І ԁеfесtеⅾ а ԝhіlе аɡο ‐ but ԝhу?
Deutsche Version
Recently, I was on Zoom with someone who has been involved in sustainable living for decades and has built a community around it. “I find it easier to talk to people on the right. They’re more open.” And then something like: “If you say something to the left that doesn’t fit in with their concept, they immediately reject it reflexively.”
This is someone who comes from a working-class town, sees too much power in the big corporations and is also sceptical about the state. Things that I would classify as traditionally left-wing.
Even though it often seems that this categorisation no longer makes sense, we still use the terms left and right - mainly along traditional party lines. In Germany, SPD, Greens and the Left (the BSW has been deemed not to fit in). In the UK, Labour. In the USA, the Democrats.
Why does the assessment I mentioned at the beginning ring so true to me? I want to get to the bottom of the difficulties I have with the group I once felt I belonged to one hundred per cent.
On the side of the good guys
There always seems to be a clear path. There is only one reasonable view. This reflects a simple, to-the-point truth. “If a country is attacked, it must be allowed to defend itself.” That is incontestable. Just like “every person who dies because of Covid is one too many.”
Additional, potentially relevant information is no longer of interest from that point onwards. The question of “How can this conflict be ended as quickly as possible?” hardly comes up at all. The roles are clear. The aggressor represents absolute evil, is solely to blame and is either mad or driven by imperial desires, probably both.
If it was all so clear, one wonders why people who simply wanted to give more context to what was happening - wouldn’t it be good to know more context to a conflict in order to deal with it better? - were deprived of any platform. (1) They were also labelled in a way that justified simply not listening to them if a video did get through to someone. If everything was so clear, why not deal with the arguments on a factual base?
Even if you reached the conclusion that weapons should be supplied to Ukraine on a long-term basis - isn’t it still worth knowing that there were already peace negotiations in Istanbul in March 2022, which were at a very advanced state, when Zelensky was advised by the UK and the USA to continue fighting (“We will support you”)?
What perplexes me the most is how carelessly the war is being handled. How quickly we have landed on the side that is most likely to mean a long war and maximum profit for the arms industry. (2) “Putin started it and is solely to blame, and now we have to fight him to the max” trumps the possibility of even thinking about diplomatic channels.
Would this have been the case 20 years ago? Or 40? At school we sang ‘Where have all the flowers gone?’ many times, and it always touched me. On the radio you could hear Bruce Springsteen singing War, and Paul Hardcastle’s Nineteen. All that seems forgotten now.
And even if it was Putin’s long-cherished plan to invade Ukraine and take over parts of it: Why then was he so readily given an excuse? Why give him something that, if it can never be a real justification, can be interpreted as such by him? (3) In other words: If you look at recent history, this war appears to have been absolutely avoidable had the US behaved differently.
Instead, they supported Ukraine in defending “our values’” and saw “Western democracies” under threat. With Trump’s inauguration, we can now see just how far American democracy has sunk.
The progressive-liberal world is now in an uproar. And easily overlooks the fact that under the Democrats, especially Obama, the foundations were laid for far-reaching censorship and manipulation of public opinion. Their effects were clearly visible to anyone who disagreed with the coronavirus regime, even those of us across the pond.
Why I don’t feel comfortable: Because I have the feeling that, out of a need to be moral and good, people have gone down a wrong track a second time, again with disastrous consequences. Or rather, they didn’t want to see their error of judgement the first time round, and continue in a similar way. Both times with a war logic which aims to crush an enemy, while neglecting enormous ‘collateral’ damage that follows on from it.
The Democrats as a reactive force
The article I started has been sitting here for a while, and there are so many ways to continue it. - My original plan covered so many topics that I will need to split it up into more texts.
Also, a number of further outrageous events have happened meanwhile. The Trump administration is now really taking on fascist overtones, with the internment of a leader of pro-Palestinian student protests, Mahmoud Khalil, and the deportation of over 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members to a security prison in El Salvador. The whole thing seems like a huge spectacle, with videos accompanied by music, reminiscent of advertising films. Something is being demonstrated here. Simply power? Malice, spite? The rule of law, which has not really worked for a long time, is thoroughly being undermined.
Every now and then a podcast comes along that amazes and impresses me, because it breaks the usual categorisations and at the same time expresses many truths.
Link to the podcast: https://jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/we-are-in-the-crisis-a-conversation
Here’s a woman, Danielle Moodie, who founded a radio station called Woke AF during Trump’s first term, in conversation with author Jared Sexton, who writes a sub-stack called Notes from a collapsing state in addition to books. They address the events mentioned above, and remind us of Martin Niemöller’s “Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten…” (When the Nazis came for the Communists…) because of the lack of opposition.
Large sections, especially in the second half, are a merciless reckoning with the Democrats. According to the two, they are more concerned with keeping the stock market afloat than doing anything for disadvantaged citizens. The alleged support for minorities (floats at the Pride Parade, kneeling, etc.) was always just window dressing.
Moodie once exclaims that what happens again and again is this: “Democrats don’t lose the plot, they don’t even know where the fuck it is. ’ And Sexton once remarks that the opposition is more of a counterweight designed to keep things going the way they are. “The Democratic Party has become reactive and conservative and has no actual vision for solving any of the problems.”
They touch on a few other things: That it’s necessary to act in a decentralised way, and that you should start things even if you won’t see the results of your actions yourself. And a few other things.
Not only from this podcast, but from many others, and from articles, it becomes clear that the Democrats - like the ‘left’ in many other countries - have their supporters mainly in the middle class, the “professioal-managerial class”, and are – perhaps often unconsciously – more concerned with maintaining the status they have achieved than really caring about social issues.
In bed with the Russians
Another interesting publication I came across recently, is by a Russian couple who emigrated to America: Nefarious Russians. The podcast that goes along with it, is called In Bed with the Russians. It’s very much about the cultural side of things, but not only.
What I found very interesting is the assessment of Evgenia, who grew up in Russia in the 90s. In short, that the country, or at least Moscow, was colonised by American culture. Her friends eventually made a good career for themselves and she was initially delighted with how everything developed. However, her friends themselves apparently didn’t see it that way, but always looked longingly towards America, which they imagined to be much better. At some point, Evgenia realised that Russian culture had actually become a poor copy of American culture. - This is an abridged version and I hope not too distorted.
On Putin: The idea that he wants to recreate the Soviet Union is fundamentally wrong. He and his leadership team would much rather recreate the pre-revolutionary Russia.
I haven’t found anything on whether NATO’s eastward expansion played a role in the invasion of Ukraine. But the authors are definitely neither Trump nor Putin fans.
There’s also interesting stories of ‘weaponised immigrants’, i.e. former Soviet citizens who were then immediately used for propaganda purposes against their old homeland.
Since I am writing about native Russians, I would also like to mention Tessa Lena, who for me was one of the most important authors in the Covid era, and who already in April 2020 saw through the technocracy that came with it. I am very grateful to her.
I wrote about the conflict with Russia because it is currently topical and gives rise to war propaganda. I have not found any justification for the fact that Russia is supposed to be on Germany’s doorstep
My conclusion on the former left: It’s a force that has forgotten its former ideals, indulges in declarations of solidarity and is otherwise more concerned with maintaining the status quo than wringing concessions from the state. It pushes for climate protection, but makes an exception for one of the biggest CO2 emitters, the military, which is not even discussed.
Perhaps it really is outdated to think in these categories. In any case, I no longer feel that I belong to any one direction.
The key is to find allies, regardless of which direction they come from. Building support structures outside of politics. The Commons is a good idea, and I want to write more about it in the future. For this time, I’ve landed on global politics, which ultimately it does influence what is happening locally. As always, it is important to keep the right balance.
(1): In Germany, one of the main figures treated like that is Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, who has given several well-founded presentations
(2): Antje Vollmer, Green politician and vice president of the German parliament, shortly before her death wrote impressively about rearmament and the transformation of the Greens into a party of war:: https://epaper.berliner-zeitung.de/article/ea77236b6b434f4d5fc01cace486274626d2c168ae5896b667f2d021d2ced5ce
(3): The comments on this article show how it is possible to have an open and respectful discussion. People from the Balkan states have their say here, who oppose the narrative that the revolutions in the former Soviet republics were always controlled by the USA. https://iainmcgilchrist.substack.com/p/laughter-in-heaven
This article was written with the Pareto-Client.