Keep it coming, brother! Solid, grounded stuff, your writing is. I only have two paid subscriptions to Substack writers, yourself and Darren Allen at Expressive Egg. Check him out if you haven’t already. Best wishes for the expansion of the publishing venture….Go, man, go!
This is a despicable example of the kind of cretinism that accompanies politicians and their big business allies in the service of the International Spectacle Industries.
I am near Vezelay right now, and passed up attending the Olympic torch ( and its whored cultural sideshow) event there last night for this very reason, having learned about the scandalous history as a native Vancouverite 14 years ago. Thankyou for your thorough analysis.
PS your stats on Vancouver are incorrect. No housing was destroyed for our Olympics although many many egregious and corrupt things did transpire the housing and indoor venues were all on un-redeveloped industrial land . However when we hosted the much longer Expo 86 ( which did create positive benefit for many artists and arts and cultural groups), there was a mass eviction from hotels in the poorer downtown areas, watched over with glee by the “powerless” political class who, in their desperation to please the world, sold out their local poor .
Years ago, when my oldest daughter was in middle school, I accidentally got her in trouble with her teacher. I had read something about the Brazilian government clearing street children out of one of the major cities before an international event. She asked her teacher, who was Brazilian, about this and the teacher was quite upset at what she regarded as a slur against her native land. We had something very similar this past year in San Francisco when the downtown streets were suddenly cleared and cleaned before a major international economic conference. It was only for a long weekend, so everyone was back in a short time. It has recently been revealed that in the past few years $24 billion dollars have been spent to address the problem, with no accounting--and little result.
One has to wonder at the mental gymnastics that permits some people to assert, apparently simultaneously, that all Jews are communists but that they are also the all-powerful capitalist masters of the world.
Good stuff. But speaking of applied identity politics it seems to me that the Zionism project is an exercise in such.
It relies on its success with the total displacement of any and everyone with any kind of Arab background including the Bedouins. Such a goal/outcome was enunciated by the founding fathers of the Zioinist project. It has been repeated in one way or another every since, especially by some key members of the current Israeli government.
There's a very, very long essay that I have been afraid to write for awhile regarding how the Identity Politics model in the US actually derives from a framework first used by extreme Zionists. The ADL practically invented Cancel Culture in the US by constantly expanding the definition of antisemitism and then organizing smear campaigns against their targets.
And there's particularly the problem that Israel constantly tries to get the rest of the world to think they are the true representatives of Jews throughout the world, despite the fact that there are more Jews living outside of Israel than there are within its borders.
I think in the early days of capitalism it was a bonus, as it drove people out to the frontier to subjugate the indigenous people and non-capitalist ways of life that they encountered and expand the capitalist world. Then, once the area was sufficiently "civilized," they (or more likely, their children) would be displaced again, either further out onto the frontier to start the process over or into the cities as the reserve army of labor. I always found it interesting when the frontier was closed (1890-1910), within a decade or two we saw the rise of hard borders, immigration controls and fascism. Now without being able to externalize the costs onto the frontier, the workers can only be shunted around.
I see it now when the area where I live there was recently an initiative to repurpose an area into a safe place for homeless workers to park their cars at night. Rich NIMBYs on the literal opposite side of town managed to shut it down. So people are back to camping out in the forest, until they decide it's not worth it and move on.
The ultra Orthodox who are virulently anti-Israel are total wingnuts themselves.
The Left obsesses freakishly with Zionism. It's exactly the way the most paranoid right winger does about socialism and communism.
Zionism is Jewish nationalism. Note that the same progressives obsessed with scrutinizing, denouncing, marginalizing and vilifying Zionism are actually extremely supportive of black nationalism on both the domestic and foreign basis.
Likewise Arab nationalism and Islamist ideology is very very prevalent and welcome in progressive movements.
It is anti-Semitic to be obsessed with denouncing Jewish nationalism while black nationalism, Arab nationalism and Islamic nationalism is just the norm progressive circles and needs much scrutiny and never gets it. And it never will because he would cause a mass exodus of Africans, Arabs and Muslims from left-wing politics. Left wing politics have a lot of ciphers who are only a part as long as they're bullshit is tolerated, to put it bluntly.
Keep it coming, brother! Solid, grounded stuff, your writing is. I only have two paid subscriptions to Substack writers, yourself and Darren Allen at Expressive Egg. Check him out if you haven’t already. Best wishes for the expansion of the publishing venture….Go, man, go!
thanks mate!
