on your side, you are not the resistance.
Ahhh, but they somehow manage to convince themselves that they are. They're very good at conjuring enemies out of thin air.
I noticed in grad school that, despite the fact that "the establishment" in my field (English) had long-since been captured by the Far Left, every essay had the premise that "the establishment" was against the writer's ideas.
It was nothing short of bizarre.
Why do you think that is? Do you think that they cannot function well unless they feel like they're fighting against something?
I think you've described it perfectly. They have literally defined themselves as being "against." Their first heroes were the anti-war hippies. It is a core aspect of their identity to be struggling against some injustice or other. If there isn't a real injustice handy, they'll invent an imaginary one.
Notice that this is why the Left is "anti-racist," but not in favor of actually doing anything to improve black people's lives. They have one-track minds--minds that chant "anti-this, anti-that, anti-more" all day.
one of the most ironic examples is the democrat attitude toward slavery.
It was ended in 1865 by force of arms and hundreds of thousands died to end it. In the wider view, the only civilization in the history of the world to actually end slavery, is Western Civilization. It exists right now, today, almost everywhere else in the world; yet instead of trying to help slavery to its demise, they continue to talk about something that died in America more than 8 generations ago.
De Boer said it right in the excerpt from his book: "...any revolution must be a permanent one...a perpetual revolutionary class must exist...constantly pressing for a more radical future, even after great victory."
Their whole scam only works when you've got the useful idiots feeling like moral heroes, they must have enemies - and lots of them.
A Ponzi scheme of self righteousness!
What resistance?
A very thoughtful and well written piece with lots of practical suggestions to address the “oppression” of (insert the trendy villain here). What always seems to be missing in these discussions is a specific description of the what the desired end state looks like. Secondly, the shared characteristic of the people making these demands is that they seem to believe that the world began when they were born and everything they identify as “oppressions” have existed since humans began to live in large groups. If they bothered to look, even superficially, back in recorded history, they would see that the end state of these noble battles against “oppression” always ends the same - the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Iran are all perfect current examples. Put more simply: Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.
I think he described the desired end state pretty well. The problem is, it is disconnected from any feasible means of achievements, and indeed from the nature of humanity itself. Which is why "really existing socialism" is so horrible.
key words are "disconnected- from the nature of humanity the nature of humanity itself"! That is the problem! And perhaps why so many who embrace Marxism when they are young (and dumb) wake up as adults, after observing human nature -and how it manifests itself in actual Marxist counties. Orwell was 100% right!
He's selling a book. His motivation is strictly capitalist. Selling lots of books make him more money and gigs with the media translates into more possible book sales.
I'm glad to have read this, though. He may be calling out other Leftists, but he's doing so for the most capitalists of reasons: to make money.
Great comment. Do as I say, not as I do.
I probably don’t agree with him on much of anything, but he’s probably writing the book to get the message out. In academia, it’s publish or perish and always has been.
I doubt the sales of this book are going to make him particularly wealthy, and he may not keep the money. If he’s a good Marxist, he will find a probably donate to a good cause.
No desired end state. There never is with leftists:
"I still yearn for revolution, but I now recognize that any revolution must be a permanent one, in the sense meant by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels—that a perpetual revolutionary class must exist, remaining independent from the political machinery of its day and constantly pressing for a more radical future, even after great victory. This is the only way to truly secure the best good for the most people. We must see political success as an ever-receding horizon."
The best rebuttal to his position is this section of his proposal.
No revolution is permanent.
Exactly. What would the progressive vision look like in reality if they had the power. That's a rhetorical question as we both know
My comment at the time when AOC contributed to the loss of the Amazon HQ deal in NYC, is that she didn’t want her constituents to lose the excuse for not working.
All I see from the activist left is the desire of something for nothing.
”War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength” ....
The Left is ruled by a foolish consistency.
Like Gender identity is fluid but we must operate on the children to entrench a cosmetic look. Social Constructs require Big Pharma. Men are women, Women are Men and Men can have babies. Remember the Monty Python skit?
"The 'Right' to Have Babies - Monty Python's 'The Life of Brian'"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=R79yYo2aOZs
In 2020 my network in Seattle went from "COVID is a right wing conspiracy theory" to "the right wingers are COVID denialists" in less than a month.
They raged at Kavanaugh being accused of sexual assault, and a year later totally ignored Biden's sexual assault allegation.
Memories of goldfish. Orwell would have been proud/ashamed
Pity the poor right wingers, who have to change direction every time you do!
(I hear Kavanaugh is a hero these days. I haven’t had time to read the story yet, but I saw the headline.)
The problem, in my opinion, is people treating politics like a religion and feeling like they have to die on every hill. There is a world outside of political discourse, go find it and live in it!
I don't think the average individual can spot a narrative when they see one. Narratives are very powerful and actually make up an individual's reality -- so asking someone to question a narrative is asking them to question their very existence and reality... and that's where the cognitive dissonance sets in:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-power-of-narratives-and-how-they
Not really. Most people I know can smell BS a mile away. That’s why they can’t stand politicians.
The only difference between BS and a “narrative” is whether you agree with it.
No. The democrat party was overwhelmingly in favor of Iraq and Afghanistan and has always - always - been overwhelmingly in favor of the war machine.
From the Mexican War in 1846 and the Civil War when they fought to the death to keep their slaves, right up to Desert Storm, every single American war was started and waged by the democrat party, and they voted in gigantic numbers for Reagan's incursions, Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. Note how as soon as the left regained power in 2008 they destroyed Libya and Syria and did their best to disrupt other countries with Arab Spring. They're destroying Ukraine today.
The culture of the left in America has always - always - been informed and infused by the raw racism of Jim Crow and it still is. Only the target has changed; note the openly racist policies and laws the left has enacted in multiple states since 2021.
The left is using the same censorship tactics to defend abortion and castration today that it used to defend slavery in Lincoln's day. Anyone can read his early speeches and find that was a point which he spent considerable time attacking. The left has always advocated for censorship; see Woodrow Wilson, see FDR, see the Gores, see their attacks on Taibbi.
