“The Moral Degeneracy of the anti-Woke” (probably not what you think).

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Billy Bob's Blowback Roundtable
THE WORLD THROUGH AN INDEPENDENT LEFT LENS

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By Billy Bob
OpEds

As the Red vs. Blue paradigm begins to break down and become less and less useful for ruling class interests, it needs to be strengthened and adapted to current realities if it hopes to defeat the growing groundswell of populist sentiment.

Over the last few days, I have observed a rhetorical effort that purports to explain reality and provide an alternative understanding of the culture war, while simultaneously manipulating those already indoctrinated into conservatism, to support Team Red and the imperialist imperatives of the Western ruling class.

As actual communists, we understand and recognize the top-down effort to increase and agitate the cultural divide that exists among the working class.  A divide that largely results from generations and generations of a two-pronged strategic cultural propaganda effort that was and is intended to destroy working-class unity by hijacking cultural differences and exploiting them for all they are worth.

So what are the features and contours of this new rhetorical effort to corral conservatives away from populism and back into the velvet ropes of "polite" elite discourse?  Well, in a nutshell, they hope to accomplish this feat by spinning a narrative that blames “communism” and alleges a vast “communist conspiracy”.  A communist conspiracy that is responsible for the overt top-down effort to shove “wokeness” down everyone’s throat.

For this narrative to be consistent and have a modicum of plausibility, it must misrepresent communism and appeal to the multi-generation anti-communist indoctrination that all Americans have been immersed in since communism first began to threaten the interests of Western imperialism, well over a hundred years ago.

The misrepresentation of communism hinges on the spurious and preposterous notion that Communism itself is a creation of the elite and is part of their “divide and conquer strategy” which they have employed in their pursuit of global domination.  Of course, anyone who knows anything whatsoever about actual communism, or who has read the actual words of historic communist leaders, would know and understand the ignorance and idiocy of such a proposition.

Idiocy abounds, and is easily swallowed in many stubbornly ignorant quarters. Thus the dangerous upending of reality continues.  Among other things, the masses have been sold the idea that capitalism is "the American Way", and that it guarantees freedom and democracy—none of which are even remotely true.

Yet, this preposterous notion of communism as the creation of evil elites, has a history in right-wing discourse that goes all the way back to Marx himself and has been championed by many contemporary right-wing influencers such as Antony Sutton (in his 1974 book “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution”) and James Corbett who runs a popular libertarian podcast from Japan.  This easily debunked right-wing trope has gained impressive traction within libertarian circles and inevitably, when the topic comes up, Sutton is cited by the libertarian faithful, as an authoritative expert.

The genius behind this narrative is that once you convince someone that communism is a tool and weapon of the elites that they created, and which they utilize for their own nefarious purposes, it reinforces and panders to the massive anti-communist narratives that the Western ruling class has created and been accepted as gospel by many unsuspecting Americans, over the last hundred years.

But this narrative which is being sold to the "anti-woke" side of the culture war, of course contains a primary and indeed fatal contradiction:  On the one hand, the anti-woke are asked to accept the reality of a gargantuan “communist conspiracy” purportedly designed to undermine society in the hopes of eventually achieving a one world communist government, while they are also asked to accept the narrative about “communism being the ultimate evil” a notion which the same ruling class has turned into a virtual religion over the past several generations at least since the end of WWII.

Here is a question for the libertarian faithful who embrace this narrative: how do you square this circle?  From where does this “communist conspiracy” draw its strength?  If the communists have infiltrated all aspects of government, why did they turn anti-communism into a veritable religion?  If the elites —who demonstrably control the West's governments everywhere—are “communist” why is communism so demonized by the same power structures of the West?



ELITES PUSH COMUNISM

Yea, these guys are psychopaths alright, but NOT Marxist psychopaths. Try capitalist psychos. Only massive ignorance and confusion permits this kind of fundamental error.

