by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog
– “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
- “Some apes, it seems, are more equal than others.”
- “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned, dirty public servant!”
One of those quotes is from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, another was said by Charlton Heston towards a primate who rejected ape-human equality during the court interrogation scene from Planet of the Apes, and another quote is made up but may sound familiar to those who have seen that movie.
I feel bad for George Orwell: Whenever Western capitalism-imperialism has a crisis (like now) he gets trotted out to show that totalitarian dictatorship is the only alternative to Western liberal democracy – totalitarian dictatorship (socialist, Islamo-fascist, Yellow Vester (on the left) or Michigander (on the right), etc.) reveals that they actually do acknowledge that “TINA” is false. A logical corollary of this claim is that Western liberal (bourgeois) democracy has absolutely zero embedded totalitarian aspects… at least for now.
Orwell has thus become more useful to the Western far-right (on the political and the economic spectrums) than he ever could have imagined.
His first book, Burmese Days, showed who the man really was at heart: a romantic novelist who was bumbling with women, and who added serious politics to his love stories (1984 is a love story as well) after participating in the surprisingly mundane imperialist economic atrocities of the British. Burmese Days is said – in that quintessentially English manner – to have “rather let the side down”. Bad form, old chap, LOL!
Orwell said he simply reported what he witnessed: zero-conscience capitalists and English female invader-colonists who had half the heart he did and who cared only about money and status. This rather dispirited the young romantic, but not enough that he gave up his politically-bumbling English Trotskyist-Romanticism.
During the corona hysteria and Great Lockdown neoliberals and libertarians have been flinging Orwell at those who correctly assert that modern government has a duty to protect the medical and economic health of the average citizen: they defensively rant that that a government exists only to fund a huge foreign army and a tiny domestic police, and that “government overreach” to create a super-caste of Animal Farm-ian, zero-conscience pig rulers must not be tolerated.
It’s a completely hysterical argument, no? To fearmong about Western liberalism going from near-zero government involvement to government-caste totalitarian domination?
Yet, just as in 2008, American Founding Father-Salafists love to exhume Orwell (but not his anti-imperialist side) to fearmong and remind with misplaced piety that, nay, ye olde lawgivers forbade government meddling (in the (debt)slave-based economy). Coincidentally, the apes in Planet of the Apes also slavishly followed the dictates of their historic leader known as “the Lawgiver”, whose writings and quotes formed their political system suited for lower primates.
The individual freedom-lovers know exactly what Orwell would say if he were alive in 2020, indeed!
What they don’t ask is: Why in 2020 would Orwell not perhaps try to see where totalitarian elements already exist within the Western system?
The never-discussed aspects of totalitarianism within neoliberal ideology – it’s not what you think
“Totalitarianism” is defined as one group having total control of a government – an autocratic leader or hierarchy with central control – and that this group controls all aspects of life.
Neoliberals, despite all the QE that gets rammed through yet barely trickles down, and the way that high finance totally dominates their fiscal policy, elections and media, fail to see that bankers occupy the same power-dominating role in their system as did the upper-caste pigs in Animal Farm.
Orwell “rather let the side down” because he unveiled the totalitarian piggishness of the English invader-colonisers and their low-minded, social climbing wives and daughters in colonies like Burma.
Yes, the modern spy states of the US, UK and France have manipulated information technology to create surveillance far, far more intrusive than the Stasi raised to the power of KGB – we all know that already. Their willingness and ability to use drones to precision-bomb Muslim wedding parties is the height of military totalitarian barbarity, certainly, but this is not the extent of totalitarianism within the ideology of the Western liberal system.
The individual freedom-lovers insist they are trying to prevent something from being embedded by warning, “Totalitarianism is only something that they do, not us”. This idea, much like how the West does not have any propaganda – only non-Westerners do, is incredibly chauvinistic. Westerners need to realise that from the non-Western point of view: This is an atrocious, sinfully-arrogant mindset.
When I look at the data and write that “capitalism with Western characteristics” makes bankers their vanguard party, Westerners don’t know how to take it. They insist that their politics are totally free of any vanguard party – such as the Communist Party in China or the Basij/mullahs in Iran – and that there are certainly not any aspects of totalitarianism in the West. Their claims are disproven by the fact that one never hears in the West any questioning of either capitalism or imperialism, i.e. their economic ideology.
Thus there is indeed totalitarianism in the Western system, nowhere more so than in its economic aspects. They don’t see this because they aren’t permitted to discuss it freely – their vanguard party prevents that.
Perhaps consenting to coronavirus tracking is too much of a restriction on your civil liberties – fine – but this as a political issue which has nothing to do with possible economic totalitarian structures within the West. However, by focusing solely on such non-economic concepts such as corona tracking countries like France are able to jingoistically assert that they are the leader of human rights, to give one example of Western hypocrisy.
But how, one wonders, can a government ever be separated from economics? Answer: no, it cannot achieve this in the absolute, yet aristocratic Western liberalism (referred to as “neoliberalism” in the 21st century West) does indeed endeavour to separate the two as much as possible and relies on totalitarianism to do so.
The only groups allowed to interact with the government in an economic fashion in the West are easily found: high finance bankers, and the military (in the US, the Pentagon). Plato said democracy leads to tyranny, but this is very broad – in the modern era Western liberal democracy leads to corporate fascist tyranny.
Western individual freedom-worshippers apparently prefer their tiny caste of banker-general pigs, as opposed to having a a grassroots, enormous “caste” of public servants, postmen, nurses, garbagemen, teachers, etc. and etc.