The democratic party != the left. And, your facts, including your very first statement, are proveably wrong. Let's take a look at the public record on votes for the Iraq war resolution in the house:
215 (96.4%) of 223 Republican Representatives voted for the resolution.
81 (39.2%) of 208 Democratic Representatives voted for the resolution.
6 (<2.7%) of 223 Republican Representatives voted against the resolution: Reps.
How in the world are you equating the word "overwhelmingly" to mean < 40%? Especially given how strongly the case for going into Iraq was made by Cheney and Bush... equating patriotism itself (in the wake of 9/11) with voting for this resolution.
It's also well known that the Democratic party has morphed in ideology over the past 150 years... there was a distinct difference between southern democrats and northern democrats. And, during the 1960s, when northern democrats were working to pass the Civil Rights Act, it was the southern democrats who attempted to filabuster, including Strom Thurmond, who would switch parties because of the democractic support for civil rights. This would precipitate a larger exodus of former southern democrats to the GOP, bringing with them an intense opposition to civil rights, desegregation and other trappings of former slave owning white southerners, also morphing the republican party in the process.
I've seen all of the talking points you've written used as meme fodder on right wing Twitter / Facebook. Like any good fiction, it has elements of the truth, but on closer inspection, it falls apart, as yet more culture war fuel. Try reading a variety of history books, in order to get a broader picture of these topics.
As someone who has always been of the progressive bent, I'm definitely not a big D democrat, though I often vote for the democratic candidate. I also don't subscribe to full on Marxism, and feel like those who do are falling for yet another form of populism. I enjoy having discussions with conservatives and liberals, and at the end of the day, I find that my guts says that the "truth" (whatever that is) lies somewhere in the intersection between those ideologies. I certainly used to blindly vilify the right, and adore the left... as I've gotten older I've realized that the world is more complicated... it isn't black and white. Creating a cartoon version of the other side is easy... actually engaging and trying to understand is hard, hence most people don't do it.
The Senate is what matters in foreign policy as you know.
Republican 48 1
Democratic 29 21
The Democrat party hasn't morphed in ideology. There was a movement 1964-1974 by the democrat party to abandon democrat policy and embrace the republican policy which had remained the same since 1860 and which remains the republican policy today. But that movement was dead before Carter was elected, and it remains dead. Biden and now Newsom are openly stating they will select candidates based purely on their race. You can't become more racist than by openly violating the laws against using race in hiring practices.
I don't use social media so I'll have to take your word for it that these points are popular; but they are popular because they are correct.
edit - i missed the part about the South in 1968. More BS.
The South remained solidly democrat for 25 years. democrats did not become republicans. It was Gingrich's Contract with America that broke the stranglehold the democrats had on those states, the Southern economy promptly soared, and Southern states continue to outperform while democrat states collapse and citizens flee.
While the senate might matter more for foreign policy, the house generally provides a clearer picture of the unwashed political will of the constituency. Given that an overwhelming majority of house democrats voted against the Iraq war, and also considering that likely most, if not all of the anti-war protesters of the time were lefties, I'm struggling to see how your argument that lefties are pro war holds any water whatsoever. Yes, there are unfortunately lots of career democrats who cozy up to industry, especially in the Senate. They thrive on feeding the industrial war machine. And, virtually all of the republicans in congress have their hands in the pockets of the same industry. This is all why a chunk of the left vote either independent (think Ralph Nader) or counter to party leadership (think Bernie).
The GOP has most definitely not remained the same since 1860. Please read your history... here are some starting points:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republican_Party_(United_States)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era
What's especially interesting is how the GOP was at one point attached to the ideals of progressive reform, including regulation of industry. If you look at the history of American political parties, including the Whigs, Democrats, Republicans, etc, you can see that it's all much more complicated than some static definition that stays fixed for hundreds of years. At different points in time, the Republicans were the party of liberal progressive reform, and the Democrats were the party of states rights, nationalism and patriotism.
The south remained solidly democrat between the 60s and 90s, not because of white southerners, but because of black southerners switching to the democratic party. Conservative white southern democrats broadly started switching to the republican party beginning in the 1960s, but the change in power was not reflected by the polls immediately. Much of the power shift was also demonstrated by the shift of southern white evangelicals as a voting block, driven by the rise of the religious right in the 80s and 90s. Before this time, conservative southern white evangelicals were predominantly democrats, since before the Civil War.
What Biden and Newsom (and others) are doing is slightly more nuanced than just "select[ing] candidates based purely on their race." On the surface, this does seem awful... but if you actually dig into the specifics, it's just not that simple. e.g. Newsom just named a black woman as an interim replacement for Feinstein, which he explicitly named as one of his selection criteria. This wasn't the only criteria, by a long shot, but it's the one that gets headlines. Affirmative action is controversial, and it can sometimes result in bad choices. But it is also a corrective action based on what can be seen as a historical, baked in preference for choosing (essentially) white men for position of power. This country basically had affirmative action for white males working as the defacto standard since its founding... even in cases where a non white male would potentially be more qualified, in practice (which you can see based on statistics), it didn't work out that way. In my own personal opinion, this kind of this needs to be treated carefully... i.e. ensure that quality and merit are still top qualifiers, while also acknowledging that historical practice has resulted in false meritocracy... and that perhaps questions of fairness, balance, and representation of distinct viewpoints must also be part of the overall equation.
the democrat party has always advocated for war. Always. the record is abundantly clear. mexican war; civil war; spanish american war; wwi; wwii; korea; vietnam; supported desert storm; supported iraq, afghanistan, libya, syria, arab spring, ukraine.
the so-called unwashed ? at the time, bush ii was polling over 70% nationwide in favor of war.
The platform of the GOP has stayed consistent from 1870 to 2020. peace and prosperity, strong borders, small government. It's never changed, through wars and epidemics and depressions and booms. The platforms are available for online reading. wikipedia is perfectly laughable.
trying to shift the conversation about the Southern polity into a conversation about race is perfectly typical.
Bah.
Again, I don't understand your numbers. If we look at Desert Storm as an example, we see the following (from public records mind you):
- In the Senate, only 10 (18%) democrats supported the authorization, while 42 out of 50 republicans supported it. In the House, 86 of 267 democrats supported it, while 164 out of 167 republicans voted for it. btw, Bernie Sanders was the sole independent who voted against it.
