💾 Archived View for oberdada.pollux.casa › gemlog › 2024-07-03_political_division.gmi captured on 2024-07-08 at 23:54:30. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-08-18)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
In a political landscape that has shifted so much to the right, the historical Left/Right distinction no longer means what it used to. Another reason why some people feel the labels no longer make sense is that the left, or most of it, has abandoned the peace project at the same time as fractions on the right actually are in favour of de-escalation and de-funding foreign wars. Both the right-shift and the attitude shift in geo-politics can be observed, to varying degrees, in the US and Europe.
Polarisation is indeed problematic when different parts of the population refuse to talk to each other, or become angry when they do. The tribalism of two-camp polarisation splits the population according to their fundamentally held beliefs on some key issues, be it immigration, abortion rights, or climate change.
With the hysterical tone in current debates, a lot of people seem to be driven by fear. That is not a good psychological state for rational or wise decision making. The far right fears immigrants (along with a few other harmless things such as colourful pride parades) and believes in an evil fairy tale called the replacement theory. Even if it should turn out to be correct, from a sufficiently aloof perspective it is hard to see why it would matter which ethnicity is in majority in a certain geographic region, at a certain time. To illustrate what those on the far right might feel about this "sufficiently aloof" perspective (I'm only guessing, of course), extrapolate the cynical mode of thinking as far as possible, till climate change and the sixth extinction are seen to be nothing to worry about either, because in a billion years or so the sun will have vaporised every organic life form in sight anyway. But until then, please, let's try to live in peace with one another and not destroy too much of the habitat for the species that will survive us.
On the eco-conscious left, climate change drives their fear, perhaps with the additional worries of plastic, pollution, and ecosystems collapse. The left in general also fears the effects of homophobia and xenophobia – and let us note that phobia means fear; they are afraid of the fear of the other group! Nothing funny about that, because fear tends to drive aggression and hostility.
Some people fear to have their freedom taken away. Libertarians most vocally have defended various forms of freedom and, generally, it has been a more popular slogan on the right than on the left. However, I think freedom has supporters across the political spectrum, unless the concept of freedom is equated with that feeble-minded idea of the right to buy whatever you can afford paired with the absence of any rights for the poor. Economic equity easily could be related to freedom, because levelling the playing field by reducing the wealth gap increases the freedom for most people.
An interesting contradiction arises between individual freedom and constraints that are proposed as strategies to mitigate climate change. Let's say the goal is to reduce air flights, either by a flight tax, or even by a strict limitation on how many flights any individual is permitted to take per year. If you are one of those who really like to fly, or perhaps your job requires that you tour the world, then I suppose you would mind having your freedom curtailed this way, maybe to the point that you would start doubting the science of climate change. The thinker thinks, the prover proves, as R. A. Wilson says. First comes our feelings, then we find rational arguments to prove them correct.
I should give credit to a colleague for these insights; we had a rather unpleasant conversation five years ago in which she characterised the belief in climate change as a religion, and derided Greta Thunberg as a puppet (apparently she has frequented the Young Global Leaders seminar, or whatever it's called, if that should be taken as a warning sign – yes, quite a few politicians of doubtful merits have taken that route). My collegue also claimed that climate researchers were bought and paid for by certain interest groups, implying that their research was not neutral, but completely bogus. I was so baffled that I forgot to rebuke her on that point and remind her that the geologists whose research she prefered were likely financed by the petroleum industry. Anyway, it must have been after this conversation that I realised how the fear of having one's freedoms taken away might be sufficient to start doubting or outright rejecting climate science. Also, I might add, we found common ground in the belief that over-population is a major problem, beside pollution and biodiversity loss.
