I don’t necessarily support all their goals either, but am likewise both appalled and also awed by how quickly a propaganda machine started up to close off any other narrative except that they are all reactionaries and how quickly people came to believe the government must use whatever means necessary to shut them up.
And haha, actually I loved the “fucking” in the Ardennes comment. I read it to my partner as an example of the comments that remind me my work is important to people. 💚
Thank you for this! As a person raised by left working class parents, educated but still low income, who has always found myself left out by PMC "liberals," I've been mystified why for these 2 years I've had to align w libertarians (whose economic views disgust me) & "conservatives" who mis-label everything statist as "communist." Your essay articulates what I haven't been able to express clearly about those re-alignments, and the addition of Jung's insight (for me) dovetails into Prof. Mattias Desmet's "mass formation" concept.
Just to say as a long-in-the-tooth activist [75 years young], who would still be identified. at least up until now as a Leftie, I've been intrigued over this past couple of years by whom I relate to. I feel increasingly shunned by former friends and comrades, who support, as best I can see, authoritarian politics and practices. They are reluctant to enter into dialogue. If the tavernas will allow us in, I'd much rather share a meal and argument with the American classic liberals and libertarians than disciples of the totalitarian Left, who brook no debate. Thanks to Rhyd for these thoughts on the nature of the realignnments going on. I remain cautious about the 'mass formation' thesis. It reduces people to hypnotised dopes. From the point of view of psychology the behaviourists have held the stage now for nearly half a cntury with debilitating consequences for our individual and collective consciousness. Forgive me I'm rambling. Best Wishes.
I'm a bit older myself, Tony, and you make perfect sense to me. I know people don't like Mattias Desmet's views as expressed on a lot of podcasts, but through Gordon White, the chaos magician/philosopher/writer - kind of in the same vein as Rhyd Wildermuth? - I caught a beautiful online video of him with Belgian journalist/olive grove farmer in Spain Alain Grootaers, in which he expressed all his views. He came across as charmingly unaffected, not at all a believer in behaviourism by my read (and I was once a grad student in social psychology in New York - I've been many interesting places for someone of my lower social status!) and troubled by the issues I mentioned in my original post - that the internationalist totalitarian push by multinational corporations (behind many of the responses to the pandemic from what I can tell, and I totally believe them, when the CEO of BlackRock says on camera "markets prefer totalitarian governments) is actually mechanistic - many of the leaders are engineers by training or tech specialists - and of the worldview that man should dominate Nature, and the most powerful men/women should dominate their "inferiors." Best wishes to you!
Thanks for the prompt response. If it doesn't sound too soppy it's nice to get a message from a fellow traveller. My comment on the mass formation thesis was clumsy. I didn't mean to suggest this was behaviourist in its origins and I need to think about it some more. Speaking of social psychology my wife's degree gained as a mature student is in social psychology and I was a teacher and mainly a youth worker in my career. Together we've fought a running battle against the insidious influence of behaviourism in the name of a grounded and politicised humanistic psychology. Such is its influence in youth work today that youth workers need a script in advance of ever meeting a young person - the antithesis of a person-centred, process-led practice. Across the decades I've been dismayed by the traditional Left's lack of a nuanced and contradictory understanding of the individual. People, who disagreed with the Party line were evidently just thick. And thus I think the Left [if the term means much any more] is at heart technocratic and behaviourist. It knows best what is good for us and is just frustrated by not being in control itself. In this context I'd still like to call myself a libertarian communist if it wasn't so besmirched as a label and, like Rhyd, despair of anarchist friends. I agree with your analysis of the overall situation and the project of technocratic, totalitarian capitalism. Greeting from myself and Mavri, our Greek black cat, who's just leapt on my knee.
You're welcome and your reply was welcome as well! (I'm 69 and widowed from my Ivy League-trained but always renegade radiologist husband 10 yrs now - we protested the Iraq War for 7 yrs in our little village, he supported an antinuclear activist group for years, and never identified w his class - or really belonged to it, had no investments). We both would agree w your view on psychology being coopted - in US, it's run now by BigPharma in terms of treatment and/or Big Insurance. Jungian-style understanding is left to the rich or grad students. Please give Mavri an extra love from this former cat-mother - I live in a small apt that doesn't allow animal companions, so I miss Olivia very much.