- This was a war predominantly pushed onto the American public by Bush senior, a staunch republican, Ronald Reagan's former VP.
If we look at the 2nd gulf war, as well as the incursion into Afghanistan, these were all efforts primarily pushed onto the public in the fervor and confusion following 9/11. A lot of democratic senators jumped onto this in order to show solidarity with the republican majorities who were following in lock step behind a popular republican president who was gunning for war.
Shifting back to WWI, the largest pro war support was driven not by democrats, but by eastern conservative republicans. Anti war sentiment was driven by middle class midwesterners and leftist pro labor progressives.
Republicans were initially opposed to intervention in WW2, but after Pearl Harbor, they changed their tune. When Ike (a strong republican) came to power in '52, he was driven by a strong current of inverventionism within the republican party platform (look it up... you can find all of of the convention party platforms online, and the 1952 convention had a very pro war bent, even if it included the phrase "waging peace".)
So, I'm again confused by your statement that the democratic party has always advocated for war. If you count 10-30% as strong advocation, then I guess...
As per the race and affirmative action topic, I was simply responding to your strange deflection in your first reply, going off on a tangent about Biden and Newsom. It didn't really make any sense to me why you had to bring those topics up, but I was simply responding to your points there.
Speaking of narratives…
Lol true enough
it was a rainy day
The left hasn’t been a friend to working people in a very, very long time. The NAFTA debate hosted by Larry King between Al Gore and Ross Perot in the ‘90s was the point at which that became impossible to ignore. Supersmart Al Gore explained to us plebes that offshoring our manufacturing sector would make us all rich. Well it certainly made some people rich. I’m not so sure about middle Americans, though.
I’m not sure I understand your comparison of Ukraine to Afghanistan?
Am I crazy or is one in the Middle East and was retaliation for 9/11, and the other is about not allowing an autocratic dictator to invade a sovereign country that is the main buffer between NATO and said dictator? It’s easy to just say, “war bad” but these are very different situations.
The conflict in Afghanistan goes back decades before 9/11, and ultimately was always a proxy war with Russia.
The proxy war has moved out of the Middle East and into Ukraine. It's really just the next chapter in an ongoing conflict.
Well, yes, except against Russia, we were supporting Afghanistan, and after 9/11 we were taking out their government. In the second case, Russia was not a factor.
I’m not sure you can call it a proxy war if we change sides. It’s more like two different conflicts.
If you have never read Charlie Wilson's War you should. There is a movie but the book.is eye-opening in terms of American politics. And as for the Ukraine invasion, read the Budapest Memorandum signed by the US, UK, Russia and Ukraine in 1994. It is remarkably straightforward, 3 pages long.
Communism is Far Left. The war on Ukraine is a war of The Left on a new Christian democracy
Putin’s Russia is “The Left”?! Confused thinking to say the very least.
This article makes no bones about Marxists being lefties. Where on earth do you think that puts Russia?
Or is Putin so far left that you want him to be right?
Agree with much here, but I will say that the 'left' logic of Ukraine vs. Iraq is pretty straightforward- it is based on opposition to one country invading another, e.g. opposition to the US invading Afghanistan or Iraq, or opposition to Russia invading Ukraine. The continual conflation of these things doesn't really make sense to me personally. A true parallel would be if the US invaded Russia in order to topple the Kremlin, destroy all the terroristic warlords, and install a new democratic leader.
I’m sorry did I miss something? Isn’t the right going along with everything Trump says? They haven’t wavered even with 91 indictments! I liked this article and I am a lefty. Well center left ! OK try to define that.
Invert the conditions and you have the right.
And it's weird how unpopular the anti-Iraq war position was with conservatives. Now, they're anti-Ukraine war.
I think it has a lot to do with the region and the aggressor.
Anti- GMO, Big Pharma; give me more of that booster Jamba Juice!
So Freddie declares, "I would still love to see a Marxist revolution. You know, an international movement of workers rising up and taking control of political and economic systems, and distributing resources and labor based on need". That would be quite an upheaval, so I assume, Freddie, that you have some historic examples of Marxist revolutions actually leading to greater economic and social freedom for the masses? Would that be the Soviet Marxism, Cuban Marxism, Cambodian Marxism, North Korean Marxism, Venezuelan Marxism, or any one of the Marxist revolutions that have slaughtered and impoverished hundreds of millions over the past century? Like a crackpot who still believes that mercury can cure disease, Marxist medicine has been given to patients dozens of times, and the patient died every time. But, hey, let's give it another shot! I'm afraid that Freddie is another example of the the delusional mental illness that is taking over the human race.
In the US, a plumber can leave his employer and go out on his own. He can build that business to employ 100 people and both provide plumbing services and sell supplies. Do the Marxists consider that "rising up"?
No there is only one source of plumbers and that is a plumbing government department.
Overseen by Napoleon the pig!
That's how an ordinary plumber becomes the Oppressive Man.
Don't ever build a successful business, people, because success creates inequality and all of morality is defined by inequality and nothing else! Success is by definition morally wrong.
I jest, but Marxist revolutionaries are genuinely that stupid, and it's why whenever their revolutions work, they have no clue how to successfully run anything and they fail every time.
Every. Time.
Agree 100%
And then when your plumbing business that you built with sweat and labor and worry and time away from your family and home succeeds and you are wealthy and comfortable they will accuse you of greed and profiteering and lining your pockets.
And they'll justifying terrorizing you and your family for the "privilege" that you earned.
So good. I 100% agree.
Hey, Marxists will use leaches to cure diseases this time. Should work . . .
Actually leeches are still used in modern medicine. Check out "How Leeches Can Save Lives And Limbs for Some Patients" https://www.uhhospitals.org/blog/articles/2020/03/how-leeches-can-save-lives-and-limbs-for-some-patients
I applied them once when I was a medical student. It was really disconcerting.
Do they “cure” diseases? Like the bodily “humors” which were thought to control moods and such?
Moving blood through a limb is not really treating a disease but I get your point.