Kudos on the body recomp. I just turned 50 and it's becoming quite a struggle.
Ah, solidarity!!!
Thor is smiling, my dear. You're wearing life quite well these days.
AWWWW. :)
This is a despicable example of the kind of cretinism that accompanies politicians and their big business allies in the service of the International Spectacle Industries.
I am near Vezelay right now, and passed up attending the Olympic torch ( and its whored cultural sideshow) event there last night for this very reason, having learned about the scandalous history as a native Vancouverite 14 years ago. Thankyou for your thorough analysis.
PS your stats on Vancouver are incorrect. No housing was destroyed for our Olympics although many many egregious and corrupt things did transpire the housing and indoor venues were all on un-redeveloped industrial land . However when we hosted the much longer Expo 86 ( which did create positive benefit for many artists and arts and cultural groups), there was a mass eviction from hotels in the poorer downtown areas, watched over with glee by the “powerless” political class who, in their desperation to please the world, sold out their local poor .
Ah yes you're right about the Vancouver Olympic village. Thanks. I'll correct that.
Years ago, when my oldest daughter was in middle school, I accidentally got her in trouble with her teacher. I had read something about the Brazilian government clearing street children out of one of the major cities before an international event. She asked her teacher, who was Brazilian, about this and the teacher was quite upset at what she regarded as a slur against her native land. We had something very similar this past year in San Francisco when the downtown streets were suddenly cleared and cleaned before a major international economic conference. It was only for a long weekend, so everyone was back in a short time. It has recently been revealed that in the past few years $24 billion dollars have been spent to address the problem, with no accounting--and little result.
Nice work all around.....
Thanks mate!
One has to wonder at the mental gymnastics that permits some people to assert, apparently simultaneously, that all Jews are communists but that they are also the all-powerful capitalist masters of the world.
Right???? It's absurd.
Good stuff. But speaking of applied identity politics it seems to me that the Zionism project is an exercise in such.
It relies on its success with the total displacement of any and everyone with any kind of Arab background including the Bedouins. Such a goal/outcome was enunciated by the founding fathers of the Zioinist project. It has been repeated in one way or another every since, especially by some key members of the current Israeli government.
There's a very, very long essay that I have been afraid to write for awhile regarding how the Identity Politics model in the US actually derives from a framework first used by extreme Zionists. The ADL practically invented Cancel Culture in the US by constantly expanding the definition of antisemitism and then organizing smear campaigns against their targets.
And there's particularly the problem that Israel constantly tries to get the rest of the world to think they are the true representatives of Jews throughout the world, despite the fact that there are more Jews living outside of Israel than there are within its borders.
I think in the early days of capitalism it was a bonus, as it drove people out to the frontier to subjugate the indigenous people and non-capitalist ways of life that they encountered and expand the capitalist world. Then, once the area was sufficiently "civilized," they (or more likely, their children) would be displaced again, either further out onto the frontier to start the process over or into the cities as the reserve army of labor. I always found it interesting when the frontier was closed (1890-1910), within a decade or two we saw the rise of hard borders, immigration controls and fascism. Now without being able to externalize the costs onto the frontier, the workers can only be shunted around.
I see it now when the area where I live there was recently an initiative to repurpose an area into a safe place for homeless workers to park their cars at night. Rich NIMBYs on the literal opposite side of town managed to shut it down. So people are back to camping out in the forest, until they decide it's not worth it and move on.
The ultra Orthodox who are virulently anti-Israel are total wingnuts themselves.
The Left obsesses freakishly with Zionism. It's exactly the way the most paranoid right winger does about socialism and communism.
Zionism is Jewish nationalism. Note that the same progressives obsessed with scrutinizing, denouncing, marginalizing and vilifying Zionism are actually extremely supportive of black nationalism on both the domestic and foreign basis.
Likewise Arab nationalism and Islamist ideology is very very prevalent and welcome in progressive movements.
It is anti-Semitic to be obsessed with denouncing Jewish nationalism while black nationalism, Arab nationalism and Islamic nationalism is just the norm progressive circles and needs much scrutiny and never gets it. And it never will because he would cause a mass exodus of Africans, Arabs and Muslims from left-wing politics. Left wing politics have a lot of ciphers who are only a part as long as they're bullshit is tolerated, to put it bluntly.