Late Nite of the Long Knives for Liberals

Ezra Klein . . . isn’t he the “Abundance” asshole?

It baffles me that there are some people on the left (not saying this necessarily applies to the author of this article, just talking in general) who don’t understand the constraints that people on mainstream platforms have to operate under. The right has an entire pipeline that begins with mainstream entertainers/commentators and funnels people further and further right until they’re fans of the Ben Shapiros and the Nick Fuentes of the world. They understand the importance of their mainstream media faces, and they don’t attack them for not being right-wing enough.

But when the left complains about, say, John Oliver, it just tells me that they don’t understand this concept. He’s on a major network, and he’s the furthest left you’re allowed to be on a major network. No giant media conglomerate is going to give a platform to a radical leftist, it’s just never going to happen. Now as a leftist myself, I don’t always agree with John Oliver and I think he has bad takes sometimes, but it’s also true that he was calling for a ceasefire in Gaza weeks or months before anyone else in the mainstream media had even mentioned the possibility.

People who start out consuming mainstream American media and culture aren’t going to make the jump to radical leftism all at once very often. The left needs to understand why the pipeline the right built is so effective and start trying to emulate it.

“Americans lost our free speech rights when the Biden administration started cracking down on anti-genocide protests on college campuses, and Trump finished the job when the deportations started.”

Funny how Obama only got on his high horse when Team R did it.

When it was Team D – silence.

Of course it goes both ways. The right expressed principled objections to cancel culture and made touching sounds about free speech before they got the whip hand.

For that matter, the sudden reversal regarding Epstein is most instructive. On several very telling levels.

Unless, not unlike.

Look at where all this wonderful “free speech” has gotten us. Fascism is in full force and there is literally no resistance to it because people are too busy producing “free speech” content to actually revolt. Talk, in the form of “free speech”, is cheap at this point. Action, intelligent strategic action, is what is needed but don’t hold your breath and instead, make sure to like & subscribe.

Thank you to NWT for the post, and glad to hear that (unlike last time) the post was originally not credited, so the oversight in credit is not my mistake. It certainly was written in an Ian style, fact-heavy and hitting hard what needs to be hit.

I like bruce w’s response, what Max is doing may be “trolling” and he values his credibility enough that he’s always careful to point out he can’t “prove” this but the range of evidence strongly suggests he’s correct. The fact that Netanyahu wasn’t satisfied making one “We loved Charlie, we didn’t kill him” public statement, he had to make 2 (so far) speaks volumes. The lady doth protest too much.

More significant than Max, clearly a man of the actual Left, saying it, is that legions of people from the Right are, since that’s where the Kirk adulation comes from. Candace Owens, very prominently Megyn Kelly, who had some kind of “intimate” relationship with Charlie, Tucker Carlson. If CK was targeted by the Zionists generally, it evidently had something to do with the known facts that (a) he turned down a reported $150M “donation” from the Apartheid state, AND (b) he platformed Tucker and the Right-Wing, Jewish anti-Zionist comedian Dave Smith at a TPA event in the 2 months before his sudden deletion.

Obviously I was never a Kirk fanboy, however it is interesting (& even inspiring in some ways) when this kind of person has actual principles and draws the line at Genocide. There are many political pundits now broadly in the Alternative Media space who I never could’ve imagined having respect and even admiration for in the past: Judge Nap, Tucker (at times; he still does some ugly Nationalist signaling and always leavens his criticisms of Israel with “I love Israel” asides, but hey, that’s honest, Kelly does the same), frigging Marjorie Taylor Greene refuses to take Zionist of “Defense” (sic) industry money because she notes it’s used to “kill people.” You don’t have to be a genius, evidently.