Either leave Orwell alone, or the left will start distorting Ayn Rand
LOL, but clearly we would have the less pleasant task: Orwell’s artistic talents were so, so much greater than Rand’s amphetamine-fuelled paranoia that the government is out to get her.
The question with Orwell is what was his highest allegiance? Was he primarily a romantic novelist, whose highest ideal was art and not socialist victory? Or was he a dedicated Trotskyist, thus bumblingly dedicated to undermining socialist victories. Seems like both.
Orwell opposed the USSR and especially Stalin perhaps because he thought politics should reflect art, when that is absurd, impossible and idealistic to the point of unworkability.
Crucially, he published Animal Farm in 1945 – the Soviets were fighting a defensive war for their lives, where it’s hardly the time to say “Bad form, old chap!” Thus, Orwell’s view of Stalinism was entirely predicated on seeing them in abnormal, martial conditions – it is like judging Iran in 2020 with how it was in 1984, when it was at war with Iraq: it’s preposterous to do so, and certain to lead to false, negative distortions.
Orwell certainly failed to see how Moscow became the first empire to bleed itself for its periphery. Nor was Orwell around long enough to see and judge his political heir, the bumbling fake-leftist Jeremy Corbyn.
Orwell was yet another Western European who vainly groped for that elusive European “Third Way”, but he was a great writer and a fine human being nonetheless. He was certainly no fake-leftist, but he was rather on the right-wing of the left spectrum.
Of course, opposing the USSR makes one a fake-leftist and that is simply a modern political fact: the political spectrum is real and cannot be disregarded on your exasperated whim.
Orwell would be 116 today, and while we can argue if he would lament the implosion of the USSR, (I certainly assume he was leftist enough for that) one thing is certain: he would not have said that the Western model is devoid of totalitarianism, which was what Westerners who talk about Orwell during a crisis overtly assert.
Orwell gave ammunition to the left, and that is why the right tries to repurpose him – in order to steal the left’s thunder. They also do that by arrogantly insisting that modern Westernism somehow fundamentally repels totalitarianism, whereas socialist-inspired systems cannot help but attract totalitarianism. False, absurd, inaccurate – a caricature, like representing human society as being animals on a farm.
Trump current gunning for the postal service comes after they came for France’s highways or the UK’s rails – fearmongering about the power of “big government” (which is not at all synonymous with “big, socialist-inspired government) always relies on not unveiling the status quo choice offered to Westerners: bankocracy.
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Corona contrarianism? How about some corona common sense? Here is my list of articles published regarding the corona crisis.
Capitalist-imperialist West stays home over corona – they grew a conscience? – March 22, 2020
Corona meds in every pot & a People’s QE: the Trumpian populism they hoped for? – March 23, 2020
A day’s diary from a US CEO during the Corona crisis (satire) March 23, 2020
MSNBC: Chicago price gouging up 9,000% & the sports-journalization of US media – March 25, 2020
Tough times need vanguard parties – are ‘social media users’ the West’s? – March 26, 2020
If Germany rejects Corona bonds they must quit the Eurozone – March 30, 2020
Landlord class: Waive or donate rent-profits now or fear the Cultural Revolution – March 31, 2020
Corona repeating 9/11 & Y2K hysterias? Both saw huge economic overreactions – April 1, 2020
(A Soviet?) Superman: Red Son – the new socialist film to watch on lockdown – April 2, 2020
Corona rewrites capitalist bust-chronology & proves: It’s the nation-state, stupid – April 3, 2020
Condensing the data leaves no doubt: Fear corona-economy more than the virus – April 5, 2020
‘We’re Going Wrong’: The West’s middling, middle-class corona response – April 10, 2020
Why does the UK have an ‘army’ of volunteers but the US has a shortage? – April 12, 2020
No buybacks allowed or dared? Then wave goodbye to Western stock market gains – April 13, 2020
Pity post-corona Millennials… if they don’t openly push socialism – April 14, 2020
No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all – April 16, 2020
Same 2008 QE playbook, but the Eurozone will kick off Western chaos not the US – April 18, 2020
We’re giving up our civil liberties. Fine, but to which type of state? – April 20, 2020
Coronavirus – Macron’s savior. A ‘united Europe’ – France’s murderer – April 22, 2020
The same 12-year itch: Will banks loan down QE money this time? – April 26,
2020
The end of globalisation won’t be televised, despite the hopes of the Western 99% (2/2) – April 27, 2020
What would it take for proponents to say: ‘The Great Lockdown was wrong’? – April 28, 2020
ZeroHedge, a response to Mr. Littlejohn & the future of dollar dominance – April 30, 2020
Given Western history, is it the ‘Great Segregation’ and not the ‘Great Lockdown’? – May 2, 2020
The Western 1% colluded to start WWI – is the Great Lockdown also a conspiracy? – May 4, 2020
May 17: The date the Great Lockdown must end or Everything Bubble 2 pops – May 6, 2020
Reading Piketty: Does corona delay the Greens’ fake-leftist, sure-to-fail victory? – May 8, 2020
Picturing the media campaign needed to get the US back to work – May 11, 2020
Scarce jobs + revenue desperation = sure Western stagflation post-corona – May 13, 2020
France’s nurses march – are they now deplorable Michiganders to fake-leftists? – May 15, 2020
Why haven’t we called it ‘QE 5’ yet? And why we must call it ‘QE 2.1’ instead – May 16, 2020
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of the books ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’ and the NEW ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’.