Yes - and who would lead this revolution? Would there not still be a hierarchy of rulers? And would greed and corruption not prevail as it always has in the past?
Just an example of a failed experiment leaking from a lab in academia with out proper vetting and passing the scientific method. Hogwash.
The idea that elites “ate” the social justice movement is complicated by the fact that the movement was created by elites to begin with.
Elites love this movement! As long as we're all bickering about pronouns and defunding the police, we're not talking about wars, money printing, corrupt institutions, corrupt politicians, exploitative corporations or anything else that really matters.
But gosh golly we'll get everyone's pronouns right!
Yep, I read that Michigan voted “they” into law. All the world problems solved!
OMG it passed! Oh thank the secular lord, I was so worried. Whew. The world is finally fixed now
Ohioans will now have to say "they/them up north"
I hear Detroit is lovely in the autumn. It’s been delightful since about 1967.
I’ve met so many incredibly wonderful people from Michigan which prompts me to wonder-Who is voting for these people?
Bingo, the identity war is a ruse for class destruction.
Most won’t see it until it’s too late.
The “elites“ have been distracting the public from class issues for a very long time – – as chronicled by Christopher Lash over the decades. Whether race, one war or the other, even environmentalism in some ways, all eat up the oxygen while middle class wages go downhill and “working class” becomes a dirty word. Freddie has made a good start, but really only begun to dig out from the propaganda and sloganeering that impassions young people and old manipulators “marinating” in groupthink.
I think there is some merit yo your position. However it is my understanding that the class divide does not play well in the US. Thus the pivot to -isms.
Indeed. But the pivot has totally different objectives. Through the 60’s and even during the Reagan administration there was at least lip service to a working wage for a working man. All this race and climate change stuff distracts from the terrible unregulated work practices of the service industry— part time, unpredictable schedules (can’t change jobs or easily hold down two jobs or plan child care), no benefits, no overtime.
Actually, the climate agenda is a barely concealed war on the working class (and to a lesser extent, the middle class). More expensive, less reliable energy will affect the lives of poor people more than the affluent. Brendan O’Neill has been hammering home that point for years.
Yes. Started with Europeans as a trade restriction. Talking with vague terms like “climate” is easier than meeting fuel economy standards and actually cleaning up your urban air pollution and drinking water (which most people favor). But our elites ran with the idiocy.
And now we are a service economy essentially. We are en route to a 21st century plantation economy. That IMO is the true travesty.
He replaces one propaganda with another. And he’ll be “merciless” to those conservatives that disagree with it. Nice guy.
I don't like Trump personally. Liked his policies but the one very important thing he did was expose the corrupt executive branch bureaucracy. I had no idea it was that bad. The FBI was the last part of it I trusted besides the military and now I barely trust the military. To find out the FBI was so corrupt was a big blow for me. I guess a little part of me is still an idealist.
The elites are playing with fire. The fire of the peasants with torches who will come to take away their toys. "Eat the rich" should chill them but they're too vain and stupid to understand that. The photo in the essay of the two white women "taking the knee" is proof positive of that.
Elites like Marcuse literally said they were going to use the “ghetto populations” as revolutionary tools.
Aside from the fact that progressivism is overt dipshittery if you just glance at it for a moment; any amount of research tells you almost immediately
“Oh okay this is Nazism.”
Bingo! Marxist and leftist academics have pushed their toxic ideas on the 'lumpenproletariat' (from their POV) for more than a hundred years.
"that the movement was created by elites to begin with. "
-----------
This guy gets it! Sad part is that many Americans aren't familiar with this part of History
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/donating-to-a-good-cause-how-billionaires
Isn’t it delicious?
I would argue the TRUE social justice movement was more about class: think the 99% vs 1% of the Occupy Wall St days not that long ago. But I do agree the Elite are responsible for turning the movement into what it is today. And I theorize it was an intentional divide-and-conquer strategy to neutralize the threat, because 99% is a helluva lot bigger than 1%, after all.
Honestly, I stopped taking this piece seriously when I read the word “reparations.”
Reparations are a way to punish working-class white people, while the elites are essentially unaffected. If you own a large stock portfolio, inflation doesn't really matter, you have the ultimate hedge. And you're paying a bit of capital gains tax at a low rate instead of income tax at a high rate.
It mainly affects people who are living paycheck to paycheck. It's just class warfare dressed up as social justice.
Reparations are a new dimension of liberals figuring out how spend other people's money. A Marist knows there is no end to this.
It is the ultimate grift.
It is smoke and mirrors to deflect from those who bear genuine responsibility for a wide variety of grievances.
Beat you to it.
"I'm a Marxist" was my clue to laugh derisively and wonder why Bari bothers us with drivel and intellectual vomit.
I enjoyed seeing him squirm as he turned on the unenlightened Marxists.
And whenever you hear the word reparations, the next thing you must ask is: who will control the reparations? Who will decide who gets what?
It's just a mess.
There are 1,000 reasons why it wouldn't work, but at least the idea of UBI is that everyone would get it, no questions asked.
There are no receipts for reparations. Every grievance would be just as strong after as before.
And they know it.
"...who will control the reparations? Who will decide who gets what?"
_________________
When considering reparations, I ask: Where/when does it start, where/when does it stop, who pays, who receives, who decides, and how much?
Where does it start? Affirmative action started in the 1960s, and affects not only university admissions, but more importantly, government contracting worth billions of dollars.
When does it stop? Never, because you can never change the past; you can only move on.
It's not that complicated. You pay me. And you will like it. Or else.
Yeah. That’s something I still have yet to stomach. It’s a nice thought to try and right historical wrongs, but I have yet to be truly convinced it’s actually achievable.
There was an article (on TFP I think?) about an example of reparations in a small Illinois town that sounded like it was doing good for some people, and that’s awesome, but I don’t see that system functioning at scale ever.
So your litmus test is whether reparations are "achievable?"
How sane is making people who never owned a slave paying "reparations" to people who were never enslaved?
I guess what I’m getting at is that at its most base level, reparations sounds like a morally good idea worth pursuing. 🤷🏻♂️ In no way do I endorse how that plays out in the real world though.
