by AIDAN O'BRIEN

"Varoufakis is a bit older than Piketty but he too was obviously “vaccinated for life against …anticapitalism”.  This vaccination however wasn’t just against anti-capitalism: it was also against anti-imperialism. As a result Piketty too doesn’t mention imperialism once in his book on capital..."

Photo from United States Senate | CC BY 2.0

Big Brother [speaking in English – of course – with an American accent]: “Are you or have you ever been sympathetic to the old communist experience in Eastern Europe?”

Yanis Varoufakis: “No! Never!”

Big Brother: “And what about Russia today?”

Yanis Varoufakis: “It’s a sinister and good for nothing place!”

What are Europeans allowed to think today? What are the parameters of current European thought? What magic words aid careerism and media exposure in Europe? And what thoughts in the European landscape are simply verboten?

The razor sharp mind of the former Greek finance minister and the founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), Yanis Varoufakis, is a good indicator of contemporary European thinking. And it’s corrupt shallowness.

Varoufakis declares himself to be a “Europeanist”. Indeed going by his latest book Adults in the Room that’s all he thinks about: Europe. Or to be more precise: the European Union and how to prevent it from falling apart. “Democracy, pluralism and unwavering Europeanism” is his solution to the EU’s problems. That and anti-communism.

When face to face with the EU’s most hawkish decision maker – German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble – this is how Varoufakis defines and defends himself and the “radical left” in Greece.

 ‘Are you comparing me with a well-meaning DDR [East German Communist] minister….?’ I asked. ‘Let me reassure you, Wolfgang…. I am a committed democract, a determined pluralist and an unwavering Europeanist. And so are my Syriza party colleagues. We have …[nothing]… in common with [East German Communism].’ “

Varoufakis believed that his own credibility and that of his “radical left” party in 2015 hinged upon this clear disavowal of communism.

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Varoufakis (r) conferring with Tsipras. Who needs rightwingers when you have first-class socialist turncoats?

But Varoufakis doesn’t stop there – he’s desperate to be a good European. In his account of his time in the Eurozone crisis he places other markers around the edges of his thought. Markers which are meant to support his European-ness. And indeed his morality.

And what do these markers look like? They’re almost invisible in the context of 500 dense pages – but they’re strategic pointers that prove Varoufakis is a real “Europeanist”.

On page two Varoufakis quickly frames his understanding of Europe today: “Vladimir Putin must be rubbing his eyes in disbelief at the way the West has been undermining itself so fabulously.” For this truly European author it’s a given that “Putin” is enjoying the fall of the West!

A few lines later our European hero (Varoufakis) says: “there are no ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies’ in this book.” But in the background of course there is one bad “regime” he can’t tolerate.

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The traitor Varoufakis' version of Putin. Varoufakis and his party of traitors to socialism sees no contradiction in peddling a leftism that is actually 100% pro capitalism. But then again, he's not a true socialist, let alone communist, but a tepid social democrat, at best.

On page 347 he calmly states: “Putin and his regime had an appalling human rights record: did we, whose only real backers were the progressives of Europe, want to be associated with such a state?”.

So who then do we good Europeans want to associate with? Varoufakis doesn’t explicitly answer this question because the answer is obvious: America. The Butcher of Arabia and The Godfather of Zombie Capitalism – the humanitarian USA – is apparently progressive Europe’s only option.

Varoufakis has no compunction when linking up with the American Deep State. In his struggle to be a good European he openly embraces: Lawrence ‘Larry’ Summers, Jeffrey Sachs, Bernie Saunders and Barack Obama.

In his struggle (his ‘Mein Kampf’) to be a good European Varoufakis is clear: he didn’t want to antagonize America. And so he persuaded Syriza to jettison it’s genuinely radical 2012 plans. Plans that included, for example, the closure of “all foreign bases in Greece and withdrawal from NATO”.

In a 2013 speech, written by Varoufakis, Syriza directly informed the Brookings Institution that US foreign policy was now not a problem. In other words, the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East caused by the US was not an issue for the good European.

And this brings us to the big blank space in Varoufakis’s understanding of Europe today: imperialism. Joseph McCarthy would’ve been proud. Because while emphasizing his anti-communism and his Russophobia this good European – Varoufakis – completely misses the horror which Europe and its partner/master (the USA) are responsible for.

NATO’s wars of aggression which are contemporaneous with the Eurozone crisis – and which may explain a large part of that crisis – are absent from Varoufakis’s account of European reality.

But what does Varoufakis know? After all he’s only an economist. Reality is something the academic economist rarely addresses. Another in vogue “left-wing” European economist unconsciously explains the problem well.