For myself, I never saw ‘1984’ as anything but an anti-communist novel, whatever he might have intended. So, from my point of view I don’t believe it ever provided ‘ammunition to the left’. And walking down the arrow-painted one directional aisle of our local home improvement store, with a loudspeaker in a deep male voice, loudly admonishing you to maintain ‘social distance’, ‘cough into your elbow’, etc. certainly brings back memories of ‘1984’.
re: Mr. Mazaheri on Orwell.
Usually, I pass by those on this blog who seem to forget Orwell’s masterpiece, Homage to Catalonia and his experience with the infighting and elimination of the POUMistas by Stalinist trained CP death squads. Maybe, just maybe whether you choose to give any credence to Orwell’s personal experience or if you dismiss his conclusions as a fall back to British cynicism, after all that is what can happen to the disappointed youthful romantics, you are missing an important part of the man’s life experience.
If you want to know where CP cadre ( such as it exists or has been handed down thru families in the USA) operates now, I will tell you—firmly in the Democratic Party so-called left wing.
If you are going what I call “either/or” on your assessment of Orwell, I do believe you are missing something very complex and deep in the man. After all, he is not responsible for those who misquote, misuse or misunderstand him…including perhaps you.
With regard to Orwell’s Animal Farm, it has been rightfully pointed out by British barrister Stephen Sedley that the story works only if the reader understands and agrees with the conclusions Orwell is trying to demonstrate before starting the novel. According to Sedley:
The Trotskyist creed as well as Orwell’s fiction garbage would be long since forgotten if it wasn’t for the imperialist bourgeoisie’s empty flattery, promotion, and outright eulogising of this crap. The supposedly ”anti-totalitarian” George Orwell ended up as a State informer in the service of the Anglo-American deep State — the most coveted salaried work for any Trot worth his/her salt.
”Orwell would be 116 today, and while we can argue if he would lament the implosion of the USSR, (I certainly assume he was leftist enough for that) one thing is certain: he would not have said that the Western model is devoid of totalitarianism, which was what Westerners who talk about Orwell during a crisis overtly assert.”
Sorry, but this is totally off the mark. Firstly, there is no doubt whatsoever that Orwell — being a paradigmatic Western Leftist — would have been elated to watch the collapse of the USSR. As for his framing of the Western model, I think it goes without saying that Orwell would have made it very clear how superior he found it compared to ”degenerate Stalinism”. That was a key part of his assignment.
Yes. In his biography of Orwell, Raymond Williams reached much the same conclusion as Sedley. About Animal Farm he says: “In a profound way, both the cosciousness of the workers and the possibility of authentic revolution are denied. These denials, I would say, are inhuman.” Amen to that.
I almost despair, how come only Ramin Mazaheri and Jimmy Moglia are writing good stuff that makes sense ??? How come even Bernhard of The Moon of Alabama has been infected by this Corona mind virus – He is scared to death that he might catch it and die??? Come on now..Wake Up!!!. The brainwashing does wear off. Just look at what This Italian Girl did – Member of The Italian Parliament.
Even The Russian’s ain’t got anyone like Sara Cunial.
“Italian MP,Sara Cunial,Blasts Bill Gates in the Italian Parliament”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyH2ZCrBSQ0
Che coraggio. Che coraggio !!!!
BRILLANTE!!!!!!!
Tony
Transcript in English
Sara Cunial. Bravo!!!!
“Hobbes said that absolute power does not come from an imposition from above but by the choice of individuals who feel more protected renouncing to their own freedom and granting it to a third party. With this, you are going on anesthetizing the minds with corrupted Mass Media with Amuchina (a brand of disinfectant promoted by Mass Media) and NLP, with words like “regime”, “to allow” and “to permit”, to the point of allowing you to regulate our emotional ties and feelings and certify our affects.
So, in this way, Phase 2 is nothing else than the persecution/continuation of Phase 1 – you just changed the name, as you did with the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). We have understood people, for sure, don’t die for the virus alone. So people will be allowed to die and suffer, thanks to you and your laws, for misery and poverty. And, as in the “best” regimes, the blame will be dropped only on citizens. You take away our freedom and say that we looked for it. Divide et Impera (Divide and Rule).
It is our children who will lose more, who are ‘raped souls’, with the help of the so-called “guarantor of their rights” and of CISMAI (Italian Coordination of Services against Child Abuse). In this way, the right to school will be granted only with a bracelet to get them used to probation, to get them used to slavery – involuntary treatment and to virtual lager. All this in exchange for a push-scooter and a tablet. All to satisfy the appetites of a financial capitalism whose driving force is the conflict of interest, conflict well represented by the WHO, whose main financier is the well-known “philanthropist and savior of the world” Bill Gates.
Hobbes said that absolute power does not come from an imposition from above but by the choice of individuals who feel more protected renouncing to their own freedom and granting it to a third party. With this, you are going on anesthetizing the minds with corrupted Mass Media with Amuchina (a brand of disinfectant promoted by Mass Media) and NLP, with words like “regime”, “to allow” and “to permit”, to the point of allowing you to regulate our emotional ties and feelings and certify our affects.
So, in this way, Phase 2 is nothing else than the persecution/continuation of Phase 1 – you just changed the name, as you did with the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). We have understood people, for sure, don’t die for the virus alone. So people will be allowed to die and suffer, thanks to you and your laws, for misery and poverty. And, as in the “best” regimes, the blame will be dropped only on citizens. You take away our freedom and say that we looked for it. Divide et Impera (Divide and Rule).