Thanks for this. I disagree about this bit though: 'the “Physicals” don’t really have any binding cultural forms either'.
As a rule, they have more binding cultural forms than the Virtual class, whose 'culture' is mostly a mix of regurgitated media pap and rules for getting ahead in bullshit jobs. Physical cultural forms are more diverse because they are actually real, rooted in particular places, especially away from the cities.
What they do not have, or not to the same extent, is a globalised simalcrum of culture that is really just a relationship between an individual and thick body of the state. The nexus of real culture are particular relationships between people and between people and places.
Culture is this real sense is certainly embattled in the West, but its also pretty reslilient, especially because its not really ammenable to digital commodification.
Generalising from the anarchists I have known, the flip-flopping is unsurprising. Most of them never had any real culture and their 'politics', no matter how revolutionary, was always about their personal relationship to the state not about real people and places. Without depth, what could they do but be blown along with the trends of the moment?
What you have said about the lack of culture among anarchists is sadly true. It reminds me of that saying "if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything." The left decided it did not stand for workers' rights or against state repression and now it falls for trying to placate the loudest voices of fear and paranoia. The left is now encouraging a viewpoint wherein everyone who is different is out to get you. Anyone who supports bodily autonomy is an antivaxxer. Anyone who eats meat is a meat-addicted shill for Big Beef. Anyone who refuses to dox a "TERF" literally wants to kill transpeople. Anyone who questions state violence against right wingers (or left wingers who fail to meet ever-changing goalposts) is a Nazi. At some point it becomes clear that this is a case of paranoia overtaking people. And it makes me so fucking sad. I've lost most of my friends because they either flip flop and attack me for shit every couple of months or they've given up, bought into the system and now give me Jordan Peterson books and get mad I don't want to discuss them. WTF the world is insane
From my perspective as a druid, I agree with you. There is a kind of organic culture that persists in the physical realm and exists outside of civilization, and that culture has very similar features throughout the world.
And yes, I agree with the last bit too--most of the anarchists I've known (and also myself when I was an anarchist) frame everything from a core of ressentiment. 'My personal life is shit and it's the fault of others who must be destroyed' is a better way of translating a lot of anarchist political rhetoric.
I suspect you've known more anarchists than I have, but one thing that has always struck me is how much their tactics, rhetoric, and even fashion sense seem designed to alienate the man or woman in the street. Maybe that comes down to the 'others who must be destroyed'. That's the real motivator rather than building anything.
It's a shame. State authority probably is illegitimate; it's just that virtually none of the actions and beliefs of anarchists follow from this point. If I was prone to paranoia, I'd speculate that this was a clever ploy by states to undermine those who draw attention to their illegitimacy; but probably it's just angry kids.
But wait, not so fast. You said in a previous recent essay that there are 2 wings on the left: an anarchist wing (which, IIRC you said you didn't identify much with anymore), and a collectivist wing. In this essay you're addressing the apparent cognitive dissonance for the anarchist wing, but I'm not sure there's as much of a problem on the collectivist side. What are the Canadian truckers going on about? Their main complaint seems to be about not wanting to take the jab. As such, from the collectivist viewpoint they only care about themselves not those around them they interact with. It's called Public Health for a reason: we're all in this together and I take the jab not only for myself, but also for the sake of those around me. Also blocking roads and trade routes hurts many people who depend on those roads for their livelihood.
Add in that most of the monetary support for the truckers is coming from right wing, Christian nationalists and it's hard to paint them as some kind of downtrodden revolutionaries.
Interestingly, the anarchists have become collectivists and the communists have become individualists, another one of those flips. Most of the 'we need to punish non-vaccinated people' screeds I've seen coming from the left are from anarchists. Their reasoning is that such people are mortal enemies of disabled people, no better than murderers, and therefore must not be allowed to mix with society.