In his best selling book Capital the Frenchman Thomas Piketty declares in his introduction:

“I belong to a generation that turned eighteen in 1989…. I belong to a generation that came of age listening to news of the collapse of the Communist dictatorships and never felt the slightest affection or nostalgia for those regimes or for the Soviet Union. I was vaccinated for life against the conventional but lazy rhetoric of anticapitalism…”

Varoufakis is a bit older than Piketty but he too was obviously “vaccinated for life against …anticapitalism”.

This vaccination however wasn’t just against anti-capitalism: it was also against anti-imperialism. As a result Piketty too doesn’t mention imperialism once in his book on capital.

Such is the emptiness of the “progressive” European mind today that reality passes it and it sees nothing. And Europe is paying the price. Cut off from it’s fellow Europeans (it’s working class and the Russians) and cut off from it’s neighbors (the Asians and Africans) “progressive Europe” is an embarrassing lonely fool.

Only by engaging and adopting the verboten concepts – anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism – does it have a hope. But that demands independence from It’s American Big Brother. And it also demands probably for the first time in the history of Europe: adulthood.

By David Walsh, wsws.org

Obnoxious and vile predatory mogul Harvey Weinstein was an easy choice to launch a crusade of this sort.

Dateline—28 November 2017

The torrent of allegations and denunciations of sexual misconduct against media figures, Hollywood personalities and politicians continues to flow unabated. The upper middle class in America seems obsessed with little else, except perhaps Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile the mass of the population in the US live their own lives, dominated by economic and social problems.

This campaign has nothing to do with protecting women—especially working-class women—against sexual harassment, let alone criminal violence and other forms of exploitation and repression. With each passing day, the reactionary, anti-democratic and socially and politically repressive political agenda of the current media-driven campaign is becoming increasingly explicit.

Anyone foolish or naïve enough to be roped in by it ought to be brought to their senses by some of the filth that is emerging, including the demented article by Stephen Marche in this Sunday’s New York Times on the brutality of the male libido, which states that self-castration may be one answer to the problem.

The sexual misconduct campaign began in the Times and New Yorker with the alleged misdeeds of Harvey Weinstein. Everyone could presumably be induced to dislike the fat Hollywood mogul. But this was simply part of the softening-up process, a means of catching people off guard.

The crusade has become an openly right-wing operation that gives off the ever more pronounced odor of reaction and repression. In some extraordinary manner, the goings-on in the entertainment industry are being transformed into a call for a restoration of tight controls on sexual activity.

In a remarkable Washington Post column, “Let’s rethink sex,” Christine Emba explains to her readers what she considers a common misunderstanding: “that there’s some baseline amount of sex that we should be getting or at least should be allowed to pursue. Following from that is the assumption that the ability to pursue and satisfy our sexual desires … is paramount.”

Emba goes on to explain that since “the excesses of our current sexual ethic are coming up against their consequences, some uncomfortable readjustment will need to occur. Adjusting to this new understanding may well mean less sex for some, in the short term, and more anxiety for several. Too bad.” She concludes, “We won’t die of having less sex (indeed, no one ever has). Somehow, people will still find ways to meet, mate and propagate the species. If you are a decent person, the prospect of a clearer, more boundaried sexual ethic should not frighten you.”

Cotton Mather

The argument that sexual repression “never killed anyone,” in fact that it might be a positive good, is worthy of Cotton Mather. Indeed, the latter New England Puritan minister advised youth and adults alike to avoid sexual stimulation and to control the desires that “lie lurking in your heart.”

We might ask, who appointed Emba, former “Hilton Kramer Fellow in Criticism” at The New Criterion, one right-wing publication, and whose writing has appeared in the National Review, another one, the sexual Gauleiter of America? Why should anyone pay the slightest attention to her miserable moral prescriptions and definitions of “decency”? One can only assume that Emba has a stack of scarlet “A”s in her closet ready to be deployed as need be.

Where is this rubbish coming from? Out of this backwardness will appear—much to the surprise and dismay of some—efforts to outlaw all sorts of sexual activity, including extramarital sex, or “fornication” as Emba refers to it, gay marriage and other forms of sexuality disapproved of by the new Victorians.

Approaching matters from a slightly different angle, the Sunday Times column (“The Unexamined Brutality of the Male Libido”) by Marche, a Toronto-based writer well connected to the Canadian media and political establishment, is simply unhinged.

Marche refers to “the nature of men in general,” “the grotesquerie of their sexuality,” “the ugly and dangerous nature of the male libido,” “the implicit brutality of male sexuality” and cites the contention of the ultra-reactionary “radical feminist” Andrea Dworkin that “the only sex between a man and a woman that could be undertaken without violence was sex with a flaccid penis.” Marche goes on to invoke, approvingly by virtue of its context, the example of “the great [third century A.D.] Catholic theologian Origen,” who “castrated himself.”

