From Caitlin Johnstone’s blog this morning:
Hi I’m Sleazy McPundit with WMD News. To explain why more internet censorship is needed to fight disinformation, here’s a panel of millionaires, paid to lie to you.
… Biden in 2020 is just Obama in 2008 if you aged him 30 years, made him white, and replaced all the hope and change talk with “Fuck you. No!”
… Biden’s presidency looks set to be worse than Obama’s in every way. There will be a backlash against this. It is absolutely imperative that the US left fight like never before to make sure it’s more of a leftist backlash than a rightist one, or things will get very ugly. If you don’t take the fight to the libs, the right will. If you don’t seize control of the dominant narrative, the right will. This is 100 percent guaranteed. You need to start dealing with this now unless you want something far uglier than Trump down the road in the near term.
… The longer they can keep you fixated on Trump’s impotent post-election tantrum the longer they can keep you from noticing the incoming administration full of warmongers, corporate cronies and authoritarians currently setting up shop under the next president.
On the subject of which – Today’s quick quiz: Who said?
1. “while Russia has “a nuclear arsenal second only to our own,” the country “wasn’t a superpower anymore,” as it “lacked the vast network of alliances and bases that allowed the United States to project its military power across the globe.””
2. ““one-third of Syrian territory was owned via the US military, with its local partner the Syrian Democratic Forces,” that this territory happened to be the richest in Syria in terms of oil and agriculture, and that the US would intensify its intervention in and against Syria to keep its control of this territory and its resources.”
3. “The internet is “the single biggest threat to our democracy.””
A: George W Bush?
B. Hillary Clinton?
C. John Bolton?
D. Mike Pompeo?
E. Henry Kissinger?
F. Ronald Reagan?
G. Newt Gingrich?
H. Colin Powell?
I. Karl Rove?
J. Paul Wolfowitz?
K. Benjamin Netenyahu?
L. Madeline Albright?
M. Donald Rumsfeld?
N. Condaleezza Rice?
O. Tim Berners Lee?
P. Robert Gates?
Q. John Ashcroft?
R. Henry Paulson?
S. John McCain?
T. Non of the above?
Answers:
1. Barack Obama – in his recently published book ‘A Promised Land.’
https://www.rt.com/russia/506968-military-superpower-world-obama/
2. Dana Stroul, the Democratic co-chair of the Congressionally-appointed Syria Study Group.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/506864-liberals-war-conservatives-afghanistan/
3. (Again) Barack Obama:
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/16/21570072/obama-internet-threat-democracy-facebook-fox-atlantic
Good job it wasn’t The Official Bogyman who said any of this otherwise the demographic which is the Democratic Liberal left would be spontaneously exploding in the street around us and the anti-terrorist squad would be on permanent overtime.
Yes “the left” must provide an alternative. But this poses the question of which class rules.
The record of recent contenders for the reform of capitalism is one of not only failure (that is always possible) but of betrayal. Syriza betrayed its mandate to resist the EU. Sanders, having been stitched up by the DNC in 2016, called for support of Clinton. Consequently his support in the primaries fell in 2020, and he threw his weight behind Biden.
Corbyn fell victim to his own political spinelessness. He did not resist either the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, or the resulting expulsion of left wingers such as Ken Livingstone. He paved the way for Starmer who is now banging the war drums along with Johnson while prosecuting a witch hunt against what remains of the Labour left. Corbyn’s supporters pathetically plead for unity with the right.
In parallel, the liberal institutions have completely degenerated. Even Sanders and Corbyn are beyond the pale. The spiritual decay of the majority of the “liberal intelligentsia” is far from new. Some of us will recall Phil Ochs’ 1966 song “Love me I’m a Liberal”:
And I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I’d lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
That decay is now total. No corporate journalist can be found who does not believe the hapless Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite; none can be found to give more than a half-hearted, sneering defence of the “rapist” and “narcissist” Julian Assange.
Millions are now looking for a solution to the social crisis. Their numbers will be swollen by the murderous neglect by our ruling class of the victims of the pandemic, and the inevitable attempt to place the costs onto the already overburdened working class and middle class. They have placed their trust, and certainly will do so again, in the hope of reform. But each time the process of demoralisation will reduce the numbers looking to the left, unless they can be won to a revolutionary perpective.