On the other hand, many Marxists have been the ones arguing that the state is implementing new powers of control over the bodies of people that they should not be allowed to have. This comes from their understanding that capitalism requires bodily alienation (which is what alienated labor is) in order to function.
I'd point out kindly that the last part of your statement regarding blocking roads harming people is what we also hear when BLM protesters do it, and also when strikes and port blockades happen from labor unions. In fact, it's been fascinating to me that many editorials from Canadians about the disruption of daily life in Ottawa use the same language and same arguments that people in Ferguson and Baltimore used to explain why Black Lives Matter events were harming everyone. In their case, they could at least point to arson and looting (none of which has happened in Ottawa), but I think in both cases there is a false sense of what constitutes 'harm.'
So for vaccines (and I'm vaccinated), the harm done by not getting a vaccine isn't to humanity, but rather endangering the already highly-defunded hospital systems in Western democracies. That lack of funding is the fault of the political order, not the individual who doesn't get a vaccine. However, we've shifted everything to an idea of personal responsibility, just as with climate change, which is the fault of industrial capitalism, not individuals who don't recycle enough. That way we can blame systemic problems on an amorphous group of individuals who make different decisions about their bodies than we do.
The hangover for the left is going to be a bad one. as a lover of (some forms of) schadenfreude, in this instance, i am looking forward to it.
your analysis and parsing of the situation is great, thanks. nicely put re uber and pizza drivers. In the end it all comes down to a dislike, discomfort with, or hatred of the working class. I guess all those MFA programs did teach them something. regrettably it was the wrong lesson they learned.
Thanks for your thoughts here. Usually I align a lot more with your viewpoints, and do not refute the argument against the left support of state, but in this case I see a couple of blind spots in your assessment. One, that one of the only common underlying definitions of fascism is not lack of virtue as you said here, but it is assumed inequality across groups. The so-called convoy leader Pat King is openly white supremacist and anti semitic; his statements can be found in video on Twitter, talking about Anglo-Saxon ethnic superiority and the so-called agenda of erasure of Anglo-Saxon people by non white infiltrators. He also claims that Anglo-Saxon people have superior bloodlines, to use his words.
Then there's the issue of ready use of violence against indigenous protesters' road blockades, recently, in a stark contrast with the roadblocks of the protesters in Ottawa.
The best argument that could be made, is that Lefty anti-vaccine mandate sympathizers have not organized well enough to pull people out of the new far-right uprising that seems to be happening as a co-option of a people's movement, and it is extremely crucial to note that above all else, what we are approaching is rising eco-fascism in the face of known imminent climate cataclysm. Colonial imperialism is as it does.
Pat King is definitely a racist conspiracist, and though he's not one of the original organizers I know that he began to get heavily involved once the occupation started. I think he is better seen as an opportunist, who is using his involvement in the convoy as a way to gain more influence for his ideas.
This, I think, fits in very well with what happens in other events. I was at a Black Lives Matter event in Seattle that got internally nasty when a local activist tried to turn the event into promotion for a non-profit he had founded. In the meantime, other groups had also just arrived and tried to steer it towards their own movements. In the end, the protest march ended up splitting because there were several "leaders" steering the crowd in different directions.
Also, we see this again with the largest BLM non-profit that was founded and headed by Patricia Cullors, primarily to handle the massive amount of donations coming in from people who wanted to support BLM monetarily. Other activists were appalled, especially after that org began to be the 'spokesperson' for the movement. Now Cullors is gone (after buying several houses) and the org is being investigated by 10 state attorneys-general for their handling of funds.
You make a great point about the contrast against the indigenous blockades. All I can really think about here is what might have happened if the two groups fought together in both cases. Of course, if that had happened, Trudeau would definitely have invoked emergency powers much, much earlier.