Origen

From there, Marche proceeds to myth and fairy tale and their “fear of the male libido,” explaining that “A vampire is an ancient and powerful man with an insatiable hunger for young flesh,” and adding that “Werewolves are men who regularly lose control of their bestial nature.”

Implying that sex is a disease, Marche asserts that “there remains no cure for human desire.” What, then, should be done about it? Referencing Freud, he writes: “The idea of the Oedipus complex contained an implicit case for the requirements of strenuous repression: If you let boys be boys, they will murder their fathers and sleep with their mothers.”

There’s more. The “post-Weinstein era will be an era of gender pessimism,” because there may well be “no possible reconciliation between the bright clean ideals of gender equality and the mechanisms of human desire.” Arriving by a different route at the same destination as Emba, Marche proclaims triumphantly that “sexual morality, so long resisted by liberals, has returned with a vengeance,” and, with evident satisfaction, points out that “we are returning to shame as our primary social form of sexual control.”

Marche concludes more or less with this: “If you want to be a civilized man, you have to consider what you are. Pretending to be something else, some fiction you would prefer to be, cannot help. It is not morality but culture—accepting our monstrosity, reckoning with it—that can save us.” This avowal brings to mind images of monks flagellating themselves and each other, immersion in ice-cold water and sundry forms of self-mutilation. Marche argues explicitly that the issue is the suppression of male libido.

Is his self-loathing a posture, designed to curry favor with the gender politics crowd, or is it genuine? Perhaps only Mr. Marche can answer this question. But whatever the answer, his sick and rotten ideas are being published in the New York Times. Only a deeply reactionary political agenda makes use of such polluted conceptions.

The contempt for democratic rights in the sexual harassment campaign comes out more and more clearly.

Increasingly, commentators flaunt their lack of concern about the innocence or guilt of those accused.

Teen Vogue columnist Emily Lindin explained on Twitter: “I’m actually not at all concerned about innocent men losing their jobs over false allegations of sexual assault or harassment” and, later, “If some innocent men’s reputations have to take a hit in the process of undoing the patriarchy, that is a price I am absolutely willing to pay.”

Olivia Goldhill headlined her piece at Quartz, “Naming abusers online may be ‘mob justice’ but it’s still justice.” Goldhill doesn’t seem to get the point of the phrase “mob justice,” i.e., that it is no justice at all.

Roxane Gay (Photo credit: Slowking4)

In regard to protests against McCarthyite denunciations, Roxane Gay in the New York Times complained bitterly about “a lot of hand-wringing about libel and the ethics of anonymous disclosure.”

At Splinternews, Isha Aran suggested that “In light of the #MeToo social media campaign and the scores of women from all walks of life sharing their experiences with harassment and assault, to even bring up the concept of false accusations seems ill-timed and rude.”

Again, all of this comes out of a very affluent section of the population, which would like to leverage accounts of its supposedly tormenting circumstances into even greater wealth.

Decades of ideological and political reaction lie behind these reactionary notions, but also a good deal of envy.

As attorney and writer Jill Filipovic explained, on the NBC News website, “We need to push for real female power—for women to take the place of many of the men currently at the top of nearly every industry. That won’t totally prevent abuse, but it certainly would lessen it.”

Jill Filipovic (Photo credit: Jim Miles)

This defense and pursuit of wealth can only take place to the extent that bourgeois law and order is maintained, that political opposition be diverted or contained. It is one of the paths to generalized repression.

It is entirely appropriate to term this campaign a sexual witch-hunt, in the political-legal sense of the term. Collins online dictionary defines witch-hunt (British) as “a rigorous campaign to round up or expose dissenters on the pretext of safeguarding the welfare of the public” and (American) as “an investigation carried out ostensibly to uncover disloyalty, subversive political activity, etc., usually conducted with much publicity and often relying upon inconclusive evidence and capitalizing on public fear of unpopular opinions.”

If the offensive against political subversives has not yet started, just give it time!

Hollywood’s Production Code, which primarily referred to sexual and antisocial behavior of various kinds and never once mentioned politics or class struggle, was strictly enforced as of July 1, 1934. This was an exceptionally explosive year dominated by three widely supported strikes, led by left-wing Socialists, Trotskyists and Communist Party members—the Toledo Auto-Lite strike, Minneapolis truck drivers’ and San Francisco dock workers’ strikes.

The enforcing of the Code in the midst of the Depression unquestionably reflected a general and legitimate nervousness within the ruling class about the breakdown of all sorts of moral and social taboos and the more far-reaching consequences of such a breakdown. As we noted some time ago, “the imposition of the Production Code was precisely one of the means by which the film industry and its overseers made certain that the realities of the Depression would not find reflection on screen.”