It is our children who will lose more, who are ‘raped souls’, with the help of the so-called “guarantor of their rights” and of CISMAI (Italian Coordination of Services against Child Abuse). In this way, the right to school will be granted only with a bracelet to get them used to probation, to get them used to slavery – involuntary treatment and to virtual lager. All this in exchange for a push-scooter and a tablet. All to satisfy the appetites of a financial capitalism whose driving force is the conflict of interest, conflict well represented by the WHO, whose main financier is the well-known “philanthropist and savior of the world” Bill Gates.
We all know it, now. Bill Gates, already in 2018, predicted a pandemic, simulated in October 2019 at the “Event 201”, together with Davos (Switzerland). For decades, Gates has been working on Depopulation policy and dictatorial control plans on global politics, aiming to obtain the primacy on agriculture, technology and energy.
Gates said, I quote exactly from his speech:
“If we do a good job on vaccines, health and reproduction, we can reduce the world population by 10-15%. Only a genocide can save the world”.
With his vaccines, Gates managed to sterilize millions of women in Africa. Gates caused a polio epidemic that paralyzed 500,000 children in India and still today with DTP, Gates causes more deaths than the disease itself. And he does the same with GMOs designed by Monsanto and “generously donated” to needy populations. All this while he is already thinking about distributing the quantum tattoo for vaccination recognition and mRNA vaccines as tools for reprogramming our immune system. In addition, Gates also does business with several multinationals that own 5G facilities in the USA.
On this table there is the entire Deep State in Italian sauce: Sanofi, together with GlaxoSmithKline are friends of the Ranieri Guerra, Ricciardi, and of the well-known virologist that we pay 2000 Euro every 10 minutes for the presentations on Rai (Italian state TV. She’s probably talking about Burioni). Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline sign agreements with medical societies to indoctrinate future doctors, making fun of their autonomy of judgment and their oath.
Hi-Tech multinationals, like the Roman Engineering which is friend of the noble Mantoan, or Bending Spoons, of Pisano, which are there for control and manage our personal health datas in agreement with the European Agenda ID2020 of electronic identification, which aims to use mass vaccination to obtain a digital platform of digital ID. This is a continuation of the transfer of data started by Renzi to IBM. Renzi, in 2016, gave a plus 30% to Gates Global Fund.
On the Deep State table there are the people of Aspen, like the Saxon Colao, who with his 4-pages reports, paid 800 Euros/hour, with no scientific review, dictates its politics as a Bilderberg general as he is, staying away from the battlefield. The list is long. Very long. In the list there is also Mediatronic, by Arcuri and many more.
The Italian contribution to the International Alliance Against Coronavirus will be of 140 million Euros, of which 120 million Euros will be given to GAVI Alliance, the non-profit by Gates Foundation. They are just a part of the 7.4 billion Euro fund by the EU to find a vaccine against Coronavirus – vaccines which will be used as I said before.
No money, of course for serotherapy, which has the collateral effect of being super cheap. No money for prevention, a real prevention, which includes our lifestyles, our food and our relationship with the environment.
The real goal of all of this is total control. Absolute domination of human beings, transformed into guinea pigs and slaves, violating sovereignty and free will. All this thanks to tricks/hoax disguised as political compromises. While you rip up the Nuremberg code with involuntary treatment, fines and deportation, facial recognition and intimidation, endorsed by dogmatic scientism – protected by our “Multi-President” of the Republic who is real cultural epidemic of this country.
We, with the people, will multiply the fires of resistance in a way that you won’t be able to repress all of us.
I ask you, President, to be the spokesperson and give an advice to our President Conte: Dear Mr. President Conte, next time you receive a phone call from the philanthropist Bill Gates forward it directly to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. If you won’t do this, tell us how we should define you, the “friend lawyer” who takes orders from a criminal.”
Thank you.”
“… infected by this Corona mind virus …???”
Indeed, either zoonosis or fullmoonotic distemper seems apparent in certain constellations, … it is a sad day when the blog-tyrant index rises to the point where Facebook and its ‘CIA-Fact Checkers Inc’ seem a mild new-normal. Pink Floyd did the classic ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ in the 1970’s and there is now a weird re-mix 2.0 in progress some 50 years later, imo. Understanding Syd Barrett (if that is possible) comes to mind. Easy-access desktop icons now deleted; alas, the moon now seems stale cheese. You are not alone in your concerns.
Since Sara Canial is presumeably a woman, I believe the correct Italian expression should be “Che coraggioao. Che coraggia !!!!” — I believe.
Ramin,
I really don’t know where you get the energy to scrutinize such ideological failures as bancrocracy. It’s very important to shed light on .such catastrophic realities but I am concerned with your health. Always spending your intellectual energy on these ” capitalistic sesspools” can only render one sick.
Anyway, I find you very courageous.
Para mim, Orwell nada mais foi e é do que o escritor de “esquerda” mais amado pela direita. Quando alguém conseguir dizer-me quantas edições do “1984” foram custeadas pelos fundos bolsos da CIA, poderemos chegar ao verdadeiro preço desse amor.
Não nos esqueçamos que o senhor Henry Blair fechou com chave de ouro a sua curta vida, ao entregar aos serviços secretos britânicos uma bem recheada lista com os nomes daqueles conhecidos e amigos seus que tinham uma inclinação marxista-leninista e pró URSS. Nem mais: o senhor Orwell foi, no ocaso da sua vida, um bufo. Para um homem de “esquerda” não houve nem há melhor epitáfio.
