Democracy vs. The Putin-Nazis
CJ Hopkins
Back in January 2018, I wrote this piece about The War on Dissent, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is going gangbusters.
As predicted, the global capitalist ruling classes have been using every weapon in their arsenal to marginalize, stigmatize, delegitimize, and otherwise eliminate any and all forms of dissent from neoliberal ideology, and in particular from their new official narrative … “Democracy versus The Putin-Nazis.”
For over two years, the corporate media have been pounding out an endless series of variations on this major theme, namely, that “democracy is under attack” by a conspiracy of Russians and neo-Nazis that magically materialized out of the ether during the Summer of 2016.
The intelligence agencies, political elites, academia, celebrities, social media personalities, and other organs of the culture industry have been systematically reifying this official narrative through constant repetition.
The Western masses have been inundated with innumerable articles, editorials, television news and talk show segments, books, social media posts, and various other forms of messaging whipping up hysteria over “Russians” and “fascists.” At this point, it is no longer just propaganda. It has become the new “truth.” It has become “reality.”
Becoming “reality” is, of course, the ultimate goal of every ideology. An ideology is just a system of ideas, and is thus fair game for critique and dissent. “Reality” is not fair game for dissent. It is not up for debate or challenge, not by “serious,” “legitimate” people. “Reality” is simply “the way it is.” It is axiomatic.
It is apothegmatic. It’s not a belief or an interpretation. It is not subject to change or revision. It is the immortal, immutable Word of God … or whatever deity or deity-like concept the ruling classes and the masses they rule accept as the Final Arbiter of Truth.
In our case, this would be Science, or Reason, rather than some supernatural being, but in terms of ideology there isn’t much difference. Every system of belief, regardless of its nature, ultimately depends on political power and power relations to enforce its beliefs, which is to say, to make them “real.”
OK, whenever I write about “reality” and “truth,” I get a few rather angry responses from folks who appear to think I’m denying the existence of objective reality. I’m not … for example, this chair I’m sitting on is absolutely part of objective reality, a physical object that actually exists. The screen you’re probably reading these words on is also part of objective reality.
I am not saying there is no reality. What I’m saying is, “reality” is a concept, a concept invented and developed by people … a concept that serves a variety of purposes, some philosophical, some political. It’s the political purposes I’m interested in.
Think of “reality” as an ideological tool…a tool in the hands of those with the power to designate what is “real” and what isn’t. Doctors, teachers, politicians, police, scientists, priests, pundits, experts, parents — these are the enforcers of “reality.” The powerless do not get to decide what is “real.” Ask someone suffering from schizophrenia. Or … I’m sorry, is it bipolar disorder? Or oppositional defiant disorder? I can’t keep all these new disorders psychiatrists keep “discovering” straight.
Or ask a Palestinian living in Gaza. Or the mother of a Black kid the cops shot for no reason. Ask Julian Assange. Ask the families of all those “enemy combatants” Obama droned. Ask the “conspiracy theorists” on Twitter digitally screaming at anyone who will listen about what is and isn’t “the truth.”
Each of them will give you their version of “reality,” and you and I may agree with some of them, and some of their beliefs may be supported with facts, but that will not make what they believe “reality.”
Power is what makes “reality” “reality.” Not facts. Not evidence. Not knowledge. Power.
Those in power, or aligned with those in power, or parroting the narratives of those in power, understand this (whether consciously or not). Those without power mostly do not, and thus we continue to “speak truth to power,” as if those in power gave a shit. They don’t. The powerful are not arguing with us. They are not attempting to win a debate about what is and isn’t “true,” or what did or didn’t “really” happen. They are declaring what did or didn’t happen. They are telling us what is and is not “reality,” and demonstrating what happens to those who disagree.
The “Democracy versus The Putin-Nazis” narrative is our new “reality,” whether we like it or not. It does not matter one iota that there is zero evidence to support this narrative, other than the claims of intelligence agencies, politicians, the corporate media, and other servants of the ruling classes. The Russians are “attacking democracy” because the ruling classes tell us they are.
“Fascism is on the march again” because the ruling classes say it is. Anyone who disagrees is a “Putin-sympathizer,” a “Putin-apologist,” or “linked to Russia,” or “favored by Russia,” or an “anti-Semite,” or a “fascist apologist.”
Question the official narrative about the Gratuitously Baby Gassing Monster of Syria and you’re an Assad apologist, a Russian bot network, or a plagiarizing Red-Brown infiltrator. Criticize the corporate media for disseminating cheap McCarthyite smears, and you’re a Tulsi-stanning Hindu Nazi-apologist. God help you if you should appear on FOX, in which case you are a Nazi-legitimizer!