And yes, I agree with your final point, though I don't believe "eco-fascism" is a thing yet, or not in the way some Antifa sorts describe it. (I'm considered an "eco-fascist" by many of them, incidentally). I wrote about this earlier, but these events can be seen as pre-political moments where the left abandons the ideological territory to the right, which then gets to be seen supporting organic movements. This happens time and again specifically because the left now imposes a doctrinal checklist on any populist movement (are they also for trans rights or family abolition, for example). If the metrics are not met, the left writes them off.
First, I stumbled on your work through Paul Kingsnorth, whom I heard interviewed by Ian Mackenzie on his "Pandemic as a Prism" series. You are the first person I am financially supporting via this platform!! Yay druid guy!
I have lived most of my adult life in this city or near it. How you've articulated this accounting as one who is an ocean apart from here is far more accurate than people whom I engage with who've lived their entire existence in this city. Currently we are 15 minutes North of the city in the Gatineau hills.
Yesterday my partner and I went down to see what was left of the so called "occupation". We visited a cafe on the Quebec side who have silently decided not to enforce mask or vax mandates, the experience was deeply emotional for both of us. We felt like 2 prisoners who found freedom through the imbibing of cafe mochas. Of course the advertisement of these rule breakers running the cafe has been very much on the low down, as members of the underground pro choice, pro rebellion crowd we all have to keep a low profile.
It's funny reading this, I actually deliver pizza (pays cash, again low profile) on the side - and being considered a member of the "petite-bourgeoise" class made me laugh out loud.
When we arrived at the closest, fenced off and fortified point near the Canadian Parliament buildings there was only a few tiny clumps of people milling about, looking for others of their ilk. We engaged a couple of folks who had driven from 8 hours south, one of them a retired RCMP (Canada's federal police agency) who were there in opposition to the mandates. A veteran of policing of 35 years his attestation was that what was happening was a "gross" abuse of power.
I have so much to say about all of this, but I'll nip this commentary in the bud. What scares me the most is the complete and absolute disconnect between people in the city, whom the classification of "virtuals" is a close enough fit, who really have believed the legacy media reporting here in the country - and are downright hateful and disgusted by the working class folks (who must be racists) that have engaged their charter rights in "my/our" city. The reality disconnect is real as people look into the distorted mirror of reality that is the screen - many of these individuals are actually of the belief that their are armed terrorists roaming the streets. Many have not seen anything other than the editorialized imagery, fed through their smart phones. In this city, if I say I support the convoy I am a persona non grata.
These are scary, bizarre moments we are witnessing here in this town - like a spell has been cast, and the locals are hypnotized as they don their face masks to walk around outdoors to walk their expensive dogs in their expensive winter coats while they shop in the expensive boutiques with their excess earnings because they are the virtuous class. OK, I am getting worked up here - I'll reign it in (a theme here these days) and say a heartfelt thank you for the articulation of many of the threads I am feeling and witnessing. Deep bows, for these well crafted musings, they have been a welcome balm in these wounded times.
I am happy to provide more perspective from these parts should that be of value to you (robintga@gmail.com).
Yeah no. Most of us on the ground in Ottawa did not want more policing, and we did not cheer on the police. It was the police that made deals with the convoy in the first place to let them move in and set up camp under apartment buildings. Then they blew train horns for four days straight. People have hearing damage now. There was violence. My obviously lesbian friends couldn't leave their apartment without getting yelled at. A person of color was beat up on their way to work. A homeless person was beat up. The crowds would yell at you if you walked down the street in a mask. They're working class and have been failed, yes. They've also been fed conspiracy theories by far right influencers who believe in "white replacement". Pat King and Tamara Lynch are known white supremacists.
There's a lot of working class people, sex workers and queer people in this neighborhood. I personally got called a nazi and followed by someone yelling vitriol in my face.
This is more like Germany in the mid 1930s. The rural working class are being used by populist leaders who want to use their rightful rage for their own ends. The urban poor and urban working class (a lot of people in this area are disabled and surviving on starvation wages not able to work), are not buying it. I don't know why we've been divided this way but I think it's because the elites want us divided. They don't want us fighting together. So they've targeted our social media feeds to divide and conquer us.