Quanto às boas almas que ainda sonham com as trapalhadas trotskistas do POUM na guerra civil espanhola, será melhor relembrar essas almas que o POUM levava muito a sério a “revolução permanente” teorizada pelo camarada Leon e estava mais interessado em promover a revolução romântica do que em lutar pela sobrevivência da muito real II República Espanhola. Se o bom do Orwell criticou violentamente as forças comunistas que apoiaram sem descanso e nunca traíram a República Espanhola, já o efectivo apoio britânico ao assassino Francisco Franco Bahamonde não lhe mereceu a mesma energia denunciadora. E o seu “quietismo” do antes da II Guerra Mundial e do durante a II Guerra Mundial diz muito acerca do homem de “esquerda” que Orwell foi.
Translation. Mod:
To me, Orwell was and is nothing more than the “left” writer most loved by the right. When someone can tell me how many editions of “1984” were paid for by the CIA’s deep pockets, we can get to the real price of that love.
Let us not forget that Mr Henry Blair closed his short life with a golden key by giving the British secret services a well-filled list with the names of those acquaintances and friends of his who had a Marxist-Leninist and pro-USSR inclination. No more: Mr. Orwell was, at the end of his life, a snitch. For a “left” man there was not and there is no better epitaph.
As for the Good souls who still dream of POUM’s Trotskyist shenanigans in the Spanish civil War, it will be better to remind these souls that POUM took very seriously the “Permanent Revolution” theorized by Comrade Leon and was more interested in promoting the romantic revolution than in fighting for the survival of the very real II Spanish Republic. If the good do Orwell violently criticized the Communist forces that supported without rest and never betrayed the Spanish Republic, the effective British support to the murderer Francisco Franco Bahamonde did not deserve the same denouncing energy. And his “quietism” before World War II and during World War II says a lot about the “left” man that Orwell was.
Perdoem-me o erro, mas escrevi Henry em vez de Eric. As minhas desculpas.
Any discussion is pointless. Society and the World are way beyond Orwell. Big Brother in 1984 is more like a schoolyard bully. If 1984 was used as a textbook on being tyrannical and authoritarian, then we must admit that pupils surpassed the teacher, unfortunately.
However, we are inching towards a critical mass of dissatisfaction on national and international level. Slowly, almost imperceptible. Yellow vests are example. They re not militant, but there is a kernel. Yesterday, in Brussels, Belgium, premier visited master hospital that dealt with Corona virus. All stuff came out to greet her. As soon as motorcade appeared, they ALL turned their back to the premier. So, solidarity and unity about common cause is beginning to appear. Last week 500,000 people wanted to demonstrate against lock-down, police made them stay 2 m apart, so only 5,000 attended the rally. So there are small flare-ups, sometimes just a bit of smoke here and there. And people become bolder and bolder each time. If French can do it why not us? At some pint, Michiganders will not be happy just to vocalize their grievances, they might decide to act. It would not be unheard of – not so long ago people did it in Wisconsin, kind of a neighbor to Michigan.
I read Howard Zin and Peoples History of America. There were serious uprisings in 19th and even 20th century, all squashed by the US Army. Most of people have no clue that those things happened. That is why kids are not taught history at schools, The first attempt of mass uprising most likely will and in blood, badly for the rebels, just as any in the past. But there will be more uprisings. in the past, only working class, blue collar were affected and tried to fight. Middle class watched without a pip – they were not in equally bad situation. At some point, the army will not be able to focus on one place. It was perhaps 80% versus 20%. Today, it is 99 versus 1, or , more realistically, 95:5 when push comes to shove. 95% or so looks like decent critical mass. Then, not entire Army or police forces would be on 1% side. War veterans did not fare any better than working class in last 50 years. Racism inducted riots in sixties were subdued by government and police. But then, at least 50% of the population was against riots. There is reason non white people are called visible minority – they are numerical minority, even today. But today, we all have the same grievance against ruling class. That makes a huge difference.
Simultaneous events are quite possible, once critical mass is reached. What if regime forces are needed at the same time to be in Texas, Wyoming, Wisconsin and Michigan, and perhaps in parts of California. It is easy to carpet bomb Vietnam, Libya or Serbia, Iraq or Afghanistan. It does not work against Los Angeles or Flint, Michigan. At least not at the same time….
They certainly learned how to run Orwellian state. Orwell has not written anything on how to protect such state and regime from internal strife. That would be Trotsky, alas, he played for the revolutionary side, not the regime.
So help us God
:-)
Any half way competent student of Lenin ( whether one adheres to his strategy and tactics or not) knows that the army is composed of the working class even if many of them think they are middle class ( cops, firemen, teachers, linemen for the electric companies) and can self organize. Notice how careful the ruling class was in dealing with The Proud Boys’ Portland free speech march last August-Sept. These are the ones who fight their wars and believe that they are doing it to protect the Bill of Rights at home. Looks as if we all are in the process of seeing differently.
This can of worms is going to be dicey indeed….As the county of Alamida, CA tells the ruling oligarch no and he, who can buy off the county in perpetuity much less out lawyer them up to the Supreme Court, says yes, we all see who is running this country.
The idiotic ruling class of California is going to pay adult children 20-30y/o to become enforcers of their Thing-ee lockdown, etc. … These silly geese think they can borrow a page from the Cultural Revolution. Why am I surprised? After all they themselves are of the generation in which history and social studies were demoted in favor of math and science. And were not told of the fact that capitalism inherently implodes periodically and catastrophically.
This article confuses me. Is he saying that Stalin’s butchery is OK because the West has also oppressed colonial peoples? I’d say there was a difference in the order of magnitude between the two. Stalin’s worst atrocities were in peacetime. Britain’s worst crimes in India were during wartime, when it was fighting for its life. I’d say it’s an either-or argument as well if Mazaheri says (I’m not entirely sure what he’s saying, to be frank) that we can’t both endorse Orwell’s criticism of totalitarian and reject the financial oppression of the international banks.