A cursory check of the Internet today revealed that “far-right Facebook groups are spreading hate to millions in Europe” by means of some sort of hypnogenic content that just looking at it turns you into a Nazi. Our democracy-loving friends at The Atlantic Council are disappointed by Trump’s refusal to sign the “Christchurch Call,” a multilateral statement encouraging corporations to censor the Internet … and fascism is fashionable in Italy again!”
This post-Orwellian, neo-McCarthyite mass hysteria is not going to stop … not until the global capitalist ruling classes have suppressed the current “populist” insurgency and restored “normality” throughout the Western world. Until then, it’s going to be pretty much non-stop “Democracy versus the Putin-Nazis.”
So, unless you’re enjoying our new “reality,” or are willing to conform to it for some other reason, prepare to be smeared as “a Russia-loving, Putin-apologizing conspiracy theorist,” or a “fascism-enabling, Trump-loving Nazi,” or some other type of insidiously Slavic, white supremacist, mass-murder enthusiast.
Things are only going to get uglier as the American election season ramps up. I mean, come on … you don’t really believe that the global capitalist ruling classes are going to let Trump serve a second term, do you?
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Who the f-in cares. Global thermonuclear war. Hope it goes off over my head. Think God has had enough. On their knees the warpigs crawling, begging mercy for their sins, satan laughing spreads his wings.
I follow the money.
If it suits “the ruling classes” to let Trump have another 13 terms of office, they will see that it happens.
Their main obstacle is that I don’t think he ever wanted, or expected, to be president.
He may resist…
wardopper. The look on his face when he won was priceless. Oh siht I’ve realy fucked up now, again.
Goodby billionaire lifestyle, welcome to a world of hurt.
Now he has his feet under the desk…… maybe this aint so bad.
“speak truth to power,” as if those in power gave a shit.
True. Therefore, speak truth to powerless. They do care.
But then, they probably already know what truth is through experience…
Perhaps best is to have a conversation with yourself if you want to know what truth is, but are in the ‘lucky’ position that you are considered to consume the ‘truth’ from power.
Well, whilst you might be right, it clearly isn’t working very well since Vladimir Putin is one of the most popular leaders in the world and that is amongst people of vastly differing class and political belief
Unfortunate and unusual that my favourite CJ should go and pick up some Haaretz stuff (behind a paywall, so I couldn’t even read what the flagship of Israeli Democracy was blabbering about) to describe a situation which, as always and with everything in Italy, is much, much more complex than can be expedited in a couple of words.
Wasn’t Putin diagnosed with bipolar syndrome by some Clinton-adoring psychiatrist in Truro, MA…….who went on to say that that was the explanation for his being Hitler and Stalin rolled into one?
He’s probably even the sanest politician we know of.
He can certainly answer questions convincingly.
That has to be a plus.
“Spacetime is doomed. There is no such thing as spacetime fundamentally in the actual underlying description of the laws of physics. That’s very startling, because what physics is supposed to be about is describing things as they happen in space and time. So if there’s no spacetime, it’s not clear what physics is about.” Nima Arkhani-Hamed I copied that quote from a Donald Hoffman talk I watched on YouTube (might be this one). As I understand it, growing numbers of physicists see reality as informational, i.e., as not fundamentally objective, and there are many experiments whose results are best explained by that supposition. In other words, objective reality ain’t what it used to be. If our reality is indeed information based (rather than ‘matter’ based), then consciousness itself becomes foundational as a logical extension of information; it takes consciousness to interpret otherwise meaningless data as information. Information is not information… Read more »
Spacetime seems benign: but it is the cause of all our imaginary illusion. The existence of an objective, mind-independent, external container reality seems incontrovertible …the basis of Method, posivitism, and science fact. But is a cosmogony without consciousness: a deadground from which consciousness must miraculously emerge. Cue: Chalmer’s ‘hard problem’ of consciousness. Spacetime is causal of all partition and parturition: extensive occasions of birth and death. What Whitehead called the “false spatialisation of time” literally brings Being into Being. The “misplaced concrete” ideation of Being qua Being – as fixed, permanent, absolutised, time-independent, essential – is the root of all exceptionalism, indispensibility, dominion, instrumental agency, private property rights …all born of spatio-temporalised ‘objectivity’. The absolutisation of Being is the foundational and essential premise of the Ontotheoligical Tradition – culminating in the Enlightenment …which is the concretisation of objectivity as scientific materialism and analytical logical posivitism …the basis of a humanism… Read more »