I don’t necessarily support all their goals either, but am likewise both appalled and also awed by how quickly a propaganda machine started up to close off any other narrative except that they are all reactionaries and how quickly people came to believe the government must use whatever means necessary to shut them up.
And haha, actually I loved the “fucking” in the Ardennes comment. I read it to my partner as an example of the comments that remind me my work is important to people. 💚
Thank you for this! As a person raised by left working class parents, educated but still low income, who has always found myself left out by PMC "liberals," I've been mystified why for these 2 years I've had to align w libertarians (whose economic views disgust me) & "conservatives" who mis-label everything statist as "communist." Your essay articulates what I haven't been able to express clearly about those re-alignments, and the addition of Jung's insight (for me) dovetails into Prof. Mattias Desmet's "mass formation" concept.
Just to say as a long-in-the-tooth activist [75 years young], who would still be identified. at least up until now as a Leftie, I've been intrigued over this past couple of years by whom I relate to. I feel increasingly shunned by former friends and comrades, who support, as best I can see, authoritarian politics and practices. They are reluctant to enter into dialogue. If the tavernas will allow us in, I'd much rather share a meal and argument with the American classic liberals and libertarians than disciples of the totalitarian Left, who brook no debate. Thanks to Rhyd for these thoughts on the nature of the realignnments going on. I remain cautious about the 'mass formation' thesis. It reduces people to hypnotised dopes. From the point of view of psychology the behaviourists have held the stage now for nearly half a cntury with debilitating consequences for our individual and collective consciousness. Forgive me I'm rambling. Best Wishes.
I'm a bit older myself, Tony, and you make perfect sense to me. I know people don't like Mattias Desmet's views as expressed on a lot of podcasts, but through Gordon White, the chaos magician/philosopher/writer - kind of in the same vein as Rhyd Wildermuth? - I caught a beautiful online video of him with Belgian journalist/olive grove farmer in Spain Alain Grootaers, in which he expressed all his views. He came across as charmingly unaffected, not at all a believer in behaviourism by my read (and I was once a grad student in social psychology in New York - I've been many interesting places for someone of my lower social status!) and troubled by the issues I mentioned in my original post - that the internationalist totalitarian push by multinational corporations (behind many of the responses to the pandemic from what I can tell, and I totally believe them, when the CEO of BlackRock says on camera "markets prefer totalitarian governments) is actually mechanistic - many of the leaders are engineers by training or tech specialists - and of the worldview that man should dominate Nature, and the most powerful men/women should dominate their "inferiors." Best wishes to you!
Thanks for the prompt response. If it doesn't sound too soppy it's nice to get a message from a fellow traveller. My comment on the mass formation thesis was clumsy. I didn't mean to suggest this was behaviourist in its origins and I need to think about it some more. Speaking of social psychology my wife's degree gained as a mature student is in social psychology and I was a teacher and mainly a youth worker in my career. Together we've fought a running battle against the insidious influence of behaviourism in the name of a grounded and politicised humanistic psychology. Such is its influence in youth work today that youth workers need a script in advance of ever meeting a young person - the antithesis of a person-centred, process-led practice. Across the decades I've been dismayed by the traditional Left's lack of a nuanced and contradictory understanding of the individual. People, who disagreed with the Party line were evidently just thick. And thus I think the Left [if the term means much any more] is at heart technocratic and behaviourist. It knows best what is good for us and is just frustrated by not being in control itself. In this context I'd still like to call myself a libertarian communist if it wasn't so besmirched as a label and, like Rhyd, despair of anarchist friends. I agree with your analysis of the overall situation and the project of technocratic, totalitarian capitalism. Greeting from myself and Mavri, our Greek black cat, who's just leapt on my knee.
You're welcome and your reply was welcome as well! (I'm 69 and widowed from my Ivy League-trained but always renegade radiologist husband 10 yrs now - we protested the Iraq War for 7 yrs in our little village, he supported an antinuclear activist group for years, and never identified w his class - or really belonged to it, had no investments). We both would agree w your view on psychology being coopted - in US, it's run now by BigPharma in terms of treatment and/or Big Insurance. Jungian-style understanding is left to the rich or grad students. Please give Mavri an extra love from this former cat-mother - I live in a small apt that doesn't allow animal companions, so I miss Olivia very much.