Most convincing piece of First World self-righteousness, which is the very hallmark of Trotskyism. The link between Trotskyism and the modern neoconservative fascists is obvious, the only difference being the power and pathological greed of the neocons.
Trotsky was of course founder and commander-in-chief of the Red army. He was opposed by Tsarist White Guard forces led by Kolchak, Denikin and Yudenich as well as the foreign armies of intervention. This should be made clear from the outset.
I wonder what would have happened in Trotsky had won.
BTW the link between Trotskyism in not obvious. Some and I emphasise some ex-trots went over to neo-con positions, other did not. And most Trotskyists were ex-Stalinists in any case. Which raises the question regarding the party loyalist, old bolsheviks Bukharin, Kamenev, Zionviev, as well as first class economists Kondratiev, and Rubin were all ‘liquidated’ No question these were crimes against the revolution.
It has been argued that Trotskyism was a final Decompression Chamber between Stalinism and a complete break from Marxism.
As I said, what keeps this total. abject failure of Trotskyism even alive is the flattery, promotion and outright eulogising of it by the Western imperialist bourgeoisie. Try ask of a Trot to name two (2) revolutions/revolutionaries that the Trot approves of. The fact that Trots are in zero demand among countries, peoples, and leaders struggling against imperialism is no accident.
”I wonder what would have happened if Trotsky had won”
A: Socialism in zero countries. Hitler would have been welcomed by traitors in High Office as happened everywhere else he went. One of Trotsky’s latest ”great” quotes even depicts Nazi Germany’s soldiery as a ”proletarian force” putting an end both to Nazism and ”Stalinism”. Too bad Stalin and the Soviet peoples would not have it. Stalin remains highly popular in today’s Russia — deal with it.
Sorry it should have read ”What would have happened had Trotsky NOT won.’ To take a decision against Trotsky in the civil war is give tacit support to the White Guard and foreign imperialist armies of intervention.
If you mean Trotskyists that is slightly different. Well Trotskyists come in a wide variety of fauna. But the principle division was between the ‘State – Caps’ and the more orthodox Trots of the now defunct 4th international. The State cap-cum-neo cons people like Sydney Hook, Irving Kristol and the like were, it is true, more hostile towards the Soviet Union believing to be a right-wing capitalist state. It was worse than the run-of-the-mill powers such as the US, Britain and France and therefore their descent into neoconservative reactionaries was a matter of course. The likes of Guardian journalist Paul Mason ex-member of a state-cap splinter group ‘Workers’ Power, and the brothers Hitchens late of the British Socialist Workers Party.
The orthodox Trots of the 4th International defended the revolution but were highly critical of Stalin’s leadership but they believed that the Soviet Union was a workers’ albeit a deformed or degenerated one.
The International Committee of the 4th International is responsible for the website. World Wide Socialist Website, in you are interested. Why is it that all the critics of what used to be the Stalinist ascdency are lumped together as Trotskyists.
No, you deal with this. Prior to the Nazi invasion of the USSR, Stalin was receiving information from within the various state institutions in Germany from the ‘Red Orchestra’ the German underground which was supplying information about the forthcoming German invasion – Barbarossa due in 1941. Stalin dismissed this believing that it would be Britain which was the Soviet Union’s next target. A strategic blunder of his part. As was the purge of the Army in 1938 when the officer class was decimated. The Soviet Union eventually won, but it was in spite of Stalin, not because of him.
As fitting for Trots, they are more than happy to spout tripe about Stalin in general and his leadership of the USSR in the summer of 1941 in particular as their pastime. The ”intelligentsia” of the imperialist bourgeoisie switches effortlessly between three mutually exclusive ”Party lines” on the subject — I suppose that’s a liberal trait. Slandering Stalin is compulsory; doing so consistently is not.
I hinted that Trotsky had a ”great” assessment of Nazi Germany’s soldiery. It goes like this:
Trotsky can be grateful for his murder in 1940 which spared him much embarrassment, not living to see his horrible First World delusions come a cropper. In World War II, German soldiers massacred more civilians than any previous army in history. They never gained a revolutionary attitude and did not even overthrow Hitler. Anybody willing to apply Trotsky’s flattery on the US Army?
Trotsky or the theorizing of class struggle at the age of genocide. What a moron he was.
British worst atrocities were in peacetime?
Surely, you never read Mike Davis’ Late Victorian Holocaust.
Mass enforced starvation and engineered famines in peacetime in countries that we now call Third World.
What a audacity!
Son every person-even the best and brightest-will eventually degrade himself when talks to much, especially about nothing. And this on the very day of your proclaimed lockdown point of no return.