On acid about 30 years ago, it hit me that distance was an illusion. It was also suddenly clear that I am not my body. Over the last few years, I have been exposed to various frameworks and other experiences that help me really feel how these ‘counter-intuitive’ truths are so. Yes, without spacetime, separation is impossible. There is no more foundational concept in materialism, so its disappearance will send out a mighty wave. But my goodness the resistance to this difficult truth is profound. Hence, one of the more pertinent and useful components of Donald Hoffman’s talks is how unwarranted our instinctive trust of our five senses is, and not just human sense perceptions, but other critters too. It’s these little observations, backed up with sound science, I like to reference. They entice waverers into a yet more open-minded state. The more people we have really opening up to… Read more »
Whoah, there buddy! Back up: run that by me again – does Hoffman really say we cannot trust our senses? What can we trust then? The basic epistemology of Yogacara Zen is that six senses and their relational sense fields constitute the ‘All’ …Sabba. That is the five senses, and their constitutive ‘sense-mind’ (manovijnana) – which I have previously referred to as ‘pre-ontological’ – are all that there is. It is the everyday waking consciousness that is ‘really real’ (parinispanna) – not some ‘pure’ higher consciousness. Because the senses can be unreliable – as can the ontological mind: there has to be an intellectual appreciation of reality. The two reinforce each other to constitute ‘perfect wisdom’ (pramana; prajnaparamita) …but with the rational, ontological mind subjacent to the sense-mind – as previously mentioned. That way the pre-ontological sense-mind and the ontological conceptual mind – psycho-linguistically mediated – are integrated in experiential/conceptual… Read more »
I wasn’t quoting, but paraphrasing for the sake of brevity. Hoffman’s position on this point is a rebuttal of the notion, which is I think fairly orthodox, that evolutionary fitness correlates tightly with fully accurate perceptions of the world. The data he shows and the model he proposes demonstrate that good enough perceptions of the world are ‘fitter’ than 100% accurate perceptions, and he makes a very compelling argument. As you point out, our sense perceptions can be unreliable. We also know we cannot see the full light spectrum, hear all noises, detect all changes in temperature, etc. But “trust” is a strong word. Our senses are obviously good enough for the job of being human, generally speaking. And good enough is far more useful than totally accurate. As for consciousness experiencing in other reality frames where there are no five/six/seven (I think there’s one school that says there are… Read more »
So it becomes a moot point: as we both agree the bigger hurdles are avoiding neoliberalised ‘Apocalypse Now’. Previously, I suggested a grand coalition of the disenfranchised – which is nearly all of us – to defeat neoliberal statism (which is effectively a singular world system – despite the surface tensions). Then we can settle the finer points: such as David Ray Griffin’s ‘God of the process’ …which is also a strong case; but an unnecessary embellishment of the simplicity of process. Perception is optimised for speed of processing: which is coming to the consensus that our reality is a ‘Predictive Process’ …to counteract any lag in sequential or even distributed processing. If we lag behind the world: we are dead …if, and when, the leopard moves and our senses relay the event in lagged real-time. But let’s not sell this short: that is my point. I’ve just been for… Read more »
“Perception is optimised for speed of processing” This entire model most probably points to procedural programming, or an iterative fractal (output is input, looping) that evolves. In terms of what of the output is rendered to a perceiving consciousness, that would be only the minimum, so as to save computational cycles. If I look at someone, their brain and other internals do not need to be rendered, for example, so would not be. A metaphorical joke to illustrate this is: If a tree falls in forest where no consciousness is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Answer: There is no forest. That’s how it works in the VR systems we know. You need a player. Consciousness is the player. I’m not sure how moot all this is. Of course I don’t know for sure, but I think the coming together of the oppressed in open-minded skepticism will… Read more »
Although it is highly likely that the results of the european parliament election will not translate directly into individual national elections, while we applaud the good kicking centrists have copped in the europarliament, those of us who barrack for a world where every human gets a go, need to be very wary. We must try to remedy the causes of the kicking that humanists have also copped. Maybe not as badly as the neoliberals, but it does seem likely that the neolibs ‘war on the left’ has drained humanism and aided the rightists. Of course we shouldn’t be surprised about any of that since accommodating the right during times of revulsion at the center is a standard operating practice of the greedies. We have to factor a new reality, that the right have just gained a big increase in resources and some credibility. Over here some form of renewal is… Read more »
Well put and you’re right of the need to focus on the ideas themselves.
…”corrupt and hypocritical faux-humanist governments” as you say, is why the voters have given the establishment another kick-in regarding Brexit. Those hurting the most from the 40 year war on a proper welfare state safety net realise that the EU is just another business club and they’re not f*cking in it to paraphrase George Carlin.
I thought the original Communist Manifesto was pretty good, I remember 25 years ago Penguin publishers introduced their Mini Modern classics series and Mark’s work went straight to the top of its sales for several months with the Communist Manifesto, outselling all other authors on their list.