Thanks for this. I disagree about this bit though: 'the “Physicals” don’t really have any binding cultural forms either'.
As a rule, they have more binding cultural forms than the Virtual class, whose 'culture' is mostly a mix of regurgitated media pap and rules for getting ahead in bullshit jobs. Physical cultural forms are more diverse because they are actually real, rooted in particular places, especially away from the cities.
What they do not have, or not to the same extent, is a globalised simalcrum of culture that is really just a relationship between an individual and thick body of the state. The nexus of real culture are particular relationships between people and between people and places.
Culture is this real sense is certainly embattled in the West, but its also pretty reslilient, especially because its not really ammenable to digital commodification.
Generalising from the anarchists I have known, the flip-flopping is unsurprising. Most of them never had any real culture and their 'politics', no matter how revolutionary, was always about their personal relationship to the state not about real people and places. Without depth, what could they do but be blown along with the trends of the moment?
What you have said about the lack of culture among anarchists is sadly true. It reminds me of that saying "if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything." The left decided it did not stand for workers' rights or against state repression and now it falls for trying to placate the loudest voices of fear and paranoia. The left is now encouraging a viewpoint wherein everyone who is different is out to get you. Anyone who supports bodily autonomy is an antivaxxer. Anyone who eats meat is a meat-addicted shill for Big Beef. Anyone who refuses to dox a "TERF" literally wants to kill transpeople. Anyone who questions state violence against right wingers (or left wingers who fail to meet ever-changing goalposts) is a Nazi. At some point it becomes clear that this is a case of paranoia overtaking people. And it makes me so fucking sad. I've lost most of my friends because they either flip flop and attack me for shit every couple of months or they've given up, bought into the system and now give me Jordan Peterson books and get mad I don't want to discuss them. WTF the world is insane
From my perspective as a druid, I agree with you. There is a kind of organic culture that persists in the physical realm and exists outside of civilization, and that culture has very similar features throughout the world.
And yes, I agree with the last bit too--most of the anarchists I've known (and also myself when I was an anarchist) frame everything from a core of ressentiment. 'My personal life is shit and it's the fault of others who must be destroyed' is a better way of translating a lot of anarchist political rhetoric.
I suspect you've known more anarchists than I have, but one thing that has always struck me is how much their tactics, rhetoric, and even fashion sense seem designed to alienate the man or woman in the street. Maybe that comes down to the 'others who must be destroyed'. That's the real motivator rather than building anything.
It's a shame. State authority probably is illegitimate; it's just that virtually none of the actions and beliefs of anarchists follow from this point. If I was prone to paranoia, I'd speculate that this was a clever ploy by states to undermine those who draw attention to their illegitimacy; but probably it's just angry kids.
But wait, not so fast. You said in a previous recent essay that there are 2 wings on the left: an anarchist wing (which, IIRC you said you didn't identify much with anymore), and a collectivist wing. In this essay you're addressing the apparent cognitive dissonance for the anarchist wing, but I'm not sure there's as much of a problem on the collectivist side. What are the Canadian truckers going on about? Their main complaint seems to be about not wanting to take the jab. As such, from the collectivist viewpoint they only care about themselves not those around them they interact with. It's called Public Health for a reason: we're all in this together and I take the jab not only for myself, but also for the sake of those around me. Also blocking roads and trade routes hurts many people who depend on those roads for their livelihood.
Add in that most of the monetary support for the truckers is coming from right wing, Christian nationalists and it's hard to paint them as some kind of downtrodden revolutionaries.
Interestingly, the anarchists have become collectivists and the communists have become individualists, another one of those flips. Most of the 'we need to punish non-vaccinated people' screeds I've seen coming from the left are from anarchists. Their reasoning is that such people are mortal enemies of disabled people, no better than murderers, and therefore must not be allowed to mix with society.