So this is where the narrative pivots and does its best to pander to the inculcated ignorance of its intended victims.  By redefining “communism” as, “everything that conservatives oppose”.  There is truly no limit to the “evils” that conservatives are happy to blame communism for.  A lecture from one of the narrative’s top proponents, James Lindsay, is entitled “Maoism With American Characteristics”.  In this lecture, Lindsay panders to American ignorance by claiming Mao was an agent of the elites and that American elites want to revisit the evils upon the American people that Mao visited upon the Chinese people.

Another insidious aspect of this anti-woke propaganda offensive aimed at those Christian conservatives that have most fully embraced the religion of anti-communism, is the demonization of the nation of China.  The obvious agenda here is to rally public support for a future hot war against China. But an obvious question begs to be answered: why are the communists, ostensibly in charge of the West, agitating for war against the communists that they created and installed in China?  Like why are our supposed communist elites that are alleged to be shoving their woke agenda down our throats, provoking, sanctioning, and doing their best to cripple the economy of their Chinese communist allies?  This is just mindless ignorance peddled to mindless people.

Everything stated above is a necessary background and preamble to the actual point I am hoping to sharpen with this essay.  If we forget about these brazen contradictions which ought to make every adult reject this spurious narrative in its entirety, we are left with a basic argument that goes something like this: “I am an anti-authoritarian and so I hate communism and China for their authoritarianism.  I believe in freedom, liberty, and volunteerism, so I simply can not abide by the communist agenda and I will oppose the great communist conspiracy that is attempting to control our lives just as it controls the lives of the Chinese people. (you know, with all their censorship, organ harvesting, human rights abuses, COVID tyranny, and their efforts to genocide the Uighurs and Taiwanese).

Notice again the schizophrenia.  These folks parrot the bullshit narratives about China, long disseminated by the Western Elite, while simultaneously blaming a “communist conspiracy” of the Western elite, for the woke agenda.

Ferocious anti-communism has been drilled relentlessly into the American mind for well over a century, in a truly totalitarian way, with the most outrageous lies coming at the public from every conceivable corner: politicians, media, religion, academia, charities, the military, civic institutions, and of course the business class. The witch-hunt has also included blacklisting and overt police repression.

The reality of course is that the culture wars are facilitated, managed, and manipulated by the ruling class, not because the capitalist-feudalist ruling class are “communist” but because they are “wealthy elites” who hate and fear working class unity that communists hope to inspire and work to achieve. After all, Communists are the ones who have observed and identified the nature of class struggle and they understand that the Western ruling class exists first and foremost for the benefit of the small wealthy elite minority. This elite, chiefly concentrated in the US, but spanning the globe, comprises not more than 0.0001% of the human race. This tiny minority is supported by another 10% comprising the military, the police, and the PMCs (professional/managerial types, plus an assortment of upper-middle class small business owners). This elite owns outright or controls no less than 80% of all existing private property, including all the main means of production and media (which controls the people's minds), and entire nations (with their public goods) by controlling the political machinery of almost all nations currently in the so-called "collective West", the bloc of nations at present engaged in a war of conquest against Russia, China, Iran and whosoever else might stand in the way of their obsessive desire to maintain global hegemony and unipolar supremacy. Think about those facts for a minute, and tell us how you can believe such disgusting reality can equate with these elites' constant refrain that they are vibrant democracies!?

Since the power structure serves only the small minority of obscenely rich plutocrats, banksters, oligarchs, and industrialists, by definition, the power structure views the masses as an exploitable enemy that must be pacified and divided through constant propaganda efforts, lest they demand actual democracy.

So, the people must be lied to about everything including the supposedly democratic nature of Western governance, as well as the true history of popular communist revolutions and the tremendous accomplishments these revolutions were able to achieve whenever they succeeded in taking political power.  Mao best illustrates this last point.  He was perhaps the single greatest humanitarian of all time, doing more good for more people than perhaps anyone else in the history of the known universe.  However, according to Western elites, Mao was the greatest mass murderer of all time.  Inevitably, far too many of the intended victims of elite propaganda honestly believe and fall for these lies. Ubiquitous repetition does the trick, and the West has mastered the art of disinformation.

