Spot on David. Social media has amplified these trends, and I am witnessing the worst of it in my community. Some leftists and the faux left “radical centrists” have hijacked social justice movements and weaponized identity issues to silence and cancel others. Astonishingly, they refer to leftists who practice authentic leftist principles as using “right wing talking points” when we push back on their authoritarian tendencies. They are now often pro-war, and pro-censorship, while attempting to hoard the social justice agenda for themselves, defending established centres of power, and always punching down on anyone who does not comply with their efforts to silence others. We reprinted your Statement of Principles in our community paper, and it received a lot of positive feedback. Best to you and yours from Denman Island.
Yes. I can easily see the development of serious mental disorder being triggered by social media's sweeping and, generally speaking, unproven opinions and "facts". I wonder if there are real right-wingers also getting equally unstable by reading left-wing (or 'woke' as they might say) opinions. After all, misinformation appears very regularly on Facebook and XTwitter, sometimes by a genuine error or misinterpretation, but also through biases, malice, or lack of intelligence/empathy/common sense. It's not limited to political views either - I've seen all sorts of reposted stuff that then gets shown up as false or partly inaccurate. Lost dogs, pleas for financial help (we're starving), denunciations of someone else's (misunderstood) post, deaths/diseases/house fires/ bereavements. They're all there in social media, though I can't comment on instagram as I rarely go there. The absolutely terrifying thing though is not social media, or even the press. It's the raving lunacy of the UK's government with their pogrom on refugees, their total indifference to a poverty they have never known themselves, the almost-twins of Tory and Labour MPs and their policies. A General Election won't solve that.
And I'm pretty sure it's similar in the USA, David.
what makes a 'real right winger'? I'd be interested to know if there's a consensus of opinion on that in the UK. Especially when as you say our two main parties are 'almost twins'.
"1 in 4 people is mentally unstable, if 3 of your friends seem normal - it's you" is the logic I found on a fridge magnet once. Four is not a statistically significant sample size, but the logic is intriguing. According to UK charity Mind "1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year in England".
However most people in the UK will not have seen a person experiencing a full blown psychotic episode for example.
In David's recent article "In Sight But Out of Mind" regarding people living on the streets in Portland he refers to the "crisis of unhoused and increasingly unhinged people". Considering the expenses for health-care and potential of losing your job due to mental health issues and that companies are less willing to hire the mentally ill in the US, the pressure on people to stay sane there I would say is much higher than the UK.
The frustration about housing costs unites the left and right, but frequently the left sees social housing as a benefit and the right sees it as a burden.
By far right winger standards I suspect what I just wrote would be called 'agitprop', ( Agitation Propaganda ) because they are willing to absorb the Soviet idea while accusing others of it. Based on what I briefly read about identitarianism.
I'm really unsure what a real right winger is... But I studied up QAnon for a while... ( and then I became unhinged, seemingly like most of the rest of them down that rabbit hole, I just thought I was better than them. I was wrong. Even if they aren't on board with facts or reality, neither was I, then I started believing it myself along with black is white, up is down level of nuts... )
EDIT: I should point out that after the QAn*n stuff I ended up in a mental hospital, which I am no longer in. Also I should have been more careful about how I approached the statement "I started believing it" more accurately I became unable to distinguish any order and hierarchy in my thoughts and what was and what wasn't equivalent had become blurred. So I both believed it and the opposite was equivalent to me.
Broad categories, and yes right and left can stretch pretty wide. I have had depression for years, but in fits and starts, and fully medicated permanently. As I volunteer at a community centre, I have close contact with other people with varying levels and types of mental problems. I was trying to point out that this self-delusion spreads all across the political spectrum, and all of us have at some time or another hovered close to the edge or slipped in until rescued or revived. As I'm pretty far left myself (anarchist), and an active trade unionist, there are plenty of folk would point at me too! I have a distrust of political parties, talking UK of course, and most politicians. I accept there are a few honest ones, but pledges seem forgotten as soon as they're elected in the main. I do actually vote (unusual for anarchists), local and parliamentary, but I only vote in the latter if there is a reasonably honest candidate. I've spoilt enough ballot papers in my time. Incidentally I have seen a full blown psychotic episode take place, it's grim, and extremely difficult to help, and I've known a couple of sufferers over the years who committed suicide.