A short while ago I posted a longish comment elsewhere, that deals with Trotsky, Trotskyism, George Orwell, WSWS etc. etc. I repost it here and add a few links about Orwell at the bottom, maybe some will find this interesting …
I think that the histories and the reputations of old Leon, Orwell and a number of other characters from that age are to this day well guarded and protected by those who have an interest in distorting the history of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and of the early years of the USSR. The same people (“our” bourgeoisie) have also been systematically downplaying and suppressing the extremely bloody facts of the failed “Allied War of Intervention” (1918-1925). We’re not supposed to know it even happened. On the other hand, Trotsky’s impressive 3-volume biography, written by a most talented and biased Isaac Deutscher, ended up being “world literature”. Neither old Karl, nor Lenin or Stalin ever had such PR in the west (Deutscher wrote a Stalin biography that was, as one might expect, rather negative). And then there are of course the facts … that on his return to Russia in 1917, Trotsky was detained and interrogated by British Intelligence in Canada and that he never gave a satisfying account of the incident. And that a bit later, in Russia, when he was commissioned to negotiate an instant peace treaty with the German, Habsburg and Ottoman empires in Brest-Litovsk (today Belarus), he deliberately blew it and returned empty-handed. Consequently, the war went on, more people died and Russia lost even more territories, until Lenin had sent more competent negotiators that were loyal to the revolution. There’s of course a lot more about Trotsky but one has to dig up this stuff manually as is not well organized and all over the Internet. However, there is one more thing I came across only recently. On the occasion of Jacques Chirac’s death last September, I read that the ex-president was the owner of a castle. Being curious, I looked up “Château de Bity” and found that in the 1920s and 1930s the place was owned and lived in by a British Intelligence officer, who invited treacherous old Leon (by then on the run) to stay there. And so he did for almost two years from 1934-1935. Funny, hu?!
Anyway, I think none of this has much to do with those who today self-identify as “trots”. In the almost 8 decades since old Leon snuffed it, the 4th Int has itself changed beyond recognition. There are precious few workers in any trots organisation. Most of the members are students and other middle-class do-gooders. The upper echelons are firmly occupied by well-off, well-educated, withered personages who don’t have a single revolutionary molecule in their bodies and, if they are genuine and not MI5, their personal political outlook is mostly no more than mildly social-democratic. Still, they love to dazzle their members and audiences with complicated Marxist rhetoric. Inside such organisations things can sometimes turn very ugly. This is Anna Chen’s account of her years in the SWP (UK) …
A Bad Case of the Trots
https://madammiaow.blogspot.com/p/a-bad-case-of-trots.html
Regarding WSWS … they are of course a very impressive operation. The tons of well written original content they publish each day in 20+ languages, the professional presentation and hosting of their website … I’d say that the sheer scale of WSWS rivals that of Reuters’ online presence. So, one really has to ask what is behind all of this? Who finances it? I don’t believe for a moment the 100s of thousands needed each year to run such an operation come from party members or small donations. But, as I have hinted at in the beginning, the bourgeoisie doesn’t mind written criticism (Trotsky, Orwell etc.) as long as it is not prescriptive and thus remains inconsequential. By financing WSWS they can make sure that those they consider “vulnerable” to genuine left politics don’t get exposed to the real thing, e.g. at CPGB-ML or at Workers World etc. Every minute you spend on WSWS is one minute less on these sites … or something of that kind. Obviously, I have not a shred of evidence for any of this. It’s just a hunch … a hunch informed by decades of experience with just such forms of corruption.
P.S.:
A couple of years ago Jeffrey St. Clair’s wrote an interesting piece about the International Socialist Organisation ISO in Chicago, whose aim it is to get young people involved in something that is going nowhere by design. Here’s a short excerpt…
“The dirty secret about the brain trust that oversees the Socialist Worker is that few of them are socialists and even fewer are working class people or even identify with them. And how could you, really, when you’re the heiress to a cruise-liner fortune or you issue your editorial communiques from a mansion in one of the elite neighborhoods of upscale Evanston, Illinois.”
And here are the promised links to two of Alex Cockburn’s articles about George Orwell the snitch…
St. George’s List (by Ben Norton and Alexander Cockburn)
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2017/06/06/hard-awakenings-george-orwell-was-a-reactionary-snitch-who-made-a-blacklist-of-leftists-for-the-british-government/
The Fable of the Weasel (Alexander Cockburn’s foreword to John Reed’s “Snowball’s Chance”)
https://www.mhpbooks.com/the-fable-of-the-weasel-by-alexander-cockburn/
Published under Orwell’s birthname of “Eric Blair” when he was 13 years old, this poem honouring [British War] Lord Kitchener was published in July 21, 1916. Blair took (May 1917) a place as King’s Scholar at Eton. Blair remained at Eton until December 1921, midway between his 18th and 19th birthday. Orwell told his childhood [girl] friend Jacintha Buddicom he was “interested and happy” at Eton.
NO STONE is set to mark his nation’s loss,
No stately tomb enshrines his noble breast;
Not e’en the tribute of a wooden cross
Can mark this hero’s rest.
He needs them not, his name untarnished stands,
Remindful of the mighty deeds he worked,
Footprints of one, upon time’s changeful sands,
Who ne’er his duty shirked.
Who follows in his steps no danger shuns,
Nor stoops to conquer by a shameful deed,
An honest and unselfish race he runs,
From fear and malice freed.
[Lordly British master race psychology, an upper class feeling of effortless superiority to the common people, and disdain for revolution run very deep in George Orwell’s 1984]
Orwell was described as “the high-priest of British hate” in a superb essay:
http://exiledonline.com/big-brothers-george-orwell-and-christopher-hitchens-exposed/
He was an Empire man to the marrow.
Thanks to Ramin to address these issues. The West is now a totalitarian dystopia controlled by a tiny class of oligarchs.
It is not correct that Bill Gates said that only a genocide can save the world, so Sara Cunial should be more careful. The rest of the quote is correct. Gates said it in February 2010. Yes, 10 to 15 percent LOWER the world population by a good job with vaccines and other health measures. The WHO is now corrupted by his funding all kinds of projects. It has become his NGO. The so called “left” of climate hysterics has no objections. Our oligarchs are making a financial windfall at the same moment as the real economy is breaking down. Millions of Americans are starving. The MSM is pushing the hysteria. The great purge in the USSR is nothing compared to this global genocide. I do not blame China, Russia, Iran and the resistance for not speaking out. There are many reasons for not doing that. The politics of truth is not for states. And in this case we are a tiny minority and even split in our reading of the crisis. We are surrounded by sleepwalkers and people in denial. Remember that Iceland got advice from the Chinese when the country stood up against the financial oligarchs.
