https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/11/ad-jacency/
'Progressives: if you want to lose to conservatives, all you need to do is
reflexively praise and support everything conservatives turn into a culture-war
issue, without considering whether they might be right. Because
sometimes…they're right.
Remember early in the Trump presidency, when conservatives all woke up and
discovered that America's spy agencies – excuse me, "the intelligence
community" – were dirty-tricking psychos who run amok, lawlessly sabotaging
democracy? Progressives have been shouting this ever since Hoover's FBI tried
to blackmail MLK into killing himself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter
But millions of progressives forgot about COINTELPRO, CIA dirty tricks and CIA
mass spying when this "intelligence community" temporarily set out to
wrong-foot Trump. Remember James Comey votive candles?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/30/james-comey-fbi-memo-leaks-trump-inspector-general-report-column/2157705001/
Anthropologists have a name for this phenomenon, in which one side reverses its
positions because their sworn enemies have done so. It's called schismogenesis,
and it goes like this: "If they hate it, we love it":
https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/
Schismogenesis is an equal-opportunity delusion. Within living memory, white
evangelicals
supported abortion, because their sworn enemies – Catholics –
opposed it. Some of those white Boomer women who voted Trump because abortion
was literally the only issue they cared about held the
opposite position on
abortion not so long ago – and completely forgot about it:
https://text.npr.org/734303135
The main purpose of the culture war isn't immiserating marginalized people –
that's its
effect, but its
purpose is to distract low-information turkeys
(working people) so they'll vote for Christmas (the ongoing seizure of power by
American oligarchs). For the funders of conservative movement politics, the
cruelty isn't the point, it's merely the tactic. The point is
power:
<
https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars>
Which brings me to "woke capitalism." Conservative string-pullers have whipped
up their base about the threat of companies embracing social causes. They
(erroneously) claim that corporations have progressive values, and that big
business is thumbing the scales for causes they despise. The purpose here isn't
to sow distrust of capitalism per se. Rather, it's to stampede
talk-radio-addled supporters into backing the oligarchy's agenda. Remember when
culture war leaders told their base to support being gouged on credit-card junk
fees "to own the libs?"'
Via Christoph S.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