On the other hand, many Marxists have been the ones arguing that the state is implementing new powers of control over the bodies of people that they should not be allowed to have. This comes from their understanding that capitalism requires bodily alienation (which is what alienated labor is) in order to function.
I'd point out kindly that the last part of your statement regarding blocking roads harming people is what we also hear when BLM protesters do it, and also when strikes and port blockades happen from labor unions. In fact, it's been fascinating to me that many editorials from Canadians about the disruption of daily life in Ottawa use the same language and same arguments that people in Ferguson and Baltimore used to explain why Black Lives Matter events were harming everyone. In their case, they could at least point to arson and looting (none of which has happened in Ottawa), but I think in both cases there is a false sense of what constitutes 'harm.'
So for vaccines (and I'm vaccinated), the harm done by not getting a vaccine isn't to humanity, but rather endangering the already highly-defunded hospital systems in Western democracies. That lack of funding is the fault of the political order, not the individual who doesn't get a vaccine. However, we've shifted everything to an idea of personal responsibility, just as with climate change, which is the fault of industrial capitalism, not individuals who don't recycle enough. That way we can blame systemic problems on an amorphous group of individuals who make different decisions about their bodies than we do.
The hangover for the left is going to be a bad one. as a lover of (some forms of) schadenfreude, in this instance, i am looking forward to it.
your analysis and parsing of the situation is great, thanks. nicely put re uber and pizza drivers. In the end it all comes down to a dislike, discomfort with, or hatred of the working class. I guess all those MFA programs did teach them something. regrettably it was the wrong lesson they learned.
keep up the good work
Thanks for your thoughts here. Usually I align a lot more with your viewpoints, and do not refute the argument against the left support of state, but in this case I see a couple of blind spots in your assessment. One, that one of the only common underlying definitions of fascism is not lack of virtue as you said here, but it is assumed inequality across groups. The so-called convoy leader Pat King is openly white supremacist and anti semitic; his statements can be found in video on Twitter, talking about Anglo-Saxon ethnic superiority and the so-called agenda of erasure of Anglo-Saxon people by non white infiltrators. He also claims that Anglo-Saxon people have superior bloodlines, to use his words.
Then there's the issue of ready use of violence against indigenous protesters' road blockades, recently, in a stark contrast with the roadblocks of the protesters in Ottawa.
The best argument that could be made, is that Lefty anti-vaccine mandate sympathizers have not organized well enough to pull people out of the new far-right uprising that seems to be happening as a co-option of a people's movement, and it is extremely crucial to note that above all else, what we are approaching is rising eco-fascism in the face of known imminent climate cataclysm. Colonial imperialism is as it does.
Pat King is definitely a racist conspiracist, and though he's not one of the original organizers I know that he began to get heavily involved once the occupation started. I think he is better seen as an opportunist, who is using his involvement in the convoy as a way to gain more influence for his ideas.
This, I think, fits in very well with what happens in other events. I was at a Black Lives Matter event in Seattle that got internally nasty when a local activist tried to turn the event into promotion for a non-profit he had founded. In the meantime, other groups had also just arrived and tried to steer it towards their own movements. In the end, the protest march ended up splitting because there were several "leaders" steering the crowd in different directions.
Also, we see this again with the largest BLM non-profit that was founded and headed by Patricia Cullors, primarily to handle the massive amount of donations coming in from people who wanted to support BLM monetarily. Other activists were appalled, especially after that org began to be the 'spokesperson' for the movement. Now Cullors is gone (after buying several houses) and the org is being investigated by 10 state attorneys-general for their handling of funds.
You make a great point about the contrast against the indigenous blockades. All I can really think about here is what might have happened if the two groups fought together in both cases. Of course, if that had happened, Trudeau would definitely have invoked emergency powers much, much earlier.