I respect your experience and I like your thinking and points about politics.
I'd be likely to vote Green myself (for UBI). If I could sufficently trust a candidate who I could vote for tactically I might go for that. I think I am likely to identify with far left ideas, but I have little experience with the literature.
Regarding the problem of innaccurate information on Social Media deliberate or not, I think the reliance on a corporate platform to communicate with others and allowing the corporate platform right to censor at will without any accountability for what is being censored is a slippery slope. I believe in freedom of speech and I don't want to be eliteist, although there are many people out there who's viewpoint I would struggle to understand.
I believe a constitution for social contact that enhances our abilty to observe if we are making decisions that are in our social groups best interests while preserving freedom of speech is a great idea and benefical for the transmission of informed and accurate enough truths. I think a short idiot proof constitution that respects freedom of speech while cutting down on infighting and censorship, would be a good starting point for social groups of any kind.
I don't know if people 'living by a code' would also find such a set of principles relatable. I live by a code sometimes, because my sense of self-worth can be unstable.
Amen, brother!! My Grandmother had BPD. I hadn't made the connection, but the people in our organization who were shouting at some of us and accusing us of being "Fu.... White Liberal Elder Raciest A..holes" WERE behaving just like my Grandmother did when she started shouting.
i think it all makes a heck of a lot of sense. sorry you had to go thru that too. was this in the portland area or somewhere else? coulda been the same people shouting at us.
I have to admit that I thought the Two Minutes of Hate and Big Brother referred to actual current events, and figured Emmanuel Goldstein was a real person. In my defense, I haven’t read 1984 in forty years or so, though I do refer to it pretty often. I googled Emmanuel Goldstein and it made more sense. But I’m still not sure Big Brother and the Two Minutes of Hate aren’t also current events. Perhaps some see 1984 as more training manual than novel?
All that said, I kind of feel like one of your comrades, even though I consider myself far more right than left, and mostly disagree with you on Israel/Hamas. If they really don’t want you over there on the left, you are welcome here.
I think that the person who shouted at you could well also identify with the idea of 'being Goldstein'. rather than someone engaged the two minutes hate. Although I haven't read the book, I get the impression that to be Goldstein you also need to be a figment of the collective imagination of a state that hates you. So since she is trans she would definitely identify with that bit.
I'd be intersted to read her response to your writing above.
Once again thanks for writing :)
EDIT: perhaps 'to be Goldstein you need to be vilified by a state that hates you' would have been a better way to put it. But there is obviously more to Goldstein and the Brotherhood than I am aware of.
I mentioned Tommy Robinson in my first comment. He is a boots-on-the-ground revolutionary, and like Che Guevara, he is motivated by a deep love for humanity.
So when he occasionally throws out "Marxist" as an epithet, I ignore it. He's accomplishing so much good, it doesn't matter.
But the other day, Tommy talked to a real socialist (a very old man, as you can imagine!). Watch the look on Tommy's face as he hears for the first time what the ruling class tries so hard to keep the working class from hearing: the obvious fact of antagonistic class interests.
It isn't bipolar disorder (which doesn't exist), schizophrenia (which doesn't exist), bad parenting, drug addiction (self-medicating), or even narcicisstic personality disorder (which does exist, and is a natural personality trait of the half-lizard ruling class).
It's MK-Ultra mind-fracturing and programming. Which also explains why the robotic crazies think they're homosexual or transsexual -- the NSA figured out how to do that back in the 1970s.
"The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time" (and mind-control)
Spot on David. Social media has amplified these trends, and I am witnessing the worst of it in my community. Some leftists and the faux left “radical centrists” have hijacked social justice movements and weaponized identity issues to silence and cancel others. Astonishingly, they refer to leftists who practice authentic leftist principles as using “right wing talking points” when we push back on their authoritarian tendencies. They are now often pro-war, and pro-censorship, while attempting to hoard the social justice agenda for themselves, defending established centres of power, and always punching down on anyone who does not comply with their efforts to silence others. We reprinted your Statement of Principles in our community paper, and it received a lot of positive feedback. Best to you and yours from Denman Island.