Of course, the anti-woke crowd, in their schizophrenia, embrace the narrative of the Western elite and agree that Mao was the most prolific mass murderer of all time. Simultaneously however, they also believe that Mao was empowered by and used by the Western elite and that the Western Elite’s “woke agenda” is simply the Maoist blueprint, being used on the American public (listen to James Lindsay, he’ll tell ya).

So why and how are these ignorant conservatives and libertarians “moral degenerates” and what does this have to do with anything stated above?  Good question, as I am slowly getting there.  First off, it has to do with their prioritizing nonsense terms like “anti-authoritarianism”, and other meaningless slogans such as “individualism, anti-collectivism, freedom, liberty, and volunteerism” above any other rational consideration of reality, morality, or justice.

Ultimately, libertarianism is the anti-democratic ideology of the rich who want to make sure that democracy never threatens their obscenely disproportionate share of wealth, power, and privilege.  So they emphasize “freedom” from government and they want government to be so small and ineffectual that it is unable to be used by the majority to threaten their interests and privilege.  

The rich promote “individualism”, a formula for social atomization, because they fear the unity of the collective—the people united—and the conquest of political power by ordinary citizens. They know that the masses would likely use their political power to run the state in the interests of everyone instead of just in the interests of the rich.  The rich have always hated communism and everything it stands for because ultimately, communism stands for the interests of humanity and wants to prioritize humanity’s interests over the oppositional interests of the wealthy elite.  So, libertarian “freedom and liberty” means the freedom to stand aloof from humanity in a position of extreme privilege.  It means freedom from the state and freedom from responsibility and accountability to the collective.  It also means the “freedom” for the rich to exploit the poor.  From the perspective of the rich, this is a natural political position to take as it promotes their material interests.

But, for the working class moral degenerates that sit in the church and affirm the dishonest narratives spun by folks like James Lindsay, and who have been hoodwinked into promoting the anti-working class ideology of libertarianism (which is in opposition to their own material interests) they simply want the freedom and liberty to be ideologically selfish. They don’t enjoy the wealth, power, and privilege that the wealthy elite do, so they embrace “freedom and liberty” because they want the freedom and liberty to be unaccountable to the rest of humanity.  They want the freedom and liberty to not be responsible to reality.  They want the freedom and liberty to maintain their indoctrinated delusions without being held accountable by their fellow man.  They want the freedom and liberty to be selfish and to not want to put any effort into understanding reality or doing any sort of work that doesn’t, first and foremost, benefit their confused misperception of their own self-interest.

Sorry, this is the behavior, advocacy, and ideology of the morally degenerate.  Prioritizing selfish individualism over responsibility to your fellow man, is the natural materialist predilection of the rich.  Christ himself, as anyone can read in the New Testament, reviled the selfish, judging selfishness, self-centeredness, a fundamental offense against his teachings and God. But there is a special shame for working-class libertarians, who adopt the material interests of the class which they don’t even belong to, while they simultaneously pretend to oppose them. Morality is about the courage and sacrifice of struggle.  It is the struggle to be a better person and to work to make the people around you better.  Morality can not be abstracted from the effort to discern reality, to understand reality, and the struggle to improve reality.  Libertarianism is a morally degenerate ideology as it embodies a rejection of all of the above, or at least its subordination to the *right* to not be told what to do.  Absolute “freedom” (besides being technically impossible since humans are social animals), is immoral.  Freedom ought to be tempered with wisdom, love, responsibility, thoughtfulness, consideration, sacrifice, and struggle.  When freedom stands alone, it can quickly turn to tyranny.  Libertarianism is a morally bankrupt ideology built atop lies and the material interests of the wealthy and powerful."

*  (Also, my response to James Lindsay after spending three hours watching his lectures).

Lili News 029
  • In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
  • Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
  • Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Associate Editor Billy Bob is a dedicated anti-imperialist activist and blogger. He hosts the Blowback roundtable.  You can reach him at his Facebook page HERE.

First iteration. May 14, 2024

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