BOURGEOIS LEFT

JOHN VAROLI—What’s most shocking and perplexing, however, are those colleagues who don’t merely remain silent, but rather, vigorously join in the persecution of dissenters. I suspect this is because we are reminders of their own cowardice and betrayal.
And so it transpired last week that an old journalist friend reached out to me. His goal was to shame me for being skeptical of Big Brother’s narrative on Russia. Even though I have a university degree in the study of Russia and Ukraine, as well as 30 years work experience with both countries, my research and opinions make him uneasy.
I thought long and hard about doing this, and then decided to do it. Below you’ll find our correspondence. I take privacy very seriously and always protect the identity of my sources and companions. So, to protect his privacy, let’s call him “S”.

MATT TAIBBI—Though the judge was clearly not a fan of Hopkins — a courtroom account by Aya Velázquez, which I recommend reading, described how the judge said CJ’s statements were “ideological drivel,” just “not punishable by law” — he won on the law.

After acquittal, he was made aware that technically the case wasn’t over, because thanks to a quirk of German jurisprudence, the prosecutor had a week to file an appeal. Hopkins was unconcerned. “I doubt he will [re-file]. He made a total fool of himself in front of a large audience yesterday,” he wrote. “I can’t imagine that he will want to do that again.” Bzzt! Wrong. The prosecutor re-filed charges.

BRUCE LERRO—While the forces of modernization may have weakened religious beliefs, the doctrines, myths, rituals, and entire architecture of religion (specifically monotheism) were reorganized and used in the name of a secular political religion: nationalism. Beginning in the 19th century, individualists were expected to renounce loyalty to class, ethnicity, and region – not so they could be “free as a bird,” but also to become bound to a new secular community of strangers serving the state. Citizens may gain political rights, but that is far from the end of the story. The socialization into nationalism has been an enormously successful project of the 19th-century ruling classes. Individualists were mobilized to fight and die in wars to prove their patriotism. The reality is now that stateless individuals are not allowed to exist anywhere in the world. 

EDITOR—Lira holds forth on the origins of Ukraine’s astonishing corruption, and the deep-seated emotional motivations for Nuland’s hatred of Russia, which Lira traces back to injuries and persecution inflicted on her great-grandfather during Russian pogroms in Bessarabia almost 150 years ago, forcing his son’s emigration to America. This emotional scar, shared by many Jews in the US establishment (Blinken, and the Kagans and the rest of the neoconservatives, for example) may explain, to some extent, their deeply-held Russophobia. Victoria Nuland, says Lira, is not a nice person. She’s a suckup to those above her and a mean tyrant to those with less power. Meanwhile, as one of the key people in charge of “the Ukraine project”, she oversees the colossal grift taking place in that country by all kinds of US and Western business and political figures, much of it huge money-laundering operations, theft and illegal use of state assets, etc.

EDITOR—Interested in an “unapologetic Black, leftist, working-class” perspective on current sociopolitical events? If so, join us as we speak with Nick Cruse, citizen journalist and co-founder of Revolutionary Blackout Network (RBN). We discuss a variety of topics, including the importance of independent Black, working-class commentary in an age of corporatized journalism, the leftist failures of electoral politics in the US, the absence of an established leftist perspective in mainstream media, the challenges of social media activism (particularly the “BreadTube” effect), as well as the potential to change the current status quo through ground-up, working class solidarity.