Your first mistake is in believing it's a "morally good idea."
Perhaps it is!
Let's see, here's a concept that pins an opprobrious, defamatory label on living people, based on the past misdeeds of dead people who they claim to be "one of their kind", and uses it as justification for imposing disabilities and costs on those same living people. Where have we seen this pattern before? And you think that's "a morally good idea that's worth pursuing"? I say it's racist in its very essence.
Bro, chill. lol At its most base level it’s about paying back lost wages. Seen through that lens, I can understand why people are passionate about it. After all, I am a human being, therefore I can empathize with others of my species.
In no way am I defending whatever political, legal, and ethical nightmare this actually is. I’m just saying, I get where some of them are coming from. The ones not supporting the idea just for a free paycheck.
Where are you on student loan relief?
Where am I? Oh, a few more thousand to go before it’s paid off...
Ah, you mean what is my opinion on the issue? It was nice while the payment pause lasted the past few years, but the bill comes due.
Even if you’re 18 when you excitedly sign on the dotted line, it is a contract and it should be honored, barring extreme circumstances. Hopefully you studied engineering or computer science to make paying it back easier.
I am wa-a-a-a y down the road from that. From an era where it was practical to pay off. My husband and I sacrificed and paid for our two offspring, too. I commend your honor your contract position.
That small Illinois town is Evanston pop. 90,000.
A liberal, socialist enclave anchored by a woke University that isn't far North and hardly Western and surrounded by reality on Chicago's North Shore.
I know it well. You don't want to be anywhere near there.
I stopped at “im a marxist”
I should have... but read on out of curiosity. I got half way through, then bailed, and went to the comments for sanity.
I didn’t stop taking the whole thing seriously, but reparations are such a bad idea. Forget the morality and just look at the practicalities - do you have to prove your ancestor was a black slave in America to get reparations, or do you just have to be black? Does the percentage of someone’s black ancestry matter? Are white people supposed to pay for these reparations even if their ancestors arrived in the US as destitute Irish immigrants in 1890? (For example.) I’m directly descended from a Union soldier. Do I get a monetary reward?
I never got that far, but could have predicted it would come up!
That’s a pity since the article wasn’t about reparations at all.
So you made it past: "Freddie tackles a riddle: why, given the seeming popularity of left-wing causes like Black Lives Matter..."? Not me.
Amazon and other corporations made mine for me. Kendi has collected some too. I am okay with formal reparations from the financial institutions of the Northeast to actual descendants of slavery.
"You’d go out to the BLM protests, feel the energy, hear the slogans, see the righteous rage, and feel like something had to give." - Oh, it did, and the people running the organization "took" when it was given to the tune of millions of dollars - because AGAIN - human nature. It continues to amaze me that that folks on the left are surprised by this.
Dear BLM fan,
Sorry your contributions were sucked up by shysters. It's been known to happen.
Sincerely,
TeaParty fan
I'm amazed that people continue to honor and contribute to BLM.
The "2020 moment" was engineered by the intelligence community to get rid of Trump. A color revolution but at home. It didn't fail, it did what it was meant to do. The idiots were no longer useful at that point, so of course the "movement" went away.
At least we should note that the timing of the riots was, ummmmmm “interesting” -- especially the abrupt end at a very convenient moment for the election.
You got it!
Where has Marxism worked? I'll wait for the answer....
I read a post not long ago that stated Cuba was a good example.
I immediately thought that its working out so well Cuban citizens strap innertubes together and launch themselves aimlessly out to sea on the regular. We should probably get this implemented right away.
Anyone who believes that hasn't been to Cuba. I went there in 2018 and Havana looks like the set of a post-apocalyptic sci fi movie. Our tour guides were constantly in fear of being overheard saying the wrong thing by government monitors.
It is also instructive to point out that although they have government health care, and universal education, that their lives fall below the standard of living which they hope to aspire to. Hence, the innertubes!
That’s why these one payer systems are not popular. Dumbing down of healthcare for all.
Show me one government agency that is run efficiently and on budget.
We did have one. It was the Panama Canal Company, owned by the US Government. The Dems couldn't stand that a government agency actually showed a profit so they got rid of it.
But have you seen their classic car collections though? Communism is a small price to pay for a sweet Buick the size of a modern suburban.
To reach the remote villages, you'll need a donkey. I'm being serious here.
This example is lost on these Marists morons.
Many things can be true at once. Marxist revolutions and full on communism can generally be considered bad things, because ultimately they simply shift injustice rather than end it, and perpetuate a new ruling class pretending to be "the people". However, in the case of Cuba, another huge source of economic strife has been the decades long US embargo of the island nation, which has both been ineffective at ending communist rule, as well as being very effective at stripping trillions of dollars of worth from the Cuban economy. That is to say, this wasn't an experiment in a vacuum, so it's hard to draw strict economic performance numbers without also taking into account the embargo.
You see, we've never had REAL Marxism. That'll work for sure.
It worked in Israel for the first 19 years of its existence. It didn't involve a revolution, but it did involve communal living and sharing of resources. Israel was built by idealistic volunteers who took a leap of faith and did backbreaking work for the benefit of their communities.
The fledgling Israeli society was SOCIALIST in its roots, not Marxist. And yes, that is how they started out, but not how they are functioning today. In other words, they outgrew their socialist leanings, for the most part, for a more market-based economy. That said, I cannot think of any government that does not have a bit of "socialist" programs. Medicare and social security come immediately to mind, both of which I am now enjoying in retirement. There is no true "free market" economy in the world today.
Yes, and I didn't articulate my point - these socialist/communist societies can work temporarily, and only with voluntary commitment from its members. They cannot work when they're imposed on people unwilling to part with their own property.
👍
I am good with that. That is true altruism. Do I trust a government, any government, to do so? No I do not.
Yes, but don’t hold your breath.
Progressives will continue to eat their own in the name of equity and virtue. Its part of the DNA of victim based group think and one-upsmanship. The speed and violence of their appetites will continue to increase to its own bitter end. That can't come soon enough IMHO.
Love it, …. The speed and violence of their appetites ……
Yes, even liberals will be eaten alive. They just don’t know it yet. But they will, and when they do, they will look at conservatives and ask: why didn’t you tell me ?
I think they will look at conservatives and say "how did you let this happen to me?"
Yes !
I actually think Marxism and "social justice" (at least in any modern interpretation) are fundamentally incompatible. Social justice is about wealth redistribution based on some characteristic (or declared characteristic), best summed up as "from each according to ability, to each according to skin color and pronouns".
The incentive structure of true Marxism is collectivist; that is someone will put in work for the good of society. The incentive structure of social justice is entirely characteristic-based; if you don't have the "marginalized" characteristic, your work is unequally given to those with the characteristic, and those with the characteristic are incentivized to demand labor from those without the characteristic (which ironically was also the essential principle of slavery).
"Social" is a word that obliterates the meaning of the word that follows it. "Social justice", "social studies", etc.
Bobbybob it’s too early in the morning for you to blow my mind like that. I’d never thought about it that way. Thanks for sharing.
That’s the only way to think about it.
"Social justice" is code for communist redistribution, with a racial and class angle. Stop pretending otherwise.
Yes it is redistribution, but I disagree they're the same. In fact, social justice goes out of it way to eschew the class angle. Reparations won't affect the wealthy; if you have a large stock portfolio you already have a huge inflation hedge and taxes don't effect your quality of life. The destruction of the public school system doesn't effect you if you're sending your kids to Choate and Andover. DEI hiring doesn't effect you if you already have a degree, resume, and stable job -- although it might screw over your kids.
People who are already wealthy aren't effected by social justice. It mainly is a way to screw over the white working class living paycheck to paycheck -- who were the majority in the US up until about 2000, and are now the new minority, and therefore the easiest punching bag.
One quibble. The white working class is still the majority. They just have been cowed into thinking and acting as if they aren't.
US is 61.6% non-Hispanic white (down from ~90% in 1960; and probably an overestimate given the 250k+ illegal entries per month). Current labor force participation rate is 62.6%. If we assume that affects all demographics equally, that means about 36-37% of the US population is non-Hispanic white and has a job. Of course, many of the non-working are retired but still would be considered "working class". We can applaud demographic change, lament demographic change, or simply accept demographic change, but shouldn't ignore it.
I disagree. The wealthy can and are affected by social programs. Start with Social Security. After tax dollars contributed to pool controlled by socialists, who promised never to tax it, now tax most of it, giving a meager return below the CPI, and if I die the day after I start collecting, 40-50 years of contribution evaporates.
It entirely depends on your idea of wealthy. Middle and upper middle class wealth doesn't count. Those don't affect structural wealth one iota. The wealthy, and by that I mean the truly wealthy, those that control most of the money in the world, are completely unaffected by party or any cultural movement. Their wealth is cemented in, and the wealth structure never changes. Nothing underneath them matters. They simply move their money to where the money is. They invented the game, and they control the game. All the fighting goes on underneath them, and they are unaffected. Even when they are affected, as in the 2008 crash and when Trump bankrupted himself, they bail themselves and each other out to protect that structure. To truly change the world, the entire economic system that the world is predicated on must collapse or radically change; otherwise, nothing meaningful ever, ever happens. We're too scared to take that on.
I hear what you're saying, but socialism can still endanger everyone's wealth.
For instance, some Democrats want to tax unrealized capital appreciation. If that ever happens, they'll determine the market value...and the tax rate.
Socialism at it's core is taking from those who have and redistributing to those who have not. It starts small and if not stopped, we know where it ends.
They go where the money is, and eventually there is no escaping them. They will hunt down the ultra wealthy.
They have built a message that wealth is evil, wealthy do not pay their fair share, half of wage earners in America pay nothing. These are dangerous times.
I think you still miss the point about wealth, the 85 or so people/families who control it all. The socialism I know- UK and European- doesn't really endanger everyone's wealth. Their system sort of works like ours, just not to the same degree. There is a tiered system of money-making similar to capitalism. They have professionals and entrepreneurs and people who own large businesses and are quite wealthy. They are taxed at a 45% rate and receive a bit more services than we do. I'm not a proponent of socialism but capitalism needs an overhaul as well. Perhaps combine best practices to make capitalism not so extreme (corrupted pyramid system) and socialism less autonomic. The ultra-wealthy rarely suffer, and when they do, there is always one or two sacrificial lambs to save and perpetuate the rest. These are transformational times, which can be very dangerous, yes.
The social justice movement is the inevitable result of socialist thinking. Many other commenters have pointed out the problem with determining who “has ability” and who is “in need”. Identity politics presents a fairly simple method for making that determination.
Of course, because the whole philosophy is irrational, they are running into the next problem, as Mr DeBoer identified- correctly identifying and ranking those who fall on the “need” side of the proposition.
And (again) where has “true” Marxism ever been practised? The party elite always take the benefits that they claimed would benefit the collective. Human nature.
And anyone with any sense at all sees implementing either as a very bad idea.
"to each according to skin color and pronouns". -- LOL, very clever.
What happens to the addicts and layabouts?
Exactly! Thank you for pointing this out so plainly.
The basic premise of the article is good, calling out the nonsense when you see it, even if it is on your side.. The rest is BS. If you've ever been involved in sales, a church, a civic organization, or essentially any group of people, you know 80% of the results come from the efforts of 20% of the people. It's called the Pareto Principle. This is why Marxism doesn't work. Too few contributors, too many takers.
"80% of the results come from the efforts of 20% of the people...." It has a name? I've been saying this since childhood.
Anyone who has been required to do a "group project" at school is well aware of this principle.
I’m as far from a Marxist as it gets. so no agreement on ideology. But, the bulk of what he’s saying? That’s called…common sense. Nice to see at least some far lefters have it.
As objectionable as his ideology is, the real point of this essay is that the Left has lost the ability to use logic and common sense. And that is, surprisingly, encouraging for the rest of us.
But they do have the power. Power without logic or common sense is the death knell for a nation.
That is the scary part. But the crazier they sound to ordinary people, the less likely they are to be able to hold onto that power.