There is a closely related fear of "the globalist agenda," whatever it may be. Journalists like Whitney Webb and James Corbett (who are not terribly stupid, it must be said, whether one shares their views or not) have variously exposed and speculated about the consequences of certain proposed policies, notably regarding central bank digital currencies, surveillance, and social control. I see no particular reason to doubt the validity or plausibilty of their prognosis of where our society is heading. They see the risk that our private financial transactions could be, and probably will be scrutinised and, ultimately, restricted if the powers that control them do not approve. The fear of restrictions of private finance is linked to the suspicion that certain limitations will be put in place out of ecological concerns. One may imagine policies such as flight restrictions automatically checked by your electronic wallet, simply not allowing you to buy a ticket after a certain number of flights. For someone whose greatest fear is climate change, these restrictions will absolutely be worth the inconvenience. But once the mechanism is in place, it can, and probably will be used for other purposes. It's becoming popular to dilute the original meaning of the term 'terrorism' by including in it various harmless actions. Or maybe the actions in fact would harm some corporation's economy a bit, or tarnish their reputation. If your government doesn't like that you support an activist group who actually does something about climate change – something stronger than greenwashing, let's say – they could turn off your wallet.
The elections in France came with a surprise announcement. But it should not be a surprise that centrist king Macron has paved the way for far right policies by already adopting much of them himself. Always a stupid strategy to try to snatch voters from your opponent by plagiarising their programme. (Party programmes should enjoy intellectual property protections!) Economic policies would be roughly the same. The Bolloréisation of media could become even more horrible, according to fearful prognostics. Immigrants would be even less welcome, if anyone can imagine that. Any remnants of still functioning democratic institutions will be teared down. The "islamogauchistes" (funny, isn't it, what call names they come up with) are already blamed for everything and regarded as more extreme than Rassemblement National (but hey, Marine is so nice with her cats ...) and the new party of that nitwit pundit, even further to the right. Well, at least that is what people to the left of Macron think and fear. A perfectly parallel analysis could be given for the UK with Farage on one side and Galloway and Craig Murray on the other, both deeply scaring the practically indistinguishable Labour and Tory twin establishment. And Germany has AfD and Wagenknecht in corresponding positions.
The general trend all over Europe has been explained by plain rasism. Maybe that is part of it, but hardly the whole picture. A more compelling, if not necessarily fully accurate analysis is one that I may have picked up either from Patrick Lawrence or Alexander Mercouris, or both. They remind us that there is still a war in the east of Europe which, according to them, largely explains the votes for the far right parties as well as some parties on the left. The centrist establishment parties have pushed for weapons export and escalation, whereas the populist parties have realised that war is no good for European economy and security.
The situation is not "under controll" and things are not going well for Ukraine. A negotiated peace deal was nearly settled in the spring of 2022, but then blunt Boris Johnson objected and said the show must go on. Russia has offered peace negotiations while the US has sent more weapons and escalated by allowing Ukraine to take more provocative steps such as striking inside Russian territory. I know it sounds commonsensical to many to allow Ukraine to defend itself by any means, but what is happening is rather a draining of its adult male population and a more tense and dangerous situation than most people seem to be aware of. This isn't the Cuban missile crisis. Back then Kennedy and Chrustchev at least talked to each other.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/nato-s-war-summit
By the way, if the global warming policies of the last two American presidents should be compared, one might want to weigh in not only the withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, but also the blasting of Nordstream II, the biggest act of industrial sabotage anyone has ever committed. Of course no-one has come forward and accepted responsibility, but go and look up Seymour Hersh's article and see if you find a more credible explanation anywhere. And Pentagon's CO2 emissions are estimated up at the level of some small country. It might not matter a great deal who is president in a country with a very deep and powerful Deep State. And if "the deep state" sounds too conspiratorial, I don't mind instead talking about "the system," which for practical purposes is the same thing.
There is a political division which has nothing to do with left and right. It comes in the form of a list of priorities. One person puts safety from being assaulted on the streets on top of the list. Another one wants an economic safety net, preferentially in the form of basic income. Someone really would like to have access to clean air and water more than anything else. And a few other ones insist on their freedom to do whatever they want as their top priority.
The point is, a large group of individuals could agree on all those values in principle, but rank them so differently that they might not get along very well in practice. And then there are others who do not share the same priorities at all.
Enough of politics rant for now. Or, in case it wasn't enough, there is this one: