Climate Activist Scientists Get all Verklempt Their Echo Chamber No Longer Exists on Twitter, Throw Tantrums and Leave

The “rational leftists” that you are nostalgic about were concerned with things like the material well being of the poor, the marginalized and the working class. Concerns that hardly changed at all in 200 years since the French Revolution. That is now history.

The modern left is espousing ideas that will actively erode the material well being of everyone, especially the poor, the marginalized and the working class (but not, of course, those who go to Davos). They have in fact moved off what used to be the left-right spectrum, in an entirely new direction, presumably because the capitalist system they despised was doing a pretty good job of improving the material well being of the poor, the marginalized and the working class.

Leaving soft lefties like yours truly in what they dismiss as the “far right” camp, along with conservatives, traditionalists and rational thinkers. Where I’m not at all uncomfortable.

The modern left is essentially following the strategy laid out by Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s, i.e. taking control of society from within. Gramsci evolved his ideas while he was in prison in Mussolini’s Italy, but they only started to be applied in practice in the 1960s

The paradox that the modern left faces is that — now that they are well on the way to taking control of society from within — they are driving western societies into something that has a lot in common with Mussolini’s fascism (before he got aligned with the German fellow) in suppressing dissident thoughts and controlling public discourse. Where ordinary folk can carry on their lives as long as they keep their heads down and don’t express forbidden thoughts (like the desire to vote). Where big corporations and authoritarian governments work hand in hand to control how society operates. Where propaganda takes the place of news and indoctrination takes the place of education. Where nations engage in pointless foreign wars.

What unites the old left and the modern left is the one thing that is the core of their belief system – that “they” know what’s good for “us”, and if we don’t like it, they are going to impose it on us. Everything else is just strategy and tactics to achieve that end.

The perpetual shortage of food and consumer goods that was a big feature of the world of 1984 isn’t very apparent yet. It’s being replaced — for now — with a shortage of things to believe in, like our history (nothing but shameful oppression), and our sexuality (think your daughter is a girl and your son is a boy? Think again, you Neanderthaler!). But don’t worry, poverty and hunger are coming, and will dominate your life once we move towards net zero.

See that, MarkW? You provoked me into a rant.