Yes. I can easily see the development of serious mental disorder being triggered by social media's sweeping and, generally speaking, unproven opinions and "facts". I wonder if there are real right-wingers also getting equally unstable by reading left-wing (or 'woke' as they might say) opinions. After all, misinformation appears very regularly on Facebook and XTwitter, sometimes by a genuine error or misinterpretation, but also through biases, malice, or lack of intelligence/empathy/common sense. It's not limited to political views either - I've seen all sorts of reposted stuff that then gets shown up as false or partly inaccurate. Lost dogs, pleas for financial help (we're starving), denunciations of someone else's (misunderstood) post, deaths/diseases/house fires/ bereavements. They're all there in social media, though I can't comment on instagram as I rarely go there. The absolutely terrifying thing though is not social media, or even the press. It's the raving lunacy of the UK's government with their pogrom on refugees, their total indifference to a poverty they have never known themselves, the almost-twins of Tory and Labour MPs and their policies. A General Election won't solve that.
And I'm pretty sure it's similar in the USA, David.
Apologies if this rambles a bit.
what makes a 'real right winger'? I'd be interested to know if there's a consensus of opinion on that in the UK. Especially when as you say our two main parties are 'almost twins'.
"1 in 4 people is mentally unstable, if 3 of your friends seem normal - it's you" is the logic I found on a fridge magnet once. Four is not a statistically significant sample size, but the logic is intriguing. According to UK charity Mind "1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year in England".
However most people in the UK will not have seen a person experiencing a full blown psychotic episode for example.
In David's recent article "In Sight But Out of Mind" regarding people living on the streets in Portland he refers to the "crisis of unhoused and increasingly unhinged people". Considering the expenses for health-care and potential of losing your job due to mental health issues and that companies are less willing to hire the mentally ill in the US, the pressure on people to stay sane there I would say is much higher than the UK.
The frustration about housing costs unites the left and right, but frequently the left sees social housing as a benefit and the right sees it as a burden.
By far right winger standards I suspect what I just wrote would be called 'agitprop', ( Agitation Propaganda ) because they are willing to absorb the Soviet idea while accusing others of it. Based on what I briefly read about identitarianism.
I'm really unsure what a real right winger is... But I studied up QAnon for a while... ( and then I became unhinged, seemingly like most of the rest of them down that rabbit hole, I just thought I was better than them. I was wrong. Even if they aren't on board with facts or reality, neither was I, then I started believing it myself along with black is white, up is down level of nuts... )
EDIT: I should point out that after the QAn*n stuff I ended up in a mental hospital, which I am no longer in. Also I should have been more careful about how I approached the statement "I started believing it" more accurately I became unable to distinguish any order and hierarchy in my thoughts and what was and what wasn't equivalent had become blurred. So I both believed it and the opposite was equivalent to me.
Broad categories, and yes right and left can stretch pretty wide. I have had depression for years, but in fits and starts, and fully medicated permanently. As I volunteer at a community centre, I have close contact with other people with varying levels and types of mental problems. I was trying to point out that this self-delusion spreads all across the political spectrum, and all of us have at some time or another hovered close to the edge or slipped in until rescued or revived. As I'm pretty far left myself (anarchist), and an active trade unionist, there are plenty of folk would point at me too! I have a distrust of political parties, talking UK of course, and most politicians. I accept there are a few honest ones, but pledges seem forgotten as soon as they're elected in the main. I do actually vote (unusual for anarchists), local and parliamentary, but I only vote in the latter if there is a reasonably honest candidate. I've spoilt enough ballot papers in my time. Incidentally I have seen a full blown psychotic episode take place, it's grim, and extremely difficult to help, and I've known a couple of sufferers over the years who committed suicide.
You weren't rambling!
I respect your experience and I like your thinking and points about politics.