Placing Orwell on this “political spectrum” seems to have been not the point of this article, but the totalitarianism in liberal democracies.
To that I would reply: isn’t that more obvious than ever? Not that anybody is writing about it publicly. These are some of the many things we cannot say out loud but which we must pretend do not exist.
Some things missing here. Eric Blair aka Orwell was a Non de Plume. Most only recognise Orwell, which btw is a river in the county of Suffolk, and George, which is England’s patron saint. . This was the George Orwell who wrote extensively about imperialism in his collected works including ‘A Hanging’ ‘Not Counting Niggers’, ‘Shooting An Elephant, and ‘Marrakech’. His collection of letters, essays, book reviews and his own life are contained in 4 fat volumes of Collected Works which is well worth read. Novels omitted were ‘A Clergyman’s Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Most of his output was political journalism and also his experience as a kitchen worker in Paris and an itinerant hobo/tramp in both London and the north of England during the great depression. This is chronicled almost in the style of Jack London, in ”The Road to Wigan Pier”
I suspect that Mr Mazaheri is rather, shall we say, temperate, about Orwell’s membership of the Independent Labour Party, and worse still about the POUM (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unity) the Spanish section of the 2-1/2 International) This ‘Trotskyist’ organisation seems like a red-rag to a bull. Orwell was in one of the militias that fought on the Aaragon front fighting Franco’s forces. For his pains he was would when a fasicst sniper shot him in the neck and nearly killed him. He recorded the even in his work Homage to Catalonia.
”I was a sniper and determined to kill fascists, but it was the dog that died, a fascist sniper got me.” He was deeply embittered about the way that the Spanish athorities supported by the Spanish communists acted against the Republican militias and the way that the revolution was being actively supressed. See ‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’
Tenho de reconhecer que este período de quarentena trouxe-nos algumas discussões interessantes.
Não deixa de ser extraordinário que o peso de oito décadas passadas sobre a tragédia espanhola nada tenha ensinado a algumas pessoas que, curiosamente, se dizem (?!!!) de esquerda.
Confundir a luta de vida ou de morte da República Espanhola com os sonhos de revolução romântica e inconsequente dos trotskistas do POUM (e, não o esqueçamos, dos anarquistas e dos catalães e bascos independentistas) é um derradeiro e póstumo insulto aos republicanos progressistas, aos socialistas e aos comunistas que derramaram o seu sangue na defesa dessa martirizada República.
A postura ideológica de Orwell na Guerra Civil Espanhola já seria há muito motivo do mais profundo desprezo não fosse o seu papel instrumental na demonização da URSS e de Estaline. E quem é que financiou, financia e financiará essa eficaz ferramenta de demonização anti-comunista que é o suposto génio literário de um escritor medíocre? Pois foram, são e serão aquelas potências que ajudaram (sim, sim, AJUDARAM) os fascistas e os nazis a liquidar a República Espanhola. Do Sr. Henry Ford às petrolíferas norte-americanas, do pai de John e Robert Kennedy ao governo de Sua Majestade, todos deram a sua ajuda ao maior assassino europeu do antes da II Guerra Mundial – Francisco Franco Bahamonde.
E que fazia o Sr. Eric Blair enquanto o Governo da sua terra natal conspirava arduamente para destruir a República Espanhola? O Sr. Blair, à boa maneira trotskista, afundava-se na sua inconsequência ideológica, pondo o seu sonho de uma revolução aristocrática em que gente bem nascida como ele mostraria à populaça o que é o verdadeiro espírito revolucionário bem acima daquilo que salvaria a vida a milhares e milhares e milhares de espanhóis: o triunfo da República democrática sobre o fascismo e o nazismo.
A prova definitiva do fracasso da visão ideológica de Orwell materializou-se no seu “quietismo” durante a II Guerra Mundial. Esse seu “quietismo” foi perfeitamente compreensível: face ao papel fulcral da URSS, dos seus povos e de Estaline na derrota da besta nazi, o que poderia dizer um adepto do Trotskismo vende-pátrias? Elogiar a arte da traição? O Sr. Blair, embora praticando o acto, teve pelo menos o bom senso (como todo o bom bufo tem) de não o publicitar.
Aqui fica a pergunta que, ao fim e ao cabo, é a única que interessa: qual seria o resultado final da II Guerra Mundial se Trotsky e os seus admiradores estivessem no lugar de Estaline?
From the memory hole…re the US Post Office…there used to be US Post Office Savings Accounts! Yup, never lost a penny during Great Depression bank failures. They were created under President Taft as counterweight alternative to private bank scandals, when there was no .gov “insurance” to foe private banks’ savings-accounts.
Following Taft’s failure to be re-elected in the scandalous 1912 election, in came Pres W.Wilson who quite suddenly gave us the Federal Reserve System of private banking upon the “advice and guidance of Warburg et al.
That US Post Office Savings program went very quiet after WW2 and was finally ended by Pres LB Johnson.
But the idea of US Post Office Savings accounts remains a terrifying threat to the plutocrats who now dominate our civilization. Perhaps thus explains the ever subtle intent to destroy that parent of free and open and guaranteed banking-for-all-citizens alternative.