Ure Kismet; TTIC: “Workers of the world, unite”: and do what exactly? There’s the first premise of a New Humanist Manifesto – post-work. The CM was the product of a byegone epoch of industrialisation that has run its course – and left its desolate legacy of a despoiled planet. It turns out the indigenous – pre-capitalist, pre-industrialised, pre-financialised – forms of community, extended familial, matrilineal, natural living had it about right. Modernity was shackled with the curse of dominion over, economistic exploitation, scientism, technologism, ecologism, and psychologism. How do we embody a positive atavism? I’ve had my own project – toward a Universal Humanism – that I have modeled on Guattari’s “Three Ecologies” …of mind, environment, and economy. Like Guattari: these are, in fact, a trialectic of integrated, inter-operable faculties. After Naess: they are in fact metonymic – differing descriptions of the same root cognition – the eco-logic mind (as… Read more »
You may be correct BigB, but how would 90% of the planet ever know? You appear to have deliberately set out your discussion of this manifesto by swallowing a thesaurus first. My days of wading through that sort of stuff ended more n 50 years ago at uni when dingbats used to call their pseudo intellectual tossage marxist dialectic, the less understandable the better as far as they were concerned. Now I’m not saying that is you BigB but what I am saying is if we want to get fellow humans onside we have to talk to them all in an easily comprehensible language. Otherwise we are pissing in the wind and sledging those smart enough to have pulled on a pair of gumboots. I get that you rightly see the lives on indigenous people as being more worthwhile and fulfilling for them than the ‘civilised’ alternative, but merely turning… Read more »
However I say it, the point is there are no open lines of communication. It is all predicated on the maxims “no infinite growth on a finite planet” and “everything is connected to everything else”. Yet all governments have the foundational fallacy of perpetual growth and individualism. Telling your average corporate captured consciousness that these things are fallacies is less than fruitless: it actually causes antagonism and entrenchment. It is a counter productive strategy. If there was a simple set of maxims that were universally comprehensible: wouldn’t we all be enjoying the simpler life? Obviously not. There are a great majority of people who actually get the narrative – but simply do not care. Did you read any of the Schumacher quotes? It could not be put more simply or more elegantly. And the response, 40 years later? We are 40 years closer to the destruction of habitats, including the… Read more »
You have to remember Kismet some people “get” Marxism, some try to confuse with technobabble (Trotskyists) and some are just shite at Marxism and think that literally every group bar white men is oppressed and the way to defeat that oppression is to vote labour (the people who advocate that -the likes of the SWP, PBP, momentum etc- are controlled opposition)
Facts don’t matter any more, feelings do. Though only those in power and the privileged minorities and identity groups they choose to patronise are allowed to have “feelings” which cannot be hurt and must be deferred to. White people, particularly white working class people, are not allowed to have “feelings”, or if they do, they don’t matter.
Feelings Uber Alles. The Feelings and Received Wisdom of the ruling elite are paramount. “It is undeniable” that Putin meddled in the US elections, countless other elections, and the Brexit vote. Because they say so. Like “it is undeniable” that Assad gasses his own people for the fun of it, that Putin murdered Skripal because they are evil cartoon villains, and that’s what evil cartoon villains do. Like “it is undeniable” that Corbyn is anti semitic, which is rampant in the Labour Party. Because they say so.
A big part of the problem is that we seem to have completely screwed up the education of our offspring, the Millennials. They seem to have a very peculiar idea of the past, how people lived and thought, the political and national forces at work, even things as simple as fashion and music. This wouldn’t matter if it was just a misapplication of style or fashion but as it also includes their perception of people and politics it paves the way for them to be led around by their noses. Its as if the entire 1984 thing came to pass but with the vision of post-WW2 British austerity turned into a romanticized graphic novel. Obviously I’m generalizing because its a big generation that must include knowledgeable people. But its still painful to find the Twittermob blathering on about “Hitler” without having any real understanding of who Nazis were, where they… Read more »
Al Capp the perceptive cartoonist behind L’il Abner and friends, lampooned the scapegoating need consuming the overly aggressive. He invented the Shmoo, a creature there just to be kicked and to absorb the forces behind the erstwhile two minute hate, now mushrooming into 24/7 hate. Hate needs expression and who are we to deny righteous hate and fury? It would be like denying food or air or telly.
It’s at moments such as this that I like to calm myself by eating a tin of custard.
It’s very soothing, custard.
I recommend trying it.
a tin? are you a survivalist? i prefer my custard from a carton. my missus prefers to make it, like someone from a 1950s cookery show