I'm deeply pessimistic about the future of this country. But this article gave me a tiny sliver of hope that the Left will make itself intolerable.
Agree. On the LGBTQ++++ issue alone I keep waiting for the LGBs to wish the T++++s well and split off. Their causes are not the same. It is insanity that lesbians are being called transphobic if they don't want to have sex with people with penises and white gay dads aren't allowed to participate in their school board causes because they aren't extra enough these days. Actually the black community might want to part ways with the Ts as well. Nothing against the Ts but they need to do their own thing and stop hijacking everyone else. I think it is setting back groups that have fought hard to get where they are. But as you seem to be saying, maybe this is the silver lining?
The T's have to stay with the rest. On their own, they would not have the same support. Cloaking themselves in all of those other letters make it harder for people to be against them, because currently if you are against T's, you are against a bunch of other people...even if you actually aren't.
Exactly. The more people that Progressive reject, the less support they have.
Stating the obvious and offering more ways to continue the culture wars is not common sense. It’s actually capitalist. He writes a book to capitalize on his contrariness by pointing out an obvious he believes most don’t see). He offers no way out of the problem nor does he illustrate a system that will actually work. I wonder how he will use his profits?
"pointing out an obvious he believes most don’t see." -- That most LEFTISTS don't see. I had the thought while reading this piece that he's kinda preaching to the choir with this audience, and where it really needs to be published is in the New York Times, Washington Post, etc.
Within the vast spectrum of humanity, there are bound to be a few! Ya love to see it.
Is this what constitutes “balance” Bari Weiss? When will we have a piece from the QAnon Shaman: a jailhouse memoir perhaps?
Have you forgotten that this Substack was once known as Common Sense? Or is drivel like deBoer’s blather where you were headed all along.
No need to disparage Bari here. It would be nice to see the follow-up article by a Conservative making the case for conserving core American freedoms and highlighting we really aren't the devils in the room. Freddie takes the crazy edge off the progressive movement, but in no way articulates how Marxist has ever or will ever work. And he continues the myth that Conservatives are a problem, vs. an alternative (and better) idea for solving society's problems. Problem with progressives is they can't take a win and move on. They have to find some other obscure "oppression" and drive it into the ground. They need to acknowledge they (progressives) are the major source of division and Marxism is not the answer.
Much as I disagree with Freddie, I actually found this article very interesting, because he shows--with abundant examples--that the Left is not only immune to logic, they are now incapable of using it as a rhetorical tool. The only thing they have left is force.
I thought the essay was interesting as well. But because the writer self identified as Marxist, a lot of what he says gets tossed out, as being shown by comments on this thread. A good example of labels obscuring the message.
They are very good at deploying force. Say one wrong word and you can find yourself unemployed.
And they are dividing themselves...might be easier to conquer
There is a need to disparage Bari because publishing drivel by idiots is not worth our precious time. What's next, extolling a toddler examining the content of her diapers as "art?"
It’s well written, articulate and effectively reasoned. That he is diametrically opposed to my positions doesn’t change that Bruce.
We should seek to engage the best version of our opponents’ arguments. I think Freddie acquitted himself well. An echo chamber benefits no one.
I do not think he acquitted himself well at all. He espouses to divide the spoils according to "needs". He never explains who gets to decide who "needs" what, how much and from whom does he take it. This is why his argument will never succeed. Once the "elites" discover that its them that pay, they will change their minds.
I don’t think the point of his article was to argue for Marxism (though I’d love a follow up with more detail - do they ever bother to think through the actual operational reality of their politics?) Anyway, I think the point was to show how woke politics achieves little by way of policy change because it’s too divisive. Which makes me wonder if the so-called “elites” are actually more clever than they get credit for.
I think the writer mentioned his Marxism in order to press the point that he is as far Left as possible and yet is still critical of so-called Progressives.
Exactly. This article is not really about how great Marxism is, but rather about what is wrong with the Left.
“Which makes me wonder if the so-called “elites” are actually more clever than they get credit for.”
I am convinced that they are.
Extensive definitions would make the article unwieldy. What do I mean when I say “individual rights” or “liberty “? It’s a form of shorthand that communicates an idea.
I do agree that “all good things to everyone”, ignoring second level effects is no way to run a railroad.
Swooning for nonsense that's been disproven beyond peradventure is hardly "acquitting himself well." The man is a fool. I don't want to silence him. He's free to stand on a street corner shouting into the wind like any other garden variety lunatic. I just don't have the time or inclination to stop and listen.
That Marxism hasn’t worked historically is beyond argument Bruce. That doesn’t mean that all collectivist arguments will disappear from the public sphere. As we’re going to continue to wrangle with these ideas it’s useful that we hone our rhetorical skills on someone like Freddie who expresses his thoughts respectfully and intelligently.
Well if you want to have even a vague understanding of the lunatics running this country you need to absorb a certain amount of drivel written or spoken by idiots. That’s why I listen to NPR (plus it’s hilarious). I found this article quite entertaining - a delusional Marxist lunatic attempting to talk sense to his fellow Leftist nutters who have basically left the planet. He almost sounds sensible at times by contrast (when he’s not arguing for Marxist revolution). That’s how crazy the Left is now.
Know your enemy?
Absolutely
I used to listen to NPR when it was somewhat objective. I can't stand it now.
Hahaha I understand completely. I find it quite amusing but there's a certain amount of masochism to listening to their utterly unwavering slavish devotion to Narrative.
Biden/DNC propaganda machine!
The best ever was the Betty White sendup about "muffins." That was right on target of vintage NPR.
I tried, but I couldn't take it any more. So I switched to listening to podcasts and classic Southern Rock on my drives to and from work.
I am the same way. I get a lot of laughs that way and then I remember they are serious.
No, no, no.
Conservative ideas are not a fair and even balance to a Marxist revolutionary.
To balance this out we need an article from a far-right white nationalist explaining the virtues of his position.
Anything less is following in the deceit of mainstream propaganda, where "far right" is an ever present terrifying threat, but "far left" is a phrase never used at all because no "left" is too "left" even when explicitly calling to overthrow the country.
Bingo!!!!