I'd be likely to vote Green myself (for UBI). If I could sufficently trust a candidate who I could vote for tactically I might go for that. I think I am likely to identify with far left ideas, but I have little experience with the literature.
Regarding the problem of innaccurate information on Social Media deliberate or not, I think the reliance on a corporate platform to communicate with others and allowing the corporate platform right to censor at will without any accountability for what is being censored is a slippery slope. I believe in freedom of speech and I don't want to be eliteist, although there are many people out there who's viewpoint I would struggle to understand.
Have you seen David's article on Principles? https://davidrovics.substack.com/p/a-statement-of-principles-9a8
I believe a constitution for social contact that enhances our abilty to observe if we are making decisions that are in our social groups best interests while preserving freedom of speech is a great idea and benefical for the transmission of informed and accurate enough truths. I think a short idiot proof constitution that respects freedom of speech while cutting down on infighting and censorship, would be a good starting point for social groups of any kind.
I don't know if people 'living by a code' would also find such a set of principles relatable. I live by a code sometimes, because my sense of self-worth can be unstable.
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidrovics/p/being-goldstein-4b4?r=wn91x&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=42345164
Amen, brother!! My Grandmother had BPD. I hadn't made the connection, but the people in our organization who were shouting at some of us and accusing us of being "Fu.... White Liberal Elder Raciest A..holes" WERE behaving just like my Grandmother did when she started shouting.
i think it all makes a heck of a lot of sense. sorry you had to go thru that too. was this in the portland area or somewhere else? coulda been the same people shouting at us.
It was in Tucson, AZ.
I have to admit that I thought the Two Minutes of Hate and Big Brother referred to actual current events, and figured Emmanuel Goldstein was a real person. In my defense, I haven’t read 1984 in forty years or so, though I do refer to it pretty often. I googled Emmanuel Goldstein and it made more sense. But I’m still not sure Big Brother and the Two Minutes of Hate aren’t also current events. Perhaps some see 1984 as more training manual than novel?
All that said, I kind of feel like one of your comrades, even though I consider myself far more right than left, and mostly disagree with you on Israel/Hamas. If they really don’t want you over there on the left, you are welcome here.
I think that the person who shouted at you could well also identify with the idea of 'being Goldstein'. rather than someone engaged the two minutes hate. Although I haven't read the book, I get the impression that to be Goldstein you also need to be a figment of the collective imagination of a state that hates you. So since she is trans she would definitely identify with that bit.
I'd be intersted to read her response to your writing above.
Once again thanks for writing :)
EDIT: perhaps 'to be Goldstein you need to be vilified by a state that hates you' would have been a better way to put it. But there is obviously more to Goldstein and the Brotherhood than I am aware of.
I mentioned Tommy Robinson in my first comment. He is a boots-on-the-ground revolutionary, and like Che Guevara, he is motivated by a deep love for humanity.
So when he occasionally throws out "Marxist" as an epithet, I ignore it. He's accomplishing so much good, it doesn't matter.
But the other day, Tommy talked to a real socialist (a very old man, as you can imagine!). Watch the look on Tommy's face as he hears for the first time what the ruling class tries so hard to keep the working class from hearing: the obvious fact of antagonistic class interests.
"THEY WANT TO DIVIDE PEOPLE" https://rumble.com/v3r0t7d-they-want-to-divide-people.html
It isn't bipolar disorder (which doesn't exist), schizophrenia (which doesn't exist), bad parenting, drug addiction (self-medicating), or even narcicisstic personality disorder (which does exist, and is a natural personality trait of the half-lizard ruling class).
It's MK-Ultra mind-fracturing and programming. Which also explains why the robotic crazies think they're homosexual or transsexual -- the NSA figured out how to do that back in the 1970s.
"The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time" (and mind-control)
https://inscribedonthebelievingmind.blog/2022/04/16/montauk-project-experiments-in-time/
Also: "Ignoring that millions were programmed by MK-Ultra won't make the problem go away"
https://dianabarahona.substack.com/p/ignoring-that-millions-were-programmed