‘Because it has arrogated to itself the authority to expand the meaning of fascism and of the far right to cover anyone and any movements that it does not like’.
Exactly. An excellent article thanks. The irony that woke activism (allegedly in defence of ‘the oppressed’) is backed by wealthy elite, including universities & Silicone Valley rich listers, is likely lost on these fools. It’s not fascism they’re afraid of, it’s anyone with half a brain who may present an argument they dislike. ‘If you can’t win, then cheat’ is the new adage. Stick your opponent in a socially frowned upon box (fascist, racist, white-supremacist, far-right, mysoginist, TERF, trans-phobe, climate change ‘denier’), and then cancel them. Wokeness 101.
Excellent piece, especially concerning the mutation of anti-Fascism into the armed wing of Woke politics. Initially I had always thought that Antifa was an example of 'the extremes touching' or movements turning into their opposite if they hang around long enough, but obviously it’s more complex with historical agents who caused these things to happen – with varying degrees on consciousness. Historically Anti-Fascism was revolutionary in spirit and democratic in practice. It was co-opted to burnish Stalinism’s reputation in the inter war period and was used by apologists of the official Communist movement to excuse its instrumental attitude to bourgeois freedoms. So, it is horribly ironic that the New Left which emerged as a critique of Stalinism should come to adopt the same mistrust of freedom, with disdain for the masses and cynicism about democracy as the official Communist movement had, but without the corresponding social base in the labour movement. Antifa’s social base seems much narrower and possibly shallower, or will it inherit what has been characterised as the ‘lumpen intelligentsia’?
Thanks and your comment is very true about the left's mistrust of freedom.
Totally agree with your sentimet
‘Because it has arrogated to itself the authority to expand the meaning of fascism and of the far right to cover anyone and any movements that it does not like’.
Exactly. An excellent article thanks. The irony that woke activism (allegedly in defence of ‘the oppressed’) is backed by wealthy elite, including universities & Silicone Valley rich listers, is likely lost on these fools. It’s not fascism they’re afraid of, it’s anyone with half a brain who may present an argument they dislike. ‘If you can’t win, then cheat’ is the new adage. Stick your opponent in a socially frowned upon box (fascist, racist, white-supremacist, far-right, mysoginist, TERF, trans-phobe, climate change ‘denier’), and then cancel them. Wokeness 101.
Excellent piece, especially concerning the mutation of anti-Fascism into the armed wing of Woke politics. Initially I had always thought that Antifa was an example of 'the extremes touching' or movements turning into their opposite if they hang around long enough, but obviously it’s more complex with historical agents who caused these things to happen – with varying degrees on consciousness. Historically Anti-Fascism was revolutionary in spirit and democratic in practice. It was co-opted to burnish Stalinism’s reputation in the inter war period and was used by apologists of the official Communist movement to excuse its instrumental attitude to bourgeois freedoms. So, it is horribly ironic that the New Left which emerged as a critique of Stalinism should come to adopt the same mistrust of freedom, with disdain for the masses and cynicism about democracy as the official Communist movement had, but without the corresponding social base in the labour movement. Antifa’s social base seems much narrower and possibly shallower, or will it inherit what has been characterised as the ‘lumpen intelligentsia’?