Although it's hard to find a real one.
Despite the legions of lefties thinking that "white nationalists" are hiding under every bed. Which the Senile Imbecile brays idiotically about on a daily basis.
The goal is not an answer or a fix. The goal is to obtain the power associated with elected office and keep it.
I saw an interesting tweet this morning: https://twitter.com/FreeBlckThought/status/1708582224176775419
The latest "fad" is to NOT help black kids do better in school. That would be "evaded racism." Note the new term.
Further proof that only racists talk about race............99% of the time.
And often it's people of color.
People of color who become successful have to double down on the neverending racism narrative in order to avoid being accused of "acting white" by their peers. Also to avoid being called racist names by elitist Woke white people.
Wow! Just Wow!
Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington et al. are rolling over in their graves. 😱
Word games to keep people off-kilter I think.
I mean if this was something that was supposed to be a left-leaning piece in an effort to balance TFP between left/right, they could have done worse. This guy is a self-proclaimed Marxist, but the principles he lays out seem more...conservative.
Stop being a victim, use common sense, be a team player, play smarter not harder? Sounds like a Republican to me. lol
Go to Sasha Stones’ Substack to find more substance. Lots of folks complaining about Bari Weiss there...
"I’m not a professor, but I’ll always be an academic. I grew up in an academic household, I have a PhD, and I read academic publications regularly. I’ll always be an academic at heart. I’m not a professor, but I’ll always be an academic. I grew up in an academic household, I have a PhD, and I read academic publications regularly. I’ll always be an academic at heart. ""
And right here is the problem! An academic who does not live in the real world, and who repeatedly fuels his belief system with the thoughts of other academic elites! Ask him where his financial support comes from, and I am willing to bet that it is NOT from getting his own hands dirty with real work and real world concerns. Lenin and Stalin were correct when they eliminated "intellectuals" from their cadre. They are worthless!
No worries, some day the Plumbers of the country will have so much control over the elite. All it takes is one stopped-up toilet in the house of Marxism to prove the concepts bogus.
LOL
I may have my history incorrect but wasn’t it Haiti that eliminated all their elites and look what happened there. I think we’ve lost our ability to look at others and see their shared humanity.. the line of good and evil runs through every human being and we would be better people if we recognized our own propensity to do great harm and great good.
But therein lies the rub with Marxism and elites. Both assume the individual is incapable of doing so. Thus the elites and/or the government must do so.
Better yet, cut off his income and have him live in Venezuela for a year.
Thank you, Free Press for putting this piece before us. If any of us had any sympathy at all for Marxist ideas before reading this, those ideas should be gone now. I especially liked the part where he exposes virtue signaling. No, wait, the Brits are paying taxes for free health care but we wouldn’t have to - that was fun too. Full. Blown. Stupidity.
Yes, NHS of Britain is in shutdown with strikes, staff shortages, poor pay, waste, delivering poor care. But that’s what we should aspire to, sure.
Very smart guy, huh?
He’s an ACADEMIC, Mitch.
I lurk on Mumsnet, a forum chiefly populated by British women. So many stories about people with serious health problems waiting months and months to get crucial treatment through the NHS.
Thank the LORD nobody is coming to save you. Just how many centuries of failed Marxism/Socialism will you guys need to observe until you accept the well-known fact that "everybody's equal" is just pure bullshit. Capitalism is the only business model you need to look at. How about the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Thank the LORD the founders were well grounded in all aspects of government, and chose a republic based on capitalism.
Somewhat tangential: the current "anti-racist" movement in industry basically ends up being a way to punish young/new white people (especially white men) looking to get into the job market, good schools, internships, etc, while doing very little to those who already have degrees/resumes/employment, and very little to prevent or disrupt generational wealth from "elites". It just prevents any sort of upward mobility. At no point do I see any advocates for DEI talking about how it disproportionately affects new job seekers, it's all merely about the numbers evening out. When 94% of new jobs are going to non-white, when management internships at places like Best Buy specifically stipulate "non-white", you're not fighting privilege, you're just creating privilege -- an 18-year-old white guy from a poor family has the least privilege of all, *de jure*, because of these quota systems. If your perspective is, "sure, let's punish white guys now because their ancestors had privilege" then fine -- but it is *revenge* being sought, not equity, and that revenge is being wrought disproportionately on the young and on the working class, for their audacity to be born with the white skin after the year 2000.
Meanwhile, the Schuabs, the de Rothschilds, the Clintons, the Kennedys, the Trumps, the Bushes... they all keep their wealth going for many generations to come as they pivot to virtue signalling about how "anti-racist" they are.
They don't even pretend it's not about revenge - "it's our turn now". It will all come back around to bite them in the ass eventually, probably with a brutal wave of racist backlash.
Yes, there will be some backlash. Which is why they have passed new online censorship bills in the last few months both in the UK and EU, why they're proposing a new podcast law in Canada, why the US military is working so hard to push white people out and their main threat model is domestic terrorism, etc. Mostly by accident of the internet, people have stopped gathering or discussing topics in public, or forming any sort of organizations that way, and now we have the technology to prevent or mitigate organizations digitally. Any sort of backlash will be contained and quickly dealt with. It won't "bite anyone in the ass". They've anticipated resentment towards these measures (as well as towards population/demographic change which is happening quickly across the whole Western world) and have put measures into place to deal with that resentment.
FWIW, though, in studies European-Americans tend to have the lowest in-group bias by far; in fact they have negative in-group bias on average (oikophobia -- the opposite of xenophobia). The majority do not have a problem with it, and are in fact cheering it on, as appears to be the case with our author Freddie deBoer here. Any sort of backlash -- whether that be explicitly racist/white supremacist (which I'd say is a quite bad thing), or a more practical approach looking for a return to colorblindness/meritocracy -- will be from a small and dwindling minority with extremely little institutional power.
Exactly. This is what I predict, as well. Their short-sightedness will have unintended consequences as the majority of the population tires of this nonsense. We're already seeing it happen.
Agree with everything except lumping the Kennedys in with all the rest. They may be wealthy, but to my knowledge they have not jumped on the anti-racist, virtue-signalling bandwagon.