Contrast the preceding to the Libs or the skeezier Righties. As to the latter, Piers Morgan (just a shock jock seeking clicks, views) cheering on the genocide for months and demanding of every dissenting guest “Do you CONDEMN Hamas”, then over time inconsistently going back and forth and admitting it is genocide. I can’t even list the # of Libs who will precede every mild criticism of even the most insane carnage and killing with “Of course Israel has the RIGHT to defend itself . . . ” Uhm, no, under International Law they don’t have that “Right” as an occupying power. Quite the opposite. Pundits like Oliver, et al may mean well (to a point, to the point that any millionaire comfortable Lib can feel sympathy for the underdogs) but he knows nothing of international law, he is an entertainer. And getting a gig telling entitled, selfish people that merely not being Donald Trump or Stephen Miller or Steve Bannon makes them “virtuous” so they can feel better about themselves while the world goes to shit . . . well, that is pretty contemptible. Taking lucre to be a Controlled Opposition seems like something a religious person would rightly compare to Judas taking 30 pieces of silver. (But at least in the fairy tale, Judas had the guilt & integrity to kill himself later.)

The Libs will never actually challenge power, it’s not in their DNA and hasn’t been for decades. That’s why I think something like this is possibly very meaningful– https://apnews.com/article/poll-republicans-direction-country-kirk-violence-economy-66e5a964a807a5a1412ef0596f37ec39?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

2 highlights– Republican women and men under 45 see the GOOP going in entirely wrong directions, similar to late Trump term one when his desire to superspread Covid led to disillusionment among some (R)s, and additionally the rise in US violence across the board. (Of course they exaggerate and racialize the latter issue, as one would expect.) The AP doesn’t mention ICE violence of course, but one hopes that even some R’s see masked agents sweeping people indiscriminately off the streets, smashing car windshields or deporting 4 year old girls with Cancer as less than salutary.

I’ve seen myself as a person of the left for many decades, since I was about 15 and the US was losing the Vietnam War (the outcome I wanted.) But this is starting to go beyond Left and Right, which is likely good, since the Electoral “Left” (sic) are just lesser-evil Corporate Zionist whores on the take, but yes, okay, some of them don’t queer bash and have Transgender friends, how “tolerant.”

Obama shivved Bernie for Biden (Night of the Long Knives 2) for a 2nd time in 2016, Segregationist Joe ran on a “New Deal 2” platform, once in office flushed the base’s desires (cop reform, a rise in the minimum wage, student debt reform, etc. ad infinitum) down the terlet and told the Libs to “be happy, we’re not Donald.” The majority were, of course. The R’s are a different kettle of fish, they don’t take “Shut up and go away you dirty losers, we don’t care what you think” sitting down, and continue voting Blue/Red No Matter Who. They take a kick in the teeth seriously. I was poor from age 19-24, lived on the edge as a blue collar worker, I’m the same way, that’s why I was never a good Lib and willing to go along with bashed-in teeth quietly.

The Oligarchic Duopoly promises us only more Endless War, Impoverishment, Environmental Destruction, etc. while the People Who Matter party away like it’s fin-de-siecle Versailles, well it is for them anyway. Mago’s half right, it is “all illusion” up to a point, the point that people can’t take the shit anymore and it no longer is.

David Graeber once observed, ” . . . insofar as ‘reality’ refers to anything it refers to precisely that which can never be encompassed by our imaginative constructions.” Firesign Theater was more concise, warning that “Everything you know is wrong.”
This is a moment in uncharted waters. Most ‘Muricans won’t do anything new, won’t learn or grow. Some will, some will refuse to take permanent poverty and oppression lying down. The Empire is crashing down, better to know that than to live in denial and march off the cliff like a happy little lemming. I welcome comrades from the right who aren’t Monsters, I’d welcome any former Dimmies who wise up too. This is a time we should be seeking allies rather than hating others due to the “tyranny of small differences.”

The Right usually waits until after victory before they start eating their young, while the Left gleefully cannibalizes itself for the pleasure of the Right, even before the Right lifts their truncheon.

@GrimJim:

The left looks for apostates while the right looks for allies. I hate how true that statement is.