The sexual misconduct campaign is dishonest in so many ways. There is the ludicrous pretense, for example, that Hollywood or the entertainment industry generally is the measure of sexual and workplace relations in America. In the 2014 General Social Survey, a random sample of Americans was asked, “In the last 12 months, were you sexually harassed by anyone while you were on the job?” In response, 3.6 percent of women said yes, a decrease from 6.1 percent in 2002. Not a conclusive statistic by any means, but not an indication of the “state of siege” described by the various columnists and pundits.

The latter could not care less about the conditions of the broad mass of the American or global population, female or male. Poverty, the destruction of pensions and health care benefits, the vicious rescinding of abortion rights, the attack on Planned Parenthood and other critical women’s health programs, homelessness, the opioid crisis and the jump in the rate of suicide do not concern them in the slightest. And where are their protests about the mass killing in Iraq and Afghanistan, about illegal drone strikes and “kill lists”?

The Democratic Party in particular is deeply immersed in the sexual crimes business. In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s strategy for victory was based on the Brock Turner case at Stanford, bathroom access for transgender people and “white privilege.” The Democrats invested enormously in all this, and it failed. Now they are doubling down. “White privilege” has been supplemented by “male sexuality.” This is lodged in a definite, privileged section of the population.

Anyone who studies the Salem witch trials will come to the conclusion that it was not merely a fit of mass hysteria, but that definite economic and social processes were at work. As Christopher Bigsby observes, in an introduction to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, “Salem in 1692 was in turmoil. The Royal Charter had been revoked. Original land titles had been canceled and others not yet secured. Neighbor accordingly looked on neighbor with some suspicion, for fear that land might be reassigned. It was also a community riven with schisms…”

Anyone serious about understanding the current sexual hysteria will need to get beneath the skin of present-day America and grasp its specific variety of “turmoil.” 

By WOLF GORDON CLIFTON, ANIMAL PEOPLE
This editorial and organisation are endorsed by The Greanville Post

s winter sets in across the Northern Hemisphere, it’s easy to let a sombre perspective about the animals’ cause take hold. Here in the Pacific Northwest, the daylight steadily dwindles to just six hours per day of dim grey, the Sun often cloistered from direct view behind thick sheets of rain clouds. Seemingly swallowed up by darkness, one's thoughts more naturally turn toward disappointment than hope. But for activists dedicated to creating a brighter future for animals, it’s always important to cultivate a sense of optimism. I am writing to share my thoughts as to the promising future of animal protection, in the hope that they will help lift your spirits as well.

Sir Paul McCartney is famous for his assertion that, “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.” Kim Bartlett, the founder and president of ANIMAL PEOPLE and my mother, began her career in animal advocacy with much the same conviction. If people only knew how animals are treated, she believed, that would motivate them to give up meat and fur and pass laws to abolish cruelty wherever it existed. Yet while animal rights advocacy has seen many victories in the forty-six years since Kim first became involved, the overall situation for animals remains unacceptable.

It turns out the glass walls metaphor is inadequate for understanding the complexities involved in creating awareness that leads to individual and social change. Not only is it necessary to install the glass walls where solid walls exist, you have to make people look at what's going on when they would rather look away. In societies where the sight of animals being killed is commonplace, people are already aware, but their minds employ various coping mechanisms, including “denial.” It is safe to say, though, that for First-Worlders, the distressing sight of animals being slaughtered is remote enough that when we do glimpse the animals suffering, we are disturbed enough to believe it should be stopped.

Even though the horrors animals experience in factory farms and slaughterhouses are now widely known by the public, the percentage of vegetarians within the United States has not grown significantly in decades, and worldwide meat consumption continues to increase. Despite the fabulous success of anti-fur campaigns during the 1980s, fur has made a fashion comeback in the years of the new millenium. Although the number of people who actually hunt is at an all-time low, the U.S. hunting lobby is more influential than ever, with the Department of the Interior recently creating an “International Wildlife Conservation Council” (sic) for the specific purpose of promoting trophy hunting abroad.

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat are we to make of this seeming discrepancy between public knowledge of animal suffering and inaction to prevent it? And more importantly, what can we do to resolve it? The Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529 C.E.) offers some heartening insights. Yangming was sympathetic to animal suffering, defining virtue as feeling “unable to bear” the pain or fear of animals about to be slaughtered, and describing how, by learning to love all beings – humans, animals, and plants alike – he discovered his own humanity.

"It turns out the glass walls metaphor is inadequate for understanding the complexities involved in creating awareness that leads to individual and social change. Not only is it necessary to install the glass walls where solid walls exist, you have to make people look at what's going on when they would rather look away..."