The proper-gandist naming of things is the beginning of social order. The purpose of the term “terrorism” in the neoliberal era was to elevate already-overbroad property rights superior to life rights like the English frame-breaking laws, to reinstitute aristocracy through sham popular investment much like suburban home ownership. It has served well enough in that purpose to suggest elites had the purpose somewhere in mind when propagating it.
IMO, there’s nothing wrong with using the last gasp of a nearly recuperated phenomenon against the predatory terrorist elite, to harden the mass against elite rule and their methods, for better and for worse. Ruin elite language. Tear off the veils of elite conceits yes, Remarque’s soldier of the Western front, the Kaiser indeed poops just like you. Destroy elite narratives and ideals at their root by toxifying distinction and elevation and ambition. Laugh in their faces when they call themselves “scholars” instead of welfare que
Yves here. While I appreciate Tom Neuburger’s critique, I don’t think it goes far enough. On my list of climate bullshitters are Green New Deal promoters. They are selling a vision of not merely a pain free transition to a much lower carbon-used economy, but one with unicorns and rainbows in terms of economic groaf and jobs, via building new infrastructure….which has to be done with the current carbon-using infrastructure and limited and sometimes environmentally nasty inputs, like rare earths and lithium. The only hope we have of non-catastrophic outcomes is radical conservation, and just about no one in a position of influence is willing to say that. After all, we live in a society where some regard mask-wearing as an unbearable hardship.
America Doesn’t Have Time for the Democrats to Get It This Wrong Details
NATION WATCH There’s a strange thing happening. Take the course the last day or two. The Democrats caved on the minimum wage. Then Biden announced an airstrike on Syria. And then Jen Psaki, the White House Press Secretary, took to the stage to defend “detainment centers.”
That wasn’t the strange thing. It’s how people, many of them, reacted. They defended the Democrats. They made excuse after excuse. Apologia after apologia. My friends, let me make a harsh point and you can decide if it’s unfair.
Advertisement:
This essay is being published on Monday, Jan. 18, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It is now two days before Inauguration and five days after Trump s impeachment. These days feel like years.
The forces of white supremacy and American Apartheid that Dr. King fought against those decades ago were never fully exorcised or vanquished.
Advertisement:
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a civic holiday in America, one when the country celebrates its own belief (which is really a comforting lie) that it transcended racism and white supremacy through the blood sacrifice of one man and the other (acceptable) heroes of the civil rights movement.
The human “fight or flight” response gives demagogues like Trump a tool for political manipulation. But we could replace oppression with a system of care.