And yes, I agree with your final point, though I don't believe "eco-fascism" is a thing yet, or not in the way some Antifa sorts describe it. (I'm considered an "eco-fascist" by many of them, incidentally). I wrote about this earlier, but these events can be seen as pre-political moments where the left abandons the ideological territory to the right, which then gets to be seen supporting organic movements. This happens time and again specifically because the left now imposes a doctrinal checklist on any populist movement (are they also for trans rights or family abolition, for example). If the metrics are not met, the left writes them off.
First, I stumbled on your work through Paul Kingsnorth, whom I heard interviewed by Ian Mackenzie on his "Pandemic as a Prism" series. You are the first person I am financially supporting via this platform!! Yay druid guy!
I have lived most of my adult life in this city or near it. How you've articulated this accounting as one who is an ocean apart from here is far more accurate than people whom I engage with who've lived their entire existence in this city. Currently we are 15 minutes North of the city in the Gatineau hills.
Yesterday my partner and I went down to see what was left of the so called "occupation". We visited a cafe on the Quebec side who have silently decided not to enforce mask or vax mandates, the experience was deeply emotional for both of us. We felt like 2 prisoners who found freedom through the imbibing of cafe mochas. Of course the advertisement of these rule breakers running the cafe has been very much on the low down, as members of the underground pro choice, pro rebellion crowd we all have to keep a low profile.
It's funny reading this, I actually deliver pizza (pays cash, again low profile) on the side - and being considered a member of the "petite-bourgeoise" class made me laugh out loud.
When we arrived at the closest, fenced off and fortified point near the Canadian Parliament buildings there was only a few tiny clumps of people milling about, looking for others of their ilk. We engaged a couple of folks who had driven from 8 hours south, one of them a retired RCMP (Canada's federal police agency) who were there in opposition to the mandates. A veteran of policing of 35 years his attestation was that what was happening was a "gross" abuse of power.
I have so much to say about all of this, but I'll nip this commentary in the bud. What scares me the most is the complete and absolute disconnect between people in the city, whom the classification of "virtuals" is a close enough fit, who really have believed the legacy media reporting here in the country - and are downright hateful and disgusted by the working class folks (who must be racists) that have engaged their charter rights in "my/our" city. The reality disconnect is real as people look into the distorted mirror of reality that is the screen - many of these individuals are actually of the belief that their are armed terrorists roaming the streets. Many have not seen anything other than the editorialized imagery, fed through their smart phones. In this city, if I say I support the convoy I am a persona non grata.
These are scary, bizarre moments we are witnessing here in this town - like a spell has been cast, and the locals are hypnotized as they don their face masks to walk around outdoors to walk their expensive dogs in their expensive winter coats while they shop in the expensive boutiques with their excess earnings because they are the virtuous class. OK, I am getting worked up here - I'll reign it in (a theme here these days) and say a heartfelt thank you for the articulation of many of the threads I am feeling and witnessing. Deep bows, for these well crafted musings, they have been a welcome balm in these wounded times.
I am happy to provide more perspective from these parts should that be of value to you (robintga@gmail.com).
Yeah no. Most of us on the ground in Ottawa did not want more policing, and we did not cheer on the police. It was the police that made deals with the convoy in the first place to let them move in and set up camp under apartment buildings. Then they blew train horns for four days straight. People have hearing damage now. There was violence. My obviously lesbian friends couldn't leave their apartment without getting yelled at. A person of color was beat up on their way to work. A homeless person was beat up. The crowds would yell at you if you walked down the street in a mask. They're working class and have been failed, yes. They've also been fed conspiracy theories by far right influencers who believe in "white replacement". Pat King and Tamara Lynch are known white supremacists.
There's a lot of working class people, sex workers and queer people in this neighborhood. I personally got called a nazi and followed by someone yelling vitriol in my face.
This is more like Germany in the mid 1930s. The rural working class are being used by populist leaders who want to use their rightful rage for their own ends. The urban poor and urban working class (a lot of people in this area are disabled and surviving on starvation wages not able to work), are not buying it. I don't know why we've been divided this way but I think it's because the elites want us divided. They don't want us fighting together. So they've targeted our social media feeds